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Valerianus Magnus

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(MAGNI)

Born at Milan, 1586, presumably of the noble family of de Magni; died at Salzburg, 29 July, 1661. He received the Capuchin habit at Prague. He was also provincial there, as in 1626 was appointed Apostolic missionary for Germany, Hungary, and Poland. He was greatly respected by Emperors Ferdinand II and III, as well as by King Wladislaw IV of Poland, who employed him on diplomatic missions. Landgrave Ernst of Hesse, who had been converted at Vienna on 6 Jan., 1652, and who knew Father Valerian, summoned Capuchins to St. Goar on the Rhine, and was present at the religious disputation between Valerian and Haberkorn of Giessen at Rheinfels in 1651. The Jesuit Johann Rosenthal having attacked certain assertions of Valerian's at this debate the latter was drawn into the sharp literary controversy between Capuchins and Jesuits, which extended evens to Rome. On the appearance of his pamphlet "Contra imposturas Jesuitarum" in 1659, he was cited to appear at Rome. As he did not obey the summons he was arrested at Vienna in 1661 at the instance of the nuncio, but was liberated at the urgent request of Emperor Ferdinand III.

He was apparently on his way to Rome when in the same year death overtook him at Salzburg. His writings include, in addition to many other polemical and philosophical works: "Judicium de catholicorum et acatholicorum regula credendi" (Prague, 1628), a much attacked work which he defended in his "Judicium de catholicorum regula credendi". "De infallibilitate cath. reg. credendi" (Prague, 1641); "Organum theologicum" (Prague, 1643), i.e. defence of Catholic theology with reasoned arguments; "Methodus convincendi et revocandi haereticos" (Prague, 1643).