After spending three years at Rome, he was sent to the Jesuit settlement at Mondovi in Piedmont, where he studied and at the same time taught Greek, and, though not yet in orders, gained some reputation as a preacher. In 1567 and 1568 he was at Padua, studying theology under a master who belonged to the school of St Thomas Aquinas. In 1569 he was sent by the general of his order to Louvain, and in 1570, after being ordained priest, began to lecture on theology at the university. His seven years’ residence in the Low Countries brought him into close relations with modes of thought differing essentially from his own; and, though he was neither by temperament nor training inclined to be affected by the prevailing Augustinian doctrines of grace and free-will, the controversy into which he fell on these questions compelled him to define his theological principles more clearly. On his return to Rome in 1576 he was chosen by Gregory XIII. to lecture on controversial theology in the newly-founded Roman College. The result of these labours appeared some years afterwards in the far-famed Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae Fidei adversus hujus temporis Haereticos (3 vols., 1581, 1582, 1593). These volumes, which called forth a multitude of answers on the Protestant side, exhaust the controversy as it was carried on in those days, and contain a lucid and uncompromising statement of Roman Catholic doctrine. For many years afterwards, Bellarmine was held by Protestant advocates as the champion of the papacy, and a vindication of Protestantism generally took the form of an answer to his works. In 1589 he was selected by Sixtus V. to accompany, in the capacity of theologian, the papal legation sent to France soon after the murder of Henry III. He was created cardinal in 1599 by Clement VIII., and two years later was made archbishop of Capua. His efforts on behalf of the clergy were untiring, and his ideal of the bishop’s office may be read in his address to his nephew, Angelo della Ciaia, who had been raised to the episcopate (Admonitio ad episcopum Theanensem, nepotem suum, Rome, 1612). Being detained in Rome by the desire of the newly-elected pope, Paul V., he resigned his archbishopric in 1605. He supported the church in its conflicts with the civil powers in Venice, France and England, and sharply criticized James I. for the severe legislation against the Roman Catholics that followed the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. When health failed him, he retired to Monte Pulciano, where from 1607 to 1611 he acted as bishop. In 1610 he published his De Potestate summi Pontificis in rebus temporalibus directed against the posthumous work of William Barclay of Aberdeen, which denied the temporal power of the pope. Bellarmine trod here on difficult ground, for, although maintaining that the pope had the indirect right to depose unworthy rulers, he gave offence to Paul V. in not asserting more strongly the direct papal claim, whilst many French theologians, and especially Bossuet, condemned him for his defence of ultramontanism. As a consultor of the Sacred Office, Bellarmine took a prominent part in the first examination of Galileo’s writings. His conduct in this matter has been constantly misrepresented. He had followed with interest Galileo’s scientific discoveries and a respectful admiration grew up between them. Bellarmine did not proscribe the Copernican system, as has been maintained by Reusch (Der Process Galilei’s und die Jesuiten, Bonn, 1879, p. 125); all he claimed was that it should be presented as an hypothesis until it should receive scientific demonstration. When Galileo visited Rome in December 1615 he was warmly received by Bellarmine, and the high regard in which he was held is clearly testified in Bellarmine’s letters and in Galileo’s dedication to the cardinal of his discourse on “flying bodies.” The last years of Bellarmine’s life were mainly devoted to the composition of devotional works and to securing the papal approbation of the new order of the Visitation, founded by his friend St Francis de Sales, and the beatification of St Philip Neri. He died in Rome on the 17th of September 1621. Bellarmine, whose life was a model of Christian virtue, is the greatest of modern Roman Catholic controversialists, but the value of his theological works is seriously impaired by a very defective exegesis and a too frequent use of “forced” conclusions. His devotional treatises were very popular among English Roman Catholics in the penal days.
Bibliography.—Of the older editions of Bellarmine’s complete works the best is that in 7 vols. published at Cologne (1617–1620); modern editions appeared in 8 vols. at Naples (1856–1862, reprinted 1872), and in 12 vols. at Paris (1870–1874). For complete bibliography of all works of Bellarmine, of translations and controversial writings against him, see C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Brussels and Paris, 1890 et seq.), vol. i. cols. 1151-1254; id., Addenda, pp. x.-xi. vol. viii., cols. 1797–1807. The main source for the life of Bellarmine is his Latin Autobiography (Rome, 1675; Louvain, 1753), which was reprinted with original text and German translation in the work of Döllinger and Reusch entitled Die Selbst-biographie des Cardinals Bellarmin (Bonn, 1887). The Epistolae Familiares, a very incomplete collection of letters, was published by J. Fuligatti (Rome, 1650), who is also the author of Vita del cardinale Bellarmino della Compagnia di Giesù (Rome, 1624). Cf. D. Bartoli, Della vita di Roberto cardinal Bellarmino (Rome, 1678), and M. Cervin, Imago virtutum Roberti card. Bellarmini Politiani (Siena, 1622), All these are panegyrics of small historical value. The best modern studies are J. B. Couderc’s Le Vénérable Cardinal Bellarmin (2 vols., Paris, 1893), and X. le Bachelet’s article in A. Vacant’s Dict. de theól, cat. cols. 560-599, with exhaustive bibliography.
BELLARY, or Ballari, a city and district of British India, in the Madras presidency. The city is 305 m. by rail from Madras. Pop. (1901) 58,247. The fort rises from a huge mass of granite rock, which with a circumference of nearly 2 m., juts up abruptly to a height of 450 ft. above the plain. The length of this rock from north-east to south-west is about 1150 ft. To the E. and S. lies an irregular heap of boulders, but to the W. is an unbroken precipice, and the N. is walled by bare rugged ridges. It is defended by two distinct lines of works. The upper fort is a quadrangular building on the summit, with only one approach, and was deemed impregnable by the Mysore princes. But as it has no accommodation for a garrison, it is now only occupied by a small guard of British troops in charge of prisoners. The ex-nawab of Kurnool was confined in it for forty years for the murder of his wife. It contains several cisterns, excavated in the rock. Outside the turreted rampart are a ditch and covered way. The lower fort lies at the eastern base of the rock and measures about half a mile in diameter. It contains the barracks and the commissariat stores, the Protestant church, orphanage, Masonic lodge, post-office and numerous private dwellings. The fort of Bellary was originally built by Hanumapa, in the 16th century. It was first dependent on the kingdom of Vijayanagar, afterwards on Bijapur, and subsequently subject to the nizam and Hyder Ali. The latter erected the present fortifications according to tradition with the assistance of a French engineer in his service, whom he afterwards hanged for not building the fort on a higher rock adjacent to it. Bellary is an important cantonment and the headquarters of a military division. There is a considerable trade in cotton, in connexion with which there are large steam presses, and some manufacture of cotton cloth. There is a cotton spinning mill. In 1901 Bellary was chosen as one of the places of detention in India for Boer prisoners of war.
The district of Bellary has an area of 5714 sq. m. It consists chiefly of an extensive plateau between the Eastern and Western Ghats, of a height varying from 800 to 1000 ft. above the sea. The most elevated tracts are on the west, where the surface rises towards the culminating range of hills, and on the south, where it rises to the elevated tableland of Mysore. Towards the centre the almost treeless plain presents a monotonous aspect, broken only by a few rocky elevations that rise abruptly from the black soil. The hill ranges in Bellary are those of Sandur and Kampli to the west, the Lanka Malla to the east and the Copper Mountain (3148 ft.) to the south-west. The district is watered by five rivers: the Tungabhadra, formed by the junction of two streams, Tunga and Bhadra, the Haggari, Hindri, Chitravati and Pennar, the last considered sacred by the natives. None of the rivers is navigable and all are fordable during the dry season. The climate of Bellary is characterized by extreme dryness, due to the passing of the air over a great extent of heated plains, and it has a smaller rainfall than any other district in south India. The average daily variation of the thermometer is from 67° to 83° F. The
