Bartolommeo Suardi has been much confused with a certain Bramantino da Milano, of whom Vasari makes frequent and specific mention in his life of Piero della Francesca, his observations on Benvenuto Garofalo and Girolamo da Carpi, and his life of Jacopo Sansovino. The Bramantino of Vasari, if he existed at all, worked for Pope Nicolas V. between 1450 and 1455.
SUAREZ, FRANCISCO (1548–1617), Spanish theologian and
philosopher, was born at Granada on the 5th of January 1548,
and educated at Salamanca. Influenced by the Jesuit John
Ramirez he entered the Society of Jesus in 1564, and after
teaching philosophy at Segovia, taught theology at Valladolid,
at Alcala, at Salamanca, and at Rome successively. After
taking his doctorate at Evora, he was named by Philip II.
principal professor of theology at Coimbra. Suarez may be considered
almost the last eminent representative of scholasticism.
In philosophical doctrine he adhered to a moderate Thomism.
On the question of universals he endeavoured to steer a
middle course between the pantheistically inclined realism of
Duns Scotus and the extreme nominalism of William of Occam.
The only veritable and real unity in the world of existences is
the individual; to assert that the universal exists separately
ex parte rei would be to reduce individuals to mere accidents
of one indivisible form. Suarez maintains that, though the
humanity of Socrates does not differ from that of Plato, yet
they do not constitute realiter one and the same humanity; there
are as many “formal unities” (in this case, humanities) as there
are individuals, and these individuals do not constitute a factual, but only an essential or ideal unity (“ita ut plura individua, quae dicuntur esse ejusdem naturae, non sint unum quid vera entitate quae sit in rebus, sed solum fundamentaliter vel per
intellectum”). The formal unity,, however, is not an arbitrary
creation of the mind, but exists “in natura rei ante omnem
operationem intellectus.” In theology, Suarez attached himself
to the doctrine of Luis Molina, the celebrated Jesuit professor of
Evora. Molina tried to reconcile the doctrine of predestination
with the freedom of the human will by saying that the, predestination
is consequent upon God’s foreknowledge of the free
determination of man’s will, which is therefore in no way affected
by the fact of such predestination. Suarez endeavoured to
reconcile this view with the more orthodox doctrines of the
efficacy of grace and special election, maintaining that, though all
share in an absolutely sufficient grace, there is granted to the
elect a grace which is so adapted to their peculiar dispositions
and circumstances that they infallibly, though at the same time
quite freely, yield themselves to its influence. This mediatizing
system was known by the name of “congruism,” Suarez is
probably more important, however, as a philosophical jurist than
as a theologian or metaphysician. In his extensive work
Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore (reprinted, London, 1679)
he is to some extent the precursor of Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf.
Though his method is throughout scholastic, he covers
the same ground, and Grotius speaks of him in terms of high
respect. The fundamental position of the work is that all
legislative as well as all paternal power is derived from God,
and that the authority of every law resolves itself into His.
Suarez refutes the patriarchal theory of government and the
divine right of kings founded upon it—doctrines popular at that
time in England and to some extent on the Continent. Power
by its very nature belongs to no one man but to a multitude
of men; and the reason is obvious, since all men are born equal.
It has been pointed out that this accords well with the Jesuit
policy of depreciating the royal while exalting the papal prerogative.
But Suarez is much more moderate on this point than a
writer like Mariana, approximating to the modern view of the
rights of ruler and ruled. In 1613, at the instigation of Pope
Paul V., Suarez wrote a treatise dedicated to the Christian princes
of Europe, entitled Defensio catholicae fidei contra anglicanae
sectae errores. This was directed against the oath of allegiance
which James I. exacted from his subjects. James caused it to
be burned by the common hangman, and forbade its perusal
under the severest penalties, complaining bitterly at the same
time to Philip III. that he should harbour in his dominions a
declared enemy of the throne and majesty of kings. Suarez lived
a very humble and simple life. He died after a few days’ illness
on the 25th of September 1617 at Lisbon.
The collected works of Suarez have been printed at Mainz .and Lyons (1630), at Venice (1740–1751), at Besançon (1856–1862) and in the collection of the Abbe Migne. His life has been written by Deschamps (Vita Fr. Suaresii, Perpignan, 1671). The chief modern authorities are K. Werner’s Franz Suarez u. die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte (Regensburg, 1861), and Stöckl’s Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, iii. 643 seq.
SUBIACO (anc. Sublaqueum), a town of Italy, in the province
of Rome, from which it is 47 m. E. by rail, picturesquely situated
on the right bank of the Anio, 1339 ft. above sea-level. Pop.
(1901), 7076 (town), 8003 (commune). It has ironworks and
paper-mills. Sublaqueum was so called from its position under
the three artificial lakes constructed in the gorge of the Anio
in connexion with the aqueduct of the Anio Novus, which had
its intake at the lower end of the lowest of them (the Simbruina
stagna of Tacitus). On the banks of this lake Nero constructed
a villa, in the remains of which was found the beautiful headless
statue of a youth kneeling, now in the Museo delle Terme
at Rome. There is no mention of the villa after Nero’s time.
The lakes gradually ceased to exist owing to the action of the
Anio, the last dam being washed away in 1305. In 494 St
Benedict retired to this spot, then already deserted, and took up
his abode as a hermit in a cave (Sacro Speco) above the lakes of
the Anio. In 505, probably, he founded the first of his twelve
monasteries, completing their number between 510 and 529,
when he went to Cassino. The chronicles state that the principal
monastery was devastated by the Lombards in 601, and rebuilt
in 705; but there is little foundation for these statements. The
first authentic document that we have is the mention in the
Liber pontificalis of the gift of vestments by Leo IV. (847–855)
to the monastery of S. Silvester, S. Benedict and S. Scholastica,
and to the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian. The former is
probably that at the Sacro Speco. The monastery was confirmed
in its possessions by Pope Gregory I.[1] and his successors, and
had by the 10th century very considerable landed properties
with feudal jurisdiction enumerated in several documents, the
first dating from 926, and an inscription of 1052 (cf. Regesto
sublacense, Rome, 1891). The church dedicated to S. Scholastica,
S. Benedict’s sister, was erected in 981, according to an inscription
belonging to a later date, but carved upon a slab decorated
with reliefs of the end of the 8th, or the beginning of the 9th,
century.
In 1053 the church was restored and a campanile built, which still exists; and in the middle of the 13th century the church was rebuilt in the Gothic style. Other buildings grew up round it; the cloister on the right is a fine Romanesque arcaded court with twisted columns and mosaics, the south side of which was constructed by Lorenzo, the first of the family of the Cosmati, early in the 13th century, while the other three sides are due to his son Jacopo and to Jacopo’s sons Luca and Jacopo, who worked here in the time of the abbot Lando (1227–1243). The irregular atrium in front of the church is probably contemporary with its reconstruction in the Gothic style about 1274, while the outer court dates from the end of the 16th century. The church, with the exception of the campanile, was modernized in 1771–1777. The right of the monks to elect their own abbot, who had by that time obtained a position of great importance, was cancelled in 1388, and in 1455 the abbot was suspended, and the administration handed over to the Spanish cardinal, Giovanni Torquemada. For the whole of the 16th century it was in the hands of the Colonna family, who were commendatories of it. During the 17th century, the Barberini held it, but in 1753 Benedict XIV. separated the spiritual and temporal dominions, placing the latter under officials directly dependent on the papacy. The commendatories were as a rule cardinals. As regards monastic discipline, the abbey had since 1514 been subject to the rule of Monte Cassino, and it was only in 1872 that it regained from
- ↑ The bull of 596 attributed to him is, however, now recognized as apocryphal.
