Luke Wadding

Oil painting of Luke Wadding by Carlo Maratta held in the National Gallery of Ireland

Luke Wadding (16 October 1588 – 18 November 1657) was an Irish Franciscan friar and historian.

Life

Wadding was born in 16 October 1588 at Waterford to Walter Wadding of Waterford, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Anastasia Lombard (sister of Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland). Educated at the school of Mrs. Jane Barden in Waterford and of Peter White in Kilkenny, in 1604 he went to study in Lisbon and at University of Coimbra.

He died on 18 November 1657, and is buried in the church of the College of San Isidore, in Rome.

In 1900, his portrait and part of his library were in the Franciscan convent on Merchant's Quay, Dublin. His life was written by Francis Harold, his nephew. The learned Bonaventura Baron was another nephew.

Cleric

Wadding became a Franciscan in 1607, and spent his novitiate at Matosinhos. He was ordained priest in 1613 by João Manuel, bishop of Viseu, and in 1617 he was made president of the Irish College at University of Salamanca, and Master of Students and Professor of Divinity. The next year, he went to Rome (1618) as chaplain to the Spanish ambassador, Bishop Antonio Trejo de Sande.

He collected the funds for the establishment of the Irish College of St Isidore in Rome, for the education of Irish priests, opened 24 June 1625, with four lecturers-—Anthony O'Hicidh of a famous literary family in Thomond, Martin Breathnach from Donegal, Patrick Fleming from Louth, and John Ponce from Cork. He gave the college a library of five thousand printed books and eight hundred manuscripts, and thirty resident students soon came. Wadding was rector for fifteen years. From 1630 to 1634, he was procurator of the Franciscans at Rome, and vice commissary from 1645 to 1648.

He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Catholics in the war of 1641, and his college became the strongest advocate of the Irish cause in Rome. This spirit of patriotism, originated by Wadding, it has ever since retained, so that Sir George Errington, who was sent by Gladstone to explain the relation of English and Irish politics in Rome, reported that those Irish politicians thought most extreme in England were conservatives compared with the collegians of St. Isidore. Wadding sent officers and arms to Ireland, and induced Pope Innocent X to send there Giovanni Battista Rinuccini. The confederate Catholics petitioned Pope Urban VIII to make Wadding a cardinal, but the rector of the Irish College found means to intercept the petition, and it remained in the archives of the college.

Legacy

Wadding founded the Ludovisi College for Irish clergy. Through Wadding's efforts, St Patrick's Day became a feast day.

In 2000, the Waterford Institute of Technology dedicated a new library building to his name.^{[citation needed]} In the 1950s, a statue of Wadding was erected on the Mall in Waterford, adjacent to Reginald’s Tower and one of the city’s most prominent locations. The Waterford born Franciscan’s literary, academic and theological attributes were denoted by a quill pen held poised in the statue’s right hand. More recently this statue was replaced by one of Thomas Francis Meagher. The figure of Luke Wadding was moved to Greyfriers.

Works

A voluminous writer, his chief work was the Annales Minorum in 8 folio volumes (1625–1654), re-edited in the 18th century and continued up to the year 1622; it is the classical work on Franciscan history. He published also a Bibliotheca of Franciscan writers, an edition of the works of Duns Scotus, and the first collection of the writings of St Francis of Assisi.

He published in all thirty-six volumes - fourteen at Rome, twenty-one at Lyons, and one at Antwerp.

• Annales Minorum, in eight volumes (1625–54);
• Duns Scotus in twelve volumes (1639, fol.)
• πρενβεία published at Louvain (1624)

a treatise on the immaculate conception of the Virgin. The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, the works of Duns Scotus, and the history of the Franciscan order were his favourite subjects of study.

• De Hebraicæ origine, præstantia, et utilitate;

his essay is prefixed to the concordance of the Hebrew scriptures of Marius de Collasio, which Wadding prepared for the press in 1621.

See also

• Michael Wadding (priest)
• List of people on stamps of Ireland

References and sources

Notes

Sources

• Gibson & Cumming, A Preservative Against Popery, in Several Select Discourses Upon the Principal Heads of Controversy Between Protestants and Papists (1849) p. 139

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Luke Wadding". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Luke_Wadding. 
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Moore, Norman (1899). "Wadding, Luke". In Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography. 58. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 408-409. 
•  "Luke Wadding". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

Referred works

• Harold, Francis, Vita Fratris Lucae Waddingi (1731)
• Ware, James, The Whole Works of Sir James Ware Concerning Ireland (1764)
• Webb, Alfred, A Compendium of Irish Biography: Comprising Sketches of Distinguished Irishmen (1878)
• Anderson, Christopher, Historical Sketches of the Ancient Native Irish and Their Descendants (1830)
• Meehan, Charles Patrick, The rise and fall of the Irish Franciscan monasteries, and memoirs of the Irish hierarchy in the seventeenth century (1877)
• O'Shea, Joseph A, 'The Life of Father Luke Wadding, Founder of St. Isidore's College, Rome' (1885)

External links

• Works by or about Luke Wadding in libraries (WorldCat catalog)