POSSEVINO, pôs'sê-vî'no, ANTONIO: Italian Jesuit, diplomat, and scholar; b. at Mantua 1534; d. at Ferrara Feb. 26, 1611. He was a zealous opponent of Protestantism, first in the Waldensian valleys, and later in France, and especially at Avignon and Lyons. In 1577 Gregory XIII. commissioned him to labor in the cause of recovering the Swedish court and people to the Roman Catholic Church, and as an imperial envoy he made good use of the friendly ties that subsisted, through marriage, with the royal family of Poland. His enterprise failed, however, for the pope would have nothing to do with the ecclesiastical compromises introduced by King John III. Possevino then labored in Poland and Russia until he was recalled to Italy in 1586. Here he devoted himself to literary work, the results including Apparatus sacer ad scriptores Veteris et Novi Testamenti (3 vols., Venice, 1603-06); Moscovia (Wilna, 1586); and Bibliotheca selecta studiorum (2 vols., Rome, 1593).

K. BENRATH.