Ciantes, Giuseppe Maria

Ciantes, Giuseppe Maria an Italian prelate and Dominican theologian, brother of the following, was born at Rome in 1602. He devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages, and had the opportunity of applying his knowledge of Hebrew for the conversion of the Jews, to whom Urban VIII had appointed him preacher in Rome. Having been called in 1640 as bishop of Marsico, in the kingdom of Naples, he distinguished himself by the good example which he set in his diocese. In 1656 he resigned the episcopal functions to retire to the convent of Minerva, where he died in 1670, leaving De Sanctissima Trinitate (Rome, 1667; in French by Du Mottier, ibid. 1668): — De Sanctissima Christi Incarnatione (ibid. 1668; also in Ital. and French, ibid. eod.): — Della Perfezzione, etc. (1669 ): — Summa contra Gentes D. Thomas Aquinatis, etc., his own Hebrew version (1657). See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog, Generate, s.v.; Furst, Bibl. Jud. 1:180.