Devoti, Giovanni

Devoti, Giovanni an Italian theologian, was born at Rome in July 1744. At the age of twenty he was made professor of canon law in the collegethere, and published, the following year, a treatise called De Notissimis in Jure Legibus. He was made bishop of Anagni in 1789, and also of Carthage, in partibus infidelium; next secretary of briefs to the princes, and camerarius, and finally consulter to the Congregation of the Immunity. He accompanied Pius VII to France, at the consecration of the emperor Napoleon, and was subsequently connected with the prelates of the society of the Index. He died at Rome, September 18, 1820. His principal work is entitled Institutiones Canonicae (Rome, 1785; often reprinted). Devoti also undertook a Jus Canonicum Universum, of which only three volumes have been published (Rome, 1803, 1804, 1817). See Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.