Malagrida, Gabriele

Malagrida, Gabriele an Italian theologian and preacher, who flourished in Portugal in the first half of the 18th century, was born in the Milanese in 1689. He entered the Order of the Jesuits, removed to Portugal, and became popular as a pulpit orator and a theological writer. In 1758, when an attempt at assassination was made on Joseph I, the then reigning monarch of Portugal, the Jesuits were charged with the crime (they were shortly after expelled from the kingdom); Malagrida was suspected of complicity, and arrested forthwith. Freed from this charge, he was accused of spreading heretic doctrines, and suffered death at the stake in 1761. A list of his writings is given in Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, vol. 32, s.v. See Platel, Relazione della Condemna ed Esecuzione del Gesuita G. Malagrida (1761).