Bl. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso

Drawn from the authors' own words; every quotation links to its place.

Franciscan · ?–1493

In the Index: Angelus de Clavasio; Clavasio

Dates differ: Prümmer ?–1493; Haringer ?–1495.

In Prümmer's Catalogue and Haringer's Index

“Carleti, Angelus (de Clavasio), O.Min., Italian (d. 1493), wrote the celebrated Summa of cases of conscience, arranged in alphabetical order and often edited, which is commonly called Summa angelica. It was called by Luther a summa more than diabolical and was publicly burned. It rests upon the Summa pisana.” — Prümmer, Catalogue of authors
[**: weighty, probabilist] “Angelus Ioan. de Clavasio, of the Order of Friars Minor, author of the Angelic Summa, died 1495.” — Haringer's index of writers (Gury-Ballerini) (p. XII, sign read on the page)

His Moral System, as Our Authors Report It

Every report quoted in the author's own words and linked to its place; point at a name to see his words. Haringer's signs give St. Alphonsus's judgment as Haringer found it in St. Alphonsus's works (his notice, Gury-Ballerini, 1884, p. XI); a sign on a writer the 1884 editor added to the list is the editor's own, and is said to be his.

He wrote before the moral systems were formed (Medina first set out probabilism in 1577), so what is reported here is how each author reads the principles he followed, not a system he held. Our authors read him differently.

Before the systems: cited for probabilism
“Angelus Ioan. de Clavasio, of the Order of Friars Minor, author of the Angelic Summa, died 1495.”Haringer marks him **, giving St. Alphonsus's judgment of him (weighty and probabilist)	Haringer's index, Index of writers, p. XII
Before the systems: cited for the more probable opinion
Counted among them by one of our authors	Merkelbach, Summa II, excursus on the moral systems

Where Our Authors Discuss Him

Each read in its full passage; the words quoted are the author's own. Where several authors say the same thing, one is quoted and the others follow “in nearly the same words”; point at a name to see his words.

“Angelus de Clavasio (1495), whose Summa was called the Angelica, and Silvester Prierias (1523), who wrote the Summa Silvestrina, honored casuistic moral theology”His Summa Angelica	Vermeersch, Theologia moralis I, n. 18In nearly the same words: Koch-Preuss, Handbook I, history of moral theology
“Later authors, such as Angelus de Clavasio (1480), Sylvester Prierias (1516), and Navarrus (1560) give lists of the different rules of law”Slater names him among the later authors who listed the rules of law for doubtful cases	Slater, Short History, ¶ 82
“Now he is esteemed a great theologian who possesses the greatest authority among theologians on account of his distinguished doctrine, prudence, and probity”Konings names him among the great theologians whose word that an opinion is probable makes it so	Konings, Compendium, n. 57

In the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

“Bl. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso”, vol. 1, by Stephen Donovan. Public domain; transcription at New Advent (which expands some of the print's abbreviations).

Moral theologian of the order of Friars Minor; born at Chivasso in Piedmont, in 1411; and died at Coni, in Piedmont, in 1495. From his tenderest years the Blessed Angelo was remarkable for the holiness and purity of his life. He attended the University of Bologna, where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Cannon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor. His virtues and learning soon gained the confidence of his brethren in religion, and he was four times chosen to fill the office of vicar-general of that branch of the order then known as the Cismontane Observance. In 1480 the Turks under Mahout II took possession of Otranto, and threatened to overrun and lay waste the "bel paese". Blessed Angelo was appointed Apostolic Nuncio by Pope Sixtus IV, and commissioned to preach the holy war against the invaders. The death of Mahomet and the ultimate retirement of the Turkish forces from the Italian peninsula were evidences that God favoured his mission. Again, in 1491, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio and Commissary by Innocent VIII, conjointly with the Bishop of Mauriana, the purpose of their mission being to take active steps to prevent the spread of the heretical doctrines of the Waldenses.

But it was perhaps by this writings that Blessed Angelo rendered the greatest service to religion. His works are given by Wadding in the latter's "Scriptores Ordinis Minorum". By far the most noted of these is the "Summa de Casibus Conscientiae", called after him the "Summa Angelica". The first edition of the "Summa Angelica" appeared in the year 1476, and from that year to the year 1520 it went through thirty-one editions, twenty-five of which are preserved in the Royal Library at Munich. The "Summa" is divided into six hundred and fifty-nine articles arranged in alphabetical order and forming what would now be called a dictionary of moral theology. The most valuable and most important of these articles is the one entitled "Interrogationes in Confessione". It serves, in a way, as an index to the whole work. Judging the character of the work of Bl. Angelo as a theologian from this, his most important contribution to moral theology, one is impressed with the gravity and fairness that characterized his opinions throughout. Besides, the "Summa", being written "pro utilitate confessariorum et eorum qui cupiunt laudabiliter vivere", is a most valuable guide in matters of conscience and approaches closely, in the treatment of the various articles, to casuistic theology as this science is now understood, hence the title of the work, "Summa de Casibus Conscientiae". Benedict XIII approved the cult that had for long been paid to Bl. Angelo, especially by the people of Chivasso and Coni. The latter chose him as their special patron, while his feast is kept on 12 April throughout the order of Friars Minor.

Sources: Leo, Lives of the Saints and Blessed of the three Orders of St. Francis (tr. Taunton, 1886); Scherer s.v. in Kirchenlex. See also Wadding, Annales Minorum, 1472, n. viii, 1478, n. viii, 1479, n. xiv, 1481, n. ix, 1484, n. xliv, 1495, n. ii.