BELLARMINO, ROBERTO (1542–1621), Jesuit theologian, controversialist, and cardinal; canonized saint of the Roman Catholic church. Roberto Francisco Romulo Bellarmino was born at Montepulciano in Tuscany on October 4, 1542. His father was an impoverished nobleman. His mother was a sister of Marcello Cervini, papal legate at the Council of Trent and later Pope Marcellus II (1555). Bellarmino entered the Society of Jesus in 1560. He studied philosophy at the Roman College and theology at Padua. He was frail as a youth and suffered from uncertain health all his life. As a student he was much devoted to literature and even wrote some poetry, most of which he later destroyed.

In 1569 Bellarmino was sent by his Jesuit superiors to Louvain in Flanders. The following year he was ordained priest by the bishop of Ghent and assumed his duties as lecturer in theology at the Jesuit house associated with the university. He was...