PIETRO

DAMIANI (c. 1007-1072)  , one of the most celebrated ecclesiastics of the rrth century, was born at Ravenna, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, gained some renown as a teacher . About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and entered the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio; and winning sound reputation through his piety and his preaching, he became the head of this establishment about 1043 . A zealot for monastic and clerical reform, he introduced a more severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation, into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations . Extending the area of his activities, he entered into communication with the emperor Henry III., addressed to Pope Leo IX. in 1049 a writing denouncing the vices of the clergy and entitled Liber Gomorrhianus; and soon became associated with Hildebrand in the work of reform . As a trusted counsellor of a succession of popes he was made cardinal bishop of Ostia, a position which he accepted with some reluctance; and presiding over a council at Milan in 1059, he courageously asserted the authority of Rome over this province, and won a signal victory for the principles which he advocated . He rendered valuable assistance to Pope Alexander II. in his struggle with the anti-pope, Honorius II.; and having served the papacy as legate to France and to Florence, he was allowed to resign his bishopric in 1067 . After a period of retirement at Fonte Avellana, he proceeded in 1069 as papal legate to Germany, and persuaded the emperor Henry`IV. to give up his intention of divorcing his wife Bertha . During his concluding years he was not altogether in accord with the political ideas of Hildebrand . He died at Faenza on the 22nd of February 1072 . Damiani was a determined foe of simony, but his fiercest wrath was directed against the married clergy . He was an extremely vigorous controversialist, and his Latin abounds in denunciatory epithets . He was specially devoted to the Virgin Mary, and wrote an Officium Beatae Virginis, in addition to many letters, sermons, and other writings .

His

works were collected by Cardinal Cajetan, and were published in four volumes at Rome (1606-1615), and then at Paris in 1642, at Venice in 1743, and there are other editions . See A . Vogel, Peter Damiani (Jena, 1856) ; A . Capecelatro, Storia di S . Pier Damiani e del suo tempo (Florence, 1862) ; F . Neukirch, Das Leben des Peter Damiani (Gottingen, 1875) ; L . Guerrier, De Petro Damiano (Orleans, 1881); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Leipzig, 1885-189o) ; and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopddie, Band iv . (Leipzig, 1898) .