Giovanni Perrone, an Italian theologian, born in Chieri, Piedmont, in 1794. Having graduated as doctor of theology in the university of Turin, he entered the society of Jesus in Rome in 1815, and in 1816 was sent to teach theology at Orvieto. He was appointed professor of theology in the Roman college in 1823, and held this post, with a few intervals during which he filled the office of rector in the college of Ferrara (1830-'33) and in the Roman college (1853-6), down to the suppression of the Jesuit houses in 1873. In 1848 he took refuge with some of his pupils in England, and opened for them and the young English Jesuits a course at Stonyhurst, returning to Rome in 1850. In 1854 he took a leading part with Passaglia in the discussions preliminary to the promulgation of the bull Ineffabilis Deus, defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and was equally conspicuous during the council of the Vatican. Padre Perrone has long been a prominent member, as consultor, of nearly all the papal congregations on doctrine, discipline, and liturgy. His lectures on theology since 1835 have superseded all others in nearly all the Roman Catholic schools in both hemispheres.

Among upward of 60 different works published by him, the following are the most important: Prmlectiones Theological (9 vols. 8vo, Rome, 1835), which has had upward of 30 editions, and has been translated into French and German; Prmlectiones Theologicce, abridged from the above (4 vols., 1845; 31st ed., 1864); Tractatus de Matrimonio (Rome and Lyons, 1840); Synopsis Historim Theologim cum Philosophia, comparatm (Rome, 1845); De Immaculato B. V. Marice Conceptu: an Dogmatico Decreto definiri possit (1847; reedited several times, and translated into French, German, and Dutch); II Protestantis-mo e la regola di fede (3 vols., 1853; French translation, Paris, 1854); Memoriale Prmdica-torum (2 vols., 1864); and De Divinitate D. N~. Jesu Christi (Turin, 1870).