One of five sons in a prominent Tuscan family and the nephew of a pope, Robert was well-educated even before he became a Jesuit. After his ordination at Louvain, he taught there for seven years, specializing in “controversial theology.” He returned to Rome in 1576, taught at the Gregorianum, and wrote a three-volume work defending Catholicism against heresies of the day. He also advised several popes, served as Jesuit provincial and cardinal-archbishop of Capua, mediated the Galileo controversy, and in old age turned his author’s pen to devotional writing. In 1931, Pope Pius XI proclaimed this patron of catechists a doctor of the church.
