BARONIUS, CESAR, the great church historian, was born on the 31st October 1538 in the district of Naples. His parents, Camillo de Barouo or Baronio and Porcia, Trebonia, were of noble birth. He was educated at Veroli and Naples, where his favourite studies were theology and jurisprudence. In 1557 he accompanied his father to Rome, and found himself in the midst of the reactionary enthusiasm which did much to restore Italy, in spite of the efforts of her reformers, to the papal authority. There ho was brought in contact with Philip Neri, a man who then and since has done much to reconcile the speculative student with the Church of Rome, and to provide for him work in her service to which he can give his whole heart. Neri had just founded the Italian Oratory, the model cf many another, and he and his monks had vowed to devote themselves to student lives, and to dedicate their whole power of study to the Roman Catholic Church. Among the theological studies pursued in the oratory, church history and ecclesiastical biography held a prominent place, the greater part of every forenoon being set apart for these subjects. In this small congregation Baronius found a congenial home, and his superior, Philip Neri, soon saw that he had secured a coadjutor who would make his oratory all he had hoped it would become. The alarm caused by the first Protestant church history, the Magdeburg Centuries, gave his studies a special direction, and, as he told Pope Sixtus V., he was urged by his own desires, and the encouragement of Neri, to attempt to answer the Magdeburg divines. This was the origin of the Anncdes Ecclesiastici, his great work, which occupied thirty laborious years. These Annales, the first and in many respects the most important historical work which the Roman Catholic Church has produced, begin with the birth of Christ and end with the year 1198. The book is not properly history ; it is annals rather, as everything is subordinated to chronology. The year is first given, then the reigning Popo and the year of his reign, then the emperors of the East and West, and, after its institution, the name and year of the emperor of the Holy Roman empire. This chronological form had one advantage - theology was kept as much as possible in the background, and the facts of history were the most important part. The Ann-ales have thus become very important to every student of church history whether Protestant or Roman Catholic. While Baronius was engaged in his great work he was encouraged by several marks of papal favour. He was named pronotarius of the papal chair ; in 1596 he was elected a cardinal ; and he was afterwards chosen to fill the much-coveted post of librarian of the Vatican. He died on the 30th of June 1607. The best and most useful edition of his works is that of Mansi, in 38 vols. fol. ; it gives Pagi's critica historico-theologica, or corrections of Baronius, at the foot of each page. The best text is the Antwerp edition of 1610.