Francesco Lorenzo Brancati di Lauria

[1] At the age of seventeen di Lauria was struck with a dangerous illness, and he made a vow that in the event of his recovery he would enter the order of Minor Conventuals.

In 1647, he was again recalled to Rome and was shortly afterwards made guardian of the convent attached to the Conventual Church of the Twelve Apostles, where the minister general of the order resides.

In 1653, he was appointed to the chair of dogmatic theology in the Roman University,[2] and was later made Consultor of the Congregation of the Holy Office by Pope Alexander VII who used to call him "The right arm of the Apostolic See".

[3] Brancati's "Epitome Canonum", which went through two editions at Rome, four at Venice, and two at Cologne, contains a complete list of all the canons to be found in the general and provincial councils, in the Decretals of Gratian and of Gregory IX, and in the encyclical letters and constitutions of the Popes up to the time of Alexander VII.

His ascetical work "Opuscula octo de oratione Christiana" was published at Rome in 1685,[3] exhibiting his profound knowledge of the spiritual life which he mastered more perhaps by his own holy living than by the abstract study of asceticism.