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{{Short description|Irish Franciscan friar and historian (1588 – 1657)}}
{{EngvarB|date=March 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}

{{Infobox religious biography
|birth_date=16 October 1588
|birth_place=[[Waterford]], [[Kingdom of Ireland]]
|death_date={{death date and age|1657|11|18|1588|10|16|df=y}}
|death_place=[[Rome]], [[Papal States]]
|resting_place=[[Sant'Isidoro a Capo le Case]]
|religion=[[Roman Catholicism]]
|order=[[Franciscan]]
|occupation=[[friar]] and historian
|alma_mater=[[University of Coimbra]]
|image=Portrait of Luke Wadding P2027.jpg|caption=[[Carlo Maratta]], ''Luke Wadding'' ([[National Gallery of Ireland]], [[Dublin]])
| philosophy=[[Scotism]]
|known_for=''Annales Minorum''
|nationality=[[Ireland|Irish]]|parents=Walter Wadding and Anastasia Wadding (née Lombard)}}

'''Luke Wadding''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Order of Friars Minor|O.F.M.]]}} (16 October 1588{{snd}}18 November 1657), was an Irish [[Franciscan]] [[friar]] and historian.

==Life==

===Early life===
Wadding was born on 16 October 1588 in [[Waterford]] to Walter Wadding of Waterford, a wealthy merchant,<ref name="macgee">{{Cite book |last=Macgee |first=T.D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2UdAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA90 |title=Gallery of Irish Writers: The Irish Writers of the Seventeenth Century |year=1857 |pages=90–102}}</ref> and his wife, Anastasia Lombard (sister of [[Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh]] and Primate of Ireland).<ref name="macgee"/> Educated at the school of Mrs. Jane Barden in Waterford and of Peter White in [[Kilkenny]], in 1604 he went to study in [[Lisbon]] and at the [[University of Coimbra]].{{sfn|Herbermann|1913}}

===Franciscan friar===
After completing his university studies, Wadding became a Franciscan friar in 1607 and spent his [[novitiate]] at [[Matosinhos]], Portugal. He was ordained priest in 1613 by João Manuel, [[Bishop of Viseu]], and in 1617 he was made President of the Irish College at the [[University of Salamanca]], and Master of Students and Professor of Divinity.<ref name="macgee"/> The next year, he went to Rome as chaplain to the Spanish ambassador to the [[Papal States]], Bishop Antonio Trejo de Sande, O.F.M. Wadding collected the funds for the establishment of the [[College of St. Isidore]] in Rome, for the education of Irish priests, opened 24 June 1625, with four lecturers – [[Antony Hickey|Anthony O'Hicidh]] of a famous literary family in [[Thomond]], Martin Breathnach from [[Donegal (town)|Donegal]], [[Patrick Fleming (Franciscan)|Patrick Fleming]] from [[County Louth]], and [[John Punch (theologian)|John Punch]] from [[Cork (city)|Cork]]. He gave the college a library of 5,000 printed books and 800 manuscripts, and thirty resident students soon came. Wadding served as [[rector (academic)|rector]] of the college for 15 years. From 1630 to 1634, he was [[Procurator (Catholic Church)|Procurator]] of the Order of Friars Minor at their headquarters in Rome, and Vice [[Commissariat#Religious usage|Commissary]] from 1645 to 1648.  During the papal conclaves of 1644 and 1655, Wadding received votes to become pope, making him "as close as the church has come to having an Irish pope."<ref name="Cavanaugh2016">{{cite news|author1=Ray Cavanaugh|title=The Irish Franciscan who gave St. Patrick his feast day|url=https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/irish-franciscan-who-gave-st-patrick-his-feast-day|access-date=19 November 2017|work=National Catholic Reporter|date=11-24 Mar 2016|page=9}}</ref><ref>[http://www.irishphilosophy.com/2015/03/30/irish-colleges-17th-century/ Irish Colleges in the 17th Century] www.irishphilosophy.com</ref>

Wadding was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Catholics during the [[Irish Confederate Wars]], and his college became the strongest advocate of the Irish cause in Rome. (This spirit of patriotism originated by Wadding had a lasting impact, so that in the 19th century, Sir George Errington, who was sent by British prime minister [[William Ewart Gladstone|Gladstone]] to explain the relation of English and Irish politics in Rome, reported that those Irish politicians thought most extreme in England were conservatives compared with the collegians of St. Isidore.){{sfn|Moore|1899}} Wadding sent officers and arms to Ireland, and induced [[Pope Innocent X]] to send [[Giovanni Battista Rinuccini]] there.{{sfn|Moore|1899}}

The Confederate Catholics petitioned [[Pope Urban VIII]] to make Wadding a [[cardinal (Catholic Church)|cardinal]], but he found ways to intercept the petition, and it remained in the archives of the college.{{sfn|Moore|1899}}

Luke Wadding was an important art patron. He commissioned artworks for St. Isidore's church in Rome. The painters [[Andrea Sacchi]] and [[Carlo Maratti]] were among the most famous artists commissioned by Wadding.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

==Death==
Wadding died on 18 November 1657 at the age of 69 and is buried in the church of the [[Sant'Isidoro a Capo le Case|College of San Isidore]], in Rome. His life was written by Francis Harold, his nephew. The learned Franciscan friar [[Bonaventura Baron]] was another nephew.

==Legacy==
[[File:French Church, Waterford 3.jpg|thumb|The entrance to the [[French Church, Waterford]] with the statue of Fr. Luke Wadding]]
Wadding founded the [[Pontifical Irish College]] for Irish [[secular clergy]]. In 1900, Wadding's portrait and part of his library were in the Franciscan friary on Merchant's Quay, Dublin. Through Wadding's efforts, [[St Patrick's Day]] became a [[feast day]].{{sfn|Herbermann|1913}}  But it would take years for it to develop, taking until the 20th century for St. Patrick's Day parades to occur in his native Ireland, while the first organized celebration in America took place in the 18th century in cities like Boston and New York, and today occurs in faraway places like Russia and Japan.<ref name="Cavanaugh2016" /> Amid all the celebrations, most Irish today do not know about the "Waterford man who created St. Patrick's Day."<ref name="Cavanaugh2016" />

Prior to the 1950s, when work began on a new critical edition, the ''Wadding Edition'' of the works of [[Duns Scotus]] was the most complete version of the thought of the Subtle Doctor available to scholars.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wadding |first1=Luke |title=The Wadding Edition |url=http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Wadding_1639 |website=The Logic Museum |access-date=22 July 2021}}</ref> The work was compiled in 1639, when Wadding was in Rome, and updated in the 1890s.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Wadding-Vivès Edition |url=http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Wadding-Viv%C3%A8s |website=The Logic Museum |access-date=22 July 2021}}</ref> Whilst containing a number of spurious works, as of 2021, with the new Vatican Edition of Scotus yet to be completed, the Wadding Edition remains an important and influential collection.

In the 1950s, a statue of Wadding by [[Gabriel Hayes]] was erected on the Mall in Waterford, adjacent to [[Reginald's Tower]] and one of the city's most prominent locations. The Waterford-born Franciscan's literary, academic and theological attributes were denoted by a quill pen held poised in the statue's right hand. More recently this statue was replaced by one of [[Thomas Francis Meagher]]. The figure of Luke Wadding was moved to a position at the entrance to the [[French Church, Waterford]] on Greyfriars.<ref>{{cite web |title=Artist Biography:Gabriel Hayes |url=https://www.sculpturedublin.ie/artist-biography-gabriel-hayes/ |website=sculpturedubllin.ie}}</ref>

In 2000, the [[Waterford Institute of Technology]] dedicated a new library building to his name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://library.wit.ie/files/guides/Newsletter1.pdf |title=Newsletter |publisher=library.wit.ie |accessdate=2021-06-07}}</ref>

==Works==
A voluminous writer, his chief work was the ''Annales Minorum'' in 8 folio volumes (1625–1654), re-edited in the 18th century and continued up to the year 1622; it is the classical work on Franciscan history. He also published a ''Bibliotheca'' of Franciscan writers, an edition of the works of [[Duns Scotus]], and the first collection of the writings of St [[Francis of Assisi]].{{sfn|Moore|1899}}{{sfn|Butler|1911}}

Wadding published a total of 36 volumes – fourteen at Rome, twenty-one at [[Lyon]], and one at [[Antwerp]].

* ''Annales Minorum'', in eight volumes (1625–54)
* ''Duns Scotus'' in twelve volumes (1639, fol.)
* ''πρεσβεία'' [Presbeia] published at Louvain (1624)
:a treatise on the [[Immaculate Conception]] of the Virgin. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, the works of Duns Scotus, and the history of the Franciscan order were his favourite subjects of study.
* ''De Hebraicæ linguæ origine, præstantia, et utilitate''
:his essay is prefixed to the concordance of the Hebrew scriptures of [[Mario di Calasio]], which Wadding prepared for the press in 1621.{{sfn|Moore|1899}}

== See also ==
* [[Michael Wadding (priest)]]
* [[List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{Cite book |author=Gibson & Cumming |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HkQAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PT139 |title=A Preservative Against Popery, in Several Select Discourses Upon the Principal Heads of Controversy Between Protestants and Papists |year=1849 |page=139}}
'''Attribution:'''
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Wadding, Luke|volume=28|page=226|first=Edward Cuthbert|last=Butler|authorlink=Edward Cuthbert Butler}}
* {{DNB|wstitle=Wadding, Luke| first=Norman|last= Moore|volume=58|pages=408–409 }}
* {{CathEncy|wstitle=Luke Wadding}}

===Referred works===
* Harold, Francis, ''Vita Fratris Lucae Waddingi'' (1731)
* Ware, James, ''The Whole Works of Sir James Ware Concerning Ireland'' (1764)
* Webb, Alfred, ''A Compendium of Irish Biography: Comprising Sketches of Distinguished Irishmen'' (1878)
* {{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Christopher |url=https://archive.org/details/historicalsketc01andegoog |title=Historical Sketches of the Ancient Native Irish and Their Descendants |publisher=Oliver & Boyd |year=1830}}
* [[C. P. Meehan|Meehan, Charles Patrick]], ''The rise and fall of the Irish Franciscan monasteries, and memoirs of the Irish hierarchy in the seventeenth century'' (1877)
* O'Shea, Joseph A, 'The Life of Father Luke Wadding, Founder of St. Isidore's College, Rome' (1885)
* Fidanza, Giovan Battista, ''Luke Wadding's art: Irish Franciscan Patronage in Seventeenth Century Rome'', Franciscan Institutes Publications, St. Bonaventure, NY (2016)

== External links ==
* {{wikisource author-inline}}
* [https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:18726 Luke Wadding Papers: correspondence relating to Fr Luke Wadding OFM and the Irish Friars Minor at St. Isidore's College, Rome] &c. – a UCD Digital Library Collection.
* [https://www.tcd.ie/library/exhibitions/directors-choice/roman-inquisitions/ Records of the Roman Inquisitions (1626)] signed by Luke Wadding, from the [[Library of Trinity College Dublin]] [IE TCD MS 1245 folio 36r]. 
{{Franciscans}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wadding, Luke}}
[[Category:1588 births]]
[[Category:1657 deaths]]
[[Category:Christian clergy from Waterford (city)]]
[[Category:People educated at Kilkenny College]]
[[Category:Irish Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:17th-century Irish historians]]
[[Category:Irish Friars Minor]]
[[Category:17th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests]]
[[Category:Franciscan scholars]]
[[Category:University of Coimbra alumni]]
[[Category:Irish expatriates in Italy]]
[[Category:Irish expatriates in Spain]]
[[Category:Scotism]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Salamanca]]
[[Category:Irish Franciscans]]
[[Category:17th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:Writers from Waterford (city)]]
[[Category:Irish writers in Latin]]
[[Category:People on Irish postage stamps]]