Cajetan (Gaetano Tommaso Di Vio),
cardinal, surnamed from Gabta, where he was born, Feb. 20,1469 (others say July 25,1470). His proper name was Jacob, but he assumed that of Thomas in honor of Thomas Aquinas. At fifteen he became a Dominican, and in 1508 he was made general of his order. In 1517 Leo X made him cardinal, and also his legate in Germany, the principal object of his mission being to bring back Luther to the obedience of the Holy See before his separation was finally completed. Cajetan fulfilled his mission in a haughty and imperious manner, and nothing came of it. In 1519 he was appointed to the see of Gaeta, after which he was employed in other missions, anddied at Rome in 1534. He published a Version of the 0. T. (Libr. Vet. Test.)(Lyons, 1639, 5 vols, fol.): — In Summare Thomas Aquinatis Comment.— Opuscula (among which is his treatise on the authority of the pope, in which he gives vent to the extremest views of ultra-montanism, and which was refuted by order of the faculty of Paris): — Tractatus de comparatione papce et concilii (Venice, 1531). His works are collected, and somewhat modified (Lyons, 1619, fol.). — Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 3:23 note; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog, Generale, 8:142; Horne, Bibliog. Alpendix, pt. 1, ch. 1, sect.4.