The object of the following pages is to present to the reader a life of Baronius, from a purely personal and individual point of view, no attempt being made to study him critically as a historian, or even to pause on any of the vexed questions which may have been raised by his writings. With this object in view the materials have been drawn mainly from his correspondence with intimate friends, contained in the collection of his letters edited by Raymund Albericius (Rome 1759), from his Life by the same writer, and that by G. Ricci (Rome, 1745), and also from the accounts of his life at the Oratory, incidentally made known to us by the biographers of St. Philip.
The Life of Cardinal Baronius is the life of a scholar, of the man who not only founded the discipline of Church history, but also created the model of historical scholarship that is used today. Baronius, though a humble scholar in the oratory of St. Philip Neri, found himself mixed into the great events of his age, in correspondence with the great, while his work on the Annals brought him glory for having systematized history
This edition of Lady Amabel Kerr's life of Cardinal Baronius has been reprinted from the original, it is not a facsimile. Many pictures of the subjects in the work have been added as well as adjustments to some of the archaic 19th century words to make the work more readable.