If hagiology be considered merely in the sense in which the term has come to be understood in the later stages of its development, i.e.
But the bases of hagiology may fairly be said to have been laid at the time when hagiographic documents, hitherto dispersed, were first brought together into collections.
Hagiology entered on a new development with the publication of the Sanctorum priscorum patrum vitae (Venice and Rome, 1551-1560) of Aloysius Lipomanus (Lippomano), bishop of Verona.
The accounts of his sister and niece have the defect of all hagiology; they are obviously written rather with a view to the ideas and the wishes of the writers than with a view to the actual and absolute personality of the subject.
HAGIOLOGY (from Gr.
