Isidoro Isolani (– 1528) was a Dominican theologian, lecturer and writer.
Isolani was born around 1480, probably in Milan. Towards 1500 he joined the Dominicans of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where he later served as prior from 1526 to 1528. There he received a theological and philosophical education based on Peter Lombard's Sentences and Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles. In 1509–1510, he took part in the reform of the convent of Sant'Eustorgio. In 1513, he was a lecturer at Sant'Apollinare in Pavia. In 1514, he was at the oratory of Saint Joseph in Fontanellato. From 1516 to 1518, he was back in Milan. There he was attached to the circle around the mystic Arcangela Panigarola.[1] In 1519, he was lecturing at the Dominican studium in Cremona.
In the war of 1521–1526 over the Duchy of Milan, Isolani favoured France.[1] In 1521, he was lecturing at Sant'Apollinare. In 1522–1523, he read the Sentences at the Dominican studium in Bologna and became a Bachelor of Theology. He may have served for a time as regent of the studium. The date of his death is unknown, but Philip Schaff places it between 22 April and 9 July 1528.
Isolani wrote in Latin. His works include:
In 1518, Isolani published a biography of Veronica da Binasco, Panigarola's mystic predecessor. It was dedicated to King Francis I of France.
In November 1519 at Cremona, Isolani published anonymously a treatise against Martin Luther, entitled Revocatio Martini Lutherii Augustiniani ad Sanctam Sedem. It was the first response to Luther written by an Italian on his private initiative and without official sanction. It is divided into ten persuasiones inviting Luther to repentance. Isolani claimed authorship of the Revocatio in a later publication against Luther, the Disputationes, first printed at Pavia in 1522 and again at Lyon in 1528. It was dedicated to García de Loaysa. In it, Isolani mounts a defence of the practice of indulgences.
Isolani took up the project of Paolo da Soncino, an epitome of John Capreolus's commentary on the Sentences, and completed it in 1521. It was published at Pavia by G. Pocatela in 1522 under the title Divinum epitoma quaestionum in IV libros sententiarum a principe Thomistarum Ioanne Capreolo O.P. disputatarum and dedicated to Francis I.