Henry, a learned cardinal of the seventeenth century, was born at Verona in 1631. He was carefully educated by his father, Alexander Noris, originally from Ireland, and well known by his Guerre di Germania. At fifteen he was admitted as a boarder in the Jesuits' college at Rimini, where he studied philosophy; after which he applied himself to the writings of the fathers of the church, particularly those of St Augustine; and taking the habit in the convent of the Augustinian monks of Rimini, he in a short time distinguished himself amongst that fraternity by his erudition, insomuch that, as soon as he had completed his noviciate, the general of the order sent for him to Rome, to give him an opportunity of improving himself in the more solid branches of learning. His constant course was to study fourteen hours a day; and this he continued till he became a cardinal. He began his History of Pelagianism at Rome at the age of twenty-six, and published it at Florence in 1673. To this work he added An account of the schism of Aquileia, with a vindication of the books written by St Augustine against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. In the following year the Grand Duke of Tuscany invited him to that city, made him his chaplain, and appointed him professor of ecclesiastical history in the university of Pisa. His History procured the author great reputation, but called forth several antagonists, to whom he published proper answers. The dispute grew warm, and was carried repeatedly before the sovereign tribunal of the Inquisition, where it was examined with the utmost rigour, and the author dismissed without the least censure. In 1692 he was called to Rome by Innocent XII, who made him under-librarian of the Vatican. This post was a step to a cardinal's hat; his accusers therefore took fire afresh, and published several new pieces against him. Noris tried to remove these scruples in a work which appeared in 1695, under the title of An Historical Dissertation concerning One of the Trinity that suffered in the flesh. In 1695 his Holiness honoured him with the purple. On the death of Cardinal Casanati in 1700, he was made principal keeper of the Vatican Library. He died at Rome in 1704. His Norman works are characterized by great elegance and erudition; and were published at Verona, in 5 vols. folio, in 1729-30.