Francis, descended from an illustrious family of Italy, was born at Geneva, on the 17th October 1625, where his father, Benedict Turretin, who had embraced the views of Calvin, was pastor and professor. Francis studied with great distinction under Spanheim, Morus, and Diodati; and when he had completed his preliminary preparations for the sacred ministry, he was ordained pastor at Geneva in 1647. Having removed, on the death of Aaron Morus, in 1650, to fill the pastorate of Leyden, which that esteemed clergyman had left vacant, he, in 1653, was invited to Geneva to be professor of theology. This place he filled with uncommon lustre, which was rendered all the more arduous and difficult to effect from the number of celebrated men that had already shed their light there, or were still disseminating a radiance around that city. His celebrated Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, 3 vols. 1679-85, which he employed as the exponent of his own views of Calvinistic divinity, has still considerable fame among theologians of that particular school, and serves to make its author's name known in regions far removed from Geneva, down to the present day. The whole Opera of Turretin were published at Geneva in four volumes in 1688, the year after his death. A reprint of his Institutio was afterwards made at Leyden in 1696, and one has recently been completed at Edinburgh in 4 vols. 1847. His son, John Alphonsus Turretin, who was in some respects even more celebrated than his father, was likewise professor of divinity at Geneva in 1705. He refused to sign the Consensus, and was suspected of Arminianism. His works, theological, philosophical, and philological, were published in 3 vols. in 1774.