Bonaventure

Life events

1. Born — 1221

   Giovanni di Fidanza was born at Civita di Bagnoregio, near Viterbo, then part of the Papal States. The names of his parents are recorded as Giovanni di Fidanza and Maria di Ritella.

2. Educated — 1243

   He entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris, initially possibly under Alexander of Hales and then certainly under Alexander's successor, John of Rochelle.

3. Educated — 1257

   In 1253 he held the Franciscan chair at Paris; in 1255 he received the degree of master — the medieval equivalent of doctor. A dispute between secular masters and mendicants delayed formal recognition until 1257, when his degree was granted alongside Thomas Aquinas.

4. Other — 1257

   After successfully defending the mendicant orders against critics of the secular party at Paris, he was elected Minister General of the Franciscan Order — the seventh person to hold that office — and steered it on a moderate, intellectual course.

5. Wrote — 1259

   During his tenure as Minister General he composed the Itinerarium mentis in Deum (The Mind's Road to God), the Breviloquium, the De reductione artium ad theologiam, and other major works; his Commentary on the Sentences of Lombard had been written at his superiors' command when he was approximately twenty-seven.

6. Consecrated — 1273

   Bonaventure was instrumental in procuring the election of Pope Gregory X, who rewarded him with the title of Cardinal-Bishop of Albano and insisted on his presence at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274.

7. Council — 1274

   He attended the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, where his contributions led to a union of the Greek and Latin churches — a result Gregory X had specifically sought his presence to achieve.

8. Died — 1274

   He died suddenly at Lyon on 15 July 1274 during the Second Council of Lyon under circumstances described as suspicious; the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia cited suggestions of poisoning, though the 2003 New Catholic Encyclopedia makes no mention of it.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Canonised on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV, Bonaventure was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V with the title Doctor Seraphicus — ranking him alongside Thomas Aquinas as one of the greatest scholastic doctors. (certain)
• In 1562 Huguenots captured Lyon and burned his body publicly; during the French Revolution the urn containing his incorrupt head was hidden and never recovered. His sole surviving relic — the arm and hand with which he wrote his Commentary on the Sentences — is preserved at Bagnoregio. (likely)
• On 24 November 1265 he was selected for the post of Archbishop of York but was never consecrated and resigned the appointment in October 1266. (certain)
• Bonaventure is the patron saint of bowel disorders. His feast, originally the second Sunday in July, was moved to 14 July in 1568 and reassigned in 1969 to 15 July — the anniversary of his death. (certain)
• Bonaventure's philosophy presents a marked contrast to contemporaries Roger Bacon, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas: where they pursued Aristotelian scholasticism, he developed the mystical and Platonizing tradition inherited from Augustine and pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. (likely)