St. Bonaventura,
Doctor of the Church, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, Minister General of the
Friars Minor, born at Bagnorea in the vicinity of Viterbo in 1221; died
at Lyons, 16 July, 1274. No details of Bonaventure's youth have been preserved.
He entered the Order of Friars Minor in 1238 or 1243, and was sent from
the Roman Province, to which he belonged, to complete his studies at the
University of Paris under Alexander of Hales, the great founder of the Franciscan
School. The degree of Doctor was solemnly bestowed on St. Bonaventura and
St. Thomas Aquinas at the university, 23 October, 1267. In the meantime
Bonaventura on 2 February, 1257 was elected Minister General of the Friars
Minor.
The Franciscan Order has ever regarded Bonaventura as one of the greatest
Doctors and from the beginning his teaching found many distinguished expositors
within the order, among the earliest being his own pupils, John Peckham
later Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew of Aquasparta, and Alexander of
Alexandria (d. 1314), both of whom became ministers general of the order.
Unfortunately not all of Bonaventure's writings have come down to us. Some
were lost before the invention of printing. |
