(born 1217, Bagnoregio, Papal States—died July 15, 1274, Lyon; canonized April 14, 1482; feast day July 15) Italian medieval theologian, cardinal, and minister general of the Franciscans. The son of a physician from near Viterbo, he recovered from a near-fatal childhood illness through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. After study at the University of Paris, he entered the Franciscan order in 1244.
In 1254 he assumed control of the Franciscan school in Paris. He defended the mendicants against the charge that they defamed the Gospels by begging for alms. Elected Franciscan minister-general in 1257, he healed an incipient rift between those who favoured a rigorous approach to poverty and those favouring a looser regimen, and he wrote a new life of St. Francis. His theological works include a commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and Journey of the Mind to God (1259). Pope Gregory X appointed him cardinal of Albano (Italy) in 1273, and at the Second Council of Lyon he reconciled parish clergy with the mendicant orders.
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