AGNI da LENTINI, TOMMASO. - Sicilian Dominican bishop, d. in the odour of sanctity at Ptolemais in 1277. Having entered the Order shortly after 1220, he promoted its spread in southern Italy. At Naples he founded in 1231 the convent of S. Domenico Maggiore, where in 1243 he gave the habit to S. Tommaso d'Aquino. Appointed to the episcopal see of Bethlehem in 1255 and transferred to that of Cosenza in 1267, he was promoted in 1272 to patriarch of Jerusalem and legate in the Holy Land, winning high distinction in this office through the zeal with which he promoted the crusade and the union with the Greeks, sanctioned at the Council of Lyons (1274).
He was the first biographer of S. Pietro da Verona. A copy of his life (published in Acta SS. Aprilis, III, Paris 1886, p. 694, and in Hurter, II, p. 434 ff.) was prescribed for every convent at the Dominican Chapter of Pisa (1276). Also attributed to him are a Volumen Sermonum, cited by the Dominican V. Bandello in Tract. De Concept. B. Virg., and a Letter to Henry III of England concerning the dangers threatening the Holy Land, intended to induce him to undertake the crusade.