AIMERICO of PIACENZA. - Twelfth Master General of the Dominicans. Whether he was descended from the family of the Giliani, as Echard (*Script. Ord. Praed.*, I, 494) maintains, or bore the name de Navis, as Clement V refers to him in several bulls, he was probably of Lombard origin. He entered the convent of Bologna in 1267 and studied in Milan. After twenty-four years spent teaching philosophy and theology in Bologna, and after serving as Provincial of Greece, he attended the General Chapter of Toulouse in 1304, though not as a definitor, and was elected Master General of the Order on 10 May. At that time, the Order comprised 18 provinces, over 50 distinguished professors, 150 bishops, 3 cardinals, and even the Pope, the Blessed Benedict XI, who had been a fellow student of Aimeric. However, Benedict XI died shortly after the election of the new Master General, on 7 July 1304.
Aimeric presided over the General Chapters of Toulouse (1304), Genoa (1305), Paris (1306), Strasbourg (1307), Padua (1308), Saragossa (1309), Piacenza (1310), and Naples (1311). A career professor, he promoted studies by imposing examinations and approval for professors, the teaching of St. Thomas, vacations for lecturers, and care for books and libraries. He brought a large Hebrew Bible to the Dominicans of Bologna. He supported Dominican writers such as Theodoric of Saxony, as well as non-Dominican authors like the Bolognese Pietro Crescenzi and others. He ordered that religious remain permanently in their convents and forbade them from traveling to the papal curia in France without permission. He worked to enforce regular discipline, especially in Bohemia, where he appointed the Provincial of Saxony, Eckhard, as vicar, as well as in Greece and Sicily.
His stance in the affair of the Templars is well known. After Clement V ordered Aimeric, who was in Saragossa, to investigate them, neither Aimeric nor the other Dominican inquisitors in Spain, Germany, and Italy were able to be convinced of the crimes alleged against the Templars. The invitation to Aimeric to attend the Council of Vienne also included the exhortation to gather testimonies against the Templars to be used by the synod fathers. To avoid going to France, the Pope, and the Council,
Aimeric went to Naples, where he had convened the General Chapter (30 May 1311), after which he voluntarily resigned from the governance of the Order. As a simple religious, he chose Bologna as his place of residence, where he died on 19 August 1327. His letters to the Order are exhortations to humility, joyful obedience, contemplation, and reverence toward prelates.