AIMERICO di PIACENZA. — Twelfth master general of the Dominicans. Whether he was descended from the Giliani family, as Echard maintains (Script. Ord. Praed., I, 494), or was called de Navis, as Clement V writes in several bulls, he was probably of Lombard origin. Having entered the convent of Bologna in 1267, he studied at Milan. After 24 years spent teaching philosophy and theology at Bologna, and after having been provincial of Greece, he was present at the general chapter of Toulouse in 1304, though not as a definitor, and was elected master general of the Order on 1 May. The Order then numbered 18 provinces, more than 50 distinguished professors, 150 bishops, 3 cardinals, and even the pope, the blessed Benedict XI, who had previously been A.’s fellow student. Benedict XI, however, died shortly after the election of the new general, on 7 July 1304.
A. 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 requiring the examination and approval of professors, the teaching of St. Thomas, leave for lecturers, and care for books and libraries. For the Dominicans of Bologna he procured a large Hebrew Bible. He favored Dominican writers, such as Theodoric of Saxony, and non-Dominicans, such as the Bolognese Pietro Crescenzi and others, in their work. He ordered that the religious remain permanently in the convents and prohibited them from going without permission to the papal curia, then in France. He worked for regular discipline, especially in Bohemia, where he appointed the provincial of Saxony, Eckard, as vicar, as well as in Greece and Sicily.
His attitude in the affair of the Templars was famous, after Clement V ordered A., who was staying in Saragossa, to conduct an inquiry concerning them. Neither A. nor the other Dominican inquisitors of Spain, Germany, and Italy succeeded in convincing themselves of the crimes attributed to the Templars. The invitation to A. to go to the Council of Vienne also contained an exhortation to gather testimony against the Templars, so that it might serve the synod fathers. To avoid France, the Pope and the Council,
A. went to Naples, where he had convoked the general chapter (30 May 1311), after which he voluntarily resigned the governance of the Order. As his place of residence as a simple religious he chose Bologna, where he died on 19 Aug. 1327. His letters addressed to the Order are exhortations to humility, joyful obedience, contemplation, and reverence toward prelates.