AIMERIC OF PIACENZA. - Twelfth master general of the Dominicans. Whether he was a descendant of 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 in Milan. After 24 years spent teaching philosophy and theology at Bologna, and after having been provincial of Greece, he found himself at the general chapter of Toulouse in 1304, but not as a definitor, and was elected master general of the Order on 1 May. The Order then counted 18 provinces, more than 50 distinguished professors, 150 bishops, 3 cardinals and even the pope, Blessed Benedict XI, formerly a fellow student of A. However, Benedict XI 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 imposing the examination and approval of professors, the teaching of St. Thomas, vacations for lecturers, and care for books and libraries. To the Dominicans of Bologna he brought a great Hebrew Bible. He favored in their labors Dominican writers, such as Theodoric of Saxony, and non-Dominicans, such as the Bolognese Pietro Crescenzi and others. He ordained that the religious should remain permanently in the convents and forbade them to go without permission to the papal curia, then in France. He worked for regular discipline, especially in Bohemia, where he installed the provincial of Saxony, Eccard, as vicar, in Greece and in Sicily.
Famous was his attitude in the affair of the Templars, after Clement V ordered A., who was at Saragossa, to inquire into them. Neither A. nor the other Dominican inquisitors of Spain, Germany and Italy managed to convince themselves of the crimes charged to the Templars. The invitation to A. to go to the Council of Vienne also contained the exhortation to gather testimony against the Templars, so that it might serve the council fathers. In order 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 spontaneously resigned from the government of the Order. As a place of residence as a simple religious he chose Bologna, where he died on 19 Aug. 1327. His epistles addressed to the Order are exhortations to humility, to joyful obedience, to contemplation, to reverence toward prelates.