ALESSANDRO of BREMA. - Franciscan, author of a commentary on the Apocalypse. He was scholastic canon of the cathedral of Brema; he entered the Order of Friars Minor and remained a lay brother therein. He lived and died (1271) in the convent of Staden (Saxony); he is therefore also called A. da Staden.
His Commentary deserves attention because he appears to have been the first to apply the historical system to individual events in ecclesiastical history: thus, long before Pietro Aureoli and Nicola Lirano. Moreover, from chap. 20, 5 onward, he relates the visions of the Apocalisse to St. Francesco and St. Domenico and to the Orders founded by them. Eight manuscript codices of the Commentary are known, three of them richly illustrated.
BIBL.: A. Kleinhans, De Commentaria in Apocalypse Fr. Alexandri Bremensis, in Antonianum, 2 (1927), pp. 289-334; M. Huggler, Der Bilderkreis in den Handschriften der Alexander-Apokalypse, ibid., 9 (1934), pp. 85-150, 260-308; A. Wachtel, Die weltgeschichtliche Apokalypse-Auslegung des Minoriten Alexander von Bremen, in Franziskanische Studien, nos. 3 and 4, Werl in V. 1937. Arduino Kleinhans