ANTONIO da BITONTO. – Famous Franciscan theologian and preacher, he died on 25 September 1459 at Atella in Puglia, where he had been provincial vicar of the Observants. From 1440 he taught theology in the convents of Ferrara, Bologna, and Mantua. In 1454, Callistus III sent him to preach the crusade against the Turks. While preaching Lent in Naples in 1453, he incurred the indignation of Lorenzo Valla (cf. Antidotum in Poggium, I, VI). For his Commentary on the Sentences of Lombard (Venice 1494; reprinted several times), he was solemnly created master of theology by Nicholas V.
His other works are an echo of his extremely active preaching (the edition was largely prepared by his confrère Filippo di Rothingen): Sermones in omnes epistolas quadragesimales (Venice 1496); Sermones quadragesimales de vitis (there 1499); Expositio mystica evangeliorum dominicalium (there 1496); Sermones Dominicales (there 1492, Strasbourg 1495 ff.); Quaestiones scholasticae theologicae in Epistolas et Evangelia totius anni, tam de tempore quam de sanctis, published together with the Postilla of Nicola Lirano (Ferrara 1490). His other writings have remained unpublished: Summa casuum conscientiae, perhaps identical with his Speculum animae; Sermones super epistolas dominicales per totum annum; De Privilegiis Sanctorum; B. Bernardini Seneusis Sermones breviores facti. He also composed, in the vernacular,
several religious poems, such as I Believe in God, Most High Creator.