BADUER (BADUARIO) of PERAGA, BONAVENTURA, Blessed. - Born in Padua into a noble family on 22 June 1332, died in Rome on 10 June 1389. He entered the Augustinian Hermits at the convent in Padua; he obtained his academic degrees in Paris and there he was also a master, probably towards the end of 1362. In 1364 he was called to Bologna to establish that theological college and draft the statutes of the faculty; he was in Padua in April 1368 as a professor of sacred Scripture. He had friendly relations with Francesco Petrarca, who proclaimed him “the ornament of Padua”; and when the latter died (1374) it was Fr Bonaventura who delivered the funeral oration.
On 17 May 1377 at the Chapter in Verona he was elected Prior General of the Order, and on 18 September following Urban VI created him cardinal. He was a convinced supporter of Urban, who around 1380 entrusted to him and two other cardinals the task of compiling laws to give a unified direction to theological studies in the Italian universities. B., who in 1375 had been sent as papal legate to Hungary, was sent by Urban VI to Poland. He met a violent death, but the circumstances are unknown.
Besides the funeral oration for Petrarca, which was printed only in 1836, his theological works are remembered: Commentaria in quattuor libros Sententiarum (printed in Nuremberg in 1479 and 1491), Tractatus de Immaculata Conceptione B. M. V., commentaries on the Epistles of St James and St John; ascetical works: Meditationes devotae in vitam Christi (Nuremberg 1472); Speculum b. Mariae Virginis (Augsburg and Strasbourg 1476); Sermones de Tempore (Zwolle, The Hague 1479) and other Sermones still in manuscript. Some of his works were printed among those of St Bonaventure.