Badoer (Baduario) da Peràga, Bonaventura, Blessed

BADOER (Baduario) da Peràga, Bonaventura, Blessed. - Born in Padua on 22 June 1332 to a noble family, died in Rome on 10 June 1389. He entered the Hermits of St. Augustine in the convent of Padua; he obtained his academic degrees in Paris and was probably also a master there toward the end of 1362. In 1364 he was called to Bologna to establish that theological college and to compile the statutes of the faculty; he was in Padua in April 1368 as "professor of sacred page." He had ties of friendship with Francesco Petrarch, who proclaimed him "ornament of Padua"; and when the latter died (1374) it was Friar B. who delivered the funeral eulogy. On 17 May 1377 in the Chapter of Verona he was elected prior general of the Order, and on the following 18 September Urban VI created him cardinal. He was a convinced supporter of Urban, who around 1380 entrusted to him and to two other cardinals the task of compiling the laws to give a single 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 died a violent death, but we do not know the circumstances.

Besides the funeral oration for Petrarch, which was printed only in 1836, there are remembered of him theological works: Commentaria in quattuor libros sententiarum (printed in Nuremberg in 1479 and in 1491), Tractatus de Immaculata Conceptione B. M. V., commentaries on the letters 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, Hagenau 1479) and other Sermones that remained in manuscript. Some of his works were printed among those of St. Bonaventure.

Pio Paschini