BARTHOLOMEW (CORDONI) of Castello. — Franciscan ascetical writer, born in Città di Castello to the Cordoni family in 1471; he was a pupil of Poliziano in Florence; after the death of his wife, he entered the Observant Friars Minor at Santa Maria degli Angeli (Assisi) in 1504, and there, as later in Perugia, he formed a small school of spirituality, writing for his disciples the famous treatise *De unione animae cum superemineni lumine*. Sent as a missionary to Africa, he carried out extensive apostolic work among the Moors and suffered greatly for the faith (1534); he died in Mauretania on 9 April 1535. Proclaimed “Blessed” by popular acclaim.
The doctrine expounded in his treatise *De unione animae*, written in the form of a dialogue between God (divine love), the soul, and reason, is particularly inspired by St. Bonaventure, Bertino da Casale, and Jacopone da Todi; yet it is also strongly personal, in some points rather advanced. In three parts, B. treats of divine love, the various ways (paths) and exercises for acquiring II. The work, half in Italian and half in Latin, was published in Perugia in 1538 by one of B.’s disciples; after the second edition of Milan in 1539 (edited by Fr. Girolamo da Molfetta, who had passed from the Observants to the Capuchins and then to Calvinism), it was placed on the Index (1584 and 1600).