BARTOLOMEO di RINONICO (or di PISA). — Friar Minor, born in Pisa, where he died around the year 1401. He was confused by Mariano da Firenze, Marco da Lisbona, Wadding, etc., with the Franciscan Bartolomeo Albisi; by others with the Dominican Bartolomeo da S. Concordio or with the Pisan physician Bartolomeo. B., already a friar in 1352, was a master in theology and an eminent preacher, and among his writings the De conformitate vitae b. Francisci ad vitam Domini Iesu, which he composed between 1385 and 1390, is celebrated.
The informative idea of the book, which B. perhaps drew from the Lignum vitae of St. Bonaventure or from a book that Salimbene claims (Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, p. 193) to have composed on the same subject, is to show how Christ made Francis like himself. It is therefore a glorification of grace rather than, as some would have it, an exaltation of the little poor man of Assisi. The treatment, divided into 40 Conformities and rich in erudition, is highly useful for Franciscan history, even though it is at times embellished with fanciful legends.
The De conformitate found a bitter adversary in Erasmo Alber’s Alcoranum Franciscanorum, with a preface by Luther, but had apologists, among them E. Sedulio. Printed in Milan in 1510 and in Bologna in 1599, it received a critical edition at Quaracchi. B. had many imitators, among them G. Oddi, Mariano da Firenze, Pelbarto da Temesvar, P. Alva y Astorga, V. Marce.
Many other works were attributed to B.; among those critically established as authentic are: De vita et laudibus B. Mariae Virginis libri sex (Venice 1596), which has many points of contact with his major work; Quadragesimale de contemptu mundi (Milan 1498); Sermones lucidissimi et insignes dubiorum et casuum conscientialium contemptivi et elucidati super evangelis quadragesimalibus (Lyons 1519).