BENIAMI, MASSIMIANO. – Theologian of the Order of Conventuals, born in Codogno in the Lodigiano region in the first half of the sixteenth century, died in Chioggia on March 10, 1601. He entered the Franciscan Order at the convent of Crema, where he had as his master Fr. Girelli, a philosopher and theologian of great renown, and was esteemed by St. Charles Borromeo, who appointed him provincial minister of Bologna (1570–73).
Doctor and master of theology and inquisitor against heresy, he took part in the Council of Trent, where on December 7, 1561, he delivered his oration *Quam bene sperandum de summa Dei benignitate et providentia* (ed. Padua 1562). Sixtus V appointed him bishop of Chioggia on September 9, 1585.
BIBL.: P. Ridolfi da Tossignano, *Histor. Seraph. Relig.*, Venice 1586, ff. 273, 320; G. Franchini, *Bibliosofia di scrit. Francesc. Conu.*, Modena 1693, p. 431; L. Wadding, *Script. Ord. Min.*, 2nd ed., Rome 1906, p. 173; I. H. Sbaralea, *Suppl. Script. Ord. Min.*, II, ibid. 1908, pp. 244–45; I. Abate, *Series Epp. O. F. M. Conu.*, in *Miscell. francesc.*, 31 (1931), p. 109. Giovanni Odoradi