BERNARDO da BESSA (BESSE). - Franciscan of the 13th century, travel companion and secretary of St. Bonaventure, from whose examples and doctrine he drew inspiration in his life and in his historical and ascetic writings on religious discipline, very prudent and balanced, which he left to his confreres. He belonged to the province of Aquitaine and was custos of Cahors, where he probably died between 1300 and 1304.

He wrote: Liber de laudibus b. Francisci, on the life of the Seraphic [Father] and of the first companions (ed. by Fr. Ilarino da Lucerna, Rome 1897; and in Anal. Francisc., 3 (1897), pp. 600-710), with its continuation in the Chronica Ministrorum Gen. O. Min. (part 1, up to ca. 1297 or 1304); a lost treatise De proposito Regulae against the zealots, and, with the same moderation and under Bonaventuran influence, the famous Speculum disciplinae, for Franciscan novices, formerly attributed to the Seraphic Doctor (ed. in Opera omnia s. Bonaventurae, VIII, Quaracchi 1898, pp. 583-623).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: L. Wadding, Annales Min., ad an. 1278, n. 31; I. H. Sbaralea, Suppl. ad Script. Ord. Min., I, Rome 1908, pp. 141-42; Anal. Franc., 3 (1897), pp. 1 ff., 161 ff., 377 ff., 680 ff.; Jean de Dieu, s. v. in DSp, 1 (1937), coll. 1304-1305 (with examination of the works).

Lorenzo Di Fonzo

@incollection{ec2_bernardo_da_bessa_besse, author = {Di, Fonzo Lorenzo}, title = {Bernardo da Bessa (Besse)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1422}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/bernardo-da-bessa-besse} }

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