BETTINI (BERTIERI), ANTONIO. - Bishop and member of the Jesuati, b. at Siena in June 1396, d. there on 22 Oct. 1487. At Siena he received his doctorate in canon law and taught. In 1439 he entered the Jesuati at the convent of San Gerolamo. Sent to Rome, he obtained favors for his Order from Nicholas V, important missions to the Council of Mantua, the office of nuncio to Francesco Sforza at Milan and of collector general of Lombardy. He was appointed by Pius II grand penitentiary of Italy in 1459 and in 1461 bishop of Foligno.
At Foligno he founded the second "Monte di Pietà" in Italy, united all the city's hospitals into that of S. Giovanni, had the clergy exempted from the payment of taxes, welcomed the Jesuati, reformed the administration of ecclesiastical property and erected a confraternity among the priests of his Cathedral. During long absences, for which he made the diocese, entrusted to vicars, discontented, he was successively in 1465, in order to reform them, at the abbeys of Chiaravalle near Milan and of Settimo near Florence. Siena twice sent him as ambassador, in 1466 for an alliance with the duke of Milan and in 1482 to the emperor Frederick III. In 1485 he renounced his see (but the resignation was accepted in 1486) and retired to Siena; there he died in the odor of sanctity at the age of 91 in the convent of S. Girolamo.
His ascetic and mystical literary activity is noteworthy. His works: De divina preordinazione vitae et mortis humanae ([Florence] 1480 according to J. G. Th. Graesse); Il Monte santo di Dio, Florence 1477, with drawings by Sandro Botticelli and engravings perhaps by Baccio Baldini. Posthumous works reprinted several times: Della presenza di Dio; Esposizione della domenicale orazione.
Bibliography4 works
Benvenuto Matteucci