BETTINI (BERTIERI), ANTONIO. — Jesuat bishop, born in Siena in June 1396, died there on 22 October 1487. He earned a doctorate in canon law at Siena and taught there. In 1439 he entered the Jesuat order at the convent of San Gerolamo. Sent to Rome, he obtained from Niccolò V favors for his Order, important missions to the Council of Mantua, the office of nuncio to Francesco Sforza in Milan, and that of general collector for Lombardy. Pius II appointed him grand penitentiary of Italy in 1459 and bishop of Foligno in 1461.
In Foligno he founded the second «Monte di Pietà» in Italy, brought all the city’s hospitals together in that of S. Giovanni, secured exemption of the clergy from the payment of taxes, welcomed the Jesuats, reformed the administration of ecclesiastical property, and established a confraternity among the priests of his Cathedral. During lengthy absences, which left the diocese entrusted to vicars dissatisfied, he was successively, in 1465, at the abbeys of Chiaravalle near Milan and Settimo near Florence, in order to reform them. Siena sent him as ambassador twice: in 1466 to negotiate an alliance with the duke of Milan, and in 1482 to the emperor Frederick III. In 1485 he resigned his see (although the resignation was accepted in 1486) and retired to Siena; he died there, in a reputation for sanctity, at the age of 91 in the convent of S. Girolamo.
His ascetic and mystical literary activity is noteworthy. His works include: De divina preordinazione vitae et mortis humanae ([Firenze] 1480 according to J. G. Th. Graesse); Il Monte santo di Dio, Firenze 1477, with drawings by Sandro Botticelli and engravings perhaps by Baccio Baldini. Posthumous works, republished several times: Della presenza di Dio; Esposizione della domenicale orazione.