BONAGRAZIA of Bergamo. — Francesco, probably born in Bergamo (born Buoncorlese), entered the Franciscan friars as a lay brother shortly before 1310 and died on 19 June 1340.
A doctor of both civil and canon law, he was highly learned and an excellent controversialist. As the dispute between the Spirituals and the Community Friars over the literal observance of the Rule of St Francis—excluding any papal declaration—intensified, the Community Friars entrusted him, though still almost a novice in religious life, with the task of defending their principles against the Spirituals, Ubertino da Casale (v.) before the papal court of Avignon (1309–12). To this end, he composed several writings, the most notable of which is titled *Articuli probationum contra fratrem Ubertinum de Casali*, composed toward the end of the controversy, ca. 1319 (ed. Baluze-Mansi, *Miscellanea*, II, Lucca 1761, pp. 271–79). When Clement V exempted the Spirituals from the jurisdiction of the Order, B. publicly and vigorously protested against this exemption. For this act, he was imprisoned and exiled to a convent (31 July 1312). After the pope’s death in 1314, B. escaped from exile and continued to advocate the cause of the Community against the Spirituals before Pope John XXII. He also intervened in the trial against Bernard Délicieux (v.).
When the controversy over the poverty of Christ and the Apostles began, B. published (in 1322) his *Tractatus de paupertate Christi et Apostolorum* (cf. L. Oliger in *Arch. Franc. Hist.*, 22 [1929], pp. 317–85, 487–511), in which he maintained that “it is heretical to assert that Christ and the Apostles possessed anything either in particular or in common.” John XXII, indignant at B. and at the decisions of the Franciscan general chapter of Perugia at Pentecost 1322, issued the bull *Ad conditorem canonum*, by which he renounced the ownership by the Holy See of the goods held in the name of the Franciscan Order.
As procurator elected by the Order, B. protested in a public consistory against the papal decision (14 January 1323) in his *Appellatio Bonagratiae contra bullam «Ad conditorem canonum»* presented to the papal consistory (ed. Eubel in *Bullarium francisc.*, 5 [1898], pp. 237–46, n.). For this protest, he was imprisoned again, and when on 12 November 1323 the pope issued the bull *Cum inter nonnullos*, which declared heretical the doctrine of the supporters of the absolute poverty of Christ and His Apostles (Denz.-U., 294), B. outwardly pretended to submit but, Michele da Cesena (v.) and William of Ockham (v.), prepared his escape from Avignon to Pisa under the protection of Louis the Bavarian (26 May 1328). Struck by papal excommunication, he moved under Louis’s protection from Pisa to Munich (1330), where he lived until his death, actively and with heretical spirit, opposing the pope and the Franciscan Order that had disowned him.
He sided with the antipope Nicholas V and died without having reconciled himself with the Church and the Order.
The list of his numerous polemical and canonical works is given by L. Oliger: *Fr. Bonagratia da Bergamo et eius Tractatus de Christi et apostolorum paupertate* (in *Arch. Franc. Hist.*, 22 [1929], pp. 304–17). The more notable among them, besides those already cited, are the following: among his many polemical works, the *Protestatio... contra exemptionem Spiritualibus concessam et denuntiatio doctrinae fr. Petri Ioannis Olivi* (March 1311, ed. by F. Ehrle in *Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte*, 2 [1886], pp. 365–74); the *Clypeus*, in defense of Michele da Cesena (ed. by A. Mercati in *Arch. Fr. Hist.*, 20 [1927], pp. 271–74, 289–91); the *Appellatio contra Ioannis XXII errores de visione beatifica*, unpublished, composed in Munich on 10 April 1332; and the *Consilium Bonagratiae de iuramento Ludovico Bavaro non oboediendo*, composed ca. 1338. Among his canonical works should be mentioned the *Casus papales et episcopales cum explanatione praedictorum*, preserved in ms. 645 of the municipal library of Assisi.