BONAVENTURA DA COCCAGLIO

BONAVENTURA da Coccaglio. — Capuchin preacher, born Paolo Bianchi, of the ancient province of Brescia, b. 25 July 1713, d. 17 March 1778.

He carried out intense activity as a writer and polemicist; the use of anonymity and pseudonyms makes the attribution to him of the Italian translation of the works of the noted Fr. Norbert of Bar-le-Duc or of Lorraine (or Abbot Platel, or Pierre Curel Parisot) questionable. He prepared an improved and annotated edition (Instituta moralia, 2 vols., 1st ed. Milan 1760, 2nd ed. ibid. 1765, 3rd ed. ibid. 1771–72) of the moral theology text by Fr. Paolo of Lyons, following the probabiliorist system; in the controversies on Grace he was Augustinian and summarized in Italian the history of the De auxiliis (Brescia 1771) by Fr. Giacinto Serry, O.P.; his Life of the Blessed Lorenzo of Brindisi had various editions (the latest in Rome and Venice 1783) and abridgments.

BIBL.: V. BONAGRAZIA DA BERGAMO, I conventi ed i Cappuccini bisciani, Milan 1891, pp. 361–68; A. Teetaert, s. V. in DHG, IX, cols. 794–96; Ilario da Milano, Biblioteca dei Frati Min. Cappuccini di Lombardia, Florence 1937, pp. 78–85; Melchior a Pobladura, Huit generali Ord. Fratrum Min. Capuc., part 2, I, Rome 1948, pp. 351, 361, 367–70.