BONAVENTURA DI PERAGA, blessed. – Of the family of the counts of Peraga, from whose Roman stock descended the Badoer of Padua (and he himself was called
di Padova), an Augustinian, born in Padua on 26 June 1332, died in Rome, probably on 29 July 1385.
At the behest of Innocenzo VI, he founded the theological faculty of Bologna. Elected prior general in 1337, during the Great Schism he sided with Urbano VI, who created him cardinal deacon of the title of S. Cecilia on 28 Sept. 1378. As legate to Poland, he blessed the marriage of King Ladislao and greatly strengthened Urbano’s party there. As nuncio to Hungary, he reconciled King Sigismondo with his people. Having returned to Italy, he drew up, together with a cardinalitial commission, the statutes of the theological faculties. He was murdered while on his way to S. Pietro, by assassins sent by the tyrant of Padua, Francesco da Carrara, his relative, who did not forgive him for opposing his attempts to violate the immunities of the clergy. He was buried in S. Agostino. The title of blessed, recognized for him within the Order, has not yet been sanctioned by the Church.
A correspondent and friend of Petrarca, from whom, on the occasion of a brother’s death, he received a consolatory epistle and whose funeral eulogy he delivered at Arquà, he enjoyed the deferential and fervent esteem of s. Caterina da Siena, who urged the Pontiff to make him a cardinal. B. di P. was the author of numerous ascetic writings that circulated under the name of s. Bonaventura da Bagnorea: among them the Meditationes devotae in vitam Christi, which in their time exercised wide influence upon religious feeling.
Pier Fausto Palumbo