CLARENO, ANGELO

CLARENO, ANGELO. — Franciscan (more correctly A. da Chiarino, also called da Cingoli), spirituali (v.), born at Chiarino (Recanati; or at Fossombrone), died at S. Maria d’Aspro (Lucania) on 15 June 1337. Having entered the Order around 1270, he was soon involved in the repression of the spirituali and condemned with them to perpetual imprisonment; but, having been released (c. 1289), he was sent to Lesser Armenia (Cilicia). Returning to Italy in 1294, he fled with his followers to Greece (c. 1296).

Having returned to his homeland in 1305, he remained in the environs of Rome, then was in Avignon (1311–18), where in 1317 he was tried and acquitted. After the condemnation and excommunication of the spirituals, of whom C. had been the leader since 1307, by the bull Sancta Romana (30 Dec. 1317), and following the death of his protector, Cardinal Giacomo Colonna (12 Aug. 1318), he returned to Italy and, without submitting, continued to govern his followers while taking refuge at Subiaco. Feeling unsafe because of the activity of the Inquisition, in 1334 he withdrew to Lucania, where he died.

Venerated by his followers as a saint, and a friend of the b. Simone da Cascia, C. appears as a man of integrity and high ideals, but incapable of subordinating his ideas to superior commands, and not lacking a certain degree of learning, as his writings show. These are: 1) Historia septem tribulationum Ord. Min., that is, the history of the persecutions of the spirituals from the time of s. Francesco until around 1318: a reliable source for the period in which the author lived. A complete edition is lacking. An old Italian translation was published by L. Malagoli: Cronaca delle tribulazioni di A. C., Turin 1931. 2) Expositio regulae fratrum Minorum, ed. L. Oliger, Quaracchi 1912. 3) Epistola excusatoria ad papam (Giovanni XXII), published by Fl. Annibali da Latera: Ad Bullarium franciscanum supplementum, Rome 1780; Animadversiones, pp. 153–164. 4) Epistolario (1311–36), published in part by F. Ehrle, in Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte, 1 (Berlin 1885), pp. 543–69. 5) Praeparantia Christi Iesu habitationem... in nobis..., published by N. Mattioli, Il b. Simone Fidati da Cascia (Autologia agostiniana, II), Rome 1898, pp. 467–71. 6) Brevilogium super doctrina salutis ad parvulos Christi, ibid., pp. 471–87. Furthermore, he translated from Greek into Latin the Regola of s. Basilio, the Scala of Giovanni Climaco, and a Dialogo attributed to s. Macario; concerning these translations, cf. Expositio Regulae, ed. L. Oliger, pp. XXXIV–IV.