ELIJAH OF CORTONA. - Minister general of the Friars Minor, b. at Assisi or its vicinity ca. 1180, called "of Cortona" from the place of his death. Having entered the Minorites, he was soon held in great esteem by the Founder, who chose him as minister of the nascent Franciscan province of Syria from 1217 to 1220, where he founded residences and organized the apostolate among Christians and Muslims. After accompanying St. Francis on the visit to the Holy Places, he returned with him to Italy in the spring of 1221 and, upon the death of Pietro Catani (10 March 1221), was chosen by the Saint to succeed him as vicar, an office he held until 1227, earning from the dying Poverello (1226) a
(per corsista di morte A. P. Fratte)
ELIA of CORTONA
Friar E., painted by Dono Doni (16th cent.).
Assisi, S. Convento.
special blessing. After the death of St. Francis, he took part in the General Chapter of 1227, in which Giovanni Parenti was elected as the first minister general of the Order.
By commission of Gregory IX he presided over the construction of the basilica of Assisi, of which the Pontiff laid the first stone on 17 July 1228; in 1230 the lower church was already completed, and on the occasion of the General Chapter of Pentecost the new temple was inaugurated and the body of the Seraphic Father was transferred there. The partisans of E. attempted, without success, to restore him by force to the head of the Order. With the support of Gregory IX he was elected minister general (1232).
During his government E. gave great impetus to the missions among the infidels, strove for the union of the Greeks with the Roman Church and especially promoted the studies of the Order. Held in great esteem for his qualities, a friend of the Emperor and of the Pope, he was sent by the latter in 1258 as ambassador to Frederick II. However, many and grave defects stained his conduct, especially because of his despotic government, which disturbed the tranquillity of the Order, particularly displeasing the priests and the learned, who succeeded, in 1230, in having him deposed by Gregory IX and having Alberto da Pisa elected in his place. Having retired to Assisi, then to Cortona, where in 1245 he built a church and a convent in honor of St. Francis, he later took the side of the excommunicated Frederick II and was himself excommunicated by Gregory IX in 1240 and again later by Innocent IV in 1244. In that year E. went to Nicaea and to Constantinople as ambassador of Frederick II. The minister general Giovanni da Parma (1247-57) attempted to bring E. back to the Order, but he refused for fear of just punishment. Toward Easter of 1253 he fell ill at Cortona and, exhorted by his friend Buono, prior of the abbey of S. Bartolomeo at Cegliolo, to repent of the evil he had done and of the apostasy from the Order. E. did so willingly and, having received absolution from the censure from Bencio, archpriest of Cortona, and the last Sacraments from the confrtelli, he died on 22 April of the same year. He was buried here in the church of St. Francis. Certain treatises on alchemy were attributed to him.
Bibliography4 works
Studies: I. ARB, Vita di frate E., Parma 1783, 3rd ed., ibid. 1819; it is the first modern critical biography; E. Lempp, Frère E. de Cortone, Paris 1901; P. Sabatier, Examen de la vie de fr. E. de Spessium vitae minis de trois fragments inédits (Opuscules de critique historique, 9), Paris 1904; G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell'Oriente francescano, I. Quaracchi 1906, pp. 106-17; D. Spasacio, Fr. E. compagno vicario e successore di s. Francesco, Milan 1923; L. Mirri, Fr. E. de Cortona, in Miscellanea Francescana, 31 (1931), pp. 86-93, 175-87, 233-43; S. Attal, Fr. E. compagno di s. Francesco, Rome 1936; it is the most recent work, but has little critical value.
Riccardo Pratesi