FIDELE of FANNA. - Franciscan friar, born at Fanna in Friuli on 24 Dec. 1838, died at Quaracchi on 12 Aug. 1881. He was the originator and most active collaborator in the critical edition of the works of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. The preparatory work lasted ten years (1870–80), during which Fr. F. visited the principal libraries of Europe, collecting valuable material, as is evident from the 21 autograph registers (ms. Bibl. of Quaracchi).
Associated with various collaborators, he established himself in an old villa of the Rucellai at Quaracchi (Florence), where the International College of St. Bonaventure took shape, with scientific fidelity. Consumed by the task and the immense labour, he died without having seen the work in print; it was completed in the institute’s own printing press in the years 1882–1902. The guiding principles of the critical edition were set forth by him in the Ratio novae collectionis operum omnium sive editorum sive anecdotorum phici Ecc. doctoris sancti Bonaventurae (Turin 1874), while in other works he expounded the doctrine of St. Bonaventure: Commentarium in Breviloquium (ms. Bibl. of Quaracchi); Seraphici doctoris Bonaventurae doctrina de Romani pontificis primatu et infallibilitate (Turin 1870); De ratione cognoscendi seu utrum quidquid certitudinabiliter cognoscitur a nobis cognoscatur in rationibus aeternis (ibid. 1874).