GIOVANNI de READING. - Franciscan theologian of the 14th century. He taught at Oxford no earlier than 1319, then moved to Avignon, perhaps to teach in the Franciscan Studium generale there. He was there in 1323: indeed, his name appears among the theologians consulted by Giovanni XXII before the publication of the decretal Antiquae concertationi (1 Dec. 1323).
He wrote a commentary on the Sentences, preserved in codex Conv. Sopr. D. 4. 95 of the Biblioteca nazionale di Firenze, which, however, stops at distinction 5 of Book I. It is thought to have been completed during his stay in Avignon, since the author cites Giovanni da Thornton and Riccardo de Drayton, his successors in the Oxford chair, and criticizes the nominalist movement begun by G. Ockam around 1318–20, and by Pietro Aureolo. He knew G. Duns Scoto personally and reports his oral authority: Aliquando mihi dixit; and perhaps he was close to him as a scribe or secretary.