GIOVANNI di MURRO. – Franciscan theologian and cardinal, born to the Minio (not Mincio) family at Morrovalle (Macerata), died at Avignon in 1312. At Paris he obtained the licentiate (1288) and doctorate (1289) in theology. He was appointed by Niccolò IV master of the Apostolic Sacred Palace (1291). At Anagni in 1296 he was elected, in the presence of Bonifacio VIII, minister general of the Order.
During his government (1296–1304) he received St. Lodovico, bishop of Toulouse, into the Order. In 1302 Bonifacio VIII made him cardinal and bishop of Porto and S. Rufina, as a reward for the successful outcome of a peace mission (1297–98) that he had undertaken in Flanders. At the Council of Vienne he defended the legitimacy of Bonifacio VIII’s election, whom Filippo il Bello wished to have removed from the list of legitimate popes. Of his literary activity there remain two collections of sermones, several theological pamphlets, 12 quaestiones disputatae, a Quodlibet, composed during his regency of the Franciscan studium at Paris (1289–90), and a controversial commentary on the Sentences. Of particular value is the encyclical letter Inter coelestium insignia (in Analecta Franciscana, 2 [1887], pp. 109–11), in defense of poverty, addressed to the Order from Genoa in 1302.