GIOVANNI di SAN GIMIGNANO. — Dominican preacher and writer, born ca. 1260–70, died after 6 May 1333. A Dominican in the convent of Siena, in 1300 lector at Arezzo, in 1305 at the Minerva in Rome, and subsequently (1310–13) prior at Siena, elected (1310) companion to the definitor for the General Chapter of 1311, G. took care of the theological studies and of the fraternity of the Virgin and of s. Domenico of his convent and received various donations for it (1318, 1325). Finally, he established a foundation at S. Gimignano. To his work of doctrinal instruction and preaching he added fruitful activity as a writer, carefully studied by Dondaine.
His works are: Sermones dominicales de epistolis et evangelis per totum annum, 132 sermons from 1300 to 1310; Sermones de adventu, de operibus sex dierum, from 1300 to 1310, in 2 collections printed by Pietro de Tardito at Paris in 1512; Quadragesimale, from 1304 to 1314 (printed at Paris in 1511, Venice in 1548, Cologne in 1612); *Expositiones epistolarum et prophetiarum totius quadra-
geismae, from 1304 to 1314; Sermones de sanctis per totum annum secundum officium Ord. Praedicatorum, 134 sermons from 1323 to 1327, preached in the vernacular; Sermones de mortuis, from 1300 to 1310; Liber de exemplis et similitudinibus rerum, from 1300 to 1310, G.’s most celebrated and widespread work, sometimes attributed to Elvico Teutonico (printed at Deventer in 1477, Venice in 1484, Basel in 1499, Antwerp in 1583 and seven other times, Lyon in 1585); Legenda sanctae Finae (published in Acta SS. Martii, II, Paris 1865, pp. 232–38 and in various adaptations printed at Florence from 1598 to 1919) and Legenda de vita et obitu b. Petri de Folgineo (published in part in Acta SS. Iulii, IV, Paris 1868, pp. 665–68, and the conclusion in Analecta Bolland*, 8 [1889], pp. 365–69).