MARCO DA BOLOGNA, Blessed. - Born in Bologna to the senatorial Fantuzzi family ca. 1405, died at Piacenza on 10 April 1479. He studied at Bologna, where at the age of 27 he entered the Observant Friars Minor. He was a disciple of the blessed Giacomo Primadizi and of St. Bernardino da Siena.
Endowed with particular gifts for government, he was vicar general of the Observants three times (1452-55; 1464-67; 1469-72), visited all the provinces of the Order and spread the Observance, defending it at Rome against the violent attacks of which it was the target. In 1464 he visited the Holy Land and the neighboring Franciscan missions. Through the office he held he was in contact with the most eminent Franciscans of the time, particularly with St. John of Capistrano and St. James of the March, and was greatly esteemed by the pontiffs Nicholas V, Callistus III, Pius II and Paul II, who in 1471 wished to raise him to the cardinalate, which he refused out of humility. The last years of his life were taken up with an intense apostolate, preaching in the principal cities of Italy and establishing Monti di Pietà for the benefit of the poor. His cult was approved by Pius IX in 1868. Feast on 10 April.
Bibliography2 works
Clary, Aureola serafica, I, Quaracchi 1898, pp. 791-805; B. Bughetti, Quo anno et die b. Marcus Fantuzzi de Bononia obierit, in Arch. francisc. histor. 2 (1909), pp. 537-47; P. Sevesi, Storia dell'Ordine francescano, I, Milano, 1942 v. index; cf. also Wadding, Annales, X-XV, passim.
Alberto Ghinato