MICHELE DA CESENA. – Friar Minor, born at Cesena ca. 1270, died at Monaco on 29 November 1342. Elected at Naples minister general of the Order (1316), while he was probably in Paris, where he was master of theology at the University, immediately after arriving in Italy he presided over the commission of 12 friars for the revision of the statutes of the Order (published in Arch. franc. hist., 4 [1911], pp. 276–307, 508–26). He then went to the Pontifical Curia at Avignon to urge Spirituals (v.) and succeeded in this, not without setting in motion the full rigor of the Inquisition against the most obstinate. His government seemed to be proving beneficial to the Order, since, as general, he concerned himself not only with discipline but also with studies and missions in the East.
However, while at the General Chapter of Perugia (1322) he wrote a petition to Giovanni XXII, asking him not to issue any new decision on the question of Christ’s poverty, he circulated with the chapter members a doctrinal declaration according to which it was not right to affirm that Christ and the Apostles had possessed no property, either privately or in common. With this thesis, by making poverty an absolute canon of virtue, he thought to consolidate the excellence of Franciscan poverty. The Pope’s contrary decisions were not accepted by part of the Order; but M. showed restraint, and at the General Chapter of 1325 he commanded his subjects to speak of the Church, the person of the Pontiff, and his Constitutions with due reverence and moderation. Nevertheless, and with good reason, Giovanni did not trust him, and in June 1327 ordered him to appear before him. He was forbidden to leave the city without the Pope’s special permission. M.’s open rebellion broke out after the bitter reprimands Giovanni XXII addressed to him in the Consistory of April 1328; the Pope also ordered that the Chapter of the Friars Minor, which was to convene at Bologna not under M.’s presidency but that of Cardinal Bertrando du Poujet, should elect another general. In a very strange turn of events, the chapter members reaffirmed their votes for M. But before learning the outcome, he fled Occam (v.) to Lodovico il Bavaro. Excommunicated on 6 June 1328, he took an active part in this sovereign’s struggle against the Pope. In 1330 he accompanied him to Monaco, where he once again published several invectives and protests filled with hatred against the Pontiff. Although expelled from the Order in 1331, he claimed to be minister general until his death, which overtook him unreconciled with the Church.