RAIMONDO DA CAPUA, blessed. — The blessed R. in the act of writing, fresco by F. Vanni (1563–1619) — Siena, church of S. Caterina, chapel of S. Caterina.
G. Heidenberg of Trittenheim (Trithemius, d. in 1517), G. Genebrard (d. in 1597), and other authors believed that the Idiota lived in the 9th–10th centuries; but it is now certain that he was still alive in 1381. His real name and his age were discovered by the Jesuit Teofilo Raynaud (d. in 1663), who was thus able to republish all the works of the Idiota under his real name in three successive editions: Lyon 1632 and 1638; Paris 1654.
BIBL.: R. Bellarmino, De scriptoribus ecclesiast., Lyon 1663, pp. 349–50; T. Raynaud, De Raymondo Jordano, in Opera omnia, XI, there 1663, pp. 37–66; P. Pourrat, La spiritualité chrétienne, II, Paris 1939, pp. 461–39; E. Piovesan, Un mistico ignoto del XIV sec. R. Iordanus, detto «l'Idiota», in Vita cristiana, 17 (1948), pp. 335–49, 420–39.