SANSONE, FRANCESCO. - Franciscan theologian, born in Brescia in 1414 to Nannis (Joannis), a father of Sienese origin; died in Florence on 26 October 1499.
He entered the Franciscans at Siena and held various offices in the Order: in 1469 he was provincial minister of the Holy Land, in 1470 of Tuscany, inquisitor at Siena, and in 1475 minister general of the Order. On 1 December 1483 he was appointed counsellor of the Empire by Federico III. At the convent of Siena he had two cloisters built, and three at that of Brescia, in addition to the sacristy; at S. Francesco in Piacenza (1471) he erected a great monument to Master Francesco Maironi, known as the Illuminato. General for twenty-four years, he worked for the discipline and organization of the Order, drafting the Constitutiones pro reformatione provinciae Marchiae, promulgated on 13 October 1478, and the Ordinationes for the entire Order (General Chapter of Casale, 1485). He promoted and protected the expansion of the Observant movement. In a disputation held in Rome on the Immaculate Conception in 1477 before Sisto IV, he so effectively refuted the objections of his adversaries that he was called S. by the Pope.
Among his writings are remembered: the Quaestiones super octo libros physicorum, which Wadding erroneously believed to be an incomplete work, and which was published under the title Recollectae in forma quaestionum (Venice, 1496); and, according to Papini, the Commentaria super Ethicum Aristotelis.