SECUSIO, BONAVENTURA. — Friar Minor, patriarch of Constantinople and nuncio, born at Caltagirone ca. 1558, died at Catania on 29 March 1618.
Admired for his learning and eloquence, he was visitor of the diocese of Palermo (1586). Elected minister general at Valladolid (5 June 1593), he governed the Order for seven years; he promoted studies, attended to discipline, promulgated the Vallisoletan Constitutions, and promoted reform everywhere, especially in France and Belgium. He also rendered great services to the cause of peace between Spain and France. Clement VIII sent him to the courts of Madrid and Paris, and there, alongside Cardinal A. de’ Medici, he worked tirelessly for concord between the two kingdoms, until the Treaty of Vervins was signed (2 May 1598). Elected patriarch of Constantinople (10 March 1599), he was appointed extraordinary nuncio to France to settle the disputes between France and Savoy over the Marquisate of Saluzzo. The negotiations conducted through his mediation and signed in Paris on 27 February 1600, interrupted by subsequent difficulties, were definitively concluded with Cardinal P. Aldobrandini, legate, in the Peace of Lyons on 17 January 1601. Through the intervention of Philip III of Spain, he was appointed bishop of Patti (30 April 1601), then transferred to Messina (17 August 1605) and subsequently to Catania (10 June 1609), where he died.
He wrote: Pacis inter Philippum II Hispaniarum et Henricum IV Galliarum reges historia and Constitutiones sinodales ecclesiae Catamensis.