TELESFORO di COSENZA. — An enigmatic writer, who occupies a notable place in the pseudo-prophetic literature that claimed to draw upon the authority of Gioacchino da Fiore, on account of his De statu Ecclesiae et de tribulationibus futuris, written between 1356 and 1365. Abbreviated and better arranged by a certain Fra' Rusticano (who composed the dedicatory letter to Antonio Adorno, doge of Genoa, on 3 September 1386), it was printed in Venice in 1516.
The book presents itself from the outset as the work of T. di C., “a learned and holy priest and hermit,” who lived “near the city of Thebes (their land called Luzzi),” as D. Martire puts II. T. is said to have “summarized the books of Cirillo and Gioacchino, the histories written by the archbishop Luca of Cosenza, and others.” He is also said to have written another book of histories and the life of the blessed Gioacchino, and to have died at Luzzi, probably in the celebrated monastery of Sambucina. In reality, the De statu Eccl. is a florilegium; “the prophecy reflects a nationalist tendency concerning the extinction of the schism that began after the election of Urban VI” (P. Paschini). E. Donckel, followed by P. Paschini, asserts the historicity of the above-mentioned information concerning T.’s person: “This is not a pseudonym, but rather a Franciscan hermit, perhaps belonging to the congregation of Clareno, who seems subsequently to have joined the Gerolamini approved by Gregory XI in 1373.” F. Foberti, however, forcefully reasserts the thesis already predominant (F. Kampers, H. Grundmann, L. Pastor), namely, that T. is a pseudonym: “The title of the book echoes the Tractatus de ultimis tribulationibus of the earlier pseudo-Joachimist literature.”