TELESFORO of COSENZA. - An enigmatic writer who occupies a notable place in the pseudo-prophetic literature that claimed to draw authority from Gioacchino da Fiore, for his De statu Ecclesiae et de tribulationibus futuris written between 1356 and 1365. Abridged and better ordered by a certain Fra' Rusticano (who composed the dedicatory letter to Antonio Adorno, Doge of Genoa, 3 Sept. 1386), it was printed in 1516 in Venice.
The book presents itself, from the beginning, as the work of T. of C. “priest and hermit, learned and holy,” who lived “near the city of Thebes (their land called Luzzi),” as expressed by D. Martire. T. would have “compiled the books of Cyril, of Gioacchino, the histories written by the archbishop Luca of Cosenza and others.” Moreover, he would have written another book of histories and the life of the blessed Gioacchino, and would have died at Luzzi, probably in the famous monastery of Sambucina. In reality, the De statu Eccl. is a florilegium; “the prophecy reflects a nationalist tendency regarding the extinction of the schism that began after the election of Urban VI” (P. Paschini). E. Donckel, followed by P. Paschini, claims the historicity of the information reported about the person of T.: “This is not a pseudonym, but rather a Franciscan hermit, perhaps of the congregation of Clareno, who seems later to have joined the Gerolamites approved by Gregory XI in 1373.” F. Foberti, on the other hand, vigorously reaffirms the previously prevailing thesis (F. Kampers, H. Grundmann, L. Pastor), that T. is a pseudonym: “The title of the book echoes the Tractatus de ultimis tribulationibus of the earlier pseudo-Gioachimite pseudo-literature.”