VENTURINO DA BERGAMO. - Famous Dominican preacher, b. in Bergamo on 19 April 1304, d. at Smyrna on 23 March 1346.

A religious in his native city (1319), he was first master of novices in Genoa, then devoted himself entirely and successfully to preaching. In order to obtain the pacification of the Italians divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines and to be able more easily to induce sinners to penance and to reconcile with the Church the numerous excommunicated of Bergamo, he organized in 1335 a great penitential pilgrimage to Rome. But, having fallen under suspicion of being an agitator with the Roman Curia, he went on to Avignon to offer himself to Benedict XII for the Crusade. Benedict XII, ill informed about him, received him badly; condemned in a trial, he was deprived of the office of preaching and of confessing, with the prohibition of returning to Italy. He accepted with humility the unjust sentence, and he occupied the time of his exile in writing books and spiritual letters. In 1343, Clement V restored to him the faculty of preaching and confessing, and on 4 January 1344 sent him back to Italy to preach the Crusade against the Turks. A remarkable popular enthusiasm soon reawakened around V.; many set out for the Crusade, and he himself went to Smyrna (1 March 1346), besieged by land, to support and encourage the Crusaders, but shortly afterwards he died, worn out by his apostolic labors and by penance.

VENTURINO DA BERGAMO - Letter of Benedict XII to the bishop of Anagni Giovanni Pagnotta, concerning the pilgrimage of friar V. (8 April 1335) - Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Epistolae secretar., ar. I, Reg. 130, n. 142, f. 29.(phot. Enc. Catt.)

He wrote various letters and spiritual treatises, among which the following should be remembered: De Spiritu Sancto; In psalterio decachordo; De humilitate (fragment); De profectu spirituali; De remediis contra tentationes spirituales, published together with various letters by Clementi.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: G. Clementi, Il b. V. da B., Rome 1904 (in the appendix the writings and the legend of an anonymous contemporary); E. Hocedez, La légende latine du b. V. d. B., in An. Boll., 25 (1906), pp. 298-303; A. Sorbelli, La «legenda» del b. V. da B., Bologna 1925.

Alfonso D'Amato

@incollection{ec12_venturino_da_bergamo, author = {D'Amato, Alfonso}, title = {Venturino da Bergamo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1242--1243}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/venturino-da-bergamo} }

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