VINCENZO FERRERI (FERRER), Saint. - A Spanish Dominican, renowned for his apostolic wanderings and thaumaturgic power, as well as for his role in the religious and political events of his time; born in Valencia on 23 (?) January 1350, died at Vannes in Brittany on 5 April 1419.
He donned the religious habit in the convent of his city in February 1367. Barely twenty years old, he taught logic at Lleida. In 1378, as he was being ordained a priest, the Great Schism broke out. The Saint, likely urged by the Aragonese cardinal Peter de Luna, sided with Clement VII, the pope of Avignon, and secured his obedience in part of Spain. From 1383 to 1389 he was lector in theology at the cathedral of Valencia. When de Luna was elected at Avignon as Benedict XIII (1394), the Saint was summoned to Avignon as his confessor and advisor. But after three years, disillusioned by Benedict XIII’s conduct and under the impulse of a vision following a severe illness, he obtained permission to leave the Curia (November 1399) in order to devote himself to a more fruitful apostolate. Thus he began his apostolic wanderings across southwestern Europe as a legate a latere Christi. For two decades, vast crowds were often drawn to the new apostle, who announced the imminent end of the world—a belief furthered by the calamities of the age. Public penances and numerous miracles accompanied his preaching, along with abundant conversions among Jews and Muslims in Spain.
Meanwhile, he continued to labor for the unity of the Church: in 1408 he vainly attempted to bring the two rival pontiffs together for a resolution of the schism; and in 1415 he did everything possible to persuade Benedict XIII to resign. When all efforts failed, the Saint definitively broke with him and, through his preaching, withdrew Spain’s obedience from him, thereby becoming one of the principal restorers of Church unity.
In 1412, through the Compromise of Caspe, he helped secure the unity of Spain by designating the successor to the deceased King of Aragon. He also sought to end, or at least obtain a truce in, the Hundred Years’ War, and it was at Vannes that he brought his active and eventful life to a close.
VINCENZO FERRERI, Saint – Oil painting by Titian – Rome, Galleria Borghese.
Among his writings are the two philosophical treatises *Incipiant supposiciones* and *De unitate universali* (Paris 1909); *Tractatus de vita spirituali sive de interiori homine* (Spanish trans. 1520, French 1920: Latin text and notes on various Latin editions in H. D. Fages [V. BIBLICA.]); *De moderno schismate* (Rome 1901; 2nd ed., Bologna-Modena 1906); sermons, etc.
Callistus III on 3 June 1455 declared him Blessed, and Pius II on 12 October 1458 published the bull of canonization. Feast day: 5 April. Art usually depicts St. Vincent F. with a flame above his head and an open book bearing the words *Timete Deum et date illi honorem*. Sometimes he is shown with the wings of the Angel of the Apocalypse.