Giovanni di Fidanza was born at Bagnoregio, near Viterbo, about 1217 (some sources say 1221). He studied at the University of Paris, entered the Friars Minor in the early 1240s and became a pupil of Alexander of Hales. He lectured on Scripture and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and in 1257, after a long dispute over the place of the friars in the university, he was received as a master of theology at Paris together with Thomas Aquinas.
That same year he was elected minister general of his order, which he led for seventeen years through quarrels over poverty and learning. In 1259, on Mount La Verna, where Francis had received the stigmata, he wrote The Journey of the Mind into God. The general chapter of 1260 asked him for a new Life of Francis; the Legenda Maior was approved in 1263 and became the order's official life of its founder.
Bonaventure in the library (2 works)
- Bonaventure: The Life of St Francis of Assisi — 1263; translation 1868, edition 1915
The official Life of Francis, written by the Franciscan minister general and Doctor of the Church. - Bonaventure: Holiness of Life — 13th century; translation 1923, edition 1928
De perfectione vitae: a short guide to the religious life — self-knowledge, humility, poverty, silence, prayer and love.