JACOBUS DE VORAGINE (c. 1230-c. 1298), Italian chronicler, archbishop of
Genoa, was born at the little village of Varazze, near Genoa, about the
year 1230. He entered the order of the friars preachers of St Dominic in
1244, and besides preaching with success in many parts of Italy, taught
in the schools of his own fraternity. He was provincial of Lombardy from
1267 till 1286, when he was removed at the meeting of the order in
Paris. He also represented his own province at the councils of Lucca
(1288) and Ferrara (1290). On the last occasion he was one of the four
delegates charged with signifying Nicholas IV.'s desire for the
deposition of Munio de Zamora, who had been master of the order from
1285, and was deprived of his office by a papal bull dated the 12th of
April 1291. In 1288 Nicholas empowered him to absolve the people of
Genoa for their offence in aiding the Sicilians against Charles II.
Early in 1292 the same pope, himself a Franciscan, summoned Jacobus to
Rome, intending to consecrate him archbishop of Genoa with his own
hands. He reached Rome on Palm Sunday (March 30), only to find his
patron ill of a deadly sickness, from which he died on Good Friday
(April 4). The cardinals, however, "propter honorem Communis Januae,"
determined to carry out this consecration on the Sunday after Easter. He
was a good bishop, and especially distinguished himself by his' efforts
to appease the civil discords of Genoa. He died in 1298 or 1299, and was
buried in the Dominican church at Genoa. A story, mentioned by the
chronicler Echard as unworthy of credit, makes Boniface VIII., on the
first day of Lent, cast the ashes in the archbishop's eyes instead of on
his head, with the words, "Remember that thou art a Ghibelline, and with
thy fellow Ghibellines wilt return to naught."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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