Arms: Azure a long cross paty Or and issuant from clouds in base Argent and surmounting the shaft of the cross two arms in saltire the bendwise arm proper and the bend-sinisterwise one also proper but vested in a sleeve of Franciscan brown the hands bearing the stigmata of Christ Gules.
SOURCE/NOTES & CREDITS: Illustration for background, blazon and some text from “Heraldica Collegii Cardinalium”, page 41, Volume 1, by Michael Francis McCarthy, Thylacine Press, Darlinghurst, Australia, 2002. Additional text from the Wikipedia article on St. Bonaventure and the blazon is from John Hamilton Gaylor for which we thank him.
Note: arms are not blazoned in Wikipedia nor by Michael Francis McCarthy in “Heraldica Collegii Cardinalium”, Volume 1.
Note 2: There were two Bonaventure cardinals in the thirteenth century, one named Romano, and the second Fidanza who is the saint. Both are covered in McCarthy’s book.
St. Bonaventure, Giovanni di Fidanza, Cardinal Bishop of Albano born in 1221 near Viterbo, Italy, entered the Franciscan Order in 1243 and studied at the University of Paris from which he was awarded the degree of Master in 1257 ( the medieval equivalent of doctor).
He grew into being a great medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. Pope Gregory X appointed him Cardinal Bishop of Albano and insisted on Bonaventure’s presence at the great Second Council of Lyon in 1274 but he died shortly thereafter on 12 July 1274, age 52-53.
Bonaventure was canonized on 14 Apr 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. He is known as the Seraphic Doctor and Teacher of the Faith.
The artwork is an interpretation of John Hamilton Gaylor
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