Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Bonaventure

John of Fidanza, known as Bonaventure, was born c. 1217. He studied arts in Paris from 1234 or 1235 until 1243. He then joined the Franciscans and studied theology, also in Paris, where he was taught by Alexander of Hales, the first of the Franciscan masters of theology. Bonaventure himself held the Franciscan chair from 1253 to 1255. In 1257 he was elected Minister General of his Order, but he still maintained close contacts with the university and continued his theological writing up until nearly the time of his death in 1274. Among his most important works are his commentary on the Sentences (1250– 5), a systematic textbook of theology called the Breviloquium, the brief Journey of the Mind towards God (1259) which expresses in a concise personal style many of his central ideas, and the sets of university sermons (Collationes) he gave in his last years, especially those on the Work of the Six Days (Hexaemeron), from 1273.