At Paris Annibaldo formed an intimate friendship with
St. Thomas Aquinas and succeeded him as regent of studies at the Convent of St. Jacques. After teaching in Paris for some years, he was called to Rome in 1246 by
Innocent IV to fill the post of
Master of the Sacred Palace. He served in this capacity under Popes
Alexander IV and
Urban IV, the latter of whom created him
Cardinal in 1262. When
Clement IV, in 1265, handed over the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to
Charles I of Anjou, Annibale was put at the head of the commission empowered to treat with the monarch and register his agreement to the papal stipulations. The King received the insignia of
investiture in Rome from the hands of the Cardinal. On 6 January 1266, Annibale anointed and solemnly crowned Charles I in the
Lateran Church in Rome, the Pope being detained in
Perugia. During the vacancy succeeding the death of
Clement IV, Annibale received and treated with
Philip III of France and Charles I at
Viterbo (1270). During a papal mission at
Orvieto, the Cardinal died, and, by his own request, was buried in the
Church of San Domenico. He was held in high esteem during life for his learning and virtues. Aquinas dedicated his
Catena Aurea to him. Annibale, besides several small theological treatises now lost, wrote a commentary on the "Sentences", and "Quod libeta", which has been ascribed to St. Thomas, and published with his works even as recently as the Paris edition of 1889, by Frette. A manuscript in the
Carmelite monastery in Paris calls Annibale a Carmelite who later became a
Cistercian abbot. But
Jacques Echard shows that no man of that name belonged to either order in the twelfth or thirteenth century. ==References==