John was born about 1209 in the
medieval commune of
Parma in the northern Italian region of
Emilia-Romagna; his family name was probably Buralli. Educated by an uncle,
chaplain of the Church of St. Lazarus at Parma, his progress in learning was such that he quickly became a teacher of philosophy (
magister logicæ). When and where he entered the
Order of Friars Minor (commonly called the "Franciscans"), the old sources do not say.
Affò assigns 1233 as the year, and Parma as the probable place.
Ordained a
priest, he taught
theology at the
University of Bologna and the
University of Naples, and finally taught the
Sentences of
Peter Lombard at the
University of Paris. He assisted at the
First Council of Lyons in 1245, representing the current Minister General,
Crescentius of Jesi, who was too ill to attend.
Minister General At the
General Chapter of the Order held at Lyons in July 1247, John was elected Minister General, at the suggestion of
Pope Innocent IV, who had been impressed by him during his service at the Council of Lyons two years earlier. He was elected with the support of the rigorist branch of the Order (known as the
Fraticelli), which office he held till 2 February 1257. The desire for the original fervor of the Order animated the new Minister General and of his purposes for the full observance of the
Rule of St. Francis, reflects from the joy recorded by
Angelus Clarenus among the survivors of Francis's first companions at his election—though
Giles of Assisi's words sound somewhat pessimistic: "Welcome, Father, but you come late". John set to work immediately. Wishing to know personally the state of the Order, he began visiting every community of friars. His first visit was to England, where he was extremely satisfied, and where he was received by King
Henry III of England. At
Sens in France,
King Louis IX (later a member of the
Third Order of St. Francis) honored with his presence the Provincial Chapter held by John. Having visited the
Provinces of
Burgundy and of
Provence, he set out in September 1248, for Spain, whence Pope Innocent recalled him to entrust him with an embassy to the East. Before departing, John appears to have held the General Chapter of Metz in 1249 (others put it after the embassy, 1251). It was at this Chapter that John refused to draw up new statutes to avoid overburdening the friars. Only some new rubrics were promulgated, which in a later chapter in Genoa (1254) were included in the official ceremonial of the Order. The object of John's embassy to the East was reunion with the
Eastern Orthodox Church, whose representatives he met at
Nice, and who saluted him as an "angel of peace". John's mission bore no immediate fruit, though it may have prepared the way for the union decreed at the
Council of Lyons in 1274. In his generalate occurred also the famous dispute between the
mendicants and the
Sorbonne University of Paris. According to Salimbene, John went to Paris (probably in 1253), and, by his mild yet strenuous arguments, strove to secure peace. It was in connection with this attack on the
Dominicans and the Franciscans that John of Parma and
Humbert of Romans,
Master General of the Dominicans, published at Milan in 1255 a letter recommending peace and harmony between the two Orders (text in Wadding, 111, 380). In the "Introductorius in Evangelium Æternum" of
Gerard of S. Donnino (1254), John's friend, Humbert, was denounced by the professors of Paris and condemned by a commission at Anagni in 1256; John himself was in some way compromised—a circumstance which, combined with others, finally brought about the end of his generalate. He convened a General chapter at Rome on 2 February 1257. If Peregrinus of Bologna is correct,
Pope Alexander IV secretly intimated to John that he should resign, and decline reelection should it be offered him, while Salimbene insists that John resigned of his own free will. The pope may have exerted some pressure on John, who was only too glad to resign, seeing himself unable to promote henceforth the good of the Order. Questioned as to the choice of a successor, he proposed
Bonaventure, who had succeeded him as professor at Paris.
Later life John retired to the
hermitage at the famed village of
Greccio, near
Rieti, memorable for the
Nativity scene first introduced there by
Francis of Assisi. There he lived in voluntary exile and complete solitude; his cell near a rock is still shown. But another trial awaited him. Accused of
Joachimism, he was submitted to a canonical process at
Cittá della Pieve (in Umbria), reportedly presided over by
Bonaventure and Cardinal
Giovanni Gaetano Orsini,
Cardinal protector of the Order. The mention of this cardinal as protector brings us to a chronological difficulty, overlooked by writers who assign the process against John to 1257; for Alexander IV (1254–61) retained the protectorship and Orsini became protector, at the earliest, at the end of 1261.
Angelus Clarenus claims that the concealed motive of this process was John's attachment to the literal observance of the Rule; the accusation of
Joachimism, against which he professed his Catholic faith, being only a pretext. Other sources, however, speak of retractation. Clarenus relates that John would have been condemned had it not been for the powerful intervention of Innocent IV's nephew, Cardinal
Ottoboni Fioschi, later Pope Hadrian V. John certainly did not profess the
dogmatic errors of Joachimism, though he may have held some of its
apocalyptic ideas. Upon his acquittal, he returned to Greccio and continued his life of prayer and work. It was there, it is said, that an angel once served his Mass, and that in 1285 he received the visit of
Ubertin of Casale, who has left an account of this meeting. Hearing that the Orthodox were abandoning the union agreed upon in 1274, John, now 80 years old, desired to use his last energies in the cause of Christian unity. He obtained the permission of
Pope Nicolas IV to go to Greece, but reached only as far as
Camerino, in the
March of Ancona, where he died in the local friary on 19 March 1289. He was
beatified by
Pope Pius VI in 1777; his
feast day is celebrated by the Friars Minor on 20 March. ==Works==