Bartholomew of San Concordio

(Also of Pisa )

Canonist, and man of letters, b. at San Concordia, near Pisa about 1260; d. at Pisa, 11 June, 1347. He entered the Dominican Order in 1277, studied at Pisa, Bologna, and Paris, and taught at Lucca, Florence, and Pisa. A preacher of renown, he was as learned as he was devout, as skilled in Latin and Tuscan poetry as he was versed in canon and civil law. His fame rests chiefly on his alphabetically arranged "Summa de Casibus Conscientiae", a variously called "Pisana", "Pisanella", "Bartholomaea", and "Magistruccia". The idea if not the basis of this work was a "Summa Confessorum" by John Rumsik, O. P., Lector of Freiburg (d. 1314). Bartholomew's treatise was clear and concise, and it conformed to the newer laws and canons of his time. Evidently a highly useful digest, it was very popular and much used during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and was among the first books undertaken by some of the earliest printers of Germany, France, and Italy. Nicholas of Osimo, O.M. , added a supplement in 1444, which also appeared in many editions. Others likewise incorporated the work in later handbooks, notably James of Ascoli, O. M., 1464, and Ange de Clavasio, O.M., in his "Summa Angelica". Apart from several manuscripts on moral and literary subjects, his works include "De documentis antiquorum", edited by Albertus Clarius, O. P. (Tarvisi, 1601) in 8 vo. The same treatise in the vernacular, "Ammaestramenti degli antichi" (Florence, 1662), came to be regarded as a Tuscan classic.