Bartholomew of Lucca

Who was Bartholomew of Lucca?

Bartholomew of Lucca, born Bartolomeo Fiadóni, and also known as Tolomeo da Lucca or Ptolemy da Lucca was a medieval Italian historian.

Born in Lucca, probably in 1236, at an early age he entered the Dominican Order. He was distinguished for piety, and his intense application to study, for which reasons he won the respect and warm friendship of St. Thomas Aquinas. He was not only his disciple, but also his confidant and confessor. In 1272 he accompanied St. Thomas from Rome to Naples where he still was in 1274, when the news of his master's death at Fossa Nuova reached him. He was elected prior of the convent of his native city in 1288. At Naples, he took an active part in the public demonstration which was made to prevent Pope Celestine V from resigning.

In 1301 he was elected Prior of Santa Maria Novella at Florence. Later he removed to Avignon where he was chaplain for nine years to Cardinal Patrasso, Bishop of Albano, and after the Cardinal's death in 1311 to his fellow-religious Cardinal William of Bayonne. Jacques Échard affirms that he was the close friend and often the confessor of John XXII, who appointed him Bishop of Torcello, March 15, 1318. A conflict with the Patriarch of Grado concerning the appointment of an abbess of St. Anthony's at Torcello led to his excommunication in 1321, and exile. In 1323 he made peace with the patriarch, returned to his see, and died there in 1327.