Works of St. Bonaventure Works of St. Bonaventure - Franciscan ...

INTRODUCTIONXIIIINTRODUCTIONThe Breviloquium and the Itinerarium mentis in Deumare undoubtedly the two works of the Seraphic Doctor thathave received the most sustained admiration over the centuries.To judge by the number of extant copies, theBreviloquium was the more popular of the two works inthe Middle Ages, surviving in some 227 manuscripts. 1 JeanGerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, was one ofthose who testified to their impact:Two works of Bonaventure are composed with sucha divine art of synthesis that nothing at all surpassesthem, namely the Breviloquium and theItinerarium. . . .More than thirty years ago, I choseto familiarize myself with these two small treatises;since then I have read them often, frequently meditatingon certain passages and even specific words.Now, at my age, I have the leisure to achieve myfondest desire: to begin to experience them afresh,for to me they always seem ever-new and enchanting.21The Itinerarium survives in some 138 manuscripts. DoctorisSeraphici Sancti Bonaventurae . . . Opera Omnia V (Quaracchi:Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902), xvii-xxxiii. Hereafter thisedition will be referred to simply by the volume and page numberswithin parentheses.2J. Gerson, De libris legendis a monacho, 5-6, Opera J. Gerson(Strasbourg, 1515), Fol. XIX, G.