UBERTINO OF CASALE

A leader of franciscan spirituals; b. Casale, near Vercelli, Italy, c. 1259 d. c. 1329 to 1341. He studied for nine years at Paris and then returned to Italy, where in the 1280s he came under the influence of the mystic angela of foligno, of (Bl.) john of parma, who imbued him

with the ideas of joachim of fiore, and especially of peter john olivi, the first of the major Spiritual leaders. For a considerable period in the 1290s and early 1300s Ubertino preached in Tuscany and Umbria and established his position as a leader among the Spirituals. In 1304 and 1305 he lived in enforced retirement at Alvernia (La Verna) and wrote his great book, the Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu. In form it is an account of the life and Passion of Christ, followed by a commentary on the revelation. But it includes much else: autobiography, ecstatic meditations on St. francis and on poverty, and savage attacks on the laxity of the upper clergy in general and the majority of franciscans in particular. It is a large, diffuse book, revealing very vividly the author's intense religious devotion and his violence in argument. This work made him many enemies, and he spent much of his later life in strife.

Between 1309 and 1312 he was deeply engaged in the controversies on the future of the order, urging the Pope in a succession of skillful, indeed brilliant, pamphlets to authorize the division of the order (see poverty controversy). Pope john xxii at first treated Ubertino with respect; after failing to reconcile him to his order, he transferred him to the Benedictines. But good relations between two such firebrands could not last indefinitely; in 1325 Ubertino fled from Avignon. Although he is known to have lived some years longer and to have preached against the Pope in Como in 1329, his last years are covered in mystery; legend has it that he died by violence.

Bibliography: Works. Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu (Venice 1485). For pamphlets written during the poverty controversy (1309–12), h. denifle and f. ehrle, eds., Archiv für Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, 7 v. [(Berlin) Freiburg 1885–1900] 2:374–416; 3:48–137, 160–195. a. heysse, "Ubertini de Casale opusculum Super tribus sceleribus, " Archivum Franciscanum historicum 10 (1917) 103–174. É. baluze, "Responsio fratris U. de C. ordinis minorum circa quaestionem de paupertale Christi et Apostolorum, facta coram Iohanne XXII…," in his Miscellanea, ed. j. d. mansi (Lucca 1761) 2:279–280. Literature. d. l. douie, The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli (Manchester 1932). f. l. cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London 1957) 1385. p godefroy, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables Générales 1951–) 15.2:2021–34. m. damiata, Pieta e storia nell'Arbor vitae di Ubertino da Casale (Florence 1988). c.m. martÍnez ruÍz, De la dramatización de los acontecimientos de la Pascua a la Cristología: El cuarto libro del Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu de Ubertino de Casale (Rome 2000). g. potestÀ, Storia ed escatologia in Ubertino da Casale (Milan 1980). h. m. thomas, Franziskanische Geschichtsvision und europäische Bildentfaltung: Die Gefährtenbeweging des hl. Franziskus, Ubertino da Casale, der "Lebensbaum," Giottos Fresken der Arenakapelle in Padua, die Meditationes vitae Christi Heilsspiegel und Armenbibel (Wies-baden 1989).

[r. b. brooke]