Bartholomaeus de Rinonico - OPUS CONFORMITATUM- Nice postincunable, handcoloured copy - 1513

(FIRST EDITIONS; THEOLOGY, COLOURED COPIES; RARIORA) Bartolomeus de RINONICO (BARTOLOMEO DA PISA) (?-1401?)
Opus. Auree & inexplicabilis bonitatis & continentie. Conformitatum scilicet vite Beati Fra. ad vitam d. nostri Iesu Christi ... (Colophon: in aedibus Zanoti Castilionei, Mediolani, 1513)
§ Small folio (298x205); [12], 229 leaves (of 230, missing last, leaf, blank), signature A12, a-z8, [et]8, [cum]8, [rum]8, A-B8, C5 (missing C6, blank). Slightly later vellum, title page printed in red and black, ornamental woodcut frame and large vignette depicting Saint Francis and Jesus with the cross. On leaf I large woodcut vignette (repeated elsewhere) and frame composed by small vignettes depicting the live of the Saint; full-page woodcut depicting the tree of conformities; woodcut initials, printer’s mark at the colophon. Some contemporary hand-coloured pages Several marginal annotations in an ancient hand. A nice , fascinating copy on strong paper.
Third edition. “According to Prosper Marchand (Dictionnaire hist., I, 3), the first edition of the Liber conformitatum is a Venice edition, undated, a copy of which must exist in the Imperial Library in Vienna, but which is not cited by Panzer, Hain or Brunet. The second edition is that of Milan, Gotardo da Ponte, 1510, in-fol.” (portail.biblissima.fr, translate; this site however, as often happens, erroneously considers Bartolomeo Rinonico and Bartolomeo degli Albizzi one and the same person). Rinonico's most important work, De conformitate was composed between 1385 and 1390 and officially approved by the Franciscan Order. In this vast compilation, divided into three large books and aimed to demonstrate the conformity between the life of Jesus Christ and that of St Francis, the author develops this thesis, which was already clearly present in the early Franciscans, in every possible way. The lives of Jesus and of the saint are compared, with the Bible and the Franciscan writers as main sources, with the addition of the classical writers, and especially the Church Fathers. “In the course of his work, Fra B. finds a way to include an exposition of the Franciscan Rule, a list of the Order's distinguished figures divided into systematic (philosophers, theologians, exegetes, saints, etc.) and geographical series, and a complete and comprehensive picture of the entire Order, giving its distribution by provinces, custodies and convents. The work as a whole therefore provides a rich and detailed picture of the situation of Franciscanism at the end of the 14th century, compiled with passionate love, but also with the intention of truth and even accuracy.” (Manselli, translated). Little information is available about the author; he was first mentioned in Pisa in 1352 as a Friar Minor. He obtained a bachelor's degree and held the position of lecturer in various general studies of the order in Padua and Florence. Sent to Cambridge to obtain a doctorate in theology, but prevented from reaching England because of the Hundred Years' War, he studied for some time in Bologna and obtained his doctorate in theology with a bull from Pope Gregory XI in 1375. Apparently he never taught at a public university. Rinonico has often been confused with Bartolomeo ‘domini Albisi’ and Bartolomeo da San Concordio, and the confusion also extends to their works; only with difficulty have recent studies managed to establish, not without errors, three lists of the works of the three different authors (Manselli).
 https://portail.biblissima.fr/ark:/43093/idata6632b9fb190c1fcc79d3a6b63febb3df0d3e7024; RAOUL MANSELLI Bartolomeo da Pisa In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.