Blessed Benedict XI

Pope Benedict XI (Latin: Benedictus XI; 1240 – 7 July 1304), born Nicola Boccasini (Niccolò of Treviso), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 October 1303 to his death on 7 July 1304. Boccasini entered the Order of Preachers in his native Treviso. He studied at Venice and Milan before becoming a teacher in Venice and in other Dominican houses. He served two terms as Provincial Prior of Lombardy, before being elected Master of the Order in 1296. Two years later he was made cardinal. He was appointed Bishop of Ostia, and served as papal legate first to Hungary, and then to France. He was with Pope Boniface VIII when Boniface was attacked by French forces at Anagni. He was beatified with his cultus confirmed by Pope Clement XII in 1736. He is a patron of Treviso. Niccolò Boccasini was born in Treviso to Boccasio, a municipal notary (died 1246), whose brother was a priest; and Ber(n)arda, who worked as a laundress for the Dominican friars of Treviso. Boccasini had a sister, Adelette. The family lived outside the walls of Treviso, in a suburb called S. Bartolommeo. In 1246, a Dominican friar left a sum of money in his will to Bernarda and her children, recently orphaned. A condition was that if Boccasini were to enter the Dominican Order he would receive half of the entire legacy. From the age of six, it seems, Boccasini was destined for the monastic life. His first teacher was his uncle, the priest of S. Andrea. He entered the Order of Preachers in 1254, at the age of fourteen, taking the habit of a novice in his native Treviso. He was taken to Venice by his Prior and presented to the Provincial, who assigned him to the convent of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. For the next seven years or so, Boccasini pursued his basic education in Venice. Toward the end of this period, he served as a tutor to the young sons of Romeo Quirini of Venice, whose brother was a Canon in the Cathedral of Treviso.