Blessed John of Vercelli

John of Vercelli (Giovanni da Vercelli) (c. 1205 – 30 November 1283) was the sixth Master General of the Dominican Order (1264-1283). John was born in 1205 to the Garbella family in Mosso Santa Maria in the Province of Biella, in the Piedmont region of Italy. He did his initial studies in Paris (one could not graduate in the Arts before the age of 21, and only after a minimum of six years of study), and then studied canon law in Paris, Pavia, and Vercelli before he joined the Dominican friars during the 1240s. The Emperor Frederick II died on December 13, 1250. Pope Innocent IV's exile was over. He left Lyons on April 19, 1251, and arrived in his home town, Genoa, on May 18. From Genoa he began the difficult task of getting back the territories of the Catholic Church lost to the Emperor Frederick, and reconstructing the effective operation of the church hierarchy in northern and central Italy. One of his problems was the rise and flourishing of heresy in the Po Valley. On June 11, 1251, the pope issued instructions from Genoa to Vincentius of Milan and Joannes of Vercelli, to undertake the office of inquisitor, jointly or severally, in Venice and other parts of Lombardy. These were not the only inquisitors appointed. On the same day, and with the same form letter ("Misericors et Miserator"), the pope also appointed Peter of Verona and Vivianus of Bergamo to the same task in the area of Cremona and other cities of Lombardy. No doubt there were others, now unattested. The pope was also prepared to take on Frederick's sons Manfred and Enzo (Ezolino) of Sardinia, as he indicated in a letter to the Dominican Bishop of Treviso and the Prior of Mantua. Umberto de Romans, the fifth Master General, elected in 1253, held the General Chapter in Buda, Hungary, on May 31, 1254. At the conclusion of the meeting, he appointed John of Vercelli as the Master General's Vicar to Hungary. Later (1255-1257) he was appointed Prior of the Dominican monastery in Bologna.