PETER OF BERGAMO

Dominican theologian and lexicographer; b. Bergamo, Italy, early 14th century; d. Piacenza, Oct. 15, 1482. He entered the order and was ordained at Bergamo in the Dominican province of upper Lombardy. His career was one of teaching theology, principally at the studium generale in Bologna. He was master of students in 1461, lecturer on the Sentences in 1466 and 1467, and regent of studies from 1471 to 1476. He had the highest reputation as a teacher and many revered him as a saint. Among his outstanding disciples were dominic of flanders, Paul Soncinas (d. 1494), and Ambrose Alemannus. His greatest contribution to thomism consisted in an Index universalis to all the works of St. thomas aquinas, completed in 1475; a Concordantia locorum doctoris angelici, quae sibi invicem adversari videntur (ed. Bologna 1473) that harmonized apparently contradictory passages; and a table of biblical passages quoted by St. Thomas. These three works were collected under the general title of Tabula aurea and published in Bologna (1475) and again in the Piana edition of the complete works of Aquinas (Rome 1570; photocopy, Rome 1960).

Bibliography: j. quÉtif and j. Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum (New York 1959) 1.2:863–864. a. walz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:351. i. colosio, "La Tabula Aurea di Pietro da Bergamo," Divus Thomas 64 (1961) 119–132.

[j. f. hinnebusch]