RUBEIS, LEONARDO DE (ROSSI)

Franciscan theologian; b. Giffoni, near Salerno, Italy; d. Avignon, after March 17, 1407. He became master of theology at Cambridge. As minister general of the franciscans, elected June 5, 1373, he was sympathetic to the Franciscan reform movement led by Paul Trinci. At the beginning of the western schism, he was deposed as minister general by urban vi, from whom he refused the cardinalate. Instead, the antipope, clement vii at avignon made him a cardinal, Dec. 16, 1378. But in 1381, the king of Sicily, Charles III of Durazzo, an ally of Urban, captured Leonardo in Naples and imprisoned him for five years. By 1387 he had returned to Avignon, where he was an inquisitor of the writings of the Dominican John of Monzon. Leonardo was also involved in the controversy concerning the condemnation of Raymond lull (1395). In 1399, he severely criticized the antipope benedict xiii for his hesitancy in attempting to heal the Schism, and by 1403 he was reunited with the pope. Leonardo's most important theological work is an unedited commentary of 143 chapters on the dogmatic and mystical theology of the Canticle of Canticles. In the main, it followed the Scotistic approach to the Incarnation. There are also many extant unedited sermons, a soliloquy written in prison, Liber Solitoquiorum animae poenitentis ad Deum, and two works on the Schism. A commentary on the Four Books of Sentences has been attributed to him.

Bibliography: e. longprÉ, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant, 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 9.1:396–397. c. schmitt, "La Position du cardinal Léonard de Giffoni. O.F.M., dans le conflit du grand schisme d'Occident," Archivum Franciscanum historicum 50 (1957) 273–331; 51 (1958) 25–72, 410–472.

[j. j. smith]