Ugolino Brunforte

Ugolino Brunforte (c. 1262 – c. 1348) was an Italian Friar Minor and chronicler.

Few details of Ugolino's life are known. His father Rinaldo, Lord of Sarnano in the Marches, belonged to an ancient and noble family of French origin, from which had sprung the famous Countess Matilda. Ugolino entered the Order of Friars Minor at the age of sixteen. He served his novitiate at the convent of Roccabruna, but passed most of his life at the convent of Santa Maria in Monte Giorgio, whence he is often called Ugolino of Monte Giorgio. In 1295 he was chosen Bishop of Abruzzi (Teramo) under Pope Celestine V, but before his consecration Celestine had resigned and Boniface VIII, who suspected Ugolino as belonging to the zelanti, annulled the appointment. Nearly fifty years later he was elected provincial of Macerata.

Most scholars are now agreed that Ugolino was the author of the Fioretti, or Little Flowers of St. Francis, in their original form. Research has revealed that this classic collection of narratives of the life and miracles of St. Francis, one of the most delightful literary works of the Middle Ages, were translated into Italian by an unknown fourteenth-century friar from a larger Latin work attributed to Ugolino. Or rather the fifty-three chapters which form the true text of the Fioretti were, for the four appendixes are additions of later compilers. The earliest manuscript is dated 1390, and is in Berlin. The Italian translation was first printed at Vicenza in 1476. It circulated widely and is considered a masterpiece of Italian literature. There are several English translations.

Although the Latin original has not come down to us, we have in the Actus B. Francisci et Sociorum Ejus, edited by Paul Sabatier in Collection d’Études (Paris, 1902, IV), an approximation to it which may be considered on the whole as representing the original of the Fioretti. That Ugolino was the principal compiler of the Actus seems certain; how far he may be considered the sole author of the Fioretti is not so clear. His labour, which consisted chiefly in gathering the flowers for his bouquet from written and oral local tradition, appears to have been completed before 1328.