24 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. Alexander was easily persuaded, and a general chapter was held in the Aracceli, February 2, 1257, over which he personally presided. John of Parma was warned to resign, and did so, pleading age, weariness, and disability. After a decent show of resistance his resignation was accepted and he was asked to nom- inate a successor. His choice fell upon Bonaventura, then only thirty -four years of age, whose participation in the struggle with the University of Paris had marked him as the most promising man in the Order, while he was not identified with either faction. He was duly elected, and the leaders of the movement required him to proceed against John and his adherents. Bonaventura for a while hesitated, but at length consented. Gherardo refused to recant, and Bonaventura sent for him to come to Paris. In pass- ing through Modena he met Salimbene, who had cowered before the storm and had renounced Joachitism as a folly. The two friends had a long colloquy, in which Gherardo offered to prove that Antichrist was already at hand in the person of Alonso the Wise of Castile. He was learned, pure-minded, temperate, modest, amiable — in a word, a most admirable and lovable character ; but nothing could wean him from his Joachitic convictions, though in his trial discreet silence, as usual, was observed about the Everlast- ing Gospel, and he was condemned as an upholder of Joachim's Trinitarian speculations. Had he not been a Franciscan he would have been burned. It was a doubtful mercv which consigned him to a dungeon in chains and fed him on bread and water for eigh- teen years, until his weary life came to an end. He never wavered to the last, and his remains were thrust into a corner of the gar- den of the convent where he died. The same fate awaited his comrade Leonardo, and also another friar named Piero de' Nubili, who refused to surrender a tract of John of Parma's.*
- Wadding, ann. 1256, No. 3-5.— Salimbene, pp. 102, 233-6.— Hist. Tribulat.
(Archiv fur L. u. K. 1886, p. 285).— Although Salimbene prudently abandoned Joachitism, he never outgrew his belief in Joachim's prophetic powers. Many years later he gives as a reason for suspecting the Segarellists, that if they were of God, Joachim would have predicted them as he did the Mendicants (lb. 123-4). The silence of the Historia Tribulationum with respect to the Everlasting Gospel is noteworthy. By common consent that dangerous work seems to be ignored by all parties.
