Elias of Cortona, Minister General of the Friars Minor, b., it is said, at Bevilia near Assisi, c. 1180; d. at Cortona, April 22, 1253. In the writings of Elias that have come down to us he styles himself "Brother Elias, Sinner", and his contemporaries without exception call him simply "Brother Elias". The name of a town was first added to his name in the fourteenth century; in Franciscan compilations like the "Chronica XXIV generalium and the "Liber Conformitaturn" Elias is described as Helias de Assisio, whereas the name of Cortona does not appear in connection with his before the seventeenth century. It is clear in any event that Elias did not belong to the noble family of Coppi as some have asserted. From Salimbene, who knew Elias well, we learn that his family name was Bonusbaro or Bonibarone, that his father was from the neighborhood of Bologna, and his mother an Assisian; that before becoming a friar Elias worked at his father's trade of mattress-making and also taught the children of Assisi to read the Psalter. Later on, according to Eccleston, Elias was a scriptor, or notary, at Bologna, where no doubt he applied himself to study. But he was not a cleric and never became a priest. Elias appears to have been one of the earliest companions of St. Francis of Assisi. The time and place of his joining the saint are uncertain; it may have been at Cortona in 1211, as Wadding says. Certain it is, however, that he held a place of prominence among the friars from the first. After a short sojourn, as it seems, in Tuscany, Elias was sent in 1217 as head of a band of missionaries to Palestine, and two years later he became the first provincial of the then extensive province of Syria. It was in this capacity that he received Caesar of Speyer into the order. Although we are ignorant of the nature or extent of Elias's work in the East, it would seem that the three years he spent there made a deep impression upon him. In 1220-21 Elias returned to Italy with St. Francis, who showed further confidence in him by naming him to succeed Peter of Cataneo (d. March 10, 1221) as vicar-general of the order. Elias had held this office for five years when Francis died (October 3, 1226), and he then became charged with the responsibilities of the moment and the provisional government of the Friars Minor. After announcing the death of Francis and the fact of the Stigmata to the order in a beautiful letter, and superintending the temporary burial of the saint at San Giorgio, Elias at once began to lay plans for the erection of a great basilica at Assisi, to enshrine the remains of the Poverello. To this end he obtained a donation, with the authority of the pope, of the so-called Collis Inferni at the western extremity of the town, and proceeded to collect money in various ways to meet the expenses of the building. Elias thus alienated the zealots in the order, who felt entirely with St. Francis upon the question of poverty, so that at the chapter held in May, 1227, Elias was rejected in spite of his prominence, and Giovanni Parenti, provincial of Spain, was elected second general of the order.