Gentile Portino da Montefiore

Gentile Portino da Montefiore (also Gentile Partino di Montefiore, ; c. 1240 – 27 October 1312) was an Italian Franciscan friar and prelate, who was created Cardinal-Priest of Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300. He served as Major Penitentiary of the Roman Curia from 1302 to 1305. Pope Clement V sent him to Hungary as a papal legate in 1308, with the primary task of assuring the Angevins the Hungarian throne. Gentile built the San Martino Chapel in the Lower Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. He was buried in the neighboring Chapel of St. Louis.

Ecclesiastical career Gentile was born around 1240 into a wealthy noble family in Montefiore dell'Aso. He was still a child, when entered the Order of Friars Minor in 1248. He graduated in theology from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and obtained the title of magister by 1294. He returned to Italy around that year. He met and became a friend of Cardinal Benedetto Caetani in Perugia. Caetani was elected as Pope Boniface VIII shortly thereafter. Gentile was made lector at the Roman Curia in 1296. The San Martino Chapel, dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, was decorated between 1317 and 1319 with ten frescoes depicting the saint's life by Simone Martini, who was hired by the cardinal presumably in Siena. At the beginning of June, Gentile went to Lucca, where he fell ill and died there in the following October, without arriving in Avignon. The San Martino Chapel was intended to be Gentile's burial place, but was probably incomplete at the time of his death, thus he was buried in the neighboring Chapel of St. Louis. On 5 August 1313, Pope Clement ordered that the wealth of Gentile Portino should be assigned to Cardinal Vital du Four.