Antonio Bettini (13 June 1396 – 22 October 1487) was an Italian clergyman, diplomat and writer. Bettini was born in

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

in 1396. He joined the convent of San Girolamo in Siena in 1439 and worked closely with

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

Pius II. Pius made Bettini bishop of Foligno in 1461. For Pope Sixtus IV, Bettini may have travelled to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

(1474) and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

(1481). He retired to his original convent in Siena in 1486 and died a year later. Bettini was revered by later biographers and sometimes referred to as "''Beato''" (Blessed) (a step toward

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christianity, Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon ca ...

), but this designation was never church-sanctioned. Bettini was known as a prolific writer. His ''Monte Santo di Dio'' (1477) described how one could use science and

virtue A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be morality, moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is Value (ethics), valued as an Telos, end purpos ...

to reach closer to God. This work, printed in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

by Nicolaus Laurentii is especially notable in that it is possibly the first printed work to contain copper plate engravings. These were executed by Baccio Baldini, based on designs by

Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli ( ; ) or simply known as Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 1 ...

References

*McKitterick, David. ''Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order, 1450-1830.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. *Munman, Robert. ''Sienese Renaissance Tomb Monuments.'' Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1993. *Rogers, Walter Thomas. ''A Manual of Bibliography.'' London: H. Grevel & Co., 1891. *Seznec, Jean. ''The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art.'' Trans. Barbara K. Sessions. Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1953. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bettini, Antonio 1396 births 1487 deaths Bishops of Foligno 15th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops Writers from Siena