It was Eastertide of 1273 that Bonaventure began delivering his final set of lectures, the Collations on the Six Days. He would never finish them. Trained in scholasticism at the university in Paris, Bonaventure was called to serve as Minister General of the young Franciscan order in 1257, and spent the next sixteen years balancing pastoral and administrative responsibilities while his Dominican counterpart in Paris, Thomas Aquinas, busied himself with the Summa. Although Bonaventure’s academic career was cut short, having a base in Paris for the eight years before his death afforded him the opportunity to participate in the university’s intellectual life. There his brilliant mind and clerical concern fused to produce a number of rich theological works, but these particular collations were his crowning achievement. Elected Cardinal on Pentecost of 1273, Bonaventure was once again called away from Paris, and he died a year later at the second Council of Lyon, his masterpiece unfinished.