Jacobus de Voragine

Jacobus de Voragine (about 1230 to 13 or 16 July 1298) was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa, and a member of the Dominican order. He is remembered as the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the Golden Legend, a collection of legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church. That work became one of the most popular religious books of the Middle Ages, and it is the work for which he is chiefly known. The sources give the day of his death only as one of two dates, the 13th or the 16th of July, and his birth year is approximate. He was also a churchman and chronicler, and the lead names those roles alongside the compilation.