[3] In 1246, a Dominican friar left a sum of money in his will to Bernarda and her children, recently orphaned.

[5] He entered the Order of Preachers in 1254, at the age of fourteen, taking the habit of a novice in his native Treviso.

Toward the end of this period, he served as a tutor to the young sons of Romeo Quirini of Venice, whose brother was a Canon in the Cathedral of Treviso.

[8] By the end of his term at S. Eustorgio he must have become a professed member of the Order of Preachers; the actual date is unknown.

It is probable that, without office, he returned to a convent, possibly that of Treviso—though the evidence is scanty and based on wills and codicils.

At the Capitulum Generale of the Order of Preachers, which was held at Strasbourg in 1296, Boccasini was elected Master of the Order of Preachers,[15] and issued ordinances that forbade public questioning of the legitimacy of Pope Boniface VIII's papal election (which had taken place on Christmas Eve, 1295) on the part of any Dominican.

Boccasini was elevated to the cardinalate on 4 December 1298 by Boniface VIII, and assigned the title of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Sabina.

[16] He entered the Roman Curia on 25 March 1299 and thus began to receive his share of the profits of the Chamber of the College of Cardinals.

[19] The conclave to elect the successor of Boniface VIII was held in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran and the College of Cardinals desired an appropriate candidate who would not be hostile towards King Philip IV of France.

He was quick to release King Philip IV from the excommunication that had been put upon him by Boniface VIII.

Nevertheless, on 7 June 1304, Benedict XI excommunicated Philip IV's implacable minister Guillaume de Nogaret and all the Italians who had played a part in the seizure of his predecessor at Anagni.

After a brief pontificate that spanned a mere eight months, Benedict XI died suddenly at Perugia.

The first, on 18 December 1303, elevated Nicholas Alberti da Prato, the Bishop of Spoleto; and William Macclesfield (Marlesfeld) of Canterbury, Prior of the English Province of the Dominicans.

[20][24] Cardinal Caesar Baronius (1538–1607) wrote that, on the Monday of Easter week in 1304, Benedict XI was celebrating Mass, but a pilgrim interrupted it, because he wanted the pope to hear his confession.

There is also a story that, at the General Chapter of the Dominicans at Lucca in May 1288, the Provincial of the Roman Province, Thomas de Luni predicted to Boccasini that he would someday be pope.

On another occasion, when he was in Venice, a friar of Torcello predicted that he would be Provincial, Master General, Cardinal and Pope.

Pope Clement XII approved his cultus on 24 April 1736 which acted as his formal beatification.