Bonifacio Lupi was an Italian politician and leader of the Lupi family, Marquis of Soragna, who held public offices in several cities in northern Italy.
He spent his childhood at the palace of his grandfather, Guglielmo Rossi of San Secondo in Padua, having been his family exiled from the feudal estate of the Visconti family in 1335 and welcomed to the court of the da Carrara family. In 1351 he succeeded his father Ugolotto in feudal rights over Soragna, in fact in the hands of the Visconti. After the arms career, he soon became a brave fighter and a captain of fortune. Near to the emperor Charles IV it was sent by these to make an alliance with the town of Florence that recognized an annual prerogative in 1355. Also in 1355 became a citizen of the Venetian Republic and Venetian patrician and as such obtained from the emperor Charles IV the fief of Primiero, of which he promulgated the statutes in 1367. From 1356 he was appointed advisor to the emperor Charles IV.
From 1359 he entered the service of the da Carrara, lords of Padua and his relatives, for whom he conquered Belluno and Feltre in 1360. In 1362 he was captain general of Florence in the war against Pisa; after having conquered the Valdera and Peccioli preventing the looting, causing after this episode the reaction of a group of dissidents led by Niccolò da Montefeltro who founded the Compagnia del Cappelletto or "Compagnia Nera"; he devastated the countryside around Pisa and the Pisan port, then having a leading role for the fate of the Battle of Cascina; waiting to be replaced by Ridolfo da Varano, he retired to the Petriolo castle near Ponsacco. In 1364 he became the owner of the large villa "Mandria" in Abano Terme. He received the Florentine citizenship in 1369, buying in Florence various real estate properties (farms in San Gervaso, Badia Fiesolana in Camerata and Careggi, houses in Via Adimari, Borgo Pinti, Rifredi.) In the same year he accompanied Carlo IV for his crowning as emperor in Rome, in 1372 he was sent as ambassador in Hungary and in Bologna by the Carraresi of Padua to find allies in the war against Venice.In 1388 he was general captain of the people in Padua.In recent years at the court of the Carraresi he knew the Petrarch that he made to depict together with him in the series of frescoes that decorate the chapel of St. James in Padua in the scene of the "Council of King Ramiro".
In 1377 he founded in Florence the "spedale" of San Giovanni Battista (Bonifacio hospital, currently the headquarters of the Florentine police headquarters) [1]. In 1375 he built the chapel of San Giacomo in the Basilica of Sant'Antonio in Padua as his last home [2] It became his tomb after the Municipality of Florence had refused the request to be deposed in the Baptistery of the city. Also in Padua, he completed the decoration of the oratory of San Giorgio in 1384, initiated by his uncle Raimondino Lupi. Both the chapel and the oratory were frescoed by Altichiero da Zevio. In 1385, together with his cousin Antonio, he obtained permission from Gian Galeazzo Visconti to rebuild in Soragna an existing fortress.
On 21 June 1390 he was probably killed by supporters of Francesco Novello da Carrara: he was buried in the chapel of San Giacomo al Santo.