St. Bernardine and His Times

A Q U A R T E R L Y R E V I E W FRANCISCAN TUDIE SEPTEMBER, 1944 VOLUME 25 NEW SERIES, VOLUME 4 NUMBER 3 ST. BERNARDINE AND HIS TIMES* ST. BERNARDINE of Siena, the great Franciscan preacher, re­ former, and devotee of the Holy Name of Jesus, was born at Massa, a town near Siena, of the noble family of Albizeschi, Septem­ ber 8, 1380. Left an orphan at the age of six, he was reared by his pious aunts. Later he studied civil and canon law, and under the wise and prudent direction of the Conventual Franciscan, Bl. John of Ristori, made rapid progress in sanctity. In 1400 he helped with heroic personal sacrifice the plague-stricken of Siena and, assisted by ten other companions, took charge of a hospital. During this time he is said to have contracted an illness from which he'never fully recovered. On September 8, 1402, he entered the Order of Friars Minor at the convent of San Francesco in Siena. In the com­ pany of Ristori he retired after two months to a little friary of the Observance at Columbaio, a village outside the city, to complete his novitiate. On September 8, 1403, he made his religious profession of vows, and on September 8, 1404, he was ordained to the priest­ hood. The very next year he founded the Observant friary at Capriola, near Siena, and was appointed its superior. The chronicle ♦Paper read at the Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Franciscan Educational Conference, St. Francis College, Burlington, Wis., June 26-28, 1944. 207 208 FRANCISCAN STUDIES of the convent at Siena shows that he was affiliated to that convent in 1413 when he was elected its discretus, which office gave him the right to represent the convent at various provincial gatherings, e. g., at Provincial Chapters, etc. In 1417 he was guardian of the Ob­ servant friary at Fiesole, near Florence. From that time on he rap­ idly became one of the most eloquent speakers of all Italy, so much so that, according to Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (the future Pope Pius II), he was listened to as another Paul the Apostle.1 He preached his first sermon by order of Nicholas Anthony of Uzano, Vicar of Bl. John Strocone.2 Because of the many important events of his life which occurred on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (September 8) this day became an eventful one in the life of the Saint. He became so famous as a preacher that there was hardly a city in all Italy which did not hear his voice.5 In 1419 he traversed the Romagna, and the following year he preached in Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, and Venice. In 1423 he gave sermons at Ferrara, Reggio, Modena, Mantua, and throughout the Province of Lom­ bardy; in 1424, at Prato; during 1424 and 1425, at Florence; during the month of May, 1425, in his native city of Siena;4 in 1425, in Perugia;5in 1426, at Viterbo;6 and in 1427, again in Florence, Siena, in Assisi and the neighboring towns of Umbria, and in Rome. His mission was one of peace. Everywhere he endeavored to suppress not only party and family strifes among seculars, but also misunder­ standings among his own brethren. During his apostolic labors in Italy he dwelt as much in the convents of the Conventuals as in the hermitages of the Observants, for the Franciscan order was as yet 1. Hyacinthus Sbaralea, O. F. M. Conv., Supplementum et Castigatio ad Scriptores Trium Ord. Fr. Min. a Waddingo aliisque conscriptos (Rome: Editio Nardecchia, 1908), p. 137. ' ' 2. Lucas Wadding, O. F.M., Annates Minorum (A .M .) (Quaracchi, 3 ed., 1931 etc.), IX, 268. "Hie cognita fratris Bernardini senensis virtute, excellentia, sanctitate, insigni devotione, praeclara in divinis litteris eruditione, concionandi provinciam demandavit .” 3. "Fiducia in Deo collata, ibat per regiones et civitates, annunciabat hominibus virtutes et vitia, gloriam et poenas sempiternas. Tanta autem divinae gratiae largitate perfundebatur ab omnibus et honaretur et cum multa reverentia exciperetur et auscultaretur, haud secus atque quidam Christi Apostolus.” AM, IX, 270, No. 8. Cf. American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 65 (1921...