BERNARDINO d'AQUILA (AMICI), blessed. - Celebrated Franciscan preacher and writer, born at Fossa in 1420, died at San Giuliano near L'Aquila on 22 or 27 Nov. 1503. Leo XII approved his cult on 26 March 1828. Directed toward the cloister, while a student of law at the University of Perugia, by a sermon of St. Giacomo della Marca, he entered the Franciscan Order in 1445. Provincial vicar in the Abruzzi for about ten years, he was also provincial in Dalmatia and Bosnia and procurator general of the Observance. According to Wadding, he refused the bishopric of L'Aquila. He wrote many works, in Latin and Italian, some also of interest for the history of sacred drama, largely unpublished.
The following were printed: Ammonizioni del b. B. aquilano da Fossa nell'anno 1491 composte (Venice 1572); Fuserale, (Venice 1572, a collection of 32 sermons); Peregrinus (Venice 1573); Chronica Fratrum Minorum de Observantia (ed. L. Lemmens, Rome 1902). Notable among the unpublished works are: Centurio (100 sermons), the autograph of which is in the library of S. Marco, Venice (Z. L., LXXXIX Bess.); De quolibet statu fidelium, there (Z. L., CXLIII Bess.).