BERNARDINO d'ASTI. - Capuchin, born c. 1484 at the castle of Rinco near Asti, died in Rome in 1554. He entered the Order of the Observant Friars Minor in 1499. He was head of the Roman Province and joined the Capuchins when, after 1528, they began to form a separate religious family. He was appointed vicar general of the Order in November 1535, after Paul III had ordered Fr. Ludovico of Fossombrone to relinquish that office. In 1546 he took part in the Council of Trent as a theologian; in 1549, through his efforts, the first Capuchin missionaries reached Egypt and the Holy Land. The Order owes to him its internal organization and definitive constitutions.
Bibl.: A. Tectaert, s. V. in DHG, VIII, cols. 783-83; Bernardino da Colpetrazzo, Hist. Ord. Fratrum Capuc., in Monumenta hist. Ord., Min. Capuc., IV, Rome 1941, pp. 123-25. Maria Morseletto