BERNARDINO D'ASTI. – Capuchin, born ca. 1484 in the castle of Rinco near Asti, died in Rome in 1554. In 1499 he entered the Order of the Observant Friars Minor. He headed the Roman Province and joined the Capuchins when, after 1528, they began to form a separate family. He was appointed vicar general of the Order in Nov. 1535, after Paul III had ordered Fr. Ludovico di 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 its internal organization and definitive constitutions to him.
BIBL.: A. Tectaert, s. V. in DHG, VIII, cols. 783–85; Bernardino da Colpetrazzo, Hist. Ord. Fratrum Capuc., in Monumenta hist. Ord., Min. Capuc., IV, Rome 1941, pp. 123–25. Maria Morseletto