BERNARDINE OF FELTRE, Blessed. - Friar Minor, in the world Martino Tomitani, preacher, b. at Feltre in 1439, d. at Pavia on 28 Sept. 1494. His mother was a cousin of the famous Vittorino. He was a pupil of Guarino Veronese or of one of his disciples; he was following courses in letters, logic and law at the Paduan studium when, in 1456, attracted by the eloquence of St. James of the March, he entered the Order of Friars Minor. A priest from 1463 and a lector, he began in Mantua in 1469 his religious and social apostolate.
Like his namesake and patron of Siena, he ceaselessly traveled on foot through the regions of northern and central Italy as far as L'Aquila, everywhere greatly desired, and, like him, he dared to treat current topics, even though thorny or dangerous. Indeed the implacable struggle begun at Trent in 1476 against usurers, especially Jews, and his firmness in denouncing injustices and abuses even of rulers, earned him the indignation of some of these, and even attempts on his life by private individuals who considered themselves struck in their interests or their licentiousness. Typical is the banishment he received from Florence one night in Lent of 1488.
He carried out delicate pontifical commissions, and had great influence in promoting peace among factions in many cities, even at the cost of exposing himself unarmed among torch-bearing armed men, as in 1486 in Perugia. The readiness
to pay in person is a likable trait of his character; thus on the occasion of the war of Ferrara, in
order to comply, in his capacity as provincial vicar of the Observance, with the interdict of 1484, he drew upon himself the wrath of the government of Venice. On the occasion of the plague of 1478
in Padua he did not hesitate to assume the care of the plague-stricken, until he contracted the contagion.
He promoted associations of worship and of charity,
especially in favor of the poor ashamed to beg; but the work
most closely linked to his name is the institution
of Monti di pietà (v.), the first, that of Mantua,
founded by him in 1484, with the characteristic of interest on the loan, advocated by a few of his confraterns, overcoming the tenacious opposition of other religious,
who did not want to admit the lawfulness of that
loan, though necessary to the prosperity of the Monti. The recent discovery of two collections of sermons of B.
has at last made it possible to know his original thought on the matter,
whereas previously it had to be sought in the Defensorium of Bernardino de' Bustis, inspired by the Feltrino. He thundered from the pulpit also against feminine vanity and against ostentation, considering them as an offense to the
poor. Among the topics he preferred there are furthermore
to be noted: the cult of the Eucharist, the defense of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, then publicly
impugned, the propaganda for the Franciscan Third Order.
It is not easy to give an exact judgment, on the literary level,
of his eloquence, because both the Lenten sermons of Pavia of 1493 and the Advent of Brescia of the
same year are too much marked by the pen of the compiler, fra' Bernardino Bulgarino, who in part preserved the Italian form, in part translated into a
poor Latin, mixing into it Venetian locutions. Nevertheless these sermons and the few previously known bring back to us the liveliness of tone, of which
the first biographers speak, the anecdotal ease, and do not
hide the good culture, the preparation, the seriousness of the orator.
Venerated as blessed by the Friars Minor, he had
his cult confirmed in 1654. Feast on 28 Sept.
Iconography. - In the processes of canonization there
is news of abundant iconographic material prior to the 17th cent., especially collected in Feltre
and Pavia. Noteworthy in the first city: the portrait, executed
by Luzi (the «Morto da Feltre»), for the church of
S. Maria degli Angeli, and the paintings in the churches of S. Lorenzo and of the Holy Spirit; in the second: the Sacred
Conversations in S. Chiara (assigned to c. 1493),
in S. Maria delle Virtù, in S. Francesco, in the church
and in the Chancellery of the Hospital; an ancient bust in the
building of the Monte di Pietà at Porta Marica, besides
a Sacred Conversation in the monastery of S. Agata,
by the hand of Rosso, a contemporary of B. and, by the
same author, a fresco on the model of the death
mask, on the door of the chapel of the blessed in S.
Giacomo. Also in Verona he is portrayed in the Sala del
Morone near St. Bernardino and in an altarpiece by
Cavazzola in the museum of Castelvecchio.
Distinguishing marks and attributes: short face with somewhat
protruding eyes; emblem of piety or of the Monti;
sometimes scrolls with one of the mottos: «Attende tibi -
Habe illius curam - Nolite diligere mundum».
Bibliography7 works
Fausta Casolini