BERNARDINO REALINO, saint. – Of the Society of Jesus. Born at Carpi on 1 December 1530, he pursued excellent studies at Carpi, Modena, and Bologna, where he received his law degree in 1556. Of the humanistic works of those youthful years, there remains only an erudite In nuptias Pelei e Thetidis catulianus commentarius (Bologna 1551), with several In varia scriptorum loca annotationes appended to it (reprinted in Gruter’s Lampas sive fax artium liberalium, vol. II, Frankfurt 1604).
Having entered the administrative career, R. was successively podestà of Felizzano in Monferrato, fiscal advocate at Alessandria, podestà once again of Cassine and Colleone, and the trusted agent of the Marquis d’Avalos for his fiefs in the Neapolitan region. However, in Naples, having come into contact with the Jesuits, he asked to be admitted to the Society (1564). Ordained a priest at Naples in 1567, he worked there for several years; sent to Lecce in 1574 to negotiate a foundation offered to the Society, he never again left that city until his death. He did not distinguish himself in preaching or in popular missions, as did his confrères Antonio Baldinucci or Francesco de Geronimo at a later date;
but through his qualities of zeal, patience, and great affability, and also through his supernatural charisms, the man of God became, in the confessional and in his other priestly ministries, a highly popular apostle in Lecce, to such an extent that, when he found himself on his deathbed, the municipality wished officially to entrust the city’s heavenly protection to him. He died on 2 July 1616; he was beatified by Leo XIII in 1895 and canonized by Pius XII in 1946. His feast is celebrated on 3 July. Of his manuscripts, Fr Boero published: Lettere spirituali inedite del ven. p. Bernardino Realino (Naples 1854). Religious poems, in Latin and Italian, are found inserted in the summaries of the beatification proceedings.