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 took his degree in law in 1556. Of the humanistic works of those youthful years, there remains only a learned In nuptias Pelei e Thetidis catulianus commentarius (Bologna 1551), with some 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 the Monferrato, fiscal advocate at Alessandria, again podestà of Cassine and of Colleone, and trustee of the Marquis d'Avalos for his fiefs in the Kingdom of Naples. But at Naples, having come into contact with the Jesuits, he asked to be admitted into the Society (1564). Ordained priest at Naples in 1567, he worked there for some years; sent in 1574 to Lecce to negotiate a foundation offered to the Society, he never left that city again until his death. He did not distinguish himself in preaching or in popular missions, as his confreres Antonio Baldinucci and Francesco de Geronimo did later; but through his qualities of zeal, patience and great affability, and also through supernatural charisms, the man of God became, in the confessional and in the other priestly ministries, a very popular apostle at Lecce, to such an extent that, when he lay on his deathbed, the municipality wished officially to entrust to him the heavenly protection of the city. 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, Father 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 processes.
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Edmondo Lamalle