CARACCIOLO, ROBERTO. – Franciscan preacher (more commonly Fra' Roberto da Lecce), born at Lecce in 1425, died there on 6 May 1495. A member of the noble Caraccioli del Leone family, out of deference to his parents he entered the Observant Friars Minor as an adolescent, but in 1452 joined the Conventuals. A Master of Theology, for nearly 50 years he was an indefatigable and ardent popular preacher; from as early as 1448 (Perugia, Rome), he aroused enthusiasm throughout Italy, like St. Bernardino da Siena before him. Trithemius calls him “a man of excellent intellect, gentle and elegant in speech, distinguished for his life and conduct, a most celebrated preacher famous throughout the Christian world; by word and example he drew many away from iniquity.” He was dear to Niccolò V and Callistus III; the latter (1456) sent him as apostolic nuncio to the duke and people of Milan; Paul II appointed him apostolic preacher (1465). Ferrante I d'Aragona wanted him as royal preacher at Naples, where he was enrolled in the Pontaniana Academy. Bishop of L'Aquila in 1475, in 1477 he was transferred to Aquino by Sixtus IV, and in 1483–84 he passed to the see of Lecce, retaining the bishopric of Aquino.
He left highly esteemed collections of sermons both in Latin and in the vernacular: De laudibus sanctorum, printed in ten cities; Discorsi sul timore dei giudizi di Dio (13 editions); Specchio della fede cristiana (6 editions); Opus Quadragesimale perutilissimum quod de paenitentia dictum est (30 editions); Quaresimale dei peccati (8 editions); Quaresimale della Penitenza (24 editions); Sermones de adventis et de timore iudiciorum Dei (13 editions); Trattato contro la separazione dei frati Minori dell'Osservanza dai Conventuali, to which Fr. Nicola d'Osimo replied around 1453. Other works were attributed to C., perhaps to give them greater authority. All C.'s works were printed in three volumes (Venice 1490), and in one (Lyons 1513, with the types of Alemanni).