FRANCESCO MARIA CASINI. — Cardinal; born in Arezzo on 1 November 1648, died in Rome on 14 February 1719. He entered the Capuchins in 1663 and became a celebrated preacher. After yielding to the rhetorical fashions of his time, he returned to a more austere and evangelical norm, going so far as to destroy copies of his own Panegyrics (Massa 1678, Venice 1673), in which he had too closely followed the prevailing vice. In 1698 Innocent XII appointed him Apostolic Preacher, and he stood at the Pope’s side at the moment of his death (27 September 1700). He continued in office under Clement XI, who created him Cardinal of S. Prisca on 18 May 1712 for his apostolic courage in denouncing the faults even of the Curia and the clergy, and he continued to preach until Advent.
Clement XI ordered the publication of the Sermons delivered in the Apostolic Palace (Rome 1713), later reprinted in Milan in 1714–15, 1718, and again subsequently (last edition at Fossombrone 1861). He may be considered one of the finest continuators of Segneri’s oratory. Among his printed works are L’età dell’uomo alle misure del tempo e dell’eternità (Rome 1716), also reprinted several times (Turin 1882); and Opera omnia (Augusta-Graz 1730–40) in Latin.