CASTELLINO da CASTELLI (dei CASTELLI). — Apostolic priest of religious instruction, son of Francesco and Elisabetta de’ Merli, born in Menaggio (diocese of Como) perhaps in 1476. With some laymen he founded in 1536 the first school of Christian doctrine in the oratory of SS. Philip and James in Milan under the title Compagnia della reformatione in carità. At first he encountered opposition from the Milanese diocesan authority, since the work had been undertaken without its authorization, but in 1540 the vicar general approved it and enriched it with an indulgence. In a short time new schools opened in the “Porte” of Milan, so that in 1564, when the Ornatissimo arrived, sent by St Charles as vicar general, there were already 15 and within two years they rose to 30. They spread widely in northern Italy: in 1541 to Genoa, Vigevano, Verona, Piacenza; in 1542 to Mantua, Parma; in 1545 to Lodi; in 1547 to Cremona; in 1550 to Varese; in 1551 to Novara at the request of the bishop; in 1554 to Bergamo, Brescia; in 1560 to Rome; in 1562 to Monza, Asti, Ascoli; in 1565 to Como. The Compagnia also aided and improved the schools of doctrine in Venice, Savona, Ferrara, Turin, where it found the support of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy. In 1546 it was approved by the Council of Trent and Pope Paul III enriched it with a seven-year indulgence.
Since the title of the Compagnia aroused suspicions, as if it recalled certain enterprises of the innovators, in 1546 it was changed to that of Compagnia dei servi de’ puttini in carità, that is, of those “who teach on feast days gratis out of love of God to boys and girls the Christian life.” Already in 1539 it had an organization with a prior general and twelve counsellors, who, besides teaching Christian doctrine, were to receive the “usual universal Communion” every second Sunday of the month.
There is debate over the catechism adopted by the Compagnia: whether it was that composed by St Jerome Miani, by the Dominican Tommaso da Reginaldo, or another composed by C. Probably it used an Interrogatorio in which the master questioned the disciple to instruct children and those who do not know the way of God, etc., later amended by St Charles, to whom it was then attributed. The method followed was the interrogatory method.
A very important figure in the — still little-studied — movement of Catholic reform begun before the Council of Trent, he was a precursor of St Charles, whose ecclesiastical fame that of C. surpassed when he died on 21 Sept 1566 with the “consolation of seeing — as Castiglione writes — fully fulfilled the prediction he had made many years earlier about the happy outcome that would dispel the darkness of Christian education through the coming of St Charles to Milan.”