CEPARI, VIRGILIO. - Jesuit, hagiographer, and ascetical writer, born at Panicale on Lake Trasimeno in 1563 or ’64, died in Rome on 14 March 1631. Professor of theology at Parma and Padua, rector at Florence and Rome, he long concerned himself with beatifications and canonizations (he was in fact the promoter of the causes of s. Roberto Bellarmino, s. Luigi Gonzaga, s. Giovanni Berchmans, and s. Maria M. de’ Pazzi, whose spiritual director he was also) and cooperated in the establishment of the Vergini di Gesù, founded by the three nieces of s. Luigi.
He wrote: Vita del S. Luigi Gonzaga, primogenito di D. Ferrante Gonzaga, Principe dell'Imperio, Marchese di Castiglione (Rome 1606); Esercizio della presenza di Dio (Milan and Rome 1621), so highly esteemed by s. R. Bellarmino that he kept it in his hands during the last hours of his life; Regole Comuni delle Vergini di Gesù nel Collegio di Castiglione (Bologna 1622); Ristretto della vita del b. Francesco Borgia, che fu duca di Gandia... (Rome 1624); Vita di G. Berchmans, Fiammingo... (ibid. 1627); Vita di s. Francesca Romana (ibid. 1641); Vita della serafica vergine suor Maria M. de' Pazzi, Fiorentina (ibid. 1669); he also wrote the Directorium canonizationis Sanctorum, which remained in manuscript and was praised and used by Benedetto XIV in composing his work.