CEPARI, VIRGILIO. — Jesuit, hagiographer, and ascetical writer, born at Panicale on Lake Trasimeno in 1563 or 1564, died in Rome on 14 March 1631. Professor of theology at Parma and Padua, rector at Florence and Rome, he devoted much attention to the subject of beatifications and canonizations (he was in fact the promoter of the causes of St Robert Bellarmine, St Aloysius Gonzaga, St John Berchmans, St Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, of whom he was also spiritual director) and cooperated in the establishment of the Vergini di Gesù founded by the three nieces of St Aloysius.
He wrote: *Vita del S. Luigi Gonzaga, primogenito di D. Ferrante Gonzaga, Principe dell’Impero, Marchesa di Castiglione* (Rome 1606); *Esercizio della presenza di Dio* (Milan and Rome 1621), much esteemed by St Robert Bellarmine, who had it in hand in his last hours; *Regole Comuni delle Vergini di Gesù nel Collegio di Castiglione* (Bologna 1622); *Ristretto della vita del b. Franco cesso 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 composed the *Directorium canonizationis Sanctorum*, left in manuscript, praised and used by Benedict XIV in the composition of his own work.