GIOVANNI (PILI) da FANO. – Friar Minor and subsequently Capuchin, died in Urbania on 5 March 1539. Of noble family, after becoming a Friar Minor he distinguished himself through zeal and industriousness. As provincial minister, he strongly opposed the first beginnings of the Capuchin reform.
Having repented, he not only supported it but embraced it (1534) and worked extensively to spread and consolidate it, especially in northern Italy and the Marches. In 1663 his body was found incorrupt. Together with s. Girolamo Emiliani, he founded in Brescia the work of the Orfanelli della Misericordia, and he also fought Protestant infiltrations in Italy through his writings.
BIBL.: M. a Pobladura, Historia generalis Ordinis Capuccinorum, I, Roma 1946, V. indice; G. Cantini, I Francescani d'Italia di fronte alle dottrine laterane e calviniste durante il Cinquecento (Bibliotheca Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 3), there 1948, pp. 69–74, with bibliography. Alberto Ghinato