NERINI, PAOLO ANTONIO. - Barnabite missionary, born in Milan on 1 Nov. 1711 and killed in 1756 at Siriam in Pegu (Burma), while refusing to hand over to the soldiers of the king of Ava the women who had taken refuge in his church.
He left for Burma in 1741, after teaching literature and eloquence for several years in the Arcimboldi schools in Milan and at S. Martino in Crema. At Siriam, during fourteen years of missionary work, assisted by the lay brother Angelo Cappello, he brought about very many conversions among pagans and schismatic Armenians, and built the first stone church in that kingdom, a large house for the missionaries, a college for boys, and a hospice for orphan girls. In 1752 Benedetto XIV appointed him titular bishop of Oreo (Oriensis) and apostolic vicar; but his consecration could not take place because the four confreres carrying the papal bulls perished in a shipwreck, and then war broke out between Ava and Pegu, leading him to martyrdom. With the destruction of the city ordered by the victorious king of the Burmese, Nerini’s writings were dispersed, among them a dictionary and a grammar of the Burmese language, a catechism, a prayer book, and other short spiritual works in that language; while of his buildings only the ruins of the church at Siriam remain, still testifying to its size and good taste.