NINGUARDA, FELICIANO. - Dominican theologian and bishop, born at Morbegno (Valtellina) in 1524, died at Como on 5 Jan. 1595. He taught at Vienna and was procurator of the archbishop of Salzburg at the Council of Trent (1562–63). There he distinguished himself
by his prudence and diplomatic abilities;
for this reason Pius V sent him to Germany with the task of visiting bishops and princes and urging the implementation of the conciliar decrees.
In 1573 the General of the Order also appointed him visitor of all the Dominican convents in Bohemia and Austria, while the Pope extended his authority as visitor and reformer to all the religious houses of the mendicant orders in Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia.
The Catholic restoration in those regions owed much to his prudent and energetic work. On 25 Feb. 1577 he was appointed bishop of Scala near Amalfi. The following year he was sent as apostolic nuncio to Upper Germany, which for five years (1578–83) he travelled through, devoting himself with courage and constancy to the arduous work of reform. In 1583, having returned to Italy, he was appointed bishop of S. Agata dei Goti; in 1586 he was assigned as nuncio to Switzerland, and in 1588 was transferred to the episcopal see of Como.
The most important of his works concern pastoral theology and may be regarded as commentaries on the decrees of the Council of Trent: Manuale parschorum (Ingolstadt 1582); Euchiridion de censuris (ibid. 1585); Manuale visitatorum (Rome 1589; Italian trans. Atti della visita pastorale diocesana di F. N., 1589–93, 2 vols., Como 1892–93).