PANGAROLA, FRANCESCO. — Orator and controversialist of the Order of Friars Minor Observant, born in Milan on 6 January 1548, died in Asti on 31 May 1594.
Of a well-to-do family, he studied law at Pavia and Bologna; in 1567 he took the Franciscan habit in Florence; he pursued philosophical and theological studies at Padua, Pisa, and Paris. In 1573 he began an intense and highly celebrated career as a preacher throughout Italy, which did not prevent him from fulfilling the duties of custos of the province of Milan and later general definitor of his Order. St Charles Borromeo sent him in 1583 to Rhaetia to combat the spread of the Protestant Reformation; Sixtus V appointed him in 1586 bishop of Grispolis and suffragan of the bishop of Ferrara; the following year he entrusted him with the diocese of Asti and shortly thereafter sent him to Paris to assist Cardinal Legate Enrico Gaetano in his support of the League against Henry IV, a mission that lasted until 1590.
Despite such intense activity, Pangarola composed numerous works, not only of sacred eloquence but also of theological and philosophical polemics, as well as some historical memoirs on events he witnessed, and a compendium of the first book of Cesare Baronio’s Annales ecclesiastici (Rome 1590).