Bernardine

, an ecclesiastic and saint, was born at Massa, in Tuscany, Sept. 8, 1380. Having lost his mother at three years of age, and his father at seven, his relations in 1392 sent for him to Sienna, where he learned g ammar under Onuphrius, and philosophy under John JSpoletanus. In 1396 he entered himself among the confraternity of the disciplinaries in the hospital de la Scala in that city and in 1400, when the plague ravaged all Italy, he attended upon the sick in that hospital with the utmost diligence and humanity. In 1404 he entered into a monastery of the Franciscan order, near Sienna, and, having been ordained priest, became an eminent preacher. He was afterwards sent to Jerusalem, as commissary of the holy land and upon his return to Italy, visited several cities, where he preached with great applause. His enemies accused him to pope Martin V. of having advanced in his sermons erroneous propositions upon which he was oidered to Rome, where he vindicated himself, and was allowed to continue his preaching. The cities of Ferrara, Sienna, and Urbino, desired pope Eugenius IV. to appoint him their bishop but Bernardine refused to accept of ibis honour. He repaired and founded above 300 monasteries in that country. He died at Aquila in AbruzzO, May 20, 1444, and was canonised in 1450, by pope Nicholas.

His works were first published by Peter Rodolphus, bishop of Sinigaglia, 1591, Venice, 4 vols. 4to, and father de Lahaye published a new edition at Paris, 1636, 5 vols, fol. which has been followed by one of the same number of volumes, at Venice, 1745. The edition of 1591 is thus analyzed Volume I. contains his “Quadragesimale de Religione Christiana” including sixty-one Lent sermons. The second contains “Quadragesimale de Evangelio aeterno,” or a course of Lent sermons upon the everListing gospel. The third contains two “Adventualia,” one concerning the life of Christ, according to Mr. Wharton, in his appendix to Dr. Cave’s Historia Literaria, or concerning the Beatitudes, according to Du Pin the | other concerning Inspirations. The same volume likewise includes two “Quadragesimalia,” one concerning the Spiritual Combat, and the other entitled the Seraphim, or of Love several sermons upon the four last things, and others entitled Extraordinary, to the number of twenty-five “A treatise upon Confession” the “Mirror of Sinners” a discourse upon the precepts of the rule of the Minorite friars, or a “Tract concerning the Precepts of a Religious” a letter to the monks of his order in Italy, concerning several regulations; “Holy Breathings to God, for every day” a dialogue concerning Obedience, Father de la Haye is not of opinion the two Quadragesimalia in this volume are the genuine productions of our author, because they are written in a different style, and with less elevation and learning than the other works of 5>t. Bernardine. The last volume contains his sermons upon several other Sundays of the year, and the festivals of our Saviour and the Saints, with a “Commentary upon the Apocalypse.” We have not now extant his treatise of the “Conception of the blessed Virgin,” mentioned by’Trithemius and other authors. The sermons of St. Bernardino are not written in a very pure style but they contain a great deal of solid morality, and he does not fall so frequently into false conceits and puerilities, as the other preachers of that age. ¹