St Bernardino of Siena

Bernardino is one of the great preacher-reformers of fifteenth-century Italy. Frail in health when young and formed first through charity during plague years, he eventually entered the Franciscans and spent time in prayer, study, and withdrawal before being pushed into the work for which he became famous. Once he began preaching, he carried that mission across almost the whole of Italy, usually on foot, drawing huge crowds by a style that was direct, moral, and practical rather than ornamental. This life emphasizes not only his eloquence but the effect it had: reconciled enemies, public repentance, reform of manners, and a new seriousness about Christian life. He also shows Bernardino as one of the chief builders of the Franciscan Observant reform.

What had been a smaller stricter movement of friars grew enormously under his influence and acquired greater structure, confidence, and missionary force. Honors were repeatedly pressed on him, including bishoprics, but he turned them away in order to keep preaching and strengthening the reform. The picture is not of a celebrity friar. It is of a man whose words and organizing power gave renewed shape to religious life in Italy.