Pietro Caperolo

Friar Minor, date of birth unknown; d. at Velletri in 1480; he was a man of much energy and great learning, and was held in high esteem as a preacher by the people of Brescia, Velletri, and other cities of Northern Italy. Caperolo played an important part in the religious disturbances, which arose about the year 1475, between the Franciscan provinces of Milan and Venice, and which were occasioned in great measure by the war then going on between Milan and the Venetian Republic. After considerable difficulty Caperolo succeeded in obtaining permission from Pope Sixtus IV to separate several convents of the Venetian provice from the obedience of the Observants, and to form a vicariate, which was placed under the obedience of the Conventuals, but retained the right to elect its own provincial superior. The members of the new congregation were known as Caperolani, from Caperolo their founder. The death of Caperolo, however, put an end to the Caperolani as a distinct branch within the order, and all the members of the new vicariate without exception returned to the obedience of the Observants.

Wadding, Annales Minorum (Rome, 1732), XIII, 402; XIV, 242; Kobler in Kirchenlex., s.v.

STEPHEN M. DONOVAN