Capistranus, Johannes

(Giovanni di Capistrano), a Franciscan, was born at Capistrano, in the Abruzzi, June 23,1385. Political troubles, during which he was imprisoned, led him to quit the world, and to assume the Franciscan habit. He led a life of extreme austerity, sleeping only three hours a day, and eating but once daily, without touching flesh, for thirty-six years. He was made Inquisitor at Rome, especially against the Fratricelli (q.v.); and Cave states that, "heading the army of Crusaders, as they were called, he endeavored to root out heresy by fire and sword, and actually burned to the ground eighty-six villages of the Fratricelli in Campania." Pope Eugenius IV sent him in 1439 as nuncio to Sicily, and employed him at the Council of Florence in seeking to effect a union between the Greek and Latin Churches. In 1443 Nicholas V sent him on a crusade into Bohemia and Hungary against the Hussites. After this he stirred up X crusade against the Turks, and in 1456, putting himself at the head of 100,000 men, raised for the relief of Belgrade, then besieged by Mohammed II, he carried the standard in the very foremost of the fight, and obtained a complete victory. He died Oct. 23, 1456, at Villach, in Carinthia. Alexander VII beatified him in 1690, and he was canonized by Benedict XIII in 1724. Among his works are: (1.) De papae et concilii, sive Ecclesice, auctoritate, against the Fathers of Basle (Venice, 1580, 4to); and in the Tractatus Juris (Ibid. 1584, tom. 13, pt. 1, p. 32): — (2.) Speculum clericorum: — (3.) Speculum conscientiae: — (4.) De Canone peanitentiali (all three in the Tract. Jur.): — (5.) De Excommunicatione; Matrimonio; Judicio Universale; Antichristo, etc. — Cave, Hist. Lit. vol. 2, App. p. 153; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 8:580; Baillet, Vies des Saints, 23 Oct.; Gieseler, Ch. History, period 3, § 132; Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, 2:324.