CAPISTRANO, ka-pe-stra'nd, Giovanni di, or CAPISTFtANUS, Johannes, Saint, Italian monk: b. Capistrano, a small Neapolitan town of the Abruzzi, 24 June 1386; d. Illock, Slavonia, 23 Oct. 1456. He at first studied law, but in his 30th year, impelled by a vision, entered the Franciscan order, and was soon distinguished by the austerity of his manners, and a great zeal against the numerous heretical sects in Italy. The Popes Martin V, Eugene IV and Felix V, often employed him as legate and inquisitor in suppressing the sect of the Fraticelli, which had spread widely over Naples and the Papal States. In 1444 he became vicar general of the strict order of Franciscans called Observants, and in 1450 proceeded as legate to Germany with a view to suppress the Hussites, and rouse the Germans to a crusade against the Turks. Although he was successful in his op. position to the Hussites in Moravia, he was ex pelled from Bohemia by George Podiebrad. His fanaticism often led him into many acts of cruelty, one of the worst being the racking and burning of 40 Jews in Breslau, on the charge of profaning the Host. His harangues in favor of a crusade against the Turks failing to make much impression on the German princes he resolved to try their effect on the populace, and easily persuaded great numbers to Join him in marching against the Turks, who were advancing under II, and had closely invested Belgrade, the key of Hungary, with an army of 150,000 men. At the instiga
tion of Capistranus, John Corvinus Hunnyades furnished a force of 60,000, destroyed the Turk ish fleet on the Danube, and threw into Bel grade succors both of men and provisions. On this expedition Capistranus in person com manded the left wing of the party, forced his way into Belgrade, repulsed a general assault by the Turks, and on 6 Aug. 1456, in tion with Hunnyades, signally defeated the whole Turkish host. His exertions, and the pestilential atmosphere caused by the dead bod ies lying unburied around Belgrade, laid him on a sickbed, and he died in the same year in the Franciscan monastery at Illock. He was beatified in 1690 and canonized in 1724 by Bene dict XIII. He was the author of 'Speculum Conscientim.) Consult Jacob, 'Johannes von Capistrano' (2 vols., Breslau