San Bernardino da Massa heads a long list of preachers, who, without taking a prominent part in contemporary politics, devoted all their energies to the moral regeneration of the people.  His life, written by Vespasiano da Bisticci, is one of the most valuable documents which we possess for the religious history of Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century.  His parents, who were people of good condition, sent him at an early age to study the Canon law at Siena.  They designed him for a lucrative and important office in the Church.  But, while yet a youth, he was seized with a profound conviction of the degradation of his countrymen.  The sense of sin so weighed upon him that he sold all his substance, entered the order of S. Francis, and began to preach against the vices which were flagrant in the great Italian cities.  After traveling through the length and breadth of the peninsula, and winning all men by the magic of his eloquence, he came to Florence.  ‘There,’ says Vespasiano, ’the Florentines being by nature very well disposed indeed to truth, he so dealt that he changed the whole State and gave it, one may say, a second birth.  And in order to abolish the false hair which the women wore, and games of chance, and other vanities, he caused a sort of large stall to be raised in the Piazza di Santa Croce, and bade every one who possessed any of these vanities to place them there; and so they did; and he set fire thereto and burned the whole.’  S. Bernardino preached unremittingly for forty-two years in every quarter of Italy, and died at last worn out with fatigue and sickness.  ’Of many enmities and deaths of men he wrought peace and removed deadly hatreds; and numberless princes, who harbored feuds to the death, he reconciled, and restored tranquillity to many cities and peoples.’  A vivid picture of the method adopted by S. Bernardino in his dealings with these cities is presented to us by Graziani, the chronicler of Perugia:  ’On September 23, 1425, a Sunday, there were, as far as we could reckon, upwards of 3,000 persons in the Cathedral.  His sermon was from the Sacred Scripture, reproving men of every vice and sin, and teaching Christian living.  Then he began to rebuke the women for their paints and cosmetics, and false hair, and such like wanton customs; and in like manner the men for their cards and dice-boards and masks and amulets and charms:  insomuch that within a fortnight the women sent all their false hair and gewgaws to the Convent of S. Francis, and the men their dice, cards, and such gear, to the amount of many loads.  And on October 29 Fra Bernardino collected all these devilish things on the piazza, where he erected a kind of wooden castle between the fountain and the Bishop’s palace; and in this he put all the said articles, and set fire to them; and the fire was so great that none durst go near; and in the fire were burned things of the greatest value, and so great was the haste of men and women to escape that fire that many would have perished but for the quick aid of the burghers.’  Together with this onslaught upon vanities, Fra Bernardino connected the preaching of peace and amity.  It is noticeable that while his sermon lasted and the great bell of S. Lorenzo went on tolling, no man could be taken or imprisoned in the city of Perugia.[1]