Canonisation and Iconography
Reports of miracles attributed to Bernardino multiplied rapidly after his death, and Bernardino was canonized as a saint in 1450, only six years after his death, by Pope Nicholas V. His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is on 20 May, the day of his death.
Bernardino lived into the early days of the print and was the subject of portraits in his lifetime, as well as a death-mask, which were copied to make prints, so that he is one of the earliest saints to have a fairly consistent appearance in art; though many Baroque images, such as that by El Greco, are idealized compared to the realistic ones made in the decades after his death.
After his death, the Franciscans promoted an iconographical program of diffusion of images of Bernardino, which was second only to that of the founder of the order. As such, he is one of the earliest saints whose appearance was given a distinct and readily recognisable iconography. Artists of the late medieval and Renaissance periods often represented him as small and emaciated, with three mitres at his feet (representing the three bishoprics which he had rejected) and holding in his hand the IHS monogram with rays emanating from it (representing his devotion to the "Holy Name of Jesus"), which was his main attribute. He appears to have been a favourite in the works Luca della Robbia, and one of the finest examples of Renaissance art includes relief carvings of the saint, which can be seen on the oratory of Perugia Cathedral.
A portrait is known to have circulated in Siena just after Bernardino's death which, on the basis of physiognomic similarities with his death mask at L'Aquila, is believed to have been a good likeness. It is thought probable that many subsequent depictions of the saint derive from this portrait.
The most famous depictions of Bernardino are found in the cycle of frescoes of his life, which were executed towards the end of the fifteenth century by Pinturicchio in the Bufalini Chapel of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome. There is also an altar panel at the Alte Pinakothek in Berlin, done by Pietro Perugino, known as The Virgin appearing to St. Bernard. This shows the saint experiencing a vision of the Virgin Mary.
Saint Bernardino is the Roman Catholic patron saint of advertising, communications, compulsive gambling, respiratory problems, as well as any problems involving the chest area. He is the patron saint of Carpi (Italy); the Philippine barangay Kay-Anlog; the barangay Tuna in Cardona, Rizal; and the diocese of San Bernardino, California. Siena College, a Franciscan Catholic liberal arts college in New York state, was named after him and placed under his spiritual patronage.
His cult also spread to England at an early period, and was particularly promulgated by the Observant Friars, who first established themselves in the country in Greenwich, in 1482, not forty years after his death, but who were later suppressed.
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