Narni, Girolamo De

Narni, Girolamo De a celebrated Capuchin preacher, one of the most noted of Italian pulpit orators, flourished at Rome in the early part of the 17th century. Very little is accessible to us of his personal history; but we know that he was one of the principal promoters of the scheme to support and enlarge the Propaganda (q.v.), and that as a man and preacher he was highly esteemed among Romanists. "He commanded," says Ranke, "general reverence by a life which procured for him the reputation of a saint, and in the pulpit he displayed a filness of thought, solidity of expression, and majesty of delivery which captivated everybody. Bellarmine, on one occasion, as he came from hearing Narni preach, said he thought that one of St. Augustine's three wishes had been granted to him, that, namely, of hearing St. Paul preach" (Hist. of the Papacy in the 16th and 17th Centuries, 2:69, 244).