Vincenzo Bonardi

Faithful interpreter of the Counter-Reformation, he created the Episcopal Seminary

Roman by birth, he got his first important appointments within the Papal Curia, initially as Secretary of the Congregation of the Index, then as Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palaces during the pontificate of Sixtus V. He was appointed bishop of Gerace by his successor, Gregory XIV, carrying out his duties in the final decade of the sixteenth century. He endorsed the post-Tridentine norms, establishing the methods of their application during two diocesan synods. He was especially committed to completing the construction of the palace of the Episcopal Seminary founded by Andrea Candida, extending it. He ordered works in the episcope, where he is mentioned in an inscription on the stone display of the entry door to the Hall of Tapestries, and in the cathedral, where he supported the restoration of the sacristy and the creation of a new bell, now lost, called 'la Bonarda' . 

He took care of the renovation of the chapel of Santa Maria de Jesu, which no longer exists, in the church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Gerace, of which only the statue of the Virgin remains today, preserved in the church of Sant'Anna in the same city.