The convent of San Bernardino was build two years after the canonization of the saint, in 1452, upon explicit request of Verona citizens. It barely survived the suppression and spoliation of the nineteenth century. The monastery served, from time to time - under the French, the Austrians and the Kingdom of Italy - as a hospital, city cemetery, warehouse and college.
The place for the foundation of the church and the monastery was chosen by St. John from Capistrano, companion and friend of St. Bernardine of Siena, after the canonization of the latter in 1450. San Bernardino, champion of the Observant movement within the Franciscan Order and famous preacher, was in Verona in 1422 and in 1443.
By preaching he spread the veneration of the name of Jesus, depicted in the monogram IHS (Iesus Hominum Salvator) surrounded by a twelve rays of the sun (the twelve apostles).
The complex includes four cloisters. The greater (cloister of St. Anthony, by depictions of the lunettes) serves as the churchyard. The church, built entirely in brick, is a typical building for sobriety formal and structural simplicity of the architecture of the mendicant orders.
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