CAPEROLANS, a congregation of religious in Italy, so called from Peter Caperole their founder, in the 15th century.
The Milanese and Venetians being at war, the enmity thereby occasioned spread itself to the very cloisters. The superiors of minor brothers in the province of Milan, which extended itself as far as the territories of the republic of Venice, carried it so haughtily over the Venetians, that those of the convent of Brescia resolved to shake off a yoke which had grown insupportable to them. The superiors, informed of this, drove out of the province those whom they considered as the authors of this design, the principal of whom were Peter Caperole, Mat-
thew de Tharville, and Bonaventure of Brescia. Peter Caperole, a man of an enterprising genius, found means to separate the convents of Brescia, Bergamo, and Cremona, from the province of Milan, and subject them to the conventuals. This occasioned a law-suit between the vicar-general and these convents, which was determined in favour of the latter; and the convents, in 1475, by the authority of Pope Sextus IV., were erected into a distinct vicariate, under the title of that of Brescia. But this not satisfying the ambition of Caperole, he obtained, by the interposition of the doge of Venice, that this vicariate might be erected into a congregation, which from him was called Caperolans. This congregation still subsists in Italy, and is composed of twenty-four convents, situated in Brescia, Bergamo, and Cremasco.