Matteo Serafini (Matteo da Bascio) (b. in 1495, at Molino di Bascio, Diocese of Montefeltro, in the Duchy of Urbino; d. at Venice in 1552) was the co-founder and first Superior-General of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins, the principal branch of the Franciscans issued from the Reform of the Observance. Background At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Franciscans were divided into the two distinct families of Conventuals and Observants. The difference between the two families was their adhesion to the primitive ideal of Franciscan poverty and simplicity; the Conventuals accepted revenues by papal dispensation; the Observants refused fixed revenues and lived by casual alms. At least such was the principle; but in practice the Observants had come themselves to relax the principle under various legal devices. Thus, though they would not accept money themselves, they allowed secular individuals to accept money for their use; they accepted chaplaincies to which were affixed regular stipends. To those who looked to the primitive custom of the order, such acceptances seemed inappropriate. Hence it was that the Observants, after breaking away from the Conventuals, themselves gave rise to various reforms which aimed at a more perfect return to the primitive type. Life Matteo Serafini was born in 1495, at Molino di Bascio in the Duchy of Urbino. At the age of seventeen he entered the Order of the Observants at Montefiorentino. According to one tradition, the friar had been attending a funeral and was returning to his convent, when he met a beggar by the wayside barely clad. Moved with compassion, Father Matteo gave the beggar part of his own clothing. Shortly afterwards the friar was in prayer when he heard a voice, which three times admonished him, saying "Observe the Rule to the letter". He sought a more austere life away from the call of possessions, position, and wealthy benefactors to spend a life as a hermit, and went about bare-foot. His superiors tried to suppress these innovations. It is said that Pope Leo X had given him permission to institute a reform amongst the Observants; but if so Father Matteo did not avail himself of the permission, perhaps because of the death of that pontiff. Friar Matteo and his first companions were forced into hiding from Church authorities, who sought to arrest them for having abandoned their religious duties. They were given refuge by the Camaldolese monks, in gratitude