AGOSTINO da MONTEFELTRO. — Franciscan, preacher, b. at S. Agata Feltria on 1 March 1839, d. at Marina di Pisa on 4 April 1921. First a secular priest and canon, he then became a religious (1871); after a period of spiritual disorientation followed by sincere repentance, he devoted himself to sacred preaching, in which he acquired a reputation as a supreme preacher throughout all Italy in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Stripped of every romantic legend (and popular imagination created many such legends around him), the true figure of A. is that of an exceptional apostle, who knew how to grasp the entire soul of his age and interpret its aspirations in the universal charity of the Gospel. Gabba, Toniolo, and Saccardo observed this from the standpoint of serious study—as early as the years of his greatest triumphs. Although the influence of the French school may surprise them in his preaching, it nonetheless contains a highly personal element, which is the principal factor in his extraordinary success and alone explains the secret of the irresistible fascination aroused everywhere by the humble friar.
In the social sphere A. contributed effectively to preparing the ground for Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891). The great Pontiff wished him to preach in Rome, and A. preached Lent in 1889 at S. Carlo al Corso. This was such an event that it was thought the right opportunity had arrived to attempt approaches toward a pacification between Church and State on the basis of private initiative; these approaches elicited varied echoes in the press. A. remained silent, then and always, about the delicate affair. He joined the apostolate of the pulpit to that of charity. In 1887 he opened a girls’ orphanage in Pisa, and in 1893 another at Marina di Pisa, establishing his own congregation of Sisters, the Figlie di Nazaret, entrusted with their administration.