**AGOSTINO** of **MONTEFELTRO**. - Born Francesco, preacher, was born in S. Agata Feltria on 10 March 1839, died in Marina di Pisa on 4 April 1921. Initially a secular priest and canon, then becoming a religious (1871), after a period of spiritual wandering followed by sincere repentance, he devoted himself to sacred preaching, in which he gained fame as a master throughout Italy in the late 19th century.
Stripped of every romantic legend (and much did popular imagination create around him), the true figure of A. is that of an exceptional apostle, who knew how to grasp the entire soul of his time and interpret its aspirations in the universal charity of the Gospel. This was noted with clear scholarly intent—even from the years of his greatest triumphs—by Gabba, Toniolo, and Saccardo. While his preaching may reveal the influence of the French school, it retains a deeply personal core, which is the principal factor in his extraordinary success and which alone explains the secret of the invincible charm he exerted wherever the humble friar went.
In the social sphere, A. effectively helped prepare the ground for Leo XIII’s *Rerum Novarum* (15 May 1891). The great Pontiff wished him to preach in Rome, and A. held the Lenten sermons of 1889 in S. Carlo al Corso. The event was such that it was believed the opportune moment had arrived to attempt approaches toward a reconciliation between Church and State on the basis of private initiatives, approaches that met with varied responses in the press. A. remained silent, then and always, regarding the delicate affair. His apostolate was one of purity as much as of charity. In 1887 he opened a women’s oratory in Pisa, and in 1893 another in Marina di Pisa, establishing his own Congregation of Sisters, the *Figlie di Nazaret*, entrusted with its direction.
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