ANTONIO MARIA ZACCARIA, Saint. - Founder of the Barnabites and the Angelicas, d. 5 July 1539 at Cremona, where he was b. in late 1502 to Lazzaro, a Cremonese patrician of Genoese origin, and Antonietta Pescaroli, who, widowed at eighteen before the Saint was born, renounced a second marriage to devote herself to the child.
Having taken a vow of virginity to the Blessed Virgin, A. M. renounced his paternal inheritance by notarial act and, after completing his philosophical studies at Pavia, studied medicine at the University of Padua, where he formed a friendship with the Lateran canon Serafino Aceti da Fermo and received his doctorate in 1524. Returning to Cremona, he practiced his profession among the poor and also catechized children in the church of S. Vitale.
He was ordained priest in 1528, in obedience to his spiritual directors, Fr. Marcello and Fr. Battista da Crema, Dominicans; toward the end of 1530, invited by the Countess of Guastalla, Ludovica Torelli, he moved to Milan. Joining the Oratory of Eternal Wisdom and associating with the nobles Bartolomeo Ferrari and Giacomo Morigia, he founded, under the inspiration of Fra Battista da Crema, the Barnabites (v.), with their strict regular discipline for the reform of both regular and secular clergy and the laity; aided by the Countess of Guastalla, he also founded the Angelicas for the reform of women’s monasteries. Also his is the Congregation of Married Persons for the reform of families. A soul of ardent and austere temperament, open to delicate sentiments, he had, as St. Paul—whom he chose as patron of his institute—had the vocation to lead souls “to the true and despised Crucified One.” Of his institution is the commemoration of the Crucifix by the ringing of bells at three o’clock in the afternoon on Fridays; inspired by him in Milan were the Forty Hours in their form of solemn and continuous exposition in rotation through the various churches (A. De Santi, L’orazione delle Quarantore, Rome 1922), for which he is called the “Eucharistic saint.” Eucharist, the Crucifix, and St. Paul are the three themes that recur habitually in the iconography of the Saint; he is also often depicted with a lily, symbol of his inviolate virginity and a reminder of the Zaccaria family coat of arms. His apostolate unfolded in Cremona, Milan, Guastalla, and Verona. His relics, rediscovered in 1891, repose in the crypt of S. Barnaba in Milan.
He was canonized by Leo XIII in 1897, after his cult as a blessed had been reinstated in 1890, following the well-known decree of Urban VIII in 1634.
Few writings remain from A.: six early discourses on the Decalogue (first published by S. De Ruggero as an appendix to his translation of the Life written by G. Chastel) and eleven letters (O. Premoli, Le lettere e lo spirito di S. A. M. Zaccaria, Rome 1909) in a nearly dialectal Italian; and a draft of the constitutions (published as an appendix to the first volume of O. Premoli’s Storia dei Barnabiti, Rome 1913). Still debated is the attribution to him of the Detti notabili (princeps ed., Venice 1583; latest, Florence 1936, ed. G. Boffito), which others attribute to
Fra Battista da Crema (cf. Eco dei Barnabiti: Studi, Rome, May 1938, pp. 47–55).