FRANCESCO SAVERIO MARIA BIANCHI, Blessed. – Barnabite, born at Arpino on 2 December 1743 and died at Naples on 31 January 1815, where he is buried in the church of S. Giuseppe a Pontecorvo. For many years he was superior of S. Maria a Portanova in Naples (1767–85); his long stay in that college, even after its suppression on 7 August 1809, together with his works of charity and frequent miracles (among which the famous stopping of the lava flow from Vesuvius is notable), made him the popular saint of that district. From 1804 he was confined by a mysterious and painful illness of the legs: his cell then became a meeting place for people of every class, including the exiled Charles Emmanuel IV with his consort Maria Clotilde of Savoy. For 17 years he guided in the spirit Saint Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe (q.v.).
Characteristic of his spirituality were his Eucharistic devotion and a cheerful joyfulness that led the same saint to say: “We have two Philips: one black and one white.” Endowed with wide theological, literary and scientific learning, he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology at the University of Naples and member of the ecclesiastical academy founded by Cardinal Savelli; yet of his mostly ascetical letters and his ascetical and literary compositions, in prose and verse, Italian and Latin (of which see the description in the work of Boffito), he published nothing except some ejaculatory prayers for times of calamity. He was beatified by Leo XIII on 22 January 1893; Pius XI on 12 July 1932 signed the decree resuming his cause of canonization.