BIANCHI, FRANCESCO SAVERIO MARIA, blessed. – Barnabite, born at Arpino on 2 December 1743 and died in 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 residence in that college, even after its suppression on 7 August 1809, together with his works of charity and frequent miracles (among them the famous stopping of the lava from Vesuvius), made him the popular saint of that district. From 1804 he was immobilized by a mysterious and painful ailment of the legs; his cell then became a meeting place for people of every class, including the exiled Carlo Emanuele IV with his consort Maria Clotilde di Savoia. For 17 years he directed in the spiritual life s. Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe (v.).
The characteristics of his spirituality are Eucharistic devotion and a pleasant cheerfulness that led the same saint to say: «We have two Filippis: one black and one white». Possessed of a broad theological, literary, and scientific culture, he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology at the University of Naples and a member of the ecclesiastical academy founded by Cardinal Savelli; but of his mostly ascetic letters and his ascetic and literary compositions, in prose and verse, Italian and Latin (for which see the description in Boffito’s work), he published nothing apart from a few ejaculatory prayers for times of calamity. He was beatified by Leo XIII on 22 January 1893; on 12 July 1932 Pius XI signed the decree reopening his cause of canonization.