Della Torre, Antonio, Blessed

DELLA TORRE, Antonio, Blessed. - A physician of great renown and great holiness, b. in Milan in 1424, he received his doctorate at the University of Padua. He was inspired by the conviction that the body could not be healed without first healing the soul.

Disregarding the great renown he had achieved as a physician, he took the Augustinian habit; having become prior of the house, he humbly sought to escape the growing esteem in which he was held and obtained from his superiors repeated changes of residence (Foligno, St. James of Galicia). Having moved to Aquila in 1470, during the violent plague epidemic, although already limping from a grave infirmity that had left one of his legs shorter, tirelessly, with skill in treatments, charity in settling grave disputes among citizens, and zeal in administering the Sacraments, he showed to what level his intellectual and moral personality had attained. He cultivated the practice of medicine until his death, which occurred at L'Aquila on 24 July 1494. Tradition attributes numerous miracles to him in life and in death. His feast appears in the diocesan Propers of L'Aquila (24 July) and Foligno (27 July) and in that of the Hermits of St. Augustine (24 July).

Giuseppe de Ninno