FRANCESCO DA SIENA. - Carmelite priest of the fourteenth century. While residing in Cremona, with vehemence and apostolic frankness he began to preach against the vice of blasphemy, for which he was stoned to death by certain ruffians intolerant of his zealous ministry.
A fourteenth-century Sanctoral has preserved the following eulogy of him: “A man of great holiness, he died in the Convent of Cremona, where his body, made glorious by the many miracles recorded in his life, rests honorably.” From the fourteenth century onward, the famous preacher of Cremona has often been confused with Bl. Franco da Siena, a Carmelite layman who, after converting from a dissolute life that had tainted all his youth, ended his days amid harsh penances. In the city of Cremona F. has been accorded cult ab immemorabili, and in 1925 a regular canonical process was instituted to obtain its confirmation from the Holy See.
(photo Enc. Catt.)