GIOVANNI LEONARDI, Saint. — Founder of the Order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, born in Diecimo (Lucca) in 1541 (or 1543 according to others), died in Rome on 9 October 1609. After his initial studies in the town of Villa Basilica, where he also donned the clerical attire, he was sent by his father to Lucca in 1561 to learn the profession of pharmacist. He practiced this trade for several years, until his father’s death, after which he was able to resume the ecclesiastical habit, though he was already 26 years old. In 1573 he was ordained a priest, having studied theology under the Franciscan Prospero Pampaloni, who had been a theologian at the Council of Trent.
In Lucca, LEONARDI dedicated himself to the education and instruction of young people from the common folk, founding a “Company of Christian Doctrine.” Then, in 1574, he established a “Congregation of Reformed Priests,” initially called the “Secular Clerics of the Blessed Virgin,” and later the “Clerics Regular of the Mother of God.”
The first companions of LEONARDI, who assisted him in founding three other institutions—one in Lucca, another in Pescia, and a third in Pistoia—were the Venerable Giovanni Battista Cioni and Cesare Franciotti. In 1584, after returning from the Sanctuary of Loreto, he stopped in Rome for a time and was hosted, along with some of his religious who had accompanied him, by St. Philip Neri at San Girolamo della Carità. In 1592, Pope Clement VIII sent him as an apostolic commissioner to the Sanctuary of the Madonna dell’Arco near Naples.