GIOVANNI LEONARDI, saint. — Founder of the Order of Clerics Regular of the Mother of God, born at Diecimo (Lucca) in 1541 (or 1543, according to others), died in Rome on 9 October 1609. After completing his first studies in the town of Villa Basilica, where he also donned the clerical cassock, he was sent by his father to Lucca in 1561 to learn the profession of pharmacist. He practised it for several years, that is, until his father’s death, when he was able to resume ecclesiastical dress, although he was already 26 years old. In 1573 he was ordained a priest, having had as his teacher of theology the Franciscan Prospero Pampaloni, formerly a theologian at the Council of Trent. In Lucca L. devoted himself to the education and instruction of the children of the people, founding a “Company of Christian Doctrine.” Then, in 1574, he initiated a “Congregation of Reformed Priests,” called first the “Secular Clerics of the Blessed Virgin,” and finally the “Clerics Regular of the Mother of God.”
The first associates of L., who also assisted him in founding three other institutions—one in Lucca, another in Pescia, and a third in Pistoia—were the venerable Giov. Battista Cioni and Cesare Franciotti. In 1584, returning from the sanctuary of Loreto, he stopped in Rome for some time and was received, together with several of his religious who had accompanied him, by St. Filippo Neri at S. Girolamo della Carità. In 1592, Pope Clement VIII sent him as apostolic commissioner to the sanctuary of Madonna dell’Arco near Naples.
Together with the Spanish prelate Giovanni Battista Vives, he worked for the foundation of a missionary college in Rome. Elected superior general of his institute, the Saint celebrated its first general Chapter in Rome in 1604, where several years earlier he had opened a house near Piazza Montanara, beside the subsequently demolished church of S. Maria in Portico; he also presided over the second Chapter in 1608.
He was canonized by Pius XI at Easter 1938.
His feast falls on 10 October.