GRIESINGER, JAKOB, called ALEMANNO, blessed. — Dominican lay brother and artist, born in 1407 at Ulm, died at Bologna on 11 October 1491.
The son of the merchant Theodoric of Ulm, G. received an excellent education. As a young man he trained in the mechanical arts and in glass painting. After a pilgrimage to Rome in 1432, he did not return to his homeland, but enlisted at Naples in the army of Alfonso d’Aragona, took part in the unsuccessful battles of Gaeta and Aversa, and, still unscathed and valiant, left military service after four years. At Capua he spent five years as administrator in the noble household of a doctor of law. In 1441, while passing through Bologna, he entered the service of the occupying troops under Captain Tommaso Tartaro, stationed at the castle of Gallicra; but he soon became a lay brother at S. Domenico in Bologna. This convent, a major center of study and spirituality, was ennobled for fifty years by his virtues and his art. « In componendis vitreis ac eiusdem depingendis optimus artifex », fra' Ambrogino says of him. His works of art for S. Domenico, S. Petronio — the only ones preserved there being in the Notai chapel — and the Bentivoglio Palace are listed by Melloni, Marchese, Wilms, and Fischer. In fra' Ambrogino da Soncino (died in 1517) and fra' Anastasio da Como he found admirers, disciples, and continuators of his art. On 3 August 1825, Leone XII confirmed the cult of the blessed G. of Ulm. His feast is celebrated in the Dominican Order and in the dioceses of Bologna and Rottenburg.