GUIDO LOMBARDO, Blessed
Founder of the Humiliati, born in Milan and lived in the first half of the 11th century. Very few and unreliable details about his life remain, handed down by Girolamo Terocchio, who lived in the 15th century, and who drew them from the lessons of an old Breviary. Having been deported to Germany by Emperor Henry II, together with other Milanese nobles, he succeeded in persuading his companions to change their lives and live under a religious discipline, which gave rise to the Order of the Humiliati (v.).
But another historian, Puricelli, after narrating the origins of the Order in the manner related above, adds: “I was mistaken: this blessed GUIDO LOMBARDO in the year 1134 received from St. Bernard some Rules for the said Order, which he had confirmed by Innocent III in the year 1199, and for this reason he was called its founder.” Besides postponing by a century the life of the blessed, it is here stated that the Rules, received by GUIDO LOMBARDO in 1134, were by him caused to be approved in 1199, that is, after the lapse of 65 years: a circumstance which seems rather improbable.
Yet the historical existence of the blessed GUIDO LOMBARDO does not seem open to doubt. The Order of the Humiliati, which existed until 1570, rendered public cult to him as its founder, and Milan numbers him among its civic glories.