GUIDO LOMBARDO, Blessed. - Founder of the Humiliati, b. in Milan and lived in the first half of the 11th century. Few and uncertain reports of his life survive, handed down by Girolamo Terocchio, who lived in the 15th century and drew them from the readings of an old Breviary. Having been deported by the Emperor Henry II to Germany, together with other Milanese gentlemen, he succeeded in persuading his companions to change their lives and to 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, adds: "I was mistaken: this blessed G. in the year 1134 received from St. Bernard certain 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 the blessed man's life by a century, it is here said that the Rules, received by G. in 1134, were approved by him in 1199, that is, at a distance of 65 years: something that seems rather implausible.

But the historical existence of the blessed G. does not seem open to doubt. The Order of the Humiliati, which existed until 1570, rendered him public worship as its founder, and Milan counts him among its civic glories.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: The historians of the Humiliati, especially as regards their origins, such as Maurolico, Bonanni, Eliot, Migne, etc., all repeat the same thing; but above all Father Terocchio and Father Puricelli, the latter of whom left an unpublished work, a collection of lives of saints of the Order of the Humiliati, preserved in a codex of the Ambrosiana in Milan, in which ch. 3, entitled: Pel b. G. da Milano, fondatore degli Umiliati, hands down brief biographical reports, which are so scanty that they do not even mention his birth, his vicissitudes and his death.

Francesco Russo

@incollection{ec6_guido_lombardo_beato, author = {Russo, Francesco}, title = {Guido Lombardo, beato}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1291--1292}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/guido-lombardo-beato} }

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Guido Lombardo, Blessed

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