INNOCENZO da CALTAGIRONE. — Capuchin, of the Marcinò family, born at Caltagirone on 24 October 1589, died there on 16 November 1665. He taught Hebrew, philosophy, and theology; he was provincial minister (1635–38), visitor of the province of Messina (1638–40), provincial minister of that of Otranto (1642), and minister general (1643–50).
He distinguished himself in preaching and in office through his extraordinary virtues and supernatural charisms; the itinerary of his visitation to all the provinces of the Order, with honorific receptions from civil and religious authorities and devotional movements among the masses, is a document of seventeenth-century religiosity. At the behest of Innocent X, he negotiated at the courts of France and Spain (1647–48) for the cessation of the Thirty Years’ War. Many of his Conciones and a Hebrew grammar survive in manuscript. Since popular devotion to him has continued, the processes for his beatification are under way.
(from V. JALABERT, LOUIS, Les poutiers mes. des bibl. publ. de France, Mécros 1916, II, pl. 30)
(photograph Pont. comm. arch. sacra) INNOCENZO I, pope, saint — Effigy of I. I in the series of the popes of the Basilica of St Paul (9th century) — Rome.
ibid., Un flagellato dalla buona fama. P. I. da C., 2nd ed., Rome 1944; Melchiorre da Pobladura, Concio p. Ioh. a C. de seraphica paupertate, in Collectanea Franc., 10 (1940), pp. 189–218; ibid., Historia generalis Ord. Min. Capuccinarum, part 2, I, Rome 1948, pp. 14–18. Ilarino da Milano