Landini, Silvestro

LANDINI, SILVESTRO. - Jesuit, popular missionary, b. at Margrate, in Lunigiana, in 1503, d. at Bastia in Corsica on 3 March 1554.

Already a priest, he was accepted by St. Ignatius in 1540, but his very delicate health caused him to be sent back to his homeland, where he devoted himself entirely to missions among the people. Recalled by the Saint and assigned to the same ministry, he traveled through cities and countryside: he visited 130 places in the Modenese area, more than 150 in Lunigiana, the entire diocese of Spoleto, the Ferrarese, the Reggiano and a great part of Tuscany and all of Garfagnana with extraordinary fruit. Appointed by Julius III, at the request of the Genoese "lords of the office of St. George," he was sent there (1552) as visitor and apostolic commissioner to restore religion and civilized living in Corsica (for 70 years no bishop had been seen there). The extraordinary work accomplished there, even amid persecutions, dangers and slanderous denunciations to Rome, did not divert him from his apostolate of peace among families and the various towns, of extirpating the heresy that had infiltrated, and of reforming the clergy, until he was laid low by the climate, exhaustion and illness.

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