LANDINI, SILVESTRO. - Jesuit, popular missionary, born at Margrate, in Lunigiana, in 1503, died at Bastia in Corsica on 3 March 1554.
Already a priest, he was accepted by St. Ignazio in 1540, but his extremely delicate health caused him to be sent back to his native land, where he devoted himself entirely to missions among the people. Recalled by the Saint and assigned to the same ministry, he travelled through cities and countryside: he visited 130 places in the Modenese, more than 150 in Lunigiana, the whole diocese of Spoleto, the Ferrarese, the Reggiano, and a large part of Tuscany and all Garfagnana, with extraordinary success. Appointed by Giulio III, at the request of the Genoese “lords of the office of St. Giorgio,” he was sent there (1552) as apostolic visitor and commissioner to restore religion and civic life in Corsica (for 70 years no bishop had been seen there). The extraordinary work he accomplished there, even amid persecutions, dangers, and calumnious denunciations to Rome, did not turn him aside 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 overcome by the climate, fatigue, and illness.