ARISTIDE LEONORI. - Architectural engineer, born in Rome on 28 July 1856, died there on 30 July 1928. Having graduated from the University of Rome, he embarked on a prodigious career in terms of the scale and quantity of works executed in Rome and abroad, particularly in the construction of religious buildings, earning him the title of “inspired builder of the house of God.”
Leonori, Leone - Medal with a portrait of Michelangelo at age 88; on the reverse, an allegorical figure alluding to Faith, conceived by Michelangelo himself - Florence, Medagliere mediceo, Bargello.
In 1875 he founded the Circle of the Immaculate Conscience, which he brought to great splendor, and in 1885 the Hospice of St Philip for poor and abandoned children, which absorbed much of his activity and earnings. The Institute eventually fell under anticlerical suspicion. The serious accusations leveled against L. were dismissed as baseless, and he, who had borne the misfortune with fortitude, was fully acquitted and rehabilitated.
An indefatigable apostle of catechetical instruction and the work of First Communions, a Franciscan tertiary, he was known as the “engineer-saint.” The cause for his beatification is currently underway before the Sacred Congregation of Rites.