LAWRENCE GIUSTINIANI, Saint. - Born in Venice to Bernardo Giustiniani and Querina Querini on July 1, 1381, died there on January 8, 1456.
At the age of twenty-one (1402) he went to the island of S. Giorgio in Alga, where for a short time some young priests, Venetian nobles, had been gathering to devote themselves to prayer and penance, and with them L. (already a deacon) founded in 1404 the Congregation of the Secular Canons of S. Giorgio in Alga. In the canonry he began a life of penance and prayer; he also loved to perform the humblest services (his "delight" was begging for alms throughout the city). In 1407, at the age of twenty-six, having been ordained a priest, at the wish of Gregory XII, a Venetian, he accepted the priory of S. Agostino of Vicenza together with that of SS. Rustico and Fermo of Lonigo; but after five years he renounced it in favor of his Congregation. In 1409 he was elected prior ad annum of S. Giorgio; likewise in 1413, 1418, 1421. At the end of the year of his third priorate (1419) he wrote his first work, Lignum vitae. In 1423, while the plague was raging in Venice, the Canons of S. Giorgio devoted themselves to the poor; L. was among the first. With the expansion of the Congregation beyond Venice, a superior general became necessary in 1424. The choice could fall only on L.
Having completed his year as general, he withdrew into the solitude of S. Agostino of Vicenza, where he wrote the treatises De casto connubio Verbi et animae and De disciplina et spirituali perfectione; and in 1426 Fasciculus amoris and De triumphali agone Christi. In 1427 he had to assume once again the care of the generalate; likewise in 1429, after a year's interval, when he wrote the opuscules De interiori conflictu and De complanctu christianae perfectionis. In 1431, at the request of the Carthusians of Montello, he composed the treatise De vita solitaria; the following year the treatise De contemptu mundi. The "treatises" were followed, from time to time, on the principal feasts of the Lord, of the Virgin and of the saints, by the "sermons" (thirty-nine of them were handed down). Admiring of the life of L., Eugene IV, formerly his confrere in S. Giorgio in Alga, wished to appoint him to the see of Castello (Venice) on May 11, 1433. On Sept. 5, 1433, L. was consecrated bishop, and on the 18th he took possession. His private life, insofar as it could be reconciled with the new dignity, did not change from that of the cloister. He began with the reform of the discipline and morals of the clergy, convoking in 1434 a diocesan Synod in which he issued wise constitutions. Four years later he promulgated a small code of forty constitutions, which he called Synodicon. With the nuns he used gentleness and firmness, joined to most prudent charity; and he succeeded. He regulated the Chapter of the Cathedral, especially regarding residence and the plurality of benefices. For the dignity of the sacred functions he founded six new minor benefices. He established a perpetual College of twelve poor clerics under the immediate direction of a teacher of grammar and one of ecclesiastical chant. Against the immoderate luxury of the upper classes and the style of dress of the ladies he published certain constitutions, which were the cause of no little bitterness for him.
In 1447 (during the pestilence that was raging in Venice), heedless of his own safety, he labored tirelessly for the plague-stricken (he also obtained from Nicholas V [Aug. 18, 1447] a special indulgence for priests, physicians and the faithful for each day on which they assisted the plague-stricken). Around 1450 he wrote two books: De spirituali interitu animae and De ejusdem resurrectione spirituali; and the treatise De institutione et regimine praelatorum. Nicholas V, for the dignity of the Republic of Venice and for the decorum of the Dominante, by bull of Oct. 8, 1451, suppressed the patriarchate of Grado and the bishopric of Olivolo-Castello and instituted the patriarchate of Venice with all the rights and prerogatives of the suppressed patriarchate and bishopric, appointing as first patriarch of Venice L. (who, bewildered by the new responsibility of pastor of a vaster diocese and of metropolitan and primate, wrote [1452] the treatise De humilitate, vernacularized at his request, so that it might be understood by the faithful, by the Camaldolese Mauro of S. Mattia di Murano). He then set about convoking the provincial council to root out no small number of abuses, when he was stricken by a long and grave illness. The Council, of which unfortunately little remains, was convoked for the fourth Sunday after Easter (May 4) of 1455. In the meantime, the patriarch, ever anguished by theories contrary to obedience, wrote the treatise De oboedientia and in 1455 gave the final touch to the treatise De gradibus perfectionis. His last work was to be a cry of love, De incendio Divini Amoris.
He was canonized by Alexander VIII on Oct. 16, 1690. Feast on Sept. 5.