Ludovico of Toulouse (Ludovico d'Angiò), Saint

LUDOVICO DI TOLOSA (LUDOVICO D'ANGIÒ), SANTO

Feast day: 19 August

LUDOVICO OF TOULOUSE (Ludovico d'Angiò), Saint. - Second son of Charles II, king of Naples, brother of Robert of Anjou and great-nephew of St. Louis IX, king of France, b. at Nocera dei Pagani (or at Brignoles in Provence?) in 1274, d. at Brignoles on 19 Aug. 1297. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Barcelona as a hostage for the liberation of his father, who had been taken prisoner by Peter of Aragon. He remained in Catalonia until 1294. During his captivity, Celestine V promoted him to the archbishopric of Lyon (7 Oct. 1294), but to no effect.

LUDOVICO OF TOULOUSE, saint - St. L. of Toulouse crowns King Robert of Anjou. Painting by Simone Martini (1317) - Naples, Pinacoteca.(phot. Alinari)

During an illness, he made a vow to enter among the Franciscans, with whom he had also completed his scientific formation. Consequently he renounced in favor of his brother Robert his rights of succession to the Kingdom of Naples. Ordained a priest in the summer of 1296, on Christmas night of the same year he fulfilled his vow; he received the Franciscan habit from the minister general Giovanni de Murro and made his vows in his hands, without completing the novitiate, with the consent of Pope Boniface VIII, who had already proposed to him the episcopal see of Toulouse and consecrated him on the following 30 Dec. In Feb. 1297 he set out from Rome for his see, going first, however, to Paris, where he met with Philip IV the Fair. He reached Toulouse at the end of Apr. or in the first days of May. In his brief episcopate his charity shone forth above all. Having set out to visit, in Catalonia, Queen Blanche, his sister, on his return he stopped in Provence, where his father Charles II was, and there, at Brignoles, on 19 Aug. of the same year he died of tuberculosis, at only 23 years of age. The body, according to his testament, was transported to the Franciscan church of Marseille and in 1423 transferred by Alfonso of Aragon to the cathedral of Valencia. In 1307 the process began, which John XXII concluded on 7 Apr. 1317 with the canonization. Feast on 19 Aug. It seems that he wrote some sermons and a treatise on music.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Among the ancient Lives, important is that of the contemporary and confidant Joh. de Orta, in Anal. Boll., 9 (1890), pp. 281-341; Acta SS. Augusti, III, Paris 1867, pp. 775-882; B. Kleinschmidt, St. Ludwig v. Toulouse in der Kunst, in Archivum Francisc. Historicum, 2 (1909), pp. 197-215; M. R. Taymber, St. Louis of Toulouse and the process of canonisation in the XIVth century, Manchester 1929; C. Vielle, St Louis d'Anjou, Vanves 1930; A. Heysse, De vita s. Ludovici ep. Tolosani contenta in codd. Paris, Nat. lat. 5376 et Ottob. lat. 2316, ibid., 40 (1947), pp. 118-42. Procesus canonizat. et legendae variae, in Anal. Francisc., VII, Quaracchi 1951.

Alberto Ghinato

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