LUZZAGO, ALESSANDRO. — Brescian nobleman, one of the most significant figures of the Catholic Reformation in Brescia, born in October 1551, died in Milan on 7 May 1602, assisted by Cardinal F. Borromeo.
Having earned a degree in theology at Padua (1586), he wished to enter the Jesuits, his teachers, but, also to please his father, he became neither a religious nor a priest, but rather a lay apostle, devoting all his time to reviving Brescian charitable institutions and founding new ones.
His principal foundations are: the Schools of Christian Doctrine; the Company of St. Mary of the Mercy of Prisoners, modeled on the statutes of the Roman confraternity of St. John the Beheaded; the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, to organize the moral forces of the most zealous gentlemen of the city; and the House of God for the mendicant poor. He infused new life into the institution of the Advocates for the Causes of the Poor, founded by Domenico Bollani. Throughout L.’s apostolic activity, in the spirit of the Society of Jesus, one discerns a constant subordination of contemplation to action. His cause for beatification was initiated by Fr. Bartolo, and, if preserved, the acts are still kept in the ancient sacristy of the church of the Pace in Brescia.
**
O. Hermann, *Vita di A. L., gentil'uomo bresciano*, Brescia 1608 and 1622, Rome 1891 (fundamental biography);
E. Girelli, *Vita del ven. A. L.*, Brescia 1903;
P. Tacchi-Venturi, *Sconosciuti particolari circa il sacro deposito del ven. A. L.*, in *Brixia Sacra*, ibid. 1911, pp. 365-68;
A. Frugoni, *L'opera di riforma cattolica del nobile A. L. di Brescia*, in *Momenti della rinascita e della Riforma cattolica*, Pisa 1943, pp. 75-119.
Felicie da Marcetto