Giorgio Maria MARTINELLI. — Founder of the Oblates Missionaries of Rho (diocese of Milan), born in Brusimpiano on 9 May 1655, died at Rho on 2 November 1727.
Oblate of SS. Ambrose and Charles (25 July 1679), he was ordained priest on 22 September 1680; he taught grammar and rhetoric in the seminaries of Celana and Monza and in the Collegio Elvetico (1679–86); he was rector of the Seminary of Arona (19 July 1692–24 April 1694) with the task of erecting the colossal statue of St Charles, known as the S. Carlone of Arona, which had been under construction for 80 years; he was also for nineteen years spiritual director of the Major Seminary of Milan (1686–1692, 1694–1707). A man of uncommon zeal and priestly virtue, he promoted the practice of spiritual exercises among the Oblates of SS. Ambrose and Charles, the secular and religious clergy, and gave strong impetus to parish missions, especially in small and poor parishes. To this end, he obtained from Archbishop Benedetto Erba Odescalchi permission to establish at Rho a college of Missionary Oblates (late 1714, canonically erected on 4 April 1721), of which he became prefect and then lifelong provost; he established that the missionaries should always render their service gratuitously. The cause of his beatification is underway.
Among his printed works are: La Devozione al Sacro Cuore di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo (Milan 1698, a translation from the French of Fr G. Croiset’s well-known work) and Le vie dello spirito battute con molti nuovi pensieri, utili e necessari all’adempimento dell’esclesiastice obbligazioni (2 vols., Venice 1727).