MURIALDO, LEONARDO, Servant of God. – Founder of the Pia Società Torinese di S. Giuseppe (St Joseph), born in Turin on 26 Oct. 1828, died there on 30 May 1900. Educated first at Savona with the Piarists, in 1845 he entered the Turin Seminary for ecclesiastical studies, which he completed with a degree in theology. Attached to the clergy of the church of S. Maria di Piazza, he was ordained priest on 21 Sept. 1851. He immediately devoted himself to the apostolate among poor youth, gathered in the Oratory of the Guardian Angels, opened in 1840 by Fr G. Cocchi, and in that of St Louis, founded by St John Bosco, with whom he offered to work as a companion in the care and instruction of boys. In 1866 he was appointed rector of the Opera degli Artigianelli, begun by the same Fr G. Cocchi to welcome poor and abandoned young people and provide them with Christian education and instruction in some trade or craft that would secure their future.
He devoted himself to this work with all his energy: he sought alms to sustain the work; he brought the young people to frequent the Sacraments regularly, forming them in strong character or turning them away from dishonest ways. Many of his disciples became religious, and about 80 diocesan priests. To increase the merits of his companions, associated with him by the bond of religious vows, he founded the Pia Società di S. Giuseppe, inaugurated on 19 March 1873. The new Institute received the approval of the archbishop on 14 Feb. 1875, a decree of praise in 1890, and apostolic confirmation on 19 Aug. 1904. He was elected its first Superior General. As the number of religious grew, many new houses flourished in Italy and abroad, designated with various titles to indicate their particular and immediate purpose: oratories, patronage centres, colleges, orphanages, apostolic schools, agricultural schools, family homes. Murialdo also wished to care for the sick and prisoners; to promote and revive charitable institutions; above all, he worked effectively with Catholic Action associations and committees for the good of the people; in particular, he was the driving force behind the *Buona stampa* Association, established to promote, print and disseminate pamphlets and booklets defending religion against errors, especially Jansenism.
Celestino Testore
MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN. – Painter, born in Seville on 31 Dec. 1617, died there on 3 Apr. 1682. His father, Gaspar Esteban, was also a painter; but Murillo, orphaned young, was raised by his aunt, Ana M., whose surname he took. A pupil of Juan de Castillo, in 1642 he went to Madrid, where he remained for two years.
Returning to Seville between 1645 and 1646, he received commissions for a series of canvases for the cloister of S. Francesco, now partly in the Louvre (*Miracle of St Diego*) and in private collections. In 1652 he painted the *Immaculate Conception* for the archbishop’s palace in Seville; in 1655 he executed for the sacristy of the cathedral an *St Isidore* and an *St Leander*, and in 1656 the *Apparition of Christ to St Anthony* for the Baptistery. He later received the commission for the lunettes of S. Maria la Blanca, now in the Prado in Madrid, and then for the *Immaculate Conception with Devout Worshippers*, now in the Louvre. In 1672 he painted numerous works for the chapel of the hospital in his native city, and in 1678 two canvases for the Augustinians of Seville, one now in the city’s museum, the other in the Prado in Madrid. He also painted a series of works for the Hospital of Priests in Seville. These were his last productions: in 1680 he went to Cadiz to work in the Capuchin convent, but fell from a bridge and was so seriously injured that he could no longer work during the remaining two years of his life.
The journey he made as a young man to Madrid was certainly decisive for the formation of Murillo’s pictorial style. After studying the works of Titian, van Dyck and Rubens collected in that capital, he freed his original manner from the typical dryness of Sevillian painting. From his earliest works onwards, following that experience, he painted with a rich, dense chromatic impasto of chiaroscuro, from which forms emerge modelled with extreme softness, at times recalling Correggio and the Emilian artists of the late 16th century. As time went on, though he did not substantially alter his manner, Murillo gradually lightened and softened his palette, while his curiosity also led him to insist on realistic elements in his compositions, in a taste that is also typically Spanish.
Works by Murillo, besides those in the churches and collections already mentioned, are to be found in the principal museums of Italy and abroad. – See pl. CI.
EMILIO LAVAGNINO