NICHOLAS SAGGIO, Blessed. — Minim religious, born at Longobardi (Cosenza) on 6 January 1650, died at Rome on 3 February 1709. Son of peasants, he entered the Minims at Paola, professed as an oblate.
He served as a questor, porter, sacristan in various convents of the Province. In 1681 he was sent to Rome in the College of the Calabrian Minims, to which the parish care was attached, as companion to the parish priest. Everywhere he shone for regular observance, spirit of penance, profound humility, and loving assistance to the poor. Favored with extraordinary gifts of prayer, he was dear to the popes Innocent XII and Clement XI, who often summoned him to their presence. He was beatified by Pius VI (in 1786, together with his confrere Fr. Gaspare de Bono, Spanish provincial); his body rests in the Roman convent church, opposite the monumental chapel of St. Francis of Paola, which the blessed himself had built with the alms he had collected.