SERVI OF MARY. — From the Marian movement that spread in various places beginning in the early 13th century, sometimes also under the name of Servants of Mary, in the year 1233 seven Florentine merchants (v. SEVEN HOLY FOUNDERS) separated themselves to live an eremitical and contemplative life near Florence and later on Monte Senario, about 18 km from the city.
These seven principal devotees of Mary, as the contemporary author of the *Legenda de origine Servorum Virginis Mariae* relates, did not believe that this personal act, common in their time, would inaugurate a new religious Order. Their example, however, was greatly admired: the people immediately called them the Servants of Mary (a name that after 1245, first in Florence and then elsewhere, remained theirs by antonomasia), and there were those who wished to join their association; this led them to go to Florence to the bishop Ardingo to lay the first organizational foundations of the nascent religious institution. In obedience to the Fourth Lateran Council, canon 13, they chose the Rule of St. Augustine and the corresponding Constitutions, which were those of the Premonstratensians, through the most recent Dominican redaction (1239–41), to which they added the vows to be rendered to the Blessed Virgin.
From 1250 onward, the new religious organization gradually diminished its eremitical character and accentuated its cenobitic and apostolic one, and in this respect it obtained its first true papal recognition from Urban IV in 1263, renewed by Clement IV in 1265. Under Gregory X, at the Council of Lyon (1274), the decretal *Religionum diversitatem* was issued, which limited the number of mendicant Orders; and it was thought that the Order of the Servants of Mary might be among those suppressed (cf. M.-H. Laurent, *Le bienheureux Innocent V*, Città del Vaticano 1947, pp. 349 ff.); but St. Philip Benizi, then General of the Order, immediately began (Feb. 1277) an effective defense of it, which, through the *Consilia Sapientum* (opinions of the leading jurists of the time), concluded in 1290 with a new papal recognition. The definitive approval came from Benedict XI with the bull *Dum levamus* of 11 Feb. 1304. Over the centuries, the Order of the Servants of Mary also had a congregation called the Observance (1411–1570) and the hermitical one of Montesenario (1592–1778); it spread to various nations outside Italy, was present at all the principal manifestations of Church life, and in the struggle against the Lutheran heresy.
It has 10 canonized saints: St. Philip Benizi, St. Pellegrino Laziosi, St. Giuliana Falconieri, the Seven Holy Founders; many blessed, and numerous servants of God in its three branches (First, Second, and Third Orders), for whom beatification causes are underway. In the Marian field, it has frequently made its effective contribution, particularly with regard to the development and spread of devotion to Our Sorrowful Mother. Notable figures among its cardinals were: Lorenzo (d. 1542), Stefano Bonucci (d. 1589), Pieri (d. 1743), Caselli (d. 1828), and Lépicier (d. 1936). It has had renowned theologians, especially in the field of moral theology and ascetics, well-known controversialists and sacred orators, philosophers, men of letters, artists, musicians, and numerous professors in the principal universities, especially Italian ones.
Today it has 12 major provinces, with a General Rector, in Europe and in North and South America; in addition to a Provincial Rector (Belgium) and five Provincial Commissioners (in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico); it has missions in South Africa, Brazil, and Chile.
Monasteries of Servants of Mary of the enclosed life (Mantellate) are in Italy, Germany, Spain, and England; twenty-two Congregations of nuns of the Third Regular Order are spread throughout the world, along with several autonomous monasteries: all these sisters venerate as their principal foundress St. Giuliana dei Falconieri.
The Third Secular Order, which was formerly called the Society of the Habit, also dates back, in various forms, to the early days of the Order; the Rule of the Third Order was particularly approved by Martin IV in 1424 and modified by the popes Leo XIII and Pius XI.