TAVELLA, GIOVANNI, called da Tossignano, Blessed. — Bishop of Ferrara, b. at Tossignano in 1368, d. at Ferrara on 24 July 1446.
Of modest family, he studied law at Bologna (28 July 1408), entered the Gesuati at S. Eustachio. Sent to Venice to escape his parents’ pressure, he later returned to Bologna in 1426 and was sent as prior to Ferrara, where he devoted himself to building the church attached to the monastery, dedicating it to St. Jerome, patron of his congregation. When the see of Ferrara fell vacant, Tavella was proposed to Eugenius IV, though he was only a cleric. The Pope accepted, and Tavella was elected bishop in 1431. He visited his diocese annually, holding synods, and showed constant care for the poor and the sick. After the plague of 1440, he founded the hospital of St. Anna to remedy the neglect of the city’s other hospitals. He attended the Council in 1438 and later that of Florence, after which he had to leave Ferrara because of calumnies by enemies. He wrote in the vernacular for the nuns of SS. Abbondio and Abondanzio in Siena a treatise On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life, later published in Latin with alterations in Venice in 1580 under the title De perfectione religionis; and the Regulae... pauperum Jesuatorum together with the Life of the founder, Bl. John Colombini (1304–67; St. Bauzio, Miscellanea, IV, Lucca 1764, pp. 566–82). Parts of his biblical translations were incorporated into the Malermi Bible (1471), as were translations of passages from the works of St. Gregory (Moralia, book 19, chapters 18–35) and St. Bernard (Sermons), perhaps made for Polissena Condulmer, sister of Pope Eugenius IV.
On the occasion of a flood of the Po, he is said to have miraculously stayed the inundation. Because of the fame of the miracles he performed, Clement VIII (Ferrara 1598), Benedict XIV (decree of 20 July 1748), Gregory XVI (decree of 27 Jan. 1832), and Pius IX (17 July 1846) approved his cult for the dioceses of Ferrara and Imola.