TAVELLA, Giovanni, known as da Tossignano, Blessed. - Bishop of Ferrara, b. at Tossignano in 1368, d. at Ferrara on 24 July 1446.
Of a modest family, he studied law at Bologna (28 July 1408), and entered the Jesuates at S. Eustachio. Sent to Venice to escape the pressure of his parents, he later returned to Bologna in 1426, and, sent as prior to Ferrara, he worked to build the church attached to the monastery, dedicating it to St. Jerome, patron of his Congregation. The see of Ferrara having remained vacant, T. was proposed to Eugene IV, although he was only a cleric. The Pope accepted and T. was elected bishop in 1431. He visited the diocese annually, holding synods there, always showing himself solicitous toward the poor and the sick. Following the plague in 1440 he founded the hospital of S. Anna, to provide for the neglect of the other hospitals of the city. He attended the Council in 1438 and then that of Florence, after which he had to leave Ferrara following calumnies of enemies. He wrote in the vernacular for the nuns of SS. Abbondio and Abondanzio of Siena a treatise Della perfezione della vita spirituale, later published in Latin with changes at Venice in 1580 under the title: De perfectione religionis; the Regulae... pauperum fessuatorum together with the Vita of the founder, the blessed Giovanni Colombini (1504-67; St. Baluze, Miscellanea, IV, Lucca 1764, pp. 566-82). The biblical parts translated and stitched together by him in the Bible of Malermi (1471) are discussed, as are those of the works of St. Gregory (Morals, book 19, chapters 18-35) and of St. Bernard (Sermons), perhaps translated for Polissena Condulmer, sister of Pope Eugene IV.
On the occasion of a flood of the Po, he is said to have miraculously halted the inundation. Because of the fame of the miracles performed by him, Clement VIII (Ferrara 1598), Benedict XIV (decree 20 July 1748), Gregory XVI (decree 27 Jan. 1832), Pius IX (17 July 1846) recognized his cult for the dioceses of Ferrara and Imola.
Bibliography5 works
Dante Balboni