Anthony Mary Zaccaria
A physician turned priest, dead at thirty-six after founding three religious families.
- Early modern era
- Italy
- Feast day July 5
- 1502 – 1539
- Priest
- Founder
- Confessor
Born at Cremona in 1502 and fatherless at two, he studied medicine at Padua and practised for some years among the poor of his town. The care of bodies led him to the rest: he was ordained priest in 1528. In 1530, with two companions, he founded the Clerics Regular of St Paul — to be called Barnabites, after their church in Milan — then the Angelic Sisters of St Paul, the first uncloistered institute for women, and an association of married lay people. Three branches for one project: to reform the manners of clergy and city without waiting for Rome to see to it. To him is owed the spread of the Forty Hours devotion and the custom of ringing bells at three on Friday. Worn out by preaching tours, he died at Cremona in 1539, aged thirty-six.
Recognising
A priest in a black cassock with a lily and a crucifix; often accompanied by a figure of St Paul, whose name his order bears.
Places
- Birth
- Crémone, Lombardie
- Death
- Crémone, Lombardie