Jerome Emiliani
Venetian officer converted in prison, founder of the Somaschi and patron of orphans.
- Early modern era
- Italy
- Feast day February 8
- 1486 – 1537
- Founder
Listen to the life 0:41
Governor of a fortress in the Venetian Alps, Jerome Emiliani was taken prisoner and chained in a dungeon; he came out of it — he credited the Virgin — and his life changed direction. The famine and plague of 1528 devastated Venice; he sold everything he had to feed the starving, rented a house for orphans and himself lifted the sick from the streets. He founded at Somasca a congregation devoted to those children, and he is said to have devised for them the catechism by question and answer. He died nursing an epidemic and was proclaimed universal patron of orphans by Pius XI.
