Saint John Leonardi

1541 - October 9, 1609

Feast Day: October 9

John Leonardi was born in 1541 in the Italian town of Diecimo, not far from Lucca in Italy. Leonardi was a pharmacist who devoted himself to nursing. At the age of thirty-two he received priestly ordination. in 1574 he founded a religious congregation whose purpose was to teach and educate the youth.

He also carried out reforms in the Congregation of Saint William of Monte Vergine, the Congregation of Montevergine, and in that of Saint John Gualbertus in Vallombrosa, the Vallombrosians.

He moved from Lucca to Rome where he adapted guest houses and schools to the demands of the new era. Pope Clement VIII asked him to do the same with a number of monastic orders of hermits. In 1603 he founded a college in Rome to train missionaries.

Leonardi died while nursing plague victims in Rome on October 9, 1609 in Rome, Italy.

John Leonardi was beatified in 1861. Pope Pius XI canonized him in 1938.