The worship of the Saints and the Blessed is a testimony of the still practiced and widespread popular religiousness. The life choice of each of them is often intriguing and certainly surprising, as is the mystery of the numerous healings and intercessions that are still recorded after centuries and the one of the rapid spread of their veneration in absence of a earthly direction, perhaps easy today with the available informatic tools, that surely were not available in the past and until the middle of the last century.
Saint Vincenzo di Saragozza, deacon and martyr died in Valencia in Spain during the terrible prosecutions of Diocleziano. He is worshipped by the Church of Vicenza, of which he was primary patron until 1978.
Saints Felice and Fortunato (Vicenza – Aquileia). Unfortunately, the birthdates are not certain as well as the date of their martyrdom, which should date back to 303 AD. Right after their death a contention between Vicenza and Aquileia started for the relics, which ended with the agreement that those of Saint Felice would come to Vicenza, whereas the ones of Saint Fortunato remained in Aquileia from where they were then moved to Malamoco and then to Chioggia. We suggest to visit the paleo Christian complex of the Basilica of Saint Felice and Forunato located in the neighbourhood of S.Felice just outside the city walls and built on the rests of a small building which was the first place of practice of the Christian faith in the city.
Saints Leonzio and Carpoforo. Doctors and martyrs whose origins are not clear. They were buried first in the Basilica of SS. Felice and Fortunato and then in the X century moved to the Cathedral and worshipped for centuries as the patrons of Vicenza.
Saints Donato, Secondiano, Romolo and companions, many of whom were from Vicenza, were martyred by Diocleziano in Concordia, since they refuse to recant the Christian faith. Since ancient times they have been celebrated by the Church of Vicenza.
Saint Teobaldo (Provins, Francia 1017? – Vicenza 1066). Of French noble origins, at his father’s proposal to undertake a military career he chose the ascetic life of a hermit, wandering with a friend around France and Luxembourg. After the pilgrimage in Santiago of Compostela and in Rome he stopped in Vicenza where he settled in a small ruin of a chapel in a forest of Sossano. At the death of the companion accepted the company of some disciples and the priestly ordination by the Bishop of Vicenza. His fame of sanctity reached also his parents in France, who decided to join him in Vicenza and convert. The mother ended her life as a hermit. He was canonized by Pope Alessandro II in 1073.
Beato Giovanni Cacciaforte de Surdis, (Cremona 1125 – Vicenza 1181). At the age of 16 years old entered as a benedictine monk into the Abbey of Saint Lorenzo from Cremona. These were difficult times for the Church culminating with the schism and the election of the antipope Vittore IV sustained by Barbarossa. After the regency of the bishopric of Mantua, he was moved to Vicenza, where after two years, died at the hands of a feudal lord, whom himself had excommunicated. The martyr Bishop was beatified in 1824. His rests are contained in a marble tomb inside the Cathedral in Piazza Duomo.
Beato Isnardo from Chiampo (Chiampo (?) – Pavia 1244). The date is not certain, but only the birthplace of Beato Isnardo. Dominican preacher he moved to Milan and then to Pavia, where he died after a harsh ascetic life of preaching. His rests are contained in the Church of Saints Gervasio and Protasio of Pavia. His worship was confirmed of the 12th of March, 1919.
Beato Bartolomeo from Breganze (Breganze 1200 – Vicenza 1270). Born in the ancient and well-known family of Breganze, since he was very young, he chose the life of the preacher in the Dominican order attracting many vocations. He was highly esteemed by the Popes of the time, Gregorio IX and Innocenzo IV, who appointed him Bishop in 1253. Two years later he was sent to Vicenza to Pope Alessandro IV, but he had to move first to England and then to Paris to walk away from Ezzelino da Romano. The king Luigi XIV wanted to meet him and, grateful for the consolation he received in Terra Santa during the crusades, he gave him a thorn of the Holy Crown of Jesus Christ. Come back to Vicenza with the precious relic, he built a Dominican convent and the Church called Santa Corona, that still today contains the precious gift and the rests of the Blessed. Pope Pio VI beatified Bartolomeo da Breganze on the 11th of September, 1793.
San Lorenzo Giustiniani (Venezia 1381 – 1456). Of venetian noble origins, he chose mendicity despite the effort of his mother to dissuade him. He is honoured by the Church of Vicenza since he had been the prior of the convent of Saint Agostino in Vicenza for many years before he became the patriarch of Venice.
Beato Marco da Montegallo (Montegallo 1425 – Vicenza 1496). Of noble origins he was forced by his father to marry a girl of the same social class with whom he lived chastely, dissolving the marital vows upon his father's death. They both consecrated to the religious life and as Franciscan, Marco da Montegallo started to work against usury. He founded the first Monti di Pietà. The first in Ascoli in 1458 and then in Fabriano, Fano, Arcevia and Vicenza in 1486 where ten years later, during a period of preaching, he died. He was buried in the Church of S. Biagio vecchio. He was beatified by Pope Gregorio XVI in 1839.
Beata Giovanna Maria Bonomo (Asiago 1606 – Bassano 1670), She was a mystic like Santa Caterina da Siena e Teresa D'Avila, and received the ‘wounds of love’ and the stigmata. It seems that she started to speak when she was just 9 months old to prevent her father from doing a bad action. Also precocious in study, music, dance and embroidery, she took the vow of chastity at just nine years old on the occasion of her First Communion in the monastery of Santa Chiara di Trento led by the Poor Clare nuns, where she entered after the death of her mother. Later, at the age of 15 years old she moved to the Benedictine Monastery of San Girolamo in Bassano. The stigmata and the frequent moments of extasy and even the experiences of bilocation, caused various problems inside the Monastery up to the point that she wasn’t allowed to write and to meet people. This probably led to increase her reputation of sanctity. The process of beatification started in 1699 and ended in 1783 with Pope Pio VI. She is celebrated as the patron of Asiago and Bassano del Grappa and still today there are numerous pilgrimages to her tomb moved to the Chiesa della Misericordia in Bassano del Grappa, or better known as the Sanctuary of Beata Giovanna. A statue in her honour is present in the centre of Asiago, that is her birthplace.
San Gaetano Thiene (Vicenza 1480 – Naples 1547). He was born in Vicenza from the noble family of the Thiene, he graduated in Padua in law at the age of just 24 years old and then he dedicated himself to the ecclesiastic life. He is defined as the Saint of Providence and during his stay in Vaticano, he tried to start a reformative action. He accepted to be ordained a priest at the age of just 36 years because till that moment he didn’t feel he was worth it. He celebrated his first mass during Christmas night, during which, as he confided Sister Laura Magnani, the Madonna appeared to him and placed the Baby Jesus in his arms. He founded the order of the Theatines by imposing the rule of possessing nothing and asking for nothing. He worked many years in Naples where he died and where he was honored, as patron of the city, in the Basilica of S. Paolo Maggiore, known as the Church of S.Gaetano. He was beatified on the 23rd of November, 1624 by Pope Urbano VIII and canonized on the 12th of April, 1671 by Pope Clemente X.
Beata Elisabetta Vendramin (Bassano del Grappa 1790 – Padua 1870) is the founder of the Elizabethan Franciscan Tertiary Sisters that at the end of the 20th century numbered over 1500 sisters in various countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Latin America. They continue to work with the same strenght and determination of their founder. There is no tomb of hers since her rests were confused in the mass grace during the renovation works in the cemetery of Padua.
Beato Giovanni Antonio Farina (Gambellara 1803 – Vicenza 1888) Bishop of Treviso and Vicenza he had great sensitivity as an educator which led him to found the Institute of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy, very active still today in Vicenza and in the world. He followed with great commitment the training of the merciful and prayerful priests. He was beatified by Giovanni Paolo II on the 4th of November, 2001. Sister Maria Bertilla Boscardin was also part of his congregation, his first holy nurse who like him rests in the mother house of the religious Institution in Vicenza in via S.Domenico, 23.
Beata Gaetana Sterni (Cassola 1827 – Bassano 1889): she was the founder of the Sisters of the Divine Will. At the age of just 26 years old she she entered a shelter for beggars after an unfortunate and brief marital experience ended with her husband’s death, a widowed entrepreneur with three children, and aftertaking care of her younger siblings following the death of her mother. She committed herself entirely to this charitable undertaking, taking care, for 36 years, until her death, of guests who were victims of disorder, vice and abuse of all kinds. She was beatified by Giovanni Paolo II on the 4th of November, 2001. Her rests are contained in the Mother House of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Will in Bassano del Grappa (VI).
Saint Bertilla Boscardin (Brendola 1888 – Treviso 1922) the Saint of humility and assistance to the sick, especially children, became nun at the Institute of the Dorothy Master Sisters of Don Antonio Farina and throughout his life he carried out the humblest tasks, enduring inconveniences and misunderstandings. She was inscribed in the register of the Saints by Pope Giovanni XXIII in 1961.
Beata Mamma Eurosia Fabris Barban (Quinto Vicentino 1866 – Marola 1932). Franciscan tertiary who accepted to marry her neighbour to look after his two daughters. Then she had 9 more children with her husband, 2 of whom died at a young age, and adopted 3 orphans. She was beatified in November 6, 2005 when the Pope discovered a miracle happened through her intercession and in September 18, 2009 she was proclaimed patron saint of Vicenza catechists by the Bishop of Vicenza.
Saint Giuseppina Bakhita (Oglassa, Darfur 1869 – Schio 1947) arrived in Schio from Africa. Born to a wealthy Muslim family, she was kidnapped at 6 years old by two Arab slavers and one gave her the name 'bakhita' which means lucky. After being sold as a slave many times, she finally arrived in Italy in 1890 where she was baptized in Venice, and then moved to Schio. She lived almost all her life in the Convent of the ‘Canossiane’. A sweet nun who spoke only in Vicenza dialect, but who was called to hold conferences for the enhancement of missions and integration between peoples. The process of canonisation, began in 1959 just 12 years after her death. She was beatified in 1992 and canonized by Giovanni Paolo II in 2000. In 2009, the Italian national public broadcasting company, RAI, made a two-episodes miniseries in her honour. She died due to a long and painful disease. Her rests were moved in 1969 to the Temple of the Holy Family in the Convent of the Canossians in Schio in Via Fusinato, 51 and they are exposed to public veneration in a transparent case located in the Chapel which is based on the model of the Pantheon and was begun in 1850 by Bartolomeo Folladore and completed in 1901 by his son Gioachino. The four big canvases in the niches of the circular wall were made by the painter Mincato.
Beato Claudio Granzotto (S.Lucia di Piave, TV 1900 – Chiampo, VI 1947) sculptor, he obtained a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice but he soon left his promising artistic career to become Franciscan friar and build the Grotta di Lourdes in Chiampo, a perfect reproduction on a scale 1 to 1 of the French original one. He died at the age of just 47 years old we died due to cerebral cancer and then he was buried in the Grotta, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, who every year find there the same atmosphere of peace and serenity that can be felt in the French one.
