The Seven Holy Founders
of the Servite Order

Confessors

Feast Day: February 12

In the Thirteenth Century, there were seven Florentine noblemen, namely Buonfiglio Monaldo, Buonagiunta Manetti, Manetto dell’Antella, Amadeus de Amadei, Hugo Lippi, Gerard Sostegni and Alexis Falconieri, who withdrew to a little hut in the country to meditate on the Passion of Christ and the sorrows of His grieving Mother.

The Blessed Virgin appeared to them on Good Friday, holding out a dark habit which they were to wear; and She made it known that it would be most pleasing to Her if they would found a new Order of religious who would reverence and foster the memory of the sorrows which She had suffered as She stood beneath Our Lord’s Cross.

Then these holy men, with the help of St. Peter the Martyr of the Order of Preachers, founded the Order of Servants of the Blessed Virgin, and, with their companions, began to go about through cities and towns, everywhere preaching Christ crucified, by word and by example.

And, as one love had united them in a true brotherhood during life, one grave received them when they died, and they were venerated as one by popular devotion.

Clement XI and Benedict XIII, therefore, confirmed this common veneration which had been paid to them, and Leo XIII enrolled them among the saints.

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