Andrew Corsini

Andrew Corsini, O.Carm. (1302 – January 6, 1373), was an Italian Carmelite friar and bishop of Fiesole, who is honored as a saint within the Catholic Church.

Biography

Corsini was born in Florence on November 30, 1302, a member of the illustrious Corsini family. Wild and dissolute in youth, he was startled by the words of his mother about what had happened to her before his birth, and, becoming a Carmelite friar in his native city, began a life of great mortification. He studied at Paris and Avignon.

On his return, Corsini became the "Apostle of Florence". He was regarded as a prophet and a wonderworker. After being elected to the office of Bishop of Fiesole, which he did not want, he fled. He was discovered by a child at the Charterhouse at Enna, and was subsequently compelled to accept the honour.

Corsini redoubled his austerities as a bishop, was lavish in his care of the poor, and was sought for everywhere as a peacemaker, notably at Bologna, whither he was sent as papal legate to heal the breach between the nobility and the people.

After twelve years in the episcopacy, Corsini died in his native Florence in 1373, at the age of 71. In 1675, after his canonization, the members of the Corsini family had the Corsini Chapel built in the Carmelite Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Florence to provide his remains a more suitable resting place.

Veneration

In 1373, while Corsini had been celebrating the Midnight Mass of Christmas Eve, the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and told him he would leave this world on the feast of the Epiphany. It came to pass as the vision had told him, and he died on that day .

Miracles were so multiplied at his death that Pope Eugene IV permitted a public devotion to him immediately. It was only in 1629 that Pope Urban VIII formally confirmed this. His feast is kept on February 4 in the Carmelite Order and in the cities of Florence and Fiesole.

In the early 18th century, Pope Clement XII, born Lorenzo Corsini, erected in the Roman Basilica of St. John Lateran a magnificent chapel dedicated to his 14th-century kinsman.

See also

• Carmelites
• Discalced Carmelites
• Carmelite Rule of St. Albert
• Book of the First Monks
• Constitutions of the Carmelite Order
• Carmelite Rite

Sources

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Campbell, Thomas Joseph (1913). "St. Andrew Corsini". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. 

• Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-14-051312-4.
• Lives of the Saints: Andrew Corsini (English)
• Catholic Forum: Andrew Corsini(English)

External links

• Colonnade Statue in St Peter's Square