Morigia, Jacobo Antonio De (1)

Morigia, Jacobo Antonio de (1)

an Italian monastic, noted as the founder of a religious order, was born in November 1497, at Milan. Up to the age of twenty-five he indulged in all the pleasures of the world, but at that period experienced a change of heart, and enrolled himself directly in a brotherhood of penitents which existed in Milan under the name of "Brotherhood of Eternal Wisdom." Admitted into the Franciscan Order of the Minorites, he refused the rich abbey of San Victor, and performed ministerial functions of charity during the plague which in 1525 devastated Milan. A few years later he joined Antonio Maria Zacharia of Cremoona and Barthelemi Ferrari of Milan, noblemen like himself, and the three together founded the Congregation of the Regular Clericos of St. Paul, so named after their first chapel, taking subsequently the appellation of Barnabites, from the church of San Barnabas. By a decree of February 18, 1533, Clement VII approved the institution, and Morigia, after he had become formally a priest, was appointed its first provost, April 15, 1536. These regulars, established for missions and other sacerdotal functions, lived in their beginning only upon alms, and were not allowed any fixed revenues; but all this has since changed. Morigia undertook missions to Vicenza, Verona, and several other cities of Italy. He resigned his office in November, 1542, after he had governed wisely his congregation; but his colleagues re-elected him June 30, 1545, and on October 20 following he took possession of the church of San Barnabas. He died April 14,1546. At present the Barnabites have a general in Rome and a house at Paris, and are spread through almost all Roman Catholic countries. SEE BARNABITES.