ANDREW CORSINI, ST.

Bishop of Fiesole; b. Florence, Italy, Nov. 30, 1302; d. Fiesole, Italy, Jan. 6, 1373. After a misspent childhood he donned the Carmelite habit c. 1317. He was sent to study at the University of Paris in 1329 and was named provincial of his order for Tuscany in 1348. He was most active in this office both during the plague that struck Florence and later in undertaking an extensive campaign to rebuild the hard-hit religious communities and restore their spiritual fervor and monastic discipline. He was nominated as bishop by the cathedral chapter at Fiesole, and the election was confirmed by Clement V in a bull of Oct. 13, 1349. Andrew Corsini was an able and wise administrator; he visited the parishes of his diocese, founded confraternities of priests in honor of the Trinity, and provided for restoration and construction of churches. He also mediated quarrels between the families of the Florentine nobility. His cult became popular shortly after his death; and papal approval, several times requested, was finally granted by Urban VIII on April 22, 1629, and the bull of canonization was promulgated June 4, 1724, by Benedict XIII. Alexander VII extended his veneration to the whole Church, although he is especially honored in Florence, where he is buried and where his intercession is credited with the repulse of Filippo Maria Visconti's attack on Pope Eugene IV and the fathers of the Council of Florence in 1440.

Feast: Feb. 4.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum Jan. 2:1061–77. s. mattei, Vita di Santo Andrea Corsini (Florence 1872). p. caioli, S. Andrea Corsini carmelitano (Florence 1929). f. caraffa and s. orienti, Bibliotheca sanctorum 1:1158–69. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater (New York 1956) 1:246–247. p. marie-joseph, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart et al. (Paris 1912) 2:1655–59. Analecta Bollandiana 48 (1930) 432–434. anastasio dis. paolo, Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum Discalceatorum 4 (1930) 232–250.

[m. monaco]