BL. JOHN BAPTIST SPAGNULO, POET - 20 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 20th of March

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

BL. JOHN BAPTIST SPAGNULO, POET - 20 MARCH

Blessed John Baptist Spagnulo (Spagnoli, Baptista Mantuanus) was a Carmelite and Renaissance poet. He was born at Mantua, April 17, 1447, where he also died, March 22, 1516. 

HE WAS TURNED OUT OF HIS FATHER'S HOUSE OWING TO SOME CALUMNY

The eldest son of Peter Spagnoli, a Spanish nobleman at the court of Mantua, Baptista studied grammar under Gregorio Tifernate, and philosophy at Pavia under Polo Bagelardi. The bad example of his schoolfellows led him into irregularities. He fell into the hands of usurers and, returning home, was turned out of his father’s house owing to some calumny. 

HE ENTERED THE CARMELITE CONVENT

He went to Venice and later on to Ferrara where he carried out his resolution of entering the Carmelite convent which belonged to the then flourishing Reform of Mantua. In a letter addressed to his father (April 1, 1464), and in his first publication, “De Vita beata”, he gave an account of his previous life and of the motives which led him to the cloister.

HE WAS ORDAINED PRIEST

Baptista pursued his studies at Ferrara and Bologna where he was ordained priest, received his degrees, and delivered lectures in philosophy and divinity. The Duke of Mantua entrusted him with the education of his children, and the connection with the ducal family resulted in a number of poetical works, the “Trophaeum Gonzagae” and the “Fortuna Gonzagae”, on the various misfortunes of the young duke; “Contra amorem” containing good advice to Sigismondo Gonzaga, and other poems celebrating the latter’s elevation to dignities, even to the Roman purple. 

HIS BEATIFICATION

Six times (each for two years with four years interval) Baptista was nominated vicar general of his congregation, and, in 1513, general of the whole order through the exertions of his former disciples, the duke and the cardinal. The chapter, however, resenting the intervention, restricted his powers. He held the office until his death, but, broken in health and energy, he exercised but little influence beyond consolidating the congregation of Albi, a French imitation of the Mantuan Reform. Baptista Mantuanus was beatified in 1890.

"CUI DABO?"

Chiefly known as one of the most prolific Renaissance poets he excelled in almost every form of Latin verse; Virgil, however, was his favourite model. A monument represents the two poets of Mantua with Poetry hesitating to whom she is to offer the crown: “Cui dabo?” Baptista exercised too little self restraint, however, to deserve it. He was bitterly attacked concerning the good taste of his earlier works printed without his knowledge, and also, but groundlessly, with reference to the legitimacy of his birth.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)