Bl. Angelo Carletti

  Posted on April 11, 2020  by admin  No comments

Born: 1411 Chivasso in Piedmont

Died: 1495 Coni in Piedmont

Venerated: in Roman Catholic Church

Beatified: April 14, 1753 by Benedict XIV

Major shrine: Chivasso and Coni (mod. Cuneo)

Feast: April 12

Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars Minor; born at Chivasso in Piedmont, in 1411; and died at Coni, in Piedmont, in 1495.  His name in Latin is usually given as Angelus de Clavasio (Clavasium being the Latin name of his birthplace).    

Life 

Antonio Carletti was born in 1411 to a noble family of Chivasso, Italy, near Turin. He attended the University of Bologna, where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Canon Law, and served as a magistrate in the Court of Chiavasso. He was appointed to the Senate by the Marquis of Monferrato Gian Giacomo. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor at Santa Maria del Monte in Genoa, taking the name Angelo. There he met Francesco della Rovere, who was later to become Pope Sixtus IV. 

In 1467 he accompanied Fra Pietro da Napoli, who had been charged by the Vicar General to reorder the Franciscan province of Austria.   In 1472 he was chosen to fill the office of Vicar-General of that branch of the Order then known as the Cismontane Observance, founded by Bernadine of Siena. He held that office again in 1478, in 1485 and in 1490. He founded the monasteries of Saluzzo, Mondovì and Pinerolo; and preached in Mantua, Genoa, Cuneo, Susa, Monferrato and Turin at the court of Charles I, Duke of Savoy. He also served as a spiritual counselor for Catherine of Genoa and Blessed Paola Gambara. 

Apostolic Nuncio 

In 1480 the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed II took possession of Otranto, and threatened to overrun and lay waste the area. Angelo was appointed Apostolic Nuncio by Pope Sixtus IV, and commissioned to preach a crusade against the invaders. While the residents of Otranto held out under siege, Mehmed II died and the Turkish forces retired from the Italian peninsula.  

Again, in 1491, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio and Commissary by Innocent VIII, conjointly with the Bishop of Mauriana, and reached a peaceful agreement between Catholics and Waldensians. Angelo Carletti di Chivasso died on April 11, 1495 at the convent of St. Anthony at Cuneo.