Blessed Marco da Montegallo

Blessed Marco da Montegallo (1425 - 19 March 1496) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest from the Order of Friars Minor. He was born to a nobleman and served as a doctor in Ascoli Piceno before he was pressured into marriage in 1451 - the couple annulled their marriage after both entered the religious life. Father Marco is best known for establishing pawnshops for the poor across various Italian cities and for being a preacher of love. His beatification received ratification on 20 September 1839 after Pope Gregory XVI confirmed the late priest's local 'cultus' - or a spontaneous and enduring popular devotion on the part of the faithful. His feast is celebrated on 20 March rather than his death date of 19 March due to it being the feast of Saint Joseph. Marco da Montegallo was born in 1425 in Montegallo - in the province of Ascoli Piceno - to a nobleman from the Marches of Ancona. Marco studied under the humanist Enoch d'Ascoli and later studied at universities in both Perugia and Bologna where he received his doctorate in both law and medicine. From 1448 he worked as a doctor in his home province. He married Chiara de Tibaldeschi in 1451 - with great reluctance - after his father pressured him to do so but his father later died in 1452 which prompted the couple to evaluate their marriage to discuss their true life callings. The pair later annulled their marriage and pursued their separate vocations into the Franciscans with him becoming a member of the Order of Friars Minor and she joining the Poor Clares as a nun. He joined the order in their branch in the convent of Santa Maria in Valle in Gallo at Fabriano and commenced his novitiate in 1452 - and concluded it in 1453 - at the convent of l'Eremita Valdisasso near Fabriano. Marco was ordained to the priesthood sometime in the 1450s and was at once made the superior of Santa Maria de San Severino and he held that position from 1454 to 1455.