Blessed Peter Crisci (19th June)

Peter, who was born in ca. 1243 in Foligno, sold his inheritance whn he was about 30 and gave the proceeds to the poor.  From this point, he dressed in sacking and lived as a hermit in a cell in the campanile of the Duomo.  He regularly preached in the Duomo and became highly venerated. 

Peter was regarded as a madman in some quarters.  While saintly laymen like St Francis had been acceptable in the 13th century, they were generally only accepted in the 14th century when they had the patronage of the mendicant orders.  Peter therefore received the attentions of the Inquisition, but he was judged to be orthodox.   He died in his cell in 1323.

He was then buried in the Duomo and a chapel was built in his honour in 1385.  In 1391, Pope Boniface IX granted indulgences to those praying before his relics there.  (The granting of the indulgences may have been part of a programme to secure allegiance to the Roman obedience during the papal schism.  Boniface IX  granted similar indulgences in respect of Blessed James of Bevagna, despite the fact that neither of these men had been canonised.  Unlike James, Peter never seems to have been the subject of a canonisation process. ) 

The Cappella di San Pietro Crisci was subsequently destroyed, and the relics are now in a wooden urn under the altar of the Cappella del Sacramento in the left transept.  The cell in the campanile, which is reached from the Palazzo dei Canoniche.