Blessed Tomasuccio of Foligno

(15th September)

Tomasuccio is associated with four Italian cities:

• Nocera Umbra, where he was born in 1319;
  

• Gualdo Tadino, where he lived as a hermit on the Serra Santa for 20 years until 1367 before moving to the Eremo di San Marzio;
  

• Siena, where he found refuge after having attracted the attention of the Inquisition at Gualdo Tadino, only to be imprisoned there; and
  

• Foligno, where he lived from ca. 1373 until his death in 1377.
  

While he was in prison in Siena, Tomasuccio had a vision in which St Francis appeared to him and told him that he would attain paradise if he reformed the Franciscan Order.   He first made a pilgrimage to Santiago da Compostella and then became associated with the Order of Hermits of St Jerome (Jeromites), which was established at this time in Toledo. 

He returned to Umbria in , where he was at the centre of an upsurge in eremetical spirituality.  He became attached to the Ospedale della SS Trinità (see Santa Caterina Nuova), where he died in 1377.   His relics were subsequently moved to Sant' Agostino, where an altar was built in his honour in 1455.