Giovanni Colombini (Founder of the Congregation of Jesuati)

Giovanni Colombini (c. 1300 - 31 July 1367) was an Italian merchant, and founder of the Congregation of Jesuati.

He was born at Siena into an old patrician family, he was several times elected gonfalonier. A biography of Mary of Egypt brought about a conversion in his life. He visited hospitals, tended the sick, and made large donations to the poor. After illness, he made his house the refuge of the needy and the suffering, washing their feet with his own hands.

His son having meanwhile died and his daughter taken the veil, Colombini with the approval of his wife, on whom he first settled a life-annuity, divided his fortune into three parts: the first went to endow a hospital, the second and third to two cloisters. Together with his friend Francisco Mini, Colombini lived henceforward a life of poverty, and begged for his daily bread. He was joined by three of the Piccolomini and by members of other patrician families, who likewise distributed all their goods among the poor.

Many of the Sienese complained that Colombini was inciting all the most promising young men of the city to "folly", and succeeded in procuring his banishment. Accompanied by twenty-five companions, Colombini visited in succession Arezzo, Città di Castello, Pisa and other Tuscan cities. He resumed on his return his former charitable occupations.

On the return of Pope Urban V from Avignon to Rome (1367), Colombini asked him to sanction the foundation of the followers' Institution. A commission appointed by Urban and presided over by Cardinal William Sudre, Bishop of Marseilles, having attested them free of the taint of the Fraticelli, whose views some people had accused them of holding, the pope gave his consent to the foundation of their congregation. The name Jesuati (Jesuites) had already been given them by the populace of Viterbo because of their constant use of the locution "Praise be to Jesus Christ". From the very beginning they had a special veneration for St. Jerome, whence the longer title, Clerici apostolici s. Hieronymi ("Apostolic Clerics of St. Jerome").

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