On Wednesday in Holy Week 1783, an emaciated, tattered ragbag of a young beggar-man collapsed on the steps of Sta Maria dei Monti where he had attended mass. At eight o'clock that night he was dead and with the morning light a scrabble of urchins went shouting in the gutters of Rome, ‘E tnorte il santo!'. The fiercely enthusiastic scenes and circumstances surrounding his death seemed prescient of an early official recognition of his sanctity. No doubt the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars delayed this and he was beatified in May 1860 and canonized in December 1883.

It is more than unfortunate that his name has become synonymous with eccentricity, exaggeration and squalor. Perhaps this most humble of men, for whom none had greater contempt than he had for himself, would prefer it that way. He is in the splendour of the saints.