Giuseppe Antonio Tovini (14 March 1841 – 16 January 1897) was an Italian

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

who became a member of the

Secular Franciscan Order The Secular Franciscan Order ( la, Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis; abbreviated OFS) is the third branch of the Franciscan Family formed by Catholic Church, Catholic men and women who seek to observe the Gospel of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus by fo ...

. He was one of the founder of

Banca di Valle Camonica Banca di Valle Camonica S.p.A. was an Italian bank based in Breno, in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy. The bank is named after Val Camonica. History Founded in 1872, Banca di Valle Camonica was a subsidiary of Banca San Paolo di Brescia since 1 ...

Banca San Paolo di Brescia Banca San Paolo di Brescia was an Italian bank based in Brescia, Lombardy. The owner of Banca San Paolo di Brescia and Credito Agrario Bresciano formed a new holding company Banca Lombarda e Piemontese, Banca Lombarda in 1998, as well as merging t ...

and

Banco Ambrosiano Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank that collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi, and his membership in the illegal former Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (aka P2). The Vatican-based Institute for the ...

. His nephew was Mosè Tovini. He was beatified in 1998 after a miracle was found to have been attributed to his intercession. The cause still continues as it awaits confirmation of another miracle.

Biography

Giuseppe Antonio Tovini was born in 1841 as the first of seven children to Mosè Tovini and Rosa Malaguzzi. He went to high school in

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

from 1852 to 1858, and later graduated from the University of

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

in August 1865. He then moved to

Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo. ...

in 1867 to become a

and obtained all the appropriate qualifications to become a lawyer in 1868. He later married Emilia Corbolani on 6 January 1875 and they went on to have a total of ten children. One son became a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

and two daughters became

nuns A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

. From 1871 to 1874, Tovini served as the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

Cividate Camuno Cividate Camuno ( Camunian: ) is an Italian ''comune'' of 2,774 inhabitants (2011), in Val Camonica, province of Brescia The Province of Brescia ( it, provincia di Brescia; Brescian: ) is a Province in the Lombardy administrative region of nor ...

, his birthplace. As mayor, he made important decisions in the life of the city from promoting the establishment of

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

s to the construction of infrastructure like

railway lines A railway track (British English and International Union of Railways, UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a Rail transport, railway or railroad consisting of ...

. Tovini also became a member of the

and was among the founders of a Catholic newspaper which published its first edition in 1878 after its founding on 3 April. He founded

in 1872,

in Brescia in 1888,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

in 1896. In 1882 he founded Saint Joseph's Kindergarten and he also established other Catholic institutions. He died in 1897 with a reputation for personal holiness.

Beatification

The cause of beatification was introduced on 14 April 1977 under

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his ...

despite the fact that a process had been opened in 1948 and closed in 1957. Another process - a historical commission - continued to investigate the cause from 1992 to 1993 which resulted in the

Positio In the Catholic Church, a ''positio'' (''Positio super Virtutibus'') is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to canonization as a saint. Des ...

being submitted in 1993 to the

Congregation for the Causes of Saints In the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, previously named the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (), is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, pa ...

for further evaluation.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

declared he lived a life of

heroic virtue Heroic virtue is a phrase coined by Augustine of Hippo to describe the virtue of early Christian martyrs and used by the Catholic Church. The Greek pagan term hero described a person with possibly superhuman abilities and great goodness, and "it ...

and made him

Venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cathol ...

on 6 April 1995 and approved a miracle attributed to his intercession on 18 December 1997. He was beatified on 20 September 1998.

References

External links

Hagiography CircleFondazione "Giuseppe Tovini
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tovini, Giuseppe 1841 births 1897 deaths Italian beatified people Beatifications by Pope John Paul II 19th-century venerated Christians Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II