Saint / folklore
Blessed Egideo
Background
A holy figure whose preserved body is venerated at the church of San Pasquale in Naples.
The Blessed Egideo is Egidio Maria of St Joseph (born Francesco Postillo in Taranto, 1729–1812), a lay brother of the Alcantarine Franciscans. He spent most of his life at the friary of San Pasquale a Chiaia, begging alms in the streets and caring for the sick and poor, and Neapolitans came to call him the “consoler of Naples”. His tomb at San Pasquale became a place of pilgrimage within years of his death.
He was beatified in 1888, so when Lewis saw him he was indeed waiting on the further miracles needed for sainthood. They came in time: John Paul II canonised him in 1996, and his feast is kept on 7 February.
In Naples ’44
The incorrupt body Lewis views in its two-hundred-year-old glass case — serene ‘to the point of indifference’ — locally famous as the protector of pregnant women, and two miracles short of full sainthood.
Appears in 1 diary entry.
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December 9 1943A Sunday spent observing the palazzo neighborhood's blend of aristocratic grandeur and thriving working-class street life.
incorrupt body at San Pasquale church, protector of pregnant women
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