Giacomo Bulgaro

After his conversion, Giacomo led an exemplary lay life in Brescia, combining his trade as a cobbler with daily prayer and the religious instruction of children. During the First World War, he served as a Red Cross orderly at the military hospital in Brescia. In 1917, he became a Franciscan tertiary and met his spiritual director, Father Andrea Firmo Trolli. On December 31, 1928, at the age of fifty, he entered the San Francesco convent in Brescia with the Order of Friars Minor Conventual as a lay brother. He made his solemn vows in 1934. For more than thirty years, he served as the convent porter, welcoming the poor with gentleness and voluntarily repairing the shoes of the religious and the needy in his cell.

The final years of Brother Giacomo were marked by a progressive physical decline. Afflicted by paralysis, he spent his last years confined to his cell, offering his sufferings in continuous prayer while continuing to repair shoes as long as his strength allowed. In January 1967, he was struck by bronchopneumonia and kidney failure. He passed away peacefully on January 27, 1967, at the convent of Brescia at the age of 88. His funeral drew a vast crowd. Initially buried in the municipal cemetery, his body was transferred on April 28, 1994, to a chapel in the church of San Francesco in Brescia, where his tomb is the object of constant pilgrimage.

The cause for the beatification and canonization of Giacomo Bulgaro was introduced in the Diocese of Brescia. The diocesan inquiry into his life and virtues took place from November 17, 1989, to March 22, 1991. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints validated the procedure by a decree on November 27, 1992. On November 28, 2019, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his theological and cardinal virtues, officially conferring upon him the title of Venerable.

The spirituality of Giacomo Bulgaro rests on radical humility, absolute obedience, and a profound Eucharistic and Marian devotion. Although he had received a rudimentary education, he left behind an immense written legacy out of obedience to his superiors. Preserved in the archives of the San Francesco convent in Brescia, the 'Fondo Giacomo Bulgaro' includes three notebooks of autobiography and 154 notebooks of spiritual journals written between 1940 and 1967, totaling more than 6,800 pages. These writings bear witness to intense mystical experiences and interior locutions. Nicknamed the 'poverello of Brescia' or the 'saintly cobbler', he remains a very beloved figure for his evangelical simplicity.