Philip Neri

Philip Romolo Neri was born on 21 July 1515 in Florence, capital of the Republic of Florence, the son of Francesco Neri, a notary of modest means, and Lucrezia da Mosciano. He was one of four children. His mother died while he was still young, and he grew up in a household that included a stepmother. From boyhood he was lively, affectionate, and already noted for piety, receiving the nickname Pippo buono (good little Philip). His early instruction was associated with the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, a house still marked by the memory of Girolamo Savonarola. Although Philip never became a Dominican, the Florentine religious climate of the early sixteenth century formed the background of his youth.

Around the age of eighteen he left Florence for San Germano (modern Cassino), where a wealthy, childless uncle named Romolo hoped to train him for commerce and make him his heir. Philip soon abandoned that path. About 1533 he went to Rome and remained there for the rest of his life. For years he lived as a poor layman, lodging with Galeotto Caccia, a Florentine in the customs service, in return for tutoring Caccia’s two sons. He attended lectures in philosophy and theology at the Sapienza and among the Augustinians of Sant’Agostino, then gave up formal study, sold his books, and turned to prayer, visits to the city’s churches, and service to the sick and poor, especially at the hospital of San Giacomo degli Incurabili. He frequented the catacombs. Early biographers place at the catacombs of San Sebastiano, around Pentecost 1544, a mystical experience in which a globe of fire seemed to enter his breast; after his death an examination of the body was said to have found the heart unusually enlarged and two ribs arched as if to make room for it.

In 1551, at the insistence of his confessor Persiano Rosa, Philip was ordained a priest at about the age of thirty-five. He took up residence at San Girolamo della Carità, became widely known as a confessor, and gathered disciples for spiritual reading, conversation, prayer, and music. These informal meetings, first in his room and then in an oratory, were the origin of the Congregation of the Oratory, a community of secular priests living in common without vows. Pope Gregory XIII approved the congregation in 1575 and assigned it the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, which was rebuilt as the Chiesa Nuova and became Philip’s home. The Oratory’s exercises, including vernacular spiritual talks and sacred music, left a lasting mark on Roman religious culture.

Philip remained in Rome until his death and declined high ecclesiastical office, including, according to his biographers, a cardinal’s hat. He was celebrated for humor, for a willingness to play the fool in order to hide or to test virtue, and for a spirituality that rejected melancholy. He worked especially among the young and among ordinary Romans, while also advising prelates; Charles Borromeo was among those who esteemed him. He continued to hear confessions into old age despite frail health.

He died in Rome on 26 May 1595, after spending much of the day in the confessional, and was buried at Santa Maria in Vallicella. Pope Paul V beatified him on 11 May 1615. Pope Gregory XV canonized him on 12 March 1622, in the same ceremony that raised Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, and Isidore the Farmer to the altars. He became known as the Apostle of Rome and has been invoked as a patron of that city and of Christian joy.