Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order were seven prosperous merchants and noblemen of thirteenth-century Florence who, moved by grace and devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, forsook the world together to lead a life of prayer and penance. Members of a confraternity honoring Our Lady, they withdrew in the year 1233 to a life of poverty and, seeking greater solitude, retired to the wild slopes of Monte Senario in the hills above Florence.

There they embraced a common life of contemplation and austerity, and under the inspiration of Our Lady of Sorrows they founded the Order of Servants of Mary, or Servites, dedicated to devotion to the Mother of God, especially in her sorrows at the foot of the Cross. Their community spread and bore rich fruit for the Church, and one of their number, St. Alexis Falconieri, lived to a great age. Honored together as a single company of saints, the seven founders were canonized in 1888, and their memory is kept on 17 February.