Guido of Cortona, Bl.
GUIDO OF CORTONA, BL.
Franciscan priest; b. Cortona, Tuscany, Italy, c. 1187; d. Cortona, June 12, 1247. A wealthy young bachelor, in 1210 he welcomed francis of assisi in his home with such kindness that the saint praised courtesy as one of God's qualities and prayed that Guido would join the new franciscan order. He did so after seeing Francis in levitation (cf. fioretti ch. 37 with note in R. Brown ed.). Guido founded the hermitage of Le Celle near Cortona and became an ascetical priest. Usually eating only one meal a day, he acquired fame for miracles reported in his vita: when gravely ill he was cured by water that he had changed into wine; he healed a priest's paralyzed arm; multiplied a widow's flour during a famine; and brought back to life a girl who had drowned in a well. St. Francis appeared to him twice in his last days. His cult was approved in 1583.
Feast: June 16.
Bibliography: u. sernini cucciatti, La leggenda del beato Guido (Cortona 1900). Estudios franciscanos 11 (1913) 43–44. l. da cortona, Il primo convento francescano (Florence 1915). n. bruni, Le reliquie del beato Guido da Cortona (Cortona 1947). o. englebert, St. Francis of Assisi: A Biography, tr. e. m. cooper, 2d augm. ed. by i. brady and r. brown (Chicago 1966). w. forster, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 4:1268.
[r. brown]