Blessed Henry of Bolzano
Lay Person · † 1315
Layman, poor laborer in Treviso, penitent
Blessed Henry of Bolzano was a poor, illiterate laborer who settled in Treviso in northern Italy. He became known for his prayer, his penance, and his love for the poor. The Church commemorates him on June 10.
He was born in Bolzano around 1250; the exact date of his birth is not known. He could neither read nor write. He earned his living by hard manual work as a hired laborer, and in Treviso, as Giovanni Boccaccio recorded in the Decameron, he carried loads for pay for anyone who asked him. It is not known when or why he left his hometown. According to one account, he stopped in Treviso on his way back from a pilgrimage to Rome.
He came there with his wife and son, who died before him. Widowed, Henry lived alone in a cramped little room that a notary had put at his disposal. Every day he visited all the churches of the city and gladly attended Holy Mass. He led a life of penance: he slept on a hard bed, wore a rough garment, and spent long hours of the night in prayer.
The Roman Martyrology recalls that he gave everything he had to the poor. When his strength failed, he himself begged for alms, and what he received he shared with other beggars. In the last years of his life he lived in extreme poverty.
He died alone in his little room on June 10, 1315. According to tradition, at the moment of his death the bells of Treviso began to ring by themselves, though no one was pulling them. The townspeople said that a saint had died and came in crowds to his funeral, and his body was laid in the cathedral. For a long time pilgrims came to his tomb from many cities of northern Italy.
A commission appointed by the bishop recorded the accounts of eyewitnesses about graces received through his intercession. Several hundred were collected, most of them about healings. One of the witnesses was the author of Henry’s life, Pier Domenico da Baone, later bishop of Treviso.
Benedict XIV approved his cult in 1750. In 1759 part of his relics was solemnly brought from Treviso to Bolzano, where they are venerated in the cathedral, and the city chose him as its patron.