Saint Peter of Verona

Saint Peter of Verona, also known as Peter Martyr, was a Dominican, a priest, and a preacher from northern Italy. He was killed by an assassin in 1252 while on his way from Como to Milan as papal inquisitor. The Dominicans venerate him as the first martyr of their order. The Church commemorates him on April 6, the day of his death.

He was born in Verona at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the exact year is not known. According to the tradition repeated by the Roman Martyrology, his parents were followers of the Cathar heresy, yet he himself held to the Catholic faith from childhood and at the age of seven was already reciting the Apostles’ Creed. He studied in Bologna. There he met Saint Dominic and, as the Martyrology relates, received from his hands the habit of the Order of Preachers.

After his ordination to the priesthood he preached in northern and central Italy, and also in Rome. He was prior of the convents at Asti, Piacenza, and Como, and he founded a monastery in Milan for Dominican nuns. Tradition also credits him with founding lay confraternities that defended the faith and spread devotion to the Mother of God. In Florence he became a friend of the seven founders of the Servite Order.

In June 1251 Pope Innocent IV charged him with countering the Cathar heresy in Cremona, and in the fall appointed him inquisitor for Milan and Como, that is, his envoy for investigating cases of heresy. Peter held this office for less than a year, and the sources say almost nothing about the proceedings he conducted. He continued above all to preach and to hold public disputations with the leaders of the Cathars, paying no heed to death threats.

On the Saturday after Easter, April 6, 1252, he set out from Como for Milan. In a wood near Seveso he was attacked by Carino of Balsamo, an assassin hired by supporters of the heresy, who struck him on the head with a curved blade like a sickle. Brother Dominic, who was traveling with him, was also wounded and died a few days later. The bull of canonization relates that Peter, as he was dying, commended his spirit to God and began to recite the profession of faith. Later tradition adds that he wrote the word Credo, “I believe,” on the ground in his own blood.

At the request of the authorities of Milan, Pope Innocent IV enrolled Peter among the holy martyrs in March 1253 in Perugia, less than a year after his death. The bull set his feast on April 29; today the Dominicans commemorate him on June 4. The saint’s relics rest in the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan, in a fourteenth-century marble tomb, the work of Giovanni di Balduccio.

Carino of Balsamo repented of his deed. He entered the Dominicans at Forlì as a lay brother and there, after years of penance, died with a reputation for holiness. In 2002, in his message for the 750th anniversary of Peter’s martyrdom, John Paul II recalled that the saint forgave his killer, and held him up as a model for the Christians of our time.