Saint Rainerius of Pisa

Saint Rainerius of Pisa was a lay penitent and pilgrim. After years spent in the Holy Land he returned to his home city, where he called people to conversion and helped the sick. The Roman Martyrology calls him a poor man and pilgrim for Christ. He is the principal patron of Pisa, and the Church commemorates him on June 17.

He was born in Pisa in the second decade of the twelfth century; the exact year is not known. He came from a wealthy family connected with trade. According to his Life, in his youth he was drawn more to amusements and music than to study. He owed his change of heart to Albert, a penitent from Corsica who lived at the Pisan monastery of San Vito. Under his influence Rainerius began to fast and to seek God.

As a young man he sailed to the Holy Land with merchandise, intending to trade there. In Jerusalem, however, he resolved to renounce his property and put on the rough garment of a penitent. For several years he lived in poverty near the Holy Sepulcher, on alms, bread and water. He also went on pilgrimage to Bethlehem, to Hebron, and to Mount Tabor.

In 1153 or 1154 he returned to Pisa. He lived first at the monastery of Sant’Andrea in the Kinzica quarter and later at the monastery of San Vito. He did not enter a religious order or receive holy orders, remaining a layman to the end. He called the townspeople to penance and gave blessed water and bread to the sick, which is why he was called Ranieri dell’Acqua, Rainerius of the Water. John Paul II, visiting Pisa in 1989, recalled that in difficult times Rainerius went about among the people of Pisa helping those in need and proclaiming peace.

He died at the monastery of San Vito on June 17, 1160. He was solemnly buried in Pisa Cathedral, where his relics rest to this day. Within a few years of his death the Pisan canon Benincasa, who had known him, wrote down his Life and the miracles attributed to his intercession.

Rainerius did not go through a formal canonization process. The people of Pisa venerated him as a saint from his death onward, and in the seventeenth century the Congregation of Rites approved his cult. In the same century he was proclaimed principal patron of the city and the archdiocese, and in 1689 his body was placed in an altar of the cathedral.