Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order were seven merchants of Florence who in the thirteenth century gave up their trade and their wealth to live together in penance, prayer, and the service of Mary. From their community grew the Order of the Servants of Mary, the Servites. The Church commemorates them together on February 17.

The Roman Martyrology gives their names: Bonfilius, Bartholomew, John, Benedict, Gerardino, Ricovero, and Alexis. The order also hands down other names, in their Italian form: Bonfiglio, Bonagiunta, Manetto, Amadio, Sostegno, Uguccione, and Alessio. The Servites themselves acknowledge that only the names of Bonfilius and Alexis are certain. The beginnings of the community are told chiefly in the “Legenda de origine Ordinis,” written only about 1317, so many dates can no longer be established.

In Florence all of them belonged to a lay confraternity devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The city was then torn by fratricidal strife. About 1233 the seven friends left their homes and businesses, gave their possessions to the poor, and began to live together outside the city walls. The tradition of the order links this decision with the Solemnity of the Assumption, August 15, 1233. They divided their day between prayer, work, and begging in the streets. The townspeople were moved that wealthy merchants had freely become poor, and many came to them for counsel and comfort.

Seeking greater solitude, they moved to Monte Senario, a mountain about 18 kilometers from Florence, where Bishop Ardingo gave them land. The date of this move is not known for certain: the year 1234 is given, or a time around 1245. There they built simple cells and a small church in honor of the Mother of God and lived as hermits. They called themselves the Servants of Mary and adopted the Rule of Saint Augustine, and Bonfilius became the first prior.

New members kept coming, so further houses were founded, also outside Tuscany. When the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 moved against the new mendicant orders, the Servites were threatened with extinction. The order was defended by Saint Philip Benizi, its prior general. Pope Benedict XI gave it final approval on February 11, 1304.

Of the seven, only Alexis Falconieri lived to see it. Out of humility he did not receive priestly ordination and remained to the end a brother who begged alms for the community. He is said to have died on February 17, 1310, at the age of one hundred, and that is why all seven are commemorated on this day. His niece, Saint Juliana Falconieri, gave rise to the Servite sisters. The relics of the seven founders rest in a common tomb on Monte Senario.

In 1717 Pope Clement XI confirmed the cult of Alexis, and in 1725 Benedict XIII that of the other six. Leo XIII canonized all seven together on January 15, 1888, in the Vatican Basilica. In 2025 Pope Leo XIV reminded the Servites that their order, almost uniquely in the history of religious foundations, did not arise around a single founder but around a group of seven friends.