Bartolomeo Cerveri

Bartolomeo Cerveri was born in 1420 in Cuneo and was noted in his childhood for his piousness and devotion to the faith.

He became a professed member and an ordained priest for the Order of Preachers before making his solemn profession.[2] He lived in the Piedmont region where the heretical Catharists ran rampant and killed Saint Peter of Verona and the Blesseds Peter of Ruffia and Antonio Pavoni.[1] Cerveri obtained his licentiate as well as his master's and doctorate's degree - on 8 May 1452 - at the University of Turin in an occasion that was the first and last time when someone received all three at the same time. He taught there until 1453 until he was appointed as the prior of the Savigliano convent.

Cerveri converted heretics and this led to his appointment as an inquisitor for Piedmont and Liguria in 1451 in which it was clear to him that he would soon be targeted and killed. Being a Dominican in that region at that time was dangerous and meant that heretics could take their hatred out on the new Dominican inquisitor.[2]

He made his final confession before he set off for his final trip alongside two of his companions - the brothers Giovanni and Gianpietro Riccardi.[2] He said of it: "I go there as an inquisitor and there I must die". On the road in Cervere he and his two companions were attacked though the five attackers wounded the companions but killed him after riddling him with dagger wounds. Those that washed his remains before his funeral found that despite the wounds he had not bled.[1] His remains were relocated in 1802.

The confirmation of the late priest's local 'cultus' - or popular and enduring veneration - received the papal approval of Pope Pius IX on 22 September 1853 which allowed for the pontiff to confirm his beatification.

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