Saint James of the Marches

Domenico Gangala was born in Monteprandone, in the Marche, on September 1, 1393. He studied in Ascoli, earned a law degree in Perugia, and worked as a judge in Bibbiena and as a notary in the town chancery of Florence. In 1416, after a visit to La Verna, he gave up the law and joined the Franciscans with the name James. His teacher was Bernardino of Siena and his companion John of Capistrano: together with Albert of Sarteano they are the “four pillars” of the Franciscan Observance. For sixty years he preached across half of Europe — Italy, Bosnia, Hungary, Austria, Poland — and he was an inquisitor against the Fraticelli. That part of his life was harsh, and it has to be said: there were trials, convictions, and a severity that reads badly today. What did leave a concrete good, though, are the Monti di Pietà. Like Bernardino of Feltre, he went to the cities to preach against usury and then left an institution behind him: a bank that lent against pledges at minimal interest, to get the poor out of the hands of loan sharks. He founded quite a few of them. He died in Naples on November 28, 1476, in the friary of Santa Maria la Nova, where his body is still kept. He was canonized in 1726. If your name is James, today is your name day.