Saint Galdinus

Galdinus della Sala was born in Milan toward the end of the eleventh century — the chronicles say 1096, but the date is still debated — into a family of the city’s lesser nobility. He lived through the hardest years in Milan’s history. In 1159, after Pope Adrian IV died, there were two elections: Alexander III on one side, and on the other the antipope Victor IV, backed by Frederick Barbarossa. The Church of Milan stood with Alexander, and Galdinus, who was archdeacon of the cathedral, said so publicly. Barbarossa kept Milan under siege for months. In 1162 Milan was razed to the ground: walls torn down, houses destroyed, people scattered to the nearby villages. Galdinus went into exile with the pope. In 1166 he was made a cardinal, and the next year archbishop of Milan — of a city that at that moment no longer existed. He went back to rebuild it. He was one of the architects of Milan’s rebirth and of the Lombard League, which in 1176 would defeat Barbarossa at Legnano. And he did the thing the Milanese have loved him for ever since: he took care of the poor and of those who had landed in prison for unpaid debts, who in a city brought that low were very many. He died on April 18, 1176, and he died while preaching: he collapsed in the pulpit at the end of his homily, in front of his people. It was the year of Legnano. If your name is Galdino, today is your name day.