Saint Rainerius of Pisa

Rainerius Scacceri was born in Pisa around 1115, the son of Gandolfo, a rich merchant, and Mingarda Buzzaccherini. He spent his youth, the sources say with a certain indulgence, on frivolities: he played music, sang, spent money. At nineteen he met Alberto, a hermit who had come to live in the city at the monastery of San Vito. After that meeting he left everything he had. He set off for the Holy Land and stayed there for years, as a pilgrim, in poverty and penance. It was there that he took up the habit for which the people of Pisa still call him Ranieri “dall’acqua,” “of the water”: he drank only water, and credited water with the wonders people credited to him. He returned to Pisa in 1154, brought home by his friend Admiral Ranieri Bottacci, and withdrew to the same monastery of San Vito where he had met Alberto years before. The fame of his miracles had already arrived ahead of him. He died on June 17, 1161, and the city claimed him as its own at once. He is the patron saint of Pisa, and on the evening of June 16 the whole city switches off its electric lights and lights a hundred thousand little lamps on the palazzi along the Arno: it is the Luminara di San Ranieri, and the next day the Palio remiero, the rowing race, is held on the river. He is also the patron saint of the Grimaldi dynasty of Monaco, which celebrates him on November 19. If your name is Ranieri, today is your name day.