Amato Ronconi

Amato Ronconi (1226 – 8 May 1292) was an Italian Catholic who became a professed member of the Secular Franciscan Order. Ronconi lived a life of penitence and dedicated all his works to the poor through the construction of chapels and hospitals – one such hospital still exists in his home of Rimini. The residents in this town recognised his good deeds and hailed Ronconi as a saint in his own lifetime.

The confirmation of his popular local "cultus" – or enduring veneration – allowed for Pope Pius VI to celebrate his beatification on 17 April 1776 while Pope Francis canonized Ronconi centuries later on 23 November 2014 in Saint Peter's Square.

Life Amato Ronconi was born in 1225 in Saludecio, near Rimini, to a noble and wealthy household. He was orphaned in childhood and raised in the home of his older brother, Giacomo. As the younger son of a landowner, he had no fortune, so he worked as a farmhand. He had at least one sister named Chiara.

Ronconi's sister-in-law urged him to find a woman to wed but Ronconi had decided to serve the Lord as a hermit. His sister-in-law Lansberga came to dislike him as a result of this for she wanted him to wed her younger sister so as to keep her estate intact among familial relations and not amongst outsiders.

Feeling a call to serve God he devoted his life to catering to the needs of the poor and assisting pilgrims and in doing so gave up all his possessions which he passed on to the poor people of the area. He worked the fields in order to support the hospice and the poor. He joined the Secular Franciscan Order and adopted the life of a hermit. He later emerged from his hermitage and constructed various chapels and shelters for pilgrims; some of those places still exist at present including a hospital in Rimini.

Ronconi made a pilgrimage to Rimini to the tomb of Gaudentius of Rimini, to Monte Titano to the cave of Marinus, and four times to Spain to visit the tomb of James the Apostle at Santiago de Compostela.