Giacomo Villa and the Blessed Matteo Lazzari

Giovanni Antonio Mazzuoli, 18th cent.
stucco

Coming from a family of plasters and stonecutters, Giovanni Antonio Mazzuoli was born in Siena in 1640. In 1663 he was already married to Lucia, who died in 1669; the following year he married Antonia Galli, with whom he had many children. Among them Bartolomeo and Giovanni Maria. The Opera of the Duomo of Siena, gave him and his younger brother Agostino, also a stonemason,  practically uninterrupted work in the Baroque renovation of the altars. Among the numerous works by Giovanni Antonio, the funeral monument for Antonio Rospigliosi in S. Vigilio (1658); the statue of St. Thomas of Villanova in the Church of St. Martin (1684); the altar for the Church of St. Anthony alle Murella, in the Tartuca ditrict (1686); the Transit of St. Benedict (1693), now in St. Christopher, the two angels of the main altar in the Church of St. Augutus; an angel above the main door of the Duomo, in addition to a production outside Siena, including the high altar for the Duomo of Grosseto (1708).

The stucco work created for Città della Pieve celebrates the local blessed Giacomo Villa l’Elemosiniere who lived in the second half of the 13th century. After studying law in Siena, where he met the Servants of Maria and collaborated with them in the service at the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Giacomo Villa returned to his homeland and, ordained a priest, he rebuilt a hospital outside the Vecciano Gate by donating all his possessions. The struggles for autonomy among Chiusi, the dependent Castel della Pieve and Perugia however complicated the story: subjected to the jurisdiction of the bishop of Chiusi who demanded heavy annual taxes, the hospital fell into decline and the young Giacomo Villa carried on a bitter judicial battle to reclaim the freedom and autonomy of the hospital. After a clarifying meeting with the bishop of Chiusi, on his way back the priest was attacked by assassin and killed: it was 15 January 1304. His body found accidently by shepherds and disputed between Chiusi and Castel della Pieve, it was entrusted – according to legend – to an oxen driven cart, which headed for Castel della Pieve, thus also showing the support of the “sky” in the will of autonomy by the subordinate town.

Passing through Castel della Pieve, Pope Benedict XI, who fled from Rome prey to factions to retire to calmer Perugia, upon hearing the sad story of Giacomo Villa, called him the “holy almoner”. This appellation, given by a pope who was later to be proclaimed blessed, seemed a sort of equivalent beatification, that spurred the people of Pieve to honour him even more so as their hero. There was also an “elevation” of his remains, which in 1687, as the oratory of Vecciano was dilapidated, they were transferred into the cathedral, to be then, on 11 July 1717, taken back to the new church and placed in an urn above the high altar. In 1807 the legitimacy of the cult from time immemorial was recognised and the  town received the requested officialdom, which was subsequently extended also to the Servants of Maria and to the Minor Friars, as Giacomo Villa belonged to the two Third Orders at the same time. Known and honoured as “martyr of justice”, he was twice proposed as patron saint of lawyers in Italy.