Stone & Incense Search
Start hereCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantFrom another faithSomeone I love is CatholicBecoming CatholicI was Catholic once Today in the ChurchLibraryHard questionsVoices of the revivalTake the next stepAboutSources & methodSupport the site
The saints

The Seven Holy Founders of the Servites

Seven businessmen of Florence who walked away together to serve Mary.

Feast: 17 February · 13th century · The Middle Ages · Florence and Monte Senario, Italy

Read the story 1 min read
Painting of the seven Servite founders in black habits kneeling before a vision of the Virgin Mary.

Unknown, Italian. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / The Seven Holy Founders of the Servites

Florence, 1240

In the middle of the 1200s, seven well-off men of Florence belonged to a lay group devoted to Mary.1

Their city was rich, divided and violent.1

In 1240 the seven left their careers and moved out of the city to pray together.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church remembers them as the founders of the Servants of Mary.

01The Seven Holy Founders of the Servites

Monte Senario

Crowds kept coming to see them, so they went up to a deserted mountain, Monte Senario.1

They became the Order of Servants of Mary, the Servites, with a special devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows.1

Live it this week

Pray with a few friends weekly

The Servites started as friends who prayed together. Text two or three friends this week and set a time, even twenty minutes on a call, to pray together every week.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Seven Founders of the Servite Order”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.