Quotes:Amadeus of Portugal

Zirkoff, Boris

Amadeus of Portugal. Actually Joao Mendes de Silva, son of a Portugal nobleman, Rodrigo de Silva, b. about 1420; d. at Milan, Aug. 10, 1482. After a brief period of married life, entered his religious life in the Hieronymite monastery of Notre-Dame de Guadalupe (Spain), remaining there ten years. Desirous of joining the Franciscans, he went to Italy, where, after some delay, he was received into the Order, 1455. Living in various places, chiefly in Milan, attracted attention by his virtue and alleged miracles. Under the protection of the Archbishop of Milan, established convent of Notre-Dame de la Paix, 1469, which became 412 the centre of a Franciscan reform, intended to carry out the rules of St. Francis in all severity. The head of the Order, Francesco della Rovere, later Pope Sixtus IV, extended his protection to Amadeus. Other foundations were made in various parts of Italy, one in Rome, where the Pope established him at S. Pietro in Montorio, and made Amadeus his confessor. Supernatural favours supposedly obtained through his intercession aided in the spread of his reform movement, and the Bolland ists testify to the authenticity of the title “Blessed” bestowed upon him. Amadeus composed an as yet unpublished treatise, De revelationibus et prophetiis. After his death, the convents he founded continued for a while to form a distinct branch of the Franciscans; the friars were called the Amadeans or Amadists, with 28 houses throughout Italy. The Popes Julius II and Pius V suppressed them, uniting them, 1568, with other branches of the Order into one family of Friars Minor Observants.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 10, pp. 411-412