Pellegrino delle Alpi

Who they were

Saints Pellegrino and Bianco are remembered as pilgrims and hermits who turned a once harsh, wild region into a place of prayer, welcome and hope for travellers. Tradition identifies Pellegrino as a Scottish prince who gave up his throne to follow Christ in poverty, while Bianco is presented as his faithful disciple and successor in the hermit's life; historical sources cannot confirm these details, but they do attest to the antiquity of the pair's veneration and the importance of the shrine built at their tomb, documented from at least the twelfth century.

According to tradition, Pellegrino gave up his claim to the throne of Scotland (or, in other versions, Ireland) to choose a life of pilgrimage and penance; after a long journey through Europe and the Holy Land he is said to have reached Italy and settled on the high Apennine ridge that now bears his name, living in extreme poverty inside the hollow trunk of a great beech tree, given to prayer, penance and helping the few travellers who crossed those mountains. At his death, tradition says his work was carried on by his disciple Bianco, remembered chiefly through the memory kept alive by the shrine. The first document certainly attesting a church and hospice dedicated to the two saints dates from 1110.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Legendary Scottish prince turned pilgrim-hermit of the Apennines, whose shrine became a major medieval hospice for travellers; feast 1 August.