Stefano del Lupo

Who they were

Stephen was a twelfth-century Benedictine monk, traditionally said to come from Carovilli in what is now the province of Isernia. He entered the monastery of San Liberatore on the Maiella, developed a vocation to solitary asceticism, and withdrew to a cave, where his reputation as a hermit drew disciples who formed the monastery of San Pietro di Vallebona, near Manoppello, where he became abbot; a document of Pope Clement III from 1188 confirms the existence of the community and Stephen as its abbot.

He died on 19 July 1191, and his veneration is attested from the early thirteenth century, when he already appears as patron and confessor of the monastery. Tradition links him to the legend of a wolf that terrorised the countryside around Manoppello and which he is said to have tamed after prayer, giving him the name "del Lupo" (of the Wolf); this story belongs to hagiographic legend rather than history, but the tamed wolf became his standard attribute in art.

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

Benedictine hermit-abbot of San Pietro di Vallebona on the Maiella, later linked to the legend of a tamed wolf; died 19 July 1191.