Pietro Damiani (Saint Peter Damian), (c. 1007 "five years after the death of the Emperor Otto III" – February 21/22, 1072) was one of the most celebrated, universally loved and zealous reforming monks in the circle of Hildebrand of the 11th century, made a cardinal and (in 1823) declared a Doctor of the Church. Dante placed Peter Damiani in one of the highest circles of Paradiso as a great predecessor of Saint Francis.

Early life

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He was born at Ravenna, orphaned early, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, showed such signs of remarkable intellectual gifts that a brother, Damian, who was archpriest at Ravenna, took him away to be educated. Adding his brother's name to his own, he made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and Canon law, first at Ravenna, then at Faenza, finally at the University of Parma, that when about twenty-five years old he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.

Religious life

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About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and, avoiding the compromised luxury of Cluniac monasteries, entered the isolated hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio. Both as novice and as monk, his fervor was remarkable but led him to such extremes of self-mortification in penance that his health was affected. On his recovery, he was appointed to lecture to his fellow-monks, then, at the request of Guy of Pomposa and other heads of neighboring monasteries, for two or three years he lectured to their brethren also, and (about 1042) wrote the life of St Romuald for the monks of Pietrapertosa. Soon after his return to Fonte Avellana he was appointed economus of the house by the prior, who designated him as his successor. This, in fact, he became in 1043, and he remained prior of Fonte Avellana till his death.

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