Aloysius Gonzaga

Life events

1. Born — 1568

   Aloysius Gonzaga was born on 9 March 1568 at the family castle in Castiglione delle Stiviere, between Brescia and Mantua in the Duchy of Mantua, the eldest of eight children of Ferrante Gonzaga, Marquess of Castiglione, and Dona Marta Tana di Santena.

2. Educated — 1576

   In 1576, aged eight, Gonzaga was sent with his brother Rodolfo to Florence to serve at the court of Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici; while there he contracted a kidney disease that persisted throughout his life, and during his convalescence began reading hagiography and spending extended time in prayer.

3. Other — 1580

   On 22 July 1580, Gonzaga received First Communion from Cardinal Charles Borromeo at Castiglione delle Stiviere; the encounter fixed his intention toward religious life, and he began teaching catechism to boys in the town and visiting the Capuchin and Barnabite houses in Casale Monferrato.

4. Other — 1582

   The family traveled to Madrid in March 1582, where Gonzaga and his brother served as pages for the Infante Diego; it was during this period in Spain that Gonzaga decided to join the Society of Jesus rather than the Capuchins, having acquired a Jesuit confessor in Madrid.

5. Other — 1585

   In November 1585, Gonzaga formally renounced all rights of inheritance — confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor — and on 25 November 1585, following an audience with Pope Sixtus V, was accepted into the Society of Jesus in Rome.

6. Other — 1587

   On 25 November 1587, Gonzaga took the three religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; in February and March 1588 he received minor orders and began studying theology in preparation for ordination — studies cut short by ill health and the onset of the plague.

7. Other — 1591

   When plague broke out in Rome in 1591, Gonzaga volunteered at the Jesuit hospital, carrying the dying from the streets, washing and feeding the sick, and preparing them to receive the sacraments; transferred to Our Lady of Consolation hospital after his superiors initially forbade his return, he was himself infected and bedridden by 3 March 1591.

8. Died — 1591

   Gonzaga died just before midnight on 21 June 1591 — the Octave of the feast of Corpus Christi, the date he had predicted — having received last rites from his confessor Robert Bellarmine; he was twenty-three years old and had not yet been ordained.

Relationships

Documented claims

• To enter the Society of Jesus, Gonzaga surrendered the marquisate of Castiglione delle Stiviere — the title and estate he would have inherited as eldest son — in a transfer confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor in November 1585. (likely)
• Robert Bellarmine — later cardinal, Doctor of the Church, and canonized saint — served as Gonzaga's confessor during the 1591 plague crisis and administered last rites at the moment of his death. (likely)
• Pope Benedict XIII declared Gonzaga patron of youth and students in 1729, placing all schools under his patronage; Pope Pius XI extended this in 1926 to patron of all Christian youth, and his manner of death later made him patron of AIDS patients and their caregivers. (likely)
• In Western iconography Gonzaga appears as a young man in a black Jesuit cassock and surplice, carrying a lily (innocence), a cross, a skull (early death), and a rosary; a window in St. Joseph's Church in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, depicts him with a soccer ball. (likely)
• Pope Benedict XIII canonized Gonzaga on 31 December 1726 together with Stanislaus Kostka — both Jesuit novices who died before ordination, both now patrons of young religious. (likely)