Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

Aloysius Gonzaga was born in 1568, the eldest son of the marquis of Castiglione in Lombardy, and was destined for a military and courtly career. As a boy he served as a page at the courts of Florence and of Philip II of Spain, but resolved to become a Jesuit. His father resisted for years; in 1585 Aloysius gave up his inheritance to his younger brother and entered the novitiate in Rome.

In 1591, while he was studying theology, plague and famine struck Rome. He nursed the sick in the hospitals, carrying the dying on his back, caught the disease, and died on 21 June 1591, aged twenty-three. His confessor was Robert Bellarmine. He was canonized in 1726 and later named patron of young people.