Saint Pius V, Pope

Antonio Ghislieri was born in 1504 at Bosco in Piedmont, joined the Dominicans at fourteen and later worked for the Roman Inquisition. He was elected pope in 1566 and took the name Pius. He set about carrying out the decisions of the Council of Trent: the Roman Catechism appeared in 1566, a reformed Breviary in 1568 and the Roman Missal in 1570, which remained in use for four centuries.

He lived simply and kept wearing his white Dominican habit; by one tradition, this is why popes dress in white. He organized the Holy League of Spain, Venice and the Papal States, whose fleet defeated the Ottoman navy at Lepanto on 7 October 1571, and set up a feast in thanksgiving. He died on 1 May 1572 and was canonized in 1712.