Born in Parabiago (Milan) on January 25, 1870.
Died in Saronno (Varese) on January 18, 1918.
A priest since 1892, after a year of teaching at the Collegio S. Martino, he entered the Collegio di Rho, putting his fortitude of ingenuity and eloquence, and his emotional character, at the service of the popular missions, which made him an ideal preacher for the fascination that engulfed the masses. In 1916 he left the college to go provost to Saronno, where he died shortly after, mourned by that population.
In 1912, writing to the superior of the Rho College regarding the cause of beatification of Father *Giorgio Maria Martinelli, for which he had taken an interest at the Congregation of Rites, Don Guanella sent greetings to Father Montoli. Don *Silvio Vannoni remembered having heard from Father Montoli, that Don Guanella, having gone to the College of Rho for spiritual exercises, went to confess and seek advice from this missionary, who, as soon as Don Guanella came out of his room, kissed the kneeler where he had prostrated himself saying: «here a saint has knelt down». Father Montoli was then administrator of the *Piccolo credito di Rho, a Catholic bank to which Don Guanella initially thought of conferring the assets of his institutions to safeguard them from possible forfeiture. On the occasion of Don Guanella's last illness, he wrote asking for news and assuring his prayers.
Sources:
Oblate College of Rho, Menology (courtesy of Father Gianfranco Barbieri).
SACRA RITUUM CONGREGATIONE, Positio super introductione causae Servi Dei Georgii Mariae Martinelli, Rome, 1958, Documenta, doc. XXII, p. 475, at 16.
Guanellian sources:
Guanellian Letters, n. 1472.
The illness of Don Luigi Guanella, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1915, p. 148.
SACRA RITUUM CONGREGATIONE, Comen. seu Mediolanen. Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Aloysii Guanella [...]. Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, Romae, Typis Guerra et Belli, 1950, pp. 272 (witnesses of Monsignor Aurelio Bacciarini), 396 (witnesses of Don Silvio Vannoni), 707 (witnesses of Don Martino Cugnasca).
Photographs:
Not found yet.