The artistic work of the engineer Aristide Leonori is the result of the cultivation of a strong interiority. For this reason, those who have the opportunity to go up to the church of the Ara Coeli in Rome, right next to the Campidoglio and behind the altar of the Fatherland in Piazza Venezia, can go and visit the tomb of the Servant of God the engineer Aristide Leonori, the Roman architect who designed our church of San Giuseppe al Trionfale.
Leonori's professional career can be identified with the vast and multifaceted activity in the field of religious architecture, largely developed abroad, particularly in the United States of America. The Mount Saint Sepulchre complex for the Franciscans of Washington dates back to 1898, where the church stands out, of Byzantine layout with frequent Neo-Renaissance references in the elevations, which preserves the scale models of the sanctuaries of the Holy Land inside. Models that Don Guanella had rebuilt in the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart in Como.
Among his many works abroad: he designed the pulpit and directed the work for the baptismal font, designed by John Francis Bentley, in the Catholic cathedral of Westminster in London. He designed the pulpit, bishop's chair and five altars in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh in Ireland.
In the period between 1908 and 1916 he designed four churches in Rome including our church of S. Giuseppe al Trionfale (1909-12).
Vast was the activity provided to religious institutes for the construction, expansion and maintenance of chapels, residential buildings, colleges and monasteries.
From an architectural point of view we cannot forget both the expansion of the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart in Como (1912-15), commissioned by Don Luigi Guanella, and the bell tower of the sanctuary of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii (1912-25).
A member of various Catholic associations, he was appointed cloak and dagger waiter by Pius X; he was a knight of San Gregorio Magno, San Silvestro and San Giorgio.
Engineer Leonori died in Rome on 30 July 1928. In 1933 the cause for beatification was started.