Its roots lay in the preaching of an itinerant
canon regular, Bartolomeo of Rome, who was a proponent of the new spirituality of the
Devotio Moderna which had developed in the
Low Countries and was starting to spread in northern Italy. While ministering in
Venice in 1396 he met two young noblemen, Gabriele Condulmer (the future
Pope Eugene IV) and his cousin,
Antonio Correr, the nephew of
Cardinal Angelo Correr, soon elected as
Pope Gregory XII. Under his inspiration, the cousins decided to give up their wealth and to lead lives of prayer and service. In 1400 they began to live together as a small religious community, modeled on the
Brothers of the Common Life, following the
Rule of St. Augustine. They lived in a house lent to them by a relative. One of the first men to join them there was
Lawrence Giustiniani, who was a
deacon at the time, the first
cleric of the small community. In 1404 they were given the use of a
monastery of
Augustinian friars on the isolated island of
St. George in Alga, which was almost empty, by its
commendatory prior, a young nobleman,
Ludovico Barbo, who soon himself joined the community. The new monastery quickly grew to have 17 members, all members of the clergy by then, and received the approval of
Pope Boniface IX on 30 November of that year. Though essentially
contemplative in their way of life, some of the canons did undertake a limited active
Christian ministry. The
provost of the community was elected annually up to that point. Nevertheless, they successfully combined aspects of prayer, a simple lifestyle and solitude with the solemn celebration of the
liturgy. In 1444,
San Giorgio in Braida, Verona was made a dependency of San Giorgio in Alga. In 1462 they acquired the
Chiesa della Madonna dell'Orto which had previously belonged to the
Humiliati. In 1482
San Pietro in Oliveto in Brescia was transferred from the Benedictines to the Canons of San Giorgio. During its reconstruction in 1508, the canons held a solemn procession translating the relics of San Silvino, an early bishop of Brescia, from the Duomo to San Pietro. They enjoyed a reputation for both simplicity and dedication and appear to have achieved the canonical idea of fidelity to the life of an
enclosed religious order without
religious vows, which were not introduced until 1568. In 1424 the canons elected their first
Superior General to oversee the houses of their burgeoning congregation. Pope Gregory XII called his nephew Antonio Correr and Gabriele Condulmer to Rome to serve as cardinals. Condulmer later became Pope Eugene IV and Giustiniani became the first
Patriarch of Venice, promoting the reform of the city and the spread of the Gospel throughout his episcopate. Like the
Theatines in the 16th century, this congregation enjoyed much more influence and importance than its size would suggest. ==References==