Jesuati

Colombini had been a prosperous merchant and a senator in his native city, but, coming under ecstatic religious influences, abandoned secular affairs and his wife and daughter (after making provision for them), and with a friend of like temperament, Francesco Miani, gave himself to a life of apostolic poverty, penitential discipline, hospital service and public preaching. writes that the order was then "dedicated to nursing and burying the victims of the rampant bubonic plague." Colombini went out to meet Urban V on his return from Avignon to Rome in 1367, and implored his approval for the new order and a distinctive habit. Before this was granted, Colombini was required to clear the movement of a suspicion that it was connected with the heretical sect of Fraticelli. He died on 31 July 1367, soon after papal approval had been given. The guidance of the new order, whose members (all lay brothers) gave themselves entirely to works of mercy, devolved upon Miani. ==Suppression of the Order==

Their rule of life, originally a compound of Benedictine and Franciscan elements, was later modified on Augustinian lines, but traces of the early penitential idea persisted, e.g. the wearing of sandals and a daily flagellation. Paul V in 1606 arranged for a small proportion of clerical members. Later in the 17th century the Jesuati became known as the Aquavitae Fathers, The order was abolished by Pope Clement IX in 1668, perhaps because abuses had crept in. The female branch of the order, the Jesuati sisters, founded by Caterina Colombini (d. 1387) in Siena, and thence widely dispersed, survived the male branch by 200 years, existing until 1872 in small communities in Italy. ==References==