BL. PIETRO CASANI was born in Lucca, Italy, on September 8, 1572. Impressed by his mother's exemplary death, he felt called to enter the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin, founded in Lucca by St John Leonardi. Before entering the novitiate he had studied with the Franciscans in Lucca and then at the Roman College. After the death of St John Leonardi in 1609, his sons offered the Pious Schools their pastoral help. To ensure their continued existence, St Joseph Calasanz united them with the Congregation in Lucca. Paul V approved this union in 1614. Fr Casani was appointed rector of St Pantaleon's, headquarters of the Pious Schools. But the fathers in Lucca were soon to realize that they could not accept the ministry of the schools definitively without betraying their own founding charism. Paul V separated the two institutions in 1617. Fr Casani then decided to remain in the Pious Schools as part of the Calasanz group and played an effective role in the institute's gradual transformation from a simple secular congregation without vows to an order with solemn vows. St Joseph Calasanz continued for 30 years to give Fr Casani increasing responsibilities, appointing him as the first rector of the mother-house of St Pantaleon, first assistant general, first novice master and first Provincial of Genoa and Naples, commissioner general for the foundations in Central Europe and the first candidate to succeed the founder as Vicar General. Fr Casani was a pious man and gifted preacher who tirelessly undertook his missions promoting regular observance in Rome and elsewhere. His love of religious poverty was one reason for his spiritual bond with St. Joseph Calasanz and was consistent with his schools' preferential dedication to poor children. To maintain this rigorous poverty, they were both against accepting excessive generosity from benefactors. They also shared the new institute's pains and joys and the frustration of being unable to satisfy so many demands for foundations. However, Fr Casani was not spared trials. He was taken prisoner, stripped of his office as assistant general and the order reduced to a simple congregation without vows. During all these humiliations, Fr Casani defended the founder and his work with heroic resignation. He asked in vain for the favorable intercession of friends and of the powerful. He died on October 17, 1647, attended by Bl. Joseph Calasanz, who wrote many letters communicating his pious death and initiating his cause for beatification. But Calasanz died 10 months later and the preference for advancing his cause superseded all others. In 1738, in Szeged, Hungary, where the Piarists had had a school since 1720, a woman dying in hospital recovered from an incurable illness after kissing an image of Fr Casani given her by a Piarist priest. This led to a regular canonical process, which was recently re-examined. The miracle has been recognized and approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. His beatification cause commenced on March 22, 1922, under Pope Pius XI, and he became titled as a Servant of God: the first stage in the sainthood process. He was made Venerable in 1991 and Pope John Paul II beatified him in Saint Peter's Square on October 1, 1995. His feast day is October 16.