Pietro Pettinaio
Italian merchant
Pietro Pettinaio (c. 1189 - 4 December 1289) was an Italian member of the Third Order of Saint Francis who worked as a comb-maker. He was well known both for his trade and for his decision to remain in silence while living among the Franciscans. He became known for his charisma and for his care of both the poor and the ill and was honored as a saint during his lifetime by the people of Siena.
He was beatified on 18 August 1802 after Pope Pius VII confirmed his veneration in Siena and in the surrounding cities.
Life
Pietro Pettinaio was born around 1189 in Campi, a village of Castelnuovo Berardenga near Siena and moved with his parents to Siena at some point during his childhood.
He married but remained childless during his marriage and in order to provide for his new wife he worked as a comb-maker. He purchased a house in which vines flourished so as to make wine. Pettinaio later lost his wife and he lived alone in Siena while being able to devote more time to his trade.
Pettinaio became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis after serving as a nurse in a Franciscan-run hospital - Santa Maria della Scala - while continuing in his profession.
“Pietro Pettinaio” enters the record as italian merchant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pietro, Pettinaio and Italian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3902948. VIAF identifies the subject as 7102897. The Library of Congress control number is no2004057771. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1189, 1289 and 1802.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pietro Pettinaio” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.