St. Peter of Verona Born at Verona, 1206; died near Milan, 6
April, 1252. His parents were adherents of the Manichæan heresy,
which still survived in northern Italy in the thirteenth
century. Sent to a Catholic school, and later to the University
of Bologna, he there met St. Dominic, and entered the Order of
the Friars Preachers. Such were his virtues, severity of life
and doctrine, talent for preaching, and zeal for the Faith, that
Gregory IX made him general inquisitor, and his superiors
destined him to combat the Manichæan errors. In that capacity he
evangelized nearly the whole of Italy, preaching in Rome,
Florence, Bologna, Genoa, and Como. Crowds came to meet him and
followed him wherever he went; and conversions were numerous. He
never failed to denounce the vices and errors of Catholics who
confessed the Faith by words, but in deeds denied it. The
Manichæans did all they could to compel the inquisitor to cease
from preaching against their errors and propaganda.
Persecutions, calumnies, threats, nothin