Dying in the Odor of Sanctity: Philip Neri and the Performance of Saintly Death in Catholic Reformation Rome

Abstract For the four-hundredth anniversary of the canonization of Philip Neri, this paper proposes to analyze important elements of Neri’s sanctity. In particular, it focuses on what Oratorian hagiographers emphasized about his life and his holiness in their creation of his saintly reputation. I argue that death and dying was a central aspect of Philipine sanctity. In his life and ministries, modeling himself after Christian solitary ascetic monks and charitable caregiving mendicants, Philip Neri’s life revolved around death.