Leo of Montefeltro

Saint Leo of Montefeltro was, according to tradition, a stonecutter by trade, from Dalmatia, and the first bishop of Montefeltro in Italy, from the year 301. He is said to have died around 366. The Roman Catholic Church venerates him as a saint and keeps his feast on 1 August; our sources mention no Orthodox canonization, although he lived before the separation of the Churches.

News of him is preserved in the work Vita Sanctorum Marini et Leonis, better known as the Vita Sancti Marini. It says that Leo, a mason from the island of Arbe in northern Dalmatia, came to Italy around 297, together with Marinus. Their purpose was both to rebuild the ruined walls of Rimini and to escape the persecution of Christians launched by the emperor Diocletian. At Rimini they were ordered to work three years on Mount Titano, quarrying and dressing stone. The years of birth and death are given differently: one source puts his birth about 275 and his death in 366, with the episcopate from 301.

After this time Marinus and Leo parted. Marinus returned to Rimini, while Leo, with a small group of followers, went to Mount Feliciano, called Feretrio by the local people. There he founded a monastery and a church, later known as San Leo. He began to gather Christians and to preach the Gospel. His work bore fruit quickly: Christianity spread in the region, which led to the founding of the diocese of Montefeltro, placed under Leo, who had been ordained priest by Gaudentius, bishop of Rimini, the same who ordained Marinus deacon. Although the official founding of the diocese came much later, tradition counts him as its first bishop.

After his death Leo's body was laid in a stone sarcophagus, whose lid is still in the cathedral of San Leo. His remains are now kept in the church of Santo Stefano in Ferrara, where they were brought in 1083 from the episcopal residence of Voghenza. Leo is the patron of the town of San Leo and of the diocese of San Marino-⁠Montefeltro, with Marinus and Agatha he is a patron of the Republic of San Marino, and he is the patron of stonecutters.