Natalis of Milan

Saint Natalis (Natale) was archbishop of Milan in the middle of the eighth century. He is venerated as a saint in the Orthodox Church and in the Roman Catholic Church. His commemoration is on 13 May in the Roman rite and on 9 May in the Ambrosian rite. Our record gives 650 and 747 as the years of birth and death, but these cannot rest on testimonies.

He was archbishop from 746 to 747, but scholars also propose the years 750 to 751 or 740 to 741. Almost nothing is known of his life and his episcopate. The main source of information about his episcopate was a gravestone placed in the church of San Giorgio al Palazzo in Milan, which was still extant in the sixteenth century. From copies of that gravestone it is known that Natalis governed the Church of Milan for fourteen months, that he died at seventy-⁠two and that he founded the church of San Giorgio, having obtained a donation, probably from Ratchis, king of the Lombards.

Other traditional information about his life, such as his surname Marinoni and his scholarship in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, have no historical basis. He was buried in the nave of the church of San Giorgio al Palazzo. His relics were translated into the main altar of the same church in the eighteenth century by Archbishop Giuseppe Pozzobonelli and are still venerated there.