Peregrinus of Modena

Saint Peregrinus of Modena (Pellegrino) was a pilgrim from Ireland or Scotland who, returning from the Holy Land, settled as a hermit in the mountains near Modena in Italy. He reposed in the year 643. He is honored, without synodal canonization, by the faithful of Tuscany and Emilia, especially at San Pellegrino in Alpe, in the Apennines between Modena and Lucca.

According to the devotional legend, he was the only son of King Romanus of Scotland and Queen Plantula. At fifteen he lost his father and the crown was his, but, an ascetic by nature, he left his riches and set out, dressed only as a pilgrim, for Palestine to venerate the tomb of Christ. The legend says that he spent forty-⁠two years in the Judean desert and tried to convert the sultan, then returned to Italy by way of Brindisi, visiting the sanctuary of the Archangel Michael on Gargano and the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. He sought a place for a hermit's life and found it near the small hospice of San Pellegrino in Alpe, where he remained until his death at ninety-⁠seven, while praying in a hollow tree trunk. Tradition gives him as his only companion in the hermitage Saint Bianco. He is commemorated on 1 August as a saint of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.