San Girolamo Emiliani, a Venetian lay saint (Venice 1486 – Somasca 1537) who, after his conversion to a fervent Christian life, put his whole life at the service of the poor, even though he came from a family of ancient nobility, and he has taken care of the last and of the “derelict putti-“, of completely abandoned children; in this service, in the course of his life, in addition to curing other contagious diseases, he faced two epidemics that marked him, the first in 1528, from which he recovered, the second in 1537, which was fatal.