From his ordination in 1628 until his death in 1663, the Conventual Franciscan Joseph of Cupertino was reported again and again to rise from the ground during prayer — at the mere mention of a sacred name, at the sight of an image of the Blessed Virgin, at the elevation of the Host. Over seventy episodes were recorded with multiple witnesses; the eyewitness depositions form a substantial part of the records of his canonisation cause.
Among the witnesses: Pope Urban VIII (1645); the Spanish Admiral of Castile and his court (1645); Princess Maria of Savoy; numerous cardinals; bishops; physicians; and the Lutheran philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who cited Joseph as testable evidence of the supernatural. Church authorities, embarrassed by the public displays, moved him from friary to friary; he spent the last years of his life in seclusion at Osimo. Canonised 1767.