MIRACULOUS MIRACLES™

Saint — Bl. James of Ulm (James Griesinger)

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Bl. James of Ulm (James Griesinger)
1407 AD, Ulm, Duchy of Württemberg — October 11, 1491 AD, Bologna, Papal States
Dominican lay-brother and master stained-glass artist of Bologna
Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna, Italy — the Dominican mother-house; his tomb near St. Dominic's own shrine, Italy
Feast
October 11
Canonized
Beatified 1825 by Pope Leo XII
Life

Jakob Griesinger was born in 1407 at Ulm in the Duchy of Württemberg. Trained as a stained-glass artist in the German-Ulm workshops, he travelled to Italy in his youth as an itinerant journeyman-artist.

Around 1441, at the age of 34, James entered the Dominican Order at the Basilica of San Domenico at Bologna — the Dominican mother-house of the Order (containing the tomb of St. Dominic himself) — as a lay-brother (the Dominican non-priestly religious-brother status).

James continued to practise the stained-glass artistic vocation as a Dominican lay-brother — executing the famous stained-glass windows for the Basilica of San Petronio at Bologna (completed 1465–1470), the San Domenico stained-glass windows, and multiple additional Bolognese and Ferrarese ecclesiastical stained-glass commissions.

His artistic style — combining the late-Gothic German-Ulm stained-glass tradition with the Early Renaissance Italian iconographic-perspectival innovations — establishes the late-15th-century Italian stained-glass tradition.

James lived at the Bolognese Dominican convent for 50 years — famously combining the lay-brother religious discipline with the continuing artistic vocation. He died at Bologna on October 11, 1491 at the age of 84.

Miracles & Phenomena

  • The Bolognese stained-glass corpus

    Bl. James of Ulm's stained-glass artistic corpus — the famous stained-glass windows for the Basilica of San Petronio at Bologna (completed 1465–1470), the San Domenico stained-glass windows, and multiple additional Bolognese and Ferrarese ecclesiastical stained-glass commissions — establishes the late-15th-century Italian stained-glass tradition combining the late-Gothic German-Ulm stained-glass tradition with the Early Renaissance Italian iconographic-perspectival innovations.

  • The patron of stained-glass artists

    Bl. James of Ulm's patronage of Catholic stained-glass artists — the principal Catholic patron of the stained-glass artistic tradition, in institutional parallel with the contemporary Fra Angelico patronage of Catholic painters — establishes the Catholic religious-vocational tradition of lay-artistic ministry.

Relics
  • Body
    Tomb of Bl. James of Ulm
    Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna, Italy — the Dominican mother-house; his tomb near St. Dominic's own shrine

    His tomb at the Basilica of San Domenico at Bologna — near the tomb of St. Dominic himself — survives in continuous Catholic Dominican liturgical use.

Iconography
  • James of Ulm at the stained-glass workshop

    The mid-15th-century Dominican lay-brother in Dominican black-and-white habit at the Bolognese stained-glass workshop of the Basilica of San Domenico executing the stained-glass window for the Basilica of San Petronio, the late-Gothic-German-Renaissance-Italian iconographic style visible in the stained-glass panel — the iconography of Catholic Dominican-lay-artist tradition.

Patronages
Catholic stained-glass artists (principal patron)Order of Preachers (Dominican lay-brothers)Ulm (Germany) and the Swabian Catholic traditionCatholic lay-artist religious-vocation tradition
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