Bonfilius Monaldi, Bonagiunta Manetti, Manettus dell'Antella, Amideus Amidei, Hugh Uguccioni, Sosteneus Sostegni and Alexis Falconieri were seven men of the merchant families of Florence, members of a confraternity that sang the praises of the Virgin. In 1233, in a city torn between Guelf and Ghibelline, they left their trades and their houses and withdrew together to live in penance, the order's tradition placing on the feast of the Assumption that year the vision of Our Lady in which she called them out of the world.
By 1240 they had gone up to Monte Senario, the mountain north of Florence, and there, by the same tradition, she appeared again and gave them the black habit they wear for her sorrows and the Rule of St. Augustine. The bishop of Florence let them receive novices, and the Order of Servants of Mary, the Servites, was born; Benedict XI approved it in 1304. From them come the devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Mary, the black scapular of the Seven Dolours and the Servite rosary.
Six of the seven were ordained; Alexis Falconieri refused orders all his life and served the others as a lay brother, and outlived them all, dying at Monte Senario on 17 February 1310 at an age the order gives as a hundred and ten. They were beatified together in 1717 and canonised together by Leo XIII on 15 January 1888, one feast for seven men, because it was together that they did the one thing they are remembered for.