Saint DominicOP (Spanish: Santo Domingo), also known as Dominic of Osma and Dominic of Caleruega, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán (/ɡʊzˈmɑːn/; Spanish: [ɡuðˈman]; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), was a Castilian Catholic priest and founder of the Dominican Order. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers.
. . . Saint Dominic . . .
Dominic was born in Caleruega,[1] halfway between Osma and Aranda de Duero in Old Castile, Spain. He was named after Saint Dominic of Silos. The Benedictine abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos lies a few miles north of Caleruega.
In the earliest narrative source, by Jordan of Saxony, Dominic’s parents are not named. The story is told that before his birth his barren mother made a pilgrimage to the Abbey at Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth, and seemed to set the earth on fire. This story is likely to have emerged when his order became known, after his name, as the Dominican order, Dominicanus in Latin and a play on words interpreted as Domini canis: “Dog of the Lord.”[2] Jordan adds that Dominic was brought up by his parents and a maternal uncle who was an archbishop.[3] The failure to name his parents is not unusual, since Jordan wrote a history of the Order’s early years, rather than a biography of Dominic. A later source, still of the 13th century, gives their names as Juana and Felix.[4] Nearly a century after Dominic’s birth, a local author asserted that Dominic’s father was “vir venerabilis et dives in populo suo” (“an honoured and wealthy man in his village”).[5] The travel narrative of Pero Tafur, written circa 1439 (about a pilgrimage to Dominic’s tomb in Italy), states that Dominic’s father belonged to the family de Guzmán, and that his mother belonged to the Aça or Aza family.[6] Dominic’s mother, Jane of Aza, was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1829.
. . . Saint Dominic . . .