both in cities and country districts to preach in the open, as the churches could not contain the thousands who came to listen. Pope Clement XII and Pope Benedict XIV called him to Rome; the latter especially held him in high esteem both as a preacher and as a propagandist, and exacted a promise that he would come to Rome to die. Pope Benedict XIV appointed him to several complex diplomatic assignments. In Genoa and Corsica, in Lucca and Spoleto the citizens expected a bejeweled cardinal to represent the intentions of the pope. Instead, they were confronted by a humble, shoeless, muddy friar to confound their hostility and pride. For a time, Leonard was the spiritual director of Maria Clementina Sobieska of Poland, the wife of James Stuart, the Old Pretender. Leonard founded many pious societies and confraternities, and exerted himself to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. He also began to insist that the concept of the Immaculate Conception of Mary be defined as a dogma of the faith. The Franciscans had been the custodians of the Holy Sites in the Holy Land, including of the "Way of the Cross", since 1343. Though many saints were devoted to the Stations of the Cross, few if any did more to promote them than Leonard. As a Franciscan priest, he preached the Way of the Cross at missions for forty-three years and reportedly set up stations in 571 locations throughout Italy, including the Colosseum in Rome. From May to November, 1744, he preached in Corsica, which at that time belonged to the Republic of Genoa and which was torn by party strife. In November, 1751, when he was preaching to the Bolognese, Benedict XIV called him to Rome, as already there were indications of his rapidly approaching end. The strain of his missionary labors and his mortifications had completely exhausted his body. He arrived on the evening of 26 November 1751, at his beloved monastery of St. Bonaventura on the Palatine, and expired on the same night at eleven o'clock at the age of seventy-four. Veneration Pope Pius VI pronounced his beatification on 19 June 1796, and Pope Pius IX his canonization on 29 June 1867. The Franciscan Order celebrates his feast on 26 November, but outside this Order it is often celebrated on 27 November. The partly incorrupt body of