NERI, PHILIP (FILIppo DE), Saint (1515-1595), Italian churchman, was born at Florence on July 21, 1515, the youngest child of Francesco Neri, a lawyer of that city, and his wife Lucrezia Soldi. He received his early teaching from the friars at San Marco, the famous Dominican monastery in Florence. At sixteen Philip was sent to his uncle, Romolo, a merchant at San Germano, to assist him in his business, and with the hope that he might inherit his possessions. But in 1533 Philip went to Rome, where he acted as a private tutor, and was able to study under the Augustinians, and to begin those labours amongst the sick and poor which gained him in later life the title of "Apostle of Rome." His nights were spent in prayer and meditation in the churches of the city and in the catacombs. In 1538 he began his missionary work; somewhat in the manner of Socrates he traversed the city, seizing opportunities of entering into conversation with persons of all ranks, and of leading them on, with playful irony, questions and counsel, to consider the topics he desired to set before them.
In 1548 he founded the confraternity of the Santissima Trinita de' Pellegrini e de' Convalescenti, to minister to the thousands of poor pilgrims to Rome, and also to relieve the patients discharged from hospitals. In 1551 he was ordained priest. He settled, with some companions, at the hospital of San Girolamo della Carita, and while there tentatively began, in 1556, the institute with which his name is more especially connected, that of the Oratory. The scheme at first was for a series of evening meetings in a hall (the Oratory), at which there were prayers, hymns, readings from Scripture, from the fathers, and from the Martyrology, followed by a lecture, or by discussion of some religious question proposed for consideration. The musical selections (settings of scenes from sacred history) were called oratorios. In 1564 the Florentines
invited Philip to take charge of their church in Rome, San Gio vanni dei Fiorentini, then newly built. At this time the new society included amongst its members Caesar Baronius, the ecclesi astical historian, Francesco Maria Tarugi, afterwards archbishop of Avignon, and Paravicini, all three subsequently cardinals, and also Gallonius, author of a work on the Sufferings of the Martyrs, Ancina, Bordoni, and other men of ability and distinction.
The Florentines, however, built in 1574 a large oratory or mission-room for the society contiguous to San Giovanni. Even tually the society took the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, in the middle of Rome. The building was pulled down, and a splendid church erected on the site. Neri then formally organized, under permission of a bull dated July 15, 1575 a community of secular priests, entitled the Congregation of the Oratory. The new church was consecrated early in 1577, but Neri himself did not migrate from San Girolamo till 1583, and then only in virtue of an injunction of the pope that he, as the superior, should reside at the chief house of his congregation. He was at first elected for a term of three years (as is usual in modern societies), but in 1587 was nominated superior for life. He desired that all congre gations formed on his model outside Rome should be autonomous, a regulation formally confirmed by a brief of Gregory XV. in 1622. Neri's only interference in political matters was in 1593, when he induced Clement VIII., to withdraw the excommunication and anathema of Henry IV. of France. Neri administered the Oratory until his death (May 26, 1595) at Rome. He was suc ceeded by Baronius. Neri was beatified by Paul V. in 1600, and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1622.