St. Laurence, one of the great Italian saints of the fifteenth century, belonged to the illustrious Giustiniani family, but preferred a simple, holy life to the brilliant career that his mother planned for him. He entered the Canons of St. George of Alga where he led a life of constant prayer and penance until Eugenius IV called him to the episcopate. As Patriarch of Venice, then at the height of its fame and power, he opposed the excesses of humanism and by his austerity became an example to great and simple alike. He died on January 8, 1455 at the age of seventy-four.