He was commonly regarded in his time as a miracle worker, and, in serving as the prior of several of his Order's monasteries, was concerned with restoring and maintaining a faithful observance of the Rule of Saint Dominic.

Fangi was born in 1430 in Biella, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, to a wealthy family who had planned a secular career for him.

One incident recorded involves a surgical procedure which he was required to undergo without anesthetic, as such an aid was not available in the fifteenth century.

[2] The last ten years of Fangi's life were spent in Venice, where he died on 22 July 1493, the feast day of Saint Mary Magdalene.

[2] In the 1530s, workmen doing repairs on the church where he was interred found his coffin floating in water which had seeped into the burial chamber.