Marcello Mastrilli

Marcello Francesco Mastrilli (1603 – October 17, 1637) was an Italian Jesuit missionary who was martyred in Japan on Mount Unzen during the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had banned Christianity in 1614.

[1][2][3] A painting of his death, Martyrdom of Saint Marcello Mastrilli (1664), was made by Antonio Maria Vassallo.

Susceptible to visions, he was particularly influenced by visitations by the Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier, who appeared to him twice in 1633,[4] and foretold him his martyrdom.

[6] Mastrilli's initiative is supposedly to thank for the presence of a silver casket in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, which houses relics of the body of St. Francis Xavier.

[7] A cause for Mastrilli's beatification was formally opened on 21 January 1696, granting him the title of Servant of God.