Giacomo Varinguez was born in Zara, in present-day Croatia, the son of Leopoldo and Beatrice. When Giacomo arrived in Bari, maybe in the middle of the 1430's, Italy and Christian Europe were being swept by movements of religious reform which in the Franciscan Order found its champion in Saint Bernardino of Siena.

It was in Apulia that Giacomo received the Franciscan vocation, passing his period as a novice in the recently built friary of Bitetto (1432). He thus began a special relationship with the people of this town where he lived, except for some periods spent in friaries near Bitetto, till his death, which came at the beginning of 1490.

During these fifty years, in the friary of Bitetto, friar Giacomo carried out the humble work of a cook, and the even humbler task of begging from door to door. he never limited himself to asking things simply for "the love of God" but in every house and in every family he took the light of a simple but very efficacious "spiritual guidance" where there was confusion, and the warmth of "consolation" where there was desperation.

A beggar not only for himself but also for the many poor people he met. Notwithstanding his old age, he heroically helped the people of Bitetto during the plague of 1483. the esteem and the love for this authentic son of Saint Francis increased with the witnessing of his first miracles some of which occurred while he was alive.

The most astonishing, which everybody can see, is his body, which was rediscovered intact in 1505, and which still today is exposed for the veneration of the faithful and of his "friends" that come here from all over the world.

In 1700 Pope Clement xi proclaimed him Blessed and after the last examination performed by Professor Cortesini and by his staff in 1986, the diocesan trial was celebrated, ending on February 12, 1990.

We are sure that, at the beginning of the third millennium, his devotees and the entire Church will continue to feel the presence of BLESSED GIACOMO throughout the world.