St Benedict Menni was born in Milan on 11 March 1841. The horrors of the war and the example set by the Brothers of St John of God awakened his vocation to become a Hospitaller. On 1 May 1860 Angelo Ercole Menni entered the novitiate of the Santa Maria d'Aracoeli hospital in Milan, taking the name of Benedict, making his simple vows, and after three years, his solemn profession. In 1867, with the blessing of Pius IX, he was sent to Spain to re-found the Hospitaller Order. During the latter part of his life Benedict held important and prestigious posts within the Order. Pope St Pius X appointed him General of the Order in 1911. During this brief period of his Generalate he suffered from misunderstandings and slander which led to his resignation as Prior General. He himself said in a letter to the sisters: “…outside this love (Jesus), the earth is a place of exile, a wasteland, a prison; but this love transforms pain and sorrow, and crosses, and being reviled and imprisoned into the highest good.” 

Benedict died in Dinan, France, on the morning of 24 April 1914. His remains lie in the Mother House of the Sisters Hospitallers he founded at Ciempozuelos.