Teobaldo (from Greek “strong captain”) is the patron saint of porters, shoemakers, and beggars. He was born about 1099 in Vicoforte Mondovì to a family of small nobility. Orphaned at age 12 of both parents, he moved to Alba. A shoemaker welcomed him into the family, and he became a good shoemaker, but he soon abandoned everything for faith.
He made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in poverty, begging along the way. On his return he devotes himself to caring for the poor and takes up the humble trade of porter. He died in 1150 and his figure was immediately the object of great popular devotion. The Cathedral of Saint Lorenzo in Alba holds the reliquary bust of St. Teobaldo, made following the discovery of his remains in 1429 by the Bishop Alerino Rambaudi of Alba. In the early 1980s the reliquary was stolen but was later found in October 2011 in Minneapolis, USA and returned to the Diocese of Alba.
