San Pellegrino is a brand of mineral water produced in San Pellegrino Terme, Lombardy, and it has been for some time my mineral water of choice (thanks largely to being introduced to it by a friend from high school).  Not that I’m inclined to frequently drink mineral water;  like the average American I’d prefer a cola or, better yet, a beer.  But when the opportunity arises to drink some San Pellegrino, I’ll never say no;  it’s quite refreshing.

The other day I happened to be sipping on some San Pellegrino in an Italian restaurant, which got me thinking:  just who is the San (or Saint) Pellegrino after whom the town San Pellegrino Terme was named?  The name’s similarity to the Latin peregrinus suggests that he was a wandering pilgrim, but I wanted to know more.

Some searching of the Internet revealed an article on the fantastical legend of St. Pellegrino.  It turns out he was Irish!  According to legend, he was a prince who traveled through the Holy Land preaching but won no converts, and he had several supernatural adventures before becoming a hermit in the Appenines.  After he died, allegedly on August 1, 643, he was interred in the shrine of San Pellegrino in Alpe, Tuscany.

Apparently there was another St. Pellegrino, a third century French bishop, to whom the shrine in Alpe may originally have been built.  Perhaps the historical origins of St. Pellegrino are from both this bishop and a first-millenium Irish pilgrim.  Whatever the truth of the matter, I think there is much to admire about the story of St. Pellegrino;  and I am now even happier to drink the mineral water that bears his name.