ON SAINT GUIERUS IN CORNWALL AMONG THE ENGLISH.
CommentaryGuierus, in Cornwall among the English (S.)
G. H.
Cornwall, called by more recent writers Cornubia, once the seat of the Danmonii, and an illustrious County of the kingdom of the West Saxons, extends farthest of all Britain toward the setting sun. In Cornwall was a Church of Saint Guierus In the Western Hundred of this province is marked the place of Saint Neots, concerning which Camden has these things: "Near Lyskeard is a place which was once the Church of Saint Guerir, that is, if you interpret in British, Saint Medicus (the Healer): where, as Asserius writes, King Alfred, prostrated in prayer, recovered from illness. But when Neotus, a man of extraordinary sanctity, was afterwards buried in the same church, he so outshone the light of the other, that from that the place was called Neotestow, afterwards called Saint Neot's that is, Neot's place, now Saint Neots; and the religious men who served God there were called Clerics of Saint Neot, and had sufficiently rich revenues, as may be seen in the book of William the Conqueror." So Camden. Saint Neotus is venerated on July 31, on which day he is said in the Life edited by Capgrave to have died, and the year of his death is set down as 890 in Alford, Annals of the English Church.
[2] About King Alfred's illness being driven away, in the deeds of his, Asser the contemporary author writes: "When in Mercia he was solemnly celebrating the marriage, honorably arranged, there King Alfred among innumerable peoples of both sexes, after prolonged feasts day and night, suddenly and with immense pain unknown to all physicians, at once before all the people, he was seized with pain. For it was unknown to all who were then present, and even to this day daily observing it, seized by a grievous disease that, alas! (the worst thing), it lasted so long a time, from the twentieth year of his age to the fortieth and beyond, through so many years incessantly protracting, whence such pain arose. Many were saying it had been done by the favor and fascination of the people standing around: others by a certain diabolical envy, who is always envious of the good: others by an unusual kind of fever: others think it a fig, which kind of most troublesome pain he had also from infancy. prostrate in prayer, he was freed But at a certain time by divine nod, before he had gone to Cornwall for the purpose of hunting, and had turned aside to a certain church for the sake of prayer, in which Saint Gueryr rests, and now also Saint Neotus reposes there, he was relieved. For he was a diligent visitor of holy places, even from infancy, for the sake of prayer and giving alms. There long prostrated in silent prayer, he so entreated the Lord's mercy, that almighty God, through his immense clemency, would change the stings of his present and infesting infirmity into some other lighter sickness, whatever it might be, yet on this condition: that such infirmity should not appear outwardly in the body, lest he should be useless and despised. He feared leprosy or blindness, or any such pain, which so quickly makes men useless and despised by their coming. And his prayer being finished, he took up the journey begun, and not long afterwards, as he had prayed in prayer, he felt himself divinely healed from that pain, so that it was entirely rooted out." So Asser, who had written before, that in the year 868 Alfred, in the twentieth year of his age, had taken a wife, whom he says in writing he knew to be a widow after Alfred's death: hence Alfred was healed around the year 888; unless another disease, which he had suffered in adolescence, is said to have been taken away before the marriage was contracted, as Alford thinks in his Annals at the year 871, where he treats of Saint Guierus.
[3] The author of the English Martyrology, printed in the year 1608 and reprinted in 1640, Saint Guierus is venerated April 4 attempting to assign to individual days some Saint who flourished in England, Scotland, or Ireland, places Saint Guerirus on this fourth of April, citing Matthew of Paris in the Greater History at the year 871, from ancient monuments of Britain. That history is said to exist in the Sidneian library. But, as Vossius writes in De Historicis Latinis, book 2, chapter 58, "whether that part was of Matthew of Paris, or of another, let those who have seen it see." With this author cited, the author of the said Martyrology asserts that Saint Guierus was a Priest and hermit, he is believed to have lived as a Priest and hermit who, professing a severe kind of life in Danmonia, gathered a great opinion of sanctity, and deserved to be venerated by the provincials, with temples and altars erected. The same Saint Gunerus, Presbyter in England, Ferrarius has reported in his General Catalogue on this day: which we also do, not having thus far obtained any other day of ecclesiastical veneration and cult, much less the year or century, in which he flourished or migrated to Christ.
ON BLESSED WILLIAM CUFFITELLA, HERMIT OF SCICLI IN SICILY.
ABOUT A.D. 1415.
PREVIOUS COMMENTARY.
William Hermit of Scicli, in Sicily (S.)
BY D. P.
§ I. Cult of this Blessed one: Lives written by various authors.
[1] Siclis, in the last century, Xichilis and Xiclis, of new appellation but a notable town, took its name from the little river flowing by, in that horn of Trinacria which faces the Pachynian Promontory, not far from the city of Noto, belonging to the dominion of the Counts of Modica. There in the principal church, which is sacred to Saint Matthew, the Patron is venerated with altogether singular religion, on the eighth day after the feast of the Lord's Resurrection, In the year 1538 festivity was decreed to him as to a Blessed Blessed William the Hermit, by the indult of Pope Paul III; after his life, miracles, and fame of sanctity had been most manifestly established to the ecclesiastical Judge deputed for this, by many witnesses who were heard at the end of the year 1537 and beginning of the following, at Palermo and Scicli.
Concerning this Blessed man (many even call him a Saint absolutely, and with this title we have the proper Mass printed in the year 1636), concerning this Blessed man, I say, about to treat, we had nothing more ancient than to obtain the Acts of the aforesaid Process, from which alone we seemed able solidly to conclude what had been known and believed about him by the ancients,
and what was added to the history by new conjectures and opinings, by several authors writing in this century, with no little, as it seemed, confusion of persons and times.
[2] Sharers in this wish made us Crispinus Majus of the Society of Jesus, after the Processes were made, which are given here a notable preacher in the Sicilian province for twenty years, now deceased; and he presented our supplication to the Judges and Jurats of the place with such success as is signified by their response of this kind, given on April 28 of the year 1670: "How pleasing your letters have been to us, and with what applause they were received, we cannot easily explain in words. For since the matter concerned our Saint William, that is, the pupil of our eyes and the inestimable pearl of our breast, we saw with joy, and with approval we admired the extraordinary diligence with which you undertook to treat a matter so grave and so profitable to the Catholic Religion, as is the accurate illustration of the Saints from the most ancient and original monuments. Giving therefore immense thanks because you have proposed so brilliantly to treat concerning our holy Patron, we have obeyed your commands, as far as we could, to a nicety, and we send first of all the desired copy of the Process, faithfully described word by word from the original, which is preserved in the silver reliquary itself, newly erected by us."
[3] The sacred bones were resting, when this Process was compiled, in a wooden casket within a tomb, In the year 1602 extending in a more elevated place above the pavement, in the principal part of the church; that tomb indeed magnificent, such as at that time neither at Scicli nor elsewhere in the vicinity any dead man had; yet of stone. But this material seemed too cheap to the pious people of Scicli. Therefore in the year 1602 a new shrine was made, covered with silver plates, of elegant workmanship, as those times bore it, Rocco Pirro being witness. In the year 1637 a more elegant statue was made, and in 1670 the silver shrines were made for the body cunningly worked from the same material. Nor yet was this enough for piety; but again in the year 1666 the zeal of honoring so dear and so beneficial a Saint grew hot, and there was begun to be made another shrine, more ample and august, in which with the price of weighty silver the industry of the artisans contended, the chief deeds of the Saint being chased round about, "with work so exquisite and delicate," says Crispinus Majus in his letter on this matter, "that among all the silver shrines of this Province, which in this office of preaching of mine, traversing the same in every direction, I have seen many and splendid at Palermo, Messina, Catania, and elsewhere, this ours either equals or surpasses." It has moreover this inscription: "In the year of the Lord 1670. To Saint William, Patron of Scicli, this golden (would that it were silver) work, the Fathers, sons of the Casmenean city, Don Pedro Cartia Baron, Don Diego de Aritii, Don Giacomo Fiachella, Don Carlo de Angelo set up, a small indication of the highest love and piety." "Casmenas were once where Scicli now is, I would say or divine," says Cluverius in his Sicilia: using this divination as a certain opinion, the author of the inscription called the Magistrate of Scicli "sons of the Casmenean city."
[4] Life written by various and published The Life of the Saint was first written and published in ancient Sicilian verse by Vincentius Torres, which Vincentius Littara, Doctor of Theology, is said to have reduced to an epitome and rendered into Latin. Of neither writing do copies survive among the people of Scicli: of which, if we also after these publications obtain a copy (for the Judges and Jurats have very humanely promised to labor that they be found), it will be possible to know whether what is now read in the Corradias of Littara at length, about the way in which William was converted to divine service, and in which he is said to have conversed with Blessed Conrad the Hermit, Patron of the city of Noto at Noto, in the year 1608 have any more solid and ancient foundation than poetic license of inventing. Such license Littara seems to have arrogated to himself, writing that heroic work about Blessed Conrad, which at length came forth posthumously in the year 1608: although before he had written the life of the same Blessed Conrad in prose, such as was edited by us on February 19; nowhere at all indicating that William Bucherius, with whose familiarity at Noto Conrad was acquainted before he withdrew to solitude, was the same as the one who afterwards led an eremitic life at Scicli; where he was known by no other surname than Cuffitella, for two whole centuries after his death.
[5] Be that as it may, all the authors who followed after did not in the least doubt that it was one and the same. [1630] On such a foundation Bartholomaeus Majus, uncle of the aforesaid Crispinus, likewise of our Society, a man of notable erudition and great authority, as having been twice Socius Provincial, Rector of the College of Catania, Master of Novices at Messina, and Instructor of Fathers exercising themselves in their third Probation; built his history: by whom the Life that came forth at Palermo, in the year 1630, was written under the name of Antoninus Micelus, Curate of the church of Scicli. A decade later, Don Marianus Perellus of Scicli, [1640] Religious of the Sacred Order of Jerusalem, similarly in Italian but with a more luxuriant style, wrote and published at Naples the life of Blessed William; not to be held in high esteem, because he ingenuously confessed to have had nothing to follow besides Littara's Corradias; whereas the former had also had the aforenoted Processes, from which he also selected some miracles. Finally, [1658] our Octavius Cajetanus, in the Acts of the Saints of Sicily, published in 1658, using all the aforementioned authors as well as the manuscript Processes, collected the Life and to some extent illustrated it.
[6] This last one, both because it is in Latin, and because, more succinctly written, flows less in those things that seemed doubtful to us, we had prepared for the press, together with the miracles received from Majus, and had added laborious Annotations to it, lest what others had written differently about the Saint should be entirely unknown. But at length, as we wished, we received the ancient Acts: which, when they had been reduced to this form that you see, lest the length should be tedious (yet in such a way that not even a single word necessary to the history has been omitted, but the Acts of the Processes to be preferred to all nothing added from our own or from the conjectures of more recent authors), at once the darkness was dispelled in which we had been involved; and it appeared by how little or by no foundation most of the things were defined concerning his lineage, age, the beginning of his conversion, and the year of his death, which had begun to be suspected of falsity by us, even before we had read the old documents, on account of the tangled anachronisms. Therefore, omitting all the writings of others, which, unless insofar as they could be drawn thence, either mediately or immediately, scarcely have any authority: we think these alone are to be inserted in our work; and whatever by the nearer memory of men, who zealously brought forward what they had heard of the Blessed's life, lay hidden unknown, that we judge could not have been well known after many centuries from the death of the Blessed one, without the support of older documents, which no one alleges.
§ II. The Age of Blessed William and Conrad.
[7] In the Acts, the year of death is nowhere certainly defined Our first doubt about the time of his death had been, from which several others seemed to hang: for on the one hand we saw the death of Blessed Conrad reported to the year 1351; on the other, the passing of Blessed William put off by most to 1404. The Witnesses being interrogated, of whom none had known Blessed William, most answered that they were ignorant about the time of his death. A few older ones who seemed to say something certain, nevertheless left us uncertain: while one indeed says that more than 160 years had passed from the death of the Blessed, by whose calculation it would have happened before the year 1377; five others before 150 years: whence again Witness 11 subtracts a decade; another Witness another decade, so that he only says the Blessed died before 130 years ago; by which calculation William could have reached by living the beginning of the 15th century: since the examination on these matters was held in the 16th century up to the year 38. Despairing therefore from this side of the solution of our doubt, it is to be seen whether another way lies open in the Acts, by which something more certain and definite can be known. This, however, seems possible to be done if attention is given to those things which some have deposed about their own age and that of others, known to themselves, and yet having conversed with Blessed William, not from hearing by conjecture, but from their own and certain knowledge.
[8] but from this that certain people familiar with the Blessed There were familiar with Blessed William, besides others who are named in the process, brethren of the church of Saint Mary of Pietà, beside which he had his hermitage, and especially Paul Guiccionius, whom Witness 4, who was 80 years old, said he had known as a very old and upright man. Therefore Paul was still living around the year 1467. Witness 8, who was 106 years old, says that he had known the same Paul and other Confraters 80 years ago. Therefore again, they were still living at least in 1458. Witness 10, an old man of 88 years, whatever he answered to the various articles, especially I, III, IV, X, he said he had heard as a twelve-year-old boy from Paul himself in the presence of the Confraters: therefore in the year of Christ 1460 both Paul and the others who had prepared Blessed William's body for burial still survived. lived beyond the year 1460 But the same witness, when he speaks of the time of the death of those friends of William, says they died 60 years ago, so that according to this calculation Paul could have lived up to 1475 and beyond. But what of Paul's wife Garita or Margaret? Of her Witness 16, an old woman of 90 years, deposes that while still a girl she had heard from her how she had been accustomed to sustain Blessed William with her alms. Let us grant that the Witness was only 14 years old when she heard this: yet Garita must still have been living in the year 1460.
[9] it is concluded that Blessed William did not die before the year 1410 From these I conclude thus. Paul and Garita were supporting a family when the Blessed insinuated himself into their friendship, which was done at least a decade before his death; and so Paul was at least in the 40th year of his age, and Garita in the 30th, when William departed to the heavenly ones. Let us now grant that this octogenarian woman and nonagenarian man died after the year of Christ 1460: with these things thus established, Blessed William could not have died before the year 1410; but he could well have lived with those his friends longer, and the longer the greater length of time you decide that he conversed at Scicli: and so the aforesaid Witnesses must be understood only indefinitely and indeterminately, about a long space, and one preceding their acquaintance; not precisely of what they named, much less of a greater one: otherwise they could not, as already grown up, have known Paul, nor his friend Blessed Conrad before 1400 nor William have been so familiarly associated with Paul. The same moreover holds also with Blessed Conrad: for the miracle which happened in the little cakes brought from Paul's house to William, happened on the occasion of Conrad, who had come to visit William, perhaps immediately before his death: and so
he also must have come by living to the end of the 14th century, if he did not also live in the 15th century for ten years or more.
[10] But Littara and the rest following Littara have said that Conrad died in the year of Christ 1351. With little accuracy of history indeed. He ought to have weighed the Brief of Leo X, in which he declares that, according to the exposition made to him on the part of the people of Noto, "now more than 160 years having passed, Conrad Piacentino of good memory, born of noble lineage, coming to the said land, in a certain hermitage standing in a certain forest near the said land, up to the end of his life led a praiseworthy and eremitical life." Come now, and from the years 1515 (for then wrote Pope Leo) subtract 160 years: and going backwards you will come to 1355, who about the year 1355 came to Noto and you will find that Conrad had been set down as dead by Littara before those who an entire century older than Littara investigated the ancient writings about him, drawn up at the command of the Quatuor-viri immediately after his death, as Littara himself writes. Yet Littara is to be excused, because even Giacomo Humana, Vicar of the Bishop of Syracuse, executing what was prescribed in the said Brief, understood the words of the people of Noto about the time when Conrad came living to their city as about the time when he lay among them dead in the sepulchre, as is clear from the diploma itself which you have in our preliminary commentary to the Acts. But since on account of a fault, committed with entirely youthful levity, Conrad departed from his homeland and came to Noto, perhaps scarcely more than thirty years old; but died an old man, as also William; nothing prevents us from saying that they were contemporaries, and on this account more inclined to knit friendship with one another.
§ III. William Bucherius, to be distinguished from Blessed William.
[11] It is now to be asked who that William Bucherius was, to whom Conrad coming to Noto as a young man was commended, as Littara writes. This was an old man when Blessed Conrad as a young man was commended to him He had been in the service of King Frederick hunting, when he drew danger upon himself, wounded by the tooth of a fierce boar, and thence for his whole life lame and maimed had betaken himself to Noto, into little houses granted him by the King next to the temple of the Crucifix; where his son Peter, accustomed to nourish and cherish him, did not bear such great familiarity of the father with the wandering guest, and by his own moroseness brought it about that Conrad soon migrated elsewhere. That William must have been of full and mature age who had a son so advanced, especially if in the service of Frederick II, as all write, he received the aforesaid wound, and was then already bound in matrimony: for this King died in the year of Christ 1336, in the 65th year of his age, when it is not probable that he, heavy with old age, and long exercised by wars and seditions at home and abroad, and therefore different from our Blessed was so devoted to hunting as to expose even his life. What if therefore the already mentioned accident did not happen in the year 1333, as our Cajetanus wrote, but much earlier, namely at the beginning of the century, after peace was made with the Angevins on this condition, that Frederick alone be called King of Trinacria; or in the year 1315, when again a truce of some months befell the King: for then he was strong with manly vigor, and could delight himself with exercises fitting his age, having obtained some rest. Thus, however, William Bucherius would have had to be more than sixty when Conrad came to Sicily: who, if William had afterwards lived at Scicli until the year 1404, as they commonly say, or even longer, as we think; certainly would have died not an octogenarian or nonagenarian, but much more than a centenarian. And this is the opinion of Doctor Franciscus Bonus, who last wrote the Life of Blessed William, and prolonged it to 120 years.
[12] which also the different family name indicates But there is no need to admit things so incongruous. If there was among the people of Noto a noble family Bucheria, another was not at all unknown, which bore the surname Cuffitella, which today also is said to survive there, as written to us thence. Crispinus Majus denies by letter that any remains of the Bucheria survive. But it was easy, if not from the family, at least from the town of Bucherio, from which William, Peter's father, was born or originated, that the surname adhered to him dwelling among the people of Noto. It was also easy, after the passing of more than two centuries, that this man, although at Noto, after a praiseworthy life spent in offices of hospitality, had died and been buried there, should come into oblivion; because neither living nor dead was he famous for any miracles, and Conrad alone was in the mouths and veneration of the citizens. But since from nearby Scicli things as great and glorious were heard about William the hermit, who both had come from Noto to Scicli, and had been familiar with Blessed Conrad; nothing was more natural than that Littara, or someone similar, a writer of greater authority than accuracy, should persuade first the people of Noto, then also those of Scicli, that their Patron was the very one who, when Conrad came to Noto, was inhabiting the little houses at the temple of the Crucifix, obtained from King Frederick for his own use and that of wandering guests, and as reward of his generous fidelity.
[13] and of the elders of Scicli But such persuasion is first destroyed by the chronological reasons deduced by us: then for one having the Acts of the processes, it cannot appear in any way probable, that if the things said of William Bucherius belonged to the hermit of Scicli, nothing of them, either from the mouth of Paul Guiccionius or from the speech of the common people, so many citizens of Scicli, at least those more advanced in age, would have known to narrate: for the common people are accustomed, before the internal virtues, to look up to the external adornments of the Saints, such as were in William Bucherius: the danger of the king's life driven off with discrimen to his own, and the reciprocal liberality of the King toward the one well-deserving; the exercise of pious hospitality for some years, continued with the public fruit of good example; silence about things otherwise memorable the perpetual limping of his disabled body requiring to be sustained by a staff; a son left in honest fortune among the people of Noto, and the family propagated from him and grandchildren still surviving when the examination was made, from whom many things about the life of their grandfather done at Noto could have been learned and had. The people of Scicli meanwhile said nothing other than that he had come from Noto: nor had anything else in the meantime been known to them from there, on account of which they thought it was worth the trouble to send there a Commissary, to be informed about the former life of their Patron; which would have been most easy on account of the nearness of the place, and the ancient documents about Blessed Conrad publicly preserved there in writings, and also the process similarly drawn up there at the command of Bishop Dalmatius in the year 1485, in which more than fifty witnesses were heard, and again in the year 1515, as the Vicar of Syracuse affirms in his Diploma.
[14] these things can be confirmed from ancient Acts about Blessed Conrad Would that when we were composing February those Processes had been in our hands, as well as the writings of those of whom Petrus Maria Campi writes, that, by the command of the Quatuor-viri, they consigned to writing with the greatest fidelity whatever they had themselves seen done by him, namely the Chaplain of Saint Peter, Conrad's Confessor, and Brother Michael Lombardus, familiar to the same saint; or had learned had been done from others, and especially from William, not indeed Bucherius of Noto (for we believe this one to have died long before Conrad), but Cuffitella of Scicli, with whom Conrad had spent one whole Lent, and perhaps the last, in pious conversations, as will appear below from these Acts. if we should obtain them These monuments, if we should at some time obtain them for the supplement of that month, as we have now reformed the chronology of Littara concerning Blessed Conrad; so perhaps we shall disprove not a few points of the narration proposed by him, and in their place we shall substitute more certain things, very many ornaments of the divine miracles with which God has glorified his Saint. Let the citizens of Noto only favor pious desires, when they shall see things set forth with so great fidelity and diligence, which alone deserve to be believed and received, about their fellow citizen William Cuffitella: for far be it that against the tradition received from the ancestors of the people of Scicli, we should wish to doubt with anyone whether he was truly a Netinian by homeland.
ACTS OF THE PROCESS,
concerning the life, virtues, and miracles of Blessed William.
From authentic manuscripts, preserved together with the body of the Blessed, by the command of the Judges and Jurats of the land of Scicli transcribed notarially, and here rendered into Latin.
William Hermit of Scicli, in Sicily (S.)
FROM A MANUSCRIPT PROCESS.
CHAPTER I.
Commissorial Letters, and Interrogatory to be proposed to the Witnesses.
[1] May Jesus be present. We John Antony a Phassides a, professor in sacred Letters, Vicar of Monreale, constituted Judge Vicar General of the city and Archbishopric of Monreale, ecclesiastical Judge, delegated by the distinguished Don John Antony b Pulleo, Baron of Burgio, Governor of the said city and Archbishopric, and in this kingdom of Sicily Nuncio of the Apostolic See; to the Reverend Lords Don John li Donni, Canon of Syracuse; and Master Dominic Sandolina, professor of sacred Theology, of the Order of Preachers; to whom or which the present shall come, and whenever they shall be exhibited or presented; our most dear friends in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[2] through the Apostolic Nuncio Because there was presented, exhibited, and handed to us at the petition and instance of the magnificent Jurats, Judges, and University of the land of Scicli, of the diocese of Syracuse, a certain Brief, inscribed to the aforesaid Don John Antony Pullio of the following tenor and contents:
POPE PAUL THE THIRD.
Beloved son, greeting and Apostolic benediction. The beloved sons, Jurats, Judges and University of the men of the land of Scicli, of the diocese of Syracuse, have caused it to be set forth to us, that although in the church of Saint Matthew rests the body of one William Cuffitella, formerly an inhabitant of the same land; who while he lived to whom Paul III at the request of the people of Scicli was of so exemplary a life and devoted to the Most High, that after his death he has shone forth and shines daily with many miracles; and therefore not only by the same Exponents, but also by the Christian faithful of all neighboring places, is held in the greatest veneration, and a great multitude of people flocks to his church: and those Christian faithful, while their petitions which they make to God become sharers in their vow, hold by witness that their prayers have been heard through the intercession of the same William: and several oppressed by various infirmities, visiting the sepulchre of the same William, are restored to their former health: on account of William's sanctity and miracles yet because the same William is not named in the catalogue of the Saints, they do not dare, without the special license of the Apostolic See, to venerate him publicly. At present the Exponents desire that each year, on the eighth day immediately following the feast of the Lord's Resurrection, they may be able to have the feast and Office of the same William celebrated in the aforesaid church and land, under the office of Confessor not Pontiff, let license be granted them by the said See: wherefore on behalf of the same Exponents humble supplication has been made to us, that
we would deign to assent to their wishes in the premises with Apostolic benignity. We therefore who gladly assent to whatsoever desires of the Christian faithful, those seeking license for celebrating the feast especially those which we see proceed from fervor of devotion, being inclined to supplications of this kind, by the present letter commit and command to you, that, if after a diligent inquiry on the premises made through a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, to be chosen by you for this, you shall understand the premises to rest upon the truth, the said person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity may grant license of this kind to the aforesaid Exponents. For we grant to you, and in the aforesaid event also to the person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, over all and each of the premises, according to the tenor written above, full license and faculty, notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances and any others to the contrary whatsoever. But we will that the said William be not held as canonized on account of the premises. had committed the cause Given at Rome at Saint Mark under the fisherman's ring, on the 27th day of June 1537 in the third year of our Pontificate.
[3] On account of which it is necessary that a diligent inquiry be made concerning the premises, for understanding the truth, and that witnesses be received at the instance of the same magnificent Jurats, Judges, and University. And we not being able personally to be present; he subdelegates his office to John li Donni trusting much in your probity and morals and life, by the tenor of this our letter, to you and to each of you, both jointly and separately and in full (so that if one shall have begun, another may continue, mediate and finish it; and it shall be as valid as if done by both), we say, commit, and by the authority which we exercise commanding command, and every kind of our authority in and around the premises and the things written below we give and impart; so that all and whatsoever witnesses, whom the said magnificent Jurats, Judges, and University of the aforesaid land of Scicli, or another on their behalf, shall wish to produce, upon the memorial and chapters presented today, enclosed with the present, those by the suitable and virtuous persons of the master Notary or of master Notaries, to receive the witnesses at Scicli faithfully to be chosen by you and each of you, you shall cause to be received and examined; well and diligently as is fit, only with a legal mind, interrogating them about the cause of their knowledge, place, time, and other circumstances; you Reverend, or either of you personally intervening at the reception of the same witnesses, and no one else, for understanding the truth of the said things. Whose names and surnames, depositions, and sayings, faithfully redacted by you in writing, or rather to be caused to be redacted, closed, sealed, and shown to no one, as is customary, together with the said enclosed memorial, you shall take care to transmit to us: and carry out the premises with effect, for how much the Apostolic grace is dear to you... Given in the city of Monreale on the 8th day of January, 11th Indiction, 1537 c.
[4] Memorial d upon which the Witnesses are to be examined, to be received upon the reception in the catalogue of the Saints of William Cuffitella, at the petition and instance of the University of the land of Xichili. and to be interrogated according to the memorial
I. Let it be asked whence and from what parentage William Cuffitella was born; whether he was a native of Xichili; and in what occupation he was employed.
II. Whether he was a Religious, and of what Rule: how long ago he received that Rule, and how he observed the same.
III. Whether he dwelt in the land of Xichili, and was accustomed to converse with the natives: whether he always dwelt there, where, and with whom: and everything in particular.
IV. Whether he ever suffered persecutions from anyone, and of what kind, and for what cause; and whether he endured such persecutions with patience.
V. Whether he was accustomed to visit hospitals and houses of the poor: and whether he willingly helped and interceded for the aid of those who were placed in any necessity.
VI. Whether he was humble with every kind of man, not seeking to be honored by anyone and not caring whether the clothes with which he was clothed were new or old.
VII. Whether he led a harsh life in fastings, disciplines, prayers: whether he was accustomed to sleep on the ground or upon another thing, whether within the land of Xichili itself or outside of it to take sleep.
VIII. Whether he was accustomed, for the love of God, to beg his food, or to labor with his own hands for his sustenance. And also whether from what was supplied to him he willingly shared with those remaining with him, or with others having need. And let the witnesses say whatever they know.
IX. Whether they know that, before he died, he foretold his death to anyone.
X. Whether when living he performed any miracle: and let them say what miracle he performed.
XI. Whether at his death any miracle occurred, and of what kind: and let them say whatever they know.
XII. Whether he was found dead, or whether anyone stood by him dying, and how he died, and whether he had previously been ill, and that for a sufficiently prolonged time.
XIII. Let them say where he was buried: and whether he left means from which sepulchral expenses might be paid, and how he wished to be buried, that is, what funeral pomp he wished for himself: and whether he was truly buried in a marble, ancient and honorable monument, upon which were written some verses in the manner of an epitaph, in honor and memory of his holy life.
XIV. How long ago he died: and whether after his death any miracles were seen; and let the witnesses say what miracle they saw.
XV. Whether in the place of the land of Xichili they have any devotion toward him, and hold it for certain that he is Blessed: and whether any one has anything of his belongings: and whether such thing, through God's power and the intercession of the said William, works miracles. And let them say what the thing is, and what miracles it has done, and whether at this present time also it does them.
XVI. Whether at the Vigil which is customarily held for him, they have seen any miracles, evident in the judgment of all, and not done according to the course or operation of nature or medicines.
XVII. Whether they know in what year he died, and in what month, and on what day of the month: and how they know this.
[5] To these seventeen articles, out of sixty-two Witnesses, only sixteen responded in order and distinctly: the rest, some of whom responded in order to individual points speaking in general of the fame of sanctity and public veneration, only deposed the miracles which they knew had been performed at the invocation of Blessed William long dead, upon themselves or others. The depositions of these we shall give separately one by one, with superfluous and repeatedly recurring formulas cut away: the sayings of those we shall mix together, and reduce their responses to the individual chapters into one: in which lest it be necessary to interpose into the context the names, age, and conditions of the said Witnesses, better to deduce without these things, we here prefix a catalogue only of those whom we shall allege, the order in which they were heard being preserved.
On the 23rd of January, Indiction 11, 1537, in the presence of the Reverend Don John li Donni, one of the Commissaries, there were sworn and interrogated:
I. The Magnificent Paul de Renda.
II. Master Francis de Cannata, of the third Order of Saint Francis.
On the 24th day of the same month
III. The honorable Antony de Cassareno, of the age of sixty-six years.
IV. Blaise de Xifo, of the age of eighty years.
V. The honorable Andreas de Naro, of the age of sixty-five years.
VI. Antoninus de Garoffalo, of the age of one hundred and six years.
VII. Master Antony de Arrabito, of the age of seventy years.
VIII. The honorable Pinus de Maria, of the age of sixty years.
IX. Leonardus de Cannata, of the age of sixty years.
X. John de Nativo, of the age of eighty-eight years.
XI. Paul Adamello, of the age of eighty years.
On the 26th of January.
XII. The venerable Don Paul of Palazolo, of the age of fifty years.
XIII. The magnificent Angelus de Michichenio, I.V.D.
XVI. Antonina la Michela, of the age of fifty years.
XXVII. John de Fichili, of the age of sixty-five years.
On the last of January.
LXII. The magnificent Antony de la Volta, I.V.D.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The responses of the Witnesses summarily collected concerning the life and death of Blessed William.
[6] Upon the First Chapter Witness I responded that it was known to him from public fame, a Netinian by homeland, of the Cuffitella family that the late Brother William performed and was performing himself service in a certain church called Saint Mary of Pietà and Saint Paul, because he had heard thus from 25 years earlier. The same said most others: about the other things proposed in the first chapter they answered that they were ignorant. Witness III adds that he had understood from the time of which he could remember, that he was surnamed Cuffitella, and was a native of the city of Noto: with whom in this part Witnesses VI and LXII agree: others at least affirm that he came to Scicli from the city of Noto, and they are Witnesses V, VII, VIII: and only of the Cuffitella surname did Witnesses IX, XII, XIII, and XXVII make mention: all from hearing the Elders of Scicli.
[7] in the habit of a Tertiary Upon the Second Chapter Witness I responded that he had heard it said that the said late William was of the third Order of Saint Francis, and saw him painted over his monument wearing the garment of the said third Order, which also deposed Witnesses II, III, V, X, XIII, and XXVII. But about only the painting and habit with a cord expressed there, IV testifies. But IX only deposes that he had heard that he was called Brother, without any mention of a certain Order. Most expressly of all Witness LXII asserts to have heard from noble men, preeminent in age and dignity, that William was a religious person and a monk of the Mendicant Order of the third Order of Saint Francis: and observed the said Rule with much humility and patience, as a good and faithful servant of God. Witness VIII also had heard it said that he had been a monk, but of which Order he was ignorant. a
[8] and lived in a humble little hut at Scicli Upon the Third Chapter Witness I deposes that the said late Brother William lived near the land of Xichili, within
a hut of about nine palms, which still remains today, very humble, within a garden adjoined to the aforementioned church, in the plaza called Fossa-parva: and in that hut is painted an image of our Lady and of Brother William himself: in which place he was accustomed to converse with a certain man whose surname was Guiccionius, a man of honest and upright life; and with Blessed Conrad, both in the land of Xichili and in the city of Noto: and these things he knows because he so publicly heard and saw. Several others agree: familiar with the confraters of the church of St. Mary but of Blessed Conrad no one mentions in this place except Witness VIII; and all praise the probity of Guiccionius, deceased in great old age; that his name was Paul, Witnesses III, IV, XXVII assert, besides others responding to other chapters. Witness III, more than eighty years old, asserted that he himself had known Paul, and also others of the same name, some dead and some still alive, all of the best reputation. Witness VI and some others add that the place was wooded and difficult of access: and he, more than a centenarian, knew and names those who had conversed with him there, besides Paul Guiccionius: Nutius Gandolfi and Paul Chavettus, Confraters of the aforesaid church, whom he has held and holds as upright and honest men; and that they, while they lived, were held as such in the land of Xichili, he himself knows. Witness X names holm-oaks and other kinds of shrubs with which the place of habitation was thickly set: and both he and Witness XII affirm that its door faced north. Witness XIII more expressly adds that he lived there outside the land and conversation of men; others, that he led a solitary life. Finally, witness LXII testifies about the aforenamed Confraternity, from which William had some familiars, that in it he had seen and known excellent discipline, and that many nobles and primary persons of the Scicli land were members of it.
[9] when he had been driven away, at Palazzolo, Upon the Fourth Chapter Witness VIII answered that about twenty-five years had passed before which, for five years, he had dwelt in the land of Palatiolum: where he had heard it said that the same William with Blessed Conrad had dwelt near the said land in a certain b cave; but that they had been driven out from there by dogs let in through certain hunters, accustomed to hunt there: and that bearing this persecution humbly, they went together to the city of Noto; and departing from Noto and there they dwelt separately from one another, often visiting each other: but afterwards William came to Xichili. He said he had seen the aforesaid cave near the land of Palatiolum, furnished with an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary: and had also seen the inhabitants of that land, both men and women, accustomed to go there for the sake of religion, and always keep a lamp burning there. Witness LXII testifies about the persecutions patiently endured by William in general, on the basis of reports of trustworthy men, and the nature of the harsh place itself in which he was living. The rest profess that they do not know.
[10] there devoted to works of charity Upon the Fifth Chapter, Witness V said, from the report of the elders, that when some food was brought to him, he was accustomed to carry part of it to certain poor people, calling them, and leaving the food behind the doors. Similarly Witness LXII asserts that it is known to him, by the testimony of trustworthy men, that William was accustomed not only to visit hospitals continually, but to charitably assist all miserable persons and those placed in tribulation, exhorting them to the virtue of patience; and that he willingly spent himself on works of mercy. The rest profess that they do not know.
[11] in great humility Upon the Sixth Chapter Witness III says that he had heard that William, as long as he dwelt at Xichili, was seen in no way to seek honors: and the same deposed about the constant humility of the man Witnesses IV, V, VIII, and XVI. Witness XI brings forward the testimony of his father, a seventy-year-old, and of his mother, now dead. Witness LXII affirms that his garments were the clothing of holy humility and poverty, and he says that this can be judged sufficiently from the place of habitation itself. The rest, as above, said they do not know.
[12] Upon the Seventh Chapter, Witness I answered that, dwelling in such a hut and austerity of life as was described above, he was accustomed to sleep upon a bed made of twigs and brushwood: from which manner of dwelling and sleeping he is persuaded that he led an austere life. II and XXVII agree. Witnesses III, VII, VIII describing the same bed more distinctly say that it was constructed upon a single beam, let into the wall; upon which rough pieces of wood were disposed in the manner of transoms and strewn with brushwood: and so he was commonly said to sleep. The same deposed Witness IV, adding that both in his minor and in his greater age, often visiting that little hut, he saw such a bed in it. Witness V also deposed, that both he and others, out of devotion, were accustomed to lie down upon the said bed, which God honored so strewn. IX adds that it was raised from the ground by about one palm two, says IX, and marvels that the little house itself, although it was never repaired, always remained in the same state. The same testifies X, 88 years old, and says he knows this excellently, since he himself is also of the aforesaid confraternity. As witnesses of the austere life which William led, he alleges Paul Guiccionius, James Ragusia, Nicholas de Pisana, and John la Licata, known to him as most honest men and deceased sixty years ago. Witness II attributes to a miracle the preservation of this badly constructed and worse situated hut and of the images painted on the wall; "since always," he says, "it has been and still is very subject to water: but the preservation of the images for so long a time in such a place is more wonderful, because they have not even contracted any stains until now." But Witness IX deposes that about sixty years earlier, his hut miraculously preserved suffering from tertian fever, which had been troublesome to him for a whole year, as soon as he ascended the said bed, he was so freed from that infirmity, that he afterwards never remembered having suffered it. Finally, Witness LXII judges that William was of the greatest austerity, and in the said place macerated his flesh with rigid and frequent fasts and bloody scourges, because no one enters that place without being affected with a feeling of intimate grief for sins committed and of tender devotion.
[13] Upon the Eighth Chapter, Witness II answered that from his mother's report he knows that the said William lived on alms; he sustained himself with alms and that working the little garden adjoined to his hut, he used to remunerate from the herbs growing there those who gave him alms. But that he lived on alms is simply testified by I and XII. Witnesses VIII and XXVII add that from the alms brought to him he was accustomed to give part to the poor. Witness X expressly names Paul Guiccionius, Antony of Ragusa, Nicholas of Pizana, and John la Licata, who with their alms were accustomed to sustain William; men, as far as he remembers, of most approved life and fame, confraters of our Lady, deceased more than sixty years ago. especially of Paul Guiccionius Witness XVI, a ninety-year-old woman, says that she, while still in the age of a girl, was sometimes told by Garita, or Margaret, Guiccionius's wife, how she was accustomed to provide for William, and to sustain him with her alms. Witness LXII concludes that he altogether led an apostolically poor life: of which he also takes as evidence the ancient burial, in which Brother William's bones rest, which a pilgrim man would not have had so honorable, unless he had been of sanctity most esteemed among all and truly exemplary.
[14] Upon the Ninth Chapter, about the prediction of his own death made by William to someone, to whom he seems to have even indicated his death all said they did not know, except Witness I, who reports that in the land of Xichili he had publicly heard it said that, immediately before his death, William came at the crack of dawn to the houses of Paul Guiccionius, and finding them closed, called upon him by name, saying, "O gossip." When Guiccionius, answering, asked what he wanted at such an hour, and said he would rise: William answered that there was no need, only that he should come to him when day broke: and saying this he threw one of his shoes into the house through a certain little door of the door. When Paul found this when day came, he hastened to William's little house, and found him dead.
[15] His miracles, in deceitful pastries, Upon the Tenth Chapter Witness XI asserted that, concerning many miracles performed by him, he had heard from his father and mother, but did not remember any in particular: almost all the rest from hearing narrated the miracle of the pastries in Guiccionius's house. Of these, Witness I thus narrates the matter as publicly heard. Sometime his gossip Guiccionius had invited William to lunch, and had set before him macaroni or lasagna with pastries: of which some, deliberately filled with bran, were set before the said William. When Guiccionius's wife, who had prepared them, wished to cut them for him, he began to say to his gossip-mother, why she was cutting them for him; and forming the sign of the Cross over the dish, he took some of the said pastries filled with bran, and opening them, found them full of cooked milk: and immediately showed the woman, saying, "Look here, gossip, are they not delicate?" Then wishing to drink, he asked her whether she had wine. She answered that for several days she had had none in the house. Nevertheless William insisted that she bring some, pointing with his finger to the wine vessel, for some time empty. The woman therefore rose with a pitcher, and moving the top peg of the cask, as William had ordered, as soon as she drew it out, she marveled that abundant wine flowed forth. This last about the wine is silent in Witnesses II, IV, V, VI, XVI, and XXVII. But Witness LXII, recalling several things heard in general, narrated only this about the wine in particular.
[16] wine failing Witness III notes that the woman acted deceitfully in the pastries, because she was tired of having William so often as guest. Then he more fully describes the words exchanged about the wine, before the woman, indignant, obeyed the command; and finally concludes saying, that the woman, moved by the miracle she had seen, cast herself on her knees before Blessed William, asking pardon, and thereafter willingly and cheerfully ministered to him, on account of the great devotion with which she followed him. Witness IV, from the report of his deceased mother, deposing the same about the pastries, adds that it happened during Carnival, and that Guiccionius's wife took counsel from other women how she might deceive her troublesome guest: and that she did not recline at the table, although ordered by her husband; but under pretext of serving, observed how William bore himself when the fraud was discovered. The same he said he had heard from his same mother, the lasagna still warm after 40 days that at a similar time, when William was invited to dinner at Guiccionius's house, he answered that he could not come, because he himself had a wandering guest with him. Therefore Paul sent him by his boy a dish of lasagna. Lent being finished, Paul remembered to ask back the dish. So he sent the same boy, who found the dish in the very place where he had put it before, full of lasagna, still steaming; and marveling, asked why William had not eaten it, and how it was still warm: but he answered: "I had it yesterday evening." The same narrating, Witness V says, from the report of the elders of Scicli, that the boy found Blessed Conrad in William's cottage: and again he was found in the same place, when he returned to ask for the dish back; and the boy said to them: "What? Are the lasagna still to be eaten, which I brought in the last days of Carnival? Behold we already have Holy Week." And that William answered: "Did you not bring them here yesterday evening?" Similarly of Blessed Conrad then present, Witnesses VI, VII, and XXVII make mention. Witness VI.I adds that William and Conrad were found, as on the first day, conversing. Witness XVI, as a little girl, asserted that she had heard the same thing from Paul's own wife Garita, that she had carried the dish and brought it back: and that to her asking for it back William answered, "We must still eat them."
[17] Witness X also says he had heard himself, as a twelve-year-old boy, from the aforesaid Paul and the cheese divided prophetically in the chapter of the church of Saint Mary of Pietà, before the Confraters there present, that Paul himself once sent to William one whole cheese, against the will of his wife, who wished only half to be sent: which when William had received in his hut, he immediately divided into two parts, saying that he would keep for himself the part which his gossip had given him; but the other part he would send back to his wife, because neither did he wish to accept what she had been unwilling to give. The same Witness XXVII narrates from hearing from several. Witness XIII asserted that the very same thing had been narrated by him who carried the cheese, so that the woman stood astonished, seeing the part sent back to her, and hearing William's words. The same Witness says he had heard about the wine, that the woman obeying unwillingly, when she wished to draw the lowest peg of the cask, whether perhaps any remainder of wine would yet flow out; she was commanded to draw the topmost peg: but she scoffed at this and would not do it: but William said again, "Do, gossip, what I say, and draw from the upper part."
[18] Upon the Eleventh and Twelfth Chapters Witness II said that when William died, the bell of the greater church rang of itself; When William dies, bells ring spontaneously and that when they wished to carry him to be buried in one of the lower churches, coming to the place called Tocco, they could no longer move the body, or lift it from the ground. But counsel being taken about carrying him to the greater church of Saint Matthew, most easily they lifted him, and there buried him in a stone monument. Being asked the cause of his knowledge, he answered that he knew the premises, as they are said, because he had thus heard from many persons at Scicli from fifty years earlier. The deposition of Witness XXVII is consonant. III adds, that the people hearing the miraculous sound of the bells (for others also speak of several bells) ran to William's hut, and found him indeed dead, but yet still with knees bent and hands joined. The same about the position of the dead body the body is found kneeling, from his mother's report, affirmed Witness IV. Witness V, recalling the same things as II, adds that one of those bells, which rang with no one pulling them, was afterwards transferred to the bell tower of the church of Saint John the Evangelist (which Witness IX also said), and that in the place where the body remained immovable, there is presently placed an image of our Lady, surnamed of Mercy: finally among the churches proposed by some for burial, he names specifically the church of the Annunciation and the church of Saint Mary. All the others have similar things. Witness VII also mentions the burning candles which were found by the dead man. Witness X takes the testimony of the body thus found from those who carried him out, and from whom he had heard as a twelve-year-old: Paul Guiccionius, William's friend, Mazius and Lemus de Marturana, and Nutius de Melfis, the older Confraters. Witness XIII asserted that there was a long inquiry among the people about the cause of the nocturnal ringing of the bells: and when carried for burial it becomes immovable and at last it came into the minds of the caretakers of the church of Saint Mary of Pietà, that they should go to William's hut, whom they found kneeling between burning candles, and holding in his hands a string of prayer beads. Finally Witness LXII deposed that he had been told by most grave authors, both that the said candles were most beautiful, and that the face of the deceased radiated like an Angel. Likewise that the people, with the body halting in the road, in doubt of counsel, had with common acclamation invoked the Divine mercy, and that this was the cause of the name afterwards given to the image of the Virgin placed there.
[19] Upon the Thirteenth Chapter Witness I, after saying what others had said on the XII, is buried in the church of Saint Matthew adds that he was buried in a monument made of free-stone, placed upon two columns, and secured with four locks: in which monument were inscribed some ancient verses, in honor and praise of William's life: but above the monument itself is painted his image, with certain women kneeling adoring him: likewise strewn on the monument is a cloth, with a certain figure and the insignia of the late Most Reverend Lord Bishop c Dalmatius. Witness XXVII narrating these same things is silent about the covering. Witness II adds that the keys of the sepulchre are kept partly by the Chaplains of the church, partly by the Jurats of the land. Witness V names the place of burial in the church of Saint Matthew, the chapel of the most illustrious Lords, in an honorable monument Count and Countess. But of the monument he says that it is of one stone, such as one cannot see at Scicli or in the vicinity; and that it has an iron door of which there are four keys, of which one is also held by a certain noble man. But about the locks Witness XII said that at the night of the customary Vigil they were often found open, and again closed on the following day, no one opening or closing them. Witness VII adds that within the monument itself is enclosed a little casket, which has also its own key, and contains the sacred bones. Witness XIII also mentions the cloth, adorned with Episcopal insignia, and recites these verses inscribed on the monument:
Let him who knows not know, here William rests, Of Cuffitella: he subdued the wars of the present age And crimes, defiling the threshold of the soul. He reigns in the heavenly theaters, Christ commanding.
Witness LXII, having recited the same verses, says that so magnificent a burial is seen nowhere in the land of Xichili: and that the place itself is the most honorable of the whole church, namely the chapel of the Lords Counts of Modica d and Xichili, and that from this his opinion is confirmed, that the said William, while his life accompanied him, was a very just man; suffered many persecutions, and lived in many labors, and holy morals, and strenuous deeds; simple and humble, and worthy in whose solemnity, with the Lord's permission to be granted, should be sung that ecclesiastical hymn which begins: "This is the Confessor of the Lord," etc.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Testimonies about the miracles and the fame of the sanctity of Blessed William.
[20] Upon Chapter XIV and XVII Witness I says that, according to what he heard in the land of Xichili, The year of his death uncertain about 150 years had elapsed from William's death; and that he died on April 4, and the Vigil of this day is celebrated at Xichili. The same asserted Witnesses III, IV, IX, XIII. Witness V counts about 160 years; X, only 140; XI, 130. Witness VI of the Vigil expressly said that it was held on the third day of April, and the feast on the fourth day. Witness VIII more indefinitely asserted that more than 100 years had elapsed from the death of the Blessed, as he had heard it said: nor did anyone any longer survive in the land of Xichili who had known him, much less been present at his death. Similarly about the day of the vigil and the day of the feast several deposed: that it is celebrated on the third and fourth day of April. But of the year, month, and day of his death all, except those whom I have recounted, professed that they did not know. The miracles performed after his death, about which some answered being interrogated upon Chapter XIV, we shall afterwards report separately one by one.
[21] Upon Chapters XV and XVI Witness I answered that William had always been and still is held at Xichili a certain opinion of sanctity in the people with great devotion; and was honored and is honored by all as a Saint: and that there was a great concourse, both of men and women, to making his Vigil: and therefore at this time especially, many little boys with hernias and suffering from other infirmities, without the use of medicines and completely beyond the order of nature, miraculously recovered. Similarly about the night of the aforesaid Vigil, many wholesome things, deposed Witnesses II, III, IV, and all the rest without exception. Witness V adds that a lamp is always kept burning before the sepulchre by popular devotion, and the annual celebration of the vigil and feast and the same devotion could never be kept in check but that the populace of both sexes in copious numbers held the aforesaid Vigil, although at various times this was forbidden lest it should be done. Witness VIII asserts that, from the very first years after William's death, the custom of celebrating his Vigil took hold; and that he knows, from the report of those who received the grace, that various persons that night, both from rupture and from fevers, were freed. That others obtained a similar grace, the witnesses heard by him say, Witnesses IX and XIII, and they add that the number concurring to the Vigil is so great that the church can scarcely or not even scarcely contain them all. But as for the miracles performed by the dead man, about these in general they protested that they had heard from the experienced ones, Witnesses X and XI. Finally Witness LXII asserts that the devotion of the people of Scicli toward Blessed
William appears singular, with frequency of miracles through many signal works of charity done to hospitals and churches in view of him; also through this that on no matter are more frequent discourses heard, than about procuring the beatification or canonization of Brother William: and so fervent is this love, that they would willingly pour out all their possessions and their very blood, to increase the veneration of the sacred body; on account of the innumerable benefits and continual graces, which they, the citizens of Scicli, report as received through his prayers and merits.
rather 70 or 80.
[22] Mirabella, Witness XIV, widow of the late Michael de Massa, of about fifty years, as she says, said that concerning all the chapters proposed to her she only knew from her mother, A shoe, left to Paul Guiccionius still living in the land of Modica, an old woman of about a hundred years, and enrolled in the third Order of the Virgin of the Annunciation: who, when she was about to migrate to Modica for the sake of second marriage, to the witness her own daughter, born of her first husband Antony Guiccionius, son of the often-mentioned Paul, who was the paternal grandfather of the witness herself, the said mother left a shoe of Blessed William, whose body is buried in the church of Saint Matthew. And this shoe the deponent's mother aforesaid had received from her husband Antony, and Antony from his dying father Paul; and the Deponent herself had received it from her mother and held it in her power for about twenty-two years. Moreover the aforesaid shoe was said to have remained with them in this manner. At a certain early morning hour, the hour at which before day is rung for the Ave Maria, William came to Paul's door, and knocked, calling Paul by name. When he, asking, why he came at such an hour, said he had not yet risen, but would rise, if there was need; William answered that there was no need, but through the opening of the door threw a shoe. When Paul found this when day came: before William died "Look, I pray you," he exclaimed, "what my gossip William has done: he has left his shoe with me and gone away. I will go and see what he wishes." And he went to his hut, and found him dead with joined hands and bent knees: which thing he soon took care to announce to his fellow citizens, stirred up by the spontaneous ringing of the bells. But when they wished to bury him in the church of the Annunciation, they could not move the body, nor likewise when they began to deliberate about the church of Saint Mary in the plaza: but when the church of Saint Matthew was named, the body was lifted with no trouble, and having been brought there, was laid in a stone monument.
[23] But as long as the Deponent herself had the aforesaid shoe in her possession, she had to lend it repeatedly to several persons, it shines with miracles who either suffered in their eyes, or were having difficult childbirths: who all were freed, as soon as they placed it on their head or on the ill-affected place. Now it happened, while the Reverend Lord Andreotta de Ericio, Vicar of the land of Xichili, was still living, that the year was very barren and dry, with the rains failing. Compelled by this necessity, some had recourse to the Lord Vicar, saying that the Deponent herself had the shoe of Blessed William, averts drought when brought to the church which had been salutary, placed upon many sick people, and therefore it ought not thus be kept privately without honor. The Vicar therefore sent to ask for it in his name, and through the Clergy and Confraters clothed in their habit, the shoe was translated with great veneration to the church of Saint Matthew: when this was done, copious rain was poured from heaven; as the Deponent herself remembers both to have seen, and often to have heard commemorated by her aunts, aged women, daughters of Paul Guiccionius, Maria and Joannella. Witnesses I and II make mention of the same shoe, and say it was made in the Apostolic shape, so that you may understand it to have been a sandal, and that William was accustomed to walk barefoot, after the manner of the Religious of Saint Francis. The same testify about women in labor and other sick persons, often healed by the placing of the same shoe: which also Witnesses IV, VII, XII, and XIII confirmed from their own and others' experience. Witness V adds that the aforesaid Vicar, once deprived of the sight of his eyes, and illumines a blind man ordered that shoe to be brought to him; which when he had devoutly placed upon himself, he continuously and miraculously received his sight. Wherefore he gave a silk towel for wrapping the aforesaid shoe, and ordered it to be placed back in the monument of the Blessed. He also had his image painted, with his own and the Most Reverend Bishop Dalmatius's a insignia, which is now seen placed above the sepulchre.
[24] Witness I, upon Chapter XIV deposed that in about his thirtieth year of age, he is freed from fever lying upon his bed suffering from quartan or tertian fever, for the sake of beguiling time and weariness he went to the solemn race of the b pallium, accustomed to be held in the month of September, on the feast of our Lady of Pietà. And when he was in the accustomed place of the race, the fever assailed him, and compelled him to withdraw. He therefore entered the aforesaid church of our Lady, so weak that he could not move another step, on account of the vehemence of the cold overtaking him. Then it came into his mind the little house once inhabited by Blessed William, and he also remembered that it had often been said to him that whoever lay down devoutly inside it was accustomed to take away the remedy of any evil; he himself was also persuaded to go there. Without delay he went, lay down beneath the image of the Blessed, placing a certain stone under his head: and immediately began to sleep. But after he woke, he felt himself free from every evil; nor did he ever afterwards suffer from such a disease.
[25] a ruptured man is healed by approaching the monument Witness II said that it was about seventeen years ago, that in the land of Xichili in the church of Saint Mary of the Cross, having heard the late Reverend Brother Stephen of Ischifittus, Doctor of Sacred Theology, preaching, and having waited for him to descend from the pulpit, and asked him to come home with him to dinner (for it was the hour of dinner), the aforesaid Reverend answered him: "I do not wish to eat here; but I wish to go to pray to Blessed William," meaning the church of Saint Matthew. But when the witness himself replied that he had heard that the Supreme Pontiff forbade him to be called Blessed: he answered: "If I were present to his Holiness, I would easily persuade him that he ought to be called not only Blessed, but also a Saint. And the reason for this assertion is that once, being badly ruptured in the groin, he had devoutly visited the sepulchre of Blessed William, and applying his head to it, and again, by invoking the Blessed he continuously recovered his health. And when he had gone from there to Granada and had preached to the people throughout Lent, after a sermon held on Good Friday, some devout faithful prayed him to repeat the same sermon during the Paschal feasts. Complying with them, when he had raised his voice more fervently, he felt himself ruptured in the other groin, not without the greatest torment. But remembering Blessed William, through whom he had before been healed; he turned his prayers to him again, and again received a similar benefit."
[26] Rain is obtained by carrying the head of the Blessed around Witness III said that when in a certain year there was great sterility in this land, on account of the scarcity of water, and very many processions had been instituted to obtain rain, and nevertheless the prayers remained unfulfilled, and the hope of the future harvest was perishing in the fields; a counsel divinely sent from heaven, about carrying around the head of the Blessed, pleased above the others. Scarcely had the procession advanced to the church of Saint Margaret, when such an unexpected shower descended, that return to the church of Saint Matthew, whence they had come, did not lie open, with the waters blocking the roads. The same reported, that in the last year past the navel of his one-year-old son had deformedly swollen: wherefore his wife made a vow to keep vigil in honor of Blessed William in the church of Saint Matthew: which when she had fulfilled on that customary night together with the same little boy brought there; the following day she brought him home, with the swelling much diminished: and within eight days had him entirely well. The same miracle of water obtained in the manner aforesaid was narrated by Witnesses VI, VII, and XI, who was present, saw and heard.
[27] A feverish man is healed Witness IV said that when he was a boy of about fourteen years, and was vexed with fever, he went to the hut of Blessed William, and in it devoutly lay down; and from that time never again suffered from that disease. He also said he had seen many similarly feverish, who had come there to lie down in the same way, and whom, afterwards asking, he had heard had obtained the desired health. a man weak in his feet Witness V said that he had once seen a certain man, now dead, called Nicholas Minoya, walking upon crutches (for he was weak in his feet), who when he had placed himself upon the monument of the Blessed, and remained there for some time, the witness himself saw him rise up healed, with the crutches dropped to the ground: and throwing also his cloak to the ground for joy, and taking it up again and placing it on his shoulders, he began to say that by the merits of Blessed William he was healed. He departed then without crutches or any other support, free, and the witness himself saw him standing and walking thus for many years afterwards.
[28] Witness VII professed that he had heard from Lord Francis of Arrabbito, a man of the best conscience, life, and fame, that a certain man of Malta, having his head infected with scabies, came to the church of Saint Matthew, and a scabious man, to the sepulchre and asked the aforesaid late Francis in what place the body of Blessed William was buried. When it had been shown him; that Maltese man went at once to the monument, and when he had prayed, rose up with his head healthy and clean: as the same Francis, who had seen the scabious man entering, affirmed he had seen with his own eyes. likewise fever, on the bed of the Blessed But the Witness himself deposed, that he had been afflicted with quartan for about forty years, for taking away which no remedies were effective; on a certain day when the paroxysm was going to return, he went with devotion to the hut of the Blessed; where when the evil was invading him, he reclined himself upon certain brushwood; and heard from others that this was the bed upon which William was accustomed to take sleep. Soon he also fell asleep, and a little afterwards awakening, he rose healthy, nor afterwards did he suffer such infirmity. In a similar way Witness X asserted that not once, but often, he was freed from fevers, both in his minor and his greater age, up to his sixtieth year.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Other Witnesses about miracles after death, heard on the 26th and 27th of January.
[29] The honorable Alibertus of Michihenio, Witness XV, said that he knew several little ruptured ones are healed that when a certain little daughter of his, of five years, had a great tumor in the groin, so that the intestines themselves seemed to have flowed out; he himself vowed one waxed thread, of the same length as the little girl, to be brought to Blessed William, if she should be healed. And thus within two or three days that swelling was removed, and even now the girl lives healthy. Similarly Witness XVI, Antonina la Michela, said that in the night of the annual Vigil she went to his monument with other women, and brought there a certain little grandson of hers with a hernia, son of Peter Michaelis, her son: but on the following morning the little one appeared healed, nor ever afterwards did he suffer anything of the kind. But the same witness understood that in a like manner another little boy, brought from Modica, had been healed. In the following year also she brought there another little grandson of hers, son of Pinus Cuffari and her daughter married to him, who was believed ruptured on account of a swelling of the groin: and similarly, the Vigil being completed, he returned home healed, nor for about twenty-four years, since this happened, has he felt any such thing. She herself, the Witness, a feverish woman afterwards suffering from quartan fever for about eight months, went with the rest of the women to perform the Vigil: and she reports as received by the prayers and intercession of Blessed William, that, freed on that night, she was free for the rest of her life.
[30] Master Antoninus de Carnimolla, of the land of Modica, found at Scicli, Witness XVII, affirms that in the year just past, in the month of March, Indiction 10, 1536, a after a four-month illness he was of so weak a stomach that, impatient of food and drink, he was sustained by very scanty substance, since wishing to drink he could swallow nothing; and on March 24 he came into the land of Scicli, a man of weak stomach into the house of one sister of his, married to Master Antoninus de Augusta. There it was said to him that he should make a vow to Blessed William, and certainly so be healed. When therefore he had heard that the inhabitants of that place were thinking of soliciting and procuring license for celebrating the feast, and for this cause ambassadors were to be sent to Rome; he vowed that to this end he would contribute six tari if he were healed. But that same evening he felt, praise be to God, that he was better, and ate and drank without any inconvenience, and thereafter remained healed.
[31] Again with hernias, a boy Bernard of Bruno, Witness XVIII, said that when he himself was suffering a hernia protruding like a citron b, and on a certain night lying in bed he was talking with his mother about Blessed Conrad and his miracles; the said mother began to narrate to him how Blessed William also had healed many with hernias. Having understood these words, he broke forth devoutly into these voices: "O Blessed William, free me from this infirmity: and I vow to you to bring one white taper worth six tari." But on the following morning he felt himself perfectly cured, and remains healthy now for two years.
[32] and a girl Perna, wife of Master Antony of Grachioppio, Witness XIX, deposed that she had a daughter named Francisca, from her very birth herniated, for whom according to custom she had made a belt, such as is made for containing a rupture: but hearing from various people that Blessed William had done and was doing many miracles, she felt devout confidence stirred up in her soul; and one evening, coming with certain women to the church of Saint Matthew, she brought her little daughter there; who on that very night received the desired wholeness of the ruptured body.
[33] The distinguished Notary, Carolus de Carratello, Witness XX, another suffering from the stone said that in the year just past, his daughter c Desiata by name, was suffering an infirmity by which she was prevented from passing urine, and consequently from taking any part of rest. He therefore offered the aforesaid daughter to the master surgeons who are at Salerno, skilled in extracting the stone; who, considering the evil, said that the stone was gathered in the neck of the bladder. When therefore the deponent had decided to subject the sick girl to a cutting, his wife with great devotion promised Blessed William that when his vigil was recurring, she also would keep vigil, if by him her daughter should be freed from such a dangerous inconvenience. But it pleased first the omnipotent God, and then Blessed William himself, to hear the prayers: and from that time the girl felt herself free from every trouble.
[34] The honorable Antonia de Florio, Witness XXI, said that when her son, named John, of three years of age, was suffering a hernia; the deponent herself vowed a vigil before his body in the church of Saint Matthew, to be made on April third. At which time coming, together with several women and her little son, six ruptured boys at the Vigil she went to the monument, and placed him upon it, as likewise were placed there five other little ones, similarly with hernias. But the late Venerable Lord Anthony Zinza came to the same monument, and with his hand closed the locks of the monument, which happened to be open. About midnight the boy was healed, with those five others: and the mother remained, with the other men and women celebrating the same vigil, in the church until morning: when the aforesaid Priest returning, who had closed the locks of the monument, and finding them again open, said that this was done by a manifest miracle of Blessed William. On other occasions also, the deponent herself, when she was suffering from fevers, kept the same vigil, and obtained health.
[35] Francesca, wife of Antoninus son of the late Laurence of Naro, Witness XXII, a girl covered with crusts on her head said that in the year just past a certain three-month-old little daughter of hers was attacked by an infirmity, which covered her neck and head with a shapeless crust, beneath which collected humors broke forth copiously. That calamity had lasted for two months, up to the second day of Holy Week: on which day toward evening the Deponent herself vowed to Blessed William that she would approach his monument in the church of Saint Matthew barefoot and fasting: and on the following morning she found the daughter clean and healthy, with the crusts separated from the whole head, and still lying within the cloths in which she was wrapped; so that she who before, like a leper, was an abomination to all, and for whom she could not find a nurse to breastfeed her, retained no trace of the former infection. To this miracle testifies Antonia, wife of James of Ragusa, Witness XXIII, asserting that the water which welled out from under the aforesaid crusts was very foetid, and that she was present at that evening at which the mother, bewailing the sad lot of her daughter, uttered the vow, and on the following morning saw the infant free from all stench and squalor. The same is testified by Joanna, wife of Raymond of Cavallutio, Witness XXIV, adding that she had sometimes been asked by Francesca to give her little daughter her breast; but she had excused herself, for fear of leprosy or similar contagion.
[36] weak in an arm Violans, wife of Antony of la Gaglola, Witness XXV, said that to her son, a boy of about ten years, two abscesses grew out on one of the arms, below and above: which abscesses indeed were cured in some way by doctors and surgeons, but so that the arm itself remained entirely weak and useless. And so on the day of Holy Saturday just past, she asked Blessed William that he would restore her son's arm to its former uses: and as soon as the bells began to ring, she rejoiced that she had been made sharer in her vow.
[37] ruptured and feverish Matthew of Zinza, Witness XXVI, said that three years had passed since, from excessive pressure of labor, his right groin ruptured, whence a swelling grew out like a pigeon's egg: wherefore he was compelled to commit himself to be cured by doctors and surgeons. But when these were accomplishing nothing and the pains were increasing, especially with the south wind blowing; and when to the earlier inconvenience had been added also a quartan fever, by which he felt himself so weakened that he could scarcely any longer ride on horseback; when at length he had come to Scicli at the end of the September just past; on one of the days on which the feverish paroxysm had assailed him, he turned himself to pray to Blessed William; and with this devotion went to the church of Saint Matthew, and placed himself around the monument of the Blessed: where soon falling asleep and afterwards waking, he felt both the rupture of his groin consolidated, and the fever entirely driven away. He is now about forty years old.
[38] suffering from a troublesome discharge John of Fichili, Witness XXVII, after he had answered distinctly to individual chapters, upon Chapter XIV and XVII asserted, that his daughter, named Violanta, wife of Vincent Canzemi, one year before the feast of Saint Paul just past, was so troubled with a discharge between her shins, that she had to be carried if she wished to be moved anywhere, since she could not walk on her feet. She was also tormented day and night with grievous pains; while she was struggling with these, Don Masius de Magro the Cleric visited her, bringing water, in which he said one of the ribs of Blessed William had been dipped, and promising that health could be obtained by his merits if she drank the same water devoutly. The woman believed, and drank the water at that same morning time; in the evening she walked through her house healthy and sound as if she had never suffered any infirmity. The Cleric who brought the water attests the miracle; adding, that he had been the author to the Chapter of that church, that on the most recently past April 4, when the monument was opened, the aforesaid rib should be taken out; and he himself carried water to be sanctified by its touch in a certain cup, and brought it back with him home; but afterwards, having heard of the infirmity of the aforenamed woman, he did and saw, as the father of the sick woman has narrated. And that father also finally deposed several ruptured boys, that in the night of the Vigil, customarily held every year before April 4, very many ruptured boys had been healed, and others freed from other infirmities, among whom was the Witness's own brother, brought to the monument by his mother: whence around midnight the boy came down healed, and ran to his mother rejoicing as if he had never been ruptured, as the aforementioned mother has often narrated.
[39] The Cleric Thomas de Magro, Witness XXVIII, said that in the year of the ninth Indiction just past, he suffered from quartan for three months, which, when it yielded to no human remedies, he vowed a taper to Blessed William if he would be freed from that evil. And from that day to the present he has been free from every fever. But he heard it publicly said in the land of Scicli that many other sick
were healed by the merits and invocation of the aforesaid Blessed, especially boys; and that the evidence of the matter were the bonds of the ruptured hung up on the monument, and the tapers offered by those who professed they had obtained grace: likewise the multitude of those who every year on April third had come together, to keep vigil around the said monument with their sick, for whom they said they had obtained the desired health. Then he spoke about the water, as above.
[40] Natalis de Cammarata, Witness XXIX, said that seven years had passed since his son, then a two-year-old, was suffering great pains from a very protruding rupture, which he testified by frequent crying. But when the witness himself was away from home, the mother vowed a vigil at the tomb, to be held on April third. On the fourth day itself, when the husband returned home, she told him that she had indeed, according to the vow, gone to the church of Saint Matthew, but had not been able to bring the little one to the sepulchre, on account of the tumultuous multitude around it. Nevertheless the deponent asked whether the infant had been healed; and the woman answered that she had not examined it. The father therefore calling the little one to him, to see how he was, removing the bandage, saw him healed and rejoiced. And in rereading, the aforesaid Natalis added and said, that being vexed with quartan fever for six months, he went to a certain hut in which Blessed William, as is asserted, had lived: in which when he had laid himself down and fallen asleep, he seemed to himself to see and hear an old man, commanding him to depart, since he was already healthy. And soon waking he went away healed, and healthy he remains to the present day.
[41] Master Peter de Micheli, Witness XXX, said that he had a son with a hernia, of about eight years of age: for whom, when the doctors had applied their care in vain, and the feast of Blessed William was approaching, the Witness himself and his wife vowed to go to the vigil to be celebrated with their little one: which they did with singular devotion, amid a dense multitude of both sexes gathered to the same vigil, and of little ones brought there. But on the following morning they found their son healed, who survived afterwards in the same health for two years. But since that time at which the event happened, about twenty-six years have passed.
[42] Pinna, wife of Jerome of Gandolfo, Witness XXXI, another suffering an abscess in the neck says that forty years ago, as far as she can recall, an abscess arose in her son John's neck near the ear, which she had cut by the late John delli Volti, medical surgeon: and on the same day the Witness herself went to the parish church of Saint Matthew, taking with her her son, at that time a two-year-old. And when she was there and was praying before the sepulchre of Blessed William, that he might free the little one from all infirmity, she approached the late Venerable Father Anthony of Joccia, who happened to be then in the church, Chaplain of the said church; to whom the witness herself explained the whole matter. He then, having taken a cap from the boy's head, applied it to the bones of Blessed William, and placed it back again. But on the next day, when the Deponent wished to show her little one to the said doctor to be cured, and was removing the bandage from the neck, she found the wound entirely consolidated and in need of no cure. These things happened one week before the feast of Blessed William. But on April third the Deponent went to the said church, to perform the customary vigils, together with various women having their little ones with hernias with them: all of whom at midnight, with the bonds constraining the intestines broken, were healed. These bonds, and a woman with a maimed arm as has been said, miraculously broken, and the little ones healed, the Deponent saw and handled. Now at that same midnight both the Deponent herself and these other women saw, as it were, coming out from under the monument a certain cicada, white and shining, which going around the temple again hid itself under William's monument. At the same moment there was present there a certain woman, who for one year had not been able to bring her hand to her mouth, wife of a certain man surnamed de Caruso: whom the Deponent herself knew to be maimed in that arm; and then in a moment saw her healed, turning that arm through the air, many miracles are done at the Vigil and bringing her hand wherever she wished: while those present to this spectacle were invoking God's mercy.
[43] Bartholus de Agnello, Witness XXXII, said that for many years, the number of which he does not precisely remember, he had been in the ministry of the church of Saint Matthew, and in it persevered for ten years: during which time he remembers that every year, on the third day of April, there was a great concourse there to celebrate the vigil of Blessed William: and many women then brought oil, to feed the lamp burning before the sepulchre; others offered wax candles, and heads made of wax; others the broken bonds of little ones with hernias, whom they said had been healed; others were bringing the ruptured little ones themselves, who afterwards were said to have been also themselves cured. Many also suffering from tertian and quartan fevers placed themselves around the monument of the Blessed, and were freed from their infirmities. But after the Witness himself left the ministry of the church, up to the year just past, he heard similar things every year from men and women who had performed the aforesaid vigil, and among others about a certain Peter Cassacino, who had been freed from the stone. Now of himself he remembers having heard from his mother that, being ruptured in the navel as an infant, so that his life was despaired of, he had been healed through a certain vow of his mother, by which she had bound herself, because by a certain impediment intervening she could not, as she had intended in mind, join herself to the celebration of the vigil.
[44] a consumptive and ruptured boy is healed Paul de Manno, Witness XXXIII, said that about twenty-four or five years had passed since he had a one-year-old son, Roccus by name, so sick that as soon as he had sucked his mother's milk he vomited it up again, and continuously wailed, and like a consumptive had only skin and bones. And what is worse, he was also most miserably ruptured from the vehemence of continuous wailing, so that the known women marveled how his wife could nourish an infant troublesome with such rupture, vomiting, and cries: but she nourished him thus for a whole year. One day, the Witness's mother-in-law advised her daughter, the mother of that little one, to go with her to the church of Saint Matthew, and there keep vigil beside the sepulchre of Saint William: which they did with the boy, and brought him afterwards home, as it seemed, perfectly healed: for both the rupture was consolidated, and he ceased to cry, and kept down the milk copiously sucked. From that time, with his flesh growing, he began to be strengthened, and lives now also healthy and sound, a young man of twenty-five years.
[45] Francis de Marturana, Witness XXXIV, said that three years ago he had d a discharge beneath his neck around the shoulder, descending from there to the kidneys; a fistulous arm which yet revealed itself only by swelling, but the surgeons opened this and took out a ball of pus, but the wound they could not cure for two whole years, during which the fistula gaped; and emitting a great abundance of pus it made the arm itself useless. At length he conceived a vow of keeping vigil at the sepulchre of Blessed William, and if he should obtain health, of offering a ducat, to be spent in the legation then decreed to be sent to Rome for obtaining the feast of the said Blessed. Straightway as he uttered the vow, through the grace of almighty God and the intercession of Blessed William, he was healed, and in the month of April in the church of Saint Matthew fulfilled his vow by keeping vigil, giving thanks for the health recovered.
[46] Mazullus de Cappitta, Witness XXXV, said that suffering for about three months from severe pain of the head and being deprived of hearing, on a certain morning he came to the church of Saint Matthew to be present at the sacred office of Mass, only ten days before. a deaf man And when he had approached the sepulchre of the Blessed, and had leaned his head on it, he began to pray the Blessed to restore his hearing and take away those severe pains: if he should do this, he would bring by vow a wax head. And behold, at once the pain departed, and he himself from then on heard as perfectly as he ever had before.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
The remaining Witnesses heard at the end of January.
[47] A ruptured boy is cured On the 28th of the same January, Tuccia la Sinaguglia, Witness XXXVI, said that for many years, the exact number of which she does not recall, her brother Matthew, then a little one, had been so enormously ruptured, that from both groins the intestines greatly protruded, and wore a bandage made to contain them. On that evening, when the vigil of Blessed William was being held, the deponent herself and others of the household brought the said Matthew to the often-mentioned church, where several, both men and women, were keeping vigil with great devotion: but when morning came the boy was found wholly healed, with no swelling appearing anywhere.
[48] On the 29th of the same month, the Venerable Don Nicholas de Zisa, Witness XXXVII, having touched his breast in the priestly manner, said that for about thirty years he had performed the office of Sacristan in the church of Saint Matthew: and during all that time he saw with his own eyes, on the third day of April, and a girl coming to the Vigil of Blessed William very many men and women, who afterwards said to the Witness himself that they had obtained the desired grace. But the witness himself had a sister, ruptured in both groins; upon whom on the evening of the vigil the Witness himself applied over the affected parts the shoe of Blessed William: and immediately she was healed. He also had a certain cleric-servant, called Antony Cassarinus, likewise a man with a stone who suffered great difficulty in passing urine: but on a certain day, when he was a boy in school, he felt greater pains and anguishes than usual: wherefore he invoked Blessed William for help, and immediately feeling himself induced to urinate, went out of school, and cast out a stone as big as a hazelnut, which the witness himself saw with his own eyes, when the thing happened, no more than three years ago.
[49] Sister Violans de Agnello, of the third Order of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel, likewise a man ruptured in the navel Witness XXXVIII, said that her son Bartholus Agnellus was born ruptured at the navel; the rupture fell like a great sausage, and when he sucked the breast became more swollen: in which state the infant remained for the first four
months of his life. But on a certain day she vowed to keep vigil at the sepulchre of Blessed William: but on the very evening on which she wished to fulfill the vow, wandering guests came to her house, on account of whom she was compelled to remain at home, yet with tears she invoked Blessed William, reciting the Rosary in his honor: and the same prayer she recited again the next morning, before she loosened the infant's swaddling clothes. But when she loosened them, she found the navel restored to its place, and had the boy healthy thereafter; about eighteen years ago.
[50] and another Antoninus de Melfis, Witness XXXIX, said that his mother, the late Miralda of Paul of Melfis, for about fifty-four years, had been accustomed to narrate to him the witness, how he had been ruptured both in the navel and in both groins in his infancy: but the same mother on the evening of the Vigil brought him to the church of Saint Matthew: being prevented, however, on account of the crowding of people from approaching the monument of the Blessed more closely, she placed the boy on the pavement of the church, and kept vigil there, and on the following morning found him healed.
[51] a quartan fever Nicholas de Corvo, Witness XL, said that for about twelve years he had been suffering from quartan, to drive away which many remedies applied long and in vain did not avail: his mother therefore considering how great was the devotion of the people and the fame of the miracles of Blessed William, advised him to go to the little house in which he had lived and died, and there to lay himself down as if to sleep. He did what was advised on the day of the next paroxysm, and rising from sleep felt no more fever.
[52] a pain in the side Peter de Carthia, Witness XLI, said that in times just past he had been vexed for three years with pains in his side, with which he was greatly tormented: but on a certain day, the same infirmity and pains recurring, about six months ago, with great devotion he asked that the shoe of Blessed William be brought to him: and placing it upon his breast, he began to pray Blessed William that doing him a grace he would intercede with omnipotent God, that he would take away such great pains, and on the same day he was made sharer in his vow.
[53] two ruptured boys The honorable Antonina, widow of the late John de Michilenio, Witness XLII, said that it was about thirty-five years ago, that she had a certain son of hers, named Alibertus Michilenius, an infant of about four months, foully ruptured: but having gone out to make the Vigil of Blessed William, afterwards when she returned from it, she found the boy also healed. Similarly it is about six years since she had a grandson, son of Don Jerome Carthia her son-in-law, named Antonellus, suffering from the same evil: for whom in a similar way keeping vigil she obtained health.
[54] a woman with a maimed arm Margaret, wife of the late Paul of Bonus-incontrus, aged 70, Witness XLIII, said that twelve years ago a certain rheum had fallen upon her right arm, whence for two whole years she was maimed: but on a certain day coming to the church of Saint Matthew, and after her prayer offering her weak arm to the monument of Blessed William, she suddenly had the use of it free.
[55] Perna, wife of Peter de Muncata, Witness XLIV, said that in this present year, suffering from tertian, tertian fever finding no remedy in any medicines for altogether three months, on a certain day, when she was awaiting the paroxysm of the returning evil, led by devotion toward Blessed William, she went to the house in which, as is asserted, he himself lived and died: and there lying down, and then rising and returning home, she had nothing of similar evil thereafter.
[56] Perna, widow of the late James de Ricza, Witness XLV, said, and quartan that for three years she had been suffering so troublesome a quartan that she seemed to herself extremely weak and half-dead; she made a vow of bringing two quartuccias b of oil to the lamp of Blessed William: when she had fulfilled it, and indeed with bare feet having gone to the church of Saint Matthew, and at the monument of the Blessed having lain down, with much devotion, she afterwards never felt the said fever.
[57] an almost blind young man Sannutia de Lupo, Witness XLV, said, that for six years she had had a grandson, named William, upon whose eyes a little cloud had grown, occupying nearly the whole pupils with its whiteness; so that for five whole years he had to go as it were groping, deprived of nearly all sight: nor did any of the many remedies applied avail. When therefore on a certain day he was suffering heavier pains in his eyes, he went to the church of Saint Matthew, to ask a grace from Blessed William; and falling down before the monument in prayer, and applying his head to it, through the mercy of almighty God and the intercession of the blessed man, as he firmly holds, he received in a moment the perfect faculty of seeing, as before.
[58] The venerable Don Peter de Burato, of the land c of Ragusa, and at present found in this land of Scicli, Witness XLVI, having touched his breast in priestly manner, said that according to his d recollection, it is about fifty years ago, that to the house of his late father Antony de Burato, a wound of the shin from a blow of an axe the late Thomas Sturnellus of Scicli came, and in mutual conversation the said Thomas discussed many things about the miracles which in Scicli God was continually working through the merits of Blessed William. But it happened a little after, that the said father of his, having gone out to cut wood with an axe, the blow missing, inflicted a great wound on his shin, whence blood gushed copiously. Being thus wounded, the miracles recently heard from the Scicli guest came into his mind; and he said: "O Blessed William, please help me through your mercy, that soundness being received through your grace, as I hope, I also may be one of the witnesses of the benefits which you are accustomed so liberally to do for your devotees." And saying this he placed his hand on the wound, and feeling it so deep, he was stupefied; and growing pale fell to the ground; and so he lay, more like dead than alive, for some time. But as he lay there, a certain man appeared and said: "Come, rise, for through the vow made to Blessed William you have deserved health." Then he, returning to himself and rising, saw the wound consolidated and himself sound. Wherefore, lest he should be ungrateful for such a benefit, from the land of Ragusa he went to the land of Scicli, and there after thanksgiving made in the church at the monument publicized it, and this very thing was also most notable at Ragusa, when Antony showed on his shin the great scar left from the wound, which his son Peter certainly knows he had not had before.
[59] a flow of blood Sister Margaret, daughter of Master Marianus Velardita, of the third Order of Mount Carmel, Witness XLVII, said that in this present year, in September just past, a flow of blood came upon her, with the greatest pains of the belly and kidneys: and that infirmity held her for twelve days, so that she believed she would altogether die, since the flowing blood filled whole basins, and could be stopped by no aids of the medical art. Thus being weak and foreseeing death near, the memory of Blessed William came to her aid, and she said: "O Blessed William, I beseech you that you would free me from this infirmity, and I will devoutly offer one tarus e." Having said this the blood stopped, the pains ceased, and she resolved to have the feast of Blessed William henceforth as Easter. The same affirmed Beatrice wife of Master Marianus, Witness XLVIII, mother of Margaret, who ministering to her daughter thus suffering suggested that she invoke Blessed William: and being present marveled at the sudden cure.
[60] On the second to last of January, Antonia, widow of the late Nicholas de Carthia, Witness XLIX, aged 60, said that she had a brother, a great stone named Philip of Ragusa, who was prevented by a stone from passing urine, and suffered much. He, on a certain day, when the torments were more bitter, made a vow to Blessed William for his liberation: and immediately, before he finished reciting the Apostolic Creed, he passed a stone as big as a date. And this stone the said Philip showing to the Witness herself said: "Behold, sister, after I made a vow to Blessed William, I received grace: and this stone, God be praised, I cast out through my members." He lived for some years thereafter, nor ever complained of such pain or inconvenience.
[61] Margaret, wife of Francis de Mayuti, Witness L, narrates it is about twenty years ago, according to her seeing and memory, that her mother, named Antonella, was suffering from the f French disease, and had lost her voice and faculty of speaking through the said infirmity; when Antonella's mother, a mute woman the witness's grandmother, advised her to make a vow to Blessed William to perform his Vigil every year. Antonella obeyed: but when the day of the Vigil came, and Antonella wished to go to the church of Saint Matthew, she could not, because her mother had become sick. Therefore greatly mourning, and grieving that she could not go to the Vigil as she had promised, at length she lay down to sleep at her home: but on the following day she found herself so healed, that she spoke much more perfectly than ever before.
[62] The noble John de Prato, of 53 years, Witness LI, an abscess in the mouth said about 30 years had passed since, beneath his mouth, a most troublesome abscess had grown, which allowed him neither drink nor food, and generated the greatest pains day and night. On the feast day of Blessed William he made some vow to the said Blessed, asking that he would deign to take away this infirmity and pains. And immediately it pleased omnipotent God that the abscess miraculously burst; and from that no more pain in the mouth or any other inconvenience was felt.
[63] Florentia, wife of John de Yzisa, of about 40 years, Witness LII, asserted tubers on the hands that nearly 30 years ago, within the palm of both her hands a tuber had grown, by which they were rendered entirely useless to her together with the fingers. On a certain evening, when there was a concourse to the Vigil of Blessed William, moved by similar devotion she also went in the company of other women to the church of Saint Matthew, asking Blessed William that he would deign to heal her. She then applied her hands to the monument: and the night being passed, with the tubers removed, both hands being sound and her fingers movable for all use, she moved them easily and agilely.
[64] Margaret, widow of the late noble Antoninus de Scalso, Witness LIII, a girl lacking a heel asserted that five years ago she bore a daughter named Jannella, who on her right foot had no heel, and consequently was judged to be going to be maimed for her whole life. And so the Witness herself with her husband vowed to Blessed William a shin and a foot made of wax, to be carried to his sepulchre, in case obtaining the desired grace for their child, the foot should be placed in its natural state, without such deformity: and soon there appeared in the right foot a heel entirely similar to the left. The noble Joannella, widow of the late noble Libertus de Fichichia, was present to the woman in labor, and had heard the vow being made, and had known the grace performed.
Witness LIV, and confirmed everything, as above.
[64] another paralytic Margarita de Galesi, Witness LV, ten years ago had a son Nicolaus, paralyzed for three whole years, so that he could neither move nor turn himself: but the Vigil of Blessed William approaching, the Witness herself hastened with other women to the temple of Saint Matthew, and was there until the following day. Meanwhile her son was suffering more grievous pains than before: but being freed from these at dawn, he ran to meet his mother returning home healthy and cheerful, and even now walks and moves in health.
[66] another with a hernia Antonutius de Xaczenio, Witness LVI, said, that in the year just past a certain one-year-old son of his, so herniated that the intestines protruded to the size of an egg, a vow having been made by the witness himself and his wife of holding a Vigil; this being performed and on the next morning the swaddling clothes being untied, he appeared healed. And of the very many miracles accustomed to be done at such a Vigil, and of the popular devotion toward the Blessed, greatly promoted by such things, in general concordantly deposed the Magnificent Michael de Ascenso, Witness LVII, and the Magnificent Peter de Michichenio, Witness LVIII.
[67] The venerable Brother Clement Scachiapani, of the Order of Saint Francis, and a man suffering from quartan aged fifty, Witness LIX, said that two months ago, suffering from quartan fever, he had placed himself upon the monument of Blessed William. Nevertheless in that very place the fever invaded him: but to him sleeping, a man seemed to stand by saying: "Come, rise, for you are already healed": and rising he found himself healed, and remains so. And after him again, about the miracles of the Vigil, accustomed to be done every year, in general deposed the Venerable Don Antoninus de Bonfilio, of the age of sixty years; and the Venerable Don Antoninus de Branca, of the age of fifty years; Witnesses LX and LXI, by sight and hearing.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
The final report of the Commissary himself, the conclusion of the Process, and the decree of beatification.
[68] The report of the Magnificent and Reverend Don John de Donnis, Subdelegate to the cause, made at the instance of the Magnificent Jurats and University of the Land of Scicli, most urgently asking for the aforesaid report, under the bond of an oath, his breast having been first touched in priestly manner, upon the IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, The Commissary in the cause testifies that he believes the man to be Blessed XV, and XVI Chapters of the memorial, presented in the happy city of Palermo, made on the second to last day of the same January, 11th Indiction 1537, is as follows: that the Reporter himself, on account of those things which he saw with his own eyes, and on account of the depositions received by him of the Witnesses examined before him, firmly judges, believes, and holds, that Brother William de Cuffitella, about whose beatification we are treating, while he had life as his companion, was humble and faithful toward God, a man of good fame, of simple life, and most patient: who in this world had persecutions, and suffered very many things for the love of God. And thus judges the reverend Reporter himself, because he, with his commission and subdelegation, having set out for Scicli, to receive there information and testimonies, about the life, morals, and miracles of the said Brother William, went together and at the same time with the Magnificent Jurats and many noble men and inhabitants of the said land of Scicli, the dwelling of Blessed William having been seen to a certain church under the title and name of Saint Mary of Pietà, which is situated in a most beautiful and highest part of the land of Scicli: whence distant a little, a humble little hut was shown to him; in which the said Magnificent Jurats, nobles and citizens asserted to the Reverend Reporter himself that Brother William had dwelt. Which hut, being so humble, the Reverend Reporter considering, felt much devotion within, and judged that such a dwelling had been of a man very devout and patient, who did not lead a life without great humility and persecutions.
[69] The place also seemed to the Reverend Reporter himself truly eremitic, with the images preserved incorrupt there harsh and suited for leading an eremitic life; and the hut had not been made by an architectonic hand: on the wall of which hut is sculpted by a painter's hand a certain figure, with this inscription, "Blessed William"; and on another wall is painted the image of our Lady. But the said walls were accustomed to become moist, and the Reverend Reporter himself saw them moist, and yet the said figures (namely both the one with the inscription "Blessed William", and the other of the Blessed Virgin) are so sincere and excellent, as if they were sculpted and painted today: which is not without the greatest merit of the said Brother William with God: and the same walls remain in such validity and firmness as if rainwater had never fallen upon them.
[70] On the following day the said Magnificent Jurats, together with the Reverend Reporter himself and many nobles and commoners, went to the mother or b cathedral church of the said land of Scicli, under the title of Saint Matthew: an honorable burial which church, inasmuch as Scicli is not a city, is beautiful and well constructed. But in the chief place of the said church, which the inhabitants called the chapel of the most illustrious Count and Countess of Modica and of the very land of Scicli, the Reverend Reporter saw with his own eyes a stone monument made of a single stone, which monument was supported by two columns, and had inscribed upon it these verses:
Let him who knows not know, here William rests Of Cuffitella; he subdued the wars of the present age And crime, c defiling the threshold of the soul. He reigns in the heavenly theaters, at Christ's command. [d]
[71] But in the said monument rested the bones of Brother William, with the bones smelling sweetly as the said Magnificent Jurats asserted. It is closed by four very beautiful locks, whose keys are in the power of the elders and chief men of the land of Scicli. The Reverend Reporter therefore ordered the monument to be opened, for the purpose of seeing the aforesaid bones: which when it was done, there went forth from the monument a fragrance of the greatest sweetness, as the Reverend Reporter himself and others standing around saw and perceived by smell. But he himself saw in the said monument now opened the said bones, of the best color, sincere and whole, and to some of them nerves or flesh still adhered, and all breathed forth a most sweet odor, so that the Reverend Reporter himself, from great devotion and feeling of piety, at the sight of so many bones and of a body so perfect, was moved to tears. And because the said Brother William was an outsider, seeing his bones so reverently and in a tomb so honorable placed, he believed that the said Brother William was simple, chaste, humble, and endowed with all the highest virtues.
[72] The same Reverend Reporter received the aforesaid testimonies, by which very many miracles are proved, by so many most attested miracles as in the witnesses to whom he refers, and that they were not done by magical art, but by God's merits with the said Brother William mediating! And for the confirmation of the faith, he also saw that the devotion of the people toward the said Brother William was great and most fervent; and by the popular devotion and that the number of witnesses offering themselves to declare the graces conferred upon various persons, was infinite; inasmuch as for one they would continuously run five or six. But when the Reverend Reporter wished to depart, a great multitude came of those wishing to testify: but because a sufficient number had been received and heard, he would not receive more. All which things, as the premises are, being considered by the Reverend Reporter, when the Magnificent Jurats of the land of Scicli, for daily expenses and the hire of beasts of burden, had offered him, about to depart for Noto, seven gold ducats; he, having accepted the same, out of great devotion toward Brother William, soon returned them to promote the expedition of the process.
[73] Finally, the whole commission having been completed in this manner, he wrote letters to the ecclesiastical Judge, by whom he had been delegated, in this manner. "Very magnificent and Reverend Lord, He declares to the Judge how he had fulfilled his commission John Antony of Phassides, Professor of sacred letters and Vicar General of the city and Archbishopric of Monreale, and ecclesiastical Judge and Delegate to the cause. We have received your letters, written by your own hand and fortified and strengthened with your customary seal, containing in effect that we should personally betake ourselves to the town of the land of Scicli, for the purpose of examining and producing several witnesses upon the life, morals, and fame and miracles of Brother William de Cuffitella, for the purpose of providing upon the pretended beatification of the said Brother William, in legal number, at the instance and requisition and petition of the Magnificent Jurats and University of the land of Scicli: which being received and their depositions examined, we should take care to transmit them, closed and sealed in the customary manner, to your Reverend Lordship; as is more fully clear about all the premises and others, by the tenor of the said letters, in the aforesaid city of Monreale on the 8th day of the month of January, Indiction 11, 1537; to which letters of our commission we in all things and through all things refer: and for greater caution we transmit the original of the said letters of your Reverend Lordship together with the memorial presented in the happy city of Palermo on January 11 of the present Indiction to us, together with the aforesaid letters to your Reverend Lordship, with the present enclosed, and placed and enrolled at the head of the present writings.
[74] But we, wishing to conform ourselves to the aforesaid letters and mandates, and with a Notary employed and to obey, acquiesce, and comply with your commands, as is fitting and proper, having taken as precepts and read the aforesaid provisions presented to us, at the instance of the aforesaid Magnificent Jurats and University of the aforesaid land, have executed the aforesaid letters, according to their series, contents, and tenor: and we personally betook ourselves to the said land of Scicli, and in executing the aforesaid letters we chose the Royal Notary Anthony de Avarca, public scribe and one of the noble citizens of the aforesaid land, worthy of faith and legal, a person of good and excellent conscience and fame, a man fearing God, exquisite and experienced in the art of a Notary and in the examination of witnesses, as our Notary, for examining the witnesses to be produced by the said Magnificent Jurats. Whom being chosen, having heard the witnesses by the same royal Notary, in our presence and sight, the oath having first been administered by us to the aforesaid witnesses, we and the same Master Notary, with such diligence
and solemnity as is fitting, and secretly and one by one, examined the above said and written witnesses, interrogating them about the cause of their knowledge, place, and time, and other circumstances required by law, to a sufficient, legal, and beyond that number, since the matter concerns a very great cause: and at the instance of the aforesaid Magnificent Jurats, present in the petition of the said report, absent however from the relation made, secretly we made our relation, together with the present enclosed."
[75] whose depositions closed and subsigned he sends "Which testimonies together with the said letters and memorial we transmit and commend to you, closed and sealed in the customary way, and fortified and strengthened with our subscription and our seal: and for greater validity also with the subscription and customary seal of the Reverend Vicar e of the land of Scicli and the subscription and customary seal of the magnificent Jurats of the aforesaid land fortified and strengthened, consisting in eighty-six written and unwritten sheets, besides the said memorial and letters. Wherefore at the instance of the aforesaid Magnificent Jurats and those whom it concerns, the present letter is made, to be valid in its own place and time, given at Scicli on the first day of February, 11th Indiction 1538. To the wishes of your Reverend and Excellent Lordship ready, Don John de Donnis as above. Don Paul de Michichenio Master Notary. I Joseph Gravina, Jurat. Martin Jozia, Jurat. Colaus Michicheni, Jurat."
[76] The same three Jurats signed an ample attestation of the legality of the aforesaid Notary Anthony de Averca; these being known with John Baxettus Master Notary subsigning with them. By virtue of all which things at last by John Antony Phassides was dictated the sentence or bull of beatification, with the decree of the Office and of the Mass, in the following tenor. "In the name of the Lord. Amen. To all and each of the Lord Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Provosts, Deans, He announces to all Archdeacons, Scholastics, Cantors, Custodians, Treasurers, Sacristans, Canons of Cathedrals and Collegiate churches, Rectors of Parish Churches, or Lieutenants of the same, Pastors, Vice-pastors, Chaplains, whether curates or not, Perpetual Vicars, Altarists; and to the Ministers of Religions, Orders, Monasteries, Convents, and houses whatsoever, General and Provincial, Vicars, Custodians, Masters, Preceptors, Commendators, Priors, Persons, Brothers, and Religious; and to the other Presbyters, Clerics, Notaries and public Scriveners; and also to the illustrious and distinguished Dukes, Marquesses, Counts, Barons, Knights, Governors, Consuls, Proconsuls, Rectors, Potestats; to the magnificent and noble Captains, Judges, Castellans, Bailiffs, Servants, civil Officials, Territorians, and to the other judicial Officials; and to Officials, and to whatever persons having for the time spiritual and temporal jurisdiction, and existing in this kingdom of Sicily and especially in the city of Scicli; and to all and each, of this present instrument inspecting, seeing, reading, likewise and hearing. We John Antony Phassides, Professor of Sacred Theology, John Ant. Phassides and of the most illustrious Lord Alexander f, of the title of Saint Lawrence in Damaso, by the grace of God Vicechancellor of the Apostolic Chamber, Cardinal of Farnese, and Archbishop of the Archbishopric of the city of Monreale, Vicar General; subexecutor and deputy for the things written below, by the beloved John Antony Puleonus, Baron of Burgio, to whom principally by the Apostolic See this business had been delegated: greeting in the Lord, and to give undoubted faith to the present, and to obey firmly our commands of this kind, nay rather, Apostolic."
[77] "Apostolic letters of the most holy Lord Paul, by divine providence Pope the Third, sealed, as is customary, under the ring of the Fisherman, directed to the said Lord John Antony Puleonus by the mandate of Paul III, we have received, sound and whole, not vitiated, nor suspect in any part of them; upon which the Viceregal executoriae emanated, dated at Palermo November 17, eleventh Indiction, 1537, exhibited and presented before us, by the University of the city of Scicli, and its Procurator g specially named in the Apostolic letters, as subrogates, and deputies and constituted for these things by the said John Antony Puleonus Principal, h... After the presentation i and reception of which Apostolic letters, made to us and by us as above premised; we were by the procurator of the said University of the city of Scicli, specially named in the same Apostolic letters, with due instance requested to proceed to the execution of the same and of the things contained in them. At whose request wishing, as we are bound, to obey the Apostolic mandates, we ordered suitable and trustworthy witnesses to be received and examined, having heard the depositions of the witnesses and did so; and these rightly and lawfully received, and admitted to take an oath, sworn, and diligently examined, and their sayings and depositions by the Notary written below, chosen by us in the presentation of the same letters before us as scribe, master Notary and Actuary of our Curia and public Notary of this happy city, faithfully redacted in writing, we informed ourselves. And because by the legitimate and diligent information, by us from the said witnesses and others exhibited and presented to us, and with the aforesaid sanctity of William upon this business as premised, made and received, we found that the said William during his life had led an eremitic life in austerity; and had been a modest, pious, humble man; and had devoted himself to fasts, vigils, and abstinences; and had done many and various miracles, both in life and in death, and from the time of his death in continuous times up to the present day; and all and each of the things expressed and asserted in the said Apostolic letters were and are as they were set forth and asked, and were supported by the truth."
[78] the feast of Low Sunday "We therefore the aforesaid John Antony who are above, by Apostolic authority, which in this part we exercise, grant and impart license to the said University of the City of Scicli, to be able to venerate the said William publicly, and every year on the eighth day after the feast of the Lord's Resurrection immediately following, to celebrate freely the feast and office of the same William in the aforesaid church and City of Scicli, and to cause it to be celebrated processionally, under the office however of Confessor and not Pontiff, with the Oration and Offertory written below, to the honor of omnipotent God and the praise of the said William, under the following tenor.
ORATION.
Omnipotent eternal God, who through Blessed William your Confessor workest wonders; and he ordered the proper Mass grant, we beseech thee, that as through the intervention of his merits thou bestowest health of sick bodies, so mayest thou make us arrive at eternal Blessedness, through our Lord.
SECRET.
Look, O Lord, propitiously upon the gifts which we offer to thee giving thanks, in honor of thy holy Confessor, and impart to us the aid of thy pity.
POSTCOMMUNION.
We have taken, O Lord, the sacraments which by thy kindness thou bestowest upon us, and we beseech, that those which we present with pious devotion, through the intercession of Blessed William thy Confessor, may be accompanied by thy holy recompense, and we may take greater gifts...
So that by the present the said William, on account of the premises, is by no means held to be canonized; inasmuch as the act and solemnity of canonization pertains only to the supreme Pontiff."
[79] "In faith and testimony of all and each of the premises, and ordered this to be signed by a public instrument we have ordered this present public instrument thence to be made, and by the public Notary aforesaid and written below to be subscribed and published, and have commanded and caused it to be fortified with the impression of our seal. Done in the happy City of Palermo, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1537, indiction 11, on the 26th day of the month of February, that he should cause to be signed of the Pontificate of our aforesaid Pope: in the presence there of the noble Jerome de Urso, son of the late Anthony, the noble Thomas de Maria of the aforesaid city of Scicli, and Cleric Nicholas de Nicolosi of Palermo, witnesses specially called and requested for the premises. k And I Vincent Coxia, by Royal authority throughout all the Valley of Mazara Notary, with authority of causing to write and register, in all and each of the premises, while they were being done and made as above premised, was present, and being asked I took them up, and reduced them to this public form, and signed it with my customary sign, in faith and testimony of all and each of the premises. l"
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VII.
The depositions of the Witnesses heard at Palermo.
[80] Before the Commissary, sent to Scicli, compiled that process which we have hitherto related; In the month of November other witnesses had been received at Palermo many came to John Antony Phassides at Palermo, to faithfully testify whatever they knew about Blessed William, for obtaining the cause before the ecclesiastical Judge. Their depositions could have been placed in first place: but because they were not examined by distinct articles, as were those whose depositions we related above, the reports were also less distinct. Wherefore, as in the ecgraph sent to us they held last place, so also in last place we shall give the same here, not indeed entire, verbatim repeating the sayings of individuals, but we shall summarily recount them; setting forth the names and order of the witnesses, and adding to each.
that which each one singularly, and not more fully said by others, deposed, lest anything be wanting to the history of Blessed William, which is more safely to be sought from these testimonies than from more recent authors.
[81] At Palermo on November 27, 11th Indiction 1537, witnesses were received and examined by me the Notary Vincent Caxia, about his homeland chosen for this by the Reverend Lord John Antony Phassides... and this in the presence of the said John Antony... upon the contents of the Apostolic Letters given at Rome on June 27, 1537. The Venerable Father John Sachiano, of the land of Scicli, said only that he knew, that Blessed William Cuffitella... was from Noto by origin, of the Cuffitella family: which the same affirmed Witnesses II, by the miraculous shoe V, VIII, and XIV. Moreover Witness I, treating of the shoe left at Guiccionius's house before his death, says that Blessed William used these words: "Take and keep for yourself this shoe"; but that the Jurats of the land, having seen so many signal miracles done through that shoe concerning women in labor, took it out of the power of the heirs of the Guiccioniuses, and placed it in the monument in which was laid the body of Blessed William.
[82] The Venerable Don Sartorus de Nativo, of the land of Scicli, Witness II, aged 52, deposing about the miraculous immobility of the body until the church of Saint Matthew was named, with a notable act of mortification said that he knew these things from the report of a certain Master Silvester Cassarinus, dead four years ago yet not fully completed, in the more than eightieth year of his age, a man so upright that in his whole life he would not have uttered one lie: from whom also he said he had heard, that Blessed William, in the time of his life, touched by an appetite for a calf's head, took care to obtain it: and having obtained it, brought it to his hut, and there kept it, until it began to swarm with worms and to stink: and that he thus often placed the rotted flesh to his nostrils, saying: "Behold, body, the calf's head that you desired; be sated and enjoy." The miraculous gravity in the Burial is also testified by Witness III Don Matthew Fanzellus, of the land of Scicli, and living at Palermo.
[83] by the elevation of the sepulchre On November 29 the venerable Presbyter Pinus of Burgio, aged 75, Witness IV, said that a certain Canon of Syracuse, Andriottus of Aritium, being sick at Scicli, having recovered by the invocation of Blessed William an eye which he had almost lost, took care that his tomb be elevated higher from the ground upon certain small columns: he said he had heard thus at Palermo, whither forty years ago he had migrated from his homeland Scicli. On the same day the Venerable Brother John of Scicli of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance, Witness V, testified about the wine and the pastries in the house of Guiccionius, about the immobility of the body, about Brother Stephen Ischifittus preaching in the land of Scicli and twice healed from rupture, and about the sterility or drought removed after the head of Blessed William was brought out and carried around.
[84] On November 30, the noble Franciscus de Baglerio, of the land of Scicli, Witness VI, said that a yoke of oxen was employed to move the body that to move the body a cart and a yoke of oxen had been applied in vain: which Witness LI also had said, and the aforesaid Witness VI adds that at length it was concluded that the oxen should be permitted to go where they wished: and so the oxen permitted to themselves held a straight course to the church of Saint Matthew. Likewise, that on April 4 the body or bones of the Blessed are taken out from the monument, which he himself had seen being touched or washed, indeed he himself had touched and washed them with water: and that this water was beneficial and had been beneficial to many for driving away fevers and other infirmities. On the same day were heard, the noble Joseph Bono-incontro, of Scicli, Witness VII, and Master Antony de Cavalluccio of Scicli, Witness VIII: of whom the last said by the constant devotion of the people that he had been freed from a fever by lying down upon the brushwood-bed of Blessed William. Likewise the noble Antony Purchelli, of Scicli, Witness IX, and the noble Antonutius Masius Riczone, of Scicli, Witness X, of whom the last said that a few years ago some feared lest, in performing the Vigil of Blessed William, they might err, because he himself had not been canonized; and therefore desisted and still desist from the practice of such religion: yet others preserved the custom of keeping vigil by private devotion, and report many graces.
[85] with the bells ringing of their own accord On the same day the noble Blasius Bono-incontro the younger, Witness XI, said that he himself, suffering from fever and lying in the hut of Blessed William, had been healed: likewise from what is said and from public fame, he narrated that on a certain day the sound of the bells was heard in the church of Saint Mary the New (thus all these witnesses heard at Palermo call the church, which those heard in the land of Scicli almost universally name Saint Mary of Pietà); by which sound the confraters roused, when they had come to the aforesaid church, to see why it was being rung, found the doors closed and marveled: but much more when they saw the sacristan of the church itself, who alone could have opened the church, coming from outside with the keys. But it being opened, and no one appearing who was pulling the bells, while meanwhile other bells were also ringing elsewhere of their own accord, William was found kneeling with hands joined, dead: whom they could not lift from the ground, until they began to say the Litanies; by the bringing in of the body into the church of St Matthew under which the body was lifted onto a cart, to be drawn by two oxen: which yet accomplished nothing, until, during the saying of the litanies, they came to the name of Saint Matthew: for then the cart was moved, and the oxen, although the road was steep, of their own accord went to the church of Saint Matthew: and entered it through a certain gate, so narrow that it seemed impossible that more than one ox could pass through it: yet being joined they brought in the cart and the body. But in the hut in which Blessed William had dwelt, a certain yoke is kept: which is said to be the very one by which the oxen were yoked, which drew the body. Thus he, the credit for whose things, in the silence of so many other witnesses, be upon the author: otherwise it is not strange in things that are reported only from hearing to vary some things; some things to be said by one which all the rest have passed over.
[86] The noble Antonutius Gallus of Scicli, Witness XII, said that for twenty years and more he has seen on the more solemn days the bones of Blessed William washed, and the water of this washing or dipping distributed for the remedy of many infirmities. Angelus de Alfano, of Scicli, Witness XIII, recalls with various miracles that as a little one suffering from fever he had placed himself upon the brushwood upon which Blessed William was said to have been accustomed to sleep: but whether he had been healed he could not at present recall. On the first of December, the honorable Peter Daniolus, of Catania, Witness XIV, having eight years ago led a wife from Scicli and residing there, judged from the painting that Blessed William had been a monk, such as are the Friars of Saint Francis of Paola, and also said, as Witness IX, that he had been found dead in the church of Saint Mary the New, with the bells ringing of their own accord: and finally, that on the very feast day, when a sermon about Blessed William was being held to the people, he was often present; and had seen with his own eyes a blind woman healed; likewise a Maltese ruptured; and a certain man of Modica, who could neither eat nor drink, and having made a vow of giving six tari in alms, continuously received health, and rose from his bed. The witness himself also knows that the sons of a certain de Carthia had been healed from rupture, and that to a certain mute nun the faculty of speaking had been restored. Similarly the honorable Nicholas Denaro, of Scicli, Witness XIII, said that among others healed in the Vigil of the Blessed, he had seen with his own eyes the sons of Jerome Garrega, ruptured on both sides, who in sign of the miracle done to them, left their bandages hung up upon the monument.
[87] in religious habit On December 12 the Venerable Don Silvester Morriali, of the land of Scicli, Witness XV, sworn and interrogated about the whole matter (and thus almost all the others preceding were interrogated, about the whole matter, that is, about all the things which were asked in general concerning his life, sanctity, and miracles) said, from the report of others, that William had been a tertiary of the Order of the Carmelites, and had observed that rule. But he narrated the miracle of the wine from the mouth of Miranda Massa, who was the niece of Paul Guiccionius: and the miracle of the body halting on the way, until the church of Saint Matthew was named, from the mouth of Master Silvester Cassarinus, after whose house the body itself stopped, who Silvester lived up to the hundred and fifth year of his age, and only two years ago died. The witness himself also holds one of the keys with which the monument of the Blessed is opened and closed. Often also he saw and touched the bones, clothed still with certain flesh and sweet-smelling. But in the past year he carried the shoe of the Blessed into his house, and when one of his neighbors had a little daughter with a hernia, he placed the said shoe upon the little girl, and thus she was continuously healed.
[88] Thus far the depositions of the sworn witnesses received at Palermo, which, as I said above, Faith about the faithful transcription of the originals all almost in general declare from hearing the holy life of Blessed William and the public devotion of the people of Scicli toward him: most add the miracle of the body halting on the way, and of the bells ringing at his death: two or three remember the bran pastries: more the wine drawn from an empty vessel. But that these depositions, together with the whole Scicli process, have been faithfully transcribed from the originals, the public Notary of Scicli, Franciscus de Trumba, testified by word in that authentic ecgraph which is with us, those making faith for him, who had ordered the originals to be transcribed for us, in this manner. "We Judges and Jurats of this illustrious and victorious city of Scicli, make faith and testify to all and each of those who shall see, read, and likewise hear these present, the Jurats of Scicli do that the above said Franciscus de Trumbatore Corbo, who copied the above said with his own hand from the original process, preserved at the Reliquary where the relics of Saint William are preserved; was and is Master Notary of the Vicarial Curia of this aforesaid city of Scicli, exercised and still exercises the aforesaid office well and faithfully, to whose acts, copies and transcripts everywhere full faith must be given. In witness of which thing we have commanded these present to be made, subscribed by our hands, and fortified at the foot with our seal which we use. Given at Scicli on the 23rd of April, 8th Indiction, 1670. D. Carolus de Angelo, Jurat. D. Jacobus Fiachella, Jurat. D. Didacus Anilli, Jurat. D. Petrus Carthia, Jurat. Place ✠ of the seal. Joseph de Aprile Master Notary."
continuation of prior chunk continuation of prior chunk end of entry