ON BLESSED DOMINIC VERNAGALLI, OF THE CAMALDOLESE ORDER, AT PISA IN ETRURIA.
IN THE YEAR 1217.
PrefaceBlessed Dominic Vernagalli, of the Camaldolese Order, at Pisa in Etruria (B.)
By D. P.
[1] The ancient and noble city of Pisa in Etruria, once head of a republic flourishing by sea and land, then brought under the dominion of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, has had in every age distinguished ornaments of sanctity, among whom is numbered Blessed Dominic Vernagalli, of the Order of Camaldolese, whose memory is celebrated on April 20. Acts from Camaldolese sources The Acts of this Blessed, gathered from ancient records of the Order, and from the traditions preserved in the monastery where he lived and died, are given us by Silvanus Razzi in his Lives of the Saints of the Camaldolese Order, and are touched upon also by other writers of the same Order. From them we draw the following summary of his life and virtues.
[2] He is born of noble parents at Pisa Dominic was born of the noble family of the Vernagalli at Pisa, in the middle of the twelfth century. From his tender years he was drawn to divine things, and despising the pomp and allurements of the world, he resolved to embrace the monastic life. Entering the Camaldolese Order, he distinguished himself in humility, obedience, and the observance of the rule. He was a man of great zeal for souls, and often exhorted his brethren to the love of God and the contempt of the world. He was dear to all for his sweetness of manners and the sanctity of his life, and was regarded as a model of perfection in the monastic state.
[3] He founds a hospital at Pisa for foundlings Moved by compassion for the many infants who were exposed at Pisa, Dominic founded a hospital where these little ones might be received and nourished. This hospital, called the Hospital of the Holy Spirit or of the Foundlings, became famous throughout Italy, and was the first of its kind. Dominic himself gathered the abandoned children, and with his own hands cared for them, serving them as a father. He obtained benefactors to provide for their sustenance, and set over the house pious women who should nurse and instruct them. In this work he is said to have been assisted by divine revelations and by the help of heaven, which did not fail him in any necessity.
[4] His prayer and penance Besides this work of charity, Dominic gave himself wholly to prayer and penance. He passed the nights in vigils, the days in labors; he macerated his body with fasts, hair-shirts, and disciplines; and yet with all this austerity, he was cheerful of countenance and sweet of speech to all who approached him. He frequented the sacraments of the Church with great devotion, and celebrated the divine mysteries with such reverence that he moved all who beheld him to piety. Many miracles are said to have been wrought by him in life: the sick were healed at his word, the demons fled from his presence, the afflicted were consoled by his counsels.
[5] His death and burial At length, full of years and merits, he was seized by his last illness, and having received the sacraments with the greatest devotion, he rendered his soul to God on the 20th day of April in the year 1217. His body was buried in the monastery of Saint Michael in Borgo at Pisa, where it was honored with great veneration by the faithful, and where many miracles were wrought at his tomb. His cult, handed down by ancient tradition, was approved by the Holy See, and his memory is celebrated in the Camaldolese Order and in the city of Pisa on the anniversary of his death.
[6] Testimonies of authors Of this Blessed treat, besides Silvanus Razzi, Ferrarius in his Catalogue of Saints of Italy, Fortunatus Olmi in his Prosopographia Camaldulensis, Thomas Mini in his Chronicle of the Camaldolese, and others. All agree in praising his sanctity, his charity, his prayer, and especially his zeal for the welfare of the foundlings, which has made his memory illustrious at Pisa. His hospital endured for many ages, and became the model for similar institutions in other cities. Thus, by the merit of its founder, a twofold benefit was conferred on posterity: the rescue of many innocent souls from perishing, and the example of an admirable work of mercy, worthy to be imitated by all who love Christ in the least of his brethren.
and prays that by their guidance or patronage she may deserve to go out from Egypt in haste. They, inclining a kindly ear to her petition, returned as quickly as possible to the monastery, and undertook to relate the matter in order to the Abbot. At his message the Abbot rejoicing applauds, and taking some Brothers with him, festively meets the virgin. She, seeing him, humbly runs to his feet, admitted by Odo Abbot of Bonne-Espérance and with eloquent mouth recounts her purpose to him. After they had mingled pious conversations together, and arranged the cause for which they had met, she bidding farewell to her parents and the world, went out from her house and her kindred; and receiving from the same Abbot the habit of holy religion, she entered under him the cloister of obedience, and usefully set about the discipline of monastic profession with the devout women there.
[19] With what fervor of sanctity and zeal she in a short time advanced, She receives the habit of Religion how great was in her the perfection of humility, obedience, and the rest of the virtues, I am not sufficient to tell, poor in sense, life, words, and wit. For that a best end might succeed a good beginning, she sat and first computed the expenses which were necessary, before she set foot to build the tower: lest, if perchance the expenses or material were wanting to the begun work, it should move laughter to those passing by, and the material begun but not finished should suffer a laughable defect; nor would the foundation, laid improvidently, so much correspond to the construction of the tower, as seem to afford a den to thieves, or a monument fit for burying the corpses of the dead. Therefore, avoiding the high mountain top and the thirsty sands, she applies herself to humility she first placed her feet in the ditch of deep humility: and that the construction of her edifice might rise straight up and grow into a holy temple in the Lord, she strove to direct her steps by the line of the Evangelical institution. Because, then, she placed on herself with bent neck the light and sweet yoke of Christ's burden; because, singing the song of degrees, she disposed in her heart ascents in the vale of tears; the Lord put into her mouth a new song, which no one can sing in a strange land, except those in the Apocalypse led under the number of a hundred thousand Virgins. For this song is of Virgins alone, only of those who follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes. Further, she subdued her flesh with such abstinence of food and drink, that the motions of native rebellion, in her dried-up belly, so to say, found no place of rebelling; she tames her flesh so that neither delicate softness nor distended corpulence could soften her chaste and sober mind to venereal intemperance. Whence a certain pagan said: "Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus grows cold." If ever against her the warlike tumult of vices grew hot, if ever a contrary wind swelled up, she did not give her hands to impatience, but with the ram of strong patience dashed her little ones upon the rock; and bravely crushed to earth the head of the serpent lying in wait for her heel. With what diligence she strove to sweat in the workshop of this virtue, the following indication can clearly show.
CHAPTER IV.
Separated life on account of the appearance of leprosy. Election as Prioress.
[20] For when, the allurement of worldly glory spurned, she had still newly subjected her flexible neck to the yoke of obedience, and, laying aside the softness of garments and the sweet enjoyment of foods, had placed her willing foot as in certain fetters of poverty and parsimony, the rough cultivation and scantiness of food weakened her tender and delicate body, and reduced it from the strength of her former health. For that green and robust compaction of her limbs was dissolved by the undigested crudity of foods; and, the humors being corrupted, the surface of her shining skin was infected with spotted tumors. The virgin Sisters therefore, noticing the appearance of her face so quickly changed into an icy pallor; and her skin, which had been clearer than glass, now wrinkled in certain places with faulty swelling, suspected her of being afflicted with the contagion of leprosy, and began to murmur among themselves that she ought to be sequestered from the company of the rest, as from the midst of the camp. Thought leprous, she is separated When this was now openly discussed by all; and by some, who seemed to themselves more prudent in this, after diligent inspection of the place, she was judged leprous, a little hut was ordered to be built for her on the side, and, by dim-sighted human judgment, pure in mind and body, as though unclean, to dwell outside the rest. But the humble handmaid of Christ by no means took ill the reproach of this contempt; nay rather, knowing virtue to be perfected in infirmity, she gratefully bore the unjust reprobation of her name; and passing over in some way the things which false suspicion lied about her, she did not delay to withdraw to the place named. When a certain one of the Sisters of mature age was chosen as companion for her, to console the young woman with maternal affection and to provide necessities for her, the ill-omened woman, though wrinkled in brow, but with irreverent and foolish mind, refused to obey the commands; saying that she was so pusillanimous, or rather, to speak more truly, so feeble-minded, that she could in no way bear the touch of this uncleanness; and that she preferred to incur the offense of disobedience rather than to bring solace to her infirmity. Her rebellious contumacy was castigated by a worthy sentence of regular censure; and to her, whom white-haired maturity had denied its service, the girlish age of virgins afterwards showed prompt attendance. Further, among so many crashes of adversities, she was not moved; most patient in tribulation nay rather, from the difficulty of things her mind grew, and was promoted through the tolerance of sufferings to the summit of the highest sanctity: and made the refuse of all and as it were the useless sweeping of the house, she bore always before her eyes the form of him who for us, being struck, had no comeliness or beauty, nor refused to undergo the torment of the cross. This she said to herself, this she diligently revolved, to this she had turned her thoughts: often looking at and kissing the hand which the reprobate swelling had occupied. For the prudent Virgin knew that whoever has professed this warfare has need of patience; because, as a certain pagan says, "Whatever is wrong to amend, patience makes lighter." And the Apostle says: "Tribulation works patience, and patience trial, but trial hope, and hope does not confound." Rom. 5:3 For, as Symmachus says, hope, which always persuades patience in adverse things, is in safety. For the more devoutly she, in as secret a manner as possible, besought the Lord that, at his good pleasure, he would grant her to emerge from so many dangers with the ship sound, the less did she count, for his love, if she should endure anything heavy or harsh, certain that the fruit of her labor and patience would bring eternal life.
[21] But after she had been much winnowed in the threshing of this floor, Healed she is recalled to the community after her hoof had been well hardened in its harshness, he who does not permit his own to be tempted beyond what they can bear, tempered the scourge of his chastisement; and, the filthiness of the vicious humor removed, recalled her whole and sound to the camp with the rest. But she with such diligent skill, such skillful diligence, frequented the auditorium of obedience, that she suffered herself to be inferior to none in this discipline; whose keeping of the laws she so embraced, that she reckoned nothing harsh, nothing unbearable, but pleasant and light, whatever she was ordered to do. Whence not long after her conversion, a period of time having elapsed, she was chosen by the Father of the already mentioned monastery as Mistress over her fellow-disciples; and because she went before her companions in the merit of virtues, she was set before the rest as a mirror or rule. But, having been made Prioress, she did not swell with the empty blast of pride She is made Prioress on account of the height of the Priorate; rather, the task imposed and the debt of more extensive service rendered her more humble and more devoted. She, acknowledging herself rather as mother than mistress, so cherished her daughters with affection, and advanced them to such a lofty height of religion, that they all embraced her unanimously with filial fear and love, and with her as leader and guide, rejoiced to be drawn by willing progress to better things. she is an example of good Her life was, in some way, a sermon, so ready with mature discretion for the wise and the foolish, that while everywhere remaining equal to herself and the same, yet she conformed herself to each; not that noxious lukewarmness or dissolute slackness should in any degree weaken the tenor of her proposed rigor, but that she might draw them by love, bind them by affection, and, by the welcome impression, more fully form Christ in their hearts. And because, as one has said, it is base to speak one thing and mean another, her works answered to her words, and as though struck into one mold, agreed with each other; and so, in the faults of her subjects, she was carried by magisterial authority and exercised regular discipline, so that, the vicious putrefaction having been scraped out by the roots, she applied a kindly plaster, and added healing medicine to the inflicted wound.
[22] Towards the sick and the poor, herself poor and sorrowing for Christ, she comes to the aid of the sick and the poor she so flowed with such bowels of mercy, that she not only provided necessities for those over whom she presided with maternal solicitude; but also if she knew anyone placed around her to be laboring under the inconvenience of poverty or any invalidism, through a certain faithful vicar of this her secret, she strove somehow to relieve their want out of her little. For she said to him, that this was a pious theft, by which she mercifully succored the infirm, by which she clothed Christ in the naked poor. At length, to use a brief compendium, she shines forth among others in every kind of virtues so great a sanctity shone in her countenance, such honesty in manners, such maturity in counsel, such usefulness in words, such integrity in flesh and spirit, such overflowing charity in loving all, that the magnitude of her virtue exceeded the measure of frail nature, and stretched out in a mortal body the norm of that heavenly conversation. Nor was it wonderful, if she savored of the imbibed liquor which she had drawn from a full vessel: for she could say with the Apostle that her conversation was in heaven. Phil. 3:20 Whose splendor of grace could not be confined within the hiding-places of walls, but, belching forth vast rays, gleamed far and wide; and the best unguent of her name, broken in the house of obedience, was diffused around with such an odor, that it invited many of both sexes to run the good way in the odor of its unguents. Nor did popular favor make her celebrated, or the favorable voices of the crowd, which perish with their very sound; but her proved virtues of mind, which, even if the possessor be placed in a corner, be hidden in a rock, through arbiters of virtues, carry her to the eternal knowledge of ages.
CHAPTER V.
Last sickness, death, and burial.
[23] When therefore she had fulfilled the number of her days, and now the crown of righteousness was laid up for her, for the merit of her labors, it pleased him who called and justified her to terminate the way of her pilgrimage after the due course, and from the shipwrecking dwelling of the world, to transport her by this glorious assumption to a place of placid mansion. For she is seized by her last fever, and wearied by a long-standing languor, Ill with fever and deadly pain within the chamber of her chest rages with frequent stabs: and now, gnawing with hard tooth, as it were certain remains of her body already exhausted by long penance, it weighs more heavily upon her vital spirit: a vicious humor continually enveloping the little tube of the upper instrument,
with asthmatic cough frequently intercepted the passage of breathing: and exercising the tumult of a dire tyranny within the vastness of her stomach, cast forth an importunate cough: and thus the disease, little by little fastening and extending its roots, daily increased. For so indeed, so it was fitting, that in this forge her slag should be refined to purity, so that, thus proved, thus refined, she might deserve to be worthily engraved in the diadem of the supreme King. Wherefore, though having less strength, patiently she bore this pressure with great spirit; giving thanks to God that he had inflicted on her such a buffet, that he had willed her to undergo this threshing. Therefore she applied herself more earnestly to prayer day and night, and praying and anticipated the face of the Lord in confession: and setting herself before herself, she judged her cause by diligent discussion under the eyes of that strict judge; and whatever displeased her in herself, correcting with rigorous invective, she watered his feet with tears like Mary.
[24] And when the oppressive languor had now wearied her for half a year, and with all her strength contracted had bent her wholly upon the bed of sickness, the revived pain, pulsating more sharply within her heart, indicated that she must soon be dissolved; and her vessel, which hitherto she had possessed in sanctification and honor, must be involved in the common lot of mortals. For her natural power, whether of appetite or of retention, had so denied her that she desired no food anymore; nay rather, her stomach refusing, she cast up at once what had been taken. Anointed therefore with the liquor of sacred oil, she is anointed with sacred oil with the offices of nature now lulled, nay buried, her holy soul in her half-living body was wholly intent on heavenly things; and forgetting those things behind, she stretched forth to those before: and by continual prayers and tears commending herself to Christ, whom in her life she had perfectly striven to serve as handmaid, she awaited her agony to be consummated with a glad exit. When her daughters stood sorrowing around their holy Mother, and with tearful prayers asked that she would deign to care for them even when translated to the heavens, she, declining the disease of boastfulness, was troubled by this speech; and bursting into tears met them with such a response: "Why," she said, "O daughters, do you accost me, a sinner, with such words? why do you ask of me, who am of no moment, who am scarcely conscious to myself of any good, those things which belong to the Apostles and the rest of the Saints? Spare yourselves, I beg, such words; and rather implore that pardon may be given to my faults: and that as I pass from here the bosom of Abraham may receive me, commend my end by your prayers more attentively to him for whom and by whom all things live."
[25] on the day of Easter When at length the solemn day of Easter came, when her course was finished and she had now approached the last space of the palm, when the ancient leaven of her body the long languor had purged to purity, the sacred mysteries of our redemption being celebrated, she received that saving Viaticum: strengthened with the Viaticum and the day sinking to evening, the Abbot, Brothers, and Sisters being placed before her, and commending her exit by prayers and psalms according to custom, on the 12th day before the Kalends of May, she dies April 20, year 1158 in the year of the Incarnate Word one thousand one hundred fifty-eight, she rested in peace. When the sacred Virgins had known that she had fallen asleep, they were moved with such affection, weighed down with such sorrow of heart, that their faces were obscured with a very sad pallor, and they bewailed their desolation with tears and sighs unceasingly; and spending devout vigils with prayers and tears over her holy body, they led her holy soul with psalms and hymns to the mount of the Lord and his holy tabernacles. When the day dawned on the morrow, her holy body was borne by the Brothers to the Abbey, and there, in commemoration of her, the most holy Hosts being offered to God, by the venerable Gregory, Abbot of a Aulne, Philip b Abbot of the place itself, and Odo already aforementioned, on April 21 she is buried and by priests and with a great crowd of Brothers, it was committed to burial with great honor, as was fitting. Which, though sown in weakness, I believe will rise in power; sown in corruption, will rise in incorruption; sown in mortality, will rise in immortality; sown in ignobility, will rise in glory.
[26] Happy therefore and blessed her soul, which deserved that day to go out of Egypt, on which that true paschal Lamb restored liberty to the true Israelites; on which Christ rose from the dead, no more to taste of the bitter offspring of this vine. Happy, I say, and blessed, who deserved on that day to migrate into Galilee, on which first the glory of the new resurrection became known to the world; who then deserved to see King Solomon in his beauty, when his mother crowned him on the day of solemnity and gladness, on the day of his espousals. Happy, I say, Virgin Oda, and according to her name is worthy of praise—nay, Oda c emphatically is praise: as the Psalmist, mindful of God's benefits, calls him not merciful, but Mercy by excellence; saying, "My God, my mercy." Ps. 143:2 Now indeed the pious Virgin sees and tastes how sweet the Lord is, not so much through a mirror and in a riddle, which things are past; but she walks in the light of the face of God, and in his name exults all day with those choirs of the Blessed who remained in the contest of combat. She sleeps a happy sleep among the embraces of the heavenly Spouse, inebriated from the plenty of God's house, nor does she suffer anyone to rouse her or make her wake, as long as she wishes to indulge in the sleep of so blessed rest. And though she is secure of the lot of her blessedness, and prays for her own yet her pious care watches always for her Brothers and Sisters, for whose peace and safety she entreats divine clemency; praying that all the impugnments of adversaries may be driven far from their senses and seats. Whence I hope that also to me, who have undertaken to write her life somehow out of zeal of love and devotion, and at the request of the Sisters, what the writer of the Life hopes to be done for himself if anywhere in word I have offended, if I have transgressed the allowed manner of writing, she will grant pardon and obtain ampler grace for me: and me laboring still in the waves of the great and spacious sea, by the oar of her prayers will lead to the desired harbor with easy course, though borne on a fragile wood. That therefore at length, death being swallowed up in victory, we may deserve to please God with her in the region of the living, let us confess to her holy name, and glory in his praise, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.