ON ST. ANSELM OF MAEON,
AT BOMARZO IN ITALY.
CommentaryAnselm of Maeon, at Bomarzo in Italy (St.)
By G. H.
Polymartium is a town of Etruria, in the borders of the Faliscans and the present Patrimony of St. Peter, now called Bomarzo or Bonmario, set on a mountain between Viterbo and Orta, in whose diocese it is reckoned. Next to Polymartium toward the Tiber is the nearest village Mugnonum, or Maeon as it is called, Name in the fasti, from which St. Anselm, of whom we here treat, is surnamed "of Maeon," that he may be distinguished from other saints of the same name. Ferrarius mentions him in the General Catalogue in these words: "At Polymartium in Tuscany, of St. Anselm the Confessor." In the notes he alleges the records of the Church of Polymartium and Horta, and Landus Leoncinus in volume 2 of the History or Fabric of Horta part 1, from which the same Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy brings forth this encomium: Encomium: "Anselm is said to have shone with no small sanctity at the village of Maeon of the Faliscans (which the common people call Mugnonum); although at what time he was among mortals, has not hitherto been known. His body is most religiously preserved at Polymartium, the nearest city of the Faliscans, in a marble coffer and in an august temple. Feast day, His feast day, which falls on the 8th day before the Kalends of May, is celebrated with the greatest festivity, with the peoples around flowing thither from devotion." The same Ferrarius soon brings forth some miracles of him, received from bare tradition, because his life and miracles, which he wrought while living and even after death, perished through the injury of the times. But he reports these things: Miracles: "Anselm led a most holy life at the village of Maeon near Polymartium in Etruria, and shone with many miracles, some of which are said to have been lately performed. For among other things, when a carpenter had anointed a nail — that it might be more easily driven in — with the oil of the lamp shining before the altar and tomb of St. Anselm (which is wont to be healing for pains), The altar and oil of the lamp: at once his hand began to swell, nor did the swelling depart before he, prostrate before the altar, suppliantly begged pardon. An infant boy led by his mother into the church in which the body of the holy Confessor is buried, took in his hand a farthing-coin from the basin which held the money offered, and put it into his mouth: the body on the altar. which so adhered to his tongue, that by no force could it be pulled out. But when the mother, kneeling with her son before the tomb, had implored the aid of Blessed Anselm, suddenly the farthing came out of the boy's mouth of its own accord. His feast day is celebrated at Polymartium on the 8th day before the Kalends of May, not without a great concourse of people." Thus far Ferrarius. Nicolaus Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in the Poetic Martyrology celebrates him with this distich:
Hiding in the Faliscan country like a needy man, Death makes us know Anselm as he was.