Honorius

ON SAINT HONORIUS

BISHOP OF BRESCIA IN ITALY.

IN THE YEAR 586.

Honorius, Bishop of Brescia, in Italy (St.)

D. P.

Saint Cyprian, commemorated on April 21, was succeeded in the administration of the Church of Brescia by Herculanus, to be venerated on the day before the Ides of August. Honorius received the place of Herculanus about the year 577, The twelfth after St. Philastrius, whose feast the people of Brescia celebrate on this day. He is inscribed in the modern Roman Martyrology in these words: "At Brescia, of Saint Honorius, Bishop." In the Annotations are cited the records of the Church of Brescia, and the sermon of Rampertus on the translation of Saint Philastrius, after whom Honorius is numbered twelfth. The manuscript Martyrology of Brescia has a long narration of his departure, which we believe to have been taken from Lessons or Legends; but, thinking they deserved little faith, Bernardino Fayno preferred to weave his memory into his new Martyrology with these words: Inscribed in the sacred fasti; "At Brescia, of Saint Honorius, Bishop, in the church of Saint Faustinus Major: who, imbued from his first age with the Christian religion, made such progress afterwards in every kind of virtue that he seemed to live a heavenly life on earth; at length, illustrious in sanctity and miracles, he passed to heavenly delights." These things could be adapted to almost any holy bishop.

[2] Closer to our matter is what the same Bernardino writes in the Annotations concerning the deposit of his sacred body. "His bones were laid up in the church of St. Faustinus ad sanguinem, The body translated to St. Faustinus, now of St. Afra; then translated to St. Faustinus Major, into a proper altar. To his sacred image, formerly sculpted there in marble between Saints Faustinus and Jovita, this inscription was subjoined: 'These marbles enclose the body of the Bishop Honorius.' At length, in the year 1646, at the pious expense of Rutilius Calinus, the altar of this saint was built with marble work and painting in honorable fashion; Enclosed in a new altar in 1646. and on the day of the Annunciation passing, the bones were enclosed in a leaden casket together with public documents, and these laid away in a small white stone box, placed in the middle of the altar in a hollow, on whose face is read, 'Sacred bones of St. Honorius, Bishop of Brescia.' Excepted, that is, are the head and two arm-bones, which were left in their own monstrances for the public veneration of Christ's faithful; and some small particles, which were given by Horatius Barbisonus, Abbot of Monte Cassino there, for the increase of devotion to certain citizens and various places."

[3] Thus Fayno. He admonishes us to note, moreover, that the Histories of Brescia by Jacob Maluetius, Elias Capreolus, Camillus Maggius, and John Baptist Nazarius, where they treat of Honorius, as well as his Legend — namely, that of Gregory Cortese, Abbot of Saint Faustinus, afterwards Cardinal of Lucca, created in the year 1542, printed at Brescia, and others which are read in manuscript in the books of the monasteries of St. John and St. Catharine, one in Latin and the other in the vernacular, and also certain Lessons extant in each place — are all to be read with great caution. [Various Acts of his are rejected by the people of Brescia themselves as fabulous.] "For many things," he says, "are mendacious and fabulous in them, of which the chief are: That Honorius had a brother Arnulphus, and that both were sons of the Emperor Constans, the third-born of Constantine the Great. And that these, fugitives after the killing of their father (which happened around the year 350, nearly thirty years earlier than Saint Philastrius could have been at the Council of Aquileia, himself so much earlier), wandered through various regions of the world, stripped of all things, keeping only their father's ring, which they divided between them. Then, that the Doge of Venice, the Marquis of Montferrat, and the Counts both of Italy and of Savoy, named many times in the aforesaid histories and Legends, granted to Saint Honorius the Bishop, for the honor of his see, those secular titles of Duke, Marquis, Count — which are refuted as less than true and fabulous by Abbot Ascanius Martinengo, writing of the Bishops of Brescia; by Abbot Patritius Spinus, in his manuscript history of the city; and also by Octavius Rossius, in his manuscript history; by Francis Florentinus, in his manuscript Catalogue of Bishops; and by Philip Ferrarius, in his eulogy of this saint, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy."

[4] So, since Bernardino thought thus of the whole history of Saint Honorius, written, as appears, many centuries after his death, he judged it superfluous to fill up paper with transcribing those Legends or Lessons, such as they were; and thought it better to send to us his Life excerpted from Father Obicius the Capuchin and Octavius Rossius, as more truthful and purified. from which, however, others have excerpted what they thought probable, We, in the General Preface before the first volume of January, chapter 3, §4, set forth the reasons why such Lives, written many centuries after from mere popular fame, ought not to be entirely cut off from our work, but can sometimes not unprofitably be reported, with fitting notes added for the correction of errors. Such perhaps are the older Legends of Saint Honorius, and such Octavius Rossius thought them, who repeatedly cites "most valued parchments written in Latin," and has reduced them (with the removal, however, as he says, of the fables with which they are sprinkled) into an abridgment. But we are not accustomed to judge of things unseen, and still less to rely on the judgment of the inexperienced with regard to the distinction of true and false. For what if those Legends were not only sprinkled with fables, but wholly feigned from beginning to end, as are the Legends of the Second Faustinus and Jovita, and others refuted together with the history of the Brescian Martyrdom before the second volume?

[5] That when the daughter of a certain pagan — then presiding over Brescia and no small afflictor of Christians — it can certainly happen that they contain some truth mingled in: had Honorius, found a fugitive in the mountains, heal her disease by the wave of sacred baptism; and that when the same barbarian, now converted and gone abroad, had entrusted necklaces to the Saint, and had been anxious on account of their being stolen, they were brought back to their owner by two clerics of venerable appearance, whom Honorius did not doubt to have been Saints Faustinus and Jovita — these things, I say, could have been handed down by popular fame, and so simply narrated would not be altogether to be rejected, since the Lombards occupied pagan Brescia in 568, and Honorius is thought to have lived until about 585. But circumstances are added which make the whole matter suspect of fiction: but we can determine nothing about things unseen. for Father Obicius calls him "Count of Italy"; which is an argument that the name was taken from the Acts of Saints Faustinus and Jovita, who were accused before the Emperor Hadrian by the Italian Count, presiding at Brescia; and even the name of Marcella is feigned as fitting for his daughter. But Octavius Rossius introduces a Duke of Brescia named Alachis, who from his wife Marcella, a Veronese matron, had a daughter Orielda, and writes that she was cured of leprosy. If from the same parchments which Obicius used, whence that diversity? We therefore withhold our pen from such things until it may be possible

for the sources themselves, however muddy, to be shown to us; which nevertheless we have not thought they needed to be laboriously investigated, until the people of Brescia themselves may think otherwise.

[6] When these things had been written and prepared for the press, Bernardino Fayno sent to us a Life of the same Bishop, Why the most recent Life is given, composed by him in Italian at the urging and asking of friends: in which, because with great judgment, the manifest errors eliminated, only those things are set forth which have greater probability, we cannot withhold from a man so well deserving of us and of Brescian history the praise and thanks that will come to him from this labor; and therefore we have rendered it in Latin, while in the meantime the Italian original was at the press at Brescia. We suppose it came to light before the author himself passed from this light. For he died in the waning of the year 1672; and therefore letters in which I asked permission to correct an error which had crept in concerning the day of death went unanswered — he joining the day that he said was the eighth day of Easter in 586 with April 26. For the Easter of the said year fell on April 14, the Octave on April 21. Why then is April 24 assigned to the anniversary? Because, namely, it was then that the burial was first celebrated, after the body had lain exposed for two days. Very frequently we find the day of deposition celebrated in place of the day of death, especially for holy bishops, and that by reason of the anniversary Office, usually regulated in churches from the day of deposition. I do not doubt that the author himself would have approved the correction we have applied if he had lived. Now the reader must be warned of it, lest reading something different in the Italian, he should hold the fidelity of the interpreter suspect.

LIFE

Composed in Italian by Bernardino Fayno.

Honorius, Bishop of Brescia, in Italy (St.)

FROM THE ITALIAN of Fayno.

PROLOGUE.

The deeds of our elders, the more ancient they are, the thicker almost are the shadows by which they are obscured; Variety of writers on this subject, and the darker they are, the more by confusion do they hide the truth. Seeking a remedy for this evil, various Brescian writers, zealous for their native histories, have spent their pen on describing the life of Saint Honorius, 22nd Bishop of Brescia; but they could not avoid that the multitude of writers drew them into diverse judgments, and from this diversity of judgments some things were approved by some which to others seemed hardly credible. Wherefore I think it should be imputed to good fortune that what Elias Capreolus wrote in book 3 of his History about this holy Bishop has not yet seen the light in printed form; for it could not escape reproof if brought into public. As to the time Whence the chronology is drawn, at which Honorius ascended the chair of Brescia, it has been noted by various writers very topsy-turvy; but better knowledge of it is supplied by the explicit series of the Bishops of Brescia, which Ferdinand Ughelli also produces in volume 4 of Italia Sacra. Therefore, by comparing the times and the writings of all the aforesaid authors, the narrative of Octavius Rossius seemed most probable, as it is extant in manuscript in his History of Brescia, not yet published on account of the author's death. For whatever he selected concerning Saint Honorius from ancient parchments is found to agree excellently with the series of times elsewhere proved. Wherefore, following in his footsteps, and adding what our own particular diligence on the same subject has been able to discover, we have composed this little treatise.

CHAPTER I.

The noble lineage of Saint Honorius, his eremitic life, the conversion of Duke Alahis and of the Lombards obtained through miracles.

[2] That Honorius drew the origin of his birth from the blood of Constantine the Great, all agree: Falsely said to be the son of the Emperor Constans. but those cannot be proved, who dreamed that he sprang from Constans the third-born, thereby overturning the true succession of our Bishops. For nowhere among the authors is it read that Constans married a wife or left sons; but rather that from his father's death, which happened in the year 337, he held the Empire together with his brothers Constantine the Younger and Constantius; and that in the flower of his age — namely, in his thirtieth year — on the borders of France and in a place called Elena, he passed from this life to the other, carried off by a treacherous violent death. Moreover, Fortune, which revolves empires, kingdoms, and dominations, fixed to the wheel of her mutability, transferred the prerogatives of the imperial sceptre from the Constantinian family to others, He could have derived his lineage from the family of Constantine. under whom the shoots of that noble stock, if any survived anywhere, were scattered in different directions. That some survived, though no authority teaches it — because the three sons of Constantine are not known to have received any offspring from legitimate marriages — yet it is scarcely credible that they all lived so chastely that no woman became a mother from them. What of the fact that Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine, after having taken Constantine from Helena, took to himself, as not becoming him now a Caesar, Theodora, daughter of the Emperor Maximianus Herculius, from whom were born Flavius Dalmatius Hannibalianus, another Constantine, and Constantius, heir of his father's name, as Onuphrius Panvinius teaches in book I On the Roman Princes? I say nothing of the daughters procreated by Constantius and Constantine, of whom the authors are almost silent. I say only that nothing absurd is maintained when it is maintained that our Honorius could be derived from some branch of the Constantinian family.

[3] Ordained a priest at Rome, This Honorius, having been brought from the Eastern parts to Rome, when he was seriously thinking how he might be adopted into God's household, seeing that his supreme dignity had perished in his own, after he had drunk in abundantly in those sacred places the spirit of him who had proposed to form for himself a fitting instrument for the saving of men, consecrated himself to the divine service through the reception of the holy orders. Then, wishing to distance himself from every worldly pomp, and to flee far from those popular applauses which might stir up war against the spirit, He lives as a hermit near Brescia. leaving Rome he departed into Cisalpine Gaul; and with God so disposing, he resolved to dwell in the territory of Brescia, and to lead a solitary life in the mountains, ten miles distant from the city, called "Concha," which also formerly provided refuge to some of our bishops, and to many citizens fleeing from the face of pagan power.

[4] Here, while he led a life more angelic than human, The kingdom of the Lombards being divided, content with God and heaven as witnesses and companions, in the year 575, Clephis, second king of the Lombards, was killed at Pavia by the hand of a servant who could no longer endure his cruelty against his subjects. And when the chiefs had gathered to order the succession, the memory of that king was so grievous that, averse to monarchic rule as akin to tyranny, they chose aristocracy, the supreme government being entrusted to thirty Dukes, and the cities divided among them; whose rule without a fixed King lasted for ten years. Thus Alahis fell to the Brescians as Duke. Alahis, Duke of Brescia, From his wife Marcella he had an only daughter named Orielda (some say, but without foundation, that she was named after her mother), upon whom all the care and love of her parents looked, as being endowed with equal grace of manners and form.

[5] But He who makes light shine out of darkness, willing to comfort the afflicted Church of Brescia He commands medicine to be sought for his sick daughter, by converting Alahis to the Christian faith, attacked him at that point where the sorrow was to penetrate most deeply, being the occasion of eternal joy. For, seizing his beloved Orielda with miserable sickness, He made all beauty flow from her, her flesh bubbling up with pustules and fistulas which deformed her entire form. When physicians found no help, resort was had to magicians, who promised health if only she would be given to drink the milk of a she-goat, previously for some days fed on a certain wild herb which they themselves had gathered, and afterwards killed by a serpent's bite. According to the judgment of the magicians: Now it is known in how great veneration the Lombard people always held goats; and therefore we ought less to marvel that the magicians should have ordered milk to be sought chiefly from this animal, which to that foolish people was thought to have a certain divinity in it. Men were therefore sent in every direction to gather the herb — known to them, as they said — through the mountains. And that the matter might be performed more faithfully, Arnulfus, the tribune of the soldiers, and Faustus, who held all the recesses of the Brescian mountains known, were joined to them out of the inmost friendship of the Duke.

[6] By these two, having gone by chance to the mountain Concha, there was found the hut of Honorius, On this occasion Honorius is found, already advanced in age, and presenting something wild by the shagginess of his beard and the unkempt length of his hair. He, seeing them armed and thinking them sent by some enemy of the Christians (for he had heard of certain cruelties exercised by Alahis against the citizens faithful to Christ), put himself on his knees to receive death. But they, struck by the unexpected appearance of the man found in such a place, ordered him to rise, and courteously explained why and on what account they had come. Then Honorius, pitying the blindness of the Lombards, indicated that the daughter of their prince would far more certainly recover if she used the saving bath to be prescribed by him, than if she used the milk of a magically-prepared goat. Therefore Arnulfus thought it most advisable to dismiss the magicians, occupied in seeking their herb, with Faustus, And brought to Alahis, while he himself, meanwhile, returning to the city, should bring with him the hermit, who by quicker experience would prove the virtue of his bath. Alahis bore indeed a mind averse to the Christians, but desire of recovering his daughter's health made him hear the hermit Honorius more calmly, urging him to trust his promises with the offering of his head's peril, if he had disappointed the prince's expectation.

[7] He persuades the girl of baptism, And so, having been led to the sick girl, when he had signed her with the formation of the Cross, he proposed to her Christian baptism, promising certain health if she received it with the faith of the Christians. Nor was it difficult either to persuade the languishing girl to consent, or to restrain the prince from hindering her, willing to be baptized. When this had been done on August 15, on the feast of the Virgin's Assumption, in the year 576, first a white cloud covered the baptized and the baptizer, then Orielda, whose blemishes of soul the water of the sacred font had washed away, And health to her, appeared also through her whole body sound and shining, to the confusion of the idolaters and the astonishment of all: who immediately praising the great and uniquely powerful God of the Christians, together with their prince, asked for the grace of baptism, and, due catechesis being given first, obtained it. Honorius marveled at such unexpected successes, and praised the benignity of the divine power; He gives the true faith to the father, nevertheless he would have returned to his beloved solitude, if the prayers of the Brescians had not detained him, thinking not in vain that for the establishing of the state of their Church most useful would be the presence of him who by his mere arrival had freed it from so great a shaking.

[8] Now part of this happiness was believed to be Alahis himself, And quiet given back to the faithful, having received the Christian religion changed into altogether another man; so that in his rule, clemency was praised with an uncorrupt course of justice, and nothing was more kindly than he, nothing more affable: whereby it happened that, with other Lombards following the example of their duke, the minds of the Brescians were most closely bound to them, and, won over by mutual marriages, most quickly coalesced into one people. Then also began to be restored churches partly ruined, partly desolate, not only in the city but also in the suburbs; among which was also a church sacred to Saint Florian, where, when it

in the year 1516, the city having been taken by the Venetians, Churches are restored. was to be leveled to the ground, this rude Epitaph savoring of the barbarism of its age was found:

In this tomb is Alahis, a lofty * dove. He was a prudent man and an excellent prince, Studious that Brescia should flourish and cling to fair peace: Who by a Christian death rejoices in the greatest lot.

* better "column" (columna)

CHAPTER II.

The deeds of Saint Honorius in the Episcopate.

[9] It happened that about the same year and in the month of August in which these things were being done, With Bishop Herculanus having died, Saint Herculanus the Bishop of Brescia departed from the living. He, wearied of the Lombard savagery openly ruling and the heretical depravity secretly growing up in the city, had withdrawn to the eastern part of his diocese, to the village called Campione, there awaiting his own dissolution, which he foresaw to be near. When, therefore, deliberation was being held about the successor, the votes of all flowed together upon Honorius, whom they thought had befallen them at such a juncture divinely. He indeed, in whatever way he could and was allowed, resisted, that he might not be compelled to accept the honor; at length he placed his shoulders beneath the Episcopal burden, obtaining the benefit of consecration from the Bishop of Milan, by ancient usage. Honorius is appointed, There soon shone forth in Honorius all those virtues which make a pastor useful and lovable to his flock, and of which it is easier to weave a catalogue than to explain their perfection. Leaving them, therefore, to be weighed by the free thoughts of men, I add only here that he declared his care that sacred things be performed in order, by designating stations through the times of Lent, renewed for Christian fervor with more fitting opportunities: namely, that on the Lord's day the faithful should gather at the Cathedral church; on Monday at Saint Mary's in the woods, He orders stations, which now is called St. Faustinus Major; on Tuesday at Saint John's, which was surnamed "in the Pomerium" because it was built in the suburb; on Wednesday at Saint Faustinus "ad sanguinem," now St. Afra; on Thursday at Saint Alexander the Martyr, then counted among the Brescian patrons; on Friday at Saints Peter and Marcellinus; on Saturday at Saint Apollonius, our bishop, which stood in the suburb of Turris-longa, destroyed about one hundred and sixty years ago.

[10] Amid these zeals of his Episcopal labor, to the ears of the holy Pontiff a rumor was brought which branded his beloved daughter in Christ, Orielda, The daughter of Alahis, from a false charge, with so heavy and unjust infamy, stirred up by Philemon and Porphyrius. For when her father, the Duke, had committed his daughter to them to be instructed in more polished letters, they themselves, having abused the familiarity to an intolerable license, when they could not extort her chastity, brought her life into danger, calumniating her of that crime which they had themselves designed in their minds. But because they were suggesting, not things heard, but things seen with their own eyes, against their pupil, the accusation seemed worthy of credit to the Prince, and he was destining no light punishment for his daughter, unless she should prove herself innocent. As was right, the peril of Orielda — whom he did not doubt to be innocent — pierced the good shepherd; and taking upon himself her cause to plead, after he had argued against her calumniators that, like those wicked elders who accused chaste Susanna, they too were striving in Orielda to sate their bloody thirst because they had not been able to satisfy their lust, he brought it about that Orielda was led before him. By a miracle he defends her. Since she had nothing beyond a simple denial of the fact to oppose against witnesses conspiring together, the holy bishop believed that the support of divine testimony should be brought to bear: and he fixed his staff in the ground, and commanded it, to declare the integrity of Orielda, to grow up into a leafy tree — which was no sooner said than done. Orielda was cleared and absolved; the accusers, convicted, were punished with deserved penalty.

[11] After these things it happened that a certain one of the chiefs of Brescia, A deposit entrusted to him and stolen, about to travel abroad, asked Honorius, out of the singular trust he had placed in him, that he might deign to take into his custody what he had that was dearer and more precious in gold and jewels. He, prompt to grant whatever was asked of him, agreed, and placed the treasure entrusted to him in the place where he thought it would be most secretly kept. But shortly afterwards he discovered that this confidence of his had been in vain, finding nowhere what he should restore to his returning friend. Therefore, destitute of counsel, he turned to invoke Saints Faustinus and Jovita — at first indeed from the beginning of the loss recognized, but much more fervently and urgently when he learned that his friend had returned to the city. In the meantime, he sent one of his household He causes it to be given back through SS. Faustinus and Jovita. to excuse to the man the delay in returning the deposit, to explain the misfortune, to prove the diligence used in searching, and to promise that further diligence would be used. But the man, marveling, said: "Nay, it is only a few days since two clerics from my lord's household (one of whom bore, by his very dress, the order of Priest, the other that of Deacon) were here, and have returned to me my deposit safe, in his very name." The holy Father at once recognized that those two clerics had been Faustinus and Jovita, whom he had invoked as helpers. And to make the devotion of all the citizens toward the glorious Martyrs more ardent, he made public the whole sequence of what had happened.

[12] After the Easter of 586. Feeding his flock, moreover, incessantly with the pasture of the truthful word and efficacious example, when he had ruled the Brescian Church for nine years amid continuous and most grievous labors, he began to aspire more vehemently to the rest of a better life. Therefore in the year of human redemption 586, Paschasius II holding the see of Peter, and Autari ruling the Lombards, after he had celebrated the Easter festivities with his beloved people and had foretold to them his approaching migration, he began to take to his bed, and took care to fortify his departure with the last Sacraments. On the Octave of Easter itself he holily dies, Then, having summoned the clergy to him, he commended to them that they should preserve the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical discipline complete and inviolate in all things, and that each one should lead a life suited to his order. Finally, when he had commended the church to his faithful servant and disciple Rusticianus — whom he had foretold would succeed him in the bishopric — he began to chant this psalm: "When I called upon him, the God of my righteousness heard me." And when this was sung through, amid the tears of those singing, down to this verse, "In peace in the same I will sleep and rest," he himself, with hands and eyes lifted to heaven, rendered his spirit to his Creator, on the Octave of Easter. And is buried on April 24. His body lay in the church for two days: Rusticianus then celebrated the funeral rites with the clergy and people. Hence April 24 (for Easter had fallen on April 14, the Octave of Easter on April 21) was thereafter held as the anniversary of the sacred Deposition, and religiously observed to this day by the people of Brescia. He was buried in the church of Saint Faustinus, called "ad sanguinem," where at that time the bodies of our two holy Protectors were still preserved, to whom while living he had been most devoted.

CHAPTER III.

Translations of the body and veneration among the Brescians.

[13] When afterwards it pleased the Brescian clergy and people to translate the bodies of the holy Protectors from the old church "ad sanguinem" to a new and more august Basilica, [The body is transferred by Blessed Rampertus in the 9th century beneath the altar,] which is now called St. Faustinus Major (which being done on May 9 is recalled in a yearly feast), and the former place was deprived of its customary veneration and frequenting, it seemed good to Blessed Rampertus (who from the year 814 to 852 presided over our church and endowed the aforesaid church) to translate thither also the body of Saint Honorius, and to place it with many other relics in a choir as if subterranean, within an altar consecrated under his name; above which was seen his likeness, sculpted on a marble tablet, between our two holy Protectors, distinguishable by the tunicle and dalmatic, with their names also added, and with this verse running along the lower border:

"These marbles enclose the body of the Bishop Honorius."

[14] And again in the year 1604 Afterwards, in the year 1604, that the floor of the church might be leveled, it pleased to destroy the aforesaid crypt, whose vault stood above the ground; and with a new altar dedicated under his invocation, the venerable bones, rightly recognized, were deposited beneath it at the right hand in the choir — except the head: which in past centuries had always been kept in the sacristy, enclosed in a silver pectoral statue; and except two arm-bones, of which one is inserted in a silver monstrance, the other is contained in an arm likewise of silver, for public veneration on more festive days. Not many years after this, the church was renewed from the foundations, into a more ample and more august form, by the Benedictine monks of the Cassinese Congregation. And when a new translation of the holy Protectors was made on March 16 of the year 1622, In the year 1622 the bones of this holy Bishop were translated to a new altar erected for him in the front of the right nave (for there are three) at the side of the greater chapel, together with various other relics laid up in a cypress box: among which are reckoned by name the lower jaw — even now with teeth — of St. Antigius, formerly our bishop, also resting here; and particles of Saints Peter, Paul, Sinerius, Theopompus and others, whose names on account of excessive antiquity can no longer be read.

[15] And with altar and chapel built of marble, Some years after this, the religious piety of Rutilius Calinus, a noble of Brescia, obtained from the monks that he might, at his own expense, adorn the chapel and altar of Saint Honorius. Which pious work, that it might not remain interrupted by the author's death, his son Vincent performed, who completed the things begun by his father, and placed above the altar a painting elegantly painted by the hand of Bernardino Gaudinus, also a noble of Brescia, by which the Saint is represented, standing in the air, blessing various sick people asking for health. The altar itself was left empty, that it might receive within itself a new ark to be made for the sacred body and the annexed relics. While these things were being done, the sacred pledges were carried into the sacristy on September 25, 1645, In the year 1646 and there kept, not without the continuous light of a lamp always burning before them, and with the coming of many to venerate them. At length in the following year, on March 25 — on which also Palm Sunday fell, coinciding with the feast of the Annunciation — the whole marble work being completed, Horatius Barbisoni, then Abbot, within a leaden casket clothed in red silk, laid away the remains of the holy Bishop, wrapped in a white linen, with this inscription: "Sacred bones of Honorius the Bishop."

[16] On this occasion there was separated from the rest one tibia-bone, and given to George Contarini, Some of his relics are distributed, a Venetian noble, set over our city with the title of Podestà; also the ankle of one foot, which he would give to the church of Offlaga, where the Contarini family has its estates. A piece also of a rib was given to the Vicar General of the Bishopric of Brescia, and Conservator of this monastery, George Serina, Canon Penitentiary; and the other part of the same rib fell to the noble Antony Saccoldo, Priest, that he might transfer it to Roncadella for his own consolation and that of his brothers Joseph and Laurence, who had asked for such a grace, to enrich the oratory of his estate there. Finally Thomas Homius, a Brescian surgeon, brought in as judge for the recognition of the sacred bones, was permitted to have a finger-joint.

[17] Another little leaden box, similarly prepared and ornamented, received the other relics above named, with this inscription: "Relics of the Saints"; The rest are enclosed within the marble ark. and thus the old cypress box remained empty. The little leaden boxes, with the public documents pertaining hereto, were diligently closed up within another leaden box well soldered, which on the night of the aforesaid day was privately placed inside a beautiful little box of white Ligurian marble, to which a lid of the same material was fitted, and on the front of the little box were inscribed these words, visible to all who might wish to read: "Sacred bones of Saint Honorius, Bishop of Brescia." Finally, within the altar itself this little box was also placed, under firm custody indeed, but such that it can be seen through a grating made of gilded iron. Help is sought for headache. But because the people of Brescia are accustomed to invoke the patronage of Saint Honorius to ease headaches, especially on April 24, when his festivity is celebrated under the rite of a double Office, on each side of the altar little windows have been left, which on that day are opened, that through them the multitude of those running up may be able to pass their heads — and, by doing this honor to the saint, may testify that they believe to him the health of their heads.