ON SAINTS VITALIS AND VALERIA,
MARRIED MARTYRS AT RAVENNA AND MILAN.
PrefaceVitalis, Married Martyr at Ravenna (Saint) Valeria, Married Martyr at Milan (Saint)
By D. P.
That the name of the Martyr Vitalis is most celebrated throughout all Italy is proved by the temples erected to him in the chief cities: at Rome, Faenza, Rimini, Various temples of his through Italy Como, Ferrara, Venice, Verona, and Zadar in Dalmatia, and in many other places of lesser note which glory in the same patronage. The Roman temple, most worthy of memory among the rest outside Ravenna, situated in that most beautiful valley which separates the Viminal and Quirinal hills, founded by the testament of the most noble matron Vestina, was dedicated by Saint Innocent the Pope and erected into a titular church. It is indicated under the names of the sons Saints Gervasius and Protasius by Anastasius the Librarian in the Lives of the Pontiffs; One famous at Rome but now known only by the name of the father, and among the Roman Stations it is wont to be visited on the Friday before the third Sunday of Lent. It is under the care of our Society, which, occupying the nearby church of Saint Andrew on the Quirinal, obtained this church of Saint Vitalis also (restored in the year 1475) one hundred and twenty years later, by the gift of Clement VIII, together with adjoining gardens and lands; and aided by the signal munificence of Isabella Rovere, Princess of Bisignano, restored it to its ancient splendor; in which condition, in a place otherwise remote from frequent habitation, we admired it in the year 1661, on this very present feast of Saint Vitalis, when all Rome flocks thither, celebrating the sacred rites there.
[2] Before we reached Rome we had been at Ravenna; The chief one at Ravenna and on November 19, having been led around the chief temples of that most ancient city, we had visited the most beautiful and sumptuous church of Saint Vitalis, on the very spot where the Saint suffered martyrdom, and where, until the city was recovered from the power of the Goths, a small church had stood, built in the early times of Christian peace. Whoever wishes to read an accurate description of that most august church, which sets its form and majesty before the very eyes, should consult Girolamo Rubeus, book 3 of the Ravennate History, and Girolamo Fabri, who treated of the sacred memorials of ancient Ravenna in Italian, Most augustly built and who from p. 355 to p. 383 explains single matters in detail and notes many things passed over by Rubeus. Take from them this ancient inscription of one portico: "The Basilica of the Blessed Vitalis, at the command of Bishop Ecclesius, Julianus Argentarius built, adorned, and dedicated: with the most reverend Maximian consecrating, on the 14th day before the Kalends of May, in the sixth year after the consulship of Basilius Junior, a most illustrious man, in the 10th indiction."
[3] And consecrated in the year 547 This is noted as the year 547; in which year, with all Italy trembling under the arms of Totila, it is not only improbable that the Emperor Justinian was present at Ravenna with the Augusta Theodora and honored the dedication by his own presence and that of the whole court; but it is altogether proved false from the fact that Pope Vigilius, invited to Constantinople by Justinian, arrived there on the 8th day before the Kalends of February, and there, with the Emperor present, conducted important business for a notable time, whose gravity sufficiently indicates that not only at the time when the church was dedicated at Ravenna, but throughout that whole year and the following, until the ecumenical council of Constantinople, But without Justinian being present with his own Justinian scarcely set foot out of the royal city, much less crossed into Italy. What then does the mosaic work mean, expressed in the vault of the greater chapel more than a thousand years ago, where the Emperor and Empress are seen with a retinue of noble men and women? Nothing else indeed than that the building arose by the gifts or work of those who are there depicted; which had been begun under Ecclesius six years earlier, and was afterwards consecrated under Maximian; whose likenesses are also seen inserted in the same mosaic. That Justinian, as a boy, was brought to Ravenna by his nurse, and hidden in the house of the said Julianus Argentarius vowed to build a temple to Saint Vitalis if he should ever come to the Empire, is a popular belief, but perhaps no more solid than the former.
[4] The pit of Saint Vitalis Moreover, in this temple, in the place where the holy body of Lord Vitalis was buried, they excavated a pit, whose pavement is ornamented with equal art to that of the temple. Water flows from it to the present times, as Rubeus says; and Fabri adds that this water is daily drawn with great devotion by the citizens, especially on the feast day of the Martyr; and beneath the pavement of the pit, in a marble ark, the venerable body is believed to be laid. But while I consider what the tyrant ordered: "Make a pit so that water is reached; there lay him supine; and covering him over with earth likewise and stones, leave him without human care," I cannot at all be persuaded that the Christians, the authors of the first little shrine, wished to bury more deeply the bones, which it was fitting to carry off from a damp place; nor that Julianus Argentarius afterwards took care to do so. Under the altar Rather I believe they brought them out thence and placed them within the altar itself; in which, if they no longer remain, I shall believe they have been carried away and removed elsewhere. For the same Julianus, as Rubeus and Fabri write from him, placed an altar over the pit, covered with a vault supported by four most precious columns, which columns and the whole altar and vault he covered with thin silver plate. The silver has now been removed, but the marbles remain, and among them an excellent painting representing the martyrdom of the Saint, the work of Federico Barocci of Urbino. All these things we surveyed with great pleasure of soul.
[5] The monastery We also saw a very spacious monastery joined to that church; in which same place, even before that royal mass was built, Rubeus would persuade us that there had been a community of religious men, when he asserts that Severus, the Bishop Ecclesius's brother's son, was handed over to its Prefect, Cornelius, a most religious man, to be instructed in letters and good morals: he would persuade us, I say, if he had an older authority for so ancient a matter. As it is, we see him to have too easily believed Petrus de Natalibus, that this is the one and the same Severus, of whom, born at Ravenna and raised in a monastery, there is some memory as a Saint; with the one praised by Saint Gregory in the Dialogues and proposed by us on February 15. Or is it older than the temple itself? So we fear that both this Cornelius and the nephew of Ecclesius are named here without solid authority. Meanwhile it seems beyond doubt that, together with the new temple, in the age of Justinian, there arose buildings for the ministers of the temple itself; whether they were clerics or monks, and if monks, whether Benedictines from the very beginning, is not easy to determine. Rubeus, under the years 1115 and 1226, cites privileges granted by the Emperors Henry IV and Frederick II in favor of that monastery. Ughelli, in vol. 2 of Italia Sacra, col. 353 and following, sets forth an important letter of the Bishop of Ravenna written to the monk Durant and the other hermits with him, around the year 1000, It is Benedictine and has been so for a long time filled with many and great encomiums of the Benedictine Rule, and conceived in such terms that from them it can easily be gathered that the Bishop speaks as of the only known rule there. But it will be difficult to prove that Durant was of the monastery of Saint Vitalis. This is certain, that in the year 1415 Petrus Silbarius was sent from the Roman monastery of Saint Gregory, with the title of Abbot, to restore discipline at Ravenna at Saint Vitalis; and in the year 1460, the Abbey of Saint Vitalis, with all its goods, was associated to the Congregation of Saint Justina of Padua.
[6] The memory of Saint Vitalis is found in many Martyrologies, even in the genuine Bede, to which Florus attached a long encomium from the Acts; to some is added his wife Valeria. Rabanus and Wandelbert mention Saint Vitalis alone; Notker mentions both. Both are also read in various copies of Usuard, Ado, and others more recent. In the Roman Martyrology they are entered thus: "At Ravenna, the birthday of Saint Vitalis, Martyr, father of Saints Gervasius and Protasius. He, when he had buried the body of Blessed Ursicinus, removed, with due decency, was seized by Paulinus the consular, and after the torments of the rack, was ordered to be placed in a deep pit, and covered with earth and stones, and by such a martyrdom passed to Christ. At Milan, Saint Valeria, Martyr, wife of Saint Vitalis." The time of his passion is uncertain. The Breviary of Warmia, printed in 1516, records that Saint Vitalis suffered in the time of Nero; Time of passion uncertain and the Bodecense MS. refers the martyrdom of Saint Ursicinus to the same time. All the MSS. say he was crowned under Paulinus the consular; Whether namely under Nero if this Paulinus is C. Suetonius Paulinus, as Rubeus thinks, who was consul in the year of Christ 66 and the 12th of Nero, and who, as appears from Tacitus, was leader of many troops in the war which Otho waged against Vitellius after the deaths of Nero and Galba, then the martyrdom of Saint Vitalis would not have to be removed much from Nero's reign.
[7] But if that letter, which is reported as the first of the seventh book among the letters of Saint Ambrose, is truly Saint Ambrose's—in which he signifies to the Bishops and Christians of Italy that by divine admonition he has found the bodies of Saints Gervasius and Protasius—his martyrdom must be referred to the year 161. For in the booklet found at their head, they are said to have survived their parents for ten years, and to have been slain for Christ in the Marcomannic war. Or in the second century This war was waged in the year 171, under the Emperors Aurelius and Verus, no other war of this name before these times being anywhere mentioned. Meanwhile, the said letter may perhaps seem spurious to someone, from the fact that Saint Ambrose, in the second letter of the same book, which he writes on the same subject to his sister Marcellina, mentions not a word of the booklet found, nor of the apparition to him and the revelation made by Saint Paul, where, namely, the said bodies of the Saints were to be found. But he prefaces thus: "Since I am not accustomed to conceal from your holiness anything of what is done here in your absence, know also, most beloved sister, that holy Martyrs have been found by us. For when I wished to dedicate a basilica, many as though with one mouth began to interject, saying: 'Dedicate the basilica as in the Roman one.' I answered, 'I will do so, if I find relics of Martyrs.' And immediately as it were the ardor of a certain presage came upon me. What more? The Lord gave grace; with even the clerics fearing, I ordered the earth to be cleared in that place which is before the enclosures of Saints Felix and Nabor. I found suitable signs: those being brought forward on whom our hands were to be laid, the holy Martyrs began thus to appear, so that even while we were still silent, the urn was seized," etc. These things Saint Ambrose at the beginning of the said letter.
[8] To be examined more carefully in Saints Gervasius and Protasius A more accurate examination of these times can be given on June 19 in the Martyrdom of Saints Gervasius and Protasius, whom Rubeus, on the testimony of the same Saint Ambrose and Peter Damian, writes to have been disciples of Saint Paul the Apostle; so that from this the martyrdom of the father should not be again referred to the year 161. Saints Vitalis and Valeria were baptized, as Ripamonti and Ughelli write, by Saint Gaius, the third Bishop of Milan, whom Ughelli says to have been a disciple of Saint Barnabas, and first the assistant of his predecessor Saint Anatolian, and then his successor in the year of Christ 64. Besides Saints Gervasius and Protasius, they are said to have had two other sons, Saints Aurelius and Diogenes, of whom Ripamonti, book 1, says: What of their two sons Aurelius and Diogenes "But I scarcely accept the belief of that twin birth, which Valeria is said to have delivered with an immature womb amidst those torments and pains. The names of the infants are reported as Diogenes and Aurelius, and as sharers, as it were, of the maternal palm, they have obtained their own cult in the Church of Milan; though otherwise of these Aurelius and Diogenes no memory exists in the annals of the ancients." Rubeus adds in book 1 of the History of the Ravennatians that these infants were baptized by the said Saint Gaius, and confirms their nativity from an old picture in these words: "Witness of this matter was a very ancient picture in the church of Saint Vitalis, in which, when the funeral of Saint Valeria is led, two infants wrapped in swaddling clothes are borne with her on the same bier; and the monks themselves, by a tradition handed down by continual succession from earlier monks who take the habit of their Order in this monastery, for this reason call most of them by the names of Diogenes and Aurelius."
[9] The signal cult of Saint Vitalis, not only among the people of Ravenna,
but also among the inhabitants of Monte San Savino, is maintained—by whom, and how he was adopted as their patron protector, Rubeus narrates thus: "The inhabitants of Monte San Savino, Saint Vitalis preserves Monte San Savino from assault which is a town in Tuscany not far from Arezzo, adopted this most happy Martyr as their patron and protector with God, being moved by this: that on the night immediately preceding the feast day of Lord Vitalis, when their enemies, attacking the town unexpectedly, were assaulting it fiercely and had placed ladders against the walls, suddenly throughout the whole town a great sound of sacred church bells, moved by no one, and a din of weapons in the air both roused the citizens from sleep and deterred the enemies from their undertaking, for they thought there was a very great multitude in arms. Thus, the citizens immediately going out of the town and making an onslaught against the enemies, routed them and put them to flight with almost no trouble. Hence, the following morning, having held a procession, And therefore is chosen as patron protector by the citizens they rendered the highest thanks to God, and by common consent decreed that Lord Vitalis should be joined as a third to their patrons Saints Sabinus and Giles, and his feast day should be kept as an annual and perpetually solemn celebration. By which perhaps it came about that Cardinal Antonio Montes, born from this town, and adopted by Pope Julius II into the college of the Purpled Fathers at Ravenna, Several Cardinals assume the title of Saint Vitalis strove to be distinguished with the most ancient Roman title of Lord Vitalis. The same was done by Gianmaria, his brother's son, who afterwards was Pope Julius III. This we now see also in the Cardinal Pietro Donato Cesi, since he understands that the ancient Cesi drew their origin from Ravenna, and he is held as a citizen, senator, and father of this city." Thus Rubeus.
[10] That Saint Vitalis is venerated in Flanders by the people of Lille, Saussaye is author on April 28 in these words: "At Lille in the Tournai region, His head at Lille under the ancient metropolitan of Rheims, the veneration of the most holy head of Blessed Vitalis the Martyr, whose glorious merits and trophies, crowned today at Ravenna, the Catholic Church celebrates everywhere." Arnoldus Rayssius, in his Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, writes that only a part of the head is kept there, Relics of both at Bologna and some at Prague enclosed in a very elegant casket, in a chapel which some call of the castle, others of Saint Vitalis. In the Breviary of Lille, printed in 1555, Saint Vitalis has nothing proper. So that one may doubt whether the said portion of the head is of this Saint Vitalis or another, since it is known that there were several Martyrs of this name. That notable relics of both spouses are also preserved at Bologna, John Paul Masini is the author in his Bononia Illustrata on April 28: namely, that in the church of Saint Blaise is an entire shinbone of his; other parts at Saint Mary's and Saint Martin's; while the relics of Saint Valeria are venerated there in the church of Saint Barbatianus, among the Hieronymite monks. At Prague finally a particle of the cranium of Saint Valeria is kept; and some pieces, larger and smaller, brought by the Emperor Charles IV from Ravenna in the year 1355, is read in the Diary of the Metropolitan church already often praised. We give the Passion from a MS. of the monastery of Bodecensi of the Order of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, omitting the others, Passion from the Bodecense MS. because they are shorter and like a compendium of this one. There also exists a panegyric of Blessed Peter Damian on their martyrdom, drawn from the aforesaid Passion; whose author we judge to have been one of the monks of the monastery of Saint Vitalis himself, long before Blessed Peter Damian.
PASSION
From a MS. of the Monastery of Bodecensi of the Order of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine in the diocese of Paderborn.
Vitalis, Married Martyr at Ravenna and Milan (Saint) Valeria, Married Martyr at Ravenna and Milan (Saint)
BHL Number: 8703
FROM THE MS.
[1] Serving under Paulinus, he encourages Christians in their torments The glorious wrestler of the Lord, Saint Vitalis, a most Christian native of the city of Milan, a man of great lineage and not the last in rank among its chief citizens, having been bound in intimate friendship with Paulinus, a consular and tyrant, and at that time a most bitter enemy of Christians, for the sake of military service, under the guise of a soldier took care with all industry of the Catholic Faith that by evangelical admonitions he might strengthen the minds of the bound Christians, lest, wearied by the savagery of punishments, they should fall away from the Faith. And when he was striving to press on longer in a task so pious and so laborious without growing weary, one day, having entered the city of Ravenna together with the aforesaid consular Paulinus, he saw in a tyrannical trial a certain Christian named a Ursicinus, a physician by profession, a Ligurian by nation, who after horrific torments had received a capital sentence. The place where Christians were beheaded had the name Palma; for a tree of an ancient palm was there.
[2] And encouraging Saint Ursicinus, who was wavering, to constancy Therefore, as has been said, when after excessive and dreadful tortures Ursicinus was being led to Palma to be beheaded, acting from natural human weakness, he suddenly feared. When he wished to surrender himself to the final condemnation and by a wretched yielding to evade imminent death, the soldier of Christ, Blessed Vitalis, despising the tyrant and spurning secular dominion, as a lender of sacred souls, recalled him in this way from the abyss of eternal chaos to the palace of the supernal kingdom: "Do not," he said, "do not, Ursicinus, you who have been accustomed to heal others, wound yourself with the javelin of eternal death; and you who have come through so many sufferings to the palm, do not lose the crown of martyrdom prepared for you by the Lord." Hearing this, Ursicinus, falling to his knees, urged the executioner to hasten the completion of the judge's commands, spontaneous and prodigal of his own blood, doing penance because he had earlier feared the pain of martyrdom. When, therefore, the holy victim of the Lord had received decapitation, After his martyrdom he buries his body at once the athlete of Christ, Vitalis, caused the body of the precious Martyr to be carried off and most devoutly buried within the city of Ravenna, dedicating his martyrdom, as the time dictated, with a most celebrated and b solemn rite.
[3] After the burial of the blessed and glorious triumphator of Christ Ursicinus had been accomplished, Blessed Vitalis alienated himself from the judge Paulinus and refused to come any more into his presence. For which reasons he is arrested When this had been discovered by the diabolical man, moved by the most insane fury, he had him seized with all haste by the officers; not only because he had scorned to approach him, but also because he was so marked a Christian that he had even reproved Ursicinus, who was willing to sacrifice, lest he perish. For thus it pleased the Divinity, that by the exhortation of so great a monitor Ursicinus should return to the crown of martyrdom, and a precious gem be rendered to God, And in vain seeking to recall Paulinus from the worship of idols which the ancient enemy of the human race was striving to claim for his malignity. The most valiant soldier of Christ, Vitalis, therefore, when he stood led by the hands of the unjust before the sight of the judge, and began to strike at him more freely with Catholic darts c, the judge, like a deaf asp, which does not hear the voice of the charmers, with hardened heart closed his ears from the good hearing, lest the arrows of the Lord might be able to reach the interior of his heart. And when the warrior of the Lord was acting uselessly with the tyrant, and finding no reason in the empty vessel, he was silent for a time, remembering that ancient proverb: that he undoubtedly wastes labor and expense who sends oxen to the d anointing-arena.
[4] Then that diabolical and execrable to God and men Paulinus, raging without quiet like a madman, surpassing the frenzied and lethargic with a madness hitherto unseen, Stretched on the rack ordered Saint Vitalis to be raised on the rack, that through the fear of torments he might change the consent of so great a man to sacrifice to demons. But the holy Martyr, placed on the rack, turning his venerable eyes to the judge, addressed him with these words: "An infinite foolishness rules you, Consular Paulinus, that you think I can be conquered by torments, and that I should wish to inflict the death of perdition upon myself—I who so often and so often have striven, God helping, to free other faithful ones from the danger of deception." At these words the judge of iniquity, vehemently moved, said to e his Officer: "Lead this rebel to Palma, that he may there offer libations to the gods; but if he scorns to sacrifice, do not behead him like Ursicinus the physician; but making a pit in the ground, until water is reached, lay him there supine; and covering him over with earth likewise and stones, He is cast into a pit and covered with earth and stones leave him without human care." When this command of the most impious judge had been fulfilled, the pious and merciful King of Martyrs, Christ, both consecrated a crowned soldier for himself, and placed a Martyr—and no ordinary one—in a higher dignity in the heavenly court of the poles. For there he shines among the white-clad fellow-soldiers of the purpled ones; there in the service of the eternal King with the citizens of Jerusalem he perpetually cries Alleluia; there with the Psalmist he gratefully proclaims: "We are filled in the morning with your mercy." Ps. 89:14-15 And again: "We rejoiced for the days in which you humbled us; for the years in which we saw evils."
[5] The priestling who advised this punishment was afterwards seized by a demon Now it happened afterwards that the priest of Apollo who had given this counsel to Consular Paulinus, being seized by the ancient enemy, for seven days cried out in the place where the Martyr of Christ, Saint Vitalis, lay buried, saying: "You burn me, Martyr of Christ Vitalis, you burn me and torment me vehemently." This we believe was done to the honor of Christ and his distinguished Martyr, that Christians might be emboldened with confidence, when they saw that he had not gone unpunished, nor passed unavenged, who had first devised this kind of torment, through which, against his own hope and wish, he rendered the Martyr of Christ more glorious. After seven years the same wretch was cast by the devil into the river f which flows past the city of Ravenna, He drowns in the waters in which he wretchedly, as he deserved, expired. Then was fulfilled in him the prophecy of the Psalmographer, which was imprecated against the persecutors of the Church: "Avenge, O Lord, the blood of your Saints which has been shed." Ps. 78:10
[6] The most blessed Martyr of Christ Vitalis, therefore, triumphs in this manner in the city of Ravenna, Diverse lot of Martyrs and persecutors showing there a wonderful and notable victory, whose eminence seems to surpass the folly of the common people, because in the eyes of the foolish he seemed to die, but he is in peace, to which those who slew him may in no way aspire. For he who then seemed to the foolish to be conquered for a time by a momentary death stood forth a glorious victor; but those who seemed to carry off victory from the living corpses are known to be captives of the ancient enemy, and to be subject to the laws of eternal death without any regard of mercy. Rejoice and be glad, happy Ravenna, supported by so great a Martyr; again and again I beg, rejoice and clap your hands to the Lord, you who have deserved to be distinguished with the sepulchral companionship of Blessed Vitalis, who besides the rest whom you equally cherish, was alone able to be an honor to your turreted loftiness. Rejoice, I say. For if the citizens of Milan had received your patron Saint Vitalis, together with his most holy sons Gervasius and Protasius, special Martyrs of Christ, they would in no way reckon themselves inferior to the Roman Senators, who by the blood of the blessed Martyrs
surrounding, can purchase the whole world at a vital price.
[7] How the wife of this Blessed Martyr, Valeria by name, made herself a victim to God not without a martyrial g contest, the truthful pen of this history thus reveals. "When," he says, "the wife of the holy Martyr, Blessed Valeria, h had learned at Milan of her elder's victory which he had earned at Ravenna under God's gaze, Saint Valeria having set out to bring back the body with all devotion and spiritual alacrity, with no small preparation, she came to his sepulcher, that she might carry off the most holy body with her. But because it pleased the Divinity that Ravenna should not be deprived of the patron granted to it, she was prevented by the citizens in Christian fervent zeal. Then by the Blessed Martyr himself she was often admonished in visions not in any way to violate the holy body, which had been well placed, even if by an evil man. Now the most blessed Valeria, as she was returning to the city of Milan, fell in with men, idolaters, sacrificing to Silvanus. They, taking her down from her pack-horse i, urged her to feast with them on those things which had been immolated to Silvanus. And refusing to eat things sacrificed to idols, is killed by beatings To this, the most blessed Valeria said: 'I am a Christian, and it is not lawful for me to eat of the sacrifices of your Silvanus; for the Apostle Paul forbids all of us not only to eat things offered to idols, but also teaches that we should not even touch them.' But they, hearing these things, moved with great fury, slew her with such blows that her men could scarcely bring her half-dead to the city of Milan. So, worn out for the truth which is Christ, within three days she passed to the Lord; and was buried in the city of Milan with her sons, the most holy Martyrs of Christ, Gervasius and Protasius."
[8] But Blessed Vitalis was martyred in the city of Ravenna, under the Consular Paulinus, Milan and Ravenna renowned for the relics of both on the 4th day before the Kalends of May. Behold what a father of a household Blessed Vitalis, who subjected all Italy to himself and his loftiness: for he himself, by his patronage, possesses k the metropolitan chief monastery at Ravenna; and Milan, than which Latinity has nothing more illustrious, holding it with a progeny festive enough and a crowned wife, triumphs in both places, rules in both places. Indeed, the matter stands best thus: that what seems to be lacking to the Milanese in the father, they possess in full as the heap of the dowry in the sons likewise and the wife; and on the contrary, if anything seems to the people of Ravenna to be less in the offspring and wife, they rejoice to gain all in the father. Wherefore the citizens of both metropolises ought to be inextricably bound together by a charitable fellowship and social charity, as they are known to be connected by the indissoluble communion of so great Martyrs. Praise therefore and thanksgiving to him who chose those blessed Martyrs, took them up, and made them citizens of the eternal Jerusalem: who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.