ON SAINT MAXENTIA
WIDOW AT TRENT IN THE ALPS.
ABOUT THE YEAR 400.
CommentaryMaxentia, Widow, at Trent in the Alps (Saint)
BHL Number: 5800, 5801
The Church of Trent numbers Saint Maxentia, mother of three holy sons, among the tutelar Saints, dedicating to her April 30 with the cult of the Double rite. Saint Maxentia is especially venerated at Trent So it is held in the Proper of that Church, printed by the command of Charles Cardinal Madruzzo, Bishop of Trent, in the year 1627: from which Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy composed an elogium for her. Notable mention is also made of her in the Martyrology in Galesinius in these words: "In the borders of the Trent people, of Saint Maxentia the widow. She was the mother of Saint Vigilius the Bishop,
shone with such singular piety and religion, that God willed the praise of her sanctity to be attested by several miracles." Tamayo numbers her among the Saints of Spain, asserting, from Pseudo-Dexter, that she was sprung from the city of Cauria in Lusitania: yet that her homeland was Roman, the beginning of the twin Life which we subjoin proves; not Spanish by origin but Roman with which also agree Ferrarius, Pyrrhus Pincius in the Bishops of Trent, and the Acts of Saint Vigilius written about four centuries ago by Bartholomew of Trent, who speaks thus about her: "When Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius the Great were ruling, a certain noble matron, Maxentia by name, of illustrious Roman lineage, with her sons Vigilius, Claudianus, and Magorianus, came to the aforesaid city of Trent." Which must have happened about the year 381, since at this time the said Princes held power together. The sacred remains of the deceased, from the village of Maiano in which she had died, after many years, Altemannus Bishop of Trent translated to Trent into the basilica of Saint Vigilius, an altar being erected to her, in some year, as may be gathered from Pyrrhus, between 1117 and 1130. Galesinius in the notes to his Martyrology says that the same Altemannus wrote her Life. We give a twin life, but very brief: that which we copied from the Vatican Codex is as follows.
[2] Born of a noble family "Maxentia, born at Rome of illustrious family, more illustrious by her own offspring, was most illustrious in virtues: for what tongue or page will sufficiently explain her sanctity, prudence, continence, fortitude? Destitute of the protection of her husband, she ruled her house with senile gravity, led her widowhood with a stubborn resolve of chastity, educated the best disposition of her sons in the fear of God and in Christian piety. She diligently took care that they be instructed in honest disciplines: she strove to please Christ alone, whom she had received with her whole mind, by works of mercy and flight from every defilement. with her sons she migrates to Trent The weakness of her sex did not detain her, nor the sweetness of her homeland, nor the length of the ways, from following her dearest sons, Vigilius, Claudianus, and Magorianus, setting out to propagate the Christian religion, as far as the Tridentine Alps. [thence, her son Saint Vigilius being established as Bishop there, into the nearest fields,] When indeed Saint Vigilius there on account of his singular virtues was made Bishop, and with wondrous constancy and ardor devoted himself to cultivating and amplifying the vineyard of the Lord; she herself, that she might serve God with the less impediment, the world, whose deceitful gifts she had always counted as nothing, then especially despised, and withdrew to the village, whose name is Maiano, not far from Lake Toblino. There having built a house for herself, the rest of the time of her life with fasting, prayers, and every office of charity the Blessed woman spent; beside these, famous also for miracles, on the day before the Kalends of May she was called to the heavenly homeland. In that place the faithful built a shrine, where illustrious for miracles she dies. which retains her name to this day. There her holy body was buried, and for a long time rested; until Altemannus Bishop of Trent, when he restored the basilica of the glorious Martyr Vigilius consumed by age, having transferred it there, placed it in the crypt under an altar, which also he dedicated to the same Saint Maxentia, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen."
[3] The Life described from the Boddeken Codex has thus: "Blessed Maxentia was in the times of Jovinian and Valentinian the first Emperors, Born at Rome brought forth from illustrious Roman family, and, as the concordance of her name testifies, she seems to have been named from Maxentius, whom a little before the aforesaid Emperors, the praetorian soldiers had made Emperor. This Maxentia, however, shrinking from the sacrilegious rites of the said Maxentius, most fervently held the cult of orthodox faith; and being joined to a freeborn man of the same faith, religiously served the Lord. Wishing therefore to show her foreknown, as foretold in the vine, from which three branches sprouted, God foreseeing things to come, willed three sons to be propagated from her, namely Magorianus, Claudianus, and Vigilius: with whom from Rome, the head of the world, the summit of Italy, setting out for Trent, she turned aside, by the will of the Princes and by the will of God, to the city of Trent, the beginning of the same Italy; that both 'the mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about His people from henceforth now and for ever.' In this city seventeen Bishops had already raised the banner of faith. With Saint Vigilius slain for the faith, But also Vigilius, the son of this Blessed Maxentia, distinguished for sanctity and the grace of miracles, scarcely having completed the courses of twenty years, by the desirable election of the Clergy and people is made Pontiff. Who after he had converted not only his own diocese, but also very many from the Veronese and Brescian people; in the valley of Randena, the image of Saturn having been broken, overwhelmed with stones, he passed to Christ. His brothers, however, Claudianus and Magorianus, there present, shaken indeed by blows of stones, but not consumed, with the martyrdom of heart possessed the glory of Confessors in the heavens. But their blessed mother Maxentia, in the village which is called Maiano, near Lake Toblino, In the Tridentine territory, living holily, she dies, building for herself a dwelling, was serving God in all good works, also famous for virtues and miracles, on the day before the Kalends of May Maxentia passed into the magnificence of God: where with her blessed sons she beholds the Son of God in His beauty. But the faithful, building a church in the same village, buried the holy body of Maxentia there. Where it rested up to the times of the Venerable Altemannus, Bishop of the aforesaid city; who renewed the church of the glorious Martyr Vigilius, consumed by too great age; and judging it fitting to adorn the son's church with the mother's body, the body is translated to Trent, since it was held with less reverence than was fitting in the aforesaid village, he translated it to Trent; and in the crypt of the church, at the western altar, honorably and devoutly buried it."
[4] by Bishop Altemannus before the year 1130, The aforementioned Pyrrhus Pincius concerning this translation has thus: "Altemannus, of the Counts (for that is in our days the name of dignity) of Bavaria by origin, took up the administration: who embraced most willingly those things which pertained to the ornament and utility of the church, he restored and consecrated the temple; he placed more honorably the relics of Vigilius, Sisinnius, Martyrius, Alexander, and other Saints … The body of Blessed Maxentia from Maiano, a village near Lake Toblino, he took care to have translated into the city, which event was most welcome to the city: that it might be more religiously visited, he set an altar to her name under a vaulted work, which the Trentians, imitating the Greeks, call by the elegant name 'crypt' … but when he had returned from the most holy sepulchre of Jerusalem … on the 6th of the Kalends of April he most happily expired, in the 1130th year of our salvation." Lake Toblino is 12,000 paces distant from Trent toward the West, and on its Northern side is marked in the maps a village written "S. Masenzo": I would believe it should be written "S. Masenza," and that it is the village Maiano, retaining the name more commonly from the ancient cult of Saint Maxentia.
[5] she is also assigned to March 30. Molanus in the second edition of his Martyrology, printed at Douai in the year 1583, on March 30 places the Birthday of Saint Maxentia the widow, mother of Saint Vigilius. By what author this was done I do not know, and I know it is contrary to the usage of the Trentine church: meanwhile Canisius, Ferrarius, and many others follow him, as has been said there among the Pretermitted.