ON BLESSED MICHAEL OF BARGA OF THE ORDER OF MINORS OBSERVANT NEAR LUCCA IN TUSCANY.
A.D. 1479
CommentaryMichael of Barga, of the Order of Minors Observant, near Lucca in Tuscany (B.)
D. P.
[1] Where the limits of the Lucchese Republic and of the Grand Duchy of Florence, running forth on both sides by certain links as it were, embrace and entangle one another, on the eastern bank of the river Serchio Barga is seen, an honest town, The Barga Convent, formerly of Lucchese, now of Florentine dominion: around which the Friars Minor had a convent called of St. Bernardine, the foundations of which and of many others in that region are referred to Friar Herculanus of Plagali, distinguished zealot and promoter of regular observance, reverently deposited under the main altar of the convent of Castelnuovo in Cafarnania, and on the 28th day of May (if we trust Arthur) to be counted among the Blessed. The beginning given to the convent is believed not long after the year 1443: in the year 1471 translated to the town, but about nineteen years after the first foundation having elapsed, namely in the year of the Christian Era 1471 on the 4th day of December, the same Convent was translated to another place of more salubrious air, to which the name of St. Mary of Graces was given, and there it still continues.
[2] The church has several altars: of which one consecrated to the Nativity of the Virgin, has under the altar the body of the Blessed, has under itself within an elegantly gilded urn, the body of a certain Blessed Michael with such an epigraph,
The little ark, which you see, holds the bones much to be venerated for his merits, of Blessed Michael: Which the piety of the people uncovered snatched from the earth, Niklaus Angelius enshrined with gold.
For the Angelio family of Pisa claims the right of patronage for itself over the said altar, and shows it twice a year; under which the ark being placed, twice in the year is exposed above it, not without great devotion of the concurring people, namely on the last feast day both of Easter and of Pentecost, with the Religious singing the Antiphon of one Confessor, "I will liken him to a wise man," and then admitting in order those wishing to come and touch it with their rosaries. The same family from this sacred deposit obtained an arm, the arm is preserved at Pisa. to be kept more decently in the cathedral of Pisa with the other Relics, as is clear from a letter in the year 1663, March 23 given to the Guardian of the place by the very Reverend Provincial Father John Baptist of Borgo on the Hill, preserved in the archive of the Convent. Thus far the Guardian of the place, asked by Francis Maria Florentinius to suggest whatever he knew about this Blessed of his monastery.
[3] With what virtues Michael deserved veneration of this kind Wadding describes thus, with the chronicles of his Marian cited in the margin, Compendium of the Life from Wadding, which we wish sometime to see the public light. In the year 1479, on the last day of April, Friar Michael of Barga, in the monastery of St. Mary of Graces, in the village of Barga of Garfagnana, piously met his last day. To religion Friar Herculanus of Piagale, a most holy man, admitted him, and instructed him in the best morals. In simplicity of heart and purity of life pleasing to all, the institute which he had taken up he perfectly observed. On his own defects whatever or lighter negligences he severely animadverted, tenderly compassionate to the errors of others. In prayer assiduous and in preaching indefatigable, he burned with incredible zeal of souls, especially of those who either on account of poverty or on account of the inconvenience of places were neglected by others. He would run out into the fields, villages and forests: whatever farmers or shepherds he found he would ask, how much time had flowed, since they had not expiated the stains of conscience through holy Confession; Great zealot of souls, and with pious exhortations he received the confessions of those drawn to penance. While he taught the shepherds the rudiments of faith, and heard them accusing themselves, that they might more conveniently and tranquilly do so, he would apply his companion as guardian of the flocks and herds. On festive days, where he judged Priests to be lacking, who might offer the sacrifice of Mass, he was wont to celebrate in oratories and honest places, calling from the mountains and forests the mountaineers and rustics, who otherwise on account of the distance of places would not hear Mass.
[4] he assists those infected with plague; With the plague raging, he visited the infected, refreshed them with the Sacraments, and buried the dying. Between the villages of Calignano and Barga a Florentine innkeeper, his sons and whole family dead of the contagion, had Michael summoned, that he might help his wife, already in the seventh month of pregnancy and in danger from the plague, unto death. He received her confession, with salutary admonitions roused her to piously and Christianly die, with what means he could he strengthened her suffering a miscarriage, baptized the little infant, and a little after buried it dying among the arms of its mother already deceased. At the time of carnival, running through houses and squares, he restrains the license of carnival. he was calling girls back from choruses and mad games; and those whom he found to be spending those days in play and slipperiness, he was drawing back to sobriety and severity. While these shows of raging and harmful gesticulations were being exercised at Calignano, ascending a platform, with such great fervor, against this pernicious custom and certain plague of modesty, he preached; that in that year and many subsequent, they dismissed that most notorious corruption of good morals.
[5] By a rare miracle God showed, that his teaching was most pleasing to him, he confounds his mocker by a miracle, and that he wished his honor unharmed. While in the village of Basilica with great applause and concourse of men he was preaching, a most petulant young man, about to mock his sermons, ascended a mulberry placed in the region of the church, and the Preacher coming forth from the temple he received with unrestrained voices and ridiculous gestures, and called boys together to watch him preaching and gesticulating in mimicry. Wondrous thing! the tree with green leaves shady, immediately dried up at the roots, was stripped of all its ornament; and with leaves falling entirely deformed, while the youth was still sitting, it appeared. By this prodigy God wished his teaching confirmed, lest it be despised, and such great gain of souls should cease, as he was bringing back everywhere. Cruel enmities, harsh hatreds, and savage hostilities in many places he extinguished; lascivious youths and vain girls to a saner sense, very many to cloisters he led back: corrupt morals he corrected, depraved customs through the whole Lucchese country and district of Garfagnana he banished.
[6] With the spirit of prophecy illustrious he certainly predicted future events, he penetrates hidden thoughts, and saw the intimate thoughts of many. To Antonio of Partiano, a man of the Lucchese country familiar to him on a journey going ahead, and deeply thinking about promoting his son to the Clericate, he loudly cried: Drive away the vain thought, Antony: from your sons none,
whom you propose, will assume that state. Marveling at the secret thought uncovered from afar by the one following, from the events he proved the servant of God to have spoken truly. To the same Antonio confessing his faults to him at Barga, he brought back to memory the negligence and irreverence, committed in hearing the sacred matter on that day in the journey. Catherine in the village of Burgi, a girl devoted to God, suffering from a last illness, and unwilling to confess her faults to anyone until Michael should come, the parents were rebuking, saying, that the danger of death was at hand, and that Michael was distant through many miles, at the convent of St. Louis of the town of Pisciani. He, being admonished, swiftly ran; fortified the languishing one with the Sacraments, and buried the deceased with his own hands; bestowing all these services carefully on one converted by his preaching and aspiring to the summit of virtue, and most commended for sanctity of life.
[7] In the village of Partiano, when he was visiting the aforesaid friend Antonio, he found him sad and weeping on account of the imminent death of his son: he revives a dying man, in order to exhort him to good cheer, he said: Your son will live, and at this very hour has been freed from the disease. And still hesitating he led him by the hand, that he might see his son unharmed; while they were ascending the stairs, the young man came to meet them, with his mother and all the household astonished at the greatness of the miracle. Yet this man of such great virtue did not lack rivals, who frequently exercised envy and defamation. dying piously he becomes famous for miracles. All he bore with equanimity, leaving the care of honor and fame to God; through whom it happened, that the calumniators themselves washed away the disgraces thrown at him. At last full of years and merits, an octogenarian in the Lord, with the sacred rites of the Church premised, he fell asleep. With the church not yet constructed buried in the ground, he began to shine with very many miracles: by which attracted, even from afar, very many came, to venerate the sepulcher. Yet they were carrying away the earth with such eagerness, that often it was necessary to throw in other. At last the temple constructed, the body was honorably translated to a certain chief altar, where he shines with assiduous miracles.
[8] Almost similar things has Mark of Lisbon, part 3 book 6 chapter 35, citing even himself in the margin Marianus. And indeed it appears from the same that each drew from the same source, that neither carefully counted the words of Marianus, since they are nowhere contrary, and yet in some things are found different, All these things are from the Ms. of Marianus, one saying certain things more expressly than the other has said and vice versa, but changing nothing in substance, with Wadding moreover touching on more deeds of the holy man than Mark did. The same things, but much more briefly, from the same perhaps Marianus, are read in Gonzaga in the description of the above-named Convent, which is the 19th of the province of Tuscany: but he adds, that the blessed man in the aforesaid plague buried seven hundred and more bodies of the deceased, with only one companion helping him, also in Gonzaga, and that with a boat failing, the most rapid river with a cloak spread under his feet, together with his companion he happily crossed over. It is wondrous however how it happened to Gonzaga to write Louis for Michael, when he thus begins his eulogy under the very altar sacred to the Nativity of the glorious Virgin, "of Blessed Father Louis of Barga… the venerable ashes are enshrined." But much more wondrous is that Wadding, having in his hands the writings of Marianus equally cited by Gonzaga, although here he has written Louis for Michael and finding in these nothing about any Louis, and seeing the rest almost all that Gonzaga praises to be the same things which a little before he had more fully given from Marianus; was unwilling to notice, that the name of Louis had flowed from the erring pen of Gonzaga rather than from his mind; but wished to increase the number of Blessed, reporting to the year 1475 the words of Gonzaga, as if he had intended to speak of another than Michael, who around that time flourished at Barga and was called Louis.
[9] The Fathers of Barga, to whom the name of Louis was hitherto unknown, doubting, of whom there is no notice at Barga, whether perhaps under another equally a Virgin altar, called from its Succor, there might be some body of some Blessed, whose memory had been confused with that of Blessed Michael; searched it diligently: but they found nothing of this kind, nor even elsewhere did they find any vestige of anyone Louis, who had sometime illustrated that Convent by his sanctity. But consulted in our name on this ambiguity; they began to suspect perhaps in the old church of St. Bernardine, before the place was dismissed, someone of that name was buried. But all these suspicions easily vanish, attending to the total identity of the things said under diverse names. But ridiculous in this place is Arthur, who against the usage of that age feigning a Blessed with two names, wrote of Blessed Louis-Michael of Barga: if he had said Michael of Louis or Louis of Michael, it could be understood that the paternal name was added to the name of the son, according to the most received custom of that age; not however without the example of an older author could this now recently be affirmed, solely to excuse a diversity, founded on a slight slip of the pen.
[10] Francis Maria Florentinius, a most erudite man, whose hospitality we sometime familiarly enjoyed, but of whose life ended we now preserve grateful memory, the miracles are nowhere described. entrusting to another friend and erudite man the inquiry about Blessed Michael which he could not make by himself, received from him on his return and careful searching of the Ms. monuments of the place itself, nothing else besides those things which about the present cult of the body at the beginning we noted, and that around the sepulcher there are still many votive tablets hanging: but that his principal miracles, namely of him now deceased, had been described by no one. And indeed this last is neither new nor unusual an argument of human sloth or ingratitude: but that there never existed at some time a fuller history of the holy Life, with the miracles closest to his death described, whence Marianus would have copied out what had seemed to him, and which by some uncertain chance has perished, I am with difficulty led to believe. Would that this alone and last were the loss of such writings.