ON ST. LEUS OR LEO, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR, AT VIGUENTIA IN THE DIOCESE OF FERRARA IN ITALY.
In the 4th century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The cult, age, translation and Acts of the Saint.
Leus, Confessor, in the diocese of Ferrara (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
We have here marked the place in which St. Leus, translated, is now chiefly venerated for centuries; the place where alive he was wont to live, Ughelli thus describes, volume 2 of the Italia Sacra, column 930: The city of St. Leo, which is also called Leopolis, Nearly all things obscure built on a supine and steep hill, of the dominion of Urbino, looking toward the Flaminian province, although it is very ancient, yet from the ungrateful silence of writers, scarcely ever does its memory occur among the ancient writers. Not undeservedly here Ughelli complains: for very obscure are the things, even in Leandro Alberti, which about Mount Felicianus, Mount Feretrum, or the Feretran or Ferratum, more clearly Montefeltro, are cited in the Acts of St. Leus and also elsewhere, where whatever is commemorated in praise of that city, it could not bring about but that the Cathedral church was translated into the valley, where the bishops now reside, whether you call it Pinna, or Macerata of Monte Feretro, which to clear out by a longer explanation, no one would think worth the while, which neither did Ughelli judge, whose interest however it chiefly was: so that accordingly it is enough here to have indicated that the name
of the diocese, given from the ancient and chief name, obtains even today.
[2] the things which pertain to this Saint. Just as those things are obscure about which Ughelli deservedly complains, so I profess myself wearied in examining and discussing those which pertain to the Saint of whom here is discourse: where, besides the confusion of things, this especially tortured me, that about him from whom the name was given to the city—whether he be called Leus, or Leo, or Lea—he is wholly unknown in the ancient sacred Fasti, so that the first notice of that Saint seems to be attributed to Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, where he himself prudently contracted into few words what others, orators rather than historians, verbosely adorned, not attending to the enormous anachronism by which the times of the emperors Diocletian—and indeed from the year 257—and Constantius are most unskillfully composed, even in Peter de Natalibus book 8, chapter 36; as the same Ferrari rightly warned, having scrutinized the rest not carelessly. For the rest, however much his deeds—collected, I know not first by whom, nor in what century, certainly not far removed—are wholly disturbed; the things which pertain to his cult, about which we here inquire, you will perceive sufficiently ascertained from the ecclesiastical Office, granted to the Feretran church under a double rite in the year 1651, which we here exhibit entire.
[3] Lesson IV. Leo the Illyrian, at Arba of Liburnia, born of Christian parents, The lessons make him a stonecutter, from his early age began to serve God. In his more adolescent age, together with Marinus his fellow-citizen, he resolved to set out abroad, and, his parents left, to lead a life remote from crowds. Landing at the Ariminian shore, they stop, that they might let out their labors—in the art in which they were strong—for restoring the city and hewing stones. Thither also, by the edict of the emperor Diocletian, very many Christians had gathered for this work, whom, while the inhuman prefects burdened beyond their strength, and afflicted in various ways, Leo and Marinus refreshed with the wages of their labors, and continually persuaded them to persevere constantly in the faith. Lesson V. Sent to the quarries of Mount Titanus, when they had spent three years in cutting out and hewing stones, Leo withdrew alone into Mount Felicianus, now the Feretran. There he passed the anchoretic life, which he had long ago introduced into his mind, in assiduous prayer and maceration of the body, a little hut being built for himself near the spring, now called of St. Leo, whose water the neighboring peoples prove salutary for driving off diseases. But when his fame grew everywhere, St. Gaudentius bishop of Rimini summoned him, that he might be a continual helper to him warring against the Arians.
[4] Lesson VI. The bishop, having beheld the holy man's humility, the austerity of his life, and afterward a priest. the probity of his morals, and the prudence of his speech, raised him to the priestly grade, and had him an untiring helper against the heretics. Thence, returned to his former solitude, after a life most holily passed, he happily consummated his course on the Kalends of August. His body, translated to Vico-habentia, near the city of Ferrara, is held in the highest veneration, in a church consecrated to his name. While he rested on Mount Felicianus, so great was the concourse and the devotion of the peoples toward him, that the mountain, and a most fortified city, and a great temple thereafter built on it, receive their appellation from his name. If you compare Lesson IV with V, that anachronism about which I spoke is evident, when Diocletian is connected with Gaudentius bishop of Rimini; so that about the Saint's age nothing at all can be determined, unless the times of one or the other be separated. To me certainly this [is] more probable, that St. Leus flourished only in the mature 4th century, and after his life in solitude, as is in Lesson VI, most holily passed, perhaps about the end of the same century, happily consummated his course. This one thing is undoubted, that St. Leus is venerated there as patron and protector; inasmuch as he there passed his life holily.
[5] You have in the transcribed lessons the whole substance of the Legend, which indeed can be tolerably admitted, Nor are they more clear, deduced before by Ferrari by nearly the same reasoning, certainly far to be preferred both to those things which Peter de Natalibus relates, and to what the other writers amplified with Latin or vernacular little orations; which, I am mistaken, if anyone even moderately erudite can bear patiently enough. But about these a little below. Other adjuncts equally entangle the matter about the place of the first deposition of St. Leus and his translation to Vicum-habentia, Vicoventia or Viguentia of the diocese of Ferrara, which they do not doubt to ascribe to St. Henry the emperor, as done in the year 1014, from which circumstance the said lessons most prudently abstained. Which even if it were granted so to have happened, there remain other doubts, which already then in Bollandus's time must have become known, since from the year 1638 inquiry was made into the aforesaid relics; as is plainly clear from an instrument transmitted to one of ours at Ferrara by the then most illustrious Feretran bishop Consalvo Durante, where he deservedly complains about the neglected archive of his church, in which scarcely anything about St. Leo was found. Hence I reckon it came about that, at the urging of Henschenius and Papebroch, while in the years 1660 and 1661 they were acting in Italy, a new examination was instituted; which the most illustrious Bernardino Scala, successor of the said Consalvo, will teach us, whose longer epistle we shall give after the Life, its beginning alone being here tasted.
[6] the things narrated about the translation, That epistle is extended to fourteen pages, written to Papebroch under the date of Pinna of the Billi, on the 1st of the Kalends of November in the year from the Virgin's childbearing 1666, but which was sent only after his death, which fell on the 19th of January 1667, by his nephew Francesco Caccia de Scala, on the next Kalends of February, thus writing about the last will of his uncle: Sick, pressed by ill-health, among other things he strictly gave me in charge that I should endeavor, to the best of my ability, that the responsory letters about the Life of St. Leo the confessor, from the original which the most illustrious and most reverend prelate himself, before his last infirmity, had written in answering, should be diligently and faithfully taken and transmitted to Antwerp to your Paternity. All this I took care to do with my own eyes, adding or diminishing nothing, but setting down the very words, as they lie written, with him as witness who beholds the hidden things of the heart… Lo therefore the answer to your letters about the Life of St. Leo the confessor, patron of the Feretran church, composed and completed in all its numbers, by the most illustrious and most reverend D. Bernardino Scala, bishop of the Feretran church, my uncle of blessed memory, although at the end not confirmed by his subscription: the cause were his infirmity and his falling asleep in the Lord, etc.
[7] although confirmed Lo now the beginning of the responsory letters of the most illustrious Bernardino himself, in whose course is inserted the Durantine instrument, which I mentioned. I render word for word: Our mouth is filled with joy and our tongue with exultation, your letters announcing the pious and holy work, edited and to be edited about the Acts of the Saints, from the perfect genius and the elaborated industry of John Bollandus and Godfrey Henschenius, priests of the Society of Jesus, pious indeed and holy, since through it the minds of the faithful will be directed to the worship of God and the veneration of the Saints. From those same letters therefore, full both of humanity and of devotion, we have learned that it is ours to seek the monuments by which it can be proved that St. Leo, the first cultivator and patron of the Feretran church, died and was buried at Vicoventia, and was celebrated for miracles in the temple, surnamed by himself of St. Leus: which task indeed, the divine aid being implored, and relying on the clemency of our singular Protector St. Leo, easily discharging, we trust that the things which now follow will most rightly answer to your most right wishes: for those things which we judged supported by clearer truth, and subjected to the press of approbation, lest anything be wanting to our pastoral office, we have not omitted.
[8] There follows in the same epistle: St. Leus therefore, in the solitude of Mount Felicianus, by bishop Bernardino. his senses being repressed by the austerity of life, and the prince of darkness eluded, flew a triumphant to the heavens on the day of the Kalends of August. That sacred body was buried in the same place with great concourse and veneration of the peoples, and there it remained laid up for seven revolving centuries. But the emperor Henry I, or according to others II (although Baronius wisely reconciles these opinions in the notes on the Martyrology), going into Italy, and passing through the same mountain, reverently carried off the holy body, still entire and palpable, with him. Having come to Viguentia, once a city of the diocese of Ferrara, that sacred relic, like an immovable tower, marvelously rendered wholly vain the strength both of animals and of men. Wherefore the emperor, affected with singular grief, uttered such words: I indeed wished honorably to exalt him * in my land, and to have him a companion in my retinue; and thou hast rather chosen to dwell in these marshy places. In this we believe, as also in the other works, that no thing at all is good, except what is wrought by divine grace conceding it, nor can holy bodies proceed, except to the places destined. Let him combine these things, who can.
[9] A most-received opinion holds that the sacred body of St. Leus was deposited and honored at Viguentia already for centuries, The body is asserted to be at Viguentia: which I by no means presume to contradict: that it was not translated to Ferrara, the same most illustrious Bernardino will prove below. Wholly wonderful to me seemed the translation ascribed to St. Henry the emperor, and especially in that manner in which the history is there narrated, of which not the slightest trace do the deeds of that Saint exhibit, weighed not carelessly on the 14th of July and digested chronologically. Hear further whom the most illustrious Bernardino adduces as witness. Thus it is read, he says, in R. D. Bistinto Miccolo of Ravenna in the Life of St. Leus, page 69, printed at Ferrara in the year of the Lord 1650. The inscription of which little book, which is read in the Italian idiom, is this: The Life of San Leo Confessor, whose body is laid up in the parish church of the villa of Voghenza. He believed, I think, that in books subjected to the press of approbation, nothing but the truest things are contained. But certainly another authority is needed to confirm the history of that translation. Nor do the things which Ughelli relates, volume 2 of the Italia Sacra, column 544, please more. That Life, moreover, often requested by Papebroch, could not be obtained; and even if it had been obtained, it would be reckoned of no greater worth than the others about which we have already begun to speak, or that other elegant oration—as if there were anything precious—cited by Marco Antonio Guarino, in the Historical Compendium of the churches of Ferrara, under the name of Ippolito Pigna, page 460.
[10] but most of the Lives are rejected. The rest which the prelate Bernardino, already mentioned so often, pursues in his epistle, will be subjoined below. Here it remains to speak about the Lives of St. Leus; of which that one which exists in Peter de Natalibus, treating chiefly of St. Marinus, we have judged should be reckoned of no more worth than the rest. A little longer is the manuscript one, which was transcribed from the Bodecen codex, often cited by us: but the greatest is that to which this title is prefixed: Here begins the Life of St. Marinus the confessor, taken from a most ancient manuscript book which is in the possession of the illustrious
lords of the Society of St. Jerome of Rimini, folio 167 to folio 174, which is exactly the same as that which Father Beatillo transmitted from Naples in the year 1640, in which there are scarcely more things pertaining separately to St. Leus than what are had in another shorter manuscript, to be preferred to the rest even on this account, that those longer ones, sprinkled with verbose side-matters, deservedly produce tedium rather than pleasure, and bring forth nothing more conducing to the true glory of the Saint: you would call them poems studiously adorned, or at least panegyric orations composed to show off wit; such certainly that they are repudiated by Tillemont, volume 6 page 785, not without disgust. The Acts to be here given are taken from the volume marked H of the library of the Roman Oratory, and we also have the same distributed into nine lessons; from which I have judged that only the Life of St. Leus should be excerpted, the rest, about which it will be treated in the appendix, being cut away, as here follows:
Notes* Read te.
THE LIFE
From volume H of the library of the Roman Oratory, folio 339.
Leus, Confessor, in the diocese of Ferrara (S.)
BHL Number: 4832
Himself a stonecutter with St. Marinus In the times of the emperors Maximian and Diocletian it happened that men, brought from the borders of Dalmatia, appeared to the Hesperians, one by name Leus, the other Marinus, who nonetheless, their parents and the means of the world being left, for the sake of acquiring the heavenly kingdom, exercised themselves unanimously, by days and nights, unceasingly serving with fastings and prayers; and their minds were so kindled in spiritual delights, that, fleeing the joys of the present life, they reckoned the riches of the world as toys already fallen to ruin: and so great sweetness and grace of humanity flourished in them, that they even subjected themselves to the service of subordinates. Therefore the most holy men Leus and Marinus, flourishing in the grace and vigor of all arts, singing psalms with mouth and spirit, worked unceasingly with their hands, whence they might more frequently minister to the needy.
[2] Having landed at Rimini, Therefore, coming to the city of Rimini, each was allotted parts of the diverse works: then the provincials, seeing them aggravated with intolerable labors and burdens, had compassion on them, who for the love of fraternal charity spent their souls even unto death, relating to them how the Savior of the human race descended from the citadel of the Father, and, putting on the flesh received from the Virgin, showing himself God and man to human sight. They, doing the works of these and of such like, bought for themselves one beast of burden, that with that help, without the annoyance of others, they might succor the laboring fathers placed under the pressure of diverse labors. Therefore, not after the passage of much time, an order was given by the aforesaid Emperors, that all the masters of cutting stones should set out to the bases of the mountains, to cut out kinds of diverse marbles from the mountains, which was done. So the holy Leus and Marinus went with the multitude of cutters to the summit of the mountain which in the rustic tongue is called Titanus. So the aforesaid men of God came to the place named above, and worked, as there, the works which they found in the ornaments of stones.
[3] he labors fruitfully; The courses of years therefore being completed to their term, St. Leus set out, a few accompanying him, to the ridge of Mount Felicianus, which in common speech is called Monferrato; and there at last he set up for himself a cell, and dedicated a tabernacle, in which, intent on fraternal love, in such great admiration all congratulated him, that, rolled to the traces of his feet, and magnifying God for him, they professed that all his works, by divine inspiration, would indeed be completed with grace; and all returned to their own homes. St. Leus, returned to his cell, remained in the service of God, giving relief to the oppressed, consolation to the troubled; he turned injuries against himself, continually excusing those who did them; and, kindled with the ardor of charity, he offered himself for the salvation of all as a victim placable to God.
[4] Thence he lives a solitary, But after some time, bishop Gaudentius, when from the seats of the Roman church he had come to Rimini to preach, having entered the city, heard the fame and virtues of the holy Leus and Marinus; the Christians who were in the same city relating them: for nearly the whole city was filled with the divine great deeds which, the divine power ministering, were wrought through those his Saints: which words heard, St. Gaudentius immediately directed letters to them, that, coming, they might receive honor, he bestowing it, and then go to preach to the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[5] and afterward, a priest, he dies holily. The pontifical letters therefore being received and read through, the holy men Leus and Marinus, unanimous, armed in the hope of the heavenly warfare, came to Rimini to St. Gaudentius: who being seen, they were filled with the greatest joy, and remained with him some days, preaching and confirming the people in the word and doctrine of the Lord, who, asked by the pontiff, received the priestly ministry, blessed Leus the grade of presbyter, holy Marinus the levitical honor: and the prelate Gaudentius was so gladdened in them, as if a heavenly messenger had come to him, which in them indeed can without doubt be believed to be. All these things therefore accomplished, the Men of God, bidding farewell to the prelate, returned to their own places; but at the same time, many days having passed, the most blessed Leus, excellent confessor of Christ, freed from the miseries of the present age, and the prince of the world overcome, migrated a triumphant to the desired joys of the heavenly kingdom, the choirs of the heaven of heavens raising him up, on the first day of the Kalends of August.
APPENDIX
In which, from the epistle of the prelate Bernardino cited above, various other doubts pertaining to St. Leus are to some degree elucidated.
Leus, Confessor, in the diocese of Ferrara (S.)
By the author J. B. S.
The ancient cult being proved, We have warned that hither should be rejected those things which are properly reduced neither to establishing the cult, nor to verifying the Acts, about which we have already brought forward whatever does not exceed the appearance of truth. Nor indeed have we denied the translation, although we have not dared so to admit its manner or history. The rest which here follow we give on the faith of the already-praised prelate Bernardino, who neglected nothing of those things which he thought could conduce to the commendation of his holy patron, with such candor and simplicity that even on that head he seems to deserve some singular faith. Besides those things which we recited from him above about the translation of St. Leus, he goes on to prove his first burial on Montefeliciano, and the highest veneration of that place through many following centuries; and finally the carrying-off of the sacred body to Viguentia; he goes on, I say, to prove and evince these things from the sixth lesson of the Office related above, inasmuch as, being edited and approved, it seems to afford him an argument of irrefragable truth. I admit indeed the said lesson, simply adhering to it, so that about that matter nothing remains to be disputed. Let us now hear the following, where he begins more laboriously from the distinction between St. Leo the Pontiff and St. Leo the Feretran his patron, with this longer oration; in which I would not have a word changed:
[2] the translation is supposed, But that we may fulfill your will, in that which weighs more heavily: whether the body of St. Leus is venerated as buried at Viguentia or at Ferrara: us indeed truly, my Fathers most beloved in the Lord, by the support of the reasons above and below, no suspicion tortures, no difficulty terrifies; nay we confess and openly profess that the body of our holy Patron now rests in the parish of Viguentia, and is held in the highest devotion: nor will it ever be the body of St. Leo the pontiff, whose translation was celebrated under Gratian bishop of Ferrara, and laid up in the church of St. Stephen of the same city: for the approbation of your associate Antonio Favorito, together with the others had above, would fail, and the decree of the Sacred Congregation would deceive, which is contradictory. The greatest reason prevails: for the body of St. Leo the pontiff and priest of Christ was translated to Ferrara from Viguentia, under bishop Gratian in the year 1083, on the Kalends of March, in the 4th Indiction, and your Paternity visited it in the year 1661. So from that time until now it has rested in the church of St. Stephen. But from the approbations above, and from the decree of the Sacred Congregation, it is plainly gathered and declared that the body of St. Leus our protector, a confessor not a pontiff, is venerated at Viguentia from 1650 and from 1651: therefore it can never naturally happen that the same body should also be venerated at Ferrara at the same time.
[3] and Leus is distinguished from Leo the pontiff. The body of St. Leo the pontiff is certainly another from the body of St. Leus protector of the Feretran diocese: nor is it difficult to believe; for very many men are called by a not unlike name; and it is already said that four holy Leos are laid up at Rome in the Vatican under one altar, and in the Roman Martyrology twelve holy Leos are numbered: and especially in the holy Martyrs this could easily happen, since, by the rage of the gentiles, the conflagration burst forth from its hiding-places so through the whole world, that almost infinite innocent victims of the Saints were immolated to their God. That you may understand the knot of this incidental controversy, light will be brought by the things which Papebroch noted in his Roman Itinerary, when, among other temples surveyed by him at Ferrara, describing the parish church of St. Stephen, he thus observes in express words: But from the right side of the choir the body of St. Leo the pontiff has been elevated, which, because they wished him to be a Pope, the Nuncio was unwilling to confirm his cult, which therefore was interrupted; although from an old stone which is at the wall, about the manner and time of the solemn translation and elevation from Vicohabentia, the old seat of the bishops, it can be established certainly enough. About that Leo perhaps it will be seen elsewhere; let us now go on with Bernardino:
[4] Relics granted to Montefeltro But the reasons are confirmed. The most illustrious and most reverend D. Consalvo Durante, which he always cherished in his heart, burning with pious desire that the souls of the faithful committed to him should more and more advance in Christian discipline, signified by letters to the most illustrious and most reverend D. Giovanni Fontana bishop of Ferrara, and humbly asked from him some of the sacred relics of the body of St. Leus our protector. Nor did this pious petition of Consalvo prove vain, but that his fervent will might be fulfilled with the wished gift, he most kindly imparted to him a part of one shin-bone of the same Saint, which now, laid up in our Cathedral, the faithful attend with pious cult. Nor ought you also to wish for the letters fully proving this, which were not to be wished for by our predecessor; but they are now faithfully copied and added to these present ones. And this is what we said above, that the Durantine instrument also exists separately among us, transmitted already from the year 1638 to Father Bollandus, and dispatched in full form: John, by the grace of God and of the apostolic See bishop of the holy church of Ferrara. Lo the text itself:
[5] Carried thither from Viguentia, not from Ferrara, The things which excite the piety of the faithful, we gladly embrace with all the zeal we can. Long ago indeed the illustrious and most reverend D. Consalvo bishop of Montefeltro, with the desire with which he burns of amplifying the discipline and devotion of his church, signified to us by letters full of singular piety, and humbly asked something of the sacred relics
of the body of St. Leus the confessor resting in the parish church of Viguentia, once a city of our diocese; whose solemn translation we celebrated on the Kalends of August in the year 1599, and we commanded his feast to be perpetually observed there on the same day, and we reserved certain sacred relics of him with us, and especially a part of one shin-bone, which, through the Reverend Cesare de Antimis, parish priest of the parish church of St. Martin of our city, to that same most religious and most vigilant pastor, on account of the greatest virtues which shine in him, moved by like piety, and led also by this memory, that his cathedral church is dedicated to the same holy glorious confessor our Leo, we resolved to impart and send; as we impart, and send, and by pious largess grant and give. In faith and testimony of which thing, we have ordered these letters to be fortified and sealed with our hand and seal. Given at Ferrara on the 5th day of November 1609. All of which are expressed. Then indeed:
[6] Wherefore, since it is read that the translation of St. Leus the confessor, and there in the highest veneration, resting in the parish church of Viguentia, was celebrated in the year 1599, it will by no means be the translation of St. Leo the pontiff resting in the church of St. Stephen of Ferrara since the year 1083. Nor would that prelate Fontana—no less conspicuous for probity of morals and integrity of life than for doctrine and wisdom—be so devoid of counsel as to declare another body to the faithful under the name of our glorious Protector. But, you will say, the celebration is read to have followed from Viguentia to Ferrara. It is answered that that was not the body of our St. Leus, but, as we inferred above, of another: for of our one's translation this is said to have been the cause: now the ruins of his very ancient temple were oppressing it; the piety of the inhabitants immediately ran up, and they restore it, and there that glorious body is translated, but not to Ferrara. Our predecessor also Consalvo, in the translation of the said sacred shin-bone, liberally granted to him by bishop Fontana, and placed under the high altar of this our cathedral, promulgated these pastoral letters:
[7] "The relics of St. Leo the confessor, advocate and titular of the holy Feretran church, transmitted by Giovanni Fontana, bishop of Ferrara, to Consalvo Durante, from the year 1611. bishop of the Feretran church, were translated into this Cathedral church, with the greatest concourse and religion of every order, age and sex of the whole diocese, in the second diocesan synod celebrated by him, and placed under the high altar in the year of the Lord 1611, on the 17th day of May." And this, if it be anything, deserves to be called the peremptory argument of Bernardino, such as it is; for the things which he then adduces from his Bistinto Miccolo, and from some manuscript, under the title Sieges and Wars of the City of San Leo, and then from the general Catalogue of the Saints of Italy of Ferrari, do not at all accomplish the matter, if it be more scrupulously inspected from the egg, which we could wish supported by monuments a little more ancient. What follows, taken nearly from the authority of Pope Clement VIII, would say something, if it were derived from another source than from the same Bistinto. Thus meanwhile, relying on that author, Bernardino insists:
[8] Clement VIII at Viguentia. But why more? Clement VIII, Pope, Greatest and Best, in the year one thousand five hundred ninety-nine, together with the college of the Purpled Cardinals, sought Ferrara, and over its duchy, devolved to the Church, the setting of feet being happily accomplished, was kindled with wonderful desire of visiting the sacred body of the Feretran Protector. Nor does he suffer delays, for the place where the Saint was venerated, although hidden, never moved him, nor did he grow lukewarm at the marshes by which it was surrounded on all sides. Thus Bistinto in the Life, page 85. But, O Father most dear in the bowels of Christ, what dost thou revolve in thy heart about the immobility of the body of St. Leus? For very many most strong forces strive and themselves labor to extract that little body from the place of Viguentia, but they waste their effort: a miracle indeed never to be sufficiently adorned with praises, letters, and monuments! Is it not perhaps to be piously believed by thee and the rest, that the Saint chose Viguentia for himself as a firm seat? For God is wonderful in his Saints. That we may fulfill thy wish also in other things which are not doubtful to us, we will now most gladly open them to thee. Near the little cell which the Saint had erected for himself on Mount Felicianus, a certain spring bubbled, as even now it most abundantly gushes forth in the place under the name of Val santa. The waters of this spring, which is now called of St. Leo, if drunk by those whom a fever holds, sometimes miraculously restore them to their former health.
[9] Monuments of a more ancient cult, From what has been had above, you have already sufficiently perceived that both Mount Felicianus and the city, together with a most fortified citadel which is seen raised above it, are called by the same name San Leo. There a great temple is seen, built from the year 1100, and dedicated to his name. Under the stairs erected within, and adorned indeed with singular majesty, by which the semicircle of the high altar is ascended, a certain covering of a certain sepulcher is kept on the left. There ancient letters are read, incised, and also on the sides two small crosses are seen, in example A; at the back, at the bottom, beyond the great cross sculpted there, are letters, in example B; above the principal doors of the same temple or cathedral two small marble images are seen, one on the right, the other on the left. The first has these letters incised on its breast, MARINUS; but the second, LEO.
A. St. Leo the presbyter, a pilgrim: While I lived, this I loved, this I said, this I wrote: Let us all say: Thanks be to God always, thanks be to God always, thanks be to God always. ✠
✠ This is my rest for ever and ever: I Here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. Pray, B pray to God always, pray to God always.
✠ Holy Leo the presbyter, pray for thy servant Custantius, and pray for me, Orathius, thy great servant. *
[10] His first solemnity is celebrated at Viguentia on the Kalends of August, the great celebrity of today. and with such concourse of peoples, both natives and strangers (and especially of Bologna), that, according to the reckoning which is drawn up, the number truly reached about twelve thousand men. There is celebrated another on the 14th day of February, in memory of that translation, which indeed follows, adorned with singular splendor, the veneration of sacrifices, and a large abundance of gifts of those approaching there. Wherefore each one can persuade himself for certain that so great a multitude of the faithful indicates there the abode of the sacred body. At the side of the choir of the church of Viguentia, which that village has as its only one, there exists a certain monument of marble of red color, in which is described the translation of St. Leus from Umbria made there by the emperor Henry II, and the immobility of the same sacred body, which followed in that marshy place. Around the same choir some images of the Saints are seen painted on the wall; the series of them is thus distinguished: Here is represented St. Leo together with St. Marinus cutting stones at the bases of the mountains; there both pouring forth prayers to the Lord; elsewhere he is first promoted to Orders by St. Gaudentius bishop of Rimini. And these things thus far for his St. Leo or Leone the prelate Bernardino: the rest contained in the same letters pertain to other Saints. We have judged the things now related to be altogether sufficient, the songs or hymns in praise of the Saint composed by Antonio Cerri and Orazio Leontino being neglected, in which the same things are re-sung which, already repeated to nausea, brought satiety, no one, I think, will deny.
Notes* Perhaps malo.