Serenus

ON ST. SERENUS, BISHOP OF MARSEILLE,

AT BIANDRATE IN ITALY.

Under the beginning of the sixth century.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Serenus, bishop and confessor, of Biandrate in Insubria of Italy (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. Certain deeds of the Saint explained, and his cult among the people of Biandrate asserted.

Since concerning St. Serenus, bishop of Marseille, we had nothing at all in our manuscript stores, it fell out conveniently that, for illustrating his affairs as far as could be done, there of his own accord offered us his help a man most adorned with other endowments, Serenus, bishop of Marseille, and in this kind of office long since most well-deserving of our studies, Fr. Pietro Gallarati, priest of the Society of Jesus at Milan. We wrote back therefore at once, that in our so great poverty if he should furnish any aid, that indeed would be the more welcome to us, the more it was necessary. By these very letters he, approaching the most illustrious Count of Biandrate (where the Saint, as we shall say below, rests and is venerated), Don Donato de Silva, whom he much commends for friendship, erudition, and piety, easily obtained whatever of solicitude, labor, authority, and industry could be hoped for in this business. This the Reverend and honorable Don Giovanni Carlo Badone, canon of the church of Biandrate, made evident, a man indeed most worthy who, invited by the Count to a part in a disquisition of this kind, came: for in an elegant and laborious Latin lucubration, most obligingly inscribed to Father Gallarati on the Kalends of August in the year 1731, and by him soon destined for Antwerp, he testifies that not only at home, that is at Biandrate, all corners were searched, if perhaps anywhere any old document lay hid; but also that for a long time the private and public archives of the neighboring cities, and especially of the church of Vercelli (to which Biandrate is subject), were solicitously scoured. But since the frequent calamities of past wars had here for the most part eluded the pains taken; lest their diligence might seem to have left anything unattempted of what pertained to them, turning at last also to the works published in type, they so made their own the labor which ought to have been ours, that they nearly took away the hope of finding anything about St. Serenus which they had not already themselves given as found. And this warning indeed we wished the reader candidly to have, that he may know to whom this, whatever of a commentary it is, ought chiefly to be referred as owed.

[2] The Badonian Treatise takes its beginning from those things which St. Gregory the Great once wrote concerning Serenus, bishop of Marseille, in the epistles given to him; who flourished under Gregory the Great, namely, that from their collation with the Biandratensian traditions and monuments to be subjoined, it may become clear that he is the very same Serenus, whose solemn veneration and cult flourished among them from time immemorial. Now those epistles are in the Gregorian Register only four; namely of the fifth book (I follow the Douai edition of the year 1615) the fifty-second, given in the month of July of the 14th Indiction; of the seventh book the hundred and eleventh, given in the month of July or August of the 2nd Indiction; of the ninth book the ninth, and the fifty-second, given in the 4th Indiction. From the first we learn only this of Serenus, that he was already then bishop of Marseille, when the supreme Pontiff commended to him St. Augustine, setting out with his companions to the English, and likewise Candidus the presbyter, in the year of Christ 596: for the beginning of his episcopate is obscure; yet to be fixed under the Pontificate of St. Gregory; as one who in the month of June, Indiction 9, that is, in the year of Christ 591, wrote to Theodore, still surviving predecessor of Serenus, bishop of Marseille of the Gauls, the epistle of the first book the forty-fifth: Guesnay in his Annals of Marseille affixes it to the year 594; more safely the most recent Gallia Christiana, to the year ABOUT 594. The last of the said epistles, by which the same most holy Pontiff commends to Mennas of Toulouse, Serenus of Marseille, and other bishops some monks sent by him with Laurentius the presbyter and Mellitus the abbot into England to bring aid to St. Augustine, brings scarcely any other light here, than that already, obeying Gregory's admonitions, as will be noted below, Serenus sat at Marseille down to the year 601. But how much longer he survived (whatever Guesnay without a witness attributes more years to him) is unknown: as thou wilt gather from the same Gallia Christiana tom. 1, where it treats of the church of Marseille. To us he does not seem to have reached the year of Christ 604; which we shall observe from the authority of an ancient poem below num. 23.

[3] and by repeated letters from him The other two epistles directed to Serenus alone betray certain quite singular affairs of his; and the former indeed given, as we said, in the month of July of Indiction 2, or of the year 599, has thus: Gregory to Serenus, bishop of Marseille. That we transmit writings to your fraternity so late, impute this not to sloth, but to occupation. But the bearer of the present, our most beloved son Cyriacus, father of our monastery, we commend to you in all things; that no delay detain him in the city of Marseille; but that he set out to our brother and fellow-bishop Syagrius with the solace of your holiness. Moreover I indicate that it has long since reached us, that your fraternity, seeing certain adorers of images, broke and cast down those same images of the church. And indeed we praise you for having had zeal, lest anything made by hand could be adored; but we judge that you ought not to have broken those same images. For therefore is a picture employed in churches, that those who know not letters may at least by seeing on the walls read what they cannot read in books. Thy fraternity therefore ought both to have preserved them, and to have prohibited the people from their adoration: so that both the ignorant of letters might have whence to gather a knowledge of the history, and the people might not at all [sin] in the adoration of the picture

sin. Serenus, who thought that what he had done was worthy rather of praise than of just chastisement, this epistle so stung, that he began to doubt whether it was dictated by Gregory, or fabricated by Cyriacus himself. Concerning which matter he presently gave letters to the same Pontiff, conceived not without commotion of mind. To which Gregory replied with that epistle, which, since among those given in Indiction IV, begun from the Kalends of September of the year 600, it is numbered only the ninth, may easily be seen to have been written before the end of the same year. Lo its chief heads.

[4] Gregory to Serenus, bishop of Marseille. The beginnings of thy letter so demonstrated the sacerdotal benevolence in thee, on account of the images of the Saints broken in the church, that a greater gladness was made to us about thy fraternity. But so much did their end dissent from its beginnings; that such an epistle was believed to be not of one, but of divers minds. But from that, that thou didst doubt about our writings, which we sent to thee, it appeared how incautious thou art: for if thou hadst diligently attended to those things which by fraternal love we admonished, not only wouldst thou by no means have doubted, nay rather thou wouldst have known what thou oughtest to do with sacerdotal gravity. For neither was Cyriacus, formerly abbot, who was the bearer of our writings, of such discipline or erudition, that either he himself would dare to do otherwise, as thou thinkest, or thou shouldst take up this suspicion of falsity about his person. But while thou postponest to weigh salubrious admonitions, it happens that thou art now culpable not only in act, but even in questioning. For it had been reported to us, that, kindled with inconsiderate zeal, thou didst break the images of the Saints under this quasi-excuse, that they ought not to be adored. And indeed that thou hadst forbidden them to be adored, we altogether praised: but that thou hadst broken them, we reprehend. Say, brother; when was it heard done by any priest, what thou hast done? If nothing else; even that ought to have called thee back, lest, despising the other brethren, thou shouldst believe thyself alone to be holy and wise?…

[5] But while thou executest this with the incautious motion of thy mind too immoderately, and other causes thou art reported so to have scandalized thy sons; that the greatest part of them suspended themselves from thy communion. When therefore wilt thou lead the erring sheep to the Lord's fold, thou who prevailest not to retain those which thou hast? Wherefore we exhort, that even now thou study to be solicitous, and restrain thyself from this presumption; that thou hasten to recall the minds of those whom thou knowest disjoined from thy unity, with paternal sweetness to thyself, with all effort, and all zeal… But all these things we speak to thy fraternity out of love of the holy Church. Let it not therefore be broken from the zeal of rectitude by my rebuke; but rather be helped in the study of pious dispensation. Moreover it has come to us, that thy love willingly receives evil men into its society; so much that a certain presbyter, who after he fell, and is said still to be engaged in the pollution of his iniquity, thou hast as familiar. Which indeed we do not at all believe… But lest perhaps someone by surreptitious means or dissimulation persuaded thee, that he should be received by thee and still held; it befits thee not only to expel this man further from thee, but also to cut off his excesses in every way by sacerdotal zeal. But others, who are recorded to be depraved, by paternal exhortation restrain from their depravity and study to recall to the way of rectitude… These things therefore, most beloved brother, attend diligently with the ear of the heart, and study so to act, that thou both salubriously correct the depraved, and induce no scandal from the society of the wicked into the minds of thy sons.

[6] How ineptly the heretics, patrons and at the same time descendants of the iconoclasts, abuse these two letters, to impugn the veneration of the sacred images received among the Catholics from the very cradle of the Church, it is not to the point here to say: he was accused; this the most Eminent Bellarmine did luminously and of set purpose, Controversies tom. 2, and several others before and after him. Here it is asked concerning Serenus, bishop of Marseille, whether he can be securely numbered among the heavenly ones, whom so great and such a Pontiff and Doctor of the Church accused: first, that he broke the images of the Saints in the church: secondly, that the Pontifical epistle on that matter, seasoned altogether with paternal admonitions and sweetness, through the too great disturbance of his obstinate mind, he neither sufficiently, as he could and ought, acknowledged, nor revered; but rashly reckoned it suspect, nay supposititious by Cyriacus, a most upright and most religious man: thirdly, that he seemed to have held of no account the greatest schism of his church, and so, as by erring he had stirred it up, so, by eluding the proposed remedy, allowed it to grow strong: fourthly, that he received depraved men into his society, and among them a lapsed presbyter still engaged in the pollution of his iniquity: fifthly and finally, that he even dared, after these things, to write back peevishly to the supreme Pastor of the Church. These heads indeed are of such a kind, that one ought least to wonder, if no thought of the sanctity of this Serenus fell upon those writers who knew him from Gregory alone, as all the French before the Gallican Martyrology published by Saussay; or if others later, as Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology on this day, and our Longueval in the most recent History of the Gallican Church tom. 3, book 8, page 340, on the authority of Saussay alone, often little solid, did not here very confidently acquiesce. They would not have hesitated, I think, if it had befallen them to see and weigh what we shall presently bring forward.

[7] because he had sinned by indiscreet zeal, For neither does St. Gregory in the accusations just proposed carp at any malice of Serenus; but at an inconsiderate, precipitate, incautious zeal, by which, wishing to act well, he exceeded measure; which is common to him with several very great and most holy men, and, wonderful how much, lessens the fault, however grave otherwise in itself. But that same zeal seems to pertain to each member of the above accusation: for as concerns the images; if once he had seriously, though incautiously, persuaded himself, that among a people not sufficiently purged of and estranged from heathen superstition, nor easily otherwise to be purged, it was better that there be no images of the Saints at all, than that they be suffered to be adored like idols (for of such adoration it is here treated, as after innumerable others Louis du Mesnil rightly and briefly shows in The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church tom. 3, book 30, num. 35) if once, I say, he had decreed this as by evident reasoning to himself; why should he not persuade himself by the same reasoning, that there could be no other opinion of any prudent bishop, and so even of a most wise and most holy Pontiff; and therefore begin to hold suspect the epistle and the bearer, opposing, as he himself believed, so open a truth? Imprudently, thou sayest. Be it so; but yet from the heart. Why should he not judge that the defection of his own too, led always by the same principle, must be permitted for a while, rather than that be omitted which he had judged so necessary for once eliminating their superstition, that it could not be omitted without his own grave offense? Concerning the epistle given to St. Gregory; if it was sprinkled with any gall, so far, in my opinion at least, it did not touch the Pontiff (since he was in the beginning of the letter most benevolently addressed;) but Cyriacus, whom he there without doubt was accusing of the supposititious epistle, or at least calling into suspicion of so great a crime, stirred up by that same zeal which had first dictated this suspicion to him. That he is said to have used familiarly with depraved men; perhaps it is a calumny: for Gregory adds: Which indeed we do not at all believe: perhaps Serenus was ignorant that they were depraved, nay believed them good; as these words of Gregory intimate: But lest perhaps someone by surreptitious means or dissimulation, etc.; perhaps even, knowing them really to be such, he therefore wished to draw them nearer to himself, that, removed from the occasion of crime by his use and familiarity, he might convert them to amendment.

[8] However it be; he seems to have satisfied Gregory's second, and now not doubtful, admonitions so promptly and fully; so promptly did he amend; that whatever he had before sinned, he ought to be judged to have thoroughly washed away. We gather this not only from the Biandratensian monuments, of which below; but also from St. Gregory himself; as one who made no word afterward about this business, not even then, when somewhat later, but yet in the same Indiction IV, or the year of Christ 601, he wrote to the same Serenus, as we saw above. For indeed that supreme Pastor of pastors was not one who could ever be silent in laying down the solicitude of all the churches, in bearing anywhere a dissenting pastor rejected by his flock, in dissembling finally such a state of the church of Marseille as he had before depicted, or look on at leisure. Already then therefore he had understood, that things were not in that state, as to demand from him any further medicine or care. That collection would be valid, thou sayest, if that last epistle of Gregory had pertained properly to Serenus alone; but since it was one of the "apares" , that is, of those of which several copies of the same form and text were wont to be made, each to be communicated to individuals to whom the same matter was commended; there was no place in it of touching anything else than what pertained commonly to all to whom it was to be sent. As though indeed the supreme Pontiff, unless by repeated and severe commands he had at length learned that Serenus had in some way yielded, would have deigned him such letters. What? Could not something proper be added to common letters in the copy destined for Serenus, if the matter required? Could not Gregory, the first as well as the seventh (in Labbe, Councils* tom. 10, col. 8), write letters begun indeed as "apares"; but toward the end differing in individual epistles, according to the fitness of places and persons?

[9] There is nothing therefore in Gregory the Great which forbids to acknowledge the sanctity of that same Serenus, so that he ought to be judged altogether the same, bishop of Marseille, whom he himself mentioned; as being, by a public cult continued through an immemorial course of time down to now, sufficiently proved from elsewhere. So long before us judged the most illustrious Carlo Bascapè, bishop of Novara, in his Novaria, published at Novara in the year 1612, book 1, page 94 and following; Philip Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on this day, writing thus: Of St. Serenus, bishop of Marseille, at Biandrate. Serenus, bishop of Marseille, when from Rome, whither he had set out to visit the thresholds of the Apostles, he was returning into his homeland, at Biandrate, a village or fortress of the diocese of Vercelli, falling sick, died. Whose body, when it had lain hidden, being divinely found, was laid away with fitting honor in the greater church, whose title is St. Columban. There are extant in that church his image painted on the wall, quite ancient, and verses, by which the discovery and the miracle of a man, laboring under a grave disease, suddenly and wondrously healed at his tomb, are described *. There is also a hospice erected under his invocation, and a chapel in the mentioned church of St. Columban dedicated to his name;

which is read that indulgence was granted to those visiting it on the feast day of St. Serenus by the supreme Pontiffs. But the feast day is kept on the 4th of the Nones of August. Then in another hand he subjoins: From the monuments of the aforesaid church. The same afterward in the general Catalogue, on the 4th of the Nones of August, announces the birthday, At Biandrate, of St. Serenus, bishop of Marseille: and again in the notes he calls upon the monuments of the same church. Ferrari without doubt Ludovico Novarini follows in the Spiritual Martyrology, printed at Venice in the year 1628, since he refers on the same day St. Serenus the bishop: for that he omits the place both of his cult and of his episcopate, that ought not to hinder; since he notes such things nowhere concerning other Saints.

[10] To these add Saussay on the same day in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology page 1153 writing thus: At Biandrate, who at Biandrate is venerated as a Saint; a village of the Novara territory in the diocese of Vercelli, of St. Serenus bishop of Marseille, to whom St. Gregory the Great wrote back more than once: obeying whose admonitions he corrected certain things which he had improvidently admitted; and wholly turned to the love of God and the care of the flock committed, he earned that after his pious obsequies he should be glorified by the tokens of divine glory: which brought it about, that his body, so great an instrument of divine wonders, was sought by the peoples with an ambitious ardor as it were as a pledge of protection; and at last was carried to the parish church of the said village for cult and defense; where even now he is honored as the proper defender of the place, nay the powerful helper of the whole Novara territory. To Saussay adheres our Guesnay in the Annals of the province of Marseille at the year of Christ 594 and following. Both were preceded by the most illustrious Brautius, bishop of Sarsina, in the Poetic Martyrology of the Saints of all Italy, published at Venice in the year 1630, when on this day of St. Serenus, bishop of Marseille, he sings thus:

Returning to his spouse Serenus from the City, / the Bridegroom laid his bones in foreign soil.

And presently of his veneration:

The foreign land received an unknown man; / and the pious people learned by signs what he was.

But since the authority of all these rests on the tradition and monuments of the church of Biandrate, it remains that we follow Badone in his writings leading to them.

[11] not another. It will be clear, unless I am mistaken, from these, what credit the author of the sixteenth century can make, friar Giovanni Filippo of Novara, who, as Badone testifies, in the Chronicle of the Canonical Order, printed at Cremona by Cesare de Richardis in the year 1538, book 3, chapter 42, page 41, has this: "The monastery of St. Columban of Biandrate, in which lies the body of St. Serenus, Canon Regular, is possessed by certain canons, who first were Regulars; but now, the habit being rejected, they carry a linen spear." That Chronicle it did not befall me to see; but its authority the same man who cites it lessens with these words: That St. Serenus therefore was of the order of Canons, must be believed, if credit is to be given to this author. But indeed, who can assent to a writer who asserts that the Order of Canons began under the abbot Christ, unless one who confuses old wives' fables, and the vain ravings of a trifling mind, with truth? And so that Friar, so far as I at least know, had neither a leader of this assertion, nor a follower; not even Ghini, however easy in enrolling into the Order of Canons Regular Saints from wherever, no less than sagacious in seeking them out. Perhaps the good man had learned from somewhere, that some holy Serenus was a presbyter and confessor, in whose name a monastery and church of Canons Regular were dedicated at Chaumeryel (Cantumerula) near Troyes in French Champagne; and thence gathered that that Serenus was of the same Order; but since among those Canons he had understood that his relics are not kept, and himself knew no other St. Serenus confessor; he confused this our Bishop, not without gross error, with that presbyter: for how different both are from each other, will become plain from what is to be said on the day 2 October, on which that Serenus of Chaumeryel (resting not far thence in the Cellensian priory of the Benedictines) is venerated.

al. apparibus*.

* supply, "are described."

§ II. The antiquity of his cult in the same place, proved from the tradition and monuments of the place.

Before we treat of the tradition and monuments of the people of Biandrate, it will not be unseasonable to touch a little on the place itself. The tradition of the people of Biandrate Biandrate, or Blandratum, or Blandrate, was once a city famous both for its own and for its Counts' nobility and power, situated among the Insubrians by the river Sesia, distant from the city of Vercelli, to whose diocese it pertains, eight miles, and seven from Novara. It flourished down to the year of Christ 1168, in which (as, besides several others, Donato Bossi relates in his Chronicle) the Milanese, reckoning how great evils they had received from the Blandratenses (defending the party of Frederick Barbarossa) (for they suffered no other city equally hostile in the hardest times), got possession of it (understand the city of Biandrate) by a most grievous siege: and the walls being ruined, divided the whole city into four villages (as it had once itself contrived against the Milanese). From which the city of Blandrate was neither any more rebuilt, nor had any form of a city. So Bossi. But neither did it afterward sufficiently retain that very form to which it was then reduced, amid the ensuing wars: for, as Badone is author, by the devastations of the later wars, beyond the other provinces of Transpadane Gaul, the county of Biandrate was liable; as being bordering on the Piedmontese region, and immediately exposed to the incursions of the French. And so there too in the past century all things were burned, wasted, and consumed; so much that not only did the writings perish; but even the very face of the place and its ancient beauty fell away. Presently thence the distinguished Man, his style turned to our matter, Yet receive, he says, the few things which after so many afflictions survive:

[13] There is in the first place an ancient tradition among the inhabitants, that Serenus went to Rome, either that he might clear himself before the Pontiff of the impious heresy of the iconoclasts (so he proleptically calls the error, concerning the death and burial of St. Serenus bishop of Marseille, which had not yet existed, much less had been anywhere defended with obstinacy), of which he had been accused by the malevolent; or that he might visit the thresholds of the Apostles out of his piety. But when, returning from Rome, he was setting out into Gaul, and had taken lodging at Biandrate in a monastery of monks (Rumor is, that it was of the Order of St. Benedict; of which however there is no mention in Mabillon), being seized by infirmity, he closed his last day: but after his death, some centuries having elapsed, and the monastery, by the injuries of time and wars, having collapsed into ruin and been reduced to the cultivation of the field, splendors of unwonted light were often seen there at night-time, breaths of sweet odors struck the nostrils of those passing near, and harmonic concerts were heard; which all, as unwonted and prodigious, were long a wonder to the inhabitants, not without great suspense of mind.

[14] with the discovery of the body with an epigraph, But afterward, when one day a plowman was cleaving that very field with the plowshare, the oxen suddenly stopped, and, their knees bent, as though reverent, gave forth frequent lowings; nor could they by blows, or any art, be brought to pursue the begun work: struck by which prodigy the plowman called out the master; and the villagers following the master in troops pronounced that the field must be dug up in that place, that they might attain the cause of the unwonted thing: which also being done, at no small depth below the ground a marble ark was found; which being opened before religious men and a multitude of the people, the body of Serenus was found with an inscription carved on leaden plates, which indicated his name, dignity, journey, death, and sanctity. Meanwhile a discord is reported to have arisen between the inhabitants of Biandrate and of Casale Beltramo (a village nearest to Biandrate, on the side toward Vercelli), both peoples demanding the holy pledge; the people of Biandrate by this right, that it had been found in their own territory, but the inhabitants of Casale Beltramo, because the field where the sarcophagus lay (to it even today the name of the Holy Field remains), although situated within the bounds of the Biandratenses, was yet possessed by right of dominion by an inhabitant of Casale Beltramo.

[15] and the prodigious translation. By which reasons since they were on either side supported, the discord is reported to have proceeded so far, that from quarrels there would easily have been a rush to arms, had not a certain religious man of great authority with both composed the tumultuous minds with eloquent discourse, and persuaded that the strife must be decided not by arms, but committed to the arbitration of the Saint himself; which he thought would come to pass, if two young bullocks not yet accustomed to the yoke, one from Biandrate, the other from Casale Beltramo, should be joined to a wagon, and, none leading or driving them, the holy body be permitted to be carried whither it pleased them. Which counsel, when it had pleased all, was also given over to execution, and not with a vain outcome: for, to the great admiration of the people flowing together, whether out of devotion or curiosity, to behold this thing, the bullocks with no refusal, as if they had long been accustomed to the yoke, moved the holy pledge from the place, and hastening by a straight track and swift pace toward Biandrate, stopped before the door of the church of St. Columban, near the ruins of the most ancient citadel built of the same village; and there, their knees bent, lifting their faces toward the top of a lofty elm, situated over against the said door, gave forth incessant lowings; as though, inspired by the divine power, they were eager to indicate that the holy body must be deposited in that place. In this sense at least the matter must be understood, the people of Biandrate judged; and, that they might give it over to execution, in that place where the elm tree was situated they built a portico, and superimposed on it a church with a chapel, conspicuous with a lofty vault, that in an eminent place, as the lowing of the oxen had indicated, they might place the holy pledge. Thus far Badone; who, that he may in some way confirm the antiquity of this tradition, thus proceeds:

[16] This tradition is confirmed by the tablets in the Saint's chapel These things for the most part were painted of old in the circuit of the chapel itself; and in the past century, when now the colors had faded, they were for the most part renewed with the brush, some miracles too being added, which by the intercession of St. Serenus God worked there in a later age, all which thou wilt see expressed in the circuit of the icon of the same Saint, which, engraved on copper, I send thee. There is expressed there first, St. Serenus, on I know not what occasion, receiving the episcopal Order from St. Gregory the Great himself: secondly, ordering the image of a certain Saint in the church to be broken: thirdly, undertaking a journey to Rome: fourthly, dead and composed for burial: fifthly, angels are exhibited singing together in the air, together with a heavenly light irradiating the field beneath: sixthly, the plowman vainly goading the oxen fallen on their knees amid plowing: seventhly, the cart with the Saint's body placed on it drawn all the way to the church of Biandrate by the two young bullocks there standing still, and lifting their faces upward with the wagon-pole toward the top of the neighboring elm: eighthly, the building of the chapel: ninthly, pilgrims flocking to the chapel now erected out of vow: tenthly, a man a suppliant at the Saint's altar, and there freed of a hernia: eleventhly, the most excellent Don Juan de Idiaquez giving thanks to the Saint for his health, which the physicians had despaired of, recovered by a miracle: twelfthly, a woman deprecating paralysis in the year 1630, and presently obtaining her vow

fulfilled; thirteenthly, a girl, whom a wolf had invaded, unharmed, the mother invoking the Saint: fourteenthly and last, the people of Gargarengo (Gargarengo is a village not far from Biandrate) suppliantly poured out before his altar, and vowing that yearly among them the festal light of St. Serenus would thenceforth be celebrated with solemn observance; by which vow that village shut out from its bounds a most dire plague far and wide devastating all around. Engraved on copper are all these by order of the consuls and rectors of the said Burg (of Biandrate) in the year 1634.

[17] But it is manifest that the whole tradition of the people of Biandrate about Serenus is graphically adumbrated by these tablets, painted long before the year 1498, especially the second, third, and following, at least down to the tenth, and perhaps the eleventh: it is asked therefore how ancient those are, not as they were engraved on copper, but as, expressed with brush and colors, they adorn the Saint's chapel. Don Badone answers: But as concerns the age of the primeval painting, nothing can be known on account of its renewal. Yet this is worthy of observation, that an ancient image of the Virgin Deipara, painted on the wall of the same chapel, is even now seen, at whose feet is read this epoch: 1498, the twenty-third of November, in that kind of characters which they commonly call Gothic, and in numeric notes likewise Gothic. But since this painting has had no work of renewal; it is not unlikely that in a later age than the others, expressing the miracles of St. Serenus (beheld in the translation of the body, and before it), it was made; and therefore that those were painted long before the year 1498. And Ferrari indeed, cited above, seems to indicate these paintings with these words: There are extant in that church his image painted on the wall, quite ancient, and verses, etc.; but I know not how it was done, as I would say, that Carlo Bascapè did not attend to them, when he was on the spot, whose Novaria came to light only one year before the Catalogue of Ferrari. Or did he think they were not to be mentioned by him, because they expressed altogether the same things which the verses, painted there on the wall, testified luminously enough? These certainly he alone gave, prefacing thus: And we read these verses about him painted on the wall; which, of whatever sort they be, we do not think should be omitted, because they are ancient; although the beginning seems to be lacking:

[18] Here the suppliant people… venerates with honor / the Saints; but a god with false religion. / The heavenly image is broken from the old wall, / lest the crowd should thus neu worship dumb idols. and an acephalous poem, / The delivered writing by the hand of the supreme Pontiff / rebukes the figures cast out of the wall by piety pietate . / With swift foot he visits the Romulean towers and the holy / walls, that he may there clear himself of the charge. / As he stood before the sacred feet, in order he narrates / all things; thus a greater grace follows him. / Glad he departs, desiring to behold the homeland he had left; / but he himself fixed his foot in the Biandrate fields: / This homeland pleased him; the pleasant colonists pleased him: / here a sweet friend closed his eyes for him. / The greedy earth received his body in a sepulcher; / and it lay hidden in darkness indeed for many seasons. / Here where the body was, holy cinnamon burned; / the whole court of heaven sang praises: / with nocturnal light surpassing gleaming Phoebus, / the people perceived that a pious body was present. / The devout populace rejoices to have found a new Patron: / the threefold court strove Est * long at once. / The fathers took counsel about the things to be done: / a virgin bullock leads him to the church. / Before the doors of the temple the bullocks, crying with voice, / gave signs, the pious ones, that they should lead him upward. / Kindly Serenus, a solemn altar is set for thee; / nor does a small urn retain thy relics. / A swollen hernia had loosened the distended parts, / nor could the physicians bring the aid of health: / Kindly Serenus, led to thy venerable altar, / straightway he goes safe to his own home.

[19] inscribed on the wall in the same place, The same poem Badone transcribed for us, observing that it is inscribed in Gothic characters from of old on the Gospel horn of the same chapel on a cement pilaster, and even now conspicuous, if you except one word in the first verse, which is seen omitted of its own accord and marked with dots. In that, however, he says, that it says a strife arose between three courts for obtaining the body of St. Serenus, it repugns to the tradition: and perhaps it was added only for the sake of the rhythm. But to one considering this inscription more attentively it will easily come to mind, that it is acephalous, and that not a few verses are lacking at the beginning, by which the name of Serenus, his episcopal dignity, and the city of Marseille, where he had his see, would be designated. But since no traces at all of preceding verses appear in the wall; nay, since it is plainly established, both the nature of the cement being thoroughly examined, and the minimal distance of the verses now existing from the epistyle of the pilaster, that there never were any; hence anyone will willingly come down to this opinion, that this inscription was substituted for another ampler and more ancient one, which, when the people of Biandrate saw it now obliterated by age and nearly consumed, they ordered to be renewed and inscribed in a safer place, for that part which was still intelligible.

[20] and very ancient; The last remark of the ingenious man pleases, which indeed extends the antiquity of this poem very much: for if a copy of the prototype, fading by age when it was transcribed, seemed to Carlo, bishop of Novara, and by no means a stranger in antiquarian matters, in the year 1612, or even before 1605, when Badone reports he wrote it, on account of its antiquity, to be commended to the memory of posterity; what must be settled about the age of the prototype itself, no one but sees. I certainly would not dare to accuse of falsity one who should refer it to the times near the discovery and translation; that is, to about the thirteenth century: for I scarcely believe that that discovery and translation happened long before that century; since it happened after Biandrate had lost both its citadel and the name of city, and had begun to be called a village, as is clear from the text of the above tradition: The bullocks … moved the holy pledge from the place, and hastening by a straight track and swift pace toward Biandrate, stopped before the door of the church of St. Columban, near the ruins of the most ancient citadel built of the same village: but that both the name and the form of a city perished for Biandrate we have already said in the year of Christ 1168. But that that body was found and translated at least before the advanced fourteenth century, the old Statutes of Biandrate will prove below, num. 25 and following.

[21] Who therefore would hence deny that the tradition of the people of Biandrate about St. Serenus, nay even by the people of Marseille themselves. bishop of Marseille, is validly confirmed? For although in that poem, as it now survives, neither the prelate's dignity nor his see is expressed; yet the name is expressed with those circumstances which mark Serenus of Marseille as with a finger; as that he broke the images of the Saints, lest they should be worshipped like idols; and that the Pontiff therefore rebuked him by letters. For come, though no tradition explained this passage, what other Serenus couldst thou find, whether from history, or from any monuments whatever, upon whom these things would square, besides that one whom we have mentioned, bishop of Marseille? This therefore is the very same, who from time immemorial at Biandrate, according to a tradition proved by ancient and evident monuments, died, was buried, found, translated, and down to this day publicly venerated. Which indeed is asserted the more confidently, that in the church of Marseille down to the past century there was no knowledge of the death of their Serenus, nor is there even now any of his sepulcher or body laid anywhere or ever there: for from that too thou mightest gather that he died and was buried abroad. And so now the people of Marseille themselves, led even by the sole authority of Saussay, as is clear from the Annals of Guesnay, in no way doubt to acknowledge their Serenus both holy and laid away and preserved at Biandrate. But what could solidly be opposed to this our opinion, nay to the tradition of the people of Biandrate thus proposed, we do not see.

[22] But indeed someone will meet [us] and say: Serenus of Marseille, An objection is solved; according to what was said above num. 8, had already satisfied Gregory the Great by epistle, before he departed from Marseille: it cannot therefore agree with him, what the tradition and at the same time the poem of the people of Biandrate has; namely that their Serenus went to Rome, that he might clear himself before the Pontiff of the impious heresy of the Iconoclasts: and therefore another Serenus there is confused with another. I reply, first, that that cause of the Roman journey is neither determined by the tradition, nor proposed alone; but one or the other of these, Either that he might clear himself before the Pontiff of the impious heresy of the Iconoclasts; or that he might visit the thresholds of the Apostles out of his piety. But this second cause in no way incommodes us: but since the ancient verses build up only the former; I reply, secondly, that this too will easily be reconciled with what was said before about Serenus of Marseille, if thou determine (which certainly could be done) that our Prelate cleared himself twice before the supreme Pontiff; and first indeed and at once by signifying by letters, that he had at length from his last epistle understood both his own former rashness, and his undoubted and serious will, had humbly venerated this, and immediately begun to give it over to execution: but then, after new images were made, and replaced in the stead of the broken ones, and all the other things which Gregory had commanded were now accomplished, by going to Rome, and proving his most perfect submission toward the Vicar of Christ, not now only by promises or beginnings, as a little before; but by the present and sincere testification of a faith fulfilled in all things, so that he left no place of suspecting anything sinister of himself further, or of not thinking most well of him. With the first clearing the Pontiff no doubt had to acquiesce for a while; why then could he not then write to Serenus that epistle, of which we made mention at num. 2 and 8? Why should not Serenus, either then already, or a little later, have hastened to Rome?

[23] and the time is in some way defined at which the Saint died. A little later, I say: for in this opinion those same ancient verses do not allow the Roman journey of St. Serenus to be long deferred, while they presently so subjoin it to the Pontifical rebuke:

With swift foot he visits the Romulean towers and the holy / walls, that he may there clear himself of the charge.

Whence this too follows, that our Serenus must be judged to have died before Gregory the Great; and so before the year of Christ 604: for since his journey was not long delayed, but he died on the return; unless he be believed to have died before March of the year 604, he must be said either to have stayed at Rome, far absent from his church, for two years and more; which is scarcely credible: or to have struggled at Biandrate with a lethal and continual disease very long; which does not appear probable enough. And let these things suffice for establishing the tradition of the people of Biandrate, especially insofar as it asserts that no other Serenus is there venerated now for several centuries back, than that Serenus of Marseille rebuked by Gregory the Great. Would that, however, it had been permitted to add to these the inscription mentioned at num. 14, if it survives. It would indeed be an argument

the strongest of all, both for distinguishing this Serenus from any other of the same name, and for removing the antiquity of his cult back to those times in which flourished the monastery in which he had been laid away and held for a Saint, and of which, when his body was revealed, no ruins at all remained, nor traces, nor perhaps even a memory certain enough. For the rest, for demonstrating the immemorial beginning of the cult, those things too do not a little help which we shall weigh in the numbers next following.

Badone: ne*.

for sicut*.

but indiscreta*.

Bad.: Et*.

§ III. The ancient solemnity of his cult in the mother-village of Biandrate, and its increase through miracles.

His feast was venerated with the greatest celebrity As to showing at once the celebrity and the antiquity of the cult which the people of Biandrate render to St. Serenus, in my judgment, says Badone, that testimony of the Statutes of Biandrate contributes more (for it still lives by its own laws): for in them, on folio 6 of the first edition, made at Novara in Gothic character by Francesco and Giacomo Sesalli, brothers, without a year; and on page 20 of the other edition, made at Milan in the year 1679, is read at num. 72 the following Statute: "That foreign gamesters play not in Biandrate." Chapter 72. It is ordained, that no foreigner play in Biandrate, or in the cantons of Biandrate, at any game prohibited in the Statutes of the commune of Biandrate, as above. And if he shall have played at the house of anyone of Biandrate, let that man pay to the house at which those foreign gamesters played that fine which is ordained above; this saved, that anyone may play for three days before the feast of St. Serenus, and three days after. Hence it is easily known, subjoins the same distinguished man, what the veneration toward St. Serenus was even in ancient times among the people of Biandrate, and with what cult they were wont to celebrate his feast day: for since in the other seasons of the year, not even the chief solemnities of the mysteries of our faith excepted, it was provided by plebiscite that foreign gamesters should not play at Biandrate; that the festival of the holy Patron might be celebrated by all with greater exultation and joy, they judged that three days before and three days after the feast of St. Serenus must be excepted from this law.

[25] But at what time this was sanctioned, no one would easily divine: in the 14th century, this one thing is established, that the volume of Statutes was approved by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Milan, Count of Virtù, and imperial vicar general, on the 8th day of February, in the year 1395, as is clear from the following approbation printed at the end of the volume: "Approbation of the Statutes. The lord of Milan etc., Count of Virtù, imperial vicar general. Remitting to thee the Statutes of our land of Biandrate hereto annexed, which are in number of chapters three hundred and five, and which we have caused to be seen, examined, and corrected according as we knew to be expedient… the same Statutes by the tenor of these presents we approve, praise, and confirm, and command and order them to be observed as they lie to the letter… Given at Milan on the eighth day of February 1395. Signed, Comolus." Moreover, lest anyone should perhaps think that all the Statutes of that volume were first composed at the same time in which they were approved, the most learned Canon thought these must at once be subjoined:

[26] But that the Statute ON FOREIGN GAMESTERS was made long before that time, or even much earlier; he will easily believe who observes that the plebiscites are digested in the codex with no order of matters kept: for it was the custom to establish laws at different times, as the exigency of affairs required; which evidently appears from the very codex of Statutes, in which is had a Statute num. 304 of this tenor: "That the disposition of the last Statute in the order of the writing be kept, if any repugnance be found in the preceding Statutes. Chapter 304. Likewise they established and ordained, that in the case where any repugnance be found in the preceding Statutes, which could not be helped by distinction, the disposition of the last Statute in the order of the writing be kept." But the necessity of this Statute appears from the whole codex, in which upon the same matter various Statutes, marked with a different number, were made, several other Statutes intervening pertaining to different matters; which clearly shows that they were made at different times too. But since the Statute ON FOREIGN GAMESTERS is marked with the number 72; and all the Statutes comprised in the volume extend to the number 305; and at num. 298 is found a Statute bearing the epoch of the year 1360; it is evident that the aforesaid Statute ON FOREIGN GAMESTERS precedes the said year 1360 by perhaps some centuries: and therefore that the cult of St. Serenus (such as is there asserted) already flourished long before the fourteenth century.

[27] That that solemnity flourished before the fourteenth century, yet not before the year 1178. The hospice of St. Serenus of nearly the same age. we readily assent; yet we can scarcely be brought to believe it instituted long before the thirteenth century; since the institution of that must most certainly have been preceded by the discovery and translation of the relics of St. Serenus, nay also the chapel, erected at the same time (as the tradition bears) and consecrated to their custody and veneration; all which, according to num. 20, seem later than the year of Christ 1168. The same nearly we think must be said of the old hospice, another and indeed notable and public monument of the religion of the people of Biandrate toward this their Patron; of which Badone thus: There is extant besides at Biandrate a hospice under the invocation of St. Serenus, possessing fields and other goods; but the revenues which are thence received are laid out for the sustenance of the sick. Its origin I tried in vain to attain: this one thing is established, that it is most ancient, since mention of it is had in the already-cited book of Statutes of Biandrate, Statute 88, by which it is sanctioned that the rectors of the hospital ought to be elected by the Rectors of Biandrate with the counsel of the Provost of St. Columban. Certainly it does not appear that anything of St. Serenus in any way pertained to the church of St. Columban, except after his relics had been translated thither.

[28] His ancient miracles, and more recent ones: These moreover, the so ancient beginnings of so great a solemnity, build up great credit for the prodigies which the tradition narrates to have happened both before and in the very discovery and translation of St. Serenus: for it is not probable that at Biandrate rather than elsewhere so exceptional a piety toward some Saint suddenly arose through all ranks, especially a guest and nearly unknown; unless it were excited by the greatest (such as those are) miracles. But since of that ancient veneration nothing has hitherto perished; but on the contrary much has been added to it repeatedly; there can be no doubt that prodigies following nourished prodigies born from the first. Wherefore the Reverend and honorable Don Badone, after he had made mention of those former ones, Nor do I doubt, he says, that more of this kind happened after his body was first exposed to veneration, whose memory perished by the same fate as the other monuments (if you except the one which is reported in the paintings before described, and at the end of the ancient poem recited above, of the man with a hernia healed at once at the Saint's altar). Those which survive are all of more recent age. Yet it will help to bring these forward, that from them an estimate may be made of the former and hidden ones.

[29] among these is noted the healing of a dying man; The first of these is that which we said was also expressed in the tablets of the chapel at num. 16, concerning the most excellent Don Juan de Idiaquez, who, given up by the judgment of the physicians, through the invoked patronage of St. Serenus rose safe by a wondrous and happy shortcut in the year (which may be gathered from the following paragraph, num. 36) of Christ 1609. Hence too we think not absurdly there emanated even to the Catholic king a knowledge, with veneration, of this holy Prelate, and there arose that privilege by which the people of Biandrate say leave was given them by the king of the Spains, to enroll and arm yearly a chosen cohort from their youth, at once to adorn the anniversary celebrity of the Saint and to coerce the petulance and tumults of the people flocking in troops. Certainly this could never be sought more opportunely or obtained more surely, than through Don Alonso de Idiaquez, a man powerful in Spain, and, on account of the health restored to his son Juan, most devoted to the Saint.

[30] immunity from the plague, The other Badone recounts thus: Meanwhile St. Serenus showed that most present patronage of his beyond the rest in favor of the people of Biandrate, that, when in the year 1628 and the following 1629 and 1630 a contagious plague had invaded nearly all Italy, and infecting very many cities and whole provinces with its poisonous breath had filled them with corpses, and had almost bereaved them of inhabitants; the people of Biandrate, seeing the pestilential disease now come nearly to their confines, fled to the patronage of St. Serenus, humbly beseeching him, that, God consenting, he would deign to avert so great a destruction, and preserve them immune from the disease, promising to venerate his feast day with a more solemn rite than before for perpetual times, and an annual oblation of wax tapers, and not with a vain outcome: for, to the great admiration of the neighboring peoples, squalid with the lethal decay, the territory of Biandrate alone, and the neighboring village of Gargarengo, whose inhabitants had fled to the same Saint with a like vow, escaped immune amid the common afflictions.

[31] Of this vow public tablets are extant, received by Bartolomeo Bertoldo, devastating all around; notary of Biandrate, in the year 1630, on the 23rd day of June. And the same the inscription carved on marble testifies, and fixed in the wall of the church of St. Serenus on the right to those entering, which has thus: "To God the Best and Greatest and to St. Serenus bishop of Marseille, to whose ancient and not antiquated patronage the people of Biandrate piously fleeing, that they might escape the snares of the pestilence raging through this province, a solemn vow being entered, determined, that on his birthday to be celebrated according to custom, eight two-pound tapers be offered yearly by the Consuls; and, the honorable Canons of this church carrying the most sacred head of St. Serenus through the villages with solemn rite on the same day, from each family one man be bound to assist, giving the weight of wax he shall have preferred. And this monument of the votive mind of all they set up * in the year 1630." From that time down to the present day the greatest care has always been to the people of Biandrate, that what they had promised by vow, they should keep with unshaken faith; lest they be reckoned unmindful toward the holy Patron after so great a benefit received: which all the inhabitants of the Novara province looked up to with such admiration of mind, that from then the greatest veneration toward our Saint grew in them; as the frequent access even at present to visiting his sepulcher, and the cohorts of suppliants, which from Receto and other places accompany his relic on the second day of August, abundantly show. But although this inscription makes no mention of the people of Gargarengo; yet the picture, of which at num. 16, makes the matter certain.

[32] To the same year pertain three other miracles: a two-year paralysis removed in a moment; of which two, as Don Badone testifies, are reported in a little book, whose title is: "A Brief Compendium of the Life of St. Serenus bishop of Marseille," published at Milan by Giuseppe Ambrogio Majetta, with permission of superiors, without year and name of author: but that it was written by Francesco Passardo of Biandrate of the Order of Reformed Friars

of the Minor observance of St. Francis, and printed in the year 1678, Lazzaro Agostino Cotta reports in the Museo Novarese num. 303, a most accurate investigator of the antiquities of the Novara province. There worthy of admiration is the instantaneous liberation of a certain Caterina Morella of Biandrate, whom paralysis had for two years now blasted in one arm and half her body: for when this woman had been carried to the altar of St. Serenus, and there on bent knees had implored the aid of the same Saint with these words in a lifted voice: Sancto Sereno, ajutatemi St. Serenus, help me, she was at once able to join her hands after the manner of one praying, to bend her body, and thence to return home without anyone's help: which happened on the second day of August, in the year 1630. This prodigy is painted in the Saint's chapel, according to num. 16.

[33] At the same time Elisabetta Pellicaria, likewise of Biandrate, a woman with a flux of the belly; a girl freed from a wolf's jaws; had for a long time now labored with a hepatic flux to such a point, that she could neither retain the feces, nor for weakness rise from her bed. When she noticed the feast day of St. Serenus approaching, she earnestly prayed that God through the intercession of the Saint would impart to her at least so much strength, that she might be able at that time to go to the church: and not with a vain outcome: for when the feast day had come; not only was she able to rise from her bed; but even to accompany the relics of the Saint, carried processionally through the villages of the village, for the space of several hours, without any inconvenience from the hepatic flux; although before not even one quarter of an hour intervened from one dejection of the belly to another. To these may be added the wonderful preservation of a girl snatched away by a wolf, obtained by the mother's prayers to St. Serenus: for it seems must be referred to the same time, since, painted in the circuit of the chapel, as we observed at num. 16, it holds the middle place between the healed paralysis of Caterina, and the people of Gargarengo deprecating the plague with a suppliant vow.

[34] blindness driven away, and several other prodigies; There is added another much more recent, of which the Badonian collection has thus: In the year 1701 too the presbyter Andrea Morando Colli, citizen of Vigevano (in the Duchy of Milan), his eyes dulled even to blindness, when he had fled to the intercession of St. Serenus, recovered his former faculty of seeing; as the autograph letters of the same presbyter testify, given to the Biandratensian provost Carlo Materno Nigro. Besides these (as is there read) there hang at his altar innumerable votive tablets, expressing by silver and waxen pendants the benefits conferred by the Saint on the faithful; which I doubt not were consigned by written tablets in authentic manner; and it could easily be shown, had not, by the common shipwreck, the writings of the notaries too perished. Then, But for a coping-stone, he says, I will add this, that even at present, as often as either by immoderate rain, falling for the space of several days, the earth has been too much soaked; or the fields drying up more than fair with pertinacious drought have struck into the farmers the fear of a perishing harvest; as soon as the people flee to the patronage of St. Serenus, ordering the sacred rite of Mass to be sung more solemnly at his altar, never does the third day pass, but either the expected sun appears, or the desired rain falls, by a contrary indeed, but always constant prodigy, the rival of that which Johannes Diaconus reports of the tunic of St. John the Evangelist, kept at Rome in the Constantinian basilica, in the Life of St. Gregory, book 3, chapter 19.

[35] by which so solemn a cult was first excited, then always grew. These and similar things doubtless moved the supreme Pontiffs once, that for promoting the celebrity of this cult they too should confer their own contribution; which on this day in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, as may be seen above, Ferrari thus asserts from the monuments of the church of Biandrate: There is also a chapel in the mentioned church of St. Columban, which is read that indulgence was granted to those visiting it on the feast day of St. Serenus by the supreme Pontiffs. They moved private persons, to help the same according to their own measure too: for An endowment, says Badone, was of old founded, a benefice for the perpetual celebration of Mass at the altar of St. Serenus, the right of nominating being reserved to the family of those de Monte; but the revenues being lost by the injury of time and wars, at present they are not celebrated (those, namely: for of others it will be treated below). In the year 1630 too Lorenzo Antoniaco by his testament bequeathed a hanging lamp before the Saint's altar, to be fed with oil at the expense of his heirs for perpetual times: which also the following inscription testifies in a corner of the same chapel over against the Epistle: "Lorenzo Antoniaco bequeathed an unfailing lamp to St. Serenus A.D. 1630." They moved the bishop of Vercelli in the year 1635, that he too might apply spurs to the piety of the faithful; as is established from the following marble inscription, fixed in the wall of the stairs by which one ascends to the church of St. Serenus: "The most illustrious and most reverend lord Giacomo Goria, bishop of Vercelli, to all the faithful of Christ who shall have devoutly visited this chapel, in which the body of St. Serenus is kept, for each time, and in perpetuity, granted an indulgence of forty days. It is decreed in the episcopal archive, given on the 25th day of April 1635." They moved, finally, several others, who, what they contributed to the same end, the following paragraph will teach.

i.e. they set up (posuerunt*).

§ IV. The state of the relics of St. Serenus; and the cult of today.

When first, from the divinely revealed tomb, the body of our Prelate had been translated to the church of St. Columban; The Saint's body was once enclosed in a little coffer under its own altar; as much as can be conjectured from tradition, it remained there deposited for a while; until the proper sacrary for receiving it should be erected to the height, wondrously indicated by the oxen, as they say: which indeed was quickly finished and hurried on, the structure of a rude and simple work, such as Badone intimates, signifies. There then, as it had been brought, whole, it was enclosed under its own altar: for the Badonian collection, so often already praised, has thus after making mention of the year 1678: For the holy body had lain before that time enclosed in a little coffer in the cement altar, and visible to none: nor was it drawn thence (that at least is established to me) except three times: first in the year 1609, on the 29th day of June, when the lord Alonso de Idiaquez, duke of Ciudad Real (Ciudad Real, on the river Guadiana in New Castile) and captain of the light-armed cavalry in the Milanese dominion, desired to behold the body of St. Serenus, after he had referred to his intercession the health, received, of Don Juan, his first-born son, laboring under a lethal disease and abandoned by the physicians (as was said num. 29).

[37] At which time he granted the faculty of opening the little coffer in which it was kept, to Cristoforo Morono, but the coffer opened only three times; namely in 1609, 1630, provost of the church of Biandrate, the most illustrious and most reverend lord Giovanni Stefano Ferrero, bishop of Vercelli: of which matter there is extant a memorial in a handwriting, drawn by the hand of the same provost, and confirmed by Antonio Loffia and Pietro Giulio Solido, canons, who were present at the opening for witnesses; which is kept in the archive of my chapter. A second time the coffer was opened in the year 1630, on the 3rd day of August, faculty being granted by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Giacomo Goria, bishop of the church of Vercelli, to Bonifacio Palladino and Giovanni Francesco Canepa, canons of Biandrate, on the occasion of drawing out the head of the same Saint, to this end that it might be carried processionally through the village; there existing in the said archive a handwriting, confirmed by the hand of the aforesaid. But note, although then first the head was separated from the body, that it might be carried about in the supplication thenceforth; yet that anniversary supplication is more ancient; and another part of his relics before this time was wont to be employed in it: the first may be gathered from what was said of the ancient solemnity of the feast, which it is not credible was ever decreed without a ceremony of this kind; the second from the inscription of the icon, engraved by the public authority of the people of Biandrate in the year 1634, in which they affirm, that by an ancient privilege of the Catholic kings it was granted them, to array a cohort of natives, as it were military, to accompany the sacred relic of the Saint in the annual solemnity, etc.: for this cannot be understood of the head, drawn from the ark only four years before; but neither of the whole body, which was kept under the altar shut up with so great religion, that it is known to have been drawn thence before the year 1634 only twice.

[38] and in 1678; when the body was placed in a new reliquary. A third time finally the whole body of the Saint was drawn out in the year 1678, on the 23rd day of June; and on the 18th day of July of the same year it was consigned to the reverend father Marco of Lomazzo, of the Order of Capuchins of St. Francis, to this end that he might compose the sacred bones, and form the skeleton, and clothe it with a chasuble, gloves, and sandals, and place it in a crystal ark, newly constructed for this end. But on the first day of August by the aforesaid father of Lomazzo the body composed in the aforesaid ark was consigned back to the honorable provost Bartolomeo Ricardo and the canons; in which are extant three authentic instruments, drawn up for the extraction, consignation, and re-consignation of the body, and requested by Giuseppe Ricardino, notary of Biandrate. Of the ark here mentioned a copy, drawn in the same year in which it was made by C. Giuseppe Garavaglia, and elegantly engraved on a copper plate by J. B. Bonacina, we gave to our engraver to be contracted to a much smaller form, but to be faithfully imitated down to the tip, not even the inscription or the shield of the donor being omitted, as here it will be subjoined. Three things only here, reader, from the epistle of the Reverend Father Gallarati, and from the instructions of the Reverend and honorable Don Badone, observe: first, that the most illustrious lord Gerardo de Silva, Count of Biandrate and lord of Casale Beltramo and of Vico Longo etc., noted in this place, was the father of the present Count Donato, whom at the beginning of this Commentary we praised: secondly, that the reliquary, fabricated at so great his expense by so skilled a hand, is no longer laid away under the altar; but placed upon it: thirdly, that the same, however, outside the time of the annual celebrity, is constantly covered over, and enclosed in another ark, as will presently be said.

[39] Now it remains, says the same Canon, that I recount some things which regard the cult which is now rendered to the same Saint at Biandrate. The Office of St. Serenus from the common; a proper Antiphon etc.: And first, it is an ancient and immemorial custom, that the clerics there for his feast day (which, as we said, is celebrated the day after the Kalends of August) recite of him the common Office of holy Pontiffs: besides, that the provost and canons of the collegiate church of St. Columban, to which the church of St. Serenus adheres, on all the Sundays of every month (on which however there is no occasion to proceed outside the church in processional array for the sake of any solemnity), after they have recited in their own church Vespers and Compline, ascend processionally to the church of St. Serenus, all the people following, singing the Hymn: "Iste Confessor Domini" etc.; after which they recite the following Antiphon with the Collect: "O how venerable art thou, excellent confessor of Christ most blessed Serenus, who didst despise earthly things, and exulting didst seek the gates of heaven, now shining in heavenly virtue! And therefore as suppliants we beseech, that thou intercede for us to the Lord

Jesus Christ. ℣. Pray for us, holy Serenus: ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Let us pray. Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that the venerable commemoration of Blessed Serenus thy confessor and pontiff may increase for us both devotion and salvation. Through Christ our Lord." And afterward they sing the Antiphon of the blessed Virgin according to the season with its Collect, and there conclude the Office. This custom Carlo Bascapè too, bishop of Novara (in the place cited above), observed, who wrote before the year 1605. There is also wont to be recited by the faithful, as often as they approach the Saint's altar, a peculiar Prayer … and a Rhythm. (These are in Italian and longer, and of less weight and age than to require a place here.)

[40] But as concerns his day, I have already proved above from the Statutes of Biandrate, today's preparation for the feast, that some centuries ago it was wont to be celebrated with solemn rite: nor in the course of time has this custom been derogated. Nay in the past year, in which recurred the centennial memory of the people of Biandrate preserved from the plague, by a new plebiscite it was sanctioned, that the vow made in the year 1630 should be renewed in all things: as also was given over to execution on the 26th day of July, public tablets on this matter being extant, received by Giovanni Francesco Pallavicino, notary of Biandrate. For the rest, the aforesaid second day of August approaching, the people of Biandrate are wont yearly to dispose everything for the celebration of the solemnity: they exactly cleanse the villages of the village from filth, if perchance there is any; adorn the houses more diligently; summon trumpeters, drummers, harpers, and others playing either on strings or on pipes, and not a few singers from the neighboring cities; adorn the churches of St. Columban and St. Serenus, within and without, with hangings, tapestries, and festoons; enroll from the young inhabitants of the village a century of soldiers, who, while the relics of the Saint are carried processionally through the villages, accompany them armed, and check and quiet the quarrels, if any arise between the inhabitants or strangers flocking in troops to this solemnity; which hitherto, God consenting, has so turned out according to their vows; that in the whole three days on which the festival is celebrated, never have either wounds or homicides happened.

[41] At length on the first day of August, before the clergy recite Vespers, which is celebrated from first Vespers; one of the canons opens the wooden ark, distinguished with gold-leaf and blue color, placed upon the altar of St. Serenus, and secured with a double key, of which one the provost of St. Columban, the other the rectors of the village keep; and, divided into various parts (for with this artifice it was made), orders it to be carried away elsewhere: then appears another ark, formed of crystal plates of conspicuous size and notable for gold, which contains the skeleton of St. Serenus, clothed with the episcopal robe, and adorned with a mitre and pastoral staff. Then after a digression, which we have already given elsewhere: The crystal ark being opened, and the Saint's body exposed to the veneration of the people, the provost, hedged about with the canons and a company of priests, the people following, ascends from the church of St. Columban to that of St. Serenus; and there, by old custom, they incense the body of the same Saint; afterward they sing first Vespers of him.

[42] But on the following day, the second of August, they sing the Mass of St. Serenus, the next day a solemn Mass and supplication are held before noon; with harmonic concerts of singers, string-players, and others, answering the celebrant, in the church of St. Columban; that place may be free for foreign priests to celebrate the sacred rite of Mass out of their piety at the altar of St. Serenus. A panegyric sermon too, after the Gospel of the Mass, an orator summoned to this end recites on the praises of St. Serenus. But after Mass the provost, clad in a pontifical robe, carries the relic of the Saint (understand some particle, separated from the enclosed rest of the body) processionally through the villages of the village: but the order in which the suppliant cohort proceeded in the past year 1730 is the following: In the first place went the confraternity of the women of Biandrate; second the confraternity of the women of Receto (a place distant one mile from Biandrate in the Savoyard dominion); third the confraternity of the women of Casale Beltramo; fourth the confraternity of the women of Gargarengo; fifth the confraternity of the men of Gargarengo; sixth the confraternity of the men of Receto; seventh the confraternity of the men of Casale Beltramo; eighth the century of soldiers of Biandrate; ninth the confraternity of the men of Biandrate; tenth the Reverend Fathers Reformed of the Minor observance of St. Francis, dwelling at Biandrate in the monastery whose title is St. Mary of Biscareto; eleventh the singers, harpers, and others playing on strings and pipes; twelfth the clergy; thirteenth the canons of St. Columban; fourteenth the provost, carrying the relic of the Saint under a canopy, together with the deacon and subdeacon assisting; fifteenth the lord Count of Biandrate; sixteenth the consuls of the commune of Biandrate; seventeenth the people.

[43] But in the afternoon of the same day the provost and canons sing Vespers and Compline of St. Serenus with the wonted concerts of singers and string-players in the church of St. Columban; that an easier access may lie open to the devout to the altar of St. Serenus. But after Vespers they bless the people with the most holy body of Christ; what is kept from noon, and what the next day. and thence until sunset one of the canons, clad in surplice, almuce, and stole, holds out the relics of St. Serenus to the faithful to be kissed. The holy body of Serenus meanwhile remains exposed to the veneration of the peoples until noon of the following day, the third of August: at which time at last it is again shut up by the already-mentioned wooden ark superimposed. But all these things are performed not without great preparation of festal fires, discharge of warlike instruments, construction of triumphal arches, and other testimonies of this kind of gladness and public veneration.

[44] Masses founded at his altar. After these our Instruction makes mention of a double foundation, more recently instituted for the peculiar cult of the Saint: namely in the year 1716 Giovanni Loffia instituted that, after the more solemn sacred rite of Mass celebrated according to custom in the church of St. Columban, a sacred rite of Mass be celebrated about noon at the altar of St. Serenus on every Sunday of the months of May, June, and August: and lately in the year 1723, on the 16th day of March, Girolamo Verzetto amplified this legacy to the Sundays also of the month of April, sufficient revenues being assigned to this end. Here now the suggested notices fail us: for that Life, or Compendium of the Life, of which above num. 32; then also the Praises of St. Serenus, which Francesco Baggio of Biandrate, professor of medicine in his homeland, is reported by Lazzaro Agostino Cotta in the Museo Novarese num. 250 to have sung in Latin and Italian meter and published in type at Milan in the year 1664, these, I say, what they are, because we have not seen them, we are ignorant, nor indeed very unwillingly; since the authors are so new. Lo then for thee the epilogue of the Reverend and honorable Don Giovanni Carlo Badone, most worthy for erudition, piety, and modesty: These are, Reverend Father (he calls our Gallarati), the things which about St. Serenus, bishop of Marseille, and most present patron of the people of Biandrate, according to the tenuity of my talent I could gather. But if I have recounted more things already known to thee, and pursued some, even of less moment, more fully perhaps than was fitting; impute it, I ask again and again, to the want of more solid monuments; to my zeal for the glory of the holy Advocate of our church; and finally to the desire of satisfying thy curiosity: nor do I hope that this can be turned to a fault in me by thee; since it would easily have been possible to gather an ampler harvest of notices, if in past centuries too someone had more exactly consigned to writing the memorials of St. Serenus which then existed. Me meanwhile bound to thee by several titles, etc… I gave this at Biandrate, on the Kalends of August 1731. May the Saints, for illustrating whose glory we are so often compelled to implore the aids of strangers, even those set very far off, bring it to pass that we find everywhere equal diligence and ardor.