ON ST. CICCUS OR FRANCIS, CONFESSOR OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS,
AT PESARO IN THE MARCH OF ANCONA.
XIV CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Of his cult of some kind, his age, and his deeds.
Ciccus, confessor, at Pesaro (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Here should be repeated almost all that was said long ago at the XIX of June concerning Pesaro and the third Order of St. Francis, Although Ferrari is silent, when treatment was made of Blessed Michelina, a widow of Pesaro, a fellow-townswoman of this blessed Ciccus, his contemporary, and, as some will have it, his Sister — at least spiritual, as we say; inasmuch as this blessed Francis of ours followed the same institute, called by a diminutive Ciscus or rather Ciccus; who, all his goods being distributed to the poor, professed most strictly a like and arduous poverty; and then indeed an admirable austerity of a most chaste life for fifty years, whence he shone with so great a fame of holiness that, when in one of his little cells in the year 1350 he had rendered his most pure soul to God, being buried on the mount called Granarium, he was straightway carried thence by the people of Pesaro, and honorably placed in the Cathedral church itself, beneath the table of the altar of St. Sebastian, and from that time by the common voice of the people, if not canonized, at least reckoned among the Blessed, has been held and honored; however it be that Ferrari, for what reason I do not know, neglected to treat of him in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy.
[2] the Blessed man's cult is established So all those monuments teach me which now for nearly a century, by the labor of Fr. Silvester Petrasancta, often praised in these Acts, Bolland himself collected, both in relation to Blessed Cicus, Ciccus, Ceccus, or Cecculus, and to the already mentioned Blessed Michelina, which things Salvatore Salvatori, likewise often and excellently deserving of our work, will shortly explain a little more fully. From these Papebroch proposed his doubts forty years ago, by the good offices of the Eminent Cardinal Colloredo, to the most illustrious Avio, then bishop of Pesaro, whence he obtained those answers with which he illustrated Blessed Michelina copiously enough at the already mentioned XIX day of June, not neglecting those things which more closely pertained to our fellow-townsman Blessed Ciccus, as he himself carefully notes there in the preliminary Commentary, number 8, in these very words: There is to be added a grateful memory of another benefit (namely one rendered by the same Bishop), by which I at the same time received information about the ancient cult of Blessed Francis, likewise of Pesaro, commonly Blessed Cicchus or Cecchus, of the Order of Friars Minor, whom some will have to have been the brother of Blessed Michelina.
[3] Of that brotherhood there will be occasion to speak again; here the cult is to be established, from certain monuments; of which the praised Salvatori, under the title "of Blessed Ciccus of Pesaro," thus expressly attests: Blessed Ciccus of Pesaro in his youthful age in the year MCCC dispensed all his goods to the poor, and took up the third Rule of Blessed Francis, which is called "of Penance," leading an eremitical life outside his city. He built three churches or chapels, one near Fano, another near Pesaro, the third on the mount of St. Bartolo, in which he stayed praying at intervals, wearing for a shirt a coat of mail or a hauberk. He wrought many miracles in the said places and elsewhere, God favoring, so that the fame of his holiness flew abroad through the provinces on every side. And he died in the year of the Lord MCCCL in a good old age; and his body was translated from the church of St. Mary of Mount Granarium into the episcopal church of Pesaro, where by God's grace his body rests, with signs and miracles following.
[4] Thus far the very words of Salvatori himself, to which the Italian words he subjoins I thus render into Latin: whence also his arduous penance This Blessed man, for the mortifying of his body, wore over his bare flesh a coat of mail in place of a shirt, as you have seen indicated just now above by those words, WEARING A COAT OF MAIL OR HAUBERK FOR A SHIRT — which manifestly appeared when in the year MDC the bones of this Blessed man were found in a chest worn away by the length of time, beneath the table of the altar sacred to St. Sebastian, where they are kept even today; while there was found also a little inscription, cut on some small stone, plainly of this tenor: The bones of Blessed Cicchus — and besides, that very coat of mail with which he had once worn away his poor body. Further, the already praised Salvatori added that by an ancient tradition it had prevailed there, namely at Pesaro, that an Office of the aforesaid Blessed man had been recited in the Church, whose lessons, known to him from elsewhere, he said that he had not found. But the most illustrious Avio found them, from whose words, presently to be reported, you will be more fully instructed both concerning the alleged recitation of the Office and concerning the lessons themselves.
[5] Further, what Salvatori's veneration toward Ciccus is, the same is that of the already praised most illustrious Avio, or you may gather from an image. adorning Ciccus everywhere and always with the title of Blessed. Papebroch had asked him, since his body was placed beneath the altar of St. Sebastian, that he would take care to have a drawing made of his reliquary, as also of that of Blessed Michelina, to which he answers in this manner: Whereas we had always by tradition that the body of that Blessed man had been translated from Mount Granarium into the city and placed beneath the altar of St. Sebastian in the cathedral church, very lately, special diligence having been used, on occasion of the execution of a decree made at the most recent visitation, it was found there existing in a little chest, and has now been laid in another more seemly chest, until a fitter and more honorable place be provided for it again. But because a body of this kind is not of complete entirety, therefore its image cannot fitly be set forth. Wherefore there is here placed his figure, joined to this, which was otherwise portrayed to represent his image when he enjoyed this mortal life. I do not see in what place the already mentioned image could more opportunely be reported; whence I represent it, engraved on copper as like as possible.
[6] A Legend sufficiently ancient The same most illustrious man, being asked whether an ecclesiastical Office of him was recited, answers in the negative. This only can be said, he says, that concerning his life there is found a Legend in manuscript, and drawn up in the Latin idiom, which begins: The grace and kindness of the Savior, etc. And because it is divided into nine paragraphs, to each of these is set a marginal note: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, etc. By which perhaps is indicated the intention that a Legend of this kind was arranged for the reciting of an Office, according to the form by which formerly nine lessons of the Saints were wont to be recited. The most illustrious man moreover confesses in the same answers: but whence a Legend of this kind was taken, or who is its author, is entirely unknown. I shall safely add what will be all too manifestly plain below, that it was put together obscurely and likewise verbosely and even barbarously, which accordingly we had almost resolved to reject and to set after Wadding's text; but since it is of nearly like elegance with that which Papebroch gave concerning Blessed Michelina, it seemed better to set it down here such as it is, if only for the commendation of its antiquity, which the writer abundantly shows at the very beginning by the little word "very lately."
[7] is distributed into 9 lessons Thus the same most illustrious Avio, who sent it to Papebroch on the XXV of November in the year 1691, attests concerning it: But as to the second question, concerning the ancient description of the life which we have of our Blessed Ceccus, whose beginning is: The grace and kindness of the Savior, I shall give it joined to the present letter. And although I have known it to swarm with many faults (whence, when it should be exposed to the public light, it would need due emendation), yet I have judged it better that entire sincerity be preserved, and to transmit it to your paternity faithfully transcribed as I found it, rather than to take care that it be purged of those things in which either the old copyists, by defect or omission or variation of words (which is wont very often to happen in ancient Acts), or perhaps also the first expositors of this pious history, are seen in some way to have failed. And with this same fidelity we also shall here subjoin the whole mass of the history, such as it is, without a word changed, leaving the whole matter to the reader's judgment, so that even from the unskillfulness of the age some weight, if not of polish and authority, at least of antiquity, may accrue to the Acts themselves.
[8] But now, as to the brotherhood mentioned above, How the brother of Blessed Michelina. the lord Salvatori has dared to write thus: Blessed Cicchus was of Pesaro, of the Metellus family, brother of Blessed Michelina, in imitation of whom, when he saw her the first of her sex clothed with the habit of the third Order, he too immediately professed the same Rule among men. Which things, unless I am much deceived, must be understood in a very accommodating sense. For thus the most illustrious Avio asserts: Of such consanguinity or kinship between them as is supposed, not even a word is found in the descriptions which are had here of their life. Most rightly, I think, so that only a brotherhood according to the spirit or of the same Order can be understood. Still less could the example of Blessed Michelina have shone before Blessed Ciccus, since already from the year 1300 he himself had bidden the world farewell, while Blessed Michelina was not yet born: certainly from her Life, volume III of June, page 929, it is established that she was not more than forty years old when in the year 1356 she was taken from the living; so that I cannot at all conjecture whence Salvatori could have taken what we have already recited from him. And so Blessed Ciccus was already of advanced age, and much older than Blessed Michelina, when in the year 1350 he rendered his spirit to God, as you will understand from the Life or lessons themselves, to which there is nothing that we should add, save the title and the necessary annotations here and there. And the title is of this kind: Here begins the Legend of blessed Cicchus of Pesaro, of the Order of the Brethren of the glorious Francis. We render it in our own manner:
LIFE
divided into nine lessons,
from a Pesaro Ms.
Ciccus, confessor, at Pesaro (St.)
BHL Number: 3138
FROM THE MSS.
With manifold grace Lesson I. The grace and kindness of the Savior, daily sprouting in the Church militant, has very lately shone forth in His servant blessed Cicchus a, preventing him and leading him at last to a saving harbor, praiseworthy in manners and life, and glittering with very many miracles. For him, a native of the city of Pesaro b, the manifold inward grace inspired to despise earthly things through desire of things eternal, and also that efficacious and spiritually impelling twelvefold reason c. For the exemplarity of Christ, who, though He was rich in the heavens,
was made needy on earth, so that He had not whereon to lay His head through earthly desire, perfectly admonished and instructed him that he should straightway sell all the earthly things which he possessed, to be given out to the poor for the name of Christ. The evangelical teachableness, by which anyone is called a disciple of Christ, renouncing earthly things and, for the love of Christ, dispensing them to the needy, melted the mind of the blessed Man. An unblemished charity, by which the blessed Man was joined to divine love in as great a degree as he was disjoined from earthly things, and by which one loves his neighbor the more strongly the more perfectly the cupidity of the world is forsaken, stirred up the mind of this Man devoted in Christ, who, earthly things being despised, was to receive heavenly ones. A steadfastness of continual combat, and a victory laying hold d against the naked serpent; so that, naked wrestling with the naked, he might carry off the victory and thence receive the crown, about to attain glory as one laurel-crowned. The manifoldness of the glory of the hundredfold fruit e sweetened him, so that he might set at naught in his mind all things which are had on earth, considering without doubt that he was to attain what and how great are the things which are promised us in heaven.
and pricked by the goads of virtues Lesson II. The brevity of the time of earthly things, and the brief time of those possessing them, compared as it were to one drop of the water of the sea and to the sand of the shore, so disjoined the affection of the Man chosen by God from earthly things that he sought no delights of passing things and possessed nothing in this world with his heart, the eternity of things above being weighed. The heaviness of earthly things, inclining the affection of the lover to the lowest and hindering him from contemplating heavenly things, so terrified the mind of the blessed Man and struck fear into him that, all things being renounced, even those which he could possess in his mind, like an empty Wayfarer and thence made heavenly f, applying himself to prayers day and night, he became a colleague of the citizens above, though still placed on earth in the body. That earthly viscosity itself, after the manner of pitch, defiling by contact, separating the defiled from God, in like manner brought terror and grief into the mind of the blessed Man, so that, loosed from earthly things and made free in the service of Christ, avoiding a wife — so that he might in every way please God, being joined to Him — he thought perpetually that, being about to serve the highest Lord as a soldier, he would by no means entangle himself in secular affairs. The earthly, piercing thorniness, which strikes the soul and pricks through a thirsting avarice, thirsting for superfluities and not content with its own, hungering for others' goods, and through this usurping the blood of neighbors, had so struck the mind of the Man of God with the fear of terror and with grief that, being now made blind to earthly things, he strove to love nothing in this world, to possess nothing even in appetite; and, conversing only in heaven, holding the heavenly things of the citizens, Ciccus himself being desirous of and a guardian of the heavenly counsels of the citizens and of dear things, like a citizen of heaven guarding his two windows, Ciccus, now the companion and fellow-citizen of angels, the citizens above, became the guardian of a certain number of sheep in the Church militant: himself being likewise a meek sheep under the care of the Roman Church of the Papal prelates, who would be most fitting, being about to be great in the Church triumphant.
this Blessed man, being incited, Lesson III. The laboriousness of the world, generally hindering the soul that wishes to contemplate from the pursuit of mental quiet, persuaded the Man of God rather to choose the best part of Mary, commended by the Lord, the solicitude of Martha being reserved for others. The variety and contrariety of manners, whereby no one can serve God and the world, the mammon of iniquity, counseled the blessed Man and by exhorting induced him that, earthly manners being wholly renounced, he should be conformed to heavenly ones. Finally, the falsity of present earthly things, which is also called vanity, which deceive and defraud souls by a crafty truth and a truth-speaking falsity, forewarned the Man of God, Ciccus, heavenly grace assenting, that he should by no means cling to temporal things, which never assert the truth: for they vow a gladness that shall endure; but afterward they give sadness and grief: they promise rest and quiet, and bestow labor: they bargain for glory above, and now drive men to hell: they promise a satiety that puts a bridle upon earthly things, and give a hunger for acquiring: they pledge universal peace with all; but they stir up disturbance and quarrel with many, and produce very many evils: they promise indeed an empty temporal glory, and afterward give a huge spiritual ruin.
Lesson IV. All the aforesaid things, therefore, being infused by God into the mind of the blessed man Ciccus, gives out all things to the poor and (builds) three chapels the man Ciccus, chosen by God, began and accomplished to give out all his goods to the poor, namely in the year of the Lord MCCC, that Man of God himself being of youthful age; and, attaining the third Rule of the glorious Francis, which is called "of the Penitent," he led an eremitical life, dwelling for the most part outside his native city of Pesaro, at intervals in three solitary and devout places. For this blessed Man built, the divine clemency favoring, three small churches or chapels, one near Fano by one mile, which is called St. Mary of Fano, or "de al Metero"; where he appointed a figure and majesty of the glorious Virgin Mary to be set up, under her name and honor, with some adjoining building and a small hospital built. Another chapel he built, devout friends in Christ assisting him, near Pesaro by one mile, toward the road by which one goes to Fano, next to the church built there by brother Peter, his spiritual companion and brother, called under the title of St. Mary of Mount Granarium. The third chapel of a solitary place he built near Pesaro, by one mile, on the Mount of St. Bartolo, so called, where he devoutly stayed praying.
Lesson V. The three aforesaid chapels of churches being built in the faith of the most blessed Trinity, in one of which the devil assails him in vain; and in the assertion of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and as a presage of the threefold grace — begun, increased, and persevered in — from God and conferred: nay rather, in the showing forth of the threefold grades of those to be saved, namely of the married, of widows, and of virgins or of the cloister g. While in the place of the aforesaid Mount of St. Bartolo, a heavenly and contemplative suppliant, he was earnestly offering humble and devout prayers to God, Ciccus being near the summit h of the mountain of the aforesaid church, and pressing on and praying in that place, the devil, the serpent, envying his happy acts, by a violence of waters and of an unheard-of pestilence so strongly brought down a landslide i from the summit above, and rushed upon the aforesaid church, believing and hoping to destroy the devout inhabitant and the place, so that the church itself with the place, struck by a vehement impulse, was moved entirely from its place by a stone's throw; the divine grace protecting it, so that it remained with unimpaired stability.
Lesson VI. The man of God, Ciccus, persevering in the Lord, some companions devoted to God being joined to him, and is wonderfully victorious even over gluttony. he went about once a month and more, when opportune, to cities and castles — Ciccus himself the Guardian and the sheep of a little flock — to ask alms to be given out by the faithful; to whose devotion any devout Christian running up so revered him with a display of reverence that whoever was signed with the sign of the cross by that blessed Man, or touched or held his hand or the fringe of his garment, would reckon himself blessed for great joy. And of the alms received, a small part being kept for the sustenance of himself and of his little flock, he gave out the whole for the marriage-portion of poor girls, and for the other beggars, and for the conveniences of churches and hospitals. He chastised his body with many fasts, wearing assiduously for a shirt a bare coat of mail k or hauberk. But once, while he was begging humbly after his accustomed manner through a certain place of the city of Pesaro, the smell of a roast sucking-pig being there infused into his sense of smell, being incited by the demon with the vice of gluttony, he procured some little portion of the aforesaid pig, bought from a certain most dear friend of his, which, carrying home and shutting up in a chest, returning to himself by the heavenly Spirit of God, when the course of many days had already elapsed, until it swarmed with worms, seeing and touching it — horrible and loathsome to all others in touch and sight, as stinking and filled with worms — he intrepidly held it out to the smell of his own nose and to the kiss of his mouth. And hence, anointing his whole naked body with it, he thus overcame the vice of gluttony and the demon, who, the tempter, withdrawing confounded, tempted him no more concerning the vice of gluttony, as one vanquished.
By more than one miracle he corrects a greedy man. Lesson VII. As the Man of God was returning from the indulgence of the Portiuncula, namely of St. Mary of the Angels, situated near Assisi, with several companions devout in Christ, since the fame of his holiness had been made known in very many Provinces, being detained by force by the citizens of Perugia, not out of hatred but out of love, that he might stay there with them some days, his companions departing and weeping for sadness at the absence of the holy Man, and being sorrowful, the holy Man said: Go in peace, for near Pesaro, the grace of God working, you shall see me present; and thus it came about that, as those companions drew near Pesaro, their own city l, they found the blessed Man there, brisk, with unspeakable gladness, whom they had left, sad and with great sorrow, detained unwilling in the district of Perugia.
A certain nobleman of Rimini, of the house of Philip, Lord grandi of the Malatesta, a friend of the holy Man, sent to that blessed man, staying on the Mount of St. Bartolo, two salted and smoked eels by a messenger. Which messenger, moved by avarice and gluttony, one of them being left in a certain little wood under a certain small tree, and hung up, delivered the other to the man of God, Ciccus, on behalf of the said nobleman, and, departing and coming to the hung-up eel, and finding it turned into a live serpent, stupefied and trembling, and correcting himself for the sin which he had committed against a noble and Blessed man, returned to the Saint, groaning and weeping, and, on bended knee, announcing the theft and the deed, asking pardon of him, who granted him mercy: and likewise, having heard from the Man of God that the eel would be found returned to its former shape, leave being asked and a blessing following, he returned with great confidence to the wood. And finding the eel of its own first shape, and carrying it away with him, he wonderfully praised God for so great miracles seen.
A cock is prodigiously restored to life: Lesson VIII. The Man devoted to God, when he was gravely sick, very many devout women friends m of his assisting him — one of them, moved with pity, killed without any iron a certain cock which the blessed Man himself tenderly loved, for the reason that, crowing at each hour, it stirred him to praises; and, bathing and moistening it, now dead, in hot water, she kept it plucked in a chest, wishing to make a very useful dish of it, to be given to that sick Man of God for the recovering of his former health. The Man of God, returning to himself with what vigor he might, deprived of the beloved crowing of the cock, at last perceiving the fact of the matter, said: Bring quickly my cock, my companion, that has been killed; which, being brought in haste by that woman friend, beholding it dead and plucked, sighing compassionately, he took in his hands, and, praying the Lord suppliantly as he lay upon his pallet, the sign of the Cross being made, the cock, alive and sound and covered with feathers, crowed for joy, the Lord
rendering praises. While the Man of God was going through the city of Pesaro and begging after his accustomed manner, two men, insulting him, harshly reproached him for so many and so great things daily begged by him. Of whom, by the nod of God suddenly permitted, one lost the measures of ready speech, and the other was made withered.
Lesson IX. The lady Elizabeth, noble and high-born wife of the lord Malatesta of Pesaro of the Malatesta family, but a woman is taught that vows are to be fulfilled. when she was gravely sick in the leg, from which disease she could be freed by no remedy of physicians, making a vow to blessed brother Ciccus — the counsel of the noble lady Niesina of Urbino, a spiritual woman and devout in Christ, mediating and urging it, and a vow being uttered through that same lady Niesina to the man of God, Ciccus, her holy godfather and father, who had raised her from the font — she was on the spot restored to her former health by the prayers and merits of the holy Man. And when she did not render praises to God and to blessed brother Ciccus, as she had promised while sick, but rather attributed it to the physician and to ointments, she straightway fell back into her former infirmity, and a worse one; and, wailing for exceeding pain and groaning, she gave forth bitter tears and cries. Wherefore, being contrite for the aforesaid ingratitude, and made mindful of the benefit received, she more strongly repeated her vow to that same Blessed man: whose vows God, looking down from on high, by the merits of the blessed Man again freed the aforesaid lady. And she, being grateful to God and to blessed Ciccus, perfectly fulfilled the vow which she had promised; and every year, as long as she lived, she caused the Office to be solemnly celebrated on the birthday of the blessed Man, all Religious and monks being called together there for the Office, to be celebrated more devoutly to the praise of God and the reverence of the said Saint by that lady, a refection following, and afterward continued by her lord husband and his heirs. And the Man of God, Cicchus, died in the year of the Lord MCCL n in a good old age and full of days, on the Mount of St. Mary of Granarium, being afterward translated from it to the episcopal church of the city of Pesaro; where his body by God's grace rests, with signs following, and many miracles wrought by God through his merits, the divine grace assenting, for all who invoke him for their well-being, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose is honor and glory, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, through the infinite ages of ages o. Amen.