Albert

ON ST. ALBERT, CONFESSOR

OF THE ORDER OF THE CARMELITES

AT MESSINA IN SICILY

1306.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Albert, Confessor of the Carmelite Order, at Messina in Sicily (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. His cult before the decrees of the Apostolic See.

Albert, born and made over to the most religious Order of the Carmelites by a remarkable benefit of the Virgin Mother of God, St. Albert's cult, begun from his death, adorned it — it cannot be told how greatly — both throughout Sicily while living, and throughout the whole world of lands when dead: for such was this Man's sanctity, such the prodigies among his apostolic labors, that, lest the humility of the man even then living should be overwhelmed by the veneration and honors of his fellow-countrymen, he had sometimes to hide himself from the crowd in hiding-places anxiously sought out: but such was the eagerness of religion of the same people toward him when he had departed this life, that his public cult there, the Church permitting and God approving through assiduous miracles, anticipated the express decree of the Apostolic See by fully a hundred and fifty years, namely from the year 1306 up to 1457: for that it began immediately from his very death, and always increased, the Acts which we shall give manifestly teach, from number 21 to the end. And indeed at number 23, when at his very funeral rites it was disputed whether he should be commended to God by a funeral Sacrifice, or rather be invoked and venerated by another, as a Confessor already received into heaven, you have two angels settling the controversy, who thundered with a clear voice: "The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom." At number 26 is described the elevation and translation of the body, done in the same year in which he had ceased to live, and indeed solemnly. At number 27 a priest of Leontini averts a divinely inflicted penalty in the year 1308 by vowing that he would yearly celebrate duly the birthday of St. Albert, a fast being premised: it is hinted therefore that already then his feast was accustomed to be observed there; which in the following year is openly handed down to have been celebrated at Piazza on the seventh day of August, at number 29; where you will also find his image set forth for public veneration, and a chapel built in his honor there at the same time, and renowned for miracles. I pass over the rest, from which the reader will of himself easily understand that that cult, diffused through the whole kingdom of Sicily, flourished more and more day by day in the same century.

[2] But neither could this religious observance be so circumscribed by the shores of the Sicilians, but that together with prodigies it extended itself also to other regions. And at Bologna indeed, from about the year 1423, that it was not only admitted by the bishop, compelled, so to say, by two miracles, but also increased with a public Office, will be established below from the Appendix of miracles. And why should I pursue other places one by one? The sacred Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, diffused throughout the whole world, was ordered to celebrate his anniversary feast on the seventh day of the month of August with a double Office, by a decree of the general chapter gathered at Bologna in the year 1411, as the Reverend Father Juan Bautista de Lezana asserts in the Annals of the Order at that year, number 6, and elsewhere. Then in the year 1420, among the statutes of the general assembly of the same Order at Montpellier, the same author relates at number 11 that the fourth was: That in all Convents the image of blessed Albert should be painted with rays. Which things indeed, and others, it is not credible that the most prudent governors of so illustrious a family did without the will of the Roman Pontiff being in some way perceived by them, even though it was not yet publicly made known by an express oracle, as we shall say below, and therefore (as usually happens) was long since called into doubt by some, to such a degree that under the pretext of religion they tried to turn the multitude away from any open veneration of Blessed Albert.

[3] But since the Carmelite Fathers were by no means ignorant of these things, they long desired nothing more ardently it is confirmed by Pope Callistus III by word of mouth, than that they might at some time make good to Albert the pledge which they had long ago given at his funeral rites, when the king of Sicily (as is in the Acts, number 24) and the whole people of Messina by a public sanction decreed that the authority of the Supreme Pontiff should be entreated through legates; by whose most ample approval, moreover, Albert, being canonized, should be enrolled in the register of Confessors, etc. But since new tumults and wars in Sicily repeatedly frustrated this hope for a long time, the whole Order at last took the matter upon itself, and that from the year of Christ 1375, in which the general chapter, gathered at Le Puy in Occitania, the Annals, volume 4, page 490, testify to have decreed thus: We commit to the Prior General that he may tax the provinces of the Order conformably to the common taxations, according to more and less, for obtaining the place in which holy Elisha is buried, and for the canonization of Blessed Albert. Procurators were thereafter appointed to solicit, as Lezana writes in the same place, the canonization of St. Albert; as in the year 1387 in the general chapter of Brescia, master Bartholomew de Sacca; in the general chapter of the Convent of Silvae in the year 1399, master Philip of Sicily; in that of Pamiers in the year 1426, master John de Scolio, and perhaps several others thereafter; what all of whom nevertheless accomplished is unknown. Certainly the General of the Order, most reverend master John Soreth, wearied of the longer delays, at last determined to act himself; and, the favor being interposed which he enjoyed with the Vicar of Christ on account of his exceptional gifts and remarkable holiness of life, he first obtained this in the year of Christ 1457 from Pope Callistus III by an oracle of the living voice, whereby he could easily thereafter defend the cult of the Blessed, in use up to then, against any who clamored against it. Then, that this same thing might become more illustrious and more effective, Christopher Martignoni, who succeeded Soreth, obtained from Pope Sixtus IV a Bull which should both report authentically the Callistine oracle and most validly confirm it. Here it is, from the edition of our Ottavio Gaetani in his Animadversions on the Life of Saint Albert:

[4] then by Sixtus IV through a Bull, Sixtus, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual memory of the matter. The holy Church rejoices that the number of the soldiers of the heavenly court is increased; and therefore she has been accustomed to adorn with the memory of eternity those who, passing from this world, are reputed by the common opinion of the faithful worthy of the fatherland above, especially those shining with the renown of miracles; that their praises may be able to resound with more frequent proclamations, and that the Lord may be continually praised in his Saints. Therefore those things which we find to have been piously observed for the honor of the Blessed, by the good pleasure of our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs, we willingly, when it is asked of us, cherish with Apostolic protection. Now, the petition lately exhibited to us on the part of our beloved son Christopher Martignoni, Master General of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, contained that formerly, it having been set forth to Pope Callistus III of happy memory, our predecessor, on the part of the late John Soreth, then Master General of the said Order, that blessed Albert, who, while he lived a celibate life among men, was a Brother of the said Order, whose body rests in the church of the Blessed Mary of Messina in the island of Sicily, of the Brothers of the said Order, is held in great veneration, by reason of his shining miracles, by the faithful of Christ of those and of diverse parts of the world, and that therefore in diverse churches through diverse parts of the world altars and churches had been erected to the honor of God and to the commemoration of the same Blessed Albert; whence he desired that the faithful of Christ themselves might freely and lawfully be able and have power to continue in this their laudable purpose, by the toleration of the Apostolic See: to which humble petition, when the aforesaid Callistus our predecessor had assented, our venerable brother William, bishop of Ostia, then Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Martin in the Mountains, who also was then present, by the license and consent of the said predecessor and by express mandate, by an oracle of the living voice made to him by the same, for removing scruples from the minds of men, and for the honor of God, and the exaltation of the merits of the said Blessed Albert, made attestation of all and each of the premises by his letters patent, fortified with his seal, as is more fully contained in them, which we have caused to be inspected and diligently examined and inserted into the present.

[5] in which is authentically reported Wherefore on the part of the said Christopher, the present General, asserting that in the aforesaid church, and in diverse parts of the world, through the merits of the same Blessed Albert, other miracles flash forth day by day, humble supplication was made to us that we would deign, of Apostolic benignity, to add the strength of Apostolic confirmation to the attestation of the said William, bishop and Cardinal, and to all and each of the things contained in his letters of this kind, for their firmer subsistence, and otherwise to provide opportunely in the premises. We therefore, considering that he is worthily turned over in the memory of men who has passed to the joys of the angels, and directing the gaze of paternal consideration to the aforesaid Order, which is cherished by the continual protection of the most glorious Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, and was founded under her honor and special title, and was approved by Apostolic authority both by diverse Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, and also by us, and is adorned at all times with the manifold ornaments of excellent men, as with stars, and being inclined also to supplications of this kind, holding as ratified and pleasing the attestation of the said William, bishop and Cardinal, who was protector of the said Order, and the aforesaid letters, do approve and confirm them, with all and each of the clauses contained in them, by Apostolic authority, of our certain knowledge, supplying all and each of the defects, if any perchance have intervened in the same; notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinations, and all other things whatsoever to the contrary. And because it would be difficult for the present letters to be sent in the original to the individual provinces, we will and by the said authority decree,

that to transcripts of the said letters, fortified by the hand of a public Notary, and with the seal of the Court of causes of the Apostolic Chamber, or of the Protector of the said Order, who now is and for the time shall be, or of any bishop or archbishop, or of anyone constituted in dignity, even of the Master General of the said Order for the time being, undoubted credit shall altogether be given both in court and out of it, just as if the original letters themselves had been exhibited or shown.

[6] But the tenor of the said letters follows, and is such: the oracle of Callistus III "William, by divine mercy, of the title of St. Martin in the Mountains, Cardinal Priest of the most holy Roman Church, of Rouen, to all and each of the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present letters, greeting in him who is the true salvation of all. We judge it worthy and fitting to render testimony concerning those things which seem to concern the peace of conscience of many, and the increase of devotion. We therefore make known to all and testify by these presents, that the most holy Father in Christ, our Lord Callistus, by divine providence Pope III, lately by an oracle of the living voice, we being present and standing by before his Holiness, granted and indulged to the reverend father Master Soreth, Prior General of the Brothers of the Order of the blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, present and supplicating, that concerning Blessed Albert of Trapani in the island of Sicily, a professed member of the said Order while he lived among men, in whose honor and reverence several altars and churches, as the same Prior asserted, have been built, and, his miracles growing frequent, prayers and suffrages are publicly rendered for a long time by the faithful of Christ, both in the churches of the same brothers and also in others, no canonization however according to the rite of the Roman Church having preceded — that the same reverence and devotion, as is premised, may be able to be performed and continued by them and by other faithful of Christ without the stain of any sin and the note of transgression and scruple of conscience, until something else more solemn be decreed by the Church. All which things, since they have thus, as is premised, been truly and rightly done, we bring to the notice of anyone whatsoever, and judge that they should be brought. In testimony whereof we have ordered the present letters to be made by our secretary written below, and have caused them to be fortified by the appending of our seal. Given at Rome, in the houses of our residence, at St. Apollinaris, on the fifteenth day of the month of October, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1457, in the third year of the Pontificate of the same our Lord."

[7] Let it therefore be lawful to no man at all to infringe this page of our approbation, and it is confirmed. confirmation, supplying, constitution, and will, or with rash daring to go against it. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Mary Major, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1476, on the day before the Kalends of June, in the fourth year of our Pontificate. It has pleased us to enter this Bull here entire; both because it makes especially for asserting the legitimate cult of the Saint; and that from reading it anyone may understand that what the Reverend Father Master Giuseppe Falcone affirms in his Carmelite Chronicle, published in Italian at Piacenza in the year of Christ 1595, page 544, and that without any older testimony, is by no means probable: namely that Albert was reckoned among the Saints, not long after his funeral rites were performed, by Pope Clement V, who soon sent rescripts concerning this his decision into Sicily: for if this was not only true, but was even established by a Pontifical writing, what need was there afterward of an oracle of the living voice? Then why would neither the venerable Soreth have mentioned this matter before Callistus, nor the most reverend Martignoni before Sixtus? Indeed, why would Soreth have so candidly confessed to Callistus that Albert had up to then been publicly venerated, no canonization according to the rite of the Roman Church having preceded? Falcone nevertheless has been followed by Diego de Coria in his Dilucidary of the Chronicles of the Order in Spanish, book 10, chapter 18; Egidio Leoindelicato in the Carmelite Paradise, page 104; Nicolò Manerbi in the Legend of Jacobus de Voragine translated into Italian and augmented; Manuel Ferreira in the Legendary of the Carmelite Order in Portuguese, page 108; and any others there are of lesser note: for the principal writers of the Carmelites desert these guides, or even tacitly refute them; as does the Reverend Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, part 2, page 627, number 2168.

§ II. His cult after the decrees of the Apostolic See.

After the Sixtine Bull veneration grew, Although the form of the Bull already recited differs much from the form of the Bulls which both the same Pontiff Sixtus and other predecessors of his used in solemn canonizations; and although in it, as in those, sanctity is not defined, but only supposed; nor is the cult commanded, but is allowed to be continued as altogether lawful and worthy of praise; nevertheless from that time it commonly began to be called the Bull of the canonization of St. Albert, and Albert himself on account of it both canonized and a saint. Luca Castellini censures this vehemently in his very ample Treatise on the Certitude of the Glory of the Canonized Saints, chapter 1, point 17, §5, and point 18 up to §10, likewise chapter 2, point 11, §§2 and 3, and finally in his Catalogue of the Canonized Saints, page 431, everywhere contending that our Albert, toward whom otherwise he professes himself religiously affected, has hitherto been and can be called only beatified. On the contrary, that he is to be judged as by his own right canonized, though not solemnly, through this Bull, Lezana asserts at the year 1307, number 5, and at the year 1476, numbers 2 and 3, because in it his cult is granted most amply, and not extended only to the Order, or to a certain province, or kingdom. He adds that this was formerly the mind of the Order; inasmuch as it, which before had been so anxious to urge the canonization of its Albert, after this Bull wholly acquiesced; which it certainly would not have done, unless it had recognized a sufficient canonization in it. However it may be, whether it contains a solemn beatification, or a non-solemn canonization, it is certain that from it flowed the greatest splendor and increase of the former cult.

[9] For from that time his feast and eulogy seem to have begun to be inscribed commonly in the sacred Calendars; as we gather from the Florarium of the Saints, [and he began to be noted in the Martyrologies and Breviaries on the seventh of August,] which we have written by hand in our Belgium only ten years after the praised Bull of Sixtus, and in which at the sixth day of August he is thus celebrated: In Sicily, in the city of Messina, of blessed Albert of Trapani, Provincial Prior of the Carmelite Order throughout Sicily, a man excellent for the loftiness of his holiness, and shining forth with the flashing of miracles. But he flourished about the year of salvation 1292. And his memory is repeated in the same place on the following day, which is properly his birthday. He is read also from the year 1490 in the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard, and in other supplements published by us. In the Roman Breviary of the same year printed at Venice he has a simple Office on this day; in another Roman one of the year 1522, an Office of nine Lessons with antiphons and the rest proper. From the year 1493 he received a long eulogy in the Supplement to the Catalogue of the Saints of Petrus de Natalibus. And why should we mention the Martyrologists who followed thereafter — Maurolico, Galesinius, Ferrarius, and the rest, who all report this our Saint on this same day? It is enough to have named the Roman Martyrology alone, in which at the seventh of the Ides of August his birthday is announced through all the churches which follow the Roman: At Messina in Sicily, of St. Albert, confessor, of the Order of the Carmelites, renowned for miracles.

[10] But although Messina alone is here placed among the Sicilians, and he is very celebrated among the Sicilians, and deservedly; since there the Saint both died and was buried, and was honored after his death with the first public honors, and with the title of Patron, and with the wonderful confidence of the citizens and the liberality of the magistrates, as their Acts, recited in the latest Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 628, bear witness: nevertheless not Messina alone glories either in his relics, or in a particular cult, or in his patronage; but also other cities throughout the island; Palermo above all, where Lezana at the year 1307, number 12, hands down that he was chosen protector of the city, and that Giannettino Cardinal Doria, archbishop of Palermo, confirmed the election by a public edict about celebrating his Office with an octave, not without indulgences proposed, on the fourth day of August in the year 1626: there is added the town of Eryx, which is found named both Monte di Trapani, and Trapani del Monte, and Monte San Giuliano, and which venerated the same Patron for a very long time, and indeed, so far as appears from Lezana in the same place, number 6, with a proper Office, approved by the most illustrious Girolamo de Termini, prelate of Mazara, about the year of Christ 1554, and enriched with indulgences not only for those reciting it, but also for those hearing it. From this Office certain excerpts can be read in the already mentioned Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 629 and following. In the same place, by the testimony of Pirri, volume 2, page 564, in the parish church of St. Julian the relics of St. Albert are in great honor, which on the seventh day of August are carried about through the city in solemn procession. There are also there some, as the same man hands down, page 565, in the hospital house of St. Albert, and in the church of St. John, brought from Messina in the year 1564. But since those pious clients had at last lost all the instruments by which the more ancient election of St. Albert as Patron could be proved, they renewed the same election, and submitted it to the sacred Congregation of Rites, which approved and confirmed it on the second day of July 1644, and decreed to the aforesaid Saint, thus chosen as Patron, the prerogatives properly belonging to Patrons: among which the supplicants had expressed one, namely that his Office with an octave be granted to them. But as the neighboring people of Trapani are unwilling in any way at all to yield in anything to the people of Eryx, at least in what regards the cult and love of St. Albert, they performed the same, and obtained the same from the same sacred Congregation on the last day of July 1645; as I have from printed copies of both decrees. The town of Veria too, as is in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 629, once established under the lordship of the family of the Abbati, erected a church to the divine Albert, where it venerates a finger of the same holy Father.

[11] but most celebrated But the piety of the Order itself, as is fair, especially after the Sixtine Bull, surpassed the zeal of outsiders: for this Order, by no means content then with an annual memorial of him, in the year 1498 in the general chapter of Nîmes ordained: That at Vespers and Matins commemoration be made daily of St. Albert and the Angel. Then by order of the general chapter held at Rome in the year 1564 the feast of St. Albert himself with an octave was inserted into the Calendar for the seventh day of August: which Office various Roman Pontiffs afterward confirmed. See Lezana at the year 1307, number 6. Where he also teaches that St. Albert was always held in the Carmelite Religion as Patron and protector of the whole Order; which he proves from the Order's

ceremonial; then from this, that in a certain general chapter, celebrated at Venice (we do not know in what year, for it is faultily noted), it was decreed: That the seal of the general chapter be engraved with the image of the Blessed Virgin sitting on a throne, and having the Savior in her lap on the left, and two images of Saints standing by the throne; namely the most holy Precursor, and that of our holy father Albert on the left. The same he establishes from a certain decree of Nicholas Audet, who in the year 1562 ended at once his life and a Generalate of about forty years, in the Constitutions approved and confirmed by Pope Clement VII. That decree is indeed rather long; but it is also very honorable to our Saint, and therefore by no means to be passed over in silence here: thus therefore it runs:

[12] in the whole Order Item, because among the other examples of exceptional sanctity of our Order, most celebrated everywhere among the nations is the grace of our most holy father Albert with God and with Christian men, with whose miracles not only our sacred Religion abounds, but almost the whole world; nor are there any Christian nations throughout the world which have not received our most holy father Albert as protector, and have not experienced him as a favorable and assiduous intercessor with God; lest the most celebrated devotion of the faithful be slackened through our negligence (which would be impious and unseemly), we ordain and by precept command that in all the convents and places of our Order, after the erection of the altar of the most glorious Mother of God, with whose title we are specially distinguished, and in whose honor our ancient Fathers first and before all others erected a church on the summit of Carmel, and exhibited to her the hyperdulic worship and honor due, there be erected and devoutly maintained an altar in honor of the same our holy father Albert, to whom it shall be peculiarly dedicated and consecrated: and this under the penalty of rebellion, to be inflicted on the Priors both provincial and local, or the vicars, if they shall permit the contrary to be done. Thus far that decree; By which, says Lezana, our contention concerning the patronage of St. Albert in our Religion is sufficiently helped.

[13] of the Carmelites; But the affection of the same Order toward this its Father and Patron may also be estimated from this, that it everywhere preserves his relics in such great esteem. But this is singular in St. Albert, says the Reverend and Admirable Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 629, that his sacred relics are distributed through almost the whole Order; so that St. Albert has almost as many silver, golden, or porphyry sepulchres as this Religion has distinguished monasteries. Then, in Sicily alone, from Rocco Pirri he recounts by name the following: those of Catania, Enna, Caltagirone, Leontini, Licodia, Caltabellotta, Sciacca, Licata, Sambuca, Caltanissetta, Prizzi, Burgio-Millusino, Mazara, Marsala (where a finger and the staff of St. Albert are held in veneration; indeed also the place to which the Saint is believed once to have turned aside with his little ass, and which is therefore held health-giving for beasts of burden, as Lezana reports at the year 1155, number 7), that of Trapani, or rather of the Virgin of the Annunciation, near Trapani; where in the most wealthy and celebrated church Pirri, volume 2, page 549, assigns on the left a chapel which contains part of the little building or cell of St. Albert; because in it he professed the Carmelite discipline, lived a long time, and bore the burden of Prior. It is sacred to the same Saint; whose head and ribs (now perhaps distributed among other monasteries, because authors later than Pirri mention there only the head), adorned also with silver cases, Master Cataldo de Anselmo of Monte (that is, of Eryx), then Provincial of Sicily, translated from Messina in the year 1316. Add the monastery of Eryx, which, as the same man writes on page 564, is greatly adorned with the relics of St. Albert the patron, brought from Messina in the year 1508, indeed also with others of the same Saint brought from the same place in the year 1564, as the same Pirri asserts on the following page. In the monastery of Messina, the fountain of all his relics, in the year 1659 there is related in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 629, to have survived a bone of St. Albert's arm within a silver arm, likewise the cope or cape with which the sacred corpse of the divine Albert, placed on the bier, was covered. In that of Palermo Pirri testifies, volume 1, page 228, that there is a well dug out by the divine Albert, whence many draw health with the water. Thus far concerning the Sicilian province; but if one should run thus through all the others, what end will there be? In our Flemish-Belgic province, says the author of the Carmelite Mirror* in the cited place, although most distant from Sicily, there is scarcely any Convent where there is not something of the relics of St. Albert: so too in very many convents of other provinces. But by the touch of these relics water is blessed, which is religiously taken by the Christian people for curing various infirmities, particularly fevers, and not without great fruit: as will be plain below.

[14] This common piety of the whole Order was embraced with an altogether singular zeal by those two stars of Carmel, [in which nevertheless the piety of Sts. Teresa and Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi shone forth.] the holy mother Teresa of Jesus, and St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi: and concerning the former indeed this is established from the catalogue of Saints toward whom she was borne with a certain particular feeling and zeal, which she had been accustomed to carry about, written by her own hand, in her Breviary — whence our Ribera exhibited it in her Life, book 4, chapter 13: for the first place in it is held by "our holy father Albert"; nor is that wonderful; since, as the same author subjoins in the same place, that seraphic Mother often beheld St. Albert the Carmelite in a vision. Concerning the latter, the Acts which we gave at the twenty-fifth day of May bear witness; where it is said on page 198, number 67, that she supplicated the Savior on the (not fifth, as is there read, but, as is rightly written on page 283, number 151) seventh of August, in the year 1588, that, since that was the day of St. Albert, her advocate, he would clothe her wholly within; that with greater fervor she might be able to imitate that Saint. But how efficacious she experienced this patronage on the same day can be read there. Another argument is drawn from her second Life, page 283, number 153, where it thus runs: The custom of that monastery (in which Magdalen lived) is that when the Religious cannot communicate on account of some impediment, they all communicate spiritually; and to that end, the accustomed signal for Communion being given, they all assemble, and pray together for half an hour. On such an occasion, when she (St. Magdalen) was in rapture, she said the Confiteor, and Lord, I am not worthy; seeing holy Communion offered to her by St. Albert the Carmelite; and she did all the things which she was wont to do in that act: and, the rapture being ended, she related that she had seen the aforesaid Saint, who, going around with the sacred ciborium, was imparting Communion to each of the sisters. Indeed such unusual favors of the Patron indicate no common piety of his clients.

* rather 1309

§ III. The age and credit of the ancient copies of his Life.

The original Life of the Saint written 80 years after his death; The entire and original Acts of St. Albert we have not yet seen, nor do we know that they survive anywhere. The Reverend and Admirable Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary judged, in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 630, number 2175, that they were first written by an author contemporary with the Saint or nearly so. But as many copies of the Acts as exist stand against it: for we know none of these which does not exhibit miracles wrought in the year of Christ 1385, which is about the seventy-ninth from the Saint's death: for although the copy of Giovanni Maria de Polucci does not reach so far in Surius, this is because he purposely truncated it; but that it ran further, or was extended by Polucci himself, more than the others, becomes plain from the Menology of the Carmelites published by Saraceni, page 319, number 44 and following. As to what the Reverend Father Daniel says, that miracles so late were not in the most ancient copy, but were added to it later, I would believe it if he proved it. And indeed from the very beginning of the Life, in which all the copies agree, it sufficiently shines forth that its first author was not only younger than St. Albert by many years, but also exceedingly ignorant of Sicilian affairs and times. I judge therefore, until something else be proved, that no entire Life of this Saint (for concerning compendious eulogies, if any there were, I do not dispute) was written before the seventh day of August of the year 1385, in which happened the prodigy which is described in all the most ancient manuscript copies which now survive. I confess nevertheless that it was composed from the year already said up to 1394, and indeed in one way and another, once, a second, and a third time:

[16] as is drawn out from three rather ancient manuscripts, For we know only three most ancient manuscript copies of it; namely one which Vincenzo Barbaro found and followed; another which is believed to be still preserved in the Vatican library, Codex 3813; and finally a third which Theodoric of Aix used, and (unless perhaps he had Theodoric himself before his eyes) Giovanni Maria de Polucci, who agrees wonderfully with Theodoric's work, as may be gathered from Surius's edition. These three differ among themselves in the order of narration, in style, and in age; if indeed an age can be called different whose whole difference is comprised within nine years. Of style and order it will be said in its own place: but concerning age, I cannot doubt that Barbaro's manuscript was earlier than the Vatican; and the Vatican than Theodoric's: for since the anonymous authors of each manifestly wished to comprise the entire Life, so far as they could, the second nevertheless has something more than the first; the third more than the second: for concerning the administration of the Sicilian province committed to St. Albert, and undertaken and carried on by him not without illustrious prodigies, Barbaro records nothing; and he certainly would not have omitted it, if he had read it in his manuscript: nevertheless the Vatican manuscript certainly mentions the same in Lezana at the year of Christ 1270, number 2; but much more sparingly than Theodoric in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, number 2197 and following; where two miracles are superadded. But who does not know that supplements of this kind are clear indications of a later author? Besides, in the miracle in which at Catania a certain youth Nicholas was freed from a hernia in the year 1385, on the Saint's very feast, this alone is subjoined about him in Barbaro, number 37, that he rose in their presence, restored to his former health, and at once and solemnly entered that Religion (he means the Carmelite). This could have been written in the same year; but not so what is added in the other manuscripts, namely that the same man had (not "lives," but) "lived" praiseworthily in the Religion; and thus was dead after a life piously passed for some time in Religious discipline. See Theodoric, number 2217; and the Vatican manuscript in Lezana at the year 1385, number 5. Then Theodoric's manuscript at the end of the Life relates the prodigy about the nobleman hanged from the gallows, than which there is nothing more wonderful in the Saint's Life. Why then do the other manuscripts not touch on this?

I suppose, because it either happened or became known later than those were written. Wherefore we place Theodoric's copy third in age among them, yet not later than the year 1394; since in this very year it was transcribed by Theodoric; as Daniel of the Virgin Mary solidly proves in the Mirror above, number 2163.

[17] Lastly, no less evidently can this be drawn out from the style of the same copies. of which the most ancient one lighted the way for Vincenzo Barbaro Barbaro, dedicating his little work to Nicholas Audet, or, as he himself has it, Audetto, then Master General of the Carmelite Order, writes thus: We exhibit to your Amplitude a labor dedicated to you, but another's... another's, I say; because, when we had in our hands, not without God's providence, the Life of the divine Albert, covered with the mold and neglect of so many years, which has hitherto been desired by your Order of Carmel (none had yet come forth printed; and Barbaro was ignorant of any other in manuscript): this, not only divided by us into chapters, but also given the gift of Latinity by a certain new translation under the same continued tenor, as it were the plastering of the ancient text, and with our Corollary added, we bestow upon your happy Amplitude: for it was not worthy to be exhibited under its old copy, on account of a squalid barbarism with vanishing digressions and childish returnings, and lest at last the dregs of a disordered and moldy medley should impair the brightness of your light. You see here that Barbaro's original was written so offensively that he himself judged that Latin phrases must be substituted for barbarous ones, and that the inept garrulity of empty digressions and childish returnings must also be pruned away. And yet these faults are not in the Vatican manuscript, as is clear from several of its texts recited in Saraceni on this day in the Menology of the Carmelites, and in Lezana at various years; much less in Theodoric's copy, which, although it does not shine with affected Latinity, is nevertheless not barbarous, nor anywhere luxuriant, much less disordered; but more polished than the Vatican. As therefore the first attempts at any work are generally shapeless, and are wont to be more and more filed and perfected by second and third pains; so it ought not to seem doubtful that Barbaro's manuscript copy was older than the Vatican, and the Vatican than Theodoric's.

[18] and it demands greater credit than the others: For the rest, from what has been said it follows that each deserves great credit, since they were composed in the same century in which the Saint departed from the living, in which the memory of his wonderful works could not yet have been lulled to sleep, indeed in which there must have survived throughout all Sicily countless persons who had learned many of his acts from many former eyewitnesses. Greater credit nevertheless, in my judgment at least, is demanded by that most ancient author whom Barbaro translated and abridged; first, because whatever of substance he has is confirmed by the others, who relate all the same things; but not conversely: for the two later ones have certain things which are not in the earlier: then, because that earlier one wished, with great discrimination, to write only those things of whose credit it was more established; but the rest, which seemed less certain, he deliberately passed over. Hear the man himself, from Barbaro's translation, thus concluding the history of the Life and the miracles: There were also many things of this kind, which might freely have come together at the summit of this little book; but I have collected only those which, by an almost innumerable heaping-up, seemed to me to be brought forth beyond the threshold, and from which their proper credit, which is established, is the less taken away. By which words he shows that he knew more deeds of St. Albert, and indeed sufficiently asserted, so that they could be brought forth among the people without offense; but that he was unwilling to publish them in his writing with the rest, because they were confirmed by the testimony of fewer than those which he published as proved by an almost innumerable heaping-up, that is, by an almost infinite number of witnesses.

[19] this therefore, since the autograph is now wanting, And would that it had befallen us to obtain that very copy, or at least a transcript, however barbarous! But this is a consolation, that we have obtained a faithful translator of it, concerning whom Antonino Mongitore has these things in the Sicilian Library, volume 2, page 277: Vincenzo Barbaro of Trapani, a man cultivated in the more polished letters, became renowned, adorned with Greek and Latin letters. An excellent poet, but too obscure. He lived about the year 1550. Of him Leonardo Orlandini has made mention with praise..., who calls him his teacher; Rocco Pirri...; and Vincenzo Nobile. While still a young man he published the Life of the Divine Albert, confessor, at Palermo, at the press of Antonio Mayda, 1536 (which year is put twice, namely in the Dedication and the prologue: but at the end of the little book the printing is noted as made in 1537, on the eighth day of March). In quarto. Again in the same place at the press of Tommaso Romolo, 1688, in quarto. It was also published in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints of Ottavio Gaetani, volume 2, from page 219. He also wrote hymns, epigrams, and elegies. We have the first edition and greatly value it, not only because it is now rare, but chiefly because it is genuine: for our Gaetani, in his edition of the year 1657, thought he should change the somewhat obscure and not sufficiently familiar style of Barbaro; then he erased from the text certain things not sufficiently approved; finally on page 222 he inserted into it what he had learned from elsewhere about the Saint's provincialate, as though they had fallen out from Barbaro contrary to his intention; which things, and others, if they be reprinted in the Palermo edition of Barbaro of the year 1688, which we have not seen, will assuredly not a little increase the value of this our edition; which accordingly, after this Commentary, we shall represent in the best faith, the typographical errors with which it abounds being expunged.

[20] we shall give from the faithful translation of Barbaro, We have said that Barbaro is a faithful translator of the most ancient copy which he had: for he himself professes this openly enough in that text of the dedication which we recited at number 17, when he calls the whole little book of the Life another's labor; and asserts that nothing was added to it by himself, except the division into chapters and a certain new and more Latin translation; nothing taken away, except the vanishing digressions and childish returnings; all of which indeed make nothing to the substance of the work. He calls indeed the added Corollary his own; but this is outside the Life and the series of chapters into which the whole Life is divided; nor does it contain anything else than a hymn and an ode for celebrating the praises of St. Albert, likewise an epigram on the marble image of the divine Mary of Trapani, and finally a succinct poem, or Silvula, as he himself calls it, on the corruption of the languishing world. What have these to do with the Life? When therefore Gaetani in his Animadversions on the Life published by Barbaro seems to affirm that this translator added certain miracles of his own to his original, I suspect that he was deceived by an over-hasty inspection of the title, which is prefixed to the little book thus: The Life of the Divine Albert, Confessor, arranged into fifty chapters, and far different from the old copy, with as many miracles of the same added, which through him in life and after death, the divine benignity cooperating, were wrought; now first published, Vincenzo Barbaro of Trapani being translator; with the same man's Corollary of some matters. Minerva not gainsaying, reader, spare one who hastens. A certain ambiguity, I confess, is presented at first glance by these words: "with as many miracles of the same added"; but observe that the "of the same" is not to be referred to Albert (otherwise it would be tautologically subjoined, "which through him were wrought"), but to the old copy, in which as many miracles as he found mingled with and added to the Life, so many, Barbaro says, and entirely the same, he added to his translation, not even one being omitted. Whence he calls himself only the translator of the Life and the miracles; but of the Corollary, the author; "with the SAME MAN'S Corollary," he says.

[21] Further, since to our Acts belong only those things of which he was the translator, with an Appendix of miracles added. not those of which he is the author, we shall give here only the former; the latter — namely the index of chapters, and their titles and numbers, likewise the dedication, and the two prologues, one in prose to his fellow-townsmen of Trapani, the other in verse to the little book itself, and finally also the Corollary subjoined to the little book — all these, I say, we shall suppress in this our edition. But because Barbaro was unwilling to wander outside the material of his old original; and because credit is due, as we have already said, to the other copies as well; lest anything from them be found wanting, we shall join to the Acts an Appendix, into which will be gathered as many miracles as have come to our knowledge either from the praised ancient manuscripts or from elsewhere: the other things which pertain to the history and chronology of Albert's Life both in Barbaro himself and in others more recent, and which need a commentary, if they are of longer labor, will be discussed here presently; but if of shorter, they will be relegated to the Annotations.

§ IV. St. Albert's birth, fatherland, and entrance into the Carmelite Order.

The Acts wrongly attach the marriage of St. Albert's parents, Since the Acts of St. Albert seem, from what has just been said, to have first begun to be written after the seventy-ninth year from his death, no one will wonder that the Saint's beginnings were less clearly perceived by their author than those things which happened either toward the end of his life, or after his happy departure from this life; and that not only because the former are older than the latter, but also because they were observed by fewer people; since indeed the holy Man, an industrious concealer, so far as he could, of his own virtues and heavenly gifts, had not yet, by apostolic journeyings through the whole island, not yet by miracles openly and everywhere wrought, turned upon himself the minds, eyes, and conversations of all his countrymen. And so at the very beginning of the Acts, according to all the ancient manuscript copies which we have mentioned, there occurs an anachronism little worthy of a man not wholly a stranger to the reckoning of times; since either St. Albert's birth, or rather his parents' marriage, is reported to have happened in the times of Peter, king of Hither Spain and of Sicily, as Barbaro has it; or, in the days of Peter, the ancient king of Catalonia and Sicily, as Theodoric of Aix has it in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, page 631; or, as Surius from Polucci has it, at that time in which Peter obtained the kingdom of Catalonia and Sicily: for since St. Albert, as will be proved below, departed from the living in the year of Christ 1306, after he had approached a decrepit age, as is in the Vatican codex in Lezana at the year 1307, number 4, or with his years growing heavy, as Barbaro writes at number 19, it is assuredly necessary that both his parents joined in matrimony, and Albert born of them, preceded by a very long interval Peter I reigning in Sicily; since it is established that he only in the year 1282, which was but the twenty-fourth before the Saint's death, added the Sicilian kingdom, after administering that of Aragon for six years.

[23] and his birth, to the times of Peter, king of Aragon and Sicily: I know indeed that the author of the Carmelite Mirror, to defend his Biographer here, has recourse in his Annotations to a prolepsis not unlike that by which in Christ's genealogy it is said: But Jesse begot David the king; who namely afterward was king; and thus wishes his History to be explained: In the days of the most illustrious Peter the ancient, who afterward was king of Catalonia and Sicily, there was a certain man, by name

Benedict, etc. But even this sense is false, if it be referred (as it seems it should be, and as it was referred by our Gaetani in his Animadversions) to the time at which our Saint's parents entered upon matrimony: for let us establish, what is probable, that Albert died somewhat more than a sexagenarian, and accordingly was born about the year of Christ 1240; it will follow that Benedict's marriage with Joanna, barren for fully twenty-six years, was entered upon toward the year of Christ 1214, that is, at the least twenty-four years before Peter, the son of James I, king of Aragon, was born, as is certain from Zurita's Annals of Aragon at the year 1234. But if you contend that the words already mentioned regard not Benedict's marriage but St. Albert's birth, which followed Peter's birth after some years, I reply that the laws of Genealogists are one thing, those of chronologists another: for the former in their catalogues add to the names of those who brought a new glory to the family the titles of dignity obtained at whatever age; whence to David the appellation of King is joined, because he was the first from Abraham's family, drawn through Judah, to be raised to the kingship. But who will point me to even one chronologist who, whether by consuls, or by emperors and kings, etc., measures the times, and has ever begun an epoch from the private birth of consuls, emperors, or kings, or before a consulship was actually entered upon by them, or the throne of empire or kingdom obtained? And indeed the birth of many princes is obscure and known to few; not so their elevation to the highest summit of the commonwealth, the empire, or the kingdom, which is proclaimed through all the provinces: whence the latter can designate a time commonly known; not the former.

[24] Rightly therefore and faithfully did Surius translate the sense of his author in these words: [since they long preceded Peter's reign; and this indeed about the year 1240, that about 1214.] At that time in which Peter obtained the kingdom of Catalonia and Sicily. Nor does Gaetani in his Animadversions attribute another to our Barbaro: but because he detected that this was erroneous, he thrust these words of his — In the times of Peter, king of Hither Spain and of Sicily — out of the text as openly false, as he warns in the Animadversions. I pass over others to whom this translation alone was pleasing. Let Saraceni stand for all of them in the Menology of the Carmelites, to whom the same, at this day, seemed so certain that, in order to reconcile it with Sicilian and Aragonese history, he judged, not without a most absurd error, that the reign in Sicily of Peter, who was both son and heir of James, king of Aragon, must be anticipated by a full century; and that under him Benedict's marriage with Joanna, contracted, as he himself will have it, in the year 1186, must be referred. But indeed it is better candidly to confess the error of the original author, and of those who followed him in this place, than either thus to defend it, or to violate their meaning by a proleptic interpretation. For the rest, as we by no means hesitate to assert that both Benedict's marriage and Albert's birth-time were very far removed from the rule of the Aragonese in Sicily; so, when we assign to that same marriage about the year of Christ 1214, and to Albert's birth the year 1240, we profess that we do this from mere conjecture, since the year cannot be otherwise determined: for the demonstration of this matter depends on the age which the Saint attained in living: but the ancients do not express this by a certain number of years, but by these phrases, as has been said, "his years growing heavy," and "after he had approached a decrepit age," which admit some latitude: whence Lezana, at the year 1307, number 3, thinks that fifty-seven years suffice to explain them; Saraceni on the contrary runs on to eighty years. To us, because nothing stands in the way, it has seemed good to take a middle course indeed, but to prescribe it to no one as certain.

[25] From the time of the Saint's birth we proceed to the place; concerning which Gaetani in his Animadversions on his Life says thus: His birthplace A recent contest, and one arisen almost a hundred years ago, has taken place between the people of Eryx and those of Trapani about the divine Albert's native soil — whether Albert was born at Eryx or at Trapani. That contention blazed up chiefly after the people of Eryx demanded a decree from the Sacred Congregation of Rites at Rome, and obtained it in the year 1637, in which, by the testimony of Pirri in Sicilia Sacra, volume 2, page 568, these words were read: The Sacred Congregation of Rites has judged that it should be granted that concerning St. Albert the Carmelite, a native of Monte di Trapani, of the diocese of Mazara, the Office may be recited in the place of his origin both by seculars and by regulars of the same place. It is necessary to remember here what we noted above at number 10, that Eryx, Monte di Trapani, Trapani del Monte, and Monte San Giuliano are one and the same town, which on a very high mountain is distant from Trapani, or Trapani of the Valley, as it is also called, by only three Italian miles. Through this decree, therefore, the people of Trapani, thinking that their own opinion was overthrown and the opposite one canonized (for they used this word), pressed the same Congregation that, that decree being rescinded, another might be granted to them, in which the same Saint should be pronounced a native of Trapani, and the Office given to the people of Eryx should be extended in exactly the same manner to themselves. But the sacred Congregation refused to do this without a mature discussion of the parties. Procurators therefore were summoned from both sides and sent to Rome in the year 1644, and each brought forward the weighty points of his own side, and tried to confute those opposed. But how long-lasting this suit was, and what its outcome, gather from the subjoined decree of the Sacred Congregation, directed to the church of Mazara, to which both Trapanis are subject.

[26] Mazara. Concerning the Birthplace of St. Albert.

does not seem to have been Trapani, Such is the devotion with which the communities of Monte San Giuliano and of Trapani follow St. Albert the Carmelite, Confessor, that each people contends that he is its own native. Whence the community of Trapani, taking it ill that the Sacred Congregation of Rites, on the eighth day of August 1637, had canonized St. Albert as a native of Monte San Giuliano, and that his Office from the common of a Confessor not a Pontiff should be recited under a double rite, supplicated for the revocation of such a decree, and that the aforesaid Saint be declared a native of Trapani, and that the extension of the Office be granted to them in the same manner in which it was granted to Monte San Giuliano. And the Sacred Congregation of Rites, on the twenty-first day of July 1645, the Most Eminent Cardinal Montalto reporting, and both parties fully informing, judged that nothing else should be declared as to the Saint's origin; but that it should be discussed in the auditory of the Sacred Rota. But that by each community the honor due to the aforesaid Saint may be conferred, and that the fatherland and peoples may rightly be able to rejoice together and be glad in the Lord over so great a Patron, it replied that the Office granted to the community of Monte San Giuliano should be extended also to the community of Trapani; if it shall seem good to His Holiness. And His Holiness, to whom the resolution was reported by the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Prefect, in a secret consistory held on the last of July 1645, assented.

A. Cardinal Capponi.

Place of the Se ✠ al.

M. Gallio, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[27] but Monte San Giuliano in Sicily. Whether that matter was afterward further discussed in the auditory of the Sacred Rota, I have not learned; nor do the letters of the people of Eryx mention it — letters fortified with the public seal and the subscription of their four senators, Salvatore Zuppino, Carlo Palazzolo, Mario Scuderi, and Giuseppe Scalisi, and most courteously sent to us together with the decree already recited and the instruments by which they had defended their cause at Rome, on the second day of February in the year 1662. The Reverend and Admirable Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary is also silent in the second volume of the Carmelite Mirror (which appeared in the year 1680), page 643, where he institutes a dissertation on the place of St. Albert's birth. The suspicion therefore is that the litigations stopped at the place I have mentioned, and that it was not to the advantage of the people of Trapani to press anything further; which Juan Bautista de Lezana seems sufficiently to hint, who was then occupied in publishing his Annals at Rome when the said dispute was raging there most keenly: for thus he writes about it at the year 1250, number 12: But although not a few nor light foundations seem to subsist for the city of Trapani, nor would I wish to appear ungrateful to certain nurslings of that same city who have spoken with me on this matter; nevertheless we judge that those rest on a greater and stronger foundation who contend that St. Albert was born not at Trapani, but at Monte di Trapani. This is shown in that petition offered to the Sacred Congregation of Rites. We could thence draw out all their arguments one by one; but because that appears to be of greater labor than utility; and then because they were sufficiently published at Rome by the presses of the Apostolic Chamber in the year of Christ 1645, we omit them; candidly professing meanwhile, after Lezana and others, that these seem to us firmer than those which we have hitherto seen brought forward by the people of Trapani. And these certainly have from another quarter something in which to glory beyond controversy: for if it be denied that St. Albert was born to the world at Trapani, at least that he was there born to Religion no one can deny; since to the territory of that same city there both once belonged and even now belongs the most noble monastery of the Virgin of the Annunciation, the cradle of our Albert as he was born to a holier life, as will be plain from the Acts.

[28] And since we here make mention of this monastery, The Saint is said to have entered Religion in the eighth year of his age; it may be asked whether it is certain enough, what authors commonly assert, that St. Albert there took the Religious habit in the eighth year of his age. Indeed that this opinion is somehow ancient we cannot deny; since before the end of the fifteenth century it is attributed to Arnold Bostius in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 1, part 1, page 290, and about the same time to Battista Mantovano, a man most celebrated on every account, and at one time Master General of the Carmelite Order, in his Hymn on St. Albert, which is read in the Paris edition of his works of the year 1513, volume 1, folio 248 and following, where he has thus:

When the Boy had passed seven years, After the manner of the Baptist, fleeing his father's Threshold, he hastened to the sacred temple of the kindly Virgin.

These verses, in the same words, transferred to the Breviary of the same Order approved at Rome, are recited at first Vespers of today's feast. The same matter is asserted in the same place in the second Nocturn, Lesson 4. The same Surius hints in this place, when he thus notes in the margin: The little boy seeks the monastery: for the age of a little boy is one thing, that of a boy another. The same, not to recount more, Lezana expressly hands down in the Annals of the Order at the year of Christ 1258, number 5; whence it can scarcely be doubted that it is now almost everywhere received as historically certain. But so far is it from appearing such to us that it seems rather to have arisen from a not sufficiently pondered reading of the Saint's ancient Acts. For these, in Barbaro, Theodoric of Aix, and Surius, or rather Polucci, report that Benedict was asked to betroth his little son Albert to a girl distinguished by royal family; and that when he had scarcely entered the eighth year of his age. Then they subjoin that his wife, consulted on this matter by Benedict, most strongly resisted. Then

they relate, without expressing any time, that the mother revealed to her Son the vow by which he had been made over to Religion by both parents before his conception. Finally they subjoin that Albert, at his mother's exhortation, went once to the monastery unaccompanied, and therefore was not received; then a second time with his parents; and that then at last he was most willingly admitted among the novices of the Carmelite Order. All these things, if they be run through perfunctorily in the Acts, are readily connected with one another and with the eighth year of Albert's age; because no other year is interposed in express words in those same Acts by which they might be separated. But if you attend a very little, you will easily perceive that they are by no means joined together; but that the betrothal sought for Albert is manifestly torn away by several years from his entrance into Religion.

[29] For first, when the Acts relate that Benedict, treating with his wife about his Son's betrothal, was frightened off by her with the weightiest reasons, they immediately subjoin these words in Barbaro: Hearing these things, the husband was astounded; nor did he dare to redouble a word about a matter of this kind any more. In Theodoric: And he made no further mention of this. In Surius: Nor did he wish thereafter to make any mention of that matter. These words, unless I am mistaken, not obscurely indicate that some space of time flowed by after the betrothal was rejected by Joanna, in which Benedict could thereafter have made mention of the same to persuade his wife, and in which accordingly Albert remained free at home with his parents: for it would have been ridiculous to make mention of it after he had openly put on the Religious habit. Not therefore did the Saint immediately assume this after the betrothal was proposed and refused; nor indeed do the Acts connect these two matters with each other. Secondly, the Acts assert that the Saint was tempted by a demon, bearing the appearance of a most beautiful woman, to desert his purpose of Religion and to enter into marriage with her, and that in the very beginnings of his penance, as Barbaro signifies; or, as Theodoric has it, in the beginnings of his spiritual birth; or, as Polucci has it, in the very first beginnings of his conversion. Can these things, I beseech, be fitted to a boy not yet eight years old? Not therefore do the Acts allow the betrothal offered to Benedict for Albert to be joined with the beginnings of his conversion; but they separate this from that by some years; namely up to the slippery age, as Barbaro expressly notes at number 5. Thirdly and finally, those who refer his novitiate to the eighth year of Albert's age are compelled to confess either that his public and solemn profession was made in the ninth year of his age; which is absurd, and, after the year of Christ one thousand, is repugnant to ecclesiastical discipline, which requires in males professing Religion at least the fourteenth year of age completed; as Thomassin proves in The Old and New Discipline of the Church, part 1, book 3, chapter 55: either this, I say, they are compelled to confess (which no one has dreamed hitherto); or to extend his novitiate to several years, with Egidio Leoindelicato in the Carmelite Paradise (in Italian Giardino), pages 100 and 101, and Philip of the Visitation in the French Life of this Saint, who prolong his probation from the eighth year of his age up to the eighteenth; which is most openly contradicted by the ancient Acts, which establish a single year from his entrance to his profession in Barbaro, Theodoric, and Surius. It remains therefore that whoever wishes to defend as true and certain the more recent opinion, set forth in the number above, must in this place renounce the older Acts. And this perhaps was the cause why the Reverend Father Master Giuseppe Falcone, in his Carmelite Chronicle of the Italian edition of the year 1595, page 541, leaving the opinion of the rest, judged that St. Albert's conversion, or first coming to the monastery, must be deferred up to the eighteenth year of his age: in which he seems to be nearer to the truth; although it is difficult to determine a certain year.

§ V. The liberation of Messina, the journey into Palestine discussed, his Provincialate, the year of his death, and his writings.

He freed Messina from famine Among the most distinguished deeds of St. Albert is deservedly reckoned that he once so relieved Messina, pressed by the siege of Robert, duke of Calabria, and at the same time exhausted by dire want, through a supply of grain obtained from heaven, that the enemy at last cast away the hope of taking it. It is asked here chiefly at what time this happened: for it is of interest to define this most accurately, lest afterward we wander in inquiring into the year of his death. The ancient Acts of Barbaro, Theodoric, and Polucci agree in this, that they testify that this matter took place after Frederick of Aragon was inaugurated king of Sicily in the city of Palermo, that is, after the seventh of the Kalends of April of the year 1296, as Barbaro explains in the same place, and as Nicolò Speciale, formerly a legate of this same Frederick, confirms in Pierre de Marca's Marca Hispanica, Sicilian Affairs, book 3, chapter 1; to pass over Fazello and others more recent. Struck by this battering-ram, the opinion of those must necessarily collapse who would have it that Albert not only did this much earlier, but also flew to the heavenly ones in the year 1292. But how much later than Frederick's inauguration was this liberation of the Messinese? Barbaro alone answers first: Not after a circle of long time: which phrase indeed does not seem able to be extended beyond a very few years. He answers secondly, together with Theodoric and Polucci, that it happened while Robert, king of Naples, was besieging Messina. And yet Robert is never known from Sicilian history to have surrounded the Messinese with a hostile army, much less to have reduced them to extreme famine, except in the year of Christ 1301, in which Speciale, book 6, chapter 1 and following; Fazello, in book 9 of the later decade; and Buonfiglio, part 1, book 9, relate that he did this. There is therefore no reason why another year should here be sought.

[31] But indeed, you say, in the year 1301 Robert was only Duke of Calabria, in the year 1301: not king of Naples, as the Acts report. I answer, first, that the title of king is not used in this place as a note of time (since the author designates this by the preceding marks in the same place), but as a note of dignity, in which the use of prolepsis cannot seem altogether foreign; which nevertheless if it displease, say, if you please — I permit it — that the Sicilian Biographer had not sufficiently perceived the beginnings of Robert, king of Naples, which it is certain belong to the year of Christ 1309. Whence I answer, secondly, that if our author had wished to denote a mark of time by the title of king of Naples, he openly contradicts himself: since between the year 1296 and 1309 or the following years there is more space than these words of his allow, "Not after a circle of long time." I answer, thirdly, that Nicolò Speciale was older than our Author; and that he pursues Sicilian affairs through these times in detail; and nevertheless commemorates no other siege and famine of the Messinese under Robert, either as Duke or as king, besides that which we have said happened in the year 1301. I answer, finally, fourthly, that St. Albert by no means survived up to the inauguration of king Robert; as will be demonstrated below: and accordingly that his original Biographer must here either be explained in the way already proposed, or necessarily corrected. Nor should you say that in the siege of Messina of the year 1301 not a word is made in the praised writers of Sicilian affairs about so prodigious a relief by St. Albert: for neither elsewhere have they made mention in the historical series either of this or of his other miracles; although nevertheless Fazello, decade 1, book 7, chapter 3, calls the man himself distinguished for miracles; and Buonfiglio confesses the same in the Chronological Compendium, part 1, book 1, page 59; where also he is not silent about the want of the Messinese relieved by him in some way, however much he is silent about it thereafter through the course of his history. Doubtless they left divine prodigies, as less suited to profane histories, to be pursued by hagiographers; whom accordingly they by no means wished to prejudice by their silence.

[32] Another question is, although never hitherto agitated, so far as I know: he does not seem ever to have been namely, whether our Saint ever made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Most of the more recent writers assert it from two copies of the Acts, the one Theodoric's, which at number 2193 has thus: In the year of the Lord 1285, when the Man of God was in the Holy Land, there was a certain Jew who was held by the epileptic disease, etc.; the other Polucci's in Surius, chapter 12; where is read: In the year of the Lord 1295 the Man of God was in the Holy Land; where a certain Jew was often vexed by the falling sickness, etc. But to us that passage seems suspect, indeed corrupted by an unskilled copyist, who in his original may have read in terra Sacca in the land of Sciacca and thought that in Terra Sancta in the Holy Land should be written. Now terra Sacca is the same as the town of Sciacca; as is plain from Nicolò Speciale, book 6, chapter 9, to which he gives this title: On the overthrow of the castle by the sea of the Gulf, and the siege of the land of Sciacca — that is, of the town of Sciacca, which on the southern shore of Sicily lies almost midway between Trapani and Agrigento. This interpolation will strike the eyes, if you consider what precedes and follows: for in Theodoric, number 2192, the Saint is placed at Trapani; soon at number 2193, without any description of a journey, by these three little words only, "in the Holy Land"; then at number 2194, without any mention of a return from the Holy Land, he is said in the same year to set out toward the city of Agrigento; as though indeed Trapani, the Holy Land, and Agrigento were situated in about the same tract of lands, and could equally conveniently be visited, and as though a journey or return from one of those places to another did not seem worthy enough of note. Far otherwise, assuredly, are the pilgrimages of Saints to the sanctuaries of Palestine wont to be adorned and extolled, as often as they occur in our Acts. The original author is not therefore to be judged to have treated here of the Holy Land.

[33] in Palestine: And indeed some seem to have noticed that in this place the mention of the Holy Land is too perfunctory and meager, not to say inopportune, for it to be able to appear genuine. Hence Saraceni in the Menology of the Carmelites, page 304 and following, judged that it should be adorned with several episodes; in which part Philip of the Visitation in the French Life, §10, by no means wished to yield to him. I praise indeed their industry; but I require credit for what is said, and ancient monuments; which since none are brought forward by them there, I cannot but suspect that the text of the original copy was badly interpolated in this place, and that the Holy Land was substituted for the land of Sciacca. But this suspicion is confirmed not only because nothing concerning the Holy Land is cited from the Vatican codex, nor does any word occur in Mantovano either in the Calendars at this day or in the Hymn on St. Albert; nor in Jean Grossi, or Palaeonydorus; nor in any proper Office of his: but most of all because that single deed, which Polucci and Theodoric write happened in the Holy Land, Barbaro from the most ancient copy of all, at number 13, expressly relates to have happened, with all its circumstances, in the town of Sciacca. But since him there follow Falcone in the Carmelite Chronicle, Leoindelicato in the Paradise, and Gaetani in the Life of the Saint, who without doubt

had at least all seen Polucci's version in Surius's work, they evidently acknowledge with us that Polucci's text is here corrupted. But what Philip of the Visitation established, that entirely the same thing happened twice, and first indeed at Sciacca, §9, numbers 4 and 5; then again near the Jordan in the Holy Land, §10, number 2, does not even need refutation; nor does what Diego de Coria says in his Spanish Dilucidary of the Antiquities of the Carmelite Order, book 10, chapter 17, that Sciacca is a town in the Holy Land.

[34] Pirri affirms in Sicilia Sacra, volume 2, page 594, that St. Albert at one time bore the burden of Prior in the monastery of Trapani, the most noble of the whole island; [he presided over the monastery of Palermo; then over the Sicilian Province up to his death,] which, although the Acts do not report it, can nevertheless easily be believed; since scarcely anyone is wont to be advanced to governing a province who has not before, in the administration of one or more monasteries, given certain specimens of an industry fit for ruling. But that Albert once presided over the whole province, which then extended through Apulia and Sicily, although Barbaro is silent about it, seems altogether certain; since the remaining copies of the Acts assert it in rivalry; as Theodoric's at number 2197 and following, the Vatican in Lezana, volume 4, page 400, Polucci's in Surius, chapters 14 and 15; to which add, before the rest, one who from his office could know it best, Jean Grossi, Master General of the same Order from the year of Christ 1411 up to 1430, in the eulogy of St. Albert, which is exhibited in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 1, part 2, page 139, number 601. And so our Gaetani judged this to be so well established that he inserted it from elsewhere into Barbaro's Life, as though it had been omitted merely through the inadvertence of the author or the translator; which we shall rather relegate to the Appendix, lest we seem both to have attributed to him what is not his, and to have neglected what is otherwise true. But how many years he discharged this office we find defined by no sufficient indication; except that in the Vatican codex in Lezana above, and in Saraceni, page 306, he is said to have persevered in it up to his death; and upon what year this fell must now be investigated.

[35] How great was the variety of authors in assigning the year of this death which we think must be fixed is observed by Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, part 2, number 2230. But that in the first place all erred, as many as thought that he died before the year of Christ 1301, is manifest from what has just been said at number 30 and following. But that he did not live up to the year of Christ 1309 is established from a testimony much more ancient than our Acts, which among other things was produced by the people of Eryx and proposed to the sacred Congregation of Rites in the cause of which we spoke at number 25; whence it came to Lezana at the year of Christ 1250, number 12, who says that it was of two Carmelites, one of whom was Provincial of the province (namely of Sicily), the other chancellor of the above-mentioned Convent of the most holy Annunciation of Trapani, testifying that they had seen, read, and transcribed a certain most ancient writing, written by a certain Carmelite Brother of Trapani, Father Sebastiano Spinola, in the year 1521, and drawn out by him word for word from another more ancient, dating from a time near the Saint's death, namely 1309: in which writing there is a full account of how the relics of St. Albert, which are now preserved in the Convent of the most holy Annunciation of Trapani, were translated thither from the city of Messina; namely by the industry of Father Master Cataldo de Anselmo, Provincial of the Carmelites, elected in the year 1309, and a native of the above-mentioned city of Monte, to the effect of translating them into the city of Monte (namely of Eryx), his own city, and the Saint's fatherland. By this monument, then, so ancient and approved, there must necessarily be undermined not only the opinion of Maurolico and Buonfiglio, by which they affixed the death of this Saint to the year of Christ 1322, but that of all whatsoever who judge it later than the year 1309.

[36] Reduced then to the years which flowed from 1301 to 1309, which shall we chiefly choose? The year one thousand three hundred and seven pleased Lezana and several others; in the year of Christ 1306, and it rests on the weighty authority of Vincenzo Barbaro, or rather of the most ancient copy of the Acts which he translated. And so neither would we think of inquiring after another, were it not that that year is noted by Barbaro only in arithmetical letters, exceedingly liable to error, and that it openly conflicts with the ancient Vatican codex. For that codex, beyond the rest — which all agree that the Saint expired on the seventh of the Ides of Sextilis, that is, on the seventh day of the month of August — observes besides (in Lezana at the year 1307, number 4) that this happened about the evening hour of a Sunday. And yet from the year of Christ 1301 up to 1316 Sunday never fell on the seventh day of August, except in the year of Christ one thousand three hundred and six: therefore this year altogether, and no other, seems to have been St. Albert's last; and accordingly the year 1306 was wrongly noted by Barbaro, or by his printer, by the addition of one letter, as 1307; which error indeed can more easily be believed to have crept rashly into that edition than these words, "about the evening hour of a Sunday," into the Vatican codex; since in the same edition another not unlike it can be observed, namely that at folio 28 the little book is read as printed in the year 1537, whereas from folios 3 and 4 it is gathered that it was printed in 1536.

[37] whatever Gaetani may object. Certain things can here be objected from Gaetani's Animadversions, number 16; and indeed two chief heads, which come to this: first: The Saint in the Acts is related to have fallen into his last illness, indeed even to have died, in the midst of a circle of his own, outside the city of Messina. But the Carmelite Fathers had no dwelling outside it after about the year of Christ 1290, when, their suburban monastery being utterly overthrown by the injury of wars, they were compelled to move within the city; as is proved in the same place from Apostolic diplomas. He seems therefore to have been taken from this life before the year 1290. I answer that it is indeed said in the Acts that the Saint lay sick outside the city, indeed also, so far as appears, made an end of living, and that with the Brothers gathered around; but not in the monastery then subsisting entire; rather in a certain hut, as is in Theodoric; to which doubtless the love of quiet and flight from human praise and crowds had driven him; which hut indeed, since Barbaro calls it a place of Religion situated outside the city, it is probable enough belonged to the estate of the old suburban monastery, in which perhaps certain Brothers still dwelt for its cultivation, the rest having long before been received within the city: for that within the city, when Albert was dying, the Carmelites dwelt near the castle, and not far from the cathedral church, is clear from this, that there according to the Acts he was first buried in the church of his Order; and thence, this being a little after violated and profaned, he was translated to the new monastery of the same Order in the city near the Station of the Genoese and the Lion Bridge, which perseveres even now. In no way therefore does the first objection trouble us. The second comes to this: it is certain that the Saint died before the Carmelites of Messina moved from the monastery near the cathedral church to the Lion Bridge. And yet from the letters of Pope Benedict IX recited by Gaetani in the same place it can be gathered that they moved in the year of Christ 1304. St. Albert therefore did not live up to the year 1306. I answer that those letters of Pope Benedict were indeed given on the fourteenth of the Kalends of June of the year 1304, and that by them is confirmed the donation of the estate offered to the Carmelite Fathers for building a new monastery in the place already mentioned, and the faculty is granted of transferring their domicile thither. But thence it by no means follows that they moved in that year: for the monastery had to be built before they could betake themselves into it: and for this three years easily were needed. Neither therefore does this argument at all harm our opinion.

[38] It remains now that we subjoin the Acts. Since nevertheless they record nothing about the Saint's writings, The Saint's writings. it will be worth while here to observe for a moment that this our Albert is reckoned by several among the illustrious writers of his Order; of whom Trithemius speaks thus in his little book On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Carmelites: Albert of Trapani, Provincial Prior of Sicily, a man studious and most learned in the divine Scriptures, devout also in life and conversation, and while still alive flashing with miracles, is said to have written many useful things for the edification of the Brothers; which nevertheless have not come into our hands. Among these Antonino Mongitore in the Sicilian Library, volume 1, page 12, reckons the following little works: 1, On Pious Morals; 2, On the Fear of God; 3, On Fraternal Love; 4, On Patience; 5, On Contempt of the World; 6, On the Deceits of the Devil; 7, Homilies to the People. But what of these still survives, or where, we have not yet learned.

ACTS

By an anonymous author, Vincenzo Barbaro being translator, from his first Palermo edition of the year 1536.

Albert, Confessor of the Carmelite Order, at Messina in Sicily (S.)

BHL Number: 0228

From the printed edition of Vincenzo Barbaro.

CHAPTER I.

St. Albert's birth, education, calling to Religion and to the priesthood, austere life, and prayers most efficacious with God.

The Saint's fatherland, parents, prodigious conception, In the ancient times indeed of Peter, most serene king of Hither Spain and of Sicily ^a, there was a man, by name Benedict, of the family of the Abbati ^b, preeminent in the distinction of his birth, sprung from Eryx ^c, a mountain town of Sicily near Trapani: who at length was betrothed to Joanna, a woman among the foremost, of the surname of the Palizzi. And so, living innocently enough together and with gentle affection in that married intercourse, for the space of about twenty-six years they remained wholly barren and unfruitful. At last, searching with a deeper approach of the mind by what means they might obtain offspring, the prop of old age, with vows suppliantly poured forth, they did not cease to entreat the Mother of God continually, and, vowing to each other that they would devote their child to perpetual Religion, they beseech her, not without fasts and the giving of alms going before their prayers and vows. Which done, not long after Joanna began undoubtingly to suspect that she was with child by her husband. Meanwhile Benedict, as though moved by heavenly counsel, at the hour when sleep had come over him, dreamed in the image of rest that his wife had brought forth a wax taper luminous with brightness. This same thing, they say, at daybreak, as the night was going down, his wife too, scarcely held any longer by sleep, had seen ^d. But after their rest was broken off, in a mutual meeting each opens the matter to the other. Both, in suspense, marvel; soon they confess a sacred and truly divine mystery, and thereupon congratulate one another from their hearts. Then Joanna, mindful of her debt, leans upon her knees, and with a suppliant mind gives thanks to God the best and greatest. And behold, there are not lacking indications of the offspring already conceived, which by reason of her natural age might have seemed able to be denied her. Thus she says to her husband that she has received the fruit of grace and of blessing from the Lord, asserting it both clearly and most constantly; and, struck with awe before God, This, she says,

Son will be great, by no means withdrawn from participation in heavenly things, if these visions are true. And Benedict, taking up her words, likewise rendered abundant thanksgiving to the Most High.

[2] the excellent gifts of his earliest age, the royal betrothal rejected, But when the fullness of the birth came on, she is gripped with pain; and without delay she bore a boy. Who afterward, purified and invested with the form of sacred Baptism, was regenerated, the name Albert being given by the nod of divine providence; since that name had before been unheard of in the province ^e. Having become a boy, he is handed over to be trained in the discipline of the liberal arts; and, strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit going before, he is remarkably educated, and most abundantly adorned with good manners. His rejoicing parents therefore love him exceedingly, and he is dear and pleasing to all on account of his excellent disposition, so renowned for gentleness and mildness that, when he was scarcely in his eighth year, Benedict was approached about his Son's betrothal by a man among the most eminent of royal family, whereby he might one day aspire to royal dignity ^f. At length, persuaded and softly overcome by entreaties, he indicates the matter to his wife, promising that she would be of one mind with him. But she said: I marvel, my husband, at your prudence, who are seduced by things so fleeting and slipping away, who gape after a kingdom not perpetual, but soon to fail. Leave aside empty glory, and those snares of the world. Have you forgotten, pray tell, your Creator, from whom you begged the highest benefit? And in what way will you answer your own vows? To that matter to which you freely bound yourself, from this very thing you cannot free yourself. Whither are you carried sideways by elation? Nay, it is expedient for us to pay the debt to Christ and likewise to his Mother. Hearing these things, the husband was astounded, nor did he dare to redouble a word about a matter of this kind any more.

[3] his entrance into Religion hindered at first, At length, having seen an opportunity of time, the mother ordered her Son to be called to her; to whom, as he swiftly stood by, she unfolded the whole account of his conception and of the binding of the vow ^g. But the Boy, having weighed the compass of these sufficiently religious words, humbly said: Mother, I have no liberty, being placed under my father's wholesome yoke; nevertheless what do you most wish me to do? To serve the world and mingle myself with temporal things; or to worship Christ, and to offer him a chaste sacrifice in the obedience of sacred Religion, that I may live for ever? For so you have bound me by a vow. But the mother in reply said: Dearest Son, I do not seek to abolish these bonds of vow. Nay, I entreat you the more earnestly, let us pay what was promised: for servitude in God is a kingdom perpetually saving. To this the Boy again: Rightly, mother, do you admonish: I shall see to it that all you wish be done as quickly as possible. Meanwhile his father betakes himself home: he asks for a meal; and mildly sat down at table: and the Boy, in the presence of his parents, clearly and with a most ready mind, begins thus: I shall eat nothing today or drink, until you shall have invoked upon me health with a blessing. Then both parents, moved by benevolence, ask together a most auspicious blessing and a saving journey upon their Son, and pray well for him. He, having obtained the blessing, departs from the house, to enter the Religion of the Order of Carmel; whose rich and celebrated shrine is distant not more than two miles from Trapani, yet inclining more toward the foot of Eryx: which he entered, and soon, the head of the house being summoned, whom they call Prior, he earnestly demands the observance of holy Religion. But he, judging the Boy's purpose weak, at first refused, then took care that he be brought back to his father.

[4] On the following evening Benedict yields to sleep: and behold, far on in the night the Queen of heaven, the faithful preserver of the human race, seemed to stand by, and to rebuke him thus, roused with wrath and like one threatening: but soon, the Mother of God intervening, granted, Why, come, do you not diligently pay your debt? Why do you retain what is another's? Why do you delay promises so solemnly vowed? That Albert of yours, in whom you so greatly glory, was born to you of your blood; but he was likewise named for me and for my service indissolubly. If you shall not render me my Servant, know that you shall be carried out at once and basely, dead in a final funeral. But he, at once struck with terror, is roused; and most swiftly confers with his wife on the manner of the vision in order. Both ratify the vow; and, the night being dispersed, setting out on the journey together with their Son, they reverently hasten toward the Carmelite church; they draw near the church, and, the college of Religious being called together, Benedict recounts in order the dream of the past night. To whom both, of their own accord suppliant and praying, offered their Son, to be initiated into Religion and the Marian rites. But when the day drew near on which Albert was to be made over to most sacred Religion ^h, all the chief men are summoned, and, thronged in a huge crowd, they gather in the church; where in their presence, the solemn ceremonies being performed, Albert is adorned with the Religious habit; but his secular garments, which he had laid aside, he himself distributed to the poor, entering thereupon on a life of wonderful sanctity.

[5] But the devil, who from the primal beginning of his own damnation is envious of the race of men, where at once a diabolical temptation was overcome, established by pestilent cunning as a specimen of death, weaves snares for Albert, now already in the slippery time of his age, and with the greatest zeal set himself to cast him down from so great a step of perfection, and utterly to cut short the beginnings of his penance. And so he changed himself into the guise of a most beautiful woman, and, having counterfeited the utmost piety of countenance and a sigh, when he had drawn near to the Servant of God, he began to speak thus: Wretched me! What shall I do, since I am perishing with the very fire of love for you? Whither shall I turn, widowed of marriage with you, whose long-desired embraces I have coveted? Do not (I beseech you), Young man, suffer me, foremost in family and flourishing in age, beautiful in face, and rich, to be deserted. Return to your father; serve the world; come to your senses: for it is not permitted you to persevere in that habit, which you will not be able to bear long. Come, enjoy my goods, in which the safer part of happiness is placed: for I too do not think that to be a good which harms the one who has it. If therefore you shall remain in that squalor; if you shall live so bitterly and harshly, will not, I beseech you, lice or foul fleas torture you? Here indeed you are seen to be weak in mind and in nature, while you renounce that marital yoke. Wherefore, fairest of young men, whom alone before the rest I have chosen to be loved, do not desert me in these so great evils; have pity on her who is tormented for your sake. Then Albert, suspecting the cloaked machinations of the crafty spirit, said: Go, Satan, whither the sin of pride cast you down; leave me: for I perceive by looking that you are not, as you lie, the likeness of a human being, but the inventor of death and the head of crimes. At which word, the persuader of vices at once vanished.

[6] The sun, having measured back the circle of heaven, had completed a year, when, prayers being poured forth, the man of God Albert, humility going before, is initiated into the sacred rites, which he had before laid up in his mind from his first entrance into Religion. For the rest, in the crushing of the flesh he was of such austerity, Religious profession, austerity of life, sacred study, of such persevering penance, that the record of it is rendered far preeminent among examples: for with a harsh hair-shirt on the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week (as they say), macerating himself with continual fasting, he repeatedly tortured his body; but on the sixth days he fed only on bread mixed with wormwood, and was accustomed to lie on a bed of vine-branches, and to cover himself, naked, with the meanest wool, and likewise to be clothed outwardly in coarse rags. He was always in his life abstemious, lest perhaps he might be caught by any motions of luxury on account of the pleasantness of unmixed wine. Besides, by adding scourges of chains to his nocturnal prayers, he propitiated God. He most detestably drove away from himself idleness, the enemy of virtue, being frequently intent upon divine things, by whose inexplicable delight he was held, fearing lest at some time Satan should entangle him, ceasing, in the fetters of his envy. He shone continually in chastity, and abstained from every note of baseness. He complied entirely with obedience, and embraced voluntary poverty. He, soon strong in mercy and adorned with humility, imparts to the brethren all things received freely, the nourishment of heavenly grace. Hence, supported by divine wisdom on account of the remarkable uprightness of his life and the comely brightness of his manners, he became skillfully versed in the disciplines of sacred Letters; but he was wonderfully held by the love of the contemplation of heavenly things. Often he converted heathens and catechumens to the Christian faith by the thundering sowings of his words.

[7] distribution of his time, promotion to the priesthood, the demon eluded, And that he might be able more conveniently to cultivate himself in the exercise of the virtues, he wisely applied a measure to things, without which nothing could ever be lasting: for, dividing the natural day for himself, he set forth his purpose into a persevering pursuit. From the first hour of the night up to the third he was accustomed to pray; then, refreshed with a rest only slightly moderate, as the office of nature requires, to return to the same more studiously in the next hour; likewise to rise in the morning, to supplicate God with prayers, to pour forth tears, and at last to scourge himself; but when dawn arose, to hasten to the offering of the divine thing and the ministry of the Sacrifice: these finished, out of a zeal for piety he withdrew from the crowd; thus from Terce up to the evening Office to work something with his body; then, the hourly prayers being performed, he returned to his former measure of penance. And so his salutary penance was so great that he deservedly merited to be made illustrious with the titles of so many miracles. And as regards humility, he bore the priesthood with so unwilling a mind, was so unwillingly summoned to it, that the Most Holy man burst out into these words, no less openly than piously: Does it beseem me, unworthy, to minister so great a Sacrament to the people, since I see myself less than fit for the honor of divine worship? Nevertheless, having been initiated into the priesthood, he is assigned to Messina by the command of the prelate: there, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and divine providence cooperating, he exhibited manifold kinds of miracles: for on a certain Sunday, almost at dead of night, while bowed down near the altar of the church he was drinking in the sweetness of prayer, and before him, as though it exulted at his presence, a lamp was flashing with a bright enough little flame, behold, the devil, the root of envy, stands by, desiring to divert the Saint from the work well begun; and as he was reading the verse of the Psalmist, "Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; and from them that rise up against me deliver me," at that very moment that lamp is violently overturned; which, overturned, God preserved safe from diminution and from the quenching of its light ⁱ.

[8] While the sum of rule was borne by James, king of Hither Spain and of Sicily, who had succeeded his elder brother Ferdinand, in the year of the recovered world 1290, Duke Frederick, still a boy, from the last will of Peter the king his father, the averting of extreme famine, and by his brother's appointment, was lord of Sicily; who afterward, having now entered his sixth year, on the seventh of the Kalends of April, and designated king at Palermo, was raised to the summit of the crown; not after a circle of long time ^k, Robert, king of Naples, makes for Messina with a huge fleet; for with this intent, that as victor he might triumph over the whole province: he moves his army up to the walls, to which he threatened utter destruction, and, his camp being fortified there far and wide, he leads his forces around: and while these besieged the city, a strong famine grew; yet so that the besieged despaired of human aid. The counsels of the citizens became troubled; although it had come to this by a public royal edict, that all should first, the city being laid waste by fires, run together toward the allied camp in the direction of Catania, rather than that, surrender being made, the enemy should basely gain possession of it: to which the popular assemblies, and the meeting of the magistrates and of the weeping nobles, are stirred up; who thought it best to obtain support in God,

rather than in earthly princes, and declared with assurance that they had placed it so. Is it not God, they say, who does not disappoint of hope those who bring all things to him? Let us go, I beseech, more quickly, and seek out Albert, the servant of God, by whose prayer poured forth to God we may suppliantly be delivered. Many of the people repeated the same thing: Let us go, lest on account of our disgraceful deeds we wretches cease to be among men. All alike following this admonition, they come to Albert (nor had the solemnities of the divine service yet ceased to be celebrated), and thus indicate the necessity of the matter: Under your protection we flee, Servant of God, perishing of hunger; by your prayer make God favorable to us; turn toward us the affection of his so beneficent Mother; stretch forth a saving right hand, and do not suffer us in these misfortunes to carry back the desert of our offenses.

[9] These supplications being received, Albert offered Sacrifice to God; by which Messina was pressed when besieged. and, weeping at the oblation, then bending his knees, he began to pray: King of kings, greatest God and common Father of all, who art never idle for the salvation of any men, if they do not distrust thy mercy; look down from the height of heaven upon thy people, and pour out thy mercy abundantly upon them; feed those who now hunger, thou who didst nourish so great a people in the desert; stretch forth the most blessed arm of thy power; make firm the city shaken with fear; protect it, fainting, which apart from thy work cannot otherwise be safe. Not in a multiplied number of the confident, but in thy unspeakable name alone must hope be placed. Stand by those about to die, lest Satan, the savage enemy, be a triumpher over the perdition of so many of thy souls. The end of which speech a discordant thunder followed, a sign that the prayer was accepted, about which likewise a voice seemed to be heard, which announced the clemency of God to be entreatable. Thereupon all together began both to rejoice with thanksgiving and to marvel. Then four laden galleys put in at the harbor: their coming is unknown; nevertheless they set out abundant provisions on the shore; and, these being set out in order, they withdrew unknown ^l. But the Messinese marveled at the novelty of the matter, since the harbor was held widely besieged by a naval fleet. When king Frederick had heard this, thronged with a company of horsemen, he hastened to the Man of God, and, having kissed his right hand as far as he could, rendered him thanks that he had not disdained to pour forth prayer to God for the people, and, pardon being obtained, to grant him liberation from captivity, the enemy being cast out. Thus all remained established by his wonderful holiness; nor could the city ever be conquered.

* perhaps "permotus" moved

* for "mensus"

* perhaps "permoti"

* perhaps "jam in"

* rather Alfonso

* that is, by testament

* perhaps "nempe"

* that is, Catania

* for "propitia"

* Theodoric and Polucci: three

* that is, the Messinese

CHAPTER II.

Certain miracles wrought by him while alive.

He heals a dying man of an abscess; At the same time, at the monastery of Messina, under the title of the Savior ^a, a priest received there, being badly affected with an abscess in his throat, is weighed down, so much indeed that almost all the physicians despaired of his safety; whom soon those same men abandoned, as one about to become a corpse and ashes. He therefore, hearing that the Servant of God was at Messina, orders monks to be sent to him, asking that he, relying on his sanctity, might be willing and not disdain to visit one so gravely affected. Albert, when he received the embassy, pious and with brisk step, desiring to console the sick man by his presence, hastens; and, entering to him, says: Why did you order me to be summoned, my brother? Do I profess any divine power of deity? Although we are all alike drawn by the infirmity of nature; although we increase the number of our sins; nevertheless it is permitted to hope in the Lord, at whose command all health and all kinds of diseases are obedient. And with that word he marked the sick man's forehead with the sign of the cross, and raised him a little by the chin. And again: My brother, place your faith in the Lord Jesus and in his most holy Mother, through whom men are saved. But he said: I do place it, and at the same time in your sanctity; and I commit myself to you, tortured with an incurable disease. Without delay, these words being added, he vomited out an abscess of the utmost stench. Thus he was restored to his former health. And thereupon they began to venerate the increases of Albert's sanctity.

[11] Meanwhile, when it happened that the Man of God once set out on a journey toward Gela ^b, he frees a woman possessed by a demon; when he was brought to the guest-house of his own Religion, he learned that the daughter of a certain distinguished woman was held by a demon: on account of which he himself burst forth groaning into these words: Satan, by what authority do you do these things? And, moved with mercy, he proceeded to the young woman. And when word of his approach had been reported to the mother, at once, stirred by the impulse of charity, she leaps from the house to meet him. Whom, having seen, she thus accosts with these words: I hope that by the divine goodness you will console me, desolate; even though so great a grief lays me wretched waste: since indeed the only daughter I have borne is intensely held fast in diabolical possession: that most evil enemy has long since dwelt in the vitals of so beautiful a girl. Do not, I beseech, disdain to visit her, badly affected, and to grant me the highest gladness. Entering to her, he prays peace with a saving word for all; but then, when he had drawn near the demoniac, she without hesitating and without any wavering struck a slap upon his cheek. To whom he offered the other also more closely to be struck, asking that she strike him again. By which humility the prince of pride, confounded and painfully affected, began to lament: Alas, how unjustly you deal with me! Alas, how I suffer, since on account of your coming I shall at once fly away from here! To whom Albert: Your greatest Creator, who by your pride drove you from the delight of paradise, let the same drive you out of the body of this innocent girl. At which word, the young maiden began wretchedly to tremble. And again Albert: Go out, Satan, in the name of Christ, and leave that divine work unharmed. Then, moreover, the seal of the cross being stretched forth, he besprinkled her with a sprinkling of sacred dew: and the maiden was straightway restored to health. Who gave thanks according to their merits to God the best and greatest, her deliverer, and to the Man of God.

[12] he preserves a woman in labor; But you may say perhaps that I have used a slight narration, where a continuation of the like matter has not been made. Accordingly I shall carry myself on to greater benefits of things, which followed. In the year from the saving redemption of the world 1270 ^c, at Trapani, when a woman in her first childbirth had labored six days against the resistance of the child turned the wrong way, of whose life the physicians had wholly despaired, Albert had opportunely returned to that place; which, by Hercules, was not too late reported to the mother of the woman in labor, who, hemmed in as she was with grief, called back her lost hope. Why not? For through the whole province, both on his own account and also on account of the splendor of his parents, the increases of his wonderful holiness were borne abroad. She went therefore to the Religious shrine, with a company of kinsfolk gathered about her. Fallen down at the feet of him whom she found, she began thus to wail: Wretched me! My daughter is dying, her childbirth being retarded; nor is there anyone to bring saving help to the dying. Pass over, I beseech, to her before she departs, since she has long desired to see you; that at least, if she confess her offenses with a groan, her soul may find solace. To him, inquiring about the house of her dwelling and the district, she replied: What does it matter, if I shall show you the house? Come, and see. They had now already passed the sacred threshold, hastening in a body to the house, Albert's boy following. When he was brought in, he began to call by her own name that half-dead woman, who was called Margaret; but she, having lost her senses, made no reply at all. And at last, his finger being placed on her mouth, he said: Why are you worn out with pain; and to me

do you not speak? Speak, come; and console your mother, if you please. And, his hand being anointed with oil and laid upon her womb, he prayed thus: May Jesus, propitious, preserve you, daughter, by the most deserving benefit of his God-bearing Mother, and just as she conceived in unstained virginity, and soon, a Virgin, having obtained painlessness of childbirth, brought forth; so may you, who have long labored, bring forth without peril of life, about to offer your child to the divine Religion. Scarcely had he finished these words, when she opened her already closed eyes, as though restored to sense; and, having taken the Man of God's hand, she said: Help me. And at once, the womb being opened, by whose obstruction the birth was delayed, she bore a little girl, afterward to be consecrated to the Lord.

[13] he heals and converts an epileptic Jew with his household; That was the health of the body only; but that which follows is the health both of body and of soul. In the year after the salvation-bringing childbearing of the Virgin 1275 ^d, there was a certain man, a Jew indeed, who, seized by a grave epilepsy, both went to Albert, who was bestowing his preachings on the town of Sciacca ^e, and prayed through his parents for the help of health: which at last he promises he will grant to them as they entreat, if only they promise that they will betake themselves to the Christian belief ^f, and, coming, not deny the perpetual virginity of the Most Blessed Mother, and all the things which they profess concerning the Christian Creed. When they asserted that they believed all things, with the marking of the cross he said to the epileptic: Let that disease be driven out from you, if the matter stands as I declare concerning Jesus of Nazareth. These things done, that melancholic humor is dispelled; the sinews grow slack; the mind, which had been seized, is loosed and cleansed; nor is he who could be healed by none of the physicians thenceforth any more tortured, being seized by that disease. Thus he was rightly cured, with the astonishment of his own household, and with a frequent assembly of many. Wherefore, turned to better things by the spirit of grace, and regenerated by the washing of the most sacred font, they attached themselves to the ceremonies of Christian worship ^g.

[14] In the same year again, while the Man of God himself was going about the province, [likewise he leads out others snatched away by the waters, and converts them to Christ.] and was setting out toward Agrigento, that he might convert the Sicilians to the form of sanctity, he drew near the river which is named Platani ^h; and there he came upon some Jews who had already entered the river, and, snatched away by a sudden flood, were in peril: who, recognizing the Man of God, of whom they had once perceived so many miracles, began, imploring his help, to cry out to him as their deliverer: In the power of your Christ, Lord, stand by us favorably: save us, lest we here be covered by the waters. While they were still crying out, he sets forth the formula of Baptism, under which in the name of Christ they might be able to obtain safety. And when they had not refused it, and had asserted moreover that they believed all the things which they had heard concerning Jesus of Nazareth, he entered the river and, the waters giving way ⁱ, hastened to baptize them savingly: whom thence he led out unharmed, and restored to the duty of a more approved life.

[15] And not long after that day, the most holy Man, because he seemed to be burdened by too great a gathering of people, He heals a dying man devoted to Religion; withdrew to Leontini ^k; and there, that divine spirit being present, he exhibited many things which are exceedingly distinguished in the eyes of all; among which this one seemed most of all to be recounted in the chronicles. A certain Admolphus, born of no obscure station, of the family of the Lamie, was oppressed with so extreme a sickness that he almost breathed his last lifeless; and when it was the physicians' judgment that a funeral should be prepared, his mother, roused with excessive affection and trepidation, and scarcely regarding their authority, ran to the monastery for the sake of protection, girt about with a company of women; and with a heart heavy both with hope and with piety toward the Servant of God, when she is near the church, she cries out from outside: Come now, you who are pleasing to God, Albert, support me. I shall not withdraw from here until by your merits my son grows well, made over to that Religion of yours. And when her wailing had grown louder, some came out from the number of the Religious, and announce that she was awaiting Albert there in vain, since he was absent; nevertheless they mention that they have only a piece of his garment: which she, when she heard this, did not cease to demand, judging assuredly that the divine goodness could work salvation in it.

[16] At last the monks, compelled by entreaty, proceed to the sick man, which he afterward deserting, perished miserably; and, upon the mother's faith, lay the piece of garment upon the half-dead man, the whole Household praying. By Hercules, a deed splendid for every age! Behold, the young man, sleeping on the border of death, beholds by the office of the mind Albert standing near him, and exhorting him, the mention of his mother's faith being recounted, to rise in the name of Christ; on account of which the divine supports, as was discovered, do not delay. And then he seemed especially to have a right hand held out to him; which when he had taken, he was straightway shaken out of a heavy sleep; he rose, and began to speak more clearly, and to recount in order what he had seen. Besides, a desire for eating being set forth, and refreshed with food, he recovered. After these things Admolphus, when he learned that he had been vowed, entered Religion, girded with a brave spirit. But (as the spirited hearts of young men cool down) before a year, because he was of the most eminent families, he left the observance which he had begun to hate, and rashly gave himself to military service. In short, in a narrow space of time he wretchedly experiences the divine vengeance, when he stained with his own blood the hands of an illegitimate brother; and his mother drank in the utmost grief poured out for her.

[17] an eye torn out he restores to an absent boy By a chance of fortune, while that most holy Man was staying at Palermo ^m, known to almost the whole city, on a certain day, as it pleased God the best and greatest, in play the eye of a little boy was torn out by his little sister. By which mishap the whole household began to be saddened; but the mother above the rest is shaken with pitiable wailing, especially since it was evident that the surgeons would avail nothing for any effective remedy. At last, the approach of human help being refused, she judged it better to flee to the supports of God's Servant, and to test the measure of the divine benignity: setting out to him together with her daughter, she showed the whole event concerning the boy in order. To whom he, shining forth in sanctity, said: Why do you still weep? God alone skillfully joined the limbs together, and God alone also dissolves them. And when she, not restraining her weeping, had pressed the more earnestly in her zeal to obtain his favor, and had not for a moment rested from it, while the most holy Man confessed himself guilty after the example of others, he withdrew into the inner little garden of the house, and there, apart in secret, and not otherwise abstaining from weeping, when he had prostrated himself, he said: O God, did you not by your ineffable power create the human race for your own sake? Did not the same clemency of yours name us for the glory of your happiness? Did you not, when you had appointed us to death by the first crime, at last see fit in your goodness that, expiated by the blood of your Son, we should be joined with you through faith and mercy, and, being foully and basely dishonored, should now be honored? And behold, now that work which, wonderfully forming it, you wisely bound together with members and limbs, and which you adorned more beautifully with a soul, that it might live for glory — that work envious Satan has marred and struck with a heap of envy. May it therefore please you now to restore it, so that, that member of his being given back, your power may be venerated, and hostile malice may fall to ruin. And when he had repeated these things three times as a suppliant, he at once returned to the woman; whom, addressing her by her Christian name, he exhorts to faith in Christ, who alone restores members to the body, and then with great foretelling, consoling her, dismisses her.

[18] by prayer; But she, using her commendation of herself as best she could, sets out after obtaining a blessing, and, received home, finds the boy shaken out of sleep and duly recovering. Who, as soon as she was brought in, said: Mother, a certain man truly anointed with oil the eye that was perpetually shut in darkness. And as she inquired about his dress and age, he replied that he had seen one near to old age, clothed in black inner and white outer garments. And she perceived in spirit that the Man of God had been present, because that vision had appeared clearly enough by the benefit of the restored eye. But the deed became known to the whole city and admirable. Thus everywhere and widely the record of him was enlarged. Wherefore hence, they say, occasion was given for oil or water, when the relics of his body have been steeped in it, to bestow health for manifold diseases ⁿ.

[19] he flees popular acclaim; he foretells his own and his sister's death. But then Albert, when a dense throng of people began to arise and to flow together to him, fearing to be carried sideways by hostile cunning and by empty glory, and at last to succumb to the frailty of nature, set his feet in a clandestine journey toward Messina, where a place of Religion is situated outside the city. But as his years grew heavy he began to be afflicted with adverse health, and in that troubled rest continually to ask God not to permit him to approach the heavenly banquet-chamber with any longer delay; but at one point he amended his petition with these words: Just as, O God, you did not permit your Son's petition to be done from his own soul, but commanded your will to be accomplished: so do not according to my wish, but conform to your own will. And while he is carried away by the fire of prayer and abides in ecstasy, he is said clearly to have heard this voice: Among the ranks of the Confessors you shall be raised, to enjoy God without end, and shall be consecrated to eternity. And if ever he had been slow in the zeal of praying, now he persevered, clinging more tenaciously. Now he sings the psalmody, now he turns over the oracles of the holy Fathers and further contemplates the divine mysteries; now, repeating the memory of the God-bearing Mother, he leaps for joy, and is delighted with her longed-for converse. But on the day of his death as it began, he ordered the assembly of the Religious to be summoned to him, whom it had pleased him from his heart to emulate in the manners of the ancient fathers: and as they sat around, while he was weighing the heavenly sweetness, he said, like the Apostle: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Who soon, like a prophet, subjoined a prediction of this kind: Today, having discharged the labor of life, I shall render up my spirit to God, to fly straight up to his fatherland, and at the same hour my sister likewise, in which I myself shall fail, shall be finished with me, the billows of life being forsaken. Which by the outcome of the matter showed forth a truly divine allotment: since she was more than two hundred and fifty miles ^o away from him.

Barbaro; who ought to have known that among Christians, from almost the very cradle of the Church, there was constantly another use and signification of this word.

* perhaps "futurum"

* perhaps "prorupit"

* that is, by a sealing

* that is, not long after

* others: Adinolphus

* rather "porrigere"

* that is, "obstructed"

* that is, of the monastery

* that is, "let it be praised"

* perhaps "abesset"

CHAPTER III.

His glorious death; funeral rites; translation of the body; and the prodigies which accompanied and followed.

The soul of the dying Saint seen borne into heaven; Meanwhile, when the monks saw him cleaving to death, they began to keep watch, and, gathered around, to keep vigil in prayers, and to commend his soul. But at the evening hour the Man of God plainly perceived that he was tending toward his own dissolution: then, leaning on his knees, in their sight he prayed thus: O God, who created all things by your admirable power, disposed the created things by your judgment, and sustain the disposed things by your beneficence — sustain by your mercy my soul, and protect it as it dreads the power of the unclean spirit, and place it, safe, in the chosen beauty of your service. After these things he uttered the Psalm "Save me, O God, by your name" to the end, and likewise gave the Psalm "In you, O Lord, have I hoped" completed; the angelic salutation and the Lord's prayer being interposed. And when he was again passing to the Psalm "In you, O Lord, have I hoped," gazing upon heaven, winning salvation for the deserving one, and calling upon the God-bearer his preserver, more loudly, as though he were adding his last, expiring, he pronounced: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." At which word, like a shining cloud, his soul swiftly departed and was seen to be lifted into heaven. But his body, wrapped about with a linen hair-cloth ^a and laid upon a bier, is venerated with funeral pomp. He died in the year after the Virgin's childbearing 1307 ^b, on the seventh of the Ides of Sextilis.

[21] [the bell announcing his death by a spontaneous ringing, there is a running together from every side,] Thus far we have worn out those things which faithfully came to hand concerning his life, and which seemed not to be suppressed for an example of faith to the memory of men. But now let us pass by a turning to those things which, when he had been buried, the province recognized no less gloriously than truly. For at his passing the bell, which had been cast at his direction, with no one ringing it, began to sound out on high; his body to breathe forth ever more abundantly with fragrance, and sweetly to fill the nostrils of the bystanders: to which, as to a more wonderful spectacle, very many of the Messinese proceed in waves, and the Jews likewise flow together, a good part of whom are converted to the orthodoxy of the faith. Nay, king Frederick III himself honored the funeral on foot with a company of horsemen. Thus all softly groan that so great a Patron has been taken away. Yet each one strives in rivalry, so far as in him lies, to touch the holy corpse, since divine power breathed from it, and companies of the languishing seemed to be restored to prosperous health: his garment is cut up bit by bit here and there, everyone desiring for the sake of affection to obtain a little piece, because by the merits of his Servant the divine clemency had willed to work so many miracles in it.

[22] But among other things, while the funeral rites were being hastened to their end, and illustrious funeral rites are prepared, not without miracles, a certain lady of no lowly family, of the Palizzi household, who was called Venetia, roused by an overflow of affection, took the covering from his head, not yet buried; which she both took care to guard anxiously; and those upon whose head it was placed, if they labored under ophthalmia or any defect of the eyes, were at once cured. Finally, to say nothing of the rest, king Frederick orders his funeral apparatus to be prepared more carefully, and commanded some provincial prelates to assemble for the funeral; whose number Guidotto, archbishop of Messina, and, by the report of certain persons, the bishop of Patti ^c, increased; to whom likewise the rest of diverse orders and grades came, the king with a most crowded number following the funeral procession.

[23] A three-day fast therefore being proclaimed, the archbishop orders appetite for food to be restrained in all, in which angels intone at the Mass, "The mouth of the just," etc.; prayers to be poured forth, alms to be given, and the solemnities of divine service to be celebrated through the churches; that in that consecrated ministry some miracle might be brought forth by divine condescension; which also was done: for while the bier stood in the middle of the shrine, on which that corpse, laid out and venerable, was borne to be honored with rites, behold, so great a breath of fragrance began abundantly to overflow that all alike were nourished by that heavenly sweetness and beyond doubt were drawn into astonishment: at the vapor-chamber of which supra-mundane perfumery ^d all kinds of diseases were cured; so much so that the crowds without doubt confessed that he had been a vessel of holiness. But then, a dissension having arisen, there was disturbance between the clergy and the people concerning the celebration of the divine service: the clergy propose that the appointed solemnities of the dead should be repeated; but the people, those of the Saints, and this with reasons defined on both sides: for the one had recourse to the Pontifical law, the other to the impulse of devotion. At last they decreed that one must abide by the divine nod. The archbishop therefore commands all to pray and to supplicate God at length, that it might be able to be known with what titles especially, with what honors, he had preferred him to be honored. As they prayed, at that very moment two boys, clothed in white robes reaching to the feet, and girded with golden stoles in the manner of a cross, and luminous with much sunlight, were seen to stand on either side, although their aspect was not very discernible on account of the brightness; who nevertheless with a clear voice thundered forth, all waiting: "The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom"; at which word, they at once vanished into the air. And so king Frederick and the archbishop, together with the assembled college of prelates, resolved to yield to so clear a miracle; and it was brought about that the heavenly judgment should not be put after the human. Thus by common consent the solemnities of Confessors were celebrated.

[24] he is laid in a tomb soon renowned for miracles; But these being finished, at the ninth hour his body is honorably delivered to burial. But the king and the whole people of Messina by a public sanction decreed that the authority of the Supreme Pontiff should be publicly entreated through legates, by whose most ample approval, moreover, Albert, being canonized, should be enrolled in the register of Confessors; and that provision should be made at the expense of the provincials for the memory of posterity. To his tomb both citizens and those from afar and from abroad flow together — the infirm, the lame, the blind, lepers, and paralytics; who are cured with no too late delay in this manner: for as those languishing at the tomb gave themselves to fasting and prayers either for a third or up to a fourth day, at dead of night a shining light surrounded them, surrounded by which Albert was seen conspicuous in evident clarity in a white garment: and those from whose eyes he did not withdraw himself he at once made worthy of the benefit of his holiness; who soon, the benefit of health being obtained, openly praised God, because he had granted the power of grace of this kind to his Servant. Which being brought into the open, his veneration was enlarged everywhere and widely; whose miracles besides, which continue up to these our centuries ^e, are not utterly removed from Christian sight.

[25] but this being subsequently violated, not with impunity, Indeed, among the rest, what follows is not to be defrauded of its own telling. In the same year in which Albert yielded to the weakness of nature, a storm of wars pressing upon the provincial petty rulers and the kingdom of Sicily itself, his tomb is left altogether dishonored: into whose sanctuary mercenary soldiers, the doorposts of modesty and reverence being broken, rush rashly like dogs, and shamefully enough strive to use it for a stable, a number of horses and straw being crammed in. But God could not bear so great an ignominy to his Servant; whence it came about that all the four-footed beasts fell, struck by a most sudden death; and the soldiers were disfigured with various kinds of diseases, and very few escaped safe. Thereupon certain refractory men, moved by the obstinacy of perversity and blazing with the utmost wrath, resolved to unseal the tomb and to see who it might be that was buried there. Thus, horses being tied to the stone and violently driven, the tomb is split, and the stone leaps apart; and the venerable body was found touched by no mortal contraction, but leaning upon its knees; as though it were entreating a deserved punishment upon the perpetrators, to avenge its own ignominy. Wherefore not long after it happened that all perished by the contagion of a pestilence. What more? No one has dared to lodge here any further, up to these times.

[26] the relics are translated elsewhere, and are there adorned with a miracle: But thereupon the monks, his body being solemnly drawn out and flight undertaken, migrated to where they now live, a dwelling being fixed upon: and when they again desired the suitability of the place, being united they take counsel that a part of the body (which they very properly sought for the people by deliberation) should be left there; but that the rest, and the principal part, should be set at Trapani to be solemnly venerated: thus each seat of Religion, supported and further not defrauded of the relics of its Patron, might exult: namely Messina, because there he passed the duties of a most holy life; and Trapani, because thence he drew the foundations of his paternal origin ^f. A few days after, when the station of the Genoese near the monastery of his Religion, which they call by the Greek word logia ^g, was seized by flames and burning, a certain boy, by name Antonellus, fell backward into the burning: who very soon invoked Albert's help

mindfully, then the present and saving suffrage of the God-bearing Mother. Wherefore he stood forth preserved without harm, to the admiration of all. Snatched thence, he indicates to the people hurrying up that he had suffered no loss among the flames. Whom God preserved unhurt by Albert's merits: on account of which for many years he served the Carmelite Religion, so far as was in his power ^h.

[27] Admirable indeed in the telling is the burnt boy; but what will be told is equally with the above of strong wonder, and, so help me, must be pursued in its own style. In the year of the Lord's Nativity 1308, at Leontini, while the head of the Carmelite monastery was preaching from the pulpit, and, in the course of preaching, extolling blessed Albert, had named him Saint, One envying the Saint's veneration is punished; but repenting, is soon freed. a certain priest, envying that the proclamation of his sanctity should be celebrated in public, cried out against the saying; affirming that he was lying, and that the man was unworthy to be judged a saint. To whom suddenly, all seeing it, his bowels collapse down to his knees with pitiable torment. Thus a just punishment of madness was paid. Nevertheless a physician is summoned: but he at once judged not his own help, but Albert's most of all, necessary, by which he religiously maintained that the man could be freed. The priest, persuaded by his weighty exhortation to come to his senses, at once began to invoke Albert, and to accuse himself openly as false, wicked, empty, and lying, since he had enviously derogated from his sanctity, and asserts that he was deservedly suffering that punishment: at last he implores a saving remedy; that at his own peril he might be able to spread abroad his sanctity without hesitation, adding by a vow that he would celebrate the vigil of that same most happy death, and would perpetually observe his day as a holiday with complete freedom from work, and otherwise most festive. Who on the next day in the morning perceives his body being anointed: which, having examined with his hand, he now knows that he is sound from the disemboweling: hastily he leapt down from his bed and clothed himself; and, received at the church with first light, he showed all the Religious that he was duly well, and, thanks being rendered to God, girded himself to pay the days appointed by his vow.

[28] Which done, everyone most well instructed in faith exalted God with sincerity; The incurable ulcers of a woman are healed. nay more, if anyone was a neglecter of divine worship, on the contrary he feared, whose actions of virtues daily rendered him more renowned. When among these things, in about the year of Christian salvation 1309, a certain noble lady of Agrigento, because she was laboring for three years with a suppurating ulceration of the breast, nor did medicines for the health of men suffice by which that inner malignity could be rooted out, contrives with her whole mind a saving refuge to the Man of God; to whom she promises that she will offer a little image of silver, and will clothe three poor monks in veneration of his name; which, by Hercules, in a moment of time she carried out not carelessly; and this she named by vow as to be done perpetually each year while she lives. But on the following night, in her rest, she seemed while waking to see an unknown physician, who directed that a very little of the oil of Albert's lamp be taken, and the breast be duly anointed, if she took care to be restored to prosperous health. In the morning, her chamber being left, she betook herself with haste to Albert's chapel; and, the matter being suppliantly accomplished according to the image of her rest, and moreover the Sacrifice of the divine service being honorably employed, she returns home; and forthwith indicates to her neighbors that she is subject to no ulcers, she for whose health provision had just been made from heaven.

[29] But that I be not too long delayed by the measuring of times, in about the same year, on the seventh of the Ides of Sextilis, The Saint by a miracle protects his own public cult. for the sake of popular zeal, as is the custom, at Piazza ⁱ (for so it is commonly called), the Carmelite monks eagerly desire to celebrate his anniversary solemnities; and behold, the devil, parent of detestable envy, fanatically roused the hearts of certain clerics to envy; who wickedly resolved on that night, which the solemn day was to follow, to blot out and to cut down the image of the Man of God: which being secretly contrived, a certain man, by name Bonjorno, a paralytic for nearly twelve years, perceived by night the passing of a crowd making an uproar with one accord; and, anxious at the novelty of the matter, he swiftly sent his wife to the door to find out what it might be: who soon reported to her trembling husband that she had found a gathered band of an adulterated faction, which, roused with fury, had hastened to destroy Albert's image. This being received, out of the abundance of his so affected heart he cries out: Would that I were strong in body, and lacked no faculty of strength! That image, by Hercules, I would try to protect with arms and with the utmost zeal. Free me, blessed Albert, from this paralysis, and I myself will lay out my whole patrimony for the enlargement of your cult. And while some of the factious band were still passing by, he again added his entreaty. Who after these things is seized by sleep; and behold, he beholds Albert notable in his peculiar habit, as his effigy was painted, and bearing in his hand a little rod clothed with rays, and repeatedly touching him, sick, with its point, with these words: Come now, rise; may God, the bestower of graces in his Saints, strip you of that enervated weakness, restore you to the soundness of your limbs, and grant you peace. When he, emerged from sleep, rises with his own strength, like one thunderstruck, and, arms being manfully seized and an onset made, he rushes out of doors, and, running up, having pursued that factious cohort making for the monastery, he blandly exhorted them to a renowned and divine and religious work, and likewise dissuaded them from the outrages of the devil, and moreover asked that they should not rashly strive to dare anything against that picture. To them, asking who he might be, he most readily replied that he was Bonjorno: and when they urgently inquired how that languor had fallen away, he related everything briefly. Wherefore, suddenly struck with fear, they went back, extolling God the best and greatest, and Albert. And here first was a chapel dedicated to his observance ^k.

* that is, garment

* others: Renetia de Palatiis

* that is, vigil

* perhaps "quem"

* perhaps "redderent"

* perhaps "interna"

* for "exstirpari"

* perhaps "præciperet"

* that is, to blot out

CHAPTER IV.

Continuation of the prodigies.

[A horrible insult against the Saint and the Mother of God avenged by a thunderbolt;] But after a second Olympiad ^a, among the increase of his honor, from the time this was done, at Trapani ^b a certain infamous gambler, almost consumed by the vice of dicing, and by diabolical instigation led into desperation, turned aside from the faith, striving against it. He came therefore to the Marian shrine outside the city; where, having beheld the image of blessed Albert, he said: Have I not so often prayed you to be favorable to me as intermediary, and never, most unhappy, obtained my prayer? Therefore you who are published abroad among all with the proclamation of sanctity, and did not come to my aid when asked, in no way, by Hercules, shall I today concede that sanctity of yours. And soon, turning to the Virgin (her image was placed in the same place), he said: Ho there, you are everywhere called the Parent of grace, and you have shut your ears to my prayer. Roused by this saying, he drew his sword, and cut both images: whereupon at once blood bubbled up drop by drop from the cut. But as the boy who had seen these things cried out, that wicked man leapt forth; and behold, he who had already passed the threshold was carried off by a hurled thunderbolt with a sudden flash; nor was anything of him seen any more, except ashes ^c.

[31] What? Did he not pay just penalties? For the divine mind is easily angered and takes vengeance for an injury inflicted by men, where the insult is not empty. But let me now betake myself elsewhere. In about the year after the recovered world 1364, Frederick the younger, the fourth king, grandson of Frederick III, and son of Peter II, king of Sicily, The healing of king Frederick IV as he lay dying; is seized by the extreme gravity of a disease; which growing daily heavier, the physicians began to suspect something rather sad about him, and at last by common consent to despair of his hoped-for recovery. On account of which those nearest of his illustrious blood vowed him to the Carmelite Religion; namely that he would wear the wearing of the sacred habit for three years, if they should see him, now failed of life, called back to life by Albert's merits. This was done when he himself, whose senses had been cut off by the disease, could not utter so wholesome a help. The monks lay his relics upon him, and applied water, in which the relics had been immersed, to his stupefied mouth to be drunk. Having drunk it, he at once knew it to be saving by the immediate draught; so much so that on the following day, refreshed, he sat up supported, and thereupon, shortly recovering strength, he leapt to his feet. He approves the vow, and wore the Religious habit for some while. But, a Brief ^d having been obtained from the most sacred Religion, he laid it aside before the day on which he was to be crowned. And he was raised to the summit of the crown immediately after two years ^e. He had knowledge of Albert in the time of his great-uncle Frederick ^f, by whose decision, because he had sanctioned the procuring of his canonization, he without doubt placed the highest faith in him.

[32] Of the people of Trapani captured by the Africans Since there are many things of this kind, which in the recounting can produce wonder, I shall in place of many suggest one as a substitute. In the same year ^g a ship of Trapani is plundered by Libyan pirates and Saracens, which likewise as far as Tunis, where a pirate-station

was, is towed away captive. But the sailors, when they are set ashore, cast into a dire prison, kept in fetters, and long and wickedly tortured thus, take counsel about a saving protection. But among the rest it seemed most opportune to choose Albert's suffrage; whom, being suppliants and not weary of it, they kept asking with this entreaty: Just as we bring our mind to believe that you have been made over to God the best and greatest and to the Christ-bearing Virgin; so may we experience you, most holy Albert, as a prosperous advocate toward us; come, and by your merits, we beseech, set us free. This same prayer, consecrated with fasting, they uttered continuously up to the end of the second week. Thus, worn out with abstinence and with the scantiness of their rations, since they could no longer persevere in their most sacred undertakings, they resolve, that cause of nature intervening, to postpone them.

[33] a wonderful liberation. But at daybreak next Albert was seen to light up the prison like a burning torch, and to dazzle the sight of all with brightness, and thus at last to rebuke those cast down from their standing: Why did you at one time suppliantly call me together, and, not being firm, so quickly desert your purpose? To which voice they (nothing else could be discerned but the utmost brilliance), crying aloud, said: We invoke you, we venerate you; stand by us as soon as possible, and restore us to the liberty we have desired, lest here, led into desperation, we be made over to eternal punishments. Then Albert said: Be confident with a calmer mind, and put off that weakness of faith: for God has approved your human work: behold, he has sent me down to you for your salvation: follow me. Which heard, the doors of the prison are torn apart, and, their fetters being straightway lessened, they rise, and, hesitating not at all, they followed the brightness as far as the sea gate; nor was it, so help me, bolted. When they had come there, that light immediately disappeared. There, a skiff being found by heavenly nod, with oars and provisions supplied, they go aboard; who setting out thence without delay, by a prosperous crossing landed at Trapani; naked, they visit the Carmelite monastery, weeping for gladness, and, that skiff being offered together with a portion of the patrimony of them all, they gave thanks to God.

[34] St. Albert, appearing to men suffering shipwreck, brings help; There is also, quite as credibly done, what follows. When a certain ship of Trapani was sailing to the Roman station, and the sailors, gamblers and blasphemers, were playing together, and defaming the undivided Trinity and the whole heavenly company; while things thus went most badly, the contrary wind growing, at that very moment a sudden storm arises, the sea swells, the air is clouded, the rains thicken, stormy whirlwinds roar, and, the sail being torn away as it passed, and the stern-ornaments almost lost, the ship is in peril of shipwreck. Then two priests of the Carmelite band, who happened to be carried on that ship, do not cease to invoke Albert frequently, judging that this would profit their safety. At this almost all the sailors alike are moved, as suppliants, and making vows. Meanwhile, driven to the place of shipwreck, they came, disposed for shipwreck and having confessed their offenses. But, as the Religious were speaking of the things that concerned the safety of their souls, and exhorting them to hope, the stern-ornaments, at the nod of the malign spirit, are submerged: and behold, amid frequent wailings, the Man of God, evidently luminous like an angel, stood by those in peril, clothed on this side and that with the utmost brightness; and with a pleasing speech he said: The devil kills blasphemers; but God restores them by the benefit of life. But they, bowed down, and in rivalry raising a cry, keep asking for a saving escape. Whom, after he had bidden them hope, he was seen to be lifted up into heaven: whereupon in the sight of all Satan fled bellowing, and, the swelling of the waves being straightway laid, and the flooding of the storms calmed, the sea becomes tranquil, and favorable breezes arise. Thus, using a prosperous voyage, they crossed unharmed to the port of Pisa ^h; where they proclaimed their wonderful deliverance.

[35] How long does the nautical matter and the naval narration delay me? he heals dropsy, Again I shall subjoin things not unlike the above. In the year after the saving advent of the incarnate Word 1375, at Palermo a certain boy, gravely affected with dropsy, on account of extreme want lacked the care which was needful for his health; and, the force of the disease growing, his mother, a beggar, persists in trying to help her son: but since this had less succeeded, she set about seeking health before the image of blessed Albert, weeping, and, prostrate abruptly on the ground, thus praying: How dear you are to God, Father, and how great is the mutual affirmation between you, is not hidden from me: for he has accomplished great and wonderfully worthy things for those by whom something has been given to your name and to your veneration for the sake of drawing your suffrage: it is permitted therefore to invoke you; look upon the extreme fortune of a poor little mother, and do not unkindly turn a deaf ear to her cry; supply peace to the languishing. These things being piously heaped up, she dipped a cotton wick in the oil of his lamp, and smeared it about the boy's belly: whereupon, drawn away in a gentle rest, he slept a little, and, that being at last dispelled by which he was swollen, it was found that the water under the skin and all the flowing pus had run out at the navel. Which, he being restored to health, was not shrouded in darkness in the city: for it became known to all. On account of which the prelates extol God in his Servant, the peoples rejoice; whose chapel likewise they visit in throngs and as suppliants.

[36] An example of almost the same kind, but public, I think should in due time be added among the private ones. and a deadly fever, In the same year at Sciacca it happened that lord Nicholas, a royal boy, son of Guglielmo, count of Peralta, oppressed by a deadly fever, was in peril; to whom the first-rank physicians of the island are readily summoned; who, when, having used the help of their art, they could profit not one jot, indicate to his sorrowing parents that he would very soon collapse in death. And indeed he was held by a continuous paroxysm; by which the vitals of his parents are shaken; both weep from the marrow; nor could they find any suffrage against death, or at last devise any solace of health; meanwhile, dragging out a sick life, they experience the utmost heap of bitterness, and, waking all night, scarcely give way to sleep. But while that mishap of fortune was raging, a certain monk excelling in sanctity dreamed in a nocturnal vision that the boy was lifted up and exulting within the church in the embrace of a certain Religious; who then, being awakened, held that likeness of the dream a most religious conjecture. For the rest, when light arose, he reported to the Countess what he remembered having seen. But when she inquired what perhaps God had signified by this, he replied that the boy could not be freed by the care of men, save by the merits of Albert, who in that church is found before the rest to be preeminent in the brightness of miracles. Wherefore, moved by sincerity of mind, she promises to consecrate vigils and his solemn feast, and to bestow richly upon him golden mantles and little statues of silver ⁱ, to clothe the poor in his honor, to have him himself most skillfully sculpted on the altar, and finally to clothe the boy for a time in the mantle of Religion: then the penitentiary orders the relics of the most religious Albert to be brought and immersed in a cup of water; lastly, the Prayer of the same being dispatched, together likewise with the Lord's Prayer three times and the Angelic prayer, he handed it to the boy to be drunk. When he had drunk it, he perceives a slackening of the mad heat; and it was done likewise on the following day; whereupon he rose entirely, freed from the approach of death. But the illustrious parents, delay being driven off, paid their vows.

[37] as also a hernia, It was, by Hercules, to be told with its own dignity; but now indeed, to pass from the town to the city: in about the year after the rise of the public salvation 1385, at Catania a certain boy, whose name was Nicholas, his intestines having slipped into the scrotum, was for a time bearing the utmost torment. He reverently attended the feast day, while Albert's solemnities were being celebrated; and the same betook himself to the Head of the Religious assembly; who, beholding him painfully affected, said: What do you seek; or why are you so affected? But he with a word most swiftly showed the cause, very many of the monks standing by in that place, who then began to marvel at the malignity of the disease. Then, having received him kindly, he led him to the little chapel where Albert was portrayed, and there ordered him to kneel, and to entreat for health, and to promise the making-over of himself to Religion in perpetual servitude. Which when he had done, and he had prayed three times; when three times he had subjoined the Lord's Prayer and at the same time the Angelic salutation, having nevertheless drunk the water of the relics, he rose in their presence restored to his former health, and at once and solemnly entered that Religion ^k.

[38] and verminous ulcers. Now that which offers itself last, and is likewise worthy of its own memorial, is the less to be omitted; that in the same year a certain lady among the chief people of Caltanissetta ^l long labored with a gaping ulcer of a verminous breast, no remedy of surgery availing; but when at one time she had been present at the solemnities of blessed Albert, and had heard his renowned name so proclaimed, and so many miracles publicly recounted in a sermon, she conceived with herself these vows; namely that she would offer a silver image to the Man of God, and would cover his altar with golden mantles, and, promising that she would most religiously observe the next feast, if that fashioner of nature would not disdain to restore the disfigurement of so foul a breast. She at last, being washed with the waters of the relics, the little worms which were creeping by twisting themselves fell away; and she recovered the health already despaired of ^m.

There were also many things of this kind, which might freely have come together at the summit of this little book; but I have collected only those which, by an almost innumerable heaping-up, seemed to me to be brought forth beyond the threshold, and from which their proper credit, which is established, is the less taken away.

[39] The manner in which many were cured. Meanwhile, lest anyone perchance be held in suspense by any expectation and, hesitating, delay his health by an unseemly hesitation, it has pleased me to explain the manner in which very many were freed from the conflict of sicknesses. Take, namely, a vessel filled with water, and wash within it something of Albert's relics; besides, let as many as are standing by there measure out three times the Lord's Prayer, together with the Angelic one, and the sick person too, if he shall be able to speak; but let the priest as a suppliant dispatch the Prayer set out below, and give the cup, marked with the sign of the cross, to the sick person to be drunk.

The Prayer to be said over the sick person while he drinks the water.

We beseech you, O Lord our God, that you would deign to confer a wholesome help upon this infirmity; that those who venerate on earth the memory of your blessed confessor Albert may by his merits deserve to be freed from adversities. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

* perhaps "profari"

* or "caligantes"

* perhaps "Carmelitanum"

* others: of Guglielmo Peralta

* perhaps "comperitur"

APPENDIX

Of miracles collected from elsewhere.

Albert, Confessor of the Carmelite Order, at Messina in Sicily (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

The Saint is raised up while praying: Since the several ancient copies of the Life of St. Albert, which we commended above, are of no despicable credit, and since in recounting his wonderful deeds the rest are fuller than Barbaro's; indeed since many prodigies moreover happened later than those same copies were written; we have thought it necessary to represent them for pious readers in this supplement, from various monuments, in the order not in which they happened, but in which we found them noted. We begin from the Vatican codex, which alone describes both his accustomed manner of praying and the unaccustomed favors of heaven while praying, in Lezana at the year 1296, number 2, in these words: He did many other miracles in his life, which it would be too long to relate; but let this brief one, which follows, be committed to the mind in testimony of his very great sanctity. It was related by his contemporary Brothers that, besides the Office which every priest is bound to say, the said Father every night read the whole Psalter before the image of the Crucified on bare and bent knees, with such devotion that he was raised from the ground for a space of three cubits; and afterward, the prayer being ended, he was gently let down to the ground.

[2] [At the Mother of God's bidding, he undertakes the Provincialate, and adorns it with a miracle] How wonderfully he undertook and carried out the prefecture of the Sicilian province committed to him by the Master General of the Order, Theodoric of Aix wrote thus before Polucci, in the Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, part 2, number 2197 and following: When his fame had been published through the whole Order under the name of sanctity, the General of the said holy Religion urgently commands St. Albert by letters testimonial that he ought to assume the office of Provincial. Which received, the humble Father grieves to be promoted to honor; but rejoices rather in the labor. He goes to the Virgin, and prays her with the whole devotion of his mind that, if it were for the better, she would make manifest to him that the office should be taken up. Whom the Virgin, addressing, says: Do not hesitate; but boldly take the letters: for I, your guardian, will always be with you. But at that time in which he was Provincial, while he was visiting his province, he was accustomed to travel with a staff and with a companion; which companion was accustomed to carry an earthen vessel with water and bread, on which they were wont to be nourished on the way. But it happened on a certain occasion, when they were on a journey and were drawing near to a certain Convent, that through the companion's negligence the vessel was broken, fell, and was shattered into very many pieces. And when the companion had seen that vessel broken, and had been exceedingly disturbed, he did not dare to approach the Man of God. Which Blessed Albert knowing in spirit, he called his companion, and asked him why he was going more slowly and further behind than usual, and why he was so sad. Who with trembling related to him what had happened to him. And Blessed Albert says to him: Go quickly, and bring me back the vessel with the pieces. And when the companion had run, he found that vessel whole and found it full of water. At which the companion, rejoicing beyond measure, presented that vessel to the Man of God, and walked further with him.

[3] and knowledge of secrets received from heaven: When at another time blessed Albert had entered one of the Convents of his province for the sake of visitation, and on one of those days was in the choir with the Brothers for the sake of prayer, he knew that one of the Brothers had great devotion to the blessed Virgin Mary. Which the ancient enemy envying, he drew that Brother away from his devotion, and, a vision having first been had, stirred him to the love of a certain woman. And when the Brother had felt himself wounded with love, he left his devotion; and on a certain day spoke with her with the intention of a depraved deed. This was not hidden from the Man of God; and he called the Brother to a secret place, and indicated to him what he had thought of doing. Which when the Brother had heard, he asked for pardon; and the Man of God by his prayers brought that Brother back to the devotion which he had been accustomed to have toward the blessed Virgin Mary. These things, as I have warned, Theodoric relates together with Polucci, and partly also with the Vatican codex; but what follows, Theodoric alone has at the end of the Life, in the same place, number 2218 and following; whence he not obscurely hints that it happened after the year of Christ 1385, of which he had treated in the preceding number; nevertheless they are related without any mark of time, in this manner:

[4] It happened that a certain nobleman was seized on account of his offenses, invoked after his death, he frees a hanged man; but with a deadly outcome. and hanged on a gallows not far from the Convent of Trapani. His brother, who was living in another place, when he had perceived this, ran in the middle of the night's silence to the gallows, and cried out to his brother with a tearful voice: My beloved brother, are you still alive, or not? Then he said: I am still alive. Which when the other had heard, he said: How can you still be alive, since you have been bound for so great a space of hours in the cord of hanging? He replied: Before I was hanged, I vowed myself to the blessed Virgin Mary, and to blessed Albert, in the Convent of their Brothers, that if they preserved me in this life I would serve perpetually. The blessed Virgin Mary therefore with holy Albert have held me by the feet up to now and have preserved me from death. When he had heard these things, he hastened to the Convent, and related to the Prior and the Brothers what he had seen and heard. And when the Prior with the Brothers had heard these things, they run to the gallows; and find him hanged and still alive. After these things the Prior with the Brothers hastened to the judge, and freed the hanged man, and led him to the Convent, all seeing it. But after a short space of time he clothed him in the habit of holy Religion. Scarcely had he remained in Religion for the space of one year and a half; and, considering himself noble, he caused nobles of his friends to come to him, and daily associated with them and was at the same time corrupted: and at last, the devil instigating, he went out of the Convent with two of his friends; and, his vow being broken, he stripped himself of the habit of Religion, and, clothed in secular garments, made his way to other places. And when he was some distance from the Convent, he spoke with his companions mocking words about the habit and about Religion. And behold, fire descended from heaven and burned him to ashes. And when his companions, exceedingly terrified, had seen this, they took to flight, and everywhere proclaimed this horrible thing.

[5] It is to be noted that very many miracles have been done by the merits of Blessed Albert; Other miracles asserted in general. of which these few have been collected to the praise of God himself and of Blessed Albert. And it is to be known that the sick, and sailors, and pregnant women are wont to enter the church of Blessed Albert, and, according to what they have vowed, they wear the scapular of the Order; and when the time comes, or when the thing itself is over, they put off the scapular by the Prior's leave, and afterward, alms being given, return to their own homes: and from this they obtain many benefits. But it is a custom in many parts to bless water by the relics of Saint Albert, by which many are freed from infirmities, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it. Thus far Theodoric of Aix, of whose age it was spoken in the preliminary Commentary, number 16. Another supplement can be sought from the Life of St. Albert by Polucci, published about the end of the fifteenth century, which the Reverend Father Pietro Tommaso Saraceni had before his eyes in the year 1627, when in the Menology of the Carmelites, at the Life of the same Saint, page 319, number 44, he added these things:

[6] From Giovanni Maria Polucci we have received what is below. he raises up a lame man; he succors a despairing poor man: A certain lame man, who was not even permitted to use crutches for walking slowly, is carried to the tomb of the divine Albert, by whose miracles he was daily taken. He began to pray from his heart, humbly seeking health from him; and, the monument being touched, power at once shone forth from it, by which he freely rises, goes upright to the altar, briskly gives thanks, and proclaims the praises of the divine Albert.

Another from the same. Philip, a Venetian sailor, in the year 1492 was serving the Master of a certain ship, a bargain being agreed on for a wage to be received each month. The year being completed, fortune being adverse, his master was unable to pay him his monthly money. Having returned home, and, help failing for supporting his family (his father, his wife, and his children), being led by desperation, he resolves to give himself to the noose and to end the miseries of life by a wretched death. He prepares a rope; at the second hour of the night he goes out of the house, to accomplish with sad mind his voluntary hanging of himself. Scarcely does he set foot over the threshold of the door when, lo, a voice cries out: Whither, Philip? He returns to his senses: he too cries out: O good Jesus; O holy Albert, help me. He asks for help, halts, and finds a helper. For, touched with repentance, he returns home, and when amid the darkness of the night he was passing through the square of the divine Mark, and was secretly imploring holy Albert, he feels a weight thrown at his feet by an imperceptible flash; and he heard or saw no one. Struck with fear he bends down; with feet and hands he searches for the weight thrown, and finds a silken purse full of money. Glad, he betakes himself home, and apart finds a thousand gold pieces. He gives thanks to God and to the divine Albert, who deigned to help the want of his family with so liberal a hand. That these things happened in the month of December, Giovanni Maria Polucci writes.

[7] he appears to a man with a fever, whom he heals: He likewise reports that at Venice in the year 1496, in the church of Majorbium, an eyewitness publicly declared another wonder several times while preaching. A priest, by name Marinus, was sharply burning with the heats of fevers, nor did the physicians bring him saving help; wherefore he was in peril of life. He sends for water blessed by the relics of Saint Albert; and does not obtain it, God so disposing. When through the messenger he understands that the water has by no means been brought to him, he orders unblessed water to be brought in a cup; which having obtained, he bursts out into these words: O holy Father Albert, you know that every year I observe your sacred feast with its vigil in solemn rite. I desire you to be asked that you bless this water for them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In good faith he drinks, and a little after is seized by sleep. The divine Albert stands by him, saying: Rise, dearest priest,

and give glory to God. And at once he was granted health. Thus he; says Saraceni, and soon in the same place he subjoins the following: I shall add to these the things which, while I was writing this, I found in the distinguished library of our Convent of Bologna in a parchment manuscript — six Acts, drawn up by lord Lorenzo de Pinis, public notary of the archbishopric and citizen of Bologna, in honor of the sanctity of the divine Albert.

[8] he removes a plague; he punishes a bishop opposing his cult: First testimony. Bernardino de Muletis, son of Francesco de Muletis, citizen and procurator of Bologna, while in the year 1423 the city of Bologna was sharply vexed by the contagion of pestilence, took a wife, by name Bona, daughter of lord Minio de Scardois; who, held by the grave disease of the plague, given up, and abandoned by the help of physicians, having miscarried, lay for many hours as though dead. Her husband makes vows to the divine Albert; weeping, he pours forth prayers; he gives her water blessed by the Saint's relics to drink. Wonderful to say: the vow being made, she is better, and with the whole house is straightway delivered. He had vowed, for obtaining his wife's health, that an image of the divine Albert with his miracles would be painted at his own expense in the cathedral church of St. Peter at Bologna, at the left of the door of the old sacristy. But while Bernardino sees to the painting, the bishop forbids it. He presses with entreaty, that he may fulfill the vow he promised; and it does not avail. Lo, a miracle added to a miracle. On the following night the divine Albert appears to the bishop, and strikes him with a strong fever. The bishop, led to repentance, grants Bernardino the fullest faculty of painting the intended picture; and takes the water of the divine Albert for the recovery of his health, and commanded that the Office of the same St. Albert be celebrated in the cathedral church while he lived. The notary as above.

[9] Secondly. In the year 1434 Lady Flora, daughter of Lord Battista de Mezarachiis, he drives away various diseases; he raises a man dead two days: when she was burning most gravely with fevers unto death, vows by vow a waxen image for obtaining health, and obtains it. Records of the public notary as above.

Thirdly. In the same year Giacomo, son of Giovanni de Martellis, of the parish of Sts. Vitalis and Agricola, is vexed by a foul and incurable ulcer; from which the stench of putrefaction emanating, mixed with blood, put all to flight. He vows with the highest prayers a Mass to the divine Albert in the church of the Carmelites of St. Martin at Bologna; and is granted health. The notary, as above, in the public records.

Fourthly. In the year 1449 Lady Novella, daughter of Lord Francesco de Monterenciis, wife of Lord Girolamo de Brunis, long vexed by the pestilential disease, vowed to the divine Albert; and is healed. Records of the same notary.

Fifthly. In the year 1455 the excellent doctor of laws Lord Giovanni de Poëtis, citizen of Bologna, seized by a fever, dying for a whole year, vows to Blessed Albert that he will celebrate his feast as long as he possesses life. He obtains it; and gives thanks to God. Records of the notary Pini.

Lastly. Giovanni, son of the late Giovanni of Ravenna, a carpenter, testifies under oath that in the year 1456 his son Sebastian, long weighed down by infirmity, at last died. Everywhere the outcry and consternation of the parents. When he had been dead nearly two days they prepare a tomb for him. Meanwhile they pour forth prayers to the divine Albert: and behold, a wonder, O a wonder above nature itself! the boy gradually grows warm, breathes out, opens his little eyes, and speaks. Which the father obtains as a gift from the divine Albert, and gives thanks; and he was made whole. Records of the same Pini. Thus Saraceni, from whom it is no trouble to draw two other things, with which he concludes the Life of St. Albert.

[10] I shall add likewise, he says, the things which the most illustrious and most reverend lord Lorenzo Celsi, vice-legate of Bologna, bishop of Castro, related to me in good faith in the year (here the number has been omitted; but it will be gathered below). he compels by a miracle the restoration of relics secretly carried off: For while he held the governorship of the Patrimony at Viterbo, two Brothers from beyond the mountains stole by night, for devotion's sake, a distinguished relic of St. Albert from our sacristy at Viterbo; they secretly withdraw; and carry off the theft. When they had traveled a whole day, in the evening they recognize that they had again made their journey around the walls of the city of Viterbo. On the following day, unrepentant, they give themselves to the journey; as evening drew on, when they were wearied with the road, they still see themselves under the walls of the city of Viterbo. They shudder, and are silent; nor do they repent of the sacred theft. They gird themselves for the journey a third time, and the same befell them. Wherefore they recognize the judgment of God, and tremble in fear: they betake themselves to the Reverend archpriest of Montefiascone; grieving, they open the matter to him in order, and ask that he not disdain faithfully to consign the sacred relic of the divine Albert to the Carmelite Brothers of the city of Viterbo. He assents: and the little thieves depart more happily. On the following day the archpriest brought it to the most reverend and most illustrious lord Lorenzo Celsi, governor of the Patrimony; who, our Brothers being called to him, entrusted the relic, restored by divine help, with the greatest devotion. Of this wonderful event I myself humbly asked authentic testimony from him, and obtained it (it is found now in our Bologna library), in the year 1592.

[11] he suddenly extinguishes a fever: There follows lastly another not to be omitted. In the year 1592 master Virginio Bentivoglio of Bologna, a most loving father in Christ, when on the eleventh day of September he had long labored with a sharp fever with peril of life, I myself, being in my twenty-sixth year, entering to him in grief, said many things about the merits of our holy Father Albert, exhorting him to drink his blessed water with the accustomed devotion. He assented most willingly. I approached the altar; I blessed the water after Mass, and brought it to him; which same thing I performed three times. O the wonderful liberal power of God in his Saints! At once he is restored to health. In memory of this matter Brother Domenico Rota of Bologna delivered a sufficiently celebrated oration in the year 1596. There exist many other and almost innumerable virtues of our holy Father Albert, which I have already forewarned of, and, mindful of our purpose, we are compelled to wrap in silence: for we do not contend in display; but we have wished to hint at these things; that by the merits of St. Albert we may obtain him now propitious in this valley of misery, and then helping at the hour of death.

[12] he raises a dead man: Illustrious also among a few things is what Arnold Bostius, a distinguished writer of the Carmelite Order in our Belgium, noted in the year 1475, in his book On the Illustrious Men of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Mount Carmel, in Daniel of the Virgin Mary's Carmelite Mirror, volume 2, part 2, number 3006; where, weaving the eulogy of our St. Albert, and commending especially his daily miracles in general, he subjoins one thus: But recently, namely in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and sixty-five, as I was informed by master Guglielmo de Guidonibus, Provincial of Sicily, in the city of Agrigento he restored a dead man to life; just as the mother of the deceased related to him, in the presence of the illustrious prince Lord Antonio, Count of Calatamperche, and the noble knight lord Giovanni de Landolina.

[13] he heals a girl wretchedly afflicted, Nor indeed must that be passed over in silence which Daniel of the Virgin Mary himself relates in the Appendix subjoined to Theodoric's Life of St. Albert in the same place, number 2225. It is also singular, he says, what happened at Liège in the year 1658, on the sixth day of January, in a certain girl of twenty-five years, who for three years had labored with symptoms from an ulcerated liver. She frequently vomited pus through her mouth, and voided it through the lower passages, and was tortured with intolerable pain in the hypochondrium and the right side. The persistent and now inveterate disease rendered vain all the industry both of art and of nature. And so, destitute of all human help and hope, still drawing her languishing spirit amid groans and sighs, moved with confidence and devotion toward St. Albert the Carmelite, she conceived a vow of taking for nine days water blessed by this Saint's relics. On the first day of the novena, about an ounce and a half having been drunk of the said water, she at once felt herself changed; the pain of the side disappears; the symptoms, never to return again, vanish: on the same day she takes both liquid and solid food, with no trouble, neither hiccup nor vomiting any longer following. She sleeps the following night, lying on the affected side without any sense even of the least trouble. On the second day of the vow she rises, walks, and performs all her duties (which she asserts on oath she could have done on the first day too, if both her parents, and also the Pastor himself, and others having care of her, had permitted). And thus she obtained entire health; so that she affirms that she is better than she can remember ever to have been before. What follows, since it makes solely for the legitimate and public confirmation of this prodigy, can be read in the same place.

[14] Besides all these, certain other things also, most of them done in the past century, the Reverend Father Philip of the Visitation recounts in the French Life of the Saint, §20, and bestows other benefits. which it will be enough to have touched on lightly here. He says therefore that at Saragossa in Spain, from the year 1600, his benefits toward the blind, the feverish, and those held by other miseries were so frequent that in the same place, by legitimate authority, in the church of the Carmelites in the year 1609, fourteen of them were solemnly promulgated at one time. He asserts also that in the year 1645 a certain wealthy Ippolito of Trapani in Sicily, when a poor neighbor had buried in a certain wood his treasure carried off by theft, vowed to God that if he recovered what was lost, he would give a solid statue of St. Albert of silver; then that on the next day, when he was riding a horse about to do something else, he was carried off from the beast by a sudden rush, the reins being broken, as far as that same wood and hiding-place of the theft; and there that the horse stopped, and, having worked up the earth with its hoofs, uncovered for its master the riches buried; and that he, bound by his vow, liberally paid what he had promised. To this he subjoins another, in which he himself also had some part. In the year 1671 at Valenciennes Anne Françoise Fagot had lost an elegant and golden cross in a solemn and very crowded procession; helpless of counsel, she has recourse to Father Philip, by whose counsel, commending the matter to St. Albert, she asks that the divine service be performed there at the altars on the next day. She was present herself; and as she returned thence a dog met her, carrying that same cross in its mouth and offering it of its own accord. The same author has both there and elsewhere more things, which I would more gladly weave in here, if the sources were assigned from which they were drawn. And indeed for our purpose and for the glory of this Wonder-worker what has been said thus far suffices.

* perhaps Majorgii, for "of St. George Major"