Cajetan of Thiene

ON ST. CAJETAN OF THIENE, CONFESSOR,

FOUNDER OF THE CLERKS REGULAR, COMMONLY CALLED THEATINES,

AT NAPLES IN CAMPANIA IN ITALY.

In the year 1547.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Cajetan of Thiene, Confessor, at Naples (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. The Saint's fatherland, birth, name, education, innocence of life, pious affection toward the Mother of God, studies, virtues, and the building of a sacred edifice.

The Commentary preliminary to the Life of this most illustrious Saint we begin from his fatherland. The Saint at Vicenza in the Venetian dominion The Compendium of the Life, virtues, and miracles, and also of the acts in the cause of the beatification and canonization of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the Clerks Regular, published from the secretariat of the sacred Congregation of Rites, at Rome from the press of the reverend Apostolic Chamber, 1671, and thereafter to be cited by us for brevity's sake under the name of the Roman Compendium, records the following: Vicenza... is an inland city of the Venetians, and a most noble episcopal city, divided by the lesser Bacchiglione river, next to vine-bearing hills, which they will have to be named from the hundred villages out of which it grew together. Among the more noble families of this city is that distinguished one of the Counts of Thiene; and the other of the Counts of Porto, in which the aforesaid Blessed was born. But since these things teach us more clearly from what family, than from what precise place, our Saint drew his birth, they give occasion for further comment on this matter.

[2] Antonio Caracciolo, author of the Life of St. Cajetan which we illustrate, born of an illustrious family says: Cajetan was born at Vicenza. The most illustrious Lord Giovanni Battista Tufo, to be mentioned by us below at number 195, agrees; Father Giuseppe Silos in his History of the Clerks Regular, commonly Theatines, book 1, and in the Italian Life; likewise Father Francesco Barbarano de Mironi in his Ecclesiastical History of the city, territory, and diocese of Vicenza, book 2, chapter 86; not to mention others: to whom add the bull of canonization, as also the proper lessons inserted into his ecclesiastical Office; so that I altogether do not see what moved Baillet, in determining the Saint's birthplace, to use a disjunctive particle, saying that he was born either at Vicenza or at Thiene, a village three or four leagues, as he adds, distant from it toward the west: whence the Thiene family, mistress of the aforesaid place, took its name. But Silos discourses thus about its origin: Whose cradle must be sought even from the most ancient and celebrated city of Greece, namely from Athens; and that nomenclature of the lineage increases the credit: for they will have the Thienes to be named from Athens: unless you prefer to support the opinion of those who derived the Thiene stock and name from Athenius, consul under the rule of Arcadius and Honorius. But whatever be the case about this name of the family, sought far enough afield, we have other things at hand which commend the splendor of the Thiene family; as may be seen in Caracciolo in the Life, and in others. But since that Life is to be reprinted by us, we forbear from heaping up more on this subject.

[3] in the year 1480, I come, says Caracciolo, to Gaspar, the father of our Cajetan; concerning whom I am in doubt whether he was more excellent at home or in war; being praised under both titles by the same writer. And soon it is subjoined: From that man, and from Maria Porto, a matron of equal nobility and virtue, Cajetan is born. But in what year? Let us proceed with Caracciolo: But in what year, he says, is not altogether clear. But if it be permitted to judge; since, as we shall say afterward, he died in the forty-seventh year of the last century, not a decrepit old man, I judge, unless conjecture deceives me, that he was brought forth into this life about the year from the redeemed world 1485. But the year of his birth, defined by that biographer within such uncertain limits, gives us occasion to consider whether anything more precise and more certain about it can safely be said. It indeed can. Let us therefore weigh the matter. The anonymous author of the Italian Life, printed at Venice in the year 1655, and to be indicated by us more fully below, in book 1, §1, records that Gaspar of Thiene, the father of our holy Founder, was joined in matrimony, according to the Vicenza process, which he cites at folio 333, in the year of restored salvation 1475, in the month of October, and did not survive it longer than six years, having died namely in the year 1482, leaving behind him three little ones, namely Giovanni Battista, Cajetan, and Alessandro; and accordingly that it is probable that our Saint, begotten second among them, drew his first light in the time intermediate between the years 1477 and 1480: he indicates nevertheless that he supports the writers of the Life, Castaldo, Cavo, and Silos, and affirms that that birth happened in the year 1480. That year the Roman Compendium also marks, of which above. But whether that year 1480 was truly the first of St. Cajetan's life, or was adopted as such in a round number by the authors, we too place the same, after their example. We observe meanwhile that in Castaldo's Life reprinted at Rome in the year 1616, which we use, chapter 1, the year 1480 is not assigned to his birth; but about the year 1485, which cannot be reconciled with what has been said.

[4] Antonio Tommaso Schiara, of whom more below among the biographers, [at the beginning, as a certain man asserts, of the month of October, and in a mean place.] besides the year 1480, to which he attaches the holy Founder's birth, hands down that it fell at the beginning of the month of October; but by what authority, as it escapes us, so we desire to learn it. Concerning the fact which we subjoin from the same author, let the same be the judgment. For he reports that Cajetan's mother, while she was reduced to the straits of childbirth, and could not bring him forth in splendidly adorned chambers, took care by a heavenly admonition, through a certain devout person, to be transferred to the meanest chamber of her palace: whither scarcely brought, she happily brought forth her child into the light; and the same biographer adds that by this matter a clear prelude was exhibited by the Saint of that great hatred with which he afterward turned away from all the pomps and dignities of the world; and also of that profound modesty which raised him to so lofty a summit of perfection.

[5] For the rest, the year 1480, in which the Saint first began to fill the vital airs with his wailings, The divine goodness shines forth in the Saint's birth: was of the greatest advantage to the Catholic religion, since it happened namely not more than three years before that public firebrand of religion, that is, Martin Luther, an evil star guiding, was brought into the world for the ruin and plague of morals: whereby that highest goodness of the Deity might demonstrate that it provides defenses for slaying evils in good time before the evils themselves exist: for, as we shall explain in its place, for restraining the unbridled madness of Luther, no small help and weight was brought by this fellowship of Clerks Regular, established by Cajetan and his companions, at that very time,

in which he, his habit being changed, a Roscius of impiety, exhibited to the Christian world an exceedingly mournful play; as Silos, cited by me just now, observes. The same things are had somewhat more briefly in the Roman Compendium. Now let us speak of the name which was given to the Saint.

[6] Further, the appellation of Cajetan, by Caracciolo's testimony, his parents gave him, his name, that he might represent both the name and the virtue of the elder Cajetan, his great-uncle, of whom we have spoken. Silos says: And indeed, as the man of Thiene trod the same track of his great-uncle in the sciences of divine and human things, so, philosophizing with a purer genius on contempt of the world, and obtaining the laurel in a happier Athenaeum, he far surpassed him. The Roman Compendium sets forth the matter thus: Born again at the sacred font in baptism, he obtained the name of Cajetan, that he might renew in the Thiene family the memory of the most celebrated philosopher and theologian of his own house, a canon of Padua: of whom Johannes Trithemius makes mention in his book On Illustrious Men. Caracciolo had prefixed an honorific epitaph of that great man to the words which we have just now brought forward from him, adding besides whence that name clung to Cajetan the great-uncle, namely because he had been born at Gaeta (a city of the kingdom of Naples in the province of Terra di Lavoro) in the time of king Ladislaus. But now let our discourse return to our Confessor.

[7] his pious education, and offering to the Mother of God: That he was liberally and nobly educated, says the biographer, it is unlawful to doubt, inasmuch as he was with noble parents, and ones conspicuous for uprightness and civility of manners. Nevertheless I have heard or read nothing of his boyhood and youth. This only they hand down, that he migrated to Rome as a young man, and with a mind and age already firm, etc. But let us supply this gap from elsewhere. First of all the Roman Compendium weaves in a few words many and altogether great praises of his early age, when it thus states: Piously and in Catholic fashion educated, he at once flowered with such a native disposition of virtue and piety that in the very rudiment of his age he was called by the tongues of all at Vicenza MOST SPIRITUAL, MOST DEVOUT, MOST HOLY. To these things a deed of his most religious mother had given the prelude, concerning which Silos says: It is not to be passed over in this place, that clear proof of maternal piety. For his mother, having brought forth her son, at once after childbirth set him with her own hand before the image of the Virgin Mother of God; and offered the firstfruits of his life, and as it were the topmost libations, to the great Mother. Namely that the Virgin might at once instill into the Boy his first disposition and an unstained mind, and might give him her own milk to drink; and that the Son might happily begin the day of mortal life from that light. Which we read that that illustrious woman also did — illustrious not so much for the brilliance of her family as for her seven sons, namely Aleth, the mother of the divine Bernard. For the sons whom she brought forth into the light, as though she had borne them not for herself but for God, she herself offered each one with outstretched hand to the Deity. Hence it came about that all, as though enlisted from the very cradle, with Bernard as leader and standard-bearer of the noble band, earned their pay in God's camps. An excellent deed indeed of each parent, to be recorded with almost the same success.

[8] she assenting, from his earliest age And indeed, as regards Cajetan, that the Virgin assented to the most pious mother's vows, and impressed piety and every kind of virtue more deeply in his ready heart, he practiced distinguished virtues. the noble manners which followed thereafter in the Boy and in his youth, the innocence of a countenance composed to all modesty, and his very reverence toward the most blessed Virgin, showed. Namely, whether from the disposition of his Ancestors, or from heaven, virtue sown in his soul flowers at once with the very flower of his age. There burst forth in the Boy above all indications of an already mature piety. For with the highest munificence and compassion toward the poor he himself gathered alms from members of the household and from strangers; he himself distributed them, an outstanding quaestor of poverty; being destined thereafter, in riper years, to be so great an asserter and cultivator of so great a virtue. The elements and chief heads of the faith he seized with a wonderful swiftness of memory: and, that he might early show that he would one day defend the faith against big-headed and brazen heresiarchs, he delighted in little disputations on that subject. He was of a ready and prompt genius. Further, concerning the virginal flower of integrity, by which the Saint was notable, the above-cited anonymous author may also be consulted, book 1 of the Life, §16, alleging the Vicenza Process at folios 209, 311, and 317; and the Neapolitan one at folio 144.

[9] from his earliest age he exercised the virtues. For the rest, these things are illustrated and confirmed from the Bull of Canonization: Whom, as soon as his mother had borne him, she offered and commended to the Virgin Mother of God: whose vows the Mother of God herself seemed kindly to accept, always thereafter presenting him with special favors; and he in turn, often addressing her as mother with a certain most tender affection, fled to her patronage in all hard things. Devoted to piety from his first years, he furnished his mind with prayer, alms, and other pious works, drawing the eyes of all upon himself in a wonderful manner, so much so that from that time he was called holy by all.

[10] From the manuscript Life of whatever credit, collected from Silos and others, Industry in relieving the needy, zeal for prayer, a heavenly voice to him. concerning which it will be said below, §19, numbers 204 and 205, chapter 1, we subjoin these things: With the highest munificence and compassion toward the poor he distributed to the needy the alms collected from the household and anxiously sought out, and, withdrawing and hiding a part of those things which were given to him for his food, tortured his still most tender body with fasts, by often depriving it of the morning and evening meals with which boys are so eagerly refreshed, that he might relieve the hunger of others. Although his mind was scarcely fit for prayer, and his age adequate, nevertheless, most burning with the zeal and desire of praying, in the more secret inner chambers of his house, while still a little boy, he was very often found by members of his household either intent upon the reading of pious books, or fallen on his knees before little altars adorned with pious images... pouring forth most fervent prayers and supplications to God. And this zeal of piety, and love toward God, grew greater in him from the time when the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove as it were encircled Cajetan with a threefold flight, and he heard a certain voice from heaven saying to him: Peace be with you, Cajetan; take care, I beseech, that you do not lose it. Thus far that source.

[11] With virtue he joined the studies of letters and of the liberal arts; To his studies he joins his own perfection in virtue, concerning which Silos noted these things in his History or Annals, book 1, page 5; which may be a proof that both those ornaments grew up flourishingly together with the age of the excellent Youth. For, having measured out the studies of human letters, he set sail most auspiciously into philosophy. Soon, having entered upon the prudence of civil and sacred law, he was publicly inaugurated with both laurels. But as though he counted this forensic apparatus of the disciplines of no importance, he at once betook himself to the chief faculty of the sciences, sacred theology, that by this light and wisdom of heavenly things he might burn more keenly, he who had already begun to glow in his excellent breast with the love of eternal things. For indeed, although he judged it a distinguished thing to polish the mind with the cultivation of the sciences, he esteemed it more excellent and more holy to adorn the soul with the insignia of the virtues. Wherefore, inflamed with a certain most burning and keen desire of a purer life, he began more intently to exercise his grown youth in works of piety. Hence he zealously sought out through the city the examples of excellent men, and followed them: he assiduously frequented the churches, both for attending the mysteries and for pouring forth prayers; he deprecated the crowd and throng of the forum; he chose more secret places for meditating on divine things: so that shortly and deservedly a report spread abroad among the people that Count Thiene was an incitement to the good, a terror to the bad: to the former indeed a pattern; to the latter a bridle. Nor indeed did he keep such remarkable ardors for promoting all the best things at home within himself, but spread them abroad for the public good of others. Let Silos be heard:

[12] This opinion of the pious Youth was increased by that church and moreover he promotes the public utility by the church which he founded. which he raised and endowed to the divine Mary Magdalen, his brother also being roused to this excellent work, at his own and his brother's expense. By which he both wished his affection of inner soul toward the most holy Mary Magdalen to be attested, and religiously and wisely provided for the peoples who dwelt in that village, which they call Rampazzo, an estate of the Thienes: namely, that with a nearer church they might more readily and more conveniently attend to the business of their souls. Which building of sacred edifices was indeed the first exercise of Thiene, learning to make greater and more costly churches. For he conceived in his mind that it would come about that one day, as founder of a new congregation, he would found several houses for the divine Deity, and magnificently dedicate them. This church sacred to Magdalen now exists, and displays the piety of the brothers german inscribed, to be read for the memory of the age, in these words:

Baptista and Cajetan of Thiene, brothers, jurisconsults, erected this from the foundations in the year of the Lord 1505, on the tenth day of July, to God the Best and Greatest and to the divine Magdalen.

[13] The aforesaid things are confirmed from the Bull of canonization. The above things are strengthened from the Bull of canonization, which thus affirms: And he who while still a boy had been wholly given to building altars and adorning sacred images, afterward as a young man, that he might seriously provide for the convenience and piety of the townspeople, built from the foundations a church of blessed Mary Magdalen together with his brother german, in the Thienes' own village, which they call Rampazzo, and endowed it with a revenue for the performance of the sacred rites. And so our Saint shone like the sun in the sight of God and of men, and like a shining light he grew daily more and more, with the lapse of time, with new accessions of rays, unto the perfect day; so that the sacred Rota, in Charpy de Sainte-Croix in the Life of St. Cajetan, page 4, deservedly records thus: The splendors and lights of the virtues, with which the Servant of God was clothed as with a garment, illuminated the whole span of his life, which he had as companions from the cradle of his life up to the end. Let us learn how these accompanied him as he departed for Rome.

* perhaps "auctorati"

§ II. The Roman court made illustrious by Cajetan's manners; the office he bore in it; his priesthood, his embracing of the child Jesus, the patronage of the Heavenly ones obtained for his mother, and his distinguished merits regarding the confraternity of Vicenza.

He is adopted by Pope Julius II among the Apostolic Protonotaries, What Caracciolo very sparingly reports about St. Cajetan's departure to Rome, in these words: This only they hand down, that he migrated to Rome as a young man and with a mind and age already firm. There he served the supreme Pontiff Julius II in an honorable rank; but afterward, having been received among the confraternity of divine Love, he diligently gave himself to pious works — this, I say, which Caracciolo thus reports, Silos in his History confirms and amplifies in this manner from page 5: That the increases of so great a disposition might obtain a suitable dust and racecourse, Cajetan went to Rome; plainly by the counsel of the divine Deity, that he might begin to view more closely in what state Roman affairs were, and with what corruption the body of the whole Christian commonwealth labored, being himself, as the years rolled on, about to bring help to a failing age. In that light of the Quirites the most flourishing Youth, although he wished the riches of his mind and the excellent impulses of his outstanding intellect to be covered, did not long lie hidden: for this is proper to true and solid virtue, both to wish to lie hidden and at the same time to be poured out and scattered abroad. At once, in that flower of age, there was perceived his maturity of counsel, his uprightness of manners, and a

genius made for all things; and the murmur which was already swelling among the courtiers concerning Thiene's praises reached the Supreme Pontiff himself. That was Julius, the second of that name, who, embracing him with singular benevolence, chose him for the Pontifical court, and not long after adopted him among the Apostolic Protonotaries, as they are called, Participant.

[15] Which was at that time a plainly honorable appellation and dignity, whom they call Participant, and perhaps in greater esteem than it now is. And indeed this order of prelates now counts it the highest honor that a Man of such great virtue and holiness was once numbered in their own body. Wherefore in this very year in which we write these things, the forty-sixth of the passing century, they have resolved to honor his renowned memory and solemnities with a certain particular testimony of honor. For on the festal and sacred day of Thiene, in our church of the divine Andrea della Valle, they have begun to be present in ordered array, in solemn rite and dress, at the sacred rites and at his panegyric praise; intending to venerate this same feast day of the most blessed Man with an anniversary observance. And this celebration instituted by the Protonotaries was received with common applause, and seemed by every right to be honored by that order upon which he himself pours back no small splendor and dignity by the renown of his name and sanctity. But as regards the aforesaid office of the Saint, and also the esteem which Pope Julius II had conceived of him when chosen for his court, there is that brief passage which the anonymous Italian Life relates about Lauro Thiene, a kinsman of our Saint, book 1, §24, page 37, and cites the Bull of the praised Julius II of the year 1508, on the twelfth day of October; where these things are had: And because, as he himself asserts, he is a kinsman of our beloved son master Cajetan of Thiene, our scribe and member of our household. But how composedly, humbly, and holily he bore himself in the Pontifical court must not be passed over.

[16] Silos, graphically describing the manners displayed by the Saint in it, page 6, says: and in the Roman court he shines with the most upright manners. Further, at court nothing of courtly manners clung to Thiene, who was striving after solid things. No affected cheerfulness of countenance in imitation of courtesy; no sought-out allurements of words for shadowing over falsehoods; no magnificent hawking of services; no serving of the times with the face only: which are the first and more frequent rudiments of that school and courtly discipline. But in the most wise Youth there was nothing that was not noble and holy: and when, exposed to the eyes of all in the most ample theatre of the City, he had persuaded himself that a more excellent plan of life must be entered upon by him, he at once thought of being enrolled in what was at Rome the household shrine of divine Love. That assembly was plainly by far the most distinguished for the renown and virtue of excellent men; concerning which we shall have to speak at length; because in that workshop, as it were, our Congregation was forged. But with what zeal Cajetan asked to be admitted into this fellowship, with what alacrity he entered it, that outstanding ardor with which he was at once seen to devote himself to those excellent and pious cares clearly demonstrated. For he began his course in that circus, as it were, with such striving and effort of mind that indeed he seemed not only to equal others greater in merit and in age, but even far to fly past them. Here he was being trained for great things: where divine love, which knows no slow endeavors, and which stirs up a taste for true praise, at once engendered in his great heart a loathing of the court; and Thiene felt that he bore a disposition greater than mitres and the titles of the most ample affairs. Wherefore, seized in the marrow by a certain divine fire, he so grew warm that the flourishing hopes of the highest dignity, the Prince's benevolence, the favor of the flattering court, and even the wealthy benefices which he had already obtained, began now to seem base, and he thought of making himself over wholly to the worship of God.

[17] To be initiated into the priesthood — this he persuaded himself was the beginning and cause of a certain purer life. And without delay: what he had long had in his prayers, he is inaugurated in that holier grade. [Initiated into the priesthood, with the highest purity of soul and humility, etc., he gives himself to the sacred service.] With what purity of mind and lowliness of soul the most pious Man began to handle that office of the priesthood it is permitted to conjecture from the letters which about that same time he sent from Rome to Laura Mignani, a virgin of unstained life and fame, staying in the monastery of the holy cross at Brescia: where, in grieving that he did not approach with that reverence and preparation which befitted the unbloody altar, he showed by this very thing with what inner feeling of soul he sacrificed. There is no room here to transcribe his letters singly and entire; one or two, rendered into Latin faith, I would in the highest degree touch upon lightly, because it would be to the profit and fruit of priests. Thus therefore he to Mignani: "Even if I should wish it, your name, mother, will never fall from my mind; and I should remember it most of all when I, a tiny worm and clay, in the midst of paradise and of the most holy Trinity dare to handle the Illuminator of the sun and the Founder of the world. Alas for my blindness. Of these things assuredly one or the other should now be chosen by me: either deliberately to abstain from the sacred rites, as unworthy; or, as a faithful steward and quaestor of the treasure, to minister to God as humbly as possible. Daily there is taken by me one who cries aloud: Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart; and I do not cast away my own pride. I take the Illuminator and the way, and hear him saying: I am the way; and yet I do not take the way and flight from the world. That divine fire burns in my mouth and hands which says: I came to send fire upon the earth; and yet my breast is numb with a certain sluggish frost." Thus Thiene: who says also, in another letter to the same virgin, that he is daily refreshed by that banquet; and prays at greater length that she would pray that he who is taken may not turn away from the boldness of so continual a sacrifice (for without life, he says, it is death). But with how great preparation he approached to offer the most sacred Host, the manuscript Life compiled from Silos's History and from others shows, chapter 2, in these words: He was accustomed generally to pass eight hours before the Sacrifice amid pious meditations. Another manuscript Life, which Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, a Clerk Regular, composed, and concerning which more will be treated below at number 205, says: To perform the sacred rites religiously, to prepare himself for them by meditations on divine and heavenly things, and by a daily expiation of even the least stains of soul which seemed to him to be present, and to pursue frequent acts of piety toward God.

[18] In what manner and at what time he received the sacred Orders. The anonymous Italian Life, book 1, §29, supplies some things concerning the present subject, which, because Silos above left them untouched, and because it seems to concern the reader that he should not be ignorant of them, we shall accordingly supplement the above narration from elsewhere. We learn therefore from the praised Life that our Saint, a faculty having been obtained from Leo (the Pope of this name, the tenth, then sat), who was at that time staying at Orvieto, received the sacred Orders on three feast days from the bishop of Melopotamus; and indeed on the twenty-seventh day of September, sacred to Sts. Cosmas and Damian, the four minor Orders; but on the next Sunday, falling on the twenty-eighth day, the subdiaconate; and on Monday, which was the twenty-ninth, the feast of St. Michael, the diaconate; and on Tuesday, which is dedicated to the annual memory of St. Jerome, and is the last of September, he was distinguished with the priesthood, in the year of the Lord 1516, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. Besides the Neapolitan Process, which the aforesaid Life alleges at folio 66 in the margin of its text, it indicates that all these things were also drawn from an instrument dispatched at Rome, citing a Bull in the archive of St. Paul Major at Naples. And from these things it is settled in what manner and at what time the holy Founder was initiated into the sacred Orders. Now it is fitting to resume the web of Silos's narration, interrupted for a while.

[19] Now from these letters to Mignani, as you have on page 7, From the hands of the Mother of God he receives the child Jesus very many of the benefits conferred upon him by God can also be gathered. That above all is worthy of record: namely that he, on the Nativity and festal night of the Virgin's childbearing, went to the church of the divine Mary Major, to the Lord's manger, perhaps to perform the sacred rites; but hear with what lot and outpouring of delights: for thus he says to the same woman: "I myself, too bold, at the very hour of the most holy Childbearing, approached that adorable and true manger: courage was abundantly supplied to me by the most blessed Jerome, whose bones lie well near those blessed cradles; and with him as mediator I took up the little Infant from the hands of the trembling little Maiden, the new mother, and my lady, having embraced the flesh and garments of the eternal Word. O truly hard heart of mine! for, since it did not then at all happen to be most sweetly melted, it was assuredly adamant." Thus he: by which he not obscurely hints that he was admitted that night, by a certain rare favor of the Deity, to the very real embraces of the newborn Boy. Which is also handed down to memory to have happened to the most holy Francis of Assisi as he was celebrating these very cradles of the eternal Infant: so that we may deservedly wonder that this was imparted to Cajetan in the very novitiate of his holier life, which Francis obtained when already raised to the very summit of sanctity; and it is permitted hence to conjecture what sort of man, and of what mark, that excellent Man afterward was, to whom God was already present with such great bounties. But the deed done is represented in the image which is had on the front of the Bull of his canonization, such as you see here.

[20] To this singular favor, most rare among few, there accrues a great weight for establishing the truth of the deed done, from the canonical Hours, in which the Church summarily prescribes it to be publicly read thus: At Rome on the night of the Nativity, at the Lord's manger, he merited to receive the infant Jesus from the Mother of God into his own arms. into his own arms: That this happened in the year of the Lord 1517 is indicated by this, that to the copy of the Italian letter (of which we were just now reciting a Latin fragment from Silos) in the author of the anonymous Life designated above, §36, Cajetan of Thiene subscribes: At Rome, the twenty-eighth of January 1518. The Life which, by the author Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, we received in manuscript from Rome, teaches these things in book 1 concerning the place and the monument left there for the memory of posterity: The place was at Rome, in the chapel of the Liberian basilica, sacred to the manger of Jesus Christ. There afterward Savelli Peretti, a sacred purpled Senator, placed a marble figure of the divine Cajetan holding the child Jesus in the embrace of his arms, when he was patron of the altar, that there might be a monument of the matter, with this inscription: St. Cajetan, under the auspices of the divine Jerome, whose bones lie not far off, on the very night of Christ's nativity received from the Mother of God into his own arms the child Jesus. Thus he.

[21] the soul of his dead mother This lastly (we use Silos's words again) we now excerpt from these letters, that his mother was snatched from Cajetan at about these first beginnings of his spirit; but with what success and fruit of prayers the Son aided her death, it is well hence clearly to learn. For when that best of women had been buried, Mignani, to temper Thiene's longing and grief, at once addressed him by letter, and expressly informed him that the soul of his most pious mother had already been offered to the Virgin Mother of God, and that by the hands of the divine archangel Michael and of the divine Monica. To whom

he replied most modestly that he rejoiced at his good mother's lot; but that he could by no means deny that he had commended her laboring spirit to those same Heavenly ones, namely the archangel Michael and the divine Monica. From which we plainly understand the efficacy of his prayer, and perceive that Mignani knew and announced nothing else than what he had already obtained. A fragment of the letter which the Saint wrote to her you will find in the anonymous author of the Life alleged before, in which the subject we have in hand is treated; but since it does not there exist entire, we cannot hammer out from it at what time the death of the aforesaid parent occurred.

[22] he aids by his prayers. But it would have to have happened long before his priesthood, according to that author: for in book 1, paragraph 12, which is about the Saint as an orphaned infant, and paragraph 13, which he entitles "on the death of his mother," weaving the latter into the year 1488, and the former into the years 1486 and 1487, he not obscurely signifies that that death happened long before the embrace of the child Jesus was offered to Cajetan (to which nevertheless Silos immediately subjoins the service rendered by the Saint to his mother), nor, as the same Silos said, that his mother was snatched from Cajetan at about these first beginnings of his spirit: for the words of Silos's immediately preceding narration show forth a more mature age of the Saint than that biographer placed; but he by no means persuades us to convict him of error. Giovanni Battista Caracciolo in the manuscript Life determines the year of the event, and describes its circumstances thus: He betook himself from Rome first to Vicenza in the year 1518... and, learning of his mother's sickness, he then visited the sacred house of Loreto... He himself bravely gave courage to his dying mother, being always at hand with sacred entreaties; and after her death he well remembered the last offices toward her. And these are the things which it has seemed good to us to touch upon lightly from the said Life as pertaining to the present purpose; on whose faith we have brought them forward, and they suffice for our matter.

[23] But these things being dismissed, let us now, in Silos's words, follow him as he departs from Rome. Wearied of the Roman court, he returns to Vicenza, Having been initiated a priest, as we have said, with the power of the Deity growing in his breast by that frequenting of the Sacred rites, he felt his loathing of the court also increase, so that he judged that sufficient provision would be made for himself and for the increases he had conceived, if from that city, in which by courtly duties and functions his mind and cares were split in more directions than one, he should recall himself back to Vicenza, as to a more tranquil station: and that the manner of life which he had already begun to enter upon in his own home he might, all display and pomp being renounced, begin again with a more burning zeal. Having therefore returned to his fatherland, and looking about in what pursuits of piety chiefly he might expend labor, there occurred to him a confraternity which took its name from the divine Jerome; a well-attended one indeed, but the men in it were common folk and from the humble people. But Cajetan, who weighed not family and ancestors, but progress and moments of virtues, asked to be enrolled among such Hieronymian confraternity-members, with a magnanimous contempt of his own birth and of detractors; and this the more willingly because he perceived that this Vicenza one was derived and copied from the Roman confraternity of divine Love already mentioned, and regulated by almost the same laws.

[24] But he was admitted into it in the year 1519, as may be seen in Caracciolo, [where with fruit both to himself and to others he devotes himself to the confraternity of St. Jerome.] reciting the words of the Diary of the Vicenza confraternity: where you will be taught about the frequenting of the sacred Eucharist introduced by the Saint, and other things which the apostolic Man did both for the praised confraternity and for the hospital of incurables and for needy persons; so that it is not necessary to transcribe here what Silos records from the said confraternity's little Commentary about the Saint's acts among the people of Vicenza. What has been said is confirmed from the Roman Compendium: Observing that all things in this world, and all things which are done under the sun, consist in vanities and affliction of spirit, and that nothing else is found firm and stable than to serve God, he applied himself wholly to the Oratory of St. Jerome, which is celebrated at Vicenza, and not so much by words as by his life, example, and deeds, diffused his fragrance into the fellowship. For by the sweet eloquence of his words their hearts are so kindled with the ardor of charity that they diligently gave themselves to prayers, to the frequenting of the Sacraments, and to the offices of piety. Then follows, from the cited little Commentary, an account of the most frequent use of the Eucharist and the burning hunger for it procured among them by the Saint's most tireless effort.

[25] Now, before another theatre of deeds is opened, He watches also over the good of his kinswoman. it is fitting to add to the above narration the cause which recalled the holy Man to his fatherland. The anonymous writer, book 1, §35, page 77, says: At the end of the year 1518, in the 38th year of his age, Cajetan had occasion to interrupt the course of his spiritual exercises at Rome: because his brother, having died (from the Vicenza Process, which he cites, folio 129), left him a niece, who had then completed about ten years. Whence the bond of blood urged and constrained him to revisit his fatherland. From this we learn that the Saint so watched over the common good of others that he did not neglect the good of his own near kinswoman: for the same author in the same place, §44, records that from Venice he thought of Vicenza, summoned by his own people on the occasion of the marriage of Elisabetta of Thiene, his niece, and that he set out thither at the beginning of the month of April of the year 1521; where on the twenty-second day of the same month and year he affirms that the said Elisabetta was joined with Giovanni Porto, citing the Neapolitan Process, folios 112 and 130, and also the Vicenza Process, folio 195, etc. There exists in Castaldo's Life a fragment of a letter in which the Saint sweetly and fatherly exhorts that niece to the use of the Eucharist: as may be seen in the same place from page 15. But now understand what sort of man the Saint proved himself at Venice, of which mention has here been made in advance.

* perhaps "of Megalopolis"

§ III. His acts at Venice and at Rome; the Order of Clerks Regular, and its founders; who among them was the first standard-bearer in its institution; why it was named of the Theatines.

At Venice, concerning the public hospital, The holy Man is compelled to interrupt his apostolic labors and the most abundant fruits of piety toward God and charity toward his neighbor perceived from them, being sent to Venice by the order of Battista of Crema, of the Order of Preachers, who governed the inner secrets of his soul, and on whose nod and command he wholly depended, as you will find from the same little Commentary of which I was just speaking, in Caracciolo; where these words — He most excellently reformed, with the prudence that was his, the Hospital which they call the New, and his institution flourishes up to this very day — demand by a certain singular right that I here weave in the things which exist in Silos's History from page 8 in these words: And indeed he left in that hospital such distinguished monuments of his piety, and moreover adorned them with such institutes and laws, that just as if he had himself raised the work, he deserved to be called its author and founder. Wherefore, having been afterward received into the assembly of the Blessed, he was adorned with a most brilliant testimony of his outstanding charity. For when the governors deservedly reckoned the labor expended there by so great a Man as no small addition to the esteem and honor of that place, they magnificently willed this to be attested to future posterity; and they took care that his full effigy in the Regular habit should be painted from life at the chief gate, and dedicated it, as to the founder of the work, as a proof of public gratitude, with this inscription set beside it:

To Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, of the Clerks Regular, and author of this hospital, the governors, out of a grateful mind, set this up.

The anonymous writer in book 1 of the Life, §41, page 96, treats of his Venetian journey, having marked the year 1519 for it; but after the Man's arrival there he attaches his notable labors for God's glory (as you have in the same place, §42) to the beginning of the year 1520.

[27] [and having deserved well of the sacred confraternities elsewhere, he returns to Rome:] But Cajetan, having now founded or strengthened sacred confraternities and hospitals at Rome, Vicenza, Verona, and Venice, returned to Rome about the twenty-first year of the last century, by the testimony of Caracciolo, whose words I use: which Silos thus amplifies: While he was doing these things at Venice, and had now filled the minds of all with admiration for himself, the Dominican rector (of whom I was speaking in the previous number), who had also transferred himself to Venice, perceiving something more excellent and more sublime in him, ordered him again to go to Rome. For indeed he, who had already looked into the inner shrines of that great heart, thought him a man not of private disposition, or equal to only one city; but destined by God to enlarge the public Christian commonwealth with grander counsels. Perhaps Thiene himself too had already conceived greater things in his mind. Wherefore neither did he raise delay against the command, nor put forward any excuse against setting out: and at once he came to Rome, another man indeed in age (for he had already passed his fortieth year, and the twentieth year of Christ above fifteen hundred was running), and likewise in the equipment of his virtues.

[28] Where, not distracted and torn asunder by any duties and cares of the court, as before, where he is wholly given to the gaining of souls, and undertakes a greater work he was wholly given to surveying not so much the magnificence of the churches as their sanctity, to offering prayers throughout them at the monuments of the Martyrs, and to procuring the gain of souls: until in the said household shrine of divine Love, a higher light having been conceived, he began to undertake a greater work, and bent all his thoughts and sinews toward the correction of the Clergy and of the world. Which prayers and pursuits were common to him with that excellent man Gian Pietro Carafa, bishop of Chieti, whose plans of life, before he bade farewell to the world and to his mitre, must be related in a somewhat more diffuse style. To these is subjoined a long and remarkable eulogy of the deeds done by that great man, and afterward, as the years rolled on, the supreme head of the Church after Christ; but because they can be read both there and in his Life in Caracciolo, we do not here set them out to be read. Let us therefore pursue Cajetan's counsels and deeds at Rome with the same Caracciolo; among which the chief place is held with the best right by the foundation of the Order; as will become plain from what follows.

[29] Cajetan therefore, those things which he had for some while turned over with himself, God being the contriver, of founding a new Order together with his companions, he communicates in friendly wise with Bonifacio da Colle, a most upright man. He approves, and, seized by the holy Spirit, offers himself as a partner for so distinguished a deed. Not long after, Gian Pietro Carafa, bishop of Chieti, got wind of this matter, who, after he had long desired to emerge from the billows of the world into some harbor, as soon as he perceived the plan and aim of the Order to be established, at once blazed with a vehement desire of entering upon the institute... And so... he freely met with Cajetan, and asked him in the greatest degree to make him a sharer of the same vow; as you will read at greater length in the Life of Cajetan in the praised author; in which likewise you will find Carafa's unconquered heart in urging the plan, and his manly constancy in carrying out the same, praised at length. And so those three men take to themselves a fourth companion, says Caracciolo, namely Paolo Consiglieri, a faithful friend of Carafa, and conspicuous for ancient stock and probity.

Upon these four, as upon bases, the whole edifice of our Order was built.

[30] But before we proceed to those things which adorn this Apostolic institute of life, knowledge of whom it has seemed good to premise certain things about Bonifacio da Colle and Paolo Consiglieri, who together with St. Cajetan and Carafa (of whose praises we have already spoken) founded that Order. Caracciolo, together with the deeds of Carafa and of St. Cajetan, committed to letters the Lives of both, which, although they are short, and accordingly can be consulted by the reader without trouble, we shall nevertheless set forth what Silos abridged into a compendium concerning each man toward the end of the first book of his History. And of Bonifacio indeed we take from it these things: Bonifacio was born at Alessandria, which is a most well-known city in Insubria. His family was of the household of Colle. That indeed most ancient, which, as is established by public records, in almost every age adorned with the fasces of prefectures, appellations of honors, titles, and wealth, both at home and among foreign princes... Bonifacio, liberally imbued both in morals and in letters, having measured out the science of law, obtained the laurel of his night-labors with no small praise of genius. And when that erudition seemed made for an ampler theatre, he went to Rome; where he began to be mingled in courtly and forensic cares, yet on this condition, that he should associate piety with the duties of the court, and the tranquillity of a good mind with the noise of the forum. Munificent toward the poor as few are. Intent upon the safety of eternal things equally with the safety of souls. He too was admitted among those distinguished men, the confraternity-members of divine Love, all of whom, though he admired them as the safeguards of collapsing Roman piety and the vindicators of probity, he nevertheless especially looked up to Cajetan of Thiene; with whom, on account of the likeness of disposition and manners, he entered upon a singular friendship: to which, from the Congregation afterward founded, there was added a new brotherhood, firmer than any adamant. Thus far he concerning Bonifacio of Colle; but concerning Paolo these things:

[31] is given. Paolo Consiglieri... last in order of the four founders of our fellowship; but equal to the rest in every kind of virtue. Paolo was a Roman by fatherland, of the Consiglieri house, one and the same, as is now sufficiently established, with the Ghislieri, for which it will have been enough to have given to the world one Pius V Ghislieri, as a specimen of exact sanctity and an illustrious pattern of Pontiffs. In Paolo there was not indeed exceptional praise of learning; but a great force of counsel abundantly compensated for his talent. For there was in him such prudence in doing business that he sufficed by his judgment and dexterity for the greatest weights of affairs and for unraveling the most difficult matters. Besides this, the cast of his countenance conformed to modesty, a singular and unaffected gravity of manners, and an incomparable candor of soul, easily won the benevolence of all. With Carafa he was almost of one mind; both had the same impulse and will toward piety; their feelings of soul were common: whether they were zealous for the salvation of others or for their own, or whether they frequented the confraternity of divine Love, they were nowhere not together: so that you may plainly reckon Carafa and Consiglieri among those ancient pairs of friends celebrated in the monuments of so many histories. But how the bishop of Chieti, raised to the highest summit of affairs, increased this same benevolence toward Paolo, we shall say in its place. Meanwhile let this sketch of our fathers, before they had become Clerks Regular, suffice: whom, separated by fatherland and sky and unlike in nation, God's admirable wisdom brought together at Rome, each according to his own zeal, and, having initiated them in mutual friendship, trained them for a most excellent work in the confraternity of divine Love, as in a gymnasium: of which, since our biographer records the origin, the distinguished men, the place, the institute, and the fruits, as much as is enough for our purpose, I send the reader to him, as also to Silos, book 2, page 30.

[32] The first among them These things concerning the Order of Clerks Regular and its origin being thus established, it is my purpose to consider which of the four praised founding men was first standard-bearer and leader in establishing it, and accordingly which is truly and properly to be called by that title its chief founder and architect. We claim that honor for St. Cajetan: and we thus prove what we have claimed. The Bull or decretal Letters of his Canonization run thus: Having returned to Rome, counsel being taken with Pope Paul IV of like memory, also our predecessor, then constituted in minor rank, called Gian Pietro Carafa, and bishop of Chieti, he began to think about restoring the Clergy to its former form. Wherefore, with him as helper, and two others being summoned, men of exceptional piety from the aforesaid confraternity of divine Love of the City, namely Bonifacio da Colle, a noble of Alessandria, and Paolo Consiglieri, a Roman, he established, or rather restored, the Order of Clerks Regular according to the norm of the primitive Church. Do you hear: "he began to think," "with him as helper," "and two others being summoned, he established"? Our assertion is corroborated by a most express and most brilliant testimony in the decretal Letters just mentioned, when among other specimens of the humility of the Servant of God they report this one in these few words indeed, but such as most of all prove our point: Although he was the first parent of the Order, he nevertheless did not allow himself to take up its government; but yielded it to the said Gian Pietro Carafa, then constituted in minor rank. Is it not therefore abundantly clear from these things that St. Cajetan was the first standard-bearer, leader, parent, and architect of the new Order?

[33] But now what shall we say of other writers? We gave Caracciolo a little before; in founding the Order was the standard-bearer, to whom add Castaldo in the Life of the Saint, chapter 3; Silos in book 1 of his History, page 3, where Thiene is called... the chief establisher of the Order along with Carafa. And in book 2, page 33, he writes these things: Further, Carafa himself began most ardently to contrive this with himself at the time when Cajetan was turning over the very same thing in his mind, and both aimed together, God impelling, at the same institute. And since neither knew the other's mind and feeling, each was devising a way by which the matter might succeed well. Meanwhile Thiene began to make his excellent plan public; and at once the scattered rumor whispered in the ears of the bishop of Chieti that he was thinking of renouncing the court, and had communicated with Bonifacio his mind about founding a new Order of Clerks. Scarcely had Carafa learned this when, as though goads had been applied, and being vehemently kindled, he met with Cajetan with a certain great spirit; and says that he had long been contriving the work, and had conceived long ago in his mind the same idea of Clerks Regular, and was at that very time thinking about it, and had not yet opened his mind to any mortal. But now, since the other had had a discourse about that matter first, he was earnestly asking to be admitted as a partner of the great endeavor. Which, when Cajetan refused for reasons set down in the same place, Carafa pressed the matter so, being inflamed toward it with an altogether outstanding ardor of soul, that he was admitted to a share of so great an undertaking. For indeed, when he saw that he could not be bent, that fervent man blazed up so that, suddenly kneeling, and with brow drawn down most gravely as though indignant, he threatened that, unless he set him free from that surge of the court and the world into that tranquillity which he had so greatly longed for, he would one day on the last day exact from him an account of his soul. And so... Thiene gave his hands to Carafa, and at once, himself also fallen upon his knees, and most courteously embracing him, said: I, my Lord, will never desert you. These things are confirmed from the Life in Caracciolo, which, since it is to be given by us below in its own place, we here hold his words, in which he agrees with Silos, as inserted: and indeed those words with which he begins the said Life ought by no means to inconvenience us: Of Cajetan of Thiene, chief among the four founders of our Order after Carafa; as will presently be given to see.

[34] The things which can be objected on the other side are thus dissolved in the manuscript notes sent to us from Rome: the author and parent The remaining historians and almost all writers, both domestic and foreign, agree, with one or another exception, who assign the first place in the institution of the new Order to Carafa, moved by conjectures light enough; namely that the Pontifical letters for the approbation of the new Order were first addressed to Carafa before Cajetan, and that Carafa was declared the first Provost immediately after the Order was established, and that the still constant nomenclature of Theatines was derived to the new Order from the bishop of Chieti, as from its chief founder. To which nevertheless, and to other similar objections, sufficiently full answer has been made by the praised historian Silos, book 2, § "But by what rite," etc.; and book 3, § "The leader and moderator," etc. For that the episcopal Order and dignity claims for itself the first place above the inferior orders, and that for this cause Carafa the bishop is preferred in the Apostolic letters to Thiene, a priest, ought to be known to all; and this dignity of Carafa, and the reverence due to his riper age before the others, were a strong support for Thiene's humility and lowliness of soul in refusing the prefecture of the new Order (about which matter it has been spoken above).

[35] was Cajetan. From this first prefecture of the Order committed to Carafa, therefore, and from those things which the bishop of Chieti did, especially with the Roman Pontiff and the august Fathers in urging the foundation and in first governing the new Order, it came about that the designation of the prelate of Chieti, a man most preeminent in dignity, letters, and authority, was attributed also to his companions, and that gradually, as usually happens, the followers of the same institute were called by the common people by the aforesaid name: which was the more increased and confirmed when Carafa, his merits and virtues demanding it, was raised first to the sacred purple, and at last to the supreme dignity of the Christian world, the name of Paul IV being assumed. Thus far that source; to which it is well to add what Silos, in book 3 of his History just designated, pages 69 and 70, rightly writes to our purpose: Certainly that the bishop of Chieti excelled among those four founders themselves in advanced age, and in the renown and fame of his name, which he had won for himself both by the praise of his genius, and above all by his singular eloquence, and by embassies to princes, and by great cares excellently administered for the Roman cause; that besides this he played the chief and more difficult parts in founding the Order, and, being in the highest esteem with the Roman Pontiff and the august Fathers, strenuously labored to bend their minds: then that, such was the excellence of his erudition and his experience of affairs in ordering the common affairs and the new family, he sweated at greater length both over the rudiments of new laws and over the rules of the ancient institute: lastly that he too had long since put on this mind of founding a fellowship, and, excellently roused to this care, had often turned it over with himself; and accordingly that he deserved on so many counts that he should first take up that prefecture of governing the Order, and that his companions should offer it of their own accord — there is no one who doubts. But indeed as regards the business of the institution and the chief title of founder, the matter being more maturely examined both according to the mind of our ancient Fathers and according to the credit of the histories, it is fitting that, the praise of the bishop of Chieti being unimpaired, his own glory be also claimed for Blessed Cajetan. Then the praised author establishes those two of the four founders of the Order as the primary and chief ones. For, he says, if of mitres and of name

we regard the splendor, and the first prefecture of the Order, and his outstanding efforts in unraveling difficulties, we shall call Carafa the chief head and father of this commonwealth of Clerks: if we regard the scattering and publishing abroad among the Roman nobles of that mind of raising up a fellowship, Thiene was the first author of the family: so that the latter, because he set forth the idea of the work, and the former, because he undertook the work itself with a remarkable effort, may each, as equals and peers, claim for himself the chief praise and the first place. Each therefore truly and properly both was and ought to be called the primary and chief parent of the new Order; and Cajetan indeed the first in order of time, because the first moving cause toward it; because he stood forth as its first standard-bearer, leader, and forerunner to the other three, his companions in the foundation. And these things indeed suffice for the present purpose; nay indeed they not obscurely establish that the most illustrious man Giusto Fontanini, archbishop of Ancyra, in his Codex of the Constitutions which the supreme Pontiffs have issued in the solemn canonization of Saints, printed at Rome in the year 1729, would have consulted better for his own erudition if in his note on Constitution 94, page 458, he had refrained from these words: But since Cajetan, one of the four Founders who under Carafa's leadership first established the body of Clerks Regular, was the first of those same Clerks Regular to be entered into the canon of the Saints by the Roman Church; therefore he can be held the chief patron of those same Clerks with God, and as it were their first parent.

[36] Giovanni Battista Caracciolo in the manuscript Life which we have, book 2, uncovering certain errors concerning the present subject, Certain errors in this matter. writes the following: He (Carafa) had turned over in his mind the restoration of morals, and perhaps had considered with himself accomplishing it even by a new Order. And indeed he had already been consulted about this matter by Adrian VI. Nay, with Tommaso Gazzella and Marcello Caetani he brought much help to this Pontiff in the censure of morals and in the administration of the Christian commonwealth. But this is plainly another history, he says, than the origin of our Order, so that it was wrongly mixed together by the historians... Others too have fallen into base errors in the history of our Order. Spondanus set forth the aforesaid Marcello Caetani, so surnamed from his fatherland, as founder of the Order, and, the history being confused, making the names of Marcello Caetani of Thiene for him, mixed him up with our Thiene, having unskillfully got his occasion from those things which we have said about this Marcello... To the fault of the same writer must be turned the error of those who, unskillfully following him, have called our Cajetan Marcello: which Aicherius the Benedictine did, and Moréri in his Dictionary. We could wish that he had designated the place in Aicherius. In our sixth edition of Moréri, at the word Gaëtan, etc., we come upon nothing similar; nor in the supplement subjoined to his text in the same place; so that we plainly suspect that what is asserted in the praised author of the Life was drawn from some other edition and addition of the aforesaid Dictionary, now so wretchedly disfigured by so many supplements that it already appears something altogether different. Spondanus, whom the biographer merely named, may be consulted at the year 1524, number XIII. Concerning Carafa, Tommaso Gazzella, and Marcello Caetani, of whom the above-named biographer spoke, observe that Silos in book 1, page 25, of his History reports those names otherwise, saying: Adrian... summoned Gian Pietro Carafa and Marcello Gazzella... to Rome, that by their counsel and labor he might opportunely remedy morals almost given up for lost.

§ IV. The difficulties interposed to the institution of the new Order; its Apostolic approbation; the solemn profession; the election of a Provost; various matters weighed concerning the Order.

[After the difficulties interposed to the institution of the Order had been overcome,] Various difficulties indeed, although not long-lasting, which caused delay to the founding of the new Order, having been overcome, it was at last approved by the authority of the Apostolic See. As regards the difficulties: In the year, then, says A. Caracciolo, of the redeemed world 1524, on the feast day of the Finding of the Cross, the matter began to be diligently urged by the four aforesaid men with Clement VII, Supreme Pontiff. At first it was hindered by great difficulties; which the same writer recounts in the same place, and Silos, book 2, page 34. The matter therefore, entangled in these knots, by Caracciolo's testimony, would scarcely ever have been unraveled, had not Cajetan above all, and the other companions also, replied strenuously. The praised biographer subjoins the replies, as also Silos, whom we were just now citing. When therefore the Fathers had dissolved the weight of the reasons which had been objected against them, Matteo Giberti, the most celebrated bishop of Verona, contributing excellent labor to dispatching the business, as may be read in the same authors, the matter had the desired outcome. And so, since on the feast day of the Finding of the Cross, as Caracciolo says, the matter had begun to be urged, it was auspiciously accomplished likewise on the solemn day of the Exaltation of the Cross; so that accordingly we seem not undeservedly to have assumed the emblem of the Cross for ourselves.

[38] its founders gird themselves to pronounce religious vows; Before we proceed further, let us here supply from Silos a fact which Caracciolo left unmentioned, and which he relates thus in book 2, page 36: Therefore the Fathers, being made more certain of the Supreme Pontiff's now more favorable mind, and of the vote of the most ample senate, the candidates of the new Congregation of Clerks Regular resolved to disentangle themselves from all cares, and to renounce their revenues and dignities, that they might take up the arduous road of poverty more expeditiously and more holily. Wherefore, deeds being signed, each ordered his own affairs, and, his patrimony being prudently divided partly to kinsfolk, partly to the poor, bequeathed and distributed it. Chiefly they bequeathed a part not altogether great, that they might provide for the necessary uses of the new Religion to be founded at its beginning. The originals of these donations may be seen in the public record-office of the Roman Capitol, copies of which we have in most of our houses. But the bishop of Chieti, besides the renunciation of his goods, gave up both benefices, that of Chieti and that of Brindisi, in virtue of the faculty granted by the Pontiff, as we have said, with that alacrity and loftiness of soul with which advantages and honors of that kind are usually taken up. The episcopal dignity and title only were reserved to him by the Pontiff, as is established by letters given and sealed on the twenty-fourth day of the month of June, in the year 1524.

[39] and then at Rome in the church of St. Peter, The Fathers therefore, in this manner made ready in all things for making the vows of their new Religion, pronounced them on the aforesaid day and year. Caracciolo describes the deed; to whom add Silos, page 37; who inserts it in his History in the same place from a public instrument. And it runs thus: On the fourteenth day of September 1524. In the name of the Lord. Amen. In the presence of me, the notary, etc., there being personally constituted in the church of Saint Peter of the City, Mass having been heard, celebrated by the reverend father, the lord bishop of Caserta, upon the altar of the chapel of Saint Andrew, the reverend fathers lord Gian Pietro Carafa of Naples, bishop of Chieti; lord Cajetan of Thiene, Apostolic Protonotary and doctor of both laws, of Venice; lord Bonifacio de Collis, Clerk of Alessandria; and lord Paolo de Consiliariis, Clerk of Rome, their communion preceding, coming in procession from the said chapel to the high altar of St. Peter, the said bishop of Caserta sitting, as commissary of our Most Holy Lord the Pope, specially deputed to the matters written below by an oracle of the living voice, as he asserted, in his chair at the foot of the said altar, the aforesaid reverend father lord Gian Pietro the bishop presented to the same lord bishop of Caserta certain Apostolic letters in the form of a Brief of the Most Holy lord Pope Clement the seventh, which he received with the reverence that was fitting, and which the aforesaid lord bishop of Caserta handed to me the notary to be publicly read, of the following tenor:

[40] On the back: To our venerable brother Gian Pietro, bishop of Chieti, first recited by the notary and to our beloved son Cajetan, priest of Vicenza, and to their companions and successors. But within: Pope Clement the seventh. Venerable brother, and beloved sons, greeting and Apostolic benediction. You have lately caused it to be set forth to us that you and certain other companions of yours of the same purpose, led, as is believed, by divine inspiration, desiring to be able to serve God with greater quiet of soul and to cleave to him more according to your desire, have resolved to make the three substantial vows of Religious life, namely of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and, dwelling together under the usual and common Clerical habit, and living in common and from what is common, and serving God humbly and devoutly, so far as he himself shall grant, under our humble and immediate subjection to the Apostolic See and its special protection, to lead a Clerical life; and have caused supplication to be made to us that, out of the fullness of the power of ourselves and of this holy See and our accustomed clemency, kindly assenting in the premises, we would deign to provide for you, your companions, and your successors, in those things which seem to conduce or in any way be expedient to the purpose of this life.

[41] We, who willingly assent to the pious and honorable desires of all Christ's faithful, the Apostolic See's confirmation concerning the new Order highly commending in the Lord your laudable desire in this matter, and being inclined to your supplications of this kind, grant to you and to each of you, that, whenever it shall seem good, you may be able publicly to make the three substantial vows of Religious life, as you ask, of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and solemnly to profess them in the hands of any secular priest or of any regular Order, and, living in common under the usual and common Clerical habit, and under the name and appellation of Clerks Regular, to dwell together in religious or secular places, as it shall be granted you by those to whom those places belong, or as it shall seem expedient, under our immediate subjection to this Holy Apostolic See and its special protection; and each year to elect from among yourselves a Superior, to be called Provost, who may be confirmed up to a triennium and not beyond; and to receive any other secular Clerks whatsoever, shining with any dignity, or laymen, who, God inspiring, shall wish to betake themselves to this purpose of life and common manner of living, and, after a year's probation, to admit them to this common manner of living, upon making such a profession of the three vows in the hands of the Superior or Provost: and also to make and issue any statutes whatsoever, ordinances, and constitutions concerning all and each of the things which shall seem to conduce to the purpose of this life, and to concern the morals and institute of living honorably, devoutly, and clerically;

[42] and privileges, chiefly concerning Masses, and other divine Offices, or canonical Hours, to be celebrated and recited as it shall seem better to you, yet lawful and honorable, reasonable, and not contrary to good morals and the sacred canons; and to issue, correct, reform, and change in part or in whole those made from time to time; and anew to institute and ordain others, as it shall seem expedient to you, and to live according to them; which, after they have been framed and reformed, instituted or changed and ordained by you, and exhibited to us or to our successors, shall be, and shall be reckoned to be, confirmed and approved by Apostolic authority. And that you may enjoy all and singular the privileges, exemptions, immunities, indulgences, faculties, liberties, authorities, indults, favors, concessions

and graces, spiritual and temporal, which the Lateran Canons Regular, their congregations, persons, and places possess and enjoy, or in future shall possess and enjoy, you and your places may use, possess, and enjoy: whose tenor we will to be held as sufficiently expressed in the present letters, and as inserted word for word; so that Apostolic letters concerning the same privileges, exemptions, immunities, concessions, and graces granted or to be granted from time to time to the same, may be dispatched at pleasure, only the names, surnames, invocations, and days being changed, just as if all and singular those things had been expressed and specially granted to you by these our letters under this very day, not only by general clauses, but by their tenor, and by expression and insertion word for word — these things by the tenor of the present letters, of our certain knowledge and out of the fullness of Apostolic power, we grant and likewise indulge to you and to your companions and successors in perpetuity, and we bestow free and full authority and faculty for all and singular the premises, all impediments and gainsayers being removed; notwithstanding the name, dignity, and episcopal office which we have reserved to the above-mentioned Gian Pietro by other letters of ours, and notwithstanding Apostolic and general or special constitutions and ordinances, even those strengthened by oath or by any other firmness whatever, even if any were to be specially or word-for-word expressed, which we will to be held as expressed, and from which, only as to the effect of the present letters, we specially and expressly derogate, and notwithstanding all other things whatsoever to the contrary. Given at Rome at Saint Peter's under the Fisherman's ring, on the twenty-fourth day of June 1524. Jacopo Sadoleto.

[43] they made them with solemn rite, Which letters having been read through, and the accustomed solemnities and ceremonies being observed, and the usual oaths being taken by the said reverend lords into the hands of the said reverend father the lord bishop of Caserta, Apostolic commissary, they made a solemn and express profession... and, schedules of this profession being offered by each one of them, written and subscribed by their own hand, handed over, consigned, and left in the hands of the said reverend father lord bishop of Caserta, of the following tenor, namely: "In the year of the Lord 1524, on the fourteenth day of the month of September, at Rome in the church of Saint Peter at the high altar. I, Gian Pietro Carafa of Naples, bishop of Chieti, profess today before the Lord, and promise to God, and to blessed Mary ever virgin, and to the same blessed Peter the Apostle, and to you, reverend father in Christ, bishop of Caserta, Apostolic commissary, specially deputed to these matters by our Most Holy Lord by an oracle of the living voice, in the name and stead of the same our Most Holy Lord, Lord Pope Clement the seventh, and of the Provost to be elected by us, that I will be obedient to the same our Most Holy Lord, and to the above-mentioned Provost, and to their successors canonically entering, until death, according to the rule of the Clerks Regular, under three vows, namely of poverty, chastity, and obedience, newly instituted by the same our Most Holy Lord. I, Gian Pietro Carafa, bishop of Chieti, have written this with my own hand, and pronounced it with my own mouth."

[44] And when as much had been performed by Cajetan and the two others, and put on the garments proper to the institute of their life. as we have from those things which follow in the present instrument, the aforesaid reverend father the lord bishop of Caserta, the said reverend fathers standing humbly before him on bended knees, by the Apostolic authority granted to him in these matters, blessed the aforesaid Clerks Regular thus standing by and obedient, and then, the garments in which they were clothed being uncovered and stripped off by him, solemnly clothed and invested the same with the garments and birettas of Clerks Regular. Then there was elected by those newly professed as Provost Gian Pietro, bishop of Chieti, and he was confirmed by the aforesaid Commissary by Apostolic authority, as is contained in the same instrument. And this clause is subjoined: These things were done at Rome in the basilica of Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, of the City, in the places above alleged, there being present the venerable men lord Francesco Vannuzio, Clerk of Rome and canon of Saint Mary in Trastevere of the City, and also Lord Aymo Cichonis, Clerk of the diocese of Bourges, writer of Apostolic Briefs, and lord Leonardo Gratino, Clerk of Florence, as witnesses. The late Stefano de Amandis was requested concerning the aforesaid.

[45] You have, reader, the first beginnings of the Order of Clerks Regular; of which also a certain brief which, that you may know it more deeply and more searchingly, consult the History of it published by Silos. Nevertheless, for forming for yourself some idea of it, certain chief heads of this subject will serve, which we take piecemeal from that work, set forth more diffusely in book 2, page 40 and following. And so, not to pursue certain prognostic signs, and the opportuneness of the time in which the Order was born, and also the antiquity of Clerks Regular in the Church, which he traces from its first times, and then draws down through the centuries, recounting step by step its cultivators and propagators — not, I say, to pursue matters of this kind — the praised historian writes these things about the name of the Order, page 45: Now, since the founders of our fellowship resolved to renew that primitive and ancient observance of Clerks in the Clerical habit itself, they assuredly had not to labor or devise long by what name they wished to be designated: for with a new institute and manners of Clerks, and cares devoted to the common good, what was more obvious or more apt than the appellation of Clerks Regular? Which our Parents auspiciously chose, and the Supreme Pontiff Clement VII himself assented to it by his own diploma; and willed them to be called by the simple word of Clerks Regular, which afterward befell no Order of Religious men, save with some appendage: as were the Clerks Regular of the divine Paul beheaded, who are also called Barnabites; the Clerks Regular Somaschi, of the Society of Jesus, the Ministers of the sick, the Minor Clerks, and others. But indeed from Carafa's Theatine mitre the surname of Theatines has clung to our fellowship of Clerks Regular, assuredly by the judgment and usage of the common people, who very often assign names at their own nod; not indeed by Carafa's own consent, as some have falsely supposed. For that most modest man would never have indulged himself in that celebrity, so that he who had renounced the mitre itself and his benefices should then affect to retain the titles of the mitre, and the shadow of a name, and to perpetuate it in his Order. But although by this name alone of Clerks Regular our men are more than sufficiently known; and although writers commonly call us by it as by an antonomasia, "Clerks Regular": nevertheless, both as a token of distinction and chiefly for the memory of our great Father, we have freely admitted the appellation of Theatines; which whether you derive it apo tou Theou, that is, from God; or from the verb theatēnas (rather indeed theathēnai), which is to behold or to be beheld; that name will be exceedingly illustrious; as though we were either beholders of God or a spectacle. Nor could anything be more brilliant for the splendor and glory of our fellowship than to be named by that surname which at once suggests that it is as it were a certain theatre, in which either God is beheld through the contemplation of ascetics, or God himself beholds their increases and examples of virtues.

[46] account is given, A distinguished idea of the Order and of its holy founder Cajetan the Bull of St. Cajetan's canonization suggests, praising him excellently in these words: He established, or rather restored, the Order of Clerks Regular according to the norm of the primitive Church; who namely, after the manner of those of whom it is read that they had one heart and one soul, the care of all temporal things being renounced, and even the anxiety of begging, should live from freely offered alms alone, and should await the mercy of almighty God; and thus that ancient Apostolic form of living, restored entire, with great increase to the ecclesiastical name and to the shame of the heretics rashly disparaging it, this Servant of God recalled to the world, and confirmed by Apostolic authority, with the three substantial vows, laws, and institutes exceedingly consonant with the state and dignity of Clerks... Which form of living divine providence seems more than once, when matters were in straits, to have approved by miracles: and Cajetan diligently took care that it should never take any harm; especially when he most constantly refused estates and revenues freely offered at Naples, casting up those words of the Lord: Behold the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly father feeds them. For the rest, Silos on page 59 exhibits a list of those who have praised this institute of life. But that its end is to give oneself not only to one's own salvation but also to that of one's neighbors, and that from the mind of the first founders, the same historian deduces by various arguments against those who have judged otherwise.

[47] and poverty especially is extolled. But poverty, of which I was just speaking, as it has a certain singular, native, and proper splendor in this Order plainly among all other Religious Orders, so is it its primary glory and ornament. The praised historian weighs it on page 64; where among other things he says: The poverty which we have received from our parents as a most opulent patrimony is such that, although (we use the words of our constitutions) we are prohibited neither by our profession nor by the sacred canons from possessing annual revenues in common; and it has been granted us by the Council of Trent: nevertheless we voluntarily abstain from them, so that we may never be bound by any bond; and that by force of the rule, as you will find in the cited place; so much so that, if it should at last be resolved to live upon a common patrimony and revenue... by a new decree of the general Chapter, in which the power of making and changing laws resides, these statutes of poverty would have to be undone, and others introduced. On page 65 the same writer brings in Pope Urban VIII addressing the fathers about to be present at the general assembly in the year 1627 thus concerning this exceptional and admirable poverty: That this indeed, he says, is a singular and most excellent glory of the Church, and that it has befallen no Order of Religious to experience that continual miracle of poverty and providence; that they should therefore take care that this incomparable praise be handed down uncorrupted to posterity; and should not allow this unique ornament of the Church and of Religious discipline to fall away. Examples of divine providence in matters almost desperate Silos recounts piecemeal on page 66.

§ V. The Saint's patience proved by hard things, the prefecture of the Order, the reformation of the Roman Breviary undertaken; his distinguished merits regarding the plague-stricken and the needy; the discords of Verona composed; the Venetian infirmary promoted; his tenacious purpose in retaining the rigor of the apostolic life.

[In the sack of Rome, after the harshest vexations, being freed, he makes for Venice, and is set over the Order:] How grave and bitter hardships our Saint endured in that famous and tragic despoiling of the city of Rome, which happened in the year 1527, and how barbarous vexations, you will find in Caracciolo in his Life, and in Silos, book 3. To which strength accrues from the Roman Compendium and the Bull of canonization; from which I here transcribe an epitome of the event: But that the distinguished virtue of the Servant of God might not be exercised only in prosperous things, but be proved also in adverse ones, then before all else his exceptional equanimity shone forth, when, seized in that savage plundering of the City by the soldiers, and believed

to abound in riches, as formerly, so that he might betray them, he was most savagely tortured; he endured that force of torments with wonderful tranquillity and gentleness of soul; and when at last he had been thrust with his companions into a most foul prison, it happened that on a certain day a certain tribune of the Spaniards heard him singing praises with them alternately with a rather joyful voice, as if they were in a music-hall; who indeed, marveling at so great an alacrity, and so great a constancy in bearing evils, at once earnestly asked and obtained from his fellow-soldiers that they be released and dismissed free for his sake. These things being thus set forth, the aforesaid Bull soon leads us to Venice, continuing thus: Loosed from their bonds they make for the bank of the Tiber, uncertain in mind whither above all they should cross: and when they had no provisions and no money, divine providence was present, moving even the assailants themselves inwardly to bestow of their own accord alms and money for the journey. Thence, coming to the mouths of the Tiber, they auspiciously fell in with the Venetian ambassador setting sail for his fatherland: by whom, kindly received and liberally treated, they at last reached Venice. Concerning the manner in which they migrated thither Silos treats at greater length; saying that, having been taken aboard a ship, they set sail on the twenty-fifth day of the month of May with favorable winds, and put in at Venice on the sixteenth day of the month of June. But here on the day of the Exaltation of the cross, as Caracciolo relates, of the same year 1527, the little flock, being gathered, chose Cajetan as its shepherd, an altogether worthy successor of the bishop of Chieti.

[49] which office having rightly discharged, he is then confirmed in it. Silos, describing the new Provost's first cares, says: Having therefore entered upon the province of ruling the fellowship, Thiene applied his mind and efforts to procuring more convenient houses, and ones more fit for the discipline of Clerks, in which he might both perform the sacred rites, and administer the Sacraments, and gather assemblies for pious sermons, and also be free for the exercises of his own virtues and for God. And not long after, when the distinguished institute of life had begun to shine and to promise great things of itself, the house of St. Nicholas of Tolentino was offered, where indeed men of upright mind and frugal, excellently animated by the mutual incitement and example of one another, had been accustomed to give distinguished proofs of piety... Therefore, the matter being transacted with the pious confraternity-members, on the twenty-ninth day of November of the same year they moved thither. The same author as above, the founder of the History of the Clerks Regular, reports at the year 1528 that Cajetan was confirmed in the prefecture of the Order, writing these things to our purpose: In which year likewise, on the very day of the Exaltation of the cross, an assembly was held at Venice for electing a moderator of the Order, and the matter indeed being examined not at any great length, Thiene was confirmed in that office of Provost by the consent and applause of all — he who had already wonderfully proved his distinguished character, and the highest prudence in caring for the family, in that first year of his magistracy.

[50] Under the Saint's rule the reformation of the Roman Breviary was undertaken, To the year 1529 belong the Apostolic Letters of Pope Clement VII, marked with the name of Carafa and Cajetan, and signed on the twenty-first day of January of that year, about reforming the Breviary. Silos published a copy of them in book 3 of his History, having among other things prefaced thus: For indeed, because there were then no prayers blameless and seemly, more Breviaries were daily obtruded, each not for its own nations or provinces, but for almost every church, that laudable harmony and consent of the Faithful in reciting and performing those same sacred rites being banished. But the Breviary which was then in use at Rome was full of every kind of error and fault. Homilies of authors of memory condemned by the Church: histories everywhere uncertain and of no credit: rubrics in the wrong order and exceedingly obscure, besides the ungracefulness of the language, and in very many places the plebeian diction, which Carafa's letter to Giberti deservedly censures and marks... Therefore the fathers set themselves to this plan, and, the matter being settled, it was arranged with Pope Clement that he should add authority and spurs to the work: who approved at greater length that excellent mind of the Clerks Regular, etc. These things happened under the said prefecture of St. Cajetan. But why this business, tirelessly undertaken, had no outcome, you will find in the same place. The Bull of canonization, mention being made of the splendor of divine worship, and the exact observance of the sacred rites, adds: Of which matters indeed he committed a particular zeal to his own men, and, by the order of the same Clement VII our predecessor, undertook the reformation of the Roman Breviary, together with... Gian Pietro Carafa his companion: which, afterward completed with new labors, was published in the Roman Breviary.

[51] But now let us see how the holy Founder discharged the governance of his Order, his apostolic labors toward the plague-stricken and how he was excellently occupied with other apostolic labors before. As regards the first, Silos in book 4, page 132, says: In this year, that is, the thirtieth of the passing century, Thiene completed his term of the prefecture: under whose auspices and governance the zeal for stricter poverty and the discipline of morals were wonderfully increased; since in administering that very office he gave every specimen of virtue and prudence; especially by his remarkable tempering of the authority by which he presided, and the humility by which he wished to be reckoned the last of all: and it seemed indeed that all equally desired to be under him, and he under all. Now let us proceed to the second with Silos: Within this triennium of his magistracy there happened that memorable pestilence which, as it was common to almost all Europe, so also at Venice seemed to fill out its plainly mournful scene... Therefore the plague was raging at Venice with public slaughter, and Cajetan, who knew excellently how to turn the calamities and misfortunes of others into a proof of his own piety, did not suffer the disaster and devastation of the city to slip by without fruit and example. For indeed, in no way terrified by that horrible face of things and by fear, he, to whom another's safety was far preferable to his own, briskly cast himself into those perils of life. He himself went before his own Clerks; most of whom he had as companions and fellow-soldiers in that distinguished work.

[52] What shall I say of St. Cajetan's wonderful beneficence toward the poor? and the needy: But indeed, as the praised author observes, not pestilence alone harassed Italy; but an incredible dearth of grain also heaped up the evil: which famine indeed, however much it exercised almost all the Italian cities beyond belief, at Venice nevertheless, by a certain singular love of the Deity and by the care of a most provident Senate, seemed to rage less. Wherefore, when a huge number of the poor everywhere flowed together thither as to a common refuge, a most beautiful field opened itself to Thiene for magnificently displaying this other kind of charity. For in that difficulty of the times, as though not so much the father of Clerks as of the poor, he was in no way anxious about his own domestic affairs and those of his men: his chief zeal was to feed the arriving poor, worn out with hunger. In which place indeed our writers with the best right extol God's providence toward our fellowship and its unusual kind of poverty: concerning which Caracciolo among us below at number 48; as also concerning that pestilential plague and famine, which he attaches to the year 1528.

[53] But Cajetan remained at Venice, by the testimony of the same biographer, the dissensions between the bishop of Verona and his subjects nearly five years: and that these run by for us empty of subject-matter is not the fault of Cajetan's slackened virtue, which was never anything but most keen; but of the silence of our own men, who preferred to live more diligently than to write. And so we shall supply Caracciolo's scantiness from Silos's History, book 4, page 135, where he records his holy Parent's journey to Verona, and the dissension between the Clergy and the bishop composed by him in that place. I therefore excerpt from it the following for brevity's sake: But now it befell Cajetan... in the thirty-first year of that century, unless the reckoning of times deceives me, at the exhortation and command of the bishop of Chieti, to compose a plainly most arduous business at Verona. The excellent efforts of Gian Matteo Giberti in forming the church of Verona, and in reforming the morals of its Clergy, which our Carafa was rather vehemently urging, we hinted at above... That Giberti therefore, while he intrepidly carries through the conceived work of his excellent mind, he who ought to have won favor from his Canons and Clergy, ran into their ill-will, and most grievous altercations arose on both sides. And the citizens themselves, whose life too the most burning prelate had begun to censure and to touch upon sharply, because they disdained to endure the bridle of Christian life, did not hesitate to add confidence and strength to the Canons and Clergy. To cut short the dissensions and party zeal, the prelate first admonished, and courteously soothed those resisting; then somewhat harshly threatened; at last, for the sake of protecting his dignity and discipline, he willed to thunder and lighten with zeal.

[54] excellently composed by him, All in vain... so that Pope Clement himself, who always leaned toward Giberti with a more favorable mind, because he saw that the matter had gone too far, resolved to recall him from those billows to Rome, as to a station: and gave the business to Giovanni Battista Sanga, who was his secretary for letters and secrets, that he should summon him in his name, and he himself added weight to the invitation with his own pen... Cajetan availed wonderfully for composing these billows, whose fame of sanctity had already pervaded Verona, and had won him no small affection and authority both among the Canons and among all the citizens. Wherefore, being summoned at that time, when that civil firebrand was blazing most of all, by Giberti, he so managed the matter that, partly by the weight of reasons, partly by the opinion of his probity, partly at times by threats, and above all by prayers poured out to God, which he strove after his manner to make more efficacious by affliction of body, he blew away the whirlwind, and overcame that stubbornness of minds, and sealed and ratified the obedience restored to their father on conditions most pleasing to both sides. Thus Silos.

[55] The Venetian infirmary reformed. These things being related, he subjoins on page 136 Carafa's cares toward the Venetian hospital of the Incurables; of which he had once been chosen patron together with Cajetan. A fragment of the election consigned to the public records you will find in the same place. Besides this, the Saint deserved excellently well of that hospital: for in the Roman Compendium he is thus praised: Although he was free from all, he made himself the servant of all, that he might gain all for God... just as he restored very many safe and sound to God. And that he might attain this more abundantly, he was always devising various means in his mind, just as the institution of the hospital of Vicenza, and the reformation of the infirmary of the Incurables at Venice, produced the best and most notable effects of true charity. But before we depart hence, we must meet with Silos, who in the cited place, digressing to an idle as well as inept fabrication, affirms that St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of our Society, at Venice asked of Cajetan to be admitted into the Order of Clerks Regular. But since that stale cabbage, first cooked by the Reverend Father Giovanni Battista Castaldo, and then warmed over by Silos, and set before the reader in his History of the Clerks Regular in the place which I have just designated, as though it were a new and well-seasoned dish, so to speak, I have refuted with so many and such great weights of reasons in volume VII of the month of July, in the Commentary preliminary to the Acts of St. Ignatius, §§21 and 22; I should be doing what has been done, if I here again chastised that little tale, held as such even by Apostolic judgment, and ordered to be suppressed in the year 1659; as may be seen in the same place from number 229. Hence too you will learn how frivolous are the things which D. Bernard, a Clerk Regular, inserted into the Life of St. Cajetan,

concerning whom consult the end of this Commentary, number 204: for in book 2, chapter 7, page 140, he will have it that St. Cajetan was bound at Venice with St. Ignatius of Loyola by so close a bond of intimacy that it was but little short of his being enrolled in the discipline of the Clerks Regular; but that a heavenly light signified to him his own destination. Not to dwell longer, then, on these matters, I proceed to the other deeds of our holy Confessor.

[56] He most tenaciously preserved the rigor and perfection of the Apostolic life which he professed with his own men, How tenacious St. Cajetan was in preserving the primitive spirit of his Order, and kept away from entrance into the Order anyone by whom he foresaw that Religious discipline would be relaxed; as this example proves, which Silos relates from page 148: That man was Marcantonio Flaminio, in his own age a most celebrated man, exceedingly learned in Greek and Latin, and instructed in every more pleasant discipline and in the liberal arts; who afterward, as is the frequent unhappiness of great talents, fell into that common disaster concerning justification by faith alone, which involved very many distinguished men at that time — by God's secret judgment indeed, that the bishop of Chieti might raise up and recall the fallen man with a huge force of prayers and eloquence, as we shall explain in its place. He, because the amended and holy morals and institutes of our men had pleased him, brought his mind to conform the plan of his own life to that norm. But since his health was not altogether firm and robust, his mind was to bind himself to the institute and its severe laws in such a way that he wished indeed the rest of the discipline to be kept whole and entire by constant obedience on every side; but that, for the sake of his afflicted body, the manner of his diet should be somewhat softened, and he earnestly asked that the faculty of going out of the house rather frequently for the sake of his spirits be granted him. He thought that the honor which a man of his mark would win for the Order would be an incentive for the fathers to temper for him that harshness of the laws; then that he would render strenuous service in teaching letters in the Congregation; and, because he saw our houses were cramped, to allure them the more, he promised moreover to supply the expense for enlarging them. Finally, because he exceedingly desired to be admitted into that fellowship of the fathers, that the matter might succeed, he asked Francesco Cappello, a most weighty man and a senator, and one who had deserved excellently well especially of our Congregation, that partly by authority, partly by entreaty, he would himself accomplish that most desired matter.

[57] Cappello at once dealt with Thiene by letter, and that not perfunctorily... is proved by a certain singular deed. To Cajetan, most tenacious of his institute and of its harmonious discipline, nothing was more absurd. He conferred the matter with his companions, especially with Carafa: soon he gave Cappello a reply modest indeed, inasmuch as our Congregation, which already owed him much, wished to owe him very much; but with the highest candor of soul and freedom of speech, a reply worthy of his excellent mind, worthy of the institute, to this effect, which we have abridged from a rather long letter into these few words: namely, that he had read the letter, and had at once communicated it with the fathers; and that all were of this opinion, that he who wished to be received into the fellowship must needs propose to himself that he would be of one manner in it: since indeed nothing conflicts more with the common life than singularity. That ages, strengths, and health ought indeed to be weighed in an even balance, so that with one hand indeed, but not with one and the same measure for all, charity might impart whatever should be needful, after the pattern of ancient sanctity. For it was divided to each, as each had need. But to estimate and weigh this is the office and function of the Provost. That Flaminio therefore seeks the Congregation and retirement, it is well: that nevertheless he must persuade himself that the Congregation is ruled by God's goodness and nod, who will have known how to pour as much light into its moderators that each one's weakness may be discerned; and as much charity as may bear the burden of that weakness. And accordingly, if his mind is to take up the institute, that he must strenuously and freely cast himself down at Christ's feet and into the arms of Religion, and that he would have no greater command of himself and liberty than anyone else of the Order. But that wealth expended for the common use, and the communication of studies, do not much move those to whom the rigor of observance and the cross of Christ are preferable to any advantage whatever. For the rest, that the distinguished erudition of so great a man was indeed pleasing, but that he himself should wish to learn among the poor the rudiments of Christian piety was more pleasing. Thus Cajetan to Cappello. With what spirit, and with what an upright and lofty disposition of mind, anyone may see.

§ VI. His acts at Naples, Venice, and Verona; his wonderful custody of his eyes; his prodigies.

[He is sent to Naples, and presides over his own men there religiously and with a great example of poverty.] Amid these things, Caracciolo opens for us a new theatre of matters distinguishedly done by our Saint at Naples, who, it is established from the Apostolic Letters of Pope Clement VII, produced by the same biographer, was sent thither by the bishop of Chieti in the year 1533. What other things preceded that mission, you will read in the same place. In the year 1533, therefore, on the fourth day before the Nones of Sextilis, Cajetan and his companion, concerning whom see the same place, departed from Venice, as Caracciolo reports; and when they had come to Naples, and six other companions, like so many auxiliary soldiers, had afterward been sent thither by Carafa at Cajetan's request, the Order of Clerks Regular was propagated in that place. For these, about the end of October... having set out from Venice, arrived safe at Naples: to all of whom, by a decree of the assembly celebrated at Venice the previous September, Cajetan was given as Provost, as you will find in the praised author; and at once, says Silos in book 5, page 154, according to Thiene's wish, who did not refuse to take up that common care by the duty of the office conferred on him, the domestic affairs and the plan of discipline began to be ordered; first of all the worship and administration of the sacred rites was exactly conformed to the pattern of the Venetian house and institute. For indeed the hours before dawn were dedicated to the divine praises: the remaining task of the divine Office was distributed at set daytime intervals: for the cleansing of consciences they were assiduously present on feast days and workdays, and sermons were held with great fruit and pleasure to the neighborhood that came. Other things which the holy Man did at Naples the praised historian and Caracciolo relate; among which there shines wonderfully that most distinguished deed by which he set himself as a truly impregnable wall for the genuine and apostolic poverty of his new Order, when he strenuously and heroically refused annual revenues obstinately pressed upon him, relying on God's providence alone, and did not rest until he removed that splendid fetter as far as possible from himself and his own.

[59] [He performs a miracle in the healing of a broken leg; and by a wonderful custody of his eyes] In the same place too you will find a notable prodigy wrought by Cajetan's power and prayers, in the wonderful healing of a broken leg. Further, this health restored to a brother by Cajetan's prayers, says Silos in the cited book, page 166, calls for the pen to record a certain proof of exceptional virtue which about that time the same Cajetan gave in that same house of the Little Stable (of which he had made mention on page 165, and which Antonio Caracciolo describes in the Life among us below from number 68)... In this year (you would not know whether with greater good fortune of arms or of virtue) Charles the emperor had stormed Tunis, a most flourishing city in Africa, and, having expelled the king of Algiers who had occupied it, had restored Mulei-Hassan to the ancestral seat of the kingdom, by an example of august munificence destined to endure through the ages. It befell the Neapolitans first to applaud the fortune and triumphs of the renowned Emperor: who, after that most celebrated victory, received him returning distinguished with the spoils of the barbarians and with his own glory, with such display indeed as either Charles's valor and fame could receive or the most munificent city could attempt; so that plainly he was never elsewhere received with that appearance of triumph and those tokens of joy.

[60] And after the praised author had described the august face of the city, and the running together of princes and peoples, he restrains his own sight. he subjoins these things: Therefore, a long rank of princely men being drawn up, the emperor entered Naples, adorned with these ornaments and glowing with zeal, nor was there any condition of men so religious as not to count it most honorable to enjoy a spectacle which had never otherwise occurred. But indeed these theatres were the less able to carry off Cajetan's distinguished mind and spirit, superior to every allurement. For, embracing an occasion for triumphing over his own desire, although he could look upon that august appearance and majesty of the prince from the window of his little cell, and although exhortations were not lacking, he could never be prevailed upon to deign even one glance at the notable pomp, being meanwhile most intent by prayer and contemplation upon beholding heavenly things; himself indeed more worth beholding in that severity of virtue than the emperor in his triumphal dress and general's cloak.

[61] Silos praises his holy Founder's outstanding force in speaking, in book 6 at the year 1538, His weighty force in speaking: the heretical poison overcome. from page 207: But what could most of all draw on Neapolitan piety, that assuredly was the preaching turns of Cajetan of Thiene and of Giovanni Marinoni... There was indeed in Thiene a certain weighty erudition and faculty of eloquence, exceedingly suited to handling mortals and bending them whither he wished; so that very rarely indeed did he hurl a dart without capturing their minds even among the more secret fibres of their hearts and wounding them salutarily. But at the year 1539 the same historiographer records in what manner, and by what ministers of Satan, the most foul plague of the Lutheran heresy was brought into the city of Naples, and how, being sown and propagated there, the evil of the dire contagion began to spread; and likewise what parts Cajetan and the Theatine fathers played in attacking and overcoming it. But because concerning those matters the writer of the Life, to which we prefix these our Commentaries, instructs us sufficiently, we therefore think it superfluous to transcribe them hither one by one from elsewhere. Let us therefore make our step toward inspecting the Saint's other deeds.

[62] In the year, as is in Caracciolo, 1540, in the month of April, in the assembly celebrated at Naples, Cajetan was created Provost of the Venetian house of St. Nicholas. He is summoned to the government of the Venetian house, with great [grief at Naples] Add these things from Silos, page 222: Plainly the joy with which the Neapolitan fathers were flooded when Marinoni was declared Provost of their house was balanced by the grief with which they intimately sorrowed that Thiene, that is, the breathing image and law of solid virtue and discipline, was torn from them. It was most bitter also for outsiders to be deprived of the most holy Man's piety and care. But those whom above all the plan of his departure struck were the nuns of the monastery of the Sapienza, who reckoned it a huge benefit and grace of God to enjoy his most sweet manners and to behold more closely and venerate that pattern of remarkable prudence and holiness. Above all she who had founded and governed the college, Maria Carafa, lamented for her virgins and for herself the loss of their common Parent. Plainly when Carafa sent Cajetan away to Naples, this above all was his intention and mind, that Maria, who needed present help for forming and governing her new discipline, might use the virtue of that most innocent and equally most prudent Man. And indeed Carafa commended his character to his sister in more than one letter; and especially in that year in which the Neapolitan expedition was undertaken, he wrote to her in these words: "Among my dear brothers the chief is he whom I carry in my eyes, my Cajetan, I mean. God himself knows how hard it was for me to suffer him to be torn from me. But I hope it will come about that by God's grace

you may come to know how good a servant of Christ he is, and how deservedly I love him."

[63] longing for him being left behind. Thus he: by whose most candid and weighty testimony indeed the opinion which Maria had conceived of Cajetan was wonderfully increased, when she experienced the Man in person, and his modesty, wisdom, and diligence, by which he strove to oblige her and the monastery. For during all this time in which Thiene acted at Naples, you would not know whether he expended more diligent care upon his own house or upon the college of the Sapienza: so that he seemed no less the father of those virgins than of the Theatines: since indeed he was wholly at hand both for the cleansing of consciences, and for the forming of morals, and for procuring the common discipline, and also for the private advantage of each. When he could not come to the monastery, he acted by letters, of which there are many to be seen among us, autographs addressed to Maria, most full of a certain divine prudence and spirit; and in them there shines an excellent and very likeness of Thiene; whether they urge to virtue and neglect of the world; or seem to press and cherish regular observance; or whether it happens at times to console and rebuke... But Cajetan, having consoled with the soothings of his words both very many others most devoted to his virtue, and especially those women, departed for Venice about the spring season... He was received at Venice with that congratulation and benevolence of all of which he was indeed worthy, who had long since filled that city with admiration of his virtues; and had obliged it by so many offices of piety and proofs of holiness, even before he professed his name to Religion. Wherefore both the leading men and the common people ran together the more ardently, that by his examples and exhortations they might amend their morals; and he himself performed those offices of charity which regarded the cultivation of souls and the instruction of piety.

[64] A notable specimen of Apostolic poverty at Verona; his return to Venice: Silos at the same year, page 223, reports that the holy Man was summoned to Verona by Giberti, bishop of that place; where Cajetan gave a notable example in urging and retaining the rigor of Apostolic poverty: for fearing lest it should suffer some harm from the liberal benevolence of the praised prelate toward himself and his own, by which he abundantly and altogether paternally supplied daily helps of food, he threatened the prelate that he would depart from Verona unless he put an end to that matter: concerning which, since Caracciolo treats of it, I add nothing more here. But afterward, as the same Caracciolo writes, when he had remained some while at Verona, he returned to Venice to his house of Tolentino, which he is read to have ruled with the title of Provost for these three years. Silos on page 224 affirms that it must be thought the Venetian return happened at the beginning of the forty-first year: for indeed it was necessary to return to Venice at that time when the general assembly ought by custom to be celebrated. For although our commentaries do not record where the Chapter of that year was held, we nevertheless judge it more probable that it was gathered at Venice; because the houses of Tolentino and of St. Paul divided the turns of the Chapter between themselves in almost alternate years.

[65] The same historiographer, showing the holy Founder intent both upon the good of his own Order his care for enlarging Religious discipline, and for the salvation of souls: and upon that of persons outside, thus begins his seventh book: While at Rome the Theatine Cardinal tirelessly gives himself to purifying religion and correcting the wicked corrupters of the faith, Cajetan renders diligent service both in enlarging Regular discipline in the Order and in forming the minds of outsiders to piety. For to such a degree, as we have often shown, had he become renowned for his remarkable handling and guidance of souls, that whoever felt himself animated to better fruit by the secret prompting of the Deity, and desired the plan of his life to be amended, would meet with Thiene, to be imbued with his instructions. He was still staying at Venice. For, the general assembly having been held at Naples in the course of the forty-second year, he had been declared for a third year Provost of that monastery of Tolentino.

[66] At which time indeed he proved and increased, by miracles wrought, miracles: the opinion of excellent holiness which he had stirred up by the splendor of his virtues. For indeed Antonio Caracciolo thinks that in about this year he wrought those wonders which Giovanni Antonio Prato, whom we have named elsewhere, consigned to his letters. From which it can easily be conjectured that Cajetan indeed gave other proofs of sanctity also while he lived. For no one would rightly persuade himself that the most holy Man was not honored by God with very many miracles — a man whose life was plainly a miracle by so great a contempt of human things and so great a confidence in God. It must therefore be judged that either he himself hid them out of contempt and fear of celebrity; or that our men, whose first concern was to imitate the traces of their best Parent's probity rather than to transmit his miracles to posterity, did not note them down. Wherefore, as we must exceedingly grieve that many and great things have fallen away; so we must not moderately rejoice that these few have been preserved, as it were the claw from the greatness of so great a lion, by which we might estimate the remaining bulk and majesty. Two deeds therefore done at this time by Thiene at Venice have we received, etc. By one of them he restored a noble woman to health; by the other a madman to his own mind; both of which we shall relate below from Caracciolo in the Life of the Saint; to which a third is added, of which mention will presently be made.

[67] The first two therefore being set forth by Silos, it is thus subjoined on page 237: he provides well for his neighbor's salvation when absent, by letters: These things Cajetan did at Venice; where he was so present by distinguished deeds and examples of virtues that his diligence extended even more widely. For the charity toward his neighbors which he had stirred up elsewhere when present, and which he had once established by an excellent work, that he strove when absent to press by letters and admonitions. Which the letters sent about that time to Naples, both to the nuns of the Sapienza and to others, show. Likewise he vehemently strove that the laws of Vicentine charity should increase in the hospital which he himself had once cultivated with a rather intense zeal and care: for, letters having been composed to the members of that hospital, that they should persist in the excellent work, and should continue to raise up the afflicted race of men with the greatest power they could, he seemed rather often to admonish them with a wonderful ardor of soul. And indeed we do not wish here to withhold a copy of a letter which among very many others he sent to them, full indeed of a certain robust spirit, as though charity itself had dictated it, and accordingly worthy to be set down here... Let it be enough to have taken these things from it: I ask you, and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, that if you wish God the greatest to care for your affairs, you strive with the greatest effort to protect this most laudable institute. Come, dearest brothers, if you desire to gladden my mind, strive anxiously for this, that the affairs of the hospital and the advantages of the poor be carried out as excellently as possible and with a burning zeal of Charity, and that you yourselves, by tried morals, be a good odor and a light to this city of yours. This I myself vow for the love of Christ the Lord and of the most holy Mother of God, namely to urge you with unanimous will to the distinguished work: then I ask again and again that you receive these things not as brought forth by me, a sinner, but from that zeal and affection by which God has willed me to be bound, that I may love you and greatly desire the increases of your fellowship. Farewell. Thus far that; but let us accompany the Saint called away from Venice to Naples.

[68] he calms a most grievous storm. There return, says Silos on page 239, in this following year, the forty-third of the passing century, the annual assemblies of the Congregation, held at Venice, in which Cajetan, having completed his three-year magistracy in that monastery, is declared Provost of the Neapolitan house. Caracciolo, about to add a third to the two wonders of which we spoke above which the holy Man did, speaks thus: The third, I think, happened while he was making for Naples from Venice by ship. For, as we shall presently say, he returned again to Naples, having namely been elected in the year 1553 (rather 1543) Provost of the house of St. Paul. And so, a storm having arisen which threatened every extremity, he at once calmed it by casting a waxen Agnus Dei into the angry sea; as may be read in Caracciolo; add Silos, page 240, who adds: As his companions attributed the miracle to that sacred wax, victorious over sea and storms; so by common consent its own honor was rendered to Cajetan's confidence and vows: chiefly because such was among them the opinion of his outstanding spirit and virtue that they easily persuaded themselves that he could have commanded the winds. Further, there were not lacking among our men two eyewitnesses of that matter, who accompanied Cajetan; namely Marco the Venetian, of whom we have made mention elsewhere; and Gregorio Marino, who, having been co-opted into the Order by Carafa twelve years before, always gave a specimen of excellent worth and exceptional prudence. Add from Caracciolo that Lucrezia Carafa, Antonio Caponio a physician, and Rainerio Gualando, well-born and upright men, and ones to whom lying brought no profit, used to relate wonders about that Man, which perished by the injury of the times and the negligence of posterity in spreading abroad the praise of their Ancestors.

§ VII. His repeated government of the Neapolitan house; his journey undertaken thither; the cause of his illness; his most pious death; the same known by a prophetic spirit to St. Peter of Alcántara; the Neapolitan tumults calmed after him by Cajetan's patronage; some of his sayings; the concourse to his body; eulogies.

Set over the Neapolitan house, he lays down the office; Cajetan therefore returned to Naples in the year 1543 at the end of April, accompanied by Marco and Gregorio, Venetian priests; as Caracciolo writes; but here again, he says, reader, I am compelled to make a huge gap of four years in that narration about Cajetan's life. For from the year 1543 up to 1547 I have found nothing said or written about that Man. Let us therefore consider whether, and how far, we can supply that gap from elsewhere. With these companions therefore (we give Silos's words, page 240) Cajetan landed at Naples: and he who had left an incredible longing for himself when he departed for Venice, when he returned, as the Acts of his canonization noted, both our own men and outsiders received him as an angel fallen from heaven: and he himself, because he observed that piety was advancing and flourishing more joyfully in the Neapolitan city, and the people's disposition inclined to every praise of virtue, was borne toward it with a certain more ardent impulse and affection of soul: and toiled more gladly in that field from which he might gather by far the most abundant fruits. That the office of government was there laid down by him, he teaches at the year 1544, page 245, in these words: But as regards the administration of the Congregation, it was agreed this year between the Venetian and Neapolitan fathers that each should celebrate their assemblies in their own house... But at Naples, because Cajetan obtained by the highest entreaties that he might lay down the office, Giovanni Marinoni was substituted.

[70] But at the year 1547 Silos treats of the general Chapter, but he takes it up again under compulsion. What was done on the journey. which was celebrated at Rome on the fifteenth day of the month of May in the house of the Theatine Cardinal; in which, as you have on page 257, Cajetan of Thiene is again declared, even against his will, Provost at Naples. Further, two companions were joined to Cajetan... with whom he departed for Naples: nor was the journey completed without a proof of Thiene's virtue. For the Saint made the journey by night, superior to the discomfort both of the road already measured and of that still to be measured, that he might have a part in the more solemn prayers to be sung together with the others; which part he did have. The matter will be given below from Caracciolo. Silos ascribes it to a particular help and favor of God in his Life of St. Cajetan, book 1,

chapter 20, page 129; an angel indeed, as report has it, accompanying him, as you will find in the same place. Further, concerning the goal of his life and virtues and labors, receive these things.

[71] Since through Italy, says Caracciolo, Luther's doctrine was creeping more widely day by day, The cause of his illness, and the time of his death, which he most piously met, Pedro de Toledo the viceroy judged that provision would rightly be made for the Neapolitan kingdom if that censure against heretics were there established in the Spanish manner..., which obtained the name of the Inquisition. But the plan lacked success: Naples is filled with tumult and slaughter; as may be read in the same author. Further, he says, our Cajetan..., when he had first attempted in every way, partly by persuading, partly by asking, to repress the rising sedition; soon, being frustrated of his wish, from anguish of soul and from the vigils which he had passed in beseeching God by night, fell into a fever. But these things more fully in the same place and in Silos more diffusely from page 258. From the same source too you will learn with how great contempt of himself, with what pious preparation of soul for putting off mortality, the most holy Man departed from life on the seventh of the Ides of Sextilis in the year 1547, in about the sixtieth year of his age according to Silos; nay rather in about the seventieth, from what was said above at number 3 about his year of birth, indeed even from Silos himself, who in book 1, page 4, had said: Cajetan was born in the year from the Virgin's childbearing one thousand four hundred and eighty. Schiara in part 3, chapter 9, affirms that the Saint departed from life on the said seventh day of August at about the nineteenth hour; which Italian reckoning of hours, if it be reduced to ours, designates about half past two in the afternoon. But to these it is pleasing to weave in the words which the Bull of canonization subjoins to the holy Confessor's virtues, and which run thus, with an emendation nevertheless applied by me in one place: Heaped with which virtues, and broken by labors, vigils, hardships, and the continual torturing of his body, and much more seized by an illness from sorrow of soul, because he saw that God was gravely offended when the common people were driven into sedition in those days; and because he saw the Council of Trent, in which he chiefly trusted, interrupted, being frustrated of his hope, and brought up to the very last with his senses nevertheless entire and his vigor of soul, refreshed with the Sacraments of the Church with the highest piety and spiritual joy, and having begged pardon from his confreres, whom he had never offended, he most piously died in the embrace of the crucified Redeemer at Naples on the seventh day of August 1547. On which day those popular tumults were, as is believed, calmed by his intercession. In the canonical Hours the Church prescribes that it be read of him thus: At last, an illness being conceived from sorrow of soul, because he saw God offended by the people's sedition, being refreshed by a heavenly vision, he passed at Naples into heaven. Thus far that.

[72] known by a prophetic spirit by St. Peter of Alcántara. But indeed remarkable is what the following biographer records about the Saint's death divinely known by another Saint, and which we transcribe hither on his credit: St. Peter of Alcántara (says Schiara in his compendium of the Life of St. Cajetan, part 3, chapter 9), who at that time was living in Spain, seeing Cajetan's death by a prophetic spirit on the same day on which it happened in Italy, admiring and extolling his sanctity, burst out into these words: Today there has departed from the world one of the chief columns of the holy Church. Concerning this matter father Juan de San Bernardo, guardian of St. Lucy of the Mount, formerly head of the province, and procurator at Rome in the cause of the canonization of St. Peter of Alcántara, and an excellent writer of his Life, gave ample credit.

[73] The calming of the most grievous tumults at Naples For the rest, the things just touched upon about the popular tumults calmed at his intercession, Silos draws out thus on page 264: And indeed on the day on which Cajetan entered heaven, Placido Sangro, who together with Ferrante Sanseverino, prince of Salerno, had earlier been sent to the Emperor on that matter, landed at Naples from Spain. And although the king's mandates did not seem to be such as would more sharply compose the tumultuous and dissenting ranks of citizens from the viceroy, nevertheless that public firebrand of seditions was unexpectedly extinguished, and the hatreds of the refractory multitude calmed: the arms clamoring everywhere fell silent; and peace, and security, and tranquillity were restored to the city. Which indeed, since they happened at that time when heat above all and strength were being added to those most turbulent motions, and no hope of composing the discord shone forth, it was the constant opinion of good men that this had been obtained from the supreme Deity by the prayers of Cajetan, who had not long before put off mortality. Which the Neapolitan city itself, lest its gratitude should grow old in the following years, willed to be attested by proofs of public reverence. For indeed it was sanctioned by a common decree of the Seggi, as it is called, that every year, on the recurring anniversary memory and day of his death, seven funeral tapers in all should be dedicated to Cajetan during the solemn Sacred rites, six men sitting by the altar and the Mass, who with solemn words framed, and an express profession of the debt, should publicly offer them. And as though they had not yet returned a favor equal to so notable a benefit, they afterward heaped up their zeal for the most holy Man and most benevolent father with a new and more brilliant testimony.

[74] For, each having celebrated their assemblies in their own portico and seat, as is customary, is ascribed to the patronage of Cajetan after his death by common consent and applause they adopted him among the patrons of the city and kingdom. But these votes had no success, because just at that time Pope Urban VIII provided by law that no Blessed could be reckoned among the patrons of cities and kingdoms who had not yet been duly reckoned among the Saints. Further, that tranquillity was restored to the Neapolitans by Cajetan's prayer, as though by his death he had expiated a public calamity, our ancient fathers willed to be consigned to our records and to a weighty eulogy: and we think it opportune here to transcribe that most brilliant testimony of the matter from the Neapolitan record-office of the divine Paul. And it runs thus: "Blessed Cajetan, of the noble stock of the Counts of Thiene, of Vicenza, one of the four founders of the Clerks Regular at Rome in 1524, full of the divine spirit, everywhere distinguished in word and example and notable for the glory of miracles, died at Naples in the year 1547, on the seventh of the Ides of August, from anguish of soul on account of the disaster impending over the city and the seditious tumults; which nevertheless were calmed by his prayers when he had been carried up into heaven."

[75] Which also, most diligently sifted by the keenest judgment of the Roman Rota, by public was found not to have been rashly and commonly bandied about; but carried around by a constant opinion among prudent men, and, as it were handed down through their hands, to have come to us by continuous report. Wherefore, when the judges were treating before the Roman Pontiff about numbering Cajetan in the census of the Blessed, his virtues and deeds distinguishedly done being described, and that calamity of the times being recorded, they plainly affirm from the opinion of all that he both helped Naples, engaged in the utmost crisis of affairs, by his prayers and vigils while he lived, and, when dead, having pleaded the cause more happily in heaven, made it tranquil. Silos in the Life of St. Cajetan, book 1, chapter 22, at the end, proves this moreover from images printed about those times; in which Cajetan, prostrate before God, was praying for the afflicted city, and below were read these verses, of our Cudner the Englishman, he says:

While Parthenope is in turmoil, he grieves, and dies of grief: The crowd suddenly falling silent will be the praise of the dying man.

[76] What Silos hands down on page 265 from Caracciolo concerning the victory won after St. Cajetan's death by the emperor Charles V over Frederick, duke of Saxony, testimony. as though a part of that war happily concluded pertained to him already received into heaven, does not stand. That these things do not cohere with the day of that victory will be shown below in the annotations to the Life, chapter 9, letter e.

[77] Some sayings of Cajetan: In Caracciolo too you will find some of the many sayings of the Saint which have perished; to which it is pleasing to add these from Castaldo's Life, chapter 2, thus rendered into Latin by us: We ought, while we are here, to obtain eternal life; which we alone can no longer here attain, because we once lost it by our sins; but Jesus Christ recovered it.

Love God, direct your will always to his good pleasure: and do not doubt that, if you should be forsaken by all the Saints (grant that this could happen) and by all creatures, he will always be at hand for you in all your necessities.

I affirm that men, even though they be great kings, neither have nor ever will have any delight in this life, save through Jesus Christ. All other delights are bewitchings and sorceries, with which the devil afflicts him who complies with him.

To which add these from Silos's History, book 7, page 283: When he wished to stir up contempt of human things and of oneself, he was chiefly wont to pronounce these words: To groan under this heavy burden of mortality falls to the lot of all. But although one and the same calamity and plague touches all the living; nevertheless a more fertile crop of miseries springs up for those to whom life is dearer; and those who value it more, grieve more.

[78] his eulogies, Caracciolo, praised above, also brings forward the testimony which Erasmo Danesi, a most upright priest who lived with him for some while, left in writing, and in which he represents the exceptional gifts of his most holy Founder, gathered as it were into a fist, briefly indeed, but graphically and vigorously, not neglecting also his external bodily stature and conformation; which, since they exist there, we do not transcribe hither. I confess, he says, that I cannot match all his virtues in speaking; it will have been enough to have said this, that that most pious Priest flourished with exceptional sanctity and with distinguished ornaments of virtues. He had premised: I could have noticed more; but at that time, on account of my youth, I was not diligently free for observing these things. But we, God granting, shall range over this most ample field opened to us both by Caracciolo and by Danesi for running through the virtues and praises of a Man on every side most notable, and shall search out such precious traces, beginning from the public concourse to his bier.

[79] which are not had in the author of the Life, The death of the most holy Man being published abroad, says the often-cited Silos on page 264, an incredible feeling of the Neapolitans received it, because they acknowledged in Thiene a father and public procurator and teacher of souls. There was very much talk through the city about his excellent virtue and notable sanctity: and, to venerate his lifeless body, worn out with vigils and the harshness of his life, men of every age and rank flowed together in rivalry into the church of St. Paul. These things the Bull of beatification thus reports and corroborates: To the veneration of the body exposed in the church for the prayers and solace of all, a huge multitude of people flowed together; which attested the opinion of his sanctity, long since conceived, by manifold veneration, by kissing his hands and feet, and by tears, which the loss of a most excellent intercessor with God drew forth as they burst out of their own accord.

[80] and elsewhere by us here To the Life published by Caracciolo are prefixed distinguished eulogies of Cajetan of Thiene by various writers; which we report from him thus: I. The Diary of the Vicenza confraternity of St. Jerome, at the year 1519, folio 9: Cajetan of Thiene, Apostolic Protonotary, doctor of canon law, a most devout man, and full of the divine spirit, and

so most holy in life and manners. II. And at folio 33: The reverend lord Cajetan, a devout servant of Jesus Christ, entered the confraternity of St. Jerome on the fifth of the Ides of January 1519. He was the light and splendor of our society, and the pillar of its beneficence. Further, whatever I shall say is less than that Man's desert. III. Gian Pietro Carafa, then a Regular priest, afterward Supreme Pontiff under the name of Paul IV, in a letter written to his sister Maria on the day before the Kalends of October 1533: Among my dear brothers the chief is he; the rest you have above, §6, number 62. IV. The same bishop of Chieti, in a letter to Maria Francesca Longo, that excellent matron, of whom Torsellini writes in his History of Loreto, book 2, chapter 10: I in turn, lady, have learned that we did not in vain place our trust in you, because you received my aforesaid brothers (Cajetan of Thiene and Giovanni Marinoni) not as men sent by men, but as holy angels deputed by the divine Deity.

[81] V. Onofrio Panvinio in the Life of Paul IV, before the middle: are supplied Cajetan of Thiene, a noble of Vicenza, a holy man. VI. The manuscript Index of the Saints and Blessed of the church of Vicenza, in Fortunatus the Cassinese: On the seventh of the Ides of August, blessed Cajetan, confessor, founder of the Order of the Theatines. VII. Andreas Schott of Antwerp in his Itinerary of Italy, folio 62: To whom (the illustrious prelates) must be numbered the divine Cajetan of Thiene, one of the founders of the Theatine fathers. VIII. Giacomo Marzari in book 2 of his History of Vicenza, at the year 1524: Cajetan of Thiene II, Apostolic Protonotary, most learned in sacred and human letters, a man of blameless life, founded in these times the Order of the Theatines together with the bishop of Chieti, whose name, when he was afterward raised to the supreme Pontificate, was Paul. Thus far that.

[82] In Silos, in the Life, book 2, chapter 14, the Saint is declared by Peregrino Bertacchi, bishop of Modena, from various sources, A true and living example, from whom remarkable goods could flow forth upon men of every state, and especially upon the Clergy; of which the Blessed himself was reformer and restorer. Paolo Emilio Saraceni commends him in the same place with these praises: At this time was called into heaven blessed Cajetan, of the most noble family of the Thienes, one of the Tutelary Saints of Vicenza, founder of the Clerks Regular; who taught his sons above all the invocation of divine providence. Giuseppe Laurenzio is affirmed in the cited place to have written thus about him to one of the Counts of Thiene: Whose most upright and most holy life, and most happy death, and one to be admired for miracles, is celebrated by the common speech of all and is set forth in the monuments of writers. The aforesaid writer of the Life records these things from a fragment of a letter of Alessandro Cardinal d'Este: It is indeed worthy that the glorious memory of so great a Man be commended to all, who without doubt was a new Apostle, was a new angel, sent by God to reform morals, and to imprint the sign of the cross not on the forehead, but in the heart of the Faithful, by mortification and by the example of his life. Which indeed I vehemently long for, both on account of the devotion with which I am kindled toward the Blessed, and on account of the virtues and miracles which render him greatly conspicuous. Silos may be consulted in book 7 of his History, page 292; where he adds the citations. And these two things indeed, namely first his virtues, and then the miracles which followed them, will supply us with material exceedingly copious for a good many paragraphs.

[83] whose words But before we arrive at that, it will not be beside the point to weave into the eulogies just produced that of Castaldo, chapter 9 of the Life, in which the Saint is weightily and elegantly praised. But from the Italian it runs thus in Latin: A man who, dealing with men or with God, seemed an angel, and reckoned himself as a worm: untiring in labors, sparing in food, nourishing himself more with tears and with the gains of souls than with anything else: brief in sleep, long in prayer, devout at the sacrifice, poor and mean in dress, adorned and exquisite in divine worship: severe and rigid with himself; kind and gentle with others: in conversation at once affable and grave; whence he rendered himself lovable and equally venerable: sparing in words, most liberal in works, opening his heart to everyone with true charity. In bestowing alms and rendering service to the poor, it was not known whether his charity or his humility was the greater. In governing others, he commanded by carrying out; by his authority he caused things to be committed to execution: prudent in foreseeing the future, confident in providing: wise beyond measure and discreet in giving counsel; in the affections of his soul so subject to reason that the observation of the motions of his soul reproduced a harmony, the nobility of his soul shining back in his very body.

[84] are given. The anonymous writer in the Life of the holy Founder published at Venice, book 4, page 495, writes that Alessandro Memmolo of Venice, a Religious of the Order of the same Saint, conceived such pious sentiments of soul about him that, being examined under oath, he commended to posterity the following testimony, which from the Venetian Process in the same anonymous writer runs thus from the Italian: I have heard from the report of many Fathers who were living at the time when blessed Cajetan lived, that he was a man of most holy life, of rigorous Religious abstinence: and in particular he was almost never seen to laugh. He was present at all the Hours of the Office in choir by night and by day; and he was the first in entering it, and the last in going out thence. And although from the weakness of his defective feet he could hardly stand on his feet, he never sat down, nor in any way supported himself in choir on a prop while singing the divine praises. Not even a small blemish of imperfection could be found in his life; so much so that by all the Religious, both nurslings of our own and of other Religious orders, who knew him, he was regarded, esteemed, and held in veneration as a saint.

§ VIII. His virtues. Innocence of life, affliction of the body, custody of the senses, virginity; the same virtue promoted in others; three monasteries of women raised up.

His wonderful innocence of manners from his earliest age Silos, very often already mentioned and further to be mentioned by us, in book 7 of the History of the Clerks Regular, from page 265, excellently recounting the virtues of his best Parent, says: Now, what was the disposition and sanctity of Cajetan of Thiene, and with what ornaments of most beautiful virtues he strove toward that holiness and perfection of life and manners; although from those things which have been related thus far we are persuaded that we have abundantly recorded it; nevertheless, because the pen and the reckoning of times could not embrace everything, and because very many proofs of Thiene's virtue have claimed no fixed place for themselves; we shall recount them one by one, as it were under their own standards. Therefore what first occurs in Cajetan is his constant innocence of life from the very cradle. Namely he was carried blamelessly past that flower of age which you would more rightly call a reef: since indeed exceedingly rare are those who have not made it famous by their shipwrecks. And we know indeed that most of the Saints passed their life most holily in every kind of virtue; whose youth, if you regard it, you will find that they were carried away by that heat and impulse of their age, so that afterward they had to avenge the vice of their burning years with long torments, and tears, and blood. Cajetan overcame the common condition of mortals by his distinguished disposition and institute: who began to begin his life with such praise of piety and innocence that he had not thereafter to unweave the web he had already made by a new manner of living: and, having entered upon the way of perfection with constant discipline, he had nothing in the following years to punish or to change: so that deservedly, even in the very novitiate of his flourishing age and virtue, he was called most holy and most devout; as was signified in its place. See what we premised above at number 7.

[86] And here plainly admiration at once enters the mind, he joins with a most severe affliction of the body. that a Man excellently holy even from his earliest age punished himself with continual affliction of the body just as if, conscious of huge crimes, he judged that a soul at some time defiled must be expiated by a most bitter infliction of penalties and by a force of tears. And indeed Cajetan was not of the number of those who, reckoning it abundantly enough to have cast a bridle by inward mortification upon the faculties of the soul, lest the affections, making an assault, rebel against reason, which is the chief part in man; but who for the rest treat the body more mildly, and if they exercise it somewhat, do it with a slow hand, and indulge it rather much, under some appearance of human weakness or necessity. For indeed he was so wholly given to composing the motions of the soul and restraining every sense, as if he were held by no care of thoroughly subduing the body, while in turn he strove with such striving to train the body and to punish it with the gravest penalties, just as if he thought nothing of the soul's victory and command. But he bent his sinews to this affliction of the body the more vehemently because he knew that there is a certain agreement and covenant of the body with the soul: so that unless you break it, and, a bridle being cast on, subject it, you would hope in vain to overthrow the latter's desires and disturbances: and as the wars of souls are wont to be easily calmed by a severe discipline of the limbs, so it happens that the affections blaze up to the man's destruction and to the ruin of the virtues, if you cherish the body.

[87] Cajetan therefore was an assiduous and plainly austere censor and lictor of himself; By penance and fasting, so that most, when they saw his fixed practice and custom in punishing and torturing his body, did not hesitate to call him a man of great penance. Nor indeed could he stop at any moderation of punishments and macerations, who was carried by a certain implacable hatred against himself. For we have received that he was wont to say that he hated his body as a certain rebellious and infernal spirit. A saying assuredly memorable, which you will scarcely find uttered by anyone in all antiquity. And plainly he who held his body in that place, and who understood, when he subdued his body, that his struggle and war was not against flesh and blood, but against the princes and powers of these darknesses — with what striving he strove to wear it down, with what hardness of living, and with how great rigors, is not easy to say. Wonderfully strenuously did he mock gluttony, which very often devours at once the wealth acquired by sweat and all the virtues. To the Church's appointed fasts there are added by our institute not a few, which nevertheless by no means satisfied Cajetan's mind, most greedy of abstinence; but he had besides imposed upon himself such a law and austerity of diet that he seemed to fast daily: for all daintiness of foods being proscribed, his more precious provocations of the palate were either common herbs or cooked pulse: very often he was content with common bread alone and cold water. By which more austere fare indeed and continual abstinence he had reduced himself to such leanness that, equal to the great Basil, worn out with the utmost want of food and dried up with fasts, he seemed to consist of skin and bones.

[88] and also by scantiness of sleep he wore down his body. To these most strict plans of life, moreover, was added the measure of sleep instead of its allurement: for on a harsh and rather short bed he lay most softly upon straw, which, almost never shaken up or changed, you would say was but little removed from a bare board or the ground. But to a rest of this most severe kind even few hours were granted, and he kept vigil far into the night, either in study for the instruction of souls, or

in meditations on divine things, or intent upon chastising his body: and not rarely he spent a whole night, scourges being strenuously applied and other punishments inflicted upon himself. Besides this, girt also with iron, and clothed in a hair-shirt, he served under severe virtue; lest any kind of arms should be lacking to a most warlike man, whose purpose was the triumph over his desires and over himself. And these most harsh exercises of the body he intensified most of all when he either set himself to obtain some benefit from God for himself and others, or when public evils had to be warded off and the Deity propitiated. For then indeed, to add weight and force to his prayers, he was wont to rage more briskly and to assail himself with graver injuries, no account being had of his health. These things are confirmed from the bull of canonization: He sometimes spent whole nights in afflicting his body, beating it thoroughly with an iron chain and with scourges: his food was common and sparing; and most often of bread and water alone: his sleep short, and on a mattress of straw; the lying on which he endured to the very end even in his last sickness, although the physician, observing that he labored too much lying on it, had striven to make him accept another softer one. To whom Cajetan said: Shall I die so softly? Nay, in ashes and hair-cloth I ought and wish to die. Let us proceed to other things with Silos.

[89] Custody of the eyes The remaining discipline of his members anyone could easily conjecture from this more austere manner. For that rigor had so trained his eyes (to bridle which, as it is exceedingly difficult, so it is of the greatest importance for a composed mind) that no most pleasant object could ever carry them away. Which indeed he openly showed in that more celebrated pomp of Charles the emperor, with which he entered Naples; when he could never be induced to loosen his eyes toward a most honorable and by far most beautiful spectacle, though his companions exhorted him, and though the triumph itself, being very near, above all allured, as we have said. With the custody of the eyes the moderators of Religious duty have joined that of the tongue, and have admonished that the discipline of each be tempered with equal severity, lest the mind flow away and evaporate through these vents. But so great was Thiene's zeal for restraining the tongue that he was never seen to slip, or to utter anything outside the due order and the profit of others: being namely by far the most diligent appraiser of words, as though he weighed and sold them in the scale of most precious things; and he used very few of them, in their place.

[90] Nor was Cajetan content with that silence which it is of our institute and custom to keep entirely from the first lights to the first daylight; and of the tongue: he sometimes prolonged it, with continued prayers, up to the midday meal, and very often too, when the reckoning of some necessary duty did not interrupt, he kept silence whole days, plainly imitating that John who has a most celebrated surname from silence; and Gregory Nazianzen, whom it is established from letters to have thoroughly subdued his tongue with the bridle of long silence. Thus Silos. And indeed in the Life of the anonymous writer printed at Venice, book 3, §16, page 445, these things are recorded of the Saint from the Neapolitan Process, folio 101: Three things establish and preserve the contemplative life: inward purity of heart, the enclosure and custody of the gate of all the senses, and the carrying out of inward inspirations.

[91] Nor did the Saint admit anything which even in shadow the unstained brightness of virginity; might seem able to darken the unstained brightness of his mind. But this flower of soul and this purity, to continue with Silos, Cajetan seemed to have cultivated the more zealously because he knew that its most beautiful form is corrupted and dishonored by any light breath. He had armed his soul with a certain remarkable fear, by which he strove to elude the arts of the evil demons and the incitements of occasions, and accordingly to protect with all his power the outstanding glory of chastity. In receiving the filth of others in confession, lest his ears and mind, that stain being conceived, should be defiled, his care was to fortify himself more intently with prayer, and then most of all to implore the power of the Deity and the patronage of the Mother of God. He whose speech was always scanty, when it happened that he addressed women, had altogether the scantiest; and he especially avoided those who, not without harm to honor, indulged too much in the splendor of garments for their nobility and beauty; as though he feared a harmful fire from that gleam of gems and gold. Wherefore, since most noble matrons already well knew this remarkable love of his for modesty, we have found that they perpetually observed this with Cajetan, that when they greatly desired to approach him for their own instruction and profit, they would not dare to do so before, all adornment of body and of garments being cast off, and the elegance of their face being chastened by a certain neglect, they composed themselves to that norm of Thiene's modesty: judging it indeed not safe to be presented to his sight with that luxury and magnificence, whose display they understood to be silently and sharply reproved by his most honorable countenance. And indeed the modesty which was in his soul and most pure mind also honored his brow and countenance with a certain plainly amiable rigor, and made it for a little severe. Which Erasmo Danesi Caetano, a most upright man, who had once dealt familiarly with Thiene, left attested in that Commentary which he wrote about his virtues. The anonymous Life published at Venice, book 3, §16, page 441, relates these things from the Report of the Sacred Rota: Since he knew that he could not be continent unless God gave it; and that this very thing was the highest wisdom, to know whose gift this was; he went to the Lord, and besought him: who, hearing the prayers and desire of his Servant, bestowed the gift of continence; to which he joined modesty, chastity, and honor. And from the said Report in the same place, page 443, he is called an image of angelic purity. Now let us return to Silos.

[92] But he strove with all zeal to instill this love of a most beautiful virtue into the minds of others, the dignity of its form being set forth. And many indeed, whom the infernal spirit had almost stormed by his force and evil arts, which virtue also he strenuously promoted and confirmed in others; he strengthened and held by laying his hand on them, lest they should prostitute a remarkable virtue. But very many he so inflamed toward it by his exhortations that, being enrolled in Religious Orders, they chose to pass unstained a way alien from all commerce and allurement of sense. And this zeal indeed for protecting the honor of others the most holy Man did not wish to be limited by the bounds of his own life. For indeed, after he ceased to be among the living, he very often gave himself to the sight of mortals; and was seen with a certain grave appearance to drive away the very evil demons who were provoking to most impure things. Two benefits of this kind must here be related. One conferred at Vicenza; the other at Venice: each established by records and by sworn testimony.

[93] even after his very death; which he proves by two examples At Vicenza there was a certain woman of honorable station, whom rebellious incubus spirits assailed with huge force, and were trying to bring to this, that she should cast away the chastity to which she had devoted herself, a great sin being committed. And already once and again, an assault being made, she had almost given her hands: when Cajetan, to whom she had commended herself from her heart, illuminated with a certain wonderful light, at once showed himself to her; and with his countenance and brow put the terrified enemies to flight under the horridly filthy image of serpents. Then the woman, being somewhat sharply rebuked by him, never afterward experienced temptations of that kind; save that, not long after, being challenged to a new contest, she feels herself more vehemently urged to abjure and to spit upon the image of the Blessed Father, which she venerated fixed in her chamber as the protection of the place and of herself: which crime she easily execrated: while meanwhile the evil demons testified against their will that even Cajetan's image alone was a most certain safeguard and amulet of honor.

[94] he proves; But at Venice something not a little more admirable happened. A certain noble virgin complained that by efforts of an evil spirit of this kind, her mind's purity indeed being entire, the chastity and flower of her body had been touched. In a business and a loss of that moment she thought it best to appeal to Cajetan, whose anniversary day she knew to be close at hand. Nor was her confidence eluded. For indeed Cajetan presented himself to her as she implored, with a certain awe-inspiring appearance of countenance; and, the sign of the cross being made, he not only wiped out those images of most base things which were wont to defile her mind; but was also seen to have repaired the ruin of her body, and to have restored the flower which the evil spirits had struck off even by inflicting a blow. I know that this matter can seem beyond belief and outside the order of miracles; since indeed you will find no wonder of the kind recounted in the histories of the Saints. And Jerome indeed has these words to the virgin Eustochium: "I will speak boldly: although God can do all things, he cannot restore a virgin after her fall." By which that greatest man seems to establish that virginity once touched can no longer flourish again. But indeed, although this ought altogether to be affirmed of formal, as they say, and absolute virginity, which theologians place in the purpose and mind; nevertheless that the integrity of the flesh, which is not itself the virtue but the matter of the virtue, can be restored, there is no cause why we should deny; since it is established that crystal and golden cups, very often broken, were restored whole by the prayers of holy men; as the monuments of histories relate concerning the divine Donatus, prelate of Arezzo, and concerning Leo, the most holy Pontiff, the ninth of that name.

[95] and the above things But very many things of this kind concerning Cajetan were proved by sworn witnesses, which the irrefragable judgment of the Roman Rota, when Thiene's virtue had to be reported to the Pontiff, willed to be attested in these very words: "Very many too have known themselves to be freed from long and inveterate vexations of carnal vices, and altogether immune from the stings of such allurements, when they commended themselves confidently and devoutly to the Servant of God." Which indeed we have not hesitated to attribute to his incomparable purity. For by whatever virtue anyone has been especially renowned and flourished on earth, in that, when he has afterward been raised to heaven, there has always been the material and most ample crop of his glories. This too I would not conceal here as the crown of Thiene's purity, which very many, being asked about this matter, asserted: namely that when Cajetan was present and presented himself to those who demanded his help in the sharpest conflict of the flesh, a certain most sweet fragrance of the citron used to breathe forth; which, diffused far and wide, lasted also for a long time: assuredly a most certain indication of his virginity, of which we know the citron is a brilliant symbol on account of its perpetual greenness.

[96] The things said above are confirmed from the Bull of canonization in these words: [are confirmed by the weightiest testimonies. Three monasteries of women raised up by the Saint.] He so restrained his eyes and tongue that he passed whole days in silence, and always kept them fixed on the ground: nor could his mind ever be overcome by any allurements, or softened by curiosity. Whence it came about that if at any time most noble matrons wished to address him, they did not dare to approach near unless, all feminine adornment being laid aside, they composed the outward habit of their body to the laws of Christian humility and modesty. For indeed they revered his angelic purity, gravity, and modesty of countenance. And this was singular in him, that he wonderfully carried away those who came to the love of virginity, and to taking up the celibate life in monasteries; and those who were vexed by long and inveterate stings of carnal thoughts at once knew themselves free from them, as soon as they set about commending themselves from the heart to the Servant of God, or it was granted them to enjoy his conversation or presence. Wherefore three monasteries of nuns at Naples

he raised up; one of sacred virgins under the most strict rule of the Capuchins; another of women who, having at some time suffered the loss of chastity, fled after shipwreck to the harbor of salvation through penance; and a third of nuns, called of St. Mary of the Sapienza, its foundress being Maria Carafa, sister of the aforesaid Paul our predecessor: by whom the government of it was committed by a particular right to the Servant of God and to his Order.

§ IX. Contempt of earthly things, zeal for poverty, confidence in God; the divine providence both toward him and toward his Order.

The fleeting things of this world The anonymous Life published at Venice, book 3, §15, page 440, reports that he said to his own men, from the Neapolitan Process, folio 75: The transitory goods of this world are another's, and not proper to man: but the eternal ones, not falling under sight, for which he was created, are proper to him. Wherefore, despising those, we ought always to aspire to these. Silos on page 168 confirms at greater length thus this noble contempt of fleeting things by which the holy Man shone: And in him indeed, who, the advantages of a most opulent house and the appellations and mitres of honors being renounced, and a most harsh plan of life being set before himself and others, strenuously embraced the cross, that exceptional contempt of human things and of the world at once occurs in the first place. And certainly after Cajetan once understood that the allurements and the gold of the age were adorning a mask and a certain stage, nothing great or beautiful could ever take his magnanimous and truly golden heart: and all those highest things upon which the prayers and hopes of mortals seem more vehemently to lean, he despised with his loftier mind as lowest and abject. It may be read in his letters which are extant in what place he held the most flourishing fortunes of men, how much he valued the pinnacles of things and purples; what his judgment was concerning the world's esteem and fame. He judged that a delusion was cast upon eyes and minds by all these, and that they were certain enchantments for deceiving. This contempt of mortals, moreover, he especially proved by a remarkable contempt of his own family and kinsmen. As a discordant and unpleasing voice to his ears he received the mention of his distinguished stock and of his own people.

[98] and he holds the splendor of his family in the lowest place. When once he had left his own house, he was never seen to seek it again or to stay there even for an hour: since indeed when it sometimes happened that he returned to Vicenza, he could never be prevailed upon to turn aside to his kinsmen's house, though his brothers long and much entreated him; but he went straight to the public hospital of the city; and there he taught by his straw-bed how much he esteemed the comforts and adornment of a house, while meanwhile he was wholly at hand for the sick with exceptional offices of charity. What if he did not even deign to look at his kinsmen, lest perchance that outward light of family should dazzle his eyes, and stir up either a taste for a bit of glory or an affection toward his own? And it is plainly worthy of record what happened at Naples. For when very many of his kinsmen had come thither, that they might look upon him who had been absent so long; when he heard that they had come with that celebrity and pomp which befitted most noble men, fixed upon the Deity and the cross, with a certain great magnitude of soul he willed neither to address nor to behold them: so that those most distinguished men had to return without greeting him whom they had come to see — congratulating indeed his family and themselves on so great a virtue; but plainly sad because it had not been permitted them to take in with their eyes that kindred pattern of holiness: and Cajetan showed most excellently how vile the world was to him; and how he had blotted out that love, which is wont to be most vehement, toward his kinsfolk; whom he never strove to help in obtaining human honors either by any human aid, or even by divine, that is, by prayers to God; which he employed only for the procuring of their souls, in obtaining heavenly things alone.

[99] A plainly singular poverty he both prescribed for himself and And hence it was very easy for Cajetan to arrive at the deepest poverty. Nor indeed could he have professed so severe a want and lack of all things who had not with that remarkable mind despised the abundance and luxury of the world; just as, conversely, every human thing and pomp could the less be so strenuously despised, unless so great a love of apostolic and truly great poverty had been fixed in his heart. Certainly, although Cajetan seemed in most virtues to excel or to equal others; in poverty I know not whether anyone can be preferred to him. For he touched its highest line, beyond which, as it befell no mortal in the ancient age to strive, so in this our time all almost by experience deny credit that our Order lives by those laws and straits of want, although it is hidden from no one. For indeed, that a family lives not only with no revenue and fixed income, but not even with what is begged, as we have recorded more fully elsewhere, and counts it altogether a sin if anyone in the utmost destitution implores the piety and alms of the faithful — what indeed more worthy of praise and admiration will the mind conceive? This poverty flourished once in the very bosom of the flourishing Church, like the lilies which neither labor nor spin. But Cajetan at last restored it, often broken off, and entrusted it to the fidelity of his own men as a most splendid patrimony, never at any time to be alienated or diminished, and with a certain hope that the posterity of the Clerks Regular would never go bankrupt, whom this want of things, and this poverty not even by begging, should enrich and support.

[100] But with what striving Cajetan strove to protect his distinguished institute, for the followers of the apostolic life; as is clear from deeds, he plainly taught by the celebrated contest which, foot joined to foot and the testimonies of the divine Scriptures produced, he entered upon with the Count of Oppido at Naples, having moreover routed a phalanx and eloquence of Religious men who stood with the Count against Thiene's fixed purpose. But at Verona there was a like contest, as we have said, the munificence of that best prelate being refused, by which he supported the servants of Christ, fearing lest a rather liberal bestowal should nibble at and harm that want to which he had consecrated himself and his Order; for he seemed to rejoice exceedingly when by a stricter fare and food he gathered the fruit of the poverty he had vowed. But it often happened that he came to table with his own men, furnished with nothing but little morsels of scanty bread and some citrons; and sometimes to have added four fresh beans to the bread served in place of a certain allurement: while meanwhile he rejoiced within that Christ's poor were refreshed with those daintinesses. But this distinguished virtue shone forth in his very habit, and in every outward thing. For his garment was of meaner material and badly patched. He said that he reckoned he had put on a jeweled toga when he wore a patchwork cloak. The furniture and adornment of his little cell Erasmo Danesi, whom we praised above, expressed in these words (which you have in Caracciolo at the end of the Life of St. Cajetan).

[101] And indeed this supreme destitution of things he had long since, which are here produced. when he had not yet given his name to the cross, sketched out and vowed in his mind. For he had once said at Vicenza to lord Xavinellio, a most dear friend and a man of tried probity, and that from a most burning heart, those words: "I shall not cease to bestow upon the needy whatever I have, until for Christ I become so poor that when dead I obtain not even burial save by another's favor." Such was his will in the very twilight of his better life. But how greatly that ardor grew, the poverty afterward vowed to God — born in the ancient age, and obsolete in his own century — which we have spoken of, declared: whose praise and value, as though no virtue were so much at his heart, he strove to brand upon the minds of his own men with his last words. For when he was passing his last day and breath, he said to them especially these things: Sons, as long as I have lived, I have lived poor, and I have greatly desired to depart from life in the utmost want. But I would greatly wish this to be highly commended to you.

[102] Further, this excellent and almost divine kind of poverty, [The heroic confidence of St. Cajetan and of his Order concerning God's providence,] which Cajetan so intensely loved, proves a certain incomparable confidence in God and his providence. For indeed to rely not on wealth, not on estates, not on requests and entreaties, nay rather to have cut off, by an enacted law, the opportunities of all these from himself and from posterity — what plainly else was this than to lean wholly upon divine hope, to will heaven as steward and storekeeper, and to be fed only immediately by God's hand and care? Which indeed, although it may be able to seem a certain over-confident appearance of virtue, and to trust above man; nevertheless it is doubtful to no one that it proves a certain magnanimous disposition in Cajetan, and, if you reckon rightly, not only a remarkable faith in God, but a certain excess of faith and a plainly heroic virtue. Let all the most holy men and those most burning for poverty have fixed their hopes in God; certainly you will find no one who did it with a more upright mind than Thiene: since indeed a certain admixture of piety and help sought from men adds something human to the confidences of others; but Cajetan admitted a hope altogether most pure and drawn only from heaven, and implored indeed the liberality and alms of mortals, but by prayer poured out to God, not to men.

[103] which by various But how the providence of the divine Deity answered this most certain confidence of his; and how the proofs of heavenly beneficence which thereafter followed testified brilliantly, and often more liberally and more seasonably than any estates and revenues. And indeed not only did Thiene himself sometimes experience God's timely benevolence, when he seemed most of all to be pressed by the utmost straits of domestic affairs; but also, when the same patrimony of poverty and confidence had been transmitted to his offspring, it happened in the following years that the same munificence of the Deity was often experienced in very many places of our congregation. Very many examples of such matter we have hastily pursued above, having promised to explain the more celebrated ones somewhat more fully in this place. Therefore I think it superfluous here again to record the want of Cajetan and his companions relieved by present aid at Rome, in the utmost disaster and peril of affairs. Although nothing indeed more evidently proves the love and hand of divine providence inclined toward men utterly poor and full of hope than that in the common plundering of the City there were found men who, by an excellent kind of piety, from the fallen remnants of the plunder, spoiled by the feet of men and horses, fed the servants of God destitute of any human help. And a little after, when it happened that they slipped away from the City, that there was likewise found a band of soldiers, that is, of plunderers, who, while they despoiled others, gave to Cajetan and his companions provisions and gold with which to cross the Tiber. Then, when they were more anxiously concerned whither at last they should cross, that the Venetian ambassador was at hand; who, having received them most honorably in his fleet, brought them to Venice:

[104] and wonderful Finally, that they landed at Venice with God's favor, so that, although a most fierce famine harassed all Italy far and wide at that time, in the bay of Venice, where want raged more mildly, they should feel those discomforts less. By these blandishments of providence Cajetan's confidence began to be nourished and confirmed more and more. There followed afterward, day by day, certain unhoped-for helps of the Deity, approving the fortitude of Theatine hope. Two befell Cajetan himself; the one, which the Roman Rota's narration to the Pontiff recounts, was this. At Venice a sum of gold pieces was owed by a man, and the appointed day was at hand on which a most sharp creditor was demanding it. Cajetan sets forth the matter to none of mortals; but to him whom both

he knew to have pledged his faith and heaven to those hoping in him: and scarcely had he framed his prayers when, behold, a young man of plainly comely appearance most courteously held out to Cajetan just as many gold pieces as the payment of the debt demanded: he disclosed to no one that he had sent and bestowed the help. It is doubtful to no one that that kindness flowed from heaven; since, though most diligently sought soon after, the munificent young man appeared nowhere, being namely restored to his own stars, to return opportunely with new alms.

[105] When he was acting as Provost at Naples, another trial of the divine beneficence occurred. he shows by examples of paternal benevolence, The hour of the midday meal had come on; when it is announced to Cajetan that, besides a single loaf of common bread, there was nothing at all in the house to be set before the Fathers. He was seen to relax nothing at all of the tranquillity of his mind and countenance, and nevertheless ordered the signal for the accustomed refreshment to be given. They went into the dining-room: and when the fathers had reclined together, he admonished them of the poverty they had undertaken, and expressly discoursed about its exceptional praise and about placing hope in it. And no more: while he was speaking, the door of the house was knocked upon, and when they ran up, most excellent loaves were found: but who had brought them in, no one was found: and it must be thought that it was that same young man of the number of the Heavenly ones, a minister of the Deity, and one of the more secret almoners of divine providence: who, as he bestowed gold at Venice, when a debt had to be paid, so at Naples brought bread, when bread was lacking, with equal and golden liberality in both places; and by a plainly illustrious proof, that that manner of living introduced by the Clerks Regular, and above all Thiene's huge confidence, was most pleasing to God: since the divine goodness seemed as it were to coin gold in heaven, and to carry on a bakery there, in order to help this want.

[106] Now let us turn our pen to those things which deservedly befell his posterity by a certain hereditary poverty and hope. that most strict poverty Nor do we think this narration alien from the series of Thiene's deeds. For that confidence and generosity was transmitted by him to his own men, which endures in the Congregation even today; and accordingly whatever of this kind happens in it must be consigned to the census of his merits. But since these did not happen next and immediately to the Saint himself, whose Acts we illustrate; and since the narration of them would lead us too far away, and they may be seen in Silos from page 271; we do not transcribe them hither verbatim at greater length, but compress them into a compendium. At Naples therefore bread was brought when the fathers most needed it; likewise provision was made for them of richer fare; add a not small sum of money. To these the author subjoins that at Venice a church and dwelling were built by rather frequent and wonderful favors of divine providence of this kind; that at Milan wine, of which the fathers there labored under the greatest scarcity, was supplied; and at Rome wood necessary for preparing the body's refreshment; that at Cremona several examples of this kind happened; among which he places that once only so much money was brought as was enough for their want; and besides, that a gold coin was found in the garden, not without proof of God's munificent hand. Then he brings in St. Charles Borromeo as a beholder of providence of this kind at Padua. Finally he affirms that proofs of divine beneficence of this kind happened at Piacenza and at Vicenza, and everywhere in the dwellings of the Clerks Regular.

[107] To confirm which, and to return to our Saint, was by far most pleasing to him. the Roman Compendium says: He himself experienced distinguished and almost innumerable proofs of divine providence of this kind, and of its highest munificence: and among the rest, when at one time he was compelled to repay money, and it was not then at hand for him, a certain unknown youth supplied it to him. At another time also, when the hour of the midday meal was pressing, and nothing was found but a single loaf, he ordered the little bell to be rung and the fathers to be called to the refectory, as if the table were already prepared: and while he was holding a discourse with the fathers, by divine providence it came about that the doorbell was rung; and when it was opened, a basket filled with bread was found, nor was he found who brought it. Well known is that saying of the Bull of canonization: With hope raised up in God, he cast all his anxiety upon him, so that on that account he gave this sole confidence in God to his Order in place of an estate.

§ X. Love toward God and toward his neighbor; zeal for prayer.

With how great As this most holy Patriarch was empty of the love of fleeting things, so was he full of the divine. Let us hear Silos, page 273: Therefore that Cajetan so strenuously cast away the advantages and honors of a most flourishing fortune and all the hopes of the world, was a sufficiently brilliant proof that he had already conceived a most burning fire and love of heavenly things. And this ardor indeed explained itself most efficaciously by his very countenance and words. For whether he acted in private or spoke publicly in a sermon, he seemed to such a degree to be inflamed in gesture and speech that you would say he burned with a certain seraphic spirit: and that more effectual force at once kindled others. For indeed this was first with that most eager Man, namely that his flame should not be barren, but should beget in the minds of others a sense and love of divine things, and form them to the fruit of virtue. Which he also performed excellently in writing. Assuredly his letters may be seen, all of them most eloquent with a certain heavenly fire. There is in them no prolix courtesy, no words sought out for winning benevolence; but a diction full of ardor, so that charity itself seems to have written and dictated with the pen. This moreover is established on sworn testimony, that as often as he either spoke or heard words about the love of heavenly things, he seemed to be carried away by a certain secret force and by a most sweet swooning of mind or ecstasy.

[109] toward God But the delights of love were heaped up by the tears from his eyes, with which he was most frequently flooded. A tear is a certain index and also a fuel of love; for hearts do not melt save from a flame. Wherefore it was necessary that most abundant weepings flowed in Cajetan, whom a divine and rather vehement force of ardor had wholly seized. And these showers of tears indeed poured over the most holy Man more copiously when it happened that he turned over in his mind the more celebrated mysteries of the Savior. And since he was borne with a certain special zeal and affection toward the cradle of the newborn Christ, it is wonderful with what feeling and pleasure he was anointed as he received the most sweet memory of the Virgin's childbearing. Certainly nothing was more delightful and more holy to Cajetan than that anniversary and nativity night. That he might indulge his most vehement devotion and loosen the reins to love, he was accustomed to form for himself an image of the manger, and to adorn that whole scene of the embodied and wailing Deity: and by that imitation and spectacle of the matter especially he was so delighted that he went wholly away into most sweet tears and sighs. Likewise he had been accustomed to preach a sermon at that cradle: where, since his weeping was far more copious than his eloquence, he could seem to declaim rather with tears than with words, and with these to inflame the hearts of his hearers.

[110] he burned with the force of love; Likewise other ornaments in Cajetan, or most beautiful impulses of soul, the fruitful charity of the virtues seemed to arouse and to nourish. Hence that most burning ardor of zeal with which he pursued the outrages of lost men, and especially the lies of the innovators, by which he intimately grieved that the brightness of the faith was defiled. But with what zeal and striving he inveighed against monsters of this kind, we have said more fully in its place. Hence his huge patience in harsh and adverse matters, which is the touchstone of all the virtues, but chiefly of charity. Hence his wonderful alacrity under the burden of the day and the heat: so that, although he underwent so many duties of Religion, so many afflictions of the body, and labors, no one ever saw him wearied and relaxing his spirit thereafter in leisure. For love, not leisure, was in the place of nourishment and strength: and we have received that he was wont to say, To one who loves God, any burden is light. To these, for the sake of greater confirmation, let us add that brief but vigorous passage which is had in the Bull of canonization: He glowed above all with that flame of divine charity which he had long since conceived in the aforesaid confraternity of divine Love, so that his heart could not endure to be contained within the enclosure of his breast. Hence continual tears, sighs, groans, ecstasies, the indications of so great an ardor. Hence, that he might kindle all with the same flame, he ran hither and thither, in the likeness of flashing lightning; and, that he might admonish a friendly prelate who was omitting to say Mass daily on account of the abundance of business by which he was detained, he flies to Rome, even in the raging dog-days, and, that pious office being discharged, at once returned to Naples. Thus far that.

[111] But now, with Silos leading the way on page 274, let us turn our discourse to his love toward his neighbors. with how great charity For with an equal front each charity runs, that toward God and that toward mortals: and the one swells from the flame of the other. And indeed I know not whether Thiene's outstanding charity can be represented with closer or more genuine lineaments than those with which the censors of the Roman Rota described it. Their words, moreover, run thus: "Reckoning it a most sweet refreshment continually to watch the soul, and to devise found and new means by which he might bring help to the salvation of souls and provide for it with zeal. Wherefore he was held by an assiduous work of charity. For by sermons, letters, counsels, and confessions he gave himself wholly to the relief of souls." Whereby indeed it is established that Cajetan's more active charity by no means stuck at moderate praise, nor wished to be restrained by bounds and by common zeal; but devised new things day by day, and thereafter added more excellent cares, by which he might oblige the race of men. His charity toward his neighbors was almost coeval with him; since indeed he had not yet swum out from infancy when he was eager to demand alms and to bestow them with his own hand upon the needy. And it grew afterward, and, stronger, served most excellently in the hospitals. He served the sick assiduously, kept watch, ran about, never deterred by any labor or fouler spectacle or abject work.

[112] Which indeed could seem proofs of a certain moderate virtue, toward his neighbor, is so acknowledged, had he not also more nobly devoted his own head for the salvation and good of mortals. For when the plague was raging at Venice, he did not refuse to wrestle with that calamity of the times and to rush into the services of those lying sick. As though he were fortified by a certain present amulet, he seemed to despise the most pestilential force of the disease, with a nearer and more courageous disposition and hand toward the sick. And very many were most excellently roused by his example to the work, so that not only by his own aid, but also by the charity of others, whom he inflamed, he was at hand for the public evil. The decretal Letters of canonization dispatch these things most briefly, when they indicate that in caring for the health of bodies and of souls alike he came to this, that when the pestilence raged at Venice, he did not fear to serve with his own hands those laboring with that contagion, and to undertake with ready mind all the meanest offices. But since mention has been made of the care of souls, let us revisit Silos again.

[113] so that he had the name of a hunter of souls, But indeed, he says, he was wholly at hand for helping souls above all, and for procuring their salvation: and that he might either instruct the untaught in sacred things, or restore the wicked to good fruit and mind, he judged that no zeal was to be spared by him, no danger, and likewise no vigils, and tears, and macerations: so that deservedly, on account of this remarkable diligence of soul and his skill in the gaining of his neighbors, some have called him a hunter of souls. Plainly, although alternating rest pleases all, since virtue receives strength when a little loosened and relaxed, as he says (namely Seneca, who is cited in the margin, On Tranquillity, chapter 15), for Cajetan there was no rest from labors

no relaxation, nor did his distinguished disposition and impulse of soul seem to be broken by the assiduity of his cares. Whatever time remained over from the occupations of regular observance and of the common life, he expended on caring for the safety of his neighbors with a certain continuous succession of works: and amid the administration of the sacred rites, amid private and public exhortations to virtue, amid the consolations of the wretched and his assiduous writings, the day slipped by, he never slackening or growing weary. He gave himself chiefly to expiating faults by confession, and, furnished with a certain singular skill in handling souls, it is wonderful with what assiduity and with what fruit he was engaged in that office. There was in his words a certain most courteous kindness and a secret force, by which he seemed to enter minds bravely and sweetly; and by private rebuke or instruction, at close quarters and briefly, as with a dart, he so accomplished the matter that he stormed every heart besieged by crimes. We have received that a certain noble man was wont to say, who once allowed himself to be entreated to open his conscience to Cajetan, that at the beginning indeed that expiation of sins seemed somewhat austere, soon most sweet, having namely experienced the sting and the honey of that most skillful bee.

[114] and both by himself and through his own men Further, that Thiene was excellently animated with a certain more intense zeal for the profit of his neighbors, the fellowship of Clerks Regular which he himself established with his companions teaches. For he raised this greatest work not only for his own advancement or that of a few; but he who was thinking of an ampler crop of souls seemed to have destined an active institute for the common good of the world. And indeed that by the light and incitement of his examples, by the renown of his sermons, by the exquisite worship of the churches, he restored the obsolete frequency of the Sacraments, extinguished in very many places of Italy the flame and plague of heresies, introduced discipline of morals, recalled all the most lost to a better mind, and discharged offices of exceptional charity of that kind, has been recorded elsewhere. And this indeed is Thiene's chief praise, that he did not wish his charity to be circumscribed within the bounds of his own life; but, a fellowship being established, propagated it by a certain perennial succession in the minds and offices of posterity. For establishing this matter that saying of the decretal Letters of canonization excellently serves: With zeal for the Catholic faith, and for the confusion of the heretics, he established the Order of Clerks Regular, and more than once uncovered and routed by diligent inquiry very many monsters of heresies, and their lurking-places.

[115] Besides this, with how great zeal for propagating the divine glory among others, he joined the divine glory with the gain of souls. with how great desire for procuring the salvation of souls the apostolic Man always burned, is clear from his letter to the brothers of the hospital of Mercy at Vicenza, which exists in Castaldo, chapter 2, and which we thus render from the Italian into Latin: Dearest brothers in Christ, may holy peace be with you all. The desire of greeting you causes me to write this letter of mine: and I rejoice on your account, because the divine majesty has deigned to choose you as his own among so many other Christians, and has advanced you to that dignity, that he has handed into your hands a work by far most pleasing, namely the care and governance of a wounded and sickly people; and that the works of the spirit and of virtue may be at your heart, which you practice in your holy oratory and confraternity; all works of true corporal and spiritual mercy. Accordingly I ask you in the bowels of my Lord that those works be of great care and esteem to you, if you wish your souls to be at God's heart and care. Ah! my dear brothers, if you desire to console my soul, bring it about that I may always hear it said (and let deeds correspond to words) that the affairs of the hospital are rightly and with charity governed: and let your works be a light and a good odor in that poor city. And so I beg you by the love of Jesus Christ, and of his most holy Mother, that with concordant and unanimous will you all persevere in those holy works, and pray to God for me, and receive this letter of mine as coming not from me, a sinner, but from the love and obligation which Christ our Lord has given me of loving you, and of desiring that his glory receive increase in that holy society. At Venice, the seventeenth day of June 1541. Your brother in Christ, Cajetan, priest. But now let us again hear Silos:

[116] But with this exceedingly anxious love and care for his neighbors These virtues were adorned there was joined in him — a most difficult combination — a certain incredible quiet of mind, and tranquillity and withdrawal of soul; so that at once he scattered his thoughts for their advantage and opportunities, and at once, recollected inwardly, in the most placid bosom of thought, enjoyed a certain blessed leisure. Assuredly he seemed in the very meditation on divine things to have thought chiefly of this, how he might be able to render accurate service to the utility of mortals; so ardently did he rush from prayer into outward work: again, in the very procuring of souls and in his solicitude, to have learned a certain more fervent manner of praying; with such application of mind and zeal did he return to himself and to prayers from action. Therefore, besides the intervals of time which charity demanded for itself, he was held by an almost assiduous zeal and exercise of praying. For indeed, besides that he very often passed whole nights in prayer, when he was driven by a certain more fervent spirit, or when a sharper care of some impending calamity tormented him, this was his manner and space of praying: he had been accustomed to anticipate the morning Hours, and at once to present himself in the oratory: and this was as it were a certain proem of a longer prayer; and he prefaced with it the prayers before dawn, which he soon sang with the others: and these being finished, he fulfilled the common measure of meditation according to the institute, which he himself continued into the advanced day. Soon he offered at the altar, and again returned to prayers more vigorous from that heavenly banquet; and, unless it happened that he was interrupted, up to the common refreshment he seemed to deal with God and to meditate in a most attentive contemplation of divine things.

[117] Likewise prayers followed the table; then he turned aside to certain outward works of the virtues, until, as day drew toward evening, by singular prerogatives having obtained darkness more suitable for receiving the light from above, he prolonged far into the night his divine commerce with heaven with the utmost striving and perseverance of praying. Plainly if you reckon up the day and the prayers, you will find that Thiene spent the greater part of his age in this most divine exercise. Which the Roman narration to the Pontiff attests in these words: "He spent the greater part of his time in prayers and in choir." Further, he was so devoted to prayer that when he was called away from home for procuring the salvation of others, or when there was need to stay outside his chamber and the oratory, he carried in his hand a manual and a certain little book of the choicest prayers, lest namely a moment should be lost, but that as soon as he was free, prayer should follow at once, and his mind should immediately cleave to God. But with what ardor of soul he prayed, the tears which we have mentioned above, flowing most abundantly, teach. For Danesi, cited above, affirms it in these words: "I remember that I often saw him weeping while praying." Then a certain alienation from the senses, and his body raised up together with his spirit, show the vehemence of his contemplation.

[118] and by ecstatic ones For he was often seen, breathed upon by a certain huge force of the Deity, and carried away in ecstasy from the very duties of life, motionless, already to traverse heaven, and, still mortal, to dwell with the most blessed minds. But when he sometimes prayed with the door shut, his secret prayers could by no means lie hidden: for his sighs and groans, which resounded widely, published them abroad, not without incitement and fruit to the hearers. By this discipline of praying he strove to instruct others also, and admonished nothing either more frequently or more effectually: namely that what he himself experienced as the most present remedy of evils and the most powerful engine for storming heaven, others too should employ; and should thoroughly learn the art both of happily driving off calamities and of summoning from heaven the benefits which they greatly desired. He willed this exercise to be exceedingly familiar above all to the Congregation established by himself, that not only by an active manner of living should it strenuously procure souls; but also that it should strengthen and fortify cities and commonwealths with this most powerful defense of prayer.

[119] in praying to God. Further, a great weight of authority accrues to these things from the decretal Letters of canonization: He was so devoted to prayer, they say, that whatever of time or leisure remained over from domestic business and from procuring the salvation of souls, he gave to prayer and meditation, in the morning anticipating the morning prayers earlier, and in the evening spending it far into the night praying before the high altar with his mind raised up to God. About to perform the divine service, he poured himself wholly out into tears; and, reckoning himself unworthy of that ministry, he implored the help of the great Mother, to whom he was most obedient, that he might receive the life-giving Lamb with the devotion that was fitting, conceiving with a certain most sweet gaze of the mind that the Mother of God was there present, who with a bending and munificent hand held out her most choice Son. For the rest, as regards the names of benefactors, which the Saint appointed to be publicly recited in the dining-room from a raised place for their grateful memory before God (concerning which matter Silos, page 276), consult the Life of the holy Man in Caracciolo toward the end.

§ XI. His particular Heavenly patrons, his pious affection toward the most holy Eucharist, the use of the same promoted in others, the splendor and majesty of the church, the rites of the sacred services, his prudence, his mind enlightened from heaven.

[With particular zeal of piety he venerated St. Andrew the apostle, and St. Peter,] Toward which Heavenly ones St. Cajetan was borne with particular zeal Silos records on page 266: Of the Apostles, therefore, by a certain secret impulse and remarkable affection of soul he honored the divine Andrew; and when he did not offer at the high altar, he had been most religiously accustomed to sacrifice at the altar of this Apostle: perhaps because he had most ardently desired the cross, which he himself venerated most highly, and had chosen the same as the emblem and badge of his Order. He was accordingly wont to employ, for driving away diseases, the liquid which flows from the sacred body of that Apostle: and the divine Andrew himself approved Cajetan's faith and worship, health being at one time restored to the sick by that antidote, as we have already related in its place. But the Prince of the Apostles and his patronage he also reverenced with special offices. Since indeed he knew him to be father and standard-bearer not only of the common Christian cause, but especially of the Clerks Regular. Wherefore, when we pronounce our solemn vows to God according to the prescribed formula, he wished them to be directed above all to Peter: by which he plainly showed that he had commended to him the patronage and protection both of himself and of his own men and of the whole Order.

[121] Moreover he pursued Francis of Assisi with an exceptional worship, St. Francis of Assisi, the most perfect image of his holiness being set before him, to which he might conform himself and the plans of his life. He especially commended poverty among the treasures and gems of the incomparable man's virtues; and he represented it in his own manners and in his Order so exactly that nothing seemed to have come nearer to it. But as he rejoiced to imitate in his measure very many of his virtues, and his remarkable contempt of riches; so those things which are above all imitation he venerated with a certain holier envy; namely those precious memorials and wounds of the dying Deity, with which the most pure body of Francis was wounded and branded, to the increase or the proof of the greatest love. He was therefore so affected with veneration for the Seraphic Father that, when above all that anniversary day drew near on which he departed to heaven, he was accustomed to receive it with a certain most tender

feeling of soul and singular gladness: and by the very cast of his countenance he expressed his reverence and affection toward that exact pattern and miracle of divine love and of all sanctity.

[122] But indeed with what piety he honored the most holy name and dignity of the great Mother and Virgin is not easy to relate. the Virgin Mother of God: That he drank in at once both the light of life and affection toward the Mother of God, his mother at once brought about, when, plainly by the prompting of that same greatest Virgin, as soon as she brought forth her offspring, with a premature and remarkable religion she offered him to her patronage, as we have signified; and Cajetan afterward showed this special love and veneration. For with him the beginning of any work whatever was always from the Virgin; he never undertook anything without auspices, that divine power going before and breathing favor. When it happened that he wrote letters, he wished the name of Mary to be prefixed to the letter together with the most sweet name of Jesus. Certainly letters which begin from that distinguished appellation must be sealed with a certain remarkable piety. When he named the name of Christ the Lord, he was wont to add, by a certain indissoluble bond, "the Son of Mary." He obtained force and weight for his prayers from the name and patronage of Mary. We have received that he was wont to say that mortals can indeed pray to the divine Deity; but that, unless Mary be the intermediary, they will plainly never obtain their prayer. What follows concerning his preparation for Mass, Mary's patronage being invoked before it, we do not transcribe. See what was said at the end of the immediately preceding paragraph.

[123] how highly he esteemed her, Further, for the greater confirmation of the most tender affection toward the Virgin Mother with which St. Cajetan's heart had grown warm, the anonymous author in the Life published at Venice, book 3, §13, page 433, produces from chapter 8 of that Life which Cavo published these things, which we thus translate from the Italian: We cannot well present ourselves to Christ our lord, unless we at the same time offer ourselves to his most glorious Mother Mary, being the sons and servants of both. And soon the anonymous writer subjoins from him these things: Let us invoke the most holy advocate, the Mother of our Redeemer, that she may deign to cover our uncleanness, and to represent it to the just judge, her Son. He will not refuse, but will accept from his Mother our great debts, no otherwise than if they were hers, and through her will pay them to his eternal Father and ours. And further he was often wont to say: For receiving good from God our Lord there is no other means than frequently to pray to the Virgin Mary. And it is fitting that we sometimes make ourselves bold to pray to her. On page 434, writing to the venerable mother sister Maria Carafa, superior of the monastery of the Sapienza, he is brought in as saying these things from the Neapolitan Process, folio 70: Pray to that most holy Mother that she may cover me with the mantle of her most holy humility, and protect me from the just indignation of her Son, which I have provoked by the fault of my mind ungrateful toward the divine benefits. The same anonymous writer in the cited place, from the Saint's letter to Laura Mignani, speaks to this effect: Nor indeed, even though I desire it, can I or do I wish it, unless it be first granted me by my patroness the Virgin Mary that I may hate myself and desire to be despised. She can bring this about: and she has indeed conferred on me some worthy gift, and has shown her love toward me; but she has accomplished nothing if she does not give me this. She well knows that she said: He has regarded the humility of his Handmaid. I am ungrateful toward her, I am unwilling to serve her, I put her to flight; I confess all. But it is right that her will be done, not mine. I know that she wishes us to be her servants of her sweet and now little Jesus, humble with her; ah! why does she not bring this about in me?

[124] and how highly he desired her to be esteemed by others, This is honorable to her, this is placed in her power: by her I have been loved, drawn, and clothed: ah! why does she weary me? Cry out, mother, complain with your star and mistress that she has become sparing, and forsakes her nursling. And indeed what fire is so great as not quickly to fail, if it be not covered with much ash? Let my senses, my body, my heart be reduced to ash: let this frozen soul of mine become fire. Which I would dare to hope, if your charity should pray to my patroness and star, giving her some pledge and promise concerning me. But if she shall grant me this, I shall never desert her, and her aged Spouse with the little Jesus; but through Egypt and the desert, and her other dangers, I shall be with her unto the cross and the burial. To instill the love of virtue into the minds of others, the holy Man interposed the authority of the Queen of the heavens, often, as is said in the cited place, employing that saying, for which the Neapolitan Process, folio 76, is alleged: The best remedy for mortifying one's own will is to consider that Christ our Lord, and his glorious Virgin Mother, taught that holy exercise of mortifying it. On page 435, from the same Process, folio 80, that most religious Client of the Mother of God is said to have recited daily the most holy Rosary with his knees fixed on the ground; and it is added that amid the fragrance of those mysteries he would linger with great pleasure of his soul, and would in this manner apply and consecrate his mind, so that, pierced with the goads of devotion, he was dissolved into a flood of tears.

[125] He was also affected with piety, and seized with a certain sacred awe, toward the Virgin Mother of Loreto, is shown. by the testimony of Giovanni Battista Caracciolo in the manuscript Life, where among other things which he writes about him at the year 1523 he records these: Again he hastened on a journey to the divine Mary of Loreto: where that happened which is worthy of record, that, although he was already standing at the altar, he had of necessity to withdraw from performing the sacred rites, shuddering with reverence for so great a church. The prelates of that same building revealed this as handed down in written records to our Perinio. But Perinio signified it to our Magenio, who inserted it in his Life of the divine Cajetan. But the above things the Bull of canonization thus expresses: Among the Saints whom, on account of each one's special prerogative, he had set before himself as patrons and for imitation, he honored with greater affection above all Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, as father and standard-bearer of his Congregation: to whom accordingly, by his own prescription, solemn vows are pronounced by name by the Clerks Regular: likewise Andrew the Apostle, and Luke the Evangelist, on account of their burning desire for the cross, with whose badge he wished his Order to be distinguished: Francis of Assisi also, on account of the same fellowship of the cross, and on account of his love of poverty, he venerated with a certain special worship.

[126] But now, how tenderly he was devoted to the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Silos sets forth on page 277: He was most tenderly affected toward the Eucharist, With knees assiduously placed on the floor of the oratory he stood before it meditating, and when it happened that he was drawn away, he strove to be restored and fixed again to the place. Inflamed and carried away with love of it, he for the most part offered at the chief altar; and, that a fitting worship might correspond to such great mysteries, he very often passed eight hours before the Sacrifice amid pious meditations: but with what ardor of soul and outpouring of heavenly things do we think he performed the sacred rites, who with such reverence and with the zeal of so many hours preluded to the offering? Further, since he himself glowed with an exceptional piety toward it, he counted it distinguished to stir up others to it. And indeed almost in the very flower of his age and virtue, not yet enrolled in the discipline of the rules, he strove to restore the frequency of this venerable Host, as, being consigned to the Commentaries of the Vicenza confraternity, we have said in its place. For those who had been accustomed to approach this sacred banquet only four times in the year, roused by Cajetan's admonitions and example, communicated at first once in the month, then every week; then, their reverence toward that most divine thing being increased, several times in the week. But when the Order had been established, since he had begun to deserve well of the Christian commonwealth on plainly more than one account, he above all contributed this to the common good, that at his exhortation the now obsolete use of the sacred Communion was seen to flower again and return.

[127] And because we mortals are more moved by outward appearance and sense, he began to expose the most august Sacrament for public veneration amid shining torches, and he busied himself to promote its frequent use. and with the most elegant worship he could: namely that that manifold light and pomp might win the affection of the pious for the divinity hidden amid those mysteries. Hence a twofold utility was derived to the Church. For this most praiseworthy part of divine worship, by which it is the custom for the sacred Eucharist to be placed as in a most magnificent theatre, wreathed with garlands of lights and with much gold, was propagated everywhere among peoples with a huge increase of piety, and its frequent use restored. Which indeed was Cajetan's plan and mind: whose saying above all about frequently receiving these mysteries is circulated: "It is altogether wonderful," he says, "that a Christian man can receive his Lord and God as a guest, and refuse; can go through the forest of this life, hedged about with so many snares of the infernal enemy, and in the utmost darkness of things; and reject the most certain protection, which is here the food of life; and then daily swallow the most present poisons from the evil demon; and refuse the antidote." Certainly he who was excellently inflamed toward so great a pledge of divine love greatly desired that all be affected with plainly the same feeling, and cared for it most intently. Priests especially, if he understood that any of them either performed the Sacrifice more slackly or sometimes omitted it, he most ardently strove to amend that sluggish piety toward the most divine Host. There follows in the same place the rare example of St. Cajetan making his way from Naples to Rome, to admonish a prelate who did not sacrifice daily: about which I have spoken in paragraph 10, number 110.

[128] The splendor and majesty of the church were at his heart, Do you wish now to hear with what zeal for divine worship in general the holy Man burned? This care seemed to touch him especially, by Silos's testimony from page 278. He wished the sacred building, the walls, the pavements, and above all the sacred instruments, to be most clean. He took care that the altars be adorned most becomingly and most elegantly; and he who was very often entangled in the weightiest business would sometimes steal himself away, and place careful labor in arranging and furnishing them with his own hand... Which Jerome placed among the not least praises of Nepotian, whom weightier cares and letters did not so distract but that he himself of his own accord adorned the divine altars for the Deity; and assuredly the churches rejoiced to shine from that most holy and skilled hand. Further, in the furniture of the sacred ministry he greatly desired not only cleanness, but also elegance and costliness, so that he seemed to have loved that poverty which he so greatly loved outside the churches of God. For whatever of gems and gold, or of Attalic robe, shines in churches, as he judged it took nothing away from poverty, so he judged it greatly increased the reverence of the peoples, who amid those sacred riches easily represented to themselves the divinity. Plainly we think that Thiene, who now looks down upon our affairs from that lofty citadel of heaven, rejoices exceedingly that these two things are preserved whole and entire in the Fellowship established by him; namely the same poverty at home, and the same splendor in the sacred buildings: the former indeed above the belief of men; the latter above poverty.

[129] psalmody, and the rites of the sacred services. He too, because he judged the appointed task of the psalmody a great part of divine worship, applied himself excellently to this care, and wished it to be discharged in the oratory most gravely, with a simple inflection of the voice indeed, not with the modulation of song, as the more robust and holier times of the primitive Church were accustomed through whole intervals of several centuries, as Nicephorus noted. What Silos subjoins concerning the correction of the Roman Breviary I forbear to record, sending the reader to what was said in §5, number 50. But as regards the rites and ceremonies of the sacred services, as he relates on page 279, it is wonderful how zealously he took care that the sacred functions be performed, each in its own order and place... For indeed he consigned the laws and precepts of the sacred rites not only by example, but also in writing: for, as our Molfese reports, Cajetan with his companions worked out a great part of the Roman Ceremonial...

[130] But that all these virtues, which we have briefly related in Cajetan, Cajetan's virtues were directed by a rare prudence were crowned by prudence... and that a singular and almost divine one, there is no reason why we should undertake to show at greater length. This virtue indeed was the chief one in him; and its excellence he willed to be attested in the narration which Giovanni Antonio Prato wrote about his deeds, in these words: "Cajetan was a man of the highest prudence and counsel, to whom therefore many fled." And in a certain letter too Andrea Avellino, a most holy man, says that he had heard great things from Rainerio Gualando, whom Cajetan once used familiarly, especially about his prudence. Nor indeed could anyone have undertaken a work as most beautiful as it is most difficult — such as it is to raise up a new family of Religious men in the Christian world, and to fortify it with its own laws and institutes — unless he had in him a certain exceptional prudence and skill in acting. Afterward it repeatedly befell him to administer with such a disposition that no one would lack any praise of a perfect moderator. He gave the first parts to charity and benevolence. For although by a certain somewhat austere gravity of brow and countenance he seemed especially to strike reverence and fear into his own men; nevertheless he strove to come down from that severity and sternness of his by seeking courtesy and benevolence. For he held it as persuaded that assemblies of Religious men are better ruled by love than by fear, and that the burden is rendered very light to the ruler if his subjects love; and he taught this to others. For when Pietro Foscareno, of whom often elsewhere, was refusing the prefecture of a house, and complained to Cajetan that he had voted for him, he at once said this to him: "Do you wish, Peter, to render that burden most sweet to yourself and to your subjects? Take care that you be loved together with God." By this art he seemed sweetly to enter the minds of his own men, whom he stirred up bravely and most powerfully by his example.

[131] For the appointed exercises, prayers, labors, and vigils he was the first to undertake; in doing business, and a great force of a mind enlightened from heaven. then to care diligently for the common affairs, to consult the advantages of each, to be at hand for all, to exhort with singular readiness — these were excellently performed, as by one who knew all the joints of prudence. The decretal Letters of canonization record this among his other virtues thus: Finally he so shone in obedience, poverty, moderation of soul in adversities, prudence, and the other virtues, that it was the constant opinion of many that he had reached a loftier grade of sanctity, and had flown past the accustomed bounds. To these add from Silos, page 280, the following: Now in doing business a certain most excellent force of mind shone forth. Experience too had filed his lofty genius, so that he unraveled with the utmost dexterity whatever business he undertook to dispatch. Of which happiness in acting, since he gave plainly more than one specimen, that was the chief one, when he composed the grown and inveterate quarrels between Giberti, bishop of Verona, and the Clergy. Of which matter we have made mention above at numbers 53 and 54. Further, the light poured upon him from heaven, as Silos subjoins, sometimes shone forth to such a degree that beyond the power of our mind it penetrated secret and distant things, and was present at future ones, and foretold them: as when he foretold to a noble man, thinking nothing at all about this matter, the public oath of his vows; and pointed out to which family of Religious he would one day chiefly join himself. And when he pronounced without hesitation that a certain one of our Clerks, for whose health he had prayed, was already safe; when neither he himself nor others could yet know whether he had obtained it. And very many things of this kind, in which it is established that to the light of his exceptional prudence there was added a certain noonday of a better light.

§ XII. Lowliness of soul, and obedience.

Concerning the most profound Silos in the place just cited says: But to run through the remaining census of the virtues which were in Cajetan would assuredly be too long. Let that virtue close this remarkable train which always desires to be reckoned in the last place, but is for the rest the chief in that family, and gives light to the others while it lies hidden. I mean humility, or modesty and lowliness of soul; which, as happens in the foundations of buildings, is let down that sanctity may rise more loftily, and that the mass of the virtues may stand raised for ever. But indeed when we record this virtue, I know not what feeling of soul and sadness we feel at once stirred up, by which we are compelled rather to complain of his remarkable modesty than to relate it. For that Cajetan's virtue has been transmitted to us so curtailed and mutilated, and that accordingly posterity lacks that distinguished and entire light of examples, humility has caused: which, since holy men cannot cultivate it without a certain public loss and defrauding of mortals; so Cajetan above all strove for this most of all, that he should humbly bury together all the most excellent ornaments of the virtues and the things most holily done; and he wished his life richer in examples than his history. But though his modesty hid his other virtues, it could the less cover itself, and was seen to have taken away even the very least from Cajetan's esteem and sanctity; since from this highest humility we conjecture the highest and most excellent virtue.

[133] humility of the Saint But how deep roots this virtue drove in Cajetan's soul even from his earliest age, Schiara indicates, though not sufficiently suitably to the time, in part 1 of the Life, chapter 4: On a certain day the Count his father, having caught sight of him dealing with certain men of lofty virtue but humble condition, first silently reproved him with a severe frown; but then, having returned home, rebuked him with these words: Have I not so often urged you to arrange fittingly those things which regard a noble life, saying that it is not fitting that the glory of our house degenerate in you? Are you a Saint only by that manner of life of yours and by the base debasing of our blood? These things being heard by Cajetan, who cared little for the splendor of his family, provided that the flame of heavenly love were kindled in his heart, he replied to his father with the highest modesty thus: It is of value to me to equal by my actions the life of my Ancestors, and not to degenerate from them, much less to despise the glory due to our family. But neither by civil dress nor by conversation with the poor are the splendors of blood obscured. But these things we leave to the reader to combine with what was said above in §1 of this Commentary, number 3, about St. Cajetan's birth and his father's death. But now let us revisit Silos, who proceeds to record how greatly this excellent virtue was cultivated by that most modest Man through the rest of his life thereafter, in these words:

[134] And so, since humility takes care chiefly of two things for crushing the desire and taste of glory, with distinguished obedience namely to keep virtues secret, and to drag vices and blemishes into the light; Cajetan anxiously fulfilled each part. For, as we have signified, if ever he either gave distinguished proofs of the virtues, or performed wonders for others, or himself received great things from heaven, he seemed to hate nothing more than celebrity and the fame of his name, and he guarded against these reefs by silence and darkness concerning the most beautiful things. But on the contrary, if the most holy Man seemed to have admitted any fault or blemish, he punished it with light, and published his errors, so that, the opinion of his virtue being diminished, the virtue itself might grow more safely. This was most familiar to Cajetan even in those things in which nature had erred; whose blemishes he had been accustomed to turn into an exercise and increase of humility. For since he labored under a defect of one of his feet, he himself very often took care on purpose that, his gown being raised a little, that unshapeliness should be exposed, and that, as it were with foot joined to foot, he might rout pride, and that his foot might make sport of its foot. Again, since he was, as we have said, of the distinguished stock of Thiene, and that family flourished in wealth; nothing indeed could happen to him more troublesome than that anyone should mention his family and ancestors, and the splendor of his riches. But we have related that he did not deign even to look at his kinsmen, lest that light of family and pomp, with which they had come, should discolor his modesty.

[135] With what abjection of self likewise he exceedingly intensely turned away from the insignia and titles of prefectures: and with lowliest ministries, but he so administered them that, when it afterward happened that he discharged the office, he laid it down with such alacrity of soul and countenance as plainly to show with what feeling he had taken it up, and with what sadness and self-contempt he had discharged the office. But since to obey is more pleasing to humility than to command, this too was earlier with Cajetan, to deprecate all magistracies, that he might always compose himself to another's nod: and he retained this distinguished purpose and zeal with such constancy that he never departed even a nail's breadth from the command of his confessor or Provost, so that deservedly he was once called by a certain distinguished name "perpetually obedient." And in this praise of obedience he attained also this, that it was not enough for him to obey in any fashion whatever; but it was his prayer besides that the Superior should command those things which were more contrary to his own will. As when, about to depart from Venice to Naples, he not only refused a companion save by the nod and hand of obedience; but prayed from his heart that the Fathers should join to him that man who was less conformed to his own genius and will, as we have recorded in its place.

[136] But that was an excellent proof of humility, to undertake all the most abject offices when he most of all presided, and to be first in sweeping the house or the church, in thoroughly cleaning the linens, and in carrying burdens. With the sick you would not know whether his charity or his humility was greater: for he seemed not only to be assiduously at hand for them, and to apply more seasonably the solaces of words for soothing their diseases; but also to undertake the meaner ministries, and to handle and care for the things which were foulest to see, with a certain singular contempt of himself. Again, to esteem the virtue of others very highly, and to hold his own contemptibly, which is the character of humility, was customary with Cajetan. And his estimation of himself was altogether such that he reckoned himself an unworthy minister of God, and seemed to blush and to be smitten by his own conscience as often as he remembered that he was a priest. Wherefore, when that anniversary day shone which he had been initiated into the priesthood, he was wont to say: On this day I committed that remarkable fault of ambition and pride; counting it as a fault, namely, that he had suffered himself to be honored with that grade. To which likewise it belongs, that although he addressed other priests with the very ancient title of "dom," he for the most part signed his own name with a simple appellation, and judged himself unworthy of that distinguished mark of the Order.

[137] and also joined with outward appearance, very many things are heaped together: Further, this lowliness of self shone forth exceedingly greatly in the very habit of his body and countenance. For the same modesty which ruled all the affections and faculties of the soul

inwardly, outwardly too excellently tempered his discipline. For indeed his eyes, fixed on the ground, were never seen to wander and stray: his voice was rather subdued, his gait and every gesture composed to the rule of modesty; his garment besides meaner: in short his outward manner was such that whoever met with Cajetan would think he was beholding the very image of humility. To such a degree was he humble and seemed so, by the harmony of inward and outward humility. Which virtue indeed, of more celebrated note, we know he wonderfully intensified in the very last line of his life; when, thinking himself unworthy of any office of kindness, he wished no zeal to be applied too intently in caring for his body, as we have said. And when in that last breath he admonished his own men of many things, he then commended humility above all, and pronounced that truly golden saying: "Our soul, desirous of the eternal happiness merited for it by our most sweet Redeemer, will be seen to strive upward with a swifter step, freed from this body, in proportion as it descended more deeply while it lived."

[138] which But now the things which we have reported from Silos about the Saint's most profound descent to all the most abject things, it is well to corroborate from elsewhere. The anonymous Life published at Venice, book 3, §18, page 449, treating of his humility, brings forward from Cavo, chapter 11, that saying of his: One must be humbled to learn Christ's alphabet. The same anonymous writer on page 450 brings out from the Saint's writings these characteristic expressions of the meanest opinion about himself: Pray for me. To you I commend my soul. I commend myself to the prayers of all. Pray, and take care that prayer be made for me. Obtain mercy from the Lord for me. I commend to you, mother, and to all your daughters, my poor soul. To your prayers I commend my whole self. Pray, my brother, that my flight be not in winter, or on the sabbath, or while I am with child or nursing. I am a sinner, I make little of myself: I have recourse to you, servants of the Lord, that you pray for me to Christ, and to his Virgin Mother. Nor did his subscriptions depart from these little flowers of modesty: "Cajetan, unworthy," or "an unworthy priest." On page 451, from the Vicenza Process, folio 312, these things are given: He exercised himself much in the humbler exercises of the house; he willingly served the sick of the hospital; honor displeased him, and he thought most lowly of himself.

[139] from elsewhere And from the said Process, folio 18, these things are noted in the same place: From the great virtue of humility which he had, he always esteemed himself the least of all; and if he did anything good, he did not attribute it to himself, but to divine grace, always showing that he was unfit for any matter: he did not wish to be esteemed and held in value by others. On page 452 it is indicated that, when he was making manifest the harms which the allurements of the senses, corrupting the will, supply to the souls of Christians, he subjoined, as is written in the same place from the Neapolitan Process, folio 88: All this I have experienced through my infinite malice. Castaldo in chapter 7 affirms that he had this saying before his eyes: The door and consummation of all perfection is the thought that we are unworthy of the divine benefits, and that the goods which God does to us have no ground from us; but proceed only from the infinite goodness of the divine Deity. Further, the anonymous writer cited above, on page 453, from the Neapolitan Process, folio 101, asserts that he was wont to say: Humility is twofold: one is born of virtue; the other is established by charity. That is true which is exercised by love of virtue and of charity. And from the same Process, folio 75: Let us not promise ourselves that we shall do great things tomorrow: we who today know not, nor can, nor will do even the least things. From what has been said it is settled that that Man, so great with God and men, was truly little in his own eyes.

[140] Whence it is no wonder that he who from modesty of soul assigned the better parts to others, by several testimonies ordered the norm of his life not by his own judgment, but by the good pleasure of others through obedience. Here, besides those things which Silos gave above, are some other specimens. He professed obedience before the rest, by the testimony of the sacred Rota in the anonymous writer, page 446; for he knew that it is better than a victim, and that it is more profitable to hearken than to offer the fat of rams. Hence he wished rather to serve others' commands than to rule in his own. But in those who burned with desire of embracing the Religious life of his institute, he required among the first conditions sincere obedience, and the renunciation of one's own will, as the anonymous writer reports on page 448; where he alleges these things from Cavo, whose sense we thus render from the Italian: One must think of casting oneself freely and absolutely at Christ's feet, and into our arms, promising oneself no further liberty, no judgment of oneself; nor caring for anything else than this alone: namely so to mortify all one's own opinion and will that it be fastened with nails to the holy cross. And indeed how highly he esteemed it the holy Founder not obscurely indicated, when he coupled it and charity by a most close bond of kinship; as is established in the anonymous writer in the cited place, who records from the Neapolitan Process, folio 70, that he said thus: Charity is the daughter and mother of holy voluntary obedience, and as it were a ship which leads to the harbor of salvation: without it thick columns, and high mountains (namely men lofty with great talents and other apparent virtues) are submerged in the deep sea of hell; because if I had not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal, and I am nothing. Finally there is that brief but most widely extending testimony of the Saint's obedience from the Neapolitan Process, folio 78, in the anonymous writer, page 451: He was most humble with all, promptly submitting himself to everyone.

[141] By way of a crown it is pleasing to weave into these the words which are had in the decretal Letters of canonization, are corroborated. expressed in this manner: Distinguished for humility, lowliness of soul, and the meanest estimation of himself, he was unwilling either to address or even to receive with his countenance his brothers and kinsmen, who had come to Naples with a great retinue to visit him: since indeed for the love of Christ he had long since bidden farewell to the world and its pomps. He sealed his letters with no other name or title than "of Cajetan, a priest, a wretched sinner." He undertook all the most abject ministries even while living in the world. And although he was the first parent of the Order, he nevertheless did not allow himself to take up its government, etc.: which I gave at number 32. He exposed the defects of his body to his own confusion; but the gifts of his soul, and the gifts received from God, he hid so far as he could. But if ever, charity goading him, he obtained anything rare or unusual from God by his prayers, he attributed it rather to the intercessions of the Saints than either to relics or to the power of his prayer. These, and the other virtues of the most holy Man set forth by us thus far, God, who does not allow his most munificent will of doing good to them to be overcome by the liberality of his own toward him, is said to have anticipated with blessings of his sweetness altogether singular; concerning which it will now be spoken.

§ XIII. Apparitions of Christ the Lord and of the Virgin Mother of God; miracles wrought by the Saint while living.

[His heart, from the impulse of divine love, wonderfully leaps out and flies upward:] The reverend father D. A. Tommaso Schiara, in part 3, chapter 3, of the Life of St. Cajetan reduced to a compendium, relates that the heart of the same Saint, while he was giving himself to prayer, leapt out of his breast, describing the event thus — which, as also the others presently to be subjoined here, we translate into Latin from his Italian text: On a certain occasion, while Cajetan was praying, he was so kindled with heavenly love that, being caught up into ecstasy, he felt his heart go out of his breast by the inward impulses of the divine fire, and saw it fly straight up to heaven with two flames in place of wings, nature being astonished, which, unable to penetrate the secrets of grace, was pondering whether a man could live without a heart, life depending on the heart. Then it could truly be said that Cajetan's heart was God alone, whom Cajetan uniquely loved. Whence with God he loved God, and by loving God with God, he lived a life almost wholly divine. Hence it becomes evident that divine love had been so greatly enlarged in Cajetan that it held dominion even over his body: and his heart flying to heaven signified that it had nothing earthly in itself.

[142] Christ appears to him: In the same place, chapter 4, he reports that Christ appeared to Cajetan, carrying the cross on his shoulders. On a certain day, he says, to Cajetan, intent upon the loftiest contemplation, there appeared Christ our Lord bearing the cross on his shoulder, and St. Francis of Assisi at his right. Cajetan, affected with tender compassion, because he saw his Love weighed down by the burden, wished to help him; and while he could not get under the wood to be carried, he labored much in that matter. At last, at St. Francis's prayers, Christ granted him the desired grace, that he should help him in carrying the cross; and told him that he chose him and his Religion for saving the souls redeemed by his death. Which afterward appeared in so many obstinate sinners brought back to penance; in so many men of lost conscience won for virtue; in so many enemies of the Crucified gained to the adoration of the cross; in so many souls, etc.

[143] The Mother of God offers him the infant Jesus to hold: In chapter 5 he writes that Cajetan received again into his arms the infant Jesus from the blessed Virgin; and records it thus: Cajetan, on the day of the Circumcision, contemplating the sublimity of that tender mystery, being caught up into ecstasy, beheld the blessed Virgin bearing the little infant Jesus in her arms; and, consigning to him her beloved pledge, she permitted him long to hold it in his bosom. The holy Man at that time was anointed with such great joy that he poured forth from his eyes rivers of most tender tears, etc.

[144] In chapter 6 the praised author sets forth thus another and plainly wonderful apparition of Christ: While Cajetan was ill, he rejoices in another wonderful apparition of Christ, and absorbed in God through contemplation, Christ appeared to him and said: Cajetan, I have come hither to grant you the grace which you wish. To me, replied the Saint, to me, who merit nothing, so ample an offer? Come then, since you are willing, my Lord, to place the favors of your goodness upon my nothingness, and to bless my evil with your magnificence, I pray you, bring it about that my name be given wholly to oblivion in my Religion, so that no discourse ever be made about me. This grace I ask of you through your merits and those of the most blessed Virgin, your Mother. How pleasing that act of heroic humility was to the Lord, he made manifest to him without delay, when he gave him a tender embrace, and held out his opened side to his mouth.

[145] To this apparition there is subjoined in the same place, chapter 7, this one: as also another In the last days of his life, when, his illness growing heavier, fixed to his little bed, he was meditating on Christ's passion, and in his heart were kindled inflamed desires of dying on a cross, in imitation of his beloved Crucified; but on the other hand while

he deemed himself unworthy of such a death; behold, the Lord again appears to him, in precisely that manner in which he was stretched out on the cross, namely wholly wounded and naked; and thus addresses him: Do you weep thus, Cajetan? Then Cajetan said: Lord, do you ask me this? And then he subjoined: I weep because you show, Lord, that you wish to die again. Send away this scene: since at a spectacle of such horror I cannot see you and live. Christ replied: Cajetan, I have given you my cross bare; it is not fitting that it remain so; but it is proper that someone be fastened upon it. You ought to be fastened to the cross, that you might be like me; but because I have pity on you, I wish to be set upon the cross again.

[146] When the Saint had heard this, wholly full of love and grief, more wonderful still: to which add an angelic refreshment, etc. he cried out with a strained voice: How, Lord, do you wish to die again? Know that nothing else was ever in my prayers than martyrdom. This alone I add, that I would desire to die in another and more cruel manner, if it could be granted, because I am not worthy to die on the cross on which you died. To conclude in a few words, my God, you have my will. To you therefore, replied Christ, let this favor be done, and, since I have died for you, be you too crucified for love of me. Having said this, he raised him from the ground, and placed him upon the cross, and caused him to feel in his soul at intervals the pains of Mount Calvary, the nails, the gall, the spasms, the agonies, the abandonments; and that with as great an excess of pains as a man could endure and not die. Benzi, in book 3 of the Life, number XXI, reports that the Saint, placed in an ecstatic transport of mind, was refreshed by an angelic hand with fruit plucked from the vineyards of the heavenly paradise. Besides this, Christ was often seen, as the same man records, to place that Servant of his in his heart, holding him in a close embrace.

[147] Finally the said Schiara in chapter 8 relates that the most blessed Virgin showed herself visible to St. Cajetan when he was ill, [Toward the end of his life he is refreshed with most sweet favors from the Mother of God,] reporting the matter thus: While Cajetan was gravely afflicted with the great infirmity which was his last, wholly conformed to the divine will, on the one hand desiring to suffer, that he might furnish nourishment to his love; on the other hand longing to die, that he might pass without delay to life in his highest Good, for the sake of loving it more perfectly, he had a sweet vision, in which he beheld the Mother of God, illuminated on every side with splendors, and accompanied by attentive Seraphim, approaching him. At the majesty of the apparition, Cajetan, out of reverence bending toward the Virgin, said with profound adoration: Lady, bless me. To whom Mary with an altogether serene look replied: Cajetan, blessed be you by my Son. Know that nothing else belongs to me than to lead you with me into paradise in the manner which shall more please you, and to reward the sincerity of your love by my presence. Think thus, O my beloved: if the majesty of a queen deprive you of filial confidence toward me, behold me your mother. You are my son by grace, while I am the mother of Jesus, who calls you his brother. The writers of the Life of St. Cajetan record that he, while he attended to the virginal favor toward himself, remained wholly absorbed, and was so far out of his mind that he seemed dead.

[148] [and defended by her against the demon, he is invited to heaven. He wrought miracles while alive.] At the same time too he was inwardly sustaining a cruel battle inflicted upon him by the evil spirit, God so permitting, that from the victory an increase might accrue to his heavenly crown. Cajetan therefore, by the singular patronage of the Queen of angels, gloriously triumphed over the enemy... The blessed Virgin, as is reported in the Process of his canonization, roused the victorious hero to suffer, and then commanded the choirs of angels to accompany his triumphant soul to the empyrean heaven. Then, turning upon Cajetan a look endowed indeed with majesty, but sweet, she said: Cajetan, my Son calls you. Let us go in peace. And these indeed are the visions which I have brought forward hither from the cited biographer, distinctly described, as he adds, by various authors; with whom let the credit of them rest. Besides these graces, as they call them, gratuitously given, which are ascribed to the Saint while living, we have from Antonio Caracciolo in the Life among us below, chapter 8, from number 89, that St. Cajetan wrought three miracles while he was still living, reported from the testimony of Prato his contemporary, to which he had premised another in chapter 7, number 69 and following, afterward approved by the public vote of the Roman Rota, according to what is to be said below in §16.

§ XIV. The cult preliminary to his beatification is attacked; and is thence the more confirmed.

His death was followed by fame of sanctity and by miracles. Such was the life of St. Cajetan; with ornaments of virtues of this kind, as we have related above, and with the delights of heavenly allurements did he abound. When a most blessed death received it, the Fame of his sanctity, as the decretal Letters of canonization say, which had grown strong in his life, being more gloriously diffused far and wide after his death, spread abroad in a wonderful manner, not only by the tradition and memory of his singular virtues; but by the excellence of the miracles, signs, and graces, by which in life and after death the Lord made his Saint wonderful. But of the signs, miracles, and favors obtained by this Servant of God's patronage, there will be a place for us to speak elsewhere. Away meanwhile with that frivolous and cold remark of Baillet at the seventh day of August, column 104, in the Life of Cajetan: It is said (On dit) that God willed to give men after his death indications of his sanctity by extraordinary signs, which in the following times brought it about that pains were taken over the depositions concerning his life and his miracles according to the ordinary forms. But these things being dismissed, let us speak of the outstanding veneration which the Saint left after his death. For from the hidden treasure of his virtues, as Antonio Caracciolo prefaces in the Life, we judge to have flowed the reverence and religious cult of the people of Vicenza toward him (to pass over others), which has now so increased that they commonly seek out his image, which they venerate at least with a private cult, etc.

[150] The founder of the History of the Clerks Regular, already very often mentioned, says from page 292: Testimony of Thiene's sanctity in the Vicenza Menology: That is a very ancient testimony of Thiene's virtue and sanctity which Giovanni Battista Castaldo records (Life of Cajetan, chapter 9). It happened, while he was staying at Vicenza, that he betook himself to the monastery of the divine Felix of the Cassinese congregation. There was present there Fortunatus, a monk of the same congregation, who, while as a proof of courtesy he was showing the ancient and more celebrated monuments of that ascetery, among other things offered for inspection the Calendar or manuscript Menology of the city of Vicenza: in which were noted the Saints either native or once prelates of that church: among whom, on that very day on which he departed, Thiene is reckoned in these words: On the seventh of the Ides of August, blessed Cajetan, confessor, founder of the Order of the Theatines. Which Menology was afterward printed at Rome by the labor of Giulio Carcano, a patrician of Vicenza, with the permission of the Superiors: whose title is: Index of the Saints and Blessed of the magnificent city of Vicenza. There are the effigy and name and birthday of each; and the mention of Thiene adorns those Calendars too. By which we are plainly taught that the memory of the holy Man was venerated with a certain ancient religion and cult, and that a form of outstanding virtue toward him at once flourished, so that he deserved once to be enrolled in the class of the Saints.

[151] To this second opinion concerning Thiene the Supreme Pontiffs also seemed to assent. to which Pope Paul V assents. For indeed Paul V, a Pontiff of the best memory, in order to restrain the prayers of the peoples, too much inclined to the veneration of the departed, when he had published public sanctions on that matter, professed altogether that he wished nothing to be diminished by those laws concerning Cajetan's cult; nay, that his mind was that both the reverence toward his distinguished merits should endure and swell; and that the appellation of Blessed, as one stirred up by the very ancient and constant piety of the nations, might be employed everywhere and commonly. And this sentiment of his mind he afterward willed to be approved by an oracle, as they say, of the living voice, his mind being explained to two of the more celebrated purples of the august Senate, first to Giovanni Delfino, Cardinal of Vicenza, then to Robert Cardinal Bellarmine: which he also declared in express words to the Ambassador of the Venetian Republic. And at last, letters being composed, he ordered Deodato Gentile, bishop of Caserta, Apostolic Nuncio at Naples, that he should indeed conform the cult of the rest to the rule of those ordinances; but that, as regarded Cajetan of Thiene, he should take away and change nothing of his former honor and outward piety. By this common esteem, therefore, of all ranks, Cajetan's sanctity being long and much commended, and at last most accurately and duly examined by the more severe censure of the Roman Rota, the authority and nod of the Apostolic See being added, it was exposed to public veneration. For indeed in the year of the passing century, the twenty-ninth above one thousand six hundred, Urban the eighth adopted him into the number of the Blessed.

[152] But before it came so far, certain engines were applied for overthrowing the blessed Man's cult; From the fact that the cult is attacked, but with that success which Silos in the History of the Clerks Regular, volume 2, at the year 1615, page 360, records thus: It was brought to Rome, by a certain zeal for religion, that Cajetan's effigy, contrary to what the Pontifical sanctions provided, was set forth in a church for the devotion of the peoples. Besides this, that a marble statue of him had been erected at the public door of his house opposite that of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, with letters inscribed in gold as a testimony, and the appellation of Blessed expressly added, and that he was called renowned for miracles. Whereby indeed the Roman ordinances seemed to be infringed, and censure had to be applied. The business is committed to the Apostolic Nuncio at Naples, that he should go to St. Paul's, and, the matter being more closely inspected, should order the image and the inscription to be removed. Which was assuredly most troublesome to the Fathers. But they, who were persuaded that they had not exceeded measure, as they by no means refused to do what was commanded, so held nothing more important than to appeal to the supreme Father through suitable spokesmen. The ambassador of the Venetian Republic undertook to plead the cause, to whom it belonged to protect the fame and sanctity of a Man from the Venetian dominion. There were added also the zealous efforts of several august Fathers, who seemed to favor the Order and equity with singular good will.

[153] it is thence the more And so the Pontiff, being appealed to by the authority and offices of such great heads. They complain that it was too severely commanded that Thiene's effigy be moved from its place, and the letters expunged from his statue. They affirmed that the Man, founder of a distinguished Order, and supported by excellent virtue, had flourished in the fame of sanctity not only in the Venetian region, but also in other places, for fully seventy years past, that is, immediately from his death: that he had already then been renowned for miracles: that the appellation of Blessed had clung to him among the common people likewise from his departure, and was read also in written monuments and in his images. That the antiquity, the merits, and the public fame had weight enough to release the most holy Man from the common law. Let the supreme Prelate of religion therefore command that Cajetan be retained in his possession. Pope Paul willed the matter to be diligently explored, and the business was committed to Pietro Cardinal Aldobrandini;

who, not perfunctorily indeed, but with records and sworn witnesses employed for the credit of the truth, soon reported to the assembly of august Fathers, who preside by supreme right over matters of faith, that the opinion concerning Thiene, and the fame of his name and the appellation of Blessed, were very ancient: that miracles likewise supported it; and that in very many regions of Italy.

[154] confirmed. The Pontiff was present, who expressly testified that he willed his ordinances concerning the cult of the Blessed to be so ratified that they should by no means detract from the already grown and ancient piety of the peoples. Namely that they had been made for restraining the readiness of the common people and for tempering new devotions; but that for the rest it was fitting that veneration and cult should stand for antiquity. Wherefore he ordered the Neapolitan Nuncio to be admonished that nothing concerning Thiene should be changed in the Pauline basilica of the Clerks Regular: and that he should indeed allow his image and inscription to stand in their place. Whereby assuredly no more illustrious triumph could be carried off, the very king of sacred things adjudging the suit to Thiene; and that storm caused the common esteem of the Servant of God to drive its roots more firmly, at the very time when they thought that all cult was being torn up by the roots. But now it remains to be declared at greater length in this place how the most holy Man was raised to the solemn and public honors of the Blessed.

§ XV. The Saint's Beatification; the Office and Mass; public rejoicing, a miracle.

The difficulties preliminary to the beatification being broken through, The Life of our holy Confessor published by Silos, book 3, chapter 1, treats of his being placed upon the altars with the title of Blessed; where he observes not beside the point that if in the whole series of the most holy Patriarch's affairs there is any event worthy of singular admiration, it is that which is engaged in his legitimate cult. For indeed, nearly seventy years having already elapsed from his death, and no discourse having meanwhile been held about approving the sanctity of his life; the antiquity of the time, the forgetfulness of many singular matters, and the lack of persons who had known and thoroughly perceived him, and who accordingly were exceedingly well suited for affirming wonders about him, seemed clearly to indicate that labor was being spent in vain in undertaking so difficult an enterprise, in which the Apostolic See proceeds with such great accuracy and with so rigid a censure. Yet because that very antiquity, which rendered the cause desperate, at the same time encouraged it — since in ancient matters a voice handed down from ancestors, and an unbroken fame, supply the place of all evidence and of proof — that most weighty and equally perilous business was undertaken: which, God favoring well, and the obstacles which occurred being overcome by the fervent effort of him who was promoting it, at last had a happy outcome. And to these things indeed, which we have premised from the praised writer of the Life, there is subjoined on page 206:

[156] Decree of the sacred Congregation of Rites on the solemn beatification of blessed Cajetan of Thiene, a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites founder of the Clerks Regular. Of Chieti. On Saturday, the twenty-second of September 1629. A report having been made to His Holiness by the Auditors of the Sacred Rota concerning the Processes drawn up by Apostolic authority on the sanctity of the servant of God Cajetan of Thiene, a noble patrician of Vicenza, founder of the Theatine Fathers; and these having been most keenly discussed in the Sacred Congregation of Rites by mandate of His Holiness through several sessions, the promoter of the faith having also been summoned for this and heard, on the report of the most illustrious Cardinal Antonio Barberini; judgment being made first on the validity of the said Processes; then on the heroic virtues; and finally on the miracles wrought by the Most High in life and after death by the intercession of the said Servant of God;

[157] The same sacred Congregation of Rites, by the unanimous consent of the most illustrious Fathers, judged it is obtained for it; that it can safely be proceeded, whenever it shall please His Holiness, to the solemn canonization of the said Servant of God, Cajetan of Thiene; and that meanwhile it can be granted that the same Servant of God be henceforth called Blessed, and that by all Clerks Regular existing everywhere the Office from the common of a confessor not a pontiff be recited on the day of his death, and Mass be celebrated according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, even by Regular and secular priests flocking to their church; but that in the city of Vicenza, where he was born, and in the city of Naples, where his sacred body rests, in all churches both of Regulars and of seculars, the Mass and Office may respectively be celebrated and recited: and that for the present year only the aforesaid Theatine Fathers may be able and have power to celebrate the solemn beatification with the Office on a day seeming good to them, here at Rome in the church of St. Andrea della Valle; and also others flocking to it. Giovanni Battista Cardinal Deti.

[158] [to which, as also to the prayers of kings and princes, the Apostolic See assenting,] Nor did Pope Urban VIII long delay to assent to the decree of the sacred Congregation, and to the pious petitions of many most religious princes (who had for that cause pressed the holy See with most burning prayers), namely Ferdinand of Austria, king of the Romans; Louis XIII, king of the French; the most serene Venetian Republic; Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy; Ferdinand, grand duke of Etruria; Cesare d'Este, duke of Modena; Maria Magdalena, archduchess of Austria; Christine of Lorraine, grand duchess of Etruria; Elisabeth of Savoy, princess of Modena; and other lords of remarkable note, as may be read in Silos; whose prayers indeed had such a place with the said Vicar of Christ that he kindly dispatched Apostolic letters concerning that business, which the said author on page 208 thus recounts: Indult of our Most Holy Lord Urban the eighth for celebrating Mass and reciting the Office of blessed Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the Clerks Regular. Pope Urban VIII, for the perpetual memory of the matter.

[159] grants an indult, Established by divine providence in the see of the Prince of the Apostles, though no merits of ours support it, we expend the parts of our pastoral office with ready zeal upon those things by which the veneration of the servants of Christ may be promoted on earth, and the Lord praised in his Saints, as the pious prayers of the Faithful of Christ, and especially of Catholic kings and princes, demand, and as we perceive to be salutarily expedient in the Lord. Now, it has lately been set forth to us in the name of our beloved sons the Provost General and the Congregation of Clerks Regular called Theatines, that, a report having lately been made to us by our beloved sons also, the Auditors of the causes of the Apostolic Palace, concerning the Processes drawn up by Apostolic authority on the sanctity of the servant of God Cajetan of Thiene, a noble patrician of Vicenza, founder of the said Congregation; and these having been most keenly discussed in the congregation of our venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church set over the sacred Rites, by our mandate through several sessions, the Promoter of the faith having also been summoned for this and heard, on the report of our beloved son Antonio, Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Aquiro, called Barberini, our nephew according to the flesh by our brother german; judgment being made first on the validity of the said Processes, then on the heroic virtues, and finally on the miracles wrought by the Most High in life and after death by the intercession of the said Servant of God; those same Cardinals by unanimous consent judged that it can safely be proceeded, whenever it shall please us, to the solemn canonization of the said servant of God Cajetan of Thiene.

[160] that the Clerks Regular may celebrate Mass and recite the Office of him; Wherefore, on the part not only of the Provost General and the aforesaid Clerks, but also of our most dear sons in Christ Ferdinand, king of the Romans, elected emperor, and Louis, most Christian king of the French; and also of our beloved sons the noble men the Doge and Republic of the Venetians, and of other Christian princes, supplication was likewise made to us that meanwhile, until it be proceeded to the solemn canonization of the said servant of God Cajetan of Thiene, the same servant of God Cajetan of Thiene may be called Blessed, and the Office and Mass of him, as below, may be celebrated. We, wishing kindly to assent, so far as we can with the Lord, to prayers of this kind of king Ferdinand, elected emperor, and king Louis, and also of the Doge and Republic of the Venetians, and of the other Princes, and of the aforesaid Provost and Clerks, being inclined to supplications of this kind, by the counsel of the same Cardinals, grant that the same servant of God Cajetan of Thiene may henceforth be called Blessed, and that by all Clerks Regular existing everywhere the Office from the common of Confessors not Pontiffs be recited on the day of his death, and Mass be celebrated according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, even by secular and Regular priests flocking to their churches:

[161] But in the city of Vicenza, where he was born, and in the city of Naples, which he extends for the city of Vicenza and Naples to all churches. where his sacred body rests, in all churches both of seculars and of regulars, the Mass and Office, as above, may respectively be celebrated and recited. And that for the present year only the said Provost General and Clerks may freely and lawfully be able and have power to celebrate the solemn beatification with Office and Mass on a day seeming good, here at Rome in the church of St. Andrea della Valle, and also others flocking to it — by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of the present letters we grant and impart license and faculty, notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and all other things whatsoever to the contrary. But we will that to copies of the present letters, even printed ones, subscribed by the hand of the secretary of that Congregation, or of any public notary, and fortified with the seal of some person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, or of the Provost or Vicar General of the same Congregation, altogether the same credit be everywhere given as would be given to these present letters, if they were exhibited or shown. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major under the Fisherman's ring, on the eighth day of October 1629, in the seventh year of our Pontificate.

[162] But with how great rejoicing, both among the Clerks Regular and among others, the conclusion of a matter so desirable to both was received, Public rejoicing at Rome although I shall say nothing, anyone will easily understand. I shall nevertheless say briefly, taking a few things from those which Silos reports in the cited place, page 211. For although at that time, by force of the Indult mentioned above, it was permitted to the Theatine Fathers to celebrate that solemn feast with open and public signs of rejoicing only at Rome; nevertheless at Naples it was performed with some splendor in the church sacred to St. Paul. For since the bones of the holy Founder rested in that place, it was agreeable to reason that both the rejoicing there should be greater, and that it should be manifested with greater pomp and magnificence. To pass over in silence, therefore, the solemn procession, and the church and especially the chapel of the Blessed excellently adorned, there stood in the cloister of that house an ancient oratory, sacred to divine Love, after the likeness of the Roman one (concerning which above, number 16), among whose so many illustrious men holy Cajetan too had been numbered; and it is well to note that there above the door this epigraph was inscribed in golden letters:

To Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, the Society of divine Love, which he long obeyed, its best fellow-member, now falls suppliant before its bravest Protector: here a soldier, thence a triumpher.

From this oratory the said procession began to move; and at Naples. which, amid trumpets and pipes, was preceded by the banner of Lady Giovanna of Austria, a most religious princess, and daughter of the famous Lord John of Austria, which she had had made by her affection and at her expense. With a beautiful

and long array there followed a great number of the chief nobles of Naples, furnished with burning torches: behind them came the Theatine Fathers two by two, and torch-bearers: but in the last place there was carried by them also a statue in priestly habit; which, after it had reached the church, was placed upon the chief altar. There followed next the singing of a solemn Mass with most sweet music; as also after the meal Vespers: at which appeared the chosen lords of the city, together with a gift offered in the common name; and an elegant panegyric oration was recited. As the day drew toward evening, festive fires were seen everywhere; fireworks flew through the air; countless lights burned above the windows and in high places, accompanied by the ringing of the bells of all the churches, and by the resounding noise of very many fire-belching tubes. Further, festive rejoicings of this kind were continued with singular applause and affection of the people up to the third evening; to which a certain wonderful event was not lacking, for confirming the glory of the new Blessed. It will suffice to have reported one single one for the sake of proof; which, on Silos's credit, as also the other things which I have just been relating, I set forth thus from the Italian:

[163] A miracle then done is related, The monastery of the Conception of Theatine nuns, situated at the foot of the mountain which they call St. Martin's, founded by the venerable mother sister Orsola Benincasa; as being one which was under the direction and discipline of our men, came likewise to a share in the common rejoicing, and in the highest and most conspicuous part of the convent, and likewise in other places, kindled perhaps four hundred lamps, which burned a good part of the night. There was then so much oil laid up at home for domestic uses that it could suffice for only one month. But what happened? After the nourishment which would suffice for so many lights had been liberally and long supplied, and when they supposed that it had been consumed, they observed that the former measure was not diminished even a very little, and that there was still enough for one month. Great astonishment seized the nuns; and Cecilia Genuina, who afterward presided over the place, but was then in charge of the storeroom, gave testimony of the event written with her own hand.

[164] and magnificence among the Clerks Regular, especially at Rome. Sparingly indeed, from what has been said above, was the Saint's beatification celebrated throughout the whole Order, and, so to speak, tasted only with the tips of the lips: nevertheless in the anniversary memory of the same the reins were loosed to greater splendor and magnificence. But in that year in which the privilege of celebrating the sacred honors was granted to Rome alone, on the nineteenth day of November, the whole body of the Most Eminent Cardinals honored this solemn festivity with their presence in the chapel of St. Andrea della Valle; whither the Ambassadors of princes, and the Prelates of the Curia, together with the Roman nobility and men of lower note, also flocked, so much so that that church could not hold the huge concourse of so copious a multitude. Most rich was the apparatus of the sacred building and of the altars: the musical harmony, distinguished into several choirs, most exquisite: nor was a most eloquent oration in praise of the Blessed lacking. To these Silos superadds a most abundant heap of miracles and heavenly favors obtained through the merits of the blessed Founder; to which we shall give their own place elsewhere, proceeding meanwhile to his highest dignity on earth, when he was enrolled with solemn rite in the number of the Saints by the Apostolic See.

§ XVI. Miracles approved by the public vote of the Roman Rota.

The broken leg of a certain Theatine Religious Among the Lives of St. Cajetan published by various writers, there exists one which is entitled as written under the name of Euretas Misoscolus; at the end of whose Italian text certain Latin documents concerning the said Saint are added; and among others which will be of use to us, there occur in the first place the miracles. And since they were approved by the public judgment of the sacred Rota, as they call it, and are accordingly of greater authority than others which have not been so approved; therefore it has seemed good to set them out here together with the title, which consists of these words: Miracles approved by the sacred Roman Rota for the canonization of St. Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the Clerks Regular. Miracle in his life. The healing of a broken leg. A certain one of the Religious devoted to Blessed Cajetan's institute, having gone out of the monastery to attend to business, fell so gravely on the way that he broke one of his legs. A physician was summoned, who, after applying remedies of various kinds, when he understood that he was accomplishing nothing, took counsel of cutting off the leg, that life might remain to the rest of the body.

[166] Which being understood, Cajetan asked the physician that the cutting be deferred to the following day. is healed by the Saint. But by night, when he himself had proceeded to the sick man's chamber, and had found him sleepless from the bitterness of his pain; first indeed he refreshed him with fitting consolation, exhorting him to commend himself to the divine Francis; then he asked that, the bandage being drawn off, he would show him the wound; which having beheld, falling upon his knees, he admonished the sick man to give himself to prayer together with him, and this being briefly finished, he signed the wound with the sign of the cross, and kissed it, and, having bound it up again, withdrew. The physician, returning in the morning, asked the sick man how he was: to whom he replied that he felt no pain any more, and, the bandage being removed, he beheld the leg whole and sound, so that scarcely a trace of so great a wound remained.

[167] Miracles after his death. The healing of a dying man. Miracle 1. Health is restored to a dying man, Count Giorgio Trivulzio was reduced by a most grave fever of twenty days to such a state that he not only did not retain food or anything else that was taken in for restoring nature, but could not even swallow: which the physicians beholding, since besides they did not even find in him the pulse of an artery, pronounced that it was plainly all over with the sick man's life. The Sacrament of extreme unction had been conferred on him, and the blessing, as we call it, imparted through Cardinal Borromeo, archbishop of Milan. When Olympia his wife, afflicted in mind, as is fitting, summoned by night the Religious of St. Antony, to commend to God her husband's soul as about presently to depart. They came, and, the office of piety being already begun, consoling Olympia, exhorted her to commend her husband to Blessed Cajetan with a true and living faith. And when she had replied, Do you not see that it is already all over? they answered that she should be confident, that Cajetan wished to restore her husband to her. Olympia's faith was roused by the words of the Religious, who, her knees being bent and some vows pronounced, asked health from Cajetan, and then held out a little broth to the sick man; which he not only took but retained; and after a short rest he so recovered that the physicians, coming in the morning, found him free from all fever and disease, not without the admiration and rejoicing of the bystanders, praising God in his Saints.

[168] The healing of a dying woman. Miracle II. Elena Gritti, as also to a woman likewise given up. a Venetian noblewoman, when she had lain sick for nearly a month with a continuous fever and great anguish; then, the evil growing heavier, she did not even retain food: she could scarcely utter any word, and lay fixed to her bed motionless. And when she had continued in this state for another twenty-five days, her voice now failing, she asked those by whom she was visited to commend her to the blessed Andrew and Cajetan the Theatines: and immediately she seemed to see a certain venerable old man, who was blessed Cajetan, consoling her and exhorting her to hope. The physicians had already utterly despaired of the sick woman's life: she had been fortified with the Sacraments of the most holy Eucharist and of extreme unction as one about to die at once: when, seeing that no hope was placed in human aid, she asked for something of the relics of blessed Cajetan from the aforesaid Religious. And when there was none of them at hand, the relics of blessed Andrew the Theatine were held out to her together with an image of blessed Cajetan, and meanwhile the divine service was performed by one of the said Religious for the sick woman's health; in which she herself had asked that he would pray Cajetan for the restoration of her health. The Sacrifice being performed, with the inmost affection of her heart she implored Cajetan's help, and without delay a sudden vigor returned into her limbs, and the languor together with the anguish departed, and she took and retained the food and drink given her: on the next day she walked about the house, and not long after went out of the house, as she had been accustomed before, being confirmed in her former strength and health.

[169] An inveterate joint disease, The healing of an inveterate joint disease. Miracle III. Pietro Franco of Venice had for more than ten years been afflicted with a most troublesome pain of the left arm, so much so that he could not even dress himself without another's help; which the physicians pronounced to be of the kind of joint diseases. On a certain day, being tortured more vehemently than usual, he came to the church of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, and, his knees being placed before the image of blessed Cajetan, earnestly asked him to obtain health for him from God; and suddenly, being freed from all pain and restored to his former soundness, he remained well.

[170] The healing of a deadly fever. Miracle IV. Veronica Zannina, a woman's deadly fever, a girl of eight years, was seized with a malignant fever, pain of the sides, and pleurisy, and brought to such a state that, human help being despaired of, she was abandoned by the physician as one about to die at once. The girl's mother was admonished to carry her to the image of blessed Cajetan, which was in the church of St. Antony, and to commend her to him, already renowned for many miracles. She did as she was admonished; and, her dying daughter being placed before the image of Blessed Cajetan, prayers being poured forth, she earnestly demanded that he obtain health for her. She had prayed some while, when she felt a notable hope of obtaining the grace put into her, and, having taken back her daughter, carried her home, and laid her in her little bed: who, at once seized by sleep, slept for an hour and a half; then, having awakened, she called to her mother, who was sitting before the door of the bedroom, although for seven days she had not uttered even a word; and when she had entered, she said: My mother, that old man clothed in a black garment, whom they call Cajetan, came to me, and laid his hand on my head, from which I feel myself well and sound. Give me something to eat: for I am hungry; and hand me my clothes, in which I wish to dress myself. She ate, and, not without the astonishment of the bystanders, dressed herself in her clothes, and without anyone's help proceeded to the church of St. Antony, and remained well.

[171] and a man's; The healing of a deadly fever. Miracle V. Francesco Virga of Milan, when he lay sick with a most vehement fever, so that he could not even move himself, and nothing remained for him but the tomb; was admonished to implore the help of Blessed Cajetan: which when he had done, he felt himself pushed from behind, so that he leapt from his bed; and, rising without delay and dressing himself in his clothes, he knew that he had been granted perfect soundness.

[172] The healing of a most badly affected eye. Miracle VI. The right eye of Elena Tomasella of Vicenza, a girl of five years, was most gravely affected by a certain flux of humor, an eye most badly affected, and by little crusts arising from it, a thick cloud besides occupying the organ; her mother groaned, anxious at her daughter's calamity, and, terrified at the immediate peril of losing her sight, when she remembered the miracles by which Cajetan was daily becoming renowned, she asked health for her daughter from him, and promised that she would offer two silver eyes; and on the following day she found her free from all flux of humor, and also from the little crusts

and from the cloud.

[173] The healing of an injured eye. Miracle VII. Francesca Berta of Venice, likewise another's injured eye; a linen garment having been driven into her eye, was harassed with great pains for some days, the blood being suffused, and tears overflowing, and a cloud darkening her sight; there was brought to her by her mother an Agnus Dei, as they call it, in which relics of Blessed Cajetan were said to be contained. The sick woman invoked Cajetan's help: and when she had signed her eye three times with the aforesaid sign, the pain being at once driven away, and the flux of tears and blood ceasing, she was restored to her former soundness.

[174] Deliverance from the falling sickness. Miracle VIII. and the falling sickness Vienna Musca of Vicenza was pitiably harassed by the falling sickness for twelve years, so that in the space of twenty-four hours she fell from it three times, and each time was afflicted, prostrate, for two or three hours, and sometimes longer. There came to her on a certain day a certain Religious of the Order of the Theatines, staying at Vicenza, who, when he had found her not moderately afflicted by the aforesaid disease, offered her an image of Blessed Cajetan, exhorting her to commend herself to this holy Servant of God. She vowed that daily, after she had risen from her little bed, before she undertook anything else, she would recite the Lord's Prayer and the angelic salutation before his image. And when she was making this vow, she had already once that day fallen from the disease. Wonderful to say! Health at once followed the vow, and the woman remained free from so cruel a disease.

[175] It happened that after two months on a certain day she did not fulfill the vow through forgetfulness: are healed. without delay the disease, the corrector of negligence, was present, by which she was seized, as she had been accustomed before the vow. She, corrected by so notable an admonition, at once, as soon as she had cooled down from the first storm of the disease, satisfied the vow, and again remained free from the disease: until after four months, again forgetting the vow, she neglected to fulfill it, and at once the aforesaid disease invaded her: at the beginning of which her daughter, who was then present, piously recited the Lord's Prayer and the angelic salutation before Cajetan's image for her mother, and commended her, as she could, to the Blessed; and at once the woman returned to health, the further duration of the affliction being broken off; then she herself too satisfied her vow without delay: nor did she ever afterward forget it, and remained continually free from the disease, and endured in solid and firm health.

[176] The healing of a most foul ulcer. Miracle IX. Caterina Buranella of Venice for three years labored with a most foul ulcer in the upper part of the palate, the flesh being pierced through as far as the nostrils, and she was tortured with such great pains from it To which are added the healings of a most foul ulcer, that sometimes she was seized with a fever. There were three ulcers, running together into one hole; and when the wretched woman drank, the wine ran out through her nose. She was admonished to commend herself to blessed Cajetan, and an image of him was handed to her for this effect. She invoked Cajetan with the inmost affection of her heart, and applied the aforesaid image to her nostrils and inserted it into her mouth; and promised that if she should receive health she would carry a tablet as an indication of the miracle to his image, placed in the church of St. Nicholas of Tolentino; and betook herself to bed, holding Cajetan's image applied to her mouth: and in the morning, when she awoke, she knew that she had been granted perfect soundness.

[177] and of dropsy, The healing of a dropsical woman. Miracle X. Digna Merita Latotia of Venice, when she was now in her thirteenth year laboring with water under the skin, was seized with so vehement a pain of the back that all her bones seemed to her to be shattered, nor could she in any way move herself. Being thus affected, when she awoke by night, she beheld a huge light in her chamber, as though poured in through the window, and near her bed a certain Religious of the Order of the Theatines. Having seen which, she thought that much of the day had already advanced, and thought that that Religious, who had been accustomed to hear her confessions, was he by whom she was being visited. Soon, when she observed that it was Blessed Cajetan, invoking him she cried out: O blessed Cajetan, O holy Cajetan! And after these words Cajetan vanished together with the light, and at the same time she knew that she was freed from all disease and restored to perfect health, and, rising at once, she recited her accustomed prayers, nor did she afterward labor with water under the skin, or with pains, or with any other disease; whereas she had been accustomed to be sick two or three times each year, and each time to be afflicted for a month or more.

[178] and also the deliverance of a possessed woman, The deliverance of a possessed woman. Miracle XI. Giulia Crotta of Milan, a little girl, seized by a demon, was pitiably vexed, and when she was exorcized the demon replied that he would go out in the church of St. Antony before the image of Blessed Cajetan. The girl, a vow being pronounced by her parents, was led to the aforesaid church, and placed before Cajetan's image: where, after some prayers repeated and exorcisms, the malign spirit, naming Blessed Cajetan three times, went out of the possessed body, and left the girl shaken and like one lifeless; which he had foretold would be a sign of his departure.

[179] likewise a notable miracle in the Saint's image. An evident sign of a soul aided by the Blessed's prayers. Miracle XII. Bartolomeo Trivellino, an inhabitant of the city of Venice, lying sick with a deadly disease, when he was already next to death, summoned a priest from whom he might receive the Sacrament of extreme unction. Who, after he arrived, having caught sight of an image of Blessed Cajetan printed on paper above the sick man's bed, handed it to him to be kissed; he admonished him to say three times these words: Pray for me, blessed Cajetan; which done, the priest laid the aforesaid image in a corner of the bed between its column and the ironwork, so that it could in no way fall; and when the sick man was already about to breathe out his soul, that same image, without human agency, leaving the place where it had been put, placed itself upon the dying man's face. Which having been beheld not without astonishment, the priest took it, and held it out to the sick man to be kissed, who, the kiss being taken, at once rendered his spirit to his Creator. Those miracles are more briefly touched upon in the Roman Compendium. The Decretal Letters for the Saint's canonization insert most of them summarily into their account. Silos moreover may be consulted in book 7, from page 284 of his History, where he reports them with a changed style; but that which was related above in the first place about the broken and healed leg he had premised in book 5, page 166.

* others: for nearly two months.

* Silos: Zannanina

* others: woolen

* others: Catotia

§ XVII. Acts in the cause of the solemn canonization.

[As the business of canonizing Saints is wont to be carried out with the utmost maturity;] We shall take the material of the present subject from Silos, book 3 of the Life; who, after he had affirmed in chapter 17 that by so many and so frequent miracles as he had related, wrought by the Servant of God for the benefit of every kind of men, he had won for himself such esteem and admiration among the peoples that they seemed to desire nothing more than to see so heroic a virtue rewarded, and his memory honored with the cult due to Saints; truly, as the praised author continues, in these last times, on account of the continual wonders which were heard within and outside Italy; on account of his patronage ready for all; on account of the common applause and acclamation; private families, cities, provinces, and kingdoms pursued him with such testimonies of public veneration and splendor and cult, that by this pious impulse of devotion toward him, and by so singular and also common a conspiring of minds, they seemed to wish to insert him in the register of the Saints by the living voice. But because among all the works of the Roman Pontiffs there is none holier than that which declares great souls holy; none loftier than that which raises men eminent in virtue to so notable a dignity, and to the public veneration of the whole Christian world; none finally carried out with greater zeal according to the norm of the ecclesiastical laws and the sacred canons, than that which is engaged in the canonization of Saints; in so weighty a business one proceeds deservedly with slow foot, and not without long consultations and mature as well as prudent observations, calling back the virtue and the miracles to a most ingenious examination and severe censure.

[181] That this very thing happened to the blessed Patriarch of whom we treat, Silos rightly observes: so also it happened in St. Thiene's cause; for indeed he flew to heaven in the year 1547, and only in the year 1671, that is, in the hundred and twenty-third year after his death, was he enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints. There preceded various Processes drawn up in various places for approving his outstanding virtues: but the last two, of which one was drawn up in the province and city of Alessano or Lecce, the other at Rome, brought the matter to the desired end. In the other informations, and especially in the first Neapolitan ones, there was indeed a remarkable abundance of miracles which were produced; but in those last ones, greater account being had of weight than of number, the praised Silos asserts that only nine were brought forward; and they are those by which there were cured, namely, an incurable gangrene in the hand of Francesco de Core; a most dangerous tumor in the hip and in the shin of Giacomo Rubini; the distorted feet, useless for walking, of Orsola Cala; the evil of an ulcerated cancer, which is called a wolf, of Giuseppe Aiello; a pestilential ulcer in the left shoulder of Cataldo Basta; a malignant fever, apoplexy, convulsions, and other most grave evils of Nicola, son of the Duke Caffarelli, with an apparition of the Saint; the palsied fingers of the same nobleman, loosed in a single instant; and finally the last place is held by a boy of eight years, who was drawn out of a well into which he had fallen, and in which he had died, and was restored to life. Three of the said miracles are given below at numbers 183 and 184; concerning several other illustrious ones consult the Posthumous Glory, which we shall exhibit after the Life.

[182] how which cause was conducted, But how this cause was conducted, and by what steps the blessed Man's canonization was promoted, it is pleasing to report from the decretal Letters of Pope Innocent XII afterward drawn up concerning the same canonization; where these things are had: But then, new decrees of the same Urban our predecessor being issued, the cause fell silent; until a commission concerning its resumption had been signed by Pope Innocent X of happy memory, also our predecessor: and, new Processes being drawn up on those things which had come to pass after the veneration was indulged, a declaration of the said Congregation having first been issued on the twenty-ninth day of November 1658, that concerning the spreading abroad of the fame of veneration and cult toward the aforesaid blessed Man it was conclusively established; in the Congregation held before... Clement X our predecessor, on the second day of November 1670, on the report of Federico of good memory, then Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Peter in Chains, called Sforza, the same Clement our predecessor, by the counsel of our venerable brothers, then his, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, set over the same sacred Rites, pronounced that the relevance of the aforesaid Processes was established, and out of the nine miracles then proposed and discussed, approved three as most conclusively proved and wrought above the powers of created nature. These follow in the same place, and exist in the Decree presently to be produced. Wherefore the same Congregation, consultors being again summoned, judged by unanimous vote, the same Clement our predecessor assenting, that it could safely be proceeded at any time to the solemn canonization of the said Blessed, according to the rite of the said holy Roman Church and the decrees of the sacred canons,

and that he be defined as reigning with God, and be set forth for the universal Church to be honored and venerated. Thus far that. But the public instrument drawn up on this matter exists in Silos from page 349, and runs thus:

[183] it is set forth Of Naples. Of the canonization of blessed Cajetan of Thiene, Founder of the Clerks Regular. The doubt proposed by the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Sforza in the Congregation before His Holiness having been discussed, by force of the processes lately drawn up by Apostolic authority in the city of Lecce and in the City, concerning those things which came to pass after the veneration was indulged to the same Blessed, His Holiness, by the counsel of the Brothers, pronounced that their relevance was established, and out of nine miracles approved three as most conclusively attested and wrought above the powers of all created nature. The first, namely, of the Process of Lecce, of the healing of Francesca de Core from a cancer which had arisen in the palm of her left hand, soon ulcerated, invaded by gangrene, and turned into mortification, with infection of the arm and of the parts adjoining the heart, human remedies profiting nothing at all, and an eating away of fragments of putrid flesh having occurred from it to the weight of five ounces without any pain perceived by the sick woman; so much so that the surgeon on the following morning wished to cut off her hand, and to treat the arm by cautery; but on the preceding night, her hand being anointed with the oil of the lamp of the aforesaid Blessed, to whom she had commended herself with her whole heart, she afterward found herself sound and whole, and her hand, already dead and stinking, made alive without any mark of a scar, not without the admiration of all.

[184] from public documents; The second, which is the fourth from the same Process, of Giuseppe de Aiello, laboring for the space of fourteen years with an ulcerated cancer, called a wolf, in the posterior part of the left hip; which began three fingers' distance from the knee, and extended to the groin, advancing four fingers in breadth and three in depth, eating away and consuming the flesh itself, and besides putrid and stinking — the Blessed's help being invoked, and the hip anointed with the oil of the lamp burning before his altar, he was seen sound and whole without any trace of a scar; for indeed the skin was stretched and even, and endowed besides with its natural color, as if he had never been invaded by such a disease. The third finally, which is the first of the Roman Process, of Nicola, son of the Duke Gaspare Caffarelli, who, being seized with a malignant fever, was oppressed with convulsion, with tension and extension of hands, feet, and the trunk of the whole body in a deformed emprosthotonic manner like a siren, the muscles of the thorax convulsed, without speech and with other infirmities and deadly symptoms, his strength consumed, and proclaimed by the physicians as about to die on that very twenty-ninth night of his illness; a vow at last being made to the said Blessed, who appeared to him surrounded with rays and splendors, at once and immediately he was found sound, whole, and robust, with a complete recovery of his strength, just as if he had never labored with infirmities of this kind; the physicians and the rest admiring it, and wonderfully praising God in his Servant. All things therefore being fulfilled which the new Decrees of Urban the eighth of holy memory require; consultors being again summoned by His Holiness, by unanimous vote the same Sacred Congregation judged, His Holiness so assenting, that it could safely be proceeded at any time to the solemn canonization of the said Blessed according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church and the disposition of the sacred canons, and that he be defined as reigning with God, and be set forth for the universal Church to be honored and venerated. On this second day of November 1670. Martino, bishop of Porto, Cardinal Ginetti. Place of the ✠ seal. Bernardino Casali, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

§ XVIII. Blessed Cajetan enrolled in the number of the Saints; the ceremonies and apparatus; the Offices and Mass.

after which, as also after the prayers of princes, But let us return to the decretal Letters of Pope Innocent XII, recording besides what was done in this cause under Clement X: There being added therefore the prayers of our most distinguished sons in Christ, then his — Leopold, king of the Romans, elected emperor; Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, and Mariana the widowed queen, his mother; and also the then living Doge and Republic of the Venetians, and Ferdinand Maria of good memory, while he lived duke of both Bavarias, prince elector of the holy Roman empire, and Adelaide his wife, and of other Christian princes; and also of the then existing Provost General of the Clerks Regular in the name of the whole Order, and finally of the city of Naples; after the aforesaid Antonio of good memory, then bishop of Palestrina, called Cardinal Barberini, in place of Martino, bishop of Porto, of like memory, called Cardinal Ginetti, prefect of the said Congregation, then detained by illness, had reported the summary of the Process, and his own opinion and that of his other colleagues, the Lord Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church set over the sacred Rites (to which the other Cardinals present in the same consistory adhered by unanimous vote), and in the following public consistory, at which, besides the aforesaid Cardinals, there had also gathered the above-mentioned patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops staying in the City, and our beloved sons the Prelates of the Roman curia, and the members of the household of Clement our predecessor himself, our beloved son also, master Marcello Severoli, advocate of our, then his, consistorial court, had spoken about the blessed Man's life, virtues, and miracles, and had renewed the humble prayers of the aforesaid Leopold, king of the Romans elected emperor, of Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, of the then living Doge and Republic of the Venetians, and of the Order of Clerks Regular;

[186] there followed The same Clement our predecessor most willingly received prayers of this kind, by which the supreme honors of sanctity were sought for the blessed Man, and as he greatly rejoiced to observe a triumph raised for him in the homage of princes and in the veneration of the peoples; so with good right he trusted that it would come about that men would not be loath to imitate him whom they delighted to celebrate. But because in a business of the greatest moment the will of him must be explored who holds the princedom of the Saints, he therefore heartily exhorted all and each that by prayers, fasts, alms, and the other works of outstanding piety they should strive to obtain for him from the Holy One help for that most difficult investigation, without which the counsels of the divinity are impassable to the eyes of mortals. Nay more, he sought the opinion of the aforesaid our venerable brothers, then his, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and also of all the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops then staying in the City, for most advisedly deciding a heavenly matter on earth: who in the following semi-public consistory, appointed for this effect, our notaries, then his, and those of the Apostolic See, and the Auditors of the causes of the Apostolic palace being also present, judged by public votes, from those things which were proposed by him and reported from the Process, that it could be proceeded to the solemn canonization of blessed Cajetan.

[187] the decretal Letters of Pope Clement X, Whose unanimous consent being heard, since nothing else was lacking of those things which, by the authority of the holy Fathers, the institutes of the sacred canons, the custom of the aforesaid Holy Roman Church, and the prescription of the new decrees, had to be done and observed, the same Clement our predecessor, opening his mouth in blessing, and giving thanks to the divine clemency that it had conferred so great a grace upon his Servant, designated for performing his solemn canonization the second Sunday after Easter, namely the twelfth day of the then immediately following month of April of the year of restored salvation one thousand six hundred and seventy-one, and the first of his Pontificate.

[188] by which with solemn rite Which day arriving, in the most sacred basilica of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, whither with solemn rite he had assembled in the morning with our venerable brothers, then his, the Cardinals of the same Holy Roman Church, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, and our beloved sons the Prelates of the said Roman Curia, his Officials and members of his household, the secular and regular clergy, and a very great throng of people; the instances for the decree of canonization having been repeated a first, second, and third time by our venerable brother Paluzzo, bishop of Sabina, then Cardinal Priest of the basilica of the Twelve Apostles, called degli Altieri, in the name of the aforesaid Leopold, king of the Romans elected emperor, of Charles, Catholic king of the Spains, and of the then existing Doge and Republic of the Venetians, after the sacred hymns, Litanies, and other prayers, and after the grace of the Holy Spirit had been duly implored; to the honor of the holy and undivided Trinity, to the exaltation of the Catholic faith, to the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and his own, mature deliberation having first been had, and the divine aid often implored, and by the counsel of the aforesaid Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops then existing in the City, he decreed and defined blessed Cajetan, together with the blessed Francis Borgia, Philip Benizi, Louis Bertrand, and Rose of St. Mary, to be a Saint, and enrolled him in the Catalogue of the Saints, ordaining that by the universal Church every year, on the seventh day of August, his memory ought to be kept among the holy confessors not pontiffs. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[189] These things being performed, having venerated with praises and confessions God the eternal Father, and Christ the Lord, the king of glory, the everlasting Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit the paraclete, one God and one Lord, and the sacred hymn Te Deum being solemnly sung, he prayed also with a particular prayer through the merits of blessed Cajetan, he enrolls Blessed Cajetan in the number of the Saints, and celebrated at the altar of blessed Peter the Apostle with a commemoration of the same blessed Cajetan, and granted to all the faithful of Christ there present a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins. But to those visiting each year on the feast day of the same saint Cajetan the tomb in which his body rests, he mercifully relaxed in the Lord seven years and as many quarantines of the penances enjoined upon them, or otherwise in any way owed, in the accustomed form of the Church.

[190] But those things which are contained in the said decretal Letters and which were issued by Pope Innocent XII. the praised Pope Innocent XII soon thus corroborates: But lest it be possible in any way to hesitate about the decree, definition, enrollment, statute, concession, relaxation, and the other premises, from the fact that letters of Clement our predecessor concerning them were not drawn up; we will, and by Apostolic authority decree, that the decree, definition, enrollment, statute, concession, relaxation, and the other premises shall obtain their effect from the said twelfth day of April of the year 1671, just as if letters of Clement our predecessor concerning them had been drawn up under the date of the same day, as is related above: and that the present letters shall everywhere suffice for fully proving the decree, definition, enrollment, statute, concession, relaxation, and the other premises, nor shall any other support of proof be required for it... Given at Rome at Saint Peter's, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand six hundred and ninety-one, on the Ides of July, in the first year of our Pontificate. ✠ I, Innocent, Bishop of the Catholic Church. And below are the subscriptions of the Cardinals.

[191] I have in my hands an Italian copy, published from the Roman press in the year 1671 with this title: The ceremonies and apparatus are reported, Account of the ceremonies and of the apparatus made in the basilica of St. Peter, at the canonization of five Saints, that is, of St. Cajetan of Thiene, St. Francis Borgia, St. Philip Benizi, St. Louis Bertrand, and St. Rose of St. Mary, performed by our Most Holy Lord Pope Clement X, dedicated to the most illustrious and most reverend Father, Father Giacinto Libelli, Master

of the sacred palace. In the said copy these things are related, which, rendered from the Italian, run thus: Among the more conspicuous functions of greater piety and devotion which are wont to be celebrated in that great metropolis of the Christian commonwealth by the Vicar of Christ, no way of doubting is left that the first place is due to the canonization of Saints. But if there was ever any which deserved to be publicly published in print, that certainly is the one which was celebrated for the five saints Cajetan of Thiene, Francis Borgia, Philip Benizi, Louis Bertrand, and Rose of St. Mary, to be enrolled in the register of the Saints, in the great church of St. Peter in the Vatican. Then it passes to the narration of the event itself; whose majesty, pomp, and magnificence we forbear to recount one by one.

[192] The Office under a semi-double rite, After our most holy Lord Clement X in the year 1671, on the twelfth day of April, had enrolled Cajetan in the catalogue of the Saints, two years after he commanded an Office of him to be read under a semi-double rite, as is plain from the Apostolic letters, in which these things are had: And so, recalling with pious and particular affection of devotion the exceptional merits in the Church of God of St. Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the Congregation of Clerks Regular called Theatines, whom we have enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints with solemn rite, and desiring that our sincere piety toward him be more attested by some increase of honors, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of the present letters, we command that of the same saint Cajetan there be celebrated each year on the seventh day of August a feast with an Office from the common of Confessors not Pontiffs, under a semi-double rite of precept, by all the faithful of Christ, both secular and regular, of either sex, who are bound to the canonical Hours, and that under the same rite it be set down in the Calendar of the Roman Breviary. Given at Rome at St. Mary Major under the Fisherman's ring on the twenty-seventh day of March 1673, in the third year of Our Pontificate. J. G. Slusius.

[193] and its approbation: The Office, as is noted in its printed copy which is in my hands, having been diligently revised by the Most Eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinal Bona, the sacred Congregation of Rites approved for the universal Clergy of the militant Church, both secular and regular, of either sex, and granted that it might be printed, on this fourteenth day of April 1674. F. M., bishop of Porto, Cardinal Brancaccio. Place of the ✠ seal. Bernardino Casali, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Further, that Office in the year 1685 is prescribed to be read under a double rite by all the faithful of Christ in these words: Of the City and of the world. Our Most Holy Lord, Lord Pope Innocent XI, by the counsel of the Most Eminent and most reverend Cardinals set over the sacred Congregation of Rites, held on the twenty-fourth day of January 1682, and at the earnest prayers repeated by the Most Eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Cybo in the name of the Religion of the Clerks Regular Theatines, commanded that the Office of saint Cajetan, which up to now has been recited under a semi-double rite of precept each year on the seventh day of August on the feast of the same Saint, be henceforth recited under a double rite by all the faithful of Christ of either sex, both secular and Regular, who are bound to the canonical Hours, and ordered that it be respectively printed and set down in the Calendar of the Breviary and of the Roman Missal. On this fourth day of August 1685. N. Cardinal Ludovisi. Place of the ✠ Seal. Bernardino Casali, secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites.

[194] weekly recitation indulged to the Theatine Fathers. In the year 1694 a faculty is granted to the Theatine Clerks Regular Fathers of reciting once in the week under a semi-double rite the Office of their holy Founder on days not impeded, concerning which matter there exists the following indult: Of the Clerks Regular Theatines. The Congregation of Sacred Rites, on the report of the Most Eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinal Giudice, at the most humble prayers of the most reverend Father Lord Carlo Coppola, General of the Clerks Regular called Theatines, kindly granted to all and each of the aforesaid Religious of either sex the faculty of reciting once in the week the otherwise approved Office of St. Cajetan, their Founder, under a semi-double rite, not however on days impeded by an Office of nine lessons, of vigils, of the Ember days, of Advent, and of Lent. On the seventeenth day of July 1694. A. Cardinal Cybo. Place of the ✠ seal. B. Inghirami, secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites.

§ XIX. The writers who committed St. Cajetan's deeds to letters.

[Concerning the Saint's deeds there wrote Giovanni Antonio Prato, the most illustrious Tufo,] In the first place among those who undertook that province let there be mentioned by us Giovanni Antonio Prato of Milan, who, nearly an octogenarian, closed his last day at Padua. Enlisted at Venice in our discipline, says Silos in the second part of the History of the Clerks Regular, at the year 1600, and Thiene being Provost, under whom he had laid down the novitiate of the Religious life, he took his vows with solemn rite... He wrote a little Commentary about the life and deeds of blessed Cajetan, from whom there exist examples of his holier manners, and certain proofs of his great soul; which now, to the defrauding of mortals and especially of our Order, would lie hidden wrapped in their own darkness. But he wrote them at an age as ripe as his probity, so that no deception could at all be feared from a man most weighty and most upright. And so he profited the Fellowship both by consigning the virtue of his most holy Parent to writings, and also by his own examples. That little Commentary we have neither seen, nor do we know whether it was ever printed. But the loss is either none or an easy one; for that it lighted the way for other biographers of the same Order, who in writing the Acts of the Saint at the beginning of the seventeenth century succeeded Prato, we settle from this, that Antonio Caracciolo in the Life, of which it will presently be spoken, after he had related three miracles of the Saint, thus subjoins among us at chapter 8, number 91: These are the things which Giovanni Antonio Prato, more than eighty years old, attested in writing in the year 1598, and wished to be entered in the public monuments of our Order.

The most illustrious Lord Giovanni Battista Tufo, bishop of Acerra, in the History of the Clerks Regular, which he published at Rome in the Italian tongue in the year 1609, sets forth the deeds of St. Cajetan in chapter 9. That writer you will find praised at greater length in Silos, in the second part of the History of the Clerks Regular, book 10, page 459. This man others afterward succeeded.

[196] For indeed in the year 1612 there came forth at Cologne a Latin book with this title: Antonio Caracciolo; whose gaps Historical Collectanea on the Life of Paul IV, Supreme Pontiff, sought out, arranged, and published by the labor and zeal of Antonio Caracciolo, Clerk Regular. Likewise the Lives of Cajetan of Thiene, Bonifacio da Colle, and Paolo Consiglieri, who together with Paul IV, then bishop of Chieti, founded the Order of Clerks Regular, described by the same author. This book, approved by the most reverend Father Lord Giovanni Antonio Angrisano, Provost General of the aforesaid Congregation, at Rome at St. Sylvester on the Quirinal Hill, on the twenty-fourth day of the month of August 1611, the author dedicated to Paul V, Supreme Pontiff. That he had little material at hand for so great a Saint, whose Life he begins in the same place on page 176, he indicates in various places of it. For indeed in the very opening he writes that he undertakes a work as very small in bulk, because by far the greater part of that Man's acts lie hidden to the loss of posterity, so plainly laborious from the difficult searching out of the matters, which long detained me. On page 177 he affirms that this lucubration of his gapes with many gaps. On page 214 he says: Cajetan remained at Venice nearly five years; and that these run by for us empty of subject-matter is not the fault of Cajetan's slackened virtue... but of the silence of our own men, who preferred to live more diligently than to write.

[197] we have supplied from elsewhere, and here we praise him Page 233: Such is the condition of ancient deeds, and especially of our own, that they have come down to posterity only in part, gnawed by the tooth of time. Finally on page 250 he thus candidly professes: And so Cajetan returned to Naples in the year 1543 at the end of April... But here again, reader, I am compelled to make a huge gap of four years in that narration about Cajetan's life. For from the year 1543 up to 1547 I have found nothing said or written about that Man. But we have tried to supply from elsewhere, in this our preliminary Commentary, the more curtailed furnishing of the praised biographer than is fitting. But since we hold it fixed to reprint that Life in its own place, both because it was worked out in the Latin idiom and with great fidelity; it will not be alien from our purpose to premise here a brief account of the author. We readily allow it to be passed over in silence that the praised Antonio Caracciolo, appointed coadjutor of the bishop of Potenza, refused out of Religious modesty to accept that honorable office; concerning which matter Silos, cited at the beginning of this paragraph, at the year 1598, pages 85 and 86; in whom also at the year 1604, page 149, he is praised for his notes on the Constitutions of the Clerks Regular, which were published at Rome in the year 1610, as a man of ours, says the same Silos, as I have signified elsewhere, from whom nothing of antiquity and of a holier age lay hidden. Nor is it to the point to speak of his other lucubrations, concerning which see the index subjoined to the said volume of Silos.

[198] for his singular gifts. Readily, to say it again, we allow those things to be passed over in silence here; nevertheless it seems remarkable to us that nothing is noted in that index at the words "Antonio Caracciolo" about the Lives of the Four Men who founded the Order of Clerks Regular, just mentioned; that he was nevertheless the same man, the name, surname, age, and erudition persuade us. Concerning that book therefore, so far as it contains the deeds of our Saint, we observe: first, the writer's diligence, from the difficult searching out of matters, which, as he said above at number 196, long detained me. Second, his labor; for he affirms his work to be plainly laborious. Third, his sincerity, by which he both frankly professes in various places that he labors under a scarcity of documents, and in their lack abstains from affected exaggerations, florid expressions, and bedizened ornaments, differing in this far from a good many other writers, who, material failing them, obtrude few matters indeed but many words. Fourth, the elegance of Latin speech with which he expresses the Saint's deeds. Fifth, finally, his antiquity, inasmuch as he lived nearly contemporary with the same Saint. And these are Caracciolo's gifts, which have moved us to choose his Life before others for the press.

[199] To these add Castaldo, The Reverend Father Lord Giovanni Battista Castaldo published in Italian the Life of St. Cajetan, his founder. The second printing, which I have before me, came forth at Rome in the year 1616. In the Preface he praises the Lives of the four first Fathers of the Theatine Order published by Antonio Caracciolo, which indeed, because he wrote them in a weighty and compendious Latin style, following out a continuous thread of history, and bringing forward true testimonies of his narration; he nevertheless signifies that he does not believe that he is worthy of blame if... having taken up another order, he had more wonderful things to note, with such sincerity, etc. We both praise the labors of the man for his holy Parent, and indicate in a word that he would have provided better for his narration if in it he had abstained from that purely and simply fabulous tale, concerning which we met with him above at number 55. For the rest, those wonders which

he was just now indicating, we have not neglected to supply, both from the very often cited historian of the Order and from elsewhere, through the course of this Commentary; so that it is by no means necessary to render into Latin and reprint that Life printed in Italian.

[200] In the year 1645 there came forth from the Verona press, under the name of Euretas Misoscolus, and also Euretas, as he calls himself, Misoscolus, a Life of the praised Saint; or, to say what the matter is, rather a piously arranged panegyric, proceeding namely from the inmost bitterness of a penitent mind, by which he seriously deplores the vain license of his youthful age in writing, as may be seen on page 1 and following. To the Dedication, which precedes the Life, is subscribed F. Pona; after the Italian Life there follow in Latin the miracles approved by the sacred Roman Rota for the canonization, the decree of the sacred congregation of Rites on the solemn beatification, and the indult of Pope Urban VIII for celebrating Mass and reciting the Office.

[201] In the year 1650 Giuseppe Silos of Bitonto, repeatedly mentioned by us above, deserved most abundantly concerning the most distinguished deeds of his Founder, Silos, Barbarano, when he wove them into the first part of the History of his Order then published. Bernardino Benzi, of whom the discourse will presently return, on page 60 calls him the Swan of Latium; but more hyperbolically, in our judgment at least, than truly. But although he did not write altogether against Minerva's will, nevertheless, that in those things which we have transcribed from him into our Commentary the discourse might come forth more perspicuous and corrected, we have here and there used the sponge, the substance of the matters nevertheless being untouched. We candidly and gladly profess, however, that we owe the chief marrow of this Commentary to the man's labors and zeal undertaken for St. Cajetan. In the year 1652 the Reverend Father Brother Francesco Barbarano de Mironi, of the Order of the Capuchin Brothers, printed the second book of his Ecclesiastical History of Vicenza; into which he wove the deeds of St. Cajetan in chapter 86 and following.

[202] In the year 1654 Bernardino Benzi, of the Order of Clerks Regular, an anonymous Clerk Regular, made public the deeds of his Saint, published at Venice, and dedicated to the most illustrious Giovanni Francesco Morosini, patriarch of Venice. We could wish that he had set beside his narration, which we gave above in §13, number 146, some testimony worthy of credit, or at least the name of the author from whom he drew it, by which he would have won for it more authority and strength. To this also belong the things which will be said at number 204.

In the year 1655 a Life of St. Cajetan of Thiene, at the effort of Brother Nicola Auxentio, was submitted to the Venetian press. He in the Preface to the Reverend Fathers the Clerks Regular indicates that the author of that Life is of their Order, and that he hid his name out of fear and human respect. In the same place too he affirms that it is so well ordered, so gracefully set forth, so adorned with the authority of the holy Fathers, so enriched with pious and moral digressions, so filled out with new actions of the Blessed, so established upon the processes drawn up for his canonization, that he counted it a matter of conscience to bury it under the darkness of oblivion. The work is one of the greatest erudition, as also of untiring labor; although, if you regard both the Saint's Acts and our purpose concerning them, it resembles a polyanthea, so to speak, rather than a history. What was to our purpose we have taken from it with no sparing hand; as is evident from this Commentary.

[203] Charpy de Sainte-Croix, Following these writers of Lives, the most honorable Lord Charpy de Sainte-Croix, councillor to the king of the Gauls, committed his French Life to the press at Paris in the year 1657, and inscribed it to the Most Eminent Cardinal Mazarin. At the end of the preface to the reader the author confesses that he drew the Life of St. Cajetan from the Annals of his Order, and that there is nothing in it of his own invention, except the connecting of the material; therefore he is chiefly to be praised because in public affairs and those proper to his office he found so much leisure that he deserved so piously and religiously concerning the publishing abroad of the Saint's deeds for the common utility of the Gauls.

[204] and several others; Giuseppe Silos, so often and deservedly praised by us above, published in Italian at Rome in the year 1671 the Life of his most holy Patriarch; describing in the first book the series of his life; in book 2 his virtues, in book 3 his miracles. In my hands too is a Life abridged into a compendium, by the author Father Lord A. Tommaso Schiara, of the Order of the Theatine Fathers, which is divided into three parts, and inscribed to the most illustrious and most excellent lady Eleonora Buoncompagni Borghese. It came forth at Rome in the year 1688. Altogether wonderful are the apparitions of Christ the Lord and of his Virgin Mother, which he writes happened to his holy Founder, and which we have brought forward before from him in §13, described, as he adds, by various authors and distinctly indeed: but as greatly as we desire that they be true, so greatly do we grieve that no document occurs to us distinctly in that place, besides those various and vague authors, by which we might prove that things so wonderful are truly and solidly credible. We know indeed that some of them are indicated in Benzi, book 3, number XXI and following; but we read no writer cited there, no monument of antiquity.

With me too is another French Life of St. Cajetan, together with rules of discipline and piety, drawn from the Constitutions of the Order of Clerks Regular, the holy Councils, and the Fathers of the Church, for the edification of the Clergy and of all the Faithful, published at Paris in the year 1698 by D. Bernard, a Clerk Regular. Besides these biographers, I find noted also Stefano Pepe, Bernard le Champ du Moulin, who wrote in French (unless perhaps this is the same D. Bernard whom I have just named); likewise Fortio of the Congregation of St. Philip Neri, and Cajetan Magenio. A historical collection of matters regarding St. Cajetan was compiled by the modern French Legend-writer, named above at number 2 and number 149 of this Commentary; that same man who is so often and deservedly beaten in our Work. And these indeed are the things which have hitherto come to our knowledge concerning the printed Lives of the holy Patriarch: to which finally we add two manuscript ones, which in the year 1733, in which we write these things, we received from the Reverend Fathers the Clerks Regular at Rome. And we venerate indeed the laborious toil of those most religious Fathers for their most holy Founder in both; but neither nevertheless answers to our wishes.

[205] Each is written out in clear characters and in the Latin idiom; and finally two most recent collectors. and one of them is written as excerpted chiefly from the Histories of the Clerks Regular published by Silos, and from other approved authors; but the other notes as its author J. B. Caracciolo, C. R.; but each was collected with greater effort, and with no less zeal toward the most holy Founder, than help to us (which we regret); because it came into our hands, after a long delay, only when our collection of matters concerning St. Cajetan was already almost brought to an end. To this is added that, since the Life composed by Antonio Caracciolo — the most ancient, so far as we know, among those which are of any just fullness and came forth in Latin — was ready at hand for us, no further thought had to be given to putting to the press that which J. B. Caracciolo collected a whole century, and more, after his namesake Antonio. Nevertheless those things which in each of the said copies were to our purpose have not been so neglected that their compilers, besides the praise of good will, have not also in fact contributed helps to the deeds of their Saint which we have illustrated, as may be seen in this preliminary Commentary. And that one indeed which we indicated in the first place, because it did not bear the collector's name, we have called above at number 10 the manuscript Life collected from Silos and others; but the other, the manuscript Life of J. B. Caracciolo; by which characteristic you may remember to distinguish it from the Life published in print by the other Caracciolo of the same name, repeatedly alleged in the said Commentary. Now, before we subjoin the Life of this Caracciolo, we wish you, reader, admonished in a few words: first, that we have divided it into chapters and numbers after our manner; second, that we have purged it of not a few typographical errors; third, that we have illustrated it with Annotations; to which will be subjoined the Saint's Posthumous Glory.

LIFE

By the author, the Reverend Father Lord Antonio Caracciolo, Clerk Regular.

Cajetan of Thiene, Confessor, at Naples (S.)

BY ANTONIO CARACCIOLO.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

The author, from a lack of monuments, I undertake to write some deeds of Cajetan of Thiene, chief after Carafa among the Four Men who founded our Order ^a, which the harsh time and the severe negligence of our own men could not overwhelm. A work as very small in bulk, because by far the greater part of that Man's acts lie hidden to the loss of posterity, so plainly laborious from the difficult searching out of the matters, which long detained me. But this I hold as persuaded meanwhile, that by these few examples of virtues, though they be few, those who shall have come studiously to read or hear them can not only be invited, but even stirred as by certain goads. So brilliant an image of a perfect Man do the lines of even a few deeds, if they do not render it to the life, nevertheless indicate and betray, as the claw betrays the lion.

[2] For every lofty virtue has this, he says ^b, that although it does not equally appear and shine, it is nevertheless the same to itself, and after the manner of a darkened sun exerts its power in secret. For from the hidden treasure of his virtues we judge to have flowed the reverence and religious cult of the people of Vicenza (to pass over others) toward him, sets forth not so much the holy Man's life as his image. which has now so increased that they commonly seek out his image, which they venerate at least with a private cult, and have demanded with the highest prayers, and almost extorted with reproaches, this lucubration of mine about his holy manners and deeds, brief though it be, and gaping with many gaps.

CHAPTER I.

His birth, name, deeds at Rome; the confraternity of divine Love and the Hieronymian one; the Venetian journey, the hospital reformed.

The Saint born at Vicenza of a stock, Cajetan was born at Vicenza ^a, which is a most adorned city of Italy in the Venetian territory; his family was exceedingly illustrious on both parents' side, and to be compared with few. Further, although we do not make the greatest account of the honors of ancestors (for they can seem another's), we by no means think them to be wholly passed over: since indeed the renown of one's lineage makes present virtue, if not greater, certainly far more illustrious. And so we shall briefly record from the stock of Thiene

two Uguccioni: the one ^b, four hundred and twenty years ago, under Celestine III ^c as Supreme Pontiff, a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and the same sent by Innocent III into Picenum against the tyrant Markward ^d as legate with the highest power: the other, the ambassador of Gregory XI ^e first to the Venetians, then to the Upper Pannonians: likewise John, surnamed Taurus, brother of Uguccione the Cardinal, who was privy to and a sharer in the counsels of Charles III ^f of Anjou, and his chief minister. He himself, increased by the lordship of many towns and cities from him, was appointed viceroy at Naples by king Ladislaus ^g, son of Charles, when he was about to go into Tuscany.

[4] by men distinguished in the soldier's cloak Nor did that dignity fall to him last: for a few years after, being summoned to Milan, he is set over Insubria with lofty dignity, until Filippo Maria Visconti ^h, the guardianship of whom as a boy had then been committed to him, should grow up ⁱ. And indeed almost in the age of our fathers Cajetan of Thiene III became renowned, who, lord of Cortesnova in Pannonia, under Ferdinand ^k and Maximilian II ^l Augusti, commander of a wing of horse, and grand standard-bearer of the Pannonian kingdom, after excellently rendered military service, yielded to fate in the year 1560. Nor by arms only, but also by letters did that family merit renown of fame. For the great-uncle of our Cajetan (to say nothing of others), who was himself also called Cajetan, because he had been born at Gaeta ^m in the time of king Ladislaus, so excelled in solid erudition that he had a public testimony from the school of Padua, which is read even today on his tomb in these words: "To Cajetan of Vicenza, of the distinguished family of Thiene, Canon of Padua, a most upright man, easily the first of the Theologians of his age, and an excellent Philosopher, by whose doctrine all the gymnasia of the world are made illustrious, this place has been given."

[5] I pass over very many other distinguished men who and by men notable in the toga. approved their service to Frederick III ⁿ and Maximilian I ^o, the Caesars, to the kings of France, to the Venetian Republic, to the Dukes of Ferrara, and to other lords, conspicuous in military glory, and marked with the exceptional names of prefectures. I pass over the intimate councillors of kings, the Auditors of the Chamber and of the Roman Rota (as they call them), sprung from the same stock. I pass over that the Thienes, joined by lawful marriages to the Cunia [p], the Este [q], the Malatesta [r], and other most noble families of this kind, held a place and an exceptional light among the nobles of Italy [s]. These things I wished to recount, that Cajetan may seem to be able to say that he rejoiced not so much because he had these honors of the world, as because he left them for Christ.

[6] I come to Gaspar, our Cajetan's father, concerning whom I am in doubt His parents, his name, whether he was more excellent at home or in war; so greatly, while he was at home, was he prudent and skilled in the arts of peace; while under the standards he led a squadron of mailed horsemen, he was tireless in spirit, strenuous of hand, industrious, and brave. From that man, and from Maria Porto, a matron of equal nobility and virtue, Cajetan is born. But in what year is not altogether clear. But if it be permitted to judge, since, as we shall say afterward, he died in the forty-seventh year of the last century, not a decrepit old man, I judge (unless conjecture deceives me) that he was brought forth into this life about the year from the redeemed world 1485 [t]. Further, his parents gave him the appellation of Cajetan, that he might represent both the name and the virtue of the elder Cajetan his great-uncle, of whom we have spoken [u].

[7] But that he was liberally and nobly educated it is unlawful to doubt, his education, his deeds at Rome; inasmuch as he was with noble parents, and ones conspicuous for uprightness and civility of manners. Nevertheless I have heard or read nothing of his boyhood and youth [x]. This only they hand down, that he migrated to Rome as a young man, and with a mind and age already firm. That there he served the Supreme Pontiff Julius II [y] in an honorable rank; but afterward, having been received among the confraternity-members of Divine Love, he diligently gave himself to pious works [z]. Of this confraternity, which was above all celebrated and illustrious at that time in the City, and from which, as from a school of virtues, came forth the Four Men who founded our Order, namely those whose lives we are now writing [aa], I judge indeed that I shall do something worth the labor if in this place I set forth its origin and institute, so far as shall be enough for the purpose.

[8] When, Luther being the author [bb], that monster of outrages and most savage crimes, these foul heresies had arisen, which most miserably infected very many northern provinces in the age of our fathers, in the midst of Italy too, and in the very city of Rome (as evil is sown from evil), depraved morals sprouted daily, by which not only the peoples, but also Clerics and Religious men were everywhere contaminated: and indeed those who ought to have gone before the unskilled and weak common people toward virtue, bent them by their example toward vices. Certain men therefore, who were at Rome of solid probity, that they might in some way be able for their part to meet such great evils, and to recall the tottering ecclesiastical order to its former purity and dignity, under Leo X, Supreme Pontiff [cc], founded a notable confraternity in the very city of Rome, and imposed upon it the noble surname "of Divine Love."

[9] into which, among other most excellent men, Cajetan is enrolled The first and chief confraternity-members are recorded as Gasparo Contarini [dd], Jacopo Sadoleto [ee], Matteo Giberti [ff], Gian Pietro Carafa, Cajetan of Thiene, Luigi Lippomano [gg], Latino Giovenale, Tullio Crispoldi, and Giuliano Dati. There were added afterward, as happens, very many others, namely up to fifty nobles of the Roman court. So great is the force of examples in either direction. The place where they gathered for sermons and sacred prayers was the little church of Sts. Sylvester and Dorothy in the Trastevere region [hh], near that hired tavern [ii] which the ancient Christians, the emperor Alexander [kk] deciding for them against the heathen, changed into a true temple dedicated to the Deity, under Callistus I, Supreme Pontiff: likewise not far from the Janiculum hill [ll], where Peter, prince of the Apostles, had been fastened to the cross.

[10] with great fruit. And so the Fathers willingly withdrew thither, and exercised themselves in rivalry partly in celebrating the Deity with praises, partly in imbuing men with saving doctrine: where they knew both that Peter the Apostle, being a Jew, had been accustomed to live with Jews, and that those primitive Christians had discharged these same offices of piety. There was added the convenience that that little church, with the adjoining houses, was in the care of the already mentioned Giuliano Dati, who was then rector of that benefice and parish, and set over the penitentiary priests at the Lateran basilica, a man of great authority in the City, and conspicuous for prudence and probity. Wherefore, when at his exhortation those excellent prelates came thither on appointed days, the former, almost dead, warmth of Christians gradually began to revive: and from that confraternity afterward, as its fame grew abroad on every side, others took the same form of rites and manners, which, derived from that Roman one and subject to it, were everywhere formed in very many cities of Italy.

[11] the Hieronymian one of Vicenza, Among whose number the Hieronymian one, which was established at Vicenza, was assuredly worthy, both from the excellence of the men who were chosen into it and from the utility of the offices to which they assiduously gave themselves, that our Cajetan too, easily the most devout of the people of Vicenza, should be enrolled in it. Therefore, having returned from Rome into that city, he asked and obtained to be enrolled in the number of these Hieronymian confraternity-members also. I shall insert here the very words excerpted from the Diary of the Vicenza fellowship, that the reader may recognize how deep and solid foundations Cajetan had laid for the edifice of the virtues:

[12] in which also he wished to be numbered, "Cajetan was most courteously received into the society in the year of salvation 1519. But he by his efficacious word, diligent obedience, beneficence toward the poor, and remarkable probity of life went before the rest, and daily produced for the fellowship an odor of good fame. Many things excellently performed by that Man are recorded. It is pleasing to report some. First he induced the members, who before took the Eucharist only four times in the year, thereafter to do it at least twelve times. By that sweet address of his he began gradually to move the hearts of the members, and to kindle them with the fire of charity, and that especially during communion. For while with his own hand he held out the heavenly bread to his companions, he repeatedly addressed them, and so affected them that they took counsel about restoring the frequent use of the Sacraments; and many of them every week, many also on the feast days which fell within the week, and moreover on all the sixth days of the week, were nourished with the holy banquets of Christ.

[13] Then Cajetan resolved to enrich the society with the privileges of the Roman Pontiff, he formed to remarkable piety; and with the expiatory diplomas which by God's grace we now enjoy. These by his own industry and skill he obtained without difficulty, inasmuch as he had long been engaged in the Roman court, and was exceedingly skilled in conducting business. But especially after we undertook the care of the incurably sick, it was obtained from the City by his labor that this Vicenza one should be united to the hospital of St. James in Augusta, as they call it, which is the chief of the others throughout Italy, and should depend upon it as upon a head. In this manner therefore, the fellowship and the hospital being now established, he began to gather hither the poor and very many beggars, to whom he daily brought help with his own hands, and led them by plainly fiery words to the endurance of hardships.

[14] Lastly, he who had already established the fellowship and fortified it with laws, thence by obedience he set out for Venice. himself of his own accord submitted to the nod and command of Battista of Crema, a Religious man of the Dominican Order. He, by a divine prompting, I think, brought his mind to command Cajetan that, leaving his family home, all his kinsmen and relations, and likewise deserting the hospital which he had very recently founded, and casting off the care of our fellowship, which was then beginning to be celebrated for the renown of its deeds, he should go to Venice. Cajetan indeed reckoned with himself that so many members, and those almost all pressed by poverty, and scarcely sustaining life by the labor of their hands or by alms gathered at the church doors, would fare very badly if he departed: nevertheless, relying on his exceptional faith, and preferring the virtue of obedience and compliance to all other things, he migrated with all his furnishings and domestic equipment to Venice, and there most excellently reformed, with the prudence that was his, the hospital which they call the New, and his institution flourishes up to this very day. In that same city he roused the minds of noble men and women, and of very many of the common people. Finally the little fires cast by him burn more and more daily. These works, most piously established, were, I suppose, the causes of appeasing the Deity, angry with the Venetian city."

had once stood in special favor with the emperor Henry, a man powerful, ingenious, and crafty, striving with every effort to subject to himself by art and by arms, and with the help even of the Saracens, did not cease to ruin, to the gravest harm of the Church, of the kingdom, and of the ward Frederick, and was therefore often struck with excommunication, and even at times repressed by arms, etc. And a little after, at the said year, his death is treated. There can also be seen Pandolfo Collenuccio, Neapolitan History, book 4, and François Pagi's Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, volume 3, on the praised Innocent, number XXII.

p. Imhof in the book which is entitled Corpus of the Genealogical History of Italy and Spain, published at Nuremberg in the year 1702, page 155 and following, sets forth the genealogy of the Barbiano family, most noble among those of Insubria, and of the Counts of Cunio sprung from it.

q. Concerning the Este, Sansovino in his book On the Origin and Deeds of the Illustrious Families of Italy, folio 367 verso, will instruct you at greater length.

r. Concerning this family consult Sansovino just cited, from folio 221.

s. We pass over, says Silos assigned above, Ferdinando, Adriano, Simone, Giorgio, and Ottavio of Thiene, most praised for prudence both civil and military.

t. See what we have said about the year of his birth in our preliminary Commentary, number 3.

u. These things we have confirmed in the Commentary, number 6.

x. These things the Commentary sets forth at greater length, number 7 and following.

y. He sat from the year 1503 to 1513.

z. These things are confirmed and amplified in the same place, §2.

aa. According to what was said in the Commentary, number 196.

bb. He began his apostasy in the year 1517.

cc. He governed the Church from the year 1513 to 1521.

dd. The deeds distinguishedly performed by him exist in Ciacconius, Lives of the Pontiffs and Cardinals, volume 3, column 578 and following.

ee. He is praised in Ciacconius just cited from column 610.

ff. Concerning him see the preliminary Commentary, number 53; the Life which we illustrate, number 27; Ughelli among the bishops of Verona, volume 5 of Italia Sacra, column 993; Silos, volume 1, in various places designated in the index to it.

gg. He is most well known for his Work on the Lives of the Saints. Concerning that man Ughelli just cited, column [ ], and volume 4 among the bishops of Bergamo from column 702.

hh. Concerning this Panciroli treats in The Hidden Treasures of the City of Rome, Region 8, page 596.

ii. A shelter, namely, of old or veteran and infirm soldiers, from Panciroli in the same place, page 584. There can also be seen Panvinio, On the Seven Churches of the City, among the things which he has concerning the church of St. Mary across the Tiber, where he treats of the fountain of oil overflowing from the said tavern.

kk. He reigned from the year of Christ 222 up to 235.

ll. Concerning the Janiculum and the Vatican hill Baronius discourses in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 69, number 16.

CHAPTER II.

God propitious to the Venetian Republic on account of Cajetan; his goods distributed to the poor; the planning of the new Order; its companions.

The calamities of a most afflicted Europe These things are read about Cajetan in that Commentary. And indeed those last words are to be considered more attentively; for they hint at those calamitous times in which almost all Europe was miserably afflicted by a deadly war, namely then, when, Rhodes having been taken ^a, and the soldiers of Jerusalem ^b either slain or put to flight from there, the Turkish fury seemed to gape after Crete, Cyprus, and other neighboring provinces of the Venetians: and when Italy, long shaken and plundered by the invading French, Spaniards, and Germans, God nevertheless so favored the dominion and fortunes of the Venetians that both the Turk turned his arms from Rhodes against the Pannonians, and, while the other petty rulers of Italy were involved in extreme peril, the Venetians alone amid so many dire disasters of Europe not only stood safe and unharmed; but even most happily recovered towns and cities which they had formerly lost.

[16] Although others attribute such prosperous outcomes either to Colonna's or to Liviano's fortitude and industry as commanders, God mitigates, being appeased by Cajetan; nevertheless the writer of the already mentioned Diary more holily and more truly ascribes them to the pious works and assiduous prayers which, Cajetan being the author, being established at Venice in those times, appeased God. So true and certain is it that those cannot easily be harmed by barbarous enemies who have within their borders some remarkable worshippers and friends of the divine Deity, at whose request and by whose innocence that heavenly King spares the rest, even the guilty. Otherwise, God being violated and hostile through crimes, what at last are a strong force of troops and supplies, and the props of human power or prudence, but the nurses of empty pride, and the pledges of certain calamity?

[17] But Cajetan, having now founded or strengthened sacred confraternities and hospitals at Rome, Vicenza, Verona, and Venice, returned to Rome about the twenty-first year of the last century, who, returning to Rome, his goods being distributed to the poor, turning over in his mind by what means chiefly he might in fact perform that which he had long before conceived, and had confidently said at Vicenza to his fellow-member Domenico Xanivellio, a man of tried piety, in these words: I shall not cease to bestow upon the needy whatever I have, until for Christ I become so poor that when dead I obtain not even burial save by another's favor. And indeed he abundantly obtained that vow of his. For, having returned to Rome, as we have said, after he had for some while exercised himself in pious works together with the members of Divine Love, his most ample patrimony being distributed to the poor and to his poorer kinsmen, and his rich benefices being freely resigned into the hands of the Supreme Pontiff — not, as most do, to the advantage of their own people — being made the parent and author of the Clerks Regular, he reduced himself, as he desired, to the utmost want. How this was done, this place demands that I set forth.

[18] plans a new Order; Cajetan, being indeed a man of ready genius, and always intent upon procuring and increasing God's glory, gradually observed that that corruption of morals and of minds, which had pervaded Christian peoples far and wide, was altogether a greater evil than could be healed by the aid or industry of one confraternity of secular Clerics, and one not destined to last perpetually; and the poison which had fixed its roots so deep seemed not to be shaken off save by a perpetual and most powerful medicine. There was added that those sixty men who had entered the society at Blessed Dorothy's could neither dwell at Rome, nor, while they were at Rome, give themselves assiduously to those saving offices, being each entangled in his own private affairs.

[19] he considers; He therefore, moved by a divine prompting, as it is fitting to believe, came into this thought: if that primitive and Apostolic institute were restored in his age, and were perpetually confirmed by the pronouncing of sacred and solemn vows, that this would be no unfit means of repairing the Christian commonwealth. That Clerics, the ministers of the sacred rites, had once brought excellent help to the laboring Church: but that, as the affairs of mortals are prone to mishaps, they were now growing weary from their own bulk and old age. That the minds of mortals must therefore be roused with a new and Apostolic spirit, and that for Clerics whom wickedness and ignorance had corrupted, to the huge destruction of peoples, other and yet other Clerics must be substituted, by whose labor the loss which those had brought upon the Christian world by their depraved example might be repaired. He knew that it had happened not otherwise once, both often at other times, and above all indeed when Augustine ^c, that excellent shepherd, the Order of Clerics being restored to the Apostolic form, purged Africa and almost all Europe of heresies, and added an excellent ornament to the Catholic Church.

[20] [Bonifacio da Colle approving the matter, and offering himself as a companion for it; which Carafa] After nearly this manner Cajetan reasoned. Nor indeed did the outcome elude his prayer: since indeed our fellowship first cultivated Italy, within which it has thus far pleased it to remain, by word and example; but then, after sixteen years, that which is auspiciously named from Jesus ^d, and others and yet others diffused through almost the whole world, shortly, God being propitious, brought thoughts into work, and hope into reality. Cajetan therefore, those things which he had for some while turned over with himself, God being the contriver, communicates in friendly wise with Bonifacio da Colle, a most upright man. He approves, and, seized by the holy spirit, offers himself as a partner for so distinguished a deed. Not long after, Gian Pietro Carafa, bishop of Chieti, got wind of this matter, namely he whose deeds we have already related ^e, and who had long desired to emerge from the billows of the world into some harbor; as soon as he perceived the plan and aim of the Order to be established, at once he blazed with a vehement desire of entering upon an institute which should join together the duties and praises of the monastic and the clerical life at once.

[21] And so, as he was nearly always excellently animated for undertaking the arduous things of the virtues, most earnestly also asks, he freely met with Cajetan, and asked him in the greatest degree to make him a sharer of the same vow:

that he had, if not merit, certainly zeal equal to the rest, and that he had conceived in his mind almost a similar image of a sacred fellowship, which he had not dared to disclose to anyone: accordingly that to him, both a friend and a bishop, and eagerly desiring it, at least the last place in that best deed should not be denied. He, marveling at the man's spirit and at a heart too narrow for no distinguished work, first gave thanks that so great a prelate should so eagerly wish to embrace the life of poor Clerics; but then (to repress Carafa's impulse and ardor) excused himself in many ways, and set forth the difficulties, which were many and certainly most grave; namely that by the sacred canons, which Carafa himself well knew, it was not lawful for a bishop, his own flock and Christ's being deserted, to withdraw into cloisters. Let him see that the times were greatly in need of brave examples: accordingly let him not hide himself within walls, who had been set by God as a wall for the house of Israel against the Philistines of this time: let him rather continue with the other bishops to lead the Christian battle-lines; but let him allow himself and other private men to be kept under the standards among the common soldiers.

[22] While Cajetan strives to dissuade Carafa with these and other such arguments, and at last prevails. he, as he was fervent in disposition, and most tenacious of a right counsel which he had once seized, was in no way moved by these difficulties, nay grew hotter and hotter. At last, many words having been exchanged on both sides, Carafa's ardor proceeded so far that, his knees being suddenly fixed on the ground, with somewhat angry and almost threatening countenance he protested to Cajetan that on the day of judgment he would demand from him an account of his soul before Christ the judge ^f, unless he at once admitted him from the tumults of the world to the quiet station of the Religious life. Then Cajetan, astonished at the man's constancy, eloquence, and gravity, fell himself also upon his knees, and embracing him most lovingly said: I, my Lord, will never desert you.

[23] Their minds and strength being joined, therefore, they diligently investigate by what means they might maturely, with God, accomplish what they had proposed: To these three is added Paolo Consiglieri. and by mutual exhortations they kindle one another in turn. But before they set about the matter, they take to themselves a fourth companion, namely Paolo Consiglieri, a faithful friend of Carafa, and conspicuous for ancient stock and probity. Upon these four, as upon bases, the whole edifice of our Order was built: and indeed these four roses, amid the midst of the winters of human hearts, Blessed Dorothy ^g, as once at Caesarea, then again at Rome brought forth. The rest, who are reported to have been thirty-eight, although they had grown warm at the first news of the new institute, and each had readily offered himself as a companion for entering upon the Order of Clerics, nevertheless, terrified by the difficulty of the matter and by the vow of most strict poverty which those four had conceived, grew cold.

CHAPTER III.

The difficulties overcome; the Religious profession; the first Provost of the Order; poverty, name, increase.

The planning of the new Order agitated with great difficulties; In the year, then, of the redeemed World 1524, on the feast day of the Finding of the Cross, the matter began to be diligently urged by the four aforesaid men with Clement VII, Supreme Pontiff. At first it was hindered by great difficulties, most of the nobles of the Roman court pronouncing that it would be a new thing that Clerics, distinguished from monks in habit, appellation, and in some measure also in institute, should nevertheless be rigidly kept within the enclosures of a cloister after the manner of monks, and should lead a life bound by solemn vows pronounced to Christ. Besides, that it did not seem that they could support themselves, unless they either sought alms by begging, which was almost unusual for Clerics, or procured for themselves fixed revenues and incomes, which the Fathers by no means suffered themselves to be persuaded of. But that that Apostolic manner of living from voluntary offerings would not prosperously succeed in these times, in which the cultivation of the virtues and above all charity toward the needy is seen to have so grown cold, almost everyone seeking the things that are his own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's.

[25] which Cajetan with his companions Nor was it easy to obtain from the Supreme Pontiff that it should be permitted to Carafa, his episcopal office being left, to depart into a private life. For the Pontiff knew how great a support the Christian commonwealth could find in that man, especially in those times in which it was worth while to employ men excelling in virtue, counsel, and piety at the helm, and not to send them away into cloisters or solitudes. The matter, therefore, entangled in these knots, would scarcely ever have been unraveled, had not Cajetan above all, and the other companions also, replied strenuously that neither they nor their posterity, provided they trusted in Christ and diligently sought the kingdom of God, would ever be anxious about the food and clothing of the body: that they would do this one thing: that they did not at all doubt that the rest would be added, with Christ as surety: that the Apostles and the first followers of the Gospel had met with a world far more hostile to piety and charity, and that nevertheless none of them was consumed by hunger or cold, save if at any time the rage of persecutors tortured rich and poor alike in these ways.

[26] That very many other Orders retain perpetual revenues and incomes, they did not at all disapprove; strives to dissolve: but that it could not be denied that that institute is more perfect which more intently preserves Evangelical poverty. That riches are often the seed-plot of lawsuits, and the ruin of liberty. And so that they asked the Purpled Fathers and the Most Holy Pontiff to favor the restoration of a Clerical institute which the Apostles had dedicated, and which Apostolic men in a long series had confirmed by their example. Concerning the bishop of Chieti, that they hoped he would be no less useful to the Christian commonwealth as parent of the Order of Clerics than if he had remained prelate of the church of Chieti. Nor did he render himself unfit for defending the Christian cause by entering upon a Religious institute; but that he himself, who before had fought in the battle-line as first centurion, would afterward, as from a certain sacred tower, by an example to be remembered by posterity, fight together with his companions.

[27] By these and other reasons the Fathers dissolved the things which had been objected: [and the matter, Giberti bishop of Verona especially promoting it, was accomplished.] to which Matteo Giberti ^a, that most celebrated bishop of Verona, assuredly added great strength, who, because he was strong in favor with Clement and in the greatest authority with the Cardinals, greatly helped our men. And indeed Giberti applied himself the more diligently to dispatching the matter because he greatly desired to join himself to them, and thus by that means to withdraw himself from the noise and whirlwinds of the court. But he could not obtain the fruit and the wish of his labor. For the Fathers refused to join so great a prelate to themselves as a companion, with whom they well knew that Clement shared the cares of pontifical rule: and indeed that he would never permit that, himself and public affairs being abandoned, he should betake himself to other pursuits, even the best: that from the number of bishops Carafa would be enough for them, by whose authority, counsel, and aid they would be helped. And so, since on the feast day of the Finding of the Cross the matter had begun to be urged, it was auspiciously accomplished likewise on the solemn day of the Exaltation of the Cross; so that accordingly we seem not undeservedly to have assumed the emblem of the Cross for ourselves.

[28] But it will perhaps be worth the labor if I briefly relate in this place in what manner those four men bound themselves to God by vows ^b at Blessed Peter's on the Vatican hill ^c. The Religious vows of the Fathers, Clement VII, whom we have already often mentioned, Supreme Pontiff of the Medici stock, that he might cherish the reborn Order of Clerks Regular with Apostolic protection, and subject it immediately to himself, that is, to the Vicar of Christ, ordered Giovanni Battista Bonzagni ^d, bishop of Caserta ^e and Apostolic Datary ^f, to receive in the Pontifical name the solemn vows of the four aforesaid men, and to strengthen them with Apostolic authority. And so on that feast day our Fathers came, together with Bonzagni, to the most august Vatican church, the whole Clergy and a very great multitude of all ranks following; and, a solemn Sacrifice having been celebrated by the bishop of Caserta at the altar of Saint Andrew, and the heavenly bread duly held out to the Fathers about to make profession, they approach two by two the altar of Saint Peter, which is the chief and most sacred of that church: and there, the diploma of Clement VII ^g having been recited with a clear voice by a notary, first Gian Pietro, then Cajetan, then the other two most devoutly pronounced the solemn vows of Religion to the supreme Deity: whose formulas ^h, written out by each in their own hand, Bonzagni received and approved in the name of the supreme Pontiff.

[29] After these things, since by the already mentioned diploma it was granted to our men that they should elect for themselves what Provost they wished, the first Provost of them, Carafa, therefore those four men, withdrawing a little from the assembly of bystanders, when they had deliberated among themselves for some while about that matter, the votes of all met in Gian Pietro. Him therefore, now designated and elected the first Provost of the Clerks Regular, the bishop of Caserta strengthened and confirmed by the power in which he was strong. These things being performed with their own great devotion and the applause and rejoicing of the bystanders, the Fathers depart into the poor little house which Bonifacio had possessed in the Via Leonina at the Campus Martius. Our men inhabited it for nearly two years in the utmost destitution of all things, religiously observing namely that Apostolic institute, that they should possess no revenues, ask nothing from anyone; and if anything were brought of its own accord, that alone should they receive with thanksgiving.

[30] most strict poverty, which some disapprove, others praise. It pleased the Fathers, and Cajetan above all, most loving of poverty, to order their life in that manner, and to go before posterity rather by deed and example than by law or precept, especially since they well knew that Christ the Lord and his Apostles, that is, the Clerics of the primitive Church, had themselves too lived in the same manner. Safe therefore by so great an example, the Fathers enter upon a life of this kind, compelled by no precept, but at their own pleasure — the more to be admired in proportion as that virtue was more rarely seen at that time even in Clerics. Further, as the very beginnings of virtue are almost never without an adversary, many disparaged our men, and most enviously carped at them, as at a new race of men, and one mixed of Clerics and monks. Others nevertheless, to whom probity and religion were pleasing and beloved, because they themselves lived uprightly and with virtue, looked up to them and adorned them with great praises ⁱ. Finally, as was written even by a Heathen about those ancient priests: Scantiness in eating and drinking most sparingly, meanness also of garments, and brows looking upon the ground, perpetually to the Deity,

and to his true worshippers, commended them as pure and modest. Thence a usage flowed out among the common people, of calling anyone living more chastely and severely nothing else than a Theatine.

[31] [The Theatines, according to the etymology of the name, devoted to contemplation, yet at the same time active] And indeed although that surname was never or rarely employed by our men, nevertheless the comely signification of the word, even though imposed by the common people, is pleasing, which is somehow derived from beholding or contemplating ^k. Although, to confess the truth, our men were not then so devoted to the contemplation of heavenly things as to neglect the works of the active life, especially those which are called spiritual. Their goings out were indeed rare, but if ever a sermon had to be given, or some sick person had to be visited and exhorted to patience or the other virtues, you would have seen our men run out readily, to scatter the little fires of divine love among their neighbors, being namely rivals of the angels, whose custom it is so to pour themselves out toward men that they meanwhile do not cease to love God. But afterward, namely in the twenty-sixth year of that century, the Fathers migrated from the already mentioned house of the Campus Martius to another situated below the Pincian hill, and adjoining the monastery of Blessed Mary of the People. This, as Onofrio says, they inhabited, not convenient in its pleasantness, up to the month of June of the twenty-seventh year, when namely, as we shall presently say, being more cruelly harassed by the Bourbon disaster, they were compelled to depart from the City.

[32] in procuring the salvation of souls. Meanwhile, removed from the care of human affairs, they trained themselves and others whom they could to the spiritual and heavenly life. And although they had withdrawn far from the sight of men, namely to the walls of the City, they nevertheless strove assiduously to serve the sick in the hospital, as they had long since begun; to lend an ear to these and others confessing their faults; to sit by those breathing out their souls, up to their last breath; to relieve the languishing and the needy, by word and by deed, as they could; and to restore by all means the use of the Sacraments, which was unusual in that age. Further, that they might be able conveniently to perform saving offices of this kind, God increased their number: since indeed certain others, moved both by their example and by the prompting of the Deity, were joined to them.

[33] Among these, Bernardino Scotti ^l of Sabina, Girolamo Consiglieri, The Order increased by eight companions; and Andrea Verso, Romans; Giacomo Yvanni, a Spaniard; Tommaso Guerrero, a Sicilian; Marco Pasqualino, a Venetian; Matteo of Serravalle; and Pietro, a lay brother of Perugia, completed the number twelve: of whom our Indices and Diaries scarcely signify the bare names of the last eight, namely by the severe custom of the ancients, that they should do very much and say or write very little about themselves. But by that severity of silence provision was certainly badly made for posterity, deprived namely of the domestic light of examples, and of an effectual incitement to the virtues. We know indeed in general that Gian Pietro Carafa, then a young man and Apostolic Protonotary, together with Ettore Vernazza, father of Blessed Battista of Genoa, founded ^m at Rome the hospital of the incurables, and that our Fathers, and Cajetan especially, frequently served the sick: but what distinguished thing they performed in it, or how long they devoted themselves to those affairs, is indeed hidden from us.

[34] We have received likewise that they not rarely delivered a sermon to the people, whose deeds the author of this Life complains are hidden from him. especially Carafa and Thiene, who had a readier faculty of speaking, and that both when the Bourbon irruption was pressing, and when the City had already been taken, they exhorted all to constancy and endurance. These things nevertheless, and others of the kind, very few out of the very many which they did, we have taken as noted by chance and meagerly, not so much from the writings or tradition of our own men as rather from those of outsiders. The Fathers had therefore withdrawn, as we have already said, to the Pincian house, and there had furnished a sacred little chapel according to their means. I think, unless conjecture deceives me, that it stood ⁿ near that old church of St. Felix situated on that hill, where St. Gregory the Great is read to have delivered his thirteenth homily to the people. There therefore our men more easily and more freely preserved both the manner of going out to instruct and help others, and of withdrawing home, that they might imbue themselves with spiritual lessons.

CHAPTER IV.

Cajetan and his companions cruelly tortured at Rome, and delivered in a wonderful manner.

While Rome is being taken, But while they apply themselves to these pursuits in the utmost tranquillity (as all the life of mortals is prone to miseries and hardships!), behold, the imperial army, with Bourbon ^a as leader, wickedly takes and plunders the queen of cities and the most sacred See of Peter. There were in those forces very many battle-lines of Germans, who had heaped up their native ferocity with heretical savagery. The rest, made up of Spaniards and Italians, had long since most wickedly gaped after the ecclesiastical gold (which was certainly a Tolosan gold ^b for them). Therefore, bursting into the City with equal fury ^c, they began to glut the execrable rage of impiety and lust. The atrocity of the Arians seemed to have emerged from the lower world — namely of that time when (as the man of Lérins says) wives were violated, widows despoiled, virgins profaned, monasteries demolished, clerics driven out, Levites beaten, workhouses and prisons filled with Saints.

[36] and is most cruelly despoiled; the Fathers are destitute of all things; For the same crimes, slaughters, and deaths were everywhere done in the holy City: and, what is the extreme of impiety, they did not spare (O wickedness!) even the Prince of the priests and Vicar of Christ ^d himself. But in so great a bitterness of affairs, our men, who had now grown to twelve, after they perceived, as they ran up as it were to extinguish a public conflagration with peril even of their own life, that they profited little, shut themselves in the little Pincian house for this end, that by assiduous prayers and tears they might either appease the Powers angry with Rome, or at least obtain for themselves, expecting the Lutheran sword very soon, the laurel of martyrdom. But meanwhile they led a life nearer to martyrdom; for, cut off by the unforeseen disaster, and furnished with no provisions, they dragged out life most wretchedly: all their friends and benefactors being namely pressed by the unspeakable calamity, or driven from the City: and they hand down that it happened more than once that a single loaf of common bread had to be divided among twelve companions.

[37] Often indeed that house was broken into by the barbarians: Cajetan moreover but the Fathers, armed with poverty alone, always undauntedly repelled the enemies and plunderers. Only twice did those who could not exercise their avarice exercise their savagery upon them; once the Spaniards; a second time the Germans. Of the Spaniards we shall speak afterward. But among the Germans there was a certain soldier whom Cajetan, when he was rich, that is, before he renounced the world and wealth for Christ, had long kept among his common servants. He, when he departed from the house of Thiene and the city of Vicenza, giving himself to military service, returned to his own Germans, infected with the Lutheran heresy: and thence, following Georg von Frundsberg ^e, that most impious monster of a man, came into Italy, and indeed to Rome.

[38] While he was therefore at Rome, which city the Bourbon army was then going more and more to ruin with slaughter, plundering, and devastation, by his former servant, the wicked soldier got wind that Cajetan of Thiene, once his wealthy master, was hiding at the Pincian hill; and, thinking that he had with him his money and his former wealth, allured by hope of booty, he flew thither together with some impious ruffians. There was no need to break the door or to demolish the house, and thence to drag out those hidden: that lowly cottage at once lay open to the plunderers, and our men came forth of their own accord, adorned not with a rich miter, but with a habit, as befitted men who had professed poverty by vow. The barbarous Saxons were astounded at the first sight: soon, suspecting hiding-places of wealth, they prepare to extort gold by the force of torments. Cajetan therefore, whose imaginary wealth they had already devoured in their minds, the rest of the companions being removed and bound, they set upon; and first ask him where he had hidden his wealth.

[39] More troublesome than the rest was he who had once been Cajetan's servant, and by others is dreadfully racked, and, impatient of delay, an impious hand being laid upon the most gentle Old Man, he threatens savage tortures unless he reveal the gold. He with most gentle words at once disclosed what was true: that he had once been rich, as they commonly say; but that it was now the fourth year since, his plan of life being changed and all his fortunes cast away, he had preferred to embrace religious want for Christ rather than foolishly to rely on the uncertainty of riches. At this they, raging and furious, and indignant that the booty had been snatched from them, bind innocent Cajetan in dire and unspeakable ways and torture him variously, his limbs being namely crushed between the lips of chests, and his whole body raised aloft with ropes ^f. What further torture they added to a savage execution of this kind I have nowhere read; but everyone will be able to grasp it in his mind, at least in part.

[40] But I have read (what further makes excellently for the praise of our Cajetan) blessed Augustine teaching most weightily on this matter and with the utmost (it is well to put his very words here): "That those who once in the Gothic irruption under king Alaric were tortured even when they had nothing to betray, while they were believed to have it, assuredly, in confessing holy poverty amid those torments, confessed Christ. Wherefore, although they did not deserve to be slain by the enemies, nevertheless the confessors of holy poverty could not be tortured without a heavenly reward." Writing upon which passage of Augustine, that distinguished theologian François de Meyronnes wonderfully praises those who, having become poor for Christ, and having freely confessed holy poverty, strenuously endured torments for it, and asserts that they can be called martyrs, if in professing poverty they underwent death. And deservedly indeed does tortured poverty have these praises: for by a like title Titus the deacon ^g, Alphege the bishop ^h,

Deusdedit ⁱ, and Suranus the abbot ^k I read as celebrated in the Calendars of the Saints. But for confirming this matter I could adduce other things also, did I not remember that I am now weaving not disputations, but a brief History.

[41] and therefore he is extolled with praises. But meanwhile I judge that it can by no means be doubted that these things pertain in some way to our Cajetan, who was poor not, like countless beggarly men, driven by extreme necessity, but by a most ready will: and accordingly he professed holy poverty even amid savage torments. For the impious plunderers, driven by rage, tortured him for this reason, because he had lavished his goods for Christ, and freely and cheerfully confessed holy want. In those torments that Man certainly did not die, nevertheless I judge that the already mentioned words of Augustine fit him well: that the Confessor of holy poverty could not be tortured without a heavenly reward. Having therefore gone through these hardships and most foul punishments, our Cajetan gave thanks, as St. Marcella is read once to have given, that captivity had not made him poor; but had found one who both by voice and by deed would say: Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked also shall I return.

[42] Other vexations, mockeries, bonds and prisons But this was not the end of hardships. For after some days our Fathers were also seized by the Spaniards bursting in even there, harassed, held up to mockery, bound, and dragged off into various prisons. But remarkable was the bearing of their faces and countenances, and their preparation for martyrdom, with which those men received the most foul plunderers. All together they go down to the little sacred chapel, and diligently adorn it as far as the shortness of time and their means allowed: they light all the lamps as though about to celebrate a most festive day, before the high altar, to honor the Deity present; they fix their knees on the ground, and, with countenance composed to piety and neck bent (so that you would think them victims), they await the assault of the plunderers. Wonderful to say! You would have seen them, amid the perils of utter destruction, and the shouts and groans which resounded on every side from the savage slaughter, motionless in body, undaunted in mind, breathing and hoping for the one blessed seat of the heavens, meanwhile despising these human things, goods and evils, as being nearest to their own origin, that is, to God. Further, that so distinguished a spectacle drew from those wicked soldiers, if not love or reverence, certainly some admiration. For when they burst into the little chapel, none of them dared to put to death those sacred victims, although exposed to death of their own accord. But after they had stood astounded for some while, by one of them the rope from which the lamps hung was cut, and the hanging lights fell upon the heads of those beneath: but by another, a broad sword being cast at Bonifacio's bowed neck (which blow he received undaunted), they were harassed with the utmost mockery.

[43] endured with the utmost virtue: But when the impious mockers of sacred things saw that those who desired to die for Christ were not frightened by terrors of that kind, they seize them, bind them, load them with foul reproaches, and hurry them off into different prisons. For first to Blessed James's, whose adjoining buildings the chiefs of the Spanish battle-lines had occupied, then indeed to certain narrow chambers of the Vatican palace situated above the clock, they drag them, to be worn down by a long and more foul imprisonment. While they were held in those places in hostile fashion, the lofty virtue and constancy of our men shone forth wonderfully, like stars by night. For both Bonifacio's endurance, and Carafa's magnanimity and incredible zeal, and the piety of all alike, unconquered by adversities, at last bent the savage fierceness of the soldiers to milder counsels. But Cajetan, although he was of far less authority among the Spaniards than Carafa, nevertheless did not cease to admonish them on the spot, to reprove them, and to stir up in their minds the little fires of religion, now almost buried under their crimes. But he, Carafa, and the rest obtained nothing else than that those whom they could not endure when freely rebuking them, they drove further away from themselves into an inner prison.

[44] Therefore, having drawn them out of the buildings of St. James, they sent them away into the Vatican prison; from which at last I suppose, in order to harass them so long with squalor and hunger until they should carve out some money from the bishop and the rest. They nevertheless had nothing at all except a Breviary of sacred prayers. But, God bringing it about, the matter turned out well after a fashion. For what money is wont to confer upon the rich, that the single Breviary which I have already mentioned excellently conferred upon the poor Clerics. The matter was done in this manner. That centurion who kept our men shut up in prison had at one time invited a tribune of the Spanish soldiers (as mules scratch each other in turn) to a rich banquet, which he had prepared in the Vatican above the clock. The invited man therefore comes on the appointed day and hour. And while the table is being furnished, behold, he seems to himself to hear from the neighboring chamber (it was closed, because it was a prison) a certain murmur of men chanting to one another, and entreating the divine Deity. Then, turning to his host, he asks who those men might be. His host, in the manner of one despising, said: They are some Clerics, part of our booty.

[45] The tribune asks that he cause him to see them. He complied; Cajetan with his companions and, the prison door being unbarred, he sees men of mature age and manners paying their prayers to God so composedly and gravely that he seemed to himself to be beholding an assembly of Saints. And in truth they recalled, I suppose, Paul and Silas, likewise celebrating God with praises in the prison at Philippi. Moved by so distinguished a spectacle, and indignant that men exceedingly upright were cast into such great evils, the tribune earnestly asked the centurion not to detain them longer: that they seemed to him altogether harmless, who preserved religious rites and the piety of divine worship even in prison. But when the centurion, more obstinate, deferred the matter to another time, many words having been exchanged on both sides about that matter, the tribune said: I shall assuredly take no food at your house, unless you at once allow these men to go free where they wish. At last therefore the centurion, partly lest he be marked with a somewhat rustic harshness, partly because he kept the poor servants of Christ bound there with no hope of gain, the doors being unbarred, leads them out and dismisses them.

[46] The Fathers, thanks being given to the centurion, and above all to the tribune, is delivered in a wonderful manner. go straight from the Vatican to the bank of the Tiber. All these things were learned from our Bernardino Scotti, who was afterward a Cardinal, relating them openly ^l; and posterity now records only these few of the many things which he himself was wont to relate that he had suffered with the others in that disaster; the rest, as by no means committed to writing, have perished. Meanwhile nevertheless from these very few things which are known, I judge that this very thing can be said of these our most brave Fathers which Vincent of Lérins wrote of the holy Confessors of Christ: "No force drove them from the defense of the faith of the Elders, not threats, not blandishments, not life, not death, not the palace, not attendants, not men, not demons." And so on the eighth of the Kalends of June, God himself, as though covered with a cloud, led those twelve men, snatched from the utmost peril, through the midst of the City's flames and the midst of armed enemies, safe to the mouths of the Tiber.

CHAPTER V.

The Saint's provostship at Venice, the divine providence there, the sending of Cajetan to Naples.

The Fathers, brought to Venice, elect Cajetan Provost: Thence, with Agostino Amulio as their conductor, renowned Venice most lovingly received them, as Magio related above in his little narrative on the Life of Carafa; for there is no need to repeat it here at greater length. But at Venice, before our men firmly fixed a domicile, they stayed first in the church of St. Euphemia ^a, then for a little while at Blessed Gregory's. But here on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross of the same year 1527 the little flock, being gathered, chose Cajetan as its shepherd ^b, an altogether worthy successor of the bishop of Chieti. And Cajetan indeed bore himself strenuously in that office, and fulfilled all the parts of a good prelate. For by industry, labor, and constancy he went before all: by sweetness of manners, modesty, and mercy he complied with everyone: and it happened, which is most rare, that neither did his readiness diminish his authority, nor his severity his love. In short, the most notable examples of the Man certainly had great force for instilling every kind of virtue into the minds of his own men ^c.

[48] But there happened, while they were at Venice, that pestilence ^d, the divine providence toward them. and, what is its perpetual companion or follower, famine, arising from an incredible dearth of grain, which in the year 1528 laid waste Italy and almost all Europe. At that time the very great kindness of our Fathers, and of Cajetan above all, toward the poor, who, wretched and wandering, had fled in throngs to Venice, shone forth ^e. Our men in turn experienced the wonderful providence of God, and the fountain of charity drying up in no heat of the world. For that, being driven out of the city of Rome, they had to make for Venice, seemed an adversity, but was a benefit. For Venice in that year felt the dearth of grain and famine far less than the other cities of Italy. And so our men, who had resolved to live by asking nothing from anyone and by having no fixed revenues themselves, and who would assuredly have been pressed by a great want of things if they had remained at Rome, were, the Deity governing the matter, destined for Venice, that is, to a city safe from these calamities, that they might thereafter freely trust the supreme Parent, and cast all their anxiety (as Peter, the chief of our Order, admonishes) upon God; since he has care of us.

[49] But Cajetan remained at Venice nearly five years, Thence Cajetan with a companion is sent to Naples: and that these run by for us empty of subject-matter ^f is not the fault of Cajetan's slackened virtue, which was never anything but most keen, but of the silence of our own men, who preferred to live more diligently than to write. But in the year 1532 Cajetan and Giovanni Marinoni ^h are sent to Naples by the bishop of Chieti, who was then Provost of the house of St. Nicholas ^g. Very often indeed and for a long time the nobles of Naples had asked of Carafa that he himself would return to Naples, that is, to his own fatherland, and there, as he had done at Venice, would fix a domicile for the Order of Clerks Regular recently founded by him. But Carafa, either because he was willingly absent from his fatherland, or because he knew that the region of Campania and Naples itself was miserably afflicted by the siege of Lautrec ⁱ and by the ensuing hardships, assented with difficulty to a petition of that kind.

[50] The Count of Oppido, who had prepared a dwelling there for others, Meanwhile Giovanni Antonio Caracciolo, Count of Oppido ^k, a man renowned in that age for munificence and the other virtues ^l, had already granted certain cells built at his own expense in the form of a monastery near the church of St. Mary of Mercy ^m to Benedetto Tizzoni and his companions, who were contemplating the Religious life, to be inhabited. But it happened that Benedetto, still doubtful what institute he should determine for himself and his companions to observe, being roused by the fame of our Fathers' sanctity, which had reached as far as Naples, resolved to go to Venice, and in a few days (as St. Hilarion is once read to have done with Blessed Antony) to learn their whole plan of life, and afterward to observe it at Naples in the already mentioned church of Mercy. But to Benedetto, after he came to Venice, the retirement of the house of Tolentino and the institute of our Order so pleased that, his plan being suddenly changed, he desired and obtained not to return to Naples, but to live at Venice with our Fathers and to become a Clerk Regular.

[51] urges the coming of the Theatines: This is that Benedetto Tizzoni, who was afterward called Severus ⁿ, namely from the severe plan of life which, piously raging against himself, he held up to his death. The Count of Oppido therefore, being frustrated of the hope which he had conceived concerning Tizzoni and his companions, earnestly asked of Carafa that he would send some of his Order to Naples. But when he deferred the matter too long, Caracciolo and the other nobles of Naples obtained what they desired from Clement VII, Supreme Pontiff. For it opportunely happened that at the same time the Fathers, being doubtful about going to Naples, consulted the Vicar of Christ on that matter, that he himself might write what was expedient to be done. And so by a sacred diploma of the supreme Shepherd the Fathers were ordered to set out for Naples. I ought here to set down the Supreme Pontiff's words entire, that his love toward our Order, and our Fathers' fidelity and reverence toward him in turn, may be made plain.

[52] But Pope Clement VII, "Pope Clement VII to our venerable Brother Gian Pietro, bishop of Chieti, and to our beloved sons Cajetan, priest of Vicenza, and their companions called Clerks Regular. Venerable Brother and beloved Sons, greeting and Apostolic benediction. You have lately caused it to be set forth to us that for nearly this four years you have been assailed with frequent prayers by certain devout persons, even noble laymen of the city of Naples, and at last have been more vehemently asked by that city by public letters, that you would send thither some of your Clerks, who might receive a place already built in that city for your name, and might be able there to serve the Lord: and that you, deterred by the length and difficulty of the journey, and at the same time thinking humbly of yourselves, and not knowing yourselves fit to satisfy their expectation, have hitherto deferred acquiescing in their prayers; but that, since on the one hand to despise the prayers of so devout a city, or to defraud its devotion, or certainly to spurn its liberality, is hard and inhuman; and on the other hand to entrust yourselves to so great a journey, to receive places set so far off, and, what is greater, to sustain so great an opinion and expectation, seems to you too bold and above your strength; you stick in doubt, and can by no means find either what to determine, or what answer to give those who ask.

[53] Wherefore, the divine help being invoked with assiduous prayers, having given a diploma on this matter, you thought that recourse must at last be had to us, and have caused humble supplication to be made to us, out of your devotion toward us and toward this holy See, that we would deign, out of the accustomed benignity of the Apostolic See, to counsel you paternally whatever might seem good to us on it. We therefore, desiring to satisfy your devotion so far as we can with the Lord, reply thus to your consultation and petition. That since by the Lord's precept we ought to give to everyone who asks, and to go two miles together with him who compels us to go one; and since Paul the Apostle teaches us to seek not the things which are our own, but the things which are Jesus Christ's, just as he himself testifies that he sought not what was useful to himself, but what was useful to many, that they might be saved; you too ought to take up some labor, that according to the Lord's precept you may be able to serve the advantages of your neighbors. But if anything happen to be imposed upon you which seems to burden your strength, you ought not to trust in your own power, but in him who is rich in mercy, and who gives to all abundantly and upbraids not, and gives the word to those who preach with much power.

[54] Wherefore, lest, hiding longer under the veil of ambiguity, he commands it in virtue of holy obedience. you should be tossed by the straits of perplexed thought, we command you, enjoining it in virtue of holy obedience, that you destine as soon as possible some of your Clerks to that same city of Naples, who may receive whatever places are offered, and in them, uniting themselves to the divine worship and to human salvation according to the Clerical institutes and your laudable customs, may be able to serve the Most High in the exercise of the virtues; lest the devout desires of that most faithful city, which has always most constantly and most faithfully preserved the Catholic faith received from the most blessed Peter himself, Prince of the Apostles, as is piously believed there, be longer deferred; nor may you, brother Bishop, seem to have failed your fatherland which loves and asks you. But we will that there you enjoy all those privileges and graces which elsewhere it has been granted to you by this holy See and by us, or shall be granted in future, to use, possess, and enjoy, notwithstanding anything to the contrary whatsoever. Given in our city of Bologna under the Fisherman's ring, on the eleventh day of February 1533, in the tenth year of our Pontificate. Blosius."

[55] These things being received, Carafa, moved also by the repeated prayers of his fatherland, [Carafa sends Cajetan thither, who gives a distinguished example concerning his companion;] and by the assiduous requests of his sister Maria ^o, whom he venerated as a mother, sent Cajetan of Thiene and Giovanni Marinoni to Naples, not yet certain of firmly establishing a domicile there, but that he might for a while make trial whether the matter should succeed, and that, these being sent thither, satisfaction might in some way be made both to his fatherland's desire and to the Supreme Pontiff's good pleasure. But comely and memorable was Cajetan's reply on the eve of that expedition: to whom, when it had been said by Carafa that he should himself choose the companion he desired, he said: Shall I choose the companion whom I should prefer? Nay, I beg and beseech this Christ fastened to the Cross, whom you behold (for an image of the Crucified was present), to inspire you to join to me as companion that man who is of all most contrary to my will. Thus he — words altogether worthy for posterity to imprint on their minds. Nevertheless, contrary to what he prayed for, it then once happened; God namely bringing it about that he should be chosen who did not oppose his good pleasure, but who of all was readiest to obey: for there was given to him by the Fathers as companion Giovanni Marinoni, a Venetian, a man so adorned with the insignia of all the virtues that they could assuredly have sent no one more excellent than he to Naples.

[56] and both are kindly received at Rome by Clement. In the year 1533, therefore, on the fourth day before the Nones of Sextilis, Cajetan and Giovanni departed from Venice. When they had come to Rome, they at once go to Pope Clement, who, when he saw them scorched by the sun's heat, said: Whither are you going, sons, with such peril of life in this raging heat of the dog-star? But it is better for us, Cajetan replied, to neglect this life than to delay your commands, holy Father, even for a moment. The Pontiff, at once marveling and delighted at the promptness of his compliance, and looking kindly upon them, dismissed them, praying well for them with the sign of the Cross as they departed.

CHAPTER VI.

Six others sent to Naples; the change of domicile; Apostolic poverty defended by the Saint.

Carafa, informed of the state of the Neapolitan migration, They, having set out for Naples, are most obligingly received into certain cells adjoining the sacred church of Blessed Mary of Mercy, bought and prepared, as has been said, at the expense of Giovanni Antonio Caracciolo, Count of Oppido. The sanctity of the place dedicated to the Mother of God pleased the Fathers, and likewise its glad pleasantness and solitude: since indeed, situated outside the Januarian gate somewhat far from the walls of the city, it was in those times little frequented, and inhabited by few dwellers. And indeed it was almost customary with those who founded Religious Orders to dedicate the severe first beginnings of the spirit in places commonly remote, and from them, after covenants had been entered upon and well confirmed with the Heavenly ones, to come forth to these human and turbulent affairs like second Elijahs or Johns. And so Cajetan signified to Carafa that our men had indeed found a place suitable for contemplation: let him therefore send others as soon as possible, with whom together they might discharge the offices of Religion: that he hoped that, when these were joined to them, they would daily more and more allure the citizens of Naples, to whom they were as yet scarcely known even by name, thither to hear the word of God and to imitate the examples of the virtues. But if not, then, either the domicile being changed, or certainly by some other means, they would bring it about that nothing of diligence and of religious duty could rightly be found wanting in them by anyone.

[58] Carafa therefore at once sends six others as auxiliary soldiers, so to speak, to Naples, [sends six others thither, over whom Cajetan presides: another's entry into the Order.] namely Marco the Venetian, and Pietro of Verona, Michele of Monopoli, and Lorenzo, priests; likewise two Clerics, Girolamo Consiglieri ^a and Andrea Verso, Romans. These, about the end of October, invited namely by the mildness of the now full autumn, having set out from Venice, arrived safe at Naples: to all of whom, by a decree of the assembly celebrated at Venice the previous September, Cajetan was given as Provost. In February of the following year, on the day dedicated to Sts. Faustinus and Jovita, martyrs ^b, Pietro of Verona, he who had long since received the laurel of doctor at Paris for his notable erudition, and who, after he had been Chancellor, had strenuously refused the bishopric of the church of Bayeux offered by Francis I, king of the French — a man namely exceptional in the skill of both Laws and of the Greek tongue, and, what is greater, in probity of manners — bound himself to God by Religious vows with the solemn formula, Cajetan the Provost performing the Mass.

[59] But then on the ninth of the Kalends of April of the same year 1534 the Fathers, all to a man, departed from the house of St. Mary of Mercy. They change their domicile, because neither to their institute The causes of their departure are reported to have been these. The first, that although the solitude of the place, as has already been said, could not but be pleasing to minds dedicated to God and to the contemplation of heavenly things, nevertheless to men eager to scatter the seeds of the divine word with hope of fruits, and to administer the sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist (which is the proper office of Clerics ^c), a longer dwelling in a place removed from crowds seemed by no means opportune: and they experienced daily that, although the force of holiness drew thither some few already known before to see and cherish them, nevertheless nearly all the rest scarcely knew our Fathers, and the institute of the new Order, even by name, or scarcely even that: so far were they from running to them to hear the divine word, and to receive the heavenly Sacraments, and to nourish with due sustenance those serving the altar.

[60] There was added a second cause which compelled them to depart thence at once. nor to Apostolic poverty suited: That was the almost daily exhortation of the Count of Oppido, by which the Fathers were urged to allow fixed incomes and perpetual revenues to be furnished them, after the manner of many other Orders. Nor did Caracciolo do this in word only; but, a not despicable sum of money being offered them, from which afterward, lawfully lent at interest, they might exact perpetual revenues, he urged more and more that they should not refuse the condition and counsel proposed by him. And that he might more easily persuade it, he joined to himself some Religious, who should say that provision would be badly made for our men unless, their former manner of living being left, they should in good time provide for the security and advantage of their own from what was freely offered.

[61] whose primitive spirit The Fathers on the contrary, and Cajetan above all, an exceptional lover of Apostolic poverty, had brought their minds to hold to the path they had entered upon. Wherefore they replied to those Religious and to Caracciolo almost the same things which the authors of our Order had long since replied at Rome to certain men doubting about this very matter; namely, that it seemed to them safer and more perfect, after the example of Christ living in this same manner, than to rely on the uncertainty of riches; and to be holily foolish with the Apostles, rather than to enter upon a manner of life according to the laws, though not unlawful, of human prudence. Nor would it now be honorable for them in so weighty a matter, the counsel which they had long ago taken of their own will being suddenly changed, to set sail upon slippery revenues and earthly hopes. As regards myself, said Cajetan, I, who have given up all my possessions for Christ, do not wish now to receive another's by an abundant income. And turning to those Religious, he said: Tell me, Fathers, these revenues of yours, whose security you so greatly proclaim, from what do you exact them? From estates, they say, and fields, which we hold as tributary with an annual income. It is well, says Cajetan. But by what means are you certain that the tenants will pay you the promised revenues each year? From a bargain, they replied, entered into writing and into public records, which, when they refuse or delay to pay the tribute, we can bring forward, and, summoning them to law, compel them to pay. But I, said Cajetan, have far more certain resources, and firmer records. For if you rely on estates and papers, I have Christ's bond, and pages sealed with his blood, which most certainly promise to me and to mine that nothing will ever be lacking to us who serve Christ. Seek first, he says, the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added to you. And so about this one thing I am rightly anxious, namely whether we seek the kingdom of God and his justice; that is, whether we apply ourselves strenuously and seriously to the acquiring of eternal goods and to the observance of the Christian law.

[62] against those who thought otherwise, If this one thing be present, I do not at all doubt concerning what follows, namely that all these earthly things which make for sustaining this mortal life will be added, that is, will be furnished without our anxious procuring. Of the truth of this promise we have certainly known thus far by long experience: for in all this decade we have found in fact that nothing, even in that greatest dearth of grain which happened six years ago, was lacking to us at Venice, by God's grace, either for the clothing of the body or for the adornment of the church. At these last words of Cajetan the Count of Oppido said: But Venice is one thing, Naples another. If an institute of this kind succeeded there, I fear it will not succeed at Naples. Then Cajetan with great impulse of soul said: To me indeed it is certain that that same God who is at Venice is also at Naples. And these things being said, they parted on both sides.

[63] the Saint defends with strong and remarkable freedom. But after some days, when Cajetan saw that the Count still persisted in his opinion, and scarcely wished the Fathers to live in that house of Mercy unless they accepted the condition of fixed revenues which he had proposed, the brothers being called together in the morning, and ordered that each, having taken his outer garment and the Breviary of sacred prayers, should follow him out of that house, they all to a man went out, and, the doors of the church and house being locked, Cajetan sent back the keys to the Count with these words: Cajetan and the other Clerks Regular signify to you, Count, that they are departing from your house, all the bronze vessels which you had given, and the other furniture, being left to you, and that they wish in this manner to make trial whether the God of Venice is also the God of Naples.

[64] The Fathers therefore, setting out thence with a brisk mind, and one most constant in Apostolic poverty, The Fathers migrate to another house, which a pious matron were received into the hospital of the Incurables, that is, into Christ's house, by a matron of exceptional virtue, Maria Lorenza Longo ^d, who had devoted herself and all her possessions to the service of the poor and the sick, and presided over that hospital with the highest authority. But the Count of Oppido, on account of the novelty of the matter and Cajetan's Christian freedom, was at first fixed in astonishment: but afterward, when he collected himself (for he was a pious man, and a fit appraiser of true virtue), he was not indignant with the Fathers at their abrupt departure, nor estranged, and diminished nothing at all of his love and obedience toward them. For he had long before known Cajetan's sincerity and noble disposition. And so he asked him again and again that he would at least be willing to receive back the bronze vessels and the rest of the household equipment which he had already given the Fathers. And this at last he obtained.

[65] The Fathers therefore lodged with the already mentioned Maria Francesca Longo, kindly supplies them. as once at Rome St. Epiphanius with Paula. She, her husband Giovanni Longo, a noble jurisconsult and master of petitions to Ferdinand the Catholic king, having died, when she had been divinely healed ^e of an incurable paralysis in the house of Loreto, being well mindful of so great a benefit, rendered pious service to the caring for and cherishing of the incurable. But from the day on which she had seen Gian Pietro Carafa and Bonifacio da Colle at Naples (for those two Fathers were at Naples in the year of salvation 1530, that they might bring help to Maria Carafa when she was contemplating migrating to the monastery of St. Mary of the Sapienza), she was seized with a great desire that our men, and among them especially Carafa, should fix a domicile at Naples. And so she received Cajetan and the others sent from Venice by Carafa with huge rejoicing and courtesy.

[66] Wherefore Carafa wrote to her in these words: "Your letter, lady, Carafa's letter sent to her could have had strength enough to move us hence, so that by coming thither we should obey the divine will shown to us through you.

But since I could not indeed now perform this, it has seemed good to defer it up to September, and to see meanwhile whether God grant me strength and means of coming thither. Further, about my will in this matter you ought indeed to be beyond all doubt, not only on account of the benefit to my fatherland, which I ought to serve, but also that your desire may be satisfied through us. Thence it came about that, the rectors of that place demanding it of us, we were compelled to send our brothers Cajetan and Giovanni, whom from the beginning we committed above all to your fidelity, and commended especially to you alone, no mention being made of other friends or kinsmen.

[67] Wherefore from that matter you could know how excellently we are affected toward you, is produced. and how confidently we place our hope in you alone, God inspiring it in us. I in turn have most openly learned that we did not in vain place our trust in you: because you received my aforesaid brothers not as men sent by men, but as holy angels deputed by the divine Deity: and you continue moreover to cherish them with an exceptional charity, far surpassing our merit and expectation. And so, since you ought to doubt nothing about my ready mind in this and in every other matter which I shall have known to be pleasing to you, this alone remains: that by assiduous prayers there be obtained from God the light by which we may be able to discern and carry out his divine will. At Venice, the fourth day before the Nones of May 1534." This letter I have wished to insert here, that both that holy woman's virtue, and her exceptional esteem for Cajetan and Giovanni, whom she had so honorably received, might be known.

* perhaps "Lorenza"

CHAPTER VII.

Another house at Naples; a miracle wrought by the Saint; the Roman journey; the sacred church of St. Paul given to the Fathers.

Another at Naples But the buildings in which they were received were in that very place where afterward, these being demolished, there was founded the monastery of the Penitent women, who are commonly called the Converted. But since the narrowness of the dwelling was so great that our men could in no way live there freely and discharge the offices of the Regular life, and moreover seemed to give no small inconvenience by their presence to Maria Longo (which nevertheless she most willingly bore), therefore the Fathers on the day before the Kalends of Sextilis of the same year, their seats being again changed, migrated to another dwelling almost adjoining this one: namely to that which was thereafter commonly called the Little Stable, because, a stable being converted into a sacred little chapel, it reproduced the form of the Bethlehem church, which St. Jerome, and with him other Clerks Regular, inhabited at Christ's cradle near the monastery of Paula ^a and Eustochium ^b.

[69] The Theatines' house is described: And beautiful indeed it was to behold the face of the chapel expressed after that Bethlehem pattern, the high altar namely being placed in that very spot of the stable where the manger of the beasts had been. It has seemed by no means alien from the undertaken narration to pursue these minute matters: since indeed that house, which obtained the name of the Little Stable, exhibited to our Order dwelling at Naples the first exercises and cradles of a most notable virtue. For while the Fathers lived there, and continued to honor God with a purer worship, and brought assiduous help with incredible charity and diligence to the sick who were kept in the neighboring hospital, behold, by Cajetan's power and prayers was wrought that notable miracle of the healing of a dislocated and broken leg, which I and very many others of us have very often heard by the frequent and constant report of our elders.

[70] in which St. Cajetan a broken They hand down that it was done thus. There was in that family a certain lay brother assigned to the service of the Clerics. He, when he happened to be going out of the house, drives one foot into the grated window of an underground cellar: and while he struggles to draw it out, he breaks his leg near the ankle in wretched fashion. Carried back home, he makes a sad spectacle to his grieving brothers, and to their father Cajetan. A surgeon is called from the neighboring hospital of the Incurables, who, when he had applied many helps of his art, but all in vain, at last, the wound raging worse daily, pronounces that the broken leg cannot be made whole. He therefore counsels that it be cut off, lest it bring utter destruction upon the rest of the body. The other physicians assert the same. And so the surgeon, having soothed the leg and foot with poultices and bound them with bandages, leaves in the evening, intending to return in the morning to cut.

[71] Cajetan (such was his charity), pitying the man's wretched lot, and despaired-of leg since he was about to undergo such bitter pains by that cutting, deep in the night, when all the rest were sleeping, himself carrying a certain rough iron lamp, goes gently to the most wretched sick man, lest he awaken him: but finds him awake; because, as it is fitting to believe, both the present pain of the broken leg and the representation of the impending torture had shaken off all sleep from him. He greets him at his first approach: then, having addressed and consoled him rather at length with most sweet words, he exhorts him to commend himself confidently to blessed Francis, and to hope with certainty that he, a most powerful patron with God, would by no means fail him. Then he asks that he allow him to loosen the bandages and to inspect the broken leg. He assents; and Cajetan, gently feeling the leg and foot, when he saw the huge swelling of the leg and the bitterness of the wound, fixes his knees at the frame of the little bed; admonishes the sick man to pour forth prayers together with himself.

[72] After a short prayer, the sign of the Cross being impressed upon the wound, heals in a wonderful manner. and a kiss, he binds the leg with bandages and departs. In the morning the Surgeon, as he had promised, revisits the sick man: asks (as happens) how he is. He replies that he feels almost no pain any more. The bandages therefore being loosened, the physician finds (wonderful to say) the leg whole, and scarcely traces of so atrocious a wound. Do not marvel, sincere reader, that we are ignorant of the sick man's name, and of the day on which so great a thing happened ^c. Such is the condition of ancient deeds, and especially of our own, that they have come down to posterity only in part, gnawed by the tooth of time. Add to these the customary zeal of holy men for hiding their own deeds, which if known would beget applause: "Because (as he says), not seeking praise from men, so far as in them lay, they would have wished all their virtues to lie hidden." And that you may have an altogether similar example, observe, reader, that neither is the name known of that young man whose amputated leg blessed Antony of Padua made whole ^d. Nevertheless not on that account did even the weightiest historians think it unworthy to commit to writing, nor did posterity take away credit from a mutilated narration of that kind.

[73] I return to Cajetan, who, when he had now for two years ruled the house of the Stable with the highest praise, returning from Rome to Naples, in the year 1536, in the month of October, went to Rome together with Pietro of Verona and Michele of Monopoli ^e, for celebrating the assembly. About the same time there set out from Venice Gian Pietro Carafa, bishop of Chieti, Bonifacio da Colle of Alessandria, Paolo Consiglieri the Roman, and Nicola of Verona, themselves also making for Rome. For since Carafa had already for the third time been summoned to Rome by the Farnese Pontiff ^f, and a little after had been chosen into the number of the Cardinals ^g, this was the cause that our assembly had to be held in that city in the month of December (in a place and at a time namely then unusual for our men). Bernardino Scotti therefore being elected Provost of the Venetian, and Pietro of Verona of the Neapolitan house, Cajetan returned to Naples. There he, now known and pleasing to many nobles and to Pedro de Toledo the viceroy ^h, continued thereafter to give frequent examples of Christian prudence and exceptional probity, as he had long since begun.

[74] gives up the house, Meanwhile Maria Francesca Longo, advancing more and more in contempt of herself and of the world, just as long before, namely in the year of salvation 1506, with the help of a certain preacher of Monopoli of the Dominican family, she had begun to build the hospital of the Incurables, so now, at the exhortation of Cajetan, who was accustomed to hear her confessions, she was contemplating building a monastery for sacred virgins of the institute of St. Clare ⁱ, who are called Capuchinesses ^k, and, this being built, delivering herself by vow perpetually to the divine service. This plan, which, being divinely inspired (as it is fitting to believe), she had conceived, since Cajetan by all means desired that it be committed to work, he resolved to depart also from this building of the Stable and from the house adjoining it, so that, our men departing thence, the opportunity might be given to Maria Longo of building a monastery there.

[75] that a convent might be built in it. For long before, with that end, that house had been bought with the alms of some pious men who were most loving toward our Fathers, and had been handed over to our men on this condition, that whenever it should happen that the Clerks Regular either migrated to another dwelling within Naples, or departed from Naples altogether, that house should at once pass to Maria Longo and to the sacred Virgins. While the Fathers therefore were preparing their departure from that building of the Little Stable, the nobles of Naples designated in their minds many places, from which some one might be handed over to our men to inhabit. But while time is drawn out in consulting and in unraveling the difficulties that had arisen, Cajetan, as he was a man of lofty mind and attached to no place, resolves rather to depart utterly from Naples with the whole family and to return to Venice, than to inhabit any longer that house of the Little Stable, in which a monastery of sacred virgins had to be built.

[76] The cause of the migration being set forth, And so he and Pietro of Verona the Provost, being now certain that they would depart from Naples, go to Pedro de Toledo the viceroy, who was then at Pozzuoli ^l, both that they might make him, who had already heard something of this resolve of the Fathers, more certain of the causes of their departure, and also that they might at least give thanks to so great a noble ^m, who had shown many signs of benevolence to himself and the rest of the Clerks Regular, since they could not repay him. They set forth therefore to the viceroy the cause of their departure: Since, they say, we have now remained four whole years at Naples, and, our seats having been thrice changed, have as yet obtained no fixed and suitable place, this, unless we are deceived, is no obscure indication that God does not wish us to remain here longer. With your leave, therefore, most excellent prince, we have resolved very soon to depart from these regions. The viceroy, hearing these things, took it ill that men so religious, by whose virtue he had heard that many distinguished things had been done, should depart from Naples at that very time when that city most needed men of that kind, no less strong in the example of their life than in eloquence. Accordingly he replies plainly: If God seems to you, Fathers, to have shown that you ought to depart hence, he himself seems to suggest to me that I ought in no way to dismiss you. Stay therefore; for certainly

places will not be lacking. But go and inhabit the church of saint Paul. We shall meanwhile see to it that all the obstacles which may be able to stand in the way be dispatched as soon as possible.

[77] This most courteous reply being received, the Fathers, thanks being given, return to Naples; marveling at God's highest providence toward those especially the church of St. Paul is assigned to the Theatines, who, being least anxious about their own affairs, cast all their care and solicitude upon him. But the viceroy had already commanded Giovanni Maria Tolfa, Count of San Valentino, that he should order in his name the lay members of the confraternity of St. Paul, who had a chapel in that church and some chambers, to yield them to the Fathers to be inhabited. But after some days, being anxious perhaps lest Cajetan and the others should be doubtful about obtaining the Pauline church, or should again think of departure, he sent two letters ^o to the Fathers from Somma, a town of the Vesuvian ⁿ mountain, asking that they should not depart, and promising that he would shortly bring it about that that church should be freely handed over to them. Which indeed was excellently performed. For the Fathers at once obtained possession of the confraternity's chapel, and not long after entered upon possession of the whole church and the adjoining house, Vincenzo Carafa [p], Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, of Naples, and Scipione Terracina the abbot granting it, the Viceroy and the Magistrates of the city being affected with the highest joy: for these too, that they might show in fact the desire which they had of retaining the Fathers at Naples, had sent to Rome in the public name of the city Giovanni Battista Perez, to treat most diligently with the Cardinals of Naples and of Chieti about this matter.

[78] Perez therefore returning from Rome with a prosperous dispatch of the matter, and its free possession is given. the Fathers obtained the basilica of the Apostle Paul in free and certain possession on the fourteenth of the Kalends of June 1538. But that basilica is very notable at Naples [q], and greatly celebrated from its first building by the frequent concourse of the peoples, inasmuch as by a public vow of the city it was founded by the Christians in that very place upon the overthrown shrine of the Dioscuri [r], where in the year of salvation 798 [s], under Charlemagne as king [t], a noble victory [u] over the Saracens, who had burst in even there, had been obtained on the day of the Conversion of St. Paul; as a Vatican manuscript codex [x] expressly teaches. These things it has pleased us to relate somewhat more fully, that the singular zeal of the Viceroy and of the nobles of Naples toward our men, and the remarkable virtue of Cajetan and the other Fathers, for retaining whom in that city they so greatly labored, might become plain.

p. Concerning him Ughelli among the archbishops of Naples, volume 6 of Italia Sacra, column 226.

q. A fuller account of this sacred building Silos supplies in book 6, pages 202 and 203.

r. That is, of Castor and Pollux; who were named as it were Dios kouroi, that is, sons of Jove. Silos on the cited page 202 brings forward a Greek inscription which he affirms is read on the front of the church, and which may be a proof that the place was first raised for them.

s. Silos on page 204 notes the same marks of time; but on page 205 he thinks that Adalgis, son of Desiderius king of the Lombards, having returned from Greece into Calabria, came thence to the aid of the Neapolitans against the Saracens, and that for the year 798 one should write 789; in which year Sigebert in his Chronicle marks his coming into Italy: whose words I add here: Adalgis, son of king Desiderius, who, his father being conquered, had fled to the Greeks, encouraged by the help of the Greeks came to Italy, either to reclaim the kingdom or to inflict vengeance. That Giovanni Villani and Erchempert support Sigebert, Silos affirms in the same place, noting, as he adds, that in this year the victory of the Neapolitans and the disaster of the Saracens happened.

t. That Charlemagne, the most brave commanders Bernard and Aymo being sent, brought help to the Neapolitans, Villani asserts in Silos just cited; but among that hero's deeds I have not thus far found it.

u. That the Neapolitans had won another victory over the Saracens before this one, Silos asserts on page 203.

x. Concerning the Vatican codex, and its writer, and its credit, Silos treats on page 204 from Antonio Caracciolo.

* perhaps "Ipsum"

* rather "aliquis incolendus"

* perhaps "abitione"

CHAPTER VIII.

The Lutheran heresy and impiety detected and repressed at Naples; specimens of poverty at Verona; the return to Venice; miracles.

The Lutheran heresy at Naples, And indeed the probity, erudition, and diligence of our men in fact answered excellently to the opinion conceived of them. For about the same time a savage pestilence of morals and of minds invaded Naples, which declared above all the zeal for the Catholic faith and the virtue of the Pauline Fathers (for so they were thereafter called there from the already mentioned church of St. Paul) and of Cajetan. I shall take up the matter a little further back, that it may be known in how great peril that city, and indeed the neighboring coast, was. Campania ^a (as also the rest of Italy) was in these years variously shaken by wars, foreign and savage nations being also called in for its devastation, as though it did not suffice by itself to bring destruction upon itself. But (what is far worse) heretical men strove to infect with the Lutheran stain the royal city of Naples, instructed by Peter himself, Prince of the Apostles, in the lessons of the faith ^b. For first German horsemen to the number of two thousand, and six thousand foot, who after the plundering of Rome had flown thither to repel Lautrec who was besieging it, everywhere gave many and wicked examples of the impious dogma which they had drunk in at Luther's serving.

[80] These being afterward sent away elsewhere, one Juan de Valdés, a Spaniard ^c, who came to Naples in the year 1535, and the impieties of wolves lurking under a sheep's skin made a far greater slaughter of minds than those many thousands of heretical soldiers. For he, tinged with such letters as would be enough among the common people for gaining the reputation of a learned man; with a placid look, and one which bore an appearance of innocence, with courtesy and sweetness of speech, concealed a most foul impiety with incredible craft. And so he shortly drew to himself many, allured and deceived by these arts. Among these two were more notable than all the rest, and eggs worthy of a raven: Bernardino Ochino and Peter Martyr Vermigli ^d, both afterward standard-bearers of the heretics. Bernardino, a preacher of great name, had won for himself the fame of outstanding sanctity by the display of a most harsh diet and dress. But Peter, cultivated in the skill of tongues, in the monastery of saint Peter over which he presided, by publicly expounding the epistles of Paul the Apostle, dexterously perverted them to the sense of the heretics.

[81] The beginning of uncovering the impiety was made by our men. For Cajetan, detected a man of keen genius, began to get scent of the matter. For he observed that the dogmas which those triumvirs of a satanic commonwealth everywhere scattered about purgatorial pains, about the power of the Supreme Pontiff, about the free will of men, about the justification of the guilty, savored of rash novelty, and indeed of detestable impiety; and he had observed that Ochino, from the year 1536, in which he had preached in the church of saint John Major, had begun by certain ambiguous dilemmas, and by disparagement of the ecclesiastical magistrates, to bait his hearers with most wicked persuasions. But in this year 1539, namely a little after our men obtained the Pauline church, that same Ochino, most fully furnished with a hair-cloth garment and hoarse declamations, that is, with instruments for stirring up the multitude, was sowing Lutheran dogmas much more freely and openly from the pulpit of the metropolitan church.

[82] by Cajetan and put to flight Cajetan therefore, who was accustomed both to go himself to hear and observe these men, and purposely to send others, judging that there must now be no delay, informed the Cardinal of Chieti, who was then at Rome urging Paul III, Supreme Pontiff, more and more to establish in that city the supreme magistracy of the Inquisition, about these matters and these impious men; and meanwhile himself admonished the Neapolitans to beware of them henceforth. Finally he tried by all means to draw the mask from those hypocrites. Wherefore, although those wolves under a sheep's skin lurked for some years with great destruction to Campania; nevertheless at some time at last, the suspicion of their wickedness namely growing daily, and the promiscuous and shameful gatherings of men and women which they secretly assembled being uncovered, all, to forestall the peril which threatened them from the city, fled one one way, another another.

[83] with great fruit of piety, At the news of their flight the Cardinal of Chieti, a letter woven from the words of sacred Scripture alone being sent to Ochino ^e, strove partly by soothing, partly by rebuking, to bring back the wanderer to the Catholic folds. But this was in vain. For he a little after, Italy being left, flew to Zurich of the Swiss ^f together with the Sham-martyr. Further Cajetan and our other men, the enemies being now put to flight,

won great favor among all pious persons: and there flowed together to the church of Blessed Paul a countless multitude from the chief nobility and from the common people, that there they might receive the saving Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, and might listen to the sermons of Cajetan and Giovanni Marinoni, which they in turn delivered about heavenly things, without display of words indeed, but with an exceptional yield of virtues. And now our men, both by the sanctity of life and manners observed daily, and by their zeal for human salvation, which day and night, sparing no labors, they procured, won for themselves so great a benevolence of the more powerful and the humbler, that although they saw them very rarely through the city, they nevertheless had nothing either more frequently in their mouths or more fixed in their minds than the Pauline Fathers.

[84] and by the esteem of the Theatines, But those who came in throngs to the church of St. Paul were so filled with veneration for the sacred place and its inhabitants that, as though touched by the Deity, they dared, I do not say to make noise, or to chatter too freely, but not even to open their mouths. And so in the greatest multitude the greatest silence was preserved. But they admired the comeliness of the church, and the cleanness of the sacred equipment most diligently attended to; the rites and ceremonies performed composedly and in order; the manner of singing the sacred prayers, new but derived from an ancient age; the innocence, modesty, and gravity of our men, which they most constantly exhibited with eyes fixed on the ground, with few words, with calm countenance, with a will stretched out to all the offices of religion and charity. These things I gladly record, that posterity may again and again thereafter express by imitation the manners and rites of the ancient Fathers, which they hitherto retain, by God's grace, not altogether slothfully.

[85] whose reinforcements are recounted. But now in the previous year 1538 the family of Clerks Regular had been increased at Naples: namely, that they might be able to be equal to so many and such great labors, and that, the number of laborers being increased, the harvest of spiritual fruits might also be increased. Wherefore, besides some novices who were received at Naples, Bernardino Scotti, Provost of St. Nicholas, had already sent two clerics from Venice, namely Severo Tizzoni, a deacon of Fondi, of whom we have spoken above, and Giacomo Yvanni the Spaniard — him, I say, who in the disaster of Rome had undergone peril of life and huge hardships together with the others whom we mentioned at the beginning. These had arrived safe at Naples on the seventh of the Ides of June of the past year. But in the year 1540, in the month of April, in the assembly celebrated at Naples, Cajetan was created Provost of the Venetian house of St. Nicholas. And so, leaving Giovanni Marinoni, that most pious old man, whom in the same assembly the Fathers had set over the Pauline church, he himself returned to Venice together with Pietro of Verona, Marco the Venetian, and Bernardo of Todi ^g.

[86] But about the year 1541, unless the reckoning of times deceives me, After genuine examples of poverty which at Verona Cajetan went to Verona together with Giovanni Antonio Prato, a Milanese cleric, and certain others. For Prato testifies in his narrative, which he left written ^h about Cajetan's deeds, that he lived with him for some while at Verona. But this could not have been before this year, because Prato had not yet been received into our Order. Nor after the year 1542; for at the beginning of the forty-third Cajetan returned to Naples, as we shall presently say. But since we are certain of the fact, we cease to be anxious about the time. Cajetan therefore at one time went to Verona, and inhabited together with other of our men those same Nazarene cells which Bonifacio had inhabited in the twenty-eighth year, as we shall say in the Life of Bonifacio ⁱ. Thither daily were sent by bishop Giberti, who then, the Roman court being left, was present at Verona with his own people, foods which would abundantly suffice for our men.

[87] And in the first days indeed Cajetan wished to shut his eyes, lest he should seem to grant nothing at all to the benevolence of so great a prelate. Cajetan had given, But when he observed that this was now assiduously done by him as though by rule, he freely signifies to the bishop that he should not thereafter send him any more provisions: that he had already done enough for liberality, or for Christian beneficence: let him allow himself and his men henceforth to experience Religious want according to their vow; otherwise that virtue which is exercised with no discomfort is easily enervated. Giberti heard these things with admiration, and rejoiced greatly that such brave soldiers of Christ were kept within the walls of Verona by his procuring. He nevertheless remits nothing of his custom of sending sustenance. And so Cajetan, who left examples of a most perfect Christian freedom and poverty, such as posterity can rather admire than fully attain, threatened the bishop that he and his companions would at once depart from the territory of Verona, if he continued thereafter to send anything fixed.

[88] And by this means at last Cajetan holily restrained Giberti's liberality toward us. examples of poverty, But he himself, relying on God's providence alone, and indeed resolving to live on the chance offerings of the pious alone, hoped for all glad things which Christ's Gospel, that is, the firmness of the divine word, promised. Meanwhile nevertheless to him and to his companions, reduced of their own accord to extreme destitution, and scarcely known to anyone in that city, some money or food was rarely given. Wherefore to their common bread they added only herbs or pulse produced from the household garden. Eggs they scarcely had a few at the Lupercalia ^k. In such straits of household affairs nevertheless Cajetan's constancy was daily increased more and more. For he knew that fasting and poverty are food for virtue.

[89] But afterward, when he had remained some while at Verona, he returned to Venice to his house of Tolentino, which he is read to have ruled with the title of Provost for these three years. He returns to Venice; where he heals a woman near to death, When he had therefore returned to Venice, I think (unless the reckoning of years deceives me) that he wrought those three wonders which Prato relates in his testimony. I shall report them faithfully, and without paint of words. First. Cajetan runs to a certain noble woman, already near to death from sickness, and destitute of all helps; he advises that she should taste the sacred liquid which flows from the body of St. Andrew the apostle: she does so; and suddenly recovers, and after some days rises from her bed. But this thing done from heaven, although it may seem that it ought to be attributed to the merits of Blessed Andrew, is nevertheless not to be judged alien from Cajetan's virtue, by whose advising, praying, and offering she drank those little drops: for St. Thomas Aquinas also (to forbear reporting other examples) is read to have done some miracles through the relics of Blessed Agnes, which nevertheless are with good right recounted among his own deeds ^l.

[90] restores a frenzied man to his mind, The second. A certain deacon of our men laboring long with frenzy and open madness, the physicians, since they had profited nothing by their other care, order that a change of air be tried. Cajetan assented with the greatest difficulty: for he knew how much peril and inconvenience a Religious family is wont to undergo on that account, the number of members being namely diminished by dismissals of that kind, and the labors and cares being turned upon the rest. There was added that a man out of his mind could be more safely and more secretly kept within the cloister, and that it would not be to the advantage of the recently established Order of Clerks Regular that a deacon of ours should go forth abroad, soon to become the laughingstock and talk of the common people. When therefore on the one hand these weighty reasons, and on the other the physicians and some hope of health which they had given, pressed Cajetan, going to his accustomed refuge, he passed the whole night praying to God and groaning with such constancy and affection that he deserved to be heard. And so, full of hope and faith, he said to his companions, Prato himself hearing it, who reported these things: I know that health has been granted me by God for that brother. And so there is no further need that he change his sky or his dwelling. But he uttered these words while he was going out of his cell very early in the morning, and before he could have heard anything about the cleric's health. And so it happened as he had foretold; since indeed on that very day the man recovered, and returned so fully to his mind that he was afterward initiated into the priesthood.

[91] and calms the Adriatic sea. The third, I think, happened while he was making for Naples from Venice by ship. For, as we shall presently say, he returned again to Naples; having namely been elected in the year 1553 [*] Provost of the Pauline church. This matter wonderfully done the same Prato relates, but so summarily and briefly that if I set it forth at greater length, I might seem to have added something of my own. In a few words therefore let me dispatch the matter. A storm having arisen in the Adriatic sea, and assailing with great force the ship in which he and others were carried, and indeed already sinking it, Cajetan, trusting to the anchor of faith and prayers, at once calmed it by casting a waxen Agnus Dei into the angry sea ^m. These are the things which Giovanni Antonio Prato, more than eighty years old, attested in writing in the year 1598, and wished to be entered in the public monuments of our Order. Certainly Cajetan was such that greater things than these can be believed of him. Nay more, on account of the Man's outstanding sanctity, and the greatness of his deeds, he deserved to be honored daily with a private cult, immediately after his death, by some outsiders too. And indeed Lucrezia Carafa, Antonio Caponio a physician, and Rainerio Gualando, well-born and upright men, and ones to whom lying brought no profit, used to relate wonders about that Man, which perished by the injury of the times and the negligence of posterity in spreading abroad the praise of their Ancestors.

had implored, he placed, praying, upon the sick man's breast the relics of the said Saint, which out of devotion he carried hung at his own breast, and the sick man sat up in his bed sound and cheerful. Which miracle some attributed to the master praying, others to the aforesaid virgin: but it is better said to have been done by the merits of both, so that the prayers of both ascended to God, and the holy virgin, moved by the Doctor's prayers, obtained the grace of health for the sick man.

* read 1543

CHAPTER IX.

A rare example of piety; the illness contracted; his most pious death; two singular things attributed to his prayers; his sayings; a summary of his life.

Cajetan therefore returned to Naples in the year 1543, at the end of April, accompanied by Marco and Gregorio, Venetian priests. But here again, reader, I am compelled to make a huge gap of four years ^a in that narration about Cajetan's life. For from the year 1543 up to 1547 I have found nothing said or written about that man. [Making his way to the provostship of Naples, he gives on the journey a rare specimen of piety.] But in the month of May of this year Cajetan, returning from the assembly celebrated at Rome to Naples with the title of Provost, together with Pietro of Verona, a priest, and Giacomo, a Cleric, came to Atella ^b, a city of Campania, on the very vigil of the Lord's Ascension, long after sunset. Being therefore seized with a desire of paying the solemn Matins prayers together with his Pauline companions, he was unwilling to lodge that night at Atella; but, though wearied by the long journey, he ran on to Naples far into the night. And so at that very hour at which he entered the house of St. Paul, his traveling garments being scarcely laid aside, in the utmost silence he goes straight to the oratory, and with great alacrity he and the others sing the divine praises. What admiration, joy, and incitement to virtue that thing brought to all, is not easy to say. So great is the force of examples.

[93] The tribunal of the Inquisition to be set up at Naples But it happened in this year that the Neapolitan disturbances, already stirred up before at the end of the previous year, blazed into a great and deadly conflagration. I shall set forth the matter briefly, lest what other historians relate most copiously I should here seem to repeat to the reader's weariness, and, as they say, to do what has been done. Since through Italy Luther's doctrine was creeping more widely day by day, Pedro de Toledo the viceroy judged that provision would rightly be made for the Neapolitan kingdom if that censure against heretics were there established in the Spanish manner, which, because it severely inquires into the lives and fortunes of those who think wrongly, obtained the name of the Inquisition. Privy to and an approver of that plan, his brother Juan, Cardinal of Compostela ^c, had sent two Dominican Inquisitors from Rome, who, a diploma being shown to the Viceroy, should accomplish the matter.

[94] stirs up most turbulent tumults there: But on that account so great a tumult was suddenly stirred up in the city that the Viceroy, fearing lest, if he pressed the matter, the common people, being reconciled to the nobility, should with joined forces rush upon him and the Spaniards, the plan being covered with gentle words, persuaded the citizens that he had changed his mind. Meanwhile through emissaries he secretly sounds the minds of the Neapolitans; but that industry went for nothing: for, talk growing frequent, almost all, even those who among them excelled in the fame of piety, with unanimous consent execrated the Inquisition, and the matter was brought so far that the whole city rushed almost to utter destruction. For on the one side the Viceroy, being increased by a firm garrison of Spanish soldiers, whom the imperial galleys had brought from Genoa, took heart again. On the other the Neapolitans admitted into the city a huge crowd of exiles and assassins, and indeed everything was done in hostile fashion. Wherefore the streets, the market-places, and the very houses were full of tumult and slaughter: for these were savagely demolished by the discharge of engines.

[95] which, because the holy Man could not compose them, he contracts a fever; Further, our Cajetan, seeing these things, when he had first attempted in every way, partly by persuading, partly by asking, to repress the rising sedition, soon, being frustrated of his wish, from anguish of soul and from the vigils which he had passed in beseeching God by night, fell into a fever. For the most pious Old Man, vehemently kindled with the flame of charity, could not endure that so many crimes should be daily perpetrated, that so great a slaughter should be done in a Christian city. But out of a vehement desire of extinguishing the most turbulent sedition, often even when he was sick he had in his mouth those words of the prophet Daniel: "Hear, O Lord; be appeased, O Lord; attend and do: delay not for your own sake, my God: because your name is invoked upon the city and upon your people." And indeed already before he lay in bed he had established public litanies of the Saints, at whose end he had most piously woven these same words of Daniel together with others excerpted from sacred Scripture. These we have written out in the hand of Giovanni Marinoni.

[96] The fever growing heavier, Antonio Caponio the physician goes to Cajetan, which growing heavier, he refuses a second physician and a softer mattress and asks that he call at least a second physician to attend him: that he indeed yielded to no mortal in benevolence and diligence toward him: but that two see more than one. And so that it would be worth while that another be summoned, with whom he might share what needed to be done. Cajetan to this said: There is no need, my Antonio, that a second physician be present to attend poor little me. Do those things which shall seem useful for the purpose. That will certainly be enough. Caponio urges again that he would at least allow a woolen mattress to be placed over his hard sack stuffed with straw, and would somewhat solace with that softness his little body broken by old age and fever. But he, who, as he had lived on the cross with Christ, had likewise resolved to die on the cross, being holily angered with the physician, said: A softer mattress for me? In ashes and hair-cloth, in ashes and hair-cloth I ought and wish to die. And, often repeating these words, he most constantly persisted in his harsh and straw bed, all softness being rejected.

[97] But after he saw himself already near to death, his senses still entire, then, the Sacraments of the Church being received, he most piously dies. he asked for the Sacraments of Penance and of the divine Eucharist, and finally of Extreme unction. Being duly cleansed and fortified with these, and glowing more with desire of eternal blessedness than with fever, he strenuously prepares himself to put off mortality. Meanwhile among other things he said these to the companions standing by: I think, brothers, that I have never brought any evil or trouble upon anyone, so far as I know. If nevertheless anyone, unknown to me, thinks himself hurt, or affected with trouble or grief by me, behold, I most humbly ask pardon from him, whoever he may be. A great word indeed, and altogether like that which Moses and Samuel, leaders of the Israelite people, uttered. In this manner therefore Cajetan, most rich in charity, passed to Christ, whom he had so greatly loved and imitated, on the seventh of the Ides of Sextilis 1547.

[98] But two things happened in the Christian world not long after Cajetan's death, [The calming of the Neapolitan disturbances, and Charles V's victory attributed to his prayers.] glad and auspicious to all good men, harsh and deadly to the wicked. The one, the calming of the Neapolitan discord and tumult, which by most who knew the Man's merits was said to have been obtained from God by the prayers of Cajetan, already received into heaven ^d. The other, the victory ^e of the Most August Caesar Charles V over the Duke of Saxony, whom Ippolito Porto, Count of Vicenza, commander of a wing of horse, was the first ^f of all to capture as he was escaping from the battle, and carried off a noble reward from Caesar. But that renowned Ippolito was a kinsman of our Cajetan on the maternal ^g side.

[99] But memorable are Cajetan's sayings, spoken or written by him on various occasions. Sayings Among the many which have perished, I have found these few ^h, which, lest they too perish, we have thought should be placed in this spot.

I. That the divine Eucharist is not to be received that Christ may change himself into us, but that we may be changed into himself: that is, that we must communicate not with this aim, that Christ may do our will, but that we may follow and carry out his will.

II. That the delights and pleasures of the world are nothing else than the illusions of demons, with which they do not fill or nourish the men whom they have enchanted, but only puff them up. But that God alone has in his power true and solid pleasures, which namely truly satisfy and fill human hearts.

III. To Pietro of Verona, complaining of the burden of the Provostship imposed upon him, to which he was not equal, Cajetan said: Do you wish, Peter, to render that burden very light to yourself and to your subjects? Take care that you be loved together with God.

[100] of Cajetan. IV. The Count of Oppido, growing angry rather frequently with his servants, and for slight causes (as peevish old men do), he once repressed with these words: Tell me, I pray, Count, are you as promptly obedient to God as you wish to be obeyed by men, being yourself a man?

V. To Bartolomeo Scayno, otherwise most friendly to him, asking that he would favor with a certain noble his son, whom he desired to become a judge, he freely replied: That judges be given to peoples, by whom justice may be administered to them, that indeed is good; but that Religious men mingle themselves in secular cares, and procure that anyone be chosen judge, that indeed is not good.

VI. To Elisabetta of Thiene, his brother's daughter, he wrote that it happens to a man forgetful of his fatherland, which is heaven, no otherwise than to a traveler who gets drunk in an inn, and, soaked with wine, cannot find the road which leads to his fatherland.

[101] Of an eyewitness These are the things, my reader, which we have had to relate about Cajetan of Thiene and to transmit to posterity. But that you may have a brief description of his body and soul, and indeed a compendium as it were of all that we have said, I shall place in this last spot the testimony which Erasmo Danesi, a most upright priest, who lived with him for some while, left in writing in these words ⁱ: "Of Cajetan I say this, that he was so venerable an old man that I plainly fear whether I am adequate to relate that Man's exceptional probity and virtue. For his life stood forth conspicuous by an excellent example: in conversation humble, gentle, modest, of few words: assiduous in prayers: for it was possible to see him continually persisting in the oratory with his knees fixed on the ground, or carrying in his hand the beads of prayer, or some pious little book; and I remember that I often saw him weeping while praying. He was also sparing in food; nay, he very often fasted. I could have noticed more: but at that time, on account of my youth, I was not diligently free for observing these things.

[102] a compendious account of his manners, bodily condition, His speech was grave, devout, especially then when during the refreshment he addressed words to the brothers. In domestic works and labors he was always the first of all; for instance in cleaning the linens with lye, in sweeping the chambers and the whole house, and in other lowly exercises of this kind. By night he was the first of all to be roused for the vigils, the first to go down to the oratory: in which place the Psalms were sung briskly, and thoughtfully, and with a becoming pause. When he had according to custom to bend the knee before the most holy Body of Christ, or elsewhere on other occasions, deeply to

the ground he lowered his knee. The office of Matins prayers being paid, in the same place in which he had chanted, with his knees fixed on the ground, he prayed in mind up to the hour of the Sacrifice. Then, with lowly and humble mind, having confessed his daily little stains, he most religiously offered sacrifice, and that for the most part at St. Andrew's altar, or at the high altar; and me, as a countryman of Gaeta, and a novice, he frequently employed to serve him as he said Mass.

[103] and his virtues After these things we again hastened to the psalmody. Then indeed, Prime, Terce, and Sext being recited, and the Sacrifices finished, we came to table. It was frugal and scanty, from those things namely which were sent. And it often happened that we found nothing in the dining-room but a small morsel of bread, and perhaps some citrons. But I remember that on a certain day we had nothing besides bread and four fresh beans. Meanwhile nevertheless the Lord provided, moving the mind of some pious man to send us something. Wherefore Cajetan established that the names of benefactors should be publicly recited in the dining-room from a raised place. Besides, he gave them very many thanks, always praising God because he had inspired them to be munificent toward us; and the most pious Old Man diligently admonished us all to entreat God for them. To speak briefly, Cajetan was of an altogether irreproachable life, chaste, gentle, merciful. Toward the sick especially he showed great kindness: he fed them with his own hands. Marco Pasqualino, laboring with a grave and long sickness, he pursued with exceptional offices of charity, and indeed he most earnestly procured the health of all.

[104] But in private, in his cell, he cultivated the utmost poverty. a description. A straw mattress, stuffed namely with straw, and half torn; likewise a little pillow of straw, a mean board, and a little stool, a few little books, and a paper sacred image. With these riches he furnished his chamber. His inner and outer garments were of coarser cloth. He was of middling stature, neither small nor very tall, with a face inclining to roundness, but somewhat thinned by leanness, with cheeks somewhat ruddy. With his eyes and mouth he breathed sweetness and kindness; his beard was clipped and growing gray. He let his hair grow down to the tips of his ears, as was the custom of those times. He used at first a round cap after the Venetian manner, afterward a cross-shaped one. I confess that I cannot match all that Man's virtues ^k in speaking: it will have been enough to have said this, that that most pious Priest flourished with exceptional sanctity and with distinguished ornaments of virtues ^l."

* rather "psallerat"

POSTHUMOUS GLORY

from his Miracles.

Cajetan of Thiene, Confessor, at Naples (S.)

FROM PUBLISHED SOURCES.

§ I. Miracles wrought in the first century from the Saint's death, and first those which regard the advantages of souls.

The credit of the following miracles. Of the miracles wrought by the Saint while he lived we have spoken above in the Commentary, §6; but of those which the Roman Rota approved, in the same place, §16. We therefore now give others, being about to premise those which happened in the first century from his death. Silos, after he had related the miracles which (so he speaks in part 1 of the History of his Order, book 7, page 286) the most weighty decrees of the Roman judges consigned to public records and acts, indicates that other miracles are now to be reckoned; to which, although weight has not accrued from that irrefragable judgment, they are nevertheless such that they are either established on the sworn credit of witnesses in the processes, or are ascertained with such authority and constancy of fame that no place is left for suspicion. These moreover are to be touched on briefly, not related more fully, and that in this order, that we should take first those which regard the healing or profit of souls; then those which regard the advantages of bodies; lastly those which seem to regard the goods of fortune.

[2] A heretic brought back to good fruit, And for the profit and gain of souls indeed I know not whether anything greater or more fruitful could happen than what befell at Vicenza by Cajetan's help. A certain Francesco, whom they called Farfarello, the inquisitors of violated faith had condemned to death as a relapsed man; and, what greatly affected all good men, he had so hardened his mind in his opinion that there were no engines of arguments at all for storming it, and he made sport of the labor of most learned men with remarkable obstinacy. Among the learned men who urged the salvation of that most stubborn man was, of our number, Giovanni Centurella; who, when he observed that all attempts were vain, resolved to try the helps and the aid of the Heavenly ones, and appealed to Cajetan, that, since that Francesco was the same man who anxiously trod the same track of Valdés and Ochino ^a, whose madness and assaults he himself had once strenuously broken, he would now be at hand for battering down the impiety and stubbornness of that most unhappy man: that he thought he had not then indeed burned with a more ardent zeal, while he acted among mortals, than he now burned with charity, transferred among the better ones. The matter indeed seemed beyond the belief of men. For there was no need of a longer struggle. And when a discussion had been begun about the purifying flames of Purgatory, which he utterly denied, at the very first stroke the heretic gave his hands, and, dissolved in tears, began to beg pardon on his knees, and inwardly to repent of his error. And not long after, being duly initiated in the confession of orthodox piety and faith, and in the Sacraments of the Church, he underwent with singular constancy the punishment inflicted. Plainly, how difficult it is to break the adamant of heretics, and the triple brass about their breast; by so much the more must it be thought that Cajetan pleaded this man's cause with burning zeal at the heavenly benches: he who, when it happened that faith and religion were disputed, was never anything but most ardent.

[3] It was fitting that the house of Thiene should experience a kindred and related protection, discord among the Thienes calmed, and that indeed with the more abundant beneficence in proportion as it was nearer to Cajetan. Two noble men of that stock were carrying on the most grievous quarrels between themselves; and an implacable hatred had already held them a full five years. The admonitions of friends and kinsmen, applying themselves to a covenant of minds for that purpose, the hardened and stubborn mind of each in that discord shut out. When a certain one of the kinsmen judged that Cajetan's present help must be demanded: and at once, his fidelity being implored, that flame of enmities was suddenly seen to have subsided. But that this was done chiefly by Cajetan's suffrage, the frenzy of the discords being calmed at that very time when it was least hoped for, declared: and one of them was afterward wont to say that he wondered at nothing more vehemently than at that unexpected covenant which followed.

[4] This too must be sought from the domestic annals of his house. Flaminia of Thiene had long lived in the ascetery of the divine Peter, the use of her tongue restored for sacramental confession, which is most celebrated at Vicenza, under the discipline of the divine Benedict; and, now aged in years, and afflicted by a certain unconquerable force of disease, was lying in her last illness. Entire indeed was the most pious virgin's mind; but the languor had so cut off the use of her tongue that at that last period of life she could not cleanse her faults. And so she asked her kinsman divinity, whom she did not doubt to be most powerful in heaven. And without delay: the office of her tongue was restored; and, her little stains being readily numbered to her confessor, not long after she died with the utmost tranquillity of soul.

[5] But there befell at Syracuse a huge benefit of this kind to Giovanni Allegria, as also another restored to his mind before death; a priest of our Order. He was seized by so vehement and rapid a fever that on the very fourth day he departed from human things. But the day before he died, being wholly alienated in mind, he was initiated only in the last Sacrament; but for the rest he could neither be cleansed by confession, nor fortified with the Eucharist for the defense of a by far most difficult contest. That calamity of their brother struck our men most bitterly. Then they more intently prayed Cajetan, whose anniversary memory they had kept on that day, that he would obtain a right mind for the sick man. He heard the prayers of his own men: and at once Giovanni was seen master of himself; who, having first given thanks to Thiene that he had come opportunely, admonished them to hasten those offices of piety; and, scarcely having been attended with those sacred rites, he fell again into the same deliriums of his disease; and breathed out his soul on the following day, not without a repeated and present patronage of his most holy Parent: for indeed a little before his death he was again restored to his senses, so that he expired piously amid acts of the most burning charity and examples of the virtues.

[6] powerlessness of soul and foul thoughts bridled, Two women of honorable station at Venice, both named Giulia, testify to Cajetan's hand still ready for the healing of souls: of whom one had the surname Bresciana; the other Zoa. Bresciana, of a fervent disposition indeed, and easily made indignant, could ill temper the powerlessness and ardor of her mind, and grieved chiefly for this reason, that she seemed to need equanimity in her husband's rather long illness. She therefore resolved to ask Thiene with continuous prayer for a whole week, that he might obtain it. But neither

did Cajetan allow the appointed period of prayers to be completed. For on the very first day Giulia felt a certain bridle cast upon her mind, and her patience grew; she herself indeed marveling vehemently that a disposition enduring of labors and hardships had come upon her silently and with such suspended steps; and soon she offered thanks to its author, whom she proclaimed to have been Cajetan. But Zoa, the protection of the same Thiene being implored, prescribed for herself the same space of praying for victory over certain most troublesome thoughts which greatly defiled her mind. She was made possessed of the benefit without any delay. But because she did not afterward stand by her promises, she began to be tormented and wounded by the same darts: until, her fidelity being thoroughly restored, her own brightness and tranquillity of mind returned again: and, because she received it twice, the woman was twice indebted to Thiene's beneficence.

[7] a certain man admonished of his fault through the Saint's image. And that Cajetan very often brought help to affections of soul of that kind, we have ascertained: in which place I would not conceal the excellent method which he entered upon of admonishing and chastising a man upright as few are, who was advancing by the road to the perfection of virtue. He had been accustomed toward evening to examine his soul before Cajetan's image, and to call the hours of the day that was past to examination and to the balance. Therefore, while he was more attentively recognizing his faults, on whatever day it had happened that he had erred somewhat gravely, he observed the image wonderfully turned away, whereby Thiene seemed both to turn away from that fault and to teach that it must be more sharply punished. Rightly would you have called that effigy a mistress of life: since indeed it did not only indicate the slipping hours of the day, but, if any had flowed by with no fruit or too sluggishly, censured and amended them.

§ II. Benefits of the body conferred by the Saint's help in the aforesaid century; evil spirits repressed.

A dead boy is given back to life: Thus far concerning the diseases of souls, says Silos on page 287. The benefits of the body now call us. And indeed to have called back the dead to life, this indeed is by common reckoning esteemed the greatest and highest among miracles. But that the divine Deity willed Cajetan's remarkable merits to be honored with this praise is established on the credit of records: and it is had at length in the Acts of Milan, which we shall here hastily relate. Anna, wife of Camillo Acquaviva, as soon as she saw her son Francesco fallen from a high place, ran up: but when she learned that no particle of life remained in that little body, she herself almost followed her dead son, being drained by a huge wound of grief. But when she collected herself a little, her mind bade her hope I know not what: she was certainly raised up by a higher prompting. And since Cajetan's fame, and that of his patronage, had already grown widely known by benefits published abroad on every side, she resolved to commend her son to the most holy Man's piety. Therefore, some hours after his death, she sets him before Cajetan in the church of the divine Antony, and strenuously hardened her mind that she would not withdraw thence unless the use of the light were obtained anew for the boy. Scarcely had she conceived those more ardent prayers, when the boy opens and turns his eyes, his breath namely and life being received back: and the mother went home with her offspring unharmed, about to repay Cajetan's ascertained help with continual thanksgiving.

[9] Now, since those who undergo a difficult childbirth are next to death; The Saint brings help whichever have been snatched from that peril will assuredly be able to be reckoned among the trophies carried off from death itself. Victories of this kind are plainly related of Thiene not a few. At Milan, being twice addressed in that difficulty of bearing, twice he was present in a saving manner. And Angela indeed, a woman of honorable station (scarcely was the vow pronounced by her husband), brought forth with the safety both of herself and of her offspring. But Susanna Castiglioni by a certain more excellent help not only felt herself freed, a vow being undertaken, from huge torments; but also most happily brought forth her child, and at once leapt from her bed with such firmness of strength as if she had never given birth.

[10] At Vicenza it befell Valeria Ferramosca to experience Cajetan's protection and succor still more powerfully. to women in labor, For indeed her child, not yet brought to the navel, was hastening its coming forth too early, and moreover pressed upon the womb in such a position as to redouble the danger: and at last Valeria being seized with a rather vehement fever, this was the common vote of the physicians, that she would not come forth safe from that struggle. Why say more? Cajetan's relics being applied were seen at once to have driven away all danger and fear: and she most happily brought forth her child, and credited her health and her offspring to Thiene. But his divine and most present power frequently brought forth such wonders in childbirth.

[11] But indeed to run through every kind of evils which the invoked name of Cajetan blew away and to those laboring under every would be an almost infinite labor. Nowhere will you not find diseases slain. And indeed, as regards fevers, from them, either a vow being pronounced to Thiene, or his help being in some way asked, there recovered, at Milan, Antonio Montegnano, who was struggling with his last breath; Francesco Cermina, a boy of six years, whose flower of age death had already shaken off and almost worn away; Leonardo Galerio, and Ippolita Coira, each worn out with a most acute fever. At Vicenza, Serena Poiana Trissina, Pietro Magre, Caterina Mainenti, Orazio Pasqualino, and a good many others. At Genoa, Domenico Caresseto. At Ferrara, Lavinia Pia of Thiene, marchioness of Scandiano. At Naples, Ferdinando Carafa, duke of Laurino. But of our own men there had already been given up for dead at Rome Marco the Roman, who was then especially attending to Cajetan's apotheosis with the Cardinals; at Cremona, Stefano Santini; at Vicenza, Stefano Foppoli, priests of noted probity: and they were snatched from peril by their blessed Parent's protection.

[12] Likewise that his excellent power put to flight countless other kinds of sickness kind of evils we hold as ascertained. At Milan Francesco Vercellini labored with stones and difficulty of urine, with no hope of life; Thiene being seen by night, as soon as he commended himself to his patronage, he recovered. At Vicenza, to Giuseppe de Leonardis of the order of the Capuchins, on account of a certain rather vehement bodily straining, his bowels had in pitiable fashion flowed out, so that the physicians were already thinking of applying a remedy with the knife. But it was done far more gently, Cajetan breathing favor. For at the vow undertaken by the brother the protruding intestines at once returned to their own station. Leonida Monti, a nun in the monastery of the divine Mary Araceli, afflicted for a year and a half with a joint disease, had exhausted every remedy, with no result of her labor. Cajetan cured her when she was bound by a vow. At Milan, in Francesco Landriani, a boy of twelve, there had grown at his kidneys a tumor of insane size, and tortured him inwardly. While at his mother's exhortation he recites the beads of prayer before Cajetan's image, the plague was at once seen to melt away and to be loosed.

[13] laboring, At Venice, the dislocated body of Paschetta Comati, who had fallen from a height, returned to its joints by the pronouncing of a vow. Afflicted by a headlong fall of this kind, Bartolomea Merzaria and Caterina Bellosia were raised up and made whole by the same patronage. Cornelia Canal's finger was seized by such a plague from a very slight point that the physicians already feared for the rest of her body. Cajetan's image being applied, the venom vanished. At Vicenza, the destruction and flux of phlegm harassed Diana Bessola not less than forty years: the remedies sought by the physicians' art, and prayers themselves, were in vain; since indeed the cure was reserved for Thiene; by imploring whose help health returned. Pietro Franco drove away a pain which had already for twelve years occupied his arm, prayers being poured forth to Thiene. Paolo Moretto's sinews, now contracted, were loosed, the help of the same being asked. And the same defect of the sinews was corrected in Elisabetta Muzi of Florence by the same succors. And of diseases this is enough. For if anyone has leisure to run through the list and census of those who are indebted to Cajetan's munificence for plagues of sickness driven away and for bodily soundness recovered, let him go to our Castaldo in his Life, who briefly, lest he too affect his readers with weariness, records almost countless persons bound by a vow.

[14] and with the peril of the waters Now, because amid the waves of a raging sea death seems to threaten and to rage more atrociously, the helps which are present from heaven in that conflict and fear of storms are wont to be esteemed more highly. Nor was the sea subdued, and the powerlessness of proud waves broken, lacking among Cajetan's trophies. Of miracles of that kind one or two must here be related. In the Venetian lagoons the waves assailed a little boat with such force that, the steersman being shaken out and at once cast into the sea by the rush of the winds, nothing was nearer than that the small craft, and those whom it carried, should be swallowed up. Cajetan shone forth like a saving star. For indeed the vow had scarcely been pronounced by a certain woman, and by the steersman himself, who was wrestling with the raging sea, when, behold, the storm being calmed in a moment, the sea seemed, its pride laid aside, more humbly to venerate Thiene's name and power. Snatched from shipwreck, they dedicated a tablet at Cajetan's image as a witness and monument of the benefit.

[15] struggling. That was seasonably bestowed upon his kinsman. Count Antonio of Thiene, when he had to swim to a boat, felt his breath break and be exhausted in the midst of his effort, so that he despaired that his strength would suffice for measuring out the sea. He resolved at once to implore help from his household protection: nor did his confidence mock him. For he felt something like a branch conveniently present under his feet, leaning on which, and his strength being a little restored, he began again to exert himself: but when his sides and arms again failed him as he strove, Cajetan being again entreated, he breathed again by the same help of the branch, and soon swam into the skiff, huge thanks being given to his Preserver for the breath which he had received as a loan.

[16] Reported Certain victories over the evil demons must now be touched upon: which benefits are indeed the more excellent for mortals in proportion as the body is harassed by a more vehement tyranny; the destruction being for a great part poured back also upon the soul. For indeed the disaster from the nearness of a most hostile enemy, as it is nearer, so is it more bitter. Therefore out of many we shall record a few. At Venice Giovanna Moretta was tormented by rebellious spirits of that kind: and the more vehemently the imprecations and sacred rites pressed, the more the infernal phalanx seemed to resume stronger forces. At last Cajetan was addressed; at whose name the enemy was at once seen to be broken; so that he who was chief over the rest, Pulcher by name, said by the force of the sacred formulas that he gave his hands to a powerful name, and could no longer bear the most sweet fragrance, very like a citron, which the one presented to the girl had breathed out. And so that Stygian plague departed, no longer daring to harass the girl. Further, that Cajetan frequently breathed forth this fragrance of the citron when he gave himself to be beheld by mortals, we have said when there was discourse about his virginity; where we have also recorded other victories over demons ^a.

[17] At Venice likewise depraved demons assailed Lucietta Alberici more sharply, victories over the evil spirit are recorded. and presented themselves clothed in manifold appearance; that partly by threats, partly by blandishments they might deter her from the purpose of preserving her virginity. Further, those old hands of hell heaped up their arts and their hatred. For indeed, that she might break off the use of the sacred rites, they strove to persuade her that it was already all over with her salvation, and that she was destined and devoted to eternal weepings. What would the Sacraments and the enjoyment of divine things profit a candidate of hell? To open these disturbances of soul to her confessor, Alberici found this at last the best remedy. For that man, being taught how much weight there was in Cajetan's name and protection against rebellious demons, at once called upon his help; whereby he felt the girl strengthened in her excellent purpose of chastity, and vehemently inflamed toward divine things. And hence for an exact victory over the Styx she resolved to use Cajetan's very appellation and patronage; a certain number of days being appointed for pouring forth prayers: which being completed, Thiene was seen by her with a grave appearance, who, using most gentle words, admonished her that she would not thereafter be provoked and harassed by those enemies. That the

adversary was indeed utterly routed, the tranquillity of soul which soon followed demonstrated. In almost the same manner the same enemies, assailing Ippolita Trumba at Milan, strove chiefly to bring it about that she should shrink from the Sacraments. But the fidelity of the same Thiene, being implored, triumphed excellently. For Ippolita was seen, by that protection, both to examine her conscience and to be refreshed with the most divine banquet with a readier zeal. Of patronage of this kind we forbear to number more examples here.

§ III. The goods of fortune preserved through the Saint.

A prosperous voyage through the Saint's protection: We proceed, with Silos leading the way, page 290, to those things which are commonly called the goods of fortune, for the protecting or increasing of which that Cajetan was no less at hand, these proofs of his chiefly declare. Giovanni Donato Nardarino, who had his gain at Venice from seafaring, used to relate that he had long observed, not without admiration, that a certain ship of his, liable to no mishaps of the sea, completed its course more swiftly indeed, and with a far more prosperous voyage than others: but that he had reckoned with his own mind that this could have come about from no other source than from Thiene's protection. For he had wished it to be called by Cajetan's name; and his image was seen there, the governess of the winds and of the sea.

[19] a certain merchant is freed from straits: There is also that which is far more worthy of admiration. A certain merchant, about to cast up accounts with his partners, observes that a thousand gold pieces were by no means entered in the book of receipts and expenditures: and the matter being often brought back to the reckoning, he nowhere finds that money noted down: and lest perchance that sum had escaped his eyes deceived, as usually happens, by some error, because he thought that his hand could less be deceived, he wished to copy out all the accounts as accurately as possible and one by one. And so, since the sum had really been passed over by a certain forgetfulness and negligence, this at last was the remedy for protecting his reputation and credit, if he should pay. Meanwhile many things about Cajetan, and about the aid conferred by him on mortals, were related at Venice with a happy murmur: roused by which fame of miracles, in that loss of no small moment he resolved to call upon his patronage. Therefore, when he came to the church of Tolentino, he prayed more intently before Cajetan's image that he would be present with the power and protection which he was wont to use. And no long time: while a little after he was reviewing the accounts, he found the money which was lacking entered in its place, just as if he himself had consigned it in its own time. Who noted it down there, whether Cajetan or someone of the number of the angels, the supreme Deity namely commanding it at Cajetan's prayers, matters little.

[20] the silk business is brought back to a better success: Of this subject likewise is that which I would not indeed conceal: and although the aid was in a slight matter, the glory to Cajetan from it is assuredly not slight. At Vicenza it is customary to tend silkworms rather intently for silk. Which indeed happened rather inauspiciously each year to Clara Ghellini. For indeed, the more diligently she seemed to apply herself to that care, the more unhappily did the matter turn out, the silk-producing brood being namely for a great part destroyed. There was present Cassandra Muzzara, Clara's mother, who, grieving at the succession of fruitless labor and of too adverse fortune for her daughter, pronounced a vow to Cajetan, that in that year, in which, the silkworm being now breathed upon by the accustomed star, the silk work had begun greatly to be spoiled, he would kindly prosper those cares. Scarcely was that fidelity implored, when the disaster was seen to be stayed; and although the plague had already spread among the greater part of them, nevertheless such was the yield from those which survived that it far compensated for the loss of the rest; the power namely being increased by Cajetan's prayers in those few, by which they might work more richly and more magnificently.

[21] He succors a German physician, wretchedly a fugitive and afflicted; There are more examples of this kind which it would be worth while to record: but we pass them over, relating only this one which befell a certain German physician. He had long measured out the perils and labors of a very long journey: assailed on every side by calamities, he carried about a certain Iliad of evils. He was also so torn from his own that neither could he himself know where either he or they were under the sun, nor could they. Therefore, after nineteen months of being tossed by the force and sport of fortune, he landed at Vicenza. Then by chance at the church of the divine Stephen, of our Order: where, having caught sight of Cajetan's image, notable with many tablets, that is, with the trophies of every kind of adversity routed, he began to rouse his mind to good hope, and to implore from his heart the most holy Man's name and help. And without delay: at once happier days began to shine, and every kind of calamity to fall away, his own people being restored to him. Of which benefit, that the memory might stand as a lesson to posterity, the very man who received it elegantly described it on a tablet and dedicated it to Cajetan: and it will be no trouble for us to transcribe it here:

[22] "To God the best and greatest and to blessed Cajetan of Thiene. concerning which matter an inscription is brought forward. After labors drained through the space of nineteen months, and most bitter griefs and terrors, while, banished from my fatherland, hateful to all, so torn from my own that neither could they learn anything about me, nor I about them, I wander wretched and a fugitive through Italy, Germany, and the world itself; all my affairs afflicted, lost, and desperate, human help being lost: with divine hope I confidently implored heavenly aid before the image of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, at Vicenza in the church of St. Stephen; interposing Cajetan's prayers, Cajetan's merits, with my own prayers to God. And forthwith, being restored to my own, my own are mine. Therefore, bound by a vow and equally possessed of it, I have wished this written record of mine to be hung up before his sacred image. Done at Vicenza on the eighth of January 1627. Johann Wolf, a German noble." The things which we have thus far related we have not judged should be ascribed each to its own time, since indeed in that manifold forest and census of wonders it is less necessary. Let the reader know that they happened successively in such a way that, as the years slipped by from his death, there was almost none which was not ennobled by Cajetan's power and miracles; and every day speaks and testifies to his merits.

[23] In this very year in which we write these things, the century is auspiciously completed The Saint's continued miracles, especially among the people of Piazza in Sicily, in which the most holy Man put off mortality ^a; nor in this longer age do we see either his patronage grown old, or his ears wearied in hearing the prayers of mortals. He is present everywhere among the nations by his care of souls and bodies: benefits still rain down from heaven at Cajetan's name: daily the wretched are bound by vows; and tablets, the signs of a grateful mind, are consecrated. But indeed, although in very many places he nourishes munificently, with ready hand, the people's devotion toward his own merits; nevertheless, by what means I know not, whether the citizens' piety won it, or because even the Saints have their own genius and inclination of mind, Piazza ^b, which is a city in the middle of Sicily, most well known for the census of its citizens and wealth, experiences Cajetan's protection and beneficence in this our time to such a degree that nowhere has he bestowed his help more frequently and more abundantly. This munificence of his toward the people of Piazza began in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-one, when he was co-opted by that illustrious senate among the tutelary Saints of that city.

[24] For although Cajetan had obliged those citizens by some benefits before, at that time especially, when they chose him as patron; nevertheless when that honor of patronage was decreed him, as though he wished magnificently to repay their piety, the barrier as it were being broken, he seemed to pour himself out upon them in a fuller stream. For indeed almost countless are they who are reckoned to have recovered, his help being asked, and vows conceived, and above all by the carrying of his sacred image, from the troubles of most grievous diseases: very many, drawing back their step from the very last line of life, rejoice to live by grace; and a good many, having obtained the healing of their souls, proclaim themselves indebted for an ampler benefit: so that with good right all the nearest cities and villages envy the city's happiness from that clientage and protection of Cajetan. But it is abundantly enough to have recorded these things hastily. For there will be a proper place for relating one by one the prayers poured forth by the peoples, and the wonders wrought there, when the History, God granting, shall have run down to these our times.

[25] to which add the miracles done at Naples But we have still more recent things which are recorded of Cajetan. For after we wrote these things, in the course of the forty-eighth year of this century, in these last days, and especially just at his solemnities, he willed his sanctity to be attested by a certain remarkable abundance and readiness of miracles in the Pauline ^c monastery of Naples, where his sacred ashes lie ^d. And that indeed opportunely: for then above all it was being agitated about claiming him for the census of the Saints; and Pontifical letters had already flowed forth on that matter, so that namely the common applause and the recent benefits to the peoples might both approve and urge the exceptional will of Innocent the tenth, Supreme Pontiff, toward his apotheosis.

[26] through the flowers strewn for adorning St. Cajetan's altar. But this happened with a certain wonderful and most pleasant assiduity of miracles: for he does the matter with flowers, who had been the good odor of Christ. For indeed, since flowers, especially jasmines, were wont to be strewn for adorning his altar, when someone, by a certain higher prompting, Thiene's name being implored, had applied them to a certain grave disease, the piety succeeded auspiciously, and he recovered sooner than said. And when he had candidly published abroad what power the flowers had drawn from the sacred ashes, the report of the matter shortly spread more widely: and, health being thereafter imparted to others and yet others, the fame and devotion toward the Thienean jasmines grew to such a degree that the spring of saving flowers heaped upon the altar far more copiously than usual scarcely now suffices for the prayers of mortals. By which protection indeed new and grave diseases are daily cured; and the painted and inscribed tablets on the walls speak; and they themselves proclaim it who have received the benefits. You would say that the flowers are brought from the little garden-plots of heaven, since they avail with such divine and present aid. We have hinted at these things; and sparingly, like a bee, have we tasted these flowers: intending to speak more fully afterward; for assuredly these jasmines and roses will flower more pleasantly in their place, and as it were in their own flower-beds. But because the continuation of the Histories of the Clerks Regular is not at hand for us (although we have given labor that it might be), nor do we have anything besides the first and second volume, we shall supply the lack of those miracles from the Italian Life of St. Cajetan, written by the praised Silos, intending to draw out thence and to give in Latin the following, not however all the things which the said author reports, lest the narration grow too much and bring weariness to the reader. But since that Life came forth in the year 1671, we shall weave the continuation of the miracles up to that year.

§ IV. The Saint's miracles afterward written down, and continued up to the year of Christ 1671.

The huge multitude of miracles wrought by the Saint. Before we pursue St. Cajetan's miracles with the just now praised Silos, it is well briefly to premise what certain authors, after the first century from his death had run out, left written about them for posterity. Charpy de Sainte-Croix in his preface to the reader writes thus: God, by the infinite miracles which he works daily at Turin, Genoa, Milan, Vicenza, Venice, Naples, Palermo, Livorno, and in all places in which recourse is had to the prayers of that great Saint, seems to have willed to teach men that there is nothing hidden in him which he does not reveal in his own time, and nothing cast down which he does not raise up. And certainly it is a wonderful thing of our century to behold the church where his body rests at Naples assiduously full of so great a multitude of people that his sacred day differs in nothing from all the other annual feasts; so that he who should undertake to commit to letters all the miracles which God works through Blessed Cajetan of Thiene could fill the world with volumes, since all the tongues of Italy scarcely suffice for relating them, and all the letters which are received thence affirm that God does not distill them, as he does through his other Saints, but pours them out abundantly, and after the manner of rain upon the earth.

[28] Thus he: in which, although he has in some places used a certain oratorical amplification, and multitude. nevertheless that he did not everywhere speak with an immense exaggeration will become evident from what is presently to be said. The author of the Life printed at Venice in the year 1657 gathers from the various Processes which he cites, drawn up for promoting the sacred honors of the Servant of God, an ample harvest of heavenly graces and prodigies which were done by his help. Following that biographer, the Reverend Father Lord Stefano Pepe, of the Order of Clerks Regular, published at Rome in the Italian tongue in the year 1657 Wonders wrought by God through the intercession of Blessed Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the Clerks Regular, and dedicated it to the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Carlo Barberini; a work so vast in recounting those wonders that its collector completed three centuries of them. What was done in this matter before him it is not to the point to record, since the Italian Life of Silos is at hand, concerning which we have spoken in the preliminary Commentary, §19, number 204. For since that author was both diligent in collecting the Saint's affairs, and wrote the miracles of his holy Parent after the praised Pepe, in book 3 of the Life published in print in the year 1671, we cannot doubt that he had before him the miracles previously published by that man, and chose those which he judged most suited to his purpose. But prefixing to the sixth chapter of the aforesaid book this title, New wonders of Cajetan, he recounts in that and in several following chapters those things which happened after the hundredth year from the Saint's death. Let there be therefore, of the things which we excerpt thence,

PART ONE.

Miracles wrought through the flowers of St. Cajetan's altar.

Most dangerous fevers are healed by the application of those flowers, Giovanni de Lauro, a Religious of the Observance of St. Francis, was seized by so pestilential a fever that in a short space of time he was abandoned by the physicians, and was already brought to the last extremity of life. When a certain sister, by whom he was much loved, sent him some flowers taken from the Blessed's altar. He was indeed without hope of health; but nevertheless, having revered the gift in the way permitted by his ability, he laid it upon his breast, and in that same instant the evil so began to be diminished that gradually thereafter he wholly recovered.

Francesco Antonio Grimaldi had come to the same extremity of death, and was all but breathing out his soul: but his wife, raised up by a living faith, betook herself to the Saint's tomb; and, her ardent supplications being there performed, returned home with some flowers of the altar: where she found that the dying man not only was still living, but had a little before opened his eyes and returned to himself. But she learned that all this had happened at that time when she was supplicating for him: and, the flowers which she had brought with her being applied without delay, the sick man, the physicians being astonished, was altogether given back to health.

But the ordinary trophies of the saving flowers were fevers of this kind: which, for the sake of avoiding weariness, it will suffice merely to have assigned. Andrea Fisieno, abandoned by the physicians, conquers his disease by no other electuaries than Cajetan's flowers. Domenico de Paolo drank a little wine in which the Blessed's jasmines had been, and recovers from a mortal fever. Tommaso de Alessio by the same jasmines receives back health already despaired of. Angela Marfitata, while she was wretchedly afflicted with a cruel fever and a fierce frenzy, by that remedy of flowers overcomes each evil. To apply the saving jasmines to Giovanni Mazzo, and to put to flight a pestilential fever, was one and the same thing: and on the same day he went out of his bed and of his house.

Camilla de Giovine, besides a most burning fever, being vexed with inward and most bitter pains, and being already fortified with the last helps of the Church, was awaiting the final stroke of death; but after she had swallowed some jasmines, she soon recovered. By this remedy Teresa de Sale; by this Domenico Carbona; by this Giovanni Battista Trambotto, Felice Ferrato, Andrea Scalandrino, Paolo Maggi, Maddalena Rosa, Prudenza de Guardia, Domenico Lensano, and a hundred others were restored to their former health.

[30] as also various Let us proceed to other kinds of diseases. Francesco Caracciolo, a man of notable nobility, was gravely tortured with most acute pains of the bowels: neither excellent fomentations nor other remedies of art helped at all. He binds himself by a vow of a silver tablet, and, a rose being taken from the Blessed's altar, which he ate, every evil vanished. But when meanwhile he put off paying his promise, the pains returned, chastising that slowness: whence, being admonished to his own loss, he paid his vow: and since he had no flower at hand, by a small piece of paper in which the rose we have mentioned had been wrapped he again obtained health.

Ippolita Albertini, a noble matron, on account of a great swelling in one of her ears, and on account of the intolerable pain which she felt, took no share of rest either by night or by day. The physicians greatly feared lest the swelling should degenerate into an abscess, which in so delicate a part would have been a matter of the utmost peril. Therefore art was employed to offer opportune remedies. But Ippolita was wiser, and, the Blessed's flowers being applied to the affected part, in a single instant she came forth free from that evil and from all fear.

Cassandra Eliantonia's ears were healed in the same manner. She had long been deaf, no remedy having been found for this evil. She heard the report and fame which was carried about concerning Cajetan, and, having gone to the church of St. Paul, she applied to her deaf ears those jasmines which had received their effective power from the Blessed's ashes, and kept them applied to them for one hour. Which having elapsed, the use of her ears at once returned to her.

[31] Beneath Livia Pacifica's left breast there arose some swellings; and there was danger other evils lest the evil, being namely too near the heart, should threaten her life. But lest it should be enlarged by creeping, there was need of a prompt remedy. She therefore invokes Cajetan's healing hand, and, his flowers being applied to the corrupted breast, whatever there had been of evil vanished. Which flowers when she had applied also to two nephews, sick unto death, both recovered.

Caterina Reada, being with child several months, felt herself so moved to a birth not yet mature that, according to the opinion of the midwife and of other women skilled in the matter, a miscarriage was not far off. In so grave a peril she remembers Cajetan: she commends herself to him; and after she had drunk a few drops of the water in which his jasmines had been, she suddenly felt the child sent back to its own proper position, which afterward came forth into the light without any harm to itself and to its mother.

Margarita Rossa began to emit such an abundance of blood, and with such vehemence, that by that rush she was all but suffocated. And while meanwhile she could neither take nor retain food, a jasmine received from the Blessed's altar, which she swallowed, in a single moment stayed that dangerous flux and restored her to health.

Marta Renda was ill with a most furious frenzy, which, besides the incoherent words which she uttered, made deaf with its shriekings not only her household but the whole neighborhood. Besides this, with such rage she gnawed her fingers, and laid hands upon all who came near her; and on a certain occasion, leaping upon her aunt ^a, because she wished to admonish her, she received her badly with her fists. On account of these frenzies of hers, the physicians judged her either possessed by a demon or seized by an incredible madness. Nor indeed did hellebore or exorcisms help at all. At last the kinswoman whom we have mentioned, having obtained some jasmines from the Blessed's altar, placed them on her head. A wonderful thing indeed! Suddenly she returned to her mind, and it was possible to see that furious madness tamed by a few flowers.

[32] Giulia Vittoria Verdiana's arm was badly affected by a certain unforeseen accident. Which, by this remedy are healed. either because the surgeon was unskilled, or because she herself was a very aged little old woman, and the bones could not easily be joined, remained wholly useless; and she carried it hung about her neck not without continual trouble. After she had therefore commended herself to the Blessed with faith, and had bound some flowers to her arm, she found it a little after so sound and whole as if she had labored under no evil.

Similar, but perhaps worthy of greater compassion, was the mishap of a certain person whose name is in oblivion. The holy year was running, and that person was making for Rome for the sake of devotion. On the way, while he does not notice a certain carriage which was passing, his foot was broken by the wheel and almost wholly crushed. The pain was great; and while his companions were taking pains to find someone to treat him, he said: Stop; for I have with me a remedy for that evil — namely flowers taken from Blessed Cajetan's altar. In the evening therefore, these being bound to his crushed foot, in the morning he found it so sound that he could freely continue his Roman journey.

Sebastiano Pappalardo, in all his frame, had been seized with most grievous pains; and, when no remedy was found which helped him, he was believed to be affected by sorcery. They exhorted him to implore the help of Blessed Cajetan: but he, who had in vain invoked other Saints, showed that he placed little faith in helps of this spiritual kind. Nevertheless his wife so far prevailed as to induce him to permit one rose of the Blessed to be applied to him, and himself to be anointed with the oil of his lamp. What then? The bitter pains suddenly began to slacken; and afterward wholly vanished.

PART TWO.

Miracles through the oil of the lamps.

Wounds are healed by this oil, Vittoria Vollera, a noble matron, labored gravely with fully five wounds which were open in her legs, and was kept in bed with most harsh pains. That evil, which came near to leprosy, the physicians judged incurable. Nevertheless remedies and diligence were not spared, that it should not at least go on creeping further. Seeing

therefore that the art profited nothing, and that the sores were still growing inveterate, the good lady nevertheless conceived in her mind to have recourse to a wiser and more skilled physician. She invokes Cajetan with living faith: and he, appearing to her on the following night, said: Victoria, do not find it burdensome to betake yourself in the morning to the church of St. Paul. Ask there for the oil of my lamp, and, anointing yourself with it, you shall be healed. Having said this, he disappeared. She, awakened, exceedingly glad, and moreover kindled with desire, as quickly and as well as she could took the road to St. Paul's. In going she had the beginning and as it were the pledge of the favor: for where she imagined in her mind that the pain would be aggravated by motion, she found it rather diminished than increased. After she had therefore arrived there, she offers her effectual prayers, anoints her gnawed legs, and at once recovers. She herself thereafter anointed with the same balsam of Cajetan the corrupted breasts of her niece, infected with many sores, and healed them.

Livia de Bartolomeo's right arm was from a certain pestilential sore so corrupted and putrid that the physicians, their labor being lost after many treatments, deliberated about cutting it off. But she, because the graces which Cajetan bestowed daily were in everyone's mouth, resolved to try also that common patronage. With great confidence she approaches his altar: where, after she had received some of the miraculous oil, and had sprinkled the affected part with it, at once her arm returned to its former state, vigorous and sound, as it had been before.

[34] The same health-bringing liquid healed the throat of Angelo Capuano, corrupted throats, blindnesses; badly corrupted with many sores. Likewise the throat of Carlo Caccavo, closed up by a cruel and sudden quinsy, by swallowing only a few little drops of that balsam came forth altogether sound. The same excellent power Vittoria Manfredi, a girl of eight years, also experienced in her throat. For while she was eating some plums, one of the stones stuck crosswise in her throat in such a manner that she could in no way cast it out thence, nor could others draw it out. The peril was equal to the trouble: she could neither swallow nor breathe. But after the space of twenty hours, being sprinkled with the Blessed's oil in the evening, in the morning she drove the cause of the evil from herself most easily.

The eyes, that most tender and so necessary part of men, were several times enlightened by that liquid of Cajetan. So it happened to Antonia Venata, a noble matron: who, being deprived of one of her eyes, on account of the multitude of tears which she had poured forth at her husband's death grew blind in the other. Amid these darknesses she has recourse to Cajetan and to his lamp; which at once restored light to that eye which had last failed her.

Similar was the outcome for Porzia Bizzarra, who from some grave infirmity was growing blind in both eyes. To two powerful patrons at the same time she commended herself, namely to saint Nicholas of Bari and to Blessed Cajetan; and she employed for her medicine the manna of the one and the oil of the other. A wonderful thing indeed: those darknesses began promptly to be dispelled, until in a short space of time they wholly vanished, and the former light returned again to her eyes.

So likewise Maddalena Larderia, a girl of three years, received health. She fell, and struck her head against a stone. No wound appeared outwardly; but inwardly her head remained so injured that the evil, descending beneath her eyes, brought blindness upon them. Her parents were affected with great grief: but, invoking the Blessed, and anointing the blind girl with his oil, they found her instantaneously healed by this eye-salve.

[35] A whole family now presents itself, having obtained health from that fountain of oil. diseases, one deadly wound Francesco Antonio Pannuccio had a wretched hospital at home. His wife, sons, and daughters, all sick unto death: who, being now fortified with the last Viaticum, were going with great steps to eternity. Pannuccio sees no other remedy remaining than to go to the Blessed's altar: and, carrying home thence a little oil and much faith, when he anointed his badly affected family, he restored health to all. Among them was a girl of perhaps fifteen years, who, although wholly free from the mortal fever, nevertheless remained so weak that she could scarcely stand on her feet. She invokes the Blessed; who at the next morning time appears to her when she was not yet fully awake, and, lightly touching her, says: Be of good cheer: for within two days firmness and vigor will return to you. And so it happened.

At Vicenza, because Framontana bitterly stung a person with words, and that person, being affected with a grave sense of grief thereby, a knife was driven into her breast on account of the injury. The wound was held most deadly: whence she, being fortified with the last Sacraments, prepared herself for death. But, counsel being received from a certain friend of hers that she should flee to Cajetan, a skilled and pious physician, she did it without delay, adding a vow of giving him a certain precious garment of hers. And without delay, the saving oil being applied, the mortal blow not only did not proceed further; but also, the wonderful anointing being repeated, the wound was wholly healed: and she hung up the promised garment at his altar, as a trophy of death triumphed over.

[36] and two others; colic disease, the stone, and other infirmities; Carlo Calefano, on account of a similar wound inflicted near the heart, was without hope of life. They exhort him to flee to the Blessed, and to the excellent power of his oil. Nor did he refuse: but while he commends himself with only a weak faith, the wound seemed to him to be more aggravated. To him therefore, repenting of his lukewarmness and kindling his faith, the Saint appeared in a most white garment, and made him secure of his near recovery. Relying on this hope he asked for the oil, moistened his breast, and, while he fell asleep, all the evil was expelled from the now putrefied wound, and to the astonishment of the physician he was given back to his former health.

Likewise incurable was the wound of Francesco Caruso, which was inflicted upon his belly with a poisoned knife. In a mishap so dangerous his confidence toward the Saint did not fail him. He commends himself to him, and, a vow being made, drops a little oil upon the mortal sore; and in a short space of time he recovered health. That same Francesco a little before had experienced the patronage and the power of Cajetan's oil with another singular grace. For indeed, being seized with that most bitter evil which they call colic, while on the one hand he is given up by the physicians, on the other Cajetan heals him with the same liquid.

Nor is that vein of oil and of graces yet exhausted. If the evil of the stone tortures with most harsh pains, it vanishes by that oil: as happened to Camillo Soprano, who, being sprinkled with that oil, soon voided two thick stones. If slackened sinews take away motion and rest from human limbs, by that oil the same sinews and limbs return to their duty. So it befell Vittoria Vocarella, kept in bed by that disease for ten years, and restored to health by the said oil.

If pestilential abscesses arise, by that help they depart: and this appeared in Anna Ferraria, who, after she had for perhaps eight years suffered a grave abscess in her throat, saw it at once vanish.

[37] among which are faintings, frenzies, legs badly affected and broken: Deadly faintings were bringing Adriana Fiorentina nearly to death itself: which, when she had endured them three whole years, at last she recovered at the Blessed's lamp.

Most harsh pains and sadnesses, and also frenzies and most foul swellings of the throat, afflicted Vincenza de Aquila: and by that remedy alone she put so many evils to flight.

A certain Neapolitan nun's leg is broken in the monastery which they call of the Splendor; whose leg, before medicine was brought to it by human help, was cured by the Blessed's oil. Likewise the leg of Luca Meratore, badly affected by most troublesome fluxes, recovered sudden health from Blessed Cajetan's lamp.

A great swelling arisen in Masina Bonella's leg, with little or no hope of health, kept her anxious for five months: but, the efficacy of that liquid being applied, together with the swelling every other fear quickly departed. From swellings of this kind Venezia Aputia also recovered, who, anointing herself in the evening, found her legs in the morning sound and vigorous.

Worthy of compassion was the mishap of Giovanni Domenico Botti, a boy of eight years, who, when he had fallen with violence from a place twenty feet high, it was the common opinion that both his legs had been broken. And indeed, it being examined by a certain skilled woman, it was judged that to treat him was to lose one's labor. But his mother, full of living faith, commends him to the Blessed, and by a repeated anointing with the oil brought him in a short time back to his former state.

[38] Further, the number of persons cured of a mortal fever is almost infinite. add fevers almost infinite. Caterina Viva, brought to the last point of death, when her head too was swollen in a horrible manner, as by an added surplus, escaped the peril by this oil. Vittoria Guerrera had from a most burning fever fallen into frenzy, and in a few hours by the power of that liquid returned to health. So Giulio Cesare Romano. So Giovanni Battista Martino. So Anna Partiale, who, having recourse to that sacred anchor, obtained moreover the favor of his healing presence, when the Blessed appeared to her. Dorotea Castagnuola by this help snatched, as it were from the jaws of death, her seven-year-old son. Giuseppe Vitulo, when he seemed to be yielding to the evil of death, by this remedy triumphed over a pestilential fever. For Camillo Perso the funeral rites were already being prepared, and by a few drops of Cajetan's lamp he came forth unharmed. Mattia Renzo is twice sick unto death; twice by the health-bringing liquid he is given back to his former health. From likewise despaired-of diseases there are saved Pietro Biseglia, Domenico Rosso, Tobia Coppola, Giuseppe Capuano, Domenico Padovano, Nicola Antonio Galluccio, Carlo de Paola, Francesco Ximenes, Tommaso Longobardo, Nicola Gallinaro, Andrea Agnello Cristino, Giuditta de Marinis, Angelo Bonadonna, Grazia Anastasia, Caterina Ferraria, Giulia Romana, Laura Alfana, Giulia Curiale, abbess of the discalced nuns, and a thousand others.

[39] Thus far the wonders of that precious liquid, saving for the ills of others, The Saint's oil have been set forth; now let us add some miracles which were seen in the oil itself: since not once only, but often too, there happened what writers relate about the fountain of Manduria ^a, that it was diminished not at all by use, but grew with interest. Two noble Neapolitan matrons, Eleonora Carafa, and Ippolita her daughter-in-law, likewise Carafa, bear testimony about it: who, besides that by the balsam of that oil they restored a certain boy of theirs, near to death, to safety, affirm moreover that from that same oil of theirs, often shared with very many others, the flask was never diminished in any part.

A more wonderful thing was related by Ottavio Clodinio, duke of Lizzano ^b, and the duchess his wife. The Duke labored under a bitter illness. And because the illness was inveterate, the physicians, finding no remedy, greatly doubted of his life. Wherefore he, turning to more effectual remedies, commended his cause to Cajetan: and as often as he felt himself pressed by the evil, the oil of his lamp being applied, he felt a singular relief. It happened at one time that, when he was assailed more harshly than usual, he ordered the accustomed antidote to be brought to him: but he received from his servant the answer

that the little vessel was already empty, and the same thing a certain Religious man affirmed who was present there, and who the day before had also seen it empty. Let him take it now, the Duke then said, and bring it to me. A wonderful thing indeed! Drawing it out of the chest in which it was kept, he beheld it full. Further, this wonderful matter and the certainty of the miracle grew: because although the Duke used that same oil for himself, and supplied from it to others also, it never failed, the health-bringing liquid growing by a hidden vein.

[40] Porzia Bizzarra, by her mistress's order, carried to the Blessed's altar a vessel of oil as nourishment for his lamps; and asked that some be given her from that which was then burning before the image. She to whom that charge had been given was sparing, and scarcely covered the bottom of some small vessel with it, Porzia grieving that she had been so miserly. It happened that, when she had entered a spice-shop for the sake of buying something or other, as soon as the shopkeeper saw the little vessel, he brought his mind to think that that oil was the Blessed's, and began to extol its power, affirming that he, having been brought to extremity by pains of the stone, had been healed by it. And the woman too gave herself to celebrating its wonderful effects; but she grieved that too little of it had been granted her. Then the spice-seller said: What, is not Blessed Cajetan perhaps such a one that he can fill the little vessel, if he shall wish? Having said this, to the astonishment of all who were present, the oil began so to increase that it was necessary at once to stop the mouth of the little vessel with the fingers, lest it should be poured out.

[41] but is even Something similar befell another certain Porzia, who, because she had obtained a scanty measure of that liquid for herself, was inwardly ill at ease about it. But that sadness being overcome, she held it fixed to be present at the divine service at the Blessed's altar. Which finished, she returned home. And when she had drawn out the little vessel, she was seized at once with admiration and awe, seeing it as full as she had desired. The same testifies Domenico Testa, who for six whole months had supplied oil from his little vessel to more than fifty persons. It would certainly have been a matter of great astonishment that a little oil should suffice for so many men; but it was without doubt a matter of greater astonishment that, when within that time the liquid had been consumed several times over, the little vessel was filled again. So likewise it befell Margarita Melonia, who, having obtained health by the benefit of that oil, began liberally to distribute it to other sick persons: but the flask being so emptied that not even a little drop remained, while she was ill at ease that neither for herself nor for others was there any more of that ready help with her, she found it full.

[42] increased. Similar are the other examples which remain; and to report them would be tedious. Let Flaminio Specieo therefore put an end — a rich and esteemed merchant. He, in the nocturnal rejoicings which are wont to be celebrated each year at Naples in the Blessed's honor, turned even his shop into a sacred building, lighting with becoming order many lights before Cajetan's pious effigy; a good part of which burned for three hours, as long as the oil lasted. The others were then extinguished with the utmost diligence, lest in the shop, in which there were many cotton cloths, some spark should stir up some misfortune. On the following morning Flaminio, returning to his shop, found that before the image which we have mentioned one light was still burning. He brought his mind to think that through inadvertence that one alone had remained lit; but since all his household affirmed, and that on oath, that all had been extinguished, he held it as persuaded that it must be believed to have been lit by a certain higher hand, and that the oil had miraculously increased for it: since it could not be that with the scanty nourishment which had been set for it, it could have persevered for the twelve hours during which it had lasted.

PART THREE.

Miracles wrought by the sacred images, and by the Saint's invocation alone; others in favor of the dead and the dying.

The power of the images of this Servant of the Lord, whether printed or painted on canvas, is most well known, [Among the countless favors obtained through the Saint's image, there are healed a pestilential fever,] and confirmed by many trials; and by their use singular benefits have successively been obtained. Those which are carried about in the mouth of the people are certainly innumerable. We shall place a few of them here, and those which are of greater credit, extracted from the Processes drawn up at Naples for his canonization. Onofrio Pulverino, seized by a pestilential fever, showed those indications which would show that he was not far from death. To that evil were added others not slight. For a most bitter pain of the stomach and head so vehemently tortured him as to reduce him to madness; besides this, an inward disturbance gave him no share of rest either by day or by night. All human hope therefore being laid aside, he commends himself to divine help, and especially to a certain pious image of Cajetan. Why say more? On the following day the heat of the fever was wholly extinguished, and every other evil vanished.

[44] A certain good priest, by name Andrea Belfiore, likewise another deadly one, for forty days wrestled with a mortal and most stubborn fever; which not only did not slacken at all, but on the contrary received increase. His tongue, dry and black, betrayed an unquenchable thirst: to his deliriums were joined faintings: nothing was more inconstant than the pulse of his artery: in short, in his cold body, already half a corpse, sweats were not lacking, the most certain indicators and forerunners of death. A certain friend of the sick man therefore, coming in there, and greatly marveling that he had not yet had recourse to the sacred anchor of Cajetan, exhorted him to invoke the Saint; and, that he might kindle his pious affection, held out to him the Blessed's effigy to be kissed. Being inflamed by this, he filled his mind with good hope. He invokes, he asks: nor did the fruit of his confidence at once frustrate him. For the Saint, showing himself visible to him, said: Rise up, because you are healed. And then his ardor and vigor of spirit seemed to return to him, and also entire health. And a little after, at the tomb of the Blessed who had deserved well of him, he paid fitting thanks.

[45] Nicola Cantilena, an old man of perhaps eighty years, brought to the last struggle, a critical illness, most sharp torments. was now for two days breathing out his soul, now with mouth closed, now open. His daughter drew great grief thence, and, being inwardly moved, and relying on a living hope, at once applied to the dying man's breast an image of the Blessed which she had found. And without delay he who was wholly destitute of his senses and of the functions of life returned to his former state no otherwise than if he had awakened from a heavy sleep.

By the touch of the Blessed's image Maddalena Rupula similarly recovered in an arm which was numb with cold, and which, motion being lost, was also tortured with most harsh pains. Most atrocious torments similarly racked Anna Marmonia, and in the same manner they vanished. So too an end was put to the inward torments of Sabbatino Vitale, which had wearied the diligence and zeal of the physicians. Veronica Lombarda's breasts were tortured with so intolerable a pain that they indicated that a cruel enemy lay hidden there, which could at some time bring open ruin. She applied to them the effigy of the Blessed, and the now inveterate and most troublesome evil was suddenly put to flight. For Stefano Riffo there arose in a part of the body of more tender sensation a swelling of the size of one egg. The physicians, ignorant of the cause, greatly feared some great harm. But as soon as it was touched with the Blessed's image, at once it was driven away. Present at the wonderful outcome of the matter was a certain Dominican priest, Stefano's son, who wished to give attestation of this matter with his own hand, and carried it to Cajetan's altar.

[46] The Saint's image heals a frenzied man, coming to him in a wonderful manner. Giovanni Paolo Giuliano Sidereo was vexed with a most acute fever, to which were added pains of the head so singular that he fell into a most furious frenzy. Goaded by rage of this kind, he cried out in horrible ways: what was at hand he soon tore into a thousand pieces. Amid these deliriums he was sometimes made master of his mind, and knew very well to what place the force of the illness had brought him. On one occasion in particular, being master of his mind, and looking upon an image of the Blessed which was in the chamber, he prays him that, if indeed it should so conduce to the profit of his soul, he would obtain health for him; but if not, that he preferred to die quickly. A wonderful thing! that image had been fastened to the wall with nails, but, loosed of its own accord, it was seen to go straight to the sick man's head; where, while it rested, the immoderate pain was put to flight, and not long after the fever vanished.

[47] To two In the monastery which at Naples is called delle Scortiate, not far from the buildings of the Theatines of St. Paul, was Faustina Piattia, who, being both young in age and elegant in bodily condition, showed that the splendor of outward show and the brightness of dress much pleased her. She was sick unto death, and in a few days was brought to such a state that she seemed already about to breathe out her last breath. Her companions, pitying the flower of her youthful age, and moved moreover by piety and tender affection, turned to Cajetan's patronage, commending the dying woman to him in a lively manner. On the following night therefore the Blessed, appearing to her, surrounded with a great light, said: You are healed. To whom Faustina, in no way straying from her purpose, replied: I indeed do not deserve so great a benefit: but that I may not suffer again the grievous troubles of that last struggle, I should prefer rather to die. No, said Cajetan; you are healed: but know that hereafter it will be fitting for you to attend to the adornment of your soul, not of your body; and you shall live content with that garment which he shall say who is your confessor. All who were there present were seized with the utmost admiration that a dying woman should speak so readily; and their admiration much increased when they saw her wholly healed. And, being questioned, she related what had happened, and meanwhile put on a black garment according to the usage of the Theatines.

[48] women From a pestilential but exceedingly horrible fever Maddalena Candovalia was likewise sick unto death: for since her bowels were corrupted and worn away, she cast out from her mouth so great an abundance of worms that the thing was incredible: and in a short time it was given up for lost concerning her life. She nevertheless did not cease to hope none the less, because, although she could no longer speak, she nevertheless brought it about that she was understood by Cajetan. What besides? Toward evening,

when they were announcing that she must die, she felt herself seized by the hair, and heard said in her ear: I am Cajetan, whom you invoked a little before. Why do you still remain in bed? Rise up, because you are healed. Maddalena, roused by this admonition, observed that she was truly healed; and, trying her step, she walked freely and vigorously, to the great admiration of her own people; with whom, having gone to St. Paul's, she paid fitting thanksgivings, and confirmed by her testimony whatever had happened to her.

[49] Near to the debt of death likewise was Giuseppe de Angelis, and to a boy dying Cajetan appears, and restores health. a boy of six years. A deadly fever had been aggravated by a most cruel cough, to which there was joined as a companion a deep lethargy; so that the physicians appointed a few hours for his death. After excellent remedies had been applied, but with fruitless effort, divine helps alone remained. His mother therefore, whose name was Vittoria Savia, turning to Cajetan, invokes him with many tears; and behold, unexpectedly the boy, being loosed from that heavy sleep and lethargy, with serene brow and a certain sure smile calls out to his mother; and says: I am healed, and I earnestly ask you to clothe me in the garment of blessed Cajetan. Vittoria, marveling at the piety of a boy of so tender an age, asked him how he knew that he was well, and who had persuaded him to the habit of Blessed Cajetan. Then the boy resumed his smile; but being unwilling to make known whatever had happened to him, he said: I know that I have been healed through the intercession of the Blessed: for the rest, do not inquire anything further. It was certainly believed that Blessed Cajetan had appeared to him, who at the same time admonished his father about that matter. He was Marino de Angelis, who, since he was at that time living in the city of Foggia ^a, over which he presided, knew nothing of his son's illness; but as he slept one night he seemed to see him already dead, and his mother deploring him with tears abundantly poured forth, the funeral apparatus and burial being meanwhile procured. He shuddered at things of this kind, and uttered a huge cry; but suddenly Cajetan, showing himself to him, said: Do not fear: I have brought a remedy for that most bitter blow, and have obtained from the Lord that your son may live. Behold, he who had already been snatched by the hands of death is restored safe and unharmed to his mother. Marino, awakened from sleep, although restored to his former serenity of mind, nevertheless retained some trembling of soul; and set forth to his wife the whole matter, as it had happened. Who, a reckoning being made and account had of the times, found that at the same hour Cajetan had appeared to her son and had restored health, and had signified it to his father.

[50] Wonderful likewise was the dream of Marcello Lombardelli. Others snatched from the jaws of death: He, being given up by the physicians and fortified with the last helps of the Church, began to think with himself of the innumerable favors which Cajetan was bestowing indiscriminately; and brought his mind to make that same patronage propitious to himself in his straits. And so with lively affection he invokes him; and at that same time, while he is seized by sleep, he seemed to himself to be already dead and to be buried: and moreover that Cajetan with outstretched hand drew him out of the grave. Nor was the dream lying; for after he awoke, he found himself wholly well, and himself carried to the Saint's tomb that coffin which had been prepared for his corpse. But in this class of the dying there remains a great abundance of miracles; to have reported those which I have already said will, as I persuade myself, suffice. Let us therefore proceed further to those persons who either were already dead, or by constant opinion were held for dead.

[51] a dead man called back to life; Domenico Sivarola, from the territory of St. Mary, which is commonly called Angrisone, not very far distant from Naples, being seized with a mortal fever, was in a short space of time given up for lost. Who, while he was engaged in the last struggle of death, the physicians announced to his wife that toward evening he would depart from life; as it happened: for at the very time of that hour he ceased to breathe. And since no trace of life appeared in his face, none in his whole cold body, they laid him out according to custom to be buried, and even placed a cross upon his breast. His wife indeed had commended him in his dangerous infirmity to Blessed Cajetan: but it is not new that graces are sometimes not so quickly obtained: and that which she was then not permitted to obtain for him, she afterward obtained with a greater miracle. For indeed, while she slept, she seemed to herself to hear a voice which said: Anoint your husband's body with the oil of Blessed Cajetan, and you will see him alive. She rises, and, because she had not that oil at hand, and because it was difficult at night to procure it, with great confidence, her knees being bent on the ground, she earnestly prays that he would bring it about that that hair ^b which she was to cast upon her dead husband's bier she might herself carry to Naples to his altar, by vow and out of a mindful heart, for the life restored to her husband. These things being said, while she looks upon that corpse, she observes that with open eyes it indicated by a slight sigh that it was alive, and a little after asked for drink. The woman, exceedingly glad, laid him back in bed and restored him with some food: and in the morning he seemed so well that not many days after both set out on the road, and at the Blessed's tomb, the vow being paid, rendered him due thanks.

[52] likewise another: Trentola, a fortress also near Naples, beheld a similar event in the person of Tommaso Vito. From a certain most grave stitch he came to the end of his life; and amid the prayers of the priests he expired: so that his wife, whose name was Marta Pagana, according to common usage laid him on the ground with an effigy of the Crucified upon his breast: and because it was Holy Saturday, she asked the parish priest that in the single Mass of that day he would be mindful of her husband's soul. She was most religiously affected toward Cajetan, and in that grave illness had not spared vows and prayers; nor after his death had she cast away confidence. Therefore, full of faith, she repeats her vows and prayers: and while the dead man suddenly began to breathe, she saw that, health being recovered, he had been healed: which matter, its fame being published abroad, all ran together; and, scarcely believing what they themselves saw with their own eyes, they thought it a phantom.

[53] and also a woman. Two prodigies of this kind Ischia ^c, an island situated not far from Naples, produced. Diana Berardina, after she had for five days from a grave apoplexy been destitute of the pulse of her artery, of motion, and of every other sign of life, it was decided by the physicians after many trials that she was already dead. The wretched woman therefore was laid out for burial, and lay stretched on the ground after the manner of the dead for a whole day, until her mother returned from Naples: who, having beheld her daughter in that state, grieved unto death, and filled the whole neighborhood with laments and shrieks. Amid these things a good woman, Carmosina Melia by name, being moved to compassion for the sake of that wretched mother, and turning with living faith to Cajetan, demanded from him the life of the dead girl, touching her also with an image of the Blessed, painted on canvas, which she was accustomed to wear. A thing indeed wonderful to say! At that very point of time she, returning to the functions of life, began to move herself, and with a weak voice to invoke Cajetan. They laid her back in bed, restoring her with various remedies; and in a few days she returned to her former state.

[54] Another miracle was thus. Niccolò Roccolo, A boy drowned in the waters receives life; a boy of three years, playing at the seashore, either because he had heedlessly gone further than he ought, or because he was carried off by the sea, was drowned. While he floated on the waters, and had been seen by certain sailors who were passing that way, and they could not sufficiently discern what the thing might be, they drew near; and, having beheld that it was a submerged child, drew him out of the waters, and left him on that shallow shore. Report drew thither many men of the island; and among others there came thither the dead child's sister, who a little before had left him playing there: and partly on account of her brother's death, partly on account of fear of her father's anger, she gave herself inconsolably to weeping and laments: but, taking better counsel for herself, she thought of divine helps. And at first with tears rather than with words she prayed the Blessed that he would restore her dead brother to her, and that he who everywhere wrought so many miracles would succor her in that grave misfortune, and withdraw her from her father's anger. Meanwhile, while she repeats the same prayers several times, she was heard and hearkened to by the divine goodness and by Blessed Cajetan: since indeed he who had already long been dead on that shore began to open his eyes and to turn them about: he rises, he walks, all who were present there marveling.

[55] Francesca Massimina, a Neapolitan woman, brought forth a child without breath, as also children newly born. without motion, without groans; and it was the constant opinion of the midwife and of four other women that it was dead. What then afterward? The mother commends him to the Blessed; and he without delay began to cry like all other infants, and to move himself, indicating that he was alive. Likewise cold and dead, the midwife affirming it, came forth into the light the child of Antonio Pistacchio: but, being commended to the Blessed's patronage, after it had for several hours borne almost all the indications of death, it seemed to come to life again, and, in memory of the benefit, the name of Cajetan was given it in baptism. So it befell Camilla Comiti, who was gladdened on account of a child which had come forth into the light without any sign of life, and revived. And he likewise received the name of Cajetan at the baptismal font. In great esteem was that wonder which befell the wife of a judge of Modena: who, when she had brought forth a child dry and cold, and black like coal, painted namely with the color of death, all supposed that it had come forth from its mother's womb without life. What is done? The mother, full of confidence, commends it to the Blessed: and behold it at once palpitating and breathing, its dark color and every other evil being put to flight. And he too, as a token of a grateful mind for the benefit, and for the memory of the deed, was named Cajetan.

PART FOUR.

Misfortunes from falls wonderfully remedied.

Two boys Aurelia Aurea's daughter, an infant of only two years, because she could not yet readily move her step, they were accustomed to place within a basket, as the custom

allowed, they had ordered her to walk. While therefore she goes about here and there heedlessly, she fell from a stairway forty steps high. The force with which she crashed onto the pavement was great: whence the grieving mother brought her mind to think that it was all over with her daughter's life. She neither breathed, nor had any motion or sense: and besides these things, her face, as also her whole little body, was crushed. But the mother's grief, though most bitter, took away neither the memory of Cajetan nor confidence in his help. And so she invokes him with faith, and, anointing her with his oil on the more injured parts, without any delay she beheld her moving herself, opening her eyes, and a little after perfectly healed.

[57] are saved after a deadly fall. The headlong fall of Riccardo de Sio, an infant of three years, was worthy of equal compassion. He was standing at the window of his house, which, because it was of three stories, was very high; and while he plays after the manner of boys, he fell wretchedly. His aunt, who saw him carried down headlong, could not bring him help; but, being seized with grave horror, could only invoke Blessed Cajetan. But so unhappily did the infant strike upon a living rock that his head and his whole body were crushed. Many who came thither pitied the bitterness of the mishap: but because Cajetan's name had been mentioned, they conceived a firm hope that it would come about that, if he were still alive, he would succor him, or, if he were dead, would call him back to life. Therefore the same aunt who had invoked the Blessed, amid many tears anointed the infant with his oil: and he at once gave a sign of life by movement: his tongue, which was protruding outward, drew back, and he began to utter some word: and at last he suddenly appeared whole and sound.

[58] Several others, At Naples certainly several wonders were seen in the fall of Angelo Vetrente, who, while he inhabited a house very near the church of the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, was sick there with a mortal fever, and, being despaired of by the physicians, was near to the term of life. The illness broke out into grave deliriums, and it happened one evening, while he was resting, that, waking in a frenzy, he betook himself, though staggering, to a very deep well of perhaps a hundred palms, which was in his very chamber, and threw himself into it. At the noise his wife, who was in the neighboring chamber, guessing what it was, at once ran up, and, knowing that he was alive, flew straight to the church of St. Paul: which, when she found it shut, a great part of the night being already past, she waited on the threshold; where, tearing her hair and weeping abundantly, she said: From you, Cajetan, I want the life and health of my husband: from you, who, I know, are able to give it. And repeating this several times, she returned home, to bring help to him who was suffering in the well. And without delay a heap of wonderful things was there beheld, since indeed he who, on account of the narrowness and depth of the well, striking here and there as he fell, ought to have been gravely injured, and then to be drowned, fell in this manner, that he suffered nothing of harm in any part of himself, nor was wet. There is added that he who from a pestilential fever was near to death was drawn out of the well, in which he had been for the space of one hour, sound and whole.

[59] Another well at Naples likewise supplies a matter no less wonderful. who had fallen into a well, Carlo Cimino, a boy of about nine years, while he draws water, one of the buckets, as it is wont to happen, descended with such vehemence that it carried him along with it. In that peril he invoked the Blessed, and seemed to see him surrounded with a great light. His mother, Giulia Sposita by name, suspected some misfortune from the noise, and at once ran thither in haste: but found that he had already been carried down headlong. Three times she calls him; but because she received no answer, she judged him dead: and at once before an image of Cajetan, which was not far from the well, she cried out several times with most bitter tears: Give me my son, Cajetan. The grave misfortune summoned thither almost the whole neighborhood. Meanwhile there came three men skilled in the art of wells; one of whom, descending into the well and looking about, when he did not see him, thought he was already dead at the bottom. It was necessary therefore that another of them should descend thither furnished with hooks and other instruments of the art, and especially with a great mattock, by which at last Carlo was drawn out, foul with much mud, and destitute of every indication of life. Here the mother repeated her laments and prayers at the same image: and behold, the boy by breathing returns to life: and all extolled with the highest praises the Saint's power and miracle, no one doubting that he had been dead who had been under the waters two-thirds of an hour, neither more nor less: since it is the common opinion of men who understand these things that not even the most robust men, much less weak boys, can endure so long without breathing.

[60] Niccolò Orsini, a boy of six years, also fell into a well are freed from death. covered with six palms of water: he was at the bottom half an hour: he was drawn out without life: his mother with abundant weeping invokes Cajetan: and, to the astonishment of all who were present, the boy unexpectedly rises safe and unharmed. Niccolò de Jacobo, a boy of seven years, fell into a well a hundred palms deep. And while he falls, he invokes the Blessed: who, appearing visibly to him, said: Rise. And without any injury of his body he stood on his feet: and the men who had descended to draw him out, being skilled in that matter, found him sitting at the edge of the water sound and safe: who also himself gave testimony how the Saint had appeared to him, and had freed him from that peril. So too it befell Carlo Rosso; to whom, having likewise fallen into a well and invoking Cajetan, the Saint held out his hand, and snatched him from that peril. So it befell another certain young girl, who, having in the same manner fallen into a well, and invoking Cajetan's name, could not be drowned in that very deep water.

[61] Francesco Zizza, a boy of five years, fell from a stairway Wonders which was divided into three parts, each of which numbered forty steps, and he measured them all out entire. To his mother, who was watching him fall, nothing was possible in the time but to invoke Blessed Cajetan. He heard her and hearkened to her, and took the falling infant by the hand, and gently caused him to rest on the ground, injured in not even the least part of himself, if you except only a bruise on his face, the indication of the fall. He soon both made known the divine help, and added that Cajetan had appeared visibly to him, in that very form and in that habit which his image at St. Paul's bears. From a long stairway likewise Antonio Marola fell headlong, and struck the marble so vehemently that he was without pulse of the artery and without senses; and accordingly was already numbered among the dead; especially because from the wound which had been inflicted on him no blood came forth. His father was thinking that he must see to it that he be given to burial; but his mother did not lay aside hope. Without delay she betook herself to St. Paul's, and before the miraculous image of Cajetan prayed and obtained: for, returning home, she found her son alive and sound.

[62] in falls. What we now relate about Anna Maria Brancata certainly cannot be heard without inward horror. That good woman, climbing a stairway, unhappily fell crosswise, and struck upon some instrument or other, in which there projected outward some very sharp and thick pieces of iron, which certainly ought to have pierced her with more than one wound. But what happened? Cajetan's name being invoked, they changed their nature: for when, her garments being already pierced, they penetrated to the living flesh, they went no further; and the miracle grew: for two of those great nails, from the weight and force of the falling body, were broken, so that by clear indications the divine power might be known, by which those irons not only had not injured that woman in any way, but had themselves even been broken. And indeed this was the force of Cajetan's patronage: who, appearing to Anna Maria, told her that he had obtained this grace for her. But she, relating this, added that after she had, as a token of a grateful mind, lit a lamp to the Saint, and had put in so much oil that it could last about six hours, it sufficed for nineteen.

[63] Various Lucia Meschina likewise fell crosswise from very high stairs. In her headlong fall she had no help but Cajetan's name invoked several times. At which time, while Cajetan clearly appeared to her, she indeed escaped death; but could not prevent another misfortune: for she had struck her arm on the ground with such force that she broke it. With lively affection she repeats the invocation: she binds herself by a vow to see that some Masses be celebrated, and to hang a waxen arm at his altar; and without delay the dislocated bones returned to their place, and her arm is seen whole, as it had been before. The Masses were celebrated; but, having forgotten the arm which she had promised, she paid the penalty sharply: for, her sinews being hardened, she lost the motion and use of that arm. That punishment held her two months, until, mindful of her vow, she was given back to her former health.

[64] others The fall of a boy who was the son of Onofrio Bolini, if it was not so grave, nevertheless had that whereby it was not moderately mournful: for indeed, one foot slipping on a slippery place, he fell down the stairway, and dashed his head upon the ground with such vehemence that, his mouth, tongue, and teeth being badly injured, he could neither speak nor eat. And while his pains grew worse with the remedies, he spent a whole night in complaints: until, at the following morning time, having caught sight of an image of the Saint in his chamber, and also of a lamp which burned before it, by that sight he felt himself full of good hope; and by signs he asked for that oil, and, being anointed with it, to the great astonishment of all present he began to speak, and ate, and rose without any evil at all.

[65] of falls From the roof of a very high house fell Aniello Giuseppe Como, a boy of four years. He violently struck the ground with his head, and, from the much blood which he emitted from his mouth, his nostrils, and his teeth, he gave indications of a head injured inwardly and that gravely. As many as ran to the wretched fallen boy despaired of his life. Nevertheless his mother, by name Lauretta Billotta, did not fall from hope: she invokes Blessed Cajetan, and, anointing her son with his oil, as soon as she saw him begin to breathe, took him in her arms, betook herself straight to the Blessed's altar, and there so greatly wept and prayed that she returned home together with her son entirely sound.

Likewise an infant of four years was he who was carried down headlong from a very high place and with the utmost peril. The houses of Naples, raised namely into four ranks or stories, are very high. On the top therefore of one of those buildings, and upon a window

stood Francesco Pera. The stone on which the infant was leaning, being loosened there, fell down and drew the same infant with it. His mother saw him; and although from terror she could scarcely have noticed this, nevertheless, because she was exceedingly devoted toward Cajetan, she called out to her protector with a loud voice. What then afterward? He who, having fallen headlong from so high a place, ought to have been wholly crushed, fell in such a manner that he appeared injured in no part of himself, and soon rose sound and safe. But that this happened by Cajetan's hand is gathered from this, that that stone just mentioned, however extremely hard, was nevertheless broken into several parts. Three other examples of falls remedied follow in Silos, which may be seen there.

[66] Beyond measure worthy of compassion also was the headlong fall of the infant Giuseppe Morale, of falls remedied who had not yet completed the second year of his age. From the very high windows of the Castle of Naples, which serve for discharging engines of war, he had fallen into the ditch of that same rampart. His parents, who saw it, could scarcely from horror invoke Blessed Cajetan. Why say more? When they had run together thither, they found the infant whole and sound, no otherwise than if he had not fallen from so lofty a place. But being asked who had been his help, he openly indicated Blessed Cajetan. The same befell another infant of two years, the son of Giuseppe Fele: who fell headlong from stairs thirty palms high without any injury even the least, and being similarly asked who had brought him help, replied that it was Blessed Cajetan. In a similar misfortune Girolama Anastasia counted three benefits, imploring the help of Blessed Cajetan. For first she fell from a very high window of her house; and although she could not but be gravely injured, she felt no harm from it. Then, in the place into which she fell, there was a very deep well; into which indeed, although she ought to have been carried headlong, she escaped it. Third, some of those vessels displaying the greenness of foliage, and wont to be set out at windows, having fallen after her, ought without doubt to have harmed her not a little; and yet they did not touch her.

But that must not be passed over which befell Francesco Sicilia of Caserta. He was staying at Naples for the sake of his business in the street which has its name from St. Antony. It happened that in that lodging in which he was a fire was stirred up; and the flame so suddenly increased that no way remained of escaping it. But since indeed on that side on which the fire burned every exit was already blocked; while on the other the balconies were so high that to attempt a leap was a far greater peril — what shall he do? He is mindful of Cajetan, fixes his hopes in him, invokes him; and then with great spirit and faith, leaping from a very high window, he came forth unharmed without any injury of his body even the least.

[67] That man of Caserta calls back to my memory a certain singular prodigy which had happened a little before in the city of Caserta ^a, and which concerns fire also. examples are heaped up. The Augustinian Fathers in the fifty-second year of this century, on the twenty-fourth day of August, out of the devotion of that people and their own, were to place with solemn rite in their church an image of Blessed Cajetan. Whence they arranged in order a numerous procession, and, the church and the chapel which they had destined for it being splendidly adorned, they omitted nothing which could gladden the feast and that pomp, and increase the Saint's honor. The citizens too, according to their industry, busied themselves to fulfill every part of magnificence. Among them Andrea de Gennaro, because the said procession was to pass by his house, prepared some artificial fires; which, when they had been lit in their own time, and were flying hither and thither, as rockets do, one of them thrust itself into a shop in which, together with other things which were sold there, there was gunpowder; which, being touched by the fire, blazed up in such a manner that it violently shattered the upper chamber, in which were the mother and the wife of the same Andrea, to watch the festivity. The noise and the horrible spectacle beyond measure terrified and unnerved the wretched women. They saw no escape from the peril, and were already expecting that they would be buried alive in these ruins, if Cajetan himself, whose solemnity was being kept, did not succor them. And so, tears being abundantly poured forth, and with pious affection they invoke him; and, that chamber being at once destroyed, they fell into the shop, and after them follow beams and stones, and all that ruin. What happens? They who at that point of time seemed about to be swallowed by the flame, and to be crushed by the violence of the stones, found themselves sound and unharmed placed on the ground. A picture of this memorable benefit, executed out of the religious obligation of a vow, they brought to the Blessed's altar. Thus far that. Other things, lest we be longer than is right, we pass over, which may be seen in the cited biographer.

Italian: balconi*

Italian: razzi*

PART FIVE.

Perils of carriages and carts driven away in a wonderful manner.

To boys Celebrated at Naples was that which happened in that street to which they gave the name of the Virgins. A certain driver, that he might be present at Mass in a neighboring church, left his cart alone, laden with two casks of wine. A boy of eleven years, by name Diego Casaburo, climbing with the levity accustomed to that age upon the upper part of the cart, so managed the matter that from that weight it was overturned, and one of the casks fell upon him, and crushed him in such a manner that he was destitute even of pulse of the artery, of motion, and of breathing, and all judged him dead, or without hope of life: especially because he had to remain under the weight of the cask for a good interval of time, until several persons came who drew him out thence. There ran thither a certain priest who, caring only for the salvation of his soul, when he had called out to him several times, that he might draw some sign from him and might absolve him from his sins, and yet received nothing by way of any indication of a reply, departed thence. But as he goes, he was moved by a certain tender affection of unusual piety to return: and he finds that the boy was indeed alive, but was of so weak a breathing that he seemed as much dead as alive. Since therefore Cajetan's powerful intercession was in the mouth of all the people, a certain inward voice seemed to him to say that in so pitiable a mishap he too should invoke the Saint. Whereby it came about that with much faith, first signing the boy with the cross, he soon uttered these words: Through the intercession of his holy confessor Cajetan may the Lord free you from every evil. A thing wonderful to say and to hear! At that very point of time he seems to be roused as from sleep, he turns his eyes about, speaks, rises, and was given back to his parents entirely sound. So likewise it befell another boy of four years, called Ignazio Falanga, through a wine cask which, having fallen upon him, held him long crushed; until several, having gone thither to bring him help, Cajetan's name being invoked, found him safe and unhurt.

[69] Equally wonderful was the mishap which befell Vito Fortunato. about to be wretchedly crushed Several boys were playing together, as is their custom: and behold, a certain most rapid carriage with reins let out to the utmost comes to the place in which that crowd was. Hither and thither, for the sake of avoiding the misfortune, they rushed away. Vito alone was not permitted to be so quick but that he was struck by it: who, when he had fallen on the ground, the burning wheels passed over his knees. From a neighboring window some women saw him in that peril, and, moved by so terrifying a spectacle and by compassion, all with one voice cried out: O blessed Cajetan, save him. And without delay some of them ran thither; and they who at first had been seized by pity were afterward struck with astonishment. For the boy, no otherwise than if nothing evil had befallen him, had already risen from the ground, and was walking readily. But although he had been injured by no wound in his knees, nevertheless he contracted thence a little bruise, in testimony of the prodigy.

[70] Another boy of five years occurs to us, whose name was Niccolò Golioneo: St. Cajetan confers health who, when he could not avoid the flight of a carriage running at a headlong pace, was in this manner cast to the ground and trampled, so that the wheels passed over his face. His father came too late, and led him half dead into the house; nor was there anyone who did not despair of his life, since his face was crushed, and his bones too broken, and his head likewise wounded. But the good father, excellently aware that the invocation of the Saints is more excellent than any misfortune and than any medical art whatsoever, soon has recourse to Cajetan's patronage: he makes a vow, prays, anoints the boy with the oil of his lamp. Why say more? In a very short time (a thing indeed which was judged unable to be done by the physicians) health and his face were restored to him; nor did any sign of so great an evil remain to him.

[71] Camilla Mustola's son was more tender and more delicate, as saviour: being namely not more than one year old, and accordingly ought to have been injured with much greater harm by a misfortune of this kind. He was left on the lower threshold of the house; and while he remained there, it happened that a most rapid carriage passed with great force. The infant shuddered, and, as he fell, the wheels caught him on the shins and shoulders. His mother, his aunt, and others of the neighborhood, since they could not succor him, commended him to Blessed Cajetan. The mother especially, whether that she might not behold her son cut to pieces, or that she might procure help more surely, the care of him being left to his aunt, betook herself with swift step to the church of St. Paul, and before the Blessed's altar, tearing her hair, and wholly dissolved in grief, began to cry aloud and to pray for her son. Amid these things, the aunt too came up with the infant himself, and, the whole church resounding with women's shrieks, many, touched with compassion, ran together thither. A thing indeed wonderful! when they strip the infant of his clothes, to examine the harm, whereas they brought their minds to think that they would find that little body wholly crushed and its bones broken, they found it in truth whole; if you except some slight bruise or other which they observed on one of his shoulders: besides this, one foot was somewhat swollen for him. But the one indication as well as the other quickly vanished by the oil of the lamp. There was there then a woman possessed by a demon, who said that the infant, if that person who had spoken had kept silence, would without doubt have been reduced to pieces; signifying that the invocation of the Saint had freed him. Equal were the misfortune and the grace of a little infant girl, daughter of Agostina Magra; over whom likewise a rapid carriage passing, by Cajetan's name alone she received no harm. So too for Alessio Caracciolo and Antonio Rota, who came to the same

invocation of the same name, after falling beneath a carriage, and were drawn out thence without any harm.

[72] which favors The favors which Cajetan granted to boys were not denied to men of mature age: some of these we shall relate. Most devoutly affected toward the Blessed was Giovanni Antonio Basileo: he often visited his altar, and wore an image of him on canvas hung about his neck. He served a merchant of cloths, and carried them about the city of Naples to be sold. It happened, while by chance on one occasion he staggered on a slippery place and fell on his face, that behind him there came a cart laden with grain, and one of the wheels passed over his legs and shoulders. A little before he had visited the Blessed's chapel, and, mindful of him, he at once invoked him. Then indeed his prayers seemed not to be heard: because, being wretchedly crushed by the weight of that cart, he could not, as common opinion held, live longer. A priest came to him; but he found him so out of his mind and lacking motion that he could draw from him no sign of a penitent mind for absolution. Nevertheless he asked for the Blessed's oil, and with faith anointed him: and without any delay, all who were present being astounded with astonishment, he returned to his mind: whence he could conveniently confess his faults; and, being carried home, he there soon obtained full health. For the priest whom we have mentioned, holding it as persuaded that little life remained to him, followed him, that in that last moment he might bring him help; but he found him so sound that, as though wholly restored to himself, he sat down at table for the sake of eating: but on the following day he went out of the house as usual, and was seen walking and selling his cloths. That miracle, which happened in a certain celebrated street, was celebrated by the tongues of all, and held in the greatest esteem, because indeed it had no equal: since carts of this kind are wont to carry thirteen measures of grain, which perhaps make two thousand pounds; besides that the wheels are by their own bulk most heavy.

[73] to persons of riper age Two others, had not Cajetan's help been ready at hand, would also have been wretchedly crushed. One was Antonio Rocco, who, having set out from the city of Aversa ^a for Naples, fell from the front part of a cart in such a manner that the wheels rushed over him; but, invoking Cajetan, he rose from the ground safe and unharmed. The other was Giovanni Grimaldi, who, having fallen from a carriage, could not move himself so readily but that the wheels passed over his shins; but by the same name he escaped the peril and the harm: and the whole injury to his shin was a certain slight pain which remained to him, and on the following day in fact vanished.

[74] A grace of this kind was conferred upon Diego Burgos, a Spanish soldier: wonderfully for while he was sleeping under the open sky in the courtyard of the royal palace, a furious carriage passed over his shoulders; but, being awakened by the misfortune, he invokes Blessed Cajetan, and where he reckoned himself gravely injured, he perceived himself wholly unharmed.

Ludovico Giuliano, a coachman, was training two young horses for draught; who, after they had given themselves to headlong flight, he judged that it was to his advantage to leap from the carriage: but he could not do this with such dexterity but that his shoulders and one of his arms remained under the wheels. But, Cajetan being invoked, he came forth unharmed. The horses too of a carriage in which were two noble women, Ippolita Mascambruna and Antonia Lubrana, hurled themselves into a desperate flight: neither did the rein help them, nor the running together of a numerous people to bring help. In which peril the good women cried out with a loud voice: O blessed Cajetan, stop them. This being said, there was seen by them and by their servants a man in Theatine habit, who with his biretta was stopping their flight: and he was believed to be Cajetan himself, who, being invoked, had come to those straits.

[75] Worthy of greater compassion is the event which befell Antonia Vizenca in the city of Lecce ^b. it even extends. She, while two horses driven by frenzy were dragging a carriage behind them, fell, and, since she could not flee, the wheels were behind her, and so gravely broke one shin that, the bones being shattered, it clung to the rest of her body by the skin alone. The grief and laments were great: and because every human help was in vain, she cast herself wholly into Cajetan's arms. She prays, she weeps. A truly wonderful thing! That same Cajetan suddenly showed himself visible to her, who, replacing the bones in their place with his own hand, so healed the shin that no trace of the evil remained in it.

PART SIX.

Wonderful events at sea.

John of Austria The command which that Servant of the Lord exercised over the sea and the winds infinite examples demonstrate; of which nevertheless, on account of their great abundance, it is fitting to omit many here. Let us give the first place to that which befell Lord John of Austria, son of Philip IV: who in the month of October, in the fifty-fifth year of this century, setting sail in two galleys of the little Neapolitan fleet, the weather not much favoring, from the Balearic islands ^a, quickly perceived that three barbarian ships, well armed, so far as could be gathered, were pursuing him with full sails. To turn back, the time no longer permitted: whence it was necessary to press on with oars, and to commit himself to the winds. But at his back the Turks soon pressed, who with engines of war and muskets began to harass the galleys badly, not without the death of many; among whom was the marquis Serrano, greatly celebrated in the management of arms. Their boldness and spirits were increased because they heard from certain deserting slaves that the royal person of John was carried in one of the galleys: and accordingly, understanding that the booty would be as splendid as it was rich, they swiftly directed their course thither, and so surrounded it that no escape lay open. In so grave a crisis the good prince did not fall in spirit even a very little.

[77] is snatched from the hands of the Turks: Rousing the rowers and soldiers of the galley, he drew from his breast a certain badge, on one side of which stood the effigy of the Virgin of the Rosary ^b; but on the other that of Blessed Cajetan: and with fervent exhortations he added in what patronage they ought to place their hopes: as far as concerned himself, if they should escape this peril, he promised liberty to all, and the galley to blessed Cajetan. Their spirits being raised by this speech, and the rowers straining every sinew, although they had suffered much from the hail of hostile balls, the besieged galley came out from the midst of those ships: night falls, and the darkness supplied opportunity for a stratagem: for they set their course toward Africa, contrary to the enemy's expectation: and thence afterward, their course being changed, with a favorable wind they turned aside to Genoa, the galley of St. Agatha being brought into the power of the barbarians. Immediately they gave thanks to the most blessed Virgin and to blessed Cajetan, whose singular benefit they acknowledged.

[78] which also, There follows now an event which comprises not one but several wonders. One galley of the little Neapolitan fleet was carrying Cardinal de Retz ^c from Spain into Italy, and behold, on the way four galleys of the Turks, which, driven by a strong and favorable wind, were most swiftly pursuing it: and they now seemed about to overtake it, and to make it their booty. The first thought which came to the ship's captain, most piously affected toward Cajetan, was of imploring his patronage: whereby at the same time the assaults of the pursuing enemy seemed to slacken, and spirit to be added to the fleeing galley: whence it had time to escape unharmed: and, since misfortunes are not lacking at sea, behold a new crisis. For after not far from the island of Sardinia a savage storm had unexpectedly arisen, and the galley had been shaken hither and thither by the furies of the winds, it was but little short of being either swallowed by the waves or dashed upon some rock. The rowers and pilots fought bravely; but the storm was far more impetuous than could be overcome either by counsel or by arms, and at last the ship, which was assailed by the wind, was brought to such a pass that it was dashed upon a rock; and all, thinking it broken up, wept for their near shipwreck.

[79] as also a storm, Cardinal de Retz escapes, But now that ship which a little before had experienced the invocation of the Blessed, likewise persuaded itself that this ought to be the sacred anchor in a case so desperate. All therefore in rivalry invoke him. The Cardinal himself, giving himself to prayers, exhorted them to continue their prayers, and to place their hope in so powerful a Patron. The ship's captain promised with a loud voice that, if they should escape the peril, he would see to it that a banner be made, marked with the effigy of St. Michael the Archangel (for his name had been given to the galley) and of Blessed Cajetan, and be carried to his altar in memory of the benefit. The Servant of the Lord heard their voices and the vow, and, the sky at once changing its face, the storm vanished, and its tranquillity returned to the sea: the galley, injured in no part of itself, as they feared, came out from the rocks, resumed its course, and happily landed at Civitavecchia ^d; where it left the Cardinal, who proceeded to Rome. Thence afterward with full sails it came to Naples. The ship's captain, not unmindful of his vow, ordered a magnificent banner to be made, and took care that it be carried to the Blessed's altar not without great pomp; which is described in the praised biographer.

[80] About the same time, that is, in the year 1654, there departed from Barcelona a Spanish fleet A Spanish fleet being wretchedly tossed by the wind, one ship consisting of eighteen great ships, and, the voyage being begun with favorable winds, the fair weather was afterward turned into a foul storm. For not far from Sardinia the sea was first heard to sound with I know not what deadly murmur, but a little after, being increased with greater fury, it brought open war upon those ships: which were scattered hither and thither, wherever the furious whirlwind carried them, so that the admiral gave the signal that each should provide for his own affairs as far as he could, to avoid that grave peril. One of the ships, that namely which carried with it the most experienced sailors, was well equipped, and gave evidence that it could withstand the sea and resist its buffetings: but in vain: since, being cruelly struck by the rage of the waves and broken up, its stern and prow being shattered, and its rudder also lost, for five days and as many nights it wandered so aimlessly that it did not know under what sky it was. At last it came to a certain island near Tunis ^e; and there too, the storm persisting, it had neither escape nor rest. Wherefore all, now wearied, and casting away hope of a further fight with the sea without rudder, without anchors, without sails,

held it fixed to hand over to the power of the king of Tunis that ship which, being so shattered, could no longer be of help.

[81] There was present there a chaplain, who, when he heard that desperate counsel, said: after a horrible storm is happily saved, Why, being destitute of human helps, do we not have recourse to divine ones? I have a sacred image of blessed Cajetan; if we shall offer our prayers to it, I do not doubt that he will hear us with his accustomed kindness. Roused by these words, no otherwise than if some angel were promising them certain safety, all conceived good hope: and then the good priest, full of confidence, brought forth the said effigy, and placed it before them all in that very place in which pilots are wont to direct the helm, exhorting them to invoke the Saint's powerful patronage. Then great inward emotions appeared: they bent their knees, wept, prayed, pronounced vows, and cried out to Cajetan in rivalry. Nor did the favor long delay them. In a single moment the clouds which stirred up the storm were dispelled, the sea grew quiet; the winds, which were blowing impetuously, insinuated themselves into those torn shreds of sails which remained; and in the space of twenty-four hours, although stripped of their rudder, they reached Ustica ^f, an island not far distant from the city of Messina. There was no one who did not here clearly acknowledge the divine goodness. They were flooded with the utmost joy, and paid due thanks to Cajetan, who, the storm being dispelled, had obtained that happy voyage.

[82] Nor did the Saint's beneficence stop here: for the ship's captain, and is then in a wonderful manner freed from destruction. who had already resolved to make straight for Messina to repair it, and to refresh their spirits after the past troubles, and who was already so disposed as to order a galley to be asked from the magistrate of that city, that he might transfer part of his men into it, because their ship, being greatly weakened, was unequal to carrying certainly so many men — many interposed, who, speaking with great faith, said: What need is there that we stay at Messina? Blessed Cajetan, who a little before freed us from the rage of the sea, being now made governor of the ship and arbiter of the winds, will himself, as we hope, lead us prosperously to Naples. This being said, a most favorable wind began to blow toward Naples, and in the same period of twenty-four hours carried them into the harbor of Baiae ^g. And there too new benefits made Cajetan's patronage manifest. For indeed, since the harbor of Baiae is somewhat winding, no small skill of sailors is needed for entering it. Nevertheless without a stern, and with no other pilot than Cajetan, they held it most easily. Finally it was worthy of no small admiration that, after water had entered the ship to much more than fifteen palms, they found that it had wholly failed within without another's labor. Further, the ship's captain together with the chief men betook himself to the church of St. Paul: and there by pious thanksgivings they gave ample testimony of the Saint's protection, which they had so often experienced. There was present there also a sailor, the master of the sails; who with the greatest faith affirmed that the sails, after that sacred image had been publicly set forth, went far better than if they had been directed from the stern; and that he judged it a most manifest miracle that that huge ship, lacking a stern, had not struck upon a sandbank or some rock.

[83] Another ship snatched from the peril of the winds and of pirates: A certain Neapolitan ship, whose name was the Most Holy Rosary, having set out for Cagliari ^h in Sardinia, wandered without hope of safety; but, Cajetan's name being invoked, the sea at once grew quiet. This first peril of the winds being past, behold, a second, of pirates, followed, who were ranging about with three well-armed ships; and it would have been a most easy booty for them: but, by the same patronage, the plunderers passed further on, not noticing the neighboring ship, being without doubt blinded by Cajetan. This benefit received a third: for while it was returning, and was assailed by a new and much more savage storm, it was wholly submerged from the outermost stern. But an image of the blessed Servant of the Lord fixed to that same stern was a saving star, which calmed the waves and the winds, at first contrary, then favorable, which in a few hours brought it forward to Naples: where all the sailors came to the Blessed's altar, to venerate their preserver, and to pay the vows which they had promised.

[84] galleys preserved: At the same time a stormy whirlwind overwhelmed the forces of the Neapolitan galleys, which were carrying the Count of Castrillo to the governance of that kingdom; and three of them especially, separated one from another, ran into more danger. In one of these, named St. John, there was someone who set forth an image of the Blessed in a high and conspicuous part. What besides? It was a bridle to the untamed sea; nor did it bring help to that one alone, but to two others also. And not long before another galley of the same little fleet was saved in a wonderful manner. All were stationed at the siege of Barcelona, and when they had least to fear (for it was the month of July), most vehement winds rose up, which scattered them hither and thither along those shores. That one which bore the name of St. Bernard was already half submerged. What happens? They invoke the name and patronage of Cajetan; and behold, the swallowed galley emerges.

[85] other favors Among all seas the most dangerous is the Adriatic: where too Cajetan wrought his wonders. Lord Martino of Naples, abbot of St. Benedict, had taken his journey toward Ragusa: and while he seemed to be sailing in harbor, most furious winds began so to assail the ship in which he was carried that it was necessary to leave it wholly to their sport. The abbot was most religiously affected toward Cajetan. He invokes him; he exhorts the others to invoke him. And behold, the face of the sea is changed; and the winds, being appeased, in a very short space of time brought the ship to Ragusa; and the abbot, returning to Naples in the following year, dedicated a painted tablet at the Saint's tomb in memory of the storm overcome.

[86] Nor did Domenico Lereo run into a lesser peril, nor did he obtain a less wonderful grace: imparted to those sailing whom, having set out from Taranto ^k with a favorable wind in a ship laden with grain, so furious a storm unexpectedly invaded that it was necessary to commit himself to the power of the winds, and to wander hither and thither, as far as the seas and shores of Barbary: but by the oil of the Saint's lamp the sea returned to its former tranquillity and peace, and he happily reached Naples: where he with twenty-two sailors, without delay, went barefoot to Cajetan's tomb, and paid their vow. And on the same day Domenico Paolo came thither with his sailors, likewise with shoes taken off, who in the gulf of Taranto had almost been drowned, the burden of many wares being cast into the sea, and by the name of Cajetan came forth free.

[87] When a similar storm twice on the same voyage, from Palermo toward Naples, are bestowed. invaded Giovanni Godardo, by the same invocation he beheld the winds calmed, and in a few hours put in at harbor. So Bartolomeo Boncoro escaped a manifest shipwreck, setting sail from Vico ^l for Palermo. So Domenico Torminello on a certain Spanish voyage overcame several perils. First he met with pirates, and was snatched from them in a wonderful manner. Then he had to fight with implacable winds, and conquered. Third, on his return from Spain he had to do with a deadly fever, and by that same help by which he had overcome the sea, he overcame the evil. Giuseppe Galano, between Naples and Procida ^m, in a small boat avoided those perils which he would not have escaped in a huge ship; which happened by the favor of St. Cajetan's intercession. Silos adds to these some other graces; to whom, lest the narration grow too much, we send the reader.

PART SEVEN.

Various infirmities driven away by the Saint's patronage; women in labor delivered.

Various are recounted Giovanni Lemosio in the city of Senigallia ^a was so ill with a thousand diseases that he himself was wont to say of himself that he carried about with him a whole hospital. He, being kindled with pious zeal toward St. Cajetan, and invoking him with tears and sighs in the greater church, before all the people and the bishop himself, so many evils which had already grown inveterate being put to flight, revived, and recovered entire health. Francesco Cusano, crippled from birth in the use of his limbs, lived up to the seventh year of his age in such a way that he could not move even one step on his own feet. At last his father turned to blessed Cajetan, and, some vows being made for him, in the evening anointed him with the oil of his lamp; and in the morning (a wonderful thing!) he found him sound and upright in body, and saw him walking readily. On the island of Capri ^b Bartolomeo Amitrano, an infant who had not yet completed two years, was seized with most grave diseases: he became blind, deaf, and mute, and, his sinews being drawn back, he lay lacking the use of his limbs. And when no remedy profited, his parents bring him to Naples to the tomb of the Servant of the Lord. Whither

before they had arrived, on the steps of the church the infant opened his eyes, loosed his tongue, and received the use of his ears; and at the tomb itself he likewise recovered motion and the power of walking.

[89] examples of infirmities healed by the Saint's patronage Niccolò Aiello of Nola, from a certain most vehement illness, lost the use of his foot, the rest of his body being badly affected; and he lay in bed like a trunk. Cajetan appeared to him, being invoked by him with great spirit: and when he signed him on the forehead with the sacred sign of the cross, he at once rose from his bed, endowed with his former vigor, and with perfect motion of his limbs. Francesco Parenti was likewise so contracted: and one shin especially had been so shortened for him that it remained perhaps a palm shorter than the other; nor did he walk, but crept with his hands. But now, while in a fortress (whose name is Passanesi), not far distant from his fatherland, he seeks out some excellent surgeon, he enters the greater church, where the effigy of blessed Cajetan with many votive offerings was seen by him. Being therefore raised with great hope, he at once asks the Saint: and behold, he felt a certain sudden power supplied to his shins, which of their own accord returned to their former equality, and he recovered from every other evil.

[90] Angela Battinella's recovery was famous at Naples. In her loins toward the lower parts of her body she had no sensation, [] no motion, and her face too was so deformed that her mouth reached to her ear: and, being carried in a portable bed which was moved on wheels, she begged her living through the city. She, hearing great things related about Blessed Cajetan, was kindled with living faith: and while she offered him her prayers, on the following night the Saint appeared to her, and with a saving touch cured her badly affected face, and gave her entire health of her other limbs. But she, in memory of the benefit received, hung at his altar the wheels of the bed on which she was carried, and also the little chair in which she used to sit when she was crippled in the use of her limbs.

For three years Angela Paganella lay without motion and without any sensation, being deprived also of the light of her eyes, and of the use of her ears and tongue. She appeals to the Saint, and on the following night sees him come to her, using these words: I am Cajetan; and I have come hither to restore health to you. And having said this, he vanished. But she, when she awoke in the morning, perceived that she saw, heard, and spoke; besides this, because her sinews were still weak, when she tries her step, she saw that she moved her paces with her former vigor without any hindrance. Of those things which the author heaps up from page 301 concerning blindness of the eyes cured by the Saint, let the following suffice:

[91] Tommaso Angelo, being wrapped in that same darkness, went about the city of Naples The blind with a boy as guide; when the common fame of Cajetan came to his ears, and how his power extended likewise to enlightening eyes. Wherefore, being roused by hope, he too has recourse to that bright light of sanctity. He invokes it, and receives from it such splendor that he returned to his former light. At St. Antony's, which is a fortified place not far from Naples, there was a certain woman to whom, besides an ample heap of many infirmities fixing her to her bed, blindness had been added: but, having heard the fame which was carried about concerning blessed Cajetan, she commends herself to him; and without delay recovers one eye; and while she again has recourse to invoking him, she likewise receives the other: whence, her confidence growing, she asked for entire health, and obtained it entirely. Whereby it came about that she could without delay set out on the road, and went to pay due thanks at the Saint's altar for so remarkable a heap of benefits.

[92] Giulia Ferrigna lost her left eye; which would have been a matter of small moment, are enlightened: if a thick humor, which had taken it away, being congealed and brought to the size of a hazelnut, had not clung foully to the eye. Remedies being tried, her parents understood that the disease was most stubborn. They turn therefore to Cajetan, and strengthen their daughter to commend herself to him with living faith. They give her water to drink in which the Saint's flowers had been: and anoint her with his oil. What more? The mother, who had withdrawn a little thence, heard herself called with haste by Giulia — let her return and see the wonders of the great Servant of the Lord. She came, saw, and found that the evil had wholly been put to flight. Concerning eyes cured Silos gives more on page 303; but concerning the jaws and throat these things:

[93] scrofula, quinsy, etc. are cured: Giuseppe Pepe, a boy of few years, and Colonna Vannaluccia de Cilento, being corrupted with scrofula, after many treatments, but all in vain, recovered by the balsam of the Blessed's oil. Claudia Vindicta labored under quinsy, and one so violent that, being fortified with the last helps of the Church, she expected nothing but the final stroke; but by the same excellent liquid her near death fled, and entire health returned: as also happened to Pietro Agostinaccio, who by that medicine on the very day on which by the physicians' judgment he ought to have departed from life, went out of his bed sound. The disease of the throat is a pestilential contagion of children. Blasio Veneto, a boy of few years, being brought by this to extremity, his father was already thinking of his burial; but, being inwardly admonished to have recourse to this most skilled physician, he did so, and at the same time at which he anointed him with his oil, he received his son alive and vigorous, and the small coffin, prepared for his burial, was a trophy for the Saint, being hung at his altar. Girolamo and Domenico Sauli, father and son, likewise suddenly choked by the same evil, recovered.

To the jaws belongs that which befell the infant Teresa Murisca. Someone had given her some small bell or other, with which to pass the time, as is wont to be done with infants; and the heedless infant, thinking it to be some kind of food, swallowed it without delay; but since the hard morsel could neither pass through her narrow throat, nor could the infant cast it out, all the remedies which were possible were applied in vain. Being therefore unable to breathe, the infant changed countenance, and seemed but little short of death. The Blessed's altar, to which she was carried, was the last remedy: which being scarcely invoked (a wonderful thing!), she cast out the little bell, and vigor and life returned to her. So too it befell another infant of no greater age; in whose throat an apple which he wished to swallow remained, so that he could move it neither up nor down. They anointed his jaws with the Blessed's oil, and behold, the apple came forth most easily, and the infant, all but strangled, breathed again. They anointed also the jaws of Paolo Bambagia, a boy of six years, and he at once cast out a copper coin which he had swallowed, and which had stuck in his throat with peril of choking.

[94] pregnant women Vittoria Pignatelli, a noble lady of Naples, in the fifth month in which she was with child, suffered a miscarriage. And when they greatly feared for her life on account of the most burning fever which had come upon her, they summoned thither as physician that great Servant of the Lord: at whose name alone, the pains and the fever at once ceasing, she recovered. It happened in the following year that in the same month the same pains were renewed, and no less stubborn, no remedy helping. Whence a near miscarriage was feared. What happens? Recourse is had to the same physician, and in a single moment all their fears together with the pains ceased, and in its own time the now mature birth happily came forth into the light, the name of Cajetan being given it in baptism. In the sixth month, which is much more dangerous, Elisabetta Fides had a miscarriage. There came upon her most grave pains with a most acute fever, so that it seemed good to the physicians to admonish her of her near death, chiefly for this reason, that, being seized by deadly faintings, she was wont to be destitute of her senses. Her friends therefore indicated to her, as one much devoted toward Cajetan, that by that excellent patronage she could obtain her former health. They applied to her flowers from his altar, and without delay she returned to herself; the pains, the faintings, and the fever vanished, and she was healed. In the sixth month a miscarriage likewise befell at Naples Caterina Venezia and Felice Medina: who both, being tortured beyond measure, were in great peril of their life: but the one by the oil, the other by a vow made to the Saint, were snatched as it were from the jaws of death. In a like peril, and almost given up, Girolama Gargana saw herself after a miscarriage. Deadly faintings had invaded her, nor was there anything of remedy by which she could be helped, if you except at last the prayers of her sister: who on bended knees commends her to the Servant of the Lord: and at the same time the sick woman returned to herself, and felt herself sound, affirming that she had been saved by the Saint.

[95] Arianna Ragione was most devoted to Cajetan, and had it as her custom, flee to the Saint's help, to bring various flowers to his altar, as the seasons afforded. But now, when she had conceived, she at once prayed the Saint to be present with her in those straits. Being therefore touched with pains, behold, Cajetan, appearing visibly to her, said that the birth was not yet mature. And indeed it was then deferred; but some days after the pains returned, and again the Blessed appeared to her, and said that she should be of good cheer; because she would shortly bring forth an infant into the light. So it befell on the second day: but she, in token of a grateful mind, gave it Cajetan's name. By a similar apparition Elisabetta Irlandesia was made more certain of her near delivery; as it happened, and she imposed on it the name of Cajetan. Two women, of whom one was named Vittoria Seguinea, the other Nunzia Linaria, were by most grave pains of childbirth almost proscribed from life; but by the oil of the Blessed's lamp both brought forth a male child into the light: and Vittoria's milk came to her in time, which on other occasions had not been granted her; and she held it for certain that that benefit had been conferred upon her by Cajetan's hand. For a whole month Angela Vitaliana was afflicted with the pains of childbirth, being seized at various intervals of time with deadly faintings of soul, so that by the judgment of the physicians she could not live. But, being admonished by her mother, she commends herself to the Saint, and she who had long contended with death gave birth in a single moment: to which benefit another miracle was moreover added. For since the child brought forth had its arms and feet twisted, the Blessed being appealed to, the whole matter was suddenly restored.

[96] Girolama Gargiola underwent several perils in the two twins whom she bore; and are wonderfully helped in giving birth. but she overcame them by the invocation of Cajetan. Lucrezia Vola's child had died before it was brought forth into the light: for drawing which out, no art of the midwife, none of the physician sufficed, so tenacious were the roots which it had driven in that womb: whence the skilled judged that that birth would be fatal to the mother. Lucrezia nevertheless knew that one escape remained to her, namely Cajetan's patronage. She therefore invokes him, and, without a repetition of her prayers, easily thrust out the dead infant. Nor indeed did the favor stop here: because, her breasts being most badly affected from corrupted milk, some grave evil was greatly feared: but, Cajetan being again invoked, the pestilential disease vanished. Lastly,

worthy indeed of some truly unusual and wonderful event was that which happened at the childbirth of Maria Mezzetta. She dwelt in a fortified town named Calamosca, into which the widespread fame of Cajetan's greatest prodigies had taken the highest increase: because wonderful events, especially through the flowers of his altar, were daily heard of. For four days therefore the said Mezzetta was suffering most cruel pains of childbirth; and all her vigor being thereafter lost, the physicians affirmed that this child could hardly come forth alive into the light. Her friends advised her that, since so ready a remedy of every evil was at hand, she too should employ it, and commend herself to the Servant of God. The good woman did not delay to commit their counsel to execution; eating a flower of the Blessed, she commended herself to him in a lively manner. What then? At the same time the pains ceased, and she brought forth an excellent male child into the light: but here another wonder came forth with astonishment; which, although many saw it with their own eyes, nevertheless scarcely found belief. For while the infant utters his wailing and opens his lips, there is seen in his mouth that flower which his mother had eaten. Whence all knew and affirmed that to this, as to an instrument, the safety of mother and son was owed.

PART EIGHT.

Breasts and the stone cured; robberies and sorceries, etc., driven away, as also a pestilential plague at Naples.

Breasts Grazia Vitellia soon after childbirth was afflicted with breasts so dangerously and badly affected that the physicians feared lest, because they were so near the heart, they should transmit part of their venom to the more vital parts, and should suddenly take her from life. At that announcement the woman greatly shuddered; but, not ignorant of Cajetan's power, she came to his altar; and there by praying and weeping obtained the grace: for on the following day, the dam as it were of the corrupted humor being broken, all the evil came forth, and she recovered. Domenica Maggia, being fiercely tortured by the same evil, found neither any rest herself, nor the physicians a remedy; and it was judged that manifest death was not very far off. In a case so desperate, every other treatment being laid aside, she has recourse to Cajetan's patronage: she anointed her breasts with his oil, and suddenly felt the pain and the evil itself mitigated, and, the use of that balsam being continued, she in fact obtained health.

[98] most badly affected, recover by Cajetan's protection. Teresa Garofola's breasts from a pestilential evil were black like coal, and by the incomparable hardness under which they moreover labored, indicated that the knife and fire must be applied: and a day had already been fixed for trials so hard and severe. But Teresa found health by another way: for, delivering herself into Cajetan's kindly hands, in a short time, without the harshness of the instrument, she was restored to her former health. Vittoria Fortunata likewise escaped the knife and fire, whose breasts had hardened like stone: but indeed as soon as she anointed herself with the Blessed's oil, the evil vanished. The evil which tortured Anna Ricciarda's breasts lay hidden, and since the physicians did not know it, they proceeded after the manner of the blind, and feared snares. Her mother found the fitting cure; for indeed, anointing her daughter's breasts with the Blessed's oil, she so managed the matter that the malignant humor which lay hidden in the depth, coming forth, showed itself: whence the enemy, being known, was overcome by fitting remedies.

[99] Let us now come to another truly formidable disease, and one full of trouble and peril; Those laboring with the stone the evil, I mean, of the stone. Antonio Parnesio, a Neapolitan priest, was so tortured by that evil and by its most bitter pains that the physicians judged that they must proceed to cutting. Further, Antonio's weakness would not endure such extraordinary remedies. Wherefore, being inwardly admonished to have refuge to Cajetan, full of good confidence, he prays the Blessed, and causes a certain little niece of his to recite also three times the Lord's Prayer and three times the angelic salutation. Which done, a stone of no small size comes forth of its own accord, and without any sense of pain. And it was a matter of great astonishment to the physicians how through such narrow passages a stone of that size could come out without pain. By the bitterness of that evil Nunzio Pettillo, vicar general of the church of Trivento, was brought to such a pass that he was given up by the physicians. He anoints himself with the Blessed's oil: and without delay he casts out a stone of the size of one nut. For fifteen days Alfonso Madonna had been tortured with pains of this kind without any rest and without hope. At last he ordered himself to be carried from San Giovanni a Teduccio (it is a fortified town not far from Naples) to the Blessed's altar: there he supplicates, imploring the Blessed's patronage; and, returning home, he cast out a thick stone; and at once remained without pains and without the evil.

[100] A tender boy of seven years was likewise tortured by the same disease without any remedy. have the Saint favorable to them; The physicians had already deliberated about cutting; but the boy, being affected with pain, turned with faith to the Blessed, and at intervals obtained entire health. For praying the first time, he cast out a stone: praying the second, another: praying the third, a third: so that, continuing to pray, he continued to cast out up to twelve stones: of which some were of such size that it would have been altogether wonderful if a grown man had cast them out. Of much more tender age was Carlo Toscano, since he did not exceed a year and a half. He, while he was tortured by the same disease, had already been condemned by the physicians to cutting. But his parents, whose affection indeed could not behold their son subjected to the knife, turned to a shorter and gentler medicine. They anointed him with the Blessed's oil; and behold, suddenly there comes forth a stone of such enormous size that all had cause to marvel that it had come out of so small an infant.

[101] Federico Cardinal Sforza ^a suffered exceedingly bitter pains from a stone which had descended into his kidneys, among whom was Cardinal Sforza. having experienced no relief from various remedies. To the pains there was joined a fever, accompanied by long sleepless nights: whence his life was in great peril. The evil being known, most experienced physicians testified that it was incurable except by an incision. The remedy seemed worse than the evil, especially in the person of a Cardinal, who, besides that he was passing the forty-ninth year of his age, a climacteric and accordingly most dangerous one, had his strength so weakened by the gravity of the disease that it was greatly doubted whether he could endure the knife. Nevertheless, not trembling even a very little, he exposed himself to the harsh cutting; but not without divine patronage. He therefore chose certain Saints as his special patrons, that the one who should be drawn by lot should be he who should exercise the chief charge of his cure, and should direct the surgeon's hand. They were St. Nicholas of Bari, St. Antony of Padua, St. Francis of Paola, St. Francis Xavier, and others up to twelve; among whom was also blessed Cajetan: and he it was whom the lot declared the director of that difficult operation; and since by his ready beneficence he had already become renowned everywhere, he gave certain hope of a most happy outcome, which also followed. For the incision was made with a most light hand, the pain was moderate, the fever which is wont to follow cures of this kind was slight, and quickly vanished. Besides this, he was kept in bed not more than twenty days: whereas for the perfect healing of the wound three months' rest is required. Hence the physicians concluded that without doubt the divine hand and Cajetan's patronage had been present: to whom afterward the magnanimous Cardinal showed himself grateful with a silver gift, and also with a silver lamp of perhaps sixty pounds, which he sent to Naples to the tomb of his preserver, and together with it that very stone of no small size, enclosed in crystal, for the perpetual memory of the benefit received.

[102] Various persons are delivered in desperate events. In desperate events Cajetan's help was experienced by Pietro Maura, who escaped enemies at that very moment of time at which, with sword drawn from the sheath and with fire-belching arms, they were pressing at his back: Francesco Garzia, who fled the hands of robbers, when it seemed that this could not be done, through the Saint's invocation: Francesco Celentio, who was not visible to his assailants, holding swords in their hands, to cut him to pieces. Antonio Verderosa broke out untouched from the midst of swords. Giovanni Battista Peregrino withdrew himself from a noose which two mortal enemies had already fitted to his neck. Tommaso Ferrario, a Celestine monk, being enveloped in a certain forest without a guide, was led out by the Blessed, who, appearing to him, showed him the way. Antonio Vincenzo by Cajetan's name extinguished a great fire which was reducing his house to ashes. Francesco Paulillo, being summoned on a charge of grave theft, and falsely convicted, at the same time at which he commends himself to the Blessed, he who had truly stolen, being pricked by the goads of conscience, made restitution. To Giovanna Vespola no small sum of money was restored by the same invocation. So too it befell certain sailors, when it seemed that it could not be that the theft should be uncovered. To Elisabetta Baracana certain precious things were restored at the same time at which she commended the loss to Cajetan. Angelo Veneto with his ship was drawn out of the hands of pirates, when he already seemed to have been captured. Francesco Ignazio was in the same way snatched from the Turks, when he had already come into their hands. In all these and countless other desperate events, Cajetan appeared as from a machine, and by divine power that which appeared insoluble was unraveled.

[103] The Saint's wonderful command over demons. But it is most true that all human adversities and any evils whatever are surpassed by the implacable hatreds with which our common adversaries persecute us, and by their assaults. But that the Servant of the Lord knows how to bridle and chastise them, many who have been troubled by such cruel monsters and delivered bear witness. And certainly in these last times nothing has been more frequently seen at his tomb than men of this kind possessed by demons, who were brought thither to be freed from that harsh possession. There were heard horrible shriekings and noises, and also very loud lamentations, because they saw themselves put to flight from human bodies. All day long there were seen stones, nails, little waxen images, plaits of hair, and similar foulnesses, which the wretched possessed cast out from their mouths. Things of this kind now hang from the walls, as trophies of the Saint's continual victories. A Basilian monk, called Giovanni Battista the Spaniard, a man most practiced in the use of exorcisms, was wont to say that, when on a certain occasion he was adjuring some honorable person with the accustomed arms of the Church, the demon himself of his own accord confessed that blessed Cajetan had against the spirits of Tartarus that same power which St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Antony of Padua had had. And these indeed are the heavenly favors, taken from Silos's Life and given by us in Latin, with which the great Lord, and God wonderful in his Saints, willed to make this his Servant illustrious among men. Others, a good many in number, and notable in their kind, which the praised

biographer recounts, running through various regions of Europe, in book 3, chapter 15, we do not transcribe, for reasons to be assigned by us a little after. Now therefore we shall set forth his outstanding and singular patronage in the pestilential contagion which infested Naples, and which the praised author relates in chapter 16. His account, from the Italian into Latin, runs thus:

[104] Because the course of the pestilential plague which contaminated and reduced to a wretched state the most noble city of Naples was exceedingly notable, The author sets forth the pestilential plague, and too the help which Cajetan there offered by his intercession was exceedingly manifest and opportune, I have resolved to separate this narration from the others, that I might give the reader a more distinct account of it. The memory of that calamity is even now recent, and gives no place for exasperating minds by a mournful recollection. From slight and not well-known beginnings, as is wont to happen with rivers, the evil so increased that, the graves and the very fields not holding the mass and number of corpses, the public roads were occupied by them, being no longer used by the living, but by dead and unburied citizens. Ready was the providence of the Lords of Naples through opportune helps. For treating the sick several hospitals were opened; several places destined for the burial of the dead: rich stipends for the attendants were not spared, nor was anything pertaining to physicians and medicines given sparingly. In the more capacious hospital, which has its name from St. Januarius, there were always perhaps seven thousand sick; of whom nearly six hundred died daily, and as many entered it, wounded by the deadly stroke of the evil. To human helps divine ones were added: for the administration of the Sacraments was ready, and recourse was had to the patronage of the most blessed Virgin, of the glorious saint Januarius, and of the other tutelary Saints of the city; and because Cajetan's name was then exceedingly celebrated by so many daily benefits, spread abroad among persons of every kind and station, the common confidence seemed to rest chiefly on him: and by a certain inward admonition all conceived a most firm hope that on the day of his anniversary feast, which is celebrated on the seventh of August, some singular miracle might be seen.

[105] While therefore the slaughter continued to rage cruelly, which, raging in dire ways at Naples, and the sword of divine justice, sparing by no means, was carried about through the afflicted city, then above all the faith conceived concerning the patronage of that Servant of the Lord revived. Wherefore, when the said solemnity drew near, all judged by common vote that a certain pious exercise must be employed, by which the Saint might be asked to come as advocate to that cause, and they themselves might dispose themselves to receive the grace. Whence two nobles deputed to the governance of the hospital, men truly of great spirit and great piety (of whom one was called Lord Filippo de Dura, the other Lord Tommaso Guindazzo), an eager request being offered them, decreed that in the nine preceding days the most holy Sacrament should be exposed in the chapel of the said hospital together with an image of the Saint; and that there, with other exercises of piety, the Rosary of the most blessed Virgin should be recited. Which was committed to execution in such a manner that on the three days immediately preceding the feast, to the Servant of God's honor, an altogether most solemn and magnificent apparatus was made by a precious altar, by lights, and by fires as witnesses of rejoicing: to which signs of piety a general communion put an end, performed on the very day of the solemnity with great affection and compunction of heart.

[106] and by St. Cajetan's patronage was wonderfully extinguished. A thing indeed wonderful! The pestilential plague itself revered that day, no otherwise than if it had wished to observe it by ceasing from every servile work; and it was the constant opinion that not even one person died on that day: and from that time thereafter, its forces being weakened, it began with the progress of time to fail, until it wholly ceased. So manifest was the inestimable benefit that it had no need of testimony. Nevertheless the two nobles mentioned, in case it should happen that anyone should doubt of a grace which was as it were touched with the hands, and for the confirmation of outsiders, gave full attestation in their own particular writings; which were afterward published, and carried about in the hands of all, as also others of persons worthy of credit; such as were the local physicians, and also the chancellor and secretary, and other officials of this kind. Add the very constant opinion of those who were infected with the contagion, and then cured. For indeed after a purgation of forty days, in the places destined for this, being freed and healed, and moreover free from any other suspicion of the evil, they betook themselves in throngs and straightway to the church of St. Paul, that with due thanksgiving they might acknowledge their preserver. And of this matter too most certain testimonies came forth in print. There is treated thereafter in the same place the numerous assemblies immediately after the plague and the solemn processions to the Saint's altar; add the magnificent banners carried in their hands, and marked with the effigy of the most blessed Virgin and of the same Saint, with this inscription: For the city freed from the plague. Finally the governors of the city of Naples, as Silos subjoins, mindful of the benefit received, with singular affection and concord of wills, no one dissenting, decreed that it must be earnestly urged with the supreme Pontiff that he be enrolled in the register of the Saints, and be patron of the city of Naples. Letters sent to Pope Alexander VII on this matter the praised biographer brings forward on page 340 and following.

POSTHUMOUS GLORY

from the singular veneration toward the Saint diffused through various tracts of Europe; his tomb at Naples; the house at Paris.

Cajetan of Thiene, Confessor, at Naples (S.)

FROM PUBLISHED SOURCES.

[By several other miracles, which are omitted, we are informed of the Saint's cult] Silos in book 3 of the Life, chapter 15, besides those remarkable and most frequent favors of heaven which, as though not going forth from Naples and the places bordering upon it, he had related in the preceding chapters, and which we have just now reported from him, records a rather long series of very many other graces which our great Wonder-worker conferred by his liberal patronage upon wretched mortals in various regions of Europe. But since we judge that those above, which we have turned into the Latin tongue, suffice for the Saint's posthumous glory, and since it would be long for us, and perhaps tedious for the reader, to exhibit others heaped upon these, which can be seen in the cited place, we forbear to transcribe them hither; yet in such a way that those various tracts of Europe, through which the praised biographer runs, will furnish us with the matter of new material for weighing how greatly our holy Wonder-worker showed himself lovable in those European regions by his singular beneficence, and with what tender affection of piety he was loved in them, his veneration being diffused in every direction. The present subject indeed we touched upon in passing above from Sainte-Croix, §4, at the beginning; but let us treat it one by one, taking from Silos's narration what regards it. But the miracles may be seen in what has been said above.

[108] The beginning, he says, will be given by the kingdom of Naples itself, in the kingdom of Naples, advanced to a most devout affection toward Cajetan by the example of its metropolitan church, from which, as from a head, a certain particular affection and reverence toward the Saint could easily be derived into the other members. The province which is most remotely distant from Naples, situated as it were at the extreme edge of Italy, is that which they call the Otranto province, and which is also called that of the Salentines. There, and especially at Lecce, its chief city, the Saint showed I know not what particular affection, and a singular beneficence, and a ready will in succoring. The matter is proved in the same place by examples. Similar, as he subjoins, are countless other miracles which Cajetan did in that province; on account of which chapels and altars were consecrated to him in many places, and his images set forth for public veneration.

[109] In the city of Taranto the Blessed had his own altar in the chief church, in the city and there wrought very many wonders to the joy of all. That the common pestilential plague of the fifty-sixth year did not bring itself into that city, they credited to him by common vote: chiefly because at that same time some unusual miracle was seen in his statue, which the lord archbishop, and also all the canons, and as many as ran thither, observed. The event is set forth in the same place.

[110] In the diocese of Taranto there exists a fortified town which they call Lizzano, and diocese of Taranto, where it pleased the Saint to console those peoples with incredible beneficence and frequent miracles. Duke Ottavio Clodinio, out of the particular and pious affection with which he followed him, brought it about that in the greater church there should be an altar named with his name; and by his example those peoples ran thither to offer their prayers in their necessities, not without singular benefits, through which the common devotion took such progress and increase that they had no surer refuge in their calamities than the name and altar of Cajetan. There came into my hands at Naples a long catalogue of miracles, collected with the greatest fidelity by the archpriest of that territory: of which a few are recorded in the same place by Silos.

[111] in both Calabrias, Passing thence now into both the Calabrias, many things would have to be noted there; but lest we be too long, we shall touch upon a few: which the reader will find in the often-praised author. Thence proceeding into Sicily, he asserts that he will there find ample material for writing. Piazza, a city of no obscure name in the middle of that island, was the first which felt the fruit of its own devotion, and of the Blessed's benevolence and power. Since indeed in the course of the forty-first year of this century, the reverence and piety of those citizens had already gone so far that, in public and constant attestation of it, by common consent they chose him patron of the city, and celebrated a patronage of this kind altogether magnificently and religiously. The favors obtained through the Saint's patronage may be seen in the same writer.

[112] likewise at Palermo, and elsewhere. The most noble city of Palermo invites us; which, while it displays the walls of the Blessed's chapel, which exists in the magnificent church of St. Joseph, adorned with gifts of every kind, seems to supply writers with a whole history of benefits, wonders, and portents which were wrought in favor of pious men: who, after they had in their necessities had recourse to his patronage, found an open bosom and the Blessed's ready hand. Besides this, if we enter the rest of Italy, we shall perhaps not find, by Silos's testimony, a city which does not hold in esteem Cajetan's name, sanctity, and intercession, and does not supply us with matter for noting. For indeed the singular graces which the Saint poured forth with liberal hand in the Venetian Dominion, especially at Vicenza, are a proof that he excellently provoked the men of that tract of Italy to love of him, to confidence, and to public veneration by those beneficent and pious incitements. But concerning these places the biographer whom we have mentioned may be consulted, as also concerning Urbino in Umbria.

[113] At Livorno there exists a chapel notable for many spiritual favors. Livorno in Tuscany also furnishes Silos with matter for speaking. But here, he says, it must not be passed over in silence that piety toward the Saint further so increased that they consecrated to him a chapel in the sacred building of the Augustinian Fathers, whither in rivalry

citizens and outsiders flow together; there several Masses are celebrated during the day in thanksgiving for benefits received, or for obtaining new ones. There each year his festal memory is kept with pomp, music, and panegyric discourses: and Innocent X, to foster the public devotion, granted plenary indulgences there on that same day. Besides this, the affection and ardor of the peoples increasing further, there was joined to the said chapel, under the Saint's auspices, a congregation or society, enriched by the same Pontiff Innocent with many plenary indulgences, that is, on the same day on which members are enrolled there, and at the moment of death, and also on the seventh day of August, sacred to the annual memory of the Blessed, and on many other chief solemnities of the year: at the altar too, that on every Monday, as also on Friday, at each Mass one soul might be taken out of purgatory.

[114] Now, having gone out of Italy, if we range through other parts of Europe, there will indeed occur other events worthy of note, chiefly in Spain and Portugal. What in Spain and Portugal, and also in the kingdom of Valencia. Since indeed, after father Ambiverio (a Clerk Regular, of whom the author had treated a little before) had come to Lisbon, intending to set out thence for the East Indies, it cannot easily be said with how great veneration the name of Cajetan was received, by his effort, and with how great an abundance of graces he at once gave himself to be known to those peoples. In Spain, and especially at Madrid, through the fame of his miracles his chapel was in a short time seen to be frequented by every rank of persons; more than once visited by king Philip IV and by queen Mariana; who, being helped by the invocation and patronage of the Saint in a most difficult childbirth, bound herself to him by the vow of a great lamp, which she ordered to be made without delay at Naples, and to be hung at his tomb, with a revenue sufficient for maintaining a perpetual light. Many are the wonders wrought in those two royal cities; as many are those which at present the Saint works in the city of Valencia, and in almost the whole of that kingdom; where Cajetan's fame has been spread abroad, and with a conspiring affection recourse is had to him in common and private necessities.

[115] But St. Cajetan's tomb, of which mention has just been made in passing, The old so to speak, offers itself to be inspected more closely; which, since some years after the holy Man's death, his sacred deposit being translated thither from its former burial, it received a new splendor together with a new place, it will conduce to the Saint's posthumous glory to commit to letters what stands written on this matter. Silos in the History of the Clerks Regular, volume 1, book 15, among the things which he relates at the year 1581, pages 605 and 606, records the restoration of the Pauline church of the Clerks Regular at Naples, and the transfer of the cemetery elsewhere, and on the same occasion he says: Then indeed there were conveniently found in the lower part of the church certain chambers, of very ancient and arched work, than which nothing was more suitable for entombing the dead... Wherefore, since the bones buried together in the old burial-place had at this time to be transferred into that subterranean part of the church, it seemed good prudently to our men that the bodies of the most excellent Fathers... should be buried in the same cemetery indeed, but separately; and, a place being arranged on the right, they took care that they should be laid there with the same earth. The matter was then committed to Pietro Caracciolo, who also had charge of the rest of the building of the church... And he indeed afterward, many years later, when inquiry was more zealously made about the body of Thiene and of Marinoni, whose sanctity had already begun to be discussed, and especially Thiene's virtue, being called into public examination, was already duly approved by the Roman votes, testified on his faith that at that time the translation of the ashes had been made; and showed in what place chiefly they had been buried; and, that the matter might be more certain, ordered digging deeper; and the buried remains being found there, as he himself had affirmed, they filled all with joy.

[116] and the more recent place of the tomb. Which place was afterward dedicated to the blessed Father Cajetan, and it is the second chapel on the right side of the church, which, having already begun to be encased with slabs of mottled marble, and to be adorned likewise with columns of various marble, presents above a plainly most splendid appearance. And this outer part of the chapel corresponds to a subterranean and very ample vault or crypt, which our men willed to be built and magnificently adorned with paintings and emblems for this reason, that there the precious relics of the blessed Cajetan and Marinoni... lie. And besides, for more intently rousing the piety of the Faithful toward the sacred ashes of our most blessed Father, a noble opening was made in the outermost part of the chapel, which sends the eyes of beholders straight to the altar which, raised in the middle of that crypt, bears Cajetan's likeness in Parian marble; and teaches that he is covered by that monument, the tomb being namely shared with Marinoni; that those whose life had been the same, and whose charity toward one another was of one mind, one urn might embrace when dead. Which a marble inscribed in the upper chapel declares in a brilliant poem. Our Agostino Oldoini in the Athenaeum of Liguria, among the lucubrations of Giovanni Battista Giustiniani Galeazzi, Clerk Regular, page 323, assigns Blessed Cajetan triumphing at Naples, or three discourses about him.

[117] In the Paris house the king of France with his mother lays the first stone. Let it be permitted me, with the reader's kind leave, to put a crown upon these my lucubrations with a certain singular deed, and one certainly not ignoble for illustrating the Saint's posthumous glory, which I learned when I had already prepared the above for the press. Paris saw either St. Cajetan of Thiene in the Order which he founded, or the Order itself in its founder; let us rather say, both together adorned with a remarkable title of public esteem; when the Most Eminent Cardinal Mazarin, founder of the house of Clerks Regular there, asked and prevailed upon the most serene king of the Gauls, Louis XIV, and also the most serene queen, his mother, to lay the first stone of that house to be built; whence the name of the royal saint Anne was given to it. This house the praised king afterward also supported with constant and royal munificence (by the testimony of D. Bernard at the end of the French Life of St. Cajetan, from which I have learned these things), not degenerate in this from Louis his father, who gave attestations of his zeal toward the Congregation of Clerks Regular when he interposed his authority in promoting the beatification of him who established it; as may be seen in the same place.