ON ST. JORDAN FORZATÉ,
OF THE ORDER OF SAINT BENEDICT.
AT PADUA IN ITALY.
About the year 1240.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Jordan Forzaté, of the Benedictine Order, at Padua in Italy (B.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. C.
§ I. The immemorial and hitherto persevering cult of the Blessed is proved from various monuments.
Padua, a most well-known city of Italy, concerning which we treated again at the thirteenth day of June in the Life of St. Antony, who received his surname from that city, in volume 11 of that month, page 703, today celebrates the annual memory of Blessed Jordan, as the more recent Benedictine Menologies commonly testify. To pass over other writers of Menologies, Arnold Wion in his Tree of Life, book 3, or part 2 of that work, page 263, announces the feast of Blessed Jordan on the seventh day of August thus: At Padua, the deposition of St. Jordan Forzaté, abbot; he, long detained by the tyrant Ezzelino in the castle of St. Zeno in the territory of Treviso, but secretly fleeing thence, went unrecognized to Venice, where he piously closed his day. Afterward, his fatherland being freed, he was brought back to Padua, and is numbered among the Saints. Then Wion, blindly following Bernardino Scardeone, or his erring printer, wrongly asserts in the same place in his notes that Blessed Jordan departed from this life in the year of Christ 1228. Hugues Ménard in his Martyrology, Filippo Ferrari in his General Catalogue of the Saints, and certain other hagiographers have fallen into the same chronological error, as is to be seen in their observations at the seventh day of August, and will appear from what is to be said below.
[2] Gabriel Bucelin in his Benedictine Menology adorns the same Blessed with the following eulogy: in the more recent Menologies; At Padua, the deposition of St. Jordan, abbot of St. Benedict the New, and confessor. He, born of the exceedingly noble Forzaté family, enrolled in the warfare of our holy Father, fought strenuously against the world, the flesh, and the powers below. Elected first Prior, then abbot, assailed with injuries by that impious tyrant Ezzelino, and detained in the castle of St. Zeno, at last secretly escaping, unrecognized
he went to Venice, and there, renowned for sanctity, a most religious exile, he piously fell asleep in the Lord; whose sacred body, his fatherland being freed, was brought back to Padua and laid up with fitting honor, while he himself for his merits was enrolled in the number of the Saints. The holy Man died in the year of Christ 1228. Even though Bucelin here and the others cited above err in assigning the year of Blessed Jordan's death, and on account of their own late date cannot establish certain credit concerning the ancient deeds of the same Blessed, nevertheless we have wished to allege them, because they bear testimony with unanimous consent concerning the sanctity of this renowned Abbot. But, to open our mind candidly, even the more recent authority of all of them would not yet render us sufficiently secure concerning the immemorial cult of that blessed Man, unless it were confirmed by more ancient monuments and solid arguments, which we shall now produce.
[3] but from the careful preservation of his relics, The most illustrious Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, bishop of Aemona or Cittanova in Istria, wrote in the Italian idiom a Life of Blessed Jordan, in which, chapter 28, he asserts that this blessed Man was honored at Venice, where he rendered his soul to his Creator, with a public cult of the people immediately after his death. But he alleges no witnesses of that ancient veneration, nor could he allege any, since the ancient monuments of the Venetian monastery in which the blessed Exile died, and which is commonly called Celestia, perished in the horrible fire of the neighboring arsenal, which in the month of September of the year 1569 consumed the nearest buildings, as the most illustrious writer himself confesses at the end of the preceding chapter. Nevertheless the memory of that glorious Exile still perseveres there, and the nuns of the said monastery judge that, when the body of Blessed Jordan was translated to Padua, some sacred bones of the same Blessed were left to them; concerning which the Reverend Father Dionysius Origo, a priest of our Society, in the month of August of the passing year 1733 writes to us thus after other matters: I went yesterday to the nuns together with the same Father Riceputi. We saw very many relics of the Saints, inscribed with their names, except two shin-bones, on which there is no inscription, and which perhaps will be those that are lacking to this Blessed's body at Padua; on none, however, is the name of blessed Jordan. These are the things which I can signify to Your Reverence: I shall write more fully, however, if there be anything, as I hope, to be written. Meanwhile let him not marvel at confusion of this sort in matters so sacred, and in a city most devout toward the relics of the Saints: for it happened from the fire of the arsenal adjoining the monastery, from which the monastery itself with its archive, and very much furniture both sacred and precious, was burned. Whatever be the case concerning the Venetian relics of Blessed Jordan, let us now proceed to the immemorial cult of the same Blessed in the city of Padua.
[4] from the ancient title of Blessed, After the year of Christ 1260, as we shall probably draw out below from a certain reasoning, the body of Blessed Jordan seems to have been translated from Venice into the city of Padua, and there it was placed in the church of the Benedictine nuns near the high altar, as the praised most illustrious Tomasini relates in the above-mentioned chapter 28 of the Italian Life from an ancient parchment codex, which even in the year 1650 was preserved among the nuns of St. Benedict the New, and in which at the seventh day of August that Blessed is adorned with the following eulogy: This most blessed father and renowned Jordan, as another river going forth from the paradise of delights, moistening the earth, and watering and bedewing dry minds, sought heaven, going forth from the workhouse of the flesh: who out of love of true Religion, a follower of voluntary poverty, as a true apostolic man stood forth as the magnificent founder of this sacred and venerable monastery, and also of very many others; and the founder of the white nuns in this renowned, kindly, and excellent Antenorean city; and at last indeed the reformer of the whole Religious state, to whose judgment and authority every sentence of the whole March of Treviso gave heed. Seized and made captive by the bold and insolent tyrant Ezzelino da Romano: at last released by the emperor, he stood forth as an exile for nearly twenty years. He died at Venice in the monastery of Celestia. Translated, the most blessed Man of God rests here becomingly beside the high altar. At least we hear here that that Man is named "most blessed" in an old codex, although we do not rightly know the age of that codex.
[5] Also we do not know at what time was composed the epitaph from the sepulchral inscription, which at Padua was once carved in marble around the tomb of Blessed Jordan, and which Scardeone, Wion, and others recite in this manner:
You were Jordan, created of the noble stock Of Forzaté by merits, whom our age Bore as blessed; you made these two temples of holy Benedict And ruled them as abbot, and your bones are venerated there.
The most reverend Tomasini in chapter 10 of the aforesaid Italian Life, reporting the same four little verses, warns that here by "two temples" are to be understood the two monasteries of St. Benedict, concerning whose construction he discourses more fully in the same place and in chapter 20. Besides, the same most erudite prelate observes in chapter 28 that that metrical epitaph no longer existed in his own age, that is, in the year 1650, in which he published the Life of Blessed Jordan; even though in the time of Bernardino Scardeone, that is, in the middle of the sixteenth century, it was still read around the Blessed's tomb. Since therefore we are ignorant of the determined age of the preceding monuments, we can safely establish nothing about the beginning of the public cult. Nevertheless that veneration of the faithful toward Blessed Jordan seems to have grown little by little, and before the middle of the fourteenth century an altar to be erected to the same Blessed: for in the time of Anna Buzzaccarini the abbess, who from the year 1356 up to the year 1398 presided over that monastery, by the illustrious Lady Alecta da Carrara there was offered to the altar of Blessed Jordan a precious ornament, as is read in an old parchment manuscript codex, whose ancient Italian text the praised and often to be praised Tomasini alleges in the same chapter 28 of the said Life.
[6] In the fifteenth century Blessed Jordan flashed forth with many miracles, by a public instrument of the senate of Padua, as we gather from a Latin instrument of the year 1470, which the most illustrious Tomasini brings forward in chapter 30 of the same Life, and which in the book of the acts of the senate of the magnificent city of Padua, page 24, runs thus: On Sunday, the twenty-ninth of July, 1470. The Council of the magnificent city of Padua being gathered and convoked in the accustomed place and manner, in which were present the magnificent and most distinguished Lord Andrea Leone, Podestà of Padua for the most illustrious Doge our lord of the Venetians, and the honorable men Lord Bartolomeo de Capitibuslistae, Lord Federico da Vigonza acting in place of Lord Anchoanus de Buzzacarenis, Lord Antonio de Visatis, jurisconsults, and Lord Bernardo de Lazara, wise men deputed for the useful affairs of the commune, and other councillors to the number of sixty-six, of whom some were not of the ordinary council, but summoned to carry out the matters written below on account of the absence and scarcity of the ordinary councillors, who had left the city. Whereupon it was pronounced by the aforesaid magnificent Lord Podestà that they were legitimately summoned, and could and ought to conduct the balloting.
[7] Which done, by the aforesaid honorable deputies with one vote the matters written below were put forward, harangue having first been made upon them (in Italian arringare or arengare signifies to make a speech to the people or an assembly, to which signification the French phrase haranguer corresponds) by the said Lord Antonio in the first place, and by Lord Federico da Vigonza in the second place. Whereas at this time, from the new display of the body of blessed Jordan of Padua of the family of Forzaté, laid up in the monastery of the church of the venerable lady nuns of St. Benedict of this city of Padua, to his glory, and by the favor of divine grace, very many miracles have been stirred up, as is reported to be proved and established by true and worthy testimony, from which there is a public resort by the people to the said body: wherefore the motion goes forward, that by the honorable lords deputed for useful affairs in the name of this magnificent community appearance be made before our most reverend lord bishop of Padua, and that he be with insistence requested and supplicated that his most reverend lordship deign to inquire into and concerning the aforesaid matters, and, if they be found as they are publicly declared to have been done, deign to take a memorial of them in writing, and to have it made, for the memory of those to come and for the declaration of the truth; otherwise let an end be imposed on this matter, that in the Christian faith idolatry may cease. The said motion being balloted, there were
For the motion, ballots 69
Against the motion, ballots 2, and thus it was carried.
Natalinus Columbanus, Vice-Chancellor of the magnificent Community of Padua, subscribed.
[8] we gather his immemorial cult, After these things the most illustrious Tomasini in the same chapter relates in Italian that those lord deputies appeared before the most reverend Lord Jacopo Zeno (he was a most learned man, who held the see of Padua from the year 1460 up to the year 1481), and that their request was willingly and diligently committed to execution by that prelate. But in the same place he at once confesses that the instruments of this examination are no longer found, and that they probably perished when the episcopal archive at Padua burned down. Then he conjectures that the celebration of Mass and the recitation of the ecclesiastical Office began from that time in honor of Blessed Jordan. Whatever this last conjecture of the most illustrious writer may be worth, we scarcely doubt that then the public cult of the Blessed was approved by the prelate of Padua, and on that occasion received a great increase. For the rest, from the reported instrument of the senate of Padua we deduce several corollaries, and first indeed from it we draw out that at that time Blessed Jordan shone with very many miracles, as public report testified. Secondly, we judge it most probable that the ancient veneration of Blessed Jordan was then confirmed by the bishop of Padua, or at least tacitly permitted, since the Senate of Padua expressly asked that the miracles be zealously examined, and, that examination being instituted, that the cult of the Blessed be legitimately approved, or wholly prohibited. Finally we infer that approval or permission from the consequent, as they commonly say, or from the effect of the public cult, which perseveres to this day, as we shall now demonstrate from an eyewitness.
[9] and on account of the present state of the sacred body Our Janning in his manuscript Itinerary, in which he accurately set forth his Roman-Belgian pilgrimage of the year 1686, folio 36, notes the following on the present matter: I came to Padua on the twenty-eighth of July: there in the church of the nuns of St. Benedict, on the left as one enters, upon the more remote altar, elegantly wrought of various marble, rests the body of Blessed Jordan, whose feast they there venerate on the seventh of August with an Octave, saying the Office from the common (if I remember rightly) of a confessor. The chest is of marble, closed in front with a wooden cover adorned with inserted plates of Parian marble; but when that is opened, through crystal is seen the sacred body clothed in the habit of an abbot, of red cloth interwoven with gold, with miter and crozier. The head is entirely whole, except for the nose. The mouth, open, exhibits all the teeth of the upper row, and several of the lower, white. On the urn is inscribed: Blessed Jordan Forzaté of Padua. Several votive offerings hang around. From the church, through the grating of the nuns, a beautiful garden is seen, and in it a rather tall cornel tree (commonly corgnoli), with earth heaped around it, which is held in by a wall. The fruits of the tree, hardened in the sun, they dispense to those seeking a remedy against various infirmities.
The nuns also say that as often as some branch of the tree dries up, the death of someone of their own family is foretold, and that this generally happens before anyone dies.
[10] The praised Tomasini in chapter 21 of the Italian Life relates many things about this cornel tree from continuous tradition, and we conclude the public veneration of the relics, of all of which this is the synopsis. When Blessed Jordan was marking out the sacred structure of the church and monastery with a little rod of cornel, the building being completed, he fixed that dry rod in the earth, which at once prodigiously sprouted. Hence the Blessed, understanding that his labor was pleasing to God, prostrate on the ground, gave immense thanks to the divine goodness. Afterward this little rod gradually grew into a great tree, which always had this prodigy proper to it, that as many branches dried up on it as there were persons of the Forzaté family about to die in that year. This tree stood green up to the year of Christ 1597, in which the line of the noble Forzatés was extinguished in Claudia Forzaté: for then the tree so withered that only the trunk remained. While the nuns were grieving that this memorial of their blessed Founder had perished, shortly other little branches sprang up from the roots, which grew to the magnitude of the former tree. Then that trunk was cut out, whose wood the nuns distribute to the Capuchins and Camaldolese and others, so that rosaries may be made from it. Others reduce that wood to a powder, which the sick, taking it with great confidence, are restored to health. Finally this new tree, which is divided into five branches, is encircled with a wall four feet high, and produces a huge abundance of cornel-berries, which are gathered with great diligence and devotion. Now too it has been observed that, when some branch of the same tree dries up, the death of some Superior of the nuns, or some other impending misfortune, is announced beforehand. Thus in the year of Christ 1629 the leaves of this tree were so flaccid that the tree itself seemed about to dry up entirely, and in the following year a terrible pestilence afflicted Padua, from which nevertheless the nuns of this monastery, doubtless through the intercession of their blessed Founder, were wonderfully preserved. Concerning this cornel tree mention will occur rather often below among the miracles.
[11] We meanwhile from this public and hitherto persevering veneration of Blessed Jordan confidently gather that it began from time immemorial, that this Man can safely be inserted into our work. that is, a hundred years before the famous decree of Urban VIII, concerning which we have already treated rather often in our Work: for who would believe that the most devout and most learned prelates of the city of Padua would allow such a cult, unless it had been in use according to the mind of the Roman Pontiffs a hundred years before the said decree of Urban VIII? Add that from the year of Christ 1500 votive tablets were publicly hung at the altar of Blessed Jordan, as will be plain below from the miracles. To these is added the title of "blessed," by which in the ancient instruments which we exhibited above Jordan is everywhere called. Wherefore from all these things we conclude with assurance that the cult of Blessed Jordan is immemorial, and consequently we have safely inserted this illustrious Man into our Work.
Annotata* perhaps: "were absent from the city"
* that is, a vote
* perhaps: "to be established"
* read "idololatria"
§ II. The Acts of the Blessed from Scardeone, his noble lineage, and the chronological difficulty concerning his birth and his Religious profession are examined.
The excellent Paduan historian Bernardino Scardeone, canon of Padua, who by his writings learnedly illustrated the history of his fatherland, in his work On the Antiquity of the City of Padua, book 2, class 6, page 108 and following, thus reckons our Blessed among his distinguished fellow-citizens: By no right could blessed Jordan Forzaté be passed over unmentioned in this place — a man of great piety, and of no less excellence, called Prior of St. Benedict the New: for indeed by his wisdom and counsels almost the whole Paduan Republic was ruled in that time, inasmuch as to him (if ever there had to be consultation about great matters) the whole city was accustomed to flock, as to that Roman elder Cato. Wherefore, although he was in every respect devoted both to true piety and to holy Religion, nevertheless on account of his authority and singular wisdom, in which he was exceedingly strong, he always obtained among the senators in the Republic the chief place and the first honors. For he, in those dangerous seditions, built for himself on the summit of Mount Merlo a most fortified castle, of which, though small, yet some traces still exist, which has now come down to the Calcia family.
[13] sets forth in a few words the deeds of the Blessed, He moreover erected two sacred buildings to the divine Benedict, one of virgins, the other of monks, over which he himself presided as abbot. He too, in an excessive dissension of the Republic, and in the greatest tumult of the whole city, persuaded the people of Padua that sixteen men should be created from the whole nobility for the sake of constituting the Republic, who should best consult for public affairs and most prudently take precautions if perchance any snares were being prepared by anyone, both within the walls and outside in the countryside. Nevertheless not long after, through these very men thus set in charge, corrupted by money, or rather deceived, the city itself was betrayed under the name of the emperor Frederick II to Ezzelino, a most savage tyrant; who soon, from the emperor's vicar made tyrant of the city, sent Bonacursius Forzaté to summon Jordan to him. But Jordan, although he knew that the tyrant was beyond measure hostile to him, and suspected what was to be, nevertheless, since he was now of a spent age, was unwilling to provide for his life by a base flight; but, his domestic affairs being arranged, he went undaunted to Ezzelino.
[14] and his posthumous glory, But at once by the Saracens, who then served under Ezzelino, he is led away captive into the Trevisan castle of St. Zeno, and there is shut up in a most narrow prison until, freed from that prison by the emperor, he is given to Berthold, patriarch of Aquileia, to be kept in a monastery of monks; where, with admirable patience, giving himself to fasts and prayers, he lived a long time: but at last, secretly departing thence, he went unrecognized to Venice, where he closed his last day piously and holily; who afterward, his fatherland being freed and the tyrant slain, was translated to Padua, and, commonly approved by all, is now numbered among the Saints. His tomb exists in the basilica of St. Benedict, where he lies with his body still almost entire, honored by all with the title of sanctity. And inscribed upon his tomb is this epitaph:
He died in the year 1228 (read 1248, as will be plain from what is to be said below) on the seventh of the Ides of August; which day at Padua in the church of St. Benedict is solemnly celebrated by the nuns each year and with the highest veneration in memory of this blessed Man. Thus Scardeone, a diligent and sensible writer of Paduan affairs; to which the more recent and above-praised author of the Italian Life added many things, which we shall now, after our manner, examine one by one.
[15] That the prudent reader may have at least in general some idea of this Italian Life, to which the Italian biographer added many uncertain things. which the often-mentioned bishop of Aemona published at Udine in the year 1650, it is first of all necessary to know that most of the private deeds of Blessed Jordan either were never committed to letters, or perished by fire or other mishaps, as their most illustrious writer freely confesses. Wherefore we are ignorant on what foundation the same most reverend biographer reported certain particulars which could have happened to this Man, although it is not established that they did happen. Certainly concerning his education, his monastic life, and his literary studies he relates various things which suit any similar Blessed, and which seem rather rhetorically embellished than historically certain. Nevertheless he solidly confirms some public deeds of the same Blessed by the testimony of ancient writers. But on account of this very confirmation we suspect that the others could not be proved by similar ancient monuments. Thus in chapter 1 of the Italian Life he relates that the mother of Blessed Jordan had a wonderful vision at his birth, and that the newly born infant was surrounded with a flashing splendor. Besides, in chapter 26 he asserts that the same Blessed was warned by an angel to flee to Venice, because the tyrant Ezzelino had decreed to inflict death upon him. But he alleges no witnesses or records of these matters. Henceforth therefore we shall leave the credit of similar narrations with their author, and in the chronological order of the Acts shall examine only those deeds of the Blessed for which some authority of weighty writers is cited, or at least a probable reason can be brought forward.
[16] First of all the most reverend biographer in chapter 1 treats at length of the noble Forzaté family, from which Blessed Jordan drew his origin, The praised Paduan historian describes and which was also surnamed Transalgardina and Capilistia. But since he drew this information from Scardeone, let us hear this distinguished historian, who in book 3 of the above-mentioned work, class 13, or page 294, sets forth the origin of that ancestral stock in these words: When Padua had been utterly burned and destroyed by Agilulf, king of the Lombards (as was said above), the nobles meanwhile and nearly all the citizens of Padua partly migrated to Venice, partly, dispersed through the fields and townships, which were many in the Paduan territory, dwelt in fortified places and citadels among the country people, as best they could, until Charlemagne, king of the Gauls, summoned by the supreme Pontiff Hadrian to drive out the Lombards, crossed the Alps and passed into Italy with a very great army. To this king certain nobles of Padua, hostile to the Lombards, having set out of their own accord, were most kindly received, and some were created tribunes, others centurions, as the account of each person's rank demanded.
[17] the origin of the most noble family, Meanwhile those of the Transalgarda family who excelled in courage of mind and strength of body — Carlotus and Transalgardus and John, brothers german, serving under this king for honorable pay, since they were exceedingly well trained in the pursuits of war and in military discipline, when at one time battle had been joined with the enemy (while there was sharp fighting on both sides), having caught sight of Stephen Scardiacus, the leader of the enemy, fighting manfully, spurring their horses through the thickest squadrons of the enemy, with one accord make an attack upon him, and, assailing him with great spirit and no less force, surround the armed horseman fighting manfully, and press him, redoubling frequent blows; who, since he could not sustain so great a force, delivered himself captive to the enemy. And soon, their leader being taken, the army of the Lombards, terrified, the fight being abandoned and their arms cast away, turns in scattered flight. This matter being learned, the Transalgardi were forthwith presented with great praises and also with gifts by the king, and for so remarkable a deed great congratulations were held for them in the camp, and they were honored with a special distinction of military service: who thereafter, in memory of so brilliant a victory, laying aside their old device, which was varied in white and green color, took to themselves from the royal gift a red stag on a blue-gray ground; which was the device of the leader of the Lombards.
[18] from which our Blessed sprang, But that war being finished, and Italy at last freed from the tyranny of the Lombards, Padua began to be rebuilt again, and, immunity being given to the inhabitants by Charlemagne, the city received no small (as we have said) increase both of new buildings
and of people arriving daily. But Transalgardus, following the king, and presented by him with many riches and towns, remained in Gaul; but Carlotus and John were made in the Paduan territory Counts of Mount Merlo and of Mandria and of Sacisca by the same king, with the authority of pronouncing law, and the power of life and death over their subjects. But meanwhile, no small envy having arisen from this occasion, and from envy contention between John Transalgardus and Simon Taddus, who was one of those who had served with him under the same king Charles, since the contention between them could not be settled in any other way than by a duel, it came about that Taddus was overcome by John Transalgardus; wherefore thereafter John and his descendants from the Transalgardi, as though he had brought force against Taddus, which in the common tongue is called sforza, were afterward called Sforzatadi. But Carlotus, a strenuous man, and best known in all Italy, since he too in a certain war was tribune of the soldiers, in order to be distinguished from the rest, had been accustomed in his military service to wear a transverse golden band (as was the custom) over his breastplate, which indeed in Italian is commonly called lista: whence it came about that he was afterward called Capilista, by a corrupted word; whose descendants thereafter, the earlier surname being made obsolete, were called Capilistii, and are so named up to the present day. Then Scardeone enumerates several illustrious men of this most noble family, to whom Jacopo Cagna in his Summary of the Paduan Nobility, page 13 and following, added many others up to the year of Christ 1566.
[19] Even though Scardeone in this place does not expressly reckon Blessed Jordan among the descendants of the Forzaté stock, nevertheless he sufficiently indicates it elsewhere, since in the above compendium of the Acts he surnames him Forzaté, which description Sertorio Orsato, which surname of a renowned lineage is found added to our Blessed also in ancient inscriptions. Wherefore with good right Sertorio Orsato expressly records him among the distinguished Forzatés, when in his Paduan Monuments, page 200, he discourses thus about this illustrious family: Briefly recounting here the origin and nobility of this most distinguished house, it will be enough if I say that the Transalgarda house was divided into families from the surnames of illustrious men after the Roman manner, and was called Forzaté from John, who conquered Simon de Ta, an excellent citizen of Padua, in single combat; whence in rude speech he was called Forzata; and Capilistea from Carlotus, declared tribune of the horsemen by Charlemagne, who wore a golden band upon his garments, commonly LISTA. That this house was distinguished by military men, even under the emperor Charlemagne Augustus, is conspicuous. For there are reported in it Transalgardus and John, gloriously fighting under the aforesaid emperor against king Desiderius, who, presented with the insignia of the captive leader, that is, a stag bearing a rose in its mouth, use these to this day. Whence, not if my mouth should resound with a hundred voices, and many-cleft Phoebus should rush through a hundred breasts, could I recount the illustrious men of this most noble house, adorned with cardinals' tiaras, with patriarchal and episcopal miters, and also with military commands. The glory of Gauslinus Transalgardus, bishop of Padua, lives with the world, on account of his piety and religion toward the church and monastery of the divine Justina, exquisitely repaired and most highly enriched by him. There shines forth the sanctity of blessed Jordan, the Olivetan abbot, who, after the countless things which he performed for the safety of his fatherland in his own most mournful age, by order of Ezzelino, a most savage tyrant, long endured the penalties of a most narrow prison with the highest patience and greatest constancy. His most holy body is venerated in the church of St. Benedict of the nuns, where it is still seen entire.
[20] On the occasion of the above-mentioned Gauslinus, prelate of Padua, Giacomo Cavacio in book 3 of the Histories of the Monastery of the Divine Justina, page 44, at the year of Christ 952, writes thus briefly and elegantly concerning the same noble lineage: and Giacomo Cavacio confirm by their testimony. In Gauslinus, with nobility of family an excellent sanctity shone forth. The Transalgarda family, from which he has his origin, is read to have been distinguished by military men even under the reign of Charlemagne Augustus. There are reported from it Transalgardus and John, who served under Charles against Desiderius, and were presented with the insignia of the captive leader, which they use up to now. Another Transalgardus of the same name, tribune of the soldiers, is read in Ungarellus to have fallen in an honorable death beneath the very walls of his fatherland, chosen by the citizens together with Marsilio da Carrara against the Huns. But those things which are handed down concerning Marsilio in that century are less approved. For the rest, that family, increased with new titles, was carried over even into the Gauls. The same, at Padua called sometimes Forzatea, sometimes Capilistia, everywhere protected its ancestral splendor by virtue and by wealth. The Forzatea has perished in this our time; the Capilistia perseveres illustrious. From this we learn that the stock of the Forzatés is now extinct, the time of whose extinction we reported in passing above, number 10, from the most illustrious Tomasini.
[21] And so from that distinguished family sprang Blessed Jordan, to whose birth the praised Tomasini in chapter 1 of the Italian Life assigns the year of Christ 1158. From the year of his birth, Sertorio Orsato in his Paduan History, which he published in Italian at Padua in the year 1678, part 1, book 4, page 320, agrees with this chronology at the year 1158; but neither cites more ancient witnesses of his assertion. Nevertheless that epoch of his birth seems not improbably to be gathered from the burning of the city of Padua, which Scardeone in book 1 of the work already several times cited, class 2 or page 27, describes thus: A great sedition having meanwhile arisen between Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict the New, and Luscus Transalgardinus, a noble man, so great then became the fury of certain impious followers, that fire, secretly thrown into the house of the opposing faction, devastated the greater and fairer part of the city, so that by that conflagration almost the whole city burned: for it was not yet of brick, as it now is; but almost wholly of wood, compacted with boards and beams, and propped with timbers up to the roof-peak.
[22] and from the time of the burning of Padua Certainly at that time these verses were composed, which for the sake of proving their antiquity I have judged worthy to be inscribed in these our commentaries and handed down to posterity.
The March lamented, that flame burned Padua, Three parts of the city, and the better ones, In the year one thousand one hundred and seventy And also four; and on the fourth of the Nones of March. How many roofs there had been, gather under a certain measure: Six hundred truly, twice a thousand houses fell; Add twice seven; so many gather with reckoning.
From this burning of the city indeed it is worthy to be believed that then perished the memory of almost all the things which up to those times had happened at Padua worthy of record: for above that time, concerning the affairs done or the increase of the city of Padua within nearly four hundred years, from the time when it had been restored by Charles, nothing at all memorable is read; nor does any monument seem to be extant where an older memorial is seen than that of this burning on a certain rough stone, dug up in our age, and placed in a conspicuous spot by the basilica of the divine Cantianus, where is read:
1174: Padua burned.
[23] there arises a chronological difficulty If therefore Blessed Jordan was born in the year of Christ 1158, he had only sixteen years of age when Padua was burned in the year 1174 on account of the disturbances arisen between him and Transalgardinus, as will become manifest to one casting up the reckoning. Nor can his birth be moved back much to earlier times, since he lived up to the year of Christ 1240, and consequently died more than an octogenarian, as will afterward be said. Further, from this arises an intricate difficulty, which Cavacio does not seem to have observed, when in book 2 of the praised work, page 69, at the year of Christ 1174, he writes thus concerning the same burning of Padua: I have said that factions and seditions attacked even sacred men. Take the same as the causes of the memorable fire, by which the wooden city almost wholly burned. Luscus Transalgardinus, the most powerful of the citizens, had increased old grudges with new injuries against Jordan Forzaté, Prior of the monastery of St. Benedict, a man of note. He, although on account of his sacred dignity and the discipline of Religion he did not wish for vengeance, nevertheless had kinsmen who by arms sought to requite the injuries from Luscus. While disasters are inflicted this way and that, a certain attendant of Transalgardinus threw flames into the house of the adversaries, from which, bursting out into the neighboring ones, and advancing with the help of the winds, they swallowed up almost three parts of the city. The vastness of the fire is revealed by the poem reported by Scardeone, namely 2,614 houses consumed by fire. Mention of the same is made in the writer of the finding of Saint Justina, who saw the city burning. The same is had from a rough and ancient stone by the church of Saint Cantianus.
[24] Whoever weighs these words of Cavacio attentively will doubtless conclude from them concerning the Blessed's Religious profession, that Blessed Jordan was Religious Prior of the Benedictine monastery when, on the occasion of the enmities between him and Transalgardinus, the city of Padua was burned. But how, you will say, did a youth of sixteen years preside over the monastery of St. Benedict, or discharge the office of Prior? The most reverend Tomasini strives to loose this entangled knot, when in chapter 2 of the Italian Life he hints that Blessed Jordan was then, in the sixteenth year of his age, titular or commendatory Prior, by which name Priors or abbots of this sort are now called. Mabillon in his Preface to the first part of the third Benedictine century, §7, from number 111, discourses at length concerning secular abbots and advocates of monasteries, and in the same place, number 112, affirms that offices of this sort turned into a dignity, which together with an annual stipend passed to heirs. But similar titles and the emoluments emerging from them were for the most part conferred on noble men, and on the very sons of kings, as could be demonstrated by various examples.
[25] But Lothar alone, the son of Charles the Bald, will suffice for us, and the title of Prior, borne by him, that we may dissolve the proposed difficulty in a twofold way: for since he was still young in age, he was abbot in the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre, as St. Heiric testifies, a contemporary monk of the same monastery, who in the dedicatory letter to Charles the Bald, which we exhibited in volume VII of July from page 221, calls the same Lothar a boy in years, and his own abbot, and in the same place deplores his premature death. Besides, the same Lothar was abbot of the monastery of Réome, as our Pierre Roverius proves in the History of the same monastery, page 93, from ancient monuments, and in the same place in the Illustrations of his history, page 551, asserts against certain persons that he was not a monk or a Regular; but from an old chronicle calls him a cleric, and numbers him among those abbots who bore the title of this dignity in a commendatory or fiduciary sense. If this opinion smile upon the reader, we shall not improbably say that Blessed Jordan was in a similar way Prior of the Paduan monastery, and according to the custom of nobles was called by this honorary title.
[26] But if anyone contend with Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, book 35, number 85, concerning which we propose various conjectures. or volume 3 of that work, page 90, that the said Lothar was a monk, we shall not greatly resist; but let him at the same time remember that Mabillon
writes in book 36 of the same Benedictine Annals, number 35, or in the volume just cited, page 120, that Lothar, abbot of Auxerre, departed from the living when scarcely yet a youth, and in the same place in the following number or page adds these words: After the death of Lothar, Boso bore the dignity of abbot, who under the underage prince had perhaps already discharged the office of pro-abbot. I said that we would not greatly resist this opinion: for by the same right we shall affirm similar things about Blessed Jordan, and shall not undeservedly suspect that the Paduan monks chose this noble Youth as their Prior, because in the great disturbance of that time they expected a more powerful protection for their monastery from his illustrious kinsmen. But if neither of these opinions please, it could at last be said that Blessed Jordan is called by Scardeone, in the narration of the burning of Padua, Prior of St. Benedict the New by prolepsis, because he afterward administered that monastic office there. Certainly none of the ancient authors assigns the time in which our Blessed embraced the monastic life, concerning which and his other deeds we must now treat.
§ III. The monastic life of the Blessed, and his deeds for the safety of his fatherland up to his captivity, are examined.
The ancient monuments of the Acts Since I suspected that perhaps certain ancient and particular Acts of Blessed Jordan survived in the Paduan archive of the Benedictine nuns, I sent a letter to our Father Filippo Riceputi, staying at Padua and known to me from his literary labors, in which I signified that we had nothing at hand for illustrating the deeds of Blessed Jordan except the Italian Life of the most illustrious Tomasini, and at the same time asked that he would not find it burdensome to search out among the nuns older monuments concerning this Blessed. But since that letter had perished, and consequently I had received no reply, after some months I wrote another, to which that most obliging man replied in the month of August of the year 1733 in this manner: The Acts of Blessed Jordan Forzaté which Your Reverence requests, written down in Latin words, perished at Padua long ago. In their place I have collected those which, drawn up in the Italian tongue, the nuns of the divine Benedict, as they say, the New, supplied; for whom the Man of God, while he lived among men, founded a monastery and sacred buildings, where his body is venerated with great religion. I also took care to survey the monuments of the most ancient Forzaté house; then the archives of the Cassinese at Saint Justina, and of the Olivetans at the divine Benedict the Old: but it was possible to find little which the Life of bishop Tomasini, published in print, does not contain. This therefore, long sought and at last obtained, I anxiously dispatch, with some analects, written out by a friendly hand and gathered together with skill. Doubtless that most kindly man, anxiously seeking the Italian Life and transmitting it to us, was unaware that it had long been preserved in our Museum, as I had indicated in my earlier letter, which he had not received.
[28] we searched for in vain at Padua, Then he continues his letter thus: They will not, as I see, match the expectation of the learned. Nevertheless, since they are very similar to those likewise sent from Padua, from which Your Reverence's Elders most excellently composed the Acts of blessed Beatrice of Este, our Jordan's spiritual daughter, under the tenth day of May, I trust they will not be altogether useless for setting forth the deeds of the holy Founder. For the rest, if I had at some time received the letter which, as I understand, was sent to me eight or nine months ago, I should without doubt have complied with it with the same speed as with the last: nor shall I be more sluggish if perchance it befall me again, as I vehemently desire, to render service to such great men in so distinguished a matter. Rightly did that sagacious man judge that those analects would not satisfy the expectation of the learned: for most of these monuments, which we received at the end of the month of November of the year 1733, were collected from more recent authors, or are reported by the most illustrious Tomasini in the Italian Life. Nevertheless the same erudite man rightly trusted that they would not all be entirely useless: for the miracles or benefits which, after the publication of the most reverend Tomasini's lucubration, happened by the intercession of Blessed Jordan up to these our times, will be of use to us, so that we may continue the series of them begun. And so, to the glory of Blessed Jordan, we shall abridge those more recent miracles into Latin from the manuscript Italian book which is preserved at Padua in the archive of the Benedictine nuns, and shall subjoin them below to the more ancient printed ones. Now let us proceed to examine the Blessed's monastic life and his other deeds.
[29] The many times praised and to be praised Tomasini in chapter 3 of the Italian Life hands down and therefore we are compelled to be content with the Italian Life, that Blessed Jordan so perceived from the above-mentioned burning of Padua the transitory vanity of human affairs, that he resolved to send word of dismissal to fleeting things and to embrace the monastic life, and at once committed his purpose to execution. Then in chapter 4 and following he describes his Religious virtues and other monastic exercises so distinctly as if he had beheld all these things with his eyes. Even though we do not doubt that Blessed Jordan exercised very many virtues in the Benedictine Religion, nevertheless we are of opinion that those particular monastic actions were rhetorically embellished by this biographer at his own discretion, and that similar things could probably be related of any holy nursling of the same Order. Certainly none of the ancient writers whose lucubrations have come to our knowledge left to posterity the monastic deeds of Blessed Jordan one by one.
[30] Then the same biographer in chapter 8 confidently asserts that Blessed Jordan, after twenty years of monastic solitude, began to consult for the safety of his fatherland, which subsequently can be reconciled neither with itself which was in peril on account of the internal discord of the citizens of Padua, and that then at his persuasion, the consuls being abolished, a supreme rector of the city was substituted, whom they commonly call Podestà. Nay more, in the same place he adds that first in the year of Christ 1184 Pagano della Torre, a Milanese noble, was chosen to undertake that office, which also he administered with great praise. But these things in the first place do not cohere with the chronology of the same biographer, since he himself hands down above that Blessed Jordan turned his mind to the monastic life only after the burning of the city of Padua, which happened in the year 1174. How therefore could that election of a Podestà have taken place in the year 1184, after Blessed Jordan had passed twenty years in monastic solitude, since from the burning of Padua up to the year of Christ 1184 only ten years had flowed by?
[31] Besides, we cannot reconcile this history and chronology of the Italian biographer with the narration of Bernardino Scardeone, nor with the history of others, who in book 3 of the said work, class 13, or page 270, treating of the illustrious lineage of the Este, has in the same place, to our purpose, thus: But the first who here at Padua from this very family is said to have merited perpetual fame was Obizzo, an illustrious man, who was exceedingly strong both in arms and in wisdom in governing the republic. To him alone first at Padua belonged the supreme power of life and death, which before was wont to be given to the consuls alone: whence he was first called by the people Podestà, and, the consular appellation being wholly antiquated, his annual successors thereafter, established in authority and dignity of this kind, were called by the same name of Podestà. He ruled the city in great concord in the year of salvation one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight, and on that account was again confirmed for a triennium; at which time indeed he pronounced law to his fellow-citizens with the highest kindness and equity, and bore this magistracy with the greatest concord and peace of the whole city. You see that by these words Scardeone attributes to Obizzo of Este all those things which Tomasini ascribes to Pagano della Torre of Milan. Further, the first election of a Podestà, in the narrating of which these two writers conflict with one another, we leave to zealous investigators of Paduan history to discuss further, and we proceed to other matters.
[32] and in which certain things are related, The often cited writer of the Italian Life in chapter 9 sets forth at length how Blessed Beatrice of Este, whose Acts we illustrated at the tenth day of May in our Work, embraced the monastic institute at the persuasion of Blessed Jordan. At least in this assertion he has Scardeone as a supporter, who in book 3 of the Antiquity of Padua, class 6 or page 119, in the eulogy of the same Blessed, relates that she used in that matter the counsel of Jordan Forzaté, Prior of St. Benedict, and of Albert, likewise Prior of Monte delle Vigne, men of great authority and joined to her by the bond of kinship. Perhaps more and more certain things could be said on this matter, if there still survived the Acts of Blessed Beatrice, written by Albert himself, or other ancient monuments, which at the said tenth day of May, in volume 11 of that month, page 598, we desired in vain to see.
[33] which we cannot confirm by ancient testimonies, There follows the tenth chapter of the Italian Life, in which the author copiously discourses concerning the two monasteries, one of which Blessed Jordan built for nuns, the other for monks. On that occasion he also records various lawsuits which after the Blessed's death arose between the nuns and the monks, and which do not regard our purpose. At last he carefully warns us not to number among these two monasteries that of St. Benedict the New, which was built afterward. Whatever be the case concerning the true site of these monasteries, which can more easily be assigned by the inhabitants of Padua, it suffices us, for commending the Blessed's piety, that he built a twofold monastery. But this pious construction of sacred buildings is abundantly proved from the metrical epitaph and other ancient monuments which we alleged in the first paragraph for demonstrating the immemorial cult of Blessed Jordan.
[34] and whose credit therefore we leave with their author. In the four following chapters the most reverend biographer explains how great was the authority of Blessed Jordan, and how public the fame of his prudence, which also came to the knowledge of the supreme Roman Pontiffs, who more than once appointed this man arbiter, when between the Canons of Padua and Arnald, abbot of Saint Justina, a controversy had arisen about electing a prelate of Padua, as Giacomo Cavacio in book 2 of the Histories of the Monastery of Saint Justina elegantly relates at the year of Christ 1214 and 1218. Further, omitting the rather long Latin instruments by which the Italian biographer in chapter 11 proves this matter, we transcribe only the brief decree of Blessed Jordan, which the praised author reports at the end of the same chapter in these words: In the name of the Lord. I, Brother Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict, arbiter, decree and command that the Chapter of Padua elect the bishop of Padua concordantly today, or tomorrow up to the ninth hour, without the Lord Arnald, abbot of Saint Justina. But if it shall not do so, then from that time, in this present election to be made, the aforesaid Lord Abbot shall elect together with the same Chapter. But how greatly the citizens of Padua and others nearby deferred to the counsel and authority of Blessed Jordan, let us now briefly hear from certain contemporary writers.
[35] From Maurisio, Gerardo Maurisio, who was secretary to the tyrant Ezzelino, and consequently is for the most part injurious toward our Blessed, as Ezzelino's adversary, nevertheless betrays his great authority among the people, when among the Writers of Italian Affairs, recently printed at Milan, volume 8, column 38, he records him thus with others: Uguccione Pilio, and those of Camino, and the Paduans, by the counsel of Brother Jordan, by whose counsel the Paduans were wholly ruled, induced the Podestà of Vicenza and the party opposed to those of Romano to contradict
the same Brother John, etc. Then, besides the various contumelies with which this flatterer of Ezzelino attacks our Blessed, in column 48 of the same eighth volume he calls Brother Jordan the author and chief of all the discord of the March. Although these gibes proceed from a hostile mind, nevertheless they indicate clearly enough that Blessed Jordan was strong in great authority among the citizens of Padua. Further, Maurisio toward the end of his history relates the captivity of our Blessed, of which we shall treat below.
[36] Receive meanwhile some testimonies of the same authority from the contemporary Rolandino, and Rolandino, contemporary writers, who in book 2, chapter 17, or in volume 8 just cited, column 197, on the occasion of the Paduan expedition against the people of Treviso, writes thus about the same Blessed more sincerely and more modestly: Yet before they went out of the city, there came certain men from Lombardy, who were called rectors, urging with lord Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict of Padua, in whom the city of Padua greatly trusted, and with other magnates of Padua, that the expedition or army should stay behind. Afterward the same writer in book 3, chapter 9, or column 207 of the same volume 8 among the Writers of Italian Affairs, has these things: The Marquis was then rector and Podestà of Vicenza, elected by the commune of that city and by lord Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict of Padua, to whose judgment Padua and Vicenza then willingly submitted. Finally in book 4, chapter 3, or column 218, he affirms that Blessed Jordan ruled the city of Padua no otherwise than a father of a family rules his own house. We could in this place heap up more testimonies of the same matter both from contemporary and from nearly contemporary authors, whom the most illustrious Tomasini cites; but since those already reported suffice for our purpose, for brevity's sake we pass over all these.
[37] Meanwhile let us continue the examination of the Italian Life, which in chapter 15 hands down besides other uncertain traditions, that Blessed Jordan and St. Antony of Padua were most closely joined in friendship. But its writer strives to prove this from Pietro Ridolfi of Tossignano, who in book 1 of the Histories of the Seraphic Religion, folio 79 verso, in the Life of the said St. Antony, writes the following: He once heard the abbot of St. Benedict preaching certain words of the divine Paul written to Dionysius the Areopagite, on hearing which he seemed for some while to be lifted into the air. But whence did the most reverend biographer know that by "the abbot of St. Benedict" Blessed Jordan is here designated, since Ridolfi does not expressly state that this wonderful raising up of St. Antony happened at Padua? Besides, in the neighborhood of the city of Padua, if it happened there, there were several abbots of the Order of St. Benedict, as could easily be shown. Finally our Blessed is named by the contemporary author whose text we recited in the preceding number, and by other most ancient writers, not abbot, but for the most part Prior of St. Benedict of Padua. But as regards the friendship between our Blessed and St. Antony, from ancient monuments it is established for us only that Blessed Jordan was deputed with others to examine the miracles of St. Antony, as we gather from the bull of Pope Gregory IX, which we exhibited in volume 11 of June, page 724, from Wadding. Nevertheless we do not on that account deny that mutual love flourished between these Saints also while alive; but we require more ancient witnesses of these and similar matters.
[38] The Italian Life in the following chapters commemorates various things we confirm those things which Blessed Jordan bravely performed for the safety of his fatherland, and some of which can be confirmed from ancient writers, as is gathered from the praised Rolandino, who in book 3, chapter 11, or among the Writers of Italian Affairs, volume 8, column 208 and following, writes thus: But the Podestà of Padua and lord Jordan with the councillors of Padua, not well certain what they should do, were holding many councils. At last also sixteen of the greater men of the city were chosen, to whom was given the arbitration and power that in this business of trepidation they should adhere to the sounder counsel. But most of these chosen nobles defected to Ezzelino with enormous loss to their fatherland, as the above-mentioned writer in the same place indicates after a few words: For of the aforesaid sixteen greater citizens of Padua some wrote clandestine and secret letters; they also sent their secretaries as messengers to Ezzelino, that they were ready and able to give him the city of Padua. Indeed, when it was believed that some of the aforesaid sixteen had by night, about the confines of Padua and Vicenza, held several councils with Ezzelino, the Podestà himself, the aforesaid lord Rambert, and lord Jordan, when the Marquis had gone to Este, summoned those sixteen on a certain night; and I, by order of the Podestà, drew up and administered an oath to each concerning the observance of the Podestà's commands in goods and persons: for I then held the office of the seal of the commune. And so the Podestà commanded them under oath that they should present themselves the next day to the Doge of Venice, every excuse being removed. But there was not one of them who observed the Podestà's commands except Count Schinella, who was a wise and discreet man, being already seventy years old, useful to the city of Padua, provident for the future.
[39] which the Blessed performed for the safety of his fatherland. With these things the Italian biographer mixes entire discourses, which Blessed Jordan is said to have delivered to the people of Padua in a prophetic spirit, and which we judge to have been rhetorically composed rather by him than delivered by our Blessed. Even though these particular sayings and deeds of his are unknown to us, we nevertheless gladly confess that Blessed Jordan with certain upright citizens labored strenuously for his perishing fatherland, which also Giacomo Cavacio in book 2 of the Histories of the Monastery of Saint Justina, at the year 1236, page 90, testifies in these words: Several of the best citizens still stood by the Praetor, of whom Jordan and Arnald, zealous for the Republic, kept watch. These especially Ezzelino hated, judging that his affairs would never be safe while they stood. They inveighed the more sharply against the tyrant, and were at hand for the public liberty with resources and counsels. But such was the disposition of the times and of the city that it could be restrained by no reins from going to ruin. Since therefore the blessed Man could not by all his effort avert the impending ruin of his fatherland, he is said by the author of the Italian Life to have completed the begun construction of the monasteries; who also on this occasion discourses about that little rod which wonderfully grew into a cornel tree, as we related at length in §1. Finally the same biographer in chapter 22 asserts that, when Ezzelino entered the city of Padua, Blessed Jordan withdrew to Mount Merlo. Whatever be the case concerning this withdrawal, from ancient writers we know that not long after the surrender of the city of Padua he was treacherously seized by Ezzelino and cast into prison, as will be plain from the following paragraph.
Annotata* in another manuscript is added: Forzaté
§ IV. The captivity and the remaining deeds of the Blessed up to his death, after which his sacred relics were translated from Venice to Padua.
Maurisio, Gerardo Maurisio, whose History was recently reprinted at Milan among the Writers of Italian Affairs, in volume 8 of this collection, column 50, writes thus contumeliously about the captivity of Blessed Jordan: After these things lord Ezzelino, provident and discreet, having discovered that Brother Jordan the hypocrite had conspired with several others against the emperor, wishing to snatch the city of Padua from the hands and power of the lord emperor, sent that same Brother Jordan, seized, to be kept in his own parts until the lord emperor should come. And when the bishop of Padua had been indignant at this, and had come with a very great multitude of clerics and Religious before the same lord Ezzelino, rebuking and reproving him for having been of such great presumption as to lay violent hands upon that same Brother Jordan; he, hearing this, moved with the greatest anger and indignation, unwilling to be despised with impunity by any laymen or clerics to the reproach of himself and of the emperor, took from that bishop on the spot a pledge of two thousand marks of silver, and imposed silence upon him concerning the aforesaid deed: on account of which deed several Religious, as though guilty of the crime, fled from the city. Remember that Maurisio was secretary to Ezzelino, and everywhere opposes our Blessed, as we have again warned above.
[41] Another anonymous writer of the same time, who is commonly called the Paduan monk, and the anonymous Paduan monk in his Chronicle, also recently reprinted among the Writers of Italian Affairs, column 676 of the same volume 8, thus recounts together the betrayal of Padua and the captivity of Blessed Jordan: In the year of the Lord 1237. When the Paduan city was rejoicing in a peaceful state, and was greatly adorned with an abundance of people and strenuous soldiery, and also with riches and glory, the father of betrayals and crimes, namely the enemy of the human race, put it into the hearts of certain magistrates that they should hand it over to the emperor's envoys, and to Ezzelino da Romano, whom the Paduans were wont to detest and to pursue like a wolf. The evil therefore which they had conceived in their heart they perpetrated in deed, suddenly making of a wolf a shepherd of the sheep, to their own and their fatherland's ruin and grievance: for they caused Ezzelino, the enemy of Padua, to come in the month of February, and delivered the city and the people into his most cruel hands. But the people of Treviso, seeing that they had remained as it were alone in the March, were compelled to submit themselves and their possessions to Ezzelino's dominion. The Marquis of Este too, destitute of his friends' help, submitted himself to the emperor's envoys. But after Ezzelino, under the occasion of the empire, obtained the lordship of Padua, at once he destined the nobles of the city with their sons to exile; all of whom he afterward handed over to the most wicked prince Frederick, who, sending them into Apulia, caused them to be kept in harsh prisons and subterranean cages, where for the greater part they miserably perished. Lord Jordan too, whom the Paduans used to call, as it were, the father of Padua, the perfidious Ezzelino bound in prison.
[42] Now let us hear the above-praised Rolandino, an eyewitness, who in book 3, chapter 16, or in the aforesaid volume 8, with the contemporary Rolandino column 214, relates the same unhappy and pernicious entry of Ezzelino into the city of Padua, with another memorable circumstance, in this manner: And so it thus came about that at once on the following day, namely on the fourth day before the end of February, Count Gebhard and Ezzelino with their followers entered Padua peaceably. But many saw, and I in particular saw, that when Ezzelino was entering through the gate of the city from the Meadow, his iron hood thrown back over his shoulder, he bent down from his palfrey to the gate, and gave the gate a kiss. Which certain men then, beholding and interpreting it for good, said: "Behold, since it is not possible for lord Ezzelino to make peace with all the Paduans, for a certainly good omen he has given and gives a kiss to the gates." Then the city was given to Count Gebhard, receiving it in the name of the emperor and in his stead: but in the councils and harangues, in speaking, lord Ezzelino afterward would add and speak; nor did anyone weigh for what cause: for he said it was true that Padua had been given to lord Gebhard for the emperor, and to the emperor's envoys with him. Whence if anything was done
or transacted further at Padua for the commune, they were of no validity, unless they had been done by the counsel and consent of lord Ezzelino.
[43] they relate the captivity of Blessed Jordan, Then the same author in book 4, chapter 3, or in volume 8 of the work just cited, column 217, sets forth the captivity of Blessed Jordan thus: In the above-mentioned year of the Lord (namely 1237, of which he had treated above), but in the month of June near its end, by the command of lord Ezzelino, Bonacursus de Fonzaë with certain other soldiers of Pedemonte, and they with him, went to lord Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict of Padua; and, a certain palfrey being led thither made ready for riding, they said that he should mount the horse and come with them, because lord Ezzelino had something to say to him, and certain business to transact with him. And so he sat upon the horse, and was led that day to Pedemonte, and was detained in prison through lord Ezzelino's camps, and never returned to Padua alive — which up to then he had ruled no otherwise than a father of a family rules his own house.
[44] to which narration the Italian biographer adds many uncertain things. These are all the things which we have been able to find in the ancient authors concerning the captivity of Blessed Jordan, to which nevertheless the Italian biographer has superadded various matters: for besides other circumstances of that captivity, which he had set forth one by one in chapter 23 of the Italian Life, in the following chapter he relates with assurance how the cruel attendants of Ezzelino, who were hurrying Blessed Jordan to prison, saw a heavenly brightness flashing forth from his countenance, and nevertheless persevered in their savagery, except one, who, moved by that divine splendor, fell down at the feet of the Blessed, and most courteously offered him his service. Then in the same place he asserts that the nuns of St. Benedict often came as suppliants to the tyrant Ezzelino for the liberation of their pious Father, but always suffered a rebuff. Finally in chapter 25 of the aforesaid Life he reports various examples of patience and pious admonitions with which Blessed Jordan consoled the other captives. Yet in the same chapter he confesses that the deeds of the Blessed, while he was detained in prison, and many others, were not left to posterity. How therefore does he explain all these things so distinctly, as if he had been present at them? Wherefore we not undeservedly suspect that the most illustrious biographer mixed those pious episodes with the true Acts, that they might be read more pleasantly and more eagerly by the nuns, to whom he had dedicated his Italian lucubration, and for whose sake chiefly he had written the Life of Blessed Jordan in the vernacular.
[45] These things being observed in passing, we proceed to the liberation of our Blessed, The Blessed, freed from prison, which happened in the year of Christ 1239, when the emperor Frederick II came to Padua and other neighboring cities of Italy, as the praised Rolandino in book 4, chapter 11, or in volume 8 of the work just cited, column 228, sets forth in these words: Then (namely in the year 1239, as is clear from what precedes and follows) the lord emperor went to Vicenza, and there held a conference with all the magnates of the March of Treviso, and caused to come to him there lord Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict of Padua, whom Ezzelino had kept at Asolo already for nearly two years imprisoned, and certain other nobles, whom he likewise still kept captive in his Castle of St. Zeno, and likewise at Fonte, and at Asolo and Prata; lord Jordan he gave to the lord patriarch of Aquileia; on this condition, however, made by the counsel of Ezzelino, that he should not come to Padua. Of the others he released some, and some he still left imprisoned.
[46] The now many times mentioned author of the Italian Life in chapter 26 adds to these things flees to Venice, and there met his death, that Berthold, patriarch of Aquileia, then assigned to Blessed Jordan a monastery in that same city of Aquileia, into which the pious Old Man, kindly received, gave himself intensely to the pursuits of various virtues and to the contemplation of divine things. But this sweet quiet of the blessed Man is said to have been disturbed by the envious suspicion of Ezzelino, who feared lest Jordan be recalled to Padua by his friends: for, by the testimony of the same writer of the Italian Life, Ezzelino commanded his attendants to go to Aquileia and secretly kill him. Although these things are not alien from the character of the tyrant, whose enormous crimes of cruelty many historians have painted in vivid colors, nevertheless we have sought this particular outrage in vain in the ancient historians. Moreover the praised biographer in the same place reports that an angel appeared to Blessed Jordan in that monastery, who forewarned him of the impending danger, and urged flight to the Venetian city. But neither did we find that in the ancient writers, as was briefly indicated above, number 15. Nevertheless immemorial tradition, and certain manuscript monuments, affirm that he met his death in the Venetian city, whose uncertain time we shall now try to investigate approximately.
[47] At the beginning of the first paragraph we named in passing several more recent authors which some wrongly affix to the year 1228, who wrongly affixed the death of Blessed Jordan to the year of Christ 1228; to whom, erring, is added Ferdinando Ughelli, when in Italia Sacra of the latest Venetian edition, volume 5, column 444, on the occasion of another Jordan, prelate of Padua, he writes thus at the same time about our Blessed: But Jordan the bishop, after he had very well ruled the church of Padua for fourteen years, filled up his mortality in the year 1228, in which Blessed Jordan Forzaté, a Paduan noble, on the seventh day of August passed to Christ at Venice, for whom, and for the liberty of his city, he had long been macerated in prison by the impious Ezzelino: whose body, afterward brought back to Padua, is honored with the title of sanctity in the church of St. Benedict, where it still lies almost entire; whose Life the learned and most erudite prelate of Aemona, Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, the glory and ornament of his fatherland, published. Even though Jordan the prelate departed from this life in the year of Christ 1228, certainly the same year is erroneously assigned to the death of our Blessed Jordan, since he was first seized by Ezzelino in the year of Christ 1237, and after two years freed from prison by the emperor Frederick, as we have demonstrated above from contemporary writers.
[48] Another year of his death must therefore be sought, which cannot easily be determined: for the most illustrious Tomasini in chapter 28 of the Italian Life asserts that Blessed Jordan died on the seventh day of August in the year 1248, and which certainly must be deferred beyond the year 1239; which was the fourteenth year of his exile, as he expressly adds in the same place. But how do these things cohere with each other and with the chronology of the ancient historians? For by the testimony of the most illustrious biographer himself, Ezzelino first entered Padua in the year of Christ 1237, and in the same year cast Blessed Jordan into prison. Wherefore we do not see how the year of Christ 1248 could have been the fourteenth of his exile, since between the year of Christ 1237, in which the Blessed was first led away from Padua, and the year 1248, in which he is said to have migrated to the heavenly ones, only ten or eleven years elapsed.
[49] even though we cannot assign a certain year for it, But if we should wish to believe the old inscription, which we recited above, number 4, from the parchment codex, the death of Blessed Jordan must be deferred to the year of Christ 1256: for this inscription hands down that the Blessed was an exile for nearly twenty years. If therefore from the year of Christ 1237, in which Blessed Jordan began to be an exile, we count nineteen or twenty years, we shall arrive beyond the year 1256, as is manifest to one casting up the reckoning. But since the most reverend Tomasini and Sertorio Orsato place the birth of Blessed Jordan in the year 1158, the Blessed on this hypothesis would have died nearly a centenarian, which long life among so many afflictions and hardships seems scarcely credible. Besides, it is not very probable that Blessed Jordan survived his captivity by so many years, since he was already of a spent age when he was seized by Ezzelino, as Scardeone testifies above, number 13. Since therefore from contemporary writers it is established that the blessed Old Man was still among the living in the year 1239, and it does not otherwise appear probable that he lived many years after these times, on account of the unknown antiquity of the said inscription, we have cautiously noted in the margin at the beginning of this historical commentary the death of Blessed Jordan as about the year 1240.
[50] nor determine the time when the Blessed's relics were translated to Padua. Also we cannot certainly assign the year in which the sacred corpse of Blessed Jordan was translated from Venice to the city of Padua. Nevertheless the most illustrious Tomasini in chapter 28 of the Italian Life probably judges that that translation happened after the year of Christ 1260: for in that year, after various lawsuits, a division of goods and furniture was made at Padua between the monks and the nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, who up to then had had common possessions. But in that division of goods and furniture, as the praised biographer skillfully observed in the same place, no mention is made of this sacred treasure of relics, which without doubt the monks and nuns would have claimed for themselves in rivalry, or divided among themselves, if it had then existed in that place. Hence we most probably conjecture that that sacred body remained at Venice up to the year of Christ 1260, and after some years was carried to the city of Padua, even though we cannot determine the certain year of this translation. Above, number 9, we reported the present state of that sacred body from an eyewitness. Further, outside the marble chest in which the aforesaid body rests almost entire, and which our Janning describes in the same place, there is preserved in the same monastery a finger of Blessed Jordan enclosed in a silver hand-reliquary, which is often carried to the sick, and is exhibited to the pious kiss of the faithful who flock together, as we learn from the Paduan analects transmitted to us, and as will appear below from the narration of the miracles, which we shall now in the following paragraph render into Latin from the printed Italian Life and from a manuscript Italian book.
Annotata* that is, a helmet thrown back over the horse's shoulder
* that is, addresses
§ V. The miracles or benefits which have happened by the intercession of this Blessed up to our own age, and which we have abridged into Latin partly from a printed and partly from a manuscript Italian book.
Blessed Jordan The most illustrious Tomasini in the Italian Life of Blessed Jordan, chapter 31, confesses that the knowledge of the ancient miracles has perished, and that on that account he could with great labor gather only the more recent ones, which he there relates in Italian, and which we shall now abridge from him into Latin. In the year 1575, in which Padua was afflicted with a horrible epidemic, fire from the direction of the granary seized the monastery of the nuns of St. Benedict with such force that it seemed about to consume everything. Since the ever-growing fire could be extinguished neither by skill nor by water, and had already devoured the buildings near the church, the most reverend abbess Isabella Pigafetta and the other nuns ordered that the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and the body of Blessed Jordan be carried out of the church. Meanwhile the nuns, prostrate on the ground, humbly prayed Blessed Jordan to free the monastery, the church, and his handmaids from this fire. But behold, while the priests approach to open the tomb of Blessed Jordan, the fire suddenly and of its own accord was extinguished.
Around the altar of Blessed Jordan there is seen hanging an ancient votive tablet, in which is represented a woman lying in bed, who, afflicted with a grave illness, devotes herself to Blessed Jordan, and recovers her health. Skilled painters judge that the aforesaid tablet was painted at the beginning of the last century, or about the year 1500.
Near the same altar hangs another most ancient picture, in which is expressed a sick man in bed, who, about to breathe out his soul, after a vow made to the Virgin Mother of God and to Blessed Jordan, is restored to health. Around the bed are painted two persons who pray on bended knees, and commend the sick man to Blessed Jordan.
In the month of August of the year 1540 Sister Helena Forzaté, a nun of the monastery of Blessed Antony the Pilgrim (the Acts of this Blessed our Elders illustrated at the first day of February), who was then staying in the monastery of St. Benedict, oppressed by a grave illness, devoted herself to Blessed Jordan and the other Saints, and at once received her former health.
There exists in the same place an ancient picture representing a certain man lying in bed, who shows a wound on his thigh (perhaps it is a sign of the plague), and who, having invoked Blessed Jordan, obtained his former health.
[52] In the year 1583 Sister Laura Mantova, being sick, and for eighteen continuous years deprived of the use of her hands, to various persons on the feast of St. Scholastica devoutly implored the intercession of Blessed Jordan, and within a short time was healed. The memory of this matter still exists there, and a hanging tablet confirms it.
A noble woman of Padua suffered miscarriage several times, and on that account was afflicted with great sadness. But devoting herself to Blessed Jordan, she afterward happily bore offspring in due time. Of this benefit a tablet, which hangs in the same place, is witness.
In the year 1593 the most excellent lord Ottonello Descalzo, public professor of Law, was dangerously ill. When his daughter Deodata, a nun of the Benedictine monastery, had received this sad news, she fled to Blessed Jordan, and asks health for her dying father. While she prays fervently for him, being caught up in ecstasy, she seemed to herself to hear inwardly the voice of Blessed Jordan or of the angels, who said that his death would be deferred for fifteen years, if this delay pleased her as she prayed. When she gladly consented to this condition, and gave thanks to God, at once her father began to be better, and, restored to complete health, lived after this illness fifteen years more, that is, up to the year 1608.
To Sister Margaret, a nun of the same monastery, in the year 1600 two benefits were conferred: for when by night she was passing a certain place of the monastery, there appeared to her a shade carrying a lighted torch in its hand. Whence she was so greatly terrified that she lost the motion of her left side and the use of her strength. But invoking Blessed Jordan, toward whom she was excellently disposed, within three days she recovered her health to the admiration of all. The same nun, having fallen from a rather high place, so violently injured her head that the surgeon thought it was all over with her life. But she, with the other Sisters imploring the help of Blessed Jordan, within a few days is healed.
When a certain Roman student was accused of having stolen linen in his lodging, the officers pursuing him, he fled to the Benedictine church, where the Reverend Lord Camillus, confessor of the nuns, freed him from the pursuit of the officers. But these were waiting in the neighborhood of the monastery, to seize him as he came out. Meanwhile the young man, being admonished to invoke Blessed Jordan, protector of the wretched and the innocent, with singular affection implored his help, and asked the priest and the nuns to commend him to that same Blessed. Afterward, going out of the monastery toward the gate of the city, he found a venerable man, who gave him courage, and accompanied him for a great part of the way. Thus he returned safe to his fatherland, and indicated this benefit in a letter written to the nuns.
[53] of both sexes, When a certain student of Bologna was laboring under a deadly illness, the Reverend Lord Troilus, a confessor, admonished his mother to have recourse to the intercession of Blessed Jordan; which done, the young man began to be better and to be wholly healed.
Lady Ignatia Zarabella obtained health for two of her household, who were gravely ill, after she had commended them to Blessed Jordan, and had given them certain blessed cornel-berries (concerning this prodigious cornel tree and its health-bringing fruits we treated in §1).
A certain woman, laboring in childbirth for three days, with a Rosary hung about her neck which had been made from the wood of the aforesaid cornel tree, at once happily brought forth her child.
A certain Mary, dwelling in the village of St. Nicholas, was sick unto death from trembling and delirium; but when the bystanders had clothed her in an undergarment which had been marked with the relics of Blessed Jordan, at once the trembling ceased, and within a short time the woman returned to a sound mind. The son of the same Mary fell upon an iron rake, and drove his thigh onto the teeth of the rake. When his father saw this, from sadness and stupor he did not dare to lift his son up or to draw out the iron. But the boy cried with a loud voice: Blessed one, who healed my mother, help me also. Then he drew himself out from the iron, and within a short space of time recovered from the wound.
When Marietta, an inhabitant of the same village, had injured her arm, and for three months had suffered almost continuous pains, at her husband's persuasion she came to Padua, and there had herself signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan, and shortly obtained health.
In the year 1613 lady Peregrina de Bevilaqua became entirely deaf. Wherefore, coming to the church of the Benedictine nuns, she reverently and devoutly prayed Blessed Jordan that she might be freed from this trouble. As soon as the priest touched her with the relics of that same Blessed, at once she received her hearing. The same lady, in the month of September of the year 1623, being agitated by a weakness of the nerves and a continual trembling of her limbs, and especially of her head, again commended herself to Blessed Jordan, and, signed with his relics, was at once made possessed of health.
When Battista of Limena in the year 1621 had lost the use of his arms and legs, being carried to the altar of Blessed Jordan, and signed with the sacred relics of that same Blessed, he recovered.
[54] At the beginning of May of the year 1623 a certain man, by name Menegozzo, who had fled with great confidence afflicted with a very great fever, implored the patronage of Blessed Jordan, and, taking the powder made from the said cornel tree, was restored to health.
Santino Dianino, a cleric of the cathedral church, oppressed by a continual fever, commended himself to Blessed Jordan, and by the aforesaid powder of the cornel put the fever to flight.
While Elizabeth Balda, an inhabitant of the village of Camino, was laboring under a fever, commending herself to Blessed Jordan, she was at once healed.
Sister Aurora Panega, a nun in the monastery of St. Matthew, laboring under a fever, commended herself to Blessed Jordan, and, the aforesaid powder of cornel being taken, obtained her former health.
Clara Fasina, a nun in the same monastery of St. Matthew, was so gravely sick that she was in present danger of death, and had been given up by the physicians. But when she had had her undergarment signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan, and had taken the aforesaid powder of cornel, she recovered from the illness.
Prudenza Cittadella, a nun of the monastery just named, oppressed by a fever, commended herself to Blessed Jordan, and, the powder of cornel being devoutly taken, without any other medicines put the fever to flight.
Romana Pavanella, a nun of the same monastery, was suffering so grave a pain that she could not move herself. But being commended to Blessed Jordan, and signed with his relics, she received her former health.
When Felicita Brugnara, a nun of the often-mentioned monastery, had fallen into a fever, devoutly imploring the patronage of Blessed Jordan, and taking the aforesaid powder, she was at once freed from the fever.
In the month of February of the year 1624 Elizabeth of St. Vitalis, dwelling in the parish of St. Clement, was vexed in various ways by a demon, so that, fixed to her bed, she could in no way move herself. But when her friends had commended her to Blessed Jordan, and had had her shift signed with the relics of that same Blessed, wrapped in it she at once began to suffer very many pains, so that she tried to cast it off; but being compelled by the bystanders to keep it, within three days she recovered, nor thereafter did she feel any pain or infestation of the infernal enemies.
While in the year 1624, on the twenty-sixth day of May, Angelina, daughter of Lorenzo Furlani, tortured with arthritic pains, was being commended to Blessed Jordan, and was being signed with his relics, on the third day the illness vanished.
At the beginning of September of the year 1623 Maria, wife of Pietro de Tomasi, was afflicted with the greatest pain in her right hand. Wherefore she visited the church of St. Benedict, and there, commending herself to Blessed Jordan, was at once freed from all torment.
In the year 1600 Lucrezia Seluni and her little five-year-old son, so crippled in their limbs that they could not move themselves, recovered the use of their limbs, after they had devoted themselves to Blessed Jordan.
In the middle of the month of May of the year 1628 Giovanni de Angelis, a Florentine, almost reduced to madness, and imploring the intercession of Blessed Jordan, returned to a sound mind.
[55] to his patronage, In the year 1629 Giovanni Columbatto, a paralytic, on a certain night fervently commended himself to Blessed Jordan, and on the following day ordered himself to be carried in a chair to the church of St. Benedict. There, signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan, he began the following night to take rest, and on the second day, being carried to the church, he asked to be signed again, and began to move all his limbs with little or scarcely any pain. At last, giving thanks to the Blessed, and signed a third time with the same relics, he returned home on foot.
In the same year Sister Claudia Panizzola, a nun of the same monastery, having suffered apoplexy, lost the light and the motion of her eyes. Afterward, various remedies being applied, she received the use of one eye, the other meanwhile remaining closed. At last, seeing that natural remedies profited her nothing, she fled to the intercession of Blessed Jordan, and, a vow being made, the other eye was wonderfully opened, and thus with great astonishment of all she recovered the perfect use of her eyes.
When in the month of June of the year 1631 the plague had invaded the city of Padua (above, §1, number 10, the same most illustrious author hints that the plague began to rage at Padua in the year 1630), the monastery of the nuns of St. Benedict was divinely preserved from the contagion: for although many persons who were laboring under this contagious disease, and afterward died of it, associated familiarly in the monastery, nevertheless the same disease touched none of the nuns. Nay more, the nuns had twice received the Eucharist from their own priest, who was already infected with the plague and afterward died of it, and had ministered food and other necessaries to him in his sickness with their own hands. Besides, various persons of both sexes who served the monastery, and with whom the nuns had familiarly associated, perished of the pestilence. Wherefore the nuns not undeservedly ascribe to the singular patronage of Blessed Jordan that none of them was infected with this epidemic disease.
At the time of the same plague many took leaves of the above-mentioned cornel tree, and, placing them on the wound or on the place most affected, obtained health. Wherefore those healed offered to the Blessed silver and waxen votive offerings in token of a grateful mind, as Sister Camilla of Campo San Pietro and all the other nuns testify.
At the aforesaid time of the pestilence Veneranda, wife of Bartolo Tobiolo, who dwells in the district of St. Sophia, infected with this contagious disease, was suffering pain of the head with a very great fever. Wherefore
she applied certain leaves of the said tree to the swelling, and, commending herself to Blessed Jordan, fell asleep, and, the swelling having burst, within a short time she fully recovered.
Caterina Pizata, wife of the nuns' gardener, infected with the same epidemic disease, received on the vigil of the feast of Corpus Christi from the abbess of the monastery, who was called Candida, some leaves of the aforesaid cornel, and on the following day found herself healed.
[56] or had commended themselves to the same Blessed, A certain sailor, by name Battista, had lost the use of his arm, and was suffering continual pains. But when he found no remedy for this evil, for three days he visited the tomb of Blessed Jordan, and on the third day obtained health. Wherefore, offering the gift of a silver arm, he confirmed the credit of this benefit.
Augustine, a cooper of Padua, contracted in his limbs, and enduring the greatest pains in his side, went about supported on crutches. But when he had been three times signed with the sacred relics of Blessed Jordan, and had had a Mass celebrated in honor of that same Blessed, he at once found himself well.
While in the year 1646, on the third day of March, lady Julia Galatea, a noblewoman of Udine, was vexed by demons, after exorcisms a Rosary of the wood of the aforesaid cornel was hung about her neck, and, the patronage of Blessed Jordan being implored, she thereafter remained free from the infernal spirits.
Giacomo Tofan, bound with arthritic pains, lay in bed for six months, so that he could not help himself with his hand. But when the nuns had commended him to Blessed Jordan, and had sent him certain berries of the aforesaid tree, he began to be better: which he himself perceiving, resolved to visit the altar of Blessed Jordan in a small carriage, and after two days went to it supported on a staff, and shortly received perfect health. And this happened in the year of Christ 1648.
When Antonio Maria Gasparino had for a long time not used the Sacrament of penance, he fell into a grave illness, and, commending himself to Blessed Jordan, at once felt great sorrow for his sins, and conceived a burning desire of confessing them. And so, a priest being called, he obtained the grace of Sacramental absolution. But at the time when the priest was absolving him from his sins, the dishes fell of their own accord from their cupboard onto the pavement of the chamber, which most of the bystanders suspected to have been thrown down by a demon. But the sick man himself, after a short sleep, asserted that he had been led by a demon to the way of hell; but that Blessed Jordan with St. Prosdocimus and St. Justina had hindered his being led further, and had obtained for him from God the salvation of his soul. Wherefore he called his wife, and ordered her to have a candle with some coins carried to the tomb of Blessed Jordan.
Domenico, a sailor dwelling opposite the Benedictine monastery, and laboring with the plague unto death, commended himself with his wife to Blessed Jordan, and shortly obtained health. These are the miracles and benefits which the most illustrious Tomasini published in Italian, and to which I have thought one or two admonitions should here be subjoined. First of all I have interpreted the Italian collector of miracles to the glory of the Blessed as best I could, since I was ignorant of the certain signification of certain words. Thus, not knowing whether those Italian names Battista Barcaruolo and Agostino Bottaro were appellatives or proper names, I took them for appellatives. If anything has been mistaken here or elsewhere in my interpretation, let those impute it to themselves who, being more skilled in their own vernacular tongue, could easily have supplied me with these things in Latin. Besides, I have followed the series of miracles as I found it, even though they are sometimes placed in an inverted order of years, as will be plain to one considering it. These things also I would have the reader admonished of concerning the following miracles or benefits, wrought by the intercession of Blessed Jordan, which I shall now translate into Latin from the aforesaid manuscript Italian book.
[57] Carola of Campo San Pietro, a Benedictine nun, by a certain fall had so gravely injured the spine of her back conferred various benefits, that she could not move herself. When she had commended herself to Blessed Jordan, and had fallen asleep, there appeared to her a Religious man, clothed in a white garment, and on the following day in the morning she began to be better, so that she entered the choir to hear Mass, and publicly credited this benefit to that same Blessed.
When Sister Leonella Bodoera in a certain recreation had contracted too much heat, she felt her throat swollen together with the greatest pain. Her sister Marina, understanding this, encircled her neck with a Rosary, and commended her to the patronage of Blessed Jordan; which done, the sick woman fell asleep, and shortly was healed.
In the year 1650, on the twenty-sixth day of July, Maria Maddalena Lia, a Paduan nun in the monastery of St. Matthew, over the space of twenty years was rather often afflicted with a most difficult disease, which the physicians judged to be asthma. After she had implored the intercession of Blessed Jordan, she felt herself freed from so grave an evil, and sent a votive tablet on which this miracle was painted.
Sister Angelica Celeste Silvatica procured for her father Count Aloysius various benefits by the invocation of Blessed Jordan, and in diverse illnesses experienced this Blessed as favorable. But while she herself was tortured with violent arthritic pains, she applied a Rosary made from the wood of the aforesaid tree to the afflicted part, and suddenly felt no small assuagement of the pain.
When Sister Clara Tergolina was afflicted with a most grave pain of the eyes, which were entirely closed, her sister applied her Rosary to them, and commended her to the patronage of Blessed Jordan. Then at once she began to be healed, and in a short time recovered the perfect faculty of seeing.
Domenico Agostino by the invocation of Blessed Jordan obtained a twofold benefit: for when his son was sick, and had been signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan, he fell peacefully asleep, and afterward, waking, said: Father, I am better; Saint Jordan has healed me. Besides, he experienced the same Blessed as beneficent toward his nephew, oppressed by a grave fever, who implored the help of Blessed Jordan, and, having confessed his sins, was suddenly better. Wherefore on the following day he visited the altar of that same Blessed, and was freed from the fever.
Domenico de Luca in a certain sudden madness struck his wife so gravely on the neck that she fell lifeless to the ground, and much blood flowed out from the wound. When she was held by all for dead, there came up a countryman, who had received many benefits from blessed Jordan, and persuaded the bystanders to devote her to Blessed Jordan. Moreover he asserted that shortly they would see that she was not dead. Wherefore all, falling on their knees, made a vow of visiting the altar of Blessed Jordan, and further promised that they would see to it that a Mass be celebrated in his honor. In the space of three days the woman recovered without any medicine, and fulfilled the vow.
[58] and to many sick persons, Sister Beatrice of Campo San Pietro, among other favors which she obtained from blessed Jordan, felt his singular help when at a certain time she was vexed throughout her whole body with great arthritic pains: for when the nuns had betaken themselves to the church to receive the sacred Eucharist, she, compelled to remain in bed, commended herself to St. Dominic and Blessed Jordan, and asked from them that she might enjoy the health she desired. Then she seemed to herself to hear a voice saying: Clothe yourself in your garments. Wherefore, taking her habit, she came down from her bed. Meanwhile her aunt Camilla returned from the church, and found her sitting in her chamber, and wishing to go to the church to be present at the sacrifice of the Mass. But the nuns at first were unwilling to permit this, and only after a repeated insistence consented to her petition. But when she was making her way to the church, she seemed to herself, as she went, to be aided and supported by these two Saints. The Mass being finished, she received entire health, and returned to her chamber. The same Beatrice at another time, suffering a huge pain of the heart, and commending herself to Blessed Jordan, offered a silver heart, and at once began to be freed from this torment.
Lady Countess Polissena Porto of Vicenza, wife of the noble lord Marsiliano Papafava of Padua, by the intercession of Blessed Jordan escaped the greatest distresses, after she had commended herself to that same Blessed, and had eaten a berry from the aforesaid tree. And a little juice of that fruit seemed to her to be carried to the afflicted part of her body, and to put the disease to flight. Whence she, for the sake of a grateful mind, offered to Blessed Jordan a silver heart, and had a Mass celebrated in his honor.
Paolo Vesentin, a sacristan, vexed in his hand by a certain swelling (this Gorraeus in his Definitions and other physicians call a ganglion), anointed the affected hand with the oil of Blessed Jordan's lamp, and, commending himself to that same Blessed, felt no pain, even though that swelling was twice cut by the surgeons. Similarly his mother-in-law, by the intercession of Blessed Jordan, in whose honor she had had a Mass celebrated, was freed from an unforeseen and deadly evil.
When the Reverend Lord Giovanni Maria Riello was near to death, he commended himself to Blessed Jordan, and ordered some Masses to be offered together with a silver votive offering. Then, at once freed from the illness, he visited his altar with the greatest devotion, which he preserved all the time of his life.
A certain soldier, oppressed with a most grave fever, asked for berries of the said tree, and, commending himself with living faith to Blessed Jordan, at once rose from his bed sound. And these berries are commonly used against fever, and are sought by many.
Giulio Celin, the gardener of the monastery, had a little son of four years, who was almost always sick, and on account of his continual infirmity could not walk. When his father had promised to clothe the boy in the Benedictine habit, and had had him signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan, at once the boy was freed from the illness, and began to walk aright.
Lord Giovanni Marinoni, a Venetian merchant, who had a brother laboring under a fever and a dangerous flux, hearing of the continual benefits which Blessed Jordan conferred on his clients, commended the sick man to Blessed Jordan, and offered to that same Blessed six candles; and his brother, at once restored to his former health, he led with him to the altar of Blessed Jordan, and ordered a Mass to be celebrated in honor of that same Blessed.
When lady Paola Dotto, wife of the noble lord Francesco Vigodarzere, suffered a miscarriage three months after conception, she was brought into the utmost peril of life and given up by the physicians: but having recourse to the intercession of Blessed Jordan, she escaped death, and in the year 1684, on the fourteenth day of April, came together with her husband to the altar of Blessed Jordan, to give thanks to that same Blessed.
[59] While in the year 1683 Francesco Caloccio, an attendant of the most eminent Lord Gregorio Barbarigo, suddenly and wonderfully had been brought to the last peril of life and abandoned by the physicians, the patronage of Blessed Jordan being implored, he at once recovered, and visited the altar of his Patron, to render him thanks for the health received, and to be present at the most sacred sacrifice of the Mass. In a like manner the little daughter of the same Francesco, now already dying, escaped the pressing peril of death, when she had been clothed in a shift which had been signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan.
In the year 1695, on the thirteenth day of January, Giovanni Battista Bettini, a Venetian, was seized with so great an inflammation of the bladder that the persistent evil eluded all the industry of the physicians, and the sick man emitted blood in place of urine. When the physicians and surgeons despaired of his safety, at his wife's persuasion he fervently commended himself to Blessed Jordan, and at once, opened
the urinary vessels, he obtained perfect health.
Giovanni Pietro Petrobelli, oppressed by a deadly fever, which a flux and delirium accompanied, suddenly recovered health after he had been signed with the relics of Blessed Jordan.
In the year 1694 it happened that a farmer was carrying grapes, as is wont to be done at the time of vintage, with oxen yoked to a cart, to the monastery of the Benedictine nuns. But when one of the oxen, being rather fierce, tried to shake off the yoke, it so twisted itself that it drove its horn most violently into the belly of the other ox. Whence the latter, laid low on the ground, could not rise, and from the blow a swelling soon grew to the size of a boxer's bag. A certain nun pitied the farmer on account of the loss of the ox, and, seeing that the other natural ointments profited the animal nothing, ordered some leaves of the aforesaid tree to be placed upon the swelling. At once that swelling vanished, and the ox, to the admiration of all the bystanders, rose up sound, as if it had received no injury.
In the year 1727 Valeria Montina, a Benedictine nun, fell to the ground with such force that her head was believed to be shattered. But she was unwilling to apply any remedy to so great an injury save a few leaves of the aforesaid cornel, and the powder of the same tree, and in that manner she was perfectly healed. When also by another accident she had injured the same part of her head, by a similar remedy she recovered health. Afterward the same nun was again twice freed from an atrocious pain by the intercession of Blessed Jordan.
In the year 1730 the most expert lord Cadorino, a physician, had a horse whose leg was so affected that the evil seemed incurable. Since the wife of that physician was most devout toward Blessed Jordan, she ordered a few leaves of the cornel to be applied to the leg, and the horse returned to its former gait and vigor.
In the year 1730, on the tenth day of July, in the choir of the Benedictine nuns a fire arose so voracious that within a short space of time it consumed twenty-four seats and some furniture. A certain lay Sister, seeing so sad a spectacle, commended the monastery to Blessed Jordan, and threw a certain branch of the now often-mentioned cornel into the flames. Soon the fire stopped, and was extinguished with a single bucket of water, to the admiration of all who had run up to bring help. Further, that branch remained unharmed, and for the perpetual memory of the matter was hung in a transparent case near the altar of Blessed Jordan.
[60] restored their former health. In the year 1722 there arose a flood which threatened great ruin to many places, and especially to the mills of the monastery of the nuns. Then the reverend Sister Anna Maria Marinelli, Prioress of the monastery, ordered three berries of the aforesaid tree to be cast into the river, and commended the happy outcome of the matter to Blessed Jordan. Soon a great tree was torn up, which stuck crosswise before the mills in such a way that no damage could be inflicted upon them.
In the year 1730 lady Vittoria Begiata was long tortured with such pains in one arm that she could in no way rest. The torment not ceasing, it was judged that the arm must be cut off; but she, commending herself to Blessed Jordan, ordered a linen cloth signed with the Blessed's relics to be applied to the evil, and, sleeping peacefully for three hours, obtained complete health.
Two countrymen, afflicted with the falling sickness, visited the altar of Blessed Jordan, and, the berries of the often-mentioned tree being taken, were so restored to health that that evil never returned.
The Procurator of the Canons of St. Salvator had so injured his shin that the surgeons could bring him no help by any remedies. And so he has recourse to the patronage of Blessed Jordan, and, applying to the wound the powder and leaves of the aforesaid cornel, received health. Wherefore, to show a grateful mind, he orders each year a candle or lamp to be lit in honor of the same Blessed.
In the year 1732 the daughter of the noble lady Countess Borromeo, a little girl of seven years, who together with another most grave illness was suffering a great fever, within a few days was given up by the physicians. A certain Religious woman, standing by her bed, gave her an image of Blessed Jordan, and piously urged her to implore the help of that same Blessed. The little girl placed that image upon her breast, and fell asleep. But when she had awakened, she felt an assuagement of the illness, and, gradually recovering, regained entire health.
When Sister Maura, a lay sister in the monastery of St. Benedict, was busy in the kitchen, a large spit unhappily fell with such force that with its point it not only transfixed the nun's foot, but also pierced the sole of her shoe. At once she was affected with such great pains that she was compelled to betake herself to bed. Nevertheless, applying to the wound the often-mentioned leaves of the cornel, she obtained entire health.
Sister Margaret, a lay sister of the same monastery, had so injured her breast that it was altogether black, and she endured great pains. In the evening she commended herself to Blessed Jordan, and, praying, fell asleep, and sweated copiously. Waking in the morning, she felt herself free from pain and entirely sound.
A certain woman, accustomed to suffer miscarriage, had brought forth four or five dead children. But when in her sixth childbirth she felt most grave pains, and was again in danger of miscarriage, there was hung about her neck a Rosary made from the wood of Blessed Jordan's cornel, and at once she bore a child, which, although premature, nevertheless survived until it had received the grace of baptism.