Amadeus

ON BL. AMADEUS, CONFESSOR, OF THE ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS,

AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA.

In the year 1482.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Amadeus, confessor, of the Order of St. Francis, at Milan in Insubria (Bl.)

BY G. C.

§ I. The lawful cult of this Blessed is shown, and his sanctity is vindicated against Bzovius.

The yearly memory of this blessed Man is celebrated among certain more recent Menologists, Concerning the present cult of this Blessed, Arturus, Hueber, among whom Arturus a Monasterio at the day X of August announces him in his Franciscan Martyrology in these words: At Milan, of blessed Amadeus the confessor, who, most illustrious for his royal blood, and for the austerity of his life, and for his highest virtues, shone with so great sanctity that he both gave a beginning to the congregation of the Amadeans, and shone with the gift of prophecy and of miracles. Then in the notes he summarily reports his deeds, and, very many writers being cited who have made mention of this Blessed, he there has the following concerning his immemorial cult: Distinguished therefore by these and other virtues, when he had gone to Milan to visit the aforesaid Convent of Peace built by himself, there, twenty-two years being completed from his conversion in this praiseworthy life and penance, in the year of Christ 1482 he was taken from among the living and restored to the heavens, illustrious for miracles both before and after his death; whose body lies honorably laid up in the midst of the greater chapel. The mantle of that same blessed Father is preserved in the sacristy, which is opportunely present to women in peril in childbirth: and there exists a well dug in the first cloister by that same blessed Amadeus, whose water, drawn with devotion, drives away fevers. Fortunatus Hueber in the Franciscan Menology follows Arturus, and brings forward like indications of lawful cult.

[2] To these Pietro Paolo Bosca, Pietro Paolo Bosca, archpriest of Monza, adds his testimony, who in the year 1695 published the Martyrology of Milan, when on the fourth of the Ides of August he thus announces the same Blessed in it: At Milan, of blessed Amadeus the confessor, illustrious in family and in virtues, who there instituted the Order of the Amadeans, a monastery being built at the church of St. Mary of Peace, where he fell asleep in the Lord. But then in the notes he subjoins this in the same place: The church of St. Mary of Peace Morigia praises in the Sanctuary; but blessed Amadeus, the Franciscan Martyrology, and together with it all the writers in

the notes of that same work cited, to whom add Giussano in the Life of St. Charles, book 2, chapter 14, Merula in the Sanctuary of Cremona, Valeriano Madio in the Synopsis of the Clerks Regular of St. Paul, and Carlo Gregorio Rosignoli of the Society of Jesus in the Life of the Countess Ludovica Torelli, part 1, chapter 10. In this church, beside the high altar, is an altar dedicated to blessed Amadeus, and there today his relics are exhibited for the kiss of the faithful.

[3] The things hitherto related concerning the public cult of Bl. Amadeus are confirmed by the answers which we lately received from Milan: for from them we understand that the aforesaid Blessed died at Milan in the Convent of Peace, and that there his body lies hidden beneath the ground. and the Minorites of Milan bear testimony But the inhabitants of that same Convent, being asked concerning the sacred relics of Bl. Amadeus and his yearly festival, answered that no other relics remain with them save his tunic and hair-shirt, and that they yearly celebrate the feast on the X day of August at the altar dedicated to him, where his statue, exposed, is honored. Moreover they add that they once began to dig to uncover the Blessed's body; but that, terrified by an unexpected whirlwind and other portents, they desisted from the work begun. Lastly, from the continuous tradition of their predecessors they assert that Bl. Amadeus was buried with a book, on whose cover these words are written: It shall be opened in time. This tradition is corroborated by the true likeness of blessed Amadeus, which under this title Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano exhibits in book 2 of the Histories of the Seraphic Religion, folio 156, and which we, on the credit of this author, represent in smaller form as the true likeness of our Blessed.

Here you see that the said words "It shall be opened in time" are written on the cover of the book, which perhaps contained the genuine apocalypse of Bl. Amadeus. But if that book was buried together with the Blessed, as the tradition of the Milanese Franciscans holds, we not undeservedly suspect that the copies of similar lucubrations which are everywhere current under the name of Bl. Amadeus are fictitious or spurious. But of these we shall treat more fully below.

[4] For the rest, concerning the ancient and hitherto persevering cult of this blessed Man, Luke Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1482, number 43, on occasion of the burial of Bl. Amadeus hands down the following: together with Wadding and our Vasconcellos, On the next day, the body being carried into the church, so great a multitude of people suddenly rushed in that for three days the body lay unburied. Meanwhile all handled his face and hands, and tore his habit and cord into relics, acclaimed him a saint, and admired the miracles which he wrought. His obsequies being solemnly celebrated by the clergy, by Religious of divers Orders, by the Conventual Friars of the monastery of St. Francis at the Vercelline gate, and by the household of St. Mary of Peace, at length he was buried in a wooden coffer before the altar of the greater chapel, where he honorably rests, and many votive tablets are hung up at his sepulchre, and lamps are lighted. His image and name are in great veneration; his mantle and other remains are carried to the sick not without the fruit of a hidden power. Our Antonio de Vasconcellos in the Anacephalæoses of Lusitania, page 525, adorns the same Bl. Amadeus with a brief eulogy, which on the following page he thus concludes to our purpose: He died at last in the esteem of wonderful sanctity. At Milan, where he lies, he shone after death with many miracles, and is looked up to as one of the number of the Heavenly Ones, and is invoked for obtaining the benefits of God.

[5] We know not what moved Abraham Bzovius the Dominican whom Bzovius last carps at; to insert this whole eulogy of our Vasconcellos into the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1471, number 38, and then there to carp at it in these words: These things Vasconcellos in the description of the kingdom of Lusitania concerning Amadeus; but how consistent with himself, how with others, let others judge. Certainly, to omit other things, what he wrote of the death of Amadeus, the Observant Minorites themselves, who dwell at Rome at the house of St. Peter in Montorio, seem to impugn, since near their church they show his sepulchre; where there are neither any miracles, nor any invocation, nor such indications of sanctity as Vasconcellos records. But let others consider these things. Since it so pleases Bzovius, let us consider them, and defend the common opinion concerning the sanctity of Bl. Amadeus, which Bzovius by this his censure not obscurely calls into doubt.

[6] In the first place Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1482, at the number just cited, thus refutes this very censure of Bzovius: but this censure is convicted of error by Wadding, It is strange what Bzovius writes and objects against the sanctity and veneration of Amadeus, namely that the Observant Minorites who dwell at Rome at the house of St. Peter in Montorio show near their church the sepulchre of Amadeus, where there are neither any miracles, nor any invocation, nor such indications of sanctity as Vasconcellos (who namely had written of him) records. I know not on what credit or on what foundation these things can be asserted. I myself, having stayed six years in that monastery, never at any time perceived this to be dreamed by anyone; nor does it seem probable or credible, since it is ascertained and manifest to all that he lies in the aforesaid church of Peace at Milan. We do not see what can be opposed to this testimony of Wadding.

[7] Wherefore Francis Harold in the Epitome of the Annals of the Order of Minors at the year of Christ 1482, number 9, demonstrates the public cult of Bl. Amadeus, by Francis Harold, and, resting on the same foundation, at the same time there thus confutes Bzovius: The body being unburied for three days, with a great concourse and veneration of the people, to which he responded with great miracles, the secular clergy, Religious of divers Orders, and his own Friars, both Conventual and Observant, solemnly celebrated his obsequies; and at length in the same church of St. Mary of Peace they buried him in a wooden coffer before the high altar, where, on account of the miracles by which he succors the distresses of the wretched, many votive tablets and lighted lamps are hung up: against which, by a bold fiction, Bzovius objects to the sanctity of this Servant of God, that the Observant Minorites who dwell at Rome at the house of St. Peter in Montorio show the sepulchre of Amadeus in their church, where there are neither any miracles, nor any invocation, nor such indications of sanctity as Antonio de Vasconcellos records, who in his Lusitanian work writes of Amadeus: whereas indeed nothing of the kind ever came into the mind of the Observant Religious of that monastery; which it was easy for Bzovius, writing at Rome, to ascertain more certainly, if only he had had a zeal for truth. But such and so great are the indications of Amadeus' sanctity, that the things which are written of him might abundantly suffice for his canonization.

[8] and he is convicted of error by Marcos of Lisbon, Moreover Marcos of Lisbon in the Portuguese Chronicle of the Order of Friars Minor, book 6, chapter 30, or in part 3 of that work, page 179, expressly asserts that Bl. Amadeus died at Milan in the monastery of Peace, and was there buried in the midst of the greater chapel, and that there his statue exists with rays about the head in that manner in which the images of the Blessed are wont to be represented. Certainly Bzovius could have unlearned his error from Marcos of Lisbon, whom he cites in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1471, number 37, and from whom in the same place he abridged in Latin the Portuguese eulogy of Bl. Amadeus, or he ought to have withdrawn credit from this author. But he seems tacitly to embrace this latter part of the disjunctive proposition, when at the place just cited, after the eulogy of Bl. Amadeus abridged from Marcos of Lisbon, or the Latin summary of the Acts, he thus warns the reader: These things Marcos, a domestic writer, concerning his own Amadeus, part 3, book 6, chapter 30.

[9] and by the testimony of two contemporary writers If Bzovius did not believe the domestic or more recent praisers of Bl. Amadeus, he might at least safely have given credit to foreign and contemporary writers, among whom Donato Bossi in the Chronicle which he published at Milan in the year 1492 thus briefly makes mention of our Blessed at the year of Christ 1482: On the same day blessed Brother Amadeus of the Order of St. Francis dies at Milan, and is illustrious with many miracles both living and after death. You see here that the Man of whose sanctity Bzovius doubts is called blessed by a contemporary author and Milanese advocate, and is said to be illustrious for miracles. Now let us hear Raffaele Volaterrano, who probably knew Bl. Amadeus at Rome, and in whom, in book 21 of the Urban Commentaries, or folio 241 verso of our Basel edition, among other illustrious men of the Franciscan Order there is reckoned Amodeus the Spaniard, whom, says Volaterrano, I greatly observed: he obeyed only the General, in other respects like the rest of the Observants, and instituted a certain third family, and raised several monasteries beyond the Po, and then in the city of Rome, after that manner. But he himself walked barefoot, clad in a single tunic; he ate bread and water once a day after the ninth hour, immediately after the Sacrifice, which by the concession of Pope Sixtus he deferred. Two hours after this he gave to hearing those who came to him, the remaining time to divine prayers, tarrying beneath a cave of the mountain. So two contemporary writers, whose testimony we prefer to the criticism of Bzovius.

[10] From all which has been related in this paragraph, and by other arguments we conclude most probably that Bl. Amadeus is not comprehended in the decree which is reported in volume 5 of the Roman Bullary, page 92, and by which Pope Urban VIII in the year 1625 determined that the images of any men whatsoever deceased with a reputation for sanctity or martyrdom (however great that be), and the other things aforesaid, and whatsoever else bearing and indicating veneration and cult, should not be set up in oratories or in public or private places, or churches, both secular and Regular, of whatever Religion, Order, institute, Congregation, or Society, before they be canonized by the Apostolic See or declared Blessed, and (if any have been set up) should be removed, as he commanded them at once to be removed. … At the sepulchres of these men he also forbade and prohibited that tablets and images of wax or silver, or of any other material whatsoever, whether painted or moulded or carved, should be hung up or affixed, and that lamps or any other lights whatsoever should be lighted, without a review to be made altogether by the Ordinary, as above, and to be referred to and approved by the Apostolic See.

[11] Who, further, would believe that the Franciscans after so solemn a prohibition of Urban VIII would persevere in the cult of Bl. Amadeus, the lawful cult of Bl. Amadeus or that the most vigilant prelates of the church of Milan would have suffered it, unless that Blessed were excepted from this decree, which the praised Pontiff there further explains, declaring that by the above he neither wills nor intends to prejudice in any way those who are venerated either by the common consent of the Church, or by an immemorial course of time, or by the writings of the Fathers and of holy men, or by the knowledge and toleration of the Apostolic See or of the Ordinary through a very long time. Then the same Pontiff in another decree which he published in the year of Christ 1634, and which may be read in the same volume 5 of the Roman Bullary from page 283, sets forth what he had before meant by an immemorial course of time, in these words: Moreover, we have declared that the very long time, or its immemorial course, of which in the aforesaid decree, is to be understood to be a time exceeding the limit of a hundred years. Hence therefore we gather

that Amadeus was held for Blessed from immemorial time, or beyond a hundred years before the decrees of Pope Urban VIII, since Donato Bossi already from the year 1492 adorns him with the title of Blessed, and that admirable Man was immediately after his death honored with the accustomed honors of Saints or Blessed, as will appear more clearly below from the contemporary collector of his Acts. Therefore at last we are of opinion that this Man, illustrious for miracles, can safely, the decrees of Urban VIII being unharmed, be inserted into our Work.

[12] In this opinion we are greatly confirmed by the authority of St. Charles Borromeo, is vindicated against Bzovius. who, besides other most prudent decrees which regard the cult of the Saints, in volume 1 of the Acts of the church of Milan, page 94, determined the following: Let the bishops diligently observe in all things, even in the churches of Regulars and other exempt churches, the form handed down by the sacred synod of Trent for approving new miracles and receiving new relics. Nor indeed let them suffer, the cause not being examined by themselves and proved in writing, that an altar be therefore erected, or any images be adorned beyond custom, or vows or offerings be hung up, or anything new at all be done in that matter. But because it commonly happens that by the concourse of the crowd and the clamor of the people something is published abroad as a miracle or a sacred Relic which in truth is not so, let them take the greatest pains, when such an occasion shall present itself, piously to withstand those first clamors of the crowd, until the truth of the matter be lawfully proved and established. But who could persuade himself that these and like most prudent constitutions, which St. Charles Borromeo with the unanimous consent of the bishops promulgated for the lawful and becoming cult of the Saints in his fourth provincial council, were neglected in the very city of Milan by the president of that same council and the most vigilant governor of the diocese of Milan? If Bzovius had attentively considered all these things, he would doubtless have passed a milder censure on Bl. Amadeus, whose sanctity he perhaps more confidently called into doubt on account of certain writings which are current under the name of this Blessed, and of which we must now discourse.

§ II. An examination of the books or opuscula which are current under the name of this Blessed.

The Blessed wrote a book, Most of the more recent bibliographers hand down that Bl. Amadeus committed certain revelations of his to writing, and everywhere call that book the New Apocalypse. Among others Wadding, treating of the Writers of the Order of Minors, thus reviews that work of the Blessed together with his eulogy: Amadeus the Lusitanian, sprung of the noble family of the counts of Vila Real, entered upon the institute of the Minors in Italy, and lived with such virtue and sanctity that he founded a pious and numerous congregation of Friars of many monasteries in distinct provinces, which from his name was called that of the Amadeans. Most dear to princely men, especially to the Duke of Milan and to Sixtus IV, the Supreme Pontiff, whose confessor he was; he performed many things usefully for the salvation of his neighbors, and, wholly intent upon prayer and contemplation, he received many and wonderful revelations from God: of these he wrote a whole book, whose title is The New Apocalypse. The copies of this book are innumerable; but corrupt, and swarming with many errors, of which we have at large warned the reader, and we have distinguished the author's Life through its years in the sixth and seventh volumes of the Annals. These volumes of the Annals we shall consult below.

[14] which Vasconcellos, Raynaud, Among the various writers who acknowledge the interpolation of that same Work, there occurs our Antonio de Vasconcellos, when in the Anacephalæoses of Lusitania, page 526, after the eulogy of Bl. Amadeus, he thus judges of his writings: He was enlightened with many revelations from God, which were gathered into a not small volume composed in the Latin tongue; but that book, being adulterated by the artifice of impious men, lost that its first authority. To him add Théophile Raynaud, another writer of our Society, who in the Hagiology of Lyons in our work, page 242, passes such judgment upon those same written revelations: It is to be lamented that the streams of the Spirit with which the garden of blessed Amadeus was watered have not flowed pure to us, as is candidly declared in the Chronicle of the Minors, and as Cornelius a Lapide, Adam Tanner, and James Hautin also noted: for the revelations of blessed Amadeus are infected with strangeness of doctrine and with falsehoods; of which kind are the things which are now read in them concerning certain foolish demons laboring under dullness of wit; concerning angels created in the empyrean heaven long before the movable heavens and the earth; concerning the sun created on the first day of the world; concerning prime matter, produced on the same day and marked with the name of earth; concerning the body of Adam created by three angels. Everywhere the opinions of Scotus are laid down as heavenly oracles in those same revelations, such as they now are; so that on that account a weighty man did not hesitate to say that the angel of blessed Amadeus was a Scotist: for by no new example the interpolators, while they set sail for the honor of their Order, infect pure waters with a muddy admixture, which happened here. Yet the revelations themselves, as they had been written out by blessed Amadeus, stood forth unclouded and pure of stain.

[15] Moreover our Cornelius a Lapide in his Commentaries on the Apocalypse of St. John, on occasion of the seven Spirits Cornelius a Lapide, which are there recorded in chapter I, verse 4, thus discourses concerning Bl. Amadeus and the lucubration ascribed to him: Further, that the names of the seven angels already reviewed were divinely revealed to Bl. Amadeus, a man illustrious for sanctity, miracles, and prophecies, I have read in the Chronicles of the church of St. Mary of the Angels cited a little before, and that this happened about the year of the Lord 1460. The same Pietro Galatino testifies, book 2 on the Apocalypse, chapter 8. This Amadeus was of an illustrious Portuguese family, who, kindled with the love of God, despising all riches and estates, at the admonition of St. Francis embraced his Order, and instituted that reformation of it which is called of the Amadeans. Whence by the Portuguese he was called blessed Amator, by the Italians blessed Amadeus. Hence being chosen and taken by Pope Sixtus IV as his confessor, he obtained from him the Golden Mount, commonly called Montorio, where St. Peter is said to have been crucified, and there built a monastery of his Order: of whose sanctity and revelations the Chronicles of the Order of St. Francis have much, part 3, book 6, chapter 30; where nevertheless they add and warn that these do not exist pure, but that in them various things have been added by various persons. I diligently sought them at Rome, found them, read them through, and found that it was so. I found the names of the seven angels the same which I recited a little before; but I also there read some paradoxes plainly suspect of falsity, as that the angels were created with the empyrean heaven long before heaven and earth; that the earth at the beginning of the world was created as prime matter; that light was created at the beginning of the world, and therefore that the sun was created not on the fourth, as Scripture says in Genesis I, but on the first day of the world; that at the beginning the primum mobile and the heavens of the planets were created, and therefore that there was a huge intermediate void, which was filled on the second day, on which the crystalline heaven was created; that the body of Adam was formed by three angels, etc. Add that the opinions of Scotus (who was a Minorite, as Amadeus also was) are everywhere inserted in them as though oracles, so that not without cause a weighty man said: The angel of blessed Amadeus was a Scotist.

[16] When above the Chronicles of the Order of St. Francis are cited by our Cornelius, and the Franciscan writers there is to be understood the Chronicle of Marcos of Lisbon, who in part 3, book 6, chapter 30, denies that book of revelations, as it is now said to exist in various places, to Bl. Amadeus. With him agree most of the Franciscan writers, among whom Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano in the Histories of the Seraphic Religion, book 2, folio 156 verso and at the beginning of the following, has this: Further, blessed Amadeus, an example of virtue and a rule of sanctity to the Roman curia, was enriched by God with very many graces: for in a certain cave near the Janiculum of the City on the Golden Mount (as has been said) he had many revelations from God; namely concerning the creation of the world and of the angels, concerning the fashioning of Adam and his fall, concerning the glory of paradise, concerning the state of the Roman Church; for he wrote a huge book, which was corrupted by some with feigned images and fictions, so that it is no longer Amadeus'.

[17] acknowledge that it has long since been interpolated. But that interpolation or corruption must needs be old enough, since the most eminent Thomas de Vio Cajetan, who entered the Order of Preachers in the year 1484, in his Commentaries on the Summa Theologica of the Angelic Doctor, 2. 2. question 174, article 6, carps at the revelations of Bl. Amadeus in these words: In the answer to the third objection of that same argument, note well against the new prophets, and especially against a certain Amadeus, who, as they say, published a book endeavoring to introduce a new doctrine of those things which regard the mysteries of the Christian faith, and against his followers and their like: for all such are here condemned by the author, when it is said: There have not been wanting in each age men having the spirit of prophecy, not indeed for bringing forth a new doctrine of faith. He does not say, not indeed a new faith, but a new doctrine of faith; so that not only those bringing forth a new faith, who, even if they were angels from heaven, are excommunicated by Paul the Apostle; but those bringing a new doctrine of faith are far from the Church and from the prophets; as if they taught that there ought to be another rite of the Sacraments than that which the Church commonly observes, or if they should add other things to the Gospels or to sacred Scripture as though a part of sacred Scripture; or if they should call lawful certain acts unlawful according to the doctrine of faith, etc. I would have it observed that the most eminent Cajetan in this place does not assert that the book of revelations was published by Amadeus; but by the phrase "as they say" he sufficiently indicates that he hands this down only from the report of others, because he had perhaps heard it from his rivals or detractors, of whom Bl. Amadeus was not free even while living, as will become manifest from his ancient Acts to be published below.

[18] Yet Bzovius many propositions of this book For the rest, Bzovius in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1471, number 39, thus more sharply attacks the author of the published revelations: Concerning the volume of the Apocalypse, readers who have observed the uniformity of style, the theme of the argument, the order and manner of treatment, the unbroken and ungaping series of narrations, and who have compared the more recent copies with the most ancient and almost the very autographs, in the Vatican, Altemps, Sforza, Augustinian, Escorial, and other libraries, have found no egg more like an egg than the identity of the copies of the Amadean Apocalypse, from which they have taken these things worthy of note, and have wished, distributed into three classes, to set them before the world, that they might show that the author or violator of the book was indeed a notable heretic, a pseudo-prophet, and an impostor; but the book most worthy to be burned with flames by public judgment. That annalist by this manner of speaking signifies that he rather inclines to believe that Amadeus was the author of this book. Wherefore in the same place he excerpts several propositions from that work, and marks them with a sharp censure.

[19] Then Bzovius, very many propositions

being severely examined, laboriously and sharply attacks, at the same year of Christ 1471, toward the end of number 41, thus concludes his censure: These things the pseudo-seer. I omit other trifles, fables, fictions, ravings, blasphemies, heresies, errors, the dreams and impostures of a man ill at leisure, not only to be laughed at but even to be execrated; which if Amadeus feigned and wrote, let the judgment rest with all whether Sixtus IV would have used such an impostor, forger, heretic, and pseudo-prophet for sacred confessions, and for the offices of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but especially for defining matters of faith, as some will have it. He might also have appealed to the judgment of all and asked of them whether such an impostor and heretic is rightly held for Blessed. But from contemporary witnesses it is established that Pope Sixtus IV made use of the services of Bl. Amadeus, as we shall see below in the ancient Acts. Moreover in the preceding paragraph we showed that Bl. Amadeus obtained public cult at Milan from immemorial time. Wherefore Bzovius from these principles would rather have inferred that Bl. Amadeus was not that pseudo-prophet, nor committed such blasphemies and heresies to writing. Certainly this consequence could have been much more probably deduced from the immemorial cult of Bl. Amadeus, and from the common reputation for sanctity which he had obtained even with Pope Sixtus IV.

[20] Whence Arturus a Monasterio, praised above, in the notes to his Franciscan Martyrology at the day X of August, §5, thus complains of Bzovius' rigid judgment: which others explain, or would have to be spurious. From which I would have thee observe with what impunity Bzovius in volume 18 of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1471, §36 and following, attempted in every way to cavil at him, but wrongly, since there is no one who does not see that the writings of Bl. Amadeus himself were corrupted by his rivals or by lying men, as the aforesaid authors, Marcos of Lisbon, Gonzaga, etc., skillfully observed. Pedro de Alva y Astorga of the Order of Minors, in volume I of the Virginal Library, page 662 and following, not only complains of Bzovius' criticism, but also laboriously refutes his sharper censures, and strives to defend certain propositions of Bl. Amadeus, or denies that they are found in the copies seen by himself. Similarly Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1482 from number 50 explains in another sense and endeavors to defend some assertions of this book which Bzovius had struck at with a sharp censure. But to me those authors seem to quarrel about shadows, since most confess that certain rival impostors foisted this book upon Bl. Amadeus, or at least that the work of Bl. Amadeus was so corrupted by them that it can no longer be known what the blessed Man truly wrote in it. Wherefore it is not worth the labor, nor does it please us, to transcribe at length the arguments of either side, or to reduce their reasonings to a summary, and to give our own opinion of them.

[21] More therefore does the judicious judgment of Wadding please us, But the judgment of Wadding pleases us, which to his disputation (which he seems to have undertaken by way of exercise, as they commonly say) and to Bzovius' criticism he subjoins in the Annals of the Minors at the same year of Christ 1482, from number 62, in this manner: More mildly and more clemently ought these matters to have been handled, nor ought the shade of a man otherwise most commended, and adorned with worthy eulogies by approved writers, to be so exasperated. But such is Bzovius' zeal in matters of faith, that with all this acrimony he thought that a book, the seed-plot of so many errors, must be got rid of. I praise his zeal, and commend his fervor for retaining the right faith; but either I question his credit in the things which he reported, or I would demand greater diligence in examining what he received. He says at the beginning of this invective that these things were taken from others; and I could wish that they had been more diligently weighed by Bzovius. It is not my zeal or desire to defend the book, or to thrust it upon others, which at its very birth or abortion I could wish had been suppressed; but I would wish consideration to be had for the fame and virtue of Amadeus, unworthily traduced. Certainly this is not his Work, nor the offspring of an upright or learned man, but the fiction of some chimerical and ill-employed Scotist, who by these rank revelations wished to win greater authority for the chief opinions of his school. Whence not undeservedly a certain weighty man in the aforesaid Cornelius said: The angel of Bl. Amadeus was a Scotist. For he so runs through the chief mysteries of faith that in the explanation of each he always prefers the opinions of Scotus, and descends to the pettier disputes of theology, nay even of philosophy and logic, and prefers the formal distinction of the Scotists to the distinction of reasoned reason handed down by the divine Thomas. Of notions in the Persons and of signs in God there is with him no end.

[22] who candidly confesses, It has certain paradoxes, many false things, very many less probable, which nevertheless it feigns as oracles received from an angel. His angelic Shepherd he everywhere inculcates, to the weariness and nausea of readers; he declares that he was already then born, and seen by himself, that he would soon sit in the See of Peter after the third or fourth Pontiff from Sixtus, who then reigned, and he falsely prophesies that he would hand down many articles of faith, and would add very many things to the divine Letters and the sacred Gospels. These indeed are not the fictions of Amadeus, a plainly holy man, nor revealed by an angel. To the few things which the angel foretold him concerning the future state of the Church, the reformation of morals, the change of kingdoms, and which he bade to be written down by Francesco Biondi, prepared by the Lord for this (for Amadeus, as he himself confesses in the book, was a simple and unlettered man), others added a farrago of outlandish opinions, and pieced them together in such order that you cannot easily discern what belongs to the violators and what to Amadeus. And this is the judgment of many. In this place he alleges the testimonies of several writers who judge this Work corrupted, and whose words we have already exhibited above.

[23] and by various arguments shows, Then he there thus pursues his reasoning: They report that Amadeus committed the book, closed and marked with seals, to the keeping of his fellows. And indeed Mariano relates that by Domenico Grimani, Cardinal of the title of St. Mark, protector of the Order, and by Bernardino Carvajal, Cardinal of the title of Holy Cross, it was after many years first opened, read, and copied out; and that Bernardino, too well pleased with and flattering himself, easily believed from certain things contained in the book that he would be the next Pontiff, and therefore rashly and unwisely gathered the conventicle of Pisa, most famous for the audacity of madmen, against Julius the second; but, being cast down from his rank by Julius, was exposed to the laughter and contempt of all, and was derisively called by all Pope Andrew, although afterward he was restored by Leo X to his former honor. Of this conventicle of Pisa consult Odorico Rinaldi, Spondanus, and our Labbe, and other writers of ecclesiastical history, who have committed to writing the rashness, deposition, and repentance of this Bernardino Carvajal.

[24] that this book was long since so corrupted, Meanwhile let us hear Wadding, who there thus proceeds: Already then the book began to be published and to be defiled with insane additions; wherefore many things scattered among the people under the name of Amadeus made his credit and virtue to totter. Whence Cajetan (we omit his words, here also alleged, because we reported them above), a writer of nearly that time, on the report of others rejects this book. … Then this codex, increased with new additions, came forth greater than itself but weaker in credit, and accordingly obtained little authority among judicious and learned men, but very much among the unskilled and those itching in their ears. Brother Francis of Montepulciano, a man otherwise learned, austere in habit and food, going forth from the hermitage of Monte Gargano, rashly foretold many things throughout Tuscany out of this book, which the vicar of the archbishop of Florence compelled him in that city to retract: grieving that he had been so deluded, a few days after his palinode he departed this life. Brother Bonaventure of Subiaco, prophesying like things from the same source, died shut up at Rome in the castle of St. Angelo. Others besides dreamed many things for themselves out of the same book. It is strange that in his Life, written by his companions, there is no mention of this book.

[25] These things concerning the doctrine of Amadeus I have thought should be explained at greater length than is my wont, so that it cannot be discerned what in it truly belongs to Bl. Amadeus, lest on account of a spurious offspring and an apocryphal work a truly good Man should suffer a grave loss of reputation. I have also added what I myself thought of the book, lest anyone should think that it pleased me, which I judge should altogether be suppressed; not because it contains those errors and heresies which Bzovius, receiving them from others, copied out, but because it is not expedient to commit certain strange opinions, wavering doctrines, and false prophecies to the itching curiosity of the unskilled, and to subject them to the judgment of certain persons not very piously minded in ecclesiastical matters. From this reasoning of Wadding, and from the other arguments hitherto related, we conclude that that spurious or corrupted Apocalypse in no way stands against the sanctity of Bl. Amadeus. It now only remains that we treat briefly of a certain other lucubration which is wrongly ascribed to Bl. Amadeus.

[26] Henry Willot in the Athens of the orthodox of the Franciscan Fellowship, page 25, and rightly denies another opusculum to him. and certain other authors attribute to this our Bl. Amadeus certain homilies on the most blessed Virgin Mary; but several learned men deny them to him, and most probably ascribe them to Amadeus the Cistercian, who in the XII century was raised to the see of Lausanne. Nevertheless Pedro de Alva y Astorga, praised above, in the Virginal Library, volume I, page 727 and following, after this most probable opinion of many authors, still doubts which Amadeus composed those homilies, and therefore published them in the same place under the name of both, or rather of one or the other. To us it seems we must without doubt stand by the judgment of Wadding, who among the Writers of the Order of Minors, page 16, thus roundly pronounces on this little question: Henry Willot attributes to him (namely to Bl. Amadeus the Franciscan, of whom he there treats) homilies on the Blessed Virgin, which are not his; but of Amadeus, from a Cistercian monk bishop of Lausanne. If anyone desires to see more of this matter, let him consult Charles de Visch in the Library of Writers of the Cistercian Order, page 19, who there gathers from several authors the eulogy of bishop Amadeus, and claims the aforesaid Homilies for him.

§ III. The eye-witnesses of the Acts, their ancient collector, and the narration of certain more recent writers differing from these, are examined.

A contemporary anonymous writer, Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1464, number 30, reviews in this manner the various authors who briefly or fully collected the deeds of Bl. Amadeus: At this time blessed Amadeus the Lusitanian flourished in Lombardy with very great virtue and many prodigies, whose Life his fellow-countrymen Marcos of Lisbon and Antonio de Vasconcellos wrote; greatly abridged, and too different from that which his disciples handed down to posterity — George of Valcamonica, James of Marignano, John the German, Giles of Montferrat, Bonaventure

of Cremona. These, his chief and longer-standing companions, by common counsel put together his Acts, each supplying those things which either they themselves saw or received from their Master. This Life, mutilated, written in an old character, we received from the Convent of Peace at Milan, where his body rests. Translated from the Latin tongue into Italian, Bartolomeo Cimarelli published it entire and faithfully, by whose work it has been possible to fill up some gaps of the copy sent to us. In what things the Portuguese authors, and those recent, differed from those ancient and domestic witnesses, I shall note in passing. It is our mind also to compare among themselves those matters (Wadding omitted some) in which the more recent writers differ from the ancient monuments, after we shall have given an account of the old Ms. Life.

[28] of which we have a transcript, Our Elders in the year 1669 received from the Roman Convent of the Irish Minorites the manuscript Acts of Bl. Amadeus, to which Papebroch prefixed with his own hand this note: Brother Francis Harold took care of this from a Ms. of the Convent of St. Isidore at Rome, written in an altogether fading character, 1669. But this transcript, which is the only one we have, is written so faultily and barbarously that we have been compelled often to supply or emend it, the substance of the matter nevertheless being preserved, as we shall observe in the Annotations where it shall seem worth while. But this faulty transcription of the codex is by no means to be imputed to the most learned Harold, who supplied us with that copy, but to some unskilled copyist, who perhaps did not know the difficult characters of his prototype, and was not sufficiently versed in the Latin tongue. Yet we do not wish to attribute all the faults to this copyist, since the ancient Writer of the Acts himself seems to have been more skilled in the Italian than in the Latin tongue, as will appear below from the mere reading of these Acts.

[29] gathered the Acts of the Blessed from eye-witnesses, Further, the anonymous writer of these Acts was contemporary with Bl. Amadeus, and besides those things which he himself had seen, he gathered the deeds of the Blessed from eye-witnesses; as in the prologue and often in the course of the narration he affirms. That collector seems to have been of the Order of Minors or of the congregation of the Amadeites, since in the prologue he says that he committed the deeds of Bl. Amadeus to writing that he might do a pleasing thing to divers persons, and to those, he says, who have also deserved well of our Religion. But he wrote these Acts after the death of Pope Sixtus IV, since, on account of the mitigated abstinence of his Blessed, he speaks thus at number 4 of that Pontiff: Yet for seven years or thereabouts immediately preceding his death, by the order and mandate of our most holy lord the Lord Sixtus, by divine providence FORMERLY Pope, the fourth, he used wine and other foods. And so from the adverb "formerly" we gather that these things were written by him after the year 1484, in which Sixtus IV departed from among the living. Nor yet is this lucubration of the anonymous writer to be deferred to many years after the death of Sixtus IV, since in the prologue he says that he writes the Life of a man who died in the preceding years, and the last miracle which he reports at the end of the Acts was wrought by the intercession of Bl. Amadeus in the year of Christ 1486, as will appear from the Acts to be published below. Let these things said suffice concerning the old biographer, whom on account of his simple manner of writing and the testimonies of those whom he names we judge most worthy of credit.

[30] Bartolomeo Cimarelli of the Order of Minors had this author before his eyes which others translated into the vernacular tongue; when he published entire and faithfully the Life of that same Blessed, translated from the Latin tongue into Italian, as Wadding praised above testifies in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1464, number 30, where, to designate this lucubration of Cimarelli, he cites in the margin the Chronicle, part 4, book 3, chapter I and following. Doubtless by that citation Wadding indicates the fourth part of the Chronicles of the Order, following upon the first three composed by Marcos of Lisbon, which in his Work on the Writers of the Order of Minors he attributes to Cimarelli, and affirms to have been printed in Italian with Venetian types in the year of Christ 1621. Even though this fourth part of the Chronicles is not at hand to us, yet that defect will easily be supplied by the Italian Life of Bl. Amadeus, separately composed by the same Cimarelli, which we have from the Venetian edition of the year 1619. Certainly Benignus Fremaut, a Belgian writer of the Order of Minors, near the end of the Acts of Bl. Amadeus which he collected in Flemish in his Work on Franciscans illustrious for sanctity or virtue at the day X of August, assigns Wadding and this same Venetian edition of the year 1619 as his chief guides. At least both these vernacular Lives will be able to be of use to us, that we may from time to time correct the dislocated names of persons and places in our faulty transcript, or the more easily understand them.

[31] For the rest, both these vernacular writers at the beginning of the Acts followed the Portuguese but these, and certain Portuguese writers, and other more recent authors, who relate some peculiar things concerning the stock of Bl. Amadeus and his deeds, of which our ancient collector of the Acts was ignorant. We know not whence the Portuguese first drew them, among whom it will here be useful to hear our Vasconcellos, who in the Anacephalæoses of Lusitania, page 525, adorns Bl. Amadeus with the following eulogy: Let blessed Amadeus close this distinguished band, born in the second place from Rodrigo Gomes da Silva, prefect of the citadels of Campo Maior and Ouguela; and from Isabel de Meneses, who had for father Pedro de Meneses, Count of Viana, and first duke of Ceuta, founder of the house of Vila Real, and brother of Diogo da Silva, first Count of Portalegre, under whom as tutor king Manuel hung up the bull. That John was called from his mother's surname Meneses, and cherished certain stolen loves, on account of which he withdrew into Italy at that time in which Eleanor, daughter of Edward of Portugal, given as wife to the marriage bed of the emperor Frederick III, was crowned with him at Rome.

[32] Here a divine light shone upon John, and brought him to the knowledge of painted and fleeting glory. and among them our Vasconcellos, Therefore, sending a farewell to the world, but not wholly blotting his old loves from his mind, he wished to be called Amator (Lover). Yet the Franciscans, whose institute he approved, by a corruption of the word, or from an expression of the truth, named him Amadeus (Love-God): for so he transferred himself wholly into the love of God by the assiduous use of prayer, that he ascended to the highest perfection, and, his Superiors consenting, he cultivated the solitary life, having obtained from the Supreme Pontiff a chapel near the Vatican, which has its name from the divine Peter in Montorio, where it is the constant report that the head of the Apostles was fastened to the cross. Here for many years he passed a heavenly life, built up with the utmost austerity, on account of which he was both dear to the Supreme Pontiff and venerable to the senate of the purple Fathers. Some years after this, out of reverence for him, Isabella queen of Spain, wife of Ferdinand the Catholic, erected in that same place a famous monastery for the Franciscan Fathers. Then he briefly mentions his writings, his happy death, and his public cult, all which we reported above from this author.

[33] who is corrected by our Raynaud, Our Théophile Raynaud at page 241 and following of the Hagiology of Lyons praised above carps at some things in this Vasconcellian eulogy in these words: A divine light shining upon John, he sent a farewell to the world, and wished and entreated to be enrolled among the Friars Minor, taking the name of Amator. Was it because he had been an improvident lover, and, about to wipe away with a pure love the youthful license given to less pure loves, he wished to have an incentive to penitence continually sounding through that appellation? Or because he had it fixed thenceforth to be a lover of God? Either pleases; but Vasconcellos displeases in the description of the kingdom of Lusitania, where, treating of the examples of the Portuguese Saints, he refers the name of Amator, given to himself by John at the entrance upon his new life, to his former loves, not wholly shaken from his mind. This I do not admit. Yet the Minorite Fathers, the ambiguous name of Amator being cast aside, wished him to be called Amadeus.

[34] concerning the Blessed's baptismal name, To us neither the opinion of Vasconcellos nor of Raynaud pleases here, since our ancient Acts at number 8 expressly assert that the name of Amadeus was wonderfully imposed upon this blessed Boy at baptism, as Wadding also hands down, and Harold, who, the later of the two, in the Epitome of the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1464, number 16, abridged Wadding in this manner: Amadeus was born in Portugal, his father being Rodrigo Gomes da Silva, first Duke of Ceuta and founder of the most noble house of Vila Real, and at his very baptism he was called by this name Amador, most usual among the Portuguese, an angel of God, who appeared in the habit of a pilgrim, so persuading. For the rest, of his stolen or unlawful loves, which Marcos of Lisbon also and certain other more recent writers record, our ancient Acts are deeply silent. Nay rather at number 10 we read in them that Bl. Amadeus left untouched a most noble wife whom he had married in the eighteenth year of his age, when he was about to serve in a certain Spanish war.

[35] Raynaud at the place just cited more rightly refutes another error of Vasconcellos, whom they wrongly call John, when he there proceeds to write thus concerning Bl. Amadeus: But after some time spent among the Friars, being touched with the love of solitude, he asked from the Pontiff the faculty of building a chapel in that place in which St. Peter laid down, not his head (as Vasconcellos says), but his life for Christ, being fastened to a cross. The name of that place commonly is St. Peter in Montorio, whereas it ought to be said ON THE GOLDEN MOUNT. There Amadeus led an angelic life on earth, most acceptable to the Pontiff and to the Roman curia. Some years afterward Isabella, wife of king Ferdinand the Catholic, out of reverence for blessed Amadeus and to promote the veneration of the Prince of the Apostles there crucified, built a notable monastery for the Franciscan Fathers. More concerning this Roman monastery of the Franciscans may be seen in the most illustrious Gonzaga in the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, part 2, page 179.

[36] and hand down some things concerning his noble lineage. The same Vasconcellos, discoursing of the noble stock of Bl. Amadeus, Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1464, number 31, thus corrects: Amadeus had for father Rodrigo Gomes da Silva, prefect of the citadels of Campo Maior and Ouguela; for mother Isabel de Meneses, daughter of Pedro de Meneses, Count of Viana, first Duke of Ceuta, founder of the house of Vila Real. Vasconcellos says he was born in the second place, but the Portuguese Peerage of Pedro, Count of Barcelos, a work hitherto exceedingly desired, lately printed at Rome at great expense by the care and generous auspices of Manuel de Moura, Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, the most prudent and most pious envoy of Philip IV to Urban VIII, our distinguished benefactor, excellently deserving of letters, especially genealogical, says in the fourth. Marcos of Lisbon and the Peerage assign him as own brother Diogo da Silva, first Count of Portalegre; but by a plain error Vasconcellos makes him Amadeus' great-uncle.

[37] We do not dare to settle this genealogical suit, since the contemporary biographer candidly confesses contrary to, or unknown to, the ancient writer of the Acts, that the determinate stock of Bl. Amadeus was unknown to himself and to others in Italy, when in the Acts below in our work at number 5 he writes thus: His lineage in the region

was not known in that region, nor made plain to strangers; because he himself, while he lived, although he was most urgently asked about it by many, never took care to make his lineage known: which many judged that he did for this reason, lest, if he had declared his family, which, so far as could be perceived from conjectures, was most noble and very illustrious, he might be marked with the crime of arrogance or boasting. From these words it is clear that the noble lineage of that Blessed, which the more recent writers everywhere assign, cannot be determined by us or confirmed by ancient instruments. Yet we do not therefore deny that his determinate nobility could have been discovered afterward, when after his death the Blessed shone with a public reputation for sanctity and with miracles. Wherefore we only require older testimonies of this lineage, which the more recent writers do not allege, and we leave that care to the learned Portuguese, who at this time diligently apply themselves to illustrating the history of their fatherland.

[38] Certainly this Blessed belongs to the Spaniards or the Portuguese, [although from this it is established that Bl. Amadeus was by fatherland a Spaniard or Portuguese,] on the testimony of our contemporary biographer, who in the Acts at number 5 just cited thus continues his narration: But since from his speech he could not conceal his origin, as was related to him [*] by some of his familiars, he sometimes confessed with the greatest difficulty that on his father's side he was a Castilian and Spaniard, and on his mother's side a Portuguese. Then the same biographer reports various conjectures which the men of his time made concerning the nobility of Bl. Amadeus. But since from those conjectures nothing certain can be established of his fatherland, and from the testimony of the contemporary author the Blessed had a Spanish father but a Portuguese mother, we are still ignorant whether he was born in Spain or in Portugal. Pope Sixtus IV inscribes his diploma, which Wadding exhibits in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1472, number 26, To Amadeus the Spaniard, guardian of the house called of Blessed Mary de la Pace, etc. Pope Alexander VI also, in the same Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1498, number 10, in his diploma makes mention of the congregation of the late Brother Amadeus of Spain. But hence it cannot yet evidently be inferred that he sprang from that region which now, strictly speaking, we everywhere call Spain: for the Portuguese also enjoy the name of Spaniards; as appears from the Spanish Library of Nicolás Antonio, and the Spanish Martyrology of Juan Tamayo Salazar, under which title of their works both those Spanish authors review both Portuguese writers and Portuguese Saints. But whether Bl. Amadeus was born in Spain strictly so called, or in Portugal, we here greatly wonder at the drowsiness of the aforesaid Tamayo, who omitted this true countryman of his own in the Spanish Martyrology, whereas nevertheless he stealthily and wrongly inserted into it many Saints of other regions.

[39] and entered the Order of St. Jerome in Spain. It now remains to be discussed in what region Bl. Amadeus entered the Order of St. Jerome, before he embraced the Franciscan institute in Italy. Occasion for this inquiry is afforded by Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano, who in the Histories of the Seraphic Religion, book 2, folio 156 verso, among other things writes thus of Bl. Amadeus: When, fighting in a war stirred up among the princes of the Spains, he had been wounded in the arm, and, being prevented by divine grace, he joined the hermit Brothers of the divine Jerome in the church of the Blessed Virgin of Bressanoro of the diocese of Cremona, near Castelleone, which is a town of Insubria, in the twentieth year of his age, and the Lord turned his heart to divine love, so that he retained the name of Amadeus. The most illustrious Gonzaga has like things, as on another occasion we shall report from him below. But both these writers plainly err in that matter, since in our ancient Acts to be published below we read that this blessed Man entered the Order of St. Jerome in the monastery of St. Mary of Guadalupe in Spain, and there lived piously for about ten years. Yet we greatly wonder that no mention is made of Bl. Amadeus in Gabriel de Talavera, in the fuller history of St. Mary of Guadalupe, which he published in Spanish at Toledo in the year 1597 with the types of Tomás de Guzmán, and in which he reviews the illustrious inhabitants of this monastery from its beginning.

* that is, ei (to him)

§ IV. The congregation of the Amadeites instituted by the same Blessed, and afterward, by the command of the Roman Pontiffs, united to the Franciscan Observants.

The most illustrious Gonzaga relates The Order of St. Francis in the course of time was divided into various congregations, of which one owes its institution to Bl. Amadeus, and took its surname from him, as the most illustrious Gonzaga in the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, part 1, pages 20 and 21, sets forth, where at the same time he abridged the chief deeds of that blessed Founder in these words: There was a certain noble Portuguese, by name John de Meneses, grandson on his mother's side of the first Count of Vila Real, and likewise of the first Count of Portalegre, and also uterine brother of the most pious Sister Beatriz da Silva, the illustrious foundress of the Order of Conceptionist nuns, illustrious by royal blood, who, crossing from Portugal into Italy with Eleanor, daughter of Edward king of Portugal, and lawful wife of Frederick III, Emperor of the Germans, being prevented by divine grace, joined the hermit Brothers of the divine Jerome in the church of the most blessed Virgin Mary of Bressanoro of the diocese of Cremona, near Castelleone, which is a town of Insubria, under their anchoritic habit. Afterward, being forewarned by the most blessed father Francis, and by our Savior Christ and His most holy Mother, that, leaving that manner of life, he should go to Assisi to be clothed in the Minorite habit by the General Minister of the Franciscans, acquiescing in their divine oracles, he was there enrolled by the aforesaid General Minister among the other Conventual Franciscans under the habit of lay Brothers: whose cell was the church itself, but whose exercise was perpetual prayer, or the contemplation of divine things, or humble service.

[41] When therefore the most excellent Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, had heard his fame, how Bl. Amadeus instituted he obtained from the General Minister that Brother Amadeus (for so he was commonly called, although his name was Amator) should transfer himself to Milan to abide there henceforth. When he had come thither, he both proved most pleasing and most beloved to the Duke and the Duchess his wife, and by his most urgent prayers obtained for them from the Most High the most desired offspring which they could not obtain: which was the cause that they were more and more attached to him, and granted him a place at Milan for building a monastery. Which at length being obtained, by license of the Supreme Pontiff he took care with all diligence that a Convent should there be built under the title of St. Mary of Peace, which persists to the present, because there he had obtained the most desired peace of his spirit; and he began to receive the Conventual Friars who came to him, both by license of the General Minister and also by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff granted him at the instance of the aforesaid Duke of Milan, and to clothe other seculars who desired his fellowship in the Minorite habit, which was very like that which the Observants used, and he bound them by most holy laws and constitutions, whereby they might more happily preserve the whiteness of the rule and cleave more tenaciously to the footsteps of the most holy father Francis.

[42] These greatly increasing, this new Order of the Amadeans, a distinct congregation of the Franciscans, so called from its founder, begun in the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1460, began in a wonderful manner to spread through Italy, within whose compass it was bounded, but especially through Insubria; so that in course of time it obtained twenty-eight houses, erected into one province only, and subject to its own provincial Minister, yet under the care and obedience of the General Minister. Meanwhile it happened that in the year of the Lord 1471 Sixtus IV, to whom Brother Amadeus was most well known, was raised to the supreme Pontificate on the death of Paul II (as we have said before); who, venerating in his piety the remarkable sanctity and very great religion in the man, summoned him to Rome, and, having consecrated him a priest, though unwilling on account of his reverence for the dignity and ministry, of which in his humility he judged himself unworthy, chose him as his confessor and most trusty secretary, to whom he might lay open and disclose the wounds of his conscience and communicate the weightiest affairs, and enriched his Order with very many graces, privileges, and favors, the church of St. Peter in Montorio, or of the Golden Mount, situated on the Janiculum of the city of Rome, which is also commonly called the Golden Mount, being also conferred upon him — namely in that place in which the Prince of the Apostles, the divine Peter, was fastened to a cross and slain for the confession of Christ. Which church of the divine Peter the king of the French began to advance into a proper Convent: but when he had left off pursuing the work, the Catholic kings of Spain Ferdinand and his wife Isabella took care that it should be completed, most carefully wrought out in all its parts, a very large adjacent site being also bestowed, and the royal arms of Spain affixed to the walls, and reduced to the form of a most elegant monastery.

[43] The blessed Father Amadeus was to the whole Roman curia an example of virtue which took its surname from him, and a rule of sanctity; who, although he was most dear to the Supreme Pontiff, and was involved in weighty affairs, yet omitted nothing of his accustomed humility or austerity: for, refreshing once a day with bread and water only his little body wearied with labors and worn with vigils, and walking barefoot, he was clothed in the simplest habit; and, excepting two hours in which with a cheerful and most kindly countenance he conversed most courteously with all who came to him, whatever time remained to him from the day, that he spent either in paying the divine praises, or in the contemplation of the heavenly mysteries, apart from others in a certain cave of that same mount: in which also he composed a very beautiful little book concerning revelations and prophecies touching the state of the Roman Church, a certain angelic Pontiff, and the change of kingdoms, dominions, and religion; which nevertheless certain others, befouling it with their own imaginings and fantastic inventions, so obscured and reduced to order at their pleasure that it may with the best right be called their little book rather than blessed Amadeus'.

[44] and how, after the death of its founder, Distinguished therefore by these virtues, when blessed Amadeus had gone to Milan to visit the aforesaid Convent of Peace built by himself, there, twenty-two years being completed from his conversion in this praiseworthy life and penance, in the year from the saving nativity of Christ 1482, and in the twelfth of the Pontificate of the aforesaid Sixtus IV, he closed his last day, and was buried in the midst of the greater chapel, illustrious for miracles both before and after his death. From this Father therefore the Order or Congregation of the Amadeans took its beginning, which until Leo X, Supreme Pontiff, although from the year 1508 to that time it had adhered to the Observants, was subject to the General Minister of the whole Franciscan Order. But by him (as will be said below) being made subject to the General Minister of the Observant family, under him it warred until the times of Pius V, Supreme Pontiff; under whom at length (as we shall note in its own place), together with the Clareni and certain others, the name of Amadeus being cast off, and their own province and provincial Minister being abolished, it passed over into the Regular observance in every respect, being made subject

meanwhile, its monasteries to that Observant province within whose compass they were contained. What in this summary of the Acts is uncertain or false, we have already partly indicated in the preceding paragraph, and it will partly appear from the ancient Acts to be subjoined to this Preliminary Commentary.

[45] [The Roman Pontiffs attempted to mingle them with the rest of the Franciscan Order;] The Roman Pontiffs Julius II and Leo X often attempted to reduce the whole Order of St. Francis into one body, as may be seen in the most illustrious Gonzaga in the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, part 1, from page 25, and in Hélyot in the French Work on Religious and military Orders, part 5, chapters 6 and 12, or volume 7, page 65 and following. But in this business various difficulties occurred, and before the rest the Amadeite Friars endeavored to evade or elude this union, as we abundantly gather from Wadding, who in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1512, number 10, writes thus of this matter: The Friars moreover of the Congregation of Amadeus the Spaniard, whom we have said joined themselves to the Conventuals, nevertheless wishing to preserve their own Congregation, and earnestly desiring to exercise their own offices by themselves without mingling with the Conventuals, obtained by an oracle of the living voice, given to Antonio del Monte, Cardinal of the title of St. Vitalis, of Pavia, whose authentic testimony he exhibited on the XXIII day of April, that it should be lawful for them to celebrate Chapters according to the custom, constitutions, and privileges granted them, and to set a vicar over themselves.

[46] Then at the year of Christ 1518, number 18, he reports this concerning the same Amadeites: but, various difficulties occurring, Another province was newly constituted by a special diploma of Leo, all the Convents of the Amadeite Friars which they had being gathered into one, beginning from the house of St. Peter on the Golden Mount or Janiculum of the City as far as the city of Parma, and he subjected it, thus erected, after the manner of the other provinces, to the government and obedience of the General Minister Licheto, by the bull "The purity of sacred Religion," on the XIV day of November; and in the following year on the XX day of May the same General celebrated the provincial Chapter of these Fathers in the city of Cremona, and in the Convent of St. Mary of the Graces, and confirmed as Minister of that province Evangelista of Casalmaggiore. But afterward these houses of the Amadeans were mingled with the others of the Observants, and distributed among the provinces in whose district they were, lest this seed of dissensions or divisions should be preserved under the name of the Amadeans, their Convents being preserved and united; or lest, seizing the opportunity of the time or of a favorable Pontiff, they should claim to be separated again and to constitute for themselves a peculiar Congregation. For, as we shall see through the following years, they strove to preserve that little Congregation of theirs from destruction.

[47] Lastly the same Annalist of the Minors at the year of Christ 1520, number 22, has the following to our purpose: the execution of that decree was deferred, We said two years ago that the Pontiff erected the province of St. Peter of the Golden Mount, put together from the houses of the Amadeite Friars, and subjected it to the entire jurisdiction of the General Minister of the Friars of the Observance. Nevertheless the Amadeites, by what arts they could, busied themselves to preserve themselves in certain Convents within the limits of the aforesaid province, expecting that at some time their own might return to the former manner of government. In this year therefore, by the favor of the Priors of the Arts of the city of Perugia, they obtained a Pontifical faculty that they should remain perpetually in the Convent of St. Jerome outside the city, and should retain the government of the houses of St. Agnes and St. Anthony of Padua of the Sisters of the third Order in the same city: which when the General Minister Licheto learned, he asked that all approaches to schisms in the Order should be wholly shut off, and that, according to the tenor of the bull of union, all Congregations and Convents should coalesce into one body. To this petition the Pontiff willingly assented, a diploma being issued revoking the former. Both I here exhibit. Then he subjoins the two diplomas of Pope Leo X, which we have not leisure to transcribe, and which may be read at the cited place.

[48] Nevertheless the Amadeites seem to have resisted this union until the times of St. Pius V, Pontiff, until St. Pius V extinguished the name of the Amadeites, who in the year of Christ 1568 published a constitution, which in the Roman Bullary of Laerzio Cherubini, volume 2, page 250, after an exordium full of paternal solicitude, runs thus: Of our own motion and of certain knowledge and mature deliberation, by Apostolic authority and of the fullness of Apostolic power, we interdict and prohibit the institutions, congregations, convents, denominations, names, and titles whatsoever of the Amadeans, of the Clareni also called della Becca, of St. Peter on the Golden Mount and of St. Jerome or St. Bartholomew on the island in the City, and of any other provinces respectively of the Friars of the Order of St. Francis; and also, so far as they differ from the regular institutes of the Friars of the family of the said Order of St. Francis, called Minors of the Observance, their rule, institutes, constitutions, statutes, customs and rites, and manner and norm of living; and those, and also their promises, confirmations, and approbations made by Apostolic authority, and the privileges, indults, graces, and letters granted on account of them, even by the Apostolic See, and perhaps confirmatory on occasion of concords entered into among those Friars, and granted by like motion, knowledge, and fullness of power, or even in consideration of, or at the instance of, the emperor, kings, and other princes, and conceived in whatever formulas and supported by whatever decrees, the tenors of all which we will to be held as expressed in these letters, we extinguish, suppress, revoke, annul, and forever wholly and altogether take away.

[49] and united them to the Observant Minorites; But all and singular the Friars who were of such segregations and denominations, with all their houses, churches, oratories, and places whatsoever, wheresoever they subsist, we aggregate and unite to the Friars of the Order of Minors of the family called of the Observance, and to their congregation: and we decree that henceforth from now perpetually, being aggregated and united, they adhere to the said of the Observance, and use the same rule, regular institutes, profession, manners, habit, and form of living, and surnames and denominations which they use, and be henceforth one family only, and be subject to the same General or provincial Ministers, and the other Superiors or officials to whom they are subject or shall for the time be subject, and in the same obedience immediately with them serve God, purely, ordinarily, and uniformly, and be held separate or unlike in no respect at all and by no distinction. … But that the whole Congregation of Friars of the Observance, increased by this addition as it were of colonists, may at once enjoy and rest in a calm and perpetual peace, and may stand together not only under one name but also with one mind, and that no occasion of altercation may creep in there, by the same motion, knowledge, and fullness of power we establish and ordain that none of the old Friars of the Observance dare to irritate any of those thus newly aggregated by the remembrance of their former names or life, or in any other way whatsoever, or to call him an Amadean or a Clarenus, or by any other appellation than of the Observance, etc. Then the same holy Pontiff adds various things, that his decree may be effectually carried into execution, and that peace may be fostered among the Friars now united. But these things which we have reported are the chief which we have thought should be excerpted from this Pontifical diploma.

[50] St. Charles Borromeo For accomplishing this union St. Charles Borromeo strenuously labored, on the testimony of the most illustrious Charles a Basilica Petri, bishop of Novara, who in the Life of that same holy Prelate of Milan, book 2, chapter 5, renders an honorable testimony concerning Bl. Amadeus, and at the same time thus narrates the constant labor of St. Charles Borromeo in this matter: We shall add here a not dissimilar office which Charles discharged the following year in the Franciscan Order, of which likewise he was moderator; and in that part indeed which seems to follow a laxer discipline, he had already accomplished certain things of great moment for preserving the equality of the cenobitic life, both in food and in dwelling. Other very useful things he thereafter performed through Alessandro Crivelli the Cardinal, a pious and most weighty man, whom he had substituted for himself in the office of governing that Order. But in the remaining Order, which is called by the name of the Observance, he took care and brought it about by Pontifical authority that certain parts of it, as it were, should be abolished — of the Clareni, of the Amadeans, and others; and that, their very names also being blotted out, they should be joined with the rest of the body; concerning which matter a constitution was published. All those parts I think proceeded from good beginnings: for it often happens in the sacred societies of Religious men that, when that first ardor of the Holy Spirit with its best discipline gradually cools through human misery, since all cannot be moved to bring themselves back to their former manners, only a part does so, and, separated from the rest, uses the old and more perfect institutes: which, since these too in course of time are relaxed, the matter at last comes to this, that, only the name and often besides a dissension being left, it is altogether expedient to join those, as it were disjointed members, again to the rest of the body of the same condition.

[51] The Amadeans held the church of Peace at Milan, and had drawn their name from Amadeus of Lisbon, strenuously cooperating in this union, a most religious man, who on account of his eminent sanctity had joined to himself many years before no small number of Friars, and together with them had endeavored to renew the harsher life of the ancients. When in later times new men had succeeded to these, and others to them, the number indeed remained separate; but their discipline at last did not differ from that of the rest. That it might not be determined that they should be aggregated to the rest of the body, many chief men at first interposed themselves, without whose intercession, whether freely offered or requested, scarcely anything a little more weighty can — which is most to be lamented — be settled or corrected in the Church; but then, that what had been decreed might not be effected, many things, and above all the will of the Amadeans themselves, hindered it. But Charles, turning aside in nothing from his purpose, by no means desisted until he brought the matter to a good issue. Having set about promulgating in the Convent of Peace the Pontifical letters which he had procured expressly for that matter, and about finishing the business, he met with such things — to say it in a word — that he then indeed graciously determined to give way and to depart with the matter unaccomplished. Yet he returned, and finished the whole matter according to his own judgment. But then he was intercessor with the Pontiff for those who had resisted, on account of the Pontiff's gravely offended mind. This being done, he held an assembly, in which, the number of each monastery being indiscriminately settled, rectors elected, and salutary constitutions opportunely renewed, he set in order the affairs of the province.

[52] Some of the Amadeites or Clareni passed over to the Conventual Franciscans, although some of them passed over to the Conventual Franciscans. as Laerzio Cherubini in the title of the aforesaid constitution warns the reader in these words: Know that some of the aforesaid Friars passed over to the Conventual Friars, whom at length Gregory XIII granted might remain there, on the XX day of December, 1581; whose Bull, however, as less necessary, I have passed over. Thus at length, after various difficulties, the Congregation of the Amadeites was extinguished, which had received its surname from our Amadeus. Hence, however, nothing can be objected against the sanctity of the blessed Founder, as is sufficiently clear from the reported reasoning of the most illustrious bishop of Novara, who calls him a most religious man, and, on account of his eminent sanctity,

affirms that he joined many companions to himself. So likewise no disgrace redounds upon St. John Colombini, even though Pope Clement IX for just causes suppressed the Order of the Jesuati instituted by him. These are the chief matters concerning which we have thought the reader should be forewarned in this Commentary. Wherefore it only remains that we commit to the press the old Life of the Blessed, which has never before been printed in Latin, and illustrate it with our accustomed annotations.

ACTS

by an anonymous contemporary author.

We received them from a Ms. which the Reverend Father Francis Harold, an Irish Minorite, caused to be transcribed for us, and which in the year 1669 was still kept in the Roman Convent of St. Isidore.

Amadeus, confessor, of the Order of St. Francis, at Milan in Insubria (Bl.)

BHL Number: 0320

FROM A MS.

PROLOGUE.

The contemporary author prefaces that at the request of others In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to the exaltation of the holy Cross and of the Catholic faith, and to the increase of the Christian Religion. Whereas certain venerable Religious, and very many other magnificent and most distinguished men, have at some time earnestly asked to be made more certain concerning some deeds, the life, and the manners of the reverend now late and most religious Father the lord Brother Amadeus the Spaniard, most observant of the Order and rule of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, who died at Milan in the preceding years in the Convent called of St. Mary de la Pace, outside ^a the walls of the Porta Tosa or eastern gate ^b of Milan, of the same Order, who in the month of August, on the feast of the blessed Martyr St. Lawrence, about the hour of vespers, departed from the world in the year that has run 1482, and was buried in that same church called of St. Mary de la Pace in that same month: and concerning certain graces and miracles bestowed by the supreme Maker of all things through him, or by the merits and intercessions of that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus, as is said, in life and in death, and after his departure, which were collected here and there from divers persons; desiring, so far as in me lies, to do a pleasing thing to those same men, who have deserved well also of our ^c Religion, and to comply with their will, although I do not feel myself fit for the description of so great a work, yet relying on divine help, I myself, who have been fully instructed concerning his Life and other things holily done by him, because I also saw and understood many things and handled them with my own hands, have resolved to touch upon some things which I shall have found more worthy of relation, if not eloquently and elegantly, at least with faithful zeal and careful recital.

[2] to write the certain deeds of Bl. Amadeus known to him. Although therefore I have elsewhere described some things in particular concerning the Life and deeds of that same reverend Father, and the graces obtained through him from the Most High, yet now, plucking out, as it were from a most spacious field, the fairer little flowers, I have gathered down to the present day a very brief bundle, somewhat more copiously and of greater matters concerning all those things which day by day have come to common knowledge; which for the greater consolation of all, and the increase of faith, I have taken care to set down in writing in the best manner I could according to the slender powers of my wit, lest through the long courses of time the memory of so great a Father should be given over to oblivion, and that it might be known among posterity that in the Seraphic Religion of the divine Francis, which day by day the more flourishes and sprouts, such and so abundant a fruit had come forth as we knew on earth.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Blessed's fatherland, his various virtues, boyhood, and youth.

Blessed Amadeus, a Spaniard by nation, There was then, that we may now approach the matter itself, this Brother Amadeus, of whom the discourse is at present, a Spaniard by fatherland, which region indeed, made illustrious by the birth of so great a man, sent Amadeus to us to enjoy these airs of ours; who, wonderfully following blessed Francis, the author and founder of his Religion, deserved when his life was ended to be placed in the fellowship of the Blessed. Happy therefore is this city of Milan, which both in his life and in his death and after the departure of Amadeus received very many graces from the supreme Founder of the whole world by his merits and intercession, and with which it has befallen that his body, more precious than any treasure, should be buried ^a. And certainly it does not seem strange if almighty God, of His infinite goodness and mercy, exalted to heaven at the end of his good works a man who showed himself indeed most humble and utterly abject to the world, because it is written: He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

[2] For from those things which, concerning him, I both saw and heard long ago, even while he lived among men, with divers kinds of virtue, and in his death and after his death perceived as said and heard from men worthy of credit, this man was esteemed of an incorrupt and most religious life, and at the last was found and judged a holy man by the wisest and worthiest men: for he was a man exceedingly admirable in the Religion of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, and a most diligent observer of the Rule instituted by him and of his Order. And he was for the greater part of his time, at least for thirty years or thereabouts, in which he lived a Religious in Italy, wonderfully given over to and occupied with contemplation and prayer, so that very often, and sometimes for eighteen hours, he was seen to remain on bent knees in continual meditation and prayer without intermission and without any interval; and he was also worn out with the greatest fastings and vigils and abstinences; and he was grave in speech, courteous, pure, simple, pious, truthful, modest, just, devout, most humble, gentle, kindly, and full of charity, and most liberal with his spiritual faculties and devotions not only toward his household and acquaintances, but also toward strangers; and in the snares also, and contumelies, injuries, and persecutions, and various troubles with which everywhere, while he lived, he was afflicted and molested, most patient and most prudent, cheerful and pleasant; to poor and rich, to the powerful and the lowly, without any distinction, he was most pleasing and acceptable.

[3] with various gifts of nature; Brother Amadeus also himself was of the greatest and most excellent virtue and grace with God and men, and with princes and even with the greatest prelates of the Church: and although in all things he showed himself most humble and most abject, he was held in the highest veneration by the most illustrious princes. He was also so diligent in prayer and in the act of contemplation, as has been said, that at times he foretold things to come. He led his life for many years so severely that he never took food except once a day; for the most part for many years he used no wine, except in the celebration of Mass, or sometimes for the sake of pleasing friends, when he was invited by them to sit at table with them. But in the times of fasts, of Lents, and of Ember days, he for the most part used bread and water only, and sometimes in those times of fasts he was so occupied in contemplations that for three days, and sometimes more, and nights, he wholly abstained from bodily food.

[4] with an austere manner of life; But in winter and frosty seasons, or even in summer, for many continuous years, without any kind of footwear, without any shoes or wooden clogs, he made his way with bare feet through snows, through lakes, through waters. Imitating the footsteps of blessed Francis, he afflicted himself with fasts, abstinences, and mortifications, carefully despising all the fleeting honors and flatteries of the world. Yet for seven years or thereabouts immediately preceding his death, by the order and mandate of our most holy Lord the Lord Sixtus, by divine providence formerly ^b Pope, the fourth, he used wine and other foods, moderately however and only once a day, and shoes, because he had become old and very infirm. And that same Father was in a manner of angelic understanding, and in natural things very circumspect; to all indeed, especially at those times in which he was not at leisure for contemplation and prayer, he was kindly and courteous toward all; and he was fervent in faith, steadfast in hope, eminent in humility, abounding in piety, full of charity, strong in patience. And at last, all the delights of the world being despised, he closed his last day.

[5] he shone with the noble splendor of his birth, His lineage was not known in that region, nor made plain to strangers, because he himself, while he lived, although he was most urgently asked about it by many, never took care to make his lineage known; which many judged that he did for this reason, lest, if he had declared his family, which, so far as could be perceived from conjectures, was most noble and very illustrious, he might be marked with the crime of arrogance or boasting ^c. But since from his speech he could not conceal his origin, as was related by some of his familiars, he sometimes confessed with the greatest difficulty that on his father's side he was a Castilian and Spaniard, and on his mother's side a Portuguese. But there are some who have said, and the common opinion rather inclines this way, that he was of the Royal House of Spanish Castile; but others affirmed that he was a prince of Spanish Castile; others that the same was prince of certain cities of Spain only in the Castilian region; others that he was a prince of a region of Spain; others said otherwise.

[6] But whencesoever his origin and lineage was and is, as the biographer reports from contemporary witnesses, he was of most noble stature and of most noble stock, and, as is believed, of royal descent: and while he lived he was admirable and of an understanding rather angelic than human; and from those things which were sometimes uttered by him, while he lived among men, before some of his brethren very familiar with him, as was related by some of them worthy of credit, especially by the lords Brother George of Valcamonica ^d, Brother James of Marignano, Brother John of Germany, Brother Giles of Montserrat, Brother Bonaventure of Cremona, and by others, who with him much

conversed much.

[7] That Father the lord Brother Amadeus sometimes asserted which the Blessed himself that it had at other times been told him by his nurses that, whereas his parents, married for many years, had no son or sons, although his mother herself had several times been pregnant in wedlock, at last his mother found herself pregnant, and was already for several months swollen with that pregnancy; and yet she did not rejoice in that pregnancy, fearing lest she should have a miscarriage, as she had been wont to have; and for the sake of solace she was one day above the gate of her house, which was next to the very large square of that city, together with some of her maidens, and a certain rain came down quickly and suddenly, on account of which a certain gardener-woman came beneath that same gate, to avoid being drenched by that rain; and, finding that lady pregnant beneath the gate, that woman saluted her, blessing the offspring which she had in her womb; but she, being pregnant, wondered at such a salutation, groaning a little, and reflecting that she had been able to rear no son; to whom that gardener-woman said: Magnificent lady, if you wish to rear the son whom you have in your womb, as soon as you have brought him forth, cause to be given him in baptism the name which shall be told you by the first poor beggar who after your delivery shall come to your house to ask an alms. Then that gardener-woman, the rain having ceased, departed thence.

[8] Hearing which, that lady, returning with her handmaids into her house, concerning his birth, held the aforesaid words which that gardener-woman had uttered for a kind of admonition, and both she in her heart and the handmaids of that lady kept them until the time of the delivery of that magnificent lady, until she brought forth a son. And when she had brought forth, the lady, remembering the aforesaid admonition, they waited for seven days with the greatest earnestness that some one of the poor beggars should come to her house to ask an alms. And when no poor man had appeared after that birth, although before that many poor men had daily been wont to go to the gate of that same magnificent lady to ask an alms, all in that house were saddened, both the parents and the servants, because no poor man came to ask an alms. But on the seventh day, when evening had already come, and the door of the house was already closed, behold a certain poor pilgrim, knocking at the door, asks an alms, to whom one of the handmaids, quickly answering, set forth from the window that a son had there been born of the wife of the master of the house, and asked of him what name ought to be given to that infant in baptism; to whom the poor man, answering, at once said: Amadeus; and immediately, not waiting for the alms, departed. And so in baptism the name Amadeus was imposed upon that infant ^e.

[9] And when that infant was reared with milk by nurses and nourished by his parents, boyhood, then, growing, he was very weak, so that up to nine years or thereabouts, since he remained very weak, he was nourished with milk by several nurses, and yet he was so weak that sometimes, when he had already become a boy, he could not forbear being reared with milk by nurses, nor could he support himself. Whereby he was hateful to his parents and servants, and almost to all, and was sometimes greatly afflicted and molested by them with contumelies and injuries; but Amadeus himself, being often affected with shame, did not dare to take milk from the nurses for nourishment except in secret; and so Brother Amadeus often at times asserted that he had been nourished and reared up to nine years or thereabouts.

[10] his youth and conversion But afterward Amadeus, growing within some years both in person and in discretion, and in health and strength, came to his eighteenth year; in which year he espoused a most noble wife, as he asserted, whom nevertheless he never knew carnally, nor brought home as a husband, and he began to practice the art of war with other princes and barons of Spain. But in the twentieth year of his age, as he asserted, while he was in a certain war in Spain, which, as is believed, was waged in the time of the most serene king Don John ^f among contending Spanish princes, Amadeus himself was wounded in one arm. Going forth from which war and returning home, being moved by a certain divine inspiration, leaving all things, he directed his way alone toward the place or monastery of St. Mary of Guadalupe ^g in Spain for the saving of his soul.

[11] related many wonderful things. On which journey indeed, as Brother Amadeus himself sometimes incidentally related to his familiar Brothers for their consolation and for an introduction to patience and faith, three ruffians assailed him with arms and words and threatened to kill him; by whom he was greatly terrified, and fleeing to God, behold, a certain armed knight came up with a gilded mace ^h in his hand, who afforded him help, rebuking them for such an assault, and, those ruffians being put to flight, took him by the hand and led him into a certain small church near by. To whom afterward that knight said that he knew whither he was journeying, and for the saving of his soul; and admonished him that he must by all means go to the said place of Guadalupe, where he should tarry until something else were shown him by the Holy Spirit; which said, that knight vanished. But father Amadeus himself, alone, who nevertheless was then a secular, having heard the aforesaid, directed his way more boldly to that place of Guadalupe; and advancing on that journey, when that same father sought rest in a certain inn, behold a certain immodest woman came to him, that she might lie with him upon the bed in the chamber ⁱ, whom that Father seeing, immediately took to flight, nor would he stay any longer in that inn.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

His religious life in the Order of St. Jerome, his desire of martyrdom, and certain miracles wrought at that time.

Having entered the Order of St. Jerome, he serves in the kitchen, At length he went on to that place of Guadalupe, where afterward for ten years or thereabouts he lived most devoutly and most religiously with the brethren of that same Convent, and there performed, so far as he could, for the love of Christ, the humbler and meaner services. In which Convent of Guadalupe in Spain ^a certain things worthy of record are said to have happened, from the relation of Father Amadeus himself to some of his Brothers, which formerly that Father sometimes related incidentally for the instruction of those his fellow-brethren dwelling with him, and for the confirmation of faith; of which I have resolved to narrate some, and in the briefer speech that I can, to the greater praise of God and the commendation of the life of that same Father: among which it is said that one day, while that Father was serving in the kitchen of that same Convent out of inward humility of heart, and meat had been given him to cook, which he had set upon the fire in a pot, and meanwhile he gave himself for some space of time a little to contemplation and prayer in a certain place somewhat remote near that kitchen until the meat should cook, he delayed so long that, returning to the pot, he found the meat too much cooked and as it were dissolved.

[13] Which indeed that Father, considering, was affected with much sadness, and in that ministry wonderfully experiences divine help; since he expected nothing but the greatest reproof from his Superiors: at length, trusting in the grace of God, he returned to prayer, entreating God and the blessed Virgin Mary to provide for such anxiety of his; and while he was at prayer, he saw a certain Brother, who seemed to be the infirmarian of that convent, or who resembled the infirmarian of that Convent, who with a certain staff was turning about and mixing the meat this way and that in the pot which was in that pot; at which turning and mixing Father Amadeus was the more grievously saddened; but afterward, that Father returning to the kitchen and inquiring what had happened in the pot, he found at once the pieces ^b of meat whole, well cooked, and set in order: which being seen and found, he glorified God with a glad mind, and afterward served them to the Brothers of that Convent. On which those Brothers greatly congratulated that same Father, asserting that they had never taken meat so excellent and so well prepared for food: concerning which turning and mixing, the infirmarian of that same Convent, being questioned about it, asserted and protested that he knew nothing of it; for all which things that had happened, that Father rendered infinite thanks to God, nor did he then take care to make such a grace known to anyone.

[14] then, burning with the desire of martyrdom, And while that Father Amadeus dwelt in that same Convent, since he also served in the offices of the kitchen, and was sometimes there involved in several other business besides, and time did not remain in which he could conveniently at times be at leisure for prayer and contemplation, desiring to satisfy his devotion according to his own will, as that Father, as has been said, sometimes incidentally related, and to attain to the palm of martyrdom for the love of Christ, he was led by a certain instinct of the Holy Spirit to ask leave of his Superiors: and however it was, that same Father directed his way toward Granada, that in some way he might, from the infidels, for the faith of Christ,

be put to torture.

[15] which he had sought in vain at Granada, And when he had arrived at the city of Granada, he was assailed by certain infidel guards of the roads, who, believing him to be a spy, denounced him and led him bound to a certain Superior of theirs, who ordered him to be afflicted naked with many cruel stripes, and adjudged him to be tortured with reeds or most sharp piercing canes, and to a cruel death; but when afterward he was stripped of his garments by some renegades, or men washed in the laver of Baptism, who, falling away from the faith of Christ, had become apostates and infidels, that he might be subjected to so cruel a death, they found him clad in a hard hair-shirt next his flesh, and having an iron ring upon his flesh; and then these, moved with some compassion, recognizing that he was a poor, pure, and simple man, and not a spy, led him back to their Superior. Who, out of regard for them, ordered him to be scourged and then, being scourged, to be let go: and at last, his garments being restored to him, he was cast out of that city.

[16] a dead girl is called back to life, Then that Father, returning toward Spain, and proceeding toward the sea, set himself to go with some merchant to the infidels, that he might by all means pursue the palm of martyrdom for the faith of Christ; and when it was already late in that day, that Father came to a certain inn, where he found a certain widow woman weeping for the death of a daughter of hers, who had then lately died, and seeing that this Brother had the appearance of a Religious, she earnestly begged him to pour forth prayers to God for that daughter of hers: and when that Father refused, reckoning himself unworthy, at length being moved with compassion at the most urgent prayers of that widow, the prayer being completed by him, by the grace of God that daughter was straightway found alive and sound: which being wrought, that Father immediately departed from that place, lest he should be praised or known by any.

[17] he determines to cross over into Africa; Then, going forward on his journey, he found a ship which was being brought toward the parts of the infidels, and, endeavoring by all means to obtain the palm of martyrdom for the love of Christ, that Father placed himself in that ship, that by it he might be carried to the wished-for airs: and when he was on the sea, and yet not far distant from the shore, he saw many waves tossing that ship, at which the master of that ship and the others who were in that ship were greatly terrified, and feared lest they should perish in the sea. But Father Amadeus himself asked that master to send him back to land; and so that master set that same Father upon a certain rock or stone on the seashore, and then departed. And when that Father had gone down from the ship upon that stone, he saw that there was no more tossing in the sea, and knew, or then thought, that it was not the divine will that he should cross over to the infidels. Whence he afterward departed thence, because the King of kings had perhaps decreed something else concerning him; and at length he returned to the said place of Guadalupe, where also for a long space of time he remained to serve the church and the Convent and its sacristy.

[18] But at this time, while he served in the said Convent in the sacristy of that same house of Guadalupe, but hindered from that journey, it came to pass that, when one day Father Amadeus was serving another brother in the same church at the celebration of Mass, and at the time of the purification of the Sacrament the wine failed in the cruet, and Father Amadeus had not time to go so quickly to the sacristy to fetch wine, because it was far off, he offered a prayer to God that He would straightway provide wine; which prayer being finished, that cruet was straightway made full of wonderful wine. Of which wine, so wonderful, the priest who afterward used that wine in that Mass, when the Mass was ended, greatly congratulated the sacristan, saying that he had never tasted so wonderful a wine; at which congratulation the sacristan himself wondered, because he was wholly ignorant of this matter; but Father Amadeus referred such a grace to God, nor yet did he then take care to make it otherwise known.

[19] But on another day, as that Father related, he returned to his monastery, while he was busied about the services of that church and sacristy, and had climbed up on high to trim a certain lamp in that church, that Father fell, and in that act at once commended himself to the glorious Virgin Mary, and at length remained lifted up from the ground, so that he touched neither the ground nor the stones, nor did any harm come to him: which grace that Father declared to be divine, not human.

[20] On another day also, while that same Father was serving the offices of that sacristy, where in the ministry of the sacristy and in the evening was greatly involved in many affairs, he fixed a certain lighted wax candle to a wooden cupboard in that sacristy, which being fixed and consumed, the cupboard itself was so burned by the fire that the fire could scarcely be put out; seeing which, that Father was greatly saddened, because he was alone and saw no way of extinguishing the fire, since he had no water there; but the church was shut: and, not knowing how otherwise to provide for this matter, he at once commended himself to the most blessed and most glorious Virgin Mary, and behold, immediately two youths, whom he believed to be Angels of God, in that night, and the whole church being shut, wonderfully appeared with water, with which they immediately extinguished the fire, and then, the doors being shut, they vanished; and yet in that cupboard so scorched no mark of burning remained, which that Father accounted to have been a divine grace.

[21] At the same time also, while that Father dwelt in the said Convent, various miracles happened to him. and for some space of time was held by a grievous infirmity and weakness of the limbs, so that he was as it were lost in all his limbs except his tongue, and had no rest except while he heard the divine offices sung in church, the Superiors of that Convent, that they might refresh him with some comfort, an infirmarian being given him as attendant to serve that same Father, appointed a little cart ^c, by which that Father might every day be brought to Matins and to the other offices in church. And when one morning he had been brought into the church by the attendant serving him in the said cart to hear Matins, and had there been left by that attendant in a certain chapel of that church, that he might rest, hearing the divine offices, he gave his mind to prayer before a certain image of the most glorious Virgin Mary which was painted in that same chapel, and besought that most glorious Mother Virgin Mary with the greatest attention and fervor that he might be freed from that infirmity; and the prayer being finished, that Father at once, as he himself related, of himself and without other help, but by the grace of God coming upon him, rose up sound, and then alone brought back to its accustomed appointed place that little cart in which he had lain. And when afterward he was sought for in the church by his attendant, that same Father was found by that same attendant in his cell, delivered. All these things were made known by that attendant with the greatest admiration to the Superiors of that Convent; but that Father rendered thanks to God for all of them, but cared not for such publication.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

A revelation about entering the Order of Minors, his journey into Italy, a consultation with a certain hermit, and various wonders which befell him on the way.

Being admonished from heaven to embrace the institute of St. Francis, At length, as that Father also at other times related, when he had been admonished in sleep by a certain vision repeated three times by the most blessed Virgin Mary and by blessed Francis and Anthony of Padua, that he should take the habit and rule of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, considering afterward that such an admonition and vision, wonderfully thrice repeated, was not vain, but wholesome for his soul, he asked leave, which he obtained from his Superiors gathered in Chapter assembly, and in writing, as appears from letters, under the current year of the Lord 1452, on the eleventh day of the month of December, sealed with an authentic seal, given at Guadalupe, and signed by brother Gundisalvus of Illescas ^a, Prior of Guadalupe, seen and examined by me: and that leave being thus obtained in writing, he directed his way toward Italy, that he might set out for the city of Assisi ^b. And coming through Spain, he found a certain place which is called Úbeda ^c in Spain, where there was a Convent of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, and there Father Amadeus, wishing to obey the commands written in that leave, most devoutly received the Order and habit of the Religion of St. Francis.

[23] Then, taking his journey toward Assisi, on the way he met certain ruffians, he sets out for Italy, as he himself related elsewhere, who assailed him and stripped him of his garments, and, tearing them, afflicted him with cruel stripes, believing that he had money in those garments, which if he had had, they wished to snatch from him; and, finding no money, some of them, pitying his poverty, gave him another garment. Then, proceeding on his journey through certain hills and mountains, as that Father also asserted, he came to a certain hospital of lepers, that he might there have refreshment and rest; and when he sat down, he had from a certain leprous woman word of a certain holy hermit, who at that time dwelt in those neighboring parts. Of whose sanctity nevertheless he had at other times been told: and he asked her whether he was of so holy a life as report had it, and by what way he ought to journey to visit that holy hermit; which woman, answering, said that that holy hermit was indeed of a holy life, but that the journey to visit him was hard and rough, and that by two ways, or in two manners, he could come to him: in one manner, namely, by circuits of the mountain lasting three days; but in the other manner, by ascending across the mountain itself,

and afterward descending, very steep ways, and that, in going across the mountain, when he was at the summit, he would find a certain herdsman or shepherd with many animals to pasture upon that mountain, having certain very large and very fierce dogs, from which he could scarcely escape with his life ^d.

[24] All which things Father Amadeus considering, since nevertheless he was already greatly wearied and worn down by many journeys, by hunger and thirst, and other austerities, and, a certain hermit being pointed out to him, that he might the more quickly go to that holy hermit, believing that with him he would pass his poor life for some time, that with some refreshment he might rest in God, trusting in the grace of God and of the blessed Virgin Mary, to whom he much commended himself, having first made the sign of the holy cross, he took his way, making his passage by the said mountain of which above; and at length, finding the aforesaid dogs asleep on the summit of that mountain, he passed by freely and without any hurt. Then, descending from the other side of the mountain, he found two disciples of that same holy hermit, who were coming to meet that same Father, saying that they had a commission from their venerable hermit that they should come to meet him and accompany him to that hermit, lest he should lose his way, because the hermit had been admonished by a certain vision that Father Amadeus should come to him.

[25] These disciples therefore accompanied Father Amadeus near to the cave he approaches by difficult ways, in which the hermit dwelt: and when they had come near the cave, behold, that holy hermit, very old and bearded, coming out of the cave, received Father Amadeus with a glad mind, gave him the kiss of peace, and afterward refreshed him with good food and meat and wine, with God's blessing and cheerfulness. Then for some space of time they had together many words and devout discourses with the utmost jubilation and devotion. Then, when Father Amadeus believed that he might stay in that place with the hermit for some days, that he might rest, being greatly wearied and shaken by the most difficult way of the mountain, that holy hermit said to him: Thou must depart hence, Father Amadeus, and make many harder journeys and suffer many persecutions for Christ; and that he should choose one of two things: either that in his youth he should suffer many tribulations and persecutions, and afterward rest in old age; or that in his youth he should wish to rest, so that afterward in old age he should suffer many tribulations and persecutions.

[26] and, consulting him, he learns many things that shall befall him: Which things being heard, Father Amadeus, who was then still young, thereupon determined that he would rather suffer in his youth, that in old age he might at some time rest, since in youth he would be stronger to bear those persecutions than in old age. And at length, having received a blessing from that same holy hermit, and with his leave, he took his way toward Italy, and, departing from that Father, two companions being given him to direct him on the road by which he was to go as far as a certain village, as they went forward on the way those companions asked him whether Father Amadeus had brought meat and wine to the hermit, that he might eat with that holy hermit, since in that place they had never been wont to eat meat or to drink wine: who, answering, said that he had brought nothing to eat or drink; at which answer those companions greatly wondered, since they were certain that that holy hermit had made no provision of wine and meat, judging that this had been done rather by divine providence than by human work.

[27] wherefore, trusting in God, he pursues his journey, Then Father Amadeus, going forward alone on his journey, for two days found nothing whence he might have refreshment save wild plums ^e and other woodland fruits, and at length, coming to a certain hospice that he might rest, a bed being given him in a certain chamber that he might rest, and wishing to rest upon the bed, he found a very large and very long serpent standing on the bed, at which, being greatly terrified, since he was shut up alone in the chamber and locked in, and could not go out of that chamber by the door, in great anxiety he hastily climbed to a certain high little window, from which with the greatest trembling, with God's blessing, he descended without any hurt, and took his way elsewhere.

[28] And when he had gone on upon that journey, and sometimes found no food and having no food, by means of which he might have refreshment, and was sometimes very hungry and weary and wearied by the continual journeying, yet he did not cease from his appointed [*] devotions and daily prayers, and every day for some space of time, trusting in the goodness and grace of God, he stayed in some remote place, and commended himself to the Most High God and to the blessed Virgin Mary; and going forward on that journey, when he had wandered somewhat from the road and was very hungry, he saw a certain youth having a dog tied to him going before that Father Amadeus for some distance through certain hills, and when that youth had gone briskly ahead with that dog for some space of ground, that same Father Amadeus found on the road upon the ground half a loaf of white wheaten bread, well made, which he took with God's blessing, intending however to give it to that youth going before, believing that that bread had fallen from that youth; and when he had run after that youth for some space of ground, that youth with the dog vanished, nor did he ever see him again; and, the said bread being kept, Father Amadeus greatly doubted lest that bread had been found by diabolical work, and lest he should be tempted by it, because he was very hungry; on the other hand he considered that perhaps it had been found by God's grace, to relieve his hungry suffering: at length, the sign of the cross being made several times over that bread, trusting in God's goodness, he took of that bread and food with God's blessing, whereby he was greatly refreshed.

[29] But on another day, while on that journey he was passing through France he is often fed in a wonderful manner, and making toward Italy, and had sought at the city of Avignon ^f that in some place of that city he might have refreshment and rest for the love of God, he found nothing but a hospice of lepers, where in the evening he had refreshment and rest. Then, still pursuing that journey, he met a certain nobleman having a servant who carried a basket with food to bring to his workmen, from whom that Father asked an alms; and that nobleman gave him bread and half a cooked fowl, of which afterward that Father took a good refreshment with God's blessing under a tree in the shade; and that nobleman, returning, found that Father under the tree where he was taking his refreshment; to whom that nobleman said: Did I not give thee half a cooked fowl? To whom that Father, answering, said: Thou didst give it. And that nobleman said: I have found a whole cooked fowl, lacking in nothing. For all which things that Father glorified God.

[30] Then, going forward on the journey for some days, and by a wonderful temptation of the demon, on a certain day he met a certain man in the guise of a tinker ^g having wallets ^h, who asked Father Amadeus whither he was journeying; to whom that father answered that he was going toward Genoa ⁱ; and that tinker said: And I likewise; let us go therefore in company: and journeying thence, when at length, since the heat was very great, both had laid themselves down under the shade of a certain tree to rest, that tinker began to sleep, and that tinker had an awl ^k in his wallet, which that father, wishing to take that he might work with it to sew his garment, which he had much torn, and taking that awl, found it very heavy, and unfastened and hollowed out in the middle of the handle ^l, which also he found full of ducats ^m: which that Father seeing, fearing lest he were tempted by a diabolical spirit, put that awl back in its place, and immediately took flight as though from the face of a serpent, and, that tinker being left there with his awl and his goods and money, for very many paces that Father never dared to look back; but when he was now far off, looking back he saw no man, but, terrified with the greatest terror, his hairs standing on end, in that place where they had both laid themselves in the shade, he saw a very great dust rise into the air with a certain terrible and sulphurous smell, which he thought had proceeded from that tinker, because perhaps the devil, wishing to tempt that Father with that money, had taken the appearance of a tinker.

[31] Then, passing through France, he came to Genoa, where, being sick for many days, he experiences divine providence. with the greatest difficulty he found a lodging, and at length by the good offices of a certain Spanish physician he was placed in a certain hospice; and while he was there held by a grave sickness, it seemed to him as he slept that he was in the chapel of that hospice, where the most glorious Virgin Mary appeared adorned all in a white garment, who afforded that same Father immense joy, and in that apparition greatly strengthened that same Father, so that on the next day at daybreak in the morning that Father departed from that hospital, and through many mountains and hills came as far as the land of Chiavari ⁿ, where he found a certain woman clad in the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, who was vexed with many tribulations, so much that in despair she wished to lay aside the garments of that habit: but that Father so strengthened that woman with many religious and devout exhortations that she, being wholly reconciled, confirmed herself in the aforesaid habit, from whom afterward he had a good refreshment.

ANNOTATIONS.

* perhaps ordinariis (ordinary)

CHAPTER IV.

His pious sojourn near Assisi, the threats of the demon, and certain wonders wrought by his prayers.

The Blessed, having asked in vain for admission into the Order of Minors, Afterward that Father directed his steps to the city of Florence, where nevertheless, seeking all day long, he found no lodging save a hospital, where he took his rest that night. But on the next day, departing thence, he came to Perugia ^a, and there found the most reverend lord Brother Angelo of Perugia, Professor of sacred Theology and Minister of the whole Seraphic Order of St. Francis ^b, whom he visited. But that lord Minister would not hear that Father Amadeus, nay, seeing him so utterly abject in garments, he drove him away. Hearing which, Father Amadeus straightway directed his way toward Assisi, and went to the Convent of the divine Francis, whom the Friars of that Convent refused to receive into the Convent.

[33] But that Father, bearing all things for the love of Christ, lives piously near Assisi, patiently made his dwelling near the church of St. Francis of that Convent of Assisi, yet in remote parts, for almost three continuous years, with the greatest want and endurance, as will be said below, and in that place also he suffered many other tribulations, wants, persecutions, temptations, and anxieties, as that Father sometimes asserted. And at that time in which that same Father, as he at other times asserted as above, stayed near that Convent of Assisi, and because he was wholly poor and at first unknown, he had neither tunic nor cape in the habit of the aforesaid Religion, but was clad in torn garments, and therefore was not accounted a Friar of that Religion, because he was so abject; nay, he showed himself utterly abject and most mean, and in that Convent by day and night he was at leisure for prayer and contemplation, and took his nourishment from the alms which were sometimes bestowed upon him.

[34] And when on a certain day in the said upper church of St. Francis and, the demon's threat being despised, he was at leisure for prayers and contemplation, and was alone in that church about the hour of Terce before the high altar of that upper church, behold, a certain one in the form of a great and very huge giant presented himself before him, who with the greatest violence and with fierce mind, with atrocious words and threats, upbraided that Father Amadeus, and endeavored to provoke him to despair of his salvation, saying that that Father ought to abstain from so many prayers and devotions, and from his so great observance of vigils and abstinences, and from his so great austerity of life, because in every way that Father was doomed to perpetual damnation; by which and by many other atrocious words and persecutions, and by his fierce aspect, that Father was found wholly greatly terrified; yet, trusting in the Lord, that Father fixed his hands upon the altar, saying with the greatest confidence: If the whole world were overthrown, I mean to be a true servant of God so long as I live; and then he at once commended himself to the glorious Virgin Mary. Which said, that giant with the greatest violence and disturbance drew back, and immediately went out of that church, nor did he thereafter appear. But Father Amadeus, being somewhat relieved from such terror, remained joyful at the departure of that giant, and glorified God, and believed that this had been a diabolical temptation, and that that had been the demon who had come to tempt him in the form of a giant.

[35] he obtains by his prayers health for a sick sacristan: Then, since that Father tarried much in that church, and therefore had become somewhat familiar with the sacristan of that church, he was sometimes asked by him for services to that church, to which that Father sometimes most willingly gave himself, and served them in many things and served that church. And since Father Amadeus was much given to prayer and contemplation in the said church, and much rendered himself to the services of the sacristans of that Convent, he sometimes received food from them in alms: at length one day, when one of those sacristans was held by a pestilential disease in such a way that his life was in great danger, that Father was urged and persuaded by that sick man to entreat God for his health; and that Father, complying with him, for many days in his prayers entreated God for the deliverance of that sick man, who at length within a few days remained sound and delivered from that infirmity; who afterward, considering the deliverance from that pestilential infirmity obtained by himself the sacristan, which he believed he had obtained through the prayers and intercession of Father Amadeus, whom nevertheless he then believed to be a layman, gave to that same Father a garment and the habit of the Religion of St. Francis, and commended him also to many other persons, so that by many, even laymen, that Father was held in such veneration that for their infirmities and adversities they sometimes had recourse to the aforesaid Father, that in his prayers he might entreat God for them, or for their deliverance; among which many wonderful things worthy of record are said to have been bestowed by the most high Creator on account of him and his prayers, merits, and intercession.

[36] he obtains a son for a barren matron, Those are said to be notorious at Rome and elsewhere in Italy, and especially in the regions near Rome and Assisi. And of these, among others, certain things were related by a certain Brother George, the companion of that same Father Amadeus; who told of a certain magnificent lady Catherine, wife of the magnificent lord Cæsar de Condonis ^c of the city of Lucca, sister of the most holy Lord Nicholas, then the fourth Pope ^d, who, when for many years married she lacked children, had recourse to that same Father, then dwelling in the said Convent of Assisi, that he might pour forth prayers to God for the having of offspring; and at length, prayers being offered to God by that same Father, God so granting, after the appointed and limited months she bore a son, whom she nursed or caused to be nursed for years; but when that lady Catherine mocked at such a grace thus obtained from God, she was admonished by that same Father Amadeus that, unless she desisted from such mockery and unbelief, she would lose that son within a certain time appointed and fixed by him; and so at the appointed term, that Lady persevering in that mockery and unbelief, she saw that son of hers dead.

[37] and another noble woman from the peril of drowning There is also said to be a report of a certain other magnificent lady, formerly the wife and the relict of a certain magnificent lord of the city of Foligno, then a widow, who, when she had been summoned to appear at Rome before the then most holy Pope, and she hesitated to go, was advised ^e by that same Father Amadeus to go; who nevertheless foretold that the greatest peril would befall her on the journey [*], but that she should hope in the Most High God and, if she trusted in His grace, affirming that she would escape and would thereupon obtain good fortune from that same most holy Pope, for which that same Father brother Amadeus offered earnestly to entreat God and the Virgin Mary; which lady, while she proceeded honorably toward Rome upon a horse and attended by servants, when she made her passage over a certain bridge above the Tiber, the horse on which she rode fell headlong into the river together with that lady.

[38] At length, God and the blessed Virgin helping, by the merits and intercessions of the prayers, as is believed, and frees a man from a rupture. of that Father Amadeus, that lady, who, wholly sunk with her horse, was bewailed by all, though the horse was drowned, was found unhurt upon the bank of that river, crying out that by the grace of God and of the Virgin Mary, and by the merits of the prayers of the lord Father Amadeus of Spain, she was unhurt; all which things are said to have been made known by her and by her servants to the aforesaid Lord then Pope, and to others at Rome and elsewhere; which Lady afterward obtained a good dispatch of her business and great gifts from that same most holy Lord Pope, as had been foretold her by that same Father brother Amadeus. There is said also to be a report of a certain noble Castilian, who, being grievously ruptured near the genitals, had recourse to that same Father Amadeus that he might entreat God for his deliverance, and at length, the prayer being completed by that Father, he remained delivered from that rupture.

ANNOTATIONS.

at the year of Christ 1464, number 35, rightly corrected him, and substituted Nicholas V for Pope Nicholas the Fourth.

* perhaps imminere (was impending)

CHAPTER V.

His admission to the Order of Minors, various persecutions in it, his removal to the Convent of Milan, and the public fame of his sanctity and miracles.

The Blessed, having made his profession in the Order of Minors, Now in that meantime in which Father Amadeus dwelt in the said Convent of Assisi, the aforesaid lord brother Angelo of Perugia, who was General Minister of that Order of St. Francis, died, and then the reverend lord brother James of Mozzanica, Professor of sacred Theology, was elected General Minister of that whole Order of St. Francis ^a. Who, when afterward he had come to Assisi to visit that Convent, where he stayed for some days, kindly and most devoutly received that same Brother Amadeus to the profession of that Religion of St. Francis. And while Father Amadeus was still dwelling in the said Convent of Assisi, where for nearly three years or thereabouts in all, the time of his novitiate being reckoned, he lived most religiously and most observantly, as has been said; and, since he was greatly instant in prayers and contemplation, many persons, even of the laity, had recourse to him that he might in his prayers pour forth prayers to God for their adversities; but he showed himself to such persons freely and most willingly, and prayed and sometimes obtained graces for them, whereby he was a weariness to some of the sacristans of the aforesaid church, because he showed himself to such persons for nothing and freely.

[40] he incurs the envy of some Friars, But when at times that Father graciously rebuked the companions and Friars of that Convent for their negligences and defects, at length he came into such derision, contumely, and hatred with some of the Friars, and especially the sacristans of that church, and most of all with the aforenamed sacristan who by the intercessions of that same Father had been delivered from a consumptive infirmity, that, upon the death of the most holy Lord Nicholas the Fourth, Pope ^b, Father Amadeus was so hindered by those same Friars that he could not be at leisure for prayers and contemplation, nor for his other devotions, as he was wont. Whence, since by those hindrances and other disturbances he was much vexed by those same Friars, yet Father Amadeus most patiently bore all those things for the love of Christ, and daily gave thanks to God, because in tribulations and persecutions he was strengthened by the power and grace of God, and acknowledged himself a partaker of the sufferings of Christ and of His elect. And that those Friars might the more trouble and hinder that same Father Amadeus, they forbade in a certain indirect manner that the Sacrament of the eucharist should be granted to that Father, as it was wont to be granted, because he had been accustomed to receive the Sacrament of the eucharist every Sunday; and they so laid snares for him that he could scarcely live in that Convent.

[41] who persecuted the innocent man. Yet he, feeling himself innocent of the things which were imputed to him, trusting in the Lord, was patient and the stronger, and bore all things patiently for the love of Christ, reckoning himself unworthy of the graces which were granted him by the Most High God. And when on a certain day he had been summoned into the refectory by his Superior to answer those things which were objected against him by the Friars of that same Convent, because some inflicted many injuries and rebukes upon him, and some threatened to be willing to imprison him; others threatened to be willing to expel him from the Convent; others threatened to be willing to beat him grievously — and he bore all patiently, and opened not his mouth in contradiction; but when they imputed to him that he was a heretic and outside the faith, he indeed said that he was not a heretic but a faithful Christian, and held his faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and thus they afflicted that Father with like and other atrocious injuries and threats; by whose persuasions the Superiors of that Convent forbade him to speak to any laymen; who, being given to obedience, that Father Amadeus for very many days abstained from speaking to laymen, saying that this prohibition would be most pleasing to him, that he might the more be at leisure for prayers and contemplation.

[42] In which meantime some of those Friars of the said Convent, and laid snares for him; yet not of the Superiors, nay, the Superiors themselves being unaware, resolved to be willing in some manner to send that Father Amadeus to Rome, that by the order of the most holy Lord Callistus ^c, then Pope, he might be sent back toward the Spanish regions, and that so they might destroy him or separate him from that Convent; and certain letters missive being drawn up by some of the Friars of the said Convent of Assisi, yet not by the Superiors, nay they being unaware, which were addressed to certain other Friars of that same Religion then dwelling in the Roman Curia, by the friends of those same Friars, by which letters it was requested of them that by the order of that same most holy Pope Callistus Father Amadeus should be sent away to the Spanish parts or elsewhere, that at length he might be destroyed; all which things however that same Father knew not.

[43] At length, on the appointed day, and two companions being given to that same Father, but being warned of the snares by an angel, to whom those letters were given, it was committed to Father Amadeus that with those same companions he should go to Rome; and, leave being received, he directed his way with those same companions toward Rome. And when they had received lodging in the evening at a certain hospice on the way, that Father, on the following night, when in place of sleeping he had set himself to prayer in his cell, was admonished by a certain vision through an angel, as is believed, in the form of a youth, that he should not go to Rome, because the letters given to his companions reported ill of him: to whom that Father answered, how he could with a good conscience rebel against the obedience of his Superiors; to which that youth, answering, said that he ought not to care about this, because those letters had not been dispatched by his true Superiors, and that he should by no means go to Rome, but should rather go to his Provincial Minister, then dwelling at Perugia, to obtain leave to betake himself to the Reverend Father Minister General of the whole Order, who was then residing in the city of Brescia to celebrate a Provincial Chapter. Then that youth vanished.

[44] But when morning came, when Father Amadeus was called by his companions to proceed on the journey toward Rome, his persecutors persevering in their hatred of him, he answered that he would not go unless first they showed him the letters addressed to Rome, telling them what was written in those letters and what had been contrived about him by them, and that those letters had not been written with the mind of his Superiors; hearing which, those Fathers his companions, wondering, yet not turning aside from their evil opinion, but determining that that Father should by all means go to Rome, urged him to take the road; and when that Father refused to go, they rebuked him the more, among whom was that sacristan who by the prayers of that same Father in the Convent of Assisi had been delivered from a consumptive infirmity. At length those Friars, wishing that Father Amadeus should by all means go to Rome, showed those letters to that same Father, which that Father opened and found to be as had been foretold him in the night, and kept them, and rebuked that sacristan, delivered as above, for his malice, deceit, and malignity, and for his ingratitude for the good works and benefits received from him; for the punishment of which indeed that Father declared that he would not escape death within a year thereafter, which afterward, as he learned, truly befell that sacristan.

[45] he went to the General Minister of the Order, by whom being sent to Milan, These things being done, that Father, leaving the said companions, took his way toward Perugia to the Provincial Minister, from whom he asked and obtained leave to betake himself to the city of Brescia, where by the aforesaid Reverend Father James of Mozzanica, General Minister, a Provincial Chapter was being celebrated, at which Chapter that Father was present. Then by the order of that same most reverend Father the lord Master James of Mozzanica he came to Milan, namely into the Convent of the Friars of St. Francis at the Vercelline gate ^d of Milan, where for some months he was at times employed in the services of the sacristy of that same Convent. But since he was much given to prayers and contemplation, and saw that on account of the occupations which befell him, involved in the services of the said sacristy, he could not be at leisure for prayers and contemplations, he asked leave of the then lord Minister of that Convent that he might be exempted from occupations of this kind, which he obtained from that same lord Minister; and a certain chamber or cell being assigned him in that Convent in the old infirmary of that same Convent of Milan, that he might be able to stand farther off from the conversation of the other Friars, and one of the Friars of the said Convent, by name Brother George of Valcamonica ^e, being assigned him to serve that same Father, he remained there for many months in great observance of religion.

[46] he was at leisure for contemplation, At which time, according to what was several times related by that same brother George, Father Amadeus in that same Convent of St. Francis at Milan gave himself greatly every day to prayers and contemplation, and was sometimes so occupied with contemplation and prayers that he was several times seen to remain for fourteen continuous hours, and sometimes more, in such meditation and contemplation without any interval; and there also he sustained many abstinences and vigils, and rarely or never used wine in his food. But when that same Father sometimes greatly wondered, reflecting upon his ways, and seeing that he had thus come to Milan and Lombardy, one evening, going through the upper cloister in the infirmary of that same Convent of St. Francis at Milan, seeing certain plum plants or trees in the garden of that Convent much choked with spiders' webs, upon which were worms devouring the leaves of those trees, he said before that Brother George, then his companion: If it has been and is of the divine will that I came into this Convent and should remain in Lombardy, let the most high God show me this sign, namely, let Him quickly drive those worms and the spiders' webs from those trees; and at length on the following morning, God so providing, those trees were found cleansed of those worms and spiders, nor were they thenceforth in that year vexed by the like, as the same brother George related; which things indeed, as is believed, were done in the current year 1456.

[47] And at those times in which that Father dwelt in that same Convent of St. Francis at Milan, and afflicted his body with fasts, as the same Brother George asserted, commonly on three days in each week

he fasted, and on those days on which he fasted he used only bread and water, and very often on those days of fasting he abstained from food altogether; but continually on Fridays and Saturdays he used only bread and water: but on other days he used sometimes those foods which were served him, and commonly he did not eat except once a day, whether he fasted or not; nor did he ever eat unless he had first completed his prayers and meditations, in which he was commonly occupied for seven or eight continuous hours; and sometimes he was seen to remain occupied in contemplation for as much as eighteen hours: but his speeches were rare, and when he spoke, his words were for the greater part uttered concerning divine things and the examples of holy men; nor did he ever speak but what was useful and worthy of example. And he stayed much alone in his cell and in the oratory, and very often noblemen, having knowledge of his most religious life, had recourse to him, that in the prayers of that same Father they might obtain grace from the most high God for their necessities or adversities, although that Father kept himself, so far as he could, from secular persons.

[48] Among which noblemen, as was related, there is spoken of a certain lady Catherine, where to a certain noble woman, kinswoman of the lord master Dionysius of Norcia, formerly a physician of Milan, who, when she had been and was held for a long time by a grievous disease and hectic fever, so that she had been left incurable by that master Dionysius her kinsman in the city of Milan, and so there was no hope among the physicians for her life, and she had learned from a certain Brother Aloysius de Lencho of that same Convent of the most religious and most devout life of that Father Amadeus, had recourse to that same Father Amadeus, that he might entreat God for her and for her deliverance. At length, prayers being made for her by that same Father Amadeus, within three days without other medicines she found herself free from that infirmity by the grace of the Most High God; at which grace or recovery that same Master Dionysius the physician greatly wondered, and judged that that lady Catherine had been delivered by the grace and miracle of God, and not by the power of medicines nor by any other human favor.

[49] There is speech also of a certain Brother Stephen of Cararrazio ^f of the same Order and Convent, and to a Friar of the Franciscan Order, he wonderfully obtains health, who, when he had long been oppressed by a grievous disease of fever and weakness of the joints, so that his legs and shins and feet seemed almost dead, and there was no hope of his life, and Father Amadeus had been induced by much persuasion of the Friars of that Convent to entreat God for that Brother Stephen; at length, the prayer being completed by that same Brother Amadeus, that brother Stephen within a short time and quickly remained delivered, who afterward also lived sound for two years or thereabouts.

[50] And when the aforesaid things had been made known to the lord Minister and to the Friars of that Convent by that Brother Aloysius de Lencho and Master Dionysius of Norcia, to whom such things were sometimes related, and that same Master Dionysius and others who had knowledge of the deliverance of the aforesaid lady Catherine, as having much familiarity with the most illustrious Princes the Lord Francesco Sforza and the Lady Bianca Maria his consort, Visconti, so that the Duke of Milan and others therefore earnestly venerated the Blessed, then Dukes of Milan, etc., and with their household, related that same grace to the aforesaid most illustrious Princes; and diligent information being had by them of the aforesaid things and of the most religious life of that same Father Amadeus and of the observance of his rule, both from that lord Minister and from others of the Friars of that Convent who had been informed of that deliverance of the aforesaid lady Catherine and of the aforesaid Brother Stephen of Cararrazio, and of the most religious life of that same Father, they afterward held that same Father Amadeus in the greatest reverence, and those most illustrious Princes decreed and enjoined upon the lord Giovanni Giapano, then Ducal steward and secretary, that he should daily send from the Ducal store food fitting for the need of that same Father and his companions: and whenever for their adversities then befalling those same Princes, they had recourse to that same Father Amadeus, that he might entreat God for them.

[51] and often sought his prayers. But Father Amadeus cared for no praise or fame of himself; but so far as he could he fled such glory, fame, and honor, and showed and reckoned himself vile, and fled also so far as he could the familiarity of laymen, and even hid himself so far as he could from the Friars of that Convent, lest they should venerate him, nor did he care that anyone besides his companion should speak with him. He hid himself also very often in the corners of the church, sometimes in the chapel of the Holy Spirit, which is in the infirmary of that Convent, and sometimes he concealed himself elsewhere in that same monastery, that they might not find him, where, being sometimes rapt in prayer and contemplation, he was found as one dead. Sometimes also he was summoned by those same most illustrious Princes, that in some way they might test his purity and his good and virtuous conversation. At length, God so granting, the fame of that same Father's most religious austerity and sincerity of life grew so great with those Princes that in a manner he was greatly vexed by their daily intercessions, and in such a way that sometimes, nay very often, on their account he was compelled to lay aside and omit the grace of prayer and contemplation, which nevertheless was grievous to him, since he could not be at leisure for prayers and contemplation as he was wont.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VI.

His removal from the Convent of the Minors at Milan to other Convents of the same Order, in which he works various miracles.

The Blessed, on account of frequent interruptions, That same Father, afterward perceiving that in that same monastery, on account of such occupations, he could not fulfill his desire, resolved to ask leave of that same lord Minister of that Convent of Milan that he might betake himself with his companion to another place (yet under the rule and obedience of that same lord Minister) farther from the city, where he might have more quiet and be able to practice the observance of the rule of that same Order: which leave, often asked of that same lord then Minister, he at length obtained also from the whole general Chapter celebrated in that same Convent of St. Francis at Milan by the aforesaid Lord Minister James of Mozzanica, then Minister General of the whole Order, on the feast of Pentecost in the year that had run 1457. By the grace and virtue of which leave Father Amadeus betook himself with his companion to a certain Convent situated in the Borgo of Merliano of the diocese of Milan, where before only one of the Friars of that same Order of St. Francis dwelt, and there for some short time he lived most religiously and in some measure reformed that Convent.

[53] But because there also he was visited too very frequently by many nobles, migrates from Milan to a more solitary place, he left that Convent of Merliano, with the leave however and will of the venerable lord Brother Gabriel of Litia, then Minister of the Convent and province of Milan, and with the participation and consent of the aforesaid most illustrious Prince the Duke of Milan, to a certain other Friar of the same Order, and went to the Convent of St. Francis near the place of Opreno of the diocese of Milan, where and in which Convent situated near the said place of Opreno there was and is a certain church which, as is said, was the first church built in Lombardy in honor of St. Francis, and in which church there was formerly a certain monastery of that same Order of St. Francis, and at which church there then dwelt only one of the Friars of that same Order of St. Francis, who with the leave of the aforesaid then Minister left that same Father Amadeus in his place, and went to dwell at the said Convent of Merliano. And in that church of St. Francis situated near the said place of Opreno, Father Amadeus for many months, nay for some years, for the greater part made his dwelling, and fortified that Convent with some of the good and humbler Friars of that same Order under regular observance and under his own charge, yet under the obedience of that same lord Provincial Minister of Milan; where also Father Amadeus together with the aforesaid friars lived most religiously and with the greatest observance of his rule and abstinence, and there greatly exercised himself with most devout exhortations and pious works even toward seculars, and was always much given to prayer and contemplation, and instructed many nobles and commoners in the neighborhood with most devout and ecclesiastical exhortations and with the examples of the Saints.

[54] where he exercises various works of charity, He visited the sick for the saving of their souls, and invited, directed, and urged them to salvation and to the reception of the ecclesiastical Sacraments and instructions; and although he was not much lettered, yet by a certain angelic and not human understanding, but rather by the breath of the divine Spirit, he roused many of them with all his strength to penance and the discipline of morals and the forsaking of their sins, without any arrogance or elation, nay with a certain most humble and devout sincerity, moved by charity: colds, and summer heats, rainy and snowy and also windy seasons, and hard journeys, whether mountainous or otherwise burdensome, he counted almost nothing, provided he might bring some or even one to the salvation of the soul.

[55] and is adorned with the priestly dignity. At which times, while Father Amadeus was also dwelling in that same Convent near the said place of Opreno, he most devoutly received the minor and sacred orders up to and including the priestly dignity, yet at intervals of time, and celebrated his first Mass in that same church, namely on the feast of the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary in the year that had run 1459. That Father sometimes ranged through many regions, the aforesaid

most illustrious Prince of Milan being subject, and sometimes in other regions, according as he was sometimes moved by his devotion or by devout inspiration to do some good work, and sometimes at the persuasion or bidding of the aforesaid most illustrious Lady Duchess of Milan, who several times sent that Father secretly, sometimes to the Supreme Pontiff for certain of her affairs, and sometimes to others for most important business and such as regarded the salvation of the soul. And in my judgment many things worthy of record, as was related, were done at those times through the prayers and intercessions of that same Father Amadeus in those same regions of Lombardy and the places near there, which are said to have been diversely bestowed by God, of which some will be recited below.

[56] Dwelling there, he obtains offspring for a barren woman, A certain lord Uberto de Merliano, Podestà ^a of the place of Merliano of the diocese of Milan, related that, when that lord Uberto had lived for six years or thereabouts with the lady Catherine de Landriano his wife, and had never had offspring, and the aforesaid Father Amadeus then by chance dwelt in the said place of Merliano, and that lady Catherine desired to have offspring, she had recourse to the aforesaid Father, that he might offer prayers to God and the Virgin Mary for the obtaining of offspring; which Father Amadeus, for the benefits which he sometimes had from that lord Uberto, offered to entreat for her, that He might fulfill her desire in this; and one day Father Amadeus came to the house of that lord Uberto, and called them, namely lord Uberto and his Wife, and then said to those spouses: The most glorious Virgin Mary has obtained the grace that you shall have offspring, and that lady Catherine is already with child of a girl, whom you shall call Anne, in honor of blessed Anne the mother of the Virgin Mary; and although that lady Catherine did not then know that she was with child, yet at the appointed term she bore a daughter, whom she afterward called Anne.

[57] a merchant's disease and a woman's abscess There is speech also of a certain noble citizen of Como ^b, a wool merchant, who, when he was held by a very grievous infirmity, at length, being visited one day by that same Father Amadeus, immediately, by God's giving, received health, through the prayers and intercessions or merits of that same Father Amadeus. A certain lord Palamides de Carpani, an inhabitant of the parish of Incino, said, and by his oath in relating it affirmed in effect, that many years ago, when the lady Constance his wife had upon her neck a certain abscess, which by the common people was called natta ^c, but by the physicians was sometimes called topinaria ^d, and that natta was large and black, by which that lady was much afflicted; and when it was feared by the physicians that in the cutting or lancing of it that lady might die of some convulsion ^e, and that lady doubted lest, by exposing herself to such peril, she might fall into some mortal sin, since that matter was very perilous in the curing of that abscess; and the fact being narrated one day to the aforesaid lord Brother Amadeus, she was advised by him that she should proceed to the curing of it, saying that she ought to have good hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that he would pray for her, and that under the hope of his prayers she should not fear, because she would fall into no peril of death or of convulsion.

[58] That lady also, who was most devout, and had the greatest confidence in that same Father, he wonderfully heals by his prayers, whom she had already many times received in lodging, and knowing him to be most devout to God and the Virgin Mary, and of a most religious and austere life, pure, simple, and courteous, and a little servant of God, heeding the words of that Father, boldly put herself into the hands of the physicians; which physicians, when for certain days they had applied maturative medicines, and at length had come to the incision or lancing of that natta, and had already one day extirpated or cleansed away that putrefaction or matter in the neck, so that in the neck the sinews or cords of the neck appeared, and that lady was so afflicted with such burning and pain that great fear was had of her death, in the evening of that day, kneeling before an image of the Virgin Mary, that lady prayed to that same most glorious Virgin Mary and to her Son that of His mercy and by the merits of that Brother Amadeus His little servant He would quickly cure her of such affliction, since under the faith of the prayer of that same Father she had exposed herself to such peril. But on the following morning that lady found herself with flesh grown up in the neck, and healed, so that the physicians who were curing her judged that that flesh had grown up by a miracle of God and not by the power of medicines, since she would not have been so quickly cured with medicines unless the grace of God had come upon her; and so, by God's giving, and by the merits, as is firmly believed, of the prayers of that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus, she remained quickly healed and delivered from the said abscess, of which above.

[59] The same lord Palamides said in like manner that, when he had received that same Father Amadeus into lodging in the house of him, lord Palamides, to be refreshed with food (it may now be sixteen years past or more), and he made his passage through a certain vineyard or piece of hill-ground [*] ^f of that lord Palamides, where there was a great quantity of grapes which were near ripening, and that same lord Palamides complained to that same Father Amadeus that again and again in that vineyard he was harassed by hailstorms, at length that Father, taking some grains of those grapes and blessing and tasting them, with bent knees and eyes raised to heaven, prayed, and afterward blessed the grapes then being in that vineyard, and the vineyard; and said to that lord Palamides that he should keep good faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed Virgin Mary, and should no longer fear hailstorms; and so, by God's giving, from that time onward he was never harassed by hailstorms in that vineyard, as he said, and that although several other vineyards round about were harassed by hailstorms, yet that vineyard was always preserved from those hailstorms.

[60] two women from the vexation of the demon, There is speech also of a certain lady of the stock of the Crinelli, who, when she was sometimes, nay very often at certain intervals of time, greatly vexed by malignant spirits, so that she did many follies and foolish things which did not befit a person of sound mind, and had been brought to Father Amadeus at the said church of St. Francis situated near the said place of Opreno, and that Father had been induced by many persuasions of the parents and friends of that woman to entreat God for the deliverance of that woman, that Father, moved by charity and compassion, offered prayers for her, which woman within a short time remained delivered from those vexations, to the praise, glory, and honor of God.

There is speech also of a certain other young woman of Monza, who had been married, as is said, in the place of Sesto, whose name is unknown, who in like manner was greatly vexed by malignant spirits: and when she had been presented to the aforesaid Father Amadeus at the said church of Opreno, and the prayer for that woman had been completed by that same Father, on the following day she remained delivered.

[61] a boy from a rupture, and another There is speech also of a certain son of the notable Lord Taddeo Bucerini, then captain of Martesana, whose name was Antonio, who, being a little child and ruptured in the genital parts, his parents had recourse to that same Father Amadeus that he would entreat God for their son, and, the prayers being completed by that same Father, that boy was delivered from such rupture.

There is speech also of the same son of that same lord Taddeo, then, as above, Captain of the Borough of Vimercate, who, when that boy, being already given to the study of laws, was dwelling in the city of Pavia, and was so oppressed with sickness that he was accounted as dead, and there was among the physicians no hope of life from that sickness, and these things had been made known to that same lord Taddeo his father, he ran to the aforesaid lord Father Amadeus, asking him with the greatest urgency that he would be willing to entreat God for the deliverance of that son of his.

[62] he delivers from another grievous infirmity. Hearing which, Father Amadeus said to that lord Taddeo that he did not deserve to obtain graces from almighty God, rebuking him for the evil conscience, avarice, and blasphemies of that lord Taddeo, which were uttered by that lord Taddeo, and that he ought not much to wonder if from the most high Creator, on account of his demerits and crimes, he suffered adversities by way of chastisement or correction; for which Father Amadeus seemed to refuse to offer prayers for him, doubting to obtain grace from the Most High unless first that Lord Taddeo should promise to correct himself, since God does not hear sinners; and when that lord Taddeo greatly heeded the words of that Father Amadeus, and grieved exceedingly for the death of that Antonio his son, since he had then no other male children, he promised that same Father Amadeus that he would withdraw himself somewhat, so far as he could, from those crimes, and abstain from them, for which cause that same Father Amadeus then promised to offer prayer; which prayer being offered to God by him, he said to that same lord Taddeo: Go, thy son shall live, and I will entreat God for him. Hearing which, that lord Taddeo sent his own messenger to that Antonio his son dwelling in the said city of Pavia, which messenger found that Antonio delivered from the grievous infirmity by which he had been held. And asking that Antonio about the day and hour of his deliverance, he learned that that Antonio had been delivered at the time in which prayer was offered for him to God by that same Father Amadeus. At which deliverance that same lord Taddeo had the greatest joy, for which grace so obtained he daily offered many gifts and other alms to that Convent of Opreno, and further, as a sign of his joy, he caused a garment of silver cloth ^g to be made for himself, and rendered thanks to God.

ANNOTATIONS.

interpreted this text of the Latin biographer of the city of Novocomum.

* that is, a piece of land

CHAPTER VII.

Other miracles which happened by the prayers of the Blessed while he dwelt in the Convent of Opreno.

The Blessed prodigiously preserves wine poured out of a cask; It is said also that, when that same Father Amadeus for the most part dwelt in the said Convent of the place of Opreno, and there was a report among many in that region of the most religious and saintly life of that same Father Amadeus, especially with certain nobles, the lord Antonio de la Ecclesia and Bianchina de Aliprandi his consort, inhabitants of the land of Monza, who sometimes had recourse to that Father that he might offer prayers for their adversities, and offered many things to his Convent and for the sustenance of their Friars, and that same lord Antonio had much converse with that Father Amadeus, and that so Father Amadeus used almost no other wine in the sacrifice of the Mass but a certain wine of vernaccia ^a which the said lord Antonio and his consort gave him: and when one evening a certain son of the said lord Antonio had forgotten to stop the hole of the tap ^b in the cask from which that vernaccia had been drawn, so that in the following night all that vernaccia, which was of good enough quantity, was on the following morning found all spread abroad in and through the cellar ^c.

[64] prodigiously preserves it; And when that same Father Amadeus had come on that same morning to the house of that lord Antonio, and the aforesaid things had been made known to him, Father Amadeus ordered that they should gather up all that vernaccia in that cellar, spilled ^d in whatever way, and should put it back into that cask, and then should draw from it, and for the rest should dispense it as they had been wont, saying that he trusted in Christ that they would lose nothing of that wine either in quantity or in goodness: and, as he ordered, it was done. At last, when it had been drawn from that vernaccia, they found it good and strong, nay better than it had been before. At which things thus done that same lord Antonio de la Ecclesia greatly wondered, and glorified God; but Father Amadeus glorified God still more.

[65] and, trusting in divine providence, both in the Convent, A certain lord Aloysius de Invitiatis, a citizen of Milan, formerly an inhabitant of the Borough of Vimercate, about one mile from the said place of Opreno, said that he had at other times learned from a certain Brother John, the companion and familiar of that Father Amadeus, then dwelling in the said Convent of Opreno with the said Father Amadeus, that on a certain day, when Father Amadeus had been at leisure for prayer and contemplation in a certain oratory of his for several hours until night, fasting, and that Brother his companion had already taken sleep in his cell; behold that Father Amadeus, when he came to his cell and had found in the refectory a tripod ^e prepared with bread and water, went to the cell of that companion of his, greatly wondering at such a preparation, and when he had asked that companion of his who had prepared bread and water in the refectory upon the tripod, that Brother John his companion, wondering at this, answered that he did not know, since no other man could have prepared this, and, rising from his sleeping-place, he went to the refectory with that same Father, and they found one fine ^f and white loaf, and one bowl of fresh water upon the tripod, at which that Father and Brother greatly wondered, and thought that these things had proceeded from God and from divine grace, and, having blessed them with the sign of the holy cross, they tasted of them with thanksgiving to God, and that Father asserted that he had never so pleasantly tasted such bread and water. For which they rendered immense thanks to the most high God.

[66] and on the journey, That same lord Aloysius also said that he had likewise heard from that same Brother John that, when that Brother had on a certain day taken his journey in company with that same Father Amadeus from that convent of Opreno toward the parish of Incino, and that Brother John on the way was already oppressed with hunger and weakness, so that he could go no further, nor had that Father wherewith he might refresh him, and he saw that that companion of his could go no further, moved by compassion he raised his eyes to heaven, and immediately from a certain sleeve of that same Father's garment that Father brought forth one loaf, which he gave to that Brother his companion for food, to refresh him; which being taken, that Brother was wholly refreshed: for which grace that Father glorified God, saying to that Brother John that if he had good confidence in the Lord he ought to doubt of nothing.

[67] It was related also by the aforenamed Brother George of Valcamonica, he often wonderfully finds food, the companion of that same Father Amadeus, that when that Brother George dwelt with that same Father Amadeus in the said Convent of Opreno, and the other Friars of that same Convent had one day gone away from that Convent, so that only Father Amadeus and Brother George remained alone in that Convent, and they had neither bread nor other food for sustaining life that day, nor likewise had they means of obtaining that food, that Brother George complained of such lack to that same Father; to whom that Father said that he ought not to care otherwise, because the Lord would provide: at length, when evening had come that day, someone came to ring the little bell of the door of that convent; but Father Amadeus, who was walking in and through that Convent, without being able otherwise to see what was being brought to the said monastery, said to that same Brother George that he ought to go to the door of the said Convent, because the Lord had made provision; and so that Brother George found that there had been brought there to the door a basket full of bread, of which afterward with God's blessing they took refreshment with thanksgiving.

[68] The aforenamed lord Palamides de Carpani also related at another time and once, his companions murmuring on the way, that he had at another time heard from certain Friars, companions of that same Father Amadeus, that when one day Father Amadeus with several of those companion Friars of his congregation had taken their journey from that place of Opreno, to go into the parish of Incino, that they might examine a certain place in that parish which certain persons offered to that same Father Amadeus for the building of a church and a Convent, and that Father had determined to take lodging for the refreshment of those same Friars altogether at the house of that lord Palamides and nowhere else, since that lord Palamides was very familiar with that same Father, and his benefactor and friend; and there were also many miles from that place of Opreno to the place where that lord Palamides dwelt; and when on the way food had been offered to that same Father and his fellow-brethren by many for their refreshment, and that Father had not been willing to accept it; some of those Friars rebuked that Father on the way, asserting that he was indiscreet; some others, though they uttered no words, yet would have been content to take refreshment in that meantime.

[69] But Father Amadeus, greatly rebuking them for their impatience, he admonishes by an opportune finding of food, roused and invited those same Friars by the examples of the Saints, and by moral and evangelical teachings and authorities, to patience and to enduring hunger, thirst, heat, cold, injuries and contumelies, and persecutions for the love of Christ, even unto death, as Christ Himself endured for us, and to doing well, that through many tribulations, and through fire and water, they might be able to ascend to eternal glory. And with many other devout exhortations, admonitions, and rebukes, thus proceeding on the journey, he led them to patience and strengthened them. And so, when they had come to the house of that same lord Palamides, and had not found that lord Palamides nor his wife, those hungry Friars were greatly saddened and complained of such absence, and rebuked that Father exceedingly.

[70] that thereafter they may trust in God, But Father Amadeus was so much the more fervent and strong, reproving them for such impatience, asserting that they were unwilling to endure anything for the love of Christ; and when, sitting beneath the shade of certain chestnut trees, they were resting in a circle, hearing those things which were uttered by that same Father laudably and in a manner with angelic speech for their instruction, and that they should not fear, because the Lord would certainly and quickly provide them with refreshment: and while they were thus staying and resting in discourse, behold, a certain little girl, the daughter of that lord Palamides, came up, saying that she had food quickly prepared, that they might have refreshment, although her parents were away from home, and invited them to come to refreshment in her house. Hearing which, that same Father rebuked them the more, and reproved them for their impatience, because they had not perfect faith in God, and uttered certain other things to the purpose in sweet discourse. At length that Father with those companion Friars came into the house of the said lord Palamides, where with God's blessing they took most pleasing food for their refreshment, at which refreshment those parents, namely Lord Palamides and his wife, coming up, were filled with the greatest joy and jubilation at the coming and the refreshment of such a venerable Father and his Friars; for all which things that same Father glorified God.

[71] and on other occasions restores health at once to two sick women. A certain nobleman, Ricardo Crinelli, brother

of the lord John, an inhabitant of the borough of Magenta of the diocese of Milan, asserted that, whereas many years ago, a blessing having been given by the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus the Spaniard, whom he had then in a frosty winter, as he was passing by, received into lodging to be refreshed at the fire, to a certain girl his daughter, who then before was held by a grievous disease and was half lost, and who, although all despaired that she could be brought back to health by human work, yet in fact obtained health: to which Richard the Father the lord Brother Amadeus had first said and given assurance that that daughter of his would be delivered from that infirmity by the grace of God.

A certain priest Lawrence de Tomago, father of the church of the borough of Concorezzo, not far distant from that place of Opreno, also related that when a certain Lady Elizabeth de Rusconi, then wife of the notable lord Philip de Casate, was grievously sick in the place of Achiori, where she then dwelt, not far distant from the said place of Opreno, and that lady had been judged by the physicians to be about to die of that infirmity, nor was there hope of her life, at length, being visited by the aforesaid lord Father Amadeus, she quickly received health; which lady nevertheless Father Amadeus judged would soon die, but of another infirmity soon to come upon her: and as that Father judged, so it was, because within a short time, another infirmity coming upon her, that lady died. At all which things that priest Lawrence said that he was present. And many other wonderful things also are said to have been bestowed by God at those times in which Father Amadeus dwelt at the said church of St. Francis of the place of Opreno, which here for brevity's sake are omitted.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VIII.

Miracles which were wrought by the prayers of the Blessed when he had passed over to another Convent in the land of Castelleone.

The Blessed, after embassies discharged to Pope Pius II, The most religious and saintly life of that same Father, and his good and kindly conversation, were so notorious that the most illustrious and most religious lady, the Lady Bianca Maria, then Duchess of Milan, confidently sent that same Father Amadeus several times to the most holy Pope Pius the second ^a, then in the city of Mantua for the gathering of a universal Council of Christian Princes for help against the infidel Turks, and also to other places for the special and chief affairs of that same most illustrious lady, for which he boldly and graciously obtained from that same most holy Pope what he wished, which things were done in the year of the Lord that had run 1460.

[73] In the same year also, after the aforesaid, the aforesaid lady Duchess so wrought with the men of the land of Castelleone, receives a Convent near Castelleone, of the diocese of Cremona, that to that same Father Amadeus there was offered by those same men of the land of Castelleone and by the Friars of the Order of St. Francis then dwelling in a certain Convent situated near that place of Castelleone, that Convent itself, and the place with the church there, which had at another time been built under the title of St. Mary of Bressanoro ^b, which Convent however was then and for long times had been held by the Friars of that Order of St. Francis, and in it there was then Guardian and Custodian of that same Convent a certain lord Brother Stephen of Castelleone of that same Order of St. Francis; which Convent Father Amadeus accepted in the month of August of the said year 1460, as is believed, and caused that Convent to be built anew under the same title of St. Mary, and fortified it with good Friars of that same Order under regular observance and under the obedience and charge of that same Father, leave however being first had from that same most holy Pope, and also from the reverend lord General Minister of that same Order, and likewise from the aforesaid lady Duchess; where, and to which place or Convent, Father Amadeus with his companions for many months, nay even years, for the greater part made his stay, living in regular observance and assiduously persisting in prayers and contemplations.

[74] which donation some vainly attempt to hinder, It is to be noted that, from the things which were related by a certain lord Ladinus, an inhabitant of the said land of Castelleone, under the burden of his conscience: While that Father the lord Brother Amadeus was proceeding, or causing to be proceeded, with the building of the aforesaid Convent of Bressanoro, behold, certain religious who dwelt near Cremona stirred up many snares among the men of the said land of Castelleone, making also many promises and persuasions toward those of Castelleone, that they should by all means cast out or drive away that Father Brother Amadeus and his companions from the aforesaid Convent of Bressanoro, and should not permit them, the Father or his companions, to dwell in that Convent, nay, not even to have there fellowship or habitation: to whom nevertheless, although those religious several times made the greatest urgency and solicitation about the aforesaid with those same men, that they should by all means drive that Father from that Convent, yet no audience was given to those religious by those men; nay, those men, regarding the good conversation, doctrine, devotion, and purity of that same Father, also with the consent and good pleasure of the aforesaid most illustrious lords the Duke and Duchess of Milan, confirmed and maintained, and wished to be maintained, that Father alike and his companions in that same Convent.

[75] and, dwelling there, he delivers a woman with child While that same Father Amadeus and his companions dwelt in that same Convent with the greatest devotion and regular observance, and the austerity of the life of that Father Amadeus, many other wonderful things are said to have been bestowed by God upon divers persons by the merits and intercessions of that same Father; among which there is speech of a certain noble lady Ricarda of Lodi, as was related by master Martin of Lodi, a most famous Physician of Lodi. When the said lady Ricarda was with child of five or six months or thereabouts, and had begun to be feverish with a most intense fever with continual vomiting, persistence of sleeplessness, and the other symptoms attesting death infallibly ^c, for whose cure three physicians were present, who all according to the canons of medicine attested that she would without doubt die; but on a certain day, when that same Master Martin, one of them, who had also been first in the cure, was holding converse with that same reverend Father Brother Amadeus the Spaniard, that same Father Amadeus said: Martin, my son, what dost thou with the other physicians think of the lady Ricarda, whether she will die or not? To whom that master Martin answered: I, before the coming of the others, greatly doubted of her death; but now we all say and attest that she will die. But Father Amadeus said: I wish that in this cure thou mayest obtain the greatest honor; go, and say that she will infallibly escape from this disease. To whom that master Martin answered: Father, I should not dare to do this, because I should contradict both myself and others without reason, since we see her failing every moment. And he said: She will infallibly escape.

[76] from imminent peril of death, On another day, while that master Martin was in the house of that lady Ricarda, and there were there also the brothers and kinsfolk of that lady Ricarda, and also the then Guardian of St. Bernardine's outside and near Cremona, all expecting the death of that lady Ricarda that night, that lady Ricarda asked for a drink of cold water, which that same master Martin ordered to be given her, and then from that hour onward she went on from good to better, so that she both bore a son in due time, and escaped from that infirmity, and still remains sound and alive. These things indeed were related by that same lord master Martin in his letters to the reverend Lord Roman de Barm, then Vicar General of the archiepiscopal see of Milan.

[77] It was also related by very many men of the said land of Castelleone and his cell is lit up with heavenly splendor. that, when Father Amadeus dwelt in the aforenamed Convent of Bressanoro, and for the greater part remained secluded in a certain cell separated from the other buildings near the garden of that Convent, by day and by night praying and contemplating; on a certain night, or very early in the morning, many of those men of the said land, coming toward the place of the said Convent to go to their possessions and to the meadows lying about that Convent, those men saw above that place, or above that cell which Father Amadeus had for his secret oratory, very great living fiery flames, with very great voices and pleasant and in a manner angelic songs; which men indeed, seeing and hearing the aforesaid, suspected that that place or that oratory was being burned with fire, and that the Friars of that Convent did not perceive such a fire burning the said oratory, thinking that those Friars of the said Convent were in their church singing Matins, and, coming to the gate of that Convent, they knocked, that they might enter and put out the aforesaid fire. But those Friars of the said Convent, hearing these things, the doors of the said Convent being opened, ran together with those men to the said oratory, and found no fire, nor did they hear anything of those songs, but, knocking at the door of that oratory, they found that same Father Amadeus at prayer, to whom those Friars and men narrated the aforesaid things which they had seen and heard; but Father Amadeus, having heard all of them, under pain of obedience commanded those same Friars and men to keep all the aforesaid in silence. But since some of these men could not keep silence about it, they announced all these things to the venerable lord then provost of Castelleone, named the Lord … de Cipellis de Pisleone, which lord Provost, hearing the aforesaid, exhorted that they be made known, to increase the devotion and good fame of that same Father Amadeus and of his companions, although that same Father cared not for this, nay was ill content.

[78] At those same times also, in which that Father dwelt for the greater part in the said Convent

of Bressanoro, The sick daughter of the Duke of Milan, it also happened, as was related, that when the most illustrious lady Ippolita, daughter of the most illustrious princes the lords Francesco Sforza and the lady Bianca Maria, Dukes of Milan, was a little child, and sick with a grievous infirmity in the castle of Monza, they had recourse to the aforesaid Father Amadeus that he might offer prayers to God for her health; to which Father Amadeus assenting, prayers being offered to God by him, that lady Ippolita was at once improved, and in a short time was healed.

[79] A certain nobleman, lord Matthew de la Ecclesia, called the son of the late lord Antonio, and another nobleman near to death he heals by his prayers, a citizen and inhabitant of Monza, related that, when that lord Antonio de la Ecclesia, formerly and then his father, in the year 1466 in the month of June was so sick of a certain infirmity which the common people call the disease of the canal, but the physicians call it the disease of the tenesmus ^d, in a manner incurable, from which very few, as is said, are cured and delivered, and that lord Antonio was so weighed down by that infirmity and by others that he had come almost to the last of his life, and in such a manner that he neither spoke to them nor did his spirit govern his limbs, and the sepulchre in which his corpse should be buried had already been made, nay, about his sepulchre or the place of his sepulchre there was a question among the clergy where he ought to be buried. But the physicians had left him because of hopelessness of recovery, and when his wife and sons had sent letters by a messenger to the aforesaid venerable Father Amadeus, who was then dwelling in the aforesaid Convent of St. Mary of Bressanoro near the aforesaid place of Castelleone, to whom they had by those same letters directed their prayers that he would offer prayers to the supreme and almighty God for that lord Antonio, his most dear friend, that he might obtain that that lord Antonio should be restored to his former health, and moreover that that same Father Amadeus should make speedy journey to that lord Antonio, most dearly beloved by him, if he desired to see him alive. But Father Amadeus, the said letters being received and their prayers heeded, on the following morning, Mass having been already celebrated by him, said to the messenger that that Lord Antonio would not then die of that infirmity. Then that same Father, kindled with the love of charity, after three days betook himself to Monza, since that Lord Antonio was most devoted to that Father: and when he arrived within the gates of Monza, he asked a certain man of Monza whether that Lord Antonio de la Ecclesia was still alive, to whom it was answered that he lived; to whom he said: Nor will he die of this infirmity: and at length, entering the house of the dwelling of that Lord Antonio, and finding that sick man half alive, he came to him alone, and stayed with him nearly three hours, and, coming out of the chamber of that sick man, finding the wife and sons of that same Lord Antonio pouring forth sobs and tears, he said: Send forth neither tears nor sobs, because the almighty and merciful God, being moved with mercy, will restore that Lord Antonio to his former health within a few days. And to a certain Giovanni Pietro Seroldano, acting in the service of that lord Antonio and his sons, he then said that he ought to have the sepulchre stopped up, because for this time he had no need of a sepulchre; and so within a few days he was wonderfully delivered by the prayers of that same venerable Father the lord Brother Amadeus, whereas among men his cure and deliverance from that infirmity was impossible, because very few are delivered by human work.

[80] he obtains offspring for a woman, It was also related of a certain young wife of Lord Giovanni Stefano de Federici, of the co-lords of the place and Castle of Chignolo of the County of Pavia, who, when for many years she had been barren and could have neither sons nor daughters, had recourse to the aforesaid Reverend Father Amadeus, that in his prayers he would entreat God for her, that she might receive offspring. Which Father Amadeus, assenting to the desire of that lady, prayers and orisons being multiplied to God, obtained from the Lord that that lady at length within a year by God's grace received offspring, for which grace gifts were offered by that Lord Giovanni Stefano and his wife to the aforesaid church of Bressanoro, which was sometimes also called by many the church of Guadalupe ^e, and for the completing then of that monastery or Convent. But when afterward that lady mocked, and at such a grace so obtained, within a short time she lost that offspring of hers by death: and when the aforesaid lady had returned again to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, and had grieved and repented of such mockery, again beseeching that same Father Amadeus that he would offer new prayers to God for her, that she might have offspring, and new prayers being offered by that same Father, within a short time she received another offspring, which afterward she reared and nursed.

[81] Brother James of Marignano also, one of the companions of that same Father, related he multiplies wine, that, when he was going one day in the evening in summer time from Milan toward the place of Castelleone with that same Father, and that same Brother James had, for the love of God, one little flask ^f full of wine from the venerable lord Priest Leonard de Monti, a Milanese cleric, very intimate with that Father Amadeus and his benefactor, then residing at the church or hospice of St. Peter outside the Roman gate of Milan, that at some time on that journey to be made from Milan to the said monastery or Convent of St. Mary of Bressanoro of the diocese of Cremona he might somewhat allay his thirst on account of the great heat then prevailing. Of which wine that Father James tasted on the way, so that it is likely that little remained in the flask, when afterward that Father Amadeus and Brother James his companion had come to the city of Lodi, namely into the inn of St. Gratus, and Father Amadeus was afflicted with great thirst in the evening, that Brother James offered the little flask with that small remainder of wine, and, a cup being taken, he poured that little wine into that cup, which wine, as he perceived, being greatly multiplied, he gave to Father Amadeus to drink, and when that Father had drunk, he gave back the remainder to that Brother James in that cup, that Brother James should by all means drink of it; and when that Brother James had seen that wine greatly multiplied, not only in the cup but also in the flask, and had tasted of it, it seemed to him that that wine had been and was of such goodness that it seemed to him that that drink had been sent from paradise, and much better than Malvasia ^g and manna. At which multiplication and improvement of goodness that Brother James greatly wondered: for which Brother Amadeus rendered many praises to God; but that Brother James believed and firmly believes that the aforesaid things proceeded to the praise, glory, and honor of God, and by the merits and prayers of that Father.

[82] But what more? When it was very late, and he had laid himself upon the hay in that same inn to rest; he foreknew that the way over the bridge of the Adda would be open, and that Brother James had slept somewhat, he saw that Father Amadeus praying, though he was on the hay in place of sleeping; and when he had rested a little, about midnight Father Amadeus said: Let us rise and go, that we may make our passage by the bridge of Lodi over the Adda ^h, and pursue our journey: at which words that Brother James greatly wondered, knowing that it was the custom that commonly by night passage could not be made over the said bridge, unless by some chance it happened; yet as a son of obedience he directed his journey with that same Father that night as far as that bridge of Lodi over the Adda, which by a wonderful grace they found open that night, so that they peacefully crossed the Adda by that bridge: which indeed seemed wonderful to that Brother James, and the more so since that Father had announced two miles this side of it that that bridge would be found open, and so they had found it. For which also he rendered thanks to God.

[83] At those same times also it happened, as was related, he makes whole a broken vein, that a certain noble soldier, who was then lodged in the land of Casale Sant'Evasio ⁱ, having a broken vein in his body pouring forth much blood, was by that effusion so weakened that among the physicians there was no hope of his life; and since there in that place there was a report of the praiseworthy life and sanctity of that venerable Brother Amadeus, that soldier had recourse to the aforesaid Father, that he would pray to God for his deliverance; for whom prayers being offered, that Father said that he ought to use no further medicines, but should trust only in the grace of God and the merits of the most blessed Virgin Mary, and immediately that vein was closed. But when that sick man, by the persuasions of the physicians, despised such an admonition by proceeding with medicines, that vein was straightway opened anew, and, such a grace being neglected, so great an effusion of blood happened that it came to the ruin of that soldier, as a certain Brother George, companion of that same Father, asserted.

[84] for married persons lacking offspring It is also reported to have happened concerning a certain noble lady of the chief persons of that land of Casale, as the same Brother George asserted, who, when for many years she had been barren with her husband, had recourse to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, that he would entreat God for her and for the having of offspring. At length, prayers being offered by that same Father, that woman obtained the grace, so that within a year she received offspring: in gratitude for which grace that lady offered gifts of sufficient note to that monastery of Bressanoro near Castelleone, for the building of that monastery.

[85] he obtains fruitfulness; At those same times also, while that same Father Amadeus dwelt in that same monastery or Convent of Bressanoro near Castelleone, on a certain day a certain lord Taddeo Bonzalini ^k of Cremona, formerly Captain of the Borough of Vimercate of the Duchy of Milan, with the lady Joanna his wife, and also certain other nobles of both sexes, was in the said monastery to visit that same Convent, and that lord Taddeo with his said wife had greatly urged that same Father Amadeus that he would pour forth prayers to God and intercede that those spouses might have another male son; for which intercession that Lord Taddeo of his own accord promised to bestow upon that monastery as much silver by weight as that son should weigh at the time when he should be born; whom that same Father, desiring to gratify, promised in kindness to their affection to entreat God for them, that they might obtain what they desired: for whom indeed thereafter he offered many special prayers, and at length after a certain time that lady Joanna

found herself with child, and within a year bore a male son, although for eight preceding years she had been continuously barren; for which grace so obtained those spouses offered to the said monastery many gifts and the promised silver.

[86] he foretells help to his weary companion, The aforesaid Brother James of Marignano also related that, when on another occasion he was coming with that same Father Amadeus from that monastery of Bressanoro to the city of Milan, and that Brother James had a wound in his foot by which he was much afflicted, so that he could scarcely go, and that with the greatest difficulty; and when they were on the way, having passed the city of Lodi as far as the inn of Thanasanus and beyond, that Brother James was so burdened by that journey that he could not follow that Father on the way; and when that Father had already gone briskly ahead, he sometimes waited for him, and said to him: Doubt not, for we shall presently have relief, God granting it; which said, behold, a certain man named Garlinus, servant of the lord Pagano de Ponzoni, came on horseback, to whom that Father said that for the love of God he ought to take that Brother James upon the horse behind him; which Garlinus willingly came down from the horse, and graciously offered and gave the horse to that Brother James, whom afterward he accompanied as far as the city of Milan, so that that Brother James greatly wondered that so suddenly, at that Father's wish, that Garlinus had come up: nor did he believe that it had been otherwise than by the grace of God and the merits of that Father Amadeus, most faithful to God.

[87] A certain master John Crinelli, an embroiderer ^l of Milan, and he passes over the snows, leaving no footprint. said that many years ago he had learned from a certain Brother James, companion of the aforesaid Father Amadeus, who related to him that, when at another time that Father Brother Amadeus was going from the city of Lodi toward Pizzighettone ^m in the Cremonese district, and there were deep and abundant snows on the ground, behold, a laden horse came to meet them along the road or by a narrow path ⁿ, to which the aforenamed Lord Brother Amadeus, together with that same Brother his companion, hastening to give way to that horse, since he could not otherwise give it place or yield, that same Father, giving way, began to go into and upon the snows, and went on as it were flying over the snows, leaving no footprint or other mark in the snow, that he might allow that horse so laden to pass by along and through that path with its driver; but his companion, going up to his knees into and through the snows, sank ^o, since those snows did not bear him up, who, crying out, said: Lord Father, thou passest into and over the snows flying, leaving no footprint; but I go up to my knees into and through the snows; wait therefore a little, because I cannot come after thee so speedily. At which things that Brother greatly wondered; but joining many other wonderful things which he saw of the most religious and austere life of that same Father, he judged him to be a most holy man and admirable with God.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IX.

A suit brought against the Blessed on account of a certain Convent accepted, the donation of other Convents, and certain miracles which then occurred.

[While some stir up a suit concerning the Convent which had been given to Bl. Amadeus,] At those times also, as I have learned from men worthy of credit, when that same Father Amadeus in that same Convent of Bressanoro near the said place of Castelleone of the diocese of Cremona had suffered many tribulations, vexations, contumelies, and persecutions from certain Religious who were held under the habit and Order of St. Francis and under regular observance, in that the aforesaid Religious asserted that that Convent of St. Mary of Bressanoro belonged to them, by virtue of that indult or Apostolic Bull granted to that same Father Amadeus, those Religious asserting that no others of the Order of St. Francis besides themselves and their Superiors and of their family could erect or accept any place or Convent under regular observance, etc.; on whose account that Father was compelled to have recourse to the then most holy Pope. And when, on account of the favors shown to his adversaries in the Roman curia, the dispatch of the business was for a long time drawn out, that Brother Amadeus had recourse first to the Most Reverend Lord Cardinal of Bologna, who, considering the purity and simplicity and poverty of that same Father Amadeus, and having compassion on that Father's purity, afforded him not only dwelling but also food in his house, and favor.

[89] they lose the case, Whereas many other Cardinals, at the persuasion of many other Religious of the same Order called of the Observance, greatly opposed and were contrary to that same Father Amadeus and his wish, at length by the grace of God, many conferences and disputations having first been held among those Cardinals, considering the simple and pure devotion of that same Father Amadeus and also his most religious and austere life, of which each of those lords Cardinals wished to have diligent information, and all those lords Cardinals and many other Prelates of the Roman curia coming together into one, with the greatest difficulty however he obtained from that same most holy Pope that that Convent of Bressanoro should be governed under the obedience and charge of that same Father Amadeus in Regular observance, and not only that Convent, but that Father Amadeus might erect and govern three other Convents also, as is reported, under the same regular observance and obedience.

[90] And when that same Father Amadeus had returned from Rome to that same Convent of Bressanoro with victory, God favoring, and the Blessed, by the kindness of the inhabitants, and much more and more a most religious and saintly life, with a more austere observance of life and with courtesy and kindness; although that Father, so far as he could, took care to keep his devotion hidden and concealed, certain noble citizens of Brescia, inhabitants of the place of Rovato of the diocese of Brescia, understanding the most religious and sincere life of the aforesaid Father Amadeus to be praiseworthy, and of the good conversation of him and of his Friars, so pressed that same Father Amadeus that he should accept the Convent which they had formerly built under the title and name of St. Bernardine, and under the government and observance of the lord Provincial Minister of the Order of St. Francis, near that place of Rovato; which Convent or monastery, with the greatest difficulty, he accepted under his charge, the due consents of the Reverend Father the lord Minister of that province, and also of the Reverend Lord then bishop of Brescia, and Apostolic Bulls having first been had. Which Convent he afterward fortified with Friars of his society, to the praise and glory and honor of God and to the commendation and devotion of His most glorious Mother the Virgin Mary and of the Seraphic St. Francis.

[91] And when there was a report among very many in that region of the saintly and religious life of that same Father Amadeus, who venerated his piety, and of the austere observance of his life and of his kindness, certain other nobles of Brescia dwelling in the place of Iseo of the diocese of Brescia offered to that Father Amadeus another monastery or another Convent, formerly built under the title and name of St. Francis near the said place of Iseo, which monastery however was ruled and governed under the charge and government of the lord Conventual Friars of the Order of St. Francis, and where some of the Friars of the said Religion of St. Francis dwelt. Which things indeed that Father Amadeus hearing, and especially that the Friars dwelling there consented to this, that Father, desiring to enlarge the religion and observance of St. Francis to the greater praise and glory and honor of God and of His most glorious Mother, assenting to the prayers of the said nobles, that both they and other nobles of that region might earnestly desire to obtain some saving benefits from God, by the force of the indults formerly granted to that same Father, graciously accepted that place or Convent or that monastery into his charge in the year 1465 and in the month of August, as is believed; which Convent he afterward reformed and fortified with Friars of that same society of his under the same rule of observance. In that

Convent he appointed a most religious Guardian under his obedience and government. And then he instructed and trained that Convent and those placed in it with the greatest diligence, doctrine, and examples, and with other good exhortations and manners.

[92] he acquires other Convents, Then certain other nobles of Brescia of the place of Quinzano of the same diocese of Brescia, hearing the aforesaid good fame of that same Father Amadeus, and his sincere and humble and most religious life, and beholding it (indeed any good man, considering and beholding, was so drawn to him that he could scarcely keep away from the company of that Father), came with one accord to that same Father Amadeus together with the venerable lord Tebaldo de Blanchis of Paratico, archpriest of the church of St. Mary of the said place of Quinzano; and at length that Lord archpriest, together with those same nobles, with the greatest prayers and persuasions exhorted that Father that near that place of Quinzano he would cause another Convent to be built under his charge and government, and would fortify and adorn it with Friars of his society, and would sometimes make his abode with them in that Convent for their consolation and saving instruction: among which nobles was a certain Joseph de Ferrandes, a citizen of Brescia and inhabitant of the said place of Quinzano, who for the building of such a Convent offered to give one piece ^a of land with certain vine plants of ten perches near that place of Quinzano, where and in which Convent buildings and a church should be constructed and built; which piece of land he in fact gave to that same Father for the aforesaid Convent and buildings, to be built as above.

[93] leave of the Apostolic See having first been obtained, Which things indeed Father Amadeus hearing, and considering the great affection and devotion of those nobles, and no less of the aforesaid venerable Lord archpriest and of the said Joseph, who had no other land ^b in the territory of the said place of Quinzano save that which he had given, as above; and he graciously accepted all things so offered and given, and for all of them rendered infinite thanks to God and to the glorious Virgin Mary; for which cause afterward that same Father so wrought that on that piece of land, of which above, in the current year of the Lord 1467, and in the month of April, as is believed, a monastery or Convent was begun to be built under the name of the most glorious Virgin Mary of the Graces ^c, Apostolic Bulls however having first been obtained thereupon from the most holy lord Pope Paul the second ^d, which, although they had been graciously granted by that same most holy Pope, yet could with the greatest difficulty be had from the datary. Which Convent afterward, God helping, with alms and other helps, he completed by the grace of God and of the aforesaid most glorious Virgin Mary, and fortified it with Friars of his society and under his charge and government.

[94] and then by his prayers he heals within three days a young man grievously hurt, In those middle times also, while that same Father Brother Amadeus for the greater part had his conversation in and through the aforesaid monasteries or aforesaid Convents, and sometimes stayed in them, many wonderful things also are said to have happened by the prayers or intercessions and merits of that same Father Amadeus, of which some worthy of record in my judgment I shall here below relate, as they were reported, and in as brief and effective speech as I can. A certain Christopher de Pischeria, a young apothecary ^e, an inhabitant in the said place of Iseo of the diocese of Brescia, as was faithfully related, when he had fallen to the ground from a certain very high tower upon which a clock was being made, so that he was wholly broken and shattered, and there was no hope of his life, that same Father Amadeus was asked to go to visit that young man and to pour forth prayers for him. But on the next day in the morning, Mass having first been celebrated by that Father, and prayers being offered to God by him for that same young man, he went to visit that young man; and, that young man being visited, that Father said: I hold faith in our Lord Jesus Christ that by His grace this young man shall come sound within three days to visit the church of St. Francis of our Convent; exhorting that young man and his parents to have firm faith in that same Lord Jesus Christ, because he would be made sound within three days from that time; and so by the grace of God within that term that young man, of whose cure and health there was no hope among the physicians, being made sound, went to visit that church.

[95] A certain lord Ladinus de Blanchis of Lodi, he provides for the poverty of a certain man, an inhabitant of the place of Castelleone, said also, under the burden of his conscience, that when that Father Amadeus for the greater part dwelt in the said monastery or Convent of Bressanoro, but that lord Ladinus was in the greatest poverty and had two marriageable sisters whom he could not bestow upon husbands on account of his poverty, and was anxious because he had in a manner nothing whereon to live, nor could he dower those sisters of his: and when he had gone to the aforesaid lord Father Brother Amadeus for the confession of his sins, and had made known such anxieties and conditions of his to that same Father as to his counselor, that he might afford him counsel in such adversities and anxieties of his, that Father the lord Father Amadeus, as being pious and moved with mercy, said to that same lord Ladinus: Ladinus, do not doubt; have good faith and hope in the Lord our God, and in a very short time God Himself will provide for thy need; and in truth within a very short time the most high God made such provision that, that most high God helping, he married those sisters of his and dowered them sufficiently becomingly, and so well did he fare that by the grace of that same most high God and of the Virgin Mary, and, as is believed, by the prayers and merits of that same venerable Father Amadeus, from that time onward he had good enough fortune and prosperity: for which that lord Ladinus rendered immense thanks to God and to the most sacred Virgin Mary, and to the aforesaid Father Amadeus.

[96] The above-written lord Ladinus said also that by long experience, especially from that time in which that same Father Amadeus began to dwell in the aforesaid Convent of Bressanoro, and that same lord Ladinus conversed in that Convent, he takes care that the rule be truly observed in his congregation, he saw and understood that the society and conversation of that same Father Amadeus was fortified by God with such a prerogative that, if anyone entered such religion and observance, or society, under the regular observance and obedience of that same Father Amadeus, or was received into that society, and then committed [*] any wickedness in that same society, so that he did not truly proceed according to the disposition of the rule given by St. Francis in true observance, and according to the admonitions given by that same Father Amadeus, especially while that Father Amadeus lived, at once such wickedness was disclosed, so that it was in a manner impossible that such wickedness should have persevered and remained in that society; and that he had seen, known, and learned the aforesaid from many who could not persevere in that society on account of their defects, and this indeed from experience of many years already, and also from the report of very many of those Friars who were of the said society, as that Lord Ladinus attested.

[97] for the paying of the debts of a certain Convent The same lord Ladinus said also, under the burden of his conscience, that at other times and often he had learned from a certain Fachinus de Gandulfis of Castelleone, who for many years acted as overseer of the fabric of the said monastery or Convent of Bressanoro near the said place of Castelleone, of which above, that when on occasion of that fabric of that same Convent many and great debts remained upon that Convent, or upon the friars of that Convent or those acting for them, and they had not wherewith to pay the laborers and masters building that monastery, nor could they complete the buildings already begun and ordered to be made by that same Brother Amadeus, and that Father one day urged that Fachinus to proceed to the completion of those buildings; but that Fachinus answered that he had no money nor means of paying or satisfying those laborers or the masters, or others belonging to that fabric, to whom that Father said: Come with me; and he led him to a certain little wood ^f lying however within the bounds of the gardens of that Convent, and afterward enjoined upon that Fachinus that he should search in that little wood whether there were there a little chest; and when that Fachinus had searched and found nothing, that Father, repeating, said, and again enjoined upon that Fachinus, that he should search more attentively and would find it; and at length that Fachinus found a covered and very heavy little chest, which he carried out to that Convent, and, that chest being opened, he found that chest full of gold and silver coins, among which were many silver coins of the value of three imperial shillings each.

[98] he wonderfully finds money, These things being thus found, no other command being then given about them, that Father said to that Fachinus: Go, and pay the debts, and cause the work to proceed, because the Lord will also provide other things: at which things so found that same Fachinus and others who were then present greatly wondered, nor did that Fachinus think that that money had come otherwise by human work, but from the abundant and wonderful grace of God and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, to whom that Father was most devoted and most faithful: and it seemed impossible to that Fachinus that any human person, matters being as they were, could have placed that basket ^g in that little wood, full of brambles ^h and thorns, and very thick with other green trees. And so at length that Fachinus paid several debts of that Convent out of that money, and proceeded to have work done for the completing of that Convent, which coins amounted to about the value of seven hundred imperial pounds of the money of Milan: all which things that lord Ladinus said he had several times heard and learned from that Fachinus, as above, whom he said to have been of good conscience, repute, and fame, as long as he lived.

[99] and he succors a woman in hard travail. At those same times also, as was related by a certain venerable Brother James of Marignano of that same Congregation and society of the aforesaid Father, there is speech of a certain young woman, daughter of the lord Abraham de Federici, married to a certain noble young man of the kindred of the Caprioli, a citizen of Brescia, who, when for two continuous days and nights she was afflicted with the pangs of a mother in childbirth, and yet

did not bring forth; and when that Father had received lodging in the house of the magnificent lord Peter de Advocatis, a citizen of Brescia, in the city of Brescia for certain business concerning that Father Amadeus, behold, the lady Marina, mother of that young woman who was in the pangs, came to the aforesaid lord Father Amadeus, whom she suppliantly entreated that he would go to that daughter of hers, set in so great a calamity and pains and anguish, and would offer prayers to God for her; to whom, gratifying her, being moved with mercy, he went to the house of that young woman, and when in a certain chamber of that same house he had offered prayers for her, he sent to that young woman the girdle or cord which he had about his person, saying that she should have good faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the most glorious Virgin Mary His Mother: which girdle being touched by that young woman, she straightway brought forth offspring, which afterward she reared and nursed; whereupon that lady Marina, the mother of that young woman, kept and keeps that girdle with the greatest devotion, and then made provision of another girdle for that same Father, that lord Father Amadeus however being unwilling, and caring not for the keeping of it, nay even being saddened at it. Of which things thus done Father Amadeus made no other mention, nor would he have any made.

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is, perpetraverit (shall have committed)

CHAPTER X.

Poison given to the Blessed, an apparition of the Mother of God, fruitfulness obtained for women, a wonderful healing of the sick, and a certain prophecy of Bl. Amadeus.

The Mother of God, appearing, frees the Blessed from poison he had drunk, At these times also, while the aforesaid Father Amadeus dwelt in the said Convent of Quinzano, which was then being built in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, behold, a malicious man, moved by envy and malice, at the persuasion of certain rivals of that Father who envied him and were grieved on account of so many good works which were daily done and performed by the diligence of his prayers and by the grace of that venerable Father, sent as a gift to that venerable Father a certain poisoned cake ^a; and when that same Father had joyfully accepted that cake, and had eaten and tasted of it, he was suddenly affected with mortal poison; and when he was visited by the physicians, and there was no hope of his life among the physicians that he should escape death, and he was guarded by the men of that land day and night lest he should be carried away thence dead, but that Father bore all these things patiently, and continually in such anguish commended himself to the most high God and to the most glorious Virgin Mary, on a certain day there appeared to that same Father in his chamber or cell where he lay a certain lady sufficiently comely and beautiful, who told him that he ought to have a linen sheet with walnut leaves, in which he ought to be wholly wrapped with those leaves in the sheet, and that he should not fear, because by the grace of God on this occasion he would escape death. Hearing which, that Father did as she bade, and was straightway made whole; and when he had asked of his Friars how that lady had entered the Convent and come even to his cell, since women were not permitted to enter their Convents, it was answered him that they had seen no woman enter or go back, and that none could have entered, since the doors of the Convent had been shut. Whence that Father thought that that lady had been the Queen of the angels, who under such a veil had come to visit and cure that Father: for which visitation and cure that Father rendered infinite thanks to God and to the aforesaid most glorious Queen.

[101] who, being now sound, for barren spouses At those same times also, in which the aforesaid Father Brother Amadeus was conversing in the aforesaid Convents of Bressanoro, and of Quinzano, of Iseo, and of Rovato, since that Father dwelt sometimes in one, sometimes in another of those Convents, there is speech of the lady Antonia, daughter of the late magnificent and valiant knight Count Aloysius de Verme, and wife of the magnificent knight and valiant leader of arms Sforza, who, when she lacked children, had recourse to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, that for the sake of having offspring of herself and her husband he would entreat God: and at length, by God's giving, although for several years she had been barren, she had a daughter whom she reared and nursed, by the merits and intercession of that same Father.

The same is said of the magnificent lord Matthew of Sant'Angelo, valiant leader of arms and captain of the dominion of the Venetians, who, when he lacked children, had recourse to the aforesaid Father Brother Amadeus, of whose most religious devotion and observance there was a report; who, when he had prayed for him, within a year had of his wife a son, whom he reared and nursed.

[102] obtains fruitfulness by his prayers, The same is said of a certain lady Maiola, wife of the lord Gregory, a citizen of Genoa, who, when she had been married many years, and was already of the age of forty years or thereabouts, and lacked children, had recourse to the aforesaid Father, whose observance of religion and thanksgivings before God and the glorious Virgin Mary were known to many; which Father however that lady had never seen nor known, but there was a report of him, and, many letters being sent to that same Father, she asked that he would pray to God and to the Virgin Mary for her, that she might have offspring; and at length within a short time, prayers being offered by that Father, she bore a daughter, whom afterward by God's grace she reared and nursed.

The same is said of a certain magnificent lady Margaret de Aramboldis, wife of the magnificent lord Bon-Giovanni de Fiscilaga, a citizen of Lodi, who, when she lacked children, and that lord Bon-Giovanni was already worn with old age, had recourse to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, and at length, prayers being offered by him, and many orisons and fastings, that lady Margaret obtained a son, whom she reared and nursed, nor had she other children afterward.

[103] At those same times also, while a certain infant, nephew of the magnificent lord Peter de Advocatis, a citizen of Brescia, was being suckled by a certain nurse in the place of Erbusco of the diocese of Brescia, he frees a boy from a spell, and was so wasted that he could scarcely live, nor was there hope of his life; and when the aforesaid Father was dwelling in the monastery of St. Bernardine of the said place of Erbusco, that infant had been brought by the nurse to the aforesaid Father, that he might pray to God for him: but that Father, Mass having first been celebrated by him in that same church of St. Bernardine, asked that nurse whether she had anything of superstition upon the person of that infant; who, answering, said that she had a certain little written charm, given her by a certain mountebank ^b, which she had placed at the neck of that infant. To whom that Father said: Show me that little writing, because it is the cause of that infant's infirmity. But she, seeking, did not find the little writing, and then that same Father said: Put nothing henceforth upon the back of that infant, because he will simply remain sound; and then he sent her away from him, and thereafter within six days that nurse on another occasion brought that boy to the aforesaid Father sound and free, in good prosperity and health: for which grace that Father rendered infinite thanks to God.

[104] At those same times also, in which the aforesaid lord Brother Amadeus was dwelling in the said Convent of Quinzano, he heals a man grievously wounded, it is said that a very great quarrel arose among some of the men of the place of Bordolano, near the said place of Quinzano on this side of the river Oglio ^c, on occasion of which a certain man had been very cruelly wounded, so that he was judged by all to be dead, on occasion of which also hatred, quarrels, and suits daily increased, whereby many betook themselves to arms. And when all these things had come to the notice of the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus, that Father, moved with mercy, prepared to go to the place of the said quarrel, that he might rebuke those contending and brawling in strife and persuade them to peace, since they were hastening so much to vengeance; and he by persuasions and other good examples and admonitions so persuaded and induced them, even with a promise that that wounded man would not die, and so pressed those adversaries who held the wounded man for dead, that, laying down their arms, they went with that same Father into the presence of that wounded man, and at length, prayers being offered to God by that Father Amadeus for that wounded man, all of them in a manner seeing and hearing, that wounded man, who was as it were dead, revived, and within a very short time remained delivered: for which restoration to life that Father rendered infinite thanks to God.

[105] There is speech also of the aforenamed lord Taddeo Buzalino, a man dangerously sick a citizen of Cremona, who, when at those same times he was weighed down with a very great infirmity in the city of Milan, and Father Amadeus was then dwelling in the Convent of Bressanoro of the diocese of Cremona, that lord Taddeo caused letters to be sent to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, praying him to visit him before his death. Which being had, that same Father betook himself from that Convent to that city of Milan and to the house of the dwelling of that lord Taddeo, and, that lord Taddeo being visited by that same Father, by his exhortations he restored that sick man from that grievous infirmity.

[106] he twice restores to health, In those same years also, while that same lord Taddeo Buzalino, a citizen of Cremona, was greatly weighed down with another infirmity in the land of Bosco of the diocese of Alessandria, where that lord Taddeo was then Venetian captain, and had been left by the physicians, and no hope of his life was had save by way of the prayers and intercessions of that same Father Brother Amadeus, and letters being directed to that Father, that he might have knowledge of such an infirmity of his, and would deign to pray God for him and for his health,

and also to visit him in person. Which letters being received, that Father, moved by the greatest affection, also because that lord Taddeo was a great benefactor to his monasteries, betook himself to that place of Bosco, and, that sick man being visited in person, that sick lord Taddeo at once received the benefit of great relief of his sickness, and then within a few days remained wholly delivered.

[107] and to a woman whose confession he had heard in a mean place, A certain lady Catherine de Gualteriis, wife of the lord John de Vayrolis, a citizen of Lodi, formerly accustomed to dwell in the place of Castelleone of the diocese of Cremona, and then residing in the city of Lodi near the church of St. Lawrence, said that, whereas in the times when she dwelt in the said place of Castelleone she had been somewhat accustomed to confess her sins and to confer about her state with the aforesaid Brother Amadeus, then dwelling in the said Convent of Bressanoro near that place of Castelleone, and Lent had come on, so that that lady willingly, as she was wont, intended to make her confession with the aforesaid Father Amadeus; and when that Father Brother Amadeus, God so permitting, had come to the city of Lodi for his business, that lady begged that Father to hear her confession: which Father Amadeus, not knowing how to deny such a work to that woman, awaited her in the aforesaid church of St. Lawrence, nearest to the house of her dwelling, in a certain corner of that church very mean, that he might hear from her the confession of her sins.

[108] he foretells the future veneration of that place. But that lady, since she was noble and of a great spirit, was unwilling to go or to bend her knees in that so mean a place of that church, blaming and rebuking him because he had chosen so mean a place. To whom that Father, answering, said: Do not wonder that it seems to thee that I have chosen this place, so mean and unbecoming, for thy confession; for not many years shall pass, and thou shalt see in this place a place of the greatest devotion and reverence toward the glorious Virgin Mary. Which being thus heard, that lady Catherine had patience, and acquiesced in the words of that Father, and then patiently confessed her sins to him; and since that Father uttered these things, it may be eighteen years ago or thereabouts, and it is true that after some years in that corner of that church there was erected by certain scholar-citizens of Lodi, with the greatest devotion and reverence, an altar in honor of the most glorious Virgin Mary, which even at present may be seen, where a very great multitude of persons flocks together out of devotion to the aforesaid most glorious Virgin Mary.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XI.

Various predictions of the Blessed proved by the event, and the acceptance of new Convents.

The Blessed foretells to his adversaries At these times also and years, in which that Father conversed in the said Convents, sometimes in one and sometimes in another, that Father desiring to have one place appointed to the honor of the most glorious Virgin Mary, where that most glorious Virgin might be inclined to obtain some miracles and graces from God, that same Father Amadeus was led by certain nobles from the borough ^a of Caravaggio ^b to Caravaggio, very great floodings of the waters being imminent, that he might obtain the place of St. Mary where there is a spring ^c, and might fortify, govern, and administer that place under his government and regular observance with Friars of that same society and Order: who, when he had been presented in the full council of that borough according to custom, and had laudably declared his opinion and mind, which was approved by the chief and nobler men of that borough, the enemy, as is believed, of human nature so moved the mind of certain governing that place to avarice that, although by the greater part of that council it was approved and praised that that place of St. Mary at the spring should be ruled and administered under the government of the aforesaid Father and his companions, and not by seculars, who have in themselves no religiousness or comeliness of manners, yet some of that borough of the lower sort, who had been moved by avarice, girding themselves with the girdle of pride, said that they would in no way suffer that that place should be administered by religious; nay, they vexed that same Father Amadeus, who had dwelt for many days in that borough, with many contumelies and injuries, so that in the aforesaid council, on account of the resistance of the aforesaid opposers, he was bidden by some not to proceed otherwise in such a matter; at which that Father greatly wondered, since he had been summoned to this by many of them, and especially by the nobler sort.

[110] the divine vengeance, But when a certain Francesco Stagnino, one of the chief opposers, though not of the nobler sort of that Borough, who was moved with greater and more numerous injuries and contumelies against that same Father, came to meet that Father with an angry mind and, as is believed, to offer injuries against him, that Father said to that Francesco Stagnino: Stagnino, thou shalt not see the year out, and the other opposers shall suffer many tribulations and anxieties, because you have been opposers and adversaries to the divine will and to the Blessed Virgin Mary: and then that Father departed from that borough and returned to the said Convent of Bressanoro. But within a year the said Francesco Stagnino, on account of his misdeeds, was by an evil death and by judicial authority hanged. A certain lord priest de Ganis of that same borough, who also was an adversary to the aforesaid Father, died shortly after by an evil death, and many others of those opposers shortly after fared ill, for some of them died not after a Christian but after a beastly manner: but others were laid low by a pestilential disease, as was related by certain persons of the said borough of Caravaggio.

[111] to a certain Guardian who had not the means for a building, The aforenamed lord Brother James of Marignano also related that, when that same Father Amadeus intended one day shortly to depart from that Convent of Bressanoro and to go to Rome for certain business concerning his society, and the buildings of that Convent were not yet made or completed, nor was there hope of having means for making those buildings, especially where the Friars of that Convent might have a convenient dwelling; and that Father had sent that same Brother James to Cremona to receive ten ducats, formerly promised by vow to that church of Bressanoro by the lord Giovanni Foliano, a citizen of Cremona; and when that Brother James had found that those ducats had been given to certain other Friars, but of another society, and that Brother James, wholly saddened by such fraud, returning toward that Convent of Bressanoro, found that same Father Amadeus passing on the road to go to Rome, to whom that Brother James, wholly saddened, said that he had not got those ducats, but that they had been fraudulently given to other Friars.

[112] a great abundance of alms; That Father, answering, said: Brother James, go and fear not, because God will provide. I go to Rome, and thou shalt do great things in that Convent in the Lent next to come, causing building to be done in that Convent, as was ordained. And the Lord will so provide that thou shalt be able to do these things. Having left him, Father Amadeus pursued his way toward Rome; but that Brother James, who at that time had been appointed Guardian of that place or of the said Convent of Bressanoro, returned to that Convent; and certainly it seemed wonderful to him that, although that Father Amadeus was absent from that Convent and in distant parts, yet in that Lent so many alms were bestowed upon that Convent and church of Bressanoro, out of which many buildings were constructed in that place, which he believes proceeded not otherwise than from the grace of God and the merits of the prayers of that Father Amadeus, who almost continually, whether journeying or staying, gave himself to prayers.

[113] At those middle times also, when there was a report through the whole ducal dominion of the Duke of Milan that the most illustrious Lord Francesco Sforza Visconti, then Duke of Milan, had died, and he foretells to the wife of the Duke of Milan his approaching death. which was in the year 1461, in the month of August or September; and that Father Brother Amadeus was then dwelling in the said Convent of Bressanoro, and knowledge of these things was given to that Father Amadeus by a certain lord John of Cremona, to whom that Father said and affirmed that that lord Duke was not dead, and that neither would he die of that infirmity. At length, coming to Milan, that same Father found the aforesaid Lord Duke alive and delivered from that infirmity; but at another time, namely in the year 1466 in the month of February of that same year, when that same Father Amadeus had come to Milan and had gone to visit the most illustrious lady the Lady Bianca Maria, Duchess of Milan, wife of that same Lord Francesco, after many admonitions and exhortations that same Father announced to that same lady that the death of that husband of hers, Duke Francesco, was near; and so in the month of March then next following that same most illustrious Lord Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, closed his last day.

[114] At those middle times also, when there was a report among many nobles and commoners of such observance of religion of Father Amadeus, Then also a certain chapel of his kindness and comeliness of manners and his courteous conversation, a certain hermit named Brother Peter, who was passing his eremitical life at a certain high or mountainous place where only one chapel had been built in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Annunciation, near the land of Bormio about two miles, in the Camonica valley

of the diocese of Brescia, to whom the true observance of religion, the kindness, and the courteous conversation of that same Father Amadeus was known, made many persuasions to that same Father Amadeus that he should accept that place, of which above, under his charge and government, and should cause a Convent to be built in it, since he would be helped by many of that valley; and when that Father greatly doubted about such persuasions, and gave no answer upon the aforesaid, after many days, as I have learned, that Father, being admonished by divine inspiration while he was at leisure for prayers and contemplation, resolved to go to the said place, whither with the greatest eagerness, in wintry and frosty seasons, with bare feet, nay wounded by the cold and by the trouble of the frozen clods of earth, accompanied by one of his fellow-brethren, he went, that he might in all things observe the divine will, and for the honor and memory of the Annunciation of the aforesaid Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom he was most devoted.

[115] Which place he saw, and, considering that it was very remote he accepts the place offered by the hermit, and solitary from the conversation of seculars, and also heeding the promises made by some of the nobles of that same land of Bormio, to which that place was nearer, to the praise, glory, and honor of God and of His Mother, also by virtue of his Apostolic Bulls, he nevertheless after many months kindly accepted it in the year 1468, in the month of June about the feast of St. John the Baptist; which being accepted, and order being given for the building of that Convent, some of his fellow-brethren of the same Religion and obedience being left there, and a blessing thereupon being given, a Guardian being appointed there by him, he departed from that place, saying to that Guardian that he should proceed to the construction of that Convent, and should not fear nor doubt, because beyond doubt God and the Blessed Virgin Mary would provide him with the things necessary for the completing of that Convent. But when morning came, as was related to me by the aforesaid Friars, and also on many other following days, as is believed by a divine movement and inspiration, countless persons came together to that woodland place with mattocks ^d and spades ^e and other instruments necessary in such matters, for the building of a Convent there, and for the building there of a church with buildings and other things pertaining to that Convent: and so great a devotion grew from day to day among the men of the villages of the said Camonica valley, and so great was the bestowal of alms and other helps, that within a year there were built in that place, for the church and the dwelling of the Friars of that same congregation, many buildings, where there was no dwelling at all save that chapel only, where the said hermit dwelt, so that the aforesaid things seemed rather to have proceeded from a miracle of God and of the Blessed Virgin Mary than from human work and skill. But in this meantime, while that Convent of St. Mary of the Annunciation was being built, many things indeed worthy of note, as is said, were done, which here for brevity's sake, for shortness of time, are omitted.

[116] and builds two Convents, And while the building of the said Convent of the Annunciation near the said place of Bormio was going on, as above, because a candlestick cannot stand hidden upon a mountain, and through holy men the glory of the most high God is sometimes made manifest, there was a report among many of such true religiousness of Father Amadeus, and of his courteous and devout conversation, and therefore by certain nobles of the place of Antegnate of the diocese of Cremona there was offered to that same Father Amadeus another place near that place of Antegnate, which at length he accepted, and afterward by virtue of the aforesaid Apostolic Bulls it began to be built and erected in honor and under the title of St. Mary of the Graces, and he fortified it with Friars of his congregation and under his obedience and the observance of the rule of St. Francis.

[117] [and another is offered him by the Venetians, before whom he had been falsely accused,] And while such monasteries or Convents, namely of Bressanoro, of Erbusco, of Quinzano, and of Bormio, and of Antegnate, were being built under the obedience and government of that same Father Amadeus, behold, by certain persons who envied and were troubled that that same society of Father Brother Amadeus should be enlarged and should have a place, on a certain day, under a certain veil, asserting that that Father Brother Amadeus was an ignorant and proud man, and that he wished to gather a faction against the government, that same Father was accused before the governors of the city of Brescia, by whom afterward he was admonished to go to Venice to the chief officials of the city of Venice, that he might, if he could, excuse himself from such accusations, and prove to them the truth of his religion. Which that Father, willing to obey, immediately, his Bulls being taken, went with one companion to Venice on foot after his wont, and first presented himself to the most illustrious Doge of the Venetians; by whom that Father was honorably received. Then before him and the other chief men of that city of Venice, and that Father, trusting in the goodness of God and of the most glorious Virgin Mary, to whom he was wholly devoted, and they cooperating, and trusting also in the truth of his religion, showed himself with a bold mind and in a praiseworthy manner, and at length was dismissed by them all as innocent; nay, one of those chief men offered to that same Father Amadeus with the greatest urgency and entreaties another place in that same city of Venice under his obedience and charge, together with two thousand gold ducats for the building and erecting of that place under his government, as was related: which place nevertheless that Father would not accept.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XII.

Envy stirred up against the Blessed at Milan, and a place given him there for building a Convent, on account of which he is afflicted with many contumelies and injuries.

On occasion of the lodging which Bl. Amadeus had at Milan At the aforesaid times also, while Father Amadeus was intent upon the building and government of the aforesaid Convents, and had sometimes also to come to Milan for business concerning the building, completing, and governing of those Convents, and for the greater part on his coming, when he came to Milan, had his lodging in the monastery, or near the monastery, of the ladies of St. Apollinaris ^a, outside the Roman gate of Milan, which monastery then, and for a long time, and from its beginning, was ruled and governed in the greatest observance and good repute under the government and charge of the lords minister and Friars of the Convent of St. Francis at Milan with the greatest devotion and solicitude, by which religious ladies of that same monastery of St. Apollinaris that Father Amadeus, as a true religious and most observant of his rule, was held in the greatest veneration, to whom in that same monastery, or near that monastery, yet within the bounds of that monastery, together with their chaplain, those ladies gave lodging.

[119] But when day by day that Father sometimes conversed at that same monastery, among the nuns of St. Francis, and there according to his custom was greatly intent upon prayer and contemplation, save so far as he attended to the business for which he had occasion to come to Milan: the more that Father showed himself devoted to God, so much the more did the fire of envy grow among his rivals, and those rivals stirred themselves the more against him and to trouble and disquiet him, so that, God so permitting, for the greater trial, as is believed, of that same Father Amadeus' patience and endurance, behold, the sower of tares came and stirred up and roused among those religious ladies of that same monastery the greatest contumelies and discords, so that some of those ladies of that monastery secretly, and without the participation of the others, by the arm of some of those opposing that Father, obtained from the then most holy Pope an Apostolic Brief, surreptitious and obreptitious as is believed, to the effect that the lord Minister and Friars of the Convent of St. Francis at Milan should no longer concern themselves with that monastery and with those ladies, but that that monastery should henceforth be ruled and governed under the charge and government of the lord Friars of St. Angelo ^b, so called, of the Observance of St. Francis; although to some of those sisters of the said monastery this was unknown and foreign, nay displeasing, since from them, the lord Minister and the Conventual Friars, they had received good example and good guardianship in good repute and in regular observance.

[120] a persecution is stirred up against him, All which things, as is believed and presumed, would not have happened otherwise than that that same Father Amadeus should seek lodging elsewhere; on occasion of all which also many contumelies and discords arose, first between the Conventual Friars of St. Francis and some of the Friars of St. Angelo, and also among many citizens of Milan, of whom some interceded for one side, and some interceded for the other side; nay, at the instance of those lord Conventual Friars there was made to the aforesaid Friars of St. Angelo a certain denunciation of that Brief or Indult or Apostolic privilege which had formerly been issued by the most holy Lord then Pope to the effect that those Friars called of the Observance ought not to concern themselves with places or Convents or monasteries hitherto subject to the lord Ministers and other Conventuals; and on the other hand that the Conventuals should not concern themselves with places or Convents subject to those called of the Observance, even under pain of Papal excommunication, as is contained in that Indult.

[121] to avoid which he removes to another lodging, But that same Father Amadeus, although he saw himself pressed on every side with troubles, yet bore all things patiently, nay accepted all those things with devotion and cheerfulness in place of merit. Nor yet did he fail in the prayers and contemplations in which he had been accustomed, nay he frequented them more attentively; he prayed also, as I have learned, for those persecutors; but yet he would not concern himself with those contumelies and discords, nay he departed from that same monastery without other disturbance, and went to the house of a certain venerable Father the lord priest Leonard de Monti, then dwelling in the buildings of the hospital of St. Peter outside the Roman gate of Milan, where sometimes, coming to Milan, that Father Amadeus together with his companions received lodging, and where with kindness

and courtesy of that same lord priest Leonard he had at his accustomed hours a secret place for his prayers and contemplations; and the more he was afflicted with trouble by those persecutors, the more fervent he was in praying to God for them; but sometimes he invited, exhorted, and roused his other companions to patience for the love of Christ with good words and exhortations.

[122] where, living piously and austerely, That Father Amadeus was so grave, pure, and sincere in speech, and full of good fear, and a follower of a good life, that if he uttered any words he spoke them with so much understanding and prudence and so briefly that they were commonly received by all who heard as good example and holy doctrine; and he so bore himself in the austere manner of his food and garments, and going his way with bare feet, without shoes or wooden clogs ^c, in frosty seasons and at all other seasons, through waters and snows, that it seemed impossible for a human creature to suffer and endure such things, which nevertheless seemed to him, the Father, as nothing, and he bore all these things for the love of Christ.

[123] Since at those times he sometimes went to the Reverend Lord Stephen of Forlì ^d, then archbishop of Milan, he receives a place from the archbishop of Milan, and often to his archiepiscopal court at Milan, out of regard for that same venerable lord archbishop, with whom that same Father's most religious conversation was at times known, at length that same lord archbishop of Milan procured that a certain little church of the holy James and Philip outside the eastern gate, or outside the Porta Tosa of Milan, with certain small houses and little gardens, should be obtained and bestowed upon him; which church with those little houses and little gardens that Father willingly accepted, where afterward, with the deliberation, consent, and participation of that lord archbishop, and in his presence, and in the presence of the most illustrious Prince the Lord Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza Visconti ^e, then Duke of Milan, and of the greater part of his courtiers, and also in the presence and with the consent of the reverend lord Brother Francesco Maria de Septara, then Minister General, and of the Friars of the Convent of St. Francis at Milan, and with all of them concurring in these things, he founded, or began to found, a church under the title of St. Mary de la Pace, Apostolic Bulls however having first been obtained thereupon, and caused the first stone of that church to be laid in the year of the Lord 1469, on the XXIX day of the month of October. And, those little houses being left to the seculars dwelling in them, he laudably fortified that place with Friars of his Society, proceeding, or causing it to be proceeded, to the foundations of the building of the aforesaid church and of the buildings for that Convent.

[124] When the foundations of those church and Convent were being proceeded with, and that same Prince and many other citizens and the aforesaid lord archbishop of Milan out of their devotion contributed and bestowed many of their goods for the building of that Convent and church, in which he began to build a Convent; so that up to two cubits of wall or thereabouts above the ground from the foundations of that church were already finished, behold, the enemy sowed so great a tare among the unclean and wicked that he stirred up many adversaries envying the exemplary life of that same Father Amadeus, so that thence many persecutions, contumelies, snares, and injuries were brought upon that Father Amadeus; and day by day their iniquities and snares increased among those especially who were called of the Order and of the Observance of St. Francis, who had the greatest favors with princes and many citizens and magnates, so that that Father and his companions, alms failing, could scarcely lead a needy life, much less could they proceed to the building of such a Convent and church: for they were harassed by them with snares on every side, and that Father was dragged sometimes before the then most illustrious Prince, sometimes before the lord archbishop of Milan, and sometimes before the venerable lord Francesco della Rovere of Savona ^f, then Minister general of the whole Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis, then most lately chosen into the number of the most reverend lords Cardinals by the most holy Pope, while that same most reverend lord Cardinal was staying at Pavia; so that he was greatly despised by those persecutors and dragged hither and thither and afflicted with troubles. But Father Amadeus, caring little for these things, bore them all patiently for the love of Christ.

[125] but being on this account accused by his rivals, But since those malevolent men did not cease from those persecutions and contumelies, Father Amadeus often hastened from Milan to Pavia to the most reverend lord Cardinal and General Minister of that Order, as to his protector and governor and that of the whole Religion, that he might afford that same Father the help of truth and justice: and since to the aforesaid most reverend lord Cardinal and General Minister the religious and good habit of that same Father Amadeus, and the discipline of his good life and manners and his regular observance, were already known, considering the very great favors of his adversaries and the continual persecutions which they exercised against that same Father Amadeus, when on a certain day that most reverend lord Cardinal had before him, as was related, some of the chief of those same adversaries, and that poor little Brother Amadeus, and those adversaries had set forth many disputations and articles before him, but Father Amadeus answered nothing else save that he was a true son of St. Francis, and set forth that in the Order and regular observance of the Friars Minor of St. Francis he had made his profession into the hands of the then most reverend Minister General and under his obedience and care, and that so great abundance of sciences did not befit him, but that it sufficed him only to know and contemplate Jesus Christ and His deeds, and to follow the divine will so far as he could, and that those things which were done and carried on by his work were done not to the injury or contempt of anyone, but only to the worship, glory, and honor of God, God and the glorious Virgin Mary so granting and helping, and that nothing concerning those Convents, whether built or to be built, pertained to them.

[126] the General Minister vainly defending his cause, All which things being thus heard, as was related by persons worthy of credit, then that most reverend lord Cardinal and General Minister of that Order, as above, rebuking those adversaries and accusing them of presumption and rash judgment, said, affirmed, and in their presence declared that that Brother Amadeus was a true Religious, and that he had left many more and greater goods and lordships for God's sake than they had, and that they ought not to molest him. But when that same most reverend Lord Cardinal had departed from Pavia to go to Rome, those adversaries and their followers stirred up other new disturbances and snares with the most illustrious Prince and lord then Duke of Milan against that same Father Amadeus, as was related, on account of which that Father afterward came to Rome, and immediately obtained from the most holy lord Paul, then the second Pope, an Apostolic Brief directed to the aforesaid most illustrious Prince, that that Prince should take cognizance of that cause, and especially should provide that the work should proceed in the completing of the aforesaid Convent of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan.

[127] he is summoned to a secular judgment, When that Apostolic Brief had been presented to the aforesaid Prince the lord Duke of Milan, that Prince, seeing and considering the many and infinite favors of those adversaries who envied that Father, arising not only from those adversaries but also from many other citizens and magnates against that poor little Brother Amadeus; yet knowing, that Prince, that he was a true and excellent religious, and being unwilling to displease those adversaries, would not himself take cognizance of that cause, but subdelegated his office to the magnificent lord Alessandro Sforza, lord of Pesaro, then governor and lieutenant of that same Prince, then dwelling at Pavia; before whom those adversaries so pursued and laid snares for that same Father Amadeus, and snares were prepared by others at their instance, that that poor little Brother Amadeus, who was from the region of Spain and unknown in the parts of Lombardy, found himself in a manner forsaken by all, nor was he much learned in humane letters; and on account of the favors of his pursuers and the snares of those adversaries of his, no one in a manner dared to stand by him or to defend him. But Father Amadeus, who had only God and the glorious Virgin Mary and blessed Francis as helpers of his truth and justice, had recourse to them in his accustomed prayers and contemplations in the hours of the night, and served them with much more of vigils and prayers and fastings, and exhorted his other Brothers, his companions, to patience in persecutions, sometimes setting before them how in tribulations virtue is perfected, and Blessed are they who suffer persecutions for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; and with other like exhortations he continually induced and exhorted them to endure want for the love of Christ.

[128] And when Father Amadeus sometimes appeared before the aforesaid magnificent lord Alessandro for the dispatch of this cause of his, where, being unworthily treated, at the persuasion of those adversaries again and again that Father was spurned and repelled by that same magnificent lord Alessandro, who asserted that he was a hypocrite, a dissembler, proud, and a deceiver of the peoples; to whom Father Amadeus sometimes answered with humility that his intention was known to God. But some of those adversaries, and of the wiser of the household, before that same magnificent lord Alessandro rebuked and accused that Father of the aforesaid, and further asserted that he was ignorant, an apostate, a heretic, and the inventor of a new sect; and they afflicted him with other atrocious injuries and threats, both before the aforesaid magnificent lord Alessandro at Pavia and elsewhere, boldly and openly; and not only by them, but also by many other doctors and great men he was vexed at the persuasion of those adversaries. Many citizens and merchants also were induced not to believe him and his religious life, as feigned and false, so that he was a derision to many of the followers of those adversaries: but Father Amadeus cared not for the aforesaid, but, bearing all those things patiently, so much the more reckoned himself humble and abject; but when he was sometimes accused before that magnificent lord Alessandro, as above, that Father humbly answered that the most high God was the knower and judge of all his deeds and of his inward intention, and that his life and his mind did not concern them.

[129] Then, withdrawing from the palace to the place where he received lodging, and patiently bearing injuries, he sometimes went with his companions with the greatest affliction, seeing and knowing that he was thus vexed and troubled by his adversaries unduly and unjustly; and yet on account of such tribulations, persecutions, snares, and

troubles he did not murmur, nor was he moved, as was related by those companions of his, nay he bore them cheerfully and patiently, and sometimes asserted: I hold faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that He will be my helper: nor did he fail, at least in the hours of the night, in his accustomed prayers, offices, and contemplations; nay he applied himself more strongly and more attentively to his accustomed fastings and devotions, and very often bore want and hunger patiently, and induced also his other companions to patience, often alleging that we must through many tribulations, and through fire and water, enter into the kingdom of God, and follow the footsteps of our Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when He blessed, was cursed; and other like words leading to patience he spoke in a pleasing manner to those companions of his.

[130] he has recourse to the help of the Mother of God, And when on another occasion he had gone to the aforesaid magnificent lord Alessandro for the dispatch of that cause of his, and those adversaries of his had come with many powerful men and their followers to oppose him, according to what was related, so that not only was that Father not heard, but he even had a repulse from that same lord Alessandro; nay, it was even commanded that same Father by him, as is reported, in the presence of those adversaries of his, that Father Amadeus should within three days depart from the dominion of the most illustrious Prince: but Father Amadeus, in the presence of all of them, in the same chamber where they were, having heard all these things, bent his knees before a certain image of the glorious Virgin Mary which was painted in the chamber, and offered prayers to God and the Virgin Mary that He would show something for that Father's innocence.

[131] and at last, the unjust judge Then, leaving them all, he went on his way toward his lodging, and suddenly, as is believed, God so permitting, that same magnificent lord Alessandro was struck with a very great fever, so that, feeling himself smitten with such a disease, and calling to mind that he had heard Father Amadeus praying, he doubted therefore that he had the disease and that it had proceeded from God, and repented of what he had commanded. And when that same Father was summoned by the messengers of that same magnificent lord to return to him, and that Father refused to return, that he might the more be corrected and acknowledge that he had acted unjustly, at length after many persuasions, being asked by the most illustrious Prince, then Duke Galeazzo, and the most illustrious lady Bona, then Duchess, his consort, he returned to the aforesaid sick magnificent lord Alessandro, who, asking pardon, promised that he would no longer be an adversary to that same Father, and asked him to offer prayers to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary for his health. Which being thus heard, that Father, moved with mercy, promised to pray for that magnificent lord, and so, as was related by the companions of that same Father, he prayed earnestly, and that magnificent lord Alessandro in a very short time was made free from that very great fever and sound, as was related by a certain venerable master Martin of Lodi of that same Order of St. Francis.

[132] and another adversary being divinely punished, A certain Florentine envoy, who had been present at such disputations before that magnificent lord Alessandro, and had uttered many words against and out of hatred of that same Father, returning to the house where he lodged at Pavia, was straightway seized with violent pains, and was greatly oppressed by them. Certain persons proclaiming the goodness of that same Father Amadeus, and his true observance of religion, and that he was acceptable to God, that same envoy sent to that same Father, that he would be pleased to come to him, repenting that he had been an adversary to him: and when that envoy had been visited by that Father, he asked that same Father that he would pray to God for his health: but Father Amadeus, at once leaving that envoy, returned to his lodging and offered prayers to God for that envoy, and straightway, as is reported, that envoy was restored sound from those pains, as was related by the aforesaid master Martin aforenamed.

[133] When that Father saw himself in some way from the aforesaid to be somewhat helped by the most high God he overcame his rivals. and by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the aforesaid adversities, and to be relieved from them, he applied himself much more fervently, as was related, to prayers and fastings, and more strongly induced his fellow-brethren to patience and to glorifying God, sometimes saying: I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread; and the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord; and other like words, by which he exhorted them to patience and to praying to God for those who persecuted and calumniated them; and although sometimes that Father with his companions was in those times afflicted with the greatest want and endurance, so that sometimes even that Father's life was despaired of, yet he did not desist from prayers, offices, and fastings, as he was wont; and at length, after many disturbances brought upon him by the aforesaid rivals and adversaries of his, some at Milan, some at Pavia, and some elsewhere, God having mercy and helping, that same Father Amadeus obtained the victory against those adversaries of his, and grace from the most holy Pope Paul the second that the completion of the said Convent might be proceeded with; and so, by God's giving, by virtue of an Apostolic Bull graciously granted him thereupon, the building of that same Convent de la Pace was proceeded with; in which Bull there was granted not only the authority and faculty of completing the said Convent de la Pace, but also of building and causing to be built certain other Convents under his obedience and charge; by force of which Bull he obtained another place near the Castle of St. Secundus in the diocese of Parma under the title of St. Mary of the Graces, which also he fortified with his Friars.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Blessed's stay at Rome, and his congregation wonderfully increased with new Convents amid adversities.

Blessed Amadeus at Rome, At length Father Amadeus went on to Rome, that he might visit the most holy Lord Pope Sixtus the fourth, then newly elected ^a, who before had been Cardinal of the title of St. Peter ad Vincula, and had been General Minister of the whole Order of St. Francis, and who was then called by name Brother Francesco della Rovere of Savona, of whom above there has been treatment: from which most holy Pope that Father obtained many graces by Apostolic Bulls, among which he obtained a Bull that he might erect and cause to be built six other Convents under his charge and obedience and under the rule of the Friars Minor of the Observance, by force of which he obtained a place near Castelnuovo ^b in the district of Tortona ^c, where he erected a Convent under the title of St. Mary de la Pace ^d, which afterward he fortified with Friars; and another place also near the city of Lodi under the title of St. Peter the Apostle, which he fortified with his Friars: another place also near the city of Cremona, which likewise he fortified with his Friars.

[135] at Milan; But in these middle times the Convent of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, God and many citizens of Milan helping, began to be built and erected. And although in this meantime, while that Convent of St. Mary de la Pace was being built and erected, his rivals and adversaries did not cease to seek snares and disturbances for that Father Amadeus, and their malice had so grown that they could not contain it in their heart and ulcerated mind; so that one of them and of the more learned did not blush to utter publicly many wicked things concerning that same Father, and to his contempt, whatever he could; so that into the minds of many of the hearers there came the greatest scandal, and that Friar who uttered them was praised by many citizens;

[136] his rivals striving in vain, Yet since many wicked and intolerable things had been uttered, although that Father cared little for them, yet for the honor of himself and of his society he returned to Rome to the aforesaid most holy Pope Sixtus, where by the order of that same most holy Pope, for avoiding scandals, as is presumed, he was honorably retained for certain services of that same most holy lord Pope; to whom afterward that same most holy Pope committed by an Apostolic Bull the place of St. Peter on the Golden Mount, situated in the city of Rome, where he erected and fortified a Convent for the Friars of his society; in which Convent for nearly ten years he for the greater part made his stay, and lived most religiously in his accustomed regular observance. In which Convent of St. Peter, however, on one occasion that Father Amadeus was affected with poison or venom, as was related, and yet by the grace of the most high God and of the Virgin Mary he remained unharmed by it, though with the greatest difficulty. And at those times in which Father Amadeus in the city of Rome in the aforesaid Convent of St. Peter on the Golden Mount was leading his life, there was a report of his most religious life and regular observance with the aforesaid most holy Pope Sixtus, and the lords Cardinals, and many other Prelates of the church, and many citizens and inhabitants of Rome, as was related by a certain Brother John of Germany, one of the companions of that same Father.

[137] A certain magnificent Count Raymond of the Orsini stock, lord of the land of Scandriglia ^e, had so great friendship with that same Father Amadeus, and elsewhere in Italy and so trusted him, that he very often had recourse to that same Father in his tribulations,

begging him to offer prayers to God for him: and at length he assigned to that same Father a place near the said land of Scandriglia in the bishopric of Salmen ^f, subject to that same Count, where he might make a Convent at that same Father's good pleasure; which Convent afterward Father Amadeus, with the help of the magnificent lady Justiniana, wife of that magnificent Count, and of the neighbors in the places round about there, began to found in honor of the blessed Virgin Mary in the year of the Lord 1479, in the month, as is believed, of May; which afterward he caused to be built, and fortified with his Friars under his charge and obedience.

[138] There was at that time, as I have learned from that same Brother John of Germany, after obtaining the greatest drought in all the dominion of that Count, so that from that drought the harvests of corn ^g were very poor, on account of which there was fear of the greatest scarcity and famine: and when the aforesaid magnificent lady Justiniana, her husband being absent, who was with the most serene King at Naples, was very negligent in giving a beginning that such a Convent should be built, and was distressed on account of such a very great drought, doubting that on account of the scarcity of corn few alms would be bestowed for the completing of the said Convent, whereby that Convent could not be finished. Which Father Amadeus understanding, he went to that magnificent lady, and promised that as soon as the first stone should be laid in the church and Convent to be built, it would immediately rain, so that all might gather a good harvest in that whole territory; and, order being given that on the first Sunday then next following of that same month of May, Mass being celebrated in the morning by that same Father, and meanwhile the first stone being laid for the building of that church and Convent in the presence of that same magnificent lady, and of many of the inhabitants of the said territory, in the place appointed for this by that magnificent lady near the said land of Scandriglia and near the little bridge, under the title of the glorious Virgin Mary of the Graces, at once a sufficiently notable rain by God's grace came down through that whole territory, whereby that whole territory subject to that magnificent Count, God and the glorious Virgin Mary so willing, was relieved from that drought, and the fruits both of the soil and of the trees throughout the said territory were abundantly gathered that year.

[139] Which that lady and the other inhabitants of that province knew to have been preserved from that scarcity by the merits and intercessions of that Father Amadeus. rain by his prayers, For all which things that Father and the others of that province glorified God and the glorious Virgin Mary with the utmost devotion. As also a certain Brother Giles, one of the companions of that same Father Amadeus, related, who said that, when the buildings of the said church of St. Mary of the Graces near Scandriglia had already been begun, which were begun upon a promise made by that magnificent lady Justiniana, who had promised that she, together with the other neighbors of that territory, would cause the said Convent to be built, of which above: but that magnificent lady, at the persuasions of certain persons, repented that she had promised, or cared not to proceed to the completion of that Convent; and when that completion was thereby delayed, Father Amadeus sent two of his fellow-brethren, his companions, to that magnificent lady, that he might learn her intention concerning such building; which answer being received, he learned that that lady no longer cared that that Convent should be completed. But within a short term a certain son of that same magnificent lady was seized with a grievous infirmity, whereby she feared to lose that son of hers by death in that infirmity: and, calling to mind what she had promised the aforesaid Father, she sent a messenger to that same Father at Rome, that he would pray to God for her son and his health, promising again that she would observe what had been promised by her; but Father Amadeus, moved by kindness, offered prayers for that same son, and at length he recovered.

[140] and after other proofs of heavenly vengeance Then, when that magnificent lady again neglected the completion of the said Convent, that Father Amadeus, seeing that that magnificent lady, the said promises being set aside, cared not to proceed to the completion of the said monastery, out of reverence for that magnificent lady resolved to go to her, then dwelling in the said land of Scandriglia, that he might by all means learn her intention concerning the building of that Convent. And when he had come to the house of that magnificent lady, that Father found that same son again sick with a grievous disease; before which Father Amadeus that magnificent lady, as was related, acknowledging that she had at other times deceived that same Father, because she had not observed her promises, as though blushing, dared not go to that same Father nor have recourse to him: at length, hearing of the coming of that Father Amadeus, at the persuasions of some of her household she visited that same Father, and, accusing herself of her faithlessness and negligence, asked that he would also pray to God for her son.

[141] and tokens of the divine will But Father Amadeus, knowing the instability of that magnificent lady, in order to confirm her the more in the faith of Christ, and many others, put into the fire a certain particle of the cord with which our Lord Jesus Christ was bound at the time of His passion, which he had with him, and yet that cord remained unburnt and unharmed. Then he put that particle of the cord into a vessel full of water, and in a manner contrary to the nature of such a thing it straightway went to the bottom, and of that water in which that particle of the cord had been placed he gave to drink to that son so grievously sick, as above, and to many others laboring under divers languors and infirmities standing there, in honor of God and of the Virgin Mary; who, when they had tasted, were at once made sound by the grace of God, as the same Brother Giles related. Which things being seen by that magnificent lady, she gave her labor, the aforesaid magnificent lord Count her husband also coming up and helping, and alms of the other neighbors coming in, that that Convent and the aforesaid church should be built; which also that same Father fortified with Friars of his Society. Certain other things also were related by that same Brother Giles, and by Brother John the German, and by a certain Brother Bonaventure of Cremona, which are said to have been done in the city of Rome and in the parts round about, which here for brevity's sake and shortness of time are omitted.

[142] From those things which I could see and hear and observe, and also from the relation of many divers persons worthy of credit, such was the life of that same Father, he obtains various Convents for his Congregation. and his observance of good custom and of Religion, that up to sixteen Convents under the same Regular Observance of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, and under his charge, yet under the obedience of the reverend lords Ministers General of the whole aforesaid Order, and with the leave and goodwill of them and of the lords Provincial Ministers, and of the lords Diocesans, and of the most illustrious Princes and temporal lords, God favoring and cooperating, and Apostolic authority intervening and granting, he is said to have founded at Rome, at Milan, and elsewhere in Italy; and he erected and built them and caused them to be built to the praise, glory, and honor of God and of the most glorious Virgin Mary, to whom he was wholly devoted, and to the increase of the aforesaid seraphic Religion, of all which that Father, while he lived, was the most worthy Custodian, and which Convents indeed he fortified with the greatest diligence with good Regular Friars of the Observance of that same Order and observance. Which Father Amadeus, persevering in that same Regular observance, and his poverty and observance, many of the faithful followed by his exemplary life, leaving their riches and secular life, in that same observance of his Rule. And those whom he received into his charge he instructed with spiritual and excellent exhortations and doctrines unto salvation, and both by word and by work and example he built them up with all his strength.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Blessed's departure from Rome into Lombardy, his pious death at Milan, his honorable obsequies there, and the miracles which were wrought before his burial.

The Blessed, having returned from Rome into Lombardy, But when in the year 1482 lately past, as it pleased God, he had obtained leave from the aforesaid most holy lord Pope Sixtus to visit his monasteries or Convents in the Province of Lombardy and of Milan, and had departed from the city of Rome, and then on the way, visiting his Convents, had come to the city of Piacenza,

a certain Brother James of the third Order of St. Francis, a citizen of Piacenza, offered to that same Father the place which that Brother James had very lately caused to be built in honor of St. Bernardine within the walls of that city of Piacenza, and solemnly and willingly gave it freely into his charge to that same Father, lawful Ducal letters and other privileges necessary in such matters having first gone before. Which place indeed that Father accepted to the praise, glory, and honor of God and to the increase of the aforesaid Religion, and fortified it with the Friars of that same Society of his in Regular observance. Then, coming to Milan about the end of the month of June of that same year 1482, he arrived at the aforesaid Convent of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, so entitled, God so providing and permitting, where for some days he stayed, being very sick, intending nevertheless quickly to return to Rome by the order of that same most holy lord Pope.

[144] falls sick at Milan, And when he had already remained some days in that same Convent for the visitation and consolation of those Friars then present there, and had determined, for obedience to the aforesaid most holy lord our lord the Pope, to return to Rome at the time appointed him; and when he was already journeying from Milan to Lodi, then to Piacenza, and finally to Rome, when he was distant from the city of Milan, as was related by men worthy of credit, a mile, outside the suburbs ^a of the Roman gate of Milan, he began to suffer from a pain in the sides; yet not desisting from the journey, as he went on the pain increased, so much that he understood it to be the divine will that he should go no further, but should return to Milan, where he should end his days: and when he had come to the aforesaid Convent of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, and had entered his cell, as was related by his Friars worthy of credit, he at once judged that he would exchange life for death at Milan.

[145] But a few days after he was held or smitten in that same Convent with a continual fever and pleurisy ^b, and pains of the flanks or sides, and there in the year 1482 dies piously, which sickness increasing and growing strong, when his disciple, by name Brother Anselm the Roman, whom he had lately appointed Guardian of that Convent, wished to confer extreme unction upon that same Father, that same Father, foretelling, said that that disciple would die before him; but that he would quickly follow that Father. And when that Father was greatly weighed down, a certain Prandus de Mapello, a Milanese secular, very familiar with that same Father and his benefactor, having already been sick of a fever for thirteen months before, and being so much enfeebled and weakened, and deprived of the power of sleeping or resting and of appetite for eating, trusting in the sanctity of the said Father the lord Brother Amadeus, wished to enter the cell in which that Father then lay sick, from whom with the greatest urgency and faith he procured and desired to have a blessing; which being had, as that Prandus asserted and affirmed by his oath, he was at once made sound and whole. Then after a few days that same Brother Anselm, falling sick, died in that same Convent in the morning, and while at vespers about the twentieth hour ^c the obsequies of that Brother Anselm were being performed, that Father Brother Amadeus, the Friars of that same Convent being called, God having mercy, on that same day and at the hour of vespers about the twentieth hour, on the feast of St. Lawrence the Martyr, which is on the tenth day of the month of August, in the year 1482, most religiously rendered up his spirit to God and to nature, and closed his last day of this life, whose memory shall live forever.

[146] Brother Amadeus being thus dead, as has been said, many flocking to venerate his body, and his body being carried into the sacristy of that church of St. Mary de la Pace at vespers, that thence on the morrow it might be carried into the church, and his obsequies performed, and he be buried, a certain Brother, William by name, an inhabitant of Milan near the church of St. Peter in Salla outside the walls of the Vercelline gate of Milan, a hermit, finding himself there in the said Convent, set himself with the other Friars of that same Convent in that sacristy to guard that body. On the following night, considering the austere and most religious life of that same Father and his patience in his adversities, he prayed much to God for him in that meantime, and, since he was already greatly burdened with a certain great pain with a swelling in one knee, that hermit directed a prayer and a vow to that Father, now departed this life, for his health, which, as he asserted, he at once obtained.

[147] But when morning came, the body of that Father Brother Amadeus being carried into that same church of St. Mary de la Pace, among whom various sick persons that it might be buried, and all things being prepared for the performing of his obsequies, on that same morning, and that body being in that same church upon the bier, behold, a great multitude of people ran to that same church to visit the body of that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus so deceased; and, trusting in the sanctity of that same Father, many nobles and Doctors and Religious and Prelates and chief men, and others, men and women of divers qualities, ran hastily to him; and many of them out of their great devotion kissed his limbs, and, taking of the cord with which he was girt and of the tunic with which he was clothed, with the greatest devotion venerated him as a Saint and Blessed, and besought him with vows and prayers and lights that he would intercede with God and the Virgin Mary for the curing of their infirmities: and the multitude of that people so grew that he could not be buried, nor could the Friars of that Convent keep him from such visitation, on account of the exceeding multitude and of the eyes of men continually gazing, with many graces and miracles shining forth, so that until the third day that body remained continuously above ground.

[148] imploring the patronage of the Blessed But on the third day, obsequies and funeral offices in divers ways having first been performed by several Clerics and venerable Fathers, and also by the lord Friars of the Convent of St. Francis at the Vercelline gate of Milan, led by their own impulse and devotion, and by the Friars of that same Convent of St. Mary de la Pace, he was honorably buried in a certain wooden coffin before the high altar of that same church. On all which days many wonders and prodigies and graces are said to have been bestowed by God upon divers persons having recourse to him, by his merits and intercessions; of which, out of many, some notable and memorable ones concerning the prodigious deeds of that same venerable Father the lord Brother Amadeus, and in particular, are very briefly noted below; namely, a certain noble woman, Magdalen by name, wife of master Francis the Bombardier of Milan, said and by her oath affirmed in effect that, when for five years or thereabouts before she had suffered in her own person about the navel and the lower parts, with the greatest anguish, a certain disease which the common people call cancerous choler ^d, incurable, so that she was in a manner judged by the physicians as leprous and incurable, and sometimes other intolerable inward infirmities arose, and sometimes with a very great vomiting of blood from her mouth, so that very often she was accounted as dead, which all were said to be incurable by human skill and work; at length, the body of that Father the lord Brother Amadeus, then still lying dead upon the bier in the church of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, being visited and touched, and prayers being offered to him and a vow made, she at once felt herself freed and cleansed on every side from such infirmities of hers; nor from that time did she feel trouble from them; and all which things that woman openly proclaimed before all.

[149] at once obtained health. A certain Stephen de Basilica Petri, an inhabitant of Milan, related, as above, that when he was oppressed with an intense fever, pain of the head, and weakness of the legs and feet, and could not go save leaning on a support, having gone to visit the body of the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus, prayer and vow being completed and that body being touched, he was at once delivered and made sound.

A certain Master Vincent Pestagalla, a painter of Milan, said that, when he was ruptured and broken near the genitals, prayer and vow being uttered to the aforesaid Father, now departed this life, and his body being touched, he at once obtained good health.

A certain Master Antonio Vinceniala of Milan said, as above, that, when he had a ward-son of his deprived of one eye or blind, a vow being made to that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus, now dead, and devotion following without intermission, within three days without other medicines he found him delivered and given sight.

It was also related concerning a certain noble young girl, daughter of the noble lord Antonio de Brema, an advocate of Milan, deprived of sight in both eyes, so that she saw little with her eyes, and shrank from lights and the air and the splendor of the sun, that, her eyes being touched with the hand of the aforesaid Father Amadeus, then dead, still lying upon the bier in the aforesaid church, as she too is said to have affirmed by her oath, she received some little light, and returned home without hurt from the sun and the air, and afterward, after a short interval of two days, her devotion not ceasing, she received clear sight, and remained free from that infirmity of hers.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER XV.

Other miracles which occurred after the burial of the Blessed down to the year 1486.

Many sick persons A certain Brother Augustine of the Order of the Humiliati ^a of Milan said, as above, that when for five to seven days after the death of the aforenamed Father the lord Brother Amadeus he was pressed and almost killed by a certain pain and an intolerable swelling in the throat, so that he had been in a manner left as incurable by the physicians, and had no way by which to draw breath unless that throat were either pierced with iron or treated with very many medicines for a long time, since it seemed so cruel and dangerous or deadly, he commended himself to the aforesaid lord Father Brother Amadeus, now departed this life, which commendation being made together with a vow, when he had slept a little, he rose sound.

A certain lady Catherine, wife of the lord master John the Hungarian, a dyer dwelling at Milan, being laid low, as she said, with colic pains, when for four days she could only lie on her back, and at that time for forty hours could take no food or drink,

and the better or the more frequent the medicines given her, so much the more was she burdened, so that there was no hope at all of her life; recalling to memory that she had in her house something of the girdle of that lord Brother Amadeus now deceased, and that girdle being applied to her own body with devotion and hope, and a vow being made to him, she was at once delivered from those pains and that infirmity, desiring food, and proclaiming: I, she said, have been delivered by the merits of blessed Amadeus.

[151] A certain woman by name Catherine de Longono, of Milan, being with child, of either sex but so weighed down with a continual fever, as she said, that it was judged by the physicians that there was no remedy of health in her save by the casting out of the child by abortion; which she refusing, and turning to the aforesaid Father Amadeus, now dead, and a vow being uttered, she was delivered from that fever without abortion.

A certain noble lady, Franceschina by name, of Milan, said that, when she had brought to the sepulchre of the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus a certain nephew of hers, an infant, for a long time evidently burdened with one leg twisted and weak, so that he could not walk upright nor help himself with that leg, prayer and commendation being made to the aforesaid venerable Father, now dead, and Mass being heard in that same church, that infant was at once made sound and restored straight in the leg.

A certain young woman, by name Margaret de la Cruce of Milan, said that, when for a long time she had suffered pain and weakness of the stomach, so that almost nothing could remain in the stomach, commendation being made to the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus, now dead, and prayer and vow by her mother, she was made sound, nor from that time did she suffer any trouble.

A certain Brother Bernard of Cremona, of the Order of Friars Minor, said that, when for several years he had been ruptured or broken near the genitals, so that he could not go save with great labor, prayer and commendation being made to the aforesaid Father, now dead, he shortly obtained good health without other remedy and human work.

[152] and of various conditions The aforenamed lord Palamides de Carpani said that, when within certain recent months, on account of the very great labors which he endured in riding, he had become ruptured or broken in the bottom of the belly above the pubis ^b in the groin, and was sometimes afflicted with some swelling and tumefaction and pain in riding, trusting in the sanctity of the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus, the sepulchre of that same Father being visited and Mass heard in that same church, and commendation being made to him and a vow uttered, he obtained good health, nor from that time, as he said, did he suffer, even in riding, any trouble from those swellings and tumefactions and accustomed pains.

A certain noble woman, by name Isabetta de Ambus of Milan, said that, when in the month of December of the year that had run 1482, in which year that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus died, while she was at the fire in the house of her dwelling, a certain spark of an eggshell kindled by the fire leaped into her own eye, and left a scar in that eye with the greatest burning, nor had she sight from it: whereby she, since she was a poor little woman, was much afflicted, fearing that she had wholly lost the sight of the eye; on the evening of that same day, recalling to memory that she had something of the cape or tunic of that same Father now dead, and having recourse to devotion to him, that particle of the cape with a band being placed upon the eye, and prayer and commendation being made to that same Father, she went to rest, and when she rose in the morning she found herself wholly delivered from the burning and the scar without other medicine, as though she had never been hurt by that fire.

A certain Master Antonio of Bergamo, a weaver of Milan, said that, when a certain girl, his niece, namely his brother's daughter, had for thirteen months or thereabouts been afflicted with a hectic fever ^c, and was much wasted, nor was there any hope of her life, since three other little sisters born of the same parents had before died of such an infirmity, and the mother of that girl in the month of December of the year 1482, having recourse to devotion to that same Father the lord Brother Amadeus, commended that sick daughter of hers to that same Father, and a certain particle of the cape or tunic of that Father, now dead, being placed upon the back of that girl for three days, at length that fever left her, and then in a short time she remained wholly delivered from that hectic infirmity.

[153] A certain lady Catherine de Hava, dwelling at Milan, said having recourse to the patronage of Bl. Amadeus that, when in the month of August of the year 1482 she had a son of the age of twenty years or thereabouts, sick and foolish, and that son had before been delivered by another grace of God from a grievous fever, but had been left foolish, so that he did many foolish and in a manner intolerable things, casting himself into dangerous waters and throwing away his garments, and laying himself down to sleep in the sepulchres of the dead and in other strange and shameful places, often beating his mother and others, and doing many other insanities and follies in the space of two months or thereabouts preceding, without any understanding; that mother led her son with good words to the church of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, where that Father the lord Brother Amadeus still lay dead upon the bier, not yet buried: and when she had come thither, seeing that she could not go to that body nor to the bier on which he was laid, on account of the very great multitude of persons standing round about, she took the cap of her said son and gave it to the Friars guarding the said body, that they might touch with that cap the body of the aforesaid Father Brother Amadeus, deceased, and commended that son of hers to that same Father with assiduous prayer: which cap being touched and restored upon the head of that son of hers, that son of hers was made sound, whom afterward she humbly led home, nor from that time did he do any follies; which grace she thought and thinks she obtained from the most high God by the merits, as she firmly believes, of that Father the lord Brother Amadeus, and to the praise, glory, and honor of God.

[154] Jacobinus de Curte, son of the late lord Martin, a citizen of Milan, said in effect at once experienced his help, that, when in the month of August of the year that had run 1483 last past he was held in the prison of the Lower Bridge of the Castle of the Porta Giovia at Milan, by order of the most illustrious lords the Lord Duke of Milan and the lord Lodovico, Governor for that Lord Duke, on account of certain charges made concerning him, on account of which the aforesaid lords resolved to cause that Jacobinus to be hanged by the throat, and that Lord Lodovico with his own mouth had said to the face of that Jacobinus that he meant to have him hanged by the throat, and it was already reported through the whole city of Milan that he had been hanged or would be hanged: while he was placed in the said prison in the evening of the fifth day of that month of August, and awaited the last day of his life on which he should be hanged, namely on the following day, but on the following night that Jacobinus, reflecting that he was a young man of a most noble house of Milan, and had many kinsfolk, agnates, and cognates most noble, and must make his end by so atrocious and shameful a death, uttered many vows to God that night, that he might be delivered from that atrocious death; and at length, recalling to memory the sanctity and grace of the aforesaid Father the lord Brother Amadeus, long since deceased, by whose merits and intercession many miracles and many graces were believed to be obtained from the Most High, he had recourse to that same Father with assiduous prayer in mind and vow, that he would obtain grace for him with God and the glorious Virgin Mary, that he might not end his life by such a cruel and most shameful death, and he promised also to the church of St. Mary de la Pace, or to the Convent of the above-said church at Milan, that he would offer and bestow certain gold ducats for the completing of that church, when he should be able. Which vow being uttered and commendation made, at once that prison, although by night and wholly shut and dark, was wholly lighted up for a very short space of time. But on the following morning, when that Jacobinus had been brought before the aforesaid illustrious lord Lodovico, he saw that aforesaid lord wholly appeased and benevolent, by whom, with a glad mind and without other harm, by the grace of God and of the Virgin Mary, he was dismissed: which grace indeed that Jacobinus firmly believes he obtained from the most high God by the merits and intercession of that same venerable Father the lord Brother Amadeus the Spaniard, whom he believed to have been gathered into the number of the other Saints.

[155] and by his intercession There is speech of a certain lord Bertolino Pizenino, man-at-arms of the most illustrious lord the Lord Duke of Milan, an inhabitant of the place of Pandino, who made a declaration of the tenor written below, drawn up by an authentic notary, of which declaration the tenor is such, namely: In the Name of the Lord. In the year from His nativity one thousand four hundred and eighty-six, in the fourth Indiction, on Saturday the twentieth day of the month of May, the lord Bartolino Pizenino, man-at-arms of the most illustrious lord our Lord Duke of Milan, son of the late Lord William, of Milan, an inhabitant of the place of Pandino of the Duchy of Milan, willingly, of his own accord, and of certain knowledge, and with deliberate mind, and not through any error of law or of fact, and in every manner, right, way, and form in which he best could and can, for the eternal memory of the matter, and that the blessedness of the below-written lord Blessed Brother Amadeus may shine forth, said and declared, and says and declares, that, the lady Lucia de Cursis of Pandino, daughter of the late lord Zamin, an inhabitant of the above-said land of Pandino, wife of that lord Bertolino, being sick of a certain infirmity, so that that Bertolino could not use marriage with her on account of the womb, which is commonly called la madre, which came down with a great effusion of putrid blood by nature, and also with so great a stench which emanated from that nature, that it was impossible to approach that wife of his, and that her menses never came to her; and this infirmity lasted for three continuous years past, one year having now last past, in which there appeared in dreams to that Bertolino one night a certain Friar clad in a little cap ^d, and made the sign of the cross toward his face, and immediately withdrew.

[156] obtained their former health. And then blessed Brother Amadeus of the Order of Friars Minor came into his mind, and he vowed to that blessed Amadeus in this manner: that if that wife of his should remain free from the said infirmity, he would give a waxen image and two great and long wax torches ^e, as tall as his said wife was, to the church of St. Mary de la Pace at Milan, where

the body of the aforesaid blessed Amadeus lies, and that he would conduct that wife of his from the said place of Pandino as far as the said church at Milan: and the said vow being made, at once and immediately the said infirmity began to cease, and within one month then next to come she remained wholly delivered from that infirmity, in such and such a manner that now, and for several days and months past, she has been made so free that that Bertolino uses marriage with her, just as and as it was when he took her to wife: and he now fears nothing from the said infirmity; and that to him, Bertolino, also within one month after the first time, there appeared in dreams a certain one clad in a cape with a hood after the manner of a Friar; but it seemed to him to be of silk cloth ^f, whose color he did not know, showing himself to the said Bertolino only from behind. All which things the said Bertolino said and declared in the presence of the said lady Lucia his wife, who also confirmed and affirmed the aforesaid to be true, namely concerning the above-said infirmity and also concerning the deliverance, as above. The said Bertolino excepting against the plea that the said declaration was not made thus and in such manner as above, and that the aforesaid and all and singular the below-written were not so transacted and done, and against every proof and defense to the contrary: and concerning the aforesaid I was asked that a public instrument ought to be drawn up by me, the undersigned notary. Done in the house of the dwelling of the lord Benedict de Lambardis, situated in the eastern gate, in the parish of St. Paul in Compito at Milan, in the presence of the protonotary, John de Mendotio, son of the late lord Galvaneus, and John Andrew de Cribellis, son of the lord Lawrence, both of the eastern gate, of the parish of St. George at the white well, notaries of Milan. There were present as witnesses master John de Arinino, son of the late lord James, of the Roman gate, of the parish of St. Mary Secreta of Milan, known; Andrew de Filago, son of the late master John, of the Roman gate, of the parish of St. Chaldinus of Milan; and Francis de la Strata, son of the late lord Leusunus, of the new gate, of the parish of St. Bartholomew within Milan, all fit witnesses called and asked.

I, Augustine Stantius, son of the lord Francis, of the city of Milan, of the Vercelline gate, of the parish of St. Mary at the gate, public notary by imperial authority, being asked, have drawn up, subscribed, and glossed this, where the same shall be read.

ANNOTATIONS.