the Martyrs of Otranto

ON STS. THE MARTYRS OF OTRANTO,

IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES,

In the year 1480.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

The Martyrs of Otranto (SS.)

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

§ I. Their cult and relics in the church of Otranto.

Hydruntum, in Italian Otranto, is a city of Italy in the kingdom of Naples, well enough known, Their cult as one which gave to the province of that same kingdom nearest to the Ionian sea the name of the Land of Otranto, in the vernacular Terra d'Otranto. He who desires to know more of its ornaments, let him go to the Italia sacra of Ughelli, lately reprinted and enlarged, volume 9, from column 52, where he treats of the metropolis and archbishops of Otranto; and to the geographers everywhere at hand, both the more recent and also the ancient: for us it will be enough here to illustrate that one glory which the constancy of very many of its Citizens won for it in the year of Christ 1480, under the savage tyranny of the Turks lording it over the city now captured and disarmed. For to these, although the Church has not yet confirmed the honors of Martyrs by a solemn decree, yet antiquity itself (the Church not only not resisting, but even favoring it) seems sufficiently to have asserted them; which Philip Ferrari acknowledged, when he did not hesitate to enroll them in his Martyrology, or general Catalogue of the Saints, at the X day of August in this manner: Among the Salentines, of the blessed martyrs Stephen, bishop of Otranto, Fabius the shoemaker, and 812 others, slain by the Turks for the faith of Christ. Yet the same will presently appear more clearly, together with the hallucination of this author, besides others, by which he announces these Martyrs on the X day of this month, whereas they are celebrated on the XIV.

[2] begun almost from the martyrdom itself, That therefore we may derive the antiquity of the cult from its very origin, we cannot doubt that it was stirred up by the miracles which we shall say below, from sure authors, happened in the very place of the martyrdom, while the bodies of our Heroes lay there unburied for about a year. And so, when to that city, already at his own command besieged by the arms of the Christians, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria and eldest son of the king of Naples, had come on the XV day of June in the year 1481, he thought that nothing must be done by him sooner than that, visiting the place, and first bending his knees, he should not only salute the Martyrs still prostrate and scattered, but should also invoke them as favorable to the happy storming of their fatherland; and then, that he should gather all their bodies into a becoming place, to be translated with due honors as soon as he should have gained the city. These things Francis de Araujo narrates in the Spanish History of the Martyrs of Otranto published at Naples in the year 1631, chapter 30; but it is confirmed by a letter of reply given at the same time and before Otranto was recovered, from the city of Florence, by Marinus Tomacellus to John Albinus, then acting with Duke Alfonso, whose chief librarian he is called, in the camp before Otranto, and being not only a witness of the said matter but also a partaker in it: for thus among other things Tomacellus writes back to him in Italian (we translate into Latin): A pious and worthy work the lord (Alfonso) seems to me to have done, when he ordered to be gathered into one the bodies of those holy Martyrs whom the Pasha had ordered to be slain. Would that it may please God (and it will please him, I hope) to repay so great a charity both to the lord and also to you, who bestowed so diligent a labor upon it. We had already learned that this was done, but that it was done by your hand we now first learn, etc. This fragment is cited in Francis Antony Capano in the Collection of monuments concerning our Martyrs, printed at Lecce in the province of Otranto in the year 1670, page 79.

[3] The city being recovered and the Mahometans driven from Italy in the month of September of the same year 1481, it forthwith grew in the metropolitan church of Otranto, thought was at once taken of translating the bodies of these Martyrs into the metropolitan church and of laying them up worthily. On which matter, since it contributes not a little to proving and illustrating the antiquity of the public veneration, it will be well to hear Pompey Gualterius, Canon and dean of that same metropolitan church in the last century, whose is this Latin hierotopo-Chronical narration Concerning the relics of the Martyrs of Otranto, in the praised Capano at page 99: The cathedral building of the metropolis of Otranto, constructed by the magnificent liberality of the Norman kings, and adorned with a mosaic pavement of comely device, extends forty paces in length from the sanctuary to the front toward the winter sunset, between the west and the north-west: but in breadth it is stretched to half that extent; namely the middle structure of the basilica of ten paces, supported by marble columns as far as the boundary of the choir; and the extension of each aisle of five paces, doubled from the columns to the outermost walls, on this side toward the north between the north-west and the north-north-east, on that toward the south between the south-south-west and the south-east, presenting the entrances into the church in the middle. And the very space of the choir rises with four great arches raised on every side. The last of them bends inward into a semicircular curve, by whose elegant design the sanctuary is completed. In the midst of this stands the high altar situated, with an image of the Mother of God who bore a child; and on the right side stands out the archiepiscopal throne, with the seats of the comprovincial bishops, for the celebrating of councils, existing opposite. But the outermost vaults of the aisles are arched with a narrower design, and thereby form the semicircles of the lesser apses; which, with the vaults stretched out below, form little shrines barred in front with iron gratings: in the right of which is placed the tabernacle of the most holy Eucharist; in the left the venerable relics of the Martyrs of Otranto are laid up. Very many altars also fitted for the sacred ministries are counted on both sides of the building.

[4] here described accurately enough But to those entering the basilica by the lesser doors a double stairway bends itself. By both there is a descent into the crypt-portico, which lies beneath the extent of the upper choir and of the adjoining sides and of the semicircular spaces, by a perpendicular substructure; twenty paces broad, sixteen long in the middle, fourteen at the sides, on account of the inequalities of the semicircles: conspicuous with two windows on the northern side, and four on the Eastern; supported by a notable colonnade. The columns themselves, of mixed kind and of composite order, seventy-one, placed at equal intervals of nine feet: free-standing, solid, of marble, forty-two; the rest of Salentine stone set into the walls, upon each of whose architraves three horns of arches rise, and upon each of the free-standing ones four: and thence the whole vaulting is constructed of forty-nine squares of equal intercolumniations, and of nine triangles in the three curvatures of the semicircles.

[5] together with the crypt, A place holy by ancient observance, long since famous under the name of the Confession, afterwards distinguished with the title of the Rosary: where there is a chapel of the most sacred Virgin, and a venerable image of her; before whose altar lies the underground sepulchre of the archbishop of praised memory Peter Antony de Capua: for that best prelate, having discharged great labors for the Catholic religion, and having deserved well enough of his church of Otranto and of its chapter College, after he had returned with the highest praise from the ecumenical council of Trent, chose that place beforehand for his own burial while still living; as also several of the nobles of the city obtained by pious vow that altars and family burials should be built there; because in an excavated pit of that venerable crypt were at first translated the blessed bodies of the faithful of Christ of Otranto, who in the year of salvation 1480, under the power of the most serene Ferdinand king of Aragon, after a strong contest with the impious enemies, being broken in war and bound and led out of the city, at the order of the Leader of the Turks, and with the whole army looking on, gloriously fell: while the Witnesses of the faith, when the choice was given them whether they would rather live by denying Christ, or otherwise undergo a dreadful death, with steadfast mind despising this temporal life, consummated an illustrious martyrdom. Whose bodies, for thirteen months unburied, and to the

sun and the rains exposed, remained wholly entire and utterly untouched by wild beasts and birds.

[6] into which our Martyrs were laid in the year 1481, Of which divine prodigy Sixtus IV the supreme Pontiff being made more certain, perceived that they were worthy of all veneration: therefore by a special diploma he charged Francis de Arenis, archbishop of Brindisi and prefect of the province, that, by heavenly help and by the aid of the royal army now made ready, after the town should have been recovered from the enemy, the suffragan bishops being called together, and all the priests of the diocese and of the neighboring cities being assembled, he should take care that the incorrupt bodies of the Faithful slain for Christ, lying in the field, be reverently gathered and religiously carried into the cathedral church of Otranto, first reconciled. Which afterwards in the year 1481, the Turks being expelled from the city, from a certain sacred place where by the pious order of the most serene Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, son of king Ferdinand, they had been heaped up after the manner of a mound, lest out of reverence they should be a hindrance to the storming, were with solemn rite brought into the church of the city, and were placed in the aforesaid pit; and, earth being thrown over them, they lay long buried there.

[7] Afterwards, in the year 1482, the people of Otranto obtained that the little shrine mentioned above should be made from the royal bounty (which nevertheless had its completion only in the year 1524), that in it the bodies of the glorious Martyrs might be laid more honorably. until there should be finished in the same church a chapel of their own, Which, when they are exhumed, are found not indeed entire, as they had been laid there, but, by the fault of the sarcophagus and by the length of time, with the flesh consumed; some parts of the limbs and a few fragments excepted, which by the highest providence of God, for stirring up the minds of posterity to veneration, he deigns still to preserve covered with flesh. In this royal chapel therefore, whose length is eighteen feet, and the breadth of the front as much, and the height ten cubits, there is placed an altar of five palms' height, seven palms' breadth, and three palms' thickness, furnished with the most careful diligence with purple silken adornment interwoven with gold: over which is set an image of notable painting of the Virgin Mother of God, cherishing in her lap the infant God-Man amid the attendance of angels; at whose right stands St. Stephen the protomartyr, and St. Laurence the Martyr at the left.

[8] But beneath the altar (which is hollow, of wood, and, the frontal being removed, is unlocked with a key after the manner of a two-leaved chest) to which in the year 1524 a coffer of Relics is contained enclosed, that is, a little chest six palms broad, four and a half palms high, and a palm and a half thick: consisting of a wooden bottom, sides, and back; but with the front and top covered with clear square panes of glass, arranged in a gilded framework: through which, the purple veil being removed, the sacred pledges can be most clearly inspected; while, lights being brought near, it is frequently customary that they be pointed out one by one to devout faithful, who, impelled by a holy curiosity, from different places and distant regions flow together in daily concourse to behold and adore them; but most of all on the anniversary solemnity of the memorable martyrdom, which on the XIX of the Kalends of September is celebrated with most magnificent pomp, and with the exultation of the whole city and of the whole diocese and province. On which day the multitude of the faithful of both sexes not only venerate the Relics exposed in the chapel, but also, going down into the underground building, halt at each step of the stairs and pour out prayers on bended knee: then, praying in like manner, they kiss with devout embraces each column of the crypt, and reverence that blessed ground and bathe it with tears, beneath which from the beginning the most sacred bodies were entombed.

[9] But two wooden cabinets of neat workmanship, fixed in the walls of the upper little shrine, contain the remaining bones of the venerable bodies with their heads worthily fitted: they were most honorably raised. which, being lined within with a skilfully wrought net of drawn steel, are covered with gilded doors on the outside, and are locked with keys: with two silver lamps on this side and on that, burning perpetually at royal expense in honor of those same Martyrs. Finally, a great part of like Relics is offered to be looked upon (the scarlet curtain being drawn aside) by panes of glass, fitted together with gilded joinings and enclosed in a gilded frame, seven palms in height and eighteen in breadth, drawn in an arch from the vaulted roof to the level of a stone platform; which, sculptured with most elegant beauty and likewise gilded, is supported by four columns likewise of stone and sculptured and gilded, as it were the canopy of the altar, nine palms in length: and it has on the frieze this Memorial: By their death they were made Immortal.

The same author adds in another Italian Account twice printed at Lecce in the year 1677, page 17, that the said chapel was not only erected by royal command and expense, but was also endowed with an assigned perpetual revenue of a hundred ducats yearly, which up to that time was steadily paid each year from the royal treasury. The same asserts Araujo, or Araucho, in Spanish de Araujo, in the little work cited at page 86, where he says that that sum is destined for the ornaments, Masses, and Offices which are celebrated in that same chapel. For the rest, concerning the Masses and Offices something must here be said a little more explicitly.

§ II. The amplification and extension of the cult.

There after the year 1539 Although from the things brought forward hitherto, and to be brought forward hereafter, it is manifestly established that the public veneration of these Martyrs flourished through an immemorial course of time before the famous Bulls of Pope Urban VIII, and that this even now suffices absolutely to prove their lawful cult; yet in it the men of Otranto formerly by no means acquiesced, until by the authority of the Apostolic See leave should be given to celebrate them also as true Martyrs with the common Office and Mass of Martyrs. And this above all pricked them, that these their glorious Champions, whom by so many other arguments they had long since openly both professed and invoked as suppliants as Martyrs of Christ, it was nevertheless not lawful, until the year of Christ 1539, to attend with any other Office or Sacrifice, on their yearly recurring birthday, the XIV of August, than that which the Church prescribes for aiding the souls of any of the faithful, if perchance they are still being purged in the expiatory flames — namely the Vespers of the dead and the Mass for the departed; by which indeed they would not obscurely betray either that they did not acknowledge them for Martyrs, contrary to what they most firmly believed, or that they did them injury in respect of cult, according to that saying of St. Augustine: He does injury to a Martyr who prays for a Martyr. In that same year therefore they judged that the Vicar of Christ, Paul III, must be asked to deign, by his power and for their greater glory, to grant to the Martyrs of Otranto in their royal chapel a Mass and Office thenceforth from the Common of Martyrs. But that this might be done more effectually, a canonical examination was at once instituted, or, as it is called, an Information concerning their martyrdom, to be consigned to the Pontiff together with a petition, of which we shall subjoin a copy below.

[11] their cult was increased Whether they were at once made partakers of their wish I do not indeed certainly know; yet I am deceived if the matter was much delayed: for Antony Galateus seems altogether to indicate it in the posthumous little work which came forth at Basel in the year 1558, On the situation of Iapygia, page 55; where he narrates that the citizens of Otranto gathered the relics of these Martyrs, and laid them within a chapel, or little shrine, which they set up on purpose in the greater church; where to the present day they rest, and, as long as the Christian religion shall be, they abide to be visited, and are held in the greatest veneration, and are celebrated with solemn divine Offices. But that Galateus survived long after the year 1539 is by no means likely, inasmuch as nearly fifty-eight years before, being present at the camp of the Christians set before Otranto, and certainly not a boy, he himself saw with his own eyes the most serene Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, often fighting with the Turks; as the Epitaph gives assurance which he himself composed for that same prince, nay king, and which was published together with the description of Iapygia. I know that Ferrari, at the place cited above in §1, number 1, observes these things: They are not yet (in the year 1625) venerated with an ecclesiastical Office; yet they have veneration among the inhabitants: but I know also that that excellent man was furnished with a very slender knowledge of these Martyrs, which will again appear below.

[12] But however these things then stood, it is certain that it was long since in use, by an Office and Mass from the Common of Martyrs. on the witness of Pompey Gualterius in the already mentioned Italian Account of the year 1677, page 20 and following; where he asserts these things: On the day of their martyrdom, which happened, as has been said, on the XIV of August, their feast is solemnly kept every year with the apparatus of the whole cathedral church, and not without music, a sermon, an academy (by which I understand pious contests of rhetoricians and poets) in honor of the holy Martyrs, and a general procession of the Chapter, the clergy, and the Religious, with the whole people flowing together, not of this city only, but also of the places lying around in the diocese and the province. And then a part of their relics is exposed on the chief altar, at which is chanted the conventual Mass from the Common of Martyrs: "Let the groaning of the prisoners come in before you, Lord," etc., with the Prayer: "Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who have known the glorious Martyrs to be brave in their confession may feel them to be loving toward us in their intercession with you." Which same Mass is then celebrated privately in the same church by any priest; but in the rest of the year by way of a votive Mass, as often as recourse is had to invoking the patronage of the Martyrs: and if the need be public, it is solemnly sung in place of the conventual Mass.

[13] But it is altogether incredible that the men of Otranto began this without the assent of the Apostolic See; not without the authority of the Apostolic See. first, because they openly profess in the instrument of the said Information that they ask this of the Pontiff because they knew that his authority was necessary for it: Without whose assent, they say, no one is to be honored as a Saint on earth. Then, because Rome, since it could not long be ignorant that this was done within the borders of Italy, yet never hindered it, not even after the Decrees of Pope Urban VIII. Nay indeed, so far are the Pontiffs who followed Urban from having forbidden these things, that they rather favored them with singular beneficence; as Pope Clement IX, who granted in the year 1668, on the XX day of June, to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes truly penitent, confessed, and refreshed with holy Communion, who should devoutly visit the cathedral church of Otranto and the chapel situated in it, called of the Holy Martyrs …, on the XIV day of August from first Vespers until sunset on such a day in each year, and should there pray for the concord of Christian princes, etc., a plenary indulgence of all their sins. The words of the Bull given here may be seen in Capano in the Collection, page 97; where there follow also two others of Pope Clement X; of which by the first there is committed to the archbishop of Otranto a dispensation for a priest who, on the occasion of the solemnity of the holy Martyrs, whose bodies are preserved in the said (namely Otranto) church (as is piously believed), … had had three fingers of his right hand … taken off by the discharge of a gun. By the second there are granted and annexed indulgences for the departed to the same chapel of the holy Martyrs, provided that in it seven Masses be daily celebrated. These things suffice, I think, that no one may be able to doubt of the Roman assent in the cult with which our Martyrs are celebrated at Otranto. Now let us turn elsewhere.

[14] The ancient extension of their veneration, persevering John Antony Summonte narrates in his Italian History of the city and kingdom of Naples, volume 3, book 5, page 501 in my copy, that many bodies of these Martyrs were taken away by the peoples neighboring to Otranto out of religious affection and placed in their own churches; which, if it be true, must have happened before those bodies were laid up; and accordingly their public veneration will have to be said to have begun then already to spread more widely. Summonte will certainly be supported below among the contemporaries canonically examined at Otranto in the year 1539, by the third witness, John Longus, in his answer to the sixth question; where he will also teach in how great veneration the suburban place of the martyrdom was held about the fourteenth year after the expulsion of the Turks. And indeed concerning the same, Gualterius writes thus in the Italian Account, page 15: In the place of the martyrdom, which before was called the Mount of Minerva, and afterwards the Mount of the Martyrs, a church was built under the title of St. Mary of the Martyrs, and that by the order of Pope Sixtus IV (who died in the year 1484). Afterwards a Convent of the Minim Friars was founded there, namely in the year 1540, as Lanovius notes at that year in the general Chronicle of the Order. With Gualterius agrees Summonte, volume 3, book 5, page 501. Above the door of this church these words are read carved in marble:

TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST.

To the holy Martyrs of Otranto, cruelly slain by the Turks for the faith of Christ most steadfastly kept, and to St. Francis of Paola, the herald of victory, the church and cloister, formerly founded by the Duke of Calabria, fallen through age, rebuilt from the foundations in an ampler form, and enriched with a greater revenue, John Francis Arnesanus of Lecce and Maria Leucia, husband and wife, for piety's sake set up and dedicated, in the year of the Lord 1614.

[15] as far as Naples. A most ancient extension of the cult even to the city of Naples and to its church — formerly of St. Mary Magdalen, then, the relics of our Martyrs being brought into it and honorably laid up with the faculty of Pope Innocent VIII, of St. Mary of the Martyrs, but now called St. Catherine ad Formellum, and handed over to the Reverend Fathers Preachers — is testified by an inscription which Charles de Lellis so reads there in Sacred Naples, part 2, page 148: In this chapel of the most holy Rosary, erected on the XXIV day of May 1574, there have been laid two hundred * and forty heads with their bones and relics of those blessed Martyrs who in the city of Otranto were slaughtered for the faith of Christ; whose names, known to God alone, are written in the Book of life. These the most serene king Alfonso II, Duke of Calabria, translated to Naples in two great chests, and laid up in a chapel built by him under the name of St. Mary of the Martyrs in the church now of St. Catherine ad Formellum. And since the aforesaid chests, through the antiquity of time, had been eaten by moths and were nearly consumed, the venerable Father Brother Paul Rovadus, then chief sacristan, and Brother John Baptist of Bologna, lay brother, by the leave of the Subprior Brother Cornelius of Calvisano and of the other Fathers, in memory of the matter placed the said holy relics, drawn out of the chests, reverently and with due honor on this altar to be venerated by all, on the XXIX day of the aforesaid month and year. Of these things the discourse will recur below, when the history of the martyrdom is examined; of which it is well here to set forth an epitome in a Ms. Hymn which we received in Capano's Collection subjoined to the already given hierotopo-chronical narration of Pompey Gualterius, with this title:

[16] A Hymn of the same (Gualterius) on the same holy Martyrs, A solemn hymn at Otranto, which is wont to be sung in procession on the anniversary of their solemnity, the XIV day of August, at Otranto, namely:

Applaud the famous name of our forefathers, Rejoicing companions, chant to Glory: Set forth the unconquered Soldiers of the Faith, Tell of the Martyrs of Christ.

These are they whom the illustrious youth of Iapygia, Noble with Cnossian blood, bore At Otranto, and whom in the mystic Font The Key-bearer of heaven washed.

Hence a later Offspring, bold and firm, Withstanding Gothic and Gallic battles, Shone forth beloved to the princes of the kingdom, To Romans and to Iberians.

These, when the dire rage of the conquering Followers of Mahomet prevailed, and the city was destroyed, Being struck with swords, at last consecrate themselves To you, Jesus, as Victims.

[17] His fleet increased with lightning-swift triremes, The war-mighty Ottoman king commanded That the shores of Hesperia be forthwith invaded, in which is briefly described And the walls of the Salentines.

Ships full of Thracian soldiery Leap across the Bosphorus and the shallows of the Cyclades, Overpass the Ægean and the Ionian sea, Achmet being their treacherous Leader.

They terrify the seas with countless sterns, And beneath them the hearts of all kinds of the Faithful; Uncertain they tremble, whither the savage Monstrous fleet may bear its columns.

But now the Acroceraunian heights are approached By sail-flying prows; now it holds the narrow Sea of the Adriatic; now the barbarous Scythian Comes up to the mouths of Otranto.

Alas, how anxious a fear presses upon The neighboring towns; yet not upon its inhabitants, Who with dry eyes behold fierce monsters Vomited forth by the waves.

Behold, the wicked Thracian, pressing with terrifying Phalanxes upon the undaunted city, Sends to the brave Worshippers of Christ Impious messages of a wicked compact.

Whom the unbroken loyalty to their lawful prince And the kindly fidelity to Christ, that they might not Suffer the dauntless to fall, made ready To die a thousand times.

[18] The savage enemies therefore assail The towered walls; and the highest valor of the citizens the history of the Martyrs. Is set against them; yet soon by assault They undermine the lofty walls.

The ferocity of the assailants grows: The guard is overwhelmed, the braver falls. The raging soldiers run through the places Of the city full of tumults.

Then they rush upon those in the midst of the sacred Buildings; They slaughter the priests, and the head, protected By the mitre, of Stephen, by nefarious slaughter The foul ones savagely cut off.

The sacrilegious throng leads out the survivors bound To where the fierce Conqueror commands, Ordering them to be slain, unless they prefer The Mahometan doctrines to Christ.

But each steadfastly professes more gladly Martyrdom for Jesus: and afterwards the hard sword Bore all who had endured stripes and darts Away to the skies.

Now may the harsh arms of the raging Turks Perish from the borders of the sons of Christ By the merits of these, O good Trinity, To whom be Glory through the ages.

* read "two hundred"

§ III. Otranto besieged by the Turks and cruelly stormed.

Very many have written the history of these Martyrs, The contest of our Martyrs many contemporary and nearly contemporary authors have written: as Antony Galateus, of whom we spoke above at number 11, in the little book on the Situation of Iapygia, page 51 and following; Michael Lagetto in a very ancient Italian Ms. volume, which is preserved in the archive of the metropolitan church at Otranto with this title, Historia della città d'Otranto, etc., that is, the History of the city of Otranto: how it was taken by the Turks, and its faithful citizens afflicted with martyrdom; written by John Michael Lagetto, himself also of Otranto. This man deserves great credit, as one who received most things from his father, who at Otranto, being then taken by the Turks, remained until the month of March of the year 1481, when, being carried off to Velona in Albania, or Valona, as it is now called, and there finding an opportunity of flight, about the middle of July he returned to his fatherland, then besieged by the Christians; where he remained in the camp until the surrender of the city. He asserts moreover that he learned many things from other old men who had once been present at the things which they attested; yet not all things from each, but one thing from one and another from another. We have only the chief Excerpts of this man, but published in the author's own words in Capano's Collection from page 37. A witness also from among those who were spared in that same calamity of Otranto, an honorable one, Leander Alberti heard, whose narration he exhibits in his Description of Italy, where he treats of Otranto among the Salentines.

[20] from whom we shall here give a brief selection. There are added testimonies of the same age and place, which may be consulted below in the Information of the year 1539, which we shall reprint. I pass over the other instruments of nearly those times; which, if they shall be necessary, will be set forth in their place: for it has seemed good to choose the best out of all rather than to exhibit one, in which either many things are lacking (as they nearly are lacking in each of the more ancient ones) or very many are redundant, which make rather for a complete history of the war of Otranto than of the Martyrs, of whom here we must chiefly treat; such as are the things which, as composed long since in Latin by Galateus, John Michael Martianus, Canon of Otranto, published in Italian phrase when the sixteenth century was now grown; then also those which in the year 1631 Francis de Araujo, apostolic protonotary, made public not without praise in Spanish at Naples; and any others perchance of the same kind hitherto unknown to us, and not sufficiently suited to this Work. Let us begin therefore this sylloge from the siege of the city, of which Antony Galateus thus speaks at the place cited:

[21] Achmet, having landed at Otranto, vainly demands its surrender: In the year from the birth of Christ 1480 Achmet, prefect of the fleet of Mahomet king of the Turks, setting sail from Aulon, a town of Macedonia, with two hundred ships and eighteen thousand most valiant warriors, besieged Otranto, not without every kind of arms and engines. Who, having sounded the minds of the townsmen, and having offered conditions not unfair — that, since they had no hope of aid (for our army at that time was carrying on operations in Tuscany), nor knew that a weak city could be defended against so great a force, as the barbarian craftily and truly said, either they should surrender of their own accord, which he urged; or that with their wives and children and whatever things they could carry they should abandon the city (rather, desert it), and migrate to the neighboring cities, and save their life and liberty. He said it was foolish to hope well where there was no hope of safety or of aid: but if they would not put faith in him, a man both unknown and an enemy, he promised that he and all his army would go aboard the ships and would depart into the sea eight or ten miles from the city; meanwhile let them provide for their own safety and liberty. This speech was at first despised by the men of Otranto. They answered that they were prepared to suffer all extremities for Christ and for their king, and at last to undergo death: and they ordered the messenger not to return again, and threatened death if any of the citizens should say a word about surrender. A second messenger, bringing the same message, they pierced with arrows. Thus far Galateus; whose syntax, dislocated by a copyist or a typesetter, I have been compelled to restore by inserted brackets. But if you wish to compare others with him so far, observe the following.

[22] First, that the causes of this Turkish expedition are reported by Martianus in Capano, pages 1 and 2, the time of this matter, and certain other things by Araujo at page 17, by Spondanus in the Continuation of the Annals of Baronius at this year, number 3, and by others, where they may be read; since it in no way concerns us what at last they were. Secondly, that just as little pertains hither, of what sort or how great Achmet was in the esteem of Mahomet II and of his son Bajazet; that this accordingly may be seen at the year 1475, number 8, in the same Spondanus,

who calls him Vizier Pasha Gedik Achmet. Yet Leunclavius will give more to one who wishes it, in the Musulman History from the year 1480, or the end of the sixteenth book. Thirdly, that the year of Christ 1480, in which the Turks came to Otranto, is so certain from the consent of the ancients and from the Apostolic letters of that same year recited by Rainaldus, that it is a wonder that the following year could have been assigned by Leander Alberti. Fourthly, that the day of the arrival of the Turks and of the beginning of the siege is expressed by Volaterranus as the XXVIII of the month of July; and that the same can be gathered a little below from Galateus against Martianus, who fixes the arrival to the XXIV day of that same month, and the landing from the ships to the XXV. Fifthly, that authors vary in the number both of the enemy and of the ships; for Volaterranus says that these were in all about a hundred, others many more; Galateus alone, so far as I know, reaches as high as two hundred: of the enemy, Martianus with Galateus reckons eighteen thousand; others with Bonfini, in the fourth decade of Hungarian Affairs, book 6, twenty thousand: whereas, on the witness of Martianus, there were no more than fourteen hundred fit defenders of the city.

[23] What Galateus narrates, that before all things conditions of surrender were proposed to the besieged, circumstances. both agrees with the custom of war, and Araujo affirms it, chapter 13; Martianus nevertheless says that first for ten days the walls were assailed and breached. But if he himself translated this into Italian from some Latin History of Galateus, he has certainly exhibited Galateus fighting with Galateus: since in his most well-known little work, which we here use, he asserts both that the walls began to be battered later, and that they were overthrown in three days only. Hence I should rather believe Martianus the author of his Italian history than a sincere translator. Further, that the enemy's spokesman was repelled by the townsmen with a threat is a certain thing; but that on his returning a second time he was pierced by their arrows we read in Galateus alone. For the rest, so unforeseen a storm to all St. Francis of Paola had long before, being divinely taught, foreseen and likewise foretold, as also the expulsion of the Turks that would follow in the next year; as has been noted more than once in his Acts at the 2nd day of April, pages 144 d, 166 f, 169 a, etc. But let us proceed with Galateus in the same place.

[24] Otranto is stormed on the XI of August The barbarian, stirred by anger, ordered every kind of engines to be made ready, both those which they call bombards, and those of incredible size which they had; and in three days he overthrew the weak and old walls; so that for several days the matter was carried on between our men and the Turks with darts and swords. Our men most fiercely resisting defended the city. At length on the sixth day of the week, which the race of the Turks holds in veneration, on the fifteenth day of the siege, on the third of the Ides of August (the Ides always unlucky for Italy: for on the VI of the Ides of August the battle at Cannæ with Hannibal was unhappily fought), nearly all our men being wearied with wounds and labors and vigils, the Turks, entering the city over the level ground, at the first onset spared no one. They slaughtered the priests in the church to the last man, and slew some, holding the Host above the altars, as it were victims. After through the whole night, which that turbulent day followed, Stephen the archbishop, my kinsman, had strengthened all the people with the divine Sacrament of the Eucharist for the morning battle which he had foreknown, he ascended from the underground part of the church to the place which they call the choir; where, a martyr of Christ, adorned with pontifical vestments, he was slain in his own seat by the Turks rushing in. Upon these things I would again have you observe what I subjoin.

[25] with the greatest cruelty especially against the priests First, that concerning the day of the storming of the city Volaterranus agrees with Galateus; the sixth sworn witness below, Lagetto; an ancient epigraph in the church of Otranto in Capano, page 45, etc. Accordingly, that Bonfini with his followers must not be heard, who will have it to have been the XVII day of the siege; much less indeed either Summonte, who notes the XXI, or our Giannettasio, who notes the XX of August, or the XIII of the Kalends of September, in the History of Naples, volume 3, page 62. Secondly, that the cruelty and license of the Turks in that first onset of the invasion is depicted somewhat more fully by Volaterranus and by Pope Sixtus IV in Rainaldus at this year, numbers 17 and 20; but I do not know whether with sufficiently ascertained truth; which I add on account of the punishment with which Sixtus writes that the archbishop of Otranto was afflicted, as will presently be said. Further, among the priests who are recorded to have been then slain in various churches, there treats the famous preacher of that age in the Order of St. Dominic, Gabriel Barelete, otherwise Barletta, on the third day of Pentecost, at folio 142 according to the Hagenau edition of the year 1518, concerning a Brother of ours (that is, of the same Order, I think) at Otranto: while the city was being taken by the Turks, and he did not cease from preaching, Come down, they said. He chose rather to die: and he was cut through the middle in the pulpit; nor did he cease to speak: Holy faith, holy faith, holy faith! These are the very words of the author cited. Of others see Martianus, page 11.

[26] and against the archbishop, Thirdly, that the slaying of the archbishop of Otranto is narrated with wonderful variety: for Pope Sixtus IV in Rainaldus at this year, at number 20, writes that, the city being now taken, the Turks, coming to the metropolitan church, sawed through the middle with a wooden saw, no otherwise than the impious Manasseh did Isaiah, Stephen of good memory, archbishop of Otranto, a decrepit old man and full of days, who in pontifical apparel, carrying the body of our Lord Jesus Christ through that same church with his Canons and other priests and clerics in procession, was pouring out humble prayers for the defense of the city and the safety of its inhabitants; and that they cruelly slaughtered and killed within that same church those aforesaid canons and priests whom he had with him, as they praised God and with loud voice besought mercy from him, etc. With Sixtus agrees his contemporary Breydenbach toward the end of his work on the Sacred Pilgrimages, and Rainaldus himself, and others. Bonfini on the contrary, in the fourth decade, book 6, says that he was flayed of his skin: Martianus and others, that he was beheaded, and that indeed while he was distributing the sacred Eucharist to the people; and that in the same manner fell all the Canons assisting him, whom that author calls each by name. That report scattered all these things we readily believe. Yet these must yield to the sworn testimony of the venerable abbot (this is the title of the canons of the church of Otranto) Angelus Pendinellus, who in the year 1539, being lawfully questioned, answered the following:

[27] That, since he the witness is now of the age of 84 years, beheaded in his own church; he remembers that in the year of the Lord 1480, when he the witness was then a deacon, the fleet of the Turks came, and besieged the city of Otranto continuously for fifteen days, and at length took it by force: in which among others there was then the lord Stephen of reverend memory, then archbishop of Otranto: and while those enemies were storming the city by craft, the lord archbishop himself, arrayed in sacred vestments, went to the altar, and, a great multitude of the people being present, with great devotion celebrated the sacred Mass, and gave the pontifical blessing to the people, encouraging all with fatherly words that they should stand firm in the holy faith of Christ, and for his love, if there were need, should lay down their life; the whole people answering that they were ready most gladly to die a thousand times for the holy faith of Christ. And when the then most reverend lord archbishop, the Mass being ended, was returning to the sacristy, the enemy rushing into the city, they came within that same church; and, finding the lord archbishop there before the doors of the sacristy, they killed him, THIS WITNESS BEING PRESENT with many other clerics, all of whom those unbelieving enemies made captives, THE ARCHBISHOP ALONE BEING KILLED, being now of the decrepit age of eighty years and more; those Turks also running through the church and the city, killing many of the citizens themselves and as many as they found. These things will recur below in the Information of Otranto; yet it has pleased us to write them here also, because nothing seems able to be brought forward richer for the present matter.

[28] Observe fourthly that, although Galateus calls this archbishop a Martyr of Christ, yet different from our Martyrs of Otranto. he nevertheless makes no word of his cult; nay, he manifestly separates him from those Eight Hundred whose cult he afterwards establishes. Nor have we hitherto received anything from elsewhere by which we may defend a veneration common to him with the Eight Hundred, of whom we must presently treat. Twice, I confess, Ughelli asserts, among the archbishops of Otranto, that he was laid in the common chapel with the rest of the church of Otranto; but he does not prove it: since it appears far more likely that his body was lost through the Mahometans, who, as will presently be narrated, were ordered to clear the city, strewn with promiscuous corpses, before the entrance of Achmet. Let Ferrari therefore look to it on what foundation he framed the announcement of him set forth above at number 1: for Paul Regius, whom alone he cites, when he seems to insinuate that the archbishop was slain on the same day with the Eight Hundred, errs notably; and then the things which he brings forward as either incitements or indications of a public veneration (as that the place of the martyrdom was in his own age called the Valley of the Martyrs; likewise that there through many nights torches were seen to shine above the bodies of the Martyrs, an argument not doubtful of their heavenly glory) — these pertain not at all to the archbishop, slain and cast away in another place, in another manner, at another time. Yet far be it that we should wish anything to be detracted from the glory of so good a shepherd (as one who strenuously laid down his life for his sheep), while without graver authority we do not dare, or are not able, to confirm his public cult.

§ IV. The Acts of the Martyrs of Otranto.

The city being now taken, 800 Martyrs The Acts of the Martyrs of Otranto, whom we have shown to be solemnly venerated on this day, Galateus rather touches upon than narrates in these words: The eight hundred Men who survived the disaster, either captives, or wounded, or sick, being led outside the city, were all slain before the eyes of the most cruel barbarian Leader. I shall tell a thing of rare and ancient praise, and perhaps by no means to be believed by future ages: no one in so great a multitude, from fear of death, fell away from the faith of Christ; nay, one exhorted another to death, son father, father son, brother brother. Honored be your valor, happy souls, Martyrs of Jesus Christ, who dared a great and memorable deed! Never can I praise you enough: your praise and glory and happiness with God abides eternal and shall ever abide. Thus he only concerning the martyrdom; as briefly as confusedly and obscurely. Meanwhile we have no other of that age who has set forth in Latin and worthily this subject, which properly and almost solely pertains hither: for Leander, although he is fuller and was once translated into Latin, yet himself wrote in Italian; and that indeed from the account of one witness only, which whether he committed to memory faithfully enough until he afterwards wrote, you would not rashly doubt, if you should compare it with the narration of Lagetto, both very simple and confirmed by the credit of several witnesses often heard. The Excerpts of this man therefore, as they stand in Capano, lawfully collated and subscribed from page 37, it will not be irksome here to render into Latin and chiefly to follow. Thus therefore it runs, after

he had spoken of the city now conquered:

[30] being brought before Achmet, The pasha would not enter the city before it had been cleared of the dead bodies both of Christians and of Turks; for all the streets were full of them; but he remained in the field in which he had pitched his camp: he commanded also that all who had captives should give them up and set them before him, concerning which matter he issued an edict on the following day, which was Saturday the XIII * of August: thus not long after all were brought to him, except certain ones whom the captains of the Turks had hidden in the triremes and who were not brought, and who afterwards ransomed themselves with money which they had previously hidden away (as nearly all had done) before the fleet had put in: but these, since they were not produced, were all demanded one by one from their Captains, who affirmed that they had been killed on the very day on which the city had been stormed.

[31] And so through his interpreter he began to urge and exhort them that, renouncing Christ, they should embrace the religion of Mahomet: if they should do this, he would give them back their wives and children, they are again tried with promises and threats and would leave them free in the city as subjects of the lord : but if they refused, he would order them to be killed; for that so it must altogether be done by the counsel and judgment of the Chogia (as they call their master), because they had taken arms and had resisted their lord. And that interpreter was a Calabrian apostate, who had been a simple priest , and himself reported concerning himself that he had been a Christian and a priest, and had formerly been called Don John; but that, the error in which he lived being recognized, he had gone over to Mahomet, whom he knew to have been sent by God, as was clear from the victories which he lavished on the lord of the Turks: then, that if Christ were greater than Mahomet, he would certainly have defended his own from him in war, and not have permitted them to captivity. With these and like blasphemies and most impious and false arguments the wicked interpreter strove to bring them to abjure Christ.

[32] Before we go on, note first that of this new choice set separately before these Eight Hundred Christians, now unarmed and bound, by Achmet, Galateus indeed makes no mention in the Work on the situation of Iapygia, to Mahometanism; as neither do the witnesses to be brought forward below in the Information of Otranto: but neither do they deny it. Secondly, that therefore the so express testimony, nay testimonies, of this most weighty writer concerning it must stand: for he heard and followed several witnesses; to whom is added he whom Leander Alberti adduces for himself, thus asserting only concerning these Eight Hundred: The rest, to the number of eight hundred, being all seized, stripped of their garments and naked, were dragged outside the walls into a small valley … And that when they had been set in that place of contest, the Turk first tried them by setting forth most ample rewards, that they might deny their faith in Christ; then terrified them with threats and with death proclaimed if they refused. But with one voice of all, etc. There are added Martianus, page 13 and following, Araujo, chapter 19, and others in so great a number that Gualterius affirms in the Italian Account, page 11 and the following, that this is the public voice, the report, and the universal sense of the province of Otranto. Thirdly, that concerning the Calabrian apostate interpreter Araujo agrees with our author, chapter 19, although by the word Chogia, Coggia, or Cozza he seems to have understood the law or statutes of the Turks: but that Martianus is silent concerning the said interpreter, and in his place names a certain Mopleso, who among his own people is called Talisman, and whose authority is very great in matters pertaining to their superstition. Leunclavius in the Turkish Onomasticon interprets Talisman as that priest who leads the Turks in prayers: this office could have been conferred on that same apostate. But it matters little whether it was the same man or another. Let us proceed.

[33] Among the other captives, says Lagetto in the same place, there was a certain Antony Grimaldi *, but, Grimaldi exhorting them, they are unconquered a cloth-shearer, an old man, and nearer than the rest to the pasha: he answered in the name of all that they all acknowledged Christ the Son of God, their Lord and true God, and that they would rather die a thousand times than, by renouncing him, become Turks, and assent to a condemned apostate and enemy of Christ. Then, turning to the Christians, he said: My brethren, we have fought hitherto to defend our country and our life and to prove our fidelity to our temporal lords; now is the time that we should contend for our souls and for Christ, who, since he died for us upon the cross, it is fair that we too should die for him, firm and steadfast in the faith: by this temporal death we shall obtain eternal life and the crown of martyrdom. At these words they all began with one voice and with much vehemence to cry out that they would rather perish a thousand times by any kind of death than deny Christ. The pasha asks of the interpreter what the Christians answered. They have all replied, said he, that they wish rather to die than to fall away from Christ. And so it was altogether determined by them all after the exhortation of that Christian old man. The pasha, greatly indignant at this answer, ordered them all to be beheaded; but in the first place master Antony Grimaldi, who, having spoken first, had impelled the rest to this.

[34] on the 14th day of August And so on the third day, which was Sunday, the XIV of August, he ordered them to be led to the mount called Della Minerva, distant about three hundred paces from the city (the cosmographers call it Mount Hydrus), with their hands bound behind their backs, and divided into ranks of fifty; that there all, as on another hill of Calvary, might be slain by the most savage Turks. And they walked with the greatest alacrity, encouraging one another to undergo martyrdom patiently: this the father suggested to the son, the son to the father, this brother to brother, friend to friend, companion to companion, with much fervor and gladness. It is also related that, as they proceeded thus bound, a girl was brought thither by certain Turks, who, seeing among those bound both her own brothers, asked repeatedly: O my brothers, and whither are you going? And when one of them answered, We go to die for the love of Jesus Christ, at these words the poor girl at once fell down as if lifeless; then, by a scimitar driven into her head by one of those same Turks, who wished to raise her up, she was slain on the spot and expired. Further, the Servants of Christ, when they had halted in the place already appointed …, a certain Turk went round, holding out in his hand a tablet inscribed with some Turkish characters, the wicked interpreter meanwhile proclaiming these things: Whoever wishes to believe these things shall be granted his life; he who does not wish, shall be killed. But not even one was found who was moved from his holy will and purpose.

[35] eight hundred are beheaded after Grimaldi. Therefore one after another, by executioners girded for the task, before the eyes of the treacherous pasha whom I have named, rejoicing in so deadly a spectacle, they were all to a man, undaunted and steadfast, put to death, their heads being cut off; and first indeed, as the pasha had commanded, master Grimaldi; who, as long as he survived, ceased not with strained and most ardent voice to admonish and to urge the rest to martyrdom, affirming, with his eyes fixed on heaven, that he saw it open, and the angelic spirits ready with great exultation to receive the souls of the slain; and that these things indeed he beheld clearly and distinctly. When, as he was saying these things, his head had been struck off, his trunk remained fixed and upright, like a column; nor did it fall to the ground (however much it was pushed toward a fall by the Turks) until the butchery had raged upon the rest; and then at last it sank down of its own accord beside them … The number of those slain in this manner is said to have been eight hundred … After the slaughter the bodies of the slaughtered were left on the said mount, just as they had fallen, unburied, exposed as prey to dogs, wild beasts, and carnivorous birds, a most clear argument of Turkish impiety and savagery. Thus he concerning the martyrdom: for the things which followed this, which the same author and others narrate, we shall pursue in the following paragraph; after we have here advised some things.

[36] Certain circumstances of this martyrdom And first indeed, that that Grimaldi, whom our author makes a cloth-shearer, is called a shoemaker by the witnesses in the Information of the year 1539. Secondly, that nothing is reported by these concerning the so long-lasting and immovable standing of his beheaded body, which after Lagetto both Martianus at page 17 and Araujo at chapter 19 also establish; who adds that the executioner, moved by that miracle, at once gave his name to Christ, and therefore, being without delay transfixed with a stake, came off a martyr. That things so singular in a place so open should not have been noticed by absolutely all who were present, and that, if they noticed them, they could afterwards, when questioned, not testify to them, scarcely appears credible. Thirdly, that this same Grimaldi seems to be he whom above at number 1 Ferrari, through ignorance of the history, called Fabius the shoemaker. Fourthly, that our Martyrs were led out of the city not only bound, but also naked, as John Longus will testify in the Information below; and Leander Alberti agrees above. Fifthly, that of that sister who addressed her two brothers when they were being led together, and of their answer, the seventh witness also makes mention in the Information of the year 1539; but nothing of the slaying of that same sister, which in the same place he ascribes to another girl.

[37] Sixthly, that the tablet which a certain Turk, with the interpreter accompanying him, exhibited to each before death, I have not found except in Lagetto, and in Araujo, chapter 19, who for the most part follows him. are observed. Seventhly, that although from the author it does not appear that any of the bound escaped punishment in the place of punishment, yet from elsewhere this is most certain: for in the Information so often already mentioned we shall hear Angelus Pendinellus confessing it of himself; and in the same place Baptist de Natali concerning another. Concerning Gabriel Memmo the same asserts Martianus, page 17 and following; concerning an anonymous man, who, his bonds being gradually loosened, withdrew himself in headlong flight, and was thereafter neither seen nor heard of anywhere, Araujo narrates at the place cited. Yet this is true, that the charge of religion cast off is brought against absolutely no one. Eighthly, that all are commonly reckoned in the round number of eight hundred; yet that this number does not seem so exactly defined, since in the Information of the year 1539 there are counted now seven hundred and more, now about seven hundred, now eight hundred or thereabouts, etc. Lastly, that concerning the kind of punishment there is no discrepancy among the ancients (for I do not delay over the more recent Bzovius). But that the blood of the Martyrs (as Martianus at page 18 and Araujo at chapter 19 say) ran down for two hundred and fifty paces into the sea, is hard to believe; harder still, what Martianus alone adds, that it, being received by the sea-waters, so floated upon them for many days that it neither lost its redness, nor was carried further thence by the tide.

* that is, of the Sultan

* Italian: prete di Messa

* elsewhere, Primaldus

* read XII

§ V. The prodigious incorruption of the sacred bodies, and a double translation.

The bodies for thirteen months incorrupt under the open sky, That the bodies of our Martyrs lay in the place of the martyrdom not only unburied, but also incorrupt, and that for thirteen continuous months, all affirm: namely, for ten whole months from the XIV of August of the year 1480 to

about the XV of the month of June of the year 1481; when (as Araujo writes from the entire History of Lagetto, if I am not mistaken, chapter 30) Duke Alfonso ordered them, cast away as they were, to be gathered and heaped up at a hermitage near there, until after the recovery of the city there should be place and time for burying them honorably; as there was three months afterwards, during which likewise in the same place, although heaped together, they remained free from corruption: but how free? In the Information of the year 1539 the tenth witness alone asserts that he saw them with the flesh DRIED, entire and unhurt; others nevertheless say nothing of drying; but the first says that they were sound, entire, and even fragrant, with flesh and bones, as if they had then been slain: the third, without any corruption and without any injury; nay rather, with the flesh incorrupt and stretched over the very bones: the ninth, unhurt, untouched, and incorrupt without any stench, and beautiful, as if they had then been killed. The eighth witness, when they were now being carried into the city and church of Otranto, being called thither by a certain citizen, by name Ursus Capito, that he might come to see the body of his father (one of those same Martyrs), saw it among the others, and says that it was still with its flesh, as if it had then been killed, notwithstanding that for thirteen months the aforesaid bodies had thus stood unburied, in winter as well as in summer time. The rest I pass over.

[39] and often lit up with prodigious lights, But there was no one who did not ascribe this incorruption to a manifest miracle of divine providence, and to an evident argument both of their true martyrdom and of their heavenly glory; especially since it happened to those bodies alone: for when, not many days after the slaying of the said Saints, a certain other man of the countryside (that is, a rustic) had been beheaded by those same Turks in the same place, and had been left there unburied, dogs came to eat his flesh; but to the bodies of the said Martyrs they never came near; as the fourth witness says below. Nay indeed, to this prodigy there was meanwhile added another, concerning which Lagetto thus at page 41: Nor will I pass over that which I received from old men who then escaped: that, after those blessed bodies had been slain, by night many lights were seen kindled there; such as the Turks themselves also saw from the walls of the city; which those dogs, slandering, said that the souls of those slain were wandering astray over that mount, and that devils were coming with lights to seize them. That these prodigious lights were seen by night rather often and by many over those bodies, still lying in the place of the martyrdom, the Information of Otranto will clearly teach.

[40] they are translated in the month of November 1481 These miracles impelled Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, that, as soon as he had recovered the city of Otranto (and he recovered it on the X day of September, as is certain from Rainaldus in the ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1481, number 30; although he did not enter it until two days later, on Araujo's witness, chapter 40), he should be above all solicitous to hasten the solemn translation of these Martyrs into the metropolitan church of Otranto. And so indeed he was: for, as Araujo narrates in the same place, on that same XII day of August on which he entered the city, going straight to the chief church, he there first gave thanks to God for the victory; then he ordered the damages of it, which had been inflicted in the time of the siege, to be at once repaired. On the next day, says Lagetto at page 42, the Duke of Calabria ordered many priests and Religious men to be summoned from the province; who also came: and, accompanied by the solemn order of those going in procession, he himself wished to conduct those blessed bodies of the Slain, and ordered them to be laid up in the city of Otranto in the greater church … acknowledging them as true Martyrs of Jesus Christ. This translation of the Martyrs to the same church by Duke Alfonso the witnesses will confirm below who were present; and who, since they assert that it happened thirteen months after the martyrdom, not obscurely fix it in the later part of September of the year 1481.

[41] Martianus at page 19 says that by Pope Sixtus IV the care both of reconciling the church of Otranto partly into the metropolitan church of Otranto; and of translating the said bodies into it when reconciled was committed to Francis de Arenis, archbishop of Brindisi and viceroy in the provinces of Otranto and Bari: which appears likely enough; first, because before the translation that church without doubt had to be reconciled; secondly, because no other bishop is said to have done it, much less the one of Otranto, who, being on the XII day of August only designated by Alfonso to that vacant see (as Araujo has it, chapter 40), cannot be believed to have been so quickly consecrated; thirdly, because no one was readier for that solemnity, no one worthier, no one then more pleasing to king Ferdinand and to his son Alfonso (who, it is altogether credible, had beforehand proposed this matter to Pope Sixtus IV) than that archbishop and viceroy, as you will gather from Ughelli in the newest edition of Italia sacra, volume 9, column 37. And so we wonder that, so far as we know, Martianus alone has made mention of his presence and work in this business. Observe here meanwhile the hallucination of Summonte and of certain others, when they narrate that the said bodies were then translated, not within the city to the greater church, as those testify in express words who were present, but into the church of St. Mary of the Martyrs in the suburban place of the martyrdom, which did not yet exist. Observe besides that the place of the church of Otranto in which they were first laid, and that to which afterwards in the same place they were raised, have been described above in §1 from number 3 by Pompey Gualterius; before whose times so much had been lost from this sacred treasury of Otranto through the largesses of certain archbishops, that, had he not thereafter restrained such dispersals by the penalty of excommunication, it would have seemed likely at some time to be exhausted; which we learn from Araujo, chapter 40.

[42] Alfonso held the remains of our Martyrs in too great price partly somewhat later. to leave all of them at Otranto at the furthest borders of the kingdom, and to carry none with him to the center and head of the kingdom, Naples. Therefore Lagetto at page 42, after describing the translation at Otranto and the prodigious entirety of the bodies, thus subjoins: When the Duke had contemplated this (incorruption) rather attentively (as he was excellent in religion), he translated many of the said bodies at his departure, enclosed in chests with which mules were laden, to Naples, and honorably placed them in a certain church, where even now they rest. And in the Information of the year 1539 the fourth witness agrees also in this, that the most illustrious Duke of Calabria, moved by devotion at miracles of this kind, caused some of those bodies, honorably laid up in chests, to be transported upon thirteen mules to the city of Naples; where he founded a certain church, and there took care that the said chests with the bodies of the said Martyrs should be reverently laid up. But indeed it cannot be believed that thirteen mules only, at Alfonso's departure, could at one time carry from Otranto to Naples so many heads with their bones and relics as were counted at number 15, namely two hundred and forty; unless those bodies had already before the translation been dissolved, and had remained deposited there a long while before they were carried away. We wonder therefore that by Galateus, On the Situation of Iapygia, page 55, many BONES of these Martyrs are said to have been translated to Naples, and that indeed before the translation of the said bodies into the church of Otranto. Certainly this translation at Otranto happened before any dissolution of the bodies into bones, as most trustworthy witnesses assert: this translation to Naples therefore happened not a little later.

[43] to Naples Not a little later, I say: for this also the authors just cited seem to hint, when to the translation to Naples they at once join the laying up of those same bones in a certain church of Naples, where even now they rest: they signify therefore that that church had been made ready for the honorable placing of these bones, before Alfonso had determined to move them from Otranto. But it is established that that church was not granted to Alfonso by Pope Innocent VIII, much less so prepared, until some years after the translation of the bodies into the church of Otranto; as you will presently understand from the letters of Pope Alexander VI. There is no reason therefore why both translations of our Martyrs — the one to that church of Otranto, the other to that of Naples — should be reckoned to have been carried out at about one and the same time. But Lagetto, you say, connects the translation to Naples with Alfonso's departure; and he departed from Otranto to Naples some months after the recovery of the city, and that indeed at the very urgent request of his father Ferdinand, as Araujo teaches, chapter 43; nay before the advanced spring of the year 1482, as is clear from the Diary of Stephen Infessura and the History of Naples. There cannot therefore be interposed between the said translations so great a space as is needed for that dissolution of those bodies into bones and dust which we defend. We answer that Alfonso, as he came rather often from Naples to Otranto, so departed rather often from Otranto to Naples: he came from Naples to Otranto in 1480 toward the end of September to besiege the Turks; he departed thence to Naples at the end of November of the same year, being compelled by the harshness of winter to suspend for a while what he had begun, as Araujo has it, chapter 26: he returned from Naples to Otranto in the month of June of the following year 1481, when he first saw and venerated the bodies of the Martyrs lying there; he departed thence to Naples, being summoned by his Father, about the spring season of the year 1482, after he had marked out the fortifications of the recovered city, on the completing of which men labored for a whole decade: he returned finally again from Naples to that same city to survey all the fortifications which he had long since ordered; and again after some months departed thence to Naples, as the same Araujo narrates, chapter 43. To this third departure we think that Lagetto looked, and to it attached the translation to Naples; for this alone can be referred to the times of Innocent VIII, whom the letters of Pope Alexander VI, which we subjoin from Capano's Collection, page 93, testify to have granted Alfonso a church at Naples for translating the Martyrs:

[44] into the church of St. Magdalen (with the faculty of Innocent VIII, Pope Alexander VI. Venerable Brethren, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Whereas some time ago Pope Innocent VIII of happy memory, our predecessor, had ordered to be granted by certain letters of his to Alfonso of illustrious memory, king of Sicily, then Duke of Calabria, the monastery of the nuns of B. Mary Magdalen near the Capuan Castle of Naples, of the Order of St. Augustine, living under the care of the Friars Minor, the abbatial dignity in it and the aforesaid order being suppressed, that in the place of the said monastery he might cause a palace to be constructed and built for his own habitation, it having been set forth to that same Predecessor on the part of that Alfonso, then Duke, that he purposed to honor and adorn the church of the said monastery, and to furnish it with books, chalices, vestments, and other things necessary for divine worship, and to institute there some priests and clerics who should there celebrate the divine Offices, and to assign suitable revenues for their maintenance: and he desired that from thenceforth the aforesaid church should be called, not of B. Mary Magdalen, but of B. Mary of the Martyrs; and that a certain part of the bones of the Faithful of Christ, who at Otranto

were slain by the treacherous Turks for the defense of the Christian faith, and which he out of his devotion had caused to be gathered up and honorably laid away, should be translated to the said church of the Martyrs; the same Predecessor by other letters of his granted among other things to the same Alfonso, then Duke of Calabria, full and free license of causing a part of such bones to be translated to the said church, and there honorably laid up, and of introducing into that church, after he should have sufficiently endowed it, certain priests and clerics who should together form a College; as is said to be fully contained in each of the aforesaid letters.

[45] But since, as was lately set forth to us on the part of our most dear son in Christ Frederick III, king of Sicily, here again confirmed by Pope Alexander VI) the aforesaid priests and clerics were never instituted in the said church, although the divine Offices are sometimes celebrated there by some hired priests, and the nuns of the said former monastery have been translated to other places and there becomingly settled, and that same king Frederick, led by a singular devotion, desired that some Brethren of one of the mendicant Orders should be introduced into the said former monastery, and that it should be granted to them for their perpetual use and habitation: on the part of that king Frederick humble supplication was made to us that we would deign to assent to his pious wishes in this matter. We therefore, being inclined to such supplications, command your Fraternity by Apostolic writings that you, or one of you, if it be so, introduce by our authority into the aforesaid monastery some Brethren of one of the mendicant Orders, of which it shall seem good to that king and as his devotion shall dictate, and grant it to them for their perpetual use and habitation, and also take care by the same authority to bestow upon those same Brethren license of receiving that monastery and of inhabiting it perpetually; for we utterly cancel and annul whatever obligation of endowing "that same church of the Martyrs" may perchance have been made by the aforesaid king Alfonso; notwithstanding the Constitution of Pope Boniface VIII of happy memory, our predecessor, by which it is forbidden that anyone presume to receive anew places for the Brethren of the mendicant Orders to inhabit without a special license of the Apostolic See making full and express mention word for word of such prohibition, and any other Apostolic Constitutions and Ordinances *, and also Statutes and Customs of the Orders, strengthened by any oath, Apostolic Confirmation, or any other firmness whatsoever, and all other things to the contrary whatsoever. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman, on the XI day of March 1498, in the sixth year of our Pontificate.

L. Podentharus.

But on the back:

To our Venerable Brethren the Archbishop of Naples and the Bishop of Montepeloso.

The place ✠ of the Seal.

Registered, number 37.

[46] Note first, that the mendicant Order which Frederick, by the benefit of these letters of Alexander, chose in the next following year, of Christ 1499, to administer the church of St. Mary of the Martyrs, now St. Catherine ad Formellum, namely in the year of Christ 1492. was the Order of St. Dominic; as see in Cæsar Engenio in Sacred Naples with the supplements, part 2, page 148. Note secondly, that although in the Letters of Alexander the year is not expressed in which Innocent VIII yielded the said church to Alfonso, the nuns being translated elsewhere, yet it does not seem to be doubted that this happened in the year of Christ 1492; first indeed, because from nearly the beginning of his Pontificate to that year, which was Innocent's last, the wars or contentions between the Apostolic See and the court of Naples, most obstinately continued without interruption, seem to have offered no opportunity for a benefit of this kind; which without doubt the year 1492 offered, being gladdened from the XXVIII day of January by a solemn peace between the dissenting parties, as Rainaldus at the same year, number 10, and others report. Then, because Alfonso could not send the nuns away thence unless he bought another property for them; and he bought it in this same year 1492, as Engenio proves at the place cited. Why then should we not fix in that same year both the granting of the church, and the translation of some of the Martyrs of Otranto to Naples, and their honorable placing here within that same church? But now enough of Naples. Let us return to Otranto.

* perhaps "Ordinances"

§ VI. Other miracles.

The church of Otranto often divinely lit up: The bodies of the Martyrs having been translated to the church of Otranto, that spectacle of so prodigious an entirety, which had already shone more than enough for publishing their glory everywhere, indeed began to cease; but others nevertheless were by no means lacking. Thus, says Lagetto at page 41 and following, when they had now been brought into the city and deposited within the greater church, for a long time those aforesaid lights appeared kindled there; so that once, when by chance a certain ship was in the harbor, the men set in it saw a very great light above the church; and, believing that it was burning, they sent men out in a boat to warn the citizens: at which announcement the townsmen, being disturbed, when there had been a concourse from every side to the church, found nothing at all there. All this, the author adds in the same place concerning all the things which he had thus far narrated, I write from the true account of my father, who was present there. Several witnesses the Information of the year 1539 will give below; and among them indeed the third makes mention besides of some bones of those same Martyrs placed elsewhere, which through those same times were famous for many miracles.

[48] the city itself defended by the Martyrs appearing: Nor will I neglect to note this (the words are Lagetto's, page 42), that this city (of Otranto) has been by the merits of these holy Martyrs freed on countless occasions from very many adversities and dangers which came from enemies and from pestilence; as has been proved by many and clear examples, and is firmly believed. And what can seem more evident than this, which happened in our age, in the year 1537? For when Suleiman, emperor of the Turks, wished then to burst into this kingdom, he himself brought up a vast army of his men (they say it was of three hundred thousand heads), together with a fleet of three hundred ships, over which Sofi Pasha, kinsman of Suleiman, presided, to the harbor of this city on the XXV day of the month of July 1537; where, after he had, the sails being lowered, drawn out a rather long delay in consultation, at length, the sails being again raised, he departed further, and took Castro, Ugento (they are towns of the province of Otranto), and other places, whose inhabitants he carried off into servitude to Aulon … And many Greeks who had then been in that same fleet afterwards reported that the Mahometans had seen upon the walls of the city so great a multitude of armed men and so great a garrison, that for terror they did not dare to make a landing from the ships upon the shore to attempt battle. That something similar happened there in the year 1644, Pompey Gualterius reports; adding that in events of this kind the Martyrs were wont to appear above the tops of the walls as armed warriors. See his Italian Account printed a second time at Lecce in the year 1677, page 22; for thence we draw the following, translated into Latin, cutting away nevertheless the things which make nothing for the history.

[49] Often also (although formerly more rarely) lights have been seen at night in the church of St. Mary of the Martyrs of the Brethren of St. Francis of Paola outside the city; in the place of the martyrdom songs are heard, lights seen: and sometimes with an apparition of those same Martyrs, walking in ordered array, and descending and ascending by the steps of the mount, on whose summit, not far from the church, there is a chapel, where is preserved the stone on which the holy Martyrs were beheaded. (Concerning this Stone we read nothing elsewhere.) And after apparitions of this kind, messengers came in either concerning the preparation of some Turkish fleet, or concerning the passage of some barbarian ships, or concerning some untoward event which had befallen lands remote from this province. Whence it is held for certain that these holy Martyrs aid us in every necessity with assiduous patronage before the divine mercy, and defend us from imminent dangers. More recent is what happened in the year just past, 1676, in the month of April; when by certain countrymen dwelling outside the walls near the said Convent of St. Mary of the Martyrs there were heard by night voices of most sweet melody; and when they made this known to the father of the household, he too, springing forth out of doors, saw on the mount near the church torches shining in very great number, as of men holding a solemn procession.

[50] But this at last struck all with great wonder, and with no less fear and feeling of religion, fourteen apparitions that in this very year 1677 like apparitions of lights were observed by night fourteen times in somewhat more than three months. And on the first four occasions indeed the Spanish soldiers keeping watch for the guard of this royal citadel saw very many splendors shining forth from the windows of this cathedral building; as in an examination instituted publicly by the authority of our archiepiscopal curia they juridically testified. The first apparition happened after midnight on the VI day of January, the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. The second, in that same month on the day before the feast of St. Paul the first hermit, on Thursday the XIV of January after midnight. The third likewise after midnight of Saturday, the day before the feast of St. Peter Nolasco, the XXX of the same month. The fourth, after midnight of Thursday, the IV of February, on the day before the feast of St. Agatha.

[51] The fifth apparition followed after midnight of Saturday, the VI of February, the day before the feast of St. Romuald the abbot; in the same year and it was beheld not only by the watch of the citadel, but also by many townsmen. Lights then, namely, in greater number than before, were seen to issue from those same windows, and to occupy the very roof of the building. Nay more, it also pleased the Lord, in the immense light of splendors so glorious, to exhibit to their eyes, both within and without the said basilica, the holy Martyrs themselves visible, who, like an innumerable multitude, entering that most sacred building, went round the whole of it after the manner of suppliants. And indeed besides, a Canon was then found there worthy enough to perceive with his ear their heavenly chanting; namely, the voices of those then singing together: "Glory, glory to the Most High"; then of those answering: "Rejoice, rejoice." While that same Canon meanwhile, as though snatched into ecstasy, remained so fixed that he could neither move himself to call others, nor know how long this apparition lasted; of which an examination equally accurate and solemn as of the preceding was held …

[52] of Christ 1677 This leaf being written, and not a few copies of it being sent to Rome on the XVI day of February to various Cardinals, the sixth apparition happened, so much more illustrious than the rest as it was more public and known to the whole city. On Sunday, the XXI of the said month, at the second hour of the night, the accustomed splendors were seen both within and without and above the said church, with an admirable spectacle of those same holy Martyrs exhibited openly to many; who, after the manner of a multitude following one another in order, seemed to advance two by two from the southern door of the church (which appeared full of light and open, although in truth it was barred), and to go round as far as

the northern door of that same church; which too, although it was shut, yet seemed to be opened for their entrance and to be lit up. That sight moved the minds of all with various and pious feelings. The most illustrious lord Piccolomini, our archbishop, came down into the church that same evening; to which he found that the whole people had already run together; and after he had ordered the Litanies of the most Blessed Virgin with the Collect of the holy Martyrs to be devoutly sung in the very chapel of those same Martyrs, exhorting each one to true penance and to a general Communion, he proclaimed a universal fast for the following Monday, when it was both observed, and the most illustrious lord himself was present at the Mass which was solemnly celebrated from the Common of Martyrs, the magistracy assisting with nearly the whole city. Then, at the public prayers, the truth of the said prodigy was juridically discussed and entered into the records …

[53] as far as the 17th day of April After the seventh and eighth apparitions of lights, observed on the following days not only by citizens but also by Religious men from the suburban monasteries, and especially from the monastery of St. John of the Friars Minor Observant, to which the upper parts of this basilica are more exposed, there happened also a ninth toward the evening of Tuesday, the XXIII of the month of March, when the sun had already been set two hours: for then, in addition to the most copious splendors of the accustomed lights, shining from the windows, walls, and roof of the metropolitan church upon the whole city, and upon the most illustrious Lord himself and his household, those who inhabited both palaces opposite the front of the basilica, and who from on high looked attentively into it through two opposite windows of each wing, saw, I say, amid many most brilliant and as it were running stars, that now accustomed blessed Multitude of an innumerable people proceeding in ordered array from that part where the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament is, through the right aisle of the church, and, the middle nave of the church being passed, through the left aisle to the royal chapel, where the venerable relics of the holy Martyrs rest. And when some of those Blessed ones exhibited themselves to the eyes of the beholders in a most clear light by their own brightness, which they shed from themselves, others by the light of the running stars, others by the most limpid little flames of the tapers which they carried in their hands, by the notable goodness of God it was permitted to observe most accurately the glorious form, dress, and other circumstances of each, which are all enumerated one by one in the records lawfully drawn up concerning this matter, to such a degree that in some there could even be discerned the red marks of wounds, as if lately inflicted and (as it appeared) flowing with blood.

[54] On Thursday, the VIII of April, at the fifth hour after sunset, beheld at Otranto on the day before the Office of the Seven sorrows of the most Blessed Mother of God is wont to be celebrated, the tenth apparition happened; but it was beheld by few persons, one of whom, a notably pious woman, looking out from the chamber which she had in one of the said palaces, through the window opposite the front of the basilica, saw the same glorious company amid most splendid rays, spread abroad by itself as by a most brilliant sun, going round the church in a rank divided two by two. To the same woman there happened the eleventh apparition after midnight of the XI day of April, which had been Palm Sunday; when, amid thunders and rain-clouds falling from the sky, she heard from her chamber a vast murmur of a people; then, going to the aforesaid window of her chamber, she perceived that the cries proceeded from the basilica, as though it were filled with people: at last, the window being opened, looking out toward the church, she both saw it gradually all lit up, and heard these words, with strained yet most sweet and harmonious voices, repeated rather often toward the altar of the venerable Sacrament: "God, my God; sit at the right hand of God": while there meanwhile, as the splendors grew more and more, so great a force of wind and rain rushed upon the window and upon the face of her who beheld, that, it being at once shut, she had to abstain from further spectacle.

[55] To the same person the twelfth apparition was offered on the XVIII day of April, in the metropolitan church the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, a little before the second hour of the night, on which she saw that church more brightly lit up than it could be by day; but out of humble reverence she soon withdrew from the window. There followed on the next day at the same hour the thirteenth apparition, beheld through the same window for a good while not only by that person, but also by others of her household; since indeed in that same cathedral building, besides the flashes now often seen, they contemplated for two hours and more continuously a certain grave and most shining man, his knees set upon the ground and his hands joined, as it were praying before the altar of the Most Holy Sacrament; as is established from the instrument of the juridical examination instituted concerning the matters just mentioned …

[56] There came to pass finally the fourteenth apparition on Tuesday, and in the suburbs, the XXVII of April, toward the second hour after sunset; when first by the garrison of the citadel and by the inhabitants of the city the accustomed brightness was beheld, yet then so intense that the basilica seemed to be ablaze; then those same garrison soldiers saw a numerous procession with lighted tapers in hand going forth from the city to the mount of the sacred martyrdom: and many citizens, watching from the walls of the city, beheld them in the same manner not only on the said mount, but also elsewhere (as to the east toward the sea, and to the west toward the mainland), and together cried aloud: The holy Martyrs, the holy Martyrs! while meanwhile the bells of all the monasteries which are outside the city rang; some also hearing their most sweet melody, as of suppliants with joined voice, though less distinctly, both on account of the too great distance and also on account of the excessive shouts of the crowd disturbing them.

[57] But the most illustrious lord archbishop, considering that by the so often repeated apparitions of our most glorious Martyrs it was not obscurely signified how diligently and steadfastly they watch that they may ever entreat almighty God, and the edict of the archbishop published on that occasion. provoked by so many of our sins, to be propitious to us: considering moreover how many and how great benefits, beyond the ordinary course of nature, both were formerly conferred and are still conferred upon their faithful clients both in the city and in the province, especially in malignant diseases, nearly all of which ceased in perfect health on the fourteenth day after they had begun (which number is not without mystery, as being consecrated to our Martyrs, who on the XIV day of August suffered for Christ): considering besides that after the fourteenth apparition of this year the fevers so ceased that from that time they brought death to no one: considering, I say, all these things, and firmly trusting that these prodigies are presages of a happiness to follow, the most illustrious Lord decreed a solemn novena, to be celebrated with public prayers, the exposition of the Body of the Lord, and frequenting of the Sacraments: he thereupon invited missionaries, who after their manner should kindle the piety of the people. Lastly by a public edict he exhorted all the subjects of his church to vow a common fast, to be kept on bread alone, as we say, and water, on the anniversary feast of the holy Martyrs, the XIV day of the next month of August.

Here Gualterius makes an end of reporting. We, since more recent things are not available, returning to the old, here reprint the so often promised Information of Otranto of the year 1539 from the Collection of monuments pertaining to these Martyrs of Francis Antony Capano, published at Lecce and approved in the year 1670, broken up with a very few notes.

A COPY

of the Information concerning the martyrdom of the glorious Martyrs of Otranto, made before the bishop of Scutari, vicar general of the see of Otranto, in the year 1539,

From the printed text in Capano from page 46.

The Martyrs of Otranto (SS.)

FROM THE PRINTED TEXT.

Why this Information was asked for in the name of the city Before you, reverend lord Antony de Baccharis, doctor of sacred theology, bishop of Scutari and vicar general in spirituals of the archiepiscopal church of Otranto, the magnificent John Francis de Cesanis, syndic for the present year of the magnificent University of Otranto ^b, being present, both in his syndic's name and on the part of that University, sets forth: that, whereas it is now nearly fifty-nine years since — the Lord then so permitting by the hidden judgment of his most wise providence — the city of Otranto was taken by force by the Turks, most savage enemies of the Christian faith, and, that city being most cruelly plundered, among the other savage deeds which those enemies of the Christian faith and of the Christian people ^c performed, they slaughtered very many Citizens of that city, to the number of seven hundred and more, for this cause, that they steadfastly confessed the faith of Christ, and, being required under the promise of the deliverance of their life, would not in any way deny it: whose venerable bones, when that same city of Otranto had been recovered, were, by the then most serene Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, of honored memory, honorably placed within the greater chapel of the cathedral church of the said city, situated before the sacristy, and in their memory it has from then to the present been customary on the day of the aforesaid slaying that Vespers of the dead be sung by the priests and clerics of the church of Otranto, with a Mass also for the departed; and since it seems to the people of Otranto quite unbecoming that the clergy and people of Otranto should pray for the deliverance of those souls from the pains of purgatory, whose suffrages nevertheless they daily seek, kneeling before their sacred bones, as of Martyrs of Christ, and of whose glory in the heavenly country very many signs also have appeared: both that this unseemliness may be removed, the holy Doctor Augustine saying: "He does injury to a Martyr who prays for a Martyr"; and that, so far as the people of Otranto can, they may attend with due honor the blessed souls of those their former fellow-citizens, and may the more give them thanks for that protection which the city daily experiences that it has by the suffrages of those same holy Martyrs:

[59] For these reasons, I say, the people of Otranto, intending suppliantly to ask of our most holy lord the Pope, was asked for. without whose assent no one is to be honored as a saint on earth, that in place of the said Vespers and Mass for the departed there be said by that clergy in honor of the said holy Martyrs Vespers from the Common of many Martyrs, and that there be sung also and thereafter a Mass, with this Collect, namely: "Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who have known your glorious Martyrs to be brave in their confession may feel them to be loving toward us in their intercession with you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your son," etc. Therefore the aforesaid syndic in the name of the aforesaid magnificent university asks that by your Reverend Lordship, as by him who holds the place of their ordinary Pastor, the undersigned witnesses be lawfully and canonically examined upon the foregoing, so that, a true report being made to the most holy father in Christ and our lord, lord Paul, by divine providence the third Pope, his Holiness may the more easily deign to assent to these our devout desires.

[60] The present supplication was presented before the Reverend lord Antony de Bacchariis, and was juridically appointed. bishop of Scutari and vicar general in spirituals of Otranto, by the Magnificent John Francis de Cesanis, ordinary syndic of that city of Otranto, in the name and on the part of that university; which by that Reverend lord bishop and vicar was kindly admitted: and a decree went forth from him that information be taken upon the matters set forth in the supplication written above, by the examination of the witnesses to be written below, already named;

the witnesses themselves being nevertheless first cited and forewarned, etc.

By the provision made by the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and Vicar, we commit to one of the sworn Clerics and servants of that curia that, the presentations being received, at every instance of that magnificent syndic he betake himself personally to the presence of the witnesses to be written below, and cite, admonish, and require them; and in citing them command them, as by these presents we cite and command them, that on the first day after the intimation of these presents they and each of them ought to appear before us, in virtue of holy obedience, to lay down the testimony of the truth concerning and upon the things contained in the supplication written above: otherwise, they being cited, reported, and not appearing, it shall be provided as shall be of right. Let them be cited, commanded, and reported, since, etc. Given in the archiepiscopal palace of Otranto on the XVII day of June 1539.

Antony, bishop and vicar as above, with his own hand, etc.

The Names of the Witnesses ^d.

On the XVIII day of June 1539 the courier, etc., the cleric Antony Lazaretta reported to me, the abbot Marcus Antony de Giliberto, actuary, that he had intimated to the above-mentioned witnesses in the manner and form committed to him above, etc.

ANNOTATIONS.

WITNESS I.

The Reverend Lord Bernardine de Alexandro testifies among other things. Being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and the aforesaid Vicar, on the XXVI day of the month of June of the present year 1539, in the archiepiscopal buildings of Otranto, the venerable abbot Bernardine de Alexandro, Canon of Otranto, having first been lawfully and canonically cited by the mandate of that Lord bishop, and the oath of speaking the truth upon the things contained in the aforesaid petition or supplication made by the above-mentioned honorable syndic in the name of the aforesaid Magnificent university of Otranto having been tendered to him by that Lord bishop, with his hands bodily laid upon the Scriptures, being questioned, answered.

And first, being asked how long a time it is that he has dwelt in the city of Otranto, he answered that from the day of his birth to the present day he has always dwelt in that city, since he is about sixty-five years old.

Secondly, being asked whether he knows how long a time it is since the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks, he answered that it was in the year of the Lord 1480.

Thirdly, being asked whether he the witness was in that city when it was taken by the Turks, he answered that it was so; and that he the witness also was taken by those Turks, and remained a captive for thirteen months.

[62] Fourthly, being asked whether he knows that any men of that city after its capture were slaughtered by the Turks and put to death by the sword, concerning the number of the Martyrs and the place of contest, he answered that after the taking of the city there were about eight hundred Men, taken by those Turks in that city and led bound outside that city about a third part of one mile, to the place which is called Il Monte de San Joanne de la Minerva, and there they were put to death by the sword.

Fifthly, being asked whether he knows or has heard for what cause the Turks thus slaughtered the said Men, concerning the cause of the martyrdom, he answered that, when the captain of the Turks, called el bascia, said to the university of the said city that they should give themselves up to him in surrender, the whole city answered, together with the aforesaid Citizens who were slain, that they were ready to die for the faith of Christ and for fidelity to their lords. That same witness, being questioned, adds moreover that he heard from several citizens, and especially from the late venerable Demetrius, Canon of Otranto, and from the late Lord Raymund de Muro, who, being captives and servants of the Turks, were present there, that among the said Men thus bound to be killed, one of them, an elder ^a, turning to all the rest, spoke exhortatory words of this tenor, or the like in effect, in the vernacular speech, namely: "My sons and brethren, this is the day which we owe to Christ: let each for love of him take it in patience and with good courage, for we shall have the crown of martyrdom ^b."

[63] Sixthly, being asked whether he knows or has heard that any sign appeared after the death of the said Men, concerning the incorruption of the bodies, on account of which it may be reasonable to think that such a sign, or such signs, if there were several, are in testimony that such Men, thus slain, were of the number of the Elect of God, and deservedly to be numbered among the Martyrs, as having died for the faith of Christ, he answered that he the witness saw that the bodies of those thus slain remained unburied in the same place in which they had been slain for thirteen months without any putrefaction and without any injury, nor were they in any way harmed or touched by dogs, or wolves, or birds of prey.

Moreover the witness also said that after thirteen months from their slaying, the translation into the city, when the city of Otranto had been delivered from that captivity by the late Alfonso II of Aragon, of honored memory, then Duke of Calabria, those bodies thus slain were found in the same place sound, entire, and even fragrant, with flesh and bones, as if they had then been slain; and were honorably brought into that city of Otranto, with great devotion of the said Duke and of others.

[64] The witness, being questioned, adds moreover that he had heard from persons worthy of credit at Otranto heavenly illuminations. that, after the said bodies had been brought into that church of Otranto, great lights were many times seen by night in that church, and an immense light appeared outside the windows of the said church, and was so seen for some little space; so that even at the first such apparition many citizens ran up, fearing lest the church were burning. Moreover the witness also said, being questioned, that he had heard from persons worthy of credit that in that same place where the said Men were thus slain, lights miraculously kindled had many times appeared.

As the ground of his knowledge he said that he had seen and heard, as he deposed above.

I, Julius de Caballis, by Apostolic authority Notary, Notary of the Acts of the said Curia.

ANNOTATIONS.

WITNESS II.

John Leondarius Being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and the aforesaid vicar, on the XXVII day of the same month and aforesaid year, in the aforenamed place, the honorable Lord John Leondarius, a citizen of the said city of Otranto, having first, by the mandate of that Lord bishop, etc., as above at number 61.

And first, being asked how long a time it is that he has dwelt in the said city of Otranto, he answered that he was born in it now seventy years ago, and always remained in it, except for four years in which, being taken by the Turks, he remained their captive in their country.

Secondly, being asked how long a time it is since the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks, he answered that, according to his own reckoning ^a, it is about fifty-nine years.

Thirdly, being asked whether, when the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks, he the witness was in the said city, he answered yes; and that, being then in his eleventh year, he was a captive of those Turks and was carried away as far as Constantinople.

[66] he saw the Martyrs slain before him. Fourthly, being asked whether he knows that then in that captive city any Men, citizens of the said city, were slaughtered by those Turks, he answered that, when he the witness had been made a captive by one of those Turks, he was brought to the place which is called San Joanne de la Minerva, outside the city of Otranto; to which place about seven hundred men had been led bound to be slaughtered, to this end, that he the witness, who was then of such boyish age, might be afraid; and he caused these words to be said to him the witness by one of his servants: If you will not be a good man, the Lord will have the same done to you ^b. And thus in the same place he the witness saw the said aforenamed Men cut down with the sword and slaughtered with great cruelty.

The cause of the martyrdom. Fifthly, being asked whether he knows or has learned for what cause the said Men were thus slain, and what they said when they were thus being slaughtered, he answered that he learned that when the captain of the Turks himself, called el Bascia, presented himself with armed force in the city of Otranto, he asked of the people and citizens that they should surrender themselves to him, promising that he would treat them well: then those Men together with the people steadfastly answered that they were ready to die for the faith of Christ and for keeping their fidelity to their lord. The witness, being questioned, adds moreover that among the Men thus bound in the said place where they were slaughtered there was among the others a certain elder, by name master Grimaldi, a shoemaker, who by his words encouraged and did encourage all to the endurance of death and suffering for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. And thus he the witness saw all of them offer their own necks to the swords without any resistance.

[67] Miracles; the translations to Otranto and to Naples. Sixthly, being asked whether he knows or has heard that any unusual sign or signs appeared, so that it may be reasonable to think that such signs were from God, showing that they were of the number of the elect of God and deservedly to be numbered among the Martyrs, he answered that he had heard from very many persons worthy of credit that many lights were miraculously kindled and appeared over that place in which lay the corpses of the said dead men, and also over the archiepiscopal church of Otranto, after * thirteen months those bodies were, by the command of the Duke of Calabria of honored memory, the city of Otranto being recovered, brought into the said church and there honorably laid up. The witness, being questioned, adds that this other wonderful sign also appeared, that, although the said bodies had remained thirteen months unburied in the same place where they had been slaughtered, yet they were never putrefied, nor did they give forth an evil odor, nor were they ever touched or harmed either by dogs or by wolves or by birds and worms; on which account the illustrious Duke of Calabria, being then astonished, out of devotion caused the said bodies to be carried within that church of Otranto, and many of them also to be honorably placed in chests ^c

laid up, as the bones and bodies of Saints, and devoutly caused them to be conveyed to the city of Naples.

As the ground of his knowledge the witness answered that he had seen and heard as he said above and testified.

I, Julius de Caballis, by Apostolic authority Notary, and Master of the Acts of the Metropolitan Curia of Otranto.

ANNOTATIONS.

* read "after."

WITNESS III.

John Longus On the same day and in the same place, being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and the aforesaid Vicar, the honorable man master John Longus of the aforesaid city, having first, by the mandate of that lord bishop, etc., as at number 61.

And first, being asked how long a time it is that he has dwelt in the city of Otranto, he answered that, since he is now of the age of seventy-one years, he was born in that city and always remained in it, except for fourteen years in which he was a captive in the country of the Turks.

Secondly, how long a time it is since the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks; he answered that it is fifty-nine years.

Thirdly, being asked whether he the witness was then in that city when it was taken, he answered yes; and that then, being himself twelve years old, he was made a captive by the Turks, and thence carried into their country.

[69] Fourthly, being asked whether he knows that any Men of the said city were slaughtered, he was present at the martyrdom, which he narrates. and how many they were, and where they were slain after the taking of the city ^a, he answered that, when he the witness had been led as a captive to the tent of his Turkish master, in the place which is called San Joanne de la Minerva, near the city, he saw about seven hundred or eight hundred Men of Otranto, naked and bound with ropes, their hands tied behind their backs, led to that place, and there he saw them slaughtered and cut down with swords.

Fifthly, being asked whether he knows the cause for which the said Men were thus slaughtered, and what they said when they were thus put to death, he answered that, when he the witness was in the greater church of the city of Otranto, before that city had been taken, and a messenger of the great Pasha of the Turks had come, asking all those citizens and the aforesaid Men whether they would give themselves up in surrender to the prince of the Turks, who would treat them all well, the aforesaid Men, together with the whole people, began to cry out, saying that they were ready to die for the faith of Christ and for fidelity to their lords: and therefore after the taking of the city they were thus led out to slaughter, nearly all of them, except young lads.

[70] Concerning Grimaldi, Being questioned, he adds moreover that there was a certain master Grimaldi, a shoemaker, an elder, encouraging all the rest to look upon heaven opened, and gladly to endure death for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. And thus, when he the witness was near the tent of his said master, he saw in the same place all those Men stretched out, with humility and meekness laying down their heads to be slaughtered for the love of Christ.

and concerning the witness's father; The witness adds moreover that, when he was in his father's house, and there was talk whether they ought to give themselves into the hands of the Turks according to their demand, he heard his father saying these words, or the like in effect: "All we men of this city are resolved and ready to die for the love of Jesus Christ ^b."

[71] concerning the lights seen before and after the translation; Sixthly, being asked whether he has heard or seen that any sign appeared, on account of which it could reasonably be thought that the aforesaid Men thus slain are deservedly to be numbered among the Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he the witness heard that certain sailors in a ship lying in the harbor near the city saw above the greater church of Otranto, after the said bodies had been brought into it, great torches and lights miraculously kindled. The witness, being questioned, adds moreover that he had heard from many persons of both sexes that they had seen over the bodies of those slain, in the same place where they had been left unburied, many lights kindled in the night.

[72] concerning miracles done elsewhere; Moreover he also said that, when he the witness, after he returned from captivity, was once in a certain garden of his own near the said place, a certain ship of some strangers ^c put in from the western side to the shore, and they came down from the ship, led by devotion to see the place in which the said Martyrs had been slain; and, finding him the witness, they asked him to show them that place; whom he brought to that same place, who, crying out * with great devotion, kissed that ground, saying that they had in their own country some bones of the said Martyrs slain there, which were famous for many miracles.

concerning the incorruption of the bodies. The witness adds lastly that it seems to him a great sign that the said bodies thus slain remained thirteen months unburied in the same place without any corruption and without any injury; nay rather, with the flesh incorrupt and stretched over the very bones.

As the ground of his knowledge he answered that he had so seen and heard as he said and deposed above.

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is, "crying out"

WITNESS IV.

On the XXVIII day of June 1539, being present in the same place before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop The Reverend Lord Angelus Pavosius was present in person at the martyrdom. and Vicar, as above, the noble Angelus Pavosius, of the city of Otranto, having first, by the mandate of that Reverend bishop, etc., as at number 61.

And first, being questioned, he said that, since he the witness is now of the age of seventy years or thereabouts, born and brought up in the said city of Otranto, he was in it when, fifty-nine years ago now, that city was taken by the Turks by hostile force: and when he the witness, after that city had been taken, was at the tent of that Turk who had made him a captive, near the place which is called San Joanne de la Minerva, outside that city, he saw about seven hundred Men of that city led bound to that place: who, thus bound, went like lambs to the aforesaid place, where they were slaughtered, naming the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and encouraging one another mutually: all of whom, since he the witness was near the said place, he saw cruelly slaughtered with swords by those Turks, humbly stretching out their own necks.

Secondly, being asked concerning the cause for which those Men were thus slain, The cause of the martyrdom; he answered that, when they had been required by a messenger from the pasha of the Turks to give themselves up to his prince, they refused, saying that they were ready to die for the love of Christ and for fidelity to their lords. And thus, for that cause, namely of the love of Christ and of fidelity, after the said city had been taken partly by guile and partly by force by those Turks, the pasha of the Turks caused them to be thus led to the said place and, as he said, to be slaughtered; they always crying out and invoking the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and encouraging one another to martyrdom.

[74] Thirdly, being asked whether he knows or has heard that any sign appeared the incorruption of the bodies; on account of which it may be reasonable to think that the said Men thus slain are to be numbered among the elect of God and the Martyrs of Jesus Christ, he answered that, when he the witness on the third day after the said slaying had passed through that place, being led by the servants of his master whose captive he was, it being in the month of August about the twelfth or thirteenth day ^a of the same, at which time * there are great heats, and the bodies were there unburied and bloody, he perceived no stench, but rather a sweet odor. Being questioned, he adds moreover that it was a great and even a sufficient sign that they were true Martyrs of Christ, because, although those bodies had remained unburied for thirteen months, yet they were never touched or harmed, either by dogs or by wolves, or by any wild beast of the woods or bird, whereas nevertheless, not many days after the slaying of the said Saints, a certain other stranger had been beheaded by those same Turks in the same place and left there unburied, and yet dogs came to eat his flesh; but to the bodies of the said Martyrs they never came near.

[75] their heavenly illumination; The witness adds moreover that another sign appeared, as he the witness rather often heard with his own ears from the Turks themselves, that above the bodies of those slaughtered men, thus lying unburied, great lights for the most part appeared by night.

the translation to Naples. He adds also that the illustrious Duke of Calabria, moved by devotion at signs of this kind, caused some of those bodies of the men thus slaughtered, honorably laid up in chests, to be transported upon thirteen mules to the city of Naples; where he founded a certain church, and there took care that the said chests with the bodies of the said Martyrs should be reverently laid up.

Being questioned as to the ground of his knowledge, he said that he had seen and heard as he deposed above.

ANNOTATIONS.

* for "when"

WITNESS V.

Paduanus de Vito was present at the martyrdom. On the last day of June, being present in the same place before the aforesaid Reverend bishop and vicar, as above, the honorable master Paduanus de Vito, of Otranto, having first, by the mandate of that Lord bishop, etc., as at number 61.

And first, being questioned, he said that, since he is now of the age of sixty-eight years or thereabouts, born and brought up in that city of Otranto, he was in it when, fifty-nine years ago now or thereabouts, the aforesaid city of Otranto

was taken by the Turks; and he the witness, being then nine years old or thereabouts, was made a captive and set out for sale: then, after the taking of that city, when he the witness was in a certain place near the mount which is called San Jovanne de la Minerva, he saw very many of those Christian men of Otranto, of whose number he said he did not know, led bound outside that city to the said place or mount, with ropes about their necks and their hands tied behind their backs, who proceeded with great humility: and he the witness heard it said everywhere by the bystanders that they were going to die for the faith: the witness adding that he heard from those who were nearer to the men who were slain, that they exhorted one another to die for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the Christian faith.

[77] The prodigies which followed the martyrdom, and the translation of the Martyrs. Secondly, being asked whether he knows or has heard that any sign appeared on account of which it may be likely to think deservedly that such Men thus slain are to be numbered among the Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he knows that the bodies of the said Men thus slain remained there unburied for thirteen months without being harmed either by dogs or by wild beasts, and without giving forth an evil odor: which thing he the witness knew, because after four or five days he the witness was led by certain Turks through the midst of the said bodies, which he saw thus untouched and unharmed, as he said before. He adds moreover that he the witness also saw that the then Duke of Calabria, of honored memory, after thirteen months recovered that city from the hands of the Turks, and caused those bodies, which were sound, entire, and unharmed, to be gathered and carried away from the said place, and laid them up honorably; and he saw them handled by the Duke himself with reverent devotion. The witness says moreover that he had often heard from many that they had seen over those bodies, when they lay thus unburied, many lights miraculously kindled.

As the ground of his knowledge he said that he had so seen and heard as he said and deposed above.

WITNESS VI.

[The Reverend Lord Angelus Pendinellus saw the city taken, being then already a deacon,] On the XVII day of July 1539, being present at Otranto before the above-mentioned Reverend lord bishop and vicar, as above, in the archiepiscopal buildings of Otranto, the venerable abbot Angelus Pendinellus ^a, Canon of Otranto, having first been cited by the mandate, etc. … being questioned, answered:

And first, that, since he the witness is now of the age of eighty-four years, he remembers that in the year of the Lord 1480, when he the witness was then a deacon, the fleet of the Turks came and besieged the city of Otranto for fifteen days continuously, and at length took it by force: in which among others there was then the lord Stephen of reverend memory, then archbishop of Otranto: and while those enemies were storming the city by craft, the lord archbishop himself, arrayed in sacred vestments, went to the altar, and, a great multitude of the people being present, with great devotion celebrated the sacred Mass and gave the pontifical blessing to the people, encouraging all with fatherly words that they should stand firm in the holy faith of Christ, and for his love, if there were need, should lay down their life; the whole people and all answering that they were ready most gladly to die a thousand times for the holy faith of Christ: and when the then most Reverend lord archbishop, the Mass being ended, was returning to the sacristy, the enemy rushing into the city, they came within that same church; and, finding the lord archbishop before the doors of the sacristy, they killed him, this witness being present with many other clerics, all of whom those unbelieving enemies made captives, the archbishop alone being killed, being now of the decrepit age of eighty years and more; those Turks also running through the church and the city, killing many of the citizens themselves and as many as they found.

[79] Secondly, being questioned, the witness added and said [and one who would presently have been a martyr with his companions, had he not been granted to a Turk who asked for him.] that, when those Turks had taken the city on Friday, on the following day, namely Saturday, the pasha of the Turks himself caused proclamation to be made that all the captives should be led before him; and thus eight hundred, or thereabouts, Christian Men, bound, were presented in the sight of that pasha, who was sitting upon a certain seat in the place which is called lo Monte de san Joanne de la Minerva, he the witness being also present, and believing that he too would then be slaughtered in that same place with the rest, as also without doubt he would have died with the rest, had not a certain Turk asked him of the pasha as a favor, that he might be his captive, or, as it is said, his slave *; whom he afterwards sold for the price of four ducats. And thus they led him a captive to the city of Constantinople; where he remained a captive for eight years and a half, until, an opportunity being granted him by God, he took to flight.

Thirdly, being asked whether he saw the said Christian Men, led to that same place or mount, killed, he answered that he saw them, their necks being laid down of their own accord, and speaking holy words, slaughtered and killed.

Fourthly, being asked whether he heard any or one of the said Christian Men exhorting themselves, he answered that he heard them saying to one another that they would gladly endure that death, because that day was a day of salvation; and thus he saw all of them willingly and with glad mind offer their necks to the swords.

[80] Prodigious lights over the bodies of the Martyrs. Fifthly, being asked whether he knows or has heard that any sign appeared on account of which it may be reasonable to think that the said Christian Men thus slain are deservedly to be numbered among the Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he had heard from very many persons that by night above the said bodies left there, lamps divinely kindled appeared; and both on account of the death thus voluntarily endured for the love of Christ and of the holy faith, and on account of the said signs, he believes that they are to be reckoned among the Martyrs of Christ: but in another manner, and other things, he said he did not know, because he himself, being thus a captive, was in those days carried into the country of the Turks.

As the ground of his knowledge he said that he so saw and heard as he testified above. Of the place and time he said as he said and deposed above.

I, Julius de Caballis, by Apostolic authority Notary, and of the Acts of the said Metropolitan Curia, with my own hand.

ANNOTATIONS.

* that is, his slave

WITNESS VII.

John Panemollis saw the city taken, On the XXIX day of August 1539, being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and Vicar, as above, in the archiepiscopal palace of Otranto, the honorable Man John Panemollis, of the city of Otranto, having first been cited by the mandate of that Reverend bishop, etc., as above.

And first, being questioned, he said that, since he the witness is about seventy years old ^a, he remembers when the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks; it may now be about sixty years: in which plundering he the witness also was made a captive by a certain Turk having a rather long beard: and since he the witness was of lesser age, he was led by that Turk outside the city to his tent, where those Martyrs of whom we spoke above were killed.

after liberty had vainly been offered by the Turks, The witness, being questioned, adds that he had heard that certain letters had been sent by an arrow into that city, written by a certain Christian, by name John, who nevertheless dwelt in the country of the Turks, in the place which is called la Velona ^b, and had been brought with the fleet to the siege of the city of Otranto: in which letters it was contained that, if those citizens of Otranto would freely give up the city to the great Turk, they would be allowed to depart unharmed with their children and their goods: and that he had heard that those citizens of Otranto unanimously answered with ready mind that they were prepared to be willing to die for the holy faith of Christ and for fidelity to their Lords.

[82] and the Martyrs led bound. Secondly, the witness, being questioned, added and answered that he had seen and heard, when he had afterwards been led by that master of his outside the city, to the place which is called la Minerva, where was the tent of the great pasha, and had there seen successively a great multitude of those citizens of Otranto, who, with their hands bound, were being led to the place of slaughter, and all exhorted one another to the endurance of suffering and death for the faith and love of our Lord Jesus Christ: adding moreover that he had especially seen two brothers led apart from the rest; and, since a sister of theirs was a captive, and they were being led before their said sister, and she said to them, Whither go you, brothers? they answered: To death, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Moreover he also said that he had seen there a certain young girl and a girl killed, after invoking the Mother of God. who was being led captive by two Turks disputing between themselves whose that young girl ought to be; who, her eyes being raised to heaven, called upon the Most Holy Lady the Virgin Mother that she would send her death, that she might be snatched from the hands of the unbelievers: and thus, her eyes being raised to heaven, she was pierced through with a sword by one of the Turks, and, stretching out her hands to heaven, calling and invoking the name of the Most Blessed Mother, she gave up her spirit.

[83] Being further asked whether he saw or heard that any sign appeared Concerning the lights and the incorruption. on account of which it is fitting to think that the said slain men are deservedly to be numbered among the Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he had heard very many times over from many Turks that above the bodies of the said slain men many lights appeared kindled; at which thing, as he the witness said, the Turks themselves also seemed to marvel: the witness adding moreover that, although the bodies of the said slain men had stood there unburied for a long time, yet they were never in the least touched or harmed, either by dogs or by beasts of the woods or by birds of prey, nor did they give forth the least evil odor.

Being questioned as to the ground of his knowledge, he said that he so saw and heard, as above. On the general points he answered rightly.

I, Julius de Caballis, as above, with my own hand.

ANNOTATIONS.

WITNESS VIII.

Baptist de Natali saw the city taken, On the V day of September 1539, being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and Vicar, as above, the honorable master Baptist de Natali,

of the city of Otranto, having first been cited by the mandate of that Lord bishop, etc., as above.

Being questioned, he answered that, since he the witness is now about sixty-nine years old, he too being then made a captive, he remembers that, when he was about nine years old — it may now be sixty years or thereabouts — the Turks took the city of Otranto. But on the preceding day, when those Turks had urged the people of Otranto to give themselves up to them, all answered unanimously that they would rather die for the faith of Christ and for fidelity to their lords than give up the city to those unbelievers: the witness, being questioned, adding that he afterwards saw the Turks entering that city, and killing many everywhere, and making others captives; among whom he the witness also, although he was of lesser age, as has been said before, was made a captive.

[85] he saw also his father steadfast among the Martyrs, Moreover the witness said, being questioned, that, when on the following day he had been led by that Turk who had made him a captive outside the city of Otranto to the place where the said Men of Otranto were slaughtered, he the witness saw them led bound to the place of slaughter: among whom, he said, was also his own father, master Natalis; and that all went together to the place of slaughter, with ready mind, as he the witness said he understood, exhorting one another to the endurance of death for the love of Christ and of fidelity. And especially he said that, whereas one of those citizens had ransomed himself by giving money, his said father was unwilling to ransom himself, but chose rather to die with his other companions, although he could have ransomed himself with a certain sum of money and of ducats which he had previously hidden for fear of the Turks.

[86] and after 13 months incorrupt with them. Being asked besides whether he saw or heard that any sign appeared on account of which it can be thought that the said Men thus slain can be numbered among the holy Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he had many times heard that torches kindled and lights were rather frequently seen by many above the bodies of those slain men in the night-time; which stood there thus unburied, unharmed, and free from all stench for a year and more; concerning which sight he the witness said that he had heard that the Turks themselves, seeing such things, greatly marvelled: the witness, being questioned, adding that, when after thirteen months from the said slaying the city of Otranto had been recovered by the Christians and restored to liberty, those bodies were brought into the city and placed in the church, he the witness was called by a certain citizen, by name Ursus Caputo, that he might come to see the body of his father, which was still with its flesh, as if it had then been slain, notwithstanding that for thirteen months the aforesaid bodies had thus stood unburied, in winter as well as in summer time: on account of which signs it can deservedly be thought that the said slain men are thus to be reckoned among the holy Martyrs of Jesus Christ.

As the ground of his knowledge he said that he had seen and heard as he said and deposed above.

Being questioned on the general points, he answered rightly.

I, Julius de Caballis, Notary and Master of the Acts, with my own hand.

WITNESS IX.

Francis de la Cerra saw the city taken and the Martyrs slain, On the same day, being present before the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and Vicar, as above, the honorable Francis de la Cerra of the city of Otranto, being lawfully cited by the mandate, etc., said that, when he the witness was twelve years old — it may now be about sixty years — the city of Otranto was taken by the Turks: before whose capture, said he the witness, the Turks required the people of Otranto to give them the city and to depart. Then, said he the witness, all unanimously answered that they wished to die in their faith. Then, that city being taken by force, very many were killed at their entrance; and many also were made captives, who were afterwards slaughtered on the following day ^a in the place which is called San Joanne de la Minerva: among whom he the witness also was a captive; but since he was of lesser age, he escaped death: the witness, being questioned, adding moreover that on the next day he saw, by the command of the captain of the Turks, all those who were captives led bound to the place of slaughter; to which place they went with the greatest patience, and most patiently allowed themselves to be slaughtered for the love of the Christian faith.

[88] Being asked whether he saw or heard that any sign appeared and after 13 months translated without any corruption. on account of which it can deservedly be believed that the said Men, thus slain, are to be reckoned among the holy Martyrs of Christ, he answered that he the witness saw, after a year and a month, the said bodies brought into the city and into the church, since through that time they had remained in the place of slaughter unharmed, untouched, and incorrupt without any stench; and, being brought into the city and the church, they appeared beautiful, as if they had then been slain.

As the ground of his knowledge he answered that he had seen and heard as he testified above.

Being questioned on the general points, he answered rightly.

I, Julius de Caballis, Notary of the Acts, with my own hand.

ANNOTATIONS.

WITNESS X.

Philip de Pressa was in the besieged city, but escaped; On the XVII day of the month of September 1539, being present before the aforesaid Reverend bishop and Vicar, as above, the honorable man Philip de Pressa, of the city of Otranto, being lawfully cited by the mandate of the aforesaid Reverend lord bishop and Vicar, and the oath being tendered to him, with his hands bodily laid upon the Scriptures, being questioned concerning the above-said supplication and petition presented by the above-mentioned Lord syndic, said and answered that, it may now be sixty years or thereabouts, when he the witness was then sixteen years old or thereabouts, he remembers that that city of Otranto was besieged by the fleet and battle-line of the army of the Turks; and the brothers of him the witness let him down by a rope outside the walls, that he might be saved; and he then fled to the land which is called Scorrano, distant from the city of Otranto about ten miles: the witness, being questioned, adding that he then understood that the citizens of Otranto who were afterwards slain, at the demand which the captain of the Turks had made of them, that they should give them the city and themselves depart in safety, all answered unanimously that they would rather die for the holy faith of Christ than do that.

[90] Being asked what he knows afterwards happened to the said citizens, [he nevertheless testifies concerning the translation and incorruption of the bodies,] he answered that, the city of Otranto being taken by those Turks, they were all slain; among whom, he said, were slain his father, two brothers, and his mother with two sisters ^a: the witness, being questioned, adding that they and all the others thus slain for the love of the Christian faith remained for thirteen months thus unburied, untouched, and unharmed in the place outside the city of Otranto which is called lo Monte de san Joanne de la Minerva, where they had been slain, until that time in which came the then Illustrious Duke of Calabria of honored memory, Alfonso II of Aragon, who recovered the said city from the hands of the Turks; and, that city being recovered, he caused the bodies of the said slain Saints to be gathered and brought into the city; which bodies, said he the witness, he saw with the flesh dried, entire, and unharmed.

[91] Being asked whether he had understood that any sign appeared and concerning the apparitions of lights. on account of which it can be thought that the said Men, thus slain, are to be numbered among the holy Martyrs of Christ, he answered that first he understood that they had died for the love of the holy faith of Jesus Christ, and had patiently endured that death; moreover, that they remained for so long a time thus unburied, unharmed, and without stench; and afterwards those bodies were brought by the aforesaid late Illustrious Duke with great devotion and reverence; moreover also, that torches kindled appeared many times above those same bodies by night, when they were thus unburied in the place of slaughter; which torches he understood also to have appeared thus kindled by night in the archiepiscopal church of Otranto, into which, as he said before, they had been brought.

Being questioned as to the ground of his knowledge, he answered that he had seen and understood as he said above.

Of the place and time he said as above.

Concerning the rest he answered rightly.

I, Julius de Caballis, Notary of the Acts, as above.

ANNOTATIONS.

THE ATTESTATION OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS VICAR.

I, Antony de Baccharis of Ferrara, of the Order of Preachers, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Scutari, in the archbishopric of Otranto Vicar general in spirituals, in my subscription attest and give assurance that I diligently examined the above-written honorable men; who are held by all as upright and honorable and of good and sound head: and that they so answered my questions as has been noted and written down by the above-written distinguished man and venerable lord Julius de Caballis, subdeacon and by Apostolic authority Notary. In faith whereof I the same Antony have subscribed myself and have affixed my ring-seal. In the archiepiscopal buildings of Otranto, on the XXII day of the month of September 1539.

The place ✠ of the Bishop's seal.

THE SUBSCRIPTION OF THE NOTARY.

I, Julius de Caballis, cleric and subdeacon of Otranto, by Apostolic authority Notary, and ordinary Master of the Acts of the archiepiscopal curia of Otranto, was present at the above-said examinations and inquiries made by the aforesaid reverend lord bishop and vicar general, and wrote them down faithfully, as has been premised *: which have been faithfully copied from my authentic original, kept in the ordinary archive of the aforesaid archiepiscopal curia of Otranto; and although by another's hand, yet in the presence of the aforesaid reverend lord bishop and Vicar they were diligently collated with my above-said original, and were found in all things faithfully extracted, saving always a better collation. In faith whereof I have subscribed myself, and have affixed the accustomed sign of my notaryship, and have fortified them with the accustomed seal of the aforesaid archiepiscopal curia. Given at Otranto in the archiepiscopal buildings on the XXII day of the month of September 1539.

I, Julius, as above, with my own hand.

The place ✠ of the Notary's seal.

ANNOTATIONS.

* rather, "premised"