ON ST. PROJECTITIUS, MARTYR,
AT BERGAMO IN ITALY,
At the beginning of the fourth century.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
Projectitius, M., at Bergamo in Italy (St.)
BY J. P.
§ I. His birth, his diaconate, the time of his martyrdom.
Although most of the things which authors write about this holy Martyr are obscure or uncertain — authors far too recent, Those things are examined, and too remotely distant, by the interval of so many centuries, from the deeds they record, to be able to illustrate them with their original light and to confirm them by ancient testimonies altogether fitted to produce historical credence — nevertheless it has seemed good to us to draw out from them certain principal heads, that they may serve the collection or historical gathering which we design to set forth. Mario Muzio, in his Sacred History of Bergamo, published in Italian at Bergamo in the year 1621, composed the Life of the aforesaid Saint at page 178 and following, and says at page 179 that he was most noble and of the chief men of the city of Bergamo. Giovanni Antonio Guarnieri, in his Commentaries on the Life and Deeds of the Saints of Bergamo (which Marcantonio Benali, carried off by an untimely death, had once left unfinished), printed in Latin at Bergamo in the year 1584, calls him exceedingly noble at folio 75, in his Life, which he wove into the said Commentaries. With these agrees Father Celestine, of the Order of the Capuchin Fathers, in his Fourfold History of Bergamo, etc., published in the Italian tongue at Brescia in the year 1618, part 2, book 11, which is about St. Projectitius, saying at page 2 that he was born at Bergamo of noble forebears. But the proper Lessons, of which more will be said below, contradict these: for there Projectitius is said to have been born at Bergamo of RESPECTABLE parents; yet neither the year of his birth is added, nor the day, nor of what religion his parents were, although by the words just cited they seem plainly enough to indicate that his parents were of middling condition and Christian in religion.
[2] But let us see what the more recent authors have left recorded on these points, which more recent writers report about the Saint's birth, whose opinions we report, that at least from them the reader may know what has already been said by them, since from more ancient documents it is not in our power to determine what ought truly to be said on the points mentioned. Celestine at page 2 attaches the birth of St. Projectitius to the month of February of the year of restored salvation 258, and adds that he was born of gentile parents and brought up in that superstition, but was converted by St. Alexander; and he cites the Vine of Bergamo and Muzio. The Reverend Master Bartolomeo de' Peregrini published in the Latin tongue at Brescia in the year 1553 the Sacred Vine of Bergamo, and in part one, chapter 6, writes thus: There followed… another keeper of the vine, namely St. Lupus… converted to the faith of Christ by the very miracles of St. Alexander, together with his wife Adleida… St. Grata with her companion Hesteria; to whom the same author adds six citizens of Bergamo, among whom Projectitius is named.
[3] That our holy Champion applied himself to Christian philosophy with so great an ardor of mind at the preachings and miracles of St. Alexander, Muzio indicates at page 179, and whether his religion was gentile or Christian. that in a very short time he thence acquired a wonderful knowledge of it; and that, being especially intent upon the reading and doctrine of the holy Gospels, he drew thence, as from the purest fountains, rules and precepts for living and dying well and blessedly, both for himself and also for others. But what forbids these things to be true, even if St. Projectitius had never been a gentile? Nor will you draw anything from Guarnieri in favor of the gentile superstition from which the Saint was said a little before to have been converted; but on the contrary he plainly enough indicates that from boyhood he professed the Christian religion. For thus he writes of him at folio 75: He was of a certain excellent and remarkable disposition of mind and spirit. Wherefore, choice teachers being employed, he was both furnished with the other arts which are worthy of a free man, and above all excelled in the glory of eloquence. From the fountain of the Gospel, to whose study he had betaken himself, he is believed to have drawn this abundance: and this the more because, by the help of the sacred letters, he called back those who were falling through error of religion to the light of truth from his very boyhood. From what has been said, therefore, I should incline rather to the opinion that St. Projectitius did not come to the Christian faith from the superstitions of gentilism, but that he drew it from his parents and afterward propagated it among others.
[4] The proper Lessons go on thus: With these beginnings he turned himself to the study of the sacred letters, He is read to have been archdeacon of Bergamo; in which he so profited that he was shortly ordained archdeacon of the church of Bergamo. That he was marked with the diaconate by St. Maternus, bishop of Milan, Guarnieri indicates at folio 75 verso, and Muzio at page 180. He is therefore reported to have been a deacon of the church of Bergamo, but not a bishop: such as either this same Projectitius, or another of the same name, is wrongly made by Ughelli in volume IV of Italia sacra, reprinted at Venice not long ago, column 412, number VII; where he affirms this: Projectitius, bishop of Bergamo, was present at the synod of Milan celebrated by Eusebius the archbishop with his suffragans in the year CDLI against Eutyches. But Martino Antonio Guerrini, an illustrious man, canon of the cathedral church of Bergamo, and doctor of sacred theology and of both laws, in his Synopsis of the affairs and times of the said church, published in a second printing at Bergamo in the year 1734, and sent hither by him, corrects Ughelli's blunder at page 17 in these words: Ughelli inserted a fable in volume IV, number VII, assigning as successor to Stephen a bishop Projectitius, unheard of by us and by strangers, and relating that he subscribed the Acts of the provincial council of Milan.
[5] but he was not a bishop. Which error is sufficiently exposed by the Acts themselves under St. Leo the Pontiff and Eusebius the archbishop, in Labbe's (Paris edition) volume III, folio 1320 (nay, column 1334 and following), where Praestantius signs with his own name, the junior prelate among our provincial Fathers. Perhaps Ughelli found in Peregrini, part 1, chapter 7, and in others, the records of St. Projectitius, archdeacon and martyr of the third century, and blamelessly misused that appellation, relating that he was the successor of Stephen, whereas it was truly Praestantius of most celebrated repute, sometimes called Praestius, who subscribed the synod of Milan in obedience to the commands of the most holy Pope Leo and of our holy archbishop Eusebius in the year CDLI; and this the letter of the most holy Pontiff to Marcian Augustus proves, in Labbe of the Paris edition, folio 1320, volume III; together with the synodal letter of the archbishop Eusebius to the blessed Leo there at folio 1334 against Eutyches the heresiarch, where Praestantius bishop of Bergamo subscribed according to the convocation which is read in the same place, folio 1486. Thus Guerrini on the slip of Ughelli.
[6] There is discussion Nor further are those things sufficiently ascertained and established which authors relate concerning the time at which St. Projectitius obtained the palm of martyrdom. Guarnieri reasons at length about the said time from folio 83; and out of the many things which he has, I cull these: In the year CCCVII from the birth of Christ, Diocletian and Maximian, now feeble with old age — the latter at Milan, the former at Nicomedia — laid down the empire and determined to pass their life far from the management of affairs and from public business. In their place Constantius and Galerius, their sons-in-law, were substituted. When this was announced, since the Church had come into a more favorable state and quiet seemed given to the Christians, Projectitius returned to the city, and was received by the congratulating people of Bergamo with the greater joy, the nearer the danger of the matter had been. He, taking up again the pastoral office, began to expiate what had been violated… and to gather together the salutary exercise of the Eucharist, and to restore the appointed prayers, which had been interrupted… Constantius indeed was mild… But because he remembered that he had obtained the supreme dignity of empire through Maximian, and in memory of so great a benefit strove to show himself grateful, he began to govern the empire at his discretion, and not only did not dare to oppose Maximian's decrees; but himself straightway sinks into cruelty, and orders the same edicts which had been promulgated by Maximian against the Christians to be published both in the other places which had fallen to him and at Bergamo.
[7] concerning the time The officers… accommodated all their thoughts to the mind and will of Constantius, and, made savage by their barbarity, acted almost more atrociously than had been commanded. Then a foul slaughter went on in the city: they spared neither old men nor women nor boys. And at last they made an assault upon the church of St. Alexander, where Projectitius from a higher place was instructing the assembly of Christians in the evangelical precepts. There, fierce and puffed up with tyrannical spirits, having removed the hearers, they threateningly address Projectitius… A band of the attendants flies at his hair: drags him outside the church… and orders him to sacrifice. Projectitius… spits upon the idols, and with hands and feet throws them down and tramples them… He, bruised with very many blows… and beaten to such a degree that he expired amid the stripes, bore away the desired palm of martyrdom on the XVI of the Kalends of September, in the year CCCVIII from the birth of Christ. But with how many and how great errors do these things, which have been extracted from Guarnieri's longer narrative, swarm! And this I prove thus.
[8] For first: Diocletian and Maximian Herculius abdicated the empire, according to more exact chronology, in which not in the year of Christ 307, but in the year 305, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximian succeeding in their place, as it may be seen proved at length in Pagi's Baronian Criticism at the year 304, numbers 2 and 6, and at the year 305, number 6; likewise in the recent French author's History of the Emperors, volume 4, in Diocletian, article 22, and in Constantine, article [ ]. Secondly: How could Constantius and Galerius be substituted in the place of Diocletian and Maximian in the year of Christ 307, when Constantius
departed this life in the year of Christ 306? Consult the praised Pagi at this year, number 7, and the History of the Emperors which I have just indicated, in Constantine, article 7, and in note 9 upon the same emperor. Thirdly: How therefore could St. Projectitius accomplish his martyrdom under Constantius in the year of Christ 308? Fourthly: Can the things which Guarnieri fables about the cruelty of Constantius fall within the comprehension of a sane historian? For that emperor constantly embraced the Christians with the utmost benevolence, as is gathered from what will be said on occasion of St. Helena, his wife, on this XVIII day of August, in the Preliminary Commentary, §5, on the testimony of Eusebius to be cited in the same place — so that he not only worshiped the one true God, but also condemned the impiety of those who worshiped many gods. Here are a few things for you out of the many which will afterward be produced from Eusebius, whom Valois edited: After he had for a very long time, he says, given many tokens of royal virtue, acknowledging indeed the one supreme God of all, and condemning the impiety of those who worshiped many gods, and had fortified his house on every side with the prayers of holy men, he is said thenceforward to have passed the remaining time of his life unencumbered and tranquil, with the highest glory… In this manner therefore, throughout the WHOLE time of his reign, which was uniformly peaceful and calm, he consecrated his entire household, that is, his wife and children with all his servants, to the one King of all, God: so that the multitude of those who lived together in his palace differed in nothing from the Church of God, etc. Do these things, reader, cohere prettily with Guarnieri's system?
[9] But besides these things which I have given from Eusebius, there conduce much to our purpose St. Projectitius what the same historian had set down before, in book 1, chapter 16 of the Life of Constantine, from page 415: To Constantius alone a certain wise counsel came into mind. And the thing indeed which he did is marvelous to hear, yet far more admirable to have done. To all the palace officers who served in his court, down to the very judges set in the highest powers, the faculty being given of choosing which they preferred, he offered this condition: that if indeed they sacrificed to the demons, it should be lawful for them to remain in the palace and to enjoy their accustomed honors; but if they refused to do this, they should be shut out from access to him, and should depart, removed from his acquaintance and familiarity. When therefore all had been parted into two divisions, and one had gone to this side and another to that, and the purpose and mind of each had been tested, then that excellent prince, disclosing his design, which had thus far lain hidden, condemned indeed the timidity and excessive self-love of the former: but greatly approved the latter for their conscience devoted to the divine power. And thereafter he judged the former, as betrayers of God, unworthy even of the prince's service.
[10] accomplished his martyrdom. For how, he says, shall they keep faith toward their prince who are found to be faithless toward God? And so he judged that men of this sort must be sent far away from the royal house. But those who by the testimony of truth itself were shown to be worthy of God, affirming that they would be of the same mind toward their prince, he appointed protectors and guardians of his empire; saying that such men were to be held among the chief of his friends and the most indispensable, and to be esteemed of far more worth than treasures of the greatest wealth. It follows therefore from these premises that Guarnieri went astray in many things in his narrative of the martyrdom of St. Projectitius. For what is it to be blind in chronology and history, if this is not?
[11] Muzio too, from page 188, exhibits inventions of errors of this kind; the Sacred Vine of Bergamo, part 1, chapter 7, also fixes his martyrdom in the year of salvation CCCVIII; Celestine likewise marks this year, but records that it happened under Maxentius, as may be seen in him at pages 13 and 14. Guerrini in the Synopsis of the church of Bergamo, page 12, attaches the palm of St. Projectitius to the third century: To this third century, he says, there were not lacking very many martyrs from the priestly and clerical order of our church. St. Projectitius the archdeacon was slain by the fury of the edicts that survived the abdication of the empire, or the funeral pyre of Maximian Herculius. But that slaying, clothed with these characteristic marks, belongs to the fourth century. The proper Lessons also place it after the administration of the empire had been laid down by Diocletian and Maximian; but they do not determine the year: and since it is so uncertain, we have above attached the time of the martyrdom to the beginning of the fourth century of Christ.
§ II. The epitaph, the public cult, the proper Lessons.
The inscription of the tomb, The faithful reverently buried the holy Martyr beside the body of St. Hesteria, as the proper Lessons declare. Guarnieri and Celestine agree. Muzio at page 191 says that he was buried in the greater church of St. Alexander. The same church is assigned as his burial place in the Sacred Vine of Bergamo, part 1, chapter 7: but in neither place is mention made of the body or tomb of St. Hesteria, near which our Martyr was buried. But that these words were carved on his tomb, Guarnieri testifies: Hic requiescit in pace B. M. Projectitius XVI. C. qui vixit an. I. M. VI. dp. sub D. XV. Kl. Mai in. D. XIV. Valerio Aug. Con. This epitaph the same author tries to explain thus: There is a suspicion that something is wanting: where XVI. C. is inscribed, the word Sep. is missing: the time at which he underwent martyrdom. That VIXIT ANN. I. M. VI. likewise either refers to the time during which he held the archdeaconate, or, if it is set down of his age, it must be believed that there is something false beneath it. Perhaps the letter L, which signifies the number fifty, being either eaten away by age or worn down by the continual passage of men, has been changed by likeness of form into the letter I. Thus he busies himself to reform or restore that epitaph, such as it is.
[13] Muzio in the earlier Bergamo edition, which came to light in the year 1610, which is expounded in various ways at folio 152 verso also reports this inscription, but differing in several points from Guarnieri's. For instead of B. M. he writes B. martir; instead of qui vixit an. I he marks qui vixit an. L; instead of DP. he has D. P.; instead of in D. XIIII he notes in D. XIII. Celestine at page 16, out of a certain little book of Father Don Giovanni Crisostomo Zanchi, in which, he says, he gathered various ancient monuments, asserts that the epitaph is set down by him conformably to Guarnieri's, except that he writes annis; likewise L with Muzio, and not I; and that in the last numeral he takes away the X and leaves III, and instead of con. marks constantio. But the praised Celestine, not resting content with these, enters upon a way different from the others, and judges that that epitaph may be set forth in this manner, and so restores it: Here rests in peace the blessed martyr Projectitius, on the sixteenth of the Kalends, who lived fifty years, six months, laid to rest on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of May, in the fourth Indiction — according to Zanchi; the THIRTEENTH, according to Muzio; or the FOURTEENTH, according to Guarnieri — Valerius Augustus being consul, or Constantius, according to Zanchi.
[14] Then the same Celestine tries to make his opinion clear by this reasoning: by writers, If, as it were at the beginning, the word Sep. be wanting, as Guarnieri says and Muzio presupposes, and if that Saint suffered martyrdom (as the Vine also lays down) on the XVII day of August, and was buried on the XVII day of April, as these words signify, Laid to rest on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of May, it will be unavoidably necessary to say that he lay unburied for eight months. And hence he further asserts that the profanation of churches and of altars and of sacred things is confirmed, as well as the butchery of the Faithful stirred up by the diabolical ministers against the Christians, for the perpetrating of which evils at Bergamo he affirms that one day was more than sufficient; and from these things he concludes at page 17 that in the epitaph the word Septembris is not wanting, as Guarnieri would have it; but that the XVI Kalends must be referred to the month above mentioned, May, and accordingly that St. Projectitius was crowned with the laurel of martyrdom on the XVI day of April, and was buried on the next following day, the XVII of the same month. The same author, having used this reasoning, presently objects to himself that by all the writers who treat of this Martyr — namely by the author of the Vine, by Guarnieri, and by Muzio — his contest is fixed to the XVII day of August, and that the Office of him is kept in the church of Bergamo on that day. But he answers to the point that the birthday of the Saints is not always celebrated by the Church on the day on which they departed this life; but sometimes on the day of their consecration, if they be bishops; sometimes on the day of a translation or an apparition, or of the dedication of a church or of an altar consecrated to their honor. Besides this, he lessens the authority of the writers on the ground that they wrote at almost the same time and that one transcribed another. He also draws an argument for himself from the fact that Galesinius differs from all, reporting the martyrdom of this Saint on the XXIII day of May.
[15] But what of the Indiction and the consuls? These, he says, were then not in use; and the latter are false: for in the year of Christ 308, as Cardinal Baronius reports, labors under so many difficulties that it seems to be of no authority. there are found in the Fasti as consuls Diocletian for the tenth time and Galerius Maximian for the seventh: but in the year 306 there occur as consuls Constantius and Galerius, the Augusti; yet he adds that this martyrdom did not happen then. Then, returning to the Indiction, he rightly observes from the same author that its beginning did not exist before the year 312 and the time of Constantine. From the erroneous Indiction, therefore, and the apocryphal consuls inscribed upon the oft-mentioned epitaph, Celestine persuades himself at page 19 that it was not made at that time, but at a later one, and then perhaps when some translation took place; since it is manifest that the memory of the burial both of this and of other Saints has perished. These are the things which we have thought good to transcribe hither from Celestine: from which we conclude that that epitaph — so various and shifting among its interpreters or defenders, and laboring under so many difficulties — is of uncertain date, of certain falsity, and therefore of no authority; so that it follows that from so faulty an instrument neither the year of the martyrdom can be made out, nor the day. This day therefore we leave, with the proper Office of Bergamo, with Ferrari and with Castellanus, in its possession, which is for the XVIII day of August, even though we cannot sufficiently prove it. But before we proceed hence to other matters, we cannot omit to remark, on occasion of the consuls whom Celestine a little before marked at the year 308 from Baronius, that others are set down for that year by chronologists of nice discernment who have written since the most eminent Baronius — namely Maximian Herculius for the tenth time and Maximian Galerius for the seventh; and at Rome, Maxentius Augustus and Romulus Caesar. You may consult Pagi in his Criticism, Labbe in his Chronological Compendium, and Tillemont, volume 4 of the History of the Emperors, in the chronological table — all at this year 308.
[16] His public cult is noted in more recent writers: It remains that, having treated above of matters concerning our holy Athlete that are altogether uncertain and obscure, we should proceed to things more certain and clearer. And first, of his public and lawful cult there is the most certain evidence, even though we not only do not find his name inscribed in the ancient and classic martyrologies, but not even in the Roman which we use to this day. Yet the yearly memory of the Saint is announced in Galesinius on the XXIII day of May in these words: At Bergamo, St. Projectius (in the notes at the same day it is written Projectus) the deacon, who by order of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, being outrageously handled by the adversaries of the faith, is at last thrust out into exile: where I wonder that nothing is added about his death. At the present day Ferrari treats of him in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, reporting his life and martyrdom summarily from the Office of the church of Bergamo. The yearly memory of the holy Martyr is likewise marked on this day in the Universal Martyrology which Castellanus published.
[17] which is confirmed from the Bergamo Proper: But the public veneration of the Saint is chiefly confirmed from the proper Offices of the church of Bergamo, approved at Rome: in the copy of which that came to light at Rome in the year of Christ 1614 from the press of the reverend Apostolic Chamber, on the XVIII day of August is set On the feast of St. Projectitius, mart., a double Office, and the following Prayer: O God, who art the splendor of thy Saints, and who hast made this day memorable to us by blessed Projectitius the martyr, grant that we may ever be protected by his merits and instructed by his examples. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. These three proper Lessons follow the Prayer:
[18] Lesson IV. Projectitius, born at Bergamo of respectable parents, whose proper Lessons since he displayed an excellent disposition, was delivered to the best teachers and instructed in the liberal disciplines. With these beginnings he turned himself to the study of the sacred letters, in which he so profited that he was shortly ordained archdeacon of the church of Bergamo. That he might discharge this office energetically, since many flocked together to hear him, he built a marble pulpit in the church of St. Alexander, and built an adjoining house for the clerics with whom he might live. Wherefore, when the Christian religion and the number of believers in that city were increasing daily more and more by his preaching, it came to pass by the envy of the devil that, the edicts of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian having been sent out against the Christians, the course of his preaching seemed to be interrupted and the fervor of the faith to grow lukewarm.
[19] Lesson V. But when a great fear had seized the people of Bergamo, concerning St. Projectitius Projectitius both privately and publicly, through the houses and the streets, strengthened the faithful and kindled them to endure the persecutions. And when he had heard that Diocletian and Maximian had withdrawn from the administration of the empire, Projectitius, thinking that the persecution also had ceased, returned to the city to exercise his former office of preaching. And while he was doing this from the pulpit in the church of St. Alexander, a storm of the gentiles suddenly arising against the worshipers of Christ, they lay hands upon his hair and drag Projectitius out of the church, and bring him to sacrifice to the idols.
[20] Lesson VI. But Projectitius, stirred by the impiety, rushed upon the idols, are here given. spat upon them, cast them to the ground, trampled them with his feet, and cursed them with every kind of contempt. Then the lictors, at a given signal, overwhelm him with cudgels and stones; and he, bruised with many blows, fell down as though dead; but when a little after, coming to himself, he had risen and, resting on his knees, was praying the Lord for the salvation of those who beat him and for the unbelievers who persecuted him, he is again assailed by them and beaten until he breathed out his spirit amid the stripes, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September. Whom the faithful reverently buried beside the body of St. Hesteria. In the third nocturn, a Homily on the Gospel: There was a strife among the disciples, etc. From the Common of one martyr. But in the Bergamo edition published in the year 1707 that Homily is more correctly said to be found on the feast of St. Apollinaris, the XXIII of July.
§ III. The wondrous apparition, the finding of the body, its various translations; a brief notice of certain Saints of Bergamo; observations on the Lives and proper Lessons of St. Projectitius.
The apparition of the body, Bartolomeo de' Peregrini in the Vine of Bergamo, part 1, chapter 42, records the finding and translation of the body of St. Projectitius. Robert Bongo (not Longo, as he is wrongly called in the Roman edition of Ughelli, volume 4, column 678) is marked by him as having presided over the see of Bergamo in… the year of salvation MCCXC: in which year there were found, or rather revealed, in the cathedral church of St. Alexander the consecrated bodies of four martyrs: namely of Projectitius and James, formerly archdeacons of this church, and of John, the first of this name, bishop, and of Hesteria the virgin: which by Robert himself, in the presence of the whole clergy and people of Bergamo, were enclosed with great veneration in an altar newly dedicated, on the XXVI day of April. In our volume III of July, at the XI day of that month, page 200 and following, I gave a historical collection concerning St. John, martyr and bishop of Bergamo, in which, at §3, the finding and translation of him and of the other Saints of whom I have just spoken was treated from a Bergamo codex.
[22] and the finding, But it is worth while to recall what I then observed in that place about the year of that finding and translation; and these are the words: The finding… of the aforesaid bodies is here said (that is, in the document produced there from page 204) to have happened in the year MCCXC; but the translation in the following year: for which, in the volume of May which I there cited, MCCXC is written; but the marks noted here toward the end of the translation indicate the year MCCXCI, namely Thursday, the XXVI of April, Easter then falling on the XXII of the same month, as I then indicated. All those chronological marks therefore cohere. On the credit of that instrument, then, either it must be said that the year of the finding cannot be confounded with the year of the translation, but that the latter is later than the former; or the said document must be convicted of falsity: in whose very context also those dates are expressly distinguished. For in the place indicated above in our work, page 204, these words are read: These relics, taken up with all diligence and due reverence, they laid in the sacristy of the same sacred building, until a fit place should be built where they might be more honorably bestowed. A place therefore having been chosen, and a day appointed for translating the bodies of the Saints, the bishop, etc. Further, the history of the wondrous apparition of these Saints, and the solemn translation of the bodies subjoined to it, may be read in our work at the page 204 cited, which accordingly we here regard as inserted. Lastly, Galesinius announces this translation thus at the XXVI day of April: At Bergamo, the translation of the holy martyrs Projectus and James.
[23] But if the writers on the affairs of Bergamo have seen this instrument, and the solemn translation did not happen in the same year. I do not know why they have not conformed themselves to it more exactly in noting distinctly the year in which these sacred remains were found and that in which they were translated. Muzio in the History of the Saints of Bergamo, printed in the year 1610, at the end of the Life of St. Projectitius, folio 152 verso, notes indeed the year and the day of the month in which the bodies were found; but of the translation nothing there. But in the Life of the aforesaid St. John, folio 167, he reports that they were laid with solemn rite from the place of the apparition at the right side of the altar of St. Alexander, a chapel being built there in their honor, and that this happened in the year 1290, on the XXVI day of April; and thus he does not separate the year of the apparition or finding from the year of the solemn translation. Nor indeed does Celestine at page 19 distinguish the latter from the former by distinct marks of years: to whom add Guerrini, who at page 73 says confusedly that in the time of Robert Bongo the sacred bodies were marvelously found of which we here treat, which by a famous translation the same Robert set forth for the veneration of the faithful.
[24] A parachronism in both editions of Ughelli is corrected. From these premises therefore it is manifestly made out that both editions of Ughelli's Italia sacra must be corrected, when in the former or Roman one, volume 4, columns 707 and 708, and in the latter or Venetian one, column 500, on occasion of another translation, of which there will be discussion below, these words are written: That in it (the altar there treated of) the relics of the holy martyrs Projectitius and James, and of Hesteria also, martyr and virgin, as well as of John the bishop, were reverently translated in the year 299 above the thousandth of the Virgin's childbearing, from the monument which had been dug in the middle of the church, is taught by authentic writings. Both editions of Ughelli, I say, must be corrected, because he writes that the translation made by Robert Bongo happened in the year 1299, when that translator had already been dead seven years. For in the former edition, column 679, and in the latter, column 477, that bishop of Bergamo is marked as having departed this life in the year 1292. The same error occurs also in our Manuscript, which we preserve concerning another and later translation, and indeed expressed thus without figures: in the year two hundred and ninety-nine above the thousandth of the Virgin's childbearing.
[25] But that later translation happened in the year of Christ 1561, Other translations, in the year 1561, Federico Cornelio holding the see of Bergamo: whose instrument on this matter is extant in Ughelli of the Roman printing, column 707 and following; but of the Venetian, from column 500, which I have just cited. A synopsis of what was done is had in volume II of our August, page 540; which Guerrini likewise briefly sets forth thus from page 87: Federico… entered upon possession on the I day of July of that same year, namely 1561… Straightway at the beginning of the following August he had to lament, together with all the tears of the canons and citizens for devotion of piety, the demolition of his ancient cathedral of St. Alexander, which by decree of the Most Serene Republic was leveled to the ground for the new fortification of the city; and therefore, lest with the stones and mortar the memory of that chief and venerable church should perish, when the last pontifical Mass had been sung there, and a solemn procession appointed for the translation of the body of St. Alexander and of the other Saints to the co-cathedral of St. Vincent, he issued an instrument. From this a full and distinct account and image of the state of affairs, of the translation of the holy relics, and of the demolition of the church, is providently preserved for posterity. This solemn document was issued on the Kalends of September of the year MDLXI… and is conveniently read printed in Ughelli's Italia sacra of the Venetian edition, folio 500, the palpable errors of the Roman printing being removed. Thus the most illustrious Guerrini: who would that in the same place he had observed and corrected that shameful and palpable parachronism left in the Venetian edition, and by no means cohering with what the same author had set down before at page 73 cited above.
[26] Lastly, the final translation, which happened in the year of Christ 1704, and in the year 1704; a brief notice of certain Saints of Bergamo. is noted in these words in the proper Offices of the Saints of Bergamo, which were printed in the year 1707, page III: The Sacred Congregation of Rites has graciously indulged and granted that the Office of the translation of the holy bodies of Alexander and of his companions, Martyrs of Bergamo, hitherto recited on the XIII day of August from the Common under a double rite, should henceforth every year, on the day
V of May, on which the translation of the said holy Martyrs and their companions was completed in the year last past MDCCIV into the new cathedral, be able and valid to be recited in the same manner and by the same persons as it was recited. On the IV day of April MDCCV. G. Cardinal Carpineo, etc. But St. Alexander the martyr, of whom mention has already been made so often, is honored at Bergamo as principal patron, and with a double rite of the first class, on the XXVI day of August; of whom we shall then have to treat with the Roman Martyrology. Of St. Hesteria there is treatment in volume II of August, on the X day, from page 539; where at page 542, in the Annotations to the Acts of the same Saint, it is said that St. Grata, named by us before, will be treated on the IV day of September. Of SS. Lupus and Adleida consult the IX day of June, page 239; of St. James the martyr, the IV day of May, page 472. And these things indeed we have thought good to add to this our collection, so that, since certain Saints of Bergamo are named above, the reader may have something more than their bare names. Nor let anyone here expect a Life of St. Projectitius: for an ancient and genuine one we neither have nor know to exist; while those which more recent writers have composed of their own strength and at their own discretion are destitute of due authority, as was indicated at the beginning of this collection: so that in their place the Lessons from the Bergamo Proper will serve, which both contain a compendium of the Acts and have been recited by us above to this end.
[27] Observations on the Lives of St. Projectitius, It were indeed altogether to be wished that either to the learned men of Bergamo or to us some knowledge of the first and genuine Acts of St. Projectitius had shone forth, by force of which the origin and value of the proper Lessons might be commended by us as we could wish. But we do not see whence this can be hoped or expected. For neither the Acts nor the proper Lessons were current among the people of Bergamo long before the thirteenth century of Christ was nearly ended. And this is made out from the instrument indicated above, concerning the apparition, finding, and translation of the four holy Martyrs of Bergamo, among whom is St. Projectitius: for in it these things are narrated to our purpose: Now the bodies of the aforesaid Martyrs remained in the cathedral church of St. Alexander at Bergamo for many years hidden in a less than seemly manner, so that the people of Bergamo scarcely knew those Saints… And when they had stood there THROUGH A LONG COURSE OF TIME WITHOUT DUE CULT or reverence, etc. Since therefore the city of Bergamo then scarcely knew those Saints, much less did it know or recognize that their Acts, published in writing, existed among them: for if it had known these, it could not but have known them; accordingly there did not then exist among the people of Bergamo the proper Lessons either, drawn from ancient Acts.
[28] and on the proper Lessons. For if these had existed, those Martyrs would assuredly by no means have stood there through so long a course of time without due cult or reverence until the year of Christ 1290, in which they were revealed and made known. Therefore, since the body of St. Projectitius was long before that year without cult, nay almost without recognition, and consequently without ecclesiastical Office, without Acts, then unknown to the people of Bergamo, we may be allowed to ask whether, and from what ancient source, the biographers drew what they have transmitted to posterity, with sufficient liberality, about the Life and martyrdom of that Saint only in the sixteenth century and the next following? Besides this, let the learned men of Bergamo permit us sincerely and openly to confess that it is not ascertained by us whence the proper Lessons were taken. What has been said at the end of the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Hesteria, page 541, may be consulted. These are the things which we have thought good to gather and transcribe hither concerning St. Projectitius.