ON BL. BARTHOLOMEW OF FORESTO, LAY BROTHER OF THE ORDER OF SERVANTS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, AT BRESCIA IN INSUBRIA OF ITALY,
In the year 1489.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
His cult, eulogy, Life, year of death.
BY J. P.
Brescia has been sufficiently described among us on the 15th day of February, on the occasion of the two brothers and martyrs Faustinus and Jovita who suffered there, Various reasons are given, and accordingly we send the reader thither. But in this city, after a life most piously passed, Blessed Bartholomew of Foresto — so called from the soil of his birth — closed his last day, transmitting the odor of sanctity to posterity. While we were coming upon the knowledge of this Man, we hesitated in doubt whether we should give him a place among the other Dwellers in Heaven of this day: until at last, after mature deliberation, we judged that it must be given him. For although in no sacred Calendars, so far as it has been permitted us to see, have we found his name inscribed, nevertheless there are various other things which, if they be joined together, seem to us to suffice that, saving the famous decree of Pope Urban VIII, he may be held as blessed and be set forth by us as such, as having deserved and obtained a public cult after his death, as is concluded from the following, which are drawn from his Latin Life, which we shall give below.
[2] For, first, the people of Brescia did not cease continually to venerate his bones, laid up in a wooden chest. by which a public cult is granted him: Secondly, they willed that this public veneration should be attested and confirmed by tablets, by tokens of vows or votive offerings, and by images hung up to him: Since they had obtained for themselves many graces from his merits, as the tablets hung up to him, and the tokens of vows, and the images, consumed by the antiquity of time, declared. Thirdly, his body was translated and honorably laid up. Fourthly, Scarcely was the third month passing from his laying to rest, when Brother Alexander of Brescia, laboring under a grave disease of hernia and under the greatest pains therefrom, implores the help of Blessed Bartholomew, makes a twofold vow, and CONTINUOUSLY obtained health; which things, narrated at greater length in the same place, may be seen. Fifthly, that same Alexander by vow offered and set up an image of the Blessed man, which is still seen there SURROUNDED WITH SPLENDORS. Sixthly, another Friar, dying of a grave illness and hopeless of all human aid, wished his health restored to him to be attested by the Blessed man's merits, when he paid his vows and memorials on a special tablet at his tomb. These are the things which we have drawn from the author or collector of the Latin Life, and which we judge altogether sufficient that Bartholomew should be reckoned with the title of blessed among the other Heaven-dwellers of this day.
[3] he is praised by the author of the Sacred Vineyard of Bergamo: Here now for you is his eulogy from the Sacred Vineyard of Bergamo, which Bartholomew de Peregrinis collected and published in print, part 2, chapter 88, folio 35 verso, in these words: In this vineyard there labored also blessed Bartholomew, born of the noble family of the Foresti, a citizen of Bergamo, the humble servant of Jesus Christ and of his Mother the Virgin Mary: who in the same year in which the Friars of the Order of the Servants of the Virgin Mary had entered into the monastery of St. Gothard, himself also entered, and took up this habit with great fervor on the day of St. Bartholomew, namely the 24th of August, and, engaged in the office of cook, lived most holily thirty-three years, with vigils, abstinences, prayers, contemplations, labors, disciplines, and miracles until his death, namely from the aforesaid year 1450 until the year 1483; in which year, on the 23rd day of August at Brescia, in the convent of St. Alexander of his Order, he rested in peace, and there in the said church was buried, being renowned for miracles down to this present day. These things from his Life, written in the aforesaid book, chapter 7. Bartholomew de Peregrinis had just before cited the seventh chapter of book 5 On the Antiquities and Deeds of the Saints of Bergamo, which book he indicates was written by himself in the Proem to the second part of his Vineyard cited above, folio 16.
[4] his biographers: The Life of Blessed Bartholomew was published in Italian, among others of the Blessed and of those venerable for holiness of life, by Mario Muzio in part 2 of his Sacred History, printed at Bergamo in the year 1614; in whose edition of the year 1621 the same Life is abridged, and is found in part 2, page 246: both of these we shall cite here, yet in such wise that we are about to commit to the press the Latin Life, as being of greater authority, which exists in the Annals of the sacred Order of the Friars Servants of the blessed Virgin Mary, published at Florence in the year 1618, by Brother Arcangelo Giani, Century three, book 4, chapter 8, folio 214; of greater authority, I say: for to that which is said in that Life concerning the humble and rustic stock of the Blessed man, from which he is said to have been born, the following are written in the annotation to the said chapter: Whatever Poccianti (of whom treatment had been made in the Preface prefixed to the praised Annals) and others say of this Blessed man, the author holds as most fully ascertained, both from book 5, chapter 7, On the Antiquities and Deeds of the Saints of Bergamo, and from various records of the Convent of Brescia, all that which he reports of Blessed Bartholomew on eyewitness credit. Not therefore, according to those things which that author reports, was Blessed Bartholomew born of the noble family of the Foresti, nor was he a citizen of Bergamo, properly speaking, as the writer of the Vineyard of Bergamo said above; but from the territory of the diocese of Bergamo. Nor is there need to preface more: for what remains will be given in the Annotations, if you except the time of his death, at which the Blessed man passed to a better life, about which something seems to be said in this place.
[5] The author of the Vineyard wrote that he lived in the institute of Religious life for thirty-three years, the same year of death is not marked among them namely from the year 1450 until the year 1483, to which he attaches his death: the same year of death Mario Muzio marks in both editions. From these the Life published in the alleged Annals differs: for there he is said to have been clothed with the Religious tunic in the year 1456, and in the thirty-third year from the time he had entered upon the institute of the Servants to have gloriously made his way to heaven, and thus in the year of Christ 1489; under which year his Life is also described in the same place, namely after treatment had been made of the Chapter of Mantua, which is noted to have been held in that same year. We, following the founder of those Annals, have above also attached the Blessed Man's death to the year 1489, since it is fitting to believe that he could see something more about this matter in the various records of the convent of Brescia, which we have seen him allege a little before, than others.
LIFE
By Brother Arcangelo Giani, of the Order of Servants of the blessed Virgin Mary, from the Annals of the same Order, Century 3, book 4, chapter 8, folio 214.
The Blessed man's native place, father, upbringing, entrance into the Order: Meanwhile, the 23rd day of August a coming on, Blessed Bartholomew from the village of Foresto paid his last day at Brescia. Whose humility indeed obtained for him heavenly glory on earth. For if we look at his native place, at his parents, at his habit, his manners, and each of his deeds, there meets us a certain admirable and most noble exemplar of a life to be recalled and imitated. He therefore, of humble and rustic stock b, in the field of Foresto of the Valle Calepio c, of the diocese and county of Bergamo, had as his father a farmer named Geminius de Salvodeis,
under whose leadership, being first brought up in the fear of God, from his tender years he splendidly exhibited in his holy manner of life a specimen of his future probity. And when he had persevered in that simplicity to manly age, being at last kindled with the greatest desire of serving the Blessed Virgin and of ministering to her Religious, at Bergamo with the utmost humility and devotion, in 1456 d, on the feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, to whom he had always been devoted, he is clothed with the tunic only of the Commissi e, and is assigned to the meaner services of the house.
[2] in the mean offices of the same Whence they report that for thirty-three years at Brescia he was continually occupied in those things which pertain to the kitchen; in which office he so bore himself that he never omitted, even in the least, the daily and nightly prayers and the regular institutes of the Order, but always persevered in the Religious purpose of his profession, giving himself assiduously to fasts and to the affliction of his body. Wherefore, when at some time he was rebuked by the brethren, because, being excessive in prayer, he neglected his proper office, and the meals were by no means prepared in the kitchen at the fitting hour, Bartholomew answered with humble words: Be not, I pray, my fathers, I beseech you by the Lord Jesus Christ, so anxious about dinner and supper, since everything is duly prepared for the hour.
[3] he is helped But when they had departed, at the coming of the dinner hour the outcome of the matter proved that the Servant of God had spoken true. Wherefore a report was spread abroad through the city that the angels of God, who once had ministered to Christ in the desert, performed the office of the kitchen for Bartholomew while he was wholly given to prayer. The like was said concerning the cleaning and wiping of the vessels, when certain less believing men, rebuking him, said, Alas, Bartholomew, this hour demands the task of washing the kitchen vessels, not of praying. To whom he at once showed each one most diligently cleaned. We heard at Brescia from certain elders, who affirmed that they had received it from other elders in continual succession, that once when the dinner hour was at hand, and the cauldron was broken and the food irreparably spilt, Bartholomew, prayer being first made, refreshed the brethren by the ministry of angels just as if nothing had happened, and satisfied everyone without any scandal or delay. For thus God meets those who love him, who taught them first to seek the kingdom of God, and that all things at last are abundantly supplied to those in need.
[4] by the angels: his illness and death: By such humility and devotion of Blessed Bartholomew, then, the fathers of Brescia were often refreshed with his favor. Hence arose that contention among writers, whether that Bartholomew is to be reckoned of Brescia or of Bergamo, since from the one place he had obtained his natural life, and from the other his celibate life. For at Brescia, where he had passed many years, on the eighth of the Ides of August, on the Transfiguration of the Lord, being soon to make his way to glory, he began to be ill, and, the illness growing heavier every day, on the day on which our Blessed Father Philip f had departed, whose footsteps of humility he had imitated, on the 23rd of August, on the vigil of his tutelary saint Bartholomew the Apostle, in the 33rd year from the time he had entered upon the institute of the Servants, he gloriously made his way to heaven.
[5] his public veneration, the translation of his body, His bones, laid up in a wooden chest, the peoples of Brescia did not cease continually to venerate, since they had obtained for themselves many graces from his merits, as the tablets hung up to him, and the tokens of vows, and the images, consumed by the antiquity of time, declared: until at length, they being transferred thence by the own hands of a certain Brother Bartholomew the lay Brother of Salcio into that chapel of the Blessed Virgin which is commonly called La madonnina g, Brother Lucretius the Prior took care that they should be honorably laid up in another chest, where hitherto they lie. Further, scarcely was the third month passing * from his laying to rest, when it happened by chance that a certain Brother Alexander of Brescia was laboring gravely under the disease of hernia, and was vexed with dire pains therefrom.
[6] a healing obtained by his merits, And when he had learned by experience Blessed Bartholomew's innocence and the merits of his sanctity, turning to his intercession he vowed a vow that he would perpetually fast his vigil, and moreover that he would offer his image at his own prototype together with the iron of his infirmity, if he should recover from that infirmity through his intercession; which he also obtained forthwith, and as he had promised he set up a memorial of so great a grace on the 10th day of November in the same year, with his venerable image, which is still seen there surrounded with splendors, representing his true likeness, with only the tunic and belt of the Commissi, bearing in the left hand the bald head of the deceased, and in the right a rosary of beads with a lily, looking upon the face of our Lord Jesus Christ pierced outside the cross; and from his mouth proceed these words which he had been accustomed to repeat a hundred times daily: Behold Jesus made obedient unto death.
[7] Of this Blessed man too there once sang Gasparinus of Venice h, a metrical eulogy, whose verses of this kind have lately been restored into Latin by the lord Matthias Nyolius, jurisconsult of Anghiari:
Into the lofty air the Virgin lifts her radiant lights, and brighter than songs can set forth there shines a Servite lay brother in black garments. He, lifting up his palms, breathed upon with divine love, rendered to the just the honors of praise they had merited, speaking encomiums to the King with sweet-sounding song.
[8] But not long after it happened at Verona that a certain Brother Augustine of Locato, of our Order, a grave illness cured at the invocation of the Blessed man. was laboring under a grave illness, and, now destitute of all human protection and dying, when he had commended himself with all his heart to Blessed Bartholomew, feeling himself shortly restored to his former health by his merits, gave immense thanks to God and to Blessed Bartholomew, and paid his vows and memorials on a special tablet at his tomb.
ANNOTATIONS.
perhaps transigebatur*