ON SAINT OBITIUS, CONFESSOR, AT BRESCIA IN ITALY,
AROUND THE YEAR 1200.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Obitius, Confessor, at Brescia in Italy (Saint)
By the author I. B.
[1] The cities of Cisalpine Gaul were once shattered by frequent and bloody wars among themselves, especially in those times when the German Emperors were endeavoring to destroy the dominion of the Roman Pontiff with impious arms. The former wars of the Lombard cities, and their causes And those cities were indeed drawn into factions, but in such a way that they rather exercised the hatreds ingrained in the minds of the populace. For the demons, who are occupied in sowing enmities among mortals, when they are released from the bonds by which they were restrained by Divine Justice, drive entire nations to destruction, often presenting in common one appearance while meanwhile moved by another end. Yet the propitious Deity is accustomed, even from these evils, to draw forth something for the salvation of men and the glory of His name. This can be discerned in the war that broke out in that region around the year 1191, in which year Henry VI, son of Frederick Barbarossa, received the crown of Empire from Celestine III.
[2] That war, and the causes of the war, after others, Charles Sigonius thus briefly summarized in his History of the Kingdom of Italy, Book 15: "In the same year another war arose among the Lombards, in the year 1191, by the Brescians and the Milanese begun from the Brescians and the Bergamasques, who had renewed their contention over borders. The Milanese favored the Brescians, the Cremonese the Bergamasques. But the Cremonese, having halted at Citta, a castle of the Bergamasques, with their carroccio in support of the Bergamasques, suffered great harm. For when on the Ides of July they had crossed the river Oglio and entered the territory of Brescia to plunder, they were overwhelmed by the enemy and forced to fight a battle; and as the multitude of the enemy prevailed, they were driven to flight the Cremonese defeated and not only lost the carroccio, but together with the Bergamasques were partly captured, partly drowned in the river Oglio, and many were also foully slain by the sword. This victory gave the victorious cities the appearance of a great triumph. The body of the carroccio was transported to Milan as a memorial of the deed. The Brescians carried the mast and the bell to Brescia, having lost the carroccio and suspended the mast in the cathedral church as a perpetual memorial of the trophy won from the neighboring enemies; the bell, however, they brought up into the tower of the people, and they instituted that it should be rung during the days of Carnival as a sign of public rejoicing."
[3] Lodovico Cavitelli of Cremona reports the same, and indeed numbers his fellow citizens' losses at five thousand -- some killed, some drowned -- one thousand wounded, and as many captured. Elias Capreolus agrees in Book 5 of the History of Brescia, except that he would have this event take place on the Nones of July, (what it was when the feast of Saint Apollonius the Bishop was celebrated. Sigonius explains in Book 7 what a carroccio is: namely, a banner which, placed upon a cart, they sent to wars with great religious reverence and which they defended in battle with great care. and how greatly it was valued And in Book 11 he writes that to be stripped of the carroccio was at that time considered a mark of notable disgrace. Donatus Bossius calls it the "carrocerum" and greatly diminishes this victory, but attributes it entirely to the Milanese and places it in the year 1190.
[4] Sigonius continues in Book 15, relating what devastations of fields were subsequently made, what battles were fought, and how the Cremonese were despoiled of a new carroccio; and how at length, through the mediation of Trussard, the Legate of the Emperor, peace was established in the year 1194. After the first defeat of the Cremonese, Capreolus commemorates the following: that the Bergamasques plundered the borders of Brescia the following winter and recovered the castle of Calepio by a nocturnal assault on March 29. Then, having joined the forces of the Cremonese, in the year 1192, defeated again they came as far as Pontoglio, or the bridge of the river Oglio, the westernmost fortification of the Brescians, on July 7. Twelve thousand Brescians went out to meet them, and in the engagement that followed, many of the Cremonese and Bergamasques were slain, many swallowed by the river Oglio, and not a few led away to Brescia as captives.
[5] In this battle, and as is likely also in the previous one, Obitius, a Brescian Knight and a most valiant man, took part. [then Obitius of Brescia, preserved among the dead when the bridge collapsed, sees the infernal regions in a rapture] It is related that, while he was vigorously pressing the enemy and fighting on the bridge over the Oglio, which suddenly collapsed under the excessive weight of the mingled multitude, he too fell into the river and was preserved unharmed the entire night among heaps of the slain and the drowned by the singular beneficence of God. Then, extracted by his fellow citizens and conveyed to a certain castle to be revived, he lay there and was seized by a deep sleep; and after he awoke, he related that he had been carried to the regions of the infernal world and had seen there an innumerable multitude of souls being cast down, as thick as snow customarily falls from the sky, and being torn by various and truly horrifying torments. Having therefore laid down his arms, he returned to Brescia, he lives holily thereafter and reflecting upon that singular beneficence of God toward him, he led thenceforth a most devout life and upon his death was buried in the church of Saint Julia. There, as he is invoked with great confidence by many, he is reported to have wrought not a few miracles.
[6] Thus Capreolus. Ferrarius reports nearly the same, though he writes that Obitius was seized in a rapture to the infernal regions while lying among the corpses of the enemy; he serves the nuns and adds that he was renowned for miracles both in life and after death, and narrates these things from the ancient records, as he says, of the convent of the nuns of Saint Julia, whom he says Obitius served for the sake of penance as long as he survived.
[7] "When a bridge," says Ferrarius, "was being built over the Oglio, and the hand of the architect had been crushed under a beam, he heals a crushed hand Obitius, wrapping it in his cloak and warming it with his hands, wonderfully healed it."
[8] Water with which the dead man was washed cured illnesses. When the body was being carried out for burial, and many who were sick were healed by being sprinkled with the water with which it had been washed, a certain maidservant, full of fistulas and sores, who had been unable to find any of the water, touched her sores with earth that had been moistened by that water, and was immediately healed.
[9] At his tomb a blind woman received sight; a crippled woman was cured. A blind woman, brought to the tomb of Saint Obitius by young girls, recovered her sight while she prayed most fervently, and returned home without requiring a guide for the way. A woman also whose entire body was crippled, brought to the tomb of Obitius, was cured -- not without the great amazement of those who knew her.
[10] A certain sick man also. A certain man was also so debilitated in his hands and feet that he could scarcely be moved from his place even when supported by crutches. After staying for a year in a chest near the sepulchre of Saint Obitius, when he touched it out of devotion, he received the ability to walk.
[11] He is venerated on February 4. Ferrarius adds that, although the name of Obitius is not noted in the Records of the Church of Brescia, his feast is nevertheless celebrated in the church of Saint Julia, Virgin and Martyr, where his body is preserved. He himself inscribed him in the general catalogue of Saints on this day as follows: "At Brescia in Transpadane Italy, of Saint Obitius, Confessor." Galesinius likewise: "At Brescia, of Saint Obitius, Confessor, at whose sepulchre many miracles have been produced by the gift of God."