ON SAINT BENEDICT, BISHOP OF ALBENGA IN LIGURIA.
In the year of Christ 900.
PrefaceBenedict, Bishop of Albenga in Liguria (Saint)
I. B.
[1] That at Albenga in Liguria the birthday of Saint Benedict, Bishop of the same city, is celebrated on February 12, and the Translation on December 5, is attested by Ferrari in his General Catalogue of Saints and in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy; The birthday of Saint Benedict, and he cites an inscription that is read in the church of Saint Mary of the Springs, where his relics are preserved. From this inscription it is established that he died in the year 900, his era, and was translated into the chapel dedicated to him in that church in 1409. his translation, The same Ferrari reports in his Annotation that some ignorantly suppose him to be that same Benedict who was Archbishop of Milan, who died around the year 735 and is venerated on March 11. Ferdinand Ughelli mentions Benedict of Albenga in volume 4 of Sacred Italy in the catalogue of the Bishops of that city. His Life was composed from various documents by Dom Philip Malabayla of the Cistercian Order, Visitor of the Congregation of Saint Bernard, commonly called that of Folia, his Life. and was sent to us from Rome in the year 1649.
LIFE
BY DOM PHILIP MALABAYLA
Visitor of the Congregation of Folia.
Benedict, Bishop of Albenga in Liguria (Saint)
By Philip Malabayla.
[1] Albenga (the ancient capital of the Ingaunian Ligurians, situated in a pleasant and fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea) Saint Benedict, Bishop of Albenga, among the innumerable benefits of divine bounty, commemorates this one: that God in his singular piety granted it Saint Benedict, first as a solicitous Pastor and then as a constant Protector. Since the deeds and merits of this man, because destructions and fires that more than once reduced the city itself to ashes, whence the Life is drawn? do not permit us to relate them, we shall transmit concerning him only those things which either constant and harmonious tradition reports, or very ancient paintings show, or the old inscription of his sepulchre suggests.
[2] That this holy Benedict was born in Liguria, in its western part, of the honorable Revelli family, his lineage, from parents conspicuous for Christian piety, among the Ingaunian Ligurians, is agreed upon. But from what place he drew his origin, opinion is not unanimous. The people of Tabia indeed claim him for themselves with these arguments: his fatherland, whether Tabia the town, That, beyond other diocesans and second only to the citizens of Albenga, they have always held him in special veneration; That for several centuries now, in their collegiate church, they have dedicated a chapel to him as their fellow countryman, with the life of the same Saint depicted on its walls, with this inscription added: This work was made at the order of Emanuel de Germanis, formerly Provost of Tabia, and of Nicholas, now Provost, in honor of God and of the Mother Mary and of Saint Benedict, Bishop of Albenga, in the year of the Lord 1413, the 25th day of August. And finally, that outside the walls of Tabia itself, on the road that leads to Badalucco, there stands a building called the House of Saint Benedict, because the same Saint is believed to have been born in it.
[3] On the other hand, the inhabitants of Tabulae (a village about four miles distant from Tabia), in order to prove that he was a native of that place, display the house of the progenitors of this Saint, situated in the middle of Tabulae, its cracks and decay attesting to its antiquity; whether Tabulae the village: and they narrate that his birth, from a tradition received as if by hand from their ancestors, occurred thus. At the time when the mother of this Saint was carrying him in her womb, a plague arose in that region, and was proceeding to consume many mortals, especially in places to which there was free access. Moved by this, the parents of Saint Benedict thought to betake themselves from Tabulae, which was entirely open and therefore exposed to contagion, to Tabia, which was walled and well guarded. But the people of Tabia, lest they should spread the plague in the town if they had previously contracted it, assigned them a place outside the walls, where they should remain for forty days according to the custom. During the very time, therefore, when they were tarrying there, the mother of Benedict brought him into the light, in that very house which the people of Tabia assert was the birthplace of this Saint. The people of Tabulae add as evidence for this tradition that no document proves that the Revelli family ever existed among the people of Tabia, whereas among the people of Tabulae it is very numerous and from there has spread to other places. Whence on an old altar-cloth, under the image of the Saint sewn thereon, these words are read: Saint Benedict de Revellis, of Tabulae, Bishop of Albenga. And Augustinus Schiaffinus in his Annals, about to be published shortly, has this concerning the same Saint: This Saint is commonly believed to be a native of the town of Tabia, from the village called Tabulae.
[4] Born, therefore, in this region, Benedict -- what he showed himself to be in boyhood, what in youth, and what finally when he had grown to manhood, is not found committed to memory. Nevertheless, that he applied himself with equal zeal and piety to acquiring both learning and virtues, in proportion to each period of his age, was sufficiently indicated by his election as Bishop and by the graces with which he rendered this dignity venerable and holy, beyond the state from which he was elevated to the episcopate. For tradition itself reports that our Saint Benedict professed the Order of Saint Benedict, the patriarch of monks, he was a Benedictine monk, and the paintings that are seen in the church near which his body, by divine decree as will be said below, was interred indicate the same; and monks of the same institute formerly resided there, as ancient documents show. For in that church monks clad in a black habit are seen depicted, receiving the body of Saint Benedict himself when it was being brought in, and celebrating joyful funeral rites.
[5] Moreover, fame reports that he once, not indeed in the fervor of a novice but having been taught by the long probation of this monastery to fight against the vices of the flesh and the wiles of the devil, as the same most holy Legislator advises, betook himself to the solitary combat of the desert, to the island of Gallinaria, not very distant from the city of Albenga. Chapter 1 of the Rule, 29 For there many monks of the same holy purpose resided, a hermit on Gallinaria, who gathered for the sacred synaxis in the manner of hermits in a church dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin and to Saint Martin (who spent some time as an exile on that same island), which is still seen situated on a pleasant hill, recently restored by the Abbot Alessandro Costa.
[6] From this state, I say, elevated to the episcopal dignity, Saint Benedict, mindful of that Apostolic admonition, Romans 12:8 "He who presides, in solicitude," so persevered in his former care concerning himself that he spared no labor, no study, by which he might render the flock committed to him a follower of good works, then a Bishop, and thereby acceptable to God. Who approved this very zeal of his Saint both by other proofs and by the gift of healings. For that he bestowed health and safety upon very many sick persons afflicted with various diseases renowned for the gift of healings, has been accepted by the enduring fame to this day.
[7] When, therefore, he had fulfilled all the parts of the best Pastor for many years, and (for uncertain reasons) was absent from his diocese, having completed his earthly pilgrimage, he arrived at the firm dwelling of the eternal fatherland. This indeed seems to have happened either in the city of Genoa, he died abroad, or certainly in a place more remote from it, as the paintings that exist concerning this very event show. For in them is depicted a small boat bearing the body of the holy Bishop, making toward the setting sun with sails and oars; and a trireme well equipped with oars pursuing this boat with all its might from the port of Genoa. From which it is understood that the Genoese, to whom the sanctity of this blessed man must have been well known, attempted either to retain his relics in their own city, if he had died there, or certainly to acquire them if they were being carried past -- not doubting, indeed, that the places in which the bodies of the Saints are preserved and piously venerated are, he is brought home, not without a miracle: according to the opinion of the great Basil, accustomed to be like the strongest towers and impregnable citadels. But God, who had destined Saint Benedict to the people of Albenga as a Pastor while living and as a protector when dead, at one and the same moment compelled the pursuing trireme to retrace its course by sending an adverse wind, and happily brought the small boat by a favorable wind to the shore of Albenga.
[8] After, therefore, the small boat had landed at the shore opposite Albenga, and it appeared what was being carried in it, the whole city pours out to this spectacle. And after great thanks were given to God for so great a gift, a consultation is held by the magistrate with the chief members of the clergy concerning bringing the sacred body to the Cathedral church. A solemn procession having been announced, and the casket in which it was enclosed having been placed on a cart fittingly adorned, the procession advances toward the Cathedral church itself with hymns and canticles and the festive ringing of bells. But God did not assent to this wish: for where Saint Benedict had given his name to the spiritual warfare, and the bodies of his fellow soldiers rested, there he had decreed that his body also should rest. For when the two young oxen drawing the cart arrived before the church in which we said above monks of the Benedictine institute formerly lived, he is deposited in his monastery, they turned toward it, fell upon their knees, and with bowed heads reverently stood still. Then those who stood near began to marvel; the rest inquired what was delaying the procession. After they saw that the young oxen, however much goaded, could not rise, all understood that the venerable treasure was to be deposited in that very church. by divine will: Lifted therefore from the cart, they bring it into the church. And the monks, coming to meet them, receiving it, with hymns and psalms chanted in pious exultation instead of dirges, they entomb and place it in a spot prepared for the purpose.
[9] That these things occurred in the nine hundredth year of human salvation is indicated by the epigram to be cited presently. From which it also appears that until the nineteenth year of the fifteenth century, in 1409, on December 5, it is brought to a new chapel, the remains interred in that same place lay at rest with the special veneration of the city, the surrounding region, and above all the people of Tabia and Tabulae.
[10] For when in the same church Romeus Cazzulinus, a patrician of Albenga, had caused a chapel to be built under the invocation of the same Saint Benedict, in the year 1409, on December 5, the same sacred body, enclosed in a casket of the whitest marble, was placed upon the altar of that chapel: within a marble casket where there was also the effigy of the Saint sculpted on marble instead of an icon; and the heraldic shield of the Cazzulini family was added, with this epigram attesting to all these things:
In a tomb of marble here the bones of the Blessed Benedict rest: whose mortal time death loosed, at nine hundred years. with this inscription: This our city was blessed, and deservedly, since a pontifical Pastor was chosen for it; and whatever healings he granted to the sick, fortified with love from above. In the year one thousand, four hundred and nine, the translation of his body was made on the fifth day of December. May he protect and govern us.
[11] When the same church was now threatening ruin on account of its age, and did not seem sufficiently large, and therefore was to be restored in a more ample and more suitable form for use, the body of Saint Benedict, on March 1, 1614, he is transferred again: together with the sacred relics of other Saints interred there, was carried to the sacristy, and rested there until the first of March 1614. For on that day the same body, placed in a wooden chest lined inside with purple silk, was returned to the same chapel, now renovated and more elegantly decorated, and was placed in a compartment neatly and fittingly arranged between the altar and the icon: where at present it remains exposed to the veneration of the faithful, with the Counts of Languelia, to whom the rights of the Cazzolini family have passed, claiming the custody of the keys of the aforesaid chest.
[12] The same church, moreover, sacred to the Most Blessed Virgin of the Assumption, as we have said, is in the church of Saint Mary. took its name from the springs: for in those times health-giving waters flowed from it, suitable for curing diseases of every kind. where there were healing springs, later divinely dried up. These waters, if popular report is to be believed, had ceased to flow when a certain woman, about to wash off the filth of a dog, immersed it in them. But recently, by divine bounty -- twelve days after the aforesaid last Translation -- new waters began to spring forth from the lowest foundations of the same church in their former abundance. now one flows: These, drawn widely with faith and piety, are proved to renew their ancient favors, especially in healing those afflicted with fevers.
[13] The feast of this Saint Benedict is celebrated on the day before the Ides of February; it is uncertain, however, whether it is the day of his death or of his deposition. On that day each year his sacred body, he is venerated solemnly on February 12. and also an arm enclosed in a silver case, is carried through the city under a canopy borne by the city magistrate, in a solemn procession of the clergy and people: because the city of Albenga has adopted this same Saint, together with Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Calocerus the Martyr, and Saint Veranus the Bishop, as its special Protector.
Annotations