Juliana

ON ST. JULIANA, MATRON, AT TURIN IN PIEDMONT

In the fourth century.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Juliana, Matron, at Turin in Piedmont (St.)

BHL Number: 0085, 0086

By G. H.

Section I. The Life, death, and sacred veneration of St. Juliana.

[1] On the two days just surveyed, we treated of St. Tigrinus the Martyr and St. Goslinus the Abbot, At Turin in the church of the Society of Jesus, whose sacred Relics are preserved at Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) in the church of the Society of Jesus, which is dedicated to the patrons of that city, among other Relics, Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, Martyrs of the Theban Legion. The sacred bodies of these three champions were once collected by the matron St. Juliana, who buried them together in an oratory founded by herself; there is the body of St. Juliana, and after her death she was joined to them, buried in the same oratory in which they themselves were interred, just as she is a sharer of the same glory in heaven. The same Society of Jesus at Turin also obtained the sacred relics of both these three Martyrs and of this holy matron, who is venerated on February 13, and venerates the former with special devotion on November 20, and the latter on February 13. On that day the Ecclesiastical Office is taken from the common for non-Virgins, since she is believed to have died a widow.

[2] Since no separate Life of St. Juliana has been found, we excerpt her distinguished virtues She is treated in the Acts of Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, from the Acts of the three aforementioned Martyrs, which we shall give in full on November 20 from manuscript codices of the Jesuit college at Turin, sent to us by the Reverend Father Giovanni Giacomo Turinetto, Rector of the same college. The older of these Acts begin thus under an anonymous author: Many and great are the things that, concerning the combats of the most blessed Martyrs Adventor, Octavius, and Solutor, the older ones, ought to be set before the minds of Christians for imitation. They are distributed into lessons customarily recited at Matins in the Ecclesiastical Office on that day; and also published by Bonino Mombritius in volume 1 of his Sanctuarium, and inserted in book 1 of the History of the Thebans written in Italian by Bernardino Rossignoli of the Society of Jesus, also inserted in the Theban History, a learned and holy man, who after teaching natural and divine sciences at Milan for about eleven years, presided over the colleges of Turin, Rome, and others, and over the provinces of Rome, Venice, and Milan, under the last of which Turin with the territory of Piedmont is contained. This history was published in the year 1589 and again in an enlarged edition in the year 1604, under the name of Guglielmo Baldesani; which Philippus Alegambe also notes in the Library of the Society of Jesus, adding that the same Rossignoli died at Turin in the year 1613 with a great reputation for holiness.

[3] Certain other records concerning the same Saints exist, found in the ancient books of the monastery of St. Solutor (of which we treated in the Life of St. Goslinus, Abbot of the same place), and others, and communicated to us by the same Turinetto. The first preface for the solemnity of the feast of Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius begins thus: "Seeing, dearest brethren, this multitude of the faithful and holy people." Another prologue is prefixed to the same history with this beginning: "All the Catholic religion, and everyone anointed with the saving bath, believes in heart and professes with mouth." The beginning of the history itself is of this kind: "When throughout all parts of the world the name of Christ was growing, having received the teaching of the Apostles and the triumph of the cross, with the fiery seed prepared, the Theban people flew with swift hearing to the Catholic faith," etc. The author is held to be William, Bishop of Turin, and it is said in the cited Theban History written by William, Bishop of Turin, around the year 900, that he flourished around the year 900 and wrote a book about the deeds of these Martyrs, which existed in the same monastery of St. Solutor; from which the same things that are read in these Acts are there produced. Francis Augustine della Chiesa also asserts in his Piedmontese Chronology, chapter 5, that this William published the deeds of St. Solutor and the other Theban Martyrs.

[4] Eporedia (Ivrea) is an ancient Roman colony, St. Juliana lived at Eporedia (Ivrea): founded in the consulship of Marius (for the sixth time) and Valerius Flaccus, according to Paterculus, book 1 -- that is, a full century before the birth of Christ -- among the Salassi on the bank of the greater Dora, which today is called the Dora Baltea or Bautia, as the city is called Ivrea and Inurea. In this city they say St. Juliana, born of a wealthy and noble family and imbued with Christian religion and holy morals, lived in the times of Diocletian and Maximian, when St. Solutor, as the older Acts have it, escaping from the hands of the persecutors, she saw St. Solutor beheaded: fled from the territory of Turin to the town of Ivrea, and being betrayed by a boy and captured, was beheaded near the river Dora because he professed himself a Christian in a full voice -- and indeed in the sight of St. Juliana, as the following passages drawn from the same Acts suggest.

[5] When the blessed Solutor had been killed by the stroke of the sword, a certain venerable and most Christian woman named Juliana, covering the most sacred little body of the precious Martyr, pretending that she approved of what had been done, received those persecutors in her house and in a spirit of hospitality set before them food and drink, having lavishly entertained the executioners, and by questioning them learned that Ss. Adventor and Octavius had been killed in the territory of Turin. That venerable woman continued to serve them cups of wine until, excessively inebriated and overcome by the wine, they fell into a heavy sleep. Then the most blessed handmaid of Christ, Juliana, lifting St. Solutor onto her carriage, she carries away his body, proceeding toward the city of Turin, arranged to hasten during the hours of the night. Thus the majesty of Christ, immediately making manifest the glory of his Martyr, divided the current of the said river by the power of his right hand and allowed her to pass through on dry ground with her vehicle; she flees, the rivers drying up of their own accord: and so, dividing the course of all the rivers that are known to flow in the intervening distances between both cities by the power of his might, he led her without any obstacle, in a joyful journey, to the bodies of the most blessed Martyrs Adventor and Octavius. she gathers the bodies of Ss. Adventor and Octavius: Joining their most holy limbs with all veneration to their companion, by the command of the heavenly Majesty above, she translated them to another part of the city and there, by the will of God, buried them, and in their honor built there an oratory chapel, joining to herself a memorial of burial nearby. she buries them at Turin and builds an oratory: This oratory chapel the most glorious St. Victor, Bishop of the Church of Turin, built into a basilica of wider space, with wonderful workmanship and wonderful renown, worthy and beauteous, together with an atrium.

[6] So far the ancient Acts of those Martyrs. The rivers said to have dried up in those Acts are enumerated as five in book 1 of the Theban History: the greater Dora near Ivrea, the Orco, the Malone, the Stura, and the lesser Dora, commonly called the Dorietta, near Turin. But St. Juliana, on account of the singular piety and devotion with which she was borne toward the holy Relics of the Martyrs, did not ride in the carriage upon which they were placed, but crossed the rivers on foot and completed the rest of the journey. When St. Juliana stepped upon a marble stone she imprints the traces of her feet on marble, that lay at the bottom of the greater Dora, making the path more level for the one crossing, she imprinted on it the traces of her feet, everywhere equal to one another; from which they conclude that she was then advanced in age. For that stone is still preserved, having been brought with the rest of the body to the church of the Society of Jesus, where it is seen on the left side of the high altar; preserved with veneration to this day: and the footprints are held in great veneration, so that people eagerly wear them down with their kisses. Whence we are also less persuaded by what William the Bishop relates in the later Acts of the said Martyrs -- namely, that she was twelve years of age, very small in stature but more mature than an old woman in understanding, when, intending to translate the body of St. Solutor, having taken attendants, walking through the silence of the dark night without shoes, she imprinted the traces of her feet on the hardest rock, which she placed on the wagon and set up as a memorial for future generations, as the same Bishop testifies that it was preserved in his time.

[7] Concerning the finding and burial of the bodies of the other two Martyrs, the same author writes thus: When the sun had risen, she found the bodies of the venerable Martyrs Adventor and Octavius, with the Holy Spirit showing her the way; preceded by prayer, and pouring forth tears, lying prostrate on the ground at the feet of the Saints, she implored with these humble words: O God, disposer of all good things, who willed to adorn these men with the triumphal crown, that they might be enriched with the goods of heaven in your dwellings; may your name be glorious and praiseworthy through the ages. Now therefore by their merits, deign to free both me and all the Christian people from all stains, and to transfer us to be with you. Amen. When the prayer was finished, she began to consider where and how she might commit the holy limbs to a worthy burial, and by the gift of the Divine mercy, she devised with swift thought she translates the bodies of the Martyrs: to transfer them with fitting honors to another part of the city, as it were toward the southern axis. When she had done this, she laid the Bodies of the Blessed in a certain basin with prostrate reverence. There also she built above them a cell in their memory in a marvelous manner; for she also built an oratory nearby in due time, so that there the heavenly King might have mercy, through their intercessions, on those who invoked them. So far William the Bishop.

[8] What St. Juliana did afterward, how long she lived, or in what year, month, or day she died, we read nowhere. Baronius judges that the said Martyrs obtained the palm of their glorious combat in the year 297, as is clear from his Annals, where in number 1 and following he treats of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion, and in number 16 of these three Martyrs. These matters will be discussed on September 22, on which Ss. Maurice and the other Martyrs of Agaunum are venerated, and on November 20, on which special veneration is paid to these at Turin. The Acts and Martyrologies testify that all were killed under Maximian.

Rossignoli adds in the Theban History that St. Juliana, with a perfect contempt for earthly things, she spends the rest of her life piously: devoted herself to all the exercises of Christian piety and persevered in them to the end of her life. Whence we also conclude that, since the sacrifice of the Mass and the rest of the Ecclesiastical Office is performed in her honor from the common for non-Virgins, or widows, according to ancient tradition, she was previously bound by marriage, but that before the said Martyrs completed their combat, she was widowed and labored in holy works.

[9] The St. Victor, Bishop of Turin, mentioned above, is the first of that name and is said to have lived in the year 310. But Victor II was given as a traveling companion by Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, to the petitioning St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia, for his journey to the Kings of the Burgundians, Gundobad and Godegisel, as was said in the Life of St. Epiphanius on January 21, chapters 11 and 12; that embassy took place in the year 494. Concerning the first Victor, the said Bishop William writes thus: The oratory cell constructed by St. Juliana, [Bishop St. Victor builds a basilica for the Martyrs where she had earlier built an oratory:] the most holy Victor, Bishop of the Church of Turin, with marvelous workmanship and enlarged space, fashioned into a worthy basilica with beauteous porticoes and added endowments, in which the peoples of the whole province, and the order of monks and clerics, as well as a throng of widows, celebrate annually with the worship of honor their birthday with the jubilation of exultation. In that solemnity, among other hymns, a Sequence, as they call it, is recited at Mass, in which this is said of St. Juliana:

Let the saints praise Juliana, The Christian woman of Turin, By whose guidance we enjoy our blessings.

[10] Concerning the monastery of St. Solutor built there, we have already treated in the Life of St. Goslinus, the feast of the Finding of the Relics is celebrated on February 10, who as the second Abbot of that monastery died in the year 1061. In ancient times the common feast of St. Goslinus the Abbot, St. Juliana, and the holy Martyrs Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius was celebrated in that monastery on February 10, under the title of the Finding. Saussaius in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology and Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of Saints proclaim only the Finding of Goslinus and Juliana. Now, however, on February 10, the Office is performed only for the Finding of Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, the solemnity of St. Juliana having been moved to February 13.

Section II. The relics of St. Juliana and the other Saints transported to the church of the Society of Jesus.

[11] Francis I, King of France, conquered by war and arms the principal territories of the Duke of Savoy, and sending his army into the region of Piedmont, seized Turin with the greatest speed in the year 1536, When the monastery of St. Solutor was destroyed in 1536, which his son Henry II held until the year 1559. The French, therefore, having gained possession of the city of Turin, soon demolished four suburbs together with the monastery of St. Solutor and other sacred buildings. Until that time the bodies of the Martyrs Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, as well as those of St. Juliana the Matron and Goslinus the Abbot, the Relics are raised, had rested in the lower church of this monastery, deposited in a marble tomb beneath the altar and covered with a large stone. Behind the altar stood a tomb raised like a wall to the length of the sepulcher, which another marble slab enclosed. In the presence, therefore, of Benedict de San Sebastiano, Prior of the said monastery, and other monks, and the clergy, and very many religious men from the same city, the altar was dismantled and the sacred monument opened. Then, with torches lit, and transferred to the chapel of St. Mary of Consolation; the Prior and monks, having reverently removed the bodies of the Saints from the tomb and placed them in a large chest, with a frequent escort of the principal religious of the city, translated them in a solemn procession into the city and deposited them for the time being in the Priory of St. Andrew, in the chapel of Our Lady, called "of Consolation," in the year 1536, on the 25th day of April, as the authentic documents sent to us from Turin attest.

[12] When the college of the Society of Jesus at Turin was erected in 1567, The Society of Jesus, then summoned to Turin, began to erect a college there in the year 1567, the beginnings of which Francis Sacchini describes in volume 3 of the History of the same Society, book 3, number 113 and following. And in number 118 he asserts that the principal support for the college was both the inheritance of Alerami and the generous and religious gift of Vincenzo Parpalea. This Vincenzo was the perpetual commendatory of the Abbey of St. Solutor, who, having obtained permission from Pope Pius V on the Ides of July in the year 1568, various properties of this monastery are donated, conferred various properties of this monastery upon the Society, on the condition that it should build a church under the title of Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, to which the said bodies of the Saints would afterward be transferred. Meanwhile a chapel was erected in which the Society would carry out its ministries while a more illustrious church was being built. The authority of the Supreme Pontiff was added, by which he decreed that this translation should be ratified. And his decree is of this kind:

[13] Pope Gregory XIII, to all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect these present letters, health and apostolic blessing. and by the authority of Gregory XIII, We do not doubt that the salvation of the souls of the faithful is fittingly provided for when we rouse them, by the proposal of indulgences and remissions of sins, to the exercise of pious works and the veneration of the Bodies and Relics of the Saints of God, who bore the most certain testimony to Christ the Lord by shedding their own blood. And so, it having been received by us the bodies of St. Juliana and the others are assigned, that the bodies of the holy Martyrs Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius of the Theban Legion, and of St. Juliana and St. Goslinus the Abbot, formerly from the church of the monastery then under the invocation of those same Saints, near and outside the walls of Turin -- which, while wars in those places were raging and had broken out in recent times, was destroyed and demolished -- had been translated to the church of the Priory of St. Andrew, or of St. Mary called "of Consolation," at Turin, for the purpose of being more fittingly placed, in whatever way possible, to be transferred to the new church of the Society: in a church to be subsequently erected under the invocation of the same Saints within the same city; and that for this reason the beloved son Vincenzo Parpalea, then commendatory of the same monastery, before he freely and voluntarily resigned the commenda of the same monastery into the hands of our predecessor Pope Pius V of happy memory -- and the same predecessor had accepted this resignation and had commended the said monastery to the beloved son Cathelano Parpalea, also a cleric -- had expressly consented to the separation and dismemberment of certain immovable properties and annual revenues pertaining to the table of the said monastery, and to their concession and application to the beloved sons, the Rector and religious of the Society of Jesus of the city of Turin, on the condition, however, that the said Rector and religious should be bound to construct a new church within the walls of the same city under the invocation of the said Saints.

[14] Now since a chapel has been erected and built by the Rector and religious of the same college, in which, on account of the extraordinary devotion that not only the same Vincenzo and Cathelano, but also the beloved son, the noble lord Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and the entire people of the aforesaid city of Turin, bear toward the same Saints with affectionate devotion, [indeed, on account of the piety of the Duke of Savoy and others, permission is granted for them to be transferred to the chapel of the Society:] they most ardently desire that the same bodies of the Saints be laid to rest in that same chapel. Therefore, inclined by the supplications presented to us on their behalf, granting to our venerable brother the Archbishop of Turin and to the others concerned the permission to transfer the aforesaid bodies of the Saints, we exhort all and each of the faithful of Christ of both sexes, with what affection we can, in the Lord, that they may willingly attend in great numbers, according to their piety, the procession to be announced on the occasion of transferring the bodies of these Saints to the said chapel recently constructed. And so that the same faithful of Christ may more willingly assemble for this purpose, knowing that they will be more abundantly refreshed with spiritual gifts, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and in the authority of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to all and each of the faithful of Christ of both sexes who are truly penitent and confessed, and indulgences are granted, who shall have accompanied in procession, as is the custom, the said bodies of the Saints while they are being transferred to the aforesaid chapel, and shall have poured forth pious prayers to God for the exaltation of the holy Roman Church, the extirpation of heresies, the conversion of unbelievers, and the preservation and increase of peace among Christian princes, we mercifully relax in the Lord, by Apostolic authority and by the tenor of these presents, ten years and as many quarantines from the penances enjoined upon them or otherwise owed by them in any way, for those who attend the solemn procession, these presents to have no further validity after the said procession has been celebrated. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 28th day of December 1574, in the third year of our Pontificate.

Caesarius Glorierius.

[15] The college at Turin was then presided over by the Rector Achilles Gagliardi, whose outstanding doctrine and virtue Philippus Alegambe praises in the Library of Writers of the Society. [The sacred bodies are given to the Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus,] To this Rector, in the aforesaid church of St. Andrew, or of St. Mary of Consolation, in the presence of the most eminent Cardinal Girolamo della Rovere, Archbishop of Turin, the above-mentioned lord Cathelano Parpalea, commendatory Abbot of the monastery of St. Solutor, in the year 1585, on the 19th day of January, delivered the sacred Relics of five bodies enclosed in three chests: enclosed in various reliquaries, the keys of which he also offered. In a walnut chest were deposited the bones of the holy Martyrs Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius; in two others, the bones of St. Juliana and St. Goslinus. Other chests had been brought by order of the Rector Gagliardi, they are placed in four other chests, into which the Archbishop of Turin transferred the same sacred relics: namely, the principal and intact bones of the holy Martyrs into the primary chest, wrought of bronze with remarkable craftsmanship and gilded, on which were also engraved images of the Martyrs and of St. Juliana, with their names. The skull of St. Juliana was placed within a pyramid, at the top of which an image of the risen Christ was sculpted. Three other walnut reliquaries were present, covered inside with bronze. In one of these were placed the remaining bones of St. Juliana; in another, the body of St. Goslinus; in the third, ashes and fragments of the Martyrs.

[16] These four chests, locked as was right and proper, were then carried into the Choir of the same church, and are brought in solemn procession to the church of the Society of Jesus: and after Vespers had been sung there, they were taken to the house of the Society of Jesus in a solemn procession, at which were present the Duke of Savoy, Emanuel Philibert, with his son the Prince and the court nobility, the Archbishops of Vienne and Tarentaise, the Bishops of Vence and Geneva, and other illustrious men from every order, and above all the Cardinal della Rovere, Archbishop of Turin, who arranged this entire solemnity. And on the following day, January 20, after the sacrifice of the Mass had been offered in honor of the Saints, he spoke to the most noble assembly about their praises. That oration is printed in the Theban History. The most Serene Princes, Archbishops, Bishops, the Apostolic Nuncio, ambassadors of various princes and republics, various orders of senators, and ecclesiastics and other illustrious men were again present; we shall give this solemnity, described in Italian by the Rector Achilles Gagliardi, on November 20 with the Life of Ss. Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius.

[17] [The body of St. Juliana is preserved at the high altar; she is renowned for miracles.] The body of St. Juliana is still preserved in the church of the Society of Jesus, built afterward and dedicated to the holy Martyrs. It is at the high altar on the left side, or that of the Epistle, laid in an artfully crafted urn. It may be conjectured from the bones that she was tall in stature. Baldesani, or rather Rossignoli, in the same Theban History affirms that many miracles have been wrought by the invocation of St. Juliana, and incurable diseases have been dispelled, all of which he had resolved to publish in a separate history, but being overtaken by death, he was unable to prepare it. In the year 1638, Francesco Sacco Riccoboni published at Rome the martyrdom of St. Octavius and his companions in Italian, in which he repeats some things about St. Juliana that have already been brought forth by us from other sources.