ON S. PEREGRINE, CONFESSOR, AT CALTABELLOTTA IN SICILY.
CommentaryPeregrine, Confessor in Sicily (S.)
[1] Caltabellotta, or Calatabellotta, is a very extensive town of Sicily in the southern district, on the summit of a steep and rugged mountain, with a most delightful prospect of the sea, The double feast of S. Peregrine at Caltabellotta, of Saracenic name and construction, as Thomas Fazellus testifies in Decade 1, book 10, about a thousand paces from the ruins of the ancient city of Triocala, or Tricali: whence the river Isburus, which flows nearby, is now commonly called the Fiume di Caltabellotta by the inhabitants. Here S. Peregrine the Confessor enjoys a double celebration: the first and principal one, with a publicly proclaimed cessation of servile works and a religious observance of the sacred rites extended to the eighth day, on 30 January; the other on 18 August. For the former day our Octavius Caietanus has the following in his Idea of the Work on the Saints of Sicily, and Ferrarius in his general Catalogue of Saints: At Calatabillotta, S. Peregrine the Confessor. Both cite a manuscript life which we have not been able to obtain. But on the 18th of August both write that the commemoration of S. Peregrine is observed. It seems that some translation was made on that day, and solemn eight-day fairs are held there, with no small concourse of visitors.
[2] No proper Office of this Saint exists, and the manuscript Life which was once in someone's hands now lies hidden somewhere in someone's cabinet; certainly, when diligently sought at our request in recent years, it could not be found. We have only received this, that it is recorded as received from earlier generations that Peregrine was Greek by nation, and was summoned to Rome by the Supreme Pontiff in the time of the nascent Church, when his learning and virtue were everywhere celebrated, and was sent to Sicily for the purpose of disseminating heavenly doctrine. When he found that the people of Triocala and their neighbors were dreadfully afflicted by a monstrous dragon (such monsters, Miracles, stirred up at that time frequently by the savage hatred of the devil against wretched mortals, or sent forth from the hellish horde, having assumed that terrible form of portentous size for greater destruction, we read of in many Acts of the Saints) -- when, therefore, he found a dragon here, whose gluttony could not be satisfied except with human flesh, he removed that plague. He then turned a loaf of wheat bread into stone to punish the perjury of a certain woman, which stone is still preserved. We reported a similar miracle used to chastise the perjury of another woman on the 4th of January in the Life of S. Pharaildis.
[3] Relic, A distinguished relic of S. Peregrine is preserved at Caltabellotta, namely a shoulder bone, and it is carried about by supplicants with solemn devotion on those two days dedicated to him. The Sicilians believe that other relics of their patron Peregrine exist at Lucca in Tuscany. And a certain S. Peregrine is indeed mentioned by Caesar Franciottus in his History of the Saints of Lucca, but one far different from this one, a Scot by nation. Finally, S. Peregrine is said to bring health to the sick in general, and especially to those suffering from hernia.