John Of Vicenza

ON ST. John of Vicenza

Thirteenth century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY On his cult, country, age, and Acts.

John of Vicenza, of the Order of Preachers, in Italy (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

Among the Passed-Over on the fifth day of June Henschenius long ago wrote thus: John of Vicenza, of the Order of Preachers, of the convent of Bologna, was renowned in his life for such great miracles, that Gregory IX gave thanks for this grace by a letter, Although nothing is had concerning his canonization, a fragment of which Barbaranus reports in his History of Vicenza, book 2, chapter 38. Cantipratanus, book 2, chapter 1, number 3, says he was held inferior to none of the ancient Saints in this respect, and Ambrose Taëgius in his Manuscripts, folio 31, writes that he raised ten dead men, and worked two hundred other miracles, some of which Cantipratanus also reports. We, though we grieve that not all things were anciently put in writing, grieve yet more that neither did any of the ancients write his Life, nor hand down anything of his death or burial, as to the day, year, manner, and place. Valerius Muscheta of the same Order collected what he could, and published it in Latin at Padua in the year 1590; where he holds that about the year 1254 he was shut up by the tyrant Ezzelino among the corpses of the slain, and killed by their stench: but Barbaranus the Capuchin, having more accurately pursued in Italian all these same and more memorials, from chapter 19 to 39, shows that he outlived Ezzelino by a full decade some years and judges it more probable that he perished in the sacred expedition against the tyrant Manfred.

[2] The author of the Sacred Year of the Order of Preachers, who chose this very day for him, saw and followed only the former book. since his public cult is established, But Carcanus, in a certain table of the Saints and Blessed of Vicenza, preferred to assign to him the 11th of July, and Marchesius, author of the Dominican Diary, follows this. If it could be positively proved that the supreme Pontiffs not only permitted his miracles to be published, but also the title of Blessed to be used, images to be venerated, etc., as Barbaranus speaks, we too could be induced to treat of him as Blessed on the 11th of July, although it is no more established that he died on this day than on the 5th of June or any other, just as also concerning Blessed Bartholomew on the preceding day we had to confess, whatever many things Cercanus and Barbaranus may define at their own discretion. Likewise, from that time in which Henschenius wrote these things, nothing is to be found sought or obtained concerning this express concession of the supreme Pontiffs, but since the praised Vicentine historian Barbaranus testifies most eloquently, no less of the cult of Blessed John than of Blessed Bartholomew, likewise of Vicenza and a Dominican, I do not see there is need of other positive testimonies, besides that most open one of the aforesaid Barbaranus, chapter 38, page 96, asserting that it is certain that, as while living, so after death he was held by all for a Saint, and that it was permitted by the supreme Pontiffs, not only that his miracles should be published, but also that he should be endowed with the title of Blessed, and his images be exposed for veneration.

[3] and concerning the image exposed for veneration in 1646; And to grant that the express Pontifical faculty cannot be proved, I do not think anyone will doubt of Barbaranus's good faith in those things which he must have seen himself, and which he reports on page 39, namely that with celebrated pomp the image of Blessed John was exposed for public veneration in the church of St. Corona at Vicenza on the 1st of February 1646, which Franciscus Maffeus had painted with a most elegant brush, where he is depicted kneeling, his arms composed in the form of a cross before his breast, his face erect, with most splendid rays reflecting into his eyes: on the left a painted genius seems to speak into the ear of the Blessed, a cross resplendent on his forehead. At his feet on the same side stands an eagle, on the right a column with the effigy of peace, which, with a lighted torch, burns up arms of various kinds, under this inscription: My peace I give unto you, all which represent the chief acts of the Blessed, and the deeds either by him or about him. Fr. Basilicus Seledus, of the Camaldolese Order, added a Latin elogium in these words: Blessed John Seledus of Vicenza, foster-son of the divine Dominic, conspicuous from his earliest age for the splendor of all virtues, wonderful in composing the minds of the disagreeing, in converting heretics, and in defending the rights of the Catholic Church by his dexterity in acting, his efficacy in preaching, the weight of his doctrine, glorious in things done in peace and war, proven by the sanctity of his life, by innumerable miracles and portents seen from heaven, most celebrated especially for having recalled ten dead men to life. From the ecclesiastical writers.

[4] These things show plainly enough that Blessed John, at least among the people of Vicenza, may have a place here, praised by so many writers. and without doubt among the Paduans and perhaps the Bolognese, is honored with a lawful cult by the faithful, which Barbaranus asserts there, heaped up by the historians with infinite praises; indeed at the outset he confesses himself to be overwhelmed with so great a store of illustrious deeds, so great a store of encomiums, that, according to the proverb, he would become poor thereby. In the place cited before he plucked out two encomiums, which deserve to be transcribed. The first is Cantipratanus's, torn from I know not what preface; we below shall report both that and other things pertaining to the Blessed, from the author's own place. The other he took from Ambrose Taëgius, cited above, whose words are these: Brother John, surnamed the Saint, for so he was commonly called by the people, a man surely devoted to God, and an excellent preacher of the word of God, son of the aforesaid Father and Order, then began about Bologna to shine with glorious miracles, so much so that by the power of faith, through mediating grace, the Lord deigned powerfully and mercifully to work through him the raising of ten dead men, and two hundred other miracles. He adds also a fragment of the epistle of Pope Gregory IX given to the Blessed, which I also subjoin: Wherefore we turn to the vows of prayers, and adoring upon the top of the rod of Him who strikes and heals, we faithfully ask that the grace which He has magnified to do with thee in wonders, unto the praise of His name and the salvation of the souls of the faithful, He may increase and consummate, so that, when thou hast kept the life of the just in the service of humble patience, thou mayest die their death, precious in the sight of the Lord. Given the seventh of the Kalends of July, in the seventh year of our Pontificate; and thus of Christ 1233.

[5] These things suffice for the proof of the cult, unless one should also adduce the older image, prefixed to the life edited by Valerius Muscheta at Padua, The symbols of the older image explained. as has been said, in the year 1590, where he is depicted in the same habit and gesture as above, with an angel likewise as it were whispering at his left ear. Above his head shines a star, and upon the star is set a square cross, surrounded on every side by rays, concerning which may be seen Leander Albertus and others to be cited below, and Muscheta's Acts, number 23. Alluding to these, Laurentius Leontinus, a celebrated poet, sang this quatrain: What thou wast once to thyself, and what to others, what finally to the supreme God Himself, these three signs teach. The star that thou wast a light to the world, and dear to the Lord the winged one, but the cross that thou didst subdue thy flesh. But another, Raphael Riva the Venetian of the Order of Preachers, explained the same otherwise and more fully, also in verse: The star adorns thy brow, the cross thy head, the angel thy ears, they offer the greatest signs of thy virtue. To the deaf, the dead, and the blind this man often restored hearing, life, sight. Justly now are worthy rewards given to so many merits, for dying to the world, he enters the heavenly kingdoms, thus he reigns happy, to live for all time; may he make us also to be present among the angelic choirs.

[6] Whatever some may contend, he was of Vicenza; Concerning the country of the Blessed the people of Vicenza, of Padua, of Bologna, and others contend, as of old seven towns of Greece did over Homer; so is it implanted in mortals, that from every quarter they claim some ornament for themselves. For the Paduans the author of the Life, just praised, Valerius Muscheta, fought, speaking thus in his dedication: That most shining star of the Dominican religion, Blessed John surnamed of Vicenza, the trumpet of the Holy Spirit, apostle of Cisalpine Gaul, hammer of heretics, bulwark of the Church, seemed now buried under a certain fog of oblivion; for his illustrious exploits had fallen from the memory of the citizens of Padua, among whom we are by no means ignorant that he was both born, and initiated into the sacred rites, and instructed in divine letters. The same author everywhere else assumes the same, running out more copiously in the praises of the Blessed as of a fellow-countryman. But on the contrary Barbaranus, in chapter 19, or the first of the Life of blessed John, attacks Muscheta, and, having collected from every quarter the authorities of writers, proves not obscurely that he was by origin of Vicenza, of the Scledi race or family, commonly Schio, and shows that the surname of Vicenza was given him by the writers from his country, adducing the words of the Blessed himself, writing thus of himself in a public instrument: I, brother John, now of Bologna, who once was born of Vicenza. And this opinion Michael Pius, Marchesius, and so many others adduced by Barbaranus pronounce more certain. If any wish to call him a Bolognese, or to claim another country for him, let them contend among themselves, I will not draw the rope of contention; it will be a matter of indifference to me whether our Blessed be called a Paduan, or a Vicentine, or finally a Bolognese: this is most certain, that the appellation of Vicenza is most received among all writers. That he there says himself to be of Bologna, this he does without doubt for the sake of the Bolognese, by whom, on account of his notable merits, he had been granted citizenship, but that he was of Vicenza a contemporary writer will teach, discovered while all these things had long since been prepared for the press.

[7] but no one has rightly enough defined his age. The age of blessed John, especially the times of his birth or death, you will seek in vain. That he was contemporary with St. Dominic, and by him enrolled into the Order, the brethren-writers maintain, though no records are produced: that he did many most excellent things in Cisalpine Gaul, at Bologna, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and elsewhere in the thirteenth century, about his 33rd year and following, in a word, that he was outstanding in pacifying discords, is gathered from the consent of nearly all, although for the rest the beginnings of his life remain equally doubtful and uncertain. There are meanwhile those who think they have found his father's name, there are those who roundly place the cradle of his life at the year 1200, so that about the year 1218, still an adolescent, he could have been co-opted into the sacred family by the holy Patriarch himself; there are those who deduce other things, from I know not what suppositions, with equal confidence. But these are mere conjectures, however plausibly devised, which for the most part do not sufficiently cohere, as happens when each one, indulging his fancy too much, unrolls obscure things out of the darkness. I confess that I do not thoroughly perceive the age of the Blessed and the fitting series of his life; for while in the Acts, number 17, I hear him named a great doctor and master already from the year 1223, and while I attentively consider the instrument of the Bolognese pacification in the year 1233, composed by the Blessed's sole arbitration, in Barbaranus, chapter 27, conceived in so many decisive terms, I can with difficulty be induced to believe that there is described a youth of 23 years, but that here speaks a man who was not more than 33 years old; unless we are compelled to admit all things prodigious in the Saints. So the more recent writers relate many other things about the various provinces of the Order administered by blessed John, about legations undertaken in Gaul and Germany, which, as I have no mind to refute, so I should vehemently wish they rested on somewhat greater authority, that every doubt might be wholly removed, whether the deeds of two men have not been ascribed to one alone.

[8] No less doubtful are the conjectures concerning the time, place, no more than the manner and time of his death. or manner of his death, concerning which, although they confess that nothing certain at all is had, it is a wonder how freely they seize the occasion to expatiate, that with what effort they can they may come near, if not to the truth, at least to verisimilitude: Some imagine to themselves that blessed John was captured by the tyrant Ezzelino, consigned to prison, and there either worn out with hardships, as Henschenius noted above, or killed by a violent death, as see in Muscheta's Acts, number 50. This others rightly refute, who show that he survived Ezzelino: certainly Leander brings him in still preaching at Bologna in the year 1264, if indeed the discourse is everywhere about the same John. Others prefer that he passed over to the schismatic Orientals, others to the infidels, and was there rather crowned with martyrdom; and finally Barbaranus divines other things above; which perhaps is the reason why they abstain from the title of Confessor or Martyr, which we too have imitated. There is no need to enumerate the opinions of each; that one displeases me above the rest which Marchesius did not omit to note. Nor is there wanting (he says on page 23) one who says that perhaps by the secret judgment of God he is hidden alive somewhere, after the manner of the seven sleepers, that of old he may be revealed for the benefit of the Church. These things and others of this kind, devised more devoutly than truly, how much faith they make in historical matters, I judge to be most well known even to the moderately skilled. It has pleased me to set forth a few specimens, lest anyone perhaps wonder that more things of this sort have been passed over by us in silence. He seems to have written enough who first arranged the life, into some series of history, more than three centuries after his death, although he also omitted some things wholly worthy of observation.

[9] He was, as Henschenius long ago intimated, that Valerius Muscheta, The author of some sort of a life, Muscheta, and other more recent ones: from whose title the whole idea of the Acts will be seen: The illustrious deeds of Blessed John, surnamed of Vicenza, of the Order of Preachers, professed of the Paduan monastery of St. Augustine, distinguished in doctrine, sanctity, and miracles, gathered into one from various writers, and after 350 years recalled to light by the Reverend Father Friar Valerius Muscheta, D.T., professed of the same Order and convent. Padua 1590. He made the attempt, but in my judgment he is far more to be esteemed if, cutting away the digressions little pertaining to blessed John, he had collected the acts and deeds a little more diligently and arranged them more accurately. For in adorning matters he seems to have put his chief labor, so that of him it can truly be pronounced that he said few things in many words. The more recent writers, themselves also very verbose, augmented all things with more words, which had been related in few by Leander Albertus and Raizzius. Michael Pius keeps himself within just limits, but Barbaranus and Marchesius run out most widely. That we might enter the middle way, we have undertaken to illustrate Muscheta's work, as more excellent than the rest in antiquity; adding from Cantipratanus, Leander, Sigonius, and others, what shall seem to conduce to the greater glory of the blessed Man. I here subjoin Muscheta's first preface:

[10] Blessed John flourished in the time of Master Anthony the Franciscan, whose most innocent and most holy life he wonderfully investigated, The first preface of the former, or the encomium of the Blessed. together with Blessed Jordan Forzatè, at the command of Gregory the Ninth, Supreme Pontiff. He entered the Order of Preachers at Padua in the year of salvation 1220 or thereabouts. He was clothed with the garment of holy conversation by Master Dominic, of whom he was the most beloved foster-son, and the most diligent imitator of his works. He presided over the monastery of the Friars Preachers, which is now called St. Augustine's, in the year 1231, at which time St. Anthony migrated to heaven. At Bologna he shone with many signs in the year 1233. By the word of preaching he was notably strong among all the cities of Venetia and Cisalpine Gaul. He recalled all peoples to peace. For this reason he was called by all the author and announcer of peace. At Padua in the Campo Marzio, and at Verona in the fields, he held a sermon on peace before an incredible multitude, where he reconciled and pacified contending Princes and Dukes. He did innumerable illustrious things in all places, to be remembered in every age. Of his origin and tomb nothing is certain, through the carelessness of writers, or the writings perished in the tumults of wars and the overthrow of the city of Padua, as we know that many other things did also. Of the many things which he did while living, we have written down certain ones, the rest were by no means at hand for us. But those things which have been written by us, it has seemed good to bring to light, lest the memory of so great a man be blotted out among the Paduans, to whom he is now either unknown or little known, although by their forefathers, who ascribe many benefits received to him, he was always held in the greatest honor. Let posterity read these things which have been committed to letters, which, though they should seem slight, because they are written by a slight man, in humble and unpolished speech, are yet to be judged great, for the greatness of the matter, or at least for my great zeal toward Blessed John, toward religion, and toward the city of Padua. Whatever they be, let my fellow-citizens read them, until the rest of the greatest weight, which lie hidden concerning that blessed man, be brought forth from the darkness [*]. Meanwhile let the city of Padua rejoice and glory, the mother of many illustrious men, that of this most brilliant light it was the rising-place, and let it exult to have him in heaven, with the rest of its tutelary saints, a perpetual intercessor. Thus far the first preface, now let us look at the other and the work itself.

* read: emergant ("may emerge").

THE LIFE, by the author the Reverend Father Friar Valerius Muscheta of Padua, of the Order of Preachers.

John of Vicenza, of the Order of Preachers, in Italy (B.)

By A. Valerius Muscheta.

SECOND PREFACE.

That heavenly Father of the household, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the God of all consolation, The author premises. who is the perpetual refuge and strength of His holy Church, since He is merciful and compassionate, and His mercies are over all His works, never ceased, for the salvation of the human race, to send watchful and industrious laborers into His vineyard, whom, since He is also omnipotent, and the only God of signs and wonders, in manifold ways and by many methods, inasmuch as in these very men He might appear far wonderful, He willed to magnify and make marvelous. Of St. Dominic But although this was seen in all ages or centuries, yet it was chiefly effected in the days in which that ancient murderer, the inventor of all evils, that hostile man the sower of tares, both by the crimes and iniquities of the wicked, and by the impious dogmas of the Albigenses and other heretics, strove to make trouble for the Catholic Church in the West, and, like some singular wild beast and savage boar, to lay waste and demolish in every way the Vineyard which the right hand of the Lord God of Sabaoth planted—as of old in the Eastern provinces of the schismatic Greeks he strove by errors and impieties—day and night, borne on by furies, he wonderfully contended.

[2] For at that time that most merciful Father of the household sent into all the earth the divine Dominic, the excellent parent and leader of the Order of Preachers, and encomiums of the Order of Preachers. and his foster-sons, chosen before the foundation of the world to undertake the Apostolic office; who, in a brief interval of time, by assailing the kingdom of the devil, exploded heresies, showed the paths of truth, and at last called back very many from iniquity to justice. Wherefore the supreme Pontiffs, attending to their abundant fruits, honored the whole Order of Preachers with many titles of honor, commended it with many praises, and both increased and heaped it up with many kinds both of privileges and of graces, which from age to age, from generation to generations, shall speak testimonies of the holiness of their life, of their faith, of their piety, of their doctrine, and of the other ornaments of virtue, and shall announce to all peoples and tongues how great labors, hardships, and pains they underwent everywhere for the holy Church of God, how gloriously they fought, how happily they triumphed over the flesh, the world, and the devil. Gregory, the ninth of this name, in the diploma by which he commends our Fathers to all the prelates and nobles of the Church, says: by Gregory IX, BEHOLD, THE LORD HAS RAISED UP THE ORDER OF THE BELOVED SONS THE FRIARS PREACHERS, who, seeking not the things that are their own, but the things that are Christ's, have dedicated themselves to the evangelization of the word of God, both to overthrowing heresies and to extirpating other deadly plagues, in the abjection of voluntary poverty.

[3] And Alexander the Fourth, in the letters by which with the inmost affection of his heart he commands the prelates of all the Churches, by Alexander the Fourth, that the Friars Preachers be held in the highest honor, and defended from all injuries, speaks thus: The benignity of the eternal Father, for the exalting of the glory of His name and the procuring of the salvation of the faithful, among very many persons deputed to the divine services, constituted in His holy Church Men conspicuous for their conversation and honest life, and distinguished with titles of knowledge. These are the brethren beloved of God and men of the orders of Preachers, who, ever directing their affection to the love of heavenly things, publish the power of the divine name throughout the globe of the earth, and with watchful attention sweat to enlarge the worship of the Christian Religion. These are they who, contemplating the life and merits of the most blessed Paul, glory in the Cross of the Lord alone, spurning the solaces of the world for the delights of Paradise. These are they who, warring against the enemies of the soul by the shield of faith, the breastplate of Justice, the sword of the spirit, the helmet of salvation, and the spear of perseverance, strive to obtain that to all Catholics the increases of faith, hope, and charity may come, and that to the perfidious the way of truth may lie open, and the madness of heretical depravity may vanish.

[4] by Clement VI. And Clement the Sixth in the letters granting Indulgences for the natal day of St. Thomas: In the order of the Friars Preachers, like a ray of the sun in this valley of tears, the light of erudition shines again, while the fruitful studies of the professors of that order illustrate with the light of truth the fragile minds of those professing the orthodox faith, and with the razor of their lips cut down the thorns of deadly pricking growing up in the Dominican garden, in which the grace of eternal wisdom is diffused. And Martin, in the privilege which is called the Golden Bull, prefixes these words: Martin's Golden Bull. Called by the divine disposition to the summit of the highest Apostolate, while, recognizing within the secret places of our mind the illustrious religion and merits of the beloved sons, the professed of the Order of the Friars Preachers, and worthily pouring forth our thoughts to the commendable fruits with which they unceasingly abound by their laborious ministries toward God and men, we willingly offer a gracious hearing to their prayers. And before, Boniface the Ninth (the rest for brevity's sake I pass over): Although for the salubrious directing of the state of all Christ's faithful, over whom, the divine grace disposing, we are obliged to bear the care of the office of the supreme Pontificate, by Boniface IX, we willingly apply the parts of our solicitude; yet we follow with a more affectionate zeal those, some of whom, withdrawn from worldly allurements, and given to heavy penances, pant after heavenly things, and are more sweetly and loftily raised to them, like Eagles, by the wings of contemplation, and enjoy the best part with Mary.

[5] But others, following the solicitude of holy Martha, more diligently attend to the celebration of divine things. Others learn and teach the knowledge of God, and instruct the people in the same. Others too, more fervently kindled with the ardor of the spirit, not fearing but loving, pant intrepidly for the conversion of the infidels, that they may be able to bring many sheaves to the Lord's ark, and of the talents entrusted to them to render a good account to the Lord. These indeed are the brethren of the order of Preachers, irradiating the Church of God with manifold splendors, whose sound of preaching is known to have gone out through the diverse climes of the world. These are they whom God has multiplied in number and in merits, etc. These things, breathed upon by a certain divine spirit, Honorius III foretold, the praises of Honorius III. when in the diploma of the confirmation of our Order, sent to Toulouse to the holy Parent Dominic, he uttered these good words from his holy heart: We, considering that the fathers of thy order will be the future champions of the faith and the true lights of the world, confirm thy Order, etc. Which order already, by the times of the aforesaid Martin, had grown so far in holiness, erudition, examples, and merits, that it could truly be said of Blessed Dominic: Happy vine, from whose shoot so great a bud abounds for the age, from the fruitfulness of whose branches it has now girded the circuit of the world. Truly a vine, Blessed Dominic likened to a vine, which had extended its branches from sea to sea, with whose wine, full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, many in the memory of our fathers and our own, forgetting the blandishments of the world, conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained the promises, stopped the mouths of heretics, quenched the violence of fire, of avarice and luxury, strong in war against the flesh, the world, and the devil.

[6] But among the other excellent men, most distinguished for the splendor of sanctity and doctrine, who at the beginning of the Order were sent as laborers and soldiers to cultivate the vineyard of the Lord, and to do battle against the satellites of the devil, Blessed John was chosen by the Lord, Blessed John a soldier and laborer of the Lord's vineyard. surnamed of Vicenza, concerning whom, although others have written little of his illustrious deeds, we too, both for the memory of so great a Father, and for the glory of religion, according to those things which we have drawn from the archive of our convent of Padua, and from the annals of the city of Padua, and from the writings of the historians, shall make less fictitious words. But these, though they be few, were nevertheless found not without the greatest labor. For it is exceedingly arduous and most difficult, especially in this time, to give newness to old things, light to the obscure, brightness to the obsolete. So great did this difficulty of carrying it through at one time seem to me, that I wished to desist from the undertaking long meditated; yet devotion conquered, piety impelled, charity urged. There conquered a burning desire of heaping up whatever of praise, whatever of honor can be heaped up by me upon Blessed John, Blessed John one of the founders of the convent of Padua. one of the first founders of our convent of Padua, a man indeed distinguished in doctrine, excellent in the office of preaching, illustrious in sanctity, far admirable in signs and miracles. Yet there is wanting to my vows whatever his merits demand; many offices, both of praise and of honor, are owed to him. Though few things can be furnished by me, I shall yet show that in few I wished for very many. And if I could do more and greater things, neither by any eloquence of speaking would his sanctity be increased, nor by ineptitude and infancy of speech would the heap of his glory be diminished. The Lord made him marvelous and exalted him in the sight of Princes, therefore both his name and praise and glory shall be for age of age. Let us pass, then, to the beginning of the proposed matter.

ANNOTATA.

This whole preface could easily have been omitted, no more proper to Blessed John than to any Holy Preachers whatever; but for the sake of the most illustrious sacred Order, it has seemed good to render the work whole, though this, like other digressions, is, for its slightness, too crammed.

CHAPTER I. On Blessed John's entrance into the Order of Preachers, and on the foundations and founders of the monasteries of SS. John and Paul at Venice, and of St. Augustine at Padua.

While throughout all Italy and the other chief regions of Europe the words of the recent Evangelical man, the holy Patriarch Dominic, went forth, and while everywhere marvels were spread abroad concerning him, Blessed John began to think thoughts of true peace, Moved to virtue by the fame of St. Dominic, and the perfect following of Jesus Christ; which he judged he could easily attain, if he clung to the footsteps of the new leader and teacher given by God to the faithful (the delights of the world being neglected), and joined his soul wholly to voluntary poverty. Not long did he turn over in his mind by what means these holy and sound counsels, which he had received from the Lord, could be established by him. Now the world had withered in his heart, now he had begun to deny himself, now the delights and riches of the world, after which foolish and mad men go, he reckoned no otherwise than as dung. Only to gain Christ, to embrace the cross alone, did he wonderfully desire. But since we are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, since all our sufficiency comes from the Father of lights, he took refuge and turned himself to the help of prayer. For this seemed to him a wall and a rampart against all the enemies rising up and invading, who with a strong hand, approaching, strive to overthrow, and perpetually tempt, those who come to the service of God. So at last he clung with holy mind, that he could by no means be moved or torn away from the not weak and less light counsel of his heart.

[8] Forgetful therefore of his parents and of all those things which could be an impediment to him for undertaking the burden or yoke of holy religion, he is admitted by him into the Order at Padua, with a burning desire of the new institute, and of the recent holy, regular, and most strait life, he betook himself to the Friars Preachers, who at that time had begun to dwell at Padua, and, meditating on the commandments of Christ, to serve God under the new institutions of the most holy father Dominic, by a swiftest course rather of mind and desire than of feet, and was admitted to the Order by the most holy Patriarch Dominic, then passing from Padua toward Venice. But when this happened is wholly unknown. For it is ascertained that Blessed Dominic, setting out from Bologna toward Venice, passed through Padua once and again. The first time in the year of the approbation of the Order; then at Venice he received for the brethren, from the most illustrious Venetian Senate, the basilica of St. Martin, with the adjacent dwelling, where now the religious women of the penance of Blessed Dominic reside. The other in the year 1221, when, the former place being left to the aforesaid women, there was ceded to him the church of St. Daniel, afterward of St. Dominic, now called the chapel or oratory of the most holy Rosary, to which at length, from the canonization of St. Dominic, in the year 1234 in the month of June, Brother Armericus being Prior, by the munificence of Jacopo Tiepolo, 46th Doge, and the liberality and piety of the whole Venetian Senate, there was added that space of ground which now surrounds the church, cemetery, and also the monastery of Saints John and Paul.

[9] Since therefore Blessed Dominic twice made the journey from Padua toward Venice, the year is uncertain perhaps in the year 1218, in which Blessed John entered the Order: yet it is believed to have come to pass about the year of the Lord 1218. For by Jordan of Modena, the seventy-seventh Bishop of Padua, and by the illustrious Senate of the city of Padua, the Friars Preachers were received about the first year of the confirmation of the Order, to whom, for performing the divine service and reciting the hourly prayers, a basilica or oratory, under the name and title of St. Mary of the Green Valley, with a certain adjoining house, was granted. The annals of the convent of Padua, which is now called the monastery of St. Augustine from the church dedicated to this most holy Doctor, began to be committed to writing soon after the year of the approbation of the order. For in the year of the Lord 1217, in a certain most ancient manuscript codex, where are read the names and deaths of all those by whom, in successive times, from the beginning, the monastery was increased and heaped up either by some alms, or gift, or benefice, is written the day on which Ubertinus Vadus, a most religious citizen of Padua, most well-deserving of our Dominican family, departed from this light. And this memorial was written and left to posterity, that they might never fall from the memory of those who received Christ in our fathers with hospitality, and filled Him with bread: and that, mindful of so great a benefit, they might yearly commend their souls to the Lord with prayers and sacrifices, by the common institution of our whole order.

[10] But among the first who in the convent of Padua gave singular examples both of sanctity and of religion and of all probity, while the first Fathers, are said to have been Brothers Amizo of Soloia and Guido, of whom neither the surname nor the country has been left to us in the memorials by our forefathers. Yet let it suffice us to know that both were of the first-fruits of religion, and among the recruits and most dear foster-sons of St. Dominic and Blessed Jordan, by which most holy men they were rightly made the heads and rectors of the houses of the Preachers begun at Padua. For these men, breathed upon by the divine spirit, called by the Lord to explode all heresies, to cultivate the vineyard of the Church, to sharpen new soldiers in the battle against the most fierce enemies of the Christian name, and to gather and instruct under the Apostolic institutions a holy band of frugal men, would not have enjoined and entrusted so arduous, so illustrious a province, of both instituting and erecting a recent convent, in a most noble city, the most abounding emporium of all disciplines, save to men shining with the splendor of all virtues, endowed with the most approved morals, distinguished in holiness and erudition.

[11] In which matter and in the other arduous and most weighty affairs, illustrious in sanctity and zeal, how careful, how industrious, how faithful they were, the happy outcome of the things afterward done by them themselves judged. Very many indeed, by the good odor and brightness of their virtues, they drew out of the darkness and the counsel of the impious, from the way of sinners, from the seat of pestilence, to the light, to the faith, to justice, to truth, to piety, to religion. Brother Amizo was in the world a scribe of the sacred Palace, and is said to have made number with those, of whom it is told in the annals of our order, that many great and learned men, and also courtiers, entered the order while Blessed Dominic was still living. He was an eye-witness of the sanctity and miracles of St. Dominic. In the year of the Lord 1249 he presided over the monastery of Milan. In a certain most ancient manuscript book, which is still preserved in the library of the monastery of Saints John and Paul, I found this memorial written of that Father. In the year 1249, on the 13th day of May, under the Master of the order Brother John the Teuton, the twenty-ninth general Chapter was celebrated at Paris: in the same year, under Brother Gualfredus of Bergamo, the provincial Chapter of Lombardy, where Brother Marcus, Prior of Milan, is absolved, to whom succeeded Brother Amizo of Soloia. This man was a Notary of the sacred Palace, and, entering the order, was made Prior of Padua; he was a witness of the sanctity of Blessed Dominic.

[12] and labored strenuously there, These things in the same codex. But Brother Guido, in the days of the aforesaid Brother Amizo, gave himself to religion; who, together with Brother Martin, governing the convent of the Friars Preachers residing at Venice, of which he was one of the founders, obtained from Jordan, Bishop of Padua, the blessed foundation-stone, for constructing the recent church, under the title of St. Augustine the Doctor of the Church. Of these Fathers, in a certain tablet, hitherto preserved in the archive or record-office of our convent of Padua, it is thus committed to writing: Jordan, by the grace of God Bishop of Padua, at the instance and petition of Brother Guido, Prior of the Friars Preachers of Padua, and Brother Martin, Prior of the Friars Preachers dwelling at Venice, gave the blessed foundation-stone, for constructing and building a church at Padua, to the honor of God and Blessed Augustine, in the year of the Lord 1226, in the 14th Indiction, on the 5th day of October. Turpinus, son of the late Gnatus, being notary. Of this stone's memorial Bernardino Scardeone, Canon of the church of Padua, also makes mention, in those things which he luminously published concerning the city of Padua, in class V, book two.

[13] and built the monastery. We know from the annals themselves of the convent of St. Augustine at Padua, that Brother Guido, on account of his notable and excellent sanctity and religion, was greatly esteemed, and long revered and observed by the citizens of Padua. While he was prefect of that same monastery in 1226, our religion was endowed and increased with that space of ground where now are both the church and the cemetery; and what is surrounded by adjoining walls, by John, Rugerius, and Gerard Vadus, most religious and most wealthy citizens; to which largess or cession, together with Rufinus and Jacobus, doctors of pontifical law, and Uguccio, Master of sacred Theology and Canon of the Church of Padua, and Master Finus, custodian of that same Church, Blessed Jordan Forzatè of Padua was called as a witness, at that time Prior of St. Benedict Novello, whose body is now saluted and piously venerated by the people at Padua, in the basilica of the Vestals of Blessed Benedict the elder. There were present also certain others, most loving of our recent religion and convent and most well-deserving of it, whose memory shall never be diminished among us by the length of times, and with God shall be eternal ^b.

ANNOTATA.

CHAPTER II. The holy conversation and preaching of Blessed John at Bologna; his prefecture of the convent of Padua; the inquiry into the life of St. Anthony, and the immense fruit of his sermons, confirmed by signs and miracles.

[14] In the days therefore of the aforesaid Fathers, namely Guido and Amizo, Blessed John entered the Order, Clothed with the sacred habit, where soon, clothed with the sacred gown by St. Dominic, he embraced the rule of poverty, and the most holy institutions of the Fathers, when he had received a heart for the law of life and discipline. Here he began to apply his mind to salutary studies, to raise his mind to God in prayers, to exercise himself in the holy justifications, to chastise his body with both fasts and vigils, to serve the Lord in fear and trembling, to give examples of virtues, to attend in every way to the salvation of souls. Here he became a good tree, a fruitful tree, as one planted beside the courses of waters. Here he by no means ate his bread empty and idle, but perpetually underwent all labors in his holy conversion for the glory of Christ and the benefit of souls. He bore all inconveniences, and sustained all losses with a willing mind for the love of the heavenly fatherland.

[15] Nothing seemed to him heavy, nothing hard, nothing bitter, from the memory of the chalice of the passion and death of Christ the Son of God; he profits wonderfully in holy exercises, all things he bore willingly and with an even mind, though far adverse to the old man, and, like a good and unconquered soldier of Jesus Christ, he labored and contended with the ancient serpent, that at length he might procure for himself the eternal kingdom, and receive the unfading crown promised by God to those who lawfully contend. He gloried in his infirmities, for he knew that the sufferings and afflictions of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which shall be revealed in us. He shrank from popular applause, from the vain and fleeting glory of this world, desiring only to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And since he had in mind that the love of the world and of God can by no means dwell together in one heart, he laid up treasure in heaven, where he had a continual converse with the other Saints; he laid up treasure in heaven, when he attended to meditation in his cell: for what is done in cells, namely to be at leisure for God, this is in heaven, according to St. Bernard. He laid up treasure in heaven, when he passed the days singing hymns and spiritual songs, and making melody in his heart to the Lord, who had called him out of the darkness of the nations, out of the vanity of the world, into His marvelous light; when he offered himself to the Lord, when he sacrificed the sacrifice of justice, and immolated the host of praise, when he was zealous for the salvation of souls, calling back out of the darkness and shadow of death those who walked as the blind.

[16] But who could ever either narrate or recount all the offices of charity of so great a Father, with a notable esteem of his name. who his ornaments of virtue, who his testimonies of piety and religion? He was a most delightful light to the eyes of all. He was in the field of religion truly the flower of the field, sending forth a most pleasing odor to the peoples. He was a fruitful olive in the house of God, who afterward gave most abundant fruits in his time, namely the fruits of justice and peace. He was a son of light, since he walked as it were a son of light through the paths of the commandments of God. He was truly an imitator and foster-son of the most holy Father Dominic; whose footsteps he clung to so ardently, that in a brief course of time he was held by all the most shining star not only of the house of Padua but of the whole Dominican assembly. He, for the elegance of his manners, for the probity of his life, for the brightness and odor of his singular virtues, began to be held by all in the highest honor, and, on account of the burning lamps which he bore in his hands, began to be called Holy. Holy indeed, because he was pious, religious, pure, and unpolluted; because he served God alone; because he had devoted himself to Christ; because he had involved himself in no secular affairs; because he was separated and set apart from men leading an animal life; because in short he sought not the things that are upon the earth, but the things that are in heaven. ^a

[17] A brief space of time having run out ^b from his entrance into religion, in the days in which Blessed Albert After excellent work done at Bologna, the Great, with another young German, was received into the order by Blessed Jordan of Saxony—then announcing the word of salvation in the city of Padua—while he was staying at Padua for the sake of pursuing his studies [*], [he] set out for Bologna, where, edifying the Bolognese both with sound doctrine and with holy examples, and bringing back many to good fruit, he began to be held in the greatest honor and embraced by all with the utmost benevolence and love. In that city, for the favor of all the citizens, he was left behind by the Master of the Order and by the Fathers on whom then, in 1223, in the city of Paris, the affairs of the Order lay. For the Bolognese had sent legates to Paris on that matter, for they took it ill to be deprived of so great a master ^c and doctor, daily sowing words of salvation in their hearts. When at length he had recalled many at Bologna to good fruit, he returned to Padua; for by reason of the examples of his regular life, and his burning zeal for the salvation of souls, he was made moderator and rector of the convent of Padua.

[18] In those most especially blessed ages, in which this happy Dominican family illustrated the world with a wonderful splendor of sanctity, he becomes Prior of the convent of Padua, those only were called to the burdens of governing who were (as Blessed Gregory teaches concerning the life of a Pastor) in thought pure, in action foremost, discreet in silence, useful in speech, near to individuals by compassion, above all lifted up in contemplation, allies of those doing well through humility, upright against the vices of offenders through zeal for justice, not lessening the care of inward things in the occupation of outward things, not leaving the providence of outward things in the solitude of inward things. But he presided over the government of this monastery about the beginning of the tyranny of Ezzelino ^d da Romano, a most fierce enemy of the Church, and most savage against men devoted to religion, chiefly those established at Padua, because they vehemently protested against his tyranny. With how great zeal he ruled, how much diligence he applied, with how great counsel and prudence he acquitted himself in the Pastoral office, with how great charity and courtesy he was toward all, must be judged from the holy progress of his blameless life.

[19] In the time of his very presidency, namely in the year from the Virgin's childbearing 1233, St. Anthony the Franciscan of Lisbon migrated to heaven, St. Anthony of Padua having died, who, because at Padua, after his prolix labors of preaching, after manifest signs of sanctity, and after finally many miracles, he ended his day, is commonly called "of Padua." When he shone with many signs and portents even after death, the Republic of Padua deliberated concerning his canonization. When therefore the orators sent to Spoleto, where Gregory the Ninth was staying, demanded and contended that St. Anthony be enrolled in the register of the Saints, and this could not well be done without a previous investigation of his merits and miracles, the province of inquiring into so great a matter was enjoined by the Pontiff, not only upon Jacobus, the seventy-sixth Bishop of Padua, he is bidden to inquire into his life, but also upon Blessed Jordan, Prior of the monastery of St. Benedict Novello, and upon our John, whose integrity of life, and diligence and skill in conducting affairs, was little unknown both to the supreme Bishop and to the whole people of Padua. Mention of this matter is made in the diploma of the Canonization of St. Anthony, which still exists in the archive of the Friars Minor established at Padua. This same thing is confirmed from those things which I myself read among the same Friars Minor in a certain very ancient manuscript volume, where the life and miracles of St. Anthony are exquisitely committed to writing.

[20] His office of Pastoral care being finished, he began to attend more ardently and more accurately to the zeal of evangelizing the word of God. from the diploma of Gregory the Ninth. Since he was a man of much erudition, and long versed in the Sacred letters, he had turned out an excellent and distinguished preacher. Chosen therefore and summoned by the Lord to that Apostolic office, having left Padua, he again set out to evangelize peace, and to preach forgiveness to the captives, and to overthrow heresies, namely in the year 1232 ^e; and since the words which flow down from heaven into the mouths of the Saints return to the Lord neither vain nor idle, he turned very many from iniquity, and snatched them from the snare of the hunters. How many, indulging in feastings and drunkenness, whose God was their belly, whose hope was in this life only, who said, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die, did he lead to sobriety and frugality? How many of those who embraced dung, who lived in unchastity, by his sermons vehemently fired, made chastity and cleanness of mind their inseparable companion? He quenched in the hearts of many the most burning coals of anger and indignation. Envy and the most bitter gall of hatred he often changed into the sweetest honey of love and charity. To benignity and meekness, to peace, he converted very many afflicted with injuries. He put down innumerable men, walking with neck erect, from the seat of pride to the depths of humility.

[21] O the changes of the right hand of God most high! Who shall recount the stuprations, who the sacrileges, who the fornications, and the other evils then at last, The fruit of Blessed John's preaching, taken away out of the midst by that man himself, the divine power aiding? How many, naked, having distributed and paid out all their riches into food for the poor, gathered with so great sweat and so great zeal and toil, followed Christ? Women, having utterly cast away their silken and gilded garments and all luxurious ornament, came forth clothed in humble and modest attire. Many at last, who ran with thieves, robbers, and usurers, or laid up a portion with adulterers and murderers, he recalled to good fruit. Against crimes and all iniquities he cried out, and like a trumpet exalted his voice. He was strong with so great a store and abundance of speech, he was so keen, so vehement in preaching, that sometimes, on account of the vehemence, gravity, and acrimony of his preaching, the greatest multitude cast stones at the usurers.

[22] proved by many miracles, When once he was preaching at Bologna before a crowded people (as Leander Albertus reports), he inveighed against the sacrilegious usurers ^f with so keen a countenance, with so rigid a brow, especially against Landulph the public one, that by the common consent of the city, they then went to his house, with the greatest clamor of the people; which was despoiled and demolished, and Landulph was expelled from the city. To declare both his sanctity and to prove his ministry, signs and portents were not wanting: for the Lord, who makes His servants marvelous, deigned to work many marvels through him. He healed the various kinds of diseases, and especially by the sign of the Cross. Many, destitute of the help of all physicians, he restored to their former good health; who, seeing the power of the merits of the most holy man, so pleasing to God, gave thanks to the most wise physician, who by His word alone heals the afflicted powers of soul and body, and cures all infirmities: that He had given such power and virtue of healing to His servants. And yet he not only healed those who were sick; but recalled the dead to life.

[23] also by cross, star, and angel. When at times he poured out prayers to God (which happened often), there was seen by those who were present, now the sign of the salvation-bearing Cross, now a most bright star on his forehead, or above his head; which surely indicated that he continually bore the cross itself, whether by meditation or by mortification of the senses, and was the most splendid radiance of the Church. Some also testified that they had seen an angel of the Lord speaking at his ears, by which it could be known that he had angelic minds akin to him through the purity of his life, and that the words issuing from his mouth were the words of the Holy Spirit, who has always spoken through the mouth of the Saints, and chiefly of those who are sent by God to evangelize peace, since the Savior said: For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you. These marvels of the holy man which we have related, which are handed down to memory, happened especially at Bologna, as Leander Albertus of the Order of Preachers reports in the 5th book on illustrious men, who, since he wrote the annals of Bologna in luminous speech, where many things concerning Blessed John are committed to writing, can religiously give testimony of all the above-written things.

ANNOTATA.

* he was staying.

CHAPTER III. Sent to Padua by Pope Gregory IX, he urges peace. There is dedicated there the first church of the Friars Preachers, on occasion of which the other is treated of, consecrated by Benedict XI, and the true origin of that Pontiff.

[24] When in many places, by words, signs, and examples, he had discharged the holy legation of Christ ^a, by the command of Gregory IX, who greatly esteemed his sanctity and doctrine, Sent by Pope Gregory IX to allay discords, he returned to Padua about the end of the month of March, namely in the year 1233 ^b. He was received into the city honorably by all the citizens, who awaited him with the greatest longing: for with a very great throng of horsemen, footmen, and other nobles who came to meet him, at Acedum, a town of the Paduan territory, he entered the city upon the Carroccio ^c, which the Republic of Padua used in warlike array. He was then sent by the supreme Pontiff, while he awaited the entire peace of all Venetia and Cisalpine Gaul, to mitigate the intestine hatreds of the citizens, to allay domestic quarrels, and to extinguish civil wars. For at that time some defended the parts and rights of the Church, others adhered to the Emperor Frederick; whence the whole city of Padua, nay all Cisalpine Gaul, blazed with the fires of hatreds, was agitated and overthrown by the tumults of factions.

[25] Frederick the Second, the most atrocious enemy of the Church, having got sent to Padua with other legates, this occasion of factions and quarrels, wished to cross into Italy with his forces drawn up. For this reason the Pontiff took care to compose the contending peoples of Italy; so that, peace being made and the factions allayed, the Emperor might desist from his undertaking, and turn the gathered ranks of soldiers elsewhere. Wherefore he had sent many excellent and outstanding men, distinguished both in sanctity and in doctrine, to treat this business throughout all Cisalpine Gaul and the Venetian region: among these was Blessed John, who in such and so great a province had borne himself everywhere prudently, holily, and strenuously. To this end also there had come from Rome Jacobus and Otto, Apostolic Legates and Cardinals of the holy Church, who, for the reconciling of peace among the nobles and magnates of all the cities, especially of Cisalpine Gaul, discharged the legation with the words of the Pontiff.

[26] he often makes speeches concerning peace. A few days therefore after his entrance into the city, in the Campo Marzio, which is now called the Prato della Valle (as Pietro Gerardo also, the Paduan Historian, reports in those things which he wrote concerning the tyranny of Ezzelino da Romano), he exhorted the citizens to peace by a sermon, once and again. Which same thing, since it did not suffice twice or thrice, was repeated many times. To drink in his words there flowed together innumerable people, not only of the city's inhabitants, but of those who cultivated the suburbs and the whole Paduan territory; for his speech was sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, and his eloquence vehemently fired. For thirty days and more he carried out this holy office: for it did not weary him to spend hours and days continually, for the benefit of souls, and to give the labor of his hands and feet to the matter for which he had been sent. For the Lord had given him a heart to teach His testament and His judgments; therefore, like showers, he sent forth the eloquence of wisdom, and made manifest the discipline of doctrine.

[27] When and by whom the first basilica of the Friars Preachers was dedicated; At that time was dedicated at Padua the first basilica ^d of the Friars Preachers (of which above) by Jacobus, the seventy-sixth Bishop of Padua ^e; and at that very dedication there were present, with many fellow-bishops, the aforesaid Cardinal Apostolic Legates, namely Jacobus and Otto, by whom an Indulgence of seven years was granted to each and all who, on every anniversary day of that dedication, in the aforesaid basilica should pour forth prayers to God and the Blessed Virgin. But the diploma of that indulgence, since in the time of Ezzelino's tyranny it had been lost, with many other tablets and manuscript codices, where very many memorials of the first Fathers were committed to writing, was restored in the year of the Lord 1265, by Simon, Cardinal-priest, Legate of the Apostolic See, of which the copy or transcript is that which we here subjoin, not only that it may make faith concerning the dedication itself, but that it may clearly show what calamity, what condition, what state there was of those times, in which the tyrants raged, and give faith concerning those things which have been said in passing of Jacobus and Otto the Apostolic legates.

[28] concerning which a diploma, Simon, by divine mercy Cardinal-priest of the title of St. Martin, Legate of the Apostolic See, to the Religious men, the Prior and brethren of the Order of Preachers of Padua, greeting in the Lord. Opportunely did the perfection of your religion merit, from the beginning of its establishment, the aid of ecclesiastical favor, and the accepted knowledge of your vow, derived from it, showed our ministry pleasing to you. For the presentation offered to us contained that once, to the lords of good memory Jacobus and Otto, Cardinals, legates in the parts of the Apostolic See, and with many Bishops present, who had assembled for the consecration of your church, which the lord of good memory Jacobus, then Bishop of Padua, was consecrating, all the aforesaid granted, by the authority which they had, indulgences of seven years, through the octaves of that consecration, to your same church; in the course of time, when Ezzelino da Romano, a persecutor of the faith and of the church, exercised his cruelty against ecclesiastical persons, you accidentally lost the letters issued and granted to you concerning indulgences of this kind. On account of which you humbly petitioned that provision be made for you and your same church in these matters by our support. We therefore, inclined to your petitions, lest under the accident … the charity of the faithful toward your same church be rendered fallen or vain, or that toward it, from the object of pious redemption, it may be increased, do revive for that same church the dead grace of those same prelates; and we decree, by the authority which we exercise, the grant of the aforesaid indulgence, according to your proposition, if truth support it, notwithstanding an accident of this kind, to be valid by the tenor of these presents. In testimony of which matter we have caused these present letters to be made and fortified with our seal. Given at Rimini, the 15th of the Kalends of October, in the first year of the Pontificate of the Lord Pope Clement the Fourth.

[29] The things therefore which are written in that very diploma clearly manifest what the tyranny of Ezzelino was, The other church of the Friars Preachers, what his persecution against religious men. They also confirm what we shall say below, of many Fathers of the convent of Padua who died in the prisons of that most savage tyrant, by hunger and filth. But the dedication of this basilica is believed to have been petitioned and obtained by Blessed John. At that time the most august church of St. Augustine, which is now seen, was scarcely begun, only the foundations having been laid. The blessed foundation-stone of this Brother Guido, moderator of the convent, had obtained in the year of the Lord 1226, on the 5th day of October, from Jordan of Modena, the seventieth Bishop of Padua, and this memorial appears in the acts of Turpinus, public Notary, son of the late lord Gnatus, as has been said before. Which after seventy-seven years was dedicated, namely in the year of the Lord 1303, on the 6th day of April, by a man distinguished in much sanctity and doctrine, Brother Nicholas Boccasino of Treviso, of the Order of Preachers, then by the grace of God, after the Mastership of the whole Order, Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, and Cardinal of the holy Apostolic See of the title of St. Sabina, and Apostolic Legate to Hungary, who in the same year, on the 22nd day of the month of October, was created supreme Pontiff, and named Pope Benedict the Eleventh. The memory of this dedication exists at Padua in the church of St. Augustine, on the left wall of the chapel of St. Nicholas, near the tomb of the most reverend lord Bartholomew de Prazuris, Archbishop of Patara, of the Order of Preachers, who died in the year of the Lord 1365 on the 9th day of August. And of the dedication this is the inscription: BLESSED POPE BENEDICT THE ELEVENTH, BY NATION OF TREVISO, HERE FROM THE MASTERSHIP OF THE ORDER ASSUMED TO BE CARDINAL BISHOP OF OSTIA, THEN CONSECRATED THIS CHURCH WITH MANY FELLOW-BISHOPS, IN THE YEAR 1303.

[30] The Bishops who were present at the dedication: Leonard, Patriarch of Constantinople, dedicated by Benedict XI, Aegidius, Patriarch of Grado, Antony, Archbishop of Durazzo, Franciscus Arpo of Treviso, Bishop of Ceneda of the Order of Preachers, John, Bishop of Caorle, William, Bishop of Ascoli, Albert, Bishop of Vallona, Gratiadeus, Bishop of Salvia. There presided over the Church of Padua at that time a most outstanding man, Paganus della Torre, the eighty-second Bishop, who in the prelacy had been substituted for Octobonus of Piacenza, and had for successor Ildebrandino, a Roman Count; he himself also was present, with the aforesaid Bishops, at the dedication. But these things are plain from the diploma written below, which, with another, for the perpetual memory of the blessed Pontiff, is preserved in the archive of the Friars Preachers of the monastery of St. Augustine residing at Padua.

[31] and enriched with indulgences: on which occasion, Benedict, servant of the servants of God. To all Christ's faithful who shall inspect these present letters, greeting and Apostolic benediction. The glory of everlasting life, with which the wondrous benignity of the Creator crowns the blessed array of all the heavenly citizens, ought to be acquired by the redeemed at the price of the blood poured out from the precious body of the redeemer, by the power of their merits, among which that is recognized to be very great, that everywhere, but especially in the Churches of the Saints, the majesty of the Most High be praised. Since therefore, to those coming to the church of the beloved sons, the Prior and brethren of the Order of Preachers of Padua, on certain days of the year, both by us, then Bishop of Ostia, out of the power granted to us over this by the Apostolic See, who consecrated it, and by our Venerable brethren, Leonard of Constantinople and Aegidius of Grado, Patriarchs, Peter, Archbishop of Durazzo, Paganus of Padua, William of Equilio, Franciscus of Ceneda, Augustine of Città Nova, John of Caorle, Nicholas of Vallona, and Gratiadeus, Bishop of Salvia, at the time of the consecration of that same church, at which they were present, certain Indulgences of sins were granted; We, having a special affection toward the same church, and desiring that it be frequented with fitting honors, holding all such grants of indulgences, made by us and those same Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops (as is premised), ratified and pleasing, do confirm them by Apostolic authority, and fortify them with the patronage of the present writing. And that Christ's faithful may the more devoutly resort to the same, the more they shall hope there to obtain spiritual gifts, beyond the aforesaid indulgences, to all truly penitent and confessed, who shall visit the same church yearly, on the day of its dedication, we mercifully relax one year and forty days of the penances enjoined upon them. Let it therefore be lawful to no one of all men to infringe the page of our confirmation and grant, or with rash daring to contravene it. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul, His Apostles. Given at the Lateran, the 15th of the Kalends of March, in the first year of our Pontificate.

[32] Since we have in passing spoken of the Blessed Pontiff Benedict the Eleventh: concerning whom some, wholly uncertain of the annals of the city of Treviso and the memorials of the monastery Of the true origin of Benedict there is treatment, in which he entered the Order, have written uncertain things and alien from truth itself; it has seemed good to us to add these things below, so that more certain things may be had of his true origin. For it is not an Italian writing of a Spaniard, the things which are circulated by rumor, but one who, an Italian, of an Italian, drew both exquisitely and faithfully from the true memorials of the ancient annals, preserved in the archives and record-offices now for three hundred years, and heard the things which have come down to these very times from the successive traditions of the Fathers of the convent of Treviso. But I am compelled to write these things down, since of the more recent writers, who lately recalled to light the things committed by ancient letters and memorials of annals concerning the Saints and illustrious men of our Order; some report the blessed Pontiff Benedict to have been born at Venice, and to have entered the Order in the monastery of Saints John and Paul; others report him to have been born in the territory of Treviso, of a shepherd father. Which two things especially, how much they are at variance with truth, let those give testimony who have often read and a thousand times seen the very ancient annals of the city of Treviso and the memorials of the monastery of St. Nicholas.

[33] We, from the very annals left by our most holy first Fathers to all posterity, whom the author shows to have been of Treviso. which we read with the greatest pleasure, know for certain that the Blessed Pontiff Benedict was by nation of Treviso, and entered the Order in the monastery of St. Nicholas, which is most celebrated at Treviso: for from that very place there came forth in every age very many men distinguished both in doctrine and in sanctity, among whom are chiefly reckoned Brother William, Bishop of Tortosa, who died at Treviso in the year 1263 on the eighth day of March. Brother Gualterius, first Bishop of Treviso, then Bishop of Castello, was buried in the year 1250 at Venice in the church of Saints John and Paul. Brother Franciscus Arpo, Bishop of Ceneda, who ended his day in the year 1310. Brother Articus Bandachinus, Bishop of Venetopolis, died in the year 1326. Brother Jacobus Novellus, Bishop of Milo, flourished in 1350. Brothers Benedict and Nicholas, both Bishops of Treviso, whose memory still exists in the public record-offices of the city of Treviso; Brother Guiritius, before the supreme Pontificate the inseparable companion of Pope Benedict, whom the annals testify to have been an excellent preacher, and a man far renowned for probity: he migrated to heaven in the year of salvation 1300.

[34] Brother Falcus, nephew of the aforesaid Pontiff, who after the labors of his studies and the course of his holy life, with many other illustrious men, departed from the prison-house of the body in 1310. Brother John Boninus, a lay-brother, a man polished with many virtues, but especially to be remembered for his wonderful abstinence, since he passed the several days of seven months, without any intermission, in fasts, content with bread and water only, of which three, it is handed down to memory, he ate barley bread alone. That he might serve God in all purity of conscience, he daily disclosed his sins to a priest. He migrated, after many examples of virtue, in the convent of Treviso to those above, in the year 1320. Finally Brother Franciscus of Belluno, Provincial Prior of the Province then of Lower Lombardy, now called of St. Dominic, elected at Treviso in the Provincial chapter in the year 1351. He was at one time master and head of the school of the convent of Padua; at length most learned, after many lucubrations edited by him, which long lay open to students in the old Library of his convent, he migrated from the world, and was buried with Brother Riccobonus, a Doctor of sacred Theology of no last rank, and Inquisitor of Padua.

[35] born not of a shepherd father, but of a Notary. The aforesaid distinguished and memorable men, and others passed over in silence by the writers, we know to have illustrated both the monastery and the city of Treviso, and to have brought much splendor to our whole Religion, yet to all these Blessed Benedict Pope the Eleventh is superior, who—to return to his origin—was born, according to the most ancient annals, not of a shepherd father, as Brother Leander Albertus and later writers have left in writing, but of Boccasio, an Imperial Notary, of the honorable Boccasino family, whose paternal uncle, named Boccasino, was parochial rector of St. Andrew of the city of Treviso. That very blessed Pontiff came forth from his mother's womb in the year 1240. There still exist the houses in the district of St. Bartholomew of that same city, where he was begotten and born, from whose inhabitants and tenants, to this day the Friars Preachers, to whom the inheritance of the Boccasii came, exact an annual pension. All the estates and houses, with the other goods of Boccasio and of the Boccasino family, can be seen in the public record-office of Treviso, in which the memorials of ancient times are preserved, from the series of which it is by no means difficult to see that those who wrote certain fictitious things concerning the origin of Pope Benedict depart far from the truth. He entered the Order at Treviso in the year 1257, at which time the city of Treviso was rescued from the tyranny of Alberic da Romano, brother of Ezzelino the executioner of the Paduans, by Philip Fontana, Archbishop of Ravenna and Apostolic Legate, and the other confederates.

[36] When the Friars Preachers began to dwell at Treviso. But this his entrance into the Order was in the year 36 from the foundation of the convent of Treviso; for in the year 1221 the Friars Preachers began to reside at Treviso. He was called Brother Nicholas. He was in the Order most studious of the regular life, in literary leisure assiduous and most diligent, and profited so greatly in the studies both of philosophy and of theology, that in a short time he turned out a most learned lecturer. He wrote upon a part of the Psalter and a part of the Apocalypse, and edited postils upon Job, as he himself acknowledges in a certain index written by his own hand of the books with which, in that very year 1297, which was the second year of his mastership, the library of the monastery of St. Nicholas was endowed. Once and again he was elected Provincial Prior of the Province of Lombardy, namely in the year 1286, under the Master of the Order Brother Munio the Spaniard, and in 1293, under Brother Stephen of Besançon, in the provincial assemblies held at Brescia, which office while he was discharging the second time, in the general convent, gathered at Strasbourg in the year 1296, he is created Master of the Order; but in the year 1299 in the month of December, by the supreme Pontiff Boniface the Ninth [*] he is assumed to the honor of the Cardinalate, and named Cardinal of St. Sabina. Honored with that dignity, he is sent as legate to Hungary. On his return, after the office of his legation was accomplished, he dedicates at Padua the notable church (as is set forth) of St. Augustine, with many fellow-bishops.

ANNOTATA.

* read VIII (the Eighth).

CHAPTER IV. The peace of Padua being confirmed by the counsels of Blessed John, a solemn festivity of Blessed Peter Martyr is instituted there. At Bologna the body of St. Dominic is dug up in the assembly of the Order, and there many marvelous things are performed by our Blessed.

After the dedication of the former basilica, Blessed John spent many days in public and private sermons, By the zeal and counsels of Blessed John, to move the citizens of Padua to drive out from the ^a city all quarrels and to extinguish the fires of hatreds, with which all orders of men miserably blazed. Then at last, by the help of the divine gift, he attained what he longed for: for among nearly all the citizens then peace was not only made, but also confirmed, the very name of which, from the perpetual factions of the Ghibellines and Guelphs, had now been blotted out from the hearts of all, and all memory obliterated; from which it can easily be seen from how many and how great evils and dangers the city was rescued, having long suffered innumerable inconveniences and calamities by the occasions of quarrels. It may moreover be seen how many good things and advantages followed from the great tranquility of the recent peace, with what hymns and songs God was praised.

[38] For who will deny that the men of every order raised both mind and voices to heaven? Who shall recount the thanksgivings, the peace of Padua is confirmed. who the praises to God, who the joys and exultations? What commemoration is equal to so great a gladness? They praised God, small and great, in the tutelary saints, Prosdocimus, Justina, Daniel, Anthony; they praised God in Blessed John, by whose merits and prayers, by whose counsels and exhortations, they knew themselves to have emerged from many storms and dangers of straits and tribulations. Let therefore the memory of so great both aid and benefit not be blotted out in thee, O city of Padua, city heaped up and increased with so many gifts and so many graces by God; fortified and walled with so many protections and guardianships of the saints: remember that from such and so great a ruin and tumult of factions and civil wars, where much blood was shed, thou wast delivered by the blessed foster-sons of St. Dominic, once and again. Ask thy fathers and they will tell thee, thy elders and they will say to thee, they will announce and say to thee, that not only by the help of Blessed John, but also by the merits and intervention of St. Peter Martyr, thou wast in the year of salvation 1326 delivered from the slaughter of civil wars.

[39] For the public records ^b attest that all desisted from the factions, from which by human power they could not be recalled, The decree of the city of Padua for the solemn day of Blessed Peter Martyr. St. Peter the Martyr intervening, to the patronage of whose merits they had fled. In perpetual memory of which singular benefit, or of the grace obtained, religiously, by common and unanimous vote, they decreed that yearly on the feast-day of that most holy Confessor and Martyr they would make supplications, the Bishop assenting, would salute the Martyr, and would heap the altars with sacred gifts; which for a hundred years and more was observed with much faith and religion, nor even now is the city less bound by the vow and decree of the Fathers. Of the Paduans, reconciled by the agency of Blessed John, Augustine the Florentine, a Camaldolese monk, makes mention, in the latter part of the history which he published concerning the Camaldolese, book 4, where he says: In those times there illustrated especially the region of Padua that saint most acceptable to God and men, Anthony of Padua of the Order of Minors, and after him the excellent declaimer Brother John, who, sent by Pope Gregory the Ninth to compose peace among the disagreeing, held most luminous sermons to the people at Carceri, among the Estensi, and at Padua, and in the month of March 1233 in the Prato Marzio brought many families to make peace; but let us return to the matter itself.

[40] At Bologna in the assembly he sees to the raising of the body of St. Dominic, Having left the city in this tranquil state of concord and union, and the Peoples being invited to a public sermon, to be held by him in the month of August next to come, in a certain place of the fields of Verona, which is called Paquara, not far from the city of Verona, he set out for the neighboring cities and towns, by the command of the supreme Pontiff, who desired that everywhere the disagreeing minds be bent to peace and concord; when to all these things sufficient provision had been made, both by prayers and by sermons, he set out for Bologna, where the general and provincial assemblies were to be held by Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Master of the Order, and Brother Stephen the Spaniard, second Provincial Prior of Lombardy, on the 12th ^c day of May. This general Chapter (as they say) was the 14th, at which it is handed down to memory in a certain manuscript book, preserved in the library of Saints John and Paul, that three hundred brethren assembled. While these assemblies were being held, the sacred corpse of the holy Parent Dominic, not yet enrolled by the Church in the register of the saints, lying in the ground, was dug up ^d by the agency of Blessed John, from which there came forth a fragrance of so great an odor, that it seemed to have been laid open, not the coffin of a buried corpse, but the storehouse of all perfumes.

[41] After the assembly the holy Man taught the Bolognese by word and example, and preaches there, and by the signs of miracles clearly declared how great his merits were with the Lord. Not a few and holy works were then done by the citizens at his exhortation. To implore the mercy of God, on the day before the Ides ^e of May, in a public supplication both religious and lay traversed the city with bare feet. The women, casting away earrings, necklaces, and ornaments of that kind, left off their vain and luxurious attire. The statutes and institutions of the city were purged and restored for the better. Many, converted to penance by his words and examples, followed Christ. While once in the marketplace he was announcing the word of God (for the multitude of the people, desiring to hear his sweet eloquence, could not indeed be contained by any very large church), John Boncambio ^f, a most wealthy and most noble man, wholly indulging his own inclination, is entirely kindled by the fire of the blessed Man's speech, and soon from the marketplace, whither by chance he had come sitting on a white horse, he hastened in haste to St. Nicholas's, where, leaping down from his horse, and casting off his golden necklace and precious garments, with a supplication going before, he was clothed with the garment of holy religion.

[42] Having entered the Order, making more of poverty with immense fruit, than of the riches in which he abounded in the world, he began to be a true foster-son of St. Dominic, and an imitator of Blessed John. Concerning the probity and integrity of his life it being established, in the general assemblies held at Bologna in the year 1244 on the 22nd of May, he was elected provincial prefect of Lombardy: at length he was raised to the prelacy of the church of Bologna: in which, after the wonderful sanctity of his life, he flew to heaven. Surius reports, in the life of Blessed Dominic our Father, book 7, chapter one, that Blessed John, whom he calls not "of Vicenza" but "Vincius," at Bologna in the year of the Lord 1233 recalled ten dead men to light, and shone with many other wonderful signs.

[43] Nor let anyone think that Blessed John, of whom Surius speaks, ten dead men being raised was another: for from the ancient annals of our Order, and the writings of the ancient Fathers, we know that only one foster-son of Blessed Dominic of that name flourished in the year of the Lord 1233, and performed miracles at Bologna, and that this was Blessed John, whom most call "of Vicenza," either from the city of Vicenza, or from a certain Paduan family, called "Vicentina" from the city of Vicenza: for many families have obtained surnames from the places from which they drew their origin. But if there had been another, mention would without doubt have been made of him by the writers, especially by Jacobus of Soest, Albert the Venetian, Leander Albertus of Bologna, Seraphinus Razzi, and the others older than these. Nor is it to be believed that a man the magnificent raiser of ten dead men, a man of the celebrity of so many and so great merits, renowned for the fame of so great a name and of portents, was passed over ^g and left in silence by the Fathers, who committed the matters of that age to writing both most accurately and most faithfully, by those who wrote the annals of the Bolognese, in which words are made of only one John in the year of the Lord 1233.

[44] From the ancient abbreviations of manuscript books, almost obliterated, or wrongly transcribed through ignorance, it comes about ten dead men being raised. that some named Blessed John "Vicentinus" and "Vincius," certain ones "Vincentius": which of them departs less from the truth, we know not. This one thing we know, that of him there exists in the annals of Vicenza no memory at all, whereas of Blessed Bartholomew, Bishop of Vicenza, and of the other Blessed of the city of Vicenza, memorials are found ^h. By many, especially by Torello Saraina of Verona, Pietro Gerardo, and Tebaldo Coltellerio of Padua, he is called neither "Vincius" nor "Vicentinus," but "the Saint," and an excellent preacher of the Order of Preachers; but of these things thus far. Being about to withdraw ⁱ from the city of Bologna, Blessed John, making words of peace and concord, so extinguished quarrels and hatreds in the hearts of the Bolognese, that the whole city returned to an admirable state of quiet and tranquility.

ANNOTATA.

CHAPTER V. Preaching at Verona to an innumerable multitude in the fields, the dissensions being removed, he brings in the utmost peace.

Having set out for Verona, The sacred body of Blessed Dominic being at length placed in a most beautiful marble ark, and many other most weighty matters having been done by Blessed John at Bologna, he betook himself toward Verona ^a, to settle the more bitter quarrels, the sharper and more lasting wars, which were carried on especially between the republic of Verona and the illustrious Count Riccardo di San Bonifacio; where not long after, though many things at first sight opposed his vows, he attained what he aimed at. For from his mouth flowed words sweeter than honey, and more penetrating than any two-edged sword. The forces of the Ferrarese and the other confederates, who had taken up arms for Count Riccardo, having heard the report of peace, immediately went away from the territory of Verona. The whole army having departed, the holy Man by no means failed from the province he had undertaken, but gave more careful labor, that the peace begun might be more and more confirmed.

[46] Finally in that matter he prevailed so much, that he not only became master of the affair, he refused the office of Podestà, and reconciled to himself the minds of all, especially of the Nobles, and the matter came to this, that by all he was acclaimed Podestà of the city; but the holy Man refused to engage in that office, both because he shrank from all ambition, and because the arms of the warfare which he professed were not carnal but spiritual. Yet against the heretics in those times, against whom Gregory IX the supreme Pontiff had appointed inquisitors or censors from the Order of Preachers throughout the whole world, he is said to have brandished the sword. Sixty and more men of this impiety, paying the penalties due to their depravity, were punished by burning. For he showed himself most vehement against this so impious, so mad kind of men.

[47] These were the singular zeals of our Fathers, but by his sermons, these their perpetual labors, these their sharp contests, not to catch popular applause, not to gather riches did they watch, but they earnestly strove for the salvation of souls; hence very many and glorious fruits. For this reason, not amiss can that of the Prophet be said of our Religion: I am like a fruitful olive in the house of God. Not content with these things, Blessed John, as one who greatly desired that the cities of the whole Venetian region and of Cisalpine Gaul should be free from all tumult of war, and from private and domestic quarrels, a few days after, on the Ides of August, or as Tebaldo Coltellerio writes, on the day sacred to St. Augustine, in the fields, not far from the city of Verona, just as a little before in this same year at Padua (as Pietro Gerardo and others report) he had proclaimed a sermon, which he held concerning peace before an incredible multitude of the people. There were gathered in that place about three hundred thousand men; there were present, not only the nobles and soldiers of the cities of the Venetian region and of Cisalpine Gaul, but also Bishops, and very many others of those who were initiated into the sacred rites and devoted to religion. These things at Verona (as Torello Saraina of Verona, a most outstanding jurist, narrates in those things which he published concerning the deeds of the Veronese) happened once and again in the year 1233.

[48] The same also other historians have left in writing, thus he composed all things to concord, as Francesco Sansovino reports, in the first book on the origin of the noble families of Italy, where he makes words concerning the most illustrious house of the Counts of San Bonifacio: that Blessed John, having gathered the Ghibelline and Guelph factions, in the place which is called Tomba, not far from the city of Verona, reconciled and recalled to concord Riccardo the most illustrious Count of San Bonifacio, a most fierce protector of the Church under Gregory IX (as the diplomas of that Pontiff and of Alexander IV testify), with Ezzelino da Romano, Prince of the Ghibelline faction and chief Duke of Frederick the Second, by whom, up to the day of reconciliation, a most atrocious war, not without the greatest both shedding of blood and devastation of cities and towns, had been waged against each other. There were present, as is handed down to memory, five hundred thousand men (children and women excepted). It is almost incredible with how great weight and authority, on account of his notable sanctity, he prevailed among all the peoples of Italy, and with how great acrimony and vehemence of speaking: for grace was diffused on his lips, and the Lord had filled his mouth with the spirit of wisdom, speaking of whose testimonies in the sight of Kings and Princes he was not confounded.

[49] so that he was called the announcer of peace. Tebaldo narrates that Blessed John composed many things at Verona among the disagreeing Princes and cities, and took away out of the midst not a few dangers, which indeed he strove to accomplish in all places, wherefore rightly and deservedly he was then called by many the announcer of peace. The matter which he had with the Veronese being finished, he went, by the vow and command of the supreme Pontiff, to the other cities, in which likewise deadly and blazing wars grew daily. Wonderful too was the progress of his ministry in these: for he was strong in eloquence, strong in doctrine, strong in signs and portents, but more in the Spirit of God by an unknown eloquence; wherefore, to speak of him with the words of Ecclesiasticus: His memory shall be sought from generation to generation, the nations shall declare his wisdom, and the Church shall announce his praise. At length in the year from the beginnings of salvation 1235, when new tumults of wars had arisen between the republic of Verona and Riccardo Count of San Bonifacio, with the Bishops of Treviso and Parma, new Apostolic legates, again Blessed John, at the command of Gregory IX the supreme Bishop, set out for Verona, where, when he had spent for some days diligent labor for the restoring of union and peace, the Veronese, laying down their arms, promised faith and aid to the supreme Pontiff by oath. These things again from Torello Saraina, first book on the deeds of the Veronese ^b.

ANNOTATA.

CHAPTER VI. On the death of Blessed John. On the persecution of Ezzelino da Romano, under whose tyranny many Friars Preachers completed their days in prisons, consumed by hunger and filth.

The things which were afterward done by him were by no means each at hand for me. That not a few things perished through the carelessness of writers, no one will deny. The death of the Blessed at an uncertain place, manner, and time. Many things concerning Blessed John handed down to memory in the annals of the Bolognese Brother Leander Albertus of Bologna reports. But who could pursue all the things which he did at Padua, Bologna, Verona, and the other cities and places, especially of Cisalpine Gaul, to the glory of God the best and greatest, and for the salvation of the peoples? Let him tell it, who numbers the multitude of the stars, and calls them by their names. After many labors and innumerable contests, he migrated happily and gloriously to Christ, whose cross he continually bore in his body. But where and when he ended his day and destiny, is wholly unknown ^a. Yet it is believed, either among the infidels, to whose instruction the Friars Preachers then flocked, or rather at Padua, in the dark and deep prisons filled with corpses, of Ezzelino da Romano, a most savage tyrant, and a most fierce persecutor both of the faith and of the Catholic Church (as Simon, Cardinal and Apostolic Legate, testifies in the aforesaid diploma given at Rimini in 1265), who most cruelly persecuted the ecclesiastics, and those who passed their life in the cloisters, since they intrepidly defended the parts of the supreme Pontiff and the rights of the Church, and afflicted them with divers punishments.

[51] Of these one of the first was Blessed Jordan Forzatè of Padua, at that time Prior of St. Benedict Novello, by the savage tyranny of Ezzelino, who with our Blessed John most accurately inquired into the life and miracles of St. Anthony of Padua, by the command (as has been said) of the supreme Pontiff Gregory the Ninth, before he was enrolled in the number and register of the Saints. Him, captured by the satellites of the devil, Ezzelino sent to the town of San Zenone, which was in the territory of Treviso, under the dominion of Alberic da Romano, and there detained him shut up in prison for two years, from whom at length he was brought out by the Emperor Frederick. When the affliction and distress of this man and of others who had fallen into the hand of the most cruel tyrant had come to the ears of Blessed Arnaldo Cataneo, or according to others Forzatè, abbot of the monastery of St. Justina, declining from the fury of Ezzelino, he first set out to Este, then to Ravenna, fearing lest there should happen to him what happened to Blessed Jordan and to very many others (as Bernardino Scardeone writes in the second book of his history, class VI, and others), and there he secretly withdrew himself from all his acquaintance, and lay hidden until the coming of the Emperor Frederick, whom at Monselice he approached as a suppliant, and followed his court for two months.

[52] At length, by the intercession of the Duke of Saxony, he is restored both to his abbey and to his former honors. But since the insatiable and impious avarice of the tyrant could not endure the loss of so great revenues, Prelates, as soon as he departed in the year 1246, Blessed Arnaldo is dragged captive into prison, and at Asolo, which is a town of Treviso, is bitterly afflicted with chains, where, patiently sustaining chains and prison for eight years, at length he migrated, delivered, to the Lord in the year of salvation 1254 ^b, in which the greatest persecution was made, by Ansedisio Guidotto, subprefect of Ezzelino, against the Friars Preachers. His body lies in the most celebrated church of St. Justina in a marble ark, and, reckoned among the holy Martyrs, is saluted by the people. With Blessed Arnaldo many prelates and presidents of monasteries, not bearing the avarice and cruel fury of the tyrant, having left Padua, turned their backs. Of this matter not only Bernardino Scardeone, but also Pietro Gerardo and others make mention. Yet very many could by no means escape the cruel hand of Ansedisio Guidotto, subprefect of Ezzelino, and bearing his stead in all things in his absence. For he, indulging the savagery and ferocity of his mind, and executing the tyrant's commands, cruelly slew with divers torments innumerable men, distinguished in religion and piety, defending the rights of the Church.

[53] knights and many others, Among the rest he ordered to be slaughtered Brother Alexius, Master of the German Knights, a very distinguished man, and far hostile to the tyranny and savagery of Ezzelino. The German Knights at that time were established in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, at the Ponte Pedocchioso, where now flourishes the college of the Priests of the name of Jesus, which place, by the permission of Paul the Third Supreme Pontiff, Andrea Lippomano, a Venetian Patrician and Prior of the venerable Trinity of Venice, ceded to the Jesuits, with a most ample revenue. But Brother Alexius was slaughtered by the tyrant himself in the year 1253 at Verona, whither he had been brought from Padua, together with Carnarolo his brother, who in the public marketplace, first beheaded, was miserably torn apart. Then at Padua and Verona there was great savagery against the citizens of Padua. Many could not turn aside the swords of the executioners from their throats. Of the number of these was Hugh of Santa Giustina, a noble of Padua, who at Verona, where he was killed, had been Podestà in the year of the Lord 1251. Of these also was Albert Vadus, noble and powerful among the Paduans, nephew of those who laid the first foundations of our convent of Padua, and endowed our chief Fathers, for the constructing of that monastery, with a most ample space of ground; he, because he was on familiar terms with Brother Alexius, was taken away out of the midst.

[54] but especially the religious, About the same time not a few of the Preachers, Minorites, Hermits, and the rest of other Orders, cast into most dark prisons, were detained, until they rendered their spirit to the Lord. This not only Rolandinus, a grammarian and historian of Padua, contemporary of Ezzelino, but also others, chiefly indeed Pietro Gerardo of Padua, himself also a contemporary of the tyrant, committed to the memorials of the annals. In that most wretched and most turbulent tempest, though Ansedisio, seizing the commands of Ezzelino, afflicted monks of every rule with the cruelest punishments; yet against the Preacher brethren, dwelling at Padua in those times, like a horrible dragon, he vomited forth the poison and venom of his savagery; since he perceived that they and others of the same Order, above the rest, defended the rights of the Church with an unconquered spirit, and knew that a few years before they had everywhere, by the command of the Pontiff, published the sentence of excommunication which Innocent the Fourth, in the Council held at Lyons, had passed against Frederick the Second the Emperor, which appears in the diploma given at Lyons on the 12th of the Kalends of January in the third year of his Pontificate. And the words of the diploma, attesting this, are:

[55] The beloved sons, humble in habit and affection, the brethren of the Order of Preachers, and concerning whom the diploma of Innocent IV., have so bound themselves with an indissoluble bond to die for the heavenly fatherland, that they hold this alone for delights, that by the works of holiness they may come, pleasing, to the eyes of the divine majesty. Of the virtue of such a bond it comes about, that they, in those things in which the glory of the divine name and the honor of the Church, and the strength of ecclesiastical liberty, is contained, are led by so prompt and indefatigable a spirit, that no fear can withstand them: but that they freely undertake to do the things which proceed from the circumspect will of the Apostolic See. We therefore, glorying in the Lord, that He has fortified His Church with such men, who love to die for Christ, and are delighted to suffer for justice; have committed to those same brethren, previous solemn deliberation, under a certain form, that they should publish in opportune places the process against Frederick, formerly Emperor, held by us sententially in the Council lately celebrated at Lyons, as the tenor of the sentence, which under our bull we have transmitted through the globe of the earth, plainly intimates, and the rest.

[56] They therefore throughout all the cities and towns of Venetia and Cisalpine Gaul, the Friars Preachers, preached against Frederick the Second, so hostile and inimical to the Church, and against the savagery of Ezzelino, interceded against the tyranny, cried out against the avarice, and thus wonderfully sharpened the peoples against him; wherefore Ansedisio could by no means bear them, and sharply persecuted them. Not a few of them, some of whom (while Blessed Dominic was still living in this world) entered the Order, no one will deny, with many who were called "of the warfare of Christ," or "of the penance of Blessed Dominic," were thrust into the deepest prisons, destitute of all light, which were called "Ziliae," from Zilius the author and contriver of them, and by the stench of corpses, rather than by dire hunger, utterly perished to the world. This indeed happened in 1254, a little before the general assemblies of our Order, which were celebrated at Buda, the metropolis of Hungary, not far from the bank of the Danube, on the day before the Kalends of May, where Blessed Humbert of Burgundy was elected Master of the Order. It is no wonder therefore if in that congregation and general convent, after the martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr, it was recited before the Fathers according to custom that three hundred Brethren, more or less, had died, as Blessed Humbert himself mentions in a certain epistle. Some by the greatest austerity of life; some by the persecutions of the heretics, others by the punishments and torments of the tyrants, flew happily to Christ, to whom alone they strove to be pleasing.

[57] But the torments and death of these our blessed Fathers, they are tortured in dire ways, that savage deed, this outrage to be execrated in all ages, this diabolical invention, to be commemorated not without a huge flood of tears, committed to memory, with the other writers, Pietro Gerardo of Padua, contemporary of Ezzelino and Ansedisio, in the sixth book of his history, where he luminously pursues, in the Italian tongue, the cruel deeds of these so impious and wicked men. But I wonder, and not enough, that, though the history of this author, long since printed, is dispersed into many thousands of volumes throughout all Italy, no mention has been made by those who have hitherto written the annals of our Order, nor do I cease to wonder, since for the faith and liberty of the Church they underwent so dire a death, that even if their names, which are written (as is piously to be believed) in the book of life, are unknown on earth, yet their passion is not to be kept silent, nor their death to be passed over in silence; since it was precious in the sight of the Lord. For it was precious in the sight of the Lord, since they contended for the Son of God, for truth, for justice, and for the liberty of the Church ended this mortal life.

[58] whose victories, Deservedly therefore to be proclaimed, and rightly to be celebrated with perpetual praises, is their affliction and distress, of which they now rejoice in heaven, clothed with white robes, where are the tabernacles of the just, where the glories of the Saints, where the rest of the faithful, where the consolation of the pious, where the inheritance of the merciful, where the beatitude of the immaculate, where the gladness and exultation of the truthful, whence has fled away sorrow, sadness, and groaning, where they have forgotten the former tribulations, which they suffered in the body upon the earth. O thrice and four times happy souls, O a thousand and again a thousand times blessed spirits, who from this great sea have merited to come to the port of perpetual quiet; from tribulation to eternal consolation; from labor to reward; from the straits of prison to the most ample bosom of Abraham; from corpses to the souls of the Saints; from weeping and tears to the choirs of the Angels, and the voices of the Archangels; from the darkness, where is the Illumination of the Holy Spirit; from exile, where is the eternal kingdom of Christ; from misery, where is the perfect glory and blessed sight of the eternal Father! Your brief passion in the dark and dire prisons has been made a perpetual beatitude in the unfailing light of the empyrean heaven; you sent forth tears in the darkness of the prison, now you laugh in the splendors of the Saints; you sustained labors among men, now you sit in the midst of the Angels.

[59] and crowns, For they sit in the beauty of peace, in opulent rest, with their Emperor Jesus Christ, veteran soldiers, most valiant leaders, now secure of their own crown and felicity and solicitous for ours; for they have not so put off the bowels of mercy as the members of the flesh, nor so put on the robe of glory, as to be forgetful of our misery. It is not a land of oblivion which they now inhabit, for it is not a land, but heaven. The heavenly habitation does not harden the souls which it admits, does not deprive them of memory, does not despoil them of piety, so that those sleeping in the sleep of peace, which they loved living in this valley of tears, should not pray for the Preacher family and the whole Church; they remember their brethren, to whom, leading a holy life in religion, and dying in chains, they left examples of all virtues. They are not the cupbearers of Pharaoh, who are forgetful of our distress and captivity. They are indeed absorbed in glory, but they are not forgetful of the cry of the poor. They know not their own sorrows, since it is written: God shall wipe away every tear from the eyes of the Saints, and there shall be no more, neither cry, nor any sorrow; and they know and see our torments, they hear our sighs and groans, and behold our tears. The angels succor us; much more do those who are of us know how to have compassion on us, in whom they too, while they lived, suffered.

[60] Let us therefore cry without intermission to them, with many elogies, and to the other soldiers of the heavenly court, let us celebrate their contests, imitate their faith, cleave to their patience, insist upon their fortitude and long-suffering. For by those (as Pope Leo says) the festive joys of the holy Martyrs are in truth celebrated, who follow the examples of those same Martyrs; and these do not vainly expect their intercessions. Of the number of those holy Fathers, who in the most dark and deep prisons, by the savagery of Ezzelino and Ansedisio, tyrants of the city of Padua, with many others, especially cloistered men, who among the stinking corpses died at divers times, Blessed John is believed to have been, as one who in nearly all the cities of Cisalpine Gaul and Venetia, and most of all at Padua, in the time of the aforesaid tyrant Ezzelino, where we know he many times evangelized the word of God by sermon, was a most fierce defender of the faith and of the Church, so that where in the holy Order of Preachers he was born to God and the Church, for God and the Church he underwent this temporal death, to lead a blessed life in heaven. Whatever it be, He is by no means ignorant of it, from whom no secret lies hidden, who is to illuminate the hidden things of darkness, to whose eyes now all things are naked and open. Let it suffice that those things be known by us which are committed of him to the memorials of the annals, which were written for this reason, that we might not be ignorant of how great merit he was with God, with how great a splendor of sanctity he everywhere shone, with how great zeal he burned for the salvation of souls, with how great a fire of charity he blazed, that, full of the light of the divine precepts, he ever walked the straight way, prompt and eager.

[61] These things it concerns us to know, these we ought diligently to attend to, they are adorned. these are to be perpetually turned over by us in mind, that, beholding the ensigns of virtues of our holy Fathers, whose examples, an illustrious mirror, are left and set before all who behold, we may strive to make our way after them to heaven, which surely will be, when the charity which urged and burned them shall remain in us. This bears us up to heaven, this makes us sons of God, disciples of Christ, and imitators of the holy Father Dominic and of the other Saints. These few things, which were being suppressed, though little aptly, concerning Blessed John, a man distinguished in doctrine and sanctity, illustrious in miracles, announcer of peace, excellent preacher, foster-son of St. Dominic, nuncio of Gregory the Ninth, apostle of Cisalpine Gaul, defender of the faith, hammer of heretics, file of vices, master of virtues, and concerning the aforesaid Martyrs (if it is piously permitted us to call them Martyrs), it has seemed good to write down in passing. I ask the readers to take in good part this slender gift of my labor, since I have neither gold nor silver for the tabernacle of holy Religion; I offer either goatskins or the hair of rams, I cannot lay down great and precious gifts. May God increase me, through the intercession of the Saints, with the gift of His grace, may He heap me with His gifts, that what I cannot do outwardly, I may do inwardly, so that in heaven with Blessed John I may be able to praise Him who made all the Saints, to whom be honor and glory and dominion through all ages. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

Testimonies of the Older Writers concerning Blessed John of Vicenza.

John of Vicenza, of the Order of Preachers, in Italy (B.)

Of those who have made mention of our Blessed, none older, so far as I know, is found than the celebrated Thomas of Cantimpré, of nearly the same age as he, who is said to have died about the year 1280, and whom Muscheta seems plainly to have been ignorant of. Stupendous are the things he narrates, and such as ought to have been handed down to memory by the very Italian people themselves. Cantimpré adduces his witnesses, concerning whom let the judgment be with the reader. Among the ancients also is to be remembered Leander Albertus, whose work on the Illustrious Men of the Order of Preachers was printed in the year 1517. Nor to be despised is Carlo Sigonio in the book on the Bishops of Bologna, published there in 1586. From these three, to say it cursorily, Abraham Bzovius rightly received his chief matter, in his continuation of Baronius under the years 1218, 1232, and 1233, whom, lest I be compelled to transcribe him, I have preferred to point out the sources themselves, which if anyone weigh more maturely, and compare with those things which have hitherto been said and observed by us, he will be able to weave together some chapters of the life, which may embrace, by some norm of historical faith, the more certain illustrious deeds and miracles of Blessed John. Moreover, to what times the things which Cantimpré has in his De Apibus, book 2, chapter 1, from number 3 of Colvener's edition, are determinately to be recalled, if you except the last two miracles, no one could easily divine. Behold his eight articles.

First Testimony, of Thomas of Cantimpré, On Brother John the most celebrated Preacher at Bologna.

From Cantimpré.

But what shall I say of that most blessed man, brother John, That he recalled seven dead men to life. of the Order of Preachers at Bologna: who is proved to have shone with so great a glory of miracles, that he is believed to be inferior to none of the ancient Saints in this respect. For among the rest of his innumerable miracles, it has been most evidently proved that he raised seven dead men. And I believe (saving the better judgment) that the Omnipotent ordained these things through him in so great glory, that the heretical depravity, which miserably prevailed in those parts, might be confounded: and also I vehemently think, that the Order of Preachers, which had lately begun to arise there, like a bright horizon, might more fully flash forth into the whole world. Hence it is that of that most blessed Man I have thought to write a few, but more solemn miracles: which indeed, by most attested truth, have been proved and made known throughout all Lombardy.

[3] Therefore, when the glory of miracles and the solemn repute of men had exalted the said venerable brother John, That he tamed a fierce horse. an innumerable people daily followed his preaching: so that he could not walk on foot: since nearly everyone strove to touch him, or to take a part of his garments for a blessing. Therefore when in a certain village, an innumerable people being gathered, he had preached, and could by no means go out on foot, he charged a certain neighboring Provost to send him a horse, for passing over to another village. The said Provost therefore sent back word to him, that he had no horse, except that one which would receive no rider, unless its own Master, or him who from of old had the care of the horse. When therefore the messenger reported these things to the holy Brother, he sent back word to the Provost, that he should send him the horse however unruly it might be. The Provost therefore complies, sends the horse, more cruel than almost any beast. And without delay, when the blessed Man saw it raging more bitterly, he impressed on its forehead the character of the cross, saying: May Christ, the prince of peace, tame thee. A wondrous thing, a stupendous miracle. Soon, all the people looking on, the horse, turned to meekness, bends its knees, and makes its back ready for the one mounting. The people wondering, the Brother mounts, and bidding all farewell, hastens to his desired place, and sends the horse back to the Provost: but most gentle as a lamb. But the Provost had meanwhile perceived what was done, fame spreading it abroad; and he sends the horse back to the said Brother, charging in these words: Far be it from me, that I, unworthy, should mount further the horse in which God demonstrated so great a miracle: but you use it as you please. From that day therefore, for a long time and many years, the holy Brother used the horse, and never mounted it but that the horse bent its knees to the one about to mount.

[4] At a certain time the said Brother had made a stay in a nearby region, That, held in honor at Bologna, he repelled calumnies. illustrating the villages and cities with preaching and miracles. But when the city of Bologna heard him approaching, an innumerable multitude of nobles and magnates, citizens and peoples, ran to meet him: who, not knowing how to bestow any greater honor, carried a silken cloth, on four spears, above the holy Man, in a great jubilee of praise. Nor was it possible to resist the deed, nor to restrain those doing these things, since frequently in such matters the crowd, overwhelmed, lacks reason. This the devil saw, and envied, and instigates a certain wicked man to announce this most swiftly to Pope Gregory; adding, that brother John bore himself as the Apostolic one, who went about on a white horse, and had a silken cloth carried above him. Soon the Pope, sooner than was becoming, believing the words, charges the Cardinals and Prelates, who were then present nearby, to assemble at the court. In their presence the Apostolic one relates what he heard, and strives to promulgate a sentence of excommunication against the said brother John. But there was then present the holy Bishop of Modena, who said to the Lord Pope before all: It is not becoming, holy Father, to hasten a sentence against such a man, unless first the things which have been narrated be more diligently investigated and proved. To whom the Pope: The things which have been said are sufficiently established to me, and by no means shall I be retarded from passing sentence. Which when the said Bishop of Modena saw, he asks before all that the Gospel text be exhibited to him, and, placing three fingers upon the text, he said: I swear upon these holy words, that with my own eyes I saw, when that brother John, of whom is the discourse, had mounted the platform to preach to the people, that an Angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, fixed a golden cross on the forehead of the preacher: and I add, that I would have revealed these things to no man, unless this case, so necessary, had offered itself, for avoiding the shame of the Lord Pope and of the holy Roman court, and for excusing the innocence of the holy Man. At these words therefore the Pope, dissolved into tears, was mollified, and, messengers being sent to Bologna, he proved the report to be most false.

[5] That he restored wine spilled from a cask. I heard the venerable Reginald, formerly Abbot of Blois, narrating, that the said brother John had entered a certain town, and there ran to meet him and followed him an infinite multitude of men. When a woman, who was standing in the cellar and drawing wine from the cask, with the tap [*] forgotten in her hand, saw him passing, she ran into the street, and with eager eyes gazed upon the holy Man hastening at no small distance. When therefore she drew back her eyes to herself, she found the tap in her hand, and running to the cask, she saw all the wine poured out through the cellar. Consternated therefore beyond what could be believed, because she dreaded her most cruel husband, she ran after the servant of God, and, seizing his foot, with a strong outcry and tears narrates the event of the mishap, and how great a danger threatened her from this, from the cruelty of her husband. Then the brother, having compassion on the woman, blessed her, and bade her, returning, trust in the Lord with a secure mind. Wonder, reader, at what was done. The woman returns to the cellar, finds the whole cask filled, the floor of the cellar dry, not moistened to the ground by a single drop of wine. And for evidence of so great a miracle, the said Abbot, from whom I received these things, saw the cask itself hung up on the front of the church.

[6] That an eagle accompanied him. The same venerable Abbot as above related to me another thing, which he himself saw. A peasant was plowing in a field, and saw at a distance an eagle resting on the turf. Wait, he said; wait, O eagle; I adjure thee by brother John, and, having caught thee, I will present thee at once to the holy Man himself, my plow being brought back. And without delay the peasant, bringing back his plow, takes the waiting eagle, and presented it to the holy Man, as most gentle. This eagle the said venerable Abbot saw following the blessed Man, wherever he went, and flying after him through the air from village to village. Wherever, standing in a higher place, he preached to the people assembling; the eagle took a place beside him. And the sermon finished, soon when he had blessed the people, the eagle lifted its wings with a marvelous dance, and stirred the air with frequent motions: as if by this, in its own manner, it blessed the Creator.

[7] That he excommunicated the rose-garlands. A certain brother of the Order of Preachers from Denmark, Nicholas by name, related to me the things I shall narrate. The brother was a hearer of the laws at Bologna, still established in the world, when he saw these things which he related. Brother John stood, and preached to the assembling people of the city. But he saw and grieved; and he saw that nearly the whole people sat around crowned with garlands of roses. The sermon therefore being finished, he said to all: Let the members of the faithful people be ashamed to be crowned with roses or flowers under the thorn-crowned head of Christ. And he added: I excommunicate the rose-garlands, not the people, but the garlands, which one uses unto sin. The people therefore, from the greatest to the least, desisted from wearing garlands: nor was there anyone who dared to transgress the words of the Saint. But after some days, a wedding is celebrated in the city: and there was present a younger boy, who bore in his hand only a garland of roses. Which when a certain proud and elegant young man saw, he snatched the garland from the boy's hands, and defiant placed it on his head. And without delay a devouring flame invaded the garland: and before the young man could put it off, it burned up all the hairs of his head. The people therefore, turned to amazement, learned to fear the words of the holy Man, and in his deeds blessed the Lord through all.

[8] Moreover, a brother of the Order of Preachers narrating, I learned; that the said venerable Brother John was present at the elevation of the body of the Lord i.e., of St. Dominic with the other brethren at Bologna. What happened to him at the elevation of St. Dominic. But a certain Cardinal Bishop being placed at the head in the elevation of the sacred body, the said Brother John was placed at the feet. And suddenly there was a marvelous and inconceivable change; so that the brother himself was suddenly seen at the head, but the Bishop at the feet. But the Bishop was replaced at the head, and the brother at the feet; and again suddenly the change was made, all being astonished. But who doubts that in this deed the merits of the holy Man pleased the divine judgment, which preferred him to be placed, in the more worthy part of the sacred body, before the Bishop?

[9] A most widely known miracle was reported under the year of the Lord's incarnation 1231. A magpie answers from the belly of the one who had devoured it. There was a magpie in the house of the host who was accustomed to receive the holy Man, which, taught to speak human words, especially loved the holy Man. But a certain servant in the house secretly killed the magpie, and secretly ate it. The holy Man therefore, having entered the lodging, called to the magpie: where art thou now, my friend, where art thou? And without delay, from the belly of the one eating, it answered: I am here, I am here. All wondering, the word was made known; the peoples run together, from the belly of the one eating the magpie spoke for very many days.

* that is, the tap.

Second Testimony, of Leander Albertus.

By A. Valerius Muscheta.

Leander Albertus, in book 5 on Illustrious Men, folio 184 verso, composed this elogium for Blessed John. John of Vicenza, The elogium of St. John, a man endowed with admirable sanctity, and a distinguished preacher of the sacred word, at Padua under the father Dominic took up the gown of religion, in which, initiated into the sacred rites, he merited, in course of time, the surname of sanctity on account of his immense virtues. So vehement was he in preaching, that when at one time he was preaching to a crowded people at Bologna, he inveighed against the sacrilegious usurers, with so keen a countenance, rigid brow, gesture and voice, and especially against Landulph the public one, that by the common consent of the city it was then gone to his house, with the greatest clamor of the people, and it was despoiled and plundered, Landulph being cast out of the city with stones. And when Bologna was agitated by the greatest factions, he recalled it to concord. He restrained the luxurious ornament of the women. He made the institutions of the city better. He taught those meeting one another to greet one another mutually in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Visiting many sick, he restored them to their former health by the sign of the salvation-bearing cross. He healed also many sick, destitute of human aid. On the day before the Ides of May he ordered both religious and lay to traverse the city with bare feet: and he caused the sacred body of the divine parent Dominic, laid in the ground, to be raised into a marble ark. Afterward, when he had prepared to depart from Bologna, a sermon of the people being summoned, he most eloquently exhorted the citizens to concord, peace, and honesty. And to him praying, all beholding, a cross appeared on his forehead. There appeared also a most shining star above him: nay, at one time a cross was seen above his head; and at one time an angel speaking at his ear; which indeed matter recalled many to penance. At length, having set out for Cisalpine Gaul, he shone with many miracles. But at what time he ended his day, I have not ascertained. The annals of our city narrate more things of so great a Man. These things there.

[11] A prediction concerning the election of the General. But in another place, namely book 1, folio 38 verso, treating of the election of John of Vercelli, Master general of the whole Order, sixth in order, made at Paris in the year 1264, he records another prodigy, shown by our Blessed before a numerous assembly of the people. I render his text: Galvano Fiamma of Milan, a Brother of our Order, in his Chronicle reports one thing, which I have thought by no means to be passed over. The Fathers being congregated in the said general synod of Paris, for electing a president, as is the custom, John of Vicenza, a man endowed with sanctity, preaching to the people at Bologna, thus began: Now at Paris is at hand the election of our first president, and, a blank paper being brought before them, and by his order placed in deposit, he said: Tomorrow you shall find inscribed on it the name of the chosen president. Not a false prophet was he, and, as he had foretold, so it was found. So Leander; from whose Bolognese Annals, cited above, I think Carlo Sigonio took what follows, in the second book of his history, page 108, where, having narrated the death of St. Dominic, which falls on the 6th of August 1223, he thus proceeds.

Third Testimony, of Carlo Sigonio.

From Sigonio, from Maurisio.

Another elogium, But a decade having intervened thence (understand from the death of St. Dominic), Brother John of Vicenza, a man distinguished in piety and in the praise of preaching, came into the city, and, having begun to instruct the people with sermons, so captivated men with the wondrous appearance of his doctrine and sanctity, that in a short time he had the whole city in his power. And so townsmen, countrymen, artisans, and soldiers, with banners and crosses, full of religion, commonly followed him; to him alone they gave themselves, they professed themselves to be at his arbitration; and there was no lawsuit which was not easily settled through him; no discord which was not allayed. Nay even he, the prison being opened, dismissed all the debtors, the magistrate not only permitting but even assenting: he introduced new accounts with the most equitable minds of the creditors, brought many excellent institutions into the city, of which that is memorable, that in all familiar salutations, salvation should be announced from God; that matrons should lay aside golden borders and more wanton garlands, and precious fillets, and go forth with veiled head: the laws of the city he corrected with its consent. On the day before the Ides of May, conducting a supplication through the city with solemn pomp, he drew the whole city with him, walking with bare feet. After two days, when he stood in the council, and there made words concerning the concord of the citizens, he was seen to pour forth a light from his forehead, which, received as an argument of divinity, much more increased his authority. On another day before an assembly, when he had set about to proceed against the moneylenders, so by the vehemence and asperity of his sermon did he incite the people, that soon, a tumult being made, it ran to the house of a certain Landulph, a notable moneylender, and, imprecating evil upon Landulph, demolished it. But now, since the bones of Blessed Dominic, hidden in a humble and obscure place, by no means held that seat which befitted the man's sanctity, he was the author that they should be dug out thence. But that matter was done in this manner, etc. But these things do not pertain here.

[13] Nor should I omit to add those things which the same Sigonio on page 118 reports from Leander concerning John Boncambio, and the marvelous conversion of Boncambio. afterward Archbishop of Bologna. Perhaps, he says, it happened one day that he came to the sermon of John of Vicenza, a most eloquent and most holy man, preaching before a crowded people in the marketplace, borne on a white horse, clothed in precious garments, and adorned with a golden necklace, the whole city wondering, he went to the church of St. Michael, and put on the gown of our religion (Leander speaks) in the year 1233.

[14] All these things had long since been collected, transcribed, and prepared for the press, From the history of Maurisio, contemporary with the Saint, when, doing another thing, I found there some things plainly authentic concerning Blessed John, where I should have thought them by no means to be sought. For who would imagine to himself that among the writers of Brunswick affairs there existed an author who would consign to writing some deeds of that Blessed, an Italian by birth? But yet one who, in the 2nd volume of the Leibnitian edition, from page 23, there is handed down the history of Gerard Maurisio of the dissensions of the Marquis of Este with Ezzelino da Romano, in which, on page 40, under this title, "Of brother John of Vicenza, a very religious man," various things are narrated by a contemporary historian, and an eye-witness of the very matters, which you will perceive from the whole context to have been unknown to the writers of the life and elogies: that above all, which I intimated above cursorily in the commentary, that Blessed John was not of Padua, much less of Bologna; not of the family of the Scledi, but a citizen of Vicenza and the son of Manelino a pleader. Lest each thing be separately recounted, or weighed anew, I here append the whole text of the Maurisian history. Maurisio writes in this manner:

[15] Meanwhile there appeared a certain Brother John of the Order of Preachers, his country and his father's name are had. a citizen of Vicenza and son of Manelino a pleader, a very religious man, of whom I shall speak wondrous things, but attested on the scene. For it is unheard of, that from the time of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His name, through the preaching of anyone, so many men had been gathered together at once, as many and as great as he gathered into one under the occasion of making peace, unanimously magnifying Jesus Christ with praises and hymns. For he came first to Padua, and, preaching peace, of every discord which they had, they compromised in him, to be determined by his arbitration. He came to Treviso, the people of Treviso did the same. So did the people of Feltre and Belluno. So too the lords da Camino, so also those of Conegliano, and the same did the lords da Romano. Likewise also the people of Vicenza, Verona, Mantua, Brescia, and the Count of San Bonifacio, and all his party. So great power did he have over all, that in every city, their statutes being received, he amended them by his arbitration, adding and taking away. And the captives, wherever they had been, he caused to be dismissed. And he appointed a certain term for making and confirming peace at the city of Verona, charging the aforesaid cities and persons that they should then be there before him, to hear the preaching and the praises of peace among all.

[16] The marvelous concourse is described There were there Brescia, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, the people of Feltre and Belluno, and the lords da Romano, and those da Camino: the people of Padua, and from other cities, castles, and villages, men and women innumerable. There was there also the Patriarch of Aquileia with all the Bishops of the aforesaid cities. There was there the Marquis of Este, and brother Jordan: Priests too and clerics, soldiers and commoners: nearly all of these cities were there unarmed, and with crossed banners. So great was there the numberless multitude, that (as has been said) from the time of Jesus Christ until now, through the preaching of anyone so many were not gathered into one: and in reverence of him for the greater part they were unshod. There were also very many cities with their Carroccios.

[17] at the preachings concerning Peace. He preached among them, and (which is marvelous) his voice was heard by all marvelously and most clearly. The preaching done, he pronounced and praised peace among all, and then ordained a marriage between the Lady Adelentia, daughter of the Lord Alberic da Romano, and Raynald son of the Marquis of Este. Whose word by all with great praises was most gratefully confirmed. But he charged upon the transgressors the penalty of anathema and the indignation of Jesus Christ and every malediction: but to those keeping it, he granted the grace of Almighty God and his own benediction, and so they return to their country, each to his own place, magnifying God and rendering thanks to Him. For many mortal enemies, of their own motion making peace, kissed one another, inspired to this by his preaching; for he was held as it were a prophet by all. Of him too so great was the fame, that even the Lord Apostolic revered him. Nor is it a wonder, for the Friars Minor publicly preached (as I myself also heard them preaching at the greater church of the city of Vicenza) that by his prayers and orisons ten dead men had been raised, and the sick were marvelously cured of their languors through his prayers.

[18] Exercising other offices at Vicenza and elsewhere, This done, the same brother John came to Vicenza, and said in full council, that he wished to be Duke and Count of that city, and to dispose of all things by his arbitration, which was wholly approved and granted to him. Whence then, the statutes of the city being received, as he wished, he amended, added, took away. And the people of Vicenza hoping that he would remove and set up there another communion, by which each party might be commonly governed: he, this being passed over, the statutes and ordinances being made, went to Verona, and there likewise sought the Dukedom and Podestàship of that land, which was done and granted to him. He caused the Count and his party to come into the city: he received hostages from each party: he took to himself the castle of San Bonifacio and the castle of Illasi, and Ostiglia and all the fortifications, as he wished. Here he was a persecutor of the heretics, so that he caused many to be burned. For many days he ruled the city, holding himself Duke and Rector, and, as Duke and Rector, made many precepts and statutes. At length he chose Nicholas as Podestà of Verona, a citizen of Venice. But when he was much reproached, that he had thus left the city of Vicenza, the Podestà not changed, and wished to have the Dukedom there granted to him, Uguccio Pilio, and those da Camino and the Paduans, by the counsel of brother Jordan ^a, by whose counsel the Paduans were governed altogether, induced the Podestà of Vicenza and the party contrary to those da Romano, to contradict the same brother John. And so the Podestà caused the guardian citizens of Padua to come, and fortified the city more strongly than usual. This heard, brother John, less cautiously and with a small quantity of soldiers, came to the city of Vicenza, whom the greatest multitude of the people met. But he, believing that he had the favor and constancy of the people in his own person, began to go through the city, demanding that houses, towers, and fortifications be given to him.

[19] But when he had come to the houses of the sons of the late Lord da Zachame, he is troubled by the Paduans, those men showed themselves rebellious to him. There came to the house the crowd of the commune which followed him, and, the Podestà being seized, with his judges and household, and the books of statutes and of the banished ^b of the commune of Vicenza being despoiled and destroyed, they came down from the house, the Podestà and his household being left despoiled. Meanwhile came the Paduans with Uguccio Pilio and the adverse party of those da Romano, and made an assault upon brother John himself, at the palace of the episcopate, where he was, and, battle being joined, brother John was captured, and all his men were turned to flight. But the Veronese, having heard that brother John was captured, thinking that this had been done by the counsel of the Count of San Bonifacio and his party, seized all who had come to the city of the Count's party, who were of any worth; but, brother John having returned, and it being found that they were not culpable, all were dismissed forthwith. But they, terrified with fear, all flee from the city. But brother John himself rules the city, as he can, his own Podestà set there being reputed as nothing. But the hostages of the Monticoli and their party, this being heard, secretly and covertly returned to the city.

[20] Now the Count insists that he restore to him his hostages, and the castles likewise: but brother John had fortified the castle of Ostiglia by the Bolognese, and the castles of the Count and of Illasi by his friends of Vicenza. The castle of Caldiero and the castle of San Bonifacio he restored to the Count, although it had been done fictitiously, as if it had been taken from the guardians against their will. Likewise he restored to him the hostages. and withdraws to Bologna. The castle of Illasi he restored to the Veronese; but the castle of Ostiglia he did not restore to the Veronese, and so, the Veronese and the people of Vicenza being dismissed, he went to Bologna, and so Uguccio Pilio and the Paduans, by the counsel of brother Jordan, and those da Camino broke the peace of brother John; and so the work of brother John was reputed as nothing. All this is believed to have happened for this reason, that he ambitiously sought the Dukedom from men, against the saying of Solomon, who said: Seek not the Dukedom from men.

ANNOTATA.