Hadrian

ON ST. HADRIAN, POPE, THE FIRST OR THE THIRD,

AT NONANTOLA IN THE DISTRICT OF MODENA,

In the Year 885.

HISTORICAL DISQUISITION.

Hadrian, Pope, the First or the Third, in the monastery of Nonantola, of the district of Modena (S.)

BHL Number: 3738, 3739

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

§ I. The question is proposed, which Pope Hadrian is venerated at Nonantola?

Although we confess that most of the Roman Pontiffs who governed the universal Church under the name of Hadrian were illustrious for doctrine and sanctity, and among them Hadrian I, than whom none hitherto has longer wielded the sacred reins; yet Some Pope Hadrian we know that neither to him nor to his synonymous successors was the appellation of Saint attributed in any ecclesiastical Fasti, nor was any of them acknowledged as such by the universal Church, nor in the chief Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs is the name of Saint prefixed, except in the last edition of Anastasius the Librarian, in which I should readily believe that title wrongly transposed which was due to the successor of Hadrian I, Leo III. Meanwhile it is certain that in the monastery of Nonantola, whose site you have in the Acts of the third of March, page 265, and in Pagi, at the year 813, number 8; it is certain, I say, that some Saint is there venerated, under the name of Pope Hadrian, on this day the eighth of July. And hence I should believe Papebroch was moved to append that mark of veneration to Hadrian III, whom he knew to be buried there, not to Hadrian I; whence doubtless Castellanus took his own in the Universal Martyrology, when he thus wrote: At Spina di Lamberto, in the duchy of Modena, of St. Hadrian Pope, the third of that name, whose body is venerated in the Abbey of Nonantola, under the principal altar.

[2] The beginnings of that Abbey Ughelli thus describes, tome 2 of Italy, column 101. While Lopicinus, buried in the abbey of Nonantola, he says, sat in the chair of Modena, Anselm, Duke of Friuli, the world being spurned, was made a monk, and built near Fanano a monastery, of which he was afterward called abbot, and after two years began the abbey of Nonantola, notable both for wealth and for jurisdictions, distant only five miles from the city of Modena, namely in the year 752. He proceeds there to treat of the building of the monastery, its increase, its precious relics, and other things pertaining to the same, which excellently demonstrate that the aforesaid monastery was once celebrated, but which can bring no light at all to this present disquisition of ours. In what state it stands today, John Mabillon will teach, who surveyed it in his Italian Journey, tome 1, page 202, thus speaking: On the same day we came to the abbey of Nonantola … where now six Cistercian monks live under a regular abbot … In the library only two old codices remain, out of the many which the once most celebrated abbey had, namely the life of Pope Hadrian I,

which you have here, by an Anonymous monk of the place as author, etc.

[3] received from some codex for Hadrian I, Mabillon promised a little more here, having pledged the Life of Pope Hadrian I, than he truly performed: for in the second part of the already-cited first tome of his Italian Journey, in which some documents or analecta are gathered, page 38, under this prefixed title: Here begins the life and text of the epistles of Hadrian I, Pope of ancient Rome, he plucks only some fragments or formulas, which are referred to the Roman Diurnal, narrating very little of Hadrian's deeds; perhaps because in that old codex, praised by him, not the deeds of that Pontiff, but rather the epistles are described, as Ughelli also not obscurely indicated, to be consulted at more length below, in whom at least a poem is adduced which exhibits some form of Pope Hadrian I, as will presently be clear. For the rest, whatever that old codex of the monastery of Nonantola may be, this seems by no means doubtful, that from that manuscript collection of the Anonymous monk it flowed, and that already from the times of Leander Alberti there prevailed among the people of Modena the opinion that the body of the Pontiff Hadrian I was buried in that monastery, and had already for so many centuries been there honored with a cult due to the Saints alone.

[4] Leander Alberti first publishing it. A most brilliant witness of this thing is Ludovico Vedriani, in his work on the Saints of Modena, printed at Modena in the year 1663, from page 58; and again in his history of Modena, published three years later, part 1, page 369; from which it is manifestly clear that there grew up there an inveterate opinion that in the temple of the oft-mentioned abbey there is venerated, with St. Sylvester, Pope Hadrian, the first of that name. And indeed among the Saints is represented an effigy engraved in bronze, with these words written above, St. Hadrian I, Pope; but below, buried and honored at Nonantola. There follows, through seven or eight pages in quarto, a compendium of his life, which would have been better taken from Anastasius the Librarian. Leander Alberti is again and again cited, whom I judge to have been the first who published that history from the aforesaid Nonantola codex. It will be enough for me to have reported, from the edition of the year 1588, folio 354 verso, these few words of his, rendered into Latin: To those advancing along the Aemilian way, above Modena, on the right bank of the Panaro, at 8 miles, occurs the castle of Silimbertum, once called Spina di Lamberto, as I found in the life of Pope Hadrian I, who there most holily migrated to a better life, while returning from France, as the most ancient codex teaches, which is kept in the monastery of Nonantola.

[5] Ughelli had, I think, seen Leander, but, nothing moved by his authority, Ughelli had first rightly refuted these; in tome 1 of Italia Sacra, in the series of the Roman Pontiffs, had spoken so as to explode as a little fable that whole tradition of the people of Modena and Nonantola. Hear his words at Hadrian I: He died in the utmost tranquillity of the times in the year 795, and was buried at Rome at St. Peter's, for whom Charlemagne himself, whom of blessed memory he had eminently cherished while surviving, raised a tomb, and adorned it with an epitaph composed by himself; whence it is plainly established that those prophesy falsely [*] who write that Hadrian left his life at Spilimberto near Modena, and that his body at this time rests in the celebrated abbey of St. Sylvester at Nonantola. For the rest, a new Pontiff being suddenly created, there was no interregnum. These things there Ughelli, rightly and truly; conformable to which he hands down concerning Hadrian III, in this manner: He yielded to fate on the Ides of March in the year 788, upon the river Scoltenna, in a village called Vuitrachara, and was buried in the monastery of St. Sylvester near Modena, where the pious credulity of the faithful venerates him as a Saint, and he lies buried under the greater altar. Hence most have erred, thinking that that first Hadrian rests in the monastery of Nonantola, which that it is not so, we have shown above from the epitaph and the tomb which Charlemagne raised for him at Rome, for the sake of familiarity.

[6] Thus Ughelli felt and wrote, until, his work being brought to the episcopate of Modena, the codex being afterward seen, where he accurately surveyed the whole abbey of Nonantola and reviewed its monuments, falling upon that old codex praised by Leander, of which we just now treated, struck by I know not what thunderbolt, he did not blush to sing a palinode, with a most ingenuous confession, which deserves to be wholly described from tome 2, from column 113, at Giso Bishop of Modena. Under which Prelate, he says, near Modena, in the town of Spilimberto, Alexander, in his description of Italy, and others narrate that Hadrian I, Pope, left his life in the year 795, and that his body, brought to the celebrated abbey of Nonantola, rests there; which that it is not so, we taught in the first tome of this our sacred history, when we reviewed the series of the Roman Pontiffs, led chiefly by the epitaph or tomb which Charlemagne the Emperor raised for him at Rome in the Vatican basilica, which still exists; and a little after, in the same series, when we brought forward the death of Hadrian III, we asserted that he, not the first, died in the town of Spilimberto, in the village of Vitrachara, and was buried in the abbey of Nonantola, whereas in reality it could not have been Hadrian III whom pious credulity venerates at Nonantola as a Saint, and whose festival day it celebrates on the eighth before the Ides of July, whose relics it affirms to lie under the high altar.

[7] For from the deeds of Hadrian, in a most ancient parchment codex, changing his opinion: written both in prose and in Leonine verses by an Anonymous author, coeval with Hadrian, it clearly appears; if they should wish to assert that any one of the Hadrians rests at Nonantola, it must be judged to be the first, not the second nor the third: for those Acts are shown to agree with the first, not with the others. For the rest, those things which we already judged a little fable concerning the first Hadrian, and that those prophesy falsely who write that he departed from life at Spilimberto while seeking Gaul, and that his body rests in the abbey of Nonantola; now, from his deeds, which we shall presently give from the cited most ancient codex, we ingenuously confess that they did not divine amiss. But how Charles adorned the same at the Vatican basilica with an epitaph composed by himself, when he was buried at Nonantola; whether for the sake of honor, observance, and his sweet memory, whom he had eminently cherished while surviving, he willed that a memorial tomb and eulogy should perpetually exist in the celebrated Vatican temple of the Christian world; or whether, Hadrian, who died at Spilimberto, being brought to the church of Nonantola, there buried for a time, and afterward brought back to Rome and laid up in the Vatican, Charles adorned it with a tomb and eulogy, the prudent reader will judge: it will be ours both gladly to correct our errors, and to bring forth to the studious the most ancient monuments, which are held for the Saints, for the more diligent investigation of the truth.

[8] too lightly Most grateful to us are all most ancient monuments for the Saints, provided they are genuine, and do not clash with more ancient and more certain monuments; which stricter criticism could and ought to have demanded of Ughelli, whose sincere candor I greatly desire plainly to imitate, and wherever there is need: but I no less wonder at so great a facility of the most learned man in believing, that in good faith he admitted that those Acts, whether in verse or in prose, were written by an Anonymous author who was coeval with Hadrian I, when they neither savor of that age, nor can at all savor of it, so that they must be recalled to ages much later. Unless one should think the former part is to be excused, and suffer it to be drawn back to the times of Hadrian I, those last nine verses alone being cut off, which were thereupon made in imitation of others, that it might be persuaded to the people that the body of that Pontiff, as being the most celebrated among the Hadrians, rests at Nonantola: which how inelegantly it was arranged by the Anonymous monk, will more clearly appear below in its place.

[9] when he had more certain ones. Certainly the praised Ughelli ought not so easily to have been moved to change his former opinion, who, to be silent of the rest here, could have gathered from one single but most certain head the incoherence of that pretended tradition of the people of Nonantola; for since all the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs, and all the most approved writers after Anastasius the Librarian, unanimously agree in this, that St. Leo III immediately and without any interregnum succeeded Hadrian I, it can in no way be conceived that Hadrian died in Aemilia, so far from the city of Rome, and that on the very day the fame of his death flew to the City, as before me observed Papebroch, Pagi, and others. But also more urgent arguments are at hand, by which it may be proved that not the aforesaid Hadrian I, but the third of the same name, nearly a hundred years after, namely 885, departed from life at Spilimberto, was buried at Nonantola, and there endowed with the sacred honors of the Saints, at least by the private piety of the monks and the surrounding people, which did not diffuse itself widely into other parts: that the memory of Pope Hadrian, at least as a Saint, remained obscure even in Italy itself, the silence of Ferrarius, a most diligent investigator of his native Saints, shows.

[10] However these things may be, the cult in the church of Nonantola, constant and established, The hinge of the question is proposed. does not seem able to be called into doubt by anyone, so that therefore it must be admitted as indubitable that at least some Hadrian, a Roman Pontiff, has there for so many centuries been exposed to the veneration of the faithful. The whole hinge of our disquisition now turns on this, that, the darkness of the people of Nonantola and Modena being dissipated, which hitherto under the name of Hadrian I has enveloped the holy Hadrian the third, we may vindicate the due honors to him, with Papebroch and others. But since the chief assertor of the oft-mentioned opinion was Abbot Ughelli, his arguments especially, taken from the famous old codex, hitherto manuscript, must be more distinctly proposed in the next paragraph, which in the third part of this disquisition we will try so to refute, that we may hope it will thenceforth be placed beyond controversy which of the Roman Pontiffs, under the name of Hadrian, has for so many centuries been venerated with the veneration of the Saints in that monastery of Nonantola, and continues to be honored today.

* he means "falsely."

§ II. Whence flowed the opinion that Pope Hadrian I is venerated at Nonantola.

The words of Abbot Ughelli, first rightly feeling and afterward changing his opinion, we reported above; Ughelli reports now those things must be produced which he himself thought most ancient monuments, and such as to compel him to correct his errors. These are namely those Leonine verses written by the Anonymous author, whom he too lightly believed coeval with Hadrian, when he could easily have observed that things and persons, separated by nearly a whole century, are connected and confounded. Thus begins the poem, such as it is, reported by the aforesaid Ughelli and by our Augustino Oldoini in the additions to Ciaconius:

The deeds of the most holy Hadrian, the first Pope.

[12] Strong King of kings, founder of the whole world, / Who do every good thing, and bestow all things freely. a Leonine song / By you are given whatever things are proved to avail. / Therefore give to me, that I may with sonorous voice / Bring forth for you a true song, to your pleasing praise. / Of the supreme Pontiff, whereby the deeds of Hadrian may resound. / May the pastor obtain this, of whose song I am the author. / Let the assembly of the people wait with attentive ears.

Finally the discourse will run brief and will be faithful. He had been a Roman citizen, proved by the virtue of faith, as the matter is clear from certain documents. Whom the clergy and people of the Romans chose for themselves as patron, faithful with concordant heart. He himself a good shepherd of the flock and a divine lover. How one must believe in the Father, the Son, and also the holy Breath, he had given a clear proof. And he promised to be forever a true worshiper of the holy Fathers of the six councils, and likewise firmly affirmed that he would preserve, to the last, every affair and right of the Apostolic See, and likewise the things to be retained of his predecessors.

[13] And whatever wicked breeze strives against these things, in which many things he would despise, like the way of a rabid dog. These things, with true vows, and removed from all fraud, the aforesaid Prelate of the Lord, Hadrian, pledging, duly commends his writings to Peter his master. So it befits you, Peter, to guard the causes and souls. Afterward, celebrating the feast, he made an open discourse, in which he confirmed the present people with doctrine, with gentle addresses too assiduously to be remembered. Namely he asked that it keep the pious bonds of peace, and that it entreat for him the almighty King, that, the divine gift being taken up in his office, he might rule and strengthen himself, and himself at the same time govern the people. Hence the threefold and one form of the supreme deity with a clear voice he approves, a suppliant venerates, adores. Showing to all present and future that he so believed as he had before taught the people.

[14] Before the venerable body of Peter entirely, to Pope Hadrian I. he brought forth these things, as his deeds reveal. After these things, like a soldier for whom disputes rise up on every side, he began to suffer many things in wars, and to be called to arms. Who, taking the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, moved, strongly struck the pressing enemy. For Desiderius reigning proudly at Rome, and tearing the affairs of the Church with excessive biting; the same strong Man, that he might conquer the pest of the enemy, then called King Charles, a friend a friend, to lay low the insolent one with great virtue. But the King of the Franks, a crowd of his own accompanying, came and besieged, and after battles took the wretch. He condemned the captive to exile, not to be recalled. Thence the son began to suffer for the crime of the father, until he himself, poor wretch, was cast out of the kingdom. These things thus accomplished, Charles, his virtues increased, obtained the Kingdom, received by the Pope's grant, the things which the Mother Church had lost being restored, in this part he set the pious Pepin as reigning [*], the elder son, who deservedly took the greater honor.

[15] Hence a heresy once sprung in the borders of the Greeks, and proper to Charlemagne he destroyed with right and memorable reasons. For two kings holding the kingdoms of the Greeks, namely the unlearned Anastasius and the wicked Leo, commanded the sacred figures to be condemned to fire. The command being issued, the image of Christ is condemned, and the sacred effigies, prepared with whatever labor, built under the honor of all the former Fathers, are either burned or dragged with a tight rope. Only in the said parts of the Greeks themselves; a certain Gregory, a Roman Prelate, acted, that in this part such madness of manner should not be. At last, those Kings being dead, and the Pope, and Constantine, having obtained the royal seat, son of the learned Queen his mother Irene. Who with his mother entreats the Pope with pure prayer, the holy Prelate being directed to Rome with writings, that the father himself would repel the hostile heresies, either going himself, or transmitting faithful men, who might hold the holy laws bound in their heart, and break so great disputes with the doctrine of reasons.

[16] These things received, the pious Hadrian wrote back many things, which are wrongly applied to Hadrian III. to the true light he wept over the acumen of the wicked. And he himself sent men skilled in the divine law, who might answer those inquiring and might teach. They, a council being held in the name of the Lord, gave to the peoples the precepts of the divine art; especially to the king who more wished to hear these things. Then they condemn the heresy, and constrain its authors, and command the sacred figures to be renewed in the temples; then the king's command confirmed the decree to himself. After these things, when he wished to go to King Charles, he ended his life in the broad field of Lambert, which, on account of the mishap of Lambert, is called the Spina of Lambert. To whose sacred funeral they run together from every side. Hence resound songs, hence disturbance brings lamentation. In the church of St. Sylvester, to be venerated by right, the sacred body with mournings was buried. The weepings being ended, be glad, happy Nonantola, to whom the Lord granted to have so great a patron.

[17] This first, as it were, decisive argument for Hadrian I, After the song struck by which Ughelli straightway gave his conquered hands. Then, proceeding to depict his most ancient codex, he excerpts the title, which we reported above from Mabillon: Here begins the life and text of the epistles of Hadrian; adding the beginning of the Acts: Hadrian therefore, a Roman by nation, of his father Theodore, of the region of the Via Lata, sat 23 years, 10 months, 16 days. He testifies that the Acts and epistles of Hadrian I follow, which however he passes over, lest he seem to copy out the lives of the Pontiffs, and he takes only those things which are narrated concerning the death and burial of the same Hadrian at the end of the codex; pledging that he will gladly sometime give the rest, with the deeds of the other Pontiffs compiled by him, which he says are hitherto unpublished, and which we think have so remained, and never seen the light. Thence are subjoined from the said codex some of the same things which are already expressed in those Leonine verses, with others pertaining to the cult and miracles; here too to be described by us, however inelegantly they are arranged, lest we seem to have dissembled anything. Behold the whole rough context of the matter, as it is there read, since it could not be obtained from elsewhere:

[18] When he had decreed a Council to be celebrated in the royal city, certain enemies of God resisting, he subjoins other things in prose, they were hindered. But after a year very many Bishops being gathered from here and there, and their legates, the seventh council was held at Nicaea of Bithynia, Constantine reigning, as we said, and Irene his mother, the Lord Hadrian the first Pope also presiding through his legates in the same council. This one also, while he went to King Charles, as the memory of the ancients relates, ended his life in the place which is called the Spina of Lambert, on the eighth before the Ides of July, and, brought to the church and monastery of blessed Sylvester, which is called Nonantola, was honorably buried. Where also even now he is known to glitter with miracles. Whose death when Charles King of the Franks had heard, he grieved exceedingly, and long gave himself to laments. For by him he had been constituted Patrician of the Romans, and had taken the kingdom of Italy, by his favor. Cantors also and teachers of the Church he had received from him, and had established them in the city of the Ametenses, whose church's cantors even today agree in chant with the Roman Church more than the other Gauls.

[19] The supreme Pontiff and universal Pope Hadrian being buried, and confused things wrapped in the Apostolic infulae, as is the custom to bury a Roman Bishop, in the aforesaid monastery of Nonantola, as we tasted above; seven deacons and monks of the said monastery found a most stupid counsel, saying: What does it profit this Saint, and the soul of the departed, that such fair vestments should rot with the earthly moisture? Certainly it were better if this holy church had honor from them; therefore, coming to this, let us all go together by night to his sepulcher, and strip him of the bright and glittering vestments, and clothe him with meaner vestments. The light therefore departing, and the shadows overshadowing the earth, all going to the tomb, they secretly unburied him, and snatched his garments. And that this may be more brightly and openly believed by all, we still have in our monastery one fair chasuble which the plunderers [*] took from him.

[20] and things ill-arranged: But that the minds of the like may waste away at such a crime, this we know for truth, that none escaped unpunished. For all that fatal tumult ended the course of their life in the same year, except only one. But he who survived, caught up in ecstasy, sees St. Hadrian sitting near St. Sylvester. Who also complained to St. Sylvester of such injury, saying: Lord, behold your most audacious monk, who stripped me with his consorts. For his audacity, therefore, I beseech you that you take vengeance for me. But the most blessed Sylvester, answering with humble words, said: Do not say this to me, brother, but as it pleases your will, take care to punish him for his folly. Then Blessed Hadrian, seizing him, struck him thrice with his Pastoral staff, saying: Show these signs in the world, that all the people may believe you have been here. And there he showed a certain monk of the same monastery, still remaining a little one in the school, sitting in the order of Abbots. But presently he himself began to inquire within himself what had befallen him, and he recited it. And which honor of the abbacy that one was to have, he foretold; but, made penitent, even to the margin of his life, every day at his burial he sang the whole psalter.

[21] as also the miracles, And when all the people had resolved to renew the church of St. Sylvester, they began to lay up the body of St. Hadrian in another sepulcher. But when his body was thus being moved with great praise, a certain vice-lord of the same church improvidently presumed to touch one of his bones. Which he felt to be so fervid that he believed he held a kindled fire in his hand. Presently laying it down, when he beheld his hand scorched, swiftly he went to his dwelling, and made a long candle to his image, and running to the burial of St. Hadrian, gently with great devotion offered it. But presently, made sound in his hand, he returned joyful. This also many narrate that they saw, who still remain in the world.

[22] Seeing therefore so great miracles show the power of the most high God on account of his merits, which are said to have been wrought there. all the people resolved to venerate him, and, as much as they could, venerated him. But when by divine vengeance the castle of Nonantola had been burned, the chest also, in which the bones of the holy and most blessed Pope Hadrian lay, was burned; but his bones, wrapped with his cloths in the midst of the burning fire, remained so unhurt, that the fire did not presume to touch even any little particle of the cloth. And that this may afford an increase of faith, know all of you, that in the same cloths his bones still lie, bearing an immense odor. Nay, the lamp also, which daily burned before his chest, on the same day was consumed by the fire: it had fallen to the ground, and yet by the will of God had remained unhurt.

* perhaps "to reign."

* Understand "grassantes" (the plunderers).

§ III. It is shown that no other St. Hadrian Pope can be venerated at Nonantola, except the third of that name.

[23] To the arguments here proposed by Ughelli, or rather to the whole narration of the codex, whether in verse or in prose reported, From the place of burial there would be a brief answer and solution, touched by us above, if one should say in few words that a false thing is on both sides supposed by the Anonymous, since from Anastasius the Librarian it is established that Hadrian I died at Rome and was buried in the Vatican. You have in the Lives of the Pontiffs, where the death of the aforesaid Hadrian is treated, page 120: Ending his life, he migrated to

eternal rest, not elsewhere than at Rome, and was buried in the basilica of Blessed Peter the Apostle, on the seventh before the Kalends of January, in the fourth Indiction. But on the contrary it is most certain, from the continuator of Anastasius, William, that St. Hadrian III died elsewhere. His words are, page 234: When therefore Hadrian (III) of memory to be recalled had died, who had succeeded the same most blessed Pope Marinus, upon the river Scoltenna, in a village which is called Viulzachara, as Ughelli rightly noted in the series of the Pontiffs above, number 6. From these things it is concluded that there is an evident confusion of the Nonantola monk, in which the whole of that tradition subsists, which therefore must necessarily fall. For the rest, that all things may be more exactly refuted, I will use the answers of others rather than my own, that it may be clear that the things which were wrongly fabricated by the Anonymous have long ago been overthrown.

[24] When Papebroch had first read that Ughellian matter, recited in the preceding §, it could be sufficiently proved, in the year, as one may conjecture, 1673, in his manuscript collectanea he in good faith noted: The 8th of July, St. Hadrian Pope I. His life in verse and prose is cited by Ughelli, tome 2, from column 113. The cult is proved. I asked for the entire life in 1673; namely, that it might be of use to the continuators about to reach July. Small was the loss that we did not receive the requested copy of the codex, since in it we found very little pertaining to the deeds, besides those which were handed down by Ughelli, now faithfully described. But indeed our praised Master afterward weighed the matter much more accurately, when, treating of Pope Hadrian I, the more certain monuments being consulted, he thus expressed his sentiments in plain terms: Those Nonantola monks therefore erred, deceived by the identity of the name, who, describing the death and miracles of the Pope Hadrian buried in their monastery, fitted to him the life and deeds of Hadrian I, both in prose and in verse, in those monuments which are extant in Ughelli, to be given on the 8th of July: which error the posterity correcting, venerate the body placed under their high altar as the body of Pope Hadrian III, whom it is certainly established died abroad in Aemilia and was buried.

[25] not Pope Hadrian I, We have freed the Master's trust; the monuments of Ughelli being reported word for word on this day the 8th of July: but that he asserts that the posterity corrected the error, this must have been ascertained by him from somewhere: for that it was not so long ago corrected, the works of Ludovico Vedriani cited above sufficiently show, namely the Saints of Modena and the history of that city. For the rest, the things which in Hadrian I were touched more briefly, you will find deduced a little more fully in St. Hadrian III, to whom, from the ancient cult in the abbey of Nonantola, he restores the title and honors of a Saint. Thus he speaks there: William the Librarian calls the place in which Hadrian died the village Vuilzachara, upon the river Scoltenna: and that this is in Aemilia, Baronius notes. Strabo names it Scultanna: and this name that river even today retains, Blondus being witness. Leander says it is called the Panaro. Both names have the chorographical tables of John Anthony Magini, Scultenna otherwise Panaro; on whose left bank, at nearly equal distance from Modena and Bologna, but nearer to Modena and within the district of Modena, lies the town Spina di Lamberto, commonly called Spilamberto, perhaps from Lambert King and Emperor of Italy, many more than a hundred years after Hadrian's death, since before it was called in the Lombard word Vuilzachara, that is the field of Willa or Willo; below which, on the right bank of the same river, at 10 miles, is situated Nonantola, where we said he was buried.

[26] but that Hadrian III is venerated at Nonantola: Papebroch then conjectures why St. Hadrian III Pope set out from Rome into these parts, and thinks this is not improbably gathered from the calamities of those times, brought by the Saracens upon Italy; but what the greater reason was, will appear below. Let us subjoin his remaining words: But the cause of this Pontiff's departing from the City seems to have been a great fear of the Saracens, against whom, about to hasten the aids sought by himself, he undertook a journey into Germany; but was prevented by death on the way. But they, the next year following, [*] devastated Campania, and burned the Cassinese monastery of St. Benedict on the 4th of September. But that this Hadrian was buried at Nonantola ought not to be doubted, although the more ancient monks there thought that they had the body of Hadrian I, and to his Acts (as we noted above) subjoined in verse and prose what they knew of the death and miracles of the Saint. For it is to be pardoned to the ignorance of the middle ages that, out of several Hadrians, it chose him who was the first and most celebrated. For the good men, when they remembered or had read that their Hadrian, when he went to the King, none met them sooner than Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Lombards, most loving of Hadrian I.

[27] nor can the adverse opinions be reconciled. The same matter at nearly the same time our Augustino Oldoini had discussed, in the additions to Ciaconius, tome 1, from column 553, where, all those things being reported which we gave from Ughelli, he thus observes: Yet all these things which we recited concerning Hadrian's death and burial seem openly to conflict with those which Ciaconius wrote from the epitaph or tomb which Charlemagne the Emperor raised for him at Rome in the Vatican basilica. He subjoins moreover: He would most easily render these writers concordant with one another, who should say that Hadrian of this name I, having died at Spilimberto, was then buried for a time in the church of Nonantola, and at last brought back to Rome and laid up in the Vatican, and adorned with a sepulchral eulogy by the Emperor Charles. But this can no more please than that same which Oldoini in tome 2, column 114, approved, which some more recent writer writes, to reconcile the authors among themselves, that the body of Innocent IV was first laid in the tomb in the sacred building of St. Laurence, and afterward brought into the chief church, since it rests on the authority of no ancient writer, nay is refuted by the testimony of the ancient Cava Chronicle. Equal is the reasoning of both reconciliations, equal the authority which overthrows the same.

[28] But in vain do we tarry longer on these things, the whole matter the continuator of the Fulda Annals decides peremptorily, The matter is plainly settled edited by Lambeck in tome 2 of the Imperial Library of Vienna, from page 351, whom Pagi, whether uncle or nephew, showed to me, in the Critical work on Baronius at the year 885, and in the Breviary of the deeds of the Roman Pontiffs, tome 2, page 161, in which Pagi the younger, or Francis, admonishes beforehand that the first Fulda Annalist finished his work in the year 882, continued by an Anonymous, whom he himself called the Freherian Annalist: besides whom there was another Anonymous, of whom we speak, who, because he was edited by Lambeck, can be called the Lambeckian. This one at the year 885 reports these things concerning the death of Pope Hadrian III. The Emperor with his own held a colloquy at Frankfurt, and, messengers being sent to Rome, invited the Pontiff Hadrian into France. For he wished, as fame spread, to depose certain Bishops unreasonably, and to constitute Bernhart his son by a concubine heir of the kingdom after himself; and because he doubted that these things could be done by himself, he disposed to accomplish them through the Roman Pontiff, as by Apostolic authority. Whose fraudulent counsels were dissipated by the nod of God.

[29] For, as the same Lambeckian Continuator proceeds, the Roman Pontiff, An Anonymous contemporary edited by Lambeck. having departed from the city, and the river Eridanus being crossed, ended the present life, and was buried in the monastery of Nonantola. Which when the Emperor had learned, he was greatly saddened, because in such a business he could not be made master of his wish. If by Eridanus the modern Po be understood, the Pontiff who departed from life at Spilimberto does not seem to have crossed it. For the rest, that he closed his last day in those parts, the Freherian Annalist also confirms, when he writes: After the death of King Carloman (which happened in the month of December of the year 884, as may be read at that year in the Critical work of Baronius), who had then ruled Gaul, the Emperor undertakes that kingdom, and, the chief men being received, and things there disposed as he willed, returned into France, to the appointed assembly of Worms, to meet the Apostolic. But while the Pope himself was now at the middle space of the journey, seized by a swift infirmity, he expired. There is no need of more, that the most true proposition prefixed to this § may be demonstrated, by which we promised to show that no other St. Hadrian Pope can be venerated at Nonantola, except the third of that name, as in the compendium of his life, presently to be given, the above-praised Oldoini also sufficiently proves. Now let us subjoin a few things concerning the cult and deeds.

[30] Of the traces of the true cult. Of the day of death there is no small controversy; Papebroch wished to bring it back to the very festivity on which the Saint is venerated at Nonantola on this 8th of July, others contending for the 7th before the Ides of May, others for the month of September; namely as each has woven in order the series of the Roman Pontiffs. Nothing greatly hinders that he died on the 8th of July: but from that cult alone this does not seem to be proved, since its various reasons could have been, which there is no leisure here to enumerate. Nor is there need to explain the other chronological difficulties; for the present matter it suffices that Pope Hadrian was from time immemorial held and venerated in the monastery of Nonantola as a Saint, the Church approving or at least permitting, as is most known to have happened in so many other Saints. The more ancient miracles we have given, received from the manuscript codex by Ughelli; whether also those which were afterward wrought, whether any singular concourse is made at the Saint's relics, whether his festivity is more solemn, no tables have disclosed: this one indication of a certain cult the praised illustrator of Italia Sacra supplied, that on the said 8th of July he is invoked under this prayer: Almighty most mild God, who exalted blessed Hadrian your confessor with the pontifical and Apostolic dignity; and who mercifully opened to him the gate of the heavenly kingdom, grant, we beseech, that by his pious intercessions we may merit to obtain both the aids of the present life and the eternal rewards.

[31] The deeds of the Saint from Ciaconius, Of his deeds, since he sat only 1 year, 3 months, and 19 days, few things remain, which I did not think could be more safely taken from elsewhere than from Ciaconius and Oldoini. That one erred in this, that he believed this holy Hadrian buried in the basilica of St. Peter. For the rest, he rightly, I think, asserts that he was a Roman by fatherland, before called Agapitus, and that he equalled by greatness of mind the surname of the Hadrians. Worthy of note are the things which he subjoins. The Roman Princes urging, he says, at the beginning of his pontificate, in the year 884, he was of so great a spirit that he did not hesitate to oppose himself to the power of the Emperors, and issued two decrees, one for the liberty of the Romans, to the senate and people of Rome, that in creating a Pontiff or consecrating one the authority of the Emperor should not be awaited, and that the suffrages both of the Clergy and of the people should be free, which institution indeed was rather attempted than begun by Nicholas I. The other for the dignity of Italy, that, the Emperor dying,

Charles III the Fat being without sons, the kingdom, together with the title of empire, should be handed over to the Italian Princes. There are certain historians and jurists who, on account of the first decree, call this Pontiff a plunderer of the imperial right; who however are in error, since Hadrian could justly retract by his authority that which, necessity compelling, his predecessors had before permitted. These things Ciaconius.

[32] Oldoini adds that Hadrian, adhering to the footsteps of his holy predecessor, and from Oldoini. execrated Photius, as a layman acting as Patriarch of the church of Constantinople, and shared with him no symbol of communion at all, although he was greatly asked by Basil the Emperor of the Greeks. But Basil the Emperor, when he beheld the persevering constancy in the several Roman Pontiffs, moved with great indignation, vomiting forth the anger which he had long contained within himself, gave plainly hostile letters to Hadrian, full of contumelies, which however, brought late to Rome, after Hadrian's death, Pope Stephen his successor received. This Roman Pontiff wrote certain epistles, though only one is found, to Basil the Emperor, which is extant in the Eighth Universal Synod in Binius, tome 7 of the Councils, with the synodal epistle of Douzy to Hadrian; that he also wrote to him, in the same year in which he was created Pontiff, congratulatory letters, and others commendatory for Carloman King of the Franks, and for the defense of Fratharius, Archbishop of Bourges, Fulk Archbishop of Reims testifies in the life of the same Fulk by Flodoard. Of the time of his rule, his death, and the place of burial, enough has already been said: and with these we put an end to the whole dissertation.