ON BLESSED ANTHONY THE CONFESSOR, OF THE ORDER OF THE HERMITS OF ST. AUGUSTINE,
AT AQUILA IN THE VESTINI,
IN THE YEAR 1494.
PrefaceAntony, confessor, of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at Aquila in the Vestini, in Italy (Blessed).
BY G. C.
§ I. The worship and relics of the Blessed one.
In vain did I seek the memory of this Blessed one in Filippini, Galesini, Ferrari, and other Martyrologists of this kind. Only in the Milanese Martyrology, which Petrus Paulus Bosca published in the year 1695, on the ninth of the Kalends of August, it is thus related: The worship of the Blessed one is shown At Aquila in the Vestini, of blessed Anthony of Milan, of the Order of St. Augustine, celebrated for the holiness of his life. I confess that this announcement of a more recent Martyrology does not suffice for Anthony to be reckoned among the Blessed; but there are supplied from elsewhere sure indications of a more ancient worship, which are sufficiently gathered from chapter 3 of the Life and the narration of the miracles. Nevertheless, for the greater confirmation of the worship, I shall bring forward from the Italian manuscript of Carolus Ciminelli, of whom more below, those testimonies which seem plainly to settle the matter.
[2] First of all, Ciminellus in the manuscript Life, book 2, chapter 4, from the book of the sacristan asserts from arguments that in honor of blessed Anthony a Mass was celebrated in the year 1494, and a little after that in the Martyrology, which was wont to be sung in the choir, was added the following announcement: On the same day, the passing of blessed Anthony of Aquila, whose body on the present day is looked upon. For, that the devotion of the faithful might be satisfied, his body was wont to be exposed on the 24th of July to the eyes of the citizens of Aquila and others flocking thither. In the following year 1495 the chapel of blessed Anthony was adorned, and his feast promulgated with the public blast of trumpets, as is noted in the books of the sacristan and procurator. Moreover, in the same year two votive tablets were bought, on which votive offerings might be affixed. But all these things, as Ciminellus rightly reasons, could not lie hidden from the bishop of Aquila, with whose knowledge and consent therefore this public veneration is to be reckoned to have been exhibited.
[3] Then Ciminellus enumerates various ancient pictures, of Carolus Ciminellus, in which Anthony is either depicted with a radiated head, or honored with the title of blessed. Nor did the decree of Urban VIII stand in the way of this worship: for the praised author, from the continual concourse of the people, from the votive offerings, and other signs of public veneration, solidly shows that that worship persevered up to his times. Hence, besides other prelates of the church of Aquila, he praises the most reverend and most illustrious Gaspar de Gaioso, who followed blessed Anthony with such great affection that not only yearly on his festivity, but also often through the year, he offered the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass at his altar. He also permitted a compendium of the Life and miracles of the same to be committed to print, and the annual feast of the Blessed one to be promulgated in these words: On the 24th of the current month of July, on the vigil of St. James the Apostle, is celebrated in the temple of the Hermit Fathers of St. Augustine of this city the festivity of blessed Anthony of the same Order.
[4] Ciminellus finally transcribes the following prayers, and by the prayers, with which blessed Anthony is wont to be invoked.
which were wont to be recited in the chapel of blessed Anthony.
Antiphon. This is Anthony, who cured all the sicknesses of the body, upheld by divine aid, and by his intercessions most powerfully washed souls from the stains of sins.
℣. Pray for us, blessed Anthony. ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Prayer. We beseech thee, almighty God, that, as thou hast adorned blessed Anthony with the virtue of curing bodies, by his intercession thou mayest most gently purge us from all languors of the soul. Through our Lord etc. Another antiphon. O blessed Anthony, confessor of Christ, who by conquering the blandishments of the world didst merit the heavenly kingdom, in which thou now gloriously crowned dost exult, loose our guilt by pious prayer, that, aided by thy patronage, we may merit to attain to the joys of eternal life. ℣. Pray for us, blessed Anthony. ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Prayer. We beseech thee, O Lord, that the prayer of blessed Anthony may commend us to thy majesty, and, he interceding for us, that thou mayest lead us to the eternal joys. Through our Lord etc. ANOTHER ANTIPHON. O venerable Anthony, noble by birth, but nobler by holiness, who didst leave the wealth of the world and its earthly delights, pray most piously for thy servants, that, freed from all evils, we may by thy prayers merit to possess the perpetual kingdom with the saints. ℣. Pray for us, blessed Anthony. ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Prayer. Perfect, we beseech thee, O Lord, in us the pious affection of holy religion, that to obtain the largess of thy grace thy confessor blessed Anthony may always intercede for us by his merits with thee. Through our Lord etc. These things I judge sufficient to establish the worship of the Blessed one.
[5] As to what pertains to the sacred relics of blessed Anthony, of them there will often recur mention in the history of the Life and miracles. The body of blessed Anthony, formerly entire, Moreover our colleague Janning of pious memory in the year 1686 saw his body, concerning which he related the following in his manuscript itinerary: I came to Aquila on the 22nd of May. I saw among the Augustinian Fathers the body of blessed Anthony of Milan, and a sufficiently ancient effigy of the same with rays. They keep his feast on the 24th of July, on which he died, with a great concourse of people and a panegyric oration on the Blessed one; they say a Mass of the Holy Spirit. The body is preserved in a case, which is seen through glass on this side and on that; at least the hands and face, which alone are covered with a linen cloth; the rest is clad in the garment or black tunic of the Order: the case itself, moreover, placed in a very small little chapel, is discerned through iron railings by those standing outside. But to enter into it one must go bent through a little door scarcely three feet high, above which these verses are read, composed, as it seems, in the preceding century. Here Janning subjoins the poems which in the Life of the Blessed one, number 26, are related.
[6] Thus indeed the body of the Blessed one was exposed to public veneration up to the year 1703: and afterwards broken by an earthquake, when the temple of the Augustinian Fathers of Aquila fell in an earthquake, and by its ruin oppressed the sacred remains, as in the year 1717 the kindly helper of our studies, the illustrious lord Dominicus de Giorgio, wrote to us at Naples from a letter of a certain Augustinian priest, in these words: Let me lastly note this, that the sacred body of blessed Anthony, which was formerly preserved entire and incorrupt, is now diminished and broken by the ruin of the bell tower, which, shaken by the said earthquake, falling, oppressed the tomb and coffin. The bones now and the sacred relics are kept in a decent little ark, until, the temple being now completed, which is strenuously being built, the honor due to him may be had with the ornament and worship which befit.
[7] That temple, at the time when I write this, I understand from letters is not yet perfected, is preserved at Aquila. given to me from Aquila in the year 1726 on the 7th day of June, in which, after a compendium of the Life taken from tome 7 of the reverend Father Aloysius Torellius, these things are noted: I would not have those reading this summary of the history be ignorant that at present, from the ruin of the earthquake of Aquila, the body of blessed Anthony has been cut into the tiniest fragments, which now, wrapped in the skin of the same Blessed one, will lie hidden, until the begun mass of the magnificent temple of the Augustinian cloister be perfected to the utmost. This misfortune seems to have been unknown to the reverend Father Augustinus Maria Arpe, when in the Pantheon Augustinianum, which he published at Genoa in the year 1709, concerning blessed Anthony, page 232, he still writes thus: His incorrupt body is venerated at Aquila. In what place the cap of the Blessed one, and other relics of this kind, are kept, is sufficiently expressed in the narration of the miracles to be subjoined to the Life, so that it is not needful to treat of them here.
§ II. The year of death, the Acts, the miracles, and the posthumous glory.
The praised Augustinus Maria Arpe in the Pantheon Augustinianum, page 232, consigns the death of blessed Anthony to the year 1480. The Life of blessed Anthony, who seems to have died in the year 1494, Naevius, Elssius, Torellius, and others place the same in the year 1482. These had been preceded by Abraham Bzovius, who in the Ecclesiastical Annals, at the year of Christ 1482, number 8, has these things: In which year also (namely 1482) at Aquila in the Vestini, blessed Anthony, professor of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, emigrated to the heavenly homeland. Then he subjoins a neat compendium of the Life, which he seems to have received from Claudius Eugenius, whom he cites at the end. Yet Carolus Ciminellus in the Italian manuscript contends that all the asserters of the year 1482 erred, and that that error was afterwards detected and corrected. With Ciminellus agrees Petrus Scacchi, an Augustinian, who in the Italian compendium of the Life and miracles, which was printed at Aquila in the year 1643, also assigns the year 1494 to his death. However it be, until surer things be brought forward, we adhere to the year which is expressed in the Life, and which our Janning describes thus from the epitaph at Aquila: He died on the 9th of the Kalends of August 1494, in the seventieth year of his age.
[9] Although no synchronous writer composed the Life of blessed Anthony, it was written by various persons; yet many afterwards committed his deeds to letters. Among these first came to my knowledge lord Claudius Eugenius, whom I had seen cited here and there by Bzovius and others. Since therefore, after our manner, I judged that the more ancient authors ought to be consulted, I employed all my exertion to obtain somewhere this writer's Treatise on the saints and blessed of the city of Aquila. But not knowing whether that little work were in manuscript or printed, I inquired among the Belgian Augustinian Fathers whether this Life of their blessed Anthony were known to them. But they could suggest to me no knowledge of it. I judged therefore that recourse must be had to Aquila, that I might obtain that little work of Claudius Eugenius, or at least a copy of it. For this reason I wrote to the reverend Father Franciscus Scacchi, rector of our college of Aquila, who in the year 1726, on the 7th day of June, among other things thus answered me: Of Claudius Eugenius, finally, there is at present no discourse; but the Acts of blessed Anthony, as also of others, by this Eugenius only in manuscript, not published in print, as thou saidst, certain elder men of Aquila assert. But this manuscript eluded all our diligence, and that of the Augustinian Fathers.
[10] but since a more ancient author could not be obtained, his Acts Frustrated therefore in this hope, I began with tedious labor to render into Latin from the Italian manuscript the Life which the reverend Father Carolus Ciminellus, an Augustinian, professor of sacred theology, had copiously composed, and which in the year 1690 the most illustrious lord Josephus Caprini, at the request of our Janning, had caused to be transcribed. But that writer had first collected it in the year 1636, and after a decade augmented it with new documents and miracles. But since in reading I observed that this historian sometimes acted the parts of a preacher and rhetorician, I was not so scrupulously engaged in his interpretation as to render word for word. But, the substance of the matter being preserved, I contracted the verbose Life, and selected those things which properly pertained to the deeds of the Blessed one. I had indeed before my eyes various compendia of the Acts, which Bzovius, Naevius, Petrus Scacchi, Elssius, Torellius, and others had published, and which I could have transcribed with less labor; but they were too contracted, and in none of these was brought forward the Compostellan testimony, related in this Life, number 7, which is the most ancient monument of the Acts. These things I wished to forewarn the reader, that he might understand the reason and manner of my interpretation.
[11] together with many miracles No one collected more miracles of blessed Anthony than Ciminellus, in interpreting which I was more severe, although here and there I omitted light circumstances of matters, and did not relate among the miracles the unexpected death which some sick persons, having implored the help of blessed Anthony, obtained, because events of this kind could be ascribed to natural causes, and did not seem to me to pertain to the true class of certain miracles. To the copious collection of Ciminellus I added some more recent benefits, which either were read in our Italian manuscript, or had been transmitted to us by the praised lord Dominicus De Giorgio, as I shall observe in the annotations. Torellius in the Italian compendium of illustrious Augustinians, century 4, chapter 13, and in the General History of the Augustinian ages, tome 7, in both places in the eulogy of blessed Anthony, from the tradition of the nuns of St. Lucy, narrates that the Blessed one produced in their monastery a beam which had not sufficient length for the use of the building. Truly I marvel that this prodigy was not noted by Carolus Ciminellus or Petrus Scacchi. Whatever be the cause of that omission, I leave the faith of that prodigious matter with the author.
[12] Further, among the miracles may rightly be numbered the previous sign of imminent death, from the Italian manuscript are given. which was wont to be given to the nuns of St. Lucy, as in the Life of blessed Anthony, from number 17, is narrated. But this perpetual, so to speak, miracle the abbess of this monastery in the year 1690 confirms by her testimony, which here from the Italian I make into Latin: I, the below-written abbess of the venerable monastery of St. Lucy, virgin and martyr, in this city of Aquila, to all who shall see these letters make sure faith, that from time immemorial there has been heard, and up to now is heard, a certain sound, now in one, now in another place of the monastery, before any of the nuns migrates to the happier life. But this sound, which is emitted sometimes in the manner of iron striking itself, and sometimes by the stroke of a bell, is called by us the sign, which is handed down to have been promised by blessed Anthony of Milan, of our eremitical Order of St. Augustine, to each nun of this cloister. But this from the death of the aforesaid Blessed one was always observed, and is still observed; it was believed, and up to now is believed. In faith of this matter I have ordered the present testimony to be written, and have subscribed it with my own hand, and fortified it with the seal of our said monastery. Given at Aquila on the 18th of July in the year 1690. Subscribed was: I, sister Margarita Cappa, abbess.
[13] I conclude this commentary with certain Latin poems, Certain verses are brought forward which, to increase the posthumous glory of blessed Anthony, were composed by various persons, and were prefixed to our Italian manuscript. First, the most illustrious lord doctor Horatius de Matthaeis of Sulmona
thus sang of the blessed Man:
The discordant minds of the peoples Anthony once Led, loving, to the covenants of harmless peace: And learned medicines he afforded to sick bodies, And restored wounds pierced with iron. Who could better compose quarrels, who could Better cure bodies, there was none. Against him death set snares, and Orcus stretched his darts, But they behold the bundle cast down and the kingdoms bared. While he lived the certain years, as God had prescribed, He lay down happy: death sings, Orcus rejoices. They are wretchedly deceived: keeping on earth the heavenly Kingdoms, he fills bodies with health, minds with peace.
[14] Augustinus Maria Arpe in the Pantheon Augustinianum, page 232, concerning the posthumous glory of blessed Anthony, has these things: and by hymns His incorrupt body is venerated at Aquila: he shone with very many signs both before and after death. He is honored with an anniversary panegyric on the 20th of July, and by the Brothers with a hymn daily. I know not whether that hymn of the Brothers be one of the three following, of which the first is said to have been composed by Raynaldus thus:
Now let the earth, suppliant and toiling for thee, Render, Anthony, the merited honors, In solemn manner, the feast returning Each year with its light. Let it raise to heaven thy marvelous Deeds with song, while, curing minds and limbs, O saint, thou recallest the sick Into the light of kindly life. Let it praise the Spanish shores, conscious Well of thy holiness, and Aquila, noble Witness of things, in its bosom cherishing The blessed bones. Let it tell in a long series the tablets, Which the vow-bound people dedicate to the chapel: Let it tell of those snatched from Styx, and Placed in the gleaming citadel. O recent ornament of the world! O reviving Amid the shining lights of the stars! Go on now to be truly pious, added To the sacred calendars.
[15] to the posthumous glory of the Blessed one The second, by the author Cianflocca, sounds thus:
Noble Father and Master of morals, While bent low we venerate thy limbs, Mild Anthony, look upon thy servants From high heaven. Receive, now a saint, the gifts which the world Widely affords thee, than which higher Phoebus has not seen, nor now will see, With clear light. And do thou, while thou enjoyest perennial life, May the Maker of the world grant pardon of all Faults to all, and to our prayers Lend his ears.
[16] composed. The third finally, a hymn of an anonymous author, is thus sung:
Who will tell thy praises in becoming numbers, Anthony, thy deeds, O saint, Which piously thou renderest in the Italian fields For all time? O hail, new light of the pleasant heaven, To whom throughout the immense earth everywhere So many vows are made, and the altars smoke With flowing incense. While we celebrate thy festivals, leaving The high songs of the heavenly ones, O Venerable one, Be present here, and revisit thy seat and thy consecrated Members. May this day, we pray, be ever with desire Celebrated in our heart, nor may thy beloved people Feel any snares Of the enemy of hell. O happy Inhabitant of the kindly house, Give to thy servants a serene mind, Give to enjoy with thee in the heavenly shores Perennial light.
THE LIFE
By the author Carolus Ciminellus, an Augustinian hermit.
Collected by himself from various monuments, and by us contracted from the Italian manuscript into Latin.
Antony, confessor, of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, at Aquila in the Vestini, in Italy (Blessed), from the Italian manuscript.
PROLOGUE.
The author forewarns, I would not dare to accuse of carelessness those fathers who, having lived with our blessed Anthony, left nothing or little to posterity concerning his life, death, and miracles: for our elders preferred to please God alone by exercising pious works, than to become known to the world by writing them. But lest anyone charge me with temerity, that with an unskilled pen I now wish to express those things which happened a hundred and more years ago, let him remember that by God not only are those rewarded who have rightly used two or five talents, but also that he is punished who has hidden the single talent granted to him. If therefore those fathers who lived with blessed Anthony wished rather to imitate his virtues than to write them, and so with the two or five talents of their knowledge gained a copious reward in heaven, let it be permitted to me to set forth in rude style the sanctity of the blessed Man, which I neglect to emulate, according to the scanty knowledge which survives to this day, lest at least I be punished with him who hid the money of his lord. Moreover, in this purpose I am confirmed by the example of others, who long after the death of blessed Anthony committed his illustrious deeds to letters. Further, I now forewarn in few words from what instruments I have collected those things which through the course I am about to narrate.
[2] The nuns of St. Lucy always held a peculiar memory of blessed Anthony, from which monuments he has collected the Life of the Blessed one. both because he was formerly the confessor of their cloister, and because, being segregated from the worldly din, they more easily preserved the tradition. And they relate not only those things which before the most illustrious and most reverend lord Gaspar de Gaioso a, bishop of Aquila, they deposed upon oath, but also many other things drawn from the narration of sister Adeodata b, who about the year 1553 c died with a great reputation for sanctity; but Adeodata herself had received the same from sister Christina d, who a little after the death of blessed Anthony embraced the religious life. There is also said to exist a certain half-torn manuscript booklet, which bears the name of Father Dionysius, in which, among other things, it is said to be read that at the time of blessed Anthony's profession the songs of angels were heard, and that in the company of that Blessed one, as he departed from life, many souls flew from purgatory to heaven. But since, after diligent inquiry made both among the elder fathers of this monastery and the nuns of St. Lucy, and among other curious investigators of such matters, I have found no testimony of this narration, I have thought that it ought to be omitted: for I wished to relate nothing here unless it were known and widely current among very many, especially after the printed compendium of the Life e, which in the year 1643 the most illustrious bishop of Aquila f permitted to be committed to print only after all things had been severely examined to the faith of the instruments. Finally, the books of the sacristy and procuratorship of this monastery indicate the veneration of the citizens of Aquila toward this Blessed one, his happy death, the multitude of miracles, the fame of his sanctity, and other things, which I shall now proceed to narrate to the greater glory of God, and the honor of blessed Anthony, to whom in this my infirmity I earnestly commend body and soul.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The boyhood of the Blessed one, the medical and surgical art, his entrance into the Order of St. Augustine, and his pious pilgrimage.
Blessed Anthony, piously exercising the medical art In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1424 a, at Milan, of the Torriani stock b, blessed Anthony was born of noble and wealthy parents, who took care that their son should be imbued with the best morals and letters, and received the fullest fruit of their diligent instruction: for the boy joined to doctrine the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. The course of humane studies being finished, he was sent to Padua, as some assert, and there set his mind to learning the surgical and medical art, and made such progress in that study that in a short time he attained the laurel of doctor, and passed from speculation to practice. He began therefore to exercise his art in various places, as lord Claudius Eugenius c relates, and to cure, with the admiration of all, the gravest diseases, and to heal wounds which seemed incurable. But he did not wish to heal the body, unless first the wounds of the soul had been healed, being wont to say that our sins are the causes of diseases, and so that, sins being taken away, bodily infirmity is easily removed. Wherefore, called to the sick, he straightway exhorted them to make confession of their sins and to receive the sacred Eucharist: which done, he fortified the sick with the sign of the holy cross, and then applied salutary medicines. In this manner a singular efficacy was communicated to herbs and plasters, and incurable diseases were driven off, so that Anthony snatched very many from the present peril of death, as these little verses, which are read in his epitaph, indicate:
Anthony once, while yet free from the laws of Father Augustine, Aided with his help those sick in body. Whether wasting-sickness devoured, or iron laid open the limbs, He is said here to have restored them with healing hand.
[4] He enters the religious Order, While this pious physician thus cures bodies and souls, he moved very many sick persons by his exhortations so far that, restored to their former health, at his persuasion they embraced the religious institute of life. But lest he be of the number of those who say and do not, he too resolved to send a message of farewell to the world, and to give his name to a religious Order, that by the example of others, whom by his words he had roused to a like kind of life, he might follow Christ more closely. Then the demon is said to have employed various modes of temptations, to call him away from his holy purpose. But Anthony, all difficulties being overcome, carried his resolve into execution, and entered the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine in the province of Milan. With how great virtues he shone in the religious novitiate, he will easily gather who shall be willing to consider his secular life: for if in the world he lived so piously, no one will marvel that in religion he led an angelic life, as this sepulchral verse testifies:
Undergoing the burden of religion, soon an angel new He was seen to be present among mortals themselves.
[5] After blessed Anthony had bound himself by the three vows of religion, and a transit having been made to another congregation of the Order, on account of his singular virtue he was in a short time promoted to sacred Orders. But since day by day he profited more and more in religious perfection, after a few years spent in the Order he was compelled to undertake the office of Prior. But this election displeased the Servant of God, who judged himself unworthy of that office, and desired rather to be under others than to be over them. Moreover he feared lest a severe account for the souls of his subjects should be rendered by him to God: whence with all zeal he tried to be freed from this burden. But at last,
seeing that by dignities of this kind he was the more burdened the more diligently he fled them, he determined to pass over to another congregation of the same Order. And when he had understood that a stricter discipline, introduced in the year 1419 by the venerable father Augustinus Romanus d, was observed in the province of Perugia, he suppliantly asked of his Provincial that it might be permitted him to pass over to that congregation. Although the reverend Father Provincial granted that license unwillingly, yet he satisfied the pious desire of the blessed Man, lest he should seem to resist the divine will. Blessed Anthony, the blessing being received, set out for Foligno, and there approached the Vicar general of that province, and humbly begged of him to be admitted into that congregation. The reverend father Vicar, having heard his reasons, and himself moved by the very aspect of the blessed Man, assigned to him the cell of St. Nicholas of Foligno e, as Claudius Eugenius relates, and as is gathered from the Compostellan testimony, which will be exhibited below.
[6] When at Foligno, through three years and some months, by various works of apostolic charity, he makes a pilgrimage into Galicia: and especially by care of the poor lying sick in the infirmaries, he had attained a great fame for sanctity, he wished to avoid the excessive veneration of the people, and therefore obtained from the most reverend Father Julianus de Salem f, General of the whole Order, that he might be permitted to visit the relics of St. James in Galicia, and, to aid especially the poor, to exercise the medical and surgical art everywhere lawfully. This license having been obtained, Anthony eagerly seized the journey, and came to Compostela. Who could easily explain with how great devotion he there venerated the sacred remains of the holy Apostle, and how many poor, afflicted with diseases, he cured? Certainly no one can suspect that his fervent charity in Galicia was idle, since for three years and some months he stayed at Compostela and for as long at Pontevedra. No one, I say, can suspect this of him, whose motto in the Sulmona tablet and other ancient pictures is thus read:
Charity seeks not the things that are its own, but Christ himself.
[7] where according to the testimony All these things are abundantly gathered from the Compostellan testimony of that time, which, written in Latin on parchment, sounds thus: "In the name of God, Amen. Let all know, who shall inspect the present letters, that in the presence of me, Petrus Lupus of the city of Segovia, bachelor in Decrees, canon of the holy church of Compostela, judge and public notary, and of the below-written witnesses, in the house of my habitation, which is in the aforesaid city and in the audience of the lord archbishop of Compostela of St. James near the church, there appeared the venerable man, brother Antonius de Torre of Milan, of the Order of the Hermits of St. Nicholas of Foligno, and before me reserved [*], as was manifest to me and to all standing by and to very many other citizens of the aforesaid city, that he had exercised the art of physic and was skilled in that art, and had resided in the aforesaid city continuously for the space of three years and more, and also in the town of Pontevedra g for as long a time, curing and healing the sick and ailing of grave infirmities: and because he was skilled in the art of medicine, as he had before said, which by experience and by trustworthy witnesses he intended to show, and also intended to travel through and go through various parts of the world, that it might please me to receive some witnesses, and to have plenary information by whatever way, and to inquire diligently concerning his skill by my office, which upon this he implored, and that I should apply faith to him, and to the aforesaid brother Antonius grant my testimonial letters, and lend my authority, and interpose my decree."
[8] received at Compostela, "I, considering that his petition was just and reasonable, and considering his sufficiency and skill, and because it is manifest to me of some cures, performed by the same venerable brother Antonius, by trustworthy witnesses and also by experience, which is the mother of all things, therefore at the petition of the same brother Antonius I ordered this public instrument to be made, and to be afforded him in testimony of the truth, and these testimonial letters to be conferred, to be confirmed and sealed with my accustomed name and seal. Which all and singular let it be made known to those seeing and hearing, that he is skilled in the art of medicine, and carries and has with him many instruments and preparations of surgery, and, as is the custom and more holy, leaves the care to almighty God, who above all physicians and above nature is the true physician. In honor and praise of him the aforesaid brother Antonius cures the poor sick without money. Given and done in the city of Compostela in the Quintana de Paveos near the church of St. James Zebedee in the auditorium of the most reverend lord D. Alfonsus de Fonseca h, archbishop of Compostela, where his judges were wont to determine or discern suits and quarrels, on the fourth day of the month of August in the year from the Lord's Nativity 1464, witnesses present at all these premises, there called and asked, the venerable men Fernandus de Caruvia, canon of Compostela, and Petrus Alfonsi, clerk, and Joannes de Auro Vetere, citizens of Compostela."
[9] Then follows this confirmation of the preceding testimony: he aids many poor by his art. "And I, Alvarus de Castrenda, public notary of Compostela for the church of Compostela and by the same authority sworn apostolic notary, because I was present at all and singular the aforesaid premises together with the above-named witnesses, and saw and heard all and singular these things so done, drew them into my note, and therefore this present public instrument, written by another, myself being occupied with other business, I made, and here affixed my accustomed and customary sign, in faith and testimony of all and singular the premises, being asked and required." Place of the seal ✠ of the notary Alvarus… Place of the pendent seal ✠. I judge that this testimony was sought by blessed Anthony, that the prodigious healings might be ascribed rather to herbs and the surgical art than to his prayers or sanctity, and so that he might avoid the applause of the people. But from that instrument, besides the surname, fatherland, and other circumstances of the Blessed one, we gather that he made pilgrimages through various parts of the world, and, without any hope of gain, bore especial care of the poor. Moreover, blessed Anthony had received from God the singular gift of expelling demons from human bodies, as Father Dionysius writes in these words: He was marvelous in expelling demons. The same in the ancient calendar of our monastery thus speaks: Who was to all most dear by charity and humility, and especially renowned in putting spirits to flight.
ANNOTATIONS.
perhaps asseveravit* (affirmed)
CHAPTER II.
The charity of the Blessed one toward his neighbor, a prodigious escape from slaughter, and other miracles.
The Blessed one, returned from his pilgrimage, Now blessed Anthony, by exercising many works of charity, had traversed diverse regions of the world, when he fell into a disease, from which he became lame: for with a great example of patience he suffered so great a contraction of the sinews that his left leg became five fingers shorter than the right, as even today is discerned in his sacred body. Compelled therefore to halt the course of his pious pilgrimage, he had recourse to the reverend Father Jacobus of Aquila a, General of the Augustinian Religion, who in the year 1470 had been elected in the chapter of Bologna, and obtained from him to be sent to Aquila, because he had understood that the greatest discords had arisen in that city, and foreboded that the divine scourge of those enmities, namely a contagious disease, would there follow. Commended therefore to the Father Provincial of Umbria, to which province our monastery was at that time aggregated, he came to Aquila, and, kindly received by the Father Provincial, inhabited the cell assigned him by him up to his death.
[11] At Aquila he strives to compose the discords of the citizens, Scarcely had the Servant of God rested for some days in the monastery of Aquila, when he turned all his industry to reconciling the discordant minds of the citizens. Daily (on account of the difficult step of his lameness, leaning on a staff) he ran to various parts of the city, that by exhorting and beseeching he might extinguish hatreds and compose peace. Who can say with how great humility and patience he had need, when he tried to placate minds swollen with pride and inflamed with anger and hatred? I doubt not that he was often received with contumelious words, and scarcely escaped the violent hands of some. Yet not for that did Anthony despond in mind; but he placated raging wrath with kindly admonitions. If he had met with any of a more obstinate disposition, he employed prayers, fasts, and disciplines, and demanded like afflictions of the body from the nuns of St. Lucy, that God might deign to move their hard hearts to peace, as those religious women testify from continual tradition: nay, they add that the disciplines at that time were so vehement that the bloody marks of the scourges appear to this day on the walls of their monastery. Whence some citizens are said to have been so moved that they not only forgave their enemies, but even bade farewell to the world, and embraced the religious institute b. For this reason on his tomb, among other things, is inscribed this distich verse:
Discordant minds he joined by the covenant of peace, And imbued pious minds with religion.
[12] Although blessed Anthony had gathered no small fruit of his labor, and, the plague raging there, yet by the malevolent instigation of some the old hatred was resuscitated, and discord broke out afresh. But since then the burning minds of the citizens were moved neither by blandishments nor by threats, God, to chastise their obstinacy, sent in the year 1476 a plague so malignant that in the space of ten months, according to lord Cirillus c in his Annals, fourteen thousand men were destroyed. Would that I could express the innumerable works of charity which the Servant of God exercised at that time! Through days and nights without rest, without food, he served the sick, received their confessions, prepared the dying for the happy struggle, and among the living, so to speak,
and the stinking corpses, fortified only with the body and blood of Christ, he moved about, as lord Claudius distinctly narrates. But the more the plague grew strong, the more grew the fervor of Anthony, who daily, with great difficulty on account of his lameness, traversed all the corners of the city, and desired to bring help to all.
[13] When at length the pestilence had abated, the labor of that indefatigable workman did not cease: he exercises various works of charity, for by the assiduous examples of his zeal he had obtained so great a fame for sanctity that most of the citizens of Aquila chose him as physician of body and soul. Bodies indeed he cured not so much with human as with divine remedies: for very often with the sign of the cross alone he restored the sick to their former health, as all affirm. But of souls he bore by far the greatest care, since very many flocked to him to confess their sins. And so great was that concourse of penitents that I would dare to assert that by Anthony alone more confessions were received than by all the rest of the fathers of the cloister, even though they were many in number. This I gather not rashly from the alms given to him, which surpass the number and value of all the rest, as is plain from the book of accounts. I pass over with how great piety and vigilance he disposed the souls committed to him to undergo a happy death, and I only relate some prodigies which God deigned to perform in favor of his Servant while he was still living.
[14] When blessed Anthony, according to the rite of the Church, had received on Palm Sunday a blessed branch of olive, and healing many sick he planted the same in the garden of our monastery, which within a short space of time not only marvelously grew, but even brought forth fruits. But although of that tree there was not had such care as is required to nourish fruits of this kind, and therefore it sometimes seemed to wither, nevertheless it never failed, as even today is discerned. Further, the nuns of St. Lucy from ancient tradition relate that blessed Anthony was wont to use the oil of those fruits to form the sign of the holy cross on the foreheads of the sick, and that many in this manner returned to their former health. They add that the confessors of their cloister, who succeeded blessed Anthony, always plucked branches from that tree, which on Palm Sunday they blessed, and, to preserve the memory of the miracle, distributed to the nuns. Finally, the efficacy of that oil was so commonly known at Aquila that most of the sick, leaving the physicians, summoned Anthony, and by his unction recovered their health.
[15] Hence arose the envy of certain physicians, who, seeing their gain daily diminished, conspired to kill Anthony. He marvelously escapes the ambushes laid for him by the envious. They decree therefore first to attack him early in the morning before light, in a certain corner, when he should go out to the monastery of St. Lucy to celebrate Mass. At the appointed time four armed men are present, to await him as he passes, and to execute their impious counsel. When they had now for a long time solicitously observed all things, and the accustomed hour had passed, they could not sufficiently wonder that he had not been seen by them. Entering therefore the temple out of curiosity, they behold him performing the divine mysteries. Then they stand fixed with stupor, that they had neither seen him passing, nor heard the sound of the bell, by which the sign was wont to be given for Mass. Moved by this miracle, they resolve to disclose to him their meditated crime, and to ask pardon of him. When they had with tears confessed their sacrilegious counsel to blessed Anthony, he embraced them in friendly fashion, and, more glad at their conversion than at the preservation of his own life, forgave them from his heart.
[16] He preserves the nuns long healthy not without a miracle, Among the miracles also may deservedly be counted, that blessed Anthony, in the space of eighteen years in which he directed the cloister of St. Lucy, preserved all the nuns not only in perfect concord of mind, but also in prosperous health of body: for although they were in number eighty-seven, of diverse age and constitution, and among them many already weighty with years, yet none in so great an interval of time died, nay, not even so fell sick as to be compelled to lie in bed. Nor can this continual health easily be ascribed to the natural temperament of the bodies, since many felt the beginnings of diseases. But soon blessed Anthony formed on their forehead the sign of the cross with oil, which is believed to have been pressed from the fruits of the above-mentioned olive, and thus precluded the entrance of graver diseases. Nor can so great an efficacy be attributed to that oil, unless a certain divine power had been imparted to it. It happened that at that time a violent plague raged in the city of Aquila, as we said above. Then the eighty-seven nuns, among the innumerable corpses of the city immune from all contagion, in their monastery, as in an earthly paradise, enjoyed perfect health and peace, and daily entreated the divine mercy that it would deign to remove this scourge from the wretched citizens.
[17] and to them he promises the previous sign of imminent death, No less worthy of admiration is the benefit which blessed Anthony obtained for the same cloister, and which up to this day perseveres. When the servant of God knew that death was imminent for him, he bade farewell to his spiritual daughters, and communicated to them with tender affection the last admonitions of salvation. The nuns, after many tears and having commended his memory to themselves, at last asked that he would beg of God a certain sign, by which they might be forewarned when any of their community were about to die. "A difficult thing," said Anthony, "you have asked: yet be confident, for the sign which you desire will be given. As often therefore as you shall hear in the monastery a certain unwonted sound, know that one of you will shortly die. Wherefore then let each of you grieve for your sins, and prepare yourselves with the greatest diligence for death." These things having been said, Anthony, having prayed well for all, departed, and not long after fell into a mortal disease, as will afterwards be told.
[18] The event taught that this promise of the blessed Man pertained not only to the nuns which afterwards was always given, who were then living, but also to those who should afterwards live in the same monastery: for up to these times that sign is sometimes heard in the choir, sometimes in the infirmary of the cloister or other places, and as many nuns not long after depart from life as there are distinct beats emitted. Whence the nuns, having heard the sign, are wont to say among themselves: Behold, the holy Father (so they were wont to call blessed Anthony) has warned us. Which of us is about to die? And not long after one is afflicted with disease and migrates from this life. I confess indeed that some were oppressed by sudden death; yet the sign always preceded. Thus for many years Guilielma de Monte [*] Angelo of Aquila suddenly fell to the ground and expired, while the nuns were solicitously conversing among themselves about the sign already given. The same happened to Maria de Tussi, who straightway after the sign was given, without previous sickness, unexpectedly rendered up her spirit. Although therefore after the sign is given some one falls into disease, it does not follow that she is near to death: for sometimes she recovers health, and another, being in good health, is oppressed by sudden sickness and death. Wherefore these several prudent Virgins, furnished with the burning lamps of charity and the oil of virtues, are always compelled to await the coming of the bridegroom, because after the said sign they know not which of all is first to be called to him.
[19] To confirm the truth of this forewarning the nuns narrate a thousand examples; as is shown by certain examples. but I, for the sake of brevity, will here relate only the more notable ones. When in the year 1586 the nuns were in the choir, they heard five distinct beats, and although at that time sixteen had been fortified with extreme unction, nevertheless only five migrated from this life: namely Clara di Cicoli, Calixta di Luculo, Agnella di Bagno, Clementia Alfieri, and Juliana Farzetta. When the confessor of the same monastery was Father Archangelus of Foligno, about the year 1611, similarly, after the sign was given five times, in a short time five nuns died, namely Virginea di Carlo, Paula di Bagno, Innocentia di Scoppito, Clara Rosa, and Martha Mariani. I myself asked of the nuns that they would forewarn me when a like sign should be given in their monastery. Whence in the year 1635, on the 12th day of November, they indicated to me that the accustomed murmur had been heard in their infirmary, and afterwards I understood that on the 17th of the same month Gabriela Pica passed to the other life. Thus also a few weeks after, Ursula di Bagno, after the sign was given, departed from among the living. Finally, in the year 1636, on the 31st day of August, after the sign had been heard for some days, Maria Constantia Ricci, who counted only thirty years of age, died against the opinion of all, and especially of the physician, to whose confusion perhaps God permitted that she was not fortified with the Sacrament of extreme unction, since she had before, on the feast of St. Augustine, confessed, and communicated of the body of the Lord: for when the nun said to the physician that on account of the previous sign she doubted of her life, he, deriding this before all standing by, asserted that there was no peril of death. But she, after a few hours, migrated from this life unexpectedly, as all the nuns who were there present affirm d.
ANNOTATIONS.
perhaps monte* (mount)
CHAPTER III.
The disease of blessed Anthony, his pious death, a miracle, his honorable sepulcher and epitaph.
The last disease of the Blessed one, When Anthony had fought the good fight, and consummated the course of his labors, on the 26th day of January in the year 1494, after celebrating Mass, he began to labor under a difficult disease, which for six months he tolerated with the highest example of patience. But the disease was so grave that the sick man, in the time of Lent and on other fasting days, was compelled by the counsel of the physicians and the command of his superiors to eat meat, as is gathered from the book of the procuratorship. The disease growing worse, fortified with the last Sacraments of the Church, he asked of the Father Prior that he might be buried there where, for his sins, he should be trodden by the feet of all the Brothers. When the nuns of St. Lucy had understood that their spiritual Father was hastening to the end of life, they poured out prayers with tears for his happy passage, and especially asked God that he would abundantly recompense in heaven his immense labors, and that they themselves might experience his peculiar patronage.
[21] and his pious death, At length, on the vigil of St. James, whom with singular worship he had always followed, with great sense of piety he rendered up his soul to the Creator in the year 1494 a, even though some have wrongly consigned his death to the year 1482. That death afflicted very many, who felt themselves bereaved of a confessor, physician, father, and consoler. Yet that grief was somewhat diminished, while they hoped that they would have as an intercessor in heaven him whom on earth they had had as a benefactor: for scarcely had that soul been separated from the body, when in his cell the songs of angels were heard, as the most illustrious and most reverend lord Andreas Gelsomini b committed to letters. In a short time also the sadness of the nuns was changed into pious joy: for while they commended his happy death to God, as I said a little before, they saw his most white soul, shining like the sun, ascend to heaven among the company of angels, as the reverend lord Martinus Pineus c narrates, and the nuns testify from continual tradition.
[22] Further, blessed Anthony abundantly satisfied the hope which the nuns of St. Lucy had conceived of his patronage, after which he consoles the nuns by the promise of his patronage. when he not only forewarns them of imminent death, of which I made mention above, but also received their monastery into his protection, as was afterwards understood from an apparition, which I now relate. When Dorothea Coluccia of Aquila was a younger nun in the cloister of St. Lucy, and prayed before the image of blessed Anthony, she saw a beautiful girl, adorned with precious garments, whose majesty and loveliness she admired. Scarcely mistress of herself for stupor, she did not dare to ask who she was, whence she had come, or how she had entered the monastery. Then she heard it said to her by her: Dost thou not know who I am? And when Dorothea had answered that she did not know it, she added: Know that I am she who, together with that blessed Anthony, bear a singular care of this monastery. This said, she vanished. Wherefore, seized with greater admiration, she rises from prayer, and, approaching Monica Antonelli, thus questions her: Didst thou not see that girl who addressed me, while I prayed before the image of the holy Father? When Monica asked what that girl had said, Dorothea answered: She said to me that she, together with the holy Father, bears a singular care of this monastery, and suddenly withdrew herself from my eyes, and I know not who she is, or whither she has gone. Then Monica asserted that that girl had been seen by her, although that was not true, lest she should fix Dorothea in greater stupor. But she meanwhile sufficiently understood that it was St. Lucy who had appeared, to whom the monastery is dedicated, and who is its singular patroness together with blessed Anthony, who in his life had governed it with great solicitude.
[23] The venerable body of the blessed Man was publicly exposed in the temple of the monastery, A miracle occurs at his burial, to which a great concourse was made not only of the citizens of Aquila, but also of the neighbors, to whom the fame of his death had come. And so great was the opinion of the people concerning his sanctity that all vied to kiss his hands and feet or to touch them with their rosaries. After the devotion of the flocking multitude had been in some manner satisfied for some days, the reverend Father Anselmus de Saxoferrato, who at that time administered the office of Prior, resolved to commit the body of Anthony to the earth, as he had promised him at his request, and for this end ordered gravediggers to be summoned, to whom he assigned the place in which the venerable Servant of God should be buried. While they, by the command of the Father Prior, prepare the grave, behold, a stone with great force leaps up of its own accord, and so strikes one of them in the breast that, prostrated to the ground, he gave no small signs of near death. Seeing this, the bystanders exclaim: A miracle, a miracle! Then indeed they commend the wretched gravedigger to blessed Anthony; who, soon returned to himself, uttered these first words: "God wills not that this venerable body, which in life for love of him sustained so many things, be covered with earth, and become food for worms." This prodigy is read not only in the book of the monastery, but is also narrated by the reverend lord Martinus Pineus and lord Claudius Eugenius.
[24] on account of which his body is placed in an honorable place Moved by this miracle, the reverend Father Prior ordered a case to be made, and the body, placed in it, to be set in a higher place above the altar of St. Catharine the martyr, that it might be to all for veneration. Here reverence was always wont to be shown by the Fathers passing to the choir or sacristy. So indeed God willed that he should be honored by all passing by, who desired to be trodden by the feet of those passing, according to that divine saying: He who humbles himself shall be exalted. In this place the glorious body remained up to the month of April of the year 1495, when the reverend Father Prior, seeing the devotion of the people daily grow, placed it in a case of walnut, which, more honorably adorned and fortified with iron, was set in the same altar. When the Blessed one in the year 1496 conferred very many benefits on those imploring his help, the Fathers resolved to honor more him whom God day by day adorned with more miracles, and therefore fitted up a certain place like a small chamber, in which they took care that two windows, furnished with railings, and little doors should be made, where the said case was honorably placed.
[25] and afterwards the place of the sepulcher is adorned, The venerable body of the Blessed one thus remained up to the year 1580, at which time Father Deodatus de Rocca di Cagno, an Augustinian, enlarged the same place, and adorned it with various statues, as is noted in the round stone with these letters: F. D. F. F. A. D. 1580. These characters signify: Brother Deodatus caused it to be made in the year of the Lord 1580. Moreover, the same Father Deodatus changed the walnut case into a crystal one, in which the body even today d lies entire, although it was seasoned with no aromatics or balsam, as Father Matthaeus of Aquila affirms from the tradition of the elders, and is abundantly gathered from the book of accounts, in which even the least expenses of nails, made for the first case, are computed, and meanwhile of precious ointments or aromatics no mention is made. Moreover, the length of the sacred body from the head to the right foot (the left, as we said above, being five fingers shorter than the other) is two ells e and a half, less by one finger, according to the measure of Aquila; but the arms, from the joint of the shoulders up to the middle finger of the hand, are three palms; the hands, moreover, from the joint of the arm up to the extremity of the little finger, have three fourth-parts of a palm; the feet, finally, are one palm long, except the middle toe. So I measured these things on the 14th day of December in the year 1637.
[26] and an epitaph is inscribed for him. To this day he rests in the said place, and above the little door is read the following epitaph:
Anthony once, while yet free from the laws of Father Augustine, Aided with his help those sick in body. Whether wasting-sickness devoured, or iron laid open the limbs, He is said here to have restored them with healing hand. Undergoing the burden of religion, soon an angel new He was seen to be present among mortals themselves. Discordant minds he joined by the covenant of peace, And imbued pious minds with religion. Now, his limbs at last laid here, for those to whom from heaven He provides more both by example and by prayer.
He died on the 9th of the Kalends of August 1494, in the seventieth year of his age.
ANNOTATIONS.
MIRACLES
Collected by the same Carolus Ciminellus, and by us rendered into Latin from his Italian copy.
PROLOGUE.
It is my mind not only to narrate here those miracles of blessed Anthony which at Sulmona and Aquila have been proved by legitimate testimonies, The author indicates how he collected the miracles of the Blessed one. or related by lord Claudius Eugenius a, but also all those which I have received from trustworthy persons. Further, I employed great diligence to come to the knowledge of them, and collected all with such great fidelity that with the apostle Paul I would dare to testify: But the things which I write to you, behold, before God, that I lie not. Nevertheless I have passed over many benefits which were said to have been rendered by the invocation of that Blessed one, and in sign of which votive offerings had been brought to his chapel: for I wished to note only those which, on account of a sudden healing or other circumstances, seemed to me true miracles b. A copy of this writing I communicated to the nuns of Aquila and Saxoferrato, and to very many other persons, that they might see that in them there was nothing of my own, except only the labor of collecting. Wherefore with the Apostle I repeat: But the things which I write to you, behold, before God, that I lie not.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The prodigious hardness of the wooden case in which the body of the Blessed one had lain. The resuscitation of the dead, and the healing of the deaf and other sick.
[A servant is injured by an axe, who wished in vain to split the sepulchral case of the Blessed one,] In the month of April of the year 1495 the venerable body of blessed Anthony was enclosed in a case of walnut, as we said above, and after eighty-five years translated to a crystal case, in which to this day it rests. But when the reverend Father Gratia Santarelli of Saxoferrato, vicar general of the congregation of Perugia, in the year 1583 visited the monastery of Aquila, he saw that former case placed in the sacristy; and when he had understood that for so long a time the body of blessed Anthony had rested in it, he ordered the reverend Father Prior to take care that it be broken and reverently burnt, lest perchance afterwards it be imprudently applied to profane uses: for, moved by pious zeal, he judged that that reliquary ought rather to be reduced to ashes than to be left in the peril of profane use, as he answered in the chapter of the year 1584, when upon this matter complaints
were deposed against him. After the departure of the reverend Father Vicar, the Father Prior, wishing to execute his mandate, summons Jacobus de Collattara, who at that time was the muleteer of the monastery, and commands him to cut up the said case. Jacobus, desiring to obey the Father Prior, though unwilling on account of the reverence which he had toward the Blessed one, having taken an axe, began to strike the case, that he might split it. But (O how marvelous is God!) the more he struck it, the more it repelled the axe, and the greater the force with which he tried to drive it in, the greater the force with which it rebounded, like a ball which is repelled by a racket. After repeated blows the axe, leaping off, so grievously injured the leg of Jacobus that not only was he compelled to lie in bed for many weeks, but even, after medicines had been applied in vain, he despaired of recovering his gait. Seeing therefore that he profited nothing by human remedies, he had recourse to divine help, and, commending himself to the patronage of blessed Anthony, straightway attained perfect health. This Father Chrysostomus and Father Innocentius, Augustinian priests of Aquila, deposed upon oath before the bishop lord Gaspar de Gaioso, because they themselves were present at all these things; and the recorder was the notary lord Paulus Gualterius.
[3] which is afterwards consumed by fire. The Father Prior indicated the prodigious outcome of the whole matter to the reverend Father Vicar general; but the latter, thinking that the Prior and the other Fathers were seeking a certain excuse lest the case, which they wished to preserve in the sacristy for the use of ornaments, be burnt, by a new precept compelled the Prior to consume it with fire. The Prior, knowing that obedience is better than sacrifice, as is read in the books of Kings, reverently placed the case in the fire, and reduced it to ashes. But then the miracle grew, as the witnesses mentioned above affirm: for at the time when the case was being burnt, it breathed forth so copious and sweet an odor that it spread even outside the monastery, and many ran up asking what was that fragrance which they perceived. Nevertheless this precept of the Vicar general so displeased the Fathers of Aquila that in the following year in chapter they deposed complaints against him, as we said above. It seems that in this matter God wished to show two things: first indeed he indicated how much he esteemed his servant Anthony, when he would not let the case be broken in which his sacred bones had so long rested; second he demonstrated how much the obedience of the Prior pleased him, when he permitted the same case to be consumed by fire.
[4] Joannes Franciscus Alexandri de Marino, playing with his little brothers on a certain platform two canne b high, unexpectedly fell from it. And he lay on the ground with cold limbs, without palpitation of the heart and pulse of the artery, so that all doubted whether he still lived. Two dead persons When he had remained in such a state for the space of an hour without breathing, his mother, after remedies had been applied in vain, thinking him dead, bent her knees and with no less piety than faith implored the help of blessed Anthony. Soon she bore the reward of her faith: for the boy seemed to return to himself, and began to breathe. Then the mother, struck with fear and at the same time affected with joy, placed him in bed, and on the following day, after the month of August of the year 1494, came with her little son and her husband to our church, where all, prostrate on their knees before the body of blessed Anthony, gave thanks, and, showing the son sound to those present, set forth the manner of the benefit conferred upon them.
Petrus Alexii of Albano had a son, by name Alexius, come to life again, who about the end of the year 1494 fell into a grave disease, and, after all the industry of the physicians had been eluded, gave no more any signs of life, so that he was now believed to have died. Wherefore Nicolaus his brother had already bought wax, and prepared all things for the funeral. Meanwhile Petrus, destitute of human solace, bewailed the death of his son, and at last, trusting in divine aid, carried him to our church, where he placed him with great confidence upon the reliquary of blessed Anthony, and fervently commended him to the Blessed one. But behold, at that very time, before many bystanders, Alexius, as if waking from sleep, returned to himself, and suddenly recovered health and life, as Marinus de Bagno the notary testifies in Claudius and others.
[5] Marinus, son of Joannes de Compagnone, had a son, and two deaf persons by name Bernardius, who for ten years was so deaf that his parents and others could indicate to him their will and mind only by signs and gestures. But Marinus, hearing that God by the intercession of blessed Anthony conferred many benefits, together with his wife and the said son visited the body of the Blessed one, and with the little cloth with which he had touched the sacred body restored hearing to his son on the same day, month, and year on which the above-said Alexius returned to life, as the same notary consigned in a legitimate instrument.
are cured. A greater benefit in the same year was experienced by a certain Guilielmus, who served at Aquila: for since he was deaf from birth, and understood the will of others only by gestures, on a certain day he visited the relics of blessed Anthony, and commended himself to him with that devotion which necessity suggested. Scarcely had he touched the body when straightway he obtained hearing and speech, so that thereafter he heard and spoke perfectly, as Claudius and others relate.
[6] A man near to death, Joannes Pauli in the same year 1494 labored under so great a sickness that for two months he was fastened to his bed, and then, given up by the physicians, daily awaited imminent death. After that night which was believed to be his last of life, his wife on the 8th day of August, with great sadness but greater confidence, came before dawn to our monastery, and knocked at the door. When Father Benedictus of Venice, who was the sacristan, came thither with a light, the woman indicates to him the cause of her grief, and asks that the church be opened to her, that she might satisfy her devotion and vow. The sacristan, the door of the temple being opened, attends to his own business. The woman, having entered the church, saw blessed Anthony, as she herself related before many witnesses, who with four Brothers led her up to his reliquary; which being opened, he bade her touch the sacred body and return home. And so, having returned home, with the hand with which she had touched the relics she touched her sick husband, who suddenly rose sound from his bed, as the above-said Marinus de Bagno juridically noted.
[7] [and a woman suffering pain in the head, to whom the Blessed one appears, are healed,] At the time when blessed Anthony was migrating from this life, Lucia di Miccucio of Montichio was detained in bed, vexed by so great a pain of the head that, after other remedies, she ordered all the hairs of her head, though most dear to her, to be cut off. But when she heard of the death of the Blessed one and the fame of his miracles, she conceived a firm hope of his intercession, and devoutly commended herself to him. A little after, as she was taking sleep, the Blessed one appeared to her, and, placing his hand upon her head, said: Rise, and go to the temple of St. Augustine, that thou mayest be present at the sacrifice of the Mass, which at thy entrance will be begun at the altar of St. Catharine. The woman, waking, found herself sound, and, having put on her garments with great joy, came to our church, where the priest was beginning Mass at the altar of St. Catharine, as had been foretold to her. So she herself affirmed before many witnesses, and it is read in Claudius and others.
[and an Augustinian priest is wonderfully snatched from the peril of a present fall.] Father Simplicianus of Sulmona, a priest of the Augustinian Order, who in the year 1612 presided over the sacristy of Aquila, before the most illustrious lord Franciscus de Cavalieri c, bishop of Sulmona, upon oath asserted that in the month of September or October of the same year he had been prodigiously snatched from a manifest peril of death: for when he had ascended the tower to repair certain little wheels of our clock, the platform breaking under his feet, he was now beginning to fall, when, destitute of all human aid, he implored the help of the Mother of God and of blessed Anthony. Soon he saw the most blessed Virgin, clad in a white garment, and blessed Anthony, clothed in a black habit, in the air, by whom he was gently transferred to the other part of the story without any injury except a slight wound on the back of the head, which should manifest the former fall. This miracle was narrated to me by Father Nicolaus of St. Valentine, an Augustinian priest, who at that time dwelt at Aquila, and heard it related by Father Simplicianus himself.
[8] When in the year 1625 at Aquila Petrus, the three-year-old little son of Lelius Thomas de Tossa, A little boy, had fallen into such a disease that, after many vain remedies, his life seemed to be ended, Livia his mother, destitute of human aid, had recourse to the divine, and commended her little son to blessed Anthony. Then she took a little of that oil of which we made mention in the Life of the Blessed one, and anointed him, who soon, his tongue loosed, began to say: Mother, mother, behold, blessed Anthony touches me, and does me good. Further, the touch of the Blessed one so profited the little boy that after the third unction of the same oil he was wholly restored to his former health. All these things are affirmed to this day by the mother and grandmother of the said little boy, and the other domestics who were present.
The Count de Genga, being asked, rendered the following testimony, and the Count de Genga are freed from disease. which is preserved in the books of our cloister: "I, Joannes, Count de Genga, make full and undoubted faith that, oppressed by a fever and the greatest pain in the groin, I underwent a present peril of life. But although the physicians prescribed me many unctions and medicines, yet they could never remove the pain. And so, feeling that I could neither eat nor sleep, I began to think of my sins, and confessed them. Afterwards there came to me lady Baptista Roselli, my kinswoman, and offered me the oil of blessed Anthony. I at first cared little for it. Whence she again so exhorted me that I resolved to use it. But when I had anointed myself in the groin, where I felt the pain, I straightway slept, and in my sleep saw that Saint, altogether shining, descend. Then I awoke, and felt myself plainly free from the fever and the pain. And if I had not been so much wasted and exhausted by the disease, I should straightway have risen and walked. So I testify and swear, and in sign of the truth subscribe with my own hand, on the 17th of October in the year 1646. I, Joannes de Genga, as above."
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Women possessed are freed, various persons snatched from a manifest peril of death, and the sick healed.
Besides other possessed persons and a certain Maria, Although blessed Anthony in his life had the peculiar gift of putting demons to flight from bodies,
and freed many possessed persons, as was said above in general, yet those several benefits escaped our knowledge. Wherefore I shall here relate certain similar ones, which occurred after his death. First of all, a certain Maria, dwelling near the bridge of St. Mary, possessed by a demon, on the 20th day of May in the year 1495 was brought to the chapel of the Blessed one. There, by Father Anselmus of Saxoferrato, then Prior of our monastery, the exorcisms were applied according to custom, and the demon, after many disordered cries and gestures, before many bystanders, was compelled not only to promise its departure, but even in very deed to desert that body, casting, in sign of its exit, through the mouth of the woman a small stone, as Marinus de Bagno authentically testifies, and it is read in Claudius and others, because the miracles of that time were noted in many places.
[10] two women, About the year of the Lord 1575, among many other women possessed by demons, who are not mentioned, a certain woman possessed was exorcized before the body of blessed Anthony by Father Petrus the Augustinian; but although the demons refused to desert that body which they vexed, nevertheless after the name of the Blessed one was invoked they were compelled to go out, and in sign of their departure cast through the mouth of the woman seven or nine lit coals, which for many years, with other votive offerings, were preserved in a certain vessel. So writes Claudius, and Father Innocentius of Aquila, an eyewitness, used to relate it. There too, on a little tablet, to this very day is discerned the woman painted, from whom the demon is expelled.
possessed by demons, Innocentia di Scoppito, a nun of St. Lucy, who went out to seek alms, before a stricter enclosure was prescribed to those nuns, on a certain day found her sister Benedicta, who was possessed by a demon. Accompanied therefore by Jacoba de Tussi, who even today lives, and testifies of what she saw, she led her about through various temples and sacred places, that she might be helped by exorcisms. But all these things profited nothing, until at last she came with her to our church, where before the body of blessed Anthony she was freed.
[11] and another enchanted by magic arts, are freed. Sabbetta, daughter of Attilius Cerasolus of Fontecchia, in her youth through envy was enchanted by magic arts, and so for thirteen years remained bewitched, so that she not only turned away from her husband, but even often tried to inflict a violent death upon herself: for now she ran to the windows to cast herself down, now to water to drown herself. But her neighbors and kinsmen, having snatched her from these perils, led her to the temple of the Capuchin Fathers in Fontecchia a, and other places renowned for the patronage of the Mother of God, where exorcisms were applied in vain. At last, by the counsel of Sancta, who was the wife of Franciscus Ciasche, she was led to our church at Aquila, and the nearer she approached to the chapel of blessed Anthony, the more she felt herself vexed by the demons, and after horrid cries threatened to break the reliquary, if she should be brought to it. Yet, compelled by force to approach nearer, the demons fleeing of their own accord without exorcism, she was freed from this magic spell. So testifies the said Sancta Ciasche, and in the year 1642 the woman herself, who had received the benefit, before the most illustrious bishop of Sulmona, Boccapadulo b, affirmed upon oath, as Father Placidus of Foligno, then Prior of our monastery of Sulmona, had persuaded her.
[12] A certain Spaniard, by name Antonius, as Claudius Eugenius narrates, A Spaniard, by name Antonius, having entered the church of Aquila, saw the case in which the body of our Blessed one rested, and asked by what name the Saint was called, whose sacred bones were there contained. But when he had understood that he was called Antonius, he conceived a peculiar confidence in his patronage, and wished that at his expense a lamp should continually burn in his honor. Afterwards, I know not at what time, having gone out of the city of Aquila with some Spaniards, and being compelled to fight with robbers near Monte Offidio c, in the greatest peril of life he invoked this Blessed one, and felt his present help. For when, the contest happily finished, having returned home in the evening, he stripped himself of his garments, he found between his undershirt and his breast three leaden bullets, which without any injury of the body had there remained in sign of the benefit rendered.
[13] To the prodigious preservation of Father Simplicianus from a fall, Andreas, a three-year-old boy, which I related above, may be added that miracle which lord doctor Horatius and lady Catharina de Simeonibus narrate to have happened to lord Andreas of Aquila, of the same family. When this Andreas was a three-year-old boy, he fell from the window of a palace, five or six canne high, into the square. During the fall his mother, running up, cried out: O blessed Anthony, help him. So efficacious was this invocation of the Blessed one that she found her little son sound and unhurt, although all his limbs were surely thought to be shattered, because he had fallen from so high a place onto a road paved with stone. Whence his mother was often wont to say that her son had been preserved among the living by blessed Anthony, as Father Joannes Chrysostomus of Aquila used to relate.
[14] The reverend lord Josephus Jacchetti, canon of St. Justa of Aquila, a canon of Aquila, escaped a double peril of death by the intercession of blessed Anthony. The first in the month of October of the year 1636, when, walking in his vineyard, he was unexpectedly attacked with a leaden bullet, and at the same time his head was struck with a club: for from neither did he receive any injury. Nay rather, he could easily have killed the enemy, falling into his hands, with his own weapons; but because on the same day, celebrating Mass and foreseeing the peril, he had prayed to our Blessed one, and to St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Anthony the abbot, that he might injure no one and be injured by no one, he spared his enemy, since by the patronage of those Saints he had remained unhurt against the blows of the enemy. The other peril of death he escaped in the month of April of the year 1637, when, dangerously wounded with a knife, he shortly convalesced, after he had again commended himself to blessed Anthony, as he himself with all his domestics testifies.
[15] and others are snatched from a present peril of death. In the year 1636 another priest of Aquila suffered grave persecutions from enemies, who tried to despoil him of honor and life: for before his superiors they spread many infamous calumnies about him, and attacked him with weapons in his own house. He, in these straits, implored the help of blessed Anthony, and experienced it: since he recovered his honor, when afterwards their impostures were of their own accord detected; but his life was prodigiously preserved to him, when at his voice alone the trembling enemies fled, striking upon his head a strong blow, from which nothing but a swelling remained in sign that he had been in their power.
are snatched away. The noble lord Andreas Ardinghelli, as he himself relates, at a certain stormy time set out on a journey through difficult and dangerous ways, on which many mules and men had already perished. But he, set in an evident peril of death, commended himself to blessed Anthony, and came safe to a secure place. Hence, according to his promise, on the 23rd day of March in the year 1637, in sign of the benefit received, he offered a silver votive offering.
[16] A certain man afflicted with fever and other pains, Dominicus di Marinuccia of Poggio Picenza, according to the narration of Claudius, in the month of August of the same year in which blessed Anthony flew to heaven, was not only afflicted with fever, but moreover suffered vehement pains in the side and spine of the back, so that he could rest neither day nor night, and, after various medicines had been applied uselessly, was brought to the extreme peril of life. But behold, commending himself to blessed Anthony, he straightway obtained health, and, rising from his bed, visited the sepulcher of his Benefactor, and, according to his vow, offered a waxen image.
[17] A Prior of the Order of St. Augustine near to death, Father Nicolaus of Saxoferrato, of the Order of St. Augustine, who discharged the office of Prior in the territory of St. Valentine, in the year 1643 was sick for several weeks, and received no relief from the medicines applied, so that, according to the common opinion, death was next at hand for him. Hence lord Octavius Ambrosini of Saxoferrato, archpresbyter of the aforesaid territory, ordered, by a courier, Father Franciscus of Aquila, who then at Sulmona administered the office of Prior, to be warned to come without delay to the territory of St. Valentine, if he wished to find alive Father Nicolaus, who desired to treat with him of the affairs of his soul and of the monastery. One of our priests, an intimate friend of the dying man, heard this message, and together with others commended the sick man to blessed Anthony in a solemn Mass. Soon Father Franciscus departed, to whom some, full of confidence, said: Go on eagerly, for we hope that thou wilt find him sound. Yet very many, on account of the wintry season and the misty air, feared for the life of the dying man. What more? The Father Prior, according to the hope given him, found Father Nicolaus freed from the fever, and snatched from the evident peril of death, as Father Franciscus and Father Nicolaus himself, with the said archpresbyter, testify.
[18] A two-year-old boy commended to blessed Anthony, In the year 1637 a two-year-old boy, son of lord Franciscus Caprini and lady Catharina Ciampella, at Aquila was oppressed by so great a sickness that in the judgment of all he was thought about to migrate soon to heaven. But, commended to blessed Anthony, he recovered health, as his parents narrated to me, who on the 20th day of November, together with the little son, came to our church, and, for thanksgiving, ordered a Mass to be celebrated in the chapel of the Blessed one.
When lord Claudius Antonelli of Aquila in the year 1636 had returned from Naples, another overwhelmed by fever and headache, he fell into a grave fever and headache. After medicines had been applied for a whole month, the disease so grew that his life seemed to be ended. At last, on the 26th day of October, he promised blessed Anthony a visitation and a Mass, if he should be restored to health. The vow being made, he straightway convalesced, and in the month of February of the following year came with his father, mother, brothers, and sisters to the church, and, as he had promised, caused a Mass to be sung.
[19] Francisca, wife of Vincentius Jacobus, about that time and two women in which blessed Anthony migrated from life, for three continuous days suffered pains of pleurisy. But, the help of the Blessed one being invoked, she was shortly healed, as is read in Claudius.
A woman, by name Gratia, coming to Aquila with Palmutius her husband and her children to visit the body of St. Bernardino, grievously sick, was so afflicted with the stitches of pleurisy that she could not breathe without the greatest pain. When for eight days in the inn which is commonly called Boncompagno she had lain oppressed with the greatest torments, Palmutius, grieving vehemently, both because he saw his wife's disease grow, and because he was compelled to be absent from home with his children, on the 10th day of July, in the year 1495, visited the sepulcher of blessed Anthony, and set forth to the Father Prior the cause of his sadness. The Father Prior, moved with compassion, accompanied the man to the inn, and had scarcely touched the sick woman with a linen cloth of that Blessed one, when she began so to convalesce that on the following day she came to give thanks, and manifested to all her prodigious healing.
[20] The reverend lord Felix Sincero, provost of St. Nicholas de Jenca, as also a canon are restored to their former health. and canon of St. Mary de Roy of Aquila, in the month of May of the year 1601 acknowledges himself bound to blessed Anthony in these words: "I, Joannes Felix Sincero, for some days labored under a continual fever and a pleurisy so dangerous that the physicians despaired of my life. But, commended by certain pious persons to blessed Anthony, I obtained my former health."
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Many men of various age and condition experience the help of blessed Anthony in their diseases and other troubles.
By the intercession of blessed Anthony a certain nun, Diana de Sanctis of Aquila, a nun of the Order of St. Augustine, narrated to me with her sister that some years ago, in the evening, without a light, wishing to close the door of her little garden, she imprudently entered the door of a pit, and, not without a manifest peril of most grave injury, fell into it through twenty-four steps. But in the very fall she invoked blessed Anthony, and without any injury of her limbs found herself erect upon her feet on the floor of the pit.
[and some Brothers of the Order of St. Augustine are preserved from a grave peril,] Brother Thaddaeus of Perugia, of the Order of St. Augustine, in the year 1636, on the 21st day of July, standing on the twenty-fifth step of a ladder, that he might begin to adorn the church for the festivity of blessed Anthony, his foot slipping, threatened a fatal fall. Then he, seized with terror, implored the help of blessed Anthony, as Father Daniel of Sulmona and others testify, and, having grasped with his hands one step of the ladder, hanging in the air, marvelously escaped the peril. Likewise on the vigil of the same Blessed one, from the upper part a huge piece of timber fell into that place in which the said Brother Thaddaeus, Brother Augustinus of Foligno, and Brother Joannes Baptista of Pescara, a novice, had a little before stood. I judge that the Blessed one wished to show his singular protection toward those who labored for his cause, and therefore in this double peril did not permit that any of them should be affected with even the least harm.
[22] and a workman after a fatal fall is restored to health; Franciscus Lombardo, in Holy Week of the year 1635, preparing among us the annual sepulcher of the Lord, not only fell from a high place, but also struck his head on the point of a stone step, so that he emitted from his ear a great abundance of blood, and lay on the ground like a dead man. Thence lifted up and placed in bed near the fire, he gave no sign of life. At last, returned to himself, he said that by the intercession of blessed Anthony he had been snatched from the jaws of death, because during the fall he had commended himself to that Blessed one, as Father Augustinus of Foligno and others relate, who were there present. But afterwards, in sign of the benefit received, he placed a silver votive offering in his chapel.
[23] others recover the use of their feet, A certain Franciscus of the village of St. Angelo had for twenty years labored under gout; but in that year in which blessed Anthony died, after devoutly imploring his help, he was thenceforth freed from those acute pains, as Claudius records.
of the arm, Among other persons who received singular benefits, while the body of blessed Anthony was, a little after his death, exposed to the sight of all, may be numbered Maria di Lazaro, whose arm was so weak that she needed the help of another to dress herself. But, the help of the Blessed one being invoked, before many bystanders her arm was straightway restored to its former vigor.
A like help at that time was experienced by Nardus di Colassa, and of their fingers. who, approaching the body of blessed Anthony, with many present, suddenly recovered the use of three fingers of his hand, which he had lacked, as Franciscus de Bezzano juridically noted.
[24] The reverend lord chaplain of Castelnuovo for ten years suffered so great an infirmity in his knees Some are cured, in their knees that he could in no way bend himself. He, devoutly commending himself to blessed Anthony, in the presence of many obtained health, as the said Franciscus the notary testifies, who also noted another benefit which by the intercession of the same Blessed one was conferred upon a certain woman, who for many years had been deprived of the use of her right arm.
[25] Lady Manutia of Aquila, from a disease of fourteen months, remained so helpless in her limbs and other limbs, by the patronage of the same are cured. that without the help of two persons she could not walk. But confident that by the merits of blessed Anthony she was to be restored to her former health, she came to visit his sepulcher, and although at the first time she had felt no help, yet, supported by her two sons Sebastianus and Franciscus, she wished again to visit the body of the Blessed one. When she had come to the door of our temple, with no less confidence than eagerness she said to her sons: Let me go alone. But they answered: How wilt thou go alone, who canst not stand on thy feet? Dost thou not see that thou wilt straightway fall? To whom she replied: I shall not fall, God and blessed Anthony aiding. Then, left without support, she went to the tomb of the Blessed one as eagerly as if she had never labored under that infirmity, and in the same year 1494 gave him due thanks.
[26] Mario, son of Mariola di Mariano of Fontecchia, had a four-year-old son, weak, by name Floravantes, who from birth had each leg so affected that he seemed never about to firm his step. Nevertheless the father on the 4th day of April in the year 1495, invoking blessed Anthony, obtained for his little son the perfect faculty of walking.
At the same time lord Antonius of the town of Retenca recovered the use of one finger by merely touching the linen cloth the help of the Blessed one being implored, with which the body of blessed Anthony was covered, as is read among the miracles related by Claudius.
Lady Julia Balnei of Aquila, about the year 1595, by the help of the Blessed one, as she herself relates, was afflicted with so great torments of the thigh that for eight months, fastened to her bed, she could not move herself, nor find any remedy for this evil. But at last, when she begs the help of blessed Anthony, the pain began to abate, and within a few days she attained perfect health, in sign of which she offered a silver thigh in the chapel of the Blessed one.
Anna Bruna, a nun in the cloister of St. Lucy of Aquila, from pains tolerated for three years remained debilitated in the hip, recover the entire strength of their limbs. although she had applied many and various remedies to this infirmity in vain. At last she promises blessed Anthony a waxen gift, which while she offers before his effigy, which is painted in the dormitory of the monastery, she wholly recovered her former strength.
[27] The first miracle which was performed after the death of blessed Anthony Seven women happened to the wife of Joannes di Donato, who labored under a vehement ophthalmia and headache: visiting the body of the Blessed one, and piously commending herself to his patronage, before very many witnesses she was suddenly freed from both diseases.
from various diseases At the same time and before the same witnesses Marutia di Bene of Bazzano was freed from a great pain which she suffered in one hand.
and pains Another woman, by name Sancta, for a vehement pain of the head had not been able to rest for two days. But she found rest, and was suddenly healed, as soon as she had recourse to the patronage of blessed Anthony.
are freed, Another lady, by name Diana, affected with a great torment of body for five months, similarly felt herself suddenly healed, when she had implored the intercession of blessed Anthony, as the above-said Franciscus de Bazzano legitimately consigned.
[28] before the body Sabetta, wife of Dominicus Aquetanus of Riviere, for a huge pain of the limbs could not move herself for four years, until, after a devout invocation of blessed Anthony, she plainly convalesced.
of blessed Anthony A certain Antonella, having recourse to the help of blessed Anthony, straightway laid aside her dropsy.
was enclosed in the case. The wife of Joannes de Grandis, visiting the body of blessed Anthony, was freed from a cancer which she had had for three years in one breast. These seven miracles occurred before the body of blessed Anthony was enclosed in the case, with eight others which are narrated elsewhere, as also many others which are not committed to letters.
Afterwards a pain of the breasts, In the same year 1494 Joanna, wife of Bartholomaeus, for four months had suffered a great pain in her breasts, vehemently swollen; but she felt relief when she implored the help of blessed Anthony.
[29] a burst knee, Antonius, son of Joannes Honofrius of Paganica, in the same year promised that he would offer a waxen leg to blessed Anthony, and by this bargain his knee was healed, which was burst, and from which putrid blood flowed.
a flux of the eyes, When lady Camilla, daughter of Dominicus Joannes, had promised two waxen eyes to blessed Anthony, she was straightway freed from a flux of the eyes.
torment of the feet, Joannes de Strato, freed on account of a bitter pain of the feet, had lain in bed for eight months; but, placing his confidence in the merits of blessed Anthony, he recovered his gait.
leprosy, A certain religious woman, by name Vanna, by the mere touch of a linen cloth which had been placed on the body of blessed Anthony, before her sisters and spiritual father, put to flight a leprosy which for twenty years had infected her hand.
a stitch in the side, Petrus, son of Franciscus of San Silvestro, oppressed by violent pains of the side, after invoking the protection of blessed Anthony, straightway experienced relief.
[30] the spine of the back badly affected, Natalitia de Incordato, a nun of the Order of St. Augustine, on account of an intolerable torment in the spine of the back was compelled to creep with hands and feet, if ever she wished to transfer herself to another place. In this wretched state she had recourse to the patronage of blessed Anthony, and soon felt all pain so dispelled, as if a heavy weight were removed from the spine of her back, and she were raised to her feet by the hand of someone. Wherefore, glad, she straightway went to our church, and although she found the door of the temple closed, she would not return until she had given thanks to her Benefactor. So she herself, with the vicaress of her monastery, affirmed in the year 1636.
[31] Prudentia Cia, a nun, testifies that in the year 1633 she so shattered her foot by falling that, leaning on crutches, she was compelled to walk. a broken foot But visiting the sepulcher of blessed Anthony, she felt an unwonted strength infused into her foot, so that now she walks without any support, though she limps somewhat.
Lady Portia Gentile in the year 1626, having a sick child, a sick child, and seeing that it could not be helped by human remedies, had recourse to the divine help. And so, promising blessed Anthony some gift, she obtained health for it, and fulfilled her promise.
Magdalena Gatti of Aquila in the year 1638, after a disease of one month, retained so great a weakness of the knees and a weakness of the knees are cured by the patronage of the same. that without the greatest pain
she could not on bended knee be present at the sacrifice of the Mass. After she had many times commended herself to blessed Anthony, she suddenly felt herself freed from this evil at a certain morning hour, while she went to his sepulcher. Whence, in sign of a grateful mind, she offered a votive offering in his chapel.
[32] An Augustinian religious, eighteen years old, Finally an Augustinian religious, in an involuntary flux of urine, in the past year asserted to me that he was ready to testify upon oath that not only in his boyhood, but even at this his age, he could not retain his urine while he slept, and that he had never felt that infirmity diminished, although he had used very many remedies, and had also commended himself to various Saints. At length, dwelling at Aquila, he began, with the prayers which are read in the chapel of blessed Anthony, to invoke that Blessed one, and within a short time was freed from this involuntary flux of urine.
[33] The superior of a certain religious Order, instigated both by the sinister accusations of the envious, another religious in a grave persecution, and by his own aversion of mind, persecuted one of his subjects with so great hatred that he chastised his lightest errors with the gravest punishments. The wretched man desired before the superior to refute the false accusations of his rivals and to show his innocence; but the superior would not hear him, even though the subject strove to obtain an interview through the intercession of another. At last, seeing that he profited nothing, for many days he prayed to blessed Anthony that he would succor him in these straits. A little after, in a plainly unexpected manner, he received license to defend himself, and found the superior, whom hitherto he had experienced as a hard master, a kindly father. Nay rather, the superior, grieving that he had lent too ready ears to his accusers, procured for him more honorable offices. This whole change of things, which by human means he had not been able to obtain, he refers as received to the divine counsels and the intercession of blessed Anthony.
[34] Magdalena Ciampa, wife of Josephus Felix of Aquila, in the year 1638 suffered in her first childbirth so great pains a woman in a perilous childbirth, that she feared for her life. And this fear grew when she thought that about the same time two of her sisters had died in childbirth. But then, remembering the miracles which were performed by the merits of blessed Anthony, and commending herself to him, she straightway bore a son, on whom she wished the name of Franciscus Antonius to be imposed, and on the 28th day of June offered a votive offering for the benefit received.
[35] Lord Josephus Colizza of Aquila had for almost three years litigated with a certain debtor of his, and had in no way been able to move him to a just payment. and a creditor with a difficult debtor experienced the help of the Blessed one. On the feast day of blessed Anthony, having entered our church, he commended the business to that Blessed one. But behold, on the same day the debtor of his own accord wished to compose the suit, and offered better conditions than the creditor had before demanded. The matter therefore being amicably settled, lord Josephus, in sign of the benefit received, ordered a silver votive offering to be hung among the votive tablets.
CHAPTER IV.
Various sick persons, anointed with the oil which blessed Anthony used in his life to put diseases to flight, suddenly recover health.
It is narrated how the oil of blessed Anthony was found after many years, Blessed Anthony, to heal the sick, often used a certain oil, as we said above in his Life. But when the blessed Man had expired in great reputation of sanctity, everyone procured for himself some of his relics. Among others a certain Augustinian priest took away a flask in which he was wont to preserve the salutary oil, and desired to carry it with him to his fatherland. Therefore he hid it in a corner of his cell, and, though oppressed by a grave disease, would reveal it to no one, hoping that he would be restored to his former health. But when he, contrary to his expectation, had died, that flask remained hidden up to the year 1564, when Father Paulus of Aquila saw an unwonted splendor, like a solar ray, come forth from that corner. Marveling at the novelty of the matter, he approached the resplendent place, and, the spiders' webs being removed, found the flask, to which was glued a paper with this inscription: The oil of blessed Anthony. Therefore Father Paulus with great reverence took it, and offered it to the reverend Father Prior, who ordered it to be placed in the sacristy, and the oil to be communicated to the sick who desired it. But since that oil is sought not only by the people of Aquila, but also by many inhabitants of distant cities, it is straightway mingled with common oil, lest the flask be in a short time emptied. Further, through that oil innumerable benefits have been conferred on the sick, of which now no memory survives. Wherefore I shall here, without any order of time, relate only those which have come to my knowledge.
[37] by which in a woman a grave disease, In the year 1619 Margarita, wife of Felix Joannes de Calzolaro of Aquila, for three months lay sick, afflicted with an unknown disease, which continually threatened her with death. Four physicians, namely Salvator Massonius, Pirrhus Fonticula, Andreas Zoccolo, and lord Scorzese, after diligent care, found no remedy for the evil. At last, brought to the extreme peril of life, she fortified her soul beforehand with the last Sacraments of the Church, and made her testament. But when Father Augustinus of Aquila, her confessor, had offered her the said oil, she straightway began to be better, and within a few days was restored to her former health, as she herself with her husband, and Vigilia d'Agnone, a nun, and others testify.
[38] The treasurer of the city of Aquila some years ago ordered Joannes Marinus Justiniani, a blacksmith, to be summoned In a blacksmith a dangerous wound, to open certain cases of lord Joannes Marinus Febionus. Among others he opened one in which were awls, such as cobblers are wont to use. But as he was drawing them out, one of them fell to the ground with its point raised upward, into which the blacksmith inconsiderately drove his knee. But then, scarcely feeling the pain, he applied no remedy to the wound. But on the following day, wishing to rise from his bed, he saw his knee swollen and so affected that he could not walk except by limping. In the evening the surgeon applied a plaster to him; but soon he felt so great a pain that with a great cry he summoned his sisters, one of whom, the plaster being removed, anointed the injured part with the aforesaid oil, which they then perhaps by another occasion kept at home. Suddenly the young man felt so great a relief of pain that he peacefully fell asleep, and on the next day, without any other remedy, found himself plainly healed.
[39] In the year 1635 Dorothea Justiniani, sister of the aforesaid blacksmith, and in his sister an abscess, and wife of Franciscus Igalea of Aquila, had about her belly an abscess, which afflicted her with so great pain that she could rest neither day nor night. The whole household was assiduously occupied in heating linen cloths, that they might in some manner ease the torment. But when, after these and other remedies, the evil was not diminished, at last they resolved to cut the abscess. While her husband goes to the surgeon, his sister anointed her with the oil of blessed Anthony, and formed the sign of the cross. Behold, straightway the abscess of its own accord opened on the exterior part, whereas it ought naturally to have burst from the interior, and all the pus, flowing out of its own accord, left the woman free from all pain and peril. So she herself with the rest of the household testifies.
[40] The reverend lord Franciscus Justiniani, a priest, and in his brother a quinsy are driven off. and brother of those mentioned above, before all our Fathers asserted that he had often labored under quinsy, and had his throat inwardly ulcerated, so that he could not eat without the greatest pain. By remedies indeed he frequently drove off the evil, but it repeatedly returned. At a certain time, again enduring the same straits, he saw at home a little flask, and, asking what was in it, understood that it was the oil of blessed Anthony. And so, bending his knees, after reciting some prayers, he anointed his throat on the exterior, and not only was straightway healed, but even thereafter remained free from the same evil, as he himself affirms.
[41] Faustina, wife of Augustinus Capece, was oppressed by a torment Five women which seemed to surpass the pains of childbirth. Hence she often disturbed the quiet of our monastery with her cries, so that the reverend Father Spiritus, according to the testimony of Virgilia d'Agnone, our nun, impatient of those wailings, suddenly snatched by a motion of anger, cried out through the window: When at length will that childbirth be finished? But when the wretched woman, who could not be moved without the greatest pain, and had found no solace in the medical art, after fifteen days had been anointed with the aforesaid oil, she shortly recovered her former health.
Diana de Sanctis, our nun at Aquila, at a certain time had her knee so swollen invoking blessed Anthony, that she could scarcely move herself. After many remedies had been applied in vain, in the evening she anointed herself with that oil, and in the morning found herself sound without any sign of the evil.
[42] and anointed with that oil Cynthia Nardis, wife of lord Hieronymus Salvati, for the space of five months suffered so great pains that she could only sit in bed. But the more medicines she used, the less relief of her disease she experienced. At last lord Sebastianus Nardis said to her: If the oil of blessed Anthony heal thee not, there is no remedy for thy disease. Cynthia, hearing this, full of faith and devotion, commended herself to blessed Anthony, and ordered this oil to be sought. Further, the nearer that oil approached to the wretched woman, the more she felt her pain diminished, and at last, anointed with it, she straightway convalesced, as she herself today narrates with Prudentia, our nun, who was present at this sudden healing.
[43] various torments of the body Lucia Fornarecci of Aquila suffered the greatest pains in her stomach and womb. When she saw that she profited nothing by human means, she anointed herself with the oil of blessed Anthony, and straightway felt relief. Afterwards, the same disease returning, she applied the same remedy, and always experienced a diminution of the pain, as Father Joannes Chrysostomus, an eyewitness and most well aware of this matter, affirmed to me.
escape. In the year 1632 Amabilia, daughter of Alexander Strozza, of the village of St. Angelo, ten years of age, was vexed with so grave torments throughout her whole body that she uttered the greatest cries, and could not be moved in bed without the greatest pain. For the space of fifteen days she took no sleep, nor felt any relief from the remedies of the physicians. At last, anointed with this oil, she slept peacefully through the whole night, and, waking in the morning, found herself freed from all pain and disease, as Albericus Strozza, her kinsman, narrated to me.
[44] By that oil a young man his health, Franciscus Pontiano, of the same village of St. Angelo, in the year of the Lord 1633, in the twenty-fifth of his age, for a month and more was afflicted with so great pains that he was always compelled to lie in bed. At last, anointed by his sister with this oil, he straightway began to be better, and within a few days plainly convalesced, as the above-said Albericus Strozza set forth to me.
a woman the use of her limbs, Aurelia, daughter of Jacobus, of the same village, a sexagenarian woman, as the said Albericus relates, in the year 1634 was overwhelmed with so great torments of the body that, deprived of the use of all her limbs, she could be turned in bed only by means of linen cloths. While
Angelicus, her son, a clerk, anoints her with this oil, she straightway recovers health.
and a boy partly bald in a wonderful manner obtains hair. Caesar, son of Bartholomaeus de Simeonibus, as lord Doctor d'Horatio of the same family narrates, had from birth no hairs on one part of his head: whence he appeared plainly deformed. When he had been commended to blessed Anthony and anointed with his oil, there sprang up on that part fair hairs, which afterwards passed into a black color, and became so like the others as if he had never labored under this defect.
[45] By this oil a swelling in the thigh In the year 1632 Philippus, son of Joannes Angelus of Tornamparte, had in his left thigh a swelling like an abscess, which, growing day by day, at length compelled him to limp. After he had been vexed by this evil for a whole year, at the persuasion of Father Matthaeus of Aquila he came to Aquila to be anointed with the oil of blessed Anthony. Although that evil did not depart straightway after the unction, yet the swelling, before hard, little by little began to soften, and at length, without any flux, vanished.
In the month of May of the year 1636 Father Deodatus of Aquila, of the Order of St. Augustine, for fifteen days was afflicted with a pain of the side, a pain of the side, so that he could neither eat nor raise nor bend himself. When he had anointed himself with the oil of blessed Anthony, the pain descended into the haunch of the right thigh, and when he had there formed the sign of the cross with the said oil, on the next day he perfectly convalesced.
[46] When Baptista Lombardus, an elegant craftsman of woodwork, torment of the breast and navel, had for five days lain in bed from an intolerable pain of the breast and navel, the said Father Deodatus in the aforesaid year anointed him with the same oil, from which he was so healed that on the following day he returned to his accustomed labor.
Catharina, wife of the aforesaid craftsman, on account of a fever and other diseases at the same time had for fifteen days been fastened to her bed. fevers And so she too was anointed with this oil, and although at first she could not stand on her feet, yet on the same day she was restored to her former strength.
Victoria Porani, wife of Paulus of Rieti, who dwelt at Aquila, in two women, for a month and more wasted with fevers, after the industry of the physicians had been tried in vain, used this oil, and on the following day escaped the fever, as the aforesaid Father Deodatus, an eyewitness, affirms.
[47] A certain rustic of Bagno, for eight months, on account of disease unable to acquire his sustenance by labor, a long disease, having understood the virtue of this oil, asked to be anointed with it, and in the month of June of the year 1636, within a few days, healed, went to work in the Roman territory.
Clara Gilioli of Venice, wife of Franciscus Gilioli, an inhabitant of Aquila, difficulty of breathing, in the year 1635, about the feasts of Christmas, labored under such a disease that, feeling her breathing shut off, she called by night her maidservant Elisabetha, to whom she said: Alas for me, I can scarcely breathe! I seem to myself to be suffocated! Then, anointed with this oil, which perhaps she had before ordered to be summoned on account of the sickness of her little son, suddenly that straitness passed, and she received the free faculty of breathing, as she herself, and her husband, and the maidservant testify.
[48] Lord Alexander Dragonetti, tormented with intolerable pains of gout, found no relief of that acute torment gout, except in the unction of this oil: for by experience he learned that that pain was diminished as often as he anointed himself. Joannes Bruno, a notary of Aquila, in the same disease asserts that he had experienced a like diminution of his pains in this unction.
In the year 1635, on the 26th day of December, the wife of the aforesaid lord Alexander Dragonetti came to the church of St. Augustine and other diseases to commend her husband, again laboring under disease, to blessed Anthony, and on that occasion narrated to me how at the beginning of her marriage she had experienced the help of the same Blessed one: for then her husband was so afflicted with gout and other diseases that his life seemed to be ended. And so, while, oppressed with grief, she awaited nothing but his death, there came to the door a certain unknown poor woman, who called herself Maria, and whom she never afterwards saw. This woman inquires the cause of her sadness, and, having understood it, says: If thou wouldst have thy husband healed, commend him to blessed Anthony, who rests in the church of St. Augustine, and anoint him with his oil. Then the matron asked for that oil, of which she had before no knowledge, and anointed her husband with it, who straightway began to be better, and within a short time came with all his household to the church of St. Augustine, where he himself served at the Mass which he had ordered to be celebrated in thanksgiving.
[49] are marvelously put to flight. Paulus Rainaldi, a schoolmaster in the city of Sulmona, being about fifty-five years of age, about the end of the year 1634, on account of the intense cold, was most vehemently afflicted with gout. In the month of January of the following year he anointed himself with the oil so often mentioned, and felt so great a relief that on the next day he rose, and went to the school, in which he had already substituted another in his place. But although that intense cold still lasted for fifteen days, yet he remained plainly free from that evil, as I with others saw.
[50] After his healing, an ungrateful and distrustful man is punished; Vincentius Sardi of Sulmona in the month of September of the year 1634 suffered pain in all the joints of his limbs; moreover there had come upon him a nausea of food and so vehement a flux of the eyes that all thought he was to be deprived of sight: for he had his eyes swollen, bleary, and so weakened that he did not recognize a man two canne distant from himself. After many remedies had been applied in vain, at last, on the feast of the Purification of the most blessed Virgin Mary, a certain priest of our Order received his confession, and, the Litanies of the glorious Virgin being recited, anointed him with the oil of blessed Anthony, and promised that he would afterwards return. And so, having returned to him on the following day, he observed that in his left eye only a little of the evil remained. Wherefore he anointed him a second time, and also promised that he would do it a third time in honor of the most holy Trinity. The priest on the next day again returns, and found the sick man so strong in his eyes that in full light he could read a little book of small character. After the third unction the priest asked him whether he could not walk. And when the sick man answered that he could not yet firm his step, nevertheless the priest confidently said: Tomorrow I will await thee in the temple of St. Augustine, that thou mayest give thanks to God and blessed Anthony: for I hope that God, through the intercession of blessed Anthony, will bestow strength upon thee, that thou mayest be able to do it. Vincentius in the morning rose from his bed, but did not come to the church, although he easily could have. The priest therefore returns, and, finding him without nausea of food, without pain and any impediment of the eyes, says: I rejoice, lord Vincentius, that thou art thus restored to health. To whom he: Indeed by the grace of God and the intercession of blessed Anthony I am healed; but I doubt whether I shall not relapse into the same disease. To him the priest answered with the words of Christ: Behold, thou art made whole; now sin no more, and so left him sound. After some days Vincentius fell into the same disease, which probably happened because he did not sufficiently trust the patronage of blessed Anthony, or because, in sign of a grateful mind, he neglected to visit his sepulcher, when he easily could have. All these things eyewitnesses deposed at Sulmona under oath.
[51] Dominicus di Zotto of Aquila had in his leg an ulcer so inveterate but many others, that it could be driven off by no remedies. But hearing the miracles of blessed Anthony, he asked that the ulcerated place be signed with the cross and anointed with his oil. On the following day he received the fruit of his devotion, and found himself healed, as Father Simplicianus testifies under oath, and Father Nicolaus of St. Valentine, who at that time dwelt at Aquila, related to me from certain knowledge.
At the same time there was present with the above-said Dominicus another, the help of blessed Anthony being implored, who had his neck so stiff that he could not turn his head without his whole body. But as this man was anointed with the aforesaid Dominicus, so also with him he received full health.
When in the month of September of the year 1635 Hieronymus, a farmer of our cloister, and with great confidence was bringing to us part of the grain, he complained of the great pains which he had sustained throughout his whole body. And so this oil was given him, anointing himself with which he recovered his former health, as his sons narrated to me.
[52] In the year 1636 Father Valentinus of Perugia, of the Order of St. Augustine, had suffered so great pains having used this oil that for three months he was compelled to lie in bed, and for two months could not walk without crutches. When in the following year he dwelt at Aquila, the same disease threatened its return, and those pains now began to torment him. Wherefore, the prayers which are kept in the chapel of blessed Anthony being recited, he anointed himself with his oil, and so stayed the assailing disease that he now lives free from all pain.
Livia, wife of lord Lelius de Tossa, narrates that many benefits were rendered by blessed Anthony to her sons, from various diseases and especially to her husband, who in a grave disease, anointed with his oil, straightway recovered health.
Julius Caesar Arquilla narrates of his own sister that for twenty years, since she was first joined in matrimony, she had her neck plainly full of scrofula. But the more remedies she applied to this evil, the more scrofulous swellings arose. At last, commending herself to blessed Anthony, she anointed her neck with the oil, and was freed from this disease.
[53] Anna Tartara, a nun of our Order, in the Lent of the year 1638 for some days endured so great torments in her shoulders and neck and pains that she could not move her head. After the third unction of that oil she felt all pain removed from her, and was restored to perfect health.
In the year 1637 Carolus Cia of Aquila on the feast of St. Martin had his left eye so swollen are freed. that he incurred peril of blindness. Moreover, for pain he could not raise his eyes or head, and the evil, driven off by remedies, repeatedly returned for some days. Thus he wretchedly lived up to the feast of blessed Anthony, when, anointed with his oil and touched with his staff, within two days he wholly convalesced, and in thanksgiving caused a Mass to be celebrated in his chapel.
CHAPTER V.
Miracles which were performed by the staff, cowl, and cap of blessed Anthony.
The staff of blessed Anthony profits At Aquila in our church we preserve the staff which blessed Anthony used on account of the trouble of his lameness, as was said in his Life. The public report is that by the touch of that staff very many sick persons were restored to their former health, of which matter we shall now bring forward some examples. Donata, wife of Josephus Ventiquattro of Aquila, on account of the straits of childbearing had been brought to the extreme peril of life. When the said staff of the Blessed one had been placed upon her, she brought forth a dead and putrid fetus, and she herself
meanwhile escaped safe and unharmed, as is not only read in Claudius, but is also confirmed by lord Jacobus Jacobetti of Aquila, an eyewitness.
[55] to certain women In the year 1612 a woman dwelling in the citadel of the city of Aquila similarly, on account of difficulty of childbirth, drew near to death. The staff of blessed Anthony being placed upon her, which our lay brother Pompeius had brought to her, she happily gave birth, as Father Simplicianus of Sulmona narrates, who then presided over our sacristy at Aquila. That woman, after this benefit, had so great a confidence in that Blessed one that from the broken staff she retained for herself a fragment, hoping that she would be freed by his intercession in other perils. But the plain contrary happened: for she was straightway afflicted with a fever, which became the more violent the greater remedies she applied. Therefore, suspecting that this had happened to her because she had secretly retained part of the staff, she straightway restored it and at the same time was freed from the disease. And that part was joined with the rest of the staff by a silver ring, as the aforesaid Father Simplicianus testifies.
The wife of a judge of Aquila in the year 1603, unable to give birth, was in a manifest peril of life. Yet she escaped by the touch of the aforesaid staff, which she afterwards sent back with an alms, as is noted in the book of our monastery.
[56] imperiled in childbirth. In the year 1631 Margarita, wife of lord Felix Giovani, for the same cause had conceived a great fear of near death, although she had already given birth many times. And that fear grew because she had understood that Francisca Marciotta had about that time died in childbirth. And so she had now prepared herself to die piously; but, touched with the staff of blessed Anthony, she happily brought forth a male child, as first Father Antonius of Aquila, her son, and afterwards she herself with others related to me.
Julia Rivera, wife of lord Ascanius Alfieri of Aquila, in the year 1637, drawing near to childbirth, after continuous pains of one day and night, brought forth a little son as soon as the staff of blessed Anthony had been brought to her, as lord Octavius Nardis, her son-in-law, narrated to me.
In the year 1636 Barbara Alfieri, wife of the above-said lord Octavius, for two hours and a half before her first childbirth had suffered intolerable straits. Seeing that she could not give birth, she asked for the staff of blessed Anthony, which being brought, she easily brought forth a little son, as her husband with lady Cinthia Salvati set forth to me.
[57] When Father Mansuetus of Aquila was confessor of the nuns of St. Lucy, Four nuns, laboring under headache, four nuns of that cloister, namely Euangelista Rosis, Apolonia de Luculo, Amadia de Cresio, and Clara Rosis, at the same time labored under headache. But, touched with this staff on the head, all four at the same time were soon healed, as the abbess with others testifies.
Lelius Pio of Aquila, after a grave disease of two months, had come to the extreme term of life. a man But by contact with that staff he began to be better, and within a short time plainly convalesced, as our lay brother Constantius, who had brought him the aforesaid staff, narrates from what he saw.
In the year 1622 Elisabetha Romanelli fell into a disease so grave that, given up by the physicians, and a woman given up by the physicians, she was thought about to die at once. This staff being brought to her, she shortly recovered her former health, as lord Josephus Romanelli affirms.
[58] Salvator de Bernardino of Aquila on the feast of St. Bartholomew in the year 1636 fell into a fever, and others after grave diseases which afterwards betrayed so great a malignity that the physicians, namely Julius Caesar Benedictis and Joannes Baptista della Grascia, despaired of his life. He, having understood his peril, had recourse to the help of blessed Anthony, and ordered his staff to be brought: which being received, he began to be better, and within a short time, wholly healed, in sign of a grateful mind was present at the Mass which he caused to be celebrated in the chapel of the Blessed one. This I heard from many, and afterwards understood from Salvator himself.
Bartholomaeus the tailor, son of Joannes Pulci, on the 22nd day of November in the year 1637, in sign of a grateful mind, sent oil for the lamp of blessed Anthony, touched with the same staff because, being sick unto death and given up by the physician, he had recovered his health by the touch of that staff, as Franciscus Cianche, his kinsman, testifies.
Franciscus Tenti of Aquila in the year 1638, as he himself relates, convalesced. lost the use of his right eye, in which he had before had a white spot. After various remedies had been tried in vain, he implored the help of blessed Anthony, and ordered his staff to be brought to him. After three days, his sight being perfectly recovered, in sign of the benefit received he visited the sepulcher of the Blessed one, and in thanksgiving caused a Mass to be celebrated in his chapel.
[59] I cannot without sadness commemorate what happened to the white cowl of blessed Anthony, The cowl of the same Blessed one, which is kept at Sulmona, which Father Antonius and Father Bartholomaeus of Sulmona carried to their fatherland: for it had for a hundred and twenty years been so entirely and cleanly preserved, although it was carried to various sick persons, that it appeared as if still new. But for twenty years so little care of this sacred treasure has been had that, some plucking off parts from it, it has been wholly torn, and has lost all the figure of a cowl. But as I could not narrate that misfortune without grief, so with joy I shall relate the miracles performed through these relics, which at Sulmona, before the most illustrious and most reverend lord Franciscus de Cavalieri, bishop of that city, sworn witnesses deposed.
[60] Josephus Parentela, after a disease of one month, had come to such a pass a man afflicted with a most grave disease, that the prayers were now being read with which the soul about to set out for the Creator is wont to be commended. But when Father Daniel of Sulmona had placed upon him the cowl of blessed Anthony, he began suddenly to be better, and after a few days to be wholly healed, as Hieronymus del Re, a priest, testifies from what he saw.
and frees a nun from a great debility. Julia Parentela of Sulmona, an Augustinian nun, on account of a long disease was so weak that she could neither stand on her feet nor, about to take food, move her hand to her mouth. When the aforesaid Father Daniel had touched her with the cowl of blessed Anthony, straightway the infirmity departed, and she, rising from her bed, began to walk, as, besides Father Simplicianus, Brother Franciscus the lay brother testifies, who had accompanied Father Daniel.
[61] The cap of blessed Anthony, kept in the nuns' cloister at Saxoferrato, The nuns in the monastery of St. Jerome at Saxoferrato preserve with the greatest reverence the cap of blessed Anthony, which Father Anselmus of Saxoferrato carried thither. And God through these relics performed various miracles, as the nuns received by continual tradition. But since the more ancient benefits are not committed to letters, and, on account of the death of the witnesses, cannot to this day be proved, I shall at least relate some more recent ones, those to whom they happened, or who saw them, being still alive. Lord Arsenius, surgeon of Saxoferrato, lord Emilius Manari and Jacoba Venanzi his wife, Maria Francisca Santarelli and Baptista Mona d'Anema, both nuns of the cloister of St. Jerome, Magdalena Bentivogli and Violanta Manara, girls who were being educated in the said monastery, all at different times endured a great pain of the head, and by contact with that cap straightway felt themselves freed from it.
[62] to various nuns of that cloister, Sebastiana Vetoli, a girl, a pupil of the said monastery, Faustina Venanzi, a nun, lord Petrottus, and Maria Cecilia Gregorii, a nun of Saxoferrato, testify that by the touch of the same cap they dispelled a long pain of the head.
and to other sick persons, Father Aegidius of Saxoferrato, of the Order of St. Augustine, was afflicted with so great a pain of the head that he could in no way rest. But, placing this cap upon himself, he was straightway freed, as he himself affirms, and Father Simplicianus testifies, who was present with him.
When Anna Maria Oliva of Rome, a nun of the aforesaid cloister, by falling had grievously injured her head, the physicians, after other remedies profiting nothing, judged that her skull must be perforated with a trepan. Meanwhile she placed upon herself the cap of blessed Anthony, and without any work of surgeon or physicians in the year 1625 attained health.
The same Anna Maria Oliva was at another time vexed with a pain of the head, and by the imposition of the same cap was freed from it. Wherefore her sister Angela Paula Oliva promised to celebrate the vigil of blessed Anthony.
brought health. Jacobus Sbaracini of Saxoferrato, a surgeon, oppressed by a fever and the greatest pain of the head, also applied this cap to himself, and straightway experienced the help of blessed Anthony.
Epilogue. Since I have now come to the end of my lucubration, I dedicate and consecrate it to thee, blessed Anthony, though unpolished, and pray that thou mayest intercede with God and his most holy mother Mary for my errors and sins, and obtain for me grace, that I may avoid the snares of the invisible enemies in this life, and afterwards rejoice with thee in eternal glory. Amen. a
ANNOTATIONS.
OTHER MIRACLES
Collected by Carolus Ciminellus and others, and here published from their manuscripts.
CHAPTER I.
Miracles which were written in the year 1645.
Martha, wife of lord Augustinus Lepore of Aquila, in the month of July of the year 1638 had a daughter A fever and headache, who for fifteen days lay in bed afflicted with fever and pain of the head. When the remedies which lord Joannes Baptista della Grascia, a physician, had prescribed profited nothing, the mother, by the counsel of Prudentia, our nun, visited the sepulcher of blessed Anthony, and commended her daughter to him. Then she asked for the oil of the Blessed one, so often already mentioned, and anointed her daughter with it. Scarcely was the unction finished when she saw her freed from fever and headache, and on the 7th day of September in the aforesaid year ordered a Mass to be celebrated, that she might give due thanks to God and the Blessed one.
Justa, daughter of Joannes d'Aragno, in the month of October of the year 1634 was vexed with so great a pain of the teeth a pain of the teeth, that for eight days she found no rest. But as soon as she commended herself to blessed Anthony, that pain departed, and she, for the benefit received, ordered a Mass to be celebrated.
[64] Josephus Emiliani of Aquila for many years suffered a pain in his haunch, a weakness of the leg so that, dragging one leg, especially in humid weather, he was compelled to walk leaning on a staff. He believed that he labored under sciatica, since he could put this pain to flight by no medicines. At last his wife, as she herself relates, commended him to blessed Anthony, and promised a certain gift. Scarcely was the vow made when her husband was freed from that pain, and she in the year 1638 offered a silver leg with the hip.
Margarita Pisella of Aquila about the end of the year 1638 and the beginning of the following had in her head salt humors, salt humors, which she could drive off by no remedies. At last, the oil of blessed Anthony being applied, she was healed, and for the benefit received offered a waxen head, as she had vowed.
[65] Jacobus Gentile of Aquila in the year 1637, seized by a malignant fever, had come into a manifest peril of life. of a malignant fever, When he had been commended to blessed Anthony by lady Alexandra Loddi his wife, he shortly obtained health,
and she, grateful for the benefit, caused a Mass to be made in the chapel of the Blessed one. So testifies the reverend lord Josephus Colizza, a priest of Aquila, who by my command investigated it, and understood the whole matter from the domestics.
fevers, Philippus Damianus, son of lord Hippolytus Ciampella of Aquila, in the month of November of the year 1638 was oppressed by so great a fever that the physicians feared for his life. But, anointed by his mother Anna with the oil of blessed Anthony, he began to be better, and shortly attained perfect health. Wherefore the mother sent lord Guerrieri with money, that in thanksgiving a Mass might be celebrated.
[66] sciatica, Beatrix, daughter of Felix de Colacchio, on the 22nd day of June in the year 1638, on account of pains of sciatica, was fastened to her bed, so that she could scarcely move herself, and after many remedies in the month of August endured greater torments. But then, remembering blessed Anthony, she commends herself to him and to other Saints, and vows that she will visit the sepulcher of each. The vow being made, she began to convalesce, and about the end of August, rising from her bed, fulfilled her vow.
and other kinds of diseases Sabetta d'Aperice, our nun of Aquila, confesses that she owes to blessed Anthony the healing of one knee, to which she had long applied various medicines in vain, and in which she suffered the greatest pain, until she put it to flight by the unction of the salutary oil. Moreover she affirms that by the intercession of the same Blessed one she was snatched from a present peril of death, when in the month of November of the year 1639 she was returning to Aquila through the mountains of Cicoli with her niece and her niece's husband.
[67] are put to flight by the intercession of blessed Anthony. At this time was brought a silver votive offering with a little boy wrapped in swaddling bands, who by the invocation of blessed Anthony had obtained health. But although his mother with all her household visited the sepulcher of the Blessed one, and there for the benefit received caused a Mass to be celebrated, I could not learn who she was.
Ursula del Cardinale of Aquila firmly persuades herself that by the help of blessed Anthony she was freed from a grave disease, and therefore in the month of November of the year 1639 offered a silver votive offering.
Magdalena, daughter of lord Sempronius Justiniani of Aquila, asserts that after enduring a pain of the teeth for sixteen continuous hours she was straightway freed, when she anointed herself with the oil of blessed Anthony.
Some days ago there was brought to the chapel of blessed Anthony a silver hip with another silver votive offering, which represented the figure of a woman. But I could not learn whose gifts these were.
[68] Moreover a priest laboring under the stone, In the month of May of the year 1640 the reverend lord Hieronymus Balnei, a priest of Aquila, labored under the stone, and one little stone stuck so crosswise in the rod that he could in no way emit it. Meanwhile, affected with the most grave pain, he commended himself to blessed Anthony. But while he celebrates Mass at his altar, he feels the little stone turned, which, Mass being finished, he easily emitted, and in sign of the benefit received placed upon the altar.
the author's nephew afflicted with a fatal disease, When in the month of June of the year 1640 my nephew by my brother, Julianus Ciminelli a, was in his ninth year, he labored under a certain disease b, which Julius Caesar Benedetti and other physicians judged fatal. But, commended to blessed Anthony, he convalesced with the admiration of all. Many others who applied the oil of that Blessed one were freed from the same disease.
[69] Maria, a nun in the cloister of St. Anthony of Padua at Perugia, in the year 1639 suffered pains of sciatica, a nun vexed with pains of sciatica, on account of which she was for the most part compelled to lie in bed. At first she applied certain remedies, by which the pain also was repressed; but after a few days it returned again. Therefore, having understood the virtue of the oil which is commonly called that of blessed Anthony, she anointed herself with it, and was constantly restored to her former health. Wherefore, in sign of a grateful mind, she daily celebrates the memory of that Blessed one, by reciting those antiphons and prayers which are publicly displayed in his chapel.
In the year 1640 Ludovica, niece of Joannes Petrus de Crusa, a woman oppressed by a grave fever, for a month oppressed by a grave fever and commended to blessed Anthony, recovered health. Wherefore on the 7th day of January in the year 1641, for the benefit received, she offered a silver votive offering, and ordered a Mass to be celebrated in the chapel of the Blessed one, whose sepulcher she often at other times visits.
[70] Margarita, daughter of Josephus Sfardella of Fontecchio, a possessed woman, being fifteen years of age, was believed to be possessed. Whence she was led by her mother to Aquila, that the malignant spirit might be expelled by exorcisms. After she had gone to various sacred places for this end, at last she is led to the sepulcher of blessed Anthony, where the demon began first to make a tumult, but then, no sign being given, deserted her. On the next day, led back to the same place, she affirmed that she had been freed the day before, when she approached the sepulcher of the Blessed one, and therefore promised that she would return again to give thanks, as she also afterwards did.
Paschalis Micarella of Aquila in the year 1642 from Holy Week began to be sick. and others, both men, At last, on the 22nd day of June, he was compelled to lie in bed, and the disease betrayed itself which is commonly called the flying fire (erysipelas). The disease being recognized, lord Pirrus Fonticola and lord Julius Caesar Benedetti, physicians, gave a sinister judgment of his state. On the 27th of the same month he commended himself to blessed Anthony, and began to be better; but in the evening he anointed himself with the oil of the Blessed one, and on the following day recovered perfect health. But while he anointed himself, he seemed to feel a hand which removed the aforesaid disease, as he himself affirms, and in sign of a grateful mind for the health received offered a silver votive offering.
[71] Elisabetha Scattone in the year 1642, on the 1st of August, offered a silver arm, and women, because by the intercession of blessed Anthony she had obtained the use of her arm, which for a long time by various medicines she had not been able to obtain.
Dominica Monzini of Milan, who dwelt at Aquila, affected with various diseases, for many months vexed with pain of the head and ears, used various medicines in vain. At last, by the counsel of someone, in the month of June of the year 1643 she applied the oil of blessed Anthony, promising a silver votive offering, if she were healed. Straightway she felt the evil diminished, and after two days, health being recovered, she fulfilled her promise, and moreover, in thanksgiving, ordered a Mass to be celebrated.
On the 22nd day of August in the year 1643 lady Artemisia Romanelli by vow offered a silver haunch, are healed. because, after pains endured for the space of a year in the hip, she had been suddenly healed, when she had anointed herself with the oil of blessed Anthony.
[72] A girl from the stone, On the feast of blessed Anthony lady Olimpia Cappa, wife of lord Joannes Marino Ventiquattro, brought to our church a silver votive offering, because her little daughter had by the intercession of blessed Anthony been freed from the stone, of which she often labored unto death.
an inhabitant of Aquila from a fatal disease, Andreas Rampazzoli, an inhabitant of Aquila, for the benefit which by the intercession of blessed Anthony he had received in a fatal disease, offered on the 14th day of September in the year 1643 a silver votive offering, and caused a Mass to be celebrated.
a husband from a pain of the side, In the same year lady Catharina Cappa, wife of lord Philippus Ventiquattro, offered a silver gift, because her husband, by the patronage of blessed Anthony, had been prodigiously freed from grave pains of the side.
[73] another from an injury of the finger, In the Life of blessed Anthony, which Andreas del Cardinale wrote, is read another benefit, of which he who received it on the 21st of June in the year 1640 thus testifies: "I, Nardus de Nardis, on account of an assailing storm, wishing to bar a certain door of my house, so grievously injured the index finger of my right hand that I could not use it and suffered the greatest pain. But when I had read the Life and miracles of blessed Anthony, with great confidence I commended myself to him, that he might remove the pain and restore the use of the finger. Straightway the pain vanished, and I used that finger as conveniently as the others. In faith of which matter, at that very time I wrote the present testimony to the glory of God, who is wonderful in his Saints. Nardus de Nardis of Aquila with his own hand."
[74] a priest from a broken leg, This is a copy of the letter which the reverend lord Emilianus Rossi, a priest of Saxoferrato, wrote to Father Joannes of Saxoferrato, an Augustinian: "Most reverend Father and as it were brother. By these letters I bid thee greatly farewell, and, since thou dwellest at Aquila, I ask a certain benefit, by which thou wilt bind me to thee as long as I live: namely, I desire a little flask, filled with the oil of blessed Anthony, or other relics of the same Blessed one: for on the feast of St. Monica, going out into the field, I broke my leg, which by the unskillfulness of the surgeon was ill-healed, so that after seventy days from that misfortune I still cannot walk. Yet, anointing the leg with the oil of blessed Anthony, which a certain nun of St. Jerome sent to me, I began to be better, and I trust that by the mercy of God and the patronage of this Blessed one I shall attain perfect health. Wherefore again and again I ask that thou render me this benefit, and commend me to blessed Anthony, when thou offerest the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass in his chapel. I in turn will keep memory of thee, and after the kiss of thy hands offer my services. From the town of Saxoferrato on the 24th day of July in the year 1644. The servant of your most reverend paternity, Emilianus Rossi." Afterwards this Emilianus was plainly healed, as Father Gratia of Saxoferrato, a priest, relates, who in the month of January of this year 1645 c returned from Saxoferrato.
[75] a woman from a fever and pain of the head, In the month of September of the year 1644 Magdalena Ciminelli labored under a malignant fever and the greatest pain of the head, so that sometimes, out of her mind, she gave no small signs of near death. But, commended to blessed Anthony, she recovered health.
At the same time Antonius Gibbillini of Norcia was sick; and others from other diseases but, commending himself to blessed Anthony, he was restored to health, although his life was vehemently feared for, as Franciscus Straccini in the year 1644 narrated to me.
Lord Philippus Felice, desiring to visit the sepulcher of blessed Anthony, in the year 1644 indicated to me the occasion of this visitation in these words: are freed. "I, Philippus Felice, provost of St. Nicholas and Peter de Jenga, in the year 1639 was vexed with pains of the stomach, and after a long disease found no remedy. And so, since the pain daily grew, my domestics brought me the oil of blessed Anthony, and anointed me with it. Meanwhile, commending myself to that Blessed one, within a few days I wholly convalesced, and now for five years I live most healthy. So I testify, Philippus Felice with my own hand."
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Benefits which were rendered by the intercession of blessed Anthony up to the year 1708.
The reverend mother abbess Joanna Antonia Leognana Soramosca of Capua for three years was afflicted with the most grave pains of the head. Four nuns are restored to health, of whom the first from a pain of the head, But when she had received the compendium of the Life of blessed
Anthony, in which is the image of that Blessed one, devoutly commending herself to him, she placed it upon her head, and straightway, before Maria Antonia Valle and Octavia Zaccara, nuns, attained her former health.
In the year 1641 Archangela di Camarda, a nun, was oppressed by apoplexy, another from apoplexy, which had taken from her the use of tongue and arm. As soon as she commended herself to blessed Anthony, she straightway recovered speech and was perfectly healed.
In the year 1642 Elisabetha de Simeonibus, a nun, from a continual flux of the eyes had almost lost her sight. the third from a flux of the eyes, Scarcely had she devoutly commended herself to blessed Anthony, when she was restored to her former health.
Portia Zaccara of Monte Regale, a nun, in the year 1643 had so injured her arm and the fourth labored under an injured arm. that she could scarcely move it for the space of a year. But when she had implored the patronage of blessed Anthony, she used it as easily as if it had never been injured.
[77] When Father Daniel of Sulmona, a priest of the Order of St. Augustine, was fitting glass for a reliquary, An Augustinian priest from peril of blindness, a fragment leaped into his eye, which brought upon him not only the greatest pain, but even peril of blindness. But, visiting the altar of blessed Anthony, and commending himself to him, he straightway felt himself freed from all pain and peril.
a woman from a pain of the side, Margarita Spada thus testifies: "I, Margarita Spada, declare that at the beginning of last February I was pierced with so great a pain of the side that I came into a present peril of death. In this strait, commending myself to blessed Anthony, and anointing my side with his oil, I was straightway freed from the pain, and by the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and the intercession of that Blessed one I escaped safe and unharmed from all peril. In faith of which I gave this testimony at Aquila on the 2nd of March in the year 1645."
[78] another Augustinian religious from a hernia, Father Dionysius on the 10th of October in the year 1646 thus writes: "I, Brother Dionysius of Foligno, of the Order of St. Augustine, by these testify that I labored under such a hernia that the intestines burst out to the size of a human head, and the physicians said that my life was ended, if within three days the intestines did not occupy their own place. Hearing this, I implored the help of God and the patronage of blessed Anthony, and anointed myself with his oil, which is kept in our temple at Aquila. This unction being finished, straightway all pain ceased, and on the 9th day of January in the year 1644 the intestines returned to their place. To the greater glory of God and blessed Anthony, and the confirmation of the truth, I wrote this paper, and subscribed it with my own hand." Afterwards, in the year 1645 in the month of September, to give thanks he visited the sepulcher of the Blessed one.
[79] a woman after a broken foot, Faustina, daughter of Crucianus de Tarquinio, on the 13th of October in the year 1646 upon oath affirms the following: "Four years ago, as I recall, carrying a certain burden, I so fell that I broke my foot. And so great a pain arose from that fracture that I had straightway to lie in bed, and thought that I would not rise from it for many months. The surgeon being summoned told me that three parts of the bone were burst apart. Then it came into my mind that my brother Dominicus, when he had been at Aquila with Hieronymus Rinaldi, had brought oil from the lamp of blessed Anthony. Devoutly therefore applying this oil, I was straightway healed, so that I felt no more pain, and walked without any impediment, as even now I walk. And so, in testimony of the truth, I ordered this paper to be written, and, for the perpetual memory of the matter, confirmed it by oath." This benefit is noted in the book of the monastery.
[80] a priest of Aquila after a punishment, Josephus Romanelli, a priest and doctor of Aquila, on the 22nd day of July in the year 1645, by the hand of lord Equitius Mausonius, thus testifies in writing: "I, the below-written, in past days, having in my hand the Life of blessed Anthony, inconsiderately, out of a certain melancholy loathing, cast that little book to the ground. But straightway I was oppressed with a fever. Wherefore soon I invoked the Blessed one, and lifted his Life from the ground. From that hour I began to be better, and rendered thanks to the Blessed one for my health restored. In faith of this matter I subscribe, Josephus Romanelli."
Anna Porcinari, wife of lord Pompeius Mausonius, in the year 1646 ordered a Mass to be celebrated in the chapel of blessed Anthony, a woman because, being sick unto death, she had by the intercession of that Blessed one convalesced.
Floridus, the seven-year-old son of lord Alfieri Mausonius and Beatrix his wife, and a boy, was vexed with a continual fever, on account of which the physician had begun to despair of his life. But the staff of blessed Anthony being placed upon him, he obtained health of every kind.
[81] Laurentius Fonticola, a physician, in the first two months of the year 1646 labored under so vehement a fever a physician, that his father Antonius Pirrus Fonticola, a physician, thought his life ended. But, commended to blessed Anthony, he recovered health, and in thanksgiving on the 24th day of July offered a silver votive offering.
Carolus Chevatini of Aquila, a soldier in a cavalry cohort, and a soldier from fevers, on the 10th day of October in the year 1638 came with all his household to our church, and ordered a Mass to be celebrated, because after a long change of fever, at last, anointed with the oil of blessed Anthony, he had recovered full health.
Clara Porcinari of Aquila for the space of a year and more felt the greatest pain under her right breast. and finally a woman of Aquila are freed from a pain of the breast. Meanwhile she applied various medicines, which profited nothing. At last, anointing herself with the oil of blessed Anthony, she was restored to her former health, and on the 23rd day of July in the year 1646, in thanksgiving, offered a silver gift.
[82] Victoria, wife of Alfonsus Quatrino of Aquila, came with her sons Antonius, Various persons give thanks for the health received, Ludovicus, and Bernardinus to our temple, and ordered a Mass to be celebrated, because in the year 1646 she had seen those three sons, laboring under a continual fever, freed from the disease, as soon as she had anointed them with the oil of blessed Anthony.
Lord Nicolaus, from the Terra di Lavoro a, brother of the treasurer of Aquila, hang up votive offerings, in this year 1646 labored under so dangerous a fever that he had now been fortified beforehand with the last Sacraments of the Church. But, anointed with the oil of blessed Anthony, and touched with his staff, he escaped the present peril of death, and in sign of the health received, on the 27th day of July, offered a silver votive offering.
[83] Father Placidus of Foligno, of the Order of St. Augustine, in the year 1646, on the 9th of October, thus writes to me: or cause a Mass to be celebrated. "Joannes Baptista Cellini, nephew of the reverend lord Brunacci, canon, was here seized and led to Perugia, that he might there be detained in prison. But he had no one except the above-said uncle of his, who could help him in this misfortune. But he, before the captivity of his nephew, labored under gout, which was wont to fasten him to his bed for weeks and months. Wherefore his sister, invoking blessed Anthony, promised a Mass to be sung, if the gouty man should be so healed as to be able to depart to Perugia to help the captive. After this vow, on the following night the canon found himself so freed from the gouty pain that he conveniently departed to Perugia, and obtained liberty for his nephew. Asked therefore by the aforesaid canon and his nephew, I beg your reverence to give the sacristan money, that in thanksgiving he may cause a Mass to be sung."
[84] I asked Father Placidus de Roberti of Foligno to examine, in the visitation of Saxoferrato, some miracles at Saxoferrato to some persons, which were said to have happened there by the intercession of blessed Anthony. And he, in the year 1646, on the 30th of October, indicated to me the following, which are contained in the books of the monastery. Petrus Oliva of Saxoferrato, son of lord Petrus, who, having now entered our Order, is called Brother Nicolaus, about the twenty-third year of his age, being grievously sick, fell into a delirium, so that the physicians vehemently feared for his life. But when the cap of blessed Anthony had been brought to him by lord Tiburtius Jona, and placed upon his head, he straightway became possessed of his mind, and within five or six days went out of the house sound and unharmed.
to those invoking the Blessed one, In the month of January of the year 1644 Maria Felix Carnicella, a nun in the cloister of St. Jerome at Saxoferrato, thus testifies: "When Julia Severi my sister desired to have the oil of blessed Anthony for a certain Julia de Caulia, grievously sick, I, Maria Felix Carnicella, did not dare to ask for the said oil, because it was not yet distributed indiscriminately to all. Trusting therefore in the patronage of blessed Anthony, I took a little oil from the lamp which burned before the image of that Blessed one in our oratory. Then I sent that oil to my sister, with which the sick woman, being anointed, suddenly recovered health. In faith of which matter I wrote this present testimony."
[85] and to those anointing themselves with his oil, In the year 1643, in the month of August, Aurelia Giovenale of Tomba in the diocese of Senigallia, an Augustinian nun in the cloister of St. Jerome at Saxoferrato, gave the following testimony: "I, Aurelia Giovenale, of the Order of St. Augustine, testify that I sent the oil of our blessed Anthony to lord Angelus Giovenale my father and Dominicus my brother, afflicted with a malignant fever, and that my aforesaid father asserted to me that that fever suddenly vanished when he anointed himself with the aforesaid oil. And both confess that by the intercession of blessed Anthony they were healed. In faith of which I wrote these things."
health is restored. Angela Paula Oliva, a nun in the cloister of St. Jerome, confesses that by the intercession of blessed Anthony she was restored to her former health: for, anointing herself with the oil of the Blessed one and touching his cap, she was freed from gout and other pains, under which she had labored for a year.
[86] The miracles of blessed Anthony were found in a wonderful manner, When the most reverend Father General of the Augustinian Order desired to know the life and miracles of blessed Anthony, he ordered the reverend Father Prior of our monastery diligently to collect all things which pertained to the aforesaid Blessed one. The reverend Father Prior, wishing to satisfy his desire, ordered the sought documents to be searched for everywhere throughout the whole convent; but, finding nothing, he suspected that they perhaps lay hidden with the nuns of St. Lucy. Wherefore, through the confessor, he enjoined them to search all the writings of their cloister. But neither here was anything found, although the nuns had accurately examined all the chests in which monuments of this kind are wont to be kept. At last the abbess enjoined upon her subjects special prayers, that God would deign to manifest what had been written to the honor of the Blessed one. The prayer being finished, the abbess by chance opens a case in which money was kept, that she might pay certain debts. Behold, there the abbess, beyond expectation, found all the miracles which have now been related. And this finding is the more to be marveled at, because the abbess had before often sought them in vain in the same case. And so the nuns, glad at this prodigious finding of the miracles, narrated all to their confessor, who gave thanks to God, and fulfilled the wish of his Superior. Moreover we could relate many other miracles which are daily performed, especially in putting demons to flight; but these, for the sake of brevity, we omit.
[87] At the end is added the following testimony: "I, Germanus Antonius Zutio, testify that
in the month of February of this year 1687, returning from Rome, I labored under a hectic fever, and, anointing myself with the oil of blessed Anthony, within a few days convalesced b."
About the year 1694 a woman whom an evil demon held possessed to which more recent ones, was brought to the tomb of blessed Anthony, to which in those days there was a great concourse of people out of devotion, and there straightway, having cast from her mouth certain plaits of hairs, she ceased to be vexed by the most wicked guest, now expelled, all meanwhile looking on and fixed with admiration. As a sign of the benefit received, the hair long afterward hung suspended at the altar.
Carminus Grassius, a professor of medicine, was languishing, vehemently afflicted with a disease which is commonly called rheumatism, up to the year 1708 and the physicians had now despaired of his health. But the help which they could not bring, blessed Anthony brought: for scarcely was the staff which the holy Man used while he lived applied to the sick body, when straightway the disease was dispelled, and by that contact health was at once restored to the sick man. This happened about the year 1708.
[88] In the year 1703, on the Nones of February, the city of Aquila, shaken with a great earthquake, fell almost wholly. we have added. It chanced that on that very day a certain Spaniard, a man of noted probity, was pouring out prayers before the altar of blessed Anthony; when, behold, while he prays, he beholds a man present to him, unknown indeed to him, but whom from his dress he believed to be a religious of the Augustinian Order: by whom, being bidden to depart at once from the temple, he was led outside by him. And when they had gone forward together a little, he neither saw the man any longer, nor sufficiently understood what this matter meant. But not so very long after, the temple, shaken by the earthquake, fell, leveled to the ground. By which ruin the wretched man would surely have been oppressed, had he not been opportunely withdrawn from the peril by him whom he affirmed that he without doubt esteemed to be blessed Anthony, his guardian and chief patron, as he himself often narrated these things. Wherefore he frequently thereafter came to our church, to show that he referred that benefit as received to his guardian Anthony c.