ON ST. GLISENTES, OR GLISENTUS, CONFESSOR
IN THE TERRITORY OF BRESCIA
Perhaps Ninth Century.
COLLECTION.
Concerning some cult and a wonderful Life.
Gliscentus, confessor, in the territory of Brescia (B.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
This Saint, such as he is, altogether unknown to all the sacred Fasti, and indeed to Ferrari, that most diligent collector of the rest of the Italian Saints, and especially of those near to himself, Obittus the Capuchin, On the Nobility of Brescia, seems to have dug up from somewhere, in Bernardino Faino, in the Martyrology of Brescia on this day, Unknown to all the Fasti, where it is reported that he fell asleep in the Lord on the 6th of August; unless the most reverend Father Eleutherius of Palazzolo, a Capuchin preacher, be more ancient, who wrote the history of his life, to be repudiated below, in whom neither the day nor the year could be noted on which the Saint died, as being one of whom only a most obscure memory seems formerly to have survived among the Brescians. This Faino asserts as certain, that his oratory at the cave, in which his body is believed to be laid, namely erected in the territory of Berzo of the Camonica Valley, where formerly the Saint spent his life, is visited by the surrounding peoples for the sake of devotion. Moreover, that same oratory, recognized by the bishops of Brescia through long ages, survives even today, the chief monument, that I know of, of the cult of St. Glisentes.
[2] The praised Faino confesses that in the apostolic visitation of St. Charles Borromeo, because it had been polluted and profaned, it was interdicted, which the most holy Cardinal is not presumed to have done if so great and constant an ancient veneration of that place had existed. But afterward, says the same writer, in the year 1613, John Francis Cardinal Morosini being bishop of Brescia, it was restored from the interdict by Antonio Francesco Bozio, primicerius of the collegiate church of SS. Nazarius and Celsus, and apostolic protonotary, his commissary in this part; from the things which Faino adduces as is clear from a document drawn up by Simone Girolamo Beccagusto, notary, at Esine, on the 6th of August, preserved among the Community of Berzo. By the peoples on this very day (the 26th of July) it is visited for the sake of devotion, perhaps because by them, his body having been at one time stolen, as is reported, from the land of Collio, it was restored on this day. A mountain too, where that Saint lay hidden above the land of Berzo, obtained the name of St. Glisentes.
[3] Relying on these things, I think, Faino inserted that St. Glisentes into his already-mentioned Martyrology of Brescia on this day, in the Martyrology of Brescia a brief eulogy being taken from the Eleutherian history already cited by me, or from an equally wondrous inscription to be presently recited, in this manner: At Brescia (he meant to say, in the territory of Brescia) of St. Glisentes the confessor; who, when he had fought as a soldier of Charlemagne against the pagans, being struck by the divine light, undertook a heavenly life in the Camonica Valley, in the utmost harshness; animals affording him daily nourishment. He then sought heaven, worthy that in the place of his cave, a dove indicating it, a church should be erected. In few words he there embraces many things, doubtless wont to be narrated there by popular tradition, with what authority they are confirmed I indeed have not been able hitherto to explore; not about to admit the Saint here, unless I had given credit to the words of Faino, so far as he speaks a testimony concerning some cult not altogether to be rejected. He adds also that in the parish church of that place there exists a painted effigy of him, clothed in eremitic garb; very ancient indeed, and which was before in the said oratory, under which the following ancient monument of his life is read.
[4] This is St. Glisentes the Gaul, who in the time of King Charles was a strenuous and manly soldier; he seems to enjoy some cult: and together with the king in the time of the pagans he wrestled for the Christian faith in the Camonica Valley. At length, illumined by the divine spirit, he ascended upon this mountain, and here spent an eremitic life; to whom, God favoring, there appeared daily a certain little she-bear bringing him apples and other woodland things for his nourishment. There ran up also a sheep with its milk, which he often milked. In this manner in this cave he ended his life in secret. Many piously seeking his body saw a dove carrying wood and leaves over this cave for the building of a church, and they themselves drew near; where, illustrated by many miracles, in his honor they built this church. Thus far the inscription, which either was contracted from the Eleutherian oration, or perhaps itself afforded matter for composing the history. What age it savors of, I do not divine; that it is too recent to give credit is evidently proved by the silence of so many preceding centuries concerning the Saint as well as his deeds.
[5] For the rest, that church or oratory, and the persevering veneration of the people, at least permitted by the Ordinaries, is the only argument which has impelled me to admit the Saint; but the history of his life is to be rejected, for if recourse be had to the Eleutherian history, it is a mere drama, or a piously meditated comedy, from which alone if the sanctity of the Man were to be proved, in my judgment at least, it would wholly fall. It is an Italian manuscript in quarto, of about nine pages, in a minute character, of which six and a half run through the destruction of the Goths and Lombards wonderfully enough; then they lead Charlemagne with St. Pope Leo III and seven other bishops marvelously about through the district of Brescia, gloriously conquering very many castles of counts, Jews and heathens, ruling there, from whose names it might be derived to Brescia, converting all to the Christian faith and everywhere building churches, which both the Pope and the bishops vied in enriching with innumerable indulgences. Moreover that Gliscus, Glisentes or Glisentus, a Gaul or Frank, weary of the military life, with Charles's good leave withdrew into solitude, and betook himself to a mountain, where, sustained by a she-bear and a sheep, he at length died holily, adorned with other fictions. All which that they are not impossible, I of my own accord and willingly confess; that they must certainly be supported by other authority than that of a most recent writer, any prudent estimator of things most easily understands, so that I have judged that translating or publishing in Latin such a patchwork must altogether be forborne.