ON ST. GUIDO, BISHOP OF ACQUI IN INSUBRIA.
IN THE YEAR 1070.
Preliminary Commentary. On the cult and the Authors of the Life.
Guido, Bishop of Acqui in Insubria (St.)
G. H.
Montferrat is a pleasant region of Cisalpine Lombardy, which, the male offspring of the Palaeologus Princes failing, was transferred by marriage to the Duke of Mantua Frederick and his Successor. The cult as Bishop and Patron, Among the cities of this is an Episcopal city on the river Bormida, on account of the baths, which pour out waters salutary for diseases, called Acqui; formerly called Aquae Statiellae, or of the Statielli; as Cluverius sets forth at length in book 1 of Ancient Italy, chapter 10. The Bishop of this See was St. Guido or Vido, the chief Patron of that city and diocese: who rests there in the Cathedral Church, built by him and consecrated to the Virgin Mother of God. That the inhabitants afterward called it Guidonea, Ughelli indicates in volume 5 of Sacred Italy among the Bishops of Acqui, where he has that compendium of the Life.
[2] "St. Vido, Bishop of Acqui, born of noble parents in the castle of Melazzo of this diocese, A compendium of the Life. gave attention to letters at Bologna, and happily attained the nobler disciplines: and returning to his fatherland, he was first made Canon of the Cathedral. In that dignity he gave such examples of a more perfect life, that the Bishop having died, he was substituted by the Canons with none opposing. But refusing, he was compelled by obedience to the burden; and ruled the Church from the year 1035 until the year 1070, with a wonderful ardor of piety, and instructed the Clergy to purer morals. The Cathedral, which is seen there today, he himself built in honor of Blessed Mary the Virgin, which afterward they called Vidonea from the name of the Saint. He founded a convent of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, and enriched it with very ample fortunes. Two other churches he built, and bequeathed his most wealthy patrimony to the Church committed to him, and made of the same jurisdiction Melazzo, Bistagno, Septebrio, and Castelletto, towns which he himself had possessed. Therefore full of merits he flew to the heavens on the fourth of the Nones of June, in the year 1070; and was buried in the Cathedral, in a marble tomb; and shone, as in life, so also in death, with very many and most notable miracles. His feast is celebrated with solemn rite by those peoples, as of the Tutelary Saint of the city of Acqui." So Ughelli. The places indicated are contained in his diocese: of these the chief, Melazzo or Malatium, commonly Malazzo, the fatherland of the Saint, is quite near to the city itself.
[3] Two sets of Acts were submitted to us from Turin in the year 1654 by Giovanni Giacomo Turinetto, there Rector of the College of the Society of Jesus, and a notable promoter of our studies: whom in the year 1662, returning from Rome, we found still at Turin, The Life is given from an older Manuscript, an aged old man, and most retentive of his old affection. Of the former Acts this was the title: "A brief account of the Life of the Divine Guido, Prelate of Acqui and Patron." Another Life, from which we only note some things, and give some Appendix, is more recent, written by Lorenzo Calciato in the year 1558 at Acqui; where this Collect was added near the end: "Appeased by the supplication of Blessed Guido your Confessor, Lord, both grant us pardon, and concede eternal remedies." We have also a Manuscript poem on the Life of St. Guido, by the author Domenico Nano de Mirabello, a citizen of Acqui, to whose diligence the learned owe the Polyanthea, setting forth every kind of writers and sentences. the more recent is omitted. Yet that poem too we omit, both because the lower part of the leaves is corrupted by moisture, and because it contains nothing singular which is not had in the first Acts. Finally St. Guido is treated by Ferrari in the general Catalogue, and in the other of the Saints of Italy, where also he sets forth a compendium of the Life.
LIFE From the Acqui Manuscript, submitted from Turin.
Guido, Bishop of Acqui in Insubria (St.)
BHL Number: 8874
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
[1] In the Province of Lombardy, Rudolph the Emperor beginning his reign, the glorious Confessor of God and illustrious Pontiff Guido, born of illustrious birth, of several castles, namely of Melazzo, Cartosium, Castelletto, Bestagno, Septebrio, Aherus, Ursaria, and the rest, Bereaved of his rich parents, together with the eighth part of the city of Acqui, the ancient Lord. This city of Acqui is the former Silvia, named from Silvius its founder, one of the most noble and opulent cities at that time, which were held in the Province; most celebrated for the excellence and diversity of the waters everywhere gushing in it, and known for men strenuous in war and virtue, and once confederates of the Romans (whom, as the historians relate, they called Statellites); although today (alas, the calamity of the times!) it is reduced to the likeness of a small town. From his earliest age therefore the said Guido, while he was instructed in honest morals by his most noble and most grave parents; in a short time he was bereaved of both, being an emulator of virtue and sanctity, his patrimonial possessions all being commended to a guardian and at the same time foster-father, and these together with his fatherland being left, he went for the sake of studies to Bologna. He studies at Bologna,
[2] Where for some years, applying himself no less to holy morals than to the disciplines of letters, and becomes a Priest. he overcame his companions and emulators in the honor of each study; and ascending in spirit above heaven, devoting himself wholly to the service of God most good and great, he is consecrated a most religious Priest. Thus seeking his fatherland again, he enters the paternal home, not as lord and prince, but as a pilgrim and unknown, illustrated by humility: and is therefore graciously received by his parents, and (as was the custom) when the washing of his feet was first offered him, which, wearied by the long journey, he willingly admitted, by God's will he is thus recognized by them. For this devout imitator of Christ bore from his tender years a certain mark on the cross (of his foot), known to his foster-parents. This betrayed him in the washing of his feet: and thus, they crying out their Lord and Patron, he was thence received with great honor (as was fitting) within the house, all rejoicing and exulting on every side. He is recognized by his own.
[3] The report of Guido's return then spreading more widely, his subjects at once flow together to him; He begins his possessions: all honor him with gifts running to and fro (as befits a Patron); some of them too, perhaps not hoping further for his return, who therefore had usurped Guido's estates and other goods of that kind, restore and immediately remit all things. But he on the contrary receiving them humanely and kindly, enriches and loads both these and those without distinction with gifts of his munificence: and with most splendid liberality the youth of perfect disposition gave out so strenuously, that soon he wonderfully turned the eyes of all upon himself, the splendor of all virtues and sanctity from then in his youth being so perfectly illustrated.
[4] Meanwhile the Bishop of Acqui departed life, and the Canons, who had the right of electing the Pontiff, gathered into one according to custom, by divine inspiration substitute Guido on account of the holiness and integrity of his life, with the great consent and expectation of all, although refusing a burden of this kind with notable humility; he is ordained Bishop of Acqui: which is read to have happened also to the divine Ambrose, and others called to the Pontificate. The Pastoral government therefore being undertaken, which he ruled with wonderful devotion and at the same time authority, holding deeply that Gospel saying, which he had long ago imbibed; namely that the talent handed to him was to be increased with all his strength; with the whole patrimony which he had, he established first of all the Cathedral church, before under the title of St. Peter in the said city too antiquated, and from the intemperateness of the air almost uninhabitable, in a more eminent place of the said city, ampler and more adorned under the invocation of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, whom he bore from his heart as Advocate, he builds the Cathedral. from the lowest foundations with his own money; and adorned and increased it with an Archdeaconry, a Provostship, an Archpriesthood, and twelve Canonries, as is still seen today: and the Most Reverend Lords the Bishop of Tortona and Otbert Bishop of Genoa, men everywhere laudable and most worthy, being summoned together, they devoutly consecrated it, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand sixty-seven; in the sixth Indiction, Henry III being Emperor. A convent of nuns of the Order of the Divine Benedict too, at the wish of his most noble mother Lancia, under the same title, a convent of nuns and a Bishop's palace called St. Mary of the Fields, for the public utility and devotion of himself and all the people, together also with the Episcopal palace he built, and endowed with patrimonial goods.
[5] He goes before by example: But he lived always most abstinent, devoting himself to fasts and prayers; and remained wholly free of all lust his whole life; so that he left a most illustrious example of sanctity to posterity. But it happened, by divine (as is believed) disposition, that this holy follower of Christ fell into a grave infirmity of the head, so that one could not undeservedly doubt of his recovery: in his illness he substitutes another; for which cause, when he perceived that he could not sufficiently preside over the flock committed to him, his brother Oppizo Bishop of Lodi being summoned, he ceded the Bishopric to him into the hands of the said Henry III; which, his health being then restored, he resumed again, and ruled it daily with ever greater fervor of sanctity, long afterward so most religiously, that while still living he shone with miracles.
[6] Moreover, the day coming on which he felt that shortly he would receive the reward of his labor and greatest hardships, He gives his possessions to the Church, lest anything be lacking to the perfection of so great works, depending wholly on these, the remaining patrimony together with all the aforenamed castles, and the part of the aforesaid city, in spiritual and temporal matters, freely forever and irrevocably he gave and dedicated to the Cathedral Church of Acqui, and to the Bishops succeeding from time to time: all these the Emperor of the Lombards approving, in the year from the Incarnation of Christ one thousand sixty-five, privileges and authentic writings about all these being extant even today.
[7] Which at last being happily and holily completed, through the thirty-six years in which he most prudently administered the Pontificate, famous for miracles, and besides everywhere famous for many miracles; both in healing the sick, the maimed, and those manifoldly injured in body; and in succoring the pregnant and those bound in fetters or chains, and infinite of this kind, who everywhere set forth vows to him in honor of God, by wonderfully freeing them; having at last entered the way of all flesh, he dies, in the year 1070, on 2 June. he rendered his immaculate and holy spirit to God, in the year of the Lord one thousand seventy, on the second day of the month of June, his Body most splendidly and incessantly sanctified by miracles in life, at the point of death, and after death, as was fitting, and laid away here in a marble ark up to the present, is most deservedly venerated.
NOTES BY D. P.
This the Poet Mirabellus explains more fully, with these verses:
This city Silvius, sprung from Trojan Aeneas, founded, and called it from his own name.
That Silvius, namely, whom Virgil in book 6 of the Aeneid feigns to have been brought forth in the woods from Lavinia after the death of Aeneas, Ascanius fearing for his stepson, and afterward King of Alba, from whom all the successors were called Silvii: but what would there have been to this man, that he should not be fabulous, of matter or hope in Insubria so far from Latium, that he should found a city there? It is more probable that these are the Aquae Statellorum of Strabo, or Statyellorum of Pliny; whose inhabitants Livy names Statellates, Cicero Statiellenses: for that Merula and Hermolaus by the appellation draw it to Alessandria della Paglia, can less be approved: but perhaps it is a copyist's error that they are here written Statillites.
p Calciato names these thus: "the castle of Meladinum, and the whole village with those dwelling in it, which was built of his patrimony upon a little hill opposite Melazzo, toward the East, distant from Melazzo as far as the shot of a bow: the fourth part of Melazzo; the whole castle and village of Cartosium; the whole of Castelletto, and Bistagno, and Setebrium; the fourth part of Alice, and a certain other castle which was called Ursas; and the eighth part of the city of Acqui." So he, who then after the following miracles adds, how the Alessandrians, enemies of the people of Acqui, utterly destroyed that castle in the year 1300, the inhabitants being compelled to migrate to the church of the Holy Cross. But those enmities, he says, arose from the pawning of the castle of Setebrium, made in the year 1260 by Bishop Hugh for 800 Pavian pounds; the successors striving in vain, the money being returned according to agreement, to redeem the place: the Alessandrians refusing to return the pledge.
MIRACLES From the Manuscript Life by Lorenzo Calciato.
Guido, Bishop of Acqui in Insubria (St.)
BHL Number: 8873
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
[7] To the honor and glory of Almighty God, and the commendation of Blessed Guido our Father, I will briefly narrate some of the miracles, divinely shown through him, after his glorification in the heavens. There was a certain man of the city of Acqui, named Manfred Engeramus, who on account of wars, having been captured, was held in chains at Nice. He, from excessive poverty, could not pay the ransom imposed on him; A captive, he being invoked, is freed: and because he expected no human aid for his liberation, daily he was much afflicted in heart and troubled in spirit. But it happened, God inspiring it, that he invoked blessed and venerable Guido to have mercy on him with the utmost devotion with many prayers and tears; because he had often heard, that God had shown many signs and miracles through him; promising that he would visit his sacred relics with the chains in his hands, if he would deign to rescue him from that prison. Immediately the vow being made, he beheld the chains of his feet broken fall to the ground: and seeing a way opened to him for going out, carrying the chains in his hands, he passed free through the enemies. Who filled with great joy came to the body of Blessed Guido, with the utmost devotion and reverence: and had the chains hung at his sepulcher, in everlasting memory of the matter: which are kept there to the present day.
[8] A certain man of the castle of Setebrium in the diocese of Acqui, named Arnald, when he was held with the tightest chains at Vidisonum in a certain wooden ark, very closed and most strongly bound with iron, was so afflicted by his enemies, likewise another shut in an ark, that he could scarcely breathe on account of the excessive narrowness of the prison. Who, seeing himself destitute of human aid, with the greatest devotion and tears invoked the help of the most blessed Guido his patron. And the vow being made, the ark was suddenly opened. And thus God, by the merits of Blessed Guido, the prison being broken, and the fetters burst, brought the man unharmed back to his own home. And although here at present not all things are written; yet many bound in chains, on account of wars and on account of diverse other causes, his help being invoked, were freed from prisons. For a report ran anciently, that no one of his diocese, his name being invoked, could be held in prison: and this was often shown by the effect.
[9] A certain man, named Scotha of Bistagno, of the diocese of Acqui, when on a certain day, filled with vanity, he had gone to Acqui ill-disposed, approached the sepulcher of the most holy and venerable Guido: and seeing there a certain linen cloth, with which his ark was covered, by a subjection not human, having stolen the linen, he cannot go out. he took that linen, and carried it off by stealth, and from it had a shirt made. Which when it was done, when he wished to return to his land, he sought all the gates of the city, and could not go out by any; while it was clear day, and all the gates were open. Then the wretched man, seeing and recognizing the virtue of the Saint, led by penance, the vow being made and the theft restored, went free to his land.
[10] A certain Cleric of the Acqui nation, an honorable man, and Canon of the greater church; who afterward ruled the Bishopric for a long time, incurred a grave infirmity of body: a sick man is freed from disease, and because he had a special devotion to St. Guido, he suppliantly besought his help, asking to be freed from the infirmity. The prayer being completed, immediately bodily healing follows.
[11] To a certain Cleric, when he had committed a most dishonorable fault, another from infamy. there threatened the danger of the greatest confusion and shame, and he could even scarcely avoid the danger of death; nor by human aid, without his greatest defamation, could he be freed. But he, seeing himself placed in such narrowness and danger, devoutly invoked the help of the Saint of God, asking to be freed from confusion and danger: and the vow being uttered, and perpetual correction promised, immediately he is most honorably freed. Many indeed and other miracles, both in the life of this most glorious Father and after his death, are known to have been wrought, which are not designated by the office of the pen: but these are briefly noted, for the instruction of his sanctity, for the edification of the faithful dwelling in the diocese of Acqui, for the praise also and glory of him who alone does great wonders, who Three and One God lives and reigns, through infinite ages of ages. Amen.