Peregrinus

ON BLESSED PEREGRINUS,

HERMIT OF CAMALDOLI IN ETRURIA.

A.D. 1288

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Miracles and indications of ancient cult obscured.

Peregrinus, Hermit of Camaldoli in Etruria (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

The collector of the Camaldolese histories Augustine Fortunius the Florentine, in book 2 chapter 50 treating of Gerard II, who from the year 1274 until 91 was Prior of the Sacred Camaldolese Hermitage, and presided over the whole Order as General, the 25th from S. P. Romualdus; about the above-titled Blessed, writes thus. Famous for sanctity, Flourished at this time in the sacred Hermitage the Venerable servant of Christ, Peregrinus the Hermit. He when he exercised the care of the sacristy, and treated the sacred things of the temple after his custom; deserved divinely to have those wondrous visions, which in the sacred Hermitage are held in manuscripts; which to another Venerable Hermit Simon, also a man of great sanctity, who heard his Confessions, he related separately. Flourished further the Venerable Peregrinus in the highest innocence of life: but simplicity of mind as well as of body so eminently he cultivated, that by his examples to the whole Congregation truly frugal, truly of all religious holiness, he was as it were a certain celestial burning torch.

[2] and in death honored by angelic song his body, The blessed man rendered his soul to God on June 3, 1288: and in his passing Angels were heard to sing praises to God, while they received the blessed soul. In testimony of which matter his venerable body, above the major altar of the temple most reverently deposited, until these times, has been held in the greatest veneration; as the best and greatest God daily bestows by his merits many benefits to the faithful peoples invoking him. At his ark also is read this verse, of Gabriel a Monk of his time.

Whoever, O man, climbs over these flinty rocks of the Hermitage, And devout ascends about to give vows; Here halt your step, placed once upon the altar; with prayers customarily performed, And with eyes raised behold the hanging little chests, In which the pious Hermit, Peregrinus rightly Blessed, Is laid: and by the merit of life dedicated to himself Behold in this place of the temple are enclosed the consecrated limbs. If however you also wish, both to know his life, and his morals, And his death, led with celestial song; This the pious words of the below-placed Tablet will tell you.

[3] Thus far Augustine, in the cenobium of the Angels at Florence for 12 years intent on writing the book, which in the year 1575 he gave to the light, and which following in the year 1606 Thomas de Minis, in the Catalogue of the Saints and Blessed of the Order, there it was still seen in the year 1574 and 1601, reported the same verses, the rest he reduced into a compendium. The same, and no more, in Italian reports in part 2 On the Lives of Saints and Blessed page 61 Silvanus Razzius Camaldolese Abbot, grievously complaining, that such was the simplicity of his elders, or rather negligence? that him whom they held for Blessed, and his Relics placed in so honored a place; his actions they took no care to be more distinctly described; or at least for this reason, that they might be able to prove to posterity, that in no way without cause was honor so singular held to him by them. To the Tablet indeed, placed under the said verses, Gabriel the author of them refers us; but had it been preserved, Augustine could have written something more, and without doubt would have done so; but Silvanus Razzius, only 27 years after him having that second part of his printed, ought not again to have complained, that to himself such a tablet had never been seen.

[4] Me also a similar, not to say greater admiration, and nearly indignation held, He himself visiting the Hermitage in the year 1662 with greater neglect seen of his very body. I had come there in the year 1662, with our Henschenius, on January 19; and the Library there not contemptible having been examined, two Mss. codices on the Lives of the Saints, one Greek, the other Latin, we took down with us to the lower monastery, in which alone it is custom for guests to be received, after the prayers poured forth in the upper Hermitage, lest anything should disturb its quiet. The next day to the same place I alone ascended, leaving below the senior master, weary from the way; and returning one of the books, for the other to be taken to Florence and at leisure to be transcribed I asked permission from the Major (so they call the President), then conveniently returned to the mountain, and easily obtained: then I performed the Sacrifice of the Mass, in that cell, which is called the Pope's; because Cardinal Ugolinus, afterwards called Gregory IX, exercising his spirit in the sacred Hermitage for a whole six months, had built it; and I marveled that in that very cell B. Leonard, afterwards there shut up and buried, was held in such slight veneration; nor anything else nearly, than that the bones raised from the ground, were placed higher within the wall, with this inscription: The bones of B. Leonard the Hermit recluse are placed here: whose soul, after long maceration of the flesh, was seen in a fiery sphere, to penetrate the secrets of heaven; and the bell of the Hermitage, without the aid of mortals, was heard to be struck. He also with prophetic spirit foretold that the most Reverend Cardinal Ugolinus, then shut up in this cell, would be Pope: a slight one there of B. Leonard, which was so done, and he was called Gregory the Ninth. The same represented (if I remember well) an old tablet, in which was seen the Cardinal performing at the altar, to whom intent on the sacred Consecration, above his head a dove was seen descending from heaven and resting, behind looking on Leonard with bent knee: meanwhile neither the year nor the day of death is known, neglected to be noted. But of this the discourse will return below. Now I return to the cell, where I had celebrated.

[5] They led me thence, with the sacrifice performed, to the temple: and there with prayers poured forth before the high altar, and finding much less veneration of B. Peregrinus recently and showily renewed, to the sacristy: where were shown to me certain dried bodies of the Blessed Hermits, just as they had been raised from the ground, within cheap sarcophagi, of which not even the names were sufficiently known. Only Peregrinus, whose body until then had stood on the old altar, and now had been placed with the rest, on the occasion of the said renewal, was held somewhat more honestly, placed in a more decent chest, within with silk nearly consumed lined, and covered with a veil not very precious: but the cadaver no way heavy, but rather smelling well, in its dried skin had the same color which dry bones are wont: but the whole was seen bare, except that on the head was placed a cap of white linen, accustomed to be applied for relieving pains of the head, as the present Hermits reported. The same also indicated that counsels were being treated about a new and more elegant chest, within which the translated sacred body, would again be exposed to public veneration, above or behind the altar: which either was not done, or has been so given to oblivion, that when in the year 1685 our Janning coming from Rome through Perugia to Florence, in passing visited the sacred Hermitage, found indeed the temple wholly elegantly renewed; but led to the same altar, understood nothing about the body of B. Peregrinus. Behind the altar however was shown to him another body, like the rest dry, but recently exhumed from under the old pavement, then changed into marble, whose body it was was not known; but to the Sacristy he was not led, as if nothing venerable were there.

[6] Those holy Hermits seem, as also the Carthusian Fathers, to hold the sacred bodies of their Blessed less reverently in appearance for this reason, that they fear for their solitude from the affluence of pilgrims, Hermits declining the affluence of peoples. whom benefits obtained at their visitation would attract there in a greater number than they would wish; and therefore neither to take care to write those, nor to gather for the Canonization or solemn Beatification of anyone; which though perhaps more useful for themselves, yet snatches from others the occasion of more magnificently praising God in His servants, and of more widely celebrating the holiness of the Order. But with all public cult of Peregrinus ceasing in this manner, among the same ones, who, even if neglected by others, seemed by all help and zeal to ought to call back to its pristine vigor; I doubted indeed, whether here I would give him a place among the Blessed. At length however the modesty of those pious Hermits seemed worthy of so much greater favor, by which

it itself seeks less to be celebrated for itself and its own, content with the recess of dreadful rocks, and desiring the whole world to lie hidden, if a city placed upon a mountain could be hidden. I gave therefore to him, who now is, Major of the place letters, through the most diligent helper of our studies at Florence, the most illustrious Antonio Magliabechi; that I might either understand, whether anything else about the body of B. Peregrinus was done, from our departure from there, worthy of memory; or rouse the counsels long since put to sleep of placing him more decently; and at the same time obtain a copy of those wondrous, and praised by Augustine and Silvanus, visions, of which the original Ms. I do not remember to have been shown to us, about to give them to public light, in place of the Life which now is in vain desired.

[7] But behold, while I await these things, into my memory comes the description of the Camaldolese Hermitage, Andreas Muñez about the year 1568 describing the sacred Hermitage, by Andreas Mugnosius Hispanus Conchensis in the place itself composed, and to Pope Pius V, after he had deigned to the place by his presence, presented, and at Rome printed in the year 1570, a few years earlier than Augustine at Florence in the monastery of the Angels would have completed the history of the Order: who although for this cause two and three times he ascended to the Hermitage itself, to turn over individually all the pages of writings, instruments and privileges, as he professes in the Apology printed about the year 1592; yet that most accurate description of Mugnosius does not seem to have obtained, as taken away from the author by Rome, nor to have known it printed there. That Author, longer engaged among those most Religious men, both for the cause of exercising his spirit, and that he might know the ancient discipline and sacred laws there (Antonio Augustinus in the Hispanic Library believed that he there had consigned himself to the Eremitic life), toward the end of the first book, after praising those then living there, thus writes about the dead.

[8] There rest besides in the same sacred Hermitage the bodies of many, whose souls enjoy eternal glory: he praises the eminent sanctity of the Blessed but especially of some buried in distinct sepulchres, with veneration there are preserved, because they shone with many miracles. There was especially a certain man, endowed with eminent sanctity, named Leonard; who, when he was then of the second Order (they call them Conversi, watching over domestic ministries), for many years remained shut up. He to Cardinal Ugelinus, a man of great sanctity, who to the sacred Hermitage, that he might better attend to divine matters, had fled, while in divine matters he daily ministered, led by a prophetic spirit, when on a certain day to him performing the sacred matter according to his custom he ministered, of Leonard, kissing his feet, said he was created Supreme Pontiff; and that those who would call him from the College of Cardinals sent to Rome would soon be present; which so happened, and he was afterwards called Gregory the Ninth. Who when he was preparing his departure, desiring to lead this excellent minister with him to Rome, with all his strength strove to obtain this from him. He however with admirable humility refusing this, with the highest prayers asked, that it be permitted to him to pass the rest of the time of his life in that domicile, in which he himself once as Cardinal intent on divine matters, shut up had lived, which from him most humanely he obtained. And when from here to a better fatherland he was called, his soul was seen in a most splendid fiery sphere to fly to the Supernal Ones; and the bell of the same Hermitage untouched, at the very going out of the soul, of its own accord gave a sound: but his body in the same chapel was deposited, which by that same Pontiff in the praise of the blessed Virgin built, even now under the title of the same Pontiff remains.

[9] Nor less did this sacred place become illustrious by a man of admirable sanctity, Peregrinus: whose sanctity when the enemy of the human race vehemently envied, of Peregrinus with his arts he so once attacked him, that he was urging him from the summit of that celestial life to the blandishments of the world. Whom indeed he would have driven headlong, had not an Angel sent from God, to him hastening to the world have shown himself; who him, not only by reason and admonitions to the Hermitage would call back, but also with contemplations of divine things would imbue and illustrate his mind: which contemplations, taken down in writings, even today the Hermits retain, and the ancient monuments of the holy Father, to be read by all, have exposed at the major altar of the temple, where his body deposited with great veneration is preserved. Beside which, also the body of Michael, a man of great sanctity, with veneration is preserved. He instituted the Lord's Crown, and of Michael; for the commemoration of the years of the life of the Lord, thirty-three Lord's prayers; and for the commemoration of his five wounds five Angelic salutations to be paid containing. Adds about the same Michael yet something Andreas, which will better be reserved for the Supplement of January, on whose 21st day in the year 1522 he died, when we judge his Life by Augustine written more prolixly can be given; since he ought to enjoy the privilege of a case, excepted from the Urbanian decrees; who more than a hundred years before their publication expired, and can be believed to have been held immediately from death in some veneration.

[10] Proceeding further Andreas, One thing, he says, I think not to be silent, which from the bones of other Hermits, resting in the common crypts, openly is seen: And the bones also of the rest he asserts always to smell well. namely that at no time the bones there enclosed, with a bare and simple board covered, give off any stench, with which others for the most part are wont to be infected: nay, if you remove the board itself, you will feel a sweet odor thence proceed to your nostrils. Which indeed is a most powerful argument, that their companion souls are recreated by the fragrance of perpetual glory; and in no way suffer, that the bodies, which them, while in this mortal life they were joined together, helped for gaining innumerable merits, should lie subject to stench and putrefaction.

[11] In the years 1685 and 6 John Mabillon traversed Italy, The book of visions of B. Peregrinus seems lost. and in the next following year published the same journey described, under the title of Iter Litterarium: for he himself was not so much careful of things seen, as to note the rarer monuments of letters, found through that excursion. Yet on the 10th day of April of the latter year having come to Camaldoli, and captured by admiration of the most religious place, he could not contain himself from supplying the paucity of words with an elegant tablet, otherwise perhaps about to be of use to us, in which the whole face of the sacred Hermitage, with the hostel of Bonifons subjected to it, is represented. More to this point, that among the literary notices, there acquired, nowhere are named to him the Visions or Meditations of B. Peregrinus, which had been held in such price by our elders, above at numbers 1 and 9 we read. Wherefore I begin vehemently to fear, lest so great a treasure has been utterly lost; gladly to give it in the Supplement, if from somewhere it should emerge.