ON SAINT ALEXANDER
BISHOP OF VERONA IN ITALY.
A compilation from Augustine Valerius Bishop of Verona.
Alexander, Bishop of Verona in Italy (S.)
G. H.
Verona, an illustrious city of Italy on the river Athesis in Venetian dominion, lists very many of its Saints, and among these by dignity Bishops 36: of whom 23 in all are found inscribed in today's Roman Martyrology, after the same all, except four, Memorial in the Calendars: Galesinius had inscribed in his Martyrology; whereas before, except S. Zeno, of whom we have treated on April 12, none of them was found inscribed in the calendars of Usuard, which alone the Roman Church formerly used. About more of these we have already often treated, and in this month of June we are about to give three. One on this fourth day is read thus inscribed: "At Verona, of S. Alexander the Bishop." In the Martyrology of Galesinius is added, "and Confessor." Baronius in the Notes refers the reader to Augustine Valerius, Bishop of that Church and Cardinal, in the little book which he wrote on the Bishops of that See. This one was created, Bishop indeed in the year 1565, but Cardinal in 1583, departed life in 1606: which it will help to have noted, that you may understand that by his authority it was possible for the Veronese Church to enjoy so great a prerogative above others, and to augment the calendars of the universal Church with so distinguished a number of those whom he held Saints among his Bishops. This little book furthermore he published in Venetian type in the year 1576, in which, folio 37, about S. Alexander the Bishop of Verona he has this eulogy.
[2] "Alexander, Bishop of Verona, was occupied in the meditation of the divine law day and night. Encomium of his Life from Augustine Valerius The holy man labored in this especially, that at every moment for the innumerable benefits, which he and all the rest received from God their author, he might give thanks. He strove that daily he might become better, and that with growing age, the heap of piety and of all the Christian virtues might grow in him. They report a frequent saying often used by him: That he was not to be esteemed good, who did not strive to be made better. He died on the day before the Nones of June: he was buried in the crypt of S. Stephen, where in his honor and of S. Blasius, Bishop of the same city, an altar has been erected." S. Blasius is venerated on the 22nd day of this month of June. The same eulogies have been published by Ferrarius in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, and Ughellus in the Veronese Bishops, age uncertain. who establishes him the 21st Bishop, as if he had lived in the 4th century of Christ; and afterwards S. Simplicius the 34th Bishop, with twelve others interposed, establishes to have flourished about the year 490. On the contrary Ferrarius asserts that Alexander emigrated from this mortal life to God, on the day before the Nones, about the year of salvation 788. Prudentius Onuphrius Panvinius, lib. 4 of the Veronese Antiquities chap. 7, refers the Veronese Bishops from a Calendar of uncertain time and order, and lists them according to alphabetical number, and so first Alexander is said to have died on June 4, buried at S. Stephen's.
[3] The above-praised Augustine Valerius asserts nothing about the time of his See, but on folio 4 writes these things: "The body of S. Alexander the Bishop of Verona rests in the Church of S. Stephen": and citing an ancient Lectionary, Body in the church of S. Stephen, written from the parchments of the Cathedral Church of Verona in the year of the Lord 1373, in the Life or Lections of S. Theodore Bishop of Verona; thence he transcribes the following words: "There is in the city of Verona a church, constituted in honor of the blessed Protomartyr Stephen, which antiquity asserts was once the Cathedral Church: in which also the bodies of SS. Maurus, Alexander, Simplicius, Felix, Bishops of the same city … rest." Also from an old table in parchment, in the sacristy of the church of S. Stephen, he adds, among the special bodies of Saints which rest there, is in the Confession of the same Church the body of S. Alexander, Bishop of Verona. Besides in the crypt or confession of the same Church of S. Stephen, both on the table and on the stipes of the altar, erected and endowed for the same S. Alexander, these things are read: and in his Confession. "Here antiquity venerates the bodies of the holy Veronese Bishops Blasius and Alexander." Also in the cloth of the same altar are two images of Bishops, painted with these letters: "S. Alexander Ep. Ver. S. Blasius Ep. Ver." Finally Francis Corna testifies, that in the Church of S. Stephen lie the bodies of S. Alexander and other Veronese Bishops. Image in the cloth. And in the Synodal Constitution it is read on the 4th day of June, "S. Alexander in S. Stephen." The same Augustine Valerius subjoins an Index of Relics which are preserved in the Veronese Churches, and on page 87 asserts that in the Church of S. Stephen are buried the bodies of SS. Alexander, and of twenty other Veronese Bishops: whose names are there expressed. We do not hope that more can easily be found: we should only wish to know, from what source and author was received that distinguished saying which we reported above by Alexander: for the rest of the words of that eulogy contain scarcely anything which could not be fitted to any holy Bishop.