CONCERNING BLESSED PLACIDUS, OF THE ORDER OF THE APOSTOLINES,
AT RECANATI IN PICENUM, A PROVINCE OF ITALY.
IN THE YEAR 1398.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Cult; Life; Miracles; the origin and progress of the Order.
Placidus of the Order of the Apostolines, at Recanati in Picenum (Bl.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
About to express for us the rule and form of living of the first faithful under the Apostles, St. Luke in the Acts, chapters 2 and 4, notes that all who believed were together, and had all things in common: After the form of the first faithful under the Apostles, and again, "And the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but all things were common unto them." This was without doubt the example, to which afterward all looked back, as many as, whether in the clergy or in the people, in cities or in solitudes, chose to lead a life in common, drawn away from secular cares, and bound by a certain peculiar manner to the service of God and the exercise of prayer and other pious works, which we can deservedly call Apostolic. This, according to the diversity of various Regular institutes, had been so propagated, that no such Congregation took its name from the Apostles, having embraced the common life, in the 14th century the Apostolines, until the 14th century; when they began to be called Apostolines in Italy, the beginning (as is believed) being taken at Milan.
[2] At first they emitted no profession; and content with a modest eremitic garment, they pressed on with making prayers; expending what was left of their time on manual work. And because under that institute of life they profited very many, by the sweet fragrance of their by no means common virtues, their companies had grown in number: they gave Bl. Placidus to Recanati. especially propagated through Insubria and Liguria, as far as Picenum and Abruzzo; indeed as far as the City of Rome itself, where Bl. Placidus, having embraced that institute, is reported to have brought it to Recanati itself, about the year 1370; and there to have died, in the year 1398. Of him Philippus Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, published about the year 1613, writes thus: "Placitus, born at Recanati in Picenum (where he is always named Placidus), flourished in sanctity of life, and migrated from life about two hundred years ago: whose body, laid in the church of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, is seen whole to this very day, and shines with miracles … at his tomb a tablet, to be venerated on the 5th of June, on which several of his miracles are read described, is seen hung up." He then adds in his Annotation, that by his invocation divine help is almost never implored in vain by those suffering fever. Similarly in the General Catalogue of the Saints, who are not in the Roman Martyrology; when he had reported his name, under the title of Confessor; he adds in the Notes; that his Memory is recalled also on the 5th of October, yet not with a divine Office; namely on occasion of St. Placidus, Monk Martyr, disciple of St. Benedict, of whom the Office is then made. He cites there also manuscript Monuments of the aforesaid Church, but these seem to be no other than the aforesaid Tablet.
[3] The Life, from the Recanati history of Angelita, and various ancient manuscripts, and public instruments, whose Life Ludovicus Jacobillus wrote. kept both in the convent of St. Clement at Rome, and at Recanati and Foligno, Ludovicus Jacobillus published in the year 1628, a Patrician and Jurisconsult of Foligno, and Apostolic Protonotary, among the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of Foligno; because he would have Placidus too to have been a native of Foligno, even though he is everywhere called of Recanati, namely from his longer stay; just as SS. Nicholas of Tolentino and Anthony of Padua, even though the latter was born at Lisbon in Portugal, the former in the town of S. Angelo of the diocese of Fermo. Would that Jacobillus could have shown us, lodging with him in the year 1660, the originals collected of the very Manuscripts and their Latin words! These are here given in Latin, or at least the history of Angelita; if this is the one who in the year 1474 as Prior raised the body of Bl. Placidus. Far more gladly would we here give these, than render into Latin the Life composed in Italian; but Jacobillus being long dead and the Order extinct, what hope could there be of obtaining them? We give therefore what now alone we can; and we add the miracles, collected by Modestus Benvenuti, a Sylvestrine Monk, about the year 1634, in the historical Relation then published of certain Saints, Protectors and Blessed of the city of Recanati, situated (that I may say this too in passing) in Picenum; to whose territory belonged Loreto, the miracles collected by another being added, the house of the Nazarene Mother of God and Joseph having been translated thither from Dalmatia, noble. This Translation had been made about the year 1294, of which year there is such agreement among all writers, that it is a wonder that the aforementioned Modestus writes, that from when in those parts the sacred House had begun to be seen and honored, only 13 years had elapsed, when Placidus received in hospitality the Apostolines, pilgrims to Loreto, and resolved to embrace their institute.
[4] But the miracles which he added, since they do not much exceed the measure of one tablet hung at the tomb, and this was written in Italian for the convenience of the common people, up to the year 1629. I judged that I need not labor much, to obtain the original context, though still extant, because he seemed to have expressed it faithfully enough, in that brevity which he used. But since the progress of the Miracles does not extend beyond the year 1629, I hoped it might be that someone would supply those which I did not doubt had followed many thereafter. But the answer was, that many new things indeed are wrought daily; since that Saint is very beneficent toward his devout ones, and therefore the sacred body is most frequently visited not only by the citizens, but also by the neighbors, but that besides what is already indicated nothing is had in writing. It was added however that the Magistrate of Recanati, on the 5th of June, proceeds yearly, with a certain offering of wax, to honor the local Blessed, as is almost the custom elsewhere through Italy on the feasts of Patrons.
[5] As for the Order itself, since it is now extinct, nor much known in ecclesiastical History, that Order at first lay, it seemed good to treat of it more distinctly, from Paulus Morigia the Jesuat, who about the year 1586 reprinted, enlarged, a certain Italian little book of his, on the origins of the religious Orders. He in chapter 5 treats the history of the aforesaid Congregation, which in his age, the diminutive name of Apostolines being dismissed, they called Brothers of the Apostles, the word being at last kept. But he says that they lived long scattered like Hermits, whence I think, he says, that at the beginning they lived without a sacred Order, content with prayer and the common life, commended by the Apostles. Afterward, in the year of our salvation 1484, when Innocent VIII had been made Pontiff, in the year 1484 admitted to the Sacraments, a Genoese by country, asked by them he gave them the faculty of celebrating Masses; and granted them a scapular with a hood sewn to it, under the Rule of St. Augustine; with the communication added also of all the privileges which the Hermits of the same holy Father enjoy. That the memory of that habit may be preserved, it is pleasing, from Modestus, who represents Bl. Bartholomew the disciple of Placidus, to give it too to be seen, at least the half; and from the other half to note, that the feet are expressed bare, a thing not observed by the writers. Jacobillus, admitted to the archive of the Roman convent, fetches that change of habit a little higher than Morigia, and says its author was Eugene IV in the year 1431; whose ordinance Innocent VIII confirmed 53 years after, and added the Rule and Privileges: under which the Order persevered, until Pope Innocent X suppressed it, and created its then General, D. Androtius, Abbot of the church of St. John, under which title the same was possessed in the year 1690 by D. Antolinus of Montecassiano; for so it pleases the Italians to call those taken up from the secular Clergy, to the supreme dignity of some church, once monastic.
[6] However it be, the First, according to Morigia and Jacobillus and, between them, Silvester Maurolycus, in the Ocean Sea of all Religions published about the year 1613 at Messina in Sicily, who transcribed Morigia not without errors; the First, I say, ordained to the Mass were Simon of Morosana, Joannes Scarpa, and Nicolaus Cesteri, Genoese, and they were clothed in a tunic of chestnut color, over which was added a scapular of the same color with a hood of similar dye, it proceeded from the order of the Ambrosines: and a leathern girdle; but in winter time also a little cloak, after the manner of the Capuchins. But they gather in chapter, and the Superior of all is called Vicar general. But in what respect Vicar? Surely in respect of another older Congregation, from which it was cut off; and with which the Apostolines said they made one Order, namely of the Ambrosines or Brothers of St. Ambrose in the grove; using the same Augustinian Rule as the Brothers of the Apostles, and a chestnut habit similarly; but in the Sacred rites Ambrosian, whereas the latter hold the Roman; bound to neither however, both, before, by the indulgence of Innocent VIII, they began to be received to the sacred Orders.
[7] But then it seems to have befallen both, what we have more often observed done in other Eremitic Orders; but as these, ignorant of their own beginnings, that those who had their own origins, while they were almost laymen, consigned to no monuments of letters; as soon as they received the study of these, began to think of clearing away the history of their family; and since nothing certain was at hand from tradition, received without letters; from the very appellations of their Congregations to seek occasion of fetching their origin as high as they could; not at all anxious how they should fill the history, gaping through so many intervening centuries, in which no mention of their Order is found among Writers. referred these to St. Ambrose, The Ambrosines therefore (to whom the first dwelling had fallen beside the church of St. Ambrose in the Wood, or Grove, near Milan, and thence the nomenclature) the first, whom perhaps by tradition they knew, inhabitants of that place, Alexander Cribellus, Albertus Bezutius, and Antonius Petrasancta, willed to be believed brought thither by St. Ambrose himself (namely so long before than the use of the aforesaid surnames was), and to have propagated the eremitic institute through several centuries, by a quasi-hereditary succession, though under the vicissitude of various reformations.
[8] so these referred theirs to the Apostles. The Apostolines or Brothers of the Apostles (since they had received that name either from the Apostolic form of living, or perhaps from some church dedicated to the holy Apostles, at which they first began to assemble) fetch their origin also from one of them, St. Barnabas; inasmuch as he is believed first to have preached the faith at Milan, and to have ordained a Church. But they say that the institute of St. Barnabas, almost extinct amid the persecutions of the Gentiles, St. Ambrose restored in the aforesaid Grove, the three named Hermits being placed there; and hence in common with the Ambrosines they advance as far as the 14th century, anxious about nothing of the intermediate things. But as we do not turn this to them as a great fault, the simplicity of the ruder age being considered; so neither do we believe it can be turned to our fault, that we are less ready to give credence to a succession so ill cohering, than Morigia, Maurolycus, Jacobillus, and Benvenutius.
LIFE
From the Italian of Ludovicus Jacobillus.
Placidus of the Order of the Apostolines, at Recanati in Picenum (Bl.)
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.
[1] Placidus, born of his father John of an honorable family of Foligno
in the year 1338, Born in the year 1338 as a boy lost his parents; and therefore a certain uncle of his of Recanati led him away into his own city to be further educated. Here he, when he had laid the first foundations of virtue and letters, with no contemptible progress, passed over to the studies of Macerata. To the same place too it happened about the same time that two Hermits of the Order of the Apostles passed, pilgrims to the holy House of Loreto: by whose appearance, not before seen by him, and captivated by the modesty of their habit and countenance, the pious youth invited them to his lodging and treated them kindly, not without notable fruit to his soul. For the conversation of those pious men and their virtue, begun to be more closely known, while he studies at Macerata, so affected his mind, that, summarily instructed about their institute, he wished to be made a companion of their holy pilgrimage, and then to be clothed in the same habit. Which when, on bended knee, he insisted on asking; and they, after some reluctance, had assented; Placidus needed no more than two days, that, his books and all other things being sold, and the price distributed among the poor of Christ, with the Apostolines received in hospitality he might give himself to the road, not very long, since Loreto is distant from Macerata only 14 miles. Having arrived at the sacred house, they asked the Mother of God, on this side the youth, on that the Brothers, that what was for the greater glory of God, she would inspire to both; and the prayer completed they went to Recanati. There Placidus presented himself to his uncle, and on his knees as a suppliant asked his consent, to fulfill the vow of his mind. He assented, though not without feeling; and dismissed from himself, weeping, his nephew, whither God was calling. But he, allowing himself to be detained neither by saying farewell to friends, he sets out for Loreto and Rome. nor by seeking out his kinsmen of Foligno, hastened to Rome; there to take the Apostolic habit, where the new Order had two convents, one dedicated to St. Clement, the other to St. Pancras.
[2] But Placidus was led to St. Clement's; and by the Prior, duly informed through his men, kindly received, and presented with the habit, From his uncle's inheritance put off all affection of the world, and for some years gave himself wholly to the study of religious virtues. Meanwhile his uncle died at Recanati, leaving it provided for by the tablets of his last will, that from the faculties left by him a dwelling of the Apostolic profession should be erected at Recanati, on this condition, that his nephew should be placed in it, in such a place as he himself should choose. It was indeed hard for a man, zealous for religious perfection, to return thither, where he foresaw he would be in love and honor. a Convent being built at Recanati he becomes Prior of the Brothers, Yet he went, and gladly received, beside the walls of the city chose a site, suited to a life drawn away from the world. Then into the dwellings soon built there, he received the Brothers sent to him from elsewhere, and gathered new ones; by whom, agreeing in one opinion, he was asked to be Prior, in the year 1370, being in not much more than the thirtieth year of his life; although he himself much resisted, more desirous of obeying than of commanding.
[3] Thenceforth into the society of the same life many gave themselves, the world being despised, among whom three are reckoned chief. Bl. Bartholomew of Recanati, of whom three are called Blessed: a man of great humility, who constantly refused the office of Prior offered to him on Placidus's death; and full of great merits fell asleep in the Lord, buried honorably in the Cathedral of Recanati, in the year 1424. The second of them, Bl. Philip of Fermo, was the founder of the Convent of Macerata; and dead and buried in it, left a venerable memory of himself to all posterity. The third finally, Bl. Guardatus, by the custody of his tongue and silence rendered himself equally admirable and imitable; and with great austerity of life moreover added, in the town Belforte of the district of Picenum, merited an annual veneration after death, which he met near that same town in the year 1425; but his body miraculously illustrated with heavenly splendors; was then placed under an altar, erected to his honor in the major church; where on the 25th of January, on which he died, he is religiously honored by the inhabitants. And let these things be said, that from the perfection of the disciples the eminence of the master may be understood.
[4] he himself added to the Saints in the year 1398 The Brothers being thus established beside Recanati, Placidus converted also many sinners to better fruit: working very much good through the surrounding lands, and bringing great assistance to the Pilgrims approaching the house of Loreto, of which he himself too was most devout, revisiting it repeatedly; until at last it pleased God to call away the soul dear to him from the prison of this mortal body, after an infirmity long and most patiently borne, on the 5th of June, in the year 1398, of his age 60. When that death had become known to the people, there was a great concourse to venerate and touch the sacred body: and by the mandate of the Bishop (he was called Angelus here, governing the Churches of Recanati and Macerata at once, and miraculously translated from the Cathedral to St. John's, afterward also chosen into the College of Cardinals) it was buried, not without singular pomp, in the Cathedral church. But Bl. Placidus, not enduring to be separated from that convent, which he had first erected and inhabited constantly until death; obtained from God that the body be carried back to the church of St. John, without doubt by the ministry of Angels; where even now it is visited and venerated, placed in a noble chest under the major altar.
[5] Thenceforth God did not cease there to attest the sanctity of the deceased with daily miracles, nor does he allow even a joint to be taken from him. of which the surrounding votive tablets are innumerable witnesses. Since that matter by no means allowed the religion once undertaken toward the venerable body to grow faint among the people of Recanati; and many for the sake of devotion wished to obtain some little particle from it; there was a certain schoolmaster named Bruno, impelled by such a desire so vehemently, that, approaching rather often under the pretext of the venerable body, at last he found a way of taking away one joint; which he might carry off to his own country, to some church there; for he was a foreigner there. But that very night he suffered so great torment in one of his feet, that as soon as it dawned he hastened to return to the church of St. John, and, his fault recognized, to restore the theft: which done, all his pain ceased.
[6] The Altar under which the body, Thus far Jacobillus, to whom I would add, that in the year 1660, setting out for Rome with Father Henschenius, and on the 11th of December passing through Macerata, and proceeding to Recanati, I saw on the way the church of St. John, and in it a rather handsome altar of blackish marble, under which through an iron grating and a glass window was seen a wooden gilded chest, containing the body of St. Placidus (as was said) incorrupt. There was no one present who could show it to us. So I held it enough to have noted, that on the panel of a lateral altar I saw painted, with rays and the title of blessedness, the above-said Bl. Bartholomew, and Bl. Placidus; but three inscriptions fixed to the wall, of which I chose to describe only one, because it seemed especially to make to the point, saying, and the incorrupt appearance of this man even today. that the body of Bl. Placidus, translated to the Cathedral church, for his greater glory, (alas, marvelous God!) suddenly returned hither, whence it had been taken away. Recalling this memory, since, with the work brought thus far, I vehemently desired to obtain some likeness of the incorrupt body, through our Penitentiary of Loreto, Father Antonius Franciscus Destieu, I accomplished only this, that a young Belgian sent by him to Recanati, of those who pass frequently from Loreto to Rome, was led to the chest of the sacred body; and it being opened he was permitted hastily to delineate it, as it lay there covered with an ashen-colored veil; which, timidly, lest it being soft with age should break, raising it up with the help of a certain little staff, they threw back onto the breast, so that the head and one side could be seen: but what he saw, he thus hastily expressed in reddish color.
MIRACLES
From the Italian of Modestus Benvenuti.
Placidus of the Order of the Apostolines, at Recanati in Picenum (Bl.)
FROM THE ITALIAN.
[7] It happened once, that flame seized the monastery of Bl. Placidus, The body preserved from the flames which consumed the church too, only the Most Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Body remaining untouched by a miracle; and the Relics placed under the altar, with the deposit of Bl. Placidus himself. When in the year 1474 Prior Obediens Angelita took care to restore this ruin, afterward also General of the whole Order; he took care also that thenceforth so great a treasure should be conserved with greater diligence. How pleasing this was to the Blessed, the following outcome will indicate. The Prior had gone out with all his Religious, to a public procession through the city, only one boy, Hieronymus Andreae, being left at home. To him, when pilgrims had come, desiring to see the holy body; he, the keys being seized, tried to open the chest, and they themselves tried: but all effort being vain, they withdrew sad. But soon there appeared in the church a Religious, of grave and venerable appearance, then probably believed to have been Bl. Placidus himself; it cannot be shown to pilgrims except by the Religious. who severely rebuked the boy, threatening evil if henceforth he should presume of his own judgment to open the chest of the sacred body: let him leave that care to the Fathers, who would never be wanting to the desire of pilgrims.
[8] But although in the above-said fire all the tablets of the older miracles were burned; and many of the later too were consumed by various accidents; yet not a few of these remain, from which according to the order of years I will recount the more notable. The Blessed being invoked, grave diseases are healed; In the year 1564 the daughter of Joannes Baptista Braccius of Recanati, when she was gravely ill, was commended to the Blessed by her mother: who immediately obtained what she asked for her daughter. In the year 1577, on the 10th of September, a certain Sebastianus, seized by a dangerous and very extraordinary disease, invoked Bl. Placidus, and soon recovered. In the year 1582, on the 2nd of May, Dominicus de Vallevano, then cellarer of Cardinal Colonna, being at Macerata and suffering intolerable toothache, proposed to come to Recanati to venerate Bl. Placidus: and when he had prostrated himself at his tomb and poured out prayer, before he went out from the church, pain of the teeth, he felt all pain wiped away from his teeth. In the same year, on the 11th of November, Joannes Franciscus Albonicus, afflicted with fever, a vow being made recovered. Then in the following year on the 15th of August, Thomas Masucci of Recanati, son of the Knight Caesar Masucci, lay prostrate with a daily and most grievous fever, various fevers, of 12 years; which had held him two months, returning no day without rigor and intolerable cold. But while he lay thus, there came to that house Religious from the Convent of the Apostles, for the sake of alms; and they asked that some garment of the sick boy be given them, which, placed upon the holy body, and blessed by that contact, they might bring back, with this end that he be clothed in it the next day, before the future paroxysm: which done, she-fever driven from him, he never afterward felt it; and enrolled in the Society of Jesus he lived in it until the year 1633, praised for the innocence of his life and his learning.
[9] But meanwhile there happened also the following, to which no note of time is found inscribed. extreme infirmity Dominicus, son of D. Philippus of Monte-monaco, lay sick, and all but a corpse in bed; so that he could not be moved by himself, but needed to be raised within the coverlet by another's
hands. The physicians had now cast away all hope of saving him; when the fame, carried even into the sick man's country, of the miracles which were said to be wrought at Recanati, moved him to implore the help of Bl. Placidus, pain of the head, with the resolve of visiting his tomb if he recovered. And he recovered, as he had wished, and fulfilled his vow. A certain Clara, a Venetian, going to Rome, began to be tormented on the way with so dire a pain of the head, that she could take no part of rest. She therefore vowed a likeness of a head from wax, to be carried to the tomb of Bl. Placidus, and a Mass to be procured: and soon she was made possessor of her vow. a fracture of the shin, Another woman, born at Montecchio, whose name is not expressed, fell so unhappily to the ground, that her shin was broken: whose waxen image when she had similarly vowed, to be hung at the tomb; she immediately raised herself to her feet healed.
[10] In the year 1590, on the 3rd of March, Master Hortensius Felix the singer, a suffocating catarrh, being at Recanati on the first Friday in Lent, and conversing with a certain friend of his, a catarrh slipping down into his throat suddenly fell down almost dead, not without an attack of acute fever: but a vow being made he soon recovered; as also two sons of D. Grimaldus Carbonus, having long struggled with a tertian fever. In the year 1594, on the 29th of September, Sanctes de Alzanettis, staying in a certain town called Raputa, was found paralytic in his whole body: but as soon as he invoked Bl. Placidus, he began to rise from his bed, gradually attaining thence whole health. In the year 1596, on the 15th of September, the Lady Dianora of Offida, having a little daughter of eight months ill, paralysis, promised to visit the tomb of Bl. Placidus, and to bring there a garment of her daughter; who, the mother having returned thence, not long after recovered perfect health. In the year 1601, on the 10th of August, under a certain votive offering it is found thus written: "A vow being made to Bl. Placidus, the Lady Angelina, daughter of Bertramus of Loreto, received grace. Praise to God and to the honor of Bl. Placidus." In the same year, on the 29th of September, the Lady Matthaea Benedicti of Loreto, sick for eight months, various fevers, as best she could crawled to the Blessed's tomb; but entering the church she was at that very moment seized with a by no means light fever: but not therefore omitting her intended prayer, she finally obtained the health she desired.
[11] In the year 1602, on the 20th of July, Master Daniel and his wife Hieronyma, of Osimo, had a son, called Petrus Dominicus, after a grave infirmity of two months given up by the physicians: a dying man, they had recourse therefore to the intercession of Bl. Placidus, and a shirt which had touched his body being placed upon the sick boy, his former health was restored to him. In the same year, on the 10th of May, Nicolaus Antonius of Civitanova, wasted by a continual fever of two months, a vow being made recovered. The daughter of Antonius, dwelling in Civitanova, was feverish a whole year; until, a vow being made, she expelled the fever. In the above-said year too, on the 23rd of September, when Petrus-Stephanus of Monte-santo, gravely ill for the space of two months, took no help from human remedies; he had recourse to making a vow to Bl. Placidus, of visiting his tomb, and carrying thither one of his garments: and soon healed he discharged himself of his vow. Margarita Baptistae, a citizen of Loreto, likewise fevers, labored with an acute fever; wherefore devoutly invoking the Blessed, she bound herself to go to his tomb, and obtained the grace of her former health. Bernardinus of Morro-Valle, having struggled for several months with a quartan, using a similar vow, received the remedy of his evil. Horatius and Cruciana, similarly born of Morro-Valle, were being wasted by a similar and subtle quartan fever; and using the same remedy, obtained deliverance from that evil.
[12] In the year 1604, on the 19th of July, when the Lady Maria Corinti of Monte-santo had been gravely ill for four months, she made a vow to Bl. Placidus, of going to his tomb if she were healed, and she was healed. with pain of the head: In the same year and on the 29th of the same month, Antonius Juliani of Cingoli had endured a most grievous fever a whole month, when he was freed from it by the merits of Bl. Placidus. But on the 26th of the following August, the wife of Andreas of Monte-cosaro, having suffered most troublesome fevers for twenty-five days, with great pain of the head, by a vow of going to the tomb escaped from those discomforts. In the year 1608, on the 6th of September, Master Franciscus Francisci of Osimo, laboring with a certain loathsome disease, for which the physicians judged there was no remedy; grave diseases, vowed to carry a torch to the tomb of Bl. Placidus with a certain other alms: and what he desired he received from him. In the year 1611, on the 5th of May, Stephanus, son of Master Jacobus of Loreto, made a vow for recovering health, which the gravity of his disease compelled the physicians to hold desperate; and shortly restored to himself, he came to the tomb, and discharged himself of his vow. In the same year and on the 15th of the same month, Misaccius of Morro-valle, having a son now a whole year bedridden from fever, prayed Bl. Placidus to succor him, and for that cause approached the tomb, asking his son's health: which as he faithfully sought, so he wholly obtained.
[13] In the year 1621, on the 2nd of June, Dominicus Patini of Monte-Georgio, again lethal fevers. suffering for a year and two months fevers for which no remedy was found, had himself led to the Blessed's tomb, and left there certain garments of his, returning thence glad on account of his recovered health. In the year 1629, on the 25th of March, Joannes-Marcus Humilis of Monte-Cosaro appeared in the church of Bl. Placidus, before D. Nicolaus Pucci of Recanati and Camillus Angelus of Monte-cosaro; declaring, that, having struggled a whole month with a fever, whence the physicians foreboded death for him, he had commended himself to the Mother of God of Loreto and to the intercession of Bl. Placidus: within whose tomb the sick man's shirt was placed, and the Mass said over it; which finished, having put it on, he suddenly felt that he was better.