ON ST. ALEXANDER MARTYR,
BISHOP OF FIESOLE IN ETRURIA.
BEFORE THE YEAR 841.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
On the Saint's cult, acts, age.
Alexander Martyr, Bishop of Fiesole in Etruria (St.)
BHL Number: 0278
BY D. P. THE AUTHOR
Fiesole, and Fesula in Pliny; in Ptolemy, Dio, and Appian φαισοῦλαι (Phaisoulai), a city once most flourishing, and reckoned among the twelve first colonies of the Tuscans. It is distant not far from the river Arno, situated on a hill, and very near, within two miles, to Florence, which is said to have grown wondrously from its ruins. At Fiesole the Patron is St. Alexander. Some buildings still stand, and the ancient Bishopric with the Cathedral Church; which we visited in the year 1662, but with nothing of worth reported for our purpose. Among the Patrons of the city is venerated on this 6th of June St. Alexander, Bishop of Fiesole and Martyr, concerning whom Ferdinand Ughelli, in the third Tome of Sacred Italy among the Bishops of Fiesole column 272, published these things: St. Alexander, a citizen and Bishop of Fiesole, A summary of his Life from Ughelli; succeeded Laetus; a most keen defender of Ecclesiastical liberty, for which he did not refuse to go into danger of his head. For when several powerful men in the world had snatched away Ecclesiastical fortunes, he fled to Authari King of the Lombards at Pavia: whom the King, with Theodelinda his most pious wife, on account of the praise and fame of his excellent sanctity, honorably received: and favorable to his prayers, granted several diplomas to the Church of Fiesole; and commanded the wicked men to refund to Alexander whatever they had most violently taken away. He was returning honored by the King, and victor of a most pious cause: when the robbers, having got wind that the things they had seized were to be restored to the Church by the King's command; from an ambush set in the Bolognese country near the very rapid river Reno, drive him, as he passes by, to be choked in the waves of the river. Alexander is extinguished in the eddies, having suffered the shipwreck of mortal life, that he might be more safely carried to the harbor of blessed life, a church under his name: in the year five hundred eighty-two, on the eighth of the Ides of June. His companions, having at last fished out his sacred body, carried it to Fiesole, to be buried in the Cathedral. Although afterward by divine instinct they most fittingly placed it in the temple of St. Peter at Jerusalem, as they call it: which church afterward, from the name of the Martyr who had lain there for a rather long while, the men of the past age down to these our times called St. Alexander's.
[2] Afterward Francis Cattaneo, Bishop of Fiesole, who also wrote the Life of St. Alexander, translated his sacred Relics into the Cathedral, translation into a new chest, and took care to enclose them in a marble casket with this inscription.
The bones of the divine Alexander, Bishop of Fiesole and Martyr, hitherto kept here in a wooden and portable casket, Francis Cattaneo Diacceto, Prelate of this same See, took care to enclose in this marble, in the year of salvation 1580.
If Ughelli believed it consequent, that he who translated the sacred bones into this marble, not into another church. also translated the same into his own Cathedral; he vehemently erred, or whoever persuaded him of it. For about that urn, when I inquired, Master Raphael Badius the Dominican writes back to me, that it is answered him at Fiesole, that it is still honored in the Church of St. Alexander opposite the high altar, inserted into the wall of the church by masonry work: but that the Head is kept there in a special casket, and shown for veneration.
[3] The Life of St. Alexander and of other holy Bishops of Fiesole, written by himself in Italian, the said Cattaneo had taken care to have printed in the year 1578, The name in the Roman Martyrology. whence Ughelli took the aforesaid summary: and by his authority, alleged by Baronius in the Notes, St. Alexander, Bishop at Fiesole in Tuscany and Martyr, was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology; and the year 585 was assigned, which entirely, as above in Ughelli, should be put as 582, not 585: since Autharis, there called Acharis, only in the year 585 began his reign according to the opinion of Baronius. But as regards Alexander, I fear that Bishop Cattaneo had no other foundation for assigning him to the time of that Autharis, Later writers assign him to the 6th or 7th century. than that he found Lessons of his Church about that Saint, not very ancient, with this beginning. In the year of the Lord 570. At that time Rotharius, King of the Lombards (and, as presently below, a barbarian and Pagan,) crossed into Italy. In that year indeed the Lombards came into Italy, still pagans; but, as I said, their third King Autharis began to reign there later. The seventh King of the same Rotharis was a Christian, having obtained the kingdom in the year 636. Seeing therefore that these things did not agree, Bishop Cattaneo entered upon that reckoning of (as he thought) a better Chronology. We found those Lessons at Florence, nine indeed in number, but so brief that, taken together, they do not exceed the elogium already produced from Ughelli; and we copied them, from a copious collection of Offices of this kind, found with the Senator Carolus Strozzi; but we recognized that they are not very ancient, since we noted there words entirely Italian, Malvaggius, Adnegatus, Pelligrinasium, and the river Po, for Scelestus (wicked), Submersus (drowned), Peregrinatio (pilgrimage), Padus (the Po): but for this the Bishop preferred to substitute the Reno, The Acts from a Ms. of the Holy Cross narrate, the river of the Bolognese country (for the Po is outside the limits of it, and receives the Reno near Ferrara), but he substituted the Reno from other longer and better Acts, which we also found at Florence, in the Library of the Conventual Fathers of the Holy Cross, Pluteus 34 Codex 773, to this effect.
[4] Blessed Alexander, of the city of Fiesole, was sprung of noble race, and from the earliest of his age, being of honorable disposition, committed to memory that Apostolic saying: No man, soldiering for God, entangles himself in secular affairs. 2 Tim. 2 that, adorned from boyhood with virtues, Despising therefore the pomps of worldly triviality, with sincere devotion he busied himself to obtain the profits of perpetual felicity: and seeing the ladder which Jacob saw to be erected by himself, entering the first stable step, he so excelled in humility of heart, that then in that same city no second could be found. For this man, not wandering through the precipices of vices, as is the custom of that age; but by frequenting the churches strove to learn what was to be followed, and what to be avoided. Desiring therefore with all his strength to adorn the temple of the Holy Spirit with chastity, to prop it with charity, to crown it with patience, to chastise it with fasting, to glorify it with prayers, to fortify it with alms, to hedge it with reverence, to wall it with obedience; he was made Archdeacon; he began to be so perfect, that he had no equal in these virtues. Moreover, Laetus, Bishop of the city of Fiesole, of good memory, recognizing his irreproachable life, exalted him with the office of Archdeacon. And so blessed Alexander, seeing himself exalted with so great a dignity, according to the admonition of the Wise man; the greater he was, the more he humbled himself in all things; and following the examples of blessed Lawrence, so distributed temporal things, that all might become common to all, nor did he permit anyone coming to him to go away empty, saying:
It lies in the earth, which does not rise in the poor.
For in him was the most luminous graciousness of all virtues.
[5] Meanwhile Bishop Laetus rendered his soul to God, and the Clergy and people said that Alexander would be worthy of the Bishopric. then Bishop of Fiesole, But he on the contrary, calling himself a sinner and unworthy, resisted with all his strength. He is therefore dragged and seized, elected and enthroned, and, the supernal grace dispensing, ascending little by little the summit of virtues, he is led to the thresholds of the Apostles Peter and Paul, that he might be canonically consecrated by the Pope. The most holy Alexander therefore, returned to Fiesole, exhorted the people committed to him with holy admonitions, namely that they should despise earthly things and love the heavenly. Day and night vigilant in prayers, he diligently instructed his people, continually writing the divine pages, he showed to all what ought to be followed, and what avoided, always first fulfilling what he himself taught. For while the man of God excelled in such studies, seeing the things committed to him invaded by tyrants, having set out on his journey he came to Pavia to the Emperor Lothair. And entering to him, soon as he removed his cap, immediately the orb of the sun held it up for about half an hour. At which miracle seen, the Emperor rising, with his own hand led him to his Seat, from the Emperor Lothair he recovered his possessions, and willingly assented to his petition; and not only granted the ancient possessions, but also bestowed very many of his own: namely the castle of Fiesole and of Montelauro; and by Imperial privilege confirmed it perpetually to him and his successors.
[6] Joyful therefore, directing his steps to his Church, he came to the gate of the city of Bologna; and choked by fraud in the Reno, where the adversaries of the Church committed to him, meeting him, under the appearance of fidelity congratulating him, going before him, and at the same time
began to return with him. Meanwhile they came to the river Reno, where those clinging to him by treachery, having seized him as if for the sake of protection, lest the force of the water should harm him, plunged him into the river, saying: Woe! buried at Fiesole on June 6: woe! that the man of God has fallen into the flood. And thus blessed Alexander passed to the Lord, crowned with martyrdom. Then the Clerics and faithful who were with him, seeking the body, carried it back to Fiesole. For coming to the Episcopal residence, which was then outside the city, the Holy Spirit fixed him with such weight at the crossroads, that they were unable to turn aside to any other part than to that which he had acquired for himself. For which cause carrying him into the city, they honorably entombed him in the church of Jerusalem, which he had recently acquired from the Emperor, on the eighth day of the Ides of June.
[7] After no long time certain sons of iniquity, receiving letters from the Princes of the land, that it might be lawful for them to dig gold; coming to Fiesole, and showing them to the Bishop who was called Romanus, the body translated whole, and getting no answer; indignant, having seized an iron rod and wooden stakes, the tomb of blessed Alexander being uncovered, his body was seen as whole as on the day on which it had been entombed: and by the fragrance of its odor and the flashing of its garments, they fell as if dead, and afterward, turned to flight, killed one another. Whence the Clergy and people deemed it worthy that the body of the Saint should be more fittingly placed; and coming to the tomb, unless the due praises were performed, they could by no means carry it. But the Bishop admonished all to keep vigil through the whole night with hymns, praises, and prayers. And the people having returned to their own, the Bishop with a few Clerics transported the body of the Saint, a withered hand healed. which many had been unable to do. But the hand of a certain Priest, too boldly pulling the hairs, was withered: but, repenting, he is restored to his former health, the Lord reigning, etc.
[8] The same Acts polished by Blondus of Florence, A certain Florentine Priest, Blondus, had these Acts, writing in the 14th or 15th century a certain Legendary of Etruscan Saints, taking his beginning from the Life of St. Zenobius; to whose day, the 25th of May num. 7, I gave the Prologue of that Legendary. Nor do I think it necessary now to give from it the Life of St. Alexander, differing from this older one only by the elegance of a more polished style. It suffices to have briefly noted, that in this latter one the names are concealed, both of the Emperor and of the two Bishops, before and after Alexander, named in the above Life; but the day of death is noted as the second of the Nones of June; which can stand with the day of deposition noted above, the eighth of the Ides, if the Saint was choked in the confines of the Etruscan and Bolognese country, with the miracle of the cap suspended from the ray of the sun, in which the Reno rises; for those confines are scarcely 30 Roman miles distant from Fiesole. The miracle of the cap, hung on the orb, or (as the later Life says) on the ray of the sun, perhaps suspect to someone, is also read elsewhere of a cape or cloak; and the second Life imputes it to chance, by which it came about that the Saint thought he was handing the cap to a servant whom he supposed to be standing behind him. The miracle too which honored his burial is more clearly expressed by Blondus thus: But when the body had been brought to the gate of the city, being unable to bring it in, divinely inspired, they took a pair of untamed bullocks, set a cart to them, placed it upon them; and committing it to the disposition of the Holy Spirit, freely permitted them to go where they would: and of the bullocks drawing the body upward. which ascended the mountain, and, all marveling on account of the roughness of the place and their ease, led it to the mountain where it now is.
[9] Concerning the later Translation of the body, because Blondus found nothing in the older Acts, he also wrote nothing; but the aforementioned Lessons explain it in these words: The most holy body, by his disciples and companions, Translation to its own church, was found and deposited in the aforesaid city of Fiesole, with great reverence: and afterward, by his successors and other reverend Prelates, it was translated and transported to where his church is today, near the Rocca: and this is probably the one which Bishop Cattaneo names St. Peter's in Jerusalem. Concerning that Rocca or Fortress, when I inquired, Father Master Badius wrote back, that it is above the church of St. Alexander, on the summit of the mountain, and that this is held by tradition; and he adds that Captain Cosmus della Rena says he saw some traces of it around the old walls of Fiesole; others deny that anything appears, because the church and monastery of the reformed Franciscans now occupy the whole place. As regards the age, near which the Saint seems to have died. I know not why I should not hold to the Emperor Lothair, crowned at Rome in the year 833, and, as long as his father Louis lived, often staying in his Seat of the Italian kingdom at Pavia; rather than to Autharis or Rotharis the Lombards. For since the series of the Bishops of Fiesole is hidden from us, and Laetus the predecessor, and Romanus the successor, are known only from the Life of Alexander, called Saints indeed by later writers, but notable by no special cult; no argument is at hand, on account of which we should depart from the Life already produced.
[10] For the first Bishop of Fiesole known to us, from the Council of Constantinople held about the year 555, is Rusticus; then Grusolphus, present at a Roman Synod in Baronius, in the year 826; then Donatus, under Lothair the Emperor between the years 833 and 841. mentioned by Anastasius the Librarian under Sergius II, for the year 844; and finally Zenobius, who in the year 890 obtained a Privilege from King Wido, to be found in the aforepraised tome of Ughelli. None of these is so contiguous to another, that one or more cannot be interposed. But that Lothair revisited Italy after his father's death, that is in the year 841, we nowhere read. It remains therefore, that, between Grusolphus and Donatus, Alexander presided at Fiesole, since he died under Lothair residing at Pavia. But that this death is honored with the title of Martyrdom, no one will marvel, who will understand that it was the usage of the middle age, that all Saints, extinguished by a violent death, should be called Martyrs, and venerated as Martyrs, without more scrupulous inquiry into the propriety of the title; just as neither now is inquiry scrupulously made into the title of Confessor, wont to be fitted to any Saints whatever, who died by a dry death; although it from the beginning by the force of the name is proper to those who confessed the faith in judgment, and therefore were worn out by torments, prison, or exile, according to the first notion of the name itself.