ON B. CASTORA OF GUBBIO,
WIDOW, TERTIARY OF THE ORDER OF S. FRANCIS:
AND B. BARTHOLUS, OF THE ORDER OF THE SERVANTS OF THE B. V. M.
NEAR THE CITY OF S. ANGELO IN VADO IN ITALY,
14TH CENTURY.
CommentaryCastora of Gubbio, Widow of the third Order of Francis, in the city of S. Angelo in Vado (B.)
Bartholus, of the Order of the Servants of B. Mary, near the same city (S.)
BY THE AUTHORS G. H. AND D. P.
§. I. The sanctity, family, and cult of B. Castora from various sources.
S. Angelo in Vado is a city of the Pontifical
dominion, in the duchy of Urbino,
by the river Metaurus, at the roots
of the Apennine mountain and the confines of the Florentine
dominion, The situation of S. Angelo in Vado Episcopal under
the Archbishop of Urbino, but united
with that of Urbino. Of the institution of both under Urban VIII
Ferdinand Ughelli discourses excellently, in tome
2 of Italia Sacra from column 975; and asserts at column
980, that in the city of S. Angelo in Vado, the Cathedral
temple is dedicated to S. Michael the Archangel, and
that there are there four monasteries of religious Monks,
and as many of Nuns. Lucas Wadding,
in tome 4 of the Annals of the Minorites at the year 1399 num. 37,
says: The Convent of S. Angelo in Vado was built
outside the gate of the town, on a fair plain, before the year
1273. The Church was consecrated in the year
1310, the body of B. Castora on the last Sunday of September, Indulgences
of seven years being granted by seven Bishops.
In the sacristy is reverently preserved the body of Castora
of the Gabrieli, a most noble and most pious Matron of Gubbio,
who is commonly called by the appellation of Blessed.
Thus Wadding. Gubbio is an Episcopal city of Umbria
at the roots of the Apennine, and rather inserted into the Duchy
of Urbino, and by Pope Pius IV,
by metropolitan right subjected to the Archbishop of Urbino. her monuments:
The various Mss. monuments of this Gubbio about B. Castora,
which we have not seen, nay also her Life written by Andreolus,
sought by us in vain and not found, is cited
by Ludovico Iacobilli in the Lives of the Saints and
Blessed of Umbria: who at this 14th day of June, under the
title "Life of Blessed Castora Gabrielli of Gubbio, Tertiary
of the Order of S. Francis," made this compendium,
which, translated from the Italian, we subjoin here.
[2] The Gabrielli family among the people of Gubbio, in ancient
times for many years had the dominion of the country;
origin from the Gabrielli family: which besides very many excellent in ecclesiastical
and military dignity, with whom was
the dominion of diverse places, produced also
B. Castora, who was the daughter of Count Petruccius,
son of Binus Gabrielli, a noble of Gubbio, and of Helena
daughter of Petruccius, and he the son of Peter of Monte,
Marquis Count of Corbara, and sister of Paul Gabrielli
Bishop of Lucca. marriage and in it virtues: She, that she might obey her
parent, undertook marriage in the land of S. Angelo in
Vado, married to Sanctuccius Sanfonerius, Doctor of Laws
and Count of the Castle of S. Martin and Bassinarius.
She was most beautiful in aspect, comely in stature of body,
very modest and solitary in morals, despising all
vanity and worldly things, the habit of the third Order of S. Francis assumed: most devout
to the holy Father Francis of Assisi, wholly devoted both to
divine service and to the benefits of her neighbors. All
the time, which was not required for the care of domestic affairs,
she spent in prayer, especially in the church
of S. Francis there built. But returning to her
house, by her husband, by nature harsh and
rigid, both in words and deeds she was ill-treated: the time of her death and of her body preserved. which
all things for the love of God with great patience
she bore. From this her husband she bore a male son,
whom in the fear of God and in holy virtues
she educated. But her husband being dead, with her son's
consent, she distributed her possessions and other goods proper to herself
to the poor, and took the habit of the third Order
of S. Francis, and in it her whole life she remained
in prayers, penances, and other pious
exercises, and especially in the observance of the Rule
of the third Order, which she professed: and hence by the fame
enduring it is believed that the Lord God worked many miracles
by her intercession. Her soul at last
she rendered to her Creator on the fourteenth day of June,
in the year one thousand three hundred ninety-first.
Her body to this day is preserved entire in
the sacristy of the said church of S. Francis, in the town of S. Angelo
in Vado, where in the habit of the Tertiaries of S. Francis
she had been buried.
[3] Thus Iacobilli. Of the Episcopate of Lucca of the brother
indicated above, the brother's Episcopate, Ughelli in the first tome of Italia Sacra
at column 882 writes this: The seventy-
second Bishop of Lucca Paul Gabrielli of Gubbio,
was promoted to the same See in the year one thousand
three hundred seventy-fourth; and he presided
until the year one thousand three hundred
eightieth, in which very year at Perugia he departed from
the living, and there received burial. the nobility of the family. After his
death therefore his sister B. Castora Gabrielli survived
eleven years. Francis Sansovino, in his book on the
Origin and deeds of the illustrious families of Italy page
369, recounts the Gabrielli family, and ascribes to it
Gratian Gabrielli of Gubbio, Bishop
of Ferrara, in the year 1070; and Addo, Bishop
of Piacenza, in the year 1103; but in military
dignity distinguished, Lanfranc, Captain General
of King Robert of Naples, in the storming
of the city of Syracuse in Sicily in the year 1073;
likewise Jerome, with a thousand foot-soldiers in the holy
war under Bohemond in the year 1103, and others following,
whom it is in no way necessary to enumerate all. The above-
named paternal grandfather of B. Castora, Binus, seems to be
the one who in Sansovino in the year 1302, the grandfather Binus. with
the title of Podestà, presided over Orvieto in Etruria,
and over Florence in the year 1305, and General of the army
in the war at Pistoia, is praised by Villani in book
8, chap. 83. His sons were Cantuccius, General
of the Republic of Florence in the war of Lucca; and
Petruccius, father of B. Castora, the father Petruccius: a man prudent and grave
in the republic, sent as Orator for the people of Gubbio to
various Communities; who from his wife Helena, daughter
of Count Petruccius, who was the son of Peter, Count
of Montemarcio, begot Paul Bishop of Lucca.
These and other things Sansovino, in whom we wonder
7[4] Here in tome 2 of his Epistles page 607 he wholly asserts,
that it is established by the public records of lawsuits and testaments, the husband in others Santuccius,
that from Binus son of Peter Gabrielli, and Ansifelicia daughter
of the Count of Coccorano, the first and last Prince
of Perugia, was born Petruccius; husband of Helena
daughter of Petruccius praised by Sansovino: but from these were begotten
two women, namely B. Castora and Ansifelicia,
by Sansovino wrongly called Trifelicia, Paul
Bishop of Lucca, Ugolinus, Peter, Rinaldus,
and Francis; but Blessed Castora,
as Iacobilli writes, was married to Santuccius.
But whether these things are so certain, remains still to be discussed
by others: for as concerns the husband's name, in the third
year after Vincentius dictated his epistle,
P. Gregory Montioni of Urbino writes that he found a very different one, in the year 1675,
dwelling in the Franciscan convent
of Vado, at the instance of our then Penitentiary at
Loreto P. Hector of Albada, moving
every stone, that he might more fully instruct us about B. Castora.
But the cause of this diversity you may deservedly refer
in others, from an old Ms., Gualterius: to that which the aforesaid Vincentius noted, that there were several
Castoras in the Gabrielli family, of whom
one could easily be taken for another. But P. Gregory found
an excerpt from the Chronicle of the Custody of Montefeltro,
which I would deservedly make of more account than all the aforesaid,
on account of the antiquity and simplicity of the relation, and it
has thus: In the church, of which above, is held the body of B.
Castora, a most noble woman of Gubbio, of the Gabrielli,
wife of a certain most excellent Jurisconsult,
called Gualterius. Who, as the ancient
men of Vado testify, was of great devotion and holy
life, and especially of patience in bearing the savagery
of her husband. She having died at Montecoscio in Picenum
and being buried at Macerata, by Oddo her son
the body was translated to the town of S. Angelo in Vado:
and there in the church of S. Francis buried, in
the sacristy it is preserved entire and unadorned after
the course of a hundred years. Of her however miracles
are unknown.
[5] from which also is established the double translation, For my part I think, that none were done in the place of the first burial;
for the people of Macerata would not have permitted,
that so great a treasure be taken from them, if they had had it known.
The first miracle therefore would have been, some years
after death, the incorruption of the body recognized, at the son's petition,
when dug up. Unless one prefers to believe,
that the holy Blessed one herself, dying, took care and commanded, that
her body be translated to Vado; and therefore that it was not at Macerata
buried in the earth, but only deposited
within a well-closed coffer; which first after
the translation being opened, her sanctity became known to the people of Vado:
who therefore judged that it should be more fittingly
placed, at least in the sacristy, where yearly more religiously
it might be visited. and the incorruption of the body through 100 years But if not even then was the coffer opened
at Vado, but buried in the earth, as the words of the Chronicle
seem to sound; then indeed it is necessary that you understand some later
digging-up, through which the miracle of long-lasting incorruption appeared.
And to this perhaps will pertain the course of a hundred years from
death, to be counted up to the end of the 15th century; otherwise
it will seem to signify the age of the Chronicle itself, written at such an interval
after the Blessed one's death, which to me seems more likely:
and also that, at the touch or sight of the incorrupt body,
several miracles were done, which
through the carelessness of our elders have been consigned to oblivion.
[6] As concerns the place of the first either deposition or burial,
although there be a double Macerata in the Ecclesiastical State,
one in Picenum, whence the Holy House of Loreto
is distant only XII Roman miles; the other in the Duchy of Urbino,
LX Roman miles distant from the former, and, and the first burial at Macerata, with respect to Urbino and
Vado, constituting the apex of a triangle extended toward the Northwest;
the former however that I should understand, the place
of death, assigned to Picenum, makes me, which to the former Macerata
I conceive indeed to be near, yet I do not find named
in the maps. the cult on the feast of the Ascension. For the rest, of the yearly cult of B. Castora
the above-praised P. Gregory Montioni responding, affirms,
that no other is observed; than that the body,
to all wishing to venerate and see it, is exposed
on the feast of the Lord's Ascension.
§. II. The life and cult of B. Bartholus the Servite, from the Annals of Gianius.
[6] Near the already mentioned city of S. Angelo in Vado
is Basciocaccarium, two miles distant toward
the Northwest, and commonly called Basciocata.
There likewise the entire body of the aforetitled B. Bartholus
has a cult similar to B. Castora's; [On account of the similarity of cult with B. Castora, B. Bartholus is referred here,] namely with the Paschal
cycle moveable, and affixed to the Monday of Easter.
This weekday although it can never fall in June;
it nevertheless pleased to refer Bartholus here rather,
than to defer him to the supplement of March or April.
It will however perhaps be, when of those, who in this
way obtain a moveable cult, a peculiar account is taken;
and then it will be permitted, in someday reprinting the first Semester,
to arrange a peculiar Treatise on all of them together.
Now receive what Archangelus Gianius
the Florentine has, on the life and cult of B. Bartholus, born five
miles from Vado in such a way, that between the place, called in the maps
"la Castellaccia," and Vado itself, midway
lies, at almost equal distance on each side, the place of burial
aforenamed. The words of Gianius, in Century 3 of the Annals
of his Order, book 6, chap. 13, are these; from the relations
of D. James Bartoluccius, Rector of that church,
transmitted from there to Rome to Father Gregory Alasia,
as at this very Chapter Gianius notes, bringing forth his third
and fourth Century into the light when already seventy years old in the year 1622, that is six years
after the earlier two Centuries were published.
[7] There was a certain man by name Bartholus, born in a humble
place, where it is called la Castellaccia di Carpegna, made a Cleric in the Order of the Servants,
not far from the town of S. Angelo in Vado. He, leading a simple
and poor life, the habit of the Blessed
Virgin being taken up, and initiated in the minor Orders with the clerical
Tonsure; desiring to lead a solitary and eremitic
life, a cave, not far from the
village of Basciocaro by half a mile, and permitted to live solitary, with the permission of our
Superiors, had chosen for himself as a dwelling.
In that crypt indeed he was so given to prayer and
contemplation, that some saw
him at times suspended in the air, contemplating the things which are of heaven,
alienated from every sense.
[8] And when he was sustained by the alms of the pious,
and on that account it behooved him sometimes through the neighborhood
to seek his food; it happened in winter-time, amid the deep snows he is fed by Angels, that
he was so surrounded by snows, that for several days he was
detained in the cave, nor could go out to procure
his provision. When the neighbors observed this,
the place buried in deep snows, only after
great labor of two days were they able to penetrate:
and thinking him to labor with hunger, food and loaves
with which he might be refreshed they brought. But he with cheerful countenance
rising from prayer, met them, and what they sought from him,
he asked: and leading them into the cave,
showed them a table prepared, fresh
and white loaves, and other things destined for the meal.
Those who had come were astonished; and to those inquiring
8[9] And as the man of God daily more in the school
of Christ advanced, he himself continually feeds two worms with his own flesh. and his own body, not only
by afflictions, fasts, and disciplines to chastise,
but even utterly to neglect and cast off he strove;
an unusual kind of penance, for his greater
mortification, he devised. For in the one cheek
of his face, from blood and bites, two little worms
daily he was accustomed to nourish: and if any
of them, sated with that blood, had fallen off; at once
the holy man gathered the little worm from the ground; and to
the same place, that it might be more sated, applied it.
But when by some he was derided, and asked,
why he so greatly with those little worms his human
face, in which the image of God is represented, deformed;
he answered; that the true image of God within
uninjured if anyone wished to preserve, it behooved him
this fleeting and mortal appearance to spurn,
and to reduce it to servitude, lest he become reprobate.
[10] he foretells many future things, The fame therefore of so great sanctity and penance
wandering through those coasts, many commended themselves
to his prayers, and in doubtful matters were ruled by his counsel.
For blessed God had heaped upon him the gift of prophecy;
whence also he foretold many things, which
afterward came to pass: for the time of his death
and its manner he foretold; the contentions, which over
his body among the neighbors were to be future, he discerned;
that his body in the church of that village of Basciocaro
was to be deposited, he taught; and finally that a prodigious
sign of divine vengeance would come upon them
he foretold, that they should be watchful: who whenever it should happen
that they heard certain noises from his tomb,
then they should know for certain that some danger, from the indignation
of God, was imminent for them. Which also at some time they say
happened, that after those noises from the tomb
heard, recurring to the prayer and intercession of that same
Blessed one, they escaped many tribulations, and especially
of storms and rains; only those round about being struck,
the neighbors, who had neglected that oracle
of the Blessed.
[11] Full therefore of days, B. Bartholus, having attained
eternal glory, and holily dead, rested in the Lord:
he being dead, at once contentions over his body among
the neighbors, according to the prescription of his oracle, arose.
For our Fathers of S. Angelo, by right of profession
and habit, wished B. Bartholus with them:
the relatives and kinsmen of Castellaccia of Carpegna pressed,
because their own townsman of the place, and buried at Basciocaro, by the sign of supernatural flowers they desired
to have as propitious and patron. At last the people of Basciocaro
prevailed, that their inhabitant Bartholus, as
he had foretold, they obtained: for from that same cave secretly
the Blessed one's body being taken, in rivalry it in a certain
corner of the cemetery, the earth being dug, they hid,
lest, found by the other neighbors, it be taken away. In spring-
time beginning it happened, that all that space
of earth, with which the body was covered, with various and
flourishing flowers appeared adorned, among which they say
a certain lily flowered out of season. Which thing known,
again the earth being dug, they found the body entire, fresh,
and fragrant: and into the church, a chapel built
to his honor, in a wooden coffer most fittingly
laid, they translated it.
[12] From that time therefore, the Most High showed
B. Bartholus to be reckoned among the Heaven-dwellers: as
the wax votives, tablets, oblations, to this day indicate,
and the frequent devotion of the peoples. he is found entire, and is venerated on Easter Monday: In memory of which
thing on the Monday of the Resurrection, a very great
concourse of peoples is made yearly to the tomb of B. Bartholus.
But after many years from his
deposition it happened, that a certain Rector of his church,
whether by devotion, or moved by whatever counsel,
one of his shin-bones cut off, and secretly
carried away. By which crime of theft perpetrated,
he received a grave penalty, with God as avenger, in that
at once his brother by a most dear friend was by chance
killed, and his whole posterity ever fell into greater
calamities. But if anyone wishes to represent his image,
how his image is to be painted: as in that church
it appears, a religious man, with eyes and hands
raised to heaven he will be able to depict; with those two
gnawing little worms added on the face; for
those who saw his body even in these times,
beheld those bites and scars, still appearing on his
cheek.
[13] Thus far Gianius, who indeed of the public cult,
and so of the title of Blessed, does not render us certain enough; the age uncertain:
but brings forward nothing, by which it may be proved, that B. Bartholus
lived or died (which however at the beginning he sets down) about the year
of the Lord 1300. Wherefore I am content to have referred him to the same
century as B. Castora, the 14th, although she pertains to
the end of that century, while he perhaps lived at its
beginning. But since Gianius seems to indicate,
that the holy body in his age was to a certain degree still incorrupt,
of its present state I shall be glad to be informed; whether the body is still incorrupt.
and to receive the lineaments of him lying in his coffer, and
to transfer them into copper, that any foreigners may be able to enjoy
that devout spectacle.