ON BLESSED JULIANA FALCONIERI, VIRGIN, TERTIARY OF THE ORDER OF THE SERVANTS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.
AT FLORENCE IN ETRURIA.
IN THE YEAR 1341.
The Life from the Italian manuscript of Friar Archangelus Gianius of Florence.
Juliana Falconieri at Florence, of the third Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary (Bl.)
FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIANIUS
Prologue[1] To the Most Serene Lady, Anna Juliana, Archduchess of Austria, most devout Sister of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary and most worshipful Patroness, Friar Archangelus the Servite of Florence.
Although, about to correspond to the desire of your Most Serene Highness, Dedicatory to the Most Serene Anna of Austria, and at the same time to obey the command of our Most Reverend Father General, who several months ago enjoined me to compile the life of our Blessed Juliana, I have seemed somewhat tardy; yet I come to be excused, through the continual occupations in which I am involved, having undertaken, throughout all the Convents of our Religion, to seek out material for writing from the beginning, as far as God shall grant, the history of the Order, comprising the four hundred years from which it began, up to the present day. To this care there were added various difficulties of dispatching the work enjoined, while I intend to bring forth nothing but what is certainly ascertained, and the hindrances of the customary preachings for which I am ordered to be at leisure: he excuses the tardiness of his little work whence I hope it will come to pass that I appear also the more excusable in the sight of your Most Serene Highness, who will rather regard the promptness of mind, with which I bring this little work, such as it is, at last completed, your will being known, the more confidently.
[2] And indeed to your Serenity this labor was owed first, not so much because that glory has lately accrued to you, that you should be called the mother of the now reigning Empress on earth (although this too is something), but because lately by your holy and noble purpose you have attained this, that you should have as Patroness and Advocate in heaven the Queen of Angels, to whom on earth you have so manfully professed to wish to serve as a soldier, owed to her as a Tertiary Sister, under the standard and habit of her Servants, in imitation of Blessed Juliana herself. Indeed I cannot persuade myself that it was done by chance, that when last year on the feast of the Mother of God Visiting Elizabeth, with several matrons and most choice maidens devoted to your service, taking the Habit of our Order, you chose to add to your baptismal name the name of Juliana. and crossed over into the name of Juliana The same persuades me and the whole Order, the sign of the sorrowful Mother, and transfixed with more than a sevenfold sword, which, as if forgetful of all worldly loftiness, from then you wished to use for your seal. Truly I anticipate in mind, as do others with me, that by this your new name, habit, and seal there is to be renewed in these parts of Germany a living image of that ancient association, and the example of our old Juliana, who can be called the leader and standard-bearer of all who profess the same servitude of Mary. in the year 1612 on the 2nd of July. May the Divine Majesty breathe upon your holy and noble thoughts, and make your Serenity worthy, whom our posterity may one day number among its Blessed; and may be able to write of her as of another Juliana such things, as now we narrate of the first: which I above all wish, although the least of your now spiritual Brothers, in the communion of that sacred habit, and altogether unworthy. At Vicenza on the 20th day of April, in the year of the Lord 1613.
THE INTERPRETER TO THE READER, D. P.
[3] Of Eleonora, daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand I, granddaughter of Charles V, and William Duke of Mantua was born Anna; she had married the second-born of the same Ferdinand, Ferdinand, Anna was the wife of Ferdinand of Tyrol Duke of Tyrol and Margrave of Burgau, in the year 1590; and had borne to him another Anna who, married in 1611 to her cousin Matthias, the other cousin Rudolph II dying a little after, was made and crowned Empress, at Frankfurt on the 24th of June 1612. The exaltation of the daughter, therefore, had been preceded by the religious humiliation of the mother, by one week: which pious Mother too, now a widow for 18 years, is called in the Genealogical tables of Rittershusius Anna Catharina, namely from Baptism; the mother-in-law of the Emperor Matthias and that she changed that name into the name of Juliana is learned hence; but this name she bore up to the 14th of December of the year 1618, in which she died, buried at Innsbruck in Tyrol.
[4] Furthermore Gianius himself, who inscribed this Life to her, of his History, of compiling which he professes to have undertaken the care, the first two Centuries, brought down to the year 1433, began to publish at Florence in the year 1618; and he received this Life five years before the Annals were published; in which when once and again he had made honorable mention of Blessed Juliana; at last in Cent. 2, Book 1, he inscribed chapter VIII with this title: "On the deeds and death of Blessed Juliana of Florence of the Falconieri": which Chapter he professes he chiefly collected both from the Chronicle of Pocciantius, and from Master Paul of Florence in his Quadragesimal, which is called Paulina, on the 2nd Feria after the 1st Sunday of Lent, where there was especially treatment of the Eucharist received in the breast of the dying woman, and the seal of the Crucified impressed on her flesh. In a similar manner before this fuller Italian Life, the same Gianius in the little Preface to the Reader names the same two sources, and adds, that the praiseworthy Paulina was printed at Siena in the year 1596; and moreover alleges an ancient Epitaph of Juliana, the writings whence it is taken being indicated, related in a certain little lucubration of the Reverend Father Master Cosmas of Florence the Servite, and also certain Ephemerides of the daily expenses, of which even now some fragments remain in the archive of the Annunziata, where are kept the writings pertaining to the building; "so that," he says, "of the author there is nothing here except the order and apt collation of facts and times, just as the several things came in, with a certain discreet and fitting ornament of words for them."
[5] The Epitaph at the end of the Life, both Latin and Italian, and likewise in the aforesaid Chronicle, is recited everywhere in the same words, as below in no. 18. The Chronicle of the Servants by Michael of Florence I have, published at Florence in the year 1567: to which the Author surviving for nine years more, had prepared for the press a Catalogue of Florentine writers: which Catalogue, by the care of Luca Ferrineus and his augmenting it under many headings, came to light in the year 1589 with a notable eulogy of Michael himself; and chiefly the Chronicle of Pocciantius, whence too we know that he was called Pocciantius by his family name, and that he was renowned for several other books. His words in the Chronicle at the year 1341 are these: "In the same days in which the burden of the Religion is imposed on the Reverend Father Master Matthew of Castiglione (for whose election, the deceased Peter Fudertinus being replaced, the Fathers had convened) on the 20th of June the most prudent Juliana of Florence laid down the burden of mortality (in the margin named with B prefixed Blessed) who not only held the primacy among the noble women of Florence, since she drew her origin from the noble family of the Falconieri; but also among the Sisters of the Religion of the Servants attained the principate. For she knew no man, but most chastely through the whole time of her life served the blessed Virgin in virginity, so taught by Blessed Alexius, the founder of the Order and her uncle. Fasting twice in the week, on Wednesday and Friday, she took no nourishment: but her feast was (first expiated by the water of penance) the body and blood of the Lord; whence the notable eulogy of Juliana is taken, but on Saturday she was content with water alone and a little morsel of bread. If then she was at leisure for disciplines, if she despised riches, if she procured the salvation of her neighbors, if she was pleasing to God and dear to the Virgin, if finally she meditated the passion of Christ and the sorrows of his Mother; her precious death, and the signs following after her glorious departure, sufficiently and more than sufficiently demonstrate. For to very many sick, while she migrated to Christ, and while the sacred ashes are carried to the church, touching the glorious body, health was restored, as the Annals of the Holy Annunziata (this name belongs to the Florentine Convent) attest: from which too it is gathered, that to this immaculate Virgin the passion of Jesus Christ was so at heart, that after her death, as if impressed by a seal, the image of Christ fixed to the cross was found on her breast: and some testimony of cult. which the still ancient effigies confirm, which even in these days are beheld by all on the altars of the Holy Annunziata. At this church in a certain wooden ark the venerable bones are laid up; up to that time predetermined by the Father, in which all shall hear, 'Arise ye dead': with whom that she may forever enjoy eternal glory, this most chaste woman shall arise." But about the cult promoted gradually, and the present state of those Relics, an Appendix will be given after the life: about which I signify at the last, that it was printed in Italian from a manuscript, in the year 1672, and dedicated to Lord Francis Falconieri, Referendary of both Signatures at Rome, and of the sacred Congregation established over good Government.
CHAPTER I.
The birth and girlhood age of Juliana, sealed by a vow of chastity.
CHAPTER I.
[1] As often as divine providence fixes the eye of its copious mercy on some pious family, The family of the Falconieri appeared divinely blessed, it ceases not to adorn it successively with certain particular favors; whence it can congratulate itself, not so much that it is made memorable among men, as that it is rendered lovable to the Saints, and estimable to the Angels of paradise. The divine propensity toward Abraham, after God had blessed him, on his account extended itself, not only to the family of his brother, but transmitted through sons and grandsons descended to the twelve Patriarchs, the Kings and Princes of Israel, up to that most holy offspring of his, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. in two brothers, Carissimus and Alexius, Something similar happened in the house of Elkanah, on whom through Samuel, obtained by the prayers of the mother, a manifold blessing was poured by God. So in John the Baptist the family of Zachary was divinely beatified; to say nothing of infinite others, to whom we see the same happen daily. For graces of this kind, extraordinary and special, proceed from the munificence of God alone, as it appeared at Florence, the chief city of the Tuscan Dominion, between two brothers, Carissimus and Alexius Falconieri.
[2] They lived in the world comfortably, as any others noble of their condition, to whom in that city it was then not a disgrace to exercise the merchant's trade, of whom the younger was one of the seven Founders of the Servants. enriched by the happy success of their business: but one after the other, more certainly experienced the kindly hand of God toward them, when they felt themselves divinely drawn, to a great conversion of morals and life for the better. The first in receiving grace was Alexius, the younger of the brothers; who advancing more and more daily in the fervor of divine service, gradually transferred his mind and all his thoughts from the businesses of the world to the love of God, and leaving to his brother the care of temporal goods, was wont among other exercises of devotion to frequent the most noble and most devout sodality of that time, which from a special affection toward the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, accustomed to chant her Praises, had the name of the Laudesi of St. Mary Major. Here he was numbered among the more fervent; and while he attended to the divine cult, to the observance of himself, and to the spiritual help of others as far as his strength allowed; he was found worthy to be gathered into the number of those seven, whom from that Sodality God chose, to inaugurate the miraculous beginning of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary, as the histories of that Order narrate.
[3] Meanwhile Carissimus, the elder of the brothers, the years now beginning to weigh him down, began also to grow weary of the world, the other converted in his old age. stimulated by the exhortations and examples of his brother. And when, turned into himself, he looked into and recognized more diligently all the acts and businesses of his past life; he felt himself urged by the most sharp goads of conscience, as if he retained much of another's as an unjust possessor. And so first he had recourse to the fount of divine mercy, that by its grace breathing he might more certainly discern, what was his, what of another's right: then in the year 1263, lest any scruple should remain in his mind, he supplicated Urban IV then supreme Pontiff, that he would impart to him a general absolution of all that he had perchance offended in business: which also under certain fitting and salutary conditions he obtained. He began therefore like another Zacchaeus to attend to making restitution of those things which he judged to be another's, to distributing alms largely among the poor, and to promoting the work of the Annunziata of Florence, which quickly became a public refuge of those imploring the help of the Mother of God. Nor did the divine favors stop here, poured upon that family; but the very conversion of that man was followed by a grace so much the more singular, the less he seemed able to expect it at so advanced an age; namely the birth of his daughter, whose life we have undertaken to write. Bound by the obedience and command of our Superiors, and of the Most Serene Archduchess Anna Juliana: who as she adopted her name with the habit at Innsbruck, in the year 1612; so strives to follow her footsteps and examples.
CHAPTER II.
[4] Juliana was born, toward the last age of her father Carissimus Falconieri, around the year 1270, in the city of Florence; In the year 1270 Juliana is born; with the greatest joy of that most honored family. She, although she scarcely remembers to have known her father, soon taken from this life (although otherwise it has before seemed to us, not yet having so accurately reckoned the calculations of times) yet long had surviving her uncle Alexius, with a certain cousin of hers Friar Albizius, likewise professed in the Order of the Servants, who contributed not a little to those spiritual progresses, which presently she began to make. Thus from her first childhood she could make the beginnings of all Christian virtue; especially since her mother too contributed very much to it, a matron of singular prudence, who with all solicitude imbued the little one with the fear of God, who, brought up well under the care of her uncle and soon-widowed mother, with morals suited to her rank, according to the custom of those times, when noble girls were brought up with a special rigor of honesty and solitude, far from the sight of the male household and of strangers. But the pious little infant had scarcely begun to loose her tongue into words, when she was frequently heard to pronounce the most sweet names of Jesus and Mary, with great wonder of the nurse and delight of the pious mother; to whom her brother-in-law Alexius often said, that for a daughter she seemed to have borne an Angel; and that it would altogether come to pass, that as she advanced in age, God would work great wonders in her and through her.
[5] Amid these things gradually advanced to the age of discretion, Juliana far more gladly attended to the exercises of devotion, and from infancy devoted to piety, which her uncle taught her; than to the customary labors of women
to which the mother tried to accustom her. For instead of handling the needle and spindle, she furnished a little altar, and before it was at leisure for reading spiritual books, singing the praises of the Mother of God, and pouring forth prayers. Wherefore when the mother, rebuking her, repeatedly warned that if she went on acting so negligently in learning the things which pertain to ruling a household, she would find a husband for her with difficulty; she answered nothing else, than that she trusted that in her time the Mother of God would provide for such a need. Furthermore the more she grew in years, the more a special grace of morals and beauty began to shine forth; so that the mother conceived great and greater hopes daily of a most honorable marriage; and now on that matter conversations arose among the household.
[6] For, as the Falconieri family was renowned for wealth and connections, there were not lacking those who sought her for their marriages; marriage being refused, but above all, the father now being dead, toward such a hope strove Falco, the head of the family. For since at that age, after the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines were extinguished, other and other ones rose up, between the Cerchi and the Donati, the Blacks and the Whites; each one attended with great solicitude, that by choosing a wife he might augment the power of his faction, against the adversaries. But Juliana thought altogether otherwise, she vows chastity. long bearing fixed in mind, what at the suggestion of her uncle Alexius she had conceived, the purpose of keeping chastity forever, and consecrating herself a virgin to the service of the Virgin Mary. Wherefore, the maternal exhortations being spurned, the enticements of her kinsmen, and the blandishments of the world; she bound herself of her own accord by a vow of continence pronounced, ready to renounce all kindred and the whole world, and naked to follow the naked Christ, whenever it should be permitted to her.
CHAPTER II.
The taking of the Habit, and in it the profession and holy exercises of Blessed Juliana.
CHAPTER III.
[7] When that matter had come to the notice of her uncle Alexius, and through him to Blessed Philip: both, as they burned with vast desire of drawing whomever they could to the service of the Mother of God, rejoiced greatly: and at the next General Chapter of the year 1284, Philip the General was asked, In the year 1284 she seeks the Habit of the Order to give the Habit of the third Order to Juliana. For she, although young in age, yet displayed the gravity of a matron however aged, and had been sufficiently instructed by her uncle Alexius in every exercise of such a profession. He therefore rendering testimony to her, and the prayers of the devout women acceding, who had come together into that pious society free from religious vows, distinguished from seculars by the Servite mantle, he consented to confer the Habit on her. and Juliana receives it, This was done in the church of the Annunziata, with those ceremonies to which our Order from the beginning was accustomed; Alexius rejoicing, that he had brought the business of his niece thus far; and caring nothing for whatever respects the world and the flesh suggested to the contrary. But the General himself already then conceived great confidence, of manifold fruit to be made through her in that pious Congregation.
[8] But with how great preparation of mind the Virgin approached that act, from the hands of Blessed Philip: and with how great rejoicing she withdrew thence, is not easy to explain in words. Whatever she had received from the hand of the General, the black mantle, the tunic, the girdle, the veils, the very crown, the booklet, and the candle, represented to her great and wondrous mysteries, on contemplating which she should spend the year of probation. The black tunic, represented to her the sorrow of Mary on mount Calvary, and the length of the martyrdom endured amid the torments of her son: the leather belt, the skin of Christ, torn by the scourges, the nails, and the lance; the white veils, the purity of the Virgin; the Crown, the praises given to her by the Angel; the booklet, And the year of probation being spent, suggested meditations on the passion of Christ; the mantle, the protection of the Mother of God, to whom she congratulated herself on being placed under; the candle finally, the lit lamp which, like a prudent virgin, she was admonished always to have ready, against the coming of her spouse the Lord Jesus Christ. Intent on considering these things the whole year, she was for great edification to her mother, kinsmen, and the whole family, and to all her companions of the same Habit. For, although the kinsmen at first bore such a change rather unwillingly, yet gradually they approved it more and more; first of all the mother, who by the example and admonitions of her daughter-in-law, herself too was accustomed to the exercises of devotion; which was a great solace and convenience to Juliana.
CHAPTER IV.
[9] Now the year of probation had rolled around, and in the following 1285 another general Chapter was gathered at Florence, in which, to make profession suited to the institute of life taken up, under him she makes profession: Juliana was to be received, by her own vow and that of the General and the Sisters. Not yet indeed was that matter ordered in the manner which we now use, and which comprised in 22 articles Pope Martin IV afterward confirmed by a Bull of the year 1424 under the date of the 16th of March; yet it is likely, that what was then established by Apostolic authority, was for the greater part also in these first times in use; namely that before the altar in the church of the most holy Annunziata they should vow, those received for this, perpetual servitude of the Mother of God under the black Habit, with the observance of chastity, witnesses being called to all things, and a Notary consigning the public act, and several Brothers and Sisters; who, wholesomely instructed, bids her a last farewell. just as I persuade myself Juliana then did, in the hands of Blessed Philip the General. But he, about to depart, the Chapter finished, to Todi, whence he was never to return, his life's end now pressing; left Juliana instructed doubtless with the best admonitions, commending to her, although still a young woman, and only fifteen years old, the whole Order then set in the greatest straits; and the devout Congregation of Sisters, of which he foresaw her the future head and mistress one day; and also his own near passing; the announcement of which greatly dismayed Juliana, who grieved to be so quickly deprived of the best Pastor of her soul.
CHAPTER V.
[10] These last admonitions of her General Juliana impressed so deeply on her mind, Hence she prescribes for herself a certain form of fasts, and so frequently recalled in mind; that she who from her first childhood burned for the service of God, thenceforth even glowed more; and became not only to herself, but also to others a mistress of virtue. But first of all she prescribed for herself a certain rule of life, to be observed inviolably; namely of fasting every Wednesday and Friday, on which she was refreshed by the heavenly bread alone. And since she judged it fair, that having professed the Marian servitude, she should have also one day devoted to her; she added to the days of her fasting Saturday, to be passed with a little bread and water: which she also spent in contemplating the seven sorrows of the Virgin before her image, as if she had been present at those very things: just as she had Friday occupied with meditating the mysteries of the Lord's passion before the image of the Crucified. of prayers, of penances, But to render herself more like to him, with harsh disciplines too she beat her flesh even to blood; and not rarely was she snatched into ecstasy, for desire of crucifying herself with the suffering Jesus: so that it is no wonder, if afterward she was found having the seal of the Crucified impressed on her flesh.
[11] The Canonical Hours she paid night and day each in its own time, nor would she have passed from one to another, before she had weighed by meditating the mystery answering to it; applying moreover to each some passage of the mother grieving with her son. But this exercise she also taught others, of the Canonical Hours, as will be said in the life of her disciple Joanna of Florence, who also died a pious death around the year 1368. Never would she have begun or ended any hour without the Angelic salutation: but at the end, by the pious custom of the Servants, she added the Salve Regina, so taught by Blessed Alexius. And although for the most part she tried to be present at the sacred Offices of her Brothers in the church of the Annunziata, accustomed to betake herself there to the proper Chapel of the Falconieri, and of other devotions. where she might have before her eyes the memories of her deceased ancestors; she would not have believed the day well spent, on which she had not saluted and adored the image of the Annunziata before her altar, and there commended the Order of the Servants, as she had received command from Philip. On every Monday too, for freeing the souls of the faithful from purgatory, she spent many suffrages; and recited the Vigils of the dead, concluding them with a nocturnal flagellation.
[12] But it was especially a wonder to the Sisters, the iron girdle, very rough and sunk into the flesh, Girt to the flesh with an iron girdle, with which she was found girded after death, so that without injury to that venerable body it could not be removed; whence they made the conjecture, that she had been girded with it from youth, wishing to fulfill, to the letter, that Gospel saying, "Let your loins be girt"; and at the same time to repress the goads of the flesh, and any delight of sensual temptation, wont to be sent in by the adversary of all human good. Luke 12. But especially she tried to advance in the virtue of humility, as she had learned from her holy uncle, so great a lover of holy poverty and lowliness, she imitates the humility of her uncle. that he was unwilling to be promoted to sacred Orders, but chose to remain in the lay rank; being at leisure for the basest exercises and begging the daily food for the Brothers: so she too, when she could live nobly on her resources, preferred to work with her hands whence she might gain food; and this being brought into the common, remained content with a common little portion with the Sisters.
CHAPTER VI.
[13] Hearing, not many days after the profession emitted, of the death of Blessed Philip, in the city of Todi, on the 22nd of August, Blessed Philip being dead, she grieved for public and private cause; although she received much solace from those things which Friar Ubaldus of Florence narrated about the circumstances of his passing, and from his mouth Alexius related to his niece. But especially moved her the conversion, cared for by the same before his death, of two sinful women Helena and Flora, from whom the Servite convent of Acquasparta had its beginning. For with works of this kind of spiritual mercy she herself was affected with her whole heart: of which although no express account survives, yet certain specimens of fervor, by his example she attends to the conversion of souls. for promoting the salvation of souls, shine through here and there through the darkness of oblivion; while it is established, how much her wholesome exhortations profited her mother, to hold the purpose of chaste widowhood, by attending solely to works of mercy and piety. The same induced Francesca Falconieri, her brother Nicholas being dead, to distribute all her resources for the uses of the poor; and to Lady Guiduccia she was the author of deserving so well of the Order of the Servants, that by a singular privilege she deserved to be endowed by the General with the communion of the merits of the Order. Many too she persuaded, the habit of sinning being dismissed, to join the sodality of the Penitents, which under the direction of the Servants then most especially flourished; and, as far as we can attain by conjecture, she contributed very much to the conversion of a certain Diana, who together with her husband devoted herself wholly to the Marian servitude.
CHAPTER III.
Juliana set over the community of the Tertiaries, holily institutes it; and heaped with miraculous favors at her death, is venerated as Blessed in her Relics.
CHAPTER VII.
[14] Her mother being dead, Juliana immediately betook herself to the community of the Sisters of her Habit: Joined to the community of the Tertiaries, and began to allure to herself several girls of good
spirit, to be formed for the service of God and virtue: among whom was Joanna of Florence, to whom the discipline of such a Mistress, taken up for twelve years, was the greatest support, so that she could succeed her when dead as heir in the magisterium, by which she afterward greatly profited the new Congregation. She meanwhile, both while Philip lived and was dead, tossed by the same tempests, by which the very Order of the Servants was all but dissolved and extinguished; was carried like a little skiff, clinging to a larger ship; nor could she attain a firm state before the Order itself attained it; the Order being at last established for it received under Apostolic protection by Honorius and Nicholas the Fourths of their name, and likewise the Eighth Boniface; and at last by Benedict XI, by an express Bull in the year 1304 declared a truly religious Order. Then indeed the Venerable Father Andrew, the sixth successor of the holy Father Philip in the Generalate, began seriously to think also about ordaining the institute of the Tertiary Sisters for perpetual stability, and to set forth to them the necessity of establishing one head among themselves, whose election he wished to be left to their own judgment.
CHAPTER VIII.
[15] Juliana was then about thirty-six years old: whom when all, without delay and beyond any discrepancy of opinions, She is chosen Prioress in 1304, named; she humbly cast at the feet of the General, began to deprecate the burden, and to excuse herself as unworthy; nor would she ever have brought herself to take up the office conferred, had not Philip's words come into her mind, who long ago bade her farewell and commended the Congregation to her, as its future Mistress one day. She was therefore the first, so far as is known, who with the title of Prioress began to rule the Tertiary Sisters. But as Blessed Philip, in the Roman Martyrology, and she is called their Institutress is called by Baronius the Institutor of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary; not because he himself founded it, but because he instituted it with Rules and Constitutions; so too Juliana seems able to be called the Institutress of the Tertiaries: because what Philip had not been able to do concerning them, she brought to effect. For it is not to be thought that, only then when Martin IV approved their Rule, was it conceived and written; but rather, confirmed by long use, as it had been conceived by Juliana, at last received the final perfection from the Apostolic authority. Under this she for many years bearing the office enjoined on her, went before all by words and example, to the exact observance of the statutes, until heavy with years and worn out with labors, on account of the Rules conceived. and moreover exhausted by penances and fasts, she began to lie down sick in bed, whence she never rose.
CHAPTER IX.
[16] It was in a way a hereditary good of the Falconieri family, to lead a long life. For of Juliana's father Carissimus, By the longevity proper to her family, although it is not sufficiently established in what year he died, yet it is certain that he was aged: but the mother, who survived her husband, we discover from suitable writings to have reached the ninety-fifth year of her age. The uncle Alexius, notwithstanding the austerities of his severe life, counted the hundred and tenth year when he died; in the year 1310, on the 17th of February. Wherefore it would have been no wonder if it had befallen Juliana too to reach a hundred; and that she did not pass beyond the seventieth must be imputed to her assiduous penances, seventy years old, she falls into her last illness, and her stomach weakened by much abstinence; to weakening which the use of wine contributed very much, either of none, or so diluted, that it ought rather to be called water. When for this evil no remedy was found; and her stomach receiving nothing at all, Juliana saw herself deprived even of that most divine Sacrament, by which she was wont thrice a week to be sustained; and on account of the impotence of her stomach she was fed by the sweet recollection of the delights formerly received in the Eucharist: although this solace too was taken from her, a grave melancholy coming on, an inconvenience arisen from despair of the Viaticum. At last however, her cousin Confessor persuading, and pious Virgins assisting the sick woman, she acquiesced, to be willing content with spiritual Communion to depart, and by that reasoning to prepare herself to receive Extreme Unction.
CHAPTER X.
[17] This received, and the former desire returning, she earnestly asked her Father Confessor and Corrector of the Virgins, about to die without the Viaticum that at least the host of the most sacred Eucharist be brought to her, which she might adore. After she obtained this, she asked again that her breast be washed, and a most white veil be spread over, upon which the sacred Corporal might be unfolded. Then on the left over the heart, where she felt a greater heat as of a burning furnace, she asked the Eucharist to be placed. But, O new and unheard-of miracle, and to be remembered forever! For she, as if turned into the appearance of an Angel, appeared most beautiful; she asks the sacred Host to be placed upon her heart, and as if melted by the excess of sweetness, while she strives most sweetly to migrate from this life, that Host too was nowhere seen or found. For whether, for the sweetness of love, the blessed Jesus drew Juliana's soul with himself; or whether she flew to heaven with her own spouse Christ to the everlasting nuptials; this however is ascertained, that the Virgin companions, while they cared for and washed her body according to custom; one most dear disciple and imitator of her morals, Joanna of Florence; and dead is found marked with a cross, when, leaning upon her breast, she paid the last offices to this pious Mother, and grieved vehemently to have lost such a Mistress; saw upon her flesh around the heart the image of Jesus Christ crucified, within a round circle, as if impressed and sealed by a seal; that thence posterity might recognize, how much the passion of Jesus Christ had ever been at heart to Blessed Juliana.
[18] So great was the esteem of the aforesaid two prodigies among all, that it took away all care of retaining the other matter in memory from the Brothers and Sisters: and she is renowned for miracles. whence neither were singly described the miraculous cures of many sick, at the touch of the sacred body, while it was carried by the Sisters with a modest but pious pomp into the church of the Annunziata, and the customary obsequies were made for it. We only know, that the people of Florence, provoked by these examples, proceeded to flock frequently to visit her ark, and thence to carry off very many remedies for their evils and pains. But that ark was placed under the altar of the Falconieri, with the title of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which the Sodales of our Habit use. In her praise these words were affixed to the sacred tomb: "Juliana, illustrious for miracles, the great ornament of virginal glory, of the Falconieri, of Florence, and of the Religion of the Servants, with an Epitaph, having imitated the holy mind of her uncle Alexius, who was one of the seven founders of his Order, from heaven whence she had come, at the rising of a double sun, was seen herself a sun to smile, in the year of the Lord 1341, at Florence in the building of the Holy Annunziata, on the nineteenth of June."
[19] That venerable body remained in the wooden ark, under the aforesaid altar, for two hundred twenty-eight years; and with a lamp perpetually burning. where we recall that a lamp was wont to burn night and day, which, through a latticed little window in the front of the altar, was nourished and lit. But when in the year 1569 that altar was to be renewed, that ark was found so decayed and rotten, that it was necessary to take out the sacred bones thence and place them in the Sacristy, together with other relics: where up to now they are kept within a gilded little shrine and translucent with interposed crystals; as also the head, Thence in the year 1569 it is transferred into a new ark, composed within a large head, which represents the face of the Virgin. In the sacred hermitage of Monte Senario, among other Relics there is held part of the right arm of Blessed Juliana: and in the city of Innsbruck in Germany, where there is a monastery of the Presentation of the Blessed Mary, founded for the cloistered Sisters of the Servants, there is kept the larger bone of one hip. Which Relic indeed, under a public Instrument of Lord Sebastian Cenni Archiepiscopal Notary, and in the year 1612 a Relic to Innsbruck. made in the sacristy of the Annunziata of Florence on the 11th of August, was sent in the year 1612 to the Most Serene Anna Juliana, Archduchess and our Tertiary Sister, who had earnestly sought a benefit of this kind from the Fathers of that Convent.
[20] And here let there be now the end of those things, which I could know and gather through this Lent, in spare hours, How the effigy is to be painted. and those less hindered by the care of daily sermons, according to my slight and weak ability, in honor of Blessed Juliana, and for the satisfaction of that Most Serene Archduchess; but first of all to the glory of God, which is always owed to her with honor and praise. Amen. Thus far that manuscript little lucubration, divided indeed into 10 Chapters, but of which some, inasmuch as they regarded either the Order of the Servants or the Rule of the Tertiaries, or seemed drawn out more diffusely from the author's invention alone, I have contracted into an epitome; all things being preserved which properly concerned Juliana. But for those things which it pleased to cut away, receive in this place from the Annals, how her Image is to be painted. "If anyone," says Gianius, "should desire to represent the effigy of Blessed Juliana, he will be able to compose an image of a certain noble matron, who should be of aged age and tall stature, as her venerable bones indicate, which with her right hand upon her breast should show that impression of the most holy Crucified, but in her left hand should hold a Crown of beads with a book; for the rest, let her be clothed in the habit of Nuns with veils according to the custom of the third Order of the Servants."
CHAPTER IV.
Miracles obtained through the intercession of Blessed Juliana Falconieri after her death, from the Italian writing of the Monastery of the Annunziata of Florence.
FROM THE ITALIAN MANUSCRIPT.
[21] In the year 1678, on the 23rd of December, when Maria daughter of John Rossi was in the suburban garden of the Most Serene Grand Duke, called Boboli, At Florence are cured a grave infirmity of the foot, laboring with an incurable infirmity in one of her feet, by which with most grievous and continual pains for the space of twelve years she had been afflicted without any hope of help, and therefore abandoned by physicians and surgeons, commending herself from her heart to the intercession of Blessed Juliana, in that same moment recovered her former and perfect health.
[22] a fever, Maria Elizabeth, daughter of Paul Ricci, five years old, oppressed by a grave fever, having taken powder from roses which had touched the Relics of Blessed Juliana, by a sudden miracle remained free from all fever and perfectly sound.
[23] When Catharina, wife of the coachman of Lord Leo Strozzi, had applied roses of this kind to herself and drunk the powder made from them, a difficult childbirth, at the time when now for two days and nights continuous she had struggled with the sharpest pains of childbirth and therefore not only of the birth but also of her life was despaired, she presently most happily bore a son, free from all infirmity.
[24] Catharina Angela, daughter of Paul Ricci coachman of Lord Duke of Verlich, carrying her womb for eight months and weakened by a long fever; when in vain through many and various remedies and several incisions of the veins, a long-lasting fever, even on the same day often repeated, she had sought health; at last, the same roses being applied to her and the powder of the same drunk, commending herself to the said Blessed one, she suddenly recovered health.
[25] Maria Magdalena, daughter of Tartinus, about twelve years old, in the year 1672 was afflicted with a grave fluxion in one of her eyes; a tumor and blindness of the eye, which had swelled to the size of a golden apple, with so great pain,
that it permitted rest neither by day nor by night, whence too she had wholly lost sight in that eye; so that the Physician Lord Cheluzzi declared it incurable and not to be healed. Her mother, when she had offered her to Blessed Juliana and commended her from her heart; at that very time, when, the vow being made, she was returning home, she found her daughter wholly sound to her great astonishment; whence afterward she offered her vow at the altar of the aforesaid Blessed one, bringing her healed daughter with her, that she might render due thanks to her.
[26] In the year 1681, on the 28th of May Catharina, daughter of Marianus Cavalini, pain of the foot. when she had suffered for a long time, and still suffered, the greatest and intolerable pain in her right foot so that she could not move herself; commended herself from her heart to the intercession of Blessed Juliana, on a certain morning on which she desired to be present at the devotion of the seven Sorrows, asking from her this grace that she might be able to betake herself there that morning. Afterward with great confidence she gave herself to the way, dragging herself as best she could, creeping on hands and feet to the church of the most holy Annunziata. And when she had reached the altar of the aforesaid Blessed one, scarcely had she brought her sick foot into the Chapel, when presently she felt all the pain cease and found herself wholly sound, with as much astonishment of her own as of the bystanders; so that afterward she never felt any pain: for which grace she then offered a silver foot.
[27] In the year 1682 when Lady Aurelia Pirachera was returning from the town of S. Felice to the territory of Quistello, At Quistello under the Mantuan dominion and was carried in a carriage which was drawn by two young horses; these deceiving the hand of the coachman, drove the overturned and broken carriage both over the body of the same Lady and her two maidservants, and of the coachman himself. But the aforesaid Lady at that instant invoking the name and aid of Blessed Juliana, the carriage is driven over them unharmed, all escaped miraculously free from all injury and harm, attributing it manifestly to the miracle of the same Blessed one.
[28] When a certain N. in the same place of S. Felice lay dying of an acute fever and abandoned by all physicians; a dying man suddenly recovers, and was now in such a state, that the customary commendations of the soul were being recited; the aforesaid Lady Aurelia whispered into his ear, that he should commend himself making a vow to Blessed Juliana; which as he did, he suddenly so recovered, that after two days he left his bed, which could not be done without a miracle.
[29] Annibal Orsi of Quistello, vexed with a grave evil around his neck, suffered a most bitter pain, a twisted neck is cured, whence destitute of all rest and solace he had even his neck twisted; and various remedies and unctions being applied in vain, at last his mother on a certain evening ordered him to anoint the affected part with oil from the lamp of the said Blessed one with great confidence toward the Saint; who going to bed found himself the following morning by an unexpected miracle wholly free and sound, as if he had never been vexed by any evil.
[30] At another time the same Annibal, when he suffered a dangerous flow of blood from the nostrils, a dangerous flow of blood is stayed, which for the space of two hours lasted with great abundance of gore, without various constrictions and ligatures, applied to the arms, hips, and head, and several other medicines being of any help, anointed his nostrils with the same oil from the lamp of Blessed Juliana, and suddenly the blood ceased to flow; nor did he labor more with that evil.
[31] When Lady Victoria Mazzachera, wife of Lord Captain Bartholomew Tenente, pestilential pustules, Commissary of Quistello, for her nephew, despaired of by the physicians and reduced to extremes by pestilent pustules, had caused Mass to be said in honor of Blessed Juliana; the sick man suddenly began to be better and within a short time was wholly restored to himself.
[32] The sister of Lady Isabella Malherba of Mantua, vexed with the inveterate evil of a hectic fever for the space of two years and brought to the end of life, commended by the same Lady Isabella to Blessed Juliana, an inveterate hectic fever, within eight days left her bed and remained wholly sound and free.
[33] The same Lady Isabella, on a certain occasion suddenly oppressed by the sharpest pains of the intestines, pains of the intestines are healed. anointed herself with oil from the lamp of Blessed Juliana; and presently the pain left her.
[34] Joseph, son of Francis Fornicus, thirteen years old, in the year 1692, on the 6th of August, At Rome was attacked by so vehement a fever, that within a few days he fell into the most manifest danger of death: so that, the sacred Viaticum and Extreme Unction being conferred on him, deprived of speech, of cognition, and of the rest of his senses, the pulses of the artery failing, the extreme part of the body now cold, by continual epileptic motions and convulsions he gave indication of near death. Then his Mother and the other domestics, by the counsel of two Religious Servants of the Blessed Virgin who were present with the sick man, had recourse to the intercession of Blessed Juliana; thrice relapsed into agony, thrice he is restored and scarcely had some prayers been recited in honor of the same Blessed one, when the dying youth suddenly opened his eyes; and turned to the Religious praying for him, addressed them with such freedom as if he had never labored with any evil. On the 14th of the aforesaid month the same youth relapsed in such a way, that brought to agony, impatient of all medicines, he lost his cognition; but the relics of Blessed Juliana being brought to him and the prayers renewed, he was suddenly restored to himself. At last when a third time, on the 18th of the aforesaid month, he had relapsed, and to the evil there had acceded two parotid swellings in the throat of monstrous size, and at last he wholly recovers. which shut off both respiration and all taking of food, whence the life of the sick man was believed wholly despaired of; again recourse was had to the intercession of Blessed Juliana, and suddenly the tumors began to suppurate and the sick man happily recovered from all evil: which by a lawful writing attested Lord Angelo Modius the physician at Rome who cured the aforesaid sick man.
APPENDIX BY D. P.
On the Cult of Blessed Juliana, successively promoted.
Juliana Falconieri at Florence, of the third Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary (Bl.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[35] When in the year 1660 we were at Florence, and I and Fr. Godfrey Henschen, by Lord Antonio Magliabechi most studious of our matters were led on the 22nd of October, The Relics remaining in the sacristy, to the altar set near the miraculous image of the Annunciate Virgin, in the church of the Servants of the Blessed Mary: and first we saluted the General of that Order, Callixtus Puccinelli, who afterward made Bishop of Urbino died. By his order there was shown to us there the treasure of the sacristy, truly remarkable; and among other things, a shrine gilded of wood, containing the sacred bones of Blessed Juliana, and a pectoral statue of similar material, in which the head of the same Blessed one was enclosed. There too we understood, that by Lord Francis Augustini Falconieri, under the faith of a testament, made in the year 1632, on the 8th of May, In the year 1632 are bequeathed 20000 scudi there were bequeathed twenty thousand scudi to be augmented through twenty years with lawful interest, for procuring the canonization of Blessed Juliana and her uncle Alexius. Within that time if nothing should have been effected, that capital sum with its fruits was to be converted, according to the will of the testator, into a marble altar or chapel, in which the said Relics might be more honorably placed. But as that term, the Pontiff indulging, was then prolonged, at the supplication of the heirs; for the building of a chapel. so also afterward several times, and not even in the year 1691 was the prescribed obligation fulfilled, when about these and other things consequently to be set down Father Master Antonio Fabri the Librarian there informed me.
[36] The cause of the delay, as the same Father Librarian taught me, Meanwhile the processes being received at Rome, was and is the expectation of a near canonization, two Processes being already made, concerning the cult from time immemorial, one at Florence 1672, the other at Città di Castello in the year 1676: by force of which from the sacred Congregation of Rites in the year 1678 there issued a favorable Decree, confirmed by the Pontifical assent. Meanwhile, in the said year 1672, on the 13th of August, the aforesaid Relics were translated from the old wooden shrines into two silver urns or little shrines, cared for by the Fathers of that Convent of Florence, and to be placed in the same place where those had stood, that is in the Oratory of the Passinians, under the altar called of the Relics, at the door of the sacristy, just as is established by an Instrument then drawn by Giovanni Antonio Cosmi Vinealis, the Relics are transferred in the year 1672 into new shrines, public Notary of Florence and Archiepiscopal Chancellor. But thence the same Relics were translated in the year 1676 from the sacristy, under the altar of the Immaculate Conception, whose chapel belongs to the right of Patronage of the Lords Falconieri, on the 11th of September. Then our Fathers took care that whatever survived of the sacred body should be becomingly joined together, and united to the head; so that almost nothing else is wanting to its integrity, but the bone of the left hip, remaining at Innsbruck. The body thus restored was clothed in the habit of the Tertiary Sisters, of silk however, and placed on a cushion and pillow of white all-silk, within a wooden ark, and in the year 1676 placed under the altar, colored in the manner of white marble, and adorned with gilded borders: whose lid has written on the front the old Epitaph, with silver and paper votive offerings hanging around, just as before they had hung around the head. All these things being thus provided, the ark being closed, was placed beneath the aforesaid altar, before witnesses called for it and a public Notary, namely Gerardo Salvini of Florence; and that toward night, and the doors closed, all our Fathers assisting.
[37] Thenceforth the ark was never more opened and publicly exposed, and a feast is ordained: except at the instance sometimes of more illustrious persons, to whom this special honor is given. Yet on the feast day of Blessed Juliana, the chapel and aforesaid altar are adorned with the most beautiful paraments, flowers, and candles; four of these burning day and night, from first Vespers up to the end of the following day; and above the altar is placed a panel, representing the Blessed one, in the act of one lying down at the end, and causing the sacred Viaticum to be brought to her. The bells are rung, and this is more solemnly renewed in the year 1678. as on the greatest solemnities: but the Office and Masses are made of the feast then current of the Holy Martyrs. His Holiness also assents, that, if nothing obstruct, it be permitted to make a Votive Mass of the Mother of God. But after in the year (as said above) 1678 the Brief was brought, confirming the cult from time immemorial; all the bells being rung, on the 18th of June, the image of the Blessed one was exposed above the door of the church, and the Ambrosian hymn most solemnly chanted.
[38] But not content with this, the Fathers judged a new festivity should be prepared with greater leisure, the 23rd of July being chosen for it, when an apparatus both of musical concerts and of artificial fires most excellent occupied the whole preceding night: and the Relics, enclosed in their crystals, the 23rd of July. were conspicuous to all, not however above, but beneath the altar of the Conception. But in the morning the Provincial of the Piarist Schools gave a panegyric oration. The oration was followed by a solemn Mass, and the remaining Office of that day; but in the evening the former illuminations were repeated with every other festive ornament; when too the arms of the Falconieri family shone amid the flying torches. There ran together to the spectacle, not only of the people, but also of the nobles a multitude,
both on the Sunday itself, and the two following days, on which the holy Relics lay open to those desiring to see them. Then too there came the Treasurer of the King of Poland, with his wife. But the feast the Most Serene Princes concluded with their honorable presence, first of all the Grand Duke of Etruria Cosimo III: on which occasion too an epitome of the Life was printed, for the instruction and solace of the people.
[39] As to the images of the Blessed one which are in our church, Ancient images, one is thus mentioned in the Processes: "Above the altar, in the chapel of St. Anne, there exists an old painted panel; where there is portrayed St. Anne with Mary the Virgin her daughter upon her arms, and on the left St. Lawrence the Martyr, and Blessed Juliana of the Falconieri, in the Habit of a Nun, with golden rays above her head, a crown of beads in her hand, and around her feet a human skull and a lily, and also an opening at the breast with a particle of the round Host, as here in the figure you see." The Most Illustrious Judge etc. asked the deposing witnesses whether they recognized the said painting. a fourth painted around 1540. Both with one accord said, that they did not doubt but that it was by the hand of Antonio Bonini de Mazzeriis, who was of the school of Francia-Bigio, a famous painter around the year 1540, of which Antonio the painter mention is made by Giorgio Vasari in the Lives of the Painters, around the end of the life of the said Francia-Bigio.
[40] There is also a recently sculpted figure of the aforementioned panel which I said above was placed on the altar, but the figure of the other then exposed above the door is perhaps found before the Panegyric History of Blessed Juliana Falconieri dedicated by Friar Prosperus Bernardi of Florence to Decius Cardinal Azzolino in the year 1681; Others more recent on the altar and before the Life published in 1681 of which, as less ancient, it is enough to have made mention here. It is enough too to have mentioned the History itself, containing nothing further known from elsewhere, except the Epigrams of twelve Parthenic Academicians, an alphabetical Register of the Saints and Blessed of the Order, then a poetic applause exposed at the aforesaid feasts with a twofold Pontifical constitution, one of Martin V approving a certain Rule or form of living religiously, in which certain honest and reasonable statutes and ordinances, suited to regular discipline, are known to be, with the Constitutions of the Florentine Tertiaries thus far laudably observed by those who are called Brothers and Sisters of the consortium of the Servants of St. Mary, on the 17th of the Kalends of April, in the 7th year of the Pontificate, which was of Christ 1424. The other Constitution ending the book, is of Paul V at the instance of Anna Juliana Archduchess of Austria, the Constitutions which she herself had procured to be made for the happy direction and governance of the house founded by her in the town of Innsbruck of the diocese of Brixen, near the Monastery of the Nuns of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary; namely of Women who under the title of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary should serve the Most High, and emit only the vows of chastity and obedience, and approved at Innsbruck in 1617. under the habit and constitutions there expressed, and serve the Nuns of the said Monastery, and minister the necessities of life. Among the days appointed for the Confession and Communion of the said women are noted the feasts of St. Anna the Prophetess, St. Philip, and Blessed Juliana the Patrons, and of St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and the Constitution is signed on the 8th of July 1617, in the 6th year of the Pontificate.
[41] Let this Commentary be closed by the most recent decree on the cult of the same Blessed Juliana issued in this tenor in the year 1693: "A new audience having been obtained from Our Most Holy Lord Lord Pope Innocent XII by the Postulators of the Cause on the 5th of December, 1692, last past, upon the instances offered by the same elsewhere to the Congregation of Sacred Rites for the grant of a Mass and Office of Blessed Juliana of the Falconieri of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And the aforesaid instances being again proposed in the Congregation of Sacred Rites by the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Coloredo. The same Sacred Congregation, having heard both by voice and in writing the Most Reverend Archbishop of Myra the Promoter of the Faith, judged, that one must stand by what was decided in the first place on the 5th of August 1690. Namely, that the case, of which there is treatment, the various circumstances which concur standing, is not comprehended in the general Decree of the year 1628. And therefore that an Office and Mass under the rite of a Semidouble of the Common of a Virgin can be granted for the Religion of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary and for the City of Florence. And moreover it decreed, that in the future the general Decree is to be observed in precise form, so that the immemorial cult does not avail, unless proved in the same species of Office and Mass; if it shall please Our Most Holy Lord. On the 10th of January 1693. And Our Most Holy Lord, to the pious and most humble prayers of the Most Serene Eleonora of Austria, Queen of Poland, offered to the same His Holiness by the Most Excellent Prince of Liechtenstein the Imperial Orator, as in the aforesaid prayers remitted to the Sacred Congregation according to the form of the aforesaid Decrees, most kindly assented. On the 17th of October of the same year 1693. A. Bishop of Ostia Card. Cybo. In the place of the ✠ Seal. B. Inghirami Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites." While these things are being printed, I understand from Rome that certain additions are being prepared, which the Reader will be able to find at the end of this day, if they are brought in time.