DE S. URSICINO THE PHYSICIAN, MARTYR AT RAVENNA IN ITALY, PERHAPS IN THE YEAR LXVII.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On his passion, cult, translations and miracles.
Ursicinus the Physician, Martyr at Ravenna in Italy (S.)
BHL Number: 8410
BY D. P.
Concerning Servatius and Protasius, Martyrs most celebrated throughout the whole Christian world, a Commentary being soon to be set forth, I shall conclude, by inquiring into the causes, Why on this day S. Ursicinus is now venerated at Ravenna, for which it came about, that from the most ancient Martyrology of the Western Church, believed to be of Jerome, there should be reported SS. Vitalis and Valeria, on this solemn day of the finding and translation of their sons; and at the same time S. Ursicinus, animated by Vitalis, the same as is believed, to consummate his Martyrdom bravely. Now I premise, that, since the proper day of his agony was not found, it pleased the Ravennate Archbishops of the XII century or some later one, to dedicate to him as his own this day, on which he was thus found inscribed in the Martyrology, with most solemn cult, with SS. Gervasius and Protasius transferred to the next Feria to fall vacant with a less solemn cult among them. But the Ides of December on which anciently the same Ursicinus was venerated it seemed good to leave with the title of a less solemn translation. From the passion of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and the epistle inserted in it under the name of Philip, baptized by S. Caius Bishop of the Milanese among the first (as the same passion is had, supposed to be S. Ambrose's, in the VIII or IX century) there is had a more ancient notice of that triumph in these words.
[2] When Vitalis, believed father of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, had entered Ravenna with Paulinus his judge, and saw in the sight of his Judge a Christian, named Ursicinus, a Physician by art, a Ligurian by nation, after excessive torments to have received the capital sentence; The Passion from the booklet on SS. Gervasius and Protasius, (the place however where Christians were beheaded had this name, that it was called At the Palm, because ancient palm trees were there) therefore when, as we said, after excessive torments Ursicinus came to the Palm to be beheaded, he was terrified: and, while he wished to escape ill, Vitalis cried out, saying; Do not, do not, Ursicinus the Physician. Thou who wast wont to cure others, dost thou wish to wound thyself with the dart of eternal death? thou who through excessive sufferings hast come to the palm, do not lose the crown, prepared for thee by the Lord. Hearing this, Ursicinus, related by Florus and others on 28 April set his knee, and exhorted the executioner to strike; and doing penance that he had been terrified, made himself a Martyr of Christ. And immediately Vitalis himself, seizing the body of the Martyr, buried it within the city of the Ravennates; and, performing with all honor the obsequies due to a Martyr, scorned to come any more to the Judge. These things there, which first, Florus of Lyons, in his Supplement to Bede, fitted in composing the elogium of S. Vitalis, on XXVIII April; whence soon others of the Martyrology, Usuard, Ado, Notker, Rabanus, took it.
[3] The same four reported S. Ursicinus also on this day, but in very few words. Rabanus in this manner; At Rome (I believe, at Ravenna, the author himself to have written) the nativity of Ursicinus the Martyr. The other three, in all their copies both Manuscript and printed, as if all from the same source, thus concordantly bid to be read; At Ravenna (the present Roman, and certain Mss. of Ravenna) of S. Ursicinus the Martyr, who under the Judge Paulinus after excessive torments remaining immovable in the confession of the Lord, completed his Martyrdom by the cutting off of his head. Notker adds, and he was buried in the same city by B. Vitalis, father of SS. Gervasius and Protasius. All the same things more diffusely amplified S. Peter Damiani, in the sermon on SS. Vitalis and Valeria. But the kind of death the same one indicated below
Venantius Fortunatus, in the life of S. Martin, thus singing of the Saints of the Ravennate Church:
Thence seek more sweetly the pleasing city of the Ravennates: running back through the religious pulpits of the Saints: The kind of death from Venantius Fortunatus, adore the tomb of the excellent Martyr Vitalis; and of the gentle Ursicinus, blessed under the lot of Paul;
that is, smitten in the head. Lest here, against Prosody, so great a poet seem to have sinned by shortening the penult in the name of Ursicinus, the Hymn of S. Peter Damiani, to be produced below, having used the same license, and by that fact of his persuading, will make it plain that this was not unusual to the poets of the middle age in regard to diminutive names in inus.
[4] the inspection of the cut-off head, I have, from the Ms. Passional of the monastery of Bodeke in Westphalia, a transcribed Passion, or more truly Sermon, on the passion of S. Ursicinus the Martyr: where it is expressly said thus: At Ravenna in that place, where the admirable temple of S. Vitalis is held, there was a tree of an ancient palm, to which the Christians, after the sentence of condemnation, were always led by the lictors to be beheaded. Here while the Blessed man, with knee bent, stood undaunted over the throat, on the back of the head he received the falling steel of the one balancing it in his right hand. from the writer of the Passion of the 10th century, Which place in the head I evidently assign; because by many reporting it, who in our times saw his head, I learned it; and where the blow of the iron fell on the head of the Martyr, it was often pointed out to me by the fingers of those reporting it. The author shows himself a Ravennate while he thus begins: If it had pleased anyone studiously to note all the deeds of the Saints of our country, he would exhibit to many a model of edification… but because time and knowledge suffer us less to assign all things; let the discourse of our words be at least transferred to him, who in the city of Ravenna on the present day … was crowned with the palm of Martyrdom. He then proceeds to amplify with words the account of the life and end of the Martyr, as below he says he was asked by the Brethren; and to them he subjoins a few miracles, especially those which shone in his own times, that is in the X century verging to its end.
[5] Nowhere does that so proper and diligent Writer, who does not mention the carried head, nor the palms born from the neck; mention the prodigy, which Rubeus and from Rubeus Fabri, both named Jerome, the former in Latin in the History, the latter in Italian in the Sacred memories of ancient Ravenna, relate in these words. Immediately, after the deadly blow, just as if it lived, the holy corpse, that it raised itself from the ground, and the head seized with both hands, that it carried it to the place where it was to be given to burial, has been handed down to memory by very many: some even add, that from his neck three palm branches sprang forth: of which admirable thing when the memory had quite perished, to the Divine Ursicinus, Archbishop of the Ravennates, praying at his (Ursicinus the Martyr's) tomb, this Martyr, carrying his head in his hands, with three palm branches coming forth from the neck, showed himself: wherefore on that day the Archbishop ordered, that (so that the memory might be perpetually preserved) his holy image be painted in this manner; as neither did Peter Ferrettus: which even to this day is seen. The Vatican Library at Rome has, among other manuscripts of more recent age which we have seen, the lucubrations of John Peter Ferrettus of Ravenna, from the year MDXLIX to LIV Bishop of Ravello in the Kingdom of Naples, and thence returned to his country, where he died in the third year after. From those writings we have brought over to Belgium various things making for our matter, and especially the Martyrdom of SS. Vitalis and Valeria his wife, and of their sons, composed by him, with that notice of S. Ursicinus which was found from antiquity. He could not have been ignorant that he was thus painted, and that on the occasion of such a vision: but the wise man took care, lest he draw the vision itself into an argument of history; and sufficiently understood, in what sense Martyrs are painted carrying in their hands their cut-off heads. But what mystery the three palms indicated, he preferred silently to venerate, than by conjecturing to undergo the danger of error. If however it must be conjectured, the threefold branch could signify a threefold victory over the tyrant, repeating his questionings thrice.
[6] The same Ferrettus wrote the Lives of the Archbishops of Ravenna, which Fabri repeatedly alleges; [granted that thus a saint of the 6th century, S. Ursicinus the Archbishop, was seen, and that he ordered him so to be painted.] and by name where he treats of S. Ursicinus, XXVII Bishop of the Ravennates: and he asserts him, in the year DXLV, the III of his Episcopate, on the V day of September, to have departed from the living, and to be held a Saint himself also, which we too saw passing through Ravenna. This one could, with such a vision had, have been the author of the body being raised from the earth; or of being carried out from under the altar, where it was kept buried in the church of his name, and transferred into the church of S. John the Baptist, founded by the most Christian Princess Galla Placidia Augusta, daughter, wife, mother of Emperors; and dedicated by S. Barbatianus in the year CCCCXXXXVIII. Yet I find nothing certain about that matter. The Sermon alleged above, having narrated the death and burial of the Saint, The body translated to S. John the Baptist's. has only these few words about the Translation: The body … remained for many times in that place, where it was then placed: but afterward, carried to the church of S. John the Baptist, it obtained its own oratory, from whose name it is called up to the present; whose altar also is held in sufficient veneration. That church, with the Canons failing there, in the year MCCCVIII was handed over to the Carmelite Fathers, and by them even now is possessed.
[7] There then with the holy body devoutly resting (as the author of the Sermon just touched continues) through many times, to the glory of his name, Thence a maidservant was dragged away and scourged, through him the Lord showed forth very many miracles. But of many we shall narrate a few, he says, especially those which shone near our times. A certain one of the first Elders of the city, for some cause, wished to apply the scourges to one of his maidservants: but she fleeing into the oratory of S. the Martyr Ursicinus, which was nearby, hid behind his altar. When this was reported to the Elder by his servants, having sent apparitors, he caused her to be irreverently dragged thence unwilling, and raged against her at his pleasure. she is set free, at the Saint's bidding. In those very days S. Ursicinus appeared to him through a dream, threatening him with torment and death, unless he loose that maidservant from the knot of servitude, and satisfy him by due penance. The Elder therefore, since he was wise, recognized his sin: gave his maidservant liberty with a benefit; and appeased the holy Martyr by worthy satisfaction.
[8] There were in that church railings, against which those who were supported had behind their back the wall of the masonry to which adhered a coffer, in which the members of the blessed Martyr rested buried. S. Ursicinus then appeared in dreams to a Presbyter named Deus dedit, who presided over that church: The railings of support are removed from the tomb: and admonishing to remove the railings thence, indicated that it greatly displeased him, that they were so placed. The Presbyter neglecting the vision, was again in dreams forewarned about the same matter. But on the third time, since he still neglected to fulfill what was urged; rebuked with threatening words, the wine placed beside it, he removed the railings: which removed, the Saint of the Lord ceased to appear. To his successor also John the Presbyter the same things afterward befell: for he too caused the railings to be restored in the said place. The same Presbyter had a cask * of wine, beside the wall of the oratory of the same Martyr, for the use of the needy and the poor, full of wine: which draining up to the middle through two or three times for their benefit, without any human refilling on the third time he found very full. These three notable miracles I had neither seen, nor read, but I knew them by the report of very many, especially from certain faithful Brethren, thrice it is replenished. by whose prayers invited I amplified the account of the life and end of the same Martyr.
[9] Beyond nine hundred years after his passion, a certain Prelate named Honestus, when he presided over the Ravennate See, The 2nd Translation into the Cathedral wishing to place the holy body more honorably, and to make his faith better and more glorious by the patronages of the Saints; in the time of the Caesarate of Otto the Greatest, with all reverence raised up, with the utmost devotion conveyed it to the Ursiana church: where now it is established to be buried in the crypt. That Honestus presided from the year MCCCCLXXI to LXXXIII, by the reckoning of Rubeus; who likewise attributes the same translation to Honestus himself, year 974, 13 Dec. as made in the year DCCCCLXXIV on the Ides of December, which day in that year was a Sunday. The head however they say was left in the temple of S. John the Baptist, (he says) lest it be wholly without Relics of so holy a body. But where it is up to now the Carmelite Fathers do not know, and therefore neither is it named among their Relics. Rubeus moreover confesses that there are not lacking those who attribute the said translation to Henry the Archbishop: but I (he says at the close of the year MCLXIX) for many causes would more willingly ascribe it to Honestus. Henry performed this, that when the holy body of this Divine Martyr lay in the crypt, an Elevation there in 1169, 22 Nov. in the Ursiana shrine where it had been placed by Honestus, he led it thence with several other Relics of the Divine, and above the crypt in a higher place, before the body of S. Probus the Archbishop, on the fifteenth Kalends of December, with all the sacred men and the people summoned to the spectacle, he located it; nor long after, in the year MCLXX that followed, on the Kalends of January, he met death. Hence even more manifestly the Ravennates perceived their Protector: since indeed (as Jerome Fabri narrates from Desiderius Spreto, p. 8) in the year MCCCLXXXIII Galeotus Malatesta, and the deliverance of the city in the year 1383. Lord of Rimini, having attacked Ravenna by night, almost empty with its citizens thinned by plague, would no doubt have seized it; had not Saints Ursicinus and Vitalis, seen on the walls with a great number of armed men, so terrified him; that, dismissing the ladders that had already been applied, he returned to Rimini in flight: where deprived of the sight of his eyes, a little after he also died: contrary to what Corrius writes, who believed he had seized the city, because he had read that he attempted it.
[10] The Cathedral Basilica of Ravenna, dedicated by its proper name to the holy Resurrection, is also called Ursiana, from Ursus the Archbishop, In the same Cathedral, called Ursiana, who either raised it from the foundations, or most magnificently restored it in the year CCCLXXVIII, with a fourfold order of columns of excellent Greek marble: whose walls they say were adorned with gems, by a new example of singular piety, says Rubeus. The vault Jeremias the Archbishop, in the year MCXII, carefully had encrusted with mosaic work, which now is seen … Although some Greek signs placed in some spots can not difficultly persuade, that Jeremias rather restored the old picture, than instituted an altogether new one. I saw the Basilica itself, a notable work, in the year MDCLX, on XX November, and before the greater altar, a stone is shown, bearing the marks of knees and blood sublime by several steps, kneeling, I adored the bodies of eight Saints, buried (as was said) beneath it, among which is that of S. Ursicinus. I also saw the Abbatial basilica of S. Vitalis, furnished with four principal chapels, of which the fourth is S.
Ursicinus's, and it has over the altar an image of the Saint painted on a panel by the hand of Lucas Longus, such as we described above offered through a vision to the Archbishop praying: but under the altar itself a stone, such as Fabri describes, impressed with the marks of knees (as is reported) from that time, in which the Saint, about to be diminished in the head, bent his knees upon it: on which rock also drops of blood are said to have fallen, in that place which the iron cross fixed there marks. in the church of S. Vitalis a chapel: Other Relics of S. Ursicinus to be there Fabri does not indicate; but well in the church of S. John the Evangelist, which now belongs to the Regular Canons, formerly to the Benedictine Monks; and he acknowledges Galla Placidia as foundress of the same together with the church of the Baptist. The oratory, of which the Sermon placed above at the shrine of the Baptist makes mention, and from this probably Peter de Natalibus book 5 ch. 127; Fabri p. 388 distinguishes from the church itself, elsewhere Relics and an oratory. and judges it to have been beside it; and that it is the same, which the last of the sacred shrines of Ravenna, is called S. Ursicinus's. Within this, when in the year MDCXVIII the Confraternity of the Cobblers had been erected, it began to be somewhat celebrated; but a few years ago, says Fabri, publishing his book MDCLXIV, it was restored from the foundations, smaller however than it had been before.
[11] I return to the aforenoted Sermon. Before this there was read; Here begins the Prologue to the Passion of S. Ursicinus the Martyr, which is celebrated on the Ides of December. Ursicinus can be believed to have suffered under Nero; The same day is impressed by this final clause: But Ursicinus dear to God suffered, in the city which took its name from Boats, under the most wicked Prince Domitius Nero, with Paulinus the Consular acting, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God, world without end. About Nero and Paulinus, if it stood established to be true; and likewise that the holy Brothers Gervasius and Protasius suffered about the time of the Marcomannic war in the II century; it would follow altogether that S. Vitalis, who went before S. Ursicinus in words, and followed him in death, was different from him, who afterward from Valeria begot SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and that it was made by the mere identity of name, that the times of both were confused, with those faults against history, which will be noted below. But there will be no need of such distinction, if the sons be said to have suffered under Domitian about the year XCV, and to have had a father who went before to the crown by XXVIII years, in the year LXVII, immediately following the ordinary Consulate of C. Suetonius Paulinus and L. Pontius Telesinus, in which magistracy when Paulinus had finished, he was a judge sent into Cisalpine Gaul.
[12] As regards XIII December; it at least from the time of the first Translation began to be held as the Natal, and from the time of the Translation, the cult on 13 December. because the true one was unknown; as also the true Natal of S. Vitalis; whose deaths otherwise I do not think were separated by a long interval of months or many days. But the reason being given already above, and to be given below more fully, why the day XIX June came into the place of the Natal; although neither on that day did S. Ursicinus suffer; it remains that, the care of defining his day being set aside, we follow the present use of the Ravennate Church, in inserting his memory into this work. But the day of the Translation XIII December will be fittingly left; except that this too should be deferred, on account of S. Lucy, to the day XIV, as the calendar warns it should be deferred, revised for the year MDCLX, when also it is inscribed in the fasti. and published by order of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend D. Lucas Torregiani, Cleric of the Apostolic Chamber, and Archbishop of the same Ravennate Church. Furthermore, with the Passion of S. Ursicinus thus, as has been said, described for XIII December in several legendaries of the middle age, written in the XII, XIII or XIV century, it also came about, that in various copies of the enlarged Usuard among us and elsewhere through Germany; likewise in Maurolycus, in Bellinus the Author of the Florarium, in Greven, there is found written toward the end of that day, likewise of S. Ursinus, or Ursianus (in place of Ursicinus) Martyr, the name being altered by the carelessness of the copyists.
[13] Augustine Calcagninus, Canon Penitentiary of the Metropolitan of Genoa, in the year 1655 published an Italian book under the title of the Sacred Palms of Genoa, The Hymn of S. Peter Damiani. that is, the Lives of the Holy Martyrs of Genoa; where the second place is held by the passion of S. Ursicinus, to which is appended a hymn about the same, written by S. Peter Damiani, worthy also to be reported here.
Sweet excellent Martyr, Ursicinus furnishes a feast; on which, conquered, he stood forth conqueror, and famous entered the stars.
For after the horrific penalties, the weakness of the flesh trembles: but soon it returns to the heart, and joyful is cut down by the sword.
Worthily the ravisher blushed; while he succumbed to the rapine; and with the foe fallen lost, he who inflicted the wound on the standing one.
And amid the contests, us, O notable Martyr, help: grant the distrustful to trust, and the conquered again to conquer.
Be a physician of souls, bring help to the languishing: by a draught of heavenly grace, let the sick souls be cured.
Be there to the Father with the Unbegotten, be there honor to the Only-begotten, be there to the equal Spirit of both the highest Majesty.
NOTED* plaustrum, a large vessel