ON ST. INNOCENTIUS, BISHOP OF VERONA IN ITALY.
4TH OR 5TH CENTURY.
CommentaryInnocentius, Bishop of Verona in Italy (S.)
[1] Among the principal prerogatives of graces divinely bestowed upon it, the city of Verona rightly reckons that from among the number of its Bishops it venerates thirty-six enrolled in the registers of the Saints, each on his own day, from time immemorial: Among the 36 holy Bishops of Verona, of which fact testimony is borne not only by the present ecclesiastical tables containing the order of reciting the Divine Office, or the names of the Saints arranged in a Calendar: but also by more ancient manuscript parchments and images painted on the walls of churches, as well as those authors who have written about such matters, already known for two centuries: all of which, together with synodal decrees, also approved by Paul III and drawn up before his Legate, are brought forward in the collection of ancient documents concerning the Holy Bishops of Verona, gathered by Raphael Bagata, Archpriest, and Baptista Perettus, Rector of the Church of St. Tenteria: and published in print by Augustine Valerio, Bishop of Verona, with an index of sacred Relics in the year 1576.
[2] St. Innocentius, Of these thirty-six, St. Innocentius is one, named in the Martyrology of Galesius and in both Catalogues of Philip Ferrarius, as well as in the manuscript Florarium of the Saints: for whose
memory the aforesaid Augustine composed the following encomium, transcribed by Ferrarius in his Saints of Italy, and Ughelli in his Italia Sacra, volume V. Innocentius, Bishop of Verona, greatly excelled in innocence, justice, and the distinguished virtues required in a pastor of souls; in the knowledge of many things he was inferior to none of those who had been Bishops of that Church before him. When he had endured many labors for his spouse, he died on the day before the Ides of March; and his body was laid to rest in the basilica of St. Stephen, beneath the altar of St. Andrew. That basilica was once the Cathedral, as antiquity persuades, buried in St. Stephen's, and the bodies of very many Bishops of Verona deposited there, concerning which there is in the sacristy an ancient table written on parchment with this title: In the Church of St. Stephen of Verona, these particular bodies of Saints rest in peace. First, the body of St. Felix, Bishop of Verona, at the high altar; likewise the bodies of Innocentius and Gaudentius in the tomb of the altar of St. Andrew the Apostle.
[3] This altar, however, having been removed from an unsuitable place where it disfigured the church, in the year 1542 wondrously fragrant upon being transferred, was placed where it now is in the year 1543; it has in its base dust, as is believed, of the Saints; it also has very venerable bones, which, when they were uncovered at the time of the altar's relocation, emitted a wondrous and most sweet fragrance: which all who kissed the hands of John, the Archpriest of that church, who had handled them, perceived until evening: to which they themselves can still testify, and the Archpriest himself, a man of proven and blameless life, while he lived, asserted the same, and afterwards left it attested in writing. It is also asserted that those bones are those of SS. Innocentius and Gaudentius, Bishops of Verona. So writes Francis Corna in the book which, as the cited collectors assert, he composed in plain and native speech in the year of salvation 1477, concerning the antiquities of Verona and the holy Relics which are found therein. Moreover, what is asserted by the aforesaid author with St. Gaudentius, receives authority from the above-cited table of the sacristy, which on that part is confirmed by another marble tablet, very ancient and broken, which is inserted into a column at the entrance of the southern door of the church of St. Stephen, with this beginning: In this church rest the bodies of the holy Confessors, Bishops of this city, namely: Simplicius, Innocentius, Felix, Salvinus, Senator, Probus, Andronicus, Maurus, etc., with Gaudentius omitted, which is remarkable; yet certain of his bones, separated from the rest of the body, are preserved in an ancient marble chest, which used to be behind the high altar, and now serves on the right side thereof as the table of the altar of St. Mary, with a double inscription, one exterior on stone, the other interior on lead, confirming the matter to be so.
[4] That holy Gaudentius, who shared a common tomb with St. Innocentius, is venerated on the day before the Ides of February, the age of both uncertain, on which day we treated of him: but as concerning him it is uncertain what rank he held in the episcopate, since Perettus establishes it as the thirty-ninth, which Ferdinand Ughellus places at the fifteenth: so neither do authors agree concerning Innocentius. For Ughellus establishes him as the fourteenth, to whom after two intermediaries St. Lucius succeeded, whom he calls Lucidus, who was present at the Council of Sardica in the year 348: but Perettus gives him the twenty-third place, ten places later than Lucillus (for so he names the one who in the aforesaid Council was Lucius), and therefore nearest to about the fiftieth year of the fifth century. From the ancient paintings of the churches, relying on the tradition of the elders, a more certain conjecture might perhaps be had; but only a conjecture: for after the first twelve Bishops, extending to the year 260, for many centuries it is unknown, as also of most of the others, to use the words of Panvinius, who was the successor of whom: even the times in which each one lived, except for six who are set forth in their places and centuries, and the deeds of each, are most obscure and uncertain: which matters, by the excessive age of antiquity and the fatal negligence of our forebears, are overwhelmed by the darkness of antiquity. In Ferrarius, St. Innocentius is the thirteenth, but by a typographical error for the twenty-third: for he cites Augustine Valerius, whom he follows: prudently, however, he notes at the end that the time and Acts of him, as of most of the Bishops of that city, are unknown.
The manuscript Florarium of the Saints joins the Confessor Euphrosius, unknown to us, to Bishop Innocentius with these words: On the same day, of the holy Innocentius the Bishop and Euphrosius the Confessor. Of Euphrosius the Martyr we treat on this day, of whom the Florarium also makes mention.