Berta

CONCERNING BLESSED BERTA, ABBESS OF THE VALLOMBROSAN CONGREGATION IN TUSCANY.

YEAR 1163

Berta, Abbess of the Vallombrosan Congregation in Tuscany (B.)

[1] Among the twelve Churches, which Florence believes were established by Charlemagne with as many colleges of Canons when it was rebuilt, it counts one very ancient church consecrated to S. Felicitas: From the monastery of S. Felicitas to which a monastery of sacred Virgins had long since been attached, but which, through the negligence of certain Bishops of Florence, had been destroyed, and was restored by himself while he still held that episcopal See, by enrolling a college of noble nuns, as the most lucid witness is Nicholas II in a diploma, restored through Nicholas II, which in the first year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1059, on the sixth day before the Ides of January, he directed to Theiberga, Abbess of the monastery of S. Felicitas, situated near Florence, and to her successors who would remain in their holy purpose in perpetuity, for its stability and security. The diploma itself is found in Ferdinand Ughelli's Sacred Italy, volume 3, column 91, and its very title compels us to doubt whether from the beginning the said church and monastery of S. Felicitas, as the Florentines persuade themselves, was numbered among the urban churches, and was not rather afterwards counted among them, together with the rest of the suburb across the Arno; and whether, with the public state changed under Charles V, it was enclosed within the walls, being situated near the old bridge.

[2] Whatever the case, since its restoration coincides with the beginnings of the Vallombrosan Order, and entrusted to the Vallombrosans, she was chosen under which the Rule of S. Benedict began to reflourish throughout Tuscany, we not unreasonably suspect that the spiritual care of the Virgins collected under the same Rule there was entrusted to the Religious of this Congregation: and we are more confirmed in that opinion because from that monastery was taken Blessed Berta, who was to reintroduce the discipline of regular observance into the Caprilian monastery, which all the authors who have written about her attribute to the Vallombrosan Order or Congregation. Above all of these, we would wish that a history of her Life survived; which Hieronymus Radiolanus, as widely known in his time, eulogy from the manuscript of Hieronymus Radiolanus. mentions in the eulogy he inserted into a little work on the Saints and Blessed of his Order, composed by him around the year 1500 for Lorenzo de' Medici and found by us in the Medicean library: which alone the remaining writers, both Florentine and Vallombrosan, appear to have seen and followed, as is easily apparent from what they report about her: and that eulogy is as follows.

[3] There was also another most blessed woman (he had previously treated of S. Verdiana, whose Life, Piously educated from her tender years, Berta, written by Blessed Atto, Bishop of Pistoia, we gave on February 1), Bertha by name, whose origin was from Italy, from the Counts (he calls them Locatella of Ravenna), with a father named Lothair: who as a small girl kept what some young women fail to observe (namely modesty and domestic seclusion: for the sense seems to lack a word or two, which may have fallen out from the scribe copying the original more neatly into a cleaner copy). Not drawn by the loose sports of girls, and intent only on divine things, not lured out by the wantonness of others to a public spectacle: but docile to be trained in every virtue and to be instructed in good arts, to go to church together with her parents, and to contain the distinguished beauty of her body at home, she bore with no annoyance of spirit. She listened with a thirsting breast to the divine word, and, like the most holy Agatha, always bore the Gospel of Jesus Christ in her breast, and suppliantly and with frequent prayers most fittingly worshipped Jesus: not as is accustomed to happen in churches in this our time by many, who disgracefully employ their hands, eyes, and all the gestures of the body.

[4] When by these practices she had reached the nubile age, resolving to follow only virtues and divine precepts in her spirit, she becomes a nun at Florence, she meditated upon things above and heavenly: and finally, desiring to abandon those things that are held first among mortals, she decided to enter religion and lead her life in the monastery of S. Felicitas at Florence: and when there, being most careful and most observant of doctrine, she progressed daily in the highest grace of Jesus Christ, in example and good morals, and the number of nuns in that monastery grew greater; by the counsel of the Abbess, with all the others desiring it, she went to the monastery of Capriola, now ruined and deformed by bad examples, then Abbess at Caprilia: and there she restored and renewed the true way of life and the zeal of the religious life, which had already been pulled apart through wicked examples. And so, ordering her life in that monastery chastely and holily, the Lord Jesus celebrated her with many miracles, as clearly appears in her history. Passing over all of these, she shines with miracles: we shall be content with one, which happened in our own memory: which indeed we received not only from Dom Angelo, then Rector of that monastery, but from all who even at the present time inhabit that town of Caprilia.

[5] For in the year of our redemption one thousand four hundred and sixty-six, a boy who fell into the waters a certain woman of that same town, Vanna by name, when she was going to the mill because of the need to grind wheat, as sometimes happens, brought her small son with her; and when she let him go freely wherever he wished while the wheat was being ground, the foolish woman, suspecting no harm could come to the boy, who was not yet able by reason of his age to avoid misfortunes; and as the boy wandered incautiously here and there near the water channels, he slipped and fell most wretchedly among the spokes of the wheels: which the miller discovering, took care to inform the mother immediately. She, in the manner of women, raging excessively, tearing out the hair of her head, wailing with amazing cries, calling upon the powers above and below to turn their destruction upon her, and finally, hindered by excessive grief, having no counsel, nothing moderate.

[6] Roused by these cries, those who were around hastened there, and learning the matter from the miller, and commended to herself they exhorted the woman to commend herself to the Virgin Mary and to Blessed Berta; and to trust in God that her son could escape from such danger. While, therefore, they were discussing these things among themselves with troubled spirit, suddenly an unexpected miracle arose: for the boy, by divine mercy still alive, was tossed here and there by the whirlpool and impetus of the waters. Therefore amid sighs and bitter grief, while the mother with the rest on the bank of the stream repeated again and again, crying out: Virgin Mary, and you, Blessed Berta, bring help to the boy: she restores him unharmed to the land. finally, before all who were present, wonderful to say! the wave cast him behind his own house, so unharmed and whole as if no evil had befallen him. At this, all turned to admiration, and began fervently to praise Jesus and the Virgin Mary his Mother, and to extol Blessed Berta to the heavens: then all with the greatest devotion went to the church of the Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary with the boy, and gave great thanks both to her and to Blessed Berta, both for the liberation and safety of the boy, and also for the reverence and honor of that very place, where through the glorious Virgin God deigned to work such prodigies.

[7] I shall also briefly describe her death, because it was glorious. having spent Lent in holiness, For when from the beginning of Lent she saw the end of her most blameless life approaching, she easily obtained by her prayers from Jesus Christ that she might at least persist in this fragile flesh during this Lent, by this grace, that in these holy days she might instruct her nuns in the accustomed manner to live well and blessedly, and arm herself with spiritual weapons, as the precepts of the Church command. Which time, running through devoutly with the help of the Virgin Mary, on the Thursday of Passion Week of Christ Jesus, imitating Jesus himself, she washed the feet of her disciples: on Good Friday, moreover, she wept most abundantly and for the longest time over the impious tortures of Christ Jesus and the cruel cross: she dies on Easter night itself. on Holy Saturday, after the example of John Gualbertus, her most holy Father, she gave a sermon on charity and the bond of union before all, and at midnight of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, having devoutly received the ecclesiastical Sacraments, commending her spirit to Jesus, she happily breathed it forth.

[8] Capriola or Caprilia (for Hieronymus wrote both) or according to the common pronunciation of today's people, Cauriglia, is a place in the Fiesole diocese of the upper Arno Valley, Ancient veneration at Cauriglia as Silvanus Razzius says, but so obscure that it is entirely passed over unnamed in the chorographic map of the Florentine territory. Locatellus, weaving a catalogue of monasteries at the end of his history, once subject to the Vallombrosan Abbot, counts among them the Priorate of S. Mary at Cauriglia: which, like many others, we suspect to be alienated, and to retain only the title without the substance, the monastery being extinct; where we have wished more than once to learn in what state the body and veneration of Blessed Berta now are, but no one in Florence could tell us. Yet we are persuaded that it was great, and of such a kind as is found everywhere throughout Italy in the public cult of other truly Blessed persons celebrated with popular devotion, from what we have reported on the faith of the aforesaid Hieronymus, certainly a diligent writer; and from the concordant testimony of Ambrose Locatelli and Silvanus Razzius, concerning her veneration there, enduring to their own times. But whence they derived that the death of Blessed Berta occurred in the year 1163, we confess we do not know: this assertion, however, rests on the fact that the Vallombrosan Tables, cited by Arnold Wion, record her memory on this day: because that year was a Paschal one.

[9] Wion was followed by Philip Ferrarius in his general catalogue of those Saints name in more recent hagiologies: who are not in the Roman Martyrology: In the monastery of Cauriglia, he says, the deposition of Blessed Berta, Abbess of the Vallombrosan Order. From these, therefore, her name passed to the great Menologion of Virgins by Laherius, and the sacred Gynaeceum of Arthur, as well as to the Benedictine Calendar of Dorgani, and the Menologion of the same Order compiled by Gabriel Bucelin: who, weaving a long eulogy for Blessed Berta, took from Locatelli that she was appointed Abbess of the Caurilians by Gualdo, the Vallombrosan Abbot: and from Raissius, he reported as doubtful whether she drew her origin from the Counts of Vernia or of Ravenna. family uncertain. But here, as he neither admits nor rejects either, he shows that neither is asserted on any great foundation: and if she were truly born from the Counts of Vernia, it would follow that she was wrongly inserted into the Bardi family of Florence: since that County did not come to them until more than a hundred years after the Blessed woman's death; whereas previously the title and possession of that castle had been in the hands of a certain Count called Alexander Alberti. Ferdinand Ughelli without hesitation gives her the surname of de Bardi, and with no mention made of Cauriglia, asserts that she restored some monasteries of Benedictine nuns throughout Tuscany to their former way of life.

[10] With these things already prepared for the press, we are informed by Andrea Cavalcanti,

the noble Florentine, The Life was begun to be written in the year 1623: a man most devoted to letters and especially to our work; by whose assiduous study and, when occasion demanded, companionship, it was our good fortune to inspect whatever in Florence pertained to sacred or literary matters (on which account we confess ourselves greatly indebted both to him and to Antonio Magliabechi, at that time his inseparable companion) — we are reminded, I say, by the aforesaid Andrea, that in the monastery of S. Felicitas there exists a book, under the title Memorial of matters pertaining to this monastery, in which, after a certain commendation of S. Bertha drawn from the Life of the seven Blessed Florentine Founders of the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Mary, printed at Florence in the year 1575, the following may be read: In this present year, which is from the Nativity of Christ 1623, the Most Reverend Father Franciscus Maria Gualterotti, a Florentine Canon, has begun to write the Life of this Blessed woman, and it is hoped that he will shortly bring it to light. Concerning that Life, however, whether in manuscript or in print, Cavalcanti writes that he has been able to find nothing up to this time, we have from another source, and so he approached Father Master Tiberius Petraccius, who, being most experienced in the affairs of his Order, from the Vallombrosan Decades recently composed by him and prepared for publication, furnished the following notice.

[11] That Blessed Bertha was descended from the Counts of Verni, In the year of our salvation 1153, when Blessed Gualdus Galli was General of the Vallombrosan Order, and the monastery of the nuns of Caprile, situated in the upper Arno valley, in the diocese of Fiesole, at the twenty-fifth milestone from the city of Florence, had departed from regular observance, the aforesaid Gualdus found it necessary to bring forth from the Florentine convent of S. Felicitas one woman, proven in character and virtue, who would preside there. And the one chosen for this excellent work was Lady Bertha, daughter of Count Lothair of Verni, who, tracing his lineage from the Counts Alberti, was the son of Uguccio, and he of William, who was the son of Lothair, and he in turn of Kadolus and Gemma, most noble Counts in Tuscany. It happened by error, however, that because the Bardi family succeeded to the County of Verni a hundred years after these times, Blessed Bertha was ascribed to that family. At that time the Vallombrosan General held supreme authority over three Florentine convents of nuns of the Benedictine Order, namely those of SS. Felicitas, S. Peter Major, and S. Pancratius, inasmuch as all of them had adopted the Vallombrosan reform: moreover, the Caprilian monastery had been built in the year 1066 by the noble matron Gisla, descended from the Ricasoli, Lords of Verni and many other castles.

[12] the monastery of Caprile built around the year 1066, For this woman, having veiled four daughters in the Florentine monastery of S. Peter Major under Lord Peter, the Catholic successor of the Simoniac Peter and disciple of S. John Gualbert, after having handed over to that same monastery a great part of her possessions (as is clear from the documents preserved in Ughelli, volume 3 of Sacred Italy, column 98), withdrew to her castle of Caprile, and there from another part of her possessions built a convent of nuns of the Vallombrosan institute under the governance of Blessed Lætus of the Counts Guidi, Abbot of Passignano, while S. John Gualbert was still living; and there she ended her days around the year 1080, leaving behind her the fragrance of outstanding virtue. appointed in the year 1153: To this monastery, then, after seventy years, Abbess Blessed Bertha was sent to restore it to the former rigor of discipline: and having discharged that governance with praise of great sanctity for a full decade, she departed this life on the feast of the Lord's Resurrection in the year 1163, on the 24th day of March; she was buried in the same monastery: which, after the castle of Caprile was destroyed around the year 1350 through the conflicts between the Florentines and the Sienese, was transferred to S. Victor in the diocese of Volterra: but with the nuns transferred elsewhere, but from there too, compelled to depart within a few years on account of the same wars, the nuns transferred themselves and their possessions to the town of S. Gimignano: where, having obtained the oratory of S. Jerome to adapt for their use, they built a convent, which survives to this day and is subject to the Vallombrosan Order.

[13] it is not sufficiently established where the body now is. Where, however, the body of Blessed Bertha may be, remains unknown even now. For the people of Caprile say that it is still in their possession, under the high altar in the church of S. Mary: and there they celebrate her feast annually and daily obtain many benefits from heaven through her invocation. On the contrary, however, the nuns of S. Gimignano believe that it was translated to S. Victor and left there: and they support their opinion with this argument, that those who now inhabit the monastery, which has been converted into rustic hovels, having attempted more than once to drive cattle for stabling under a certain vault there, found the same animals dead the next day: whence they wish to conclude that either the body of the Saint or some part of it is preserved there: Saint, I say: for thus, not Blessed, all the surrounding people have called her from time immemorial.