Richard

ON SAINT RICHARD, BOY MARTYR, AT PARIS IN FRANCE.

IN THE YEAR 1179.

Richard, boy Martyr at Paris in France (Saint)

[1] From England we make the passage to Gaul, more often stained with Christian blood by those whose ancestors, shedding the blood of Christ on the Cross, Under Dagobert the Jews were expelled from Gaul, transmitted the thirst for it as a kind of hereditary trait to their posterity. For although Dagobert I, already long prospering with great wealth there, induced by the counsel and example of the Emperor Heraclius, in the eighth year of his reign, which was the year of the Christian era 635, had ordered all of them to be expelled from the borders of his empire, unless they consented to receive sacred baptism; yet when those same people partly returned through the right of restoration and partly relapsed into their ancestral perfidy, the offspring of that accursed stock so increased in strength that nearly all the wealth of the entire kingdom was in the hands of the Jews, and along with wealth came the impunity of daring and doing anything they pleased. While the churches of Gaul groaned under this, In the twelfth century they again grow strong, there was no one who was particularly concerned about a remedy. Certainly if anyone existed, he accomplished little or nothing, because of the extreme negligence of the Kings who indulged them: whence Peter, Abbot of Cluny, writing to Louis the Younger, complains that, so that the sacrilegious dealings of the Jews might be safer, a law already old, but truly diabolical, proceeded from the Christian Princes themselves, that if any ecclesiastical property, or, what is worse, any sacred vessel should be found in the possession of a Jew, the Jew should not be compelled to return the property possessed by sacrilegious theft, nor to betray the wicked thief.

[2] When, however, cruelty was added to avarice, and impunity of crimes was added to both, and they slaughter various boys there and in England: what will presumptuous impiety not dare? Robert of Torigny, from being a monk of Bec made Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, gathers several examples in his Appendix to Sigebert at the year 1171 in these words: "Theobald, Count of Chartres, handed over to the fire many of the Jews who dwelt at Blois: for when they had crucified a certain infant at the Paschal solemnity to the reproach of Christians, they afterward placed him in a sack and threw him into the river Loire: and when he was found, having been convicted of the crime, he handed them over to the fire, except those who accepted the Christian faith. They also did this to Saint William in England at Norwich in the time of King Stephen: who, being buried in the episcopal church, many miracles occur at his tomb. A similar thing was done to another at Gloucester in the time of King Henry II. But also in France, in the castle which is called Pontoise, the impious Jews did a similar thing to Saint Richard, who, carried to Paris and buried in a church, shines with many miracles. And frequently, as it is said, they do this at Easter time, if they find the opportunity."

[3] Thus far Robert, commonly surnamed "of the Mount," ending his writing in almost the very year in which Richard was killed, among whom Saint Richard, inasmuch as it ends in the year 1180: since his martyrdom is proven below, from a writer of a nearly contemporary age, Rigord, to have occurred before the Easter of the preceding year: which is confirmed by William the Breton, in his account of the deeds of King Philip Augustus of France, at his first year, speaking thus: "In those days Saint Richard was crucified by the Jews, and suffered martyrdom: whose body rests in the church of the Holy Innocents at Paris, in the place which is called the Campellus, and miracles are performed there through his prayers to this very day." That is, after the year 1220, killed at Pontoise, in which the said King's Chaplain, and most accurate calculator of years and nearly of days, concludes his history. We therefore have from nearly eyewitness testimony the year, according to the French of that time 1178 ending, according to our modern manner 1179 beginning from the Kalends of January. We have the place of the passion as Pontoise, and for the cult, Paris, the royal city. We could add the manner of the execution from the Gallic Martyrology of Saussay, except that the latter had taken it from Robert Gaguin, Minister General of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives; the Acts described by Gaguin, who published a treatise on this matter and inscribed it to the people of Paris in the year 1498, on the seventeenth before the Kalends of October. This treatise, from a book of the most ancient printing in the library of our house at Clermont in Paris, our most learned Gabriel Cossart arranged to have transcribed, as we publish it here, and at the same time we advise the reader that the ambiguous words of Rigord, soon to be cited, had persuaded the same Gaguin that Saint Richard had been killed at Paris.

[4] There also still exists at Paris, near the Cross of the aforesaid cemetery, a raised tomb or large stone, under which common opinion holds the sacred body was buried, as Philip Labbe taught us, having been asked to investigate what cult and memory of this Blessed one still survived there. His body being buried at the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents But the name the place has today it derived from the nearby temple of the Holy Innocent, or rather the Holy Innocents, in which, from the happy number of the little ones of Bethlehem, notable Relics are preserved: first, the entire shin of one with flesh and bones, half a foot long, which is held up in the hands of a silver Angel: then the similarly entire little body of another, but contracted to the shortness of one foot, and enclosed in a large crystal; on one side of which are seen the images of Saint Charlemagne, and on the other of Saint Louis the King: before the Relic itself, in the base of this crystal vessel, in which also several ribs of such Innocents are enclosed, the kneeling effigies of Louis XI, who began to reign in the year 1461, and of his wife are represented. For which reason Malingre, previously cited, puts forth the Indulgences granted to the place by the Supreme Pontiffs.

[5] Moreover, that the holy body was translated from the cemetery into the temple, King Philip (as Rigord testifies) after it began to shine with miracles, the previously cited authors seem to indicate, when they say that it rests in the church: unless someone thinks the meaning of this expression should be broadened: about which, since we have nothing further certain, let us rather see by what reasoning a just avenger extended punishment to the whole nation, owed to the infinite villanies of the Jews. Rigord, Philip Augustus's chronographer, treated this argument most fully, writing what he saw with his own eyes, or investigated more diligently from others, as he professes in his prologue to the deeds of the same King, elaborated over a decade, as he says, and at last published at the entreaties of the venerable Hugh, Abbot of Saint-Denis, to whom he had familiarly revealed these things, and at whose insistence they were brought to light: so that it is impossible that this Hugh, created by unanimous election in the year 1198, should have had three successors within the year 1226, as the Sainte-Marthes would have it; since the history published at his request extends to the twenty-eighth year of that century. In this history, concerning the Martyrdom that we have in hand, Rigord speaks thus, after narrating the aforesaid King's coronation, performed at Rheims before his father in the year 1179, on the feast of All Saints, when the young King was in his fifteenth year.

[6] "When only a few days had passed since the new King, after his sacred anointing, returned to Paris; moved by this and other crimes of the Jews, he undertook the work which he had long pondered in his mind, but out of excessive reverence for his most Christian father, had feared to accomplish. For he had heard many times from the nobles who had been nurtured together with him in the palace, and he had committed this to memory without forgetting it, that the Jews who dwelt in Paris, each year slaughtered one Christian, in reproach of the Christian religion, as if for a sacrifice, lurking in underground crypts, on the day of the Lord's Supper or during that sacred and sorrowful week. And persevering in such wickedness of diabolical fraud for a long time, they had been caught many times in the time of his father and consumed by fire. Saint Richard, whose body rests in the church of the Holy Innocents at the Campellus in Paris, having been thus killed and crucified by the Jews, happily migrated through martyrdom to the Lord: where, in honor of the Lord, through the prayers and intercessions of Saint Richard, we have heard that many miracles were performed, with the Lord himself working them. he first ordered them to be despoiled of their goods, And because the most Christian King Philip, by diligent inquiry, had more fully learned these and very many other things about the Jews from the elders; therefore, inflamed with the zeal of God, at his command in the same year in which he received the sacred governance of the kingdom of France at Rheims, on the sixteenth before the Kalends of March, on a Saturday, the Jews throughout all of France were seized in their Synagogues. And then they were stripped of gold and silver and garments, just as those same Jews had stripped the Egyptians in the departure from Egypt."

[7] "Then in the year 1181, receiving further and further accusations against the same Jews (which the aforesaid

Rigord pursues at length, then he absolved the Christians from their debts to them, and Peter of Cluny, already long before writing to the King's father, had pathetically set forth), the same King consulted a certain hermit named Bernard, a holy and devout man, who at that time dwelt in the forest of Vincennes, as to what should be done. On his advice, he released all Christians of his kingdom from debts to the Jews, retaining for himself a fifth part of the total sum. Nor was that all; but in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1182, a decree went forth from the Most Serene King and at last expelled them from the kingdom: that all Jews should be prepared to depart from his kingdom by the next feast of Saint John the Baptist. And then permission was given by the King that they might sell all their household goods... reserving to himself and his successors the Kings of France their landed properties... Upon hearing this, the perfidious Jews, some of them, regenerated from water and the Holy Spirit, were converted to the Lord, to whom the King, out of regard for the Christian religion, restored all their possessions in full, and endowed them with perpetual liberty. But the rest, having the price of their sold household goods for provision for the journey, departed with their wives and children and their entire retinue, in the month of July."

[8] But that the conversion of many who remained was feigned, or that those who had departed secretly returned again, not only to the places they had previously inhabited, and caught again in a similar crime, but also to their customary crimes, became apparent within a decade. For when several months had passed (after Christmas of the year 1191, celebrated at Fontaine-l'Eblaud) of the same year, extended in the French manner all the way to Easter, on the fifteenth before the Kalends of April, King Philip, being at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, having heard of a certain Christian's ignominious death perpetrated by the Jews, compassionating the Christian faith and religion, suddenly, without his attendants knowing where he was going, set out on a journey; and with the swiftest pace came to the castle which they call Bray (in Champagne, namely, on the Seine river, fifteen Gallic leagues from the city of Paris, and from Saint-Germain about twenty distant; since the other place of the same name in Picardy on the Somme is twice as far away); he orders them burned at Bray: to Bray, I say, he came swiftly, having placed guards at the gates of the same castle: and having seized eighty Jews and more, he had them burned. For the Countess of that same castle, corrupted by great gifts from the Jews, had handed over to them a certain Christian, upon whom they falsely charged theft and murder. The Jews, moved by ancient hatred, with his hands tied behind his back and crowned with thorns, led him through the whole town, scourging him, and afterward hanged him on a gallows: while they themselves, at the time of the Lord's Passion, used to say: 'It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.'"

[9] After these things were done, it is altogether astonishing that the King, having begun with such laudable beginnings, yet he allows them to return to Paris, could be led by avarice and the persuasions of flatterers to such a point that in the year 1198, in the month of July, against the expectation of all men and his own edict, he brought the Jews back to Paris and gravely persecuted the Churches of God. The punishments he paid for both crimes Rigord pursues. For the Jews thus brought back and their posterity, no small punishment was the frequency of miracles, which divinely reproached them for their crime, and are described by Claude Malingre in his Parisian Antiquities, in words borrowed from Robert Gaguin, with which he here concludes his epistle to the Parisians at number 8, and which Saussay also transcribes almost verbatim, containing the removal of the holy body, accomplished before the English were expelled from Paris in the year 1437, on April 3.

[10] To these things the same Saussay, in his Gallic Martyrology, seems to have added, by probable conjecture rather than by the certainty of any testimony, that Saint Richard, translated into England, the English carry away the body of Blessed Richard, there shone with divine signs; until at last, by the heretics who, by the dreadful judgment of God, prevailed in that island, being burned together with the other treasures of the Blessed, he suffered a new persecution from a faithless people, from which he also gained a new crown of victory.

[11] For we believe that the church in which the English preserved the venerable treasure until the times of the introduced schism was equally unknown to Saussay as to us: and likewise the day of the passion endured by Blessed Richard, chosen by him at his own discretion; since the Easter of the year 1179 fell on the very Kalends of April. For no memory of Blessed Richard survives on either this or any other day: only a part of the head left at Paris, only some part of the venerable skull, given to the church so that it would not be entirely despoiled when the body was exhumed by the English, and enclosed in a silver head, exposed then and at other times for the devout people to kiss, remains: with all other cult consigned to oblivion through the absence of the body.

PASSION

Of Saint Richard the Martyr.

Richard, boy Martyr at Paris in France (Saint)

BHL Number: 7213

BY ROBERT GAGUIN.

To the Parisians devoted to Christ, Brother Robert Gaguin, Minister General of the Order of the Holy Trinity and Captives. Greetings.

[1] Asked to commit to writing a matter more than three hundred and fifteen years old, I fear I shall have less credibility for the very reason that, being quite ancient, it has been found illustrated by no Latin composition hitherto: The author's epistle to the Parisians, having been neglected, indeed, among the French annals, and not yet sufficiently made known to the worshippers of the Christian faith: as if our forebears had thought little of it, which I now dare to offer to the Churches for celebration. But in reviewing the histories of the ancients, what often happens is what the rich are accustomed to experience in inventorying their wealth. For among their most crowded riches, something forgotten occasionally presents itself, which, when found, delights them, and the wealthy man marvels that he had long neglected what he possessed as precious. Truly, there lay long as if covered by the fog of negligence what now, brought to light, let every most faithful person rejoice: I mean the life and bitter passion of Saint Richard, which he endured patiently and steadfastly from the impious Jewish race for the religion of Christ at Paris. To pass over or suppress in obscurity the memory of this I consider impious; especially in that city where he was both born and made glorious by the triumph of martyrdom. For Rome celebrates that famous Quintius and Regulus, its citizens, who devoted themselves to death for the sake of the Republic: and it is counted as praise for each city to have countrymen worthy of veneration, although the recollection of them is fragile and destined to end with time. Let therefore the Parisian people arise eagerly to their citizen Martyr, whom from the deeds of the ancients we relate as eminently venerable with complete faith, by whose merits before God our weakness can be aided, whom not a perishing but an unfailing glory adorns in heaven. For if we expect patronage from foreigners who pray: why should we not hope for assistance from him whom we know was born on our soil and raised as a most brave citizen?

[2] The Jewish people, after the foundation and at last the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, having endured wars and long captivities from neighboring peoples, The Jews of Paris, many of that nation, made exiles, suffered servitude in various places throughout nearly every land. By which memorable decree of God it is established that they, having lost their homes, came to Gaul, and obtained tributary residences in the ancient city of Paris, the Lutetia of the Parisians: until Philip Augustus, King of France, began to reign, whose in the third year from the reception of the Diadem, they were stripped of their fortunes and proscribed from the dominion of the Franks. Although this might justly be thought to have been done on account of the perpetual hatred which that perfidious people bore against the followers of Christ, burdensome to Christians with excessive usury, yet the execrable crime of that race brought a particular cause for their banishment, besides the other inconveniences which the daily usury of that avaricious people inflicted upon the inhabitants. For the usurers had accumulated such great wealth for themselves that a good part of the city was enslaved to them in debt. The common Christian people of the lowest rank were indeed enslaved to them, whom they maintained at home, contrary to the laws of the Church, no differently than members of their own sect. And those noble men whom they had made destitute and subject to excessive usury were kept among them like captives. They thought this was permitted to them by the ordinances of Moses: who forbade them to practice usury only toward those of their own kind.

[3] Nor were they content with this iniquity of avarice: the vessels of sacred buildings and the vestments of Priests, and injurious to religion through misuse of sacred vessels, which were deposited with them as pledges, they exposed to the foulest uses. And since they had very many pledges of this kind, which it was either difficult to conceal or which they feared would be taken from them, they lowered them, bound in bundles, into the ditches where human filth is discharged. By which it came about that, daring worse things, they made a custom of secretly killing each year some Christian, and accustomed to slaughter one Christian each year, believing according to Christ's prediction that they were rendering service to God, while they killed a follower of Christ after scourging and finally hanging him on a cross. Matthew 10:7 "They will hand you over to councils," says Christ, "and in their synagogues they will scourge you, and they will put some of you to death." And speaking to the Jews: "Behold," he says, "I send to you Prophets and Wise men and Scribes, and of them you will kill and crucify." Ibid. 23:34

[4] Therefore the Jews, accustomed to such monstrous obstinacy, when the solemnity of Easter was approaching to be celebrated in the Christian manner, enticed Richard, a Parisian citizen, by blandishments to themselves, and led him into an underground chamber, which they had as a secret place for so impious a deed. The Priest of their Law asked the one who had been led in what his religion and faith were. To which Richard, a gentle and pious boy, responded: They seize the boy Richard, "I most firmly follow and profess the faith which I received from my parents. Namely that Jesus, conceived and born of a Virgin Mother through the working of the Holy Spirit, and by your people disfigured with blows and spitting, and at last condemned to a vile death, pure and innocent, in order to redeem the human race from hell and restore it to the kingdom of God the Father, whose only Son he is." Indignant at this confession of faith, the Priest said: "O insane youth, how you rave, and are deceived by empty credulity! It is indeed fitting that he be grievously punished with torture, who professes that a man destroyed by death possessed anything of divinity." And immediately, turning to the rest of the crowd, the Priest said: "Strip this foolishly wise one, and beat him with many lashes."

[5] Immediately the faithful Richard is stripped, and is pounded with fists and most atrociously scourged with rods. With the Jews mocking him, and mocked and scourged, and in his person blaspheming Jesus and Mother Mary with insults, and spitting in Richard's face, although they marveled at both his patience and his constancy. For amid the harsh scourgings, since the young soldier of Christ, Richard, uttered nothing besides the sweet name of Jesus, they pursued him all the more fiercely the more they heard that name being invoked holily and faithfully. Hardly satisfied at last with their mockeries, at the command of the priest they raised Richard upon a cross, striving to inflict upon the holy boy the same outrage by which their Fathers believed they had destroyed Christ, the Son of God. O blind emulation! O foolish malice! The perfidious Jew does not yet understand that for this very reason he wanders in exile in so many places throughout the world, and has no certain

abode anywhere, because, spurning the doctrine of Christ, he accused, spat upon, and condemned the innocent one. He has forgotten, of course, the word of Jesus, by which, pronouncing that they would be routed and their city destroyed, he said: "Behold, your enemies will surround you with a rampart, and hem you in, and cast you to the ground: because you did not recognize the time of your visitation." Luke 19:43 But neither does he take note of what is found written in the books of the Prophets, and read as prophecied concerning Christ. He thinks little of the divine miracles which the disciples of Christ performed even amid torments and tortures, or which are wrought daily through the prayers of the Saints. Psalm 108:8 "He loved cursing," says the Psalmist David, "and it shall come upon him: and he did not will blessing, and it shall be far from him." In this way the deluded Jew persecuted Richard, a poor man; and put to death one who was pierced in heart, whom God had foreknown would be given life in heaven.

[6] They crucify him, Therefore, the blessed Martyr, hanging from the Cross, more frequently uttered that verse of David: "Deliver me, O Lord, for I am needy and poor, and my heart is troubled within me." Psalm 108:22 The Jew laughed and mocked upon hearing this, and each one considered himself the more obedient to God the more vile the insults and the harder the tortures he inflicted upon him. But the faithful Richard persevered, mindful of the teaching of Christ, who says: "Do not fear those who kill the body, and beyond that have nothing more they can do." Matthew 10:28 And again: "Blessed shall you be when men hate you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you, lying, on my account. Luke 6:22 Rejoice and exult on that day: for behold, your reward is abundant in heaven." For that wretched mob of Jews continued to harass Richard, now with curses, now with goads, until, drained of blood, he breathed forth his spirit in blessedness. Happy indeed was he, who, worthy to be tortured for the faith of Christ and to be worn down by a brief affliction, merited eternal life.

[7] Although the Jews had often committed so atrocious and detestable a crime in earlier times, the boys who had been raised in the palace, relying on their familiarity with Philip, conversing with one another together with Philip himself, narrated this very custom of the nation. On account of which monstrous deed, although the Jews had paid penalties, with some of them being put to death, yet with obstinate malice they raged against this blessed boy Richard. By which dire evil of theirs it came about when this was discovered at Paris, that when Richard was long sought by his relatives, the Jews fell under suspicion of their customary tyranny. Moreover, the lifeless body of the holy boy, having been found, was buried in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, which is dedicated to God at the Campellus in Paris, with a stone monument added: where very many, weakened by illnesses, and especially fevers, are reported to have received health through the patronage (as it is right to believe) of Saint Richard. For there should be no doubt that he was heard by the Lord, who confessed the name of Jesus before men and amid torments, and was handed over to death in innocence.

[8] Those Jews who dwelt in Paris and throughout the whole kingdom were ordered, on the authority of Philip, to be fined of all their fortunes by the fourth before the Kalends of March. On the advice of Bernard the Anchorite, But before they were proscribed from the kingdom, Philip consulted Bernard the anchorite, who lived a solitary life in the forest of Vincennes, a man of good reputation and unfeigned holiness: by whom, confirmed in the design he had conceived regarding the Jews, the King decreed that all Jews should leave France on the eve of the feast of Saint John the Baptist, and go wherever fortune would lead them. In which matter a twofold cause for rejoicing was brought to the French: one, that the death of the blessed Martyr Richard, suffered for the name of Christ, did not remain hidden from the faithful through God's revelation; but, brought to light, it provides believers with material for praising God, by whom the labors of the just are compensated with ineffable reward: the Jews are expelled from the whole kingdom, the other, that France was freed from the deceitful and most suspect association of the Jews, who, out of hatred for the Christian faith and envy of sacred things, through the oppression of usury equally vexed good and bad alike. For at Paris, among the festive days, that day is perpetually memorable on which their city of Lutetia vindicated itself into freedom from the tyranny of the English. Let there therefore be no less cause for joy when the Jew, persecutor and blasphemer of holy Religion, was made alien from the society of the French, lest the people, believing in Christ and living innocently, should be seduced by him. For through the companionship of the wicked, the good are sometimes corrupted, and the just man falls from justice through communion with the criminal, according to the saying of the Wise Man: "He who touches pitch will be defiled by it." Sirach 13:1 Let us therefore give thanks to God and to the glorious King Philip Augustus, who proscribed the maleficent race from our society: lest the faithful Christian be contaminated; but may he remain devoted and free in the praise of God, and bless him who is glorious in his Saints, and is proclaimed, reigning forever and ever.

[9] Moreover, so that the grace of healings, for which the blessed Martyr is famous, may not lack faith, many witnesses came forward and still exist, whom we have learned were healed through the invocation of Saint Richard from the diseases by which they were afflicted. The Martyr's body is famous for miracles, For those burning with a severe fever as if with fire hastened to the venerable Relics of the Martyr, and requested that wine or water be administered to them, with which some part of the reliquary, where his holy head is venerated, having been deposited in the temple of the Holy Innocents, had been washed: drinking which liquid, they immediately stretched themselves out upon the tomb in which the blessed Martyr had been buried. Nor did they return home from there with vain faith, but unharmed. William Bossetier experienced the benefit of this miracle, and Margaret, daughter of Marcus Tugiet, acknowledged a similar grace. Likewise, the wife of Philip de Dubes obtained her health through similar patronage. To these testimonies no small firmness is added by many elders, and especially John Regnaud, John du Carfour, and Guerin Jouen, testifying that very many English (while they were usurping the Principality of France by arms) had been frequently afflicted by this fever and contagion, it is transferred to England, and restored to health. Moved indeed by this miracle, the English: having dug up the body of the Blessed Martyr from the tomb, translated it to England. Let the sick person, therefore, hope and not doubt, and implore the patronage of so beneficent a Savior, whose help he should trust will not be denied to him, if with steadfast faith he earnestly seeks the intercession of Blessed Richard.

ON BLESSED TOMASSO, HERMIT OF THE CAMALDOLESE ORDER, AT COLLE STACCIARIO IN UMBRIA.

IN THE YEAR 1337.

Thomassus, hermit of the Camaldolese Order in Umbria (Blessed)

[1] On another occasion now in this third volume, there comes to be commemorated by us the singular readiness of the Most Eminent Cardinal Antonio Bicchi to advance our work with his favor. For when we had come to know this by experience, Ancient miracles, and knew no one else in the Duchy of Urbino through whom we could obtain the ancient documents such as Razzius had persuaded us were still to be found concerning Blessed Tomasso, we wrote to him while he was exercising an Apostolic Legation in the aforesaid Duchy: which letter having been received, as if he had received a benefit when he was being asked to do one, with incredible eagerness he gave effect to what he had willingly undertaken to do, and in the year 1666, on the 13th day of July, he sent what had been collected at his direction by Lord Alexander Sperellus, Bishop of Gubbio; through the labors of the Bishop of Gubbio, a man (as the aforesaid Cardinal rightly describes him) most distinguished both for every kind of literary knowledge and for his most blameless conduct, and held in such great veneration by all that in discharging his pastoral office and enriching the Church of God with his distinguished writings, he proves himself a rival of Blessed Peter Damiani. "These documents," says the same Most Eminent Patron of ours, "it would be most pleasing to me to have returned as soon as possible, so that you may be able to adorn your labors with them, and on account of our diligence, the hope may grow in me that my efforts may be more often accommodated to your needs."

[2] It is our duty, Most Eminent Prince, to await and venerate your commands: described at the request of Cardinal Bicchi and to ascribe all to your praise, what we recognize as not belonging to us, except insofar as the labor bestowed upon us can redound to the Saints: whose felicity, as it is greater than that of all mortals, so their dignity is more eminent than any earthly eminences whatsoever, and the more willingly you lend the authority of your Purple to them, the more you render it resplendent and more pleasing to the eyes of the citizens above. But our modesty would rightly be afraid to bring forward these so distinguished judgments of yours about this work, were it not that the usefulness of the example persuaded their publication, which will surely be effective with others who will be able to supply similar documents from the dioceses subject to them: for who henceforth will refuse to share in the labor of a work to which so great a Prince, involved in such weighty cares of the universal Church, so promptly and diligently lends his helping hands? And let this also redound to the honor of this Blessed one, that his miracles, hitherto lying hidden in ancient parchments and only briefly sampled in the Italian text of Razzius, were reserved for you, so that in bringing them to light you might render the memory of your legation immortal even among posterity and at the same time propose the Blessed one himself, known only to Umbria alone, to be known to the whole world at that time from an old manuscript of the place when your Uncle, three times Most Good and Most Great in new titles, happily augments the catalogue of Saints for his supreme authority; shortly thereafter (which we trust has now been accomplished by his blessed death) destined to augment their number in heaven.

[3] As for the cult of the same Blessed, it is most well known throughout that whole territory, and on account of the most frequent benefits of healing which he confers, where the Blessed is venerated with an ecclesiastical Office, transcending the natural order, especially upon those suffering from hernia, his name has become so celebrated that to him alone does the place owe all its nobility, the place which preserves his precious bones in the monastery of the Conventual Friars Minor of Saint Francis. Which Brothers, in order that they might venerate him there with an ecclesiastical Office, Pope Clement VIII assented, as Philip Ferrarius shows from the books of the Sacred Congregation of Rites in his General Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, after writing thus about him on this March 25: "At Costacciario in Umbria, of Blessed Thomassus, Hermit of the Camaldolese Order." He certainly put on the Camaldolese habit as a young man, and hermits of this Order, attached to the congregation of Monte Corona, either hold the very hermitage which Tomassus consecrated by his asceticism and death on Monte Cupo, or at least another one nearby across a stream, both of which are inscribed in the registers under the name of Saint Jerome, but the latter with the addition "San Girolamo dei Camaldoli": each is distant three or four thousand paces from Costacciario: for that is how the town is commonly called, which, facing the city of Gubbio from a distance of six or seven miles to the West, with an older and full name also repeatedly used in these documents, is called Colle Stacciario, that is, "Sieve Hill," the cause of the name being uncertain, and in the partition of Convents of the Order of Saint Francis around the year 1400, composed by Bartholomew of Pisa and appended to the end of the Waddingian Epitome by Francis Harold, is called Collestaciolum.

[4] at the Conventual Friars Minor, How much older the colony of Franciscans at that place is than the year of the said description, we do not yet know; yet that they were already from the year 1337, in which this Blessed one died and was translated, in the highest esteem with the inhabitants, we gather from the fact that they were especially judged worthy of preserving so precious a treasure, for the common consolation of all the afflicted. Which they indeed did devoutly, and composed this prayer for the Blessed one to be recited in the sacred rites according to custom: "O God, who demonstrated the glory of the holiness of Blessed Tomassus, your Confessor, with many and great miracles, grant us, we beseech you, and concede that we may be so aided by his glorious merits that we may rejoice in the glory of your blessedness with perennial tranquility." We found this in the third collection of miracles, where those which were recalled as performed through the Blessed man before his death are separated from others that followed him. For there are, as it were, three parts of that ancient manuscript, the same author of all of which is shown by the similarity of style, and the accuracy proves him most worthy of trust, at that very time of the writer when the events were happening, within the years nearest to the Blessed one's death.

[5] Of these parts, the first has the form of an authentic Instrument, and contains miracles that were almost sworn to. The second takes a new beginning from this title: These are divided into three parts, "Here begin the miracles of the glorious Confessor of Christ, Brother Tomassus of Colle Stacciario." The third is titled concerning the miracles of Blessed Tomassus before his death, and after the previously cited prayer proceeds to relate the remaining deeds after death without any title, and is terminated by no conclusion: so that it is probable that the will, or the life, or the leisure was lacking to the writer for describing what continued to occur, and to posterity the diligence to commit at least some of the more illustrious things to writing. In order that we might reduce these things into some form of a Life, in what order are they given here? from Silvano Razzius's work on the Saints and Blessed of the Camaldolese, we have rendered the prologue and first chapter into Latin: then the second chapter on miracles during his lifetime we have taken from the third collection: we wished the third chapter to consist of that authentic Instrument, containing the translation and the miracles that followed it; yet so that what was read there in the last place, concerning the revelation made to a certain Religious of Gubbio, which preceded the death of the Blessed man by a short interval of time, we have placed at the beginning of the chapter. The rest thereafter, as they are in our copy, we have continued in the fourth and fifth chapters. Finally the sixth and last chapter follows, composed partly from the previously cited Razzius, partly from authentic Instruments containing the last inspection of the sacred bones. We have retained the name Tomassi, although we are not unaware that in the propriety of the Italian language this is how one is called whom we would otherwise call Thomas; because we found it thus in the older manuscripts.

LIFE

From the Italian of Silvano Razzius.

Thomassus, hermit of the Camaldolese Order in Umbria (Blessed)

BHL Number: 8269, 8270, 8271, 8272

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] To Augustinus Fortunius, as he was writing his Camaldolese History, no information at all about Blessed Tomasso, The life begun by Augustinus Fortunius called "of Colle Stacciario," was brought until after the second part of the same history had been published from the press: yet as soon as he obtained it from a certain manuscript containing a Latin narration of his miracles, written out a few years after his death, he conceived the plan, with the support of these parchments and the aid of the memory handed down orally by posterity and still vivid among the indigenous people of the said place, to write a fuller life of him: which, largely completed, he was compelled to leave unfinished by the onset of death. Asked to take his place, Razzius continues it, I brought what he had begun to completion with the greatest diligence I could, so that he might have his place among the Saints and Blessed of the Camaldolese. Nor was I deterred by the fact that the author of this Latin narration was unknown to us, either because he himself did not express his name, or because, with the first page torn away, the codex did not reach us intact, or finally because he too departed from life before he could put the finishing hand to his work. For that he was a man of outstanding piety and fidelity, and of singular diligence in the matter he was treating, is sufficiently clear from the text itself: whose testimony accordingly can be trusted as much as that of a public Notary (which perhaps he also was), appointed for the purpose of recording in an authentic and trustworthy process what was narrated about the Blessed man.

CHAPTER I

The birth, youth, and holiness of Blessed Tomasso. From the same Razzius.

[2] In the province of Umbria and the diocese of Gubbio there is a town Born at Costa called Colle Stacciario, which includes several villages within the boundaries of its territory. One of these is called Costa, separated by about two thousand paces from the town, and it was the homeland of Blessed Tomasso: who, born there of honest and by no means poor parents, shone from his earliest years with signs of future holiness. For, never accustomed to amuse himself with childish games, he had his only delights in frequenting churches and pouring forth prayers before some image of Christ or of his Mother or of some Saint, and this even within the domestic walls many times, he grows up amid the pursuits of piety, no less by night than by day. Similar was his devotion toward divine worship during the solemnities of the Mass, and similar his attention to the word of God in listening fruitfully to sacred sermons. When the father observed these things in his son and greatly approved them, desiring for his part to foster the beginnings of so tender a piety, he used to take him as a companion to temples, to monasteries, to the religious retreats of hermits. Among these was also the solitude of Sitria, famous even now for the anchoretism and prodigies of Saint Romuald, although the place built by the Saint has been converted into an Abbey and weighed down by the burdensome yoke of Commendation.

[3] The religious way of life of those holy Fathers pleased the pious youth exceedingly: and at Sitria he takes the Camaldolese habit and since they praised the Camaldolese hermitage above all those erected by the blessed Founder, he was kindled with an immense desire to see it, and satisfied his desire with no less pleasure of mind. Yet since Sitria was nearer to his homeland, or for some other reason more agreeable to the young man, having returned to his father he obtained permission to transfer himself to it, and admitted to the habit and rule, he completed the novitiate of religious life through the customary probations, and is believed to have there bound himself to God also by solemn profession of vows. After which, kindled with love for a stricter life and greater solitude, after the example of the most holy Romuald himself and of many religious men of that time, he departed thence with the good grace of the Brothers of Sitria, and with the religious habit he had taken among them, thence withdrawing into solitude in the year 1272, and hastened away into a dense and dark forest, which, occupying one very rough side of Monte Cupo, conceals a cave already at that time named after Saint Jerome for some unknown reason, where the Romualdine hermits afterward built their laura.

[4] Here enclosed, Tomasso, determined to imitate with every effort both the holy Doctor who presided over the place and his spiritual Father, he leads a most austere life: the author of his habit and institute, took from each examples of more severe penance, and strove to express them in himself; with the success which certain signs displayed on definite occasions reveal. For what and how great the things he did there, removed from all human society, no one could observe or learn: yet that the holiness of his life was outstanding, many and great miracles prove, which toward the end of this mortal course, and then after its consummation, performed by divine power, we shall set forth below. It is believed, however, that he lived on the roots of herbs and wild shrubs and other things that grew of their own accord, food for brute animals rather than for men; since the memory of no one records that he sustained his life from alms begged from village to village, as others are accustomed to do. Similarly it can be estimated that his drink was water, and his garments, unless they were preserved for him by miracle or supplied to him by some other divinely arranged means, being utterly worn out and tattered, left him half-naked amid the injuries of the air.

[5] What the exercises of his piety were amid these things is difficult to say; this is certain from his own account, that meditation on the life of Christ was familiar to him, he becomes known to the local people, as the annual course of days and feasts recalled each part of it: which same thing should be understood of the feasts of the Saints. Under these circumstances, it pleased Almighty God to place the lamp long hidden upon a candlestick, which happened on this occasion. He was going about through the forest, seeking something or other to sustain his body, when, being somewhat farther from his cave, he was observed by certain shepherds: who, spreading about what they had seen, and the fame of him spreading in every direction, it drew more and more people daily to him, to be instructed by his pious exhortations for leading a life according to the norm of the Christian law: and becomes famous for the gift of healings: nor were there lacking those who, compassionating his emaciation, generously offered suitable food for restoring his strength. But he himself, relaxing nothing of the customary rigor of his abstinence amid that abundance, mercifully distributed the piously offered gifts to the poor: and when a great number of these, attracted by this food, came to him, and not a few among them came sick and disabled, the grace of healings divinely bestowed upon Blessed Tomasso began to be manifested on such occasions, and he came to be celebrated as a man of the most consummate holiness throughout all the surrounding villages and towns.

[6] When peoples were now running to him from all directions, there were also among them some, various persons imitate him, whom the fragrance of his holiness more deeply affected, both lay and religious: who accordingly desired to submit themselves to his instruction and to remain with him there. But Tomasso was averse to every appearance of prelacy: and so he never wished to permit anyone to adhere to him otherwise than with the right preserved of departing freely wherever and whenever they pleased. Who indeed, although after observing for some time the form of his way of life they exercised that right of theirs according to his wish and departed, always nevertheless strove to imitate him, and wherever they dwelt were venerable for the very reason that they were deemed to be his disciples. afterward reliable reporters of his miracles. The same men, moreover, taught on such occasions various things about the great deeds of Tomasso, and about his life and virtues, and juridically heard upon these matters, were faithful reporters and witnesses of those things which partly consigned to writing and partly committed to memory have come down to us: from which the following, performed before his death, are found in the previously cited Latin manuscript, and are as follows.

CHAPTER II.

Miracles of Blessed Tomasso performed before his death, from an old manuscript.

[7] Blessed Tomasso changes water into wine, In many and manifold ways God has recently shown miracles of diverse infirmities and indeed of various kinds through Blessed Tomasso, both before his death and after his death. Before his death it is said that while the glorious Tomasso was still living in the flesh, it happened once on a certain feast of Saint Jerome, whose church is called the hermitage of his, because

many Priests came out of devotion to the aforesaid hermitage to celebrate: and when they asked for wine for the sacrifice, and the reply was that no wine was available that could be given to them, the venerable Blessed Tomasso, perceiving the lack of wine, ordered a certain servant of his, who was called Peccia (and this Peccia testified to this with an oath), to bring two small flasks filled with water from the cistern. And bringing the flasks full of water, he gave them to the holy man: who took one of those flasks with one hand in the more sacred place, on bended and bare knees, and with the other hand, having made the sign of the Cross, he blessed it. And the water immediately became the finest wine, both in color and in taste, which had been pure water: and what the poverty of the desert place could not provide, the purity of the holy man obtained: with which wine the sacrifice was celebrated. And Blessed Tomasso did this before the said Peccia, and forbade him ever to reveal this to anyone.

[8] A certain lady, very devoted to Blessed Tomasso, he heals a boy with a hernia, named Santuccia, had her son, named Matthew, broken from birth; whom she brought to Blessed Tomasso, who was then living and dwelling in the hermitage of Blessed Jerome, crying out and with tears saying: "Have mercy on my son, Father, so gravely ill; have mercy: for in you my soul trusts. Give me, Father, help from tribulation, for the hope of physicians is vain." The said Father, seeing such trust and devotion in the woman, took her son, and touched the place of his illness, and signed it with the sign of the holy Cross, and recommended him to God and to Blessed Jerome. What more? Immediately the boy was perfectly freed from the aforesaid infirmity through the merits of Blessed Tomasso. The same Santuccia had another son who had the falling sickness, and another with epilepsy: whom she brought to Saint Tomasso, and the Saint received him in the bowels of charity: he blessed him, touched him, and made the sign of the holy Cross: and immediately the said boy was freed from the aforesaid infirmity.

[9] While the most blessed Confessor of Christ, Tomasso, still remained on earth, a certain lady named Vanna, likewise two boys with hernia: of Cantiano in the territory of Gubbio, had her son gravely burdened with the infirmity of hernia; and she hastened to bring him to the Saint with great devotion. Who, being kind, merciful, and a lover of the poor, took him and touched the place of the infirmity and made there the sign of the holy Cross, and blessed him and returned him to his mother, saying: "Hope in God, and do good, and bring the boy to the altar of Blessed Jerome, and he will give you the petition of your heart." She believed and received the boy, and before she reached the altar of Blessed Jerome, she examined the place of the boy's infirmity and found him perfectly healed through the merits of Blessed Tomasso. At the same time, Blessed Tomasso, while he still lived in the flesh, freed Peter Massoli of the town of Colle Stacciario from the infirmity of hernia, by touching and signing him on the place of his illness with the sign of the holy Cross, and he was immediately healed.

[10] At another time also, when many hunters went hunting through the wilderness in which Blessed Tomasso dwelt, while he still lived in the flesh, with one loaf he satiates ten hungry men: so that food failed all of them; ten of these hunters, driven by pressing hunger, asked Blessed Tomasso for something to eat, as they were vehemently famished. The servant of God replied to them: "In the house there is only one very small loaf, which I can give to you." At last he said to Peccia, his servant: "Make haste and set the table as quickly as possible." And when those ten hunters were seated at the table, Saint Tomasso took that loaf and blessed it with the sign of the Cross, and broke it and gave it to those reclining: and they all ate of that bread as much as they wished, and were satisfied through the merits of Blessed Tomasso, and there remained fragments of bread more than there had been at first.

[11] At the time when Saint Tomasso was dwelling in the hermitage of Blessed Jerome, a certain man named Johanniolus Cortesani, from the village of the Parish of Saint Paternian, had a certain son of his, he heals a boy with hernia, named Bartholus, sick with the illness of hernia: whom he brought to the said Saint, recommending him to his care with as great affection of soul as he could, that he might be willing to intercede to God for him. To which the Saint replied: "Go to the altar and recommend him to Blessed Jerome: I for my part will pray God for you, that he may give you the petition of your heart"; and he signed the place of the illness with the sign of the holy Cross, and also bound up the boy at the place of his illness with bandages. Having done this, he returned him to his father: the father, however, while returning on the way, unwrapped the boy, and found him totally freed through the merits of the blessed man.

[12] At another time, while Blessed Tomasso still lived in the flesh, Ginolus Massoli of the town of Colle Stacciario said and affirmed with his oath an abscess in the eye, that he had had an abscess in his right eye, so that he could in no way see from it: for which reason he went with devotion to the aforesaid Saint, who was then dwelling in the hermitage of Blessed Jerome, and showed him the said eye, and the Saint himself made the sign of the holy Cross on the said eye. Immediately the said Ginolus saw with that eye, through the merits of Blessed Tomasso, as he had formerly seen.

[13] A certain man, Vannes Casella by name, of Tiego in the territory of Gubbio, a man with hernia, sick with the infirmity of hernia on the left side for a period of two years, decided together with his wife to go to a physician, since he could no longer bear the said infirmity. But his wife spoke and gave him this counsel: "Go first to Brother Tomasso," who still lived in the flesh. What more? On the following night, the same Vannes, sleeping, dreamed this: "Go to Brother Tomasso, and you will be freed." He arose early in the morning, and went to the aforesaid Brother Tomasso, and showed him the aforesaid infirmity. Immediately he made the sign of the Cross on him and said: "Go, for you will be freed from this infirmity." He returned to his home, perfectly freed through the merits of the said Saint.

[14] At Colle Stacciario in the territory of Gubbio, a certain boy named Vitaliuccio a blinded eye, had one of his eyes totally lost, so that he could not see from it at all. His father, with every devotion and reverence, brought him to the venerable man of God, Brother Tomasso, humbly and devoutly begging him to make the sign of the holy Cross on the diseased eye of his son: which having been done, the boy was immediately freed, and saw as fully through the virtue of the Saint as he did with the other eye in which he did not suffer. Likewise Musonus Imperatoris of Scheggia, gravely sick with the infirmity of hernia, went to the man of God, Brother Tomasso, and having himself signed on the place of the hernia with the sign of the holy Cross, a hernia, he was immediately healed through the merits of the said Saint. While Blessed Tomasso still lived in the flesh, he freed the son of Tasi of Colle Musicano from the infirmity of hernia.

[15] Likewise Corcidutius of Chianano, having a very severe pain in his head, went to the man of God, Blessed Tomasso, and Tomasso himself humbly laid his holy hands upon him, a pain in the head, and he was immediately freed from all pain of the head. Likewise the son of Ser-Vanni, three boys with hernia, and the son of Angelo Captola of Colle Stacciario, sick with the infirmity of hernia, were brought by their fathers to the man of God, Blessed Tomasso, while he still lived in the flesh, and signed by him with the sign of the holy Cross, and immediately through his merits they were healed of all infirmity of hernia. A certain Beccius Ividelli by name, of Monte Peschio, a small boy, was carried by his mother and his uncle to the man of God, Blessed Tomasso, and was freed from all infirmity of hernia.

CHAPTER III.

The death and translation of Blessed Tomasso and the miracles that followed, from a public Instrument.

[16] The future glory of Blessed Tomasso is shown to a pious religious, To the praise and glory of his name, the Most High, wishing to demonstrate that he is made wondrous and sublime in his Saints, a vision arose from heaven, not to be kept silent, concerning this holy Thomas, to a certain Religious of the city of Gubbio, around the time of his glorious passing. It seemed clearly to the aforesaid religious that through the middle of the mountain of Saint Ubaldus, which overlooks the city of Gubbio, certain hermit men were celebrating a notable procession: before all of whom proceeded one venerable in old age, resplendent and bright as the sun. At whose wondrous sight, the mind of the sleeper, filled with both joy and wonder, inquired who that person might be who, proceeding in the procession, was so resplendent with light. He understood in the spirit that he was the hermit Tomasso, whose works of penance the Most High, approving them, was showing to all as glorious. Those following, the beholder was answered, are they who, subduing their flesh with the scourges of penance, having imitated the footsteps of this holy man, receive a similar crown and salutary examples. and of those who will imitate him. And he who saw it bore testimony, and the secret of the Most High King, which he had received with great reverence and devotion, he revealed devoutly, reverently, and cautiously, to the praise and glory of the divine name. The aforesaid religious similarly asserted that from the time the vision had been shown to him, on account of the faith he had received toward the Saint, he had received very many benefits from it. Thus concludes the first Instrument; which, beginning from the death and translation of the blessed man, pursues that event and the miracles that followed it in this manner.

[17] In the name of the Lord. Amen. The venerable Father, Blessed Tomasso, passed from the shipwreck of this world to the Father in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1337, on the eighth before the Kalends of April, His dead body, on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, dwelling in the hermitage of Blessed Jerome of Monte Cupo in the territory of Gubbio. The man of the Lord, Saint Tomasso, immediately began to shine with great and many

miracles: because his life was full of holiness and adorned with all virtues; as those testify who knew him and with whom Blessed Tomasso himself led a solitary life in the same hermitage for sixty-five years. And when in diverse parts of many provinces his glorious miracles and the generous benefits obtained through him were kindling many to devotion to Christ and inciting them to reverence for the same Saint, it is transferred to Colle Stacciario, having first obtained permission from the Bishop of Gubbio, the people of Colle Stacciario, on account of his holiness and the many benefits received from him, carried his venerable body with hymns and canticles and spiritual praises to the aforesaid town.

[18] Arriving at last at the town itself with jubilation, and shines with miracles, they deposited the precious treasure they were carrying in the church of the Friars Minor of the aforesaid town, in the year of the Lord 1337 on the eighth day of the beginning of April, with all reverence. Moreover, just as this holy man, the most Blessed Tomasso, had shone in his life with wondrous signs of virtues, so also from this day of his passing up to the present, through diverse parts of our provinces, with divine power glorifying him, he shines with illustrious prodigies of miracles. For to the blind, the broken, the deaf, the mute, the lame, the paralytic, the possessed, captives, and women lying in childbed, remedies are conferred through his merits, and all diseases, necessities, and dangers are relieved.

[19] For on that day of his translation at the town of Colle Stacciario, there was a certain man, Angelo Buti Tassi by name, who had borne the infirmity of hernia for a very long time: he made a vow together with his mother, and recommended himself to the aforesaid Saint, On the very day of the translation, many persons are cured of hernia, that at that time he would free him from the aforesaid infirmity. What more? Immediately through the merits of the said Saint he was healed of the aforesaid infirmity, so that no trace of the infirmity remained in him. A certain small boy, the son of Massoli Bella, suffering from this kind of hernia infirmity, devoutly stood before the body of the said Saint, and had his most holy hand applied to the place of the hernia: immediately he began to recover, and on the next day, returning and standing before the body of Blessed Tomasso, he was totally freed. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso on the same day freed Andrea Petri Benvenuti from the infirmity of hernia, from which he was suffering severely, as he himself confessed with an oath before the whole people.

[20] At the same time, Bartolus Guidonis of the village of Maina, affirmed with his oath that he had suffered from the infirmity of hernia for a period of twenty-five years, and more than once and repeatedly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, that he might free him from the said infirmity. At last, through the merits of the said Saint, he obtained grace, and returned to his homeland with joy. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed a certain small boy, the son of Matthioli Philipputii of the village of Colle dei Figli d'Ugone, broken on both sides, as Matthiolus his father confirmed with his oath before all. Nicolutius Melli of the village of Maina affirmed and said with his oath that he had suffered the infirmity of hernia for a period of two years: who recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso with what humility he could, and so through the merits and prayers of the said Saint he was restored to his former health.

[21] A certain man of the village of Monte Sant'Apollinare, Butellus Petrutii by name, said and affirmed with his oath that he had a certain small daughter of his, broken around the navel, and all physicians unanimously so judged her: who recommended her to Blessed Tomasso, promising him that if he freed her, he would bring her to his tomb to visit it, and there place a wax candle. And with the vow now made, the girl was freed from the said infirmity through the merits of the said Saint. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed Giovanni Salutii, of the village of Nai in the territory of Cagli, from the infirmity of hernia, and two cripples are healed: as he himself affirmed before all. A certain boy named Blasius, of the village of Paravento in the territory of Cagli, had a contracted right leg, so that from the knee downward it seemed like a piece of wood, and he was utterly unable to walk. His mother, compassionating her totally disabled son, recommended him to Blessed Tomasso. Wondrous indeed: immediately upon the recommendation the boy rose up, and walked freely with the other boys: and this his mother affirmed with her oath.

[22] Sister Angelutia Ioannis of Colle Stacciario, from the monastery of Saint Mary of Via Nuova, had been crippled in her loins for six years, so that she could in no way straighten herself, and she suffered that pain vehemently: who humbly recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso for recovering her health, and visiting the body in person, she immediately obtained health through the merits of the aforesaid Saint, walking upright and without any pain. On the day following his translation, a certain woman of Sigillo, Florentia Alexandri by name, on the next day a useless hand is cured, had an impeded hand with curved fingers, so that she could in no way open her hand: who also, with tears, recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso for the health of her lost hand, and in the sight of all standing around the body of the said Saint, as soon as she touched the hand of Saint Thomasso, she freely extended her hand and received full health, as she showed before all the people. Finola Rosa of Buragio had a foot gravely wounded by a spindle: who humbly recommended herself to Blessed Thomasso, an injured foot, through whose merits she was freely freed from the said wound and pain.

[23] Captola of Foniano had her hand totally lost, so that she could not work at anything with it at all: who recommended herself to Blessed Thomasso for her health, a dead hand, and immediately through the merits of the said Saint she regained the aforesaid hand, healthy and free, without any impediment. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed Maria Ceccoli of the village of Ansciano, who had her right side disabled a paralyzed side and her mouth near the ear turned backward, through whose merits she received full health, and this her father affirmed with an oath. Marcus Adiutoli of Poggio Molino suffered a severe pain in his shoulder and neck, pain in the shoulder, so that he could in no way turn himself, and recommending himself to Blessed Tomasso, he was freely restored to his former health. A certain man, Mathias Jannioli by name, had suffered for fifteen years and more from a scrofulous growth on the top of his head, a lump on the head, as large as a hen's egg, who humbly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso and fell asleep: upon waking, he found in the aforesaid growth a very great burning of itching and scorching of flesh: and scratching and itching it, immediately the said infirmity burst, and through the merits of the said Saint he was perfectly freed.

[24] On the same day of his translation, Agnes, daughter of Nerio, of Colle Stacciario, a pain in the breast, suffered a very severe pain in her breast, so that she could in no way nurse her son: for which reason she humbly recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso, and took the hand of the Saint and placed it upon her diseased breast, and of the shin, and she was immediately healed. On the same day, the wife of Ceccolo of Cupo, who had suffered for eighteen months and more from a pain in her shin, recommending herself to Blessed Tomasso, was healed. On the same day, the wife of Riccio Giovanni of Colle Stacciario had no milk lack of milk, to nourish her daughter. Her husband recommended her to Blessed Tomasso, promising to place a wax image on his tomb: and with the vow now made, immediately that woman had milk sufficient to nourish the girl. The wife of Ceccolo, Margarita, had suffered for many years from the falling sickness, the falling sickness, and recommending herself with most humble prayers to Blessed Tomasso, she was freed.

[25] A certain boy, Angelellus by name, son of Mathias Valentini of Fossato, had a very dangerous abscess in his right breast, an abscess in the breast, and had been given up by five physicians: whose father, sad and grieving with tears, recommended him to Blessed Tomasso: and immediately he appeared to him, and applied a little ointment to the abscess. And he kept the said ointment upon the said infirmity for nine days; and when the ointment was removed at the end of nine days, the said father affirmed with an oath that through the merits of the said Saint the boy was freed from the said infirmity. A certain man of Gubbio was suffering from quinsy in his throat; recommending himself to Blessed Tomasso, he immediately received full and complete health through the merits of the said Saint. quinsy, Likewise, Andreas Margarita, a scribe, a nobleman of Gubbio, was suffering from a grave infirmity, namely mental alienation and a very dangerous temptation to kill himself. madness, At last, as devoutly as he could, together with his wife, he recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso; and he immediately began to recover, and through the merits of the aforesaid Saint he was restored to his former health. Likewise, he freed Armanutius Corradi of Colalto from a continuous fever, a continuous fever, by which he was most severely afflicted.

[26] Blessed Tomasso freed two other women at different times from unclean spirits: two demoniacs are freed: of whom one was called Santutia of Rubano, and the other Cresciola, who had been vexed by the said spirits for thirty years and more: and the demons existing in her, who were many, were doing most terrible and most horrible things, as those testify who saw them. Also, Blessed Tomasso freed another woman of Vite Grossa from being vexed for seven years by unclean spirits. Clara, wife of Ventura of Colle Stacciario, had suffered for many years from an obscuring of her eyes, an obscurity of the eye is healed, so that she could scarcely recognize or see even from a distance, being nearly half-blind: and coming with tears to touch the body of Blessed Tomasso and recommending herself to him most devoutly, immediately upon touching the sacred body of the holy man, it seemed to her that a certain veil was receding from her eyes, and she immediately confessed and affirmed with an oath before all the people that she saw fully and perfectly from afar and from near, and through the merits of the glorious Tomasso she was restored to her former health.

[27] Gasconius Ghirandasci of Arezzo, dwelling on the Isola Manfredi, was totally disabled, and a paralysis of the whole body: and from the sole of his foot to the top of his head there was no health in him: so that he could not move any member of his body; but it was always necessary that he be fed by another. It was said to him: "Recommend yourself to Blessed Tomasso": which he did, invoking him with many tears. And having made the recommendation, he immediately began to help himself, and to feel in himself the power and virtue of the said Saint and to walk by himself: which he had previously been utterly unable to do without assistance. And coming to his tomb, giving thanks to God and to Blessed Tomasso, he showed himself to be freed, walking and leaping before the people. two dying boys are preserved: On the same day of his Translation, Paolo Salimbene of Bracciolo recommended to him his son, who was laboring in extremis, and more was expected of his death than of

his life: and having made the recommendation, he immediately began to recover, and on the following day his parents carried him, healthy and cheerful, to the body of Blessed Tomasso.

[28] Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed from death Cansio Ceccoli Petri of the village of Ansciano, who had been sick for a period of one month, deafness is healed, and it seemed to all that he would die: for which reason his parents most devoutly and with tears recommended him to Blessed Tomasso: and immediately the boy began to recover and through the merits of the said Saint was restored to his former health. Jacomellus Caccioli, having been deaf for many years so that he could hear only slightly, and only with very loud cries and voices: recommending himself to Blessed Tomasso, he immediately regained his hearing: and this he affirmed with an oath before all the people. Lady Catharina, wife of Andrea, said and affirmed with her oath and a dislocated jaw: that she had her right jaw displaced and disjointed from its place, so that the physicians did not believe she could be freed and had given her up, nor could she eat anything; though they only gave her some drinks and medicines, which the said woman could in no way take. At last she humbly recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso, and set aside the medicines of the physicians: and sleeping at night and waking up, she found herself completely and perfectly freed through the merits of Blessed Tomasso.

[29] Angela, wife of Buccanutius of Colle San Martino near Sigillo, brought to Blessed Tomasso a certain son of hers, named Tomasso, a dead boy is resuscitated, whom she, Angela, had borne dead, as she affirmed with her oath: and by many tests it was ascertained by the midwives whether there was any spirit at all in that little body: and it was judged by all that there was not. Seeing this, the mother of the boy, grieving and sad, together with the midwives recommended him to Blessed Tomasso, vowing that if he resuscitated him from the dead so that he could be baptized, she would bring him to his tomb to visit it and would encircle the tomb. And with the vow now made, after a brief interval, the boy was baptized through the merits of Blessed Tomasso, as those testify who saw him; and the midwives and the mother of the boy showed him to all the people.

p In the same March, 8 miles nearer to Costacciario than Molino.

q A town distant from Costacciario to the southeast by 5 miles.

r A village of the March on a hill by the Asone river.

s Razzius reads Zuccherutio.

CHAPTER IV.

A second collection of miracles of Blessed Tomasso from the manuscripts.

[30] When through the whole province of the March and also other surrounding provinces the fame of the most blessed Confessor of Christ, Tomasso, was growing, A citizen of Pesaro is healed of hernia, and Giovanni Saracinelli of the city of Pesaro was suffering most cruelly from a very severe infirmity of hernia on both sides, he came to Colle Stacciario to the tomb of the aforesaid Saint, standing for many days and nights before his tomb, asking with all the prayers he could that he would free him from that most cruel infirmity. Therefore, when all the prayers had been completed and the said Giovanni was about to depart, he prostrated himself before the tomb of the Confessor of Christ, and began with tears to beg for his help. Meanwhile, as the length of prayer continued, Giovanni was seized by sleep and fell asleep, and upon waking, found himself totally freed from the aforesaid infirmity through the merits and prayers of the aforesaid Saint. The aforesaid Saint also performed two other miracles, which absolutely must not be passed over in silence: namely, that he restored sight and the ability to walk to two persons, each of whom had been totally deprived of those senses.

[31] In the same province of the March, when a certain man named George, a boy, of the village of Casarella in the district of Sassoferrato, had his son gravely burdened with the infirmity of hernia, together with his wife and the mother of the aforesaid boy they carried him sick to the tomb of the Confessor of Christ Tomasso, where, most devoutly recommending him, through the prayers and merits of the said Saint they lifted him from before the tomb, healthy and unharmed from all infirmity of hernia. At the town of Sant'Angelo in Vado in the province of the March, there was a certain man named Master Jacobus, who had borne the infirmity of hernia most severely for five years. He, hearing of the miracles which the Confessor of Christ Tomasso was performing for those who had this infirmity, and a man, went most humbly to his tomb, where, recommending himself to the said Saint Tomasso, when his prayer was completed he was immediately healed of the aforesaid infirmity through the prayers and merits of the aforesaid Saint.

[32] In the territory of Matelica, at the village of Puggetto in the province of the March, when a certain peasant named Tomasso a peasant, was suffering most severely from the infirmity of hernia, having endured the said infirmity for a year and more, he came to Colle Stacciario to visit the body of Blessed Tomasso: and immediately, when his prayer was completed, he felt himself freed from the aforesaid infirmity through the prayers and merits of the said Saint. and a certain religious. A certain religious named Brother Aloysius, very devoted to Blessed Tomasso at the time when the Saint was alive, and dwelling in a certain hospital near Fossato, was burdened with so grave a languor of the infirmity of hernia, and for so long a time, over thirty years, that he sometimes seemed already near death. And therefore the aforesaid Brother, about to die, hearing of the deposition of the body of the blessed Confessor of Christ Tomasso, at the translation of his body from the aforesaid hermitage in which he had migrated, to the said place of Colle Stacciario, he suddenly came to visit his body, asking the aforesaid Saint insistently to intercede with God for him, namely that it might please him to free him from so grave and so prolonged a languor. After the prayer was offered, and a brief interval having passed, through the merits of Blessed Tomasso he was restored to full health.

[33] The Blessed himself suffered from hernia, Blessed Tomasso shone with many miracles, and especially regarding the poor who were sick with the infirmity of hernia, by reason of his compassion, because he himself during the time of his life endured this infirmity in order to afflict his body. For at Gubbio there was a certain Genoese, Francioli by name, who had endured this infirmity for a period of seven years and more, and at last humbly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, and touching with his finger out of devotion the monument of the said Saint, and afterward the place of his own illness, he was soon healed of that infirmity through the merits of the said Saint. and therefore he heals this disease in many, Likewise, at Gubbio Blessed Tomasso freed from the infirmity of hernia a certain young man named Giovanni. In the town of Colle Stacciario, the aforesaid Saint likewise freed from the infirmity of hernia Baldutius Massoli of the village of Sant'Andrea, gravely sick with the said infirmity for a space of two years. And the same Baldutius came with all reverence and devotion to visit and touch the body of the said Saint, while it lay on a bier unburied in the church of the Friars Minor: and kneeling, he stood before his body and persevered, saying: "Holy Father, have mercy on me." And because all virtues run in the stadium, but perseverance alone receives the prize, when his prayer was completed he rose up and found himself fully restored to health through the merits of the said Saint.

[34] At the town of Pascelupo in the territory of Gubbio, Blessed Tomasso freed from the infirmity of hernia Venturutius Benincasa, at the time of his translation who had suffered the aforesaid infirmity for a period of twenty years. Cola Baldelli of the city of Gubbio, sick with the illness of hernia, came to visit the body of Blessed Tomasso, confessed and contrite for his sins: who immediately upon entering before the tomb of the said Saint, and recommending himself to him with submissive prayers as humbly as devoutly, through the merits of the aforesaid Saint was immediately healed. From the city of Gubbio, Angelutia, wife of Andruccioli, brought her son Stephen, sick with the infirmity of hernia, to visit the tomb of Blessed Tomasso, and recommending him to the said Saint, he was immediately freed. Recently at Gubbio, Baldellus Guirardelli and Lady Barthola his wife brought to the tomb of Blessed Tomasso a certain son of theirs, broken from birth and verified by the judgment of all physicians of the said city skilled in this art: whom, with grief and no small devotion, they recommended, and after a brief interval, right on the spot, through the merits of the said Saint, the boy was freed.

[35] On that day when the body of Blessed Tomasso was being translated from the hermitage of Blessed Jerome to Colle Stacciario, Paulus Maffutius of the aforesaid town, who had most faithfully labored in making the tomb for the aforesaid Saint, was suffering most severely from hernia on the left side, and recommending himself most humbly on bended knees for the recovery of his health, and with all prayers he adored his body when it was being carried, and immediately through the merits of the said Saint he was restored to his former health, as he affirmed and confirmed with an oath. A certain boy of seven years, broken from birth, Giovanni Marchelli Borgaldane by name, of the city of Gubbio, recommended himself humbly to Blessed Tomasso, and with a vow that if he freed him from the said infirmity, he would encircle the church with a candle all around where his body was entombed; and this done, soon through the merits of the said Saint he was healed of the infirmity.

[36] In the territory of Gubbio at Serra di Donna Brunamonte, there were two men, one deaf and the other mute. The deaf one was called Venutellus Ugolini, a mute and a deaf man are healed, who for a period of three years and more had stood such that he could in no way hear another, having so lost his sense of hearing. The mute one, however, was called Peter, who for a month and more had stood such that he could not speak at all, having so lost the use of his tongue. What more? These, coming together and with others of the district to visit the body of Blessed Tomasso, the mute one freely began to speak, and the deaf one to hear, to the amazement and joy of all those who accompanied them. At last they all came together to the tomb of the said Saint, blessing God, who through his servant had restored hearing to the deaf and speech to the mute.

A certain woman, Lady Flos by name, of the village of Platea in the territory of Gubbio, had been totally deaf for a time and times: a deaf woman, who as humbly as devoutly and with all reverence recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso, that he might free her from the aforesaid infirmity: and immediately, having visited his tomb, through the merits of the said Saint she perfectly received her hearing.

[37] a captive is freed from bandits: When a certain man of Urbino, Vannes Silvestri by name, had been captured by bandits or robbers in the district of the Mill of the Ford, in a place of horror and vast solitude, between the territories of Citta di Castello, Cagli, and Gubbio, and stripped of all his goods and also most cruelly wounded; they led him to a more private and remote place so that he might ransom himself, and so that they could extort a great sum of money from him: whence, already from fear, he was nearly breathing out his spirit. This Vannes recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso with all the strength of his heart, that he might free him from the hands of those wicked men. When the prayer was made, immediately three of the said robbers fell asleep, and the fourth was watching to guard him. Again this Vannes with prayers and tears begged Blessed Tomasso that this fourth one also, who was guarding him, might fall asleep, so that he might somehow escape. Wondrous to say! When the prayer was completed, the fourth fell asleep, and immediately the aforesaid Vannes, with his hands tied behind his back and most tightly bound, departed from them, and fled as best he could, thus bound, all the way to the place of Pianello in the territory of Cagli: and so, freed through the merits of the aforesaid Saint, he immediately came to his tomb and devoutly gave thanks to Blessed Tomasso.

[38] A certain lady, Caterutia Minici by name, of the town of Pergola in the territory of Gubbio, had her throat monstrously swollen from her childhood, a swelling of the throat is healed, and tumefied almost to the size of an egg: who recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso most devoutly, asking him to remove from her the reproach of the swelling. She came to visit the body of the said Saint: immediately through the merits of the glorious Tomasso he himself healed her. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed Matthew Magi by name, of Branca in the territory of Gubbio, sick with the infirmity of hernia, hernia, as he himself said and affirmed with his oath. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed a certain other girl, a broken hand, the daughter of Bartholo, who had fallen and broken her right hand, and through the merits of Blessed Tomasso she was freed. When a certain man, Angelutius Pescia by name, of Tiego in the territory of Gubbio, was gravely ill, so that from the sole of his foot to the top of his head there was no health in him, a horrible scab, full of scabies and abscesses, to such an extent that he seemed almost leprous, nor could he turn himself in bed unless another turned and carried him, he most devoutly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso: who immediately began to recover, and through the merits of Blessed Tomasso was restored to his former health.

[39] A certain man, Bonaventura Alcuntii, of the town of Montirolo torment of knee and shin, in the territory of Fano, suffering from his birth with most severe infirmities in his knee and shin, was oppressed grievously and with miserable torment, so that at every hour he suffered new pain: who, collecting himself inwardly, spoke thus: "My Father, Saint Thomas, I am not worthy to pray to you, nor to be heard by you: but I beseech your mercy to obtain for me from God the benefit of health." When therefore he had long prayed with devotion, having visited the tomb of the said Saint, he was totally freed from all infirmity of his body through the merits of the same Saint. When, moreover, a certain lady an obscuring of the eye, of the town of Montirolo in the territory of Fano had one of her eyes obscured, which with excessive pain was covered with blood, and this for a period of time; she ran to the fountain of mercy and piety, namely to visit the body of Blessed Tomasso, to whom she intimately recommended herself, and after a short time had elapsed, she obtained perfect liberation.

[40] an obstruction of the chest, A certain lady, Luminella by name, of San Secondo near Gubbio, had her chest so obstructed and full of bad humors that she could scarcely breathe and work with her hands: and recommending herself to Blessed Tomasso, she immediately received the grace of liberation. In the territory of Gubbio at Padule, there was a certain woman, Saniola Marci by name, who had an abscess in her right breast with an immoderate swelling, an abscess of the breast, from the pain of which, out of fear that it would be cauterized or incised by the hands of physicians, she very often had fevers: for which reason she ran to the monument of Saint Tomasso, to whom with humble and devout prayer she intimately recommended herself. Wondrous indeed: immediately this infirmity gradually receded, and through the prayers and merits of the said Saint she was totally freed.

[41] Because indeed Blessed Tomasso was an illustrious man of exceptional holiness, after his passing, the immensity of heavenly goodness showed it by many prodigies of miracles. a wound in the sole of the foot, For a certain man, Ciartia Rubei by name, of the village of San Silvestro di Branca in the territory of Gubbio, affirmed with his oath that a certain thorn had entered the sole of his right foot, of which he extracted perhaps half as best he could, while the other half remained inside the foot. What more? When the wound was closed with a remedy, he suffered the strongest pain continuously: and Ciartia began to say: "Have mercy on me, Father Saint Tomasso, for I cry to you day and night: incline, Father, your ear and hear me, that I may be freed, for I am a needy and poor man: and I promise, if I receive this, to visit your tomb and to bring a wax image." Wondrous indeed: when the vow was made, the stubborn part of the thorn which had remained in the foot came out from the opposite side, namely from the upper part, and so through the merits of Blessed Tomasso he was restored to health.

[42] In the same city of Gubbio, when a certain lady named Baldutia, as she affirmed and confirmed with an oath, a dying boy, had her son named Murianus half-dead for the space of one day (and he was so regarded by all, because he could not see, nor hear, nor even speak), she tearfully and devoutly recommended him to Blessed Tomasso for the recovery of his health, who then received health through the merits of the aforesaid Saint. A certain woman of Rancara in the territory of Gubbio, an injured foot, while walking among brambles or nettles, swore and said that a certain spindle entered her right foot, and a small part of it remained in the foot, so that it could not be seen by anyone at all: and she carried it thus for two months, feeling by day and night the greatest pain in her foot: and as soon as she recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso, immediately that fragment of spindle showed itself, and came out from another side, and so through the merits of the aforesaid Saint she was restored to her former health.

[43] A certain man, Venturellus by name, of Valeccia in the territory of Gubbio, had suffered a headache for three years and more, as he said and affirmed with his oath; a headache, and especially for the past month he was suffering the said headache so severely that he had become deranged and could in no way sleep: with total devotion and recommendation he betook himself to invoke Blessed Tomasso, and having visited his tomb, completely, that is, wholly, through the merits of Blessed Tomasso he was immediately freed. A certain man of the village of Maina in the territory of Gubbio, Melioratus by name, said and affirmed with his oath that he had climbed into a certain oak tree to cut wood, and accidentally cut his arm with the axe; an arm cut through, not totally, however, but a little of the substance of flesh and skin, uncut, remained: who immediately recommended himself to God and Blessed Tomasso, and so remained in the tree for half an hour, until his relatives came and took him down from the tree, and gradually, without any defect of the limb, through the merits of Blessed Tomasso, he was restored to his former health.

[44] a painful swelling, At Gubbio, Blessed Tomasso freed Allevuptus, named Giovanni, from a certain turgid infirmity which the same Allevuptus was suffering under the little finger of his left arm with the greatest pain and had suffered for a space of eight days: who, hearing the fame of Blessed Tomasso, recommended himself to him with a vow: and having visited his tomb, Allevuptus soon returned healed to his city. Peter Putii of the town of San Benedetto in the territory of Gubbio said and affirmed with his oath that he had his son named Paganino, who was with a physician hernia with worms, and was having himself treated for the infirmity of hernia, and from the excessive pain he had suffered a most cruel fever with worms of the intestines: for which reason his father, touched by grief of soul, heard the name of Blessed Tomasso: to whom he tearfully and intimately recommended his son: from whose devotion it came about that Blessed Tomasso obtained full healing from the fever and worms for his son.

[45] A certain man of Serra degli Ordei in the territory of Gubbio, Andreuculus by name, was suffering from a heart ailment and a continuous fever, a continuous fever, so that the physicians had given him up, and he was almost laboring in extremis: and as best he could he recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, and immediately, to the astonishment and wonder of all, through the merits of the said Saint he rose from his bed healed. A certain man of Sigillo, Peter Scagnutii by name, said and affirmed with his oath that he had been sick for four years with arthritic gout, and arthritis, so that he carried his head so bowed that all who saw him marveled, and he could in no way raise it. He recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso with a vow that if he freed him from the said infirmity, he would come from Sigillo all the way to his tomb, flagellating himself in discipline: and when the vow was made, and the Lord granting it, through the merits of the aforesaid Saint he was completely healed.

[46] At the village of Monte Giuliano in the territory of Gubbio, Blessed Tomasso freed Ubaldo Putii Rudulfini, likewise a continuous fever, who had suffered a continuous fever with intestinal worms for fifteen days, so that the physicians and all other persons believed he would certainly die from that infirmity: he recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, and through the merits of Blessed Tomasso he was restored to full health. Likewise, Blessed Tomasso freed Lord Sabatellus of the village of Monte Giuliano, who had had a continuous fever for a period of twenty-four days, and also a bloody sputum for a period of three months; so that the physicians had given him up, and everyone believed he would die from the said infirmity: he recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, and immediately the said infirmities ceased, and through the merits of the said Saint he was freed.

CHAPTER V.

A third collection of similar miracles from the same manuscripts.

[47] A certain lady, Aguele Morici by name, of San Vito in the province of the March, was suffering a vehement pain in her shin from her youth: A shin pain is healed, who recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso, and visiting his tomb, was freed from all pain. Marinus Mercati, of the village of Maina in the territory of Gubbio, had his feet, shins, and arms full of scabies and foul pustules, and especially in one of his feet, scabies of nearly the whole body, so that he could neither put on shoes nor walk: and recommending himself to the aforesaid Saint, immediately through the merits of the said Saint that foul humor began to diminish, and after a short time had already elapsed he was restored to his former health. Dialta, wife of Ceccolo of Gubbio, had her arm severely impeded and almost withered, so that she could do nothing with it: a withered arm, who, with tearful groans, recommended herself to Blessed Tomasso for the health of her arm, and coming to his tomb, immediately through the merits of the same Saint she was freed, as she affirmed with an oath and showed to all the people.

[48] A certain man of Perugia, Ceccus Petri by name, dwelling in the town of Sigillo, a fever with headache, was suffering a very severe fever with a vehement headache: who recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso as best he could, and others standing by prayed to the aforesaid Saint for him. Very noteworthy: immediately the said sick man began to recover; so that on the following day, healthy and free, he who had previously seemed about to die came to visit the tomb of the said Saint. Likewise, Baldellus Casella of Serra Sant'Abbondio in the territory of Gubbio hernia, was freed by Blessed Tomasso from the infirmity of hernia, as he affirmed and confirmed with his oath. Likewise, Matheolus Castellutii of the village of Chiaserna pain in the hip, had suffered a pain in his hip and shin for nearly twenty years: recommending himself to Blessed Tomasso most devoutly, he was immediately restored to his former health through the merits of the said Saint.

[49] A certain man of Colle Stacciario, Thomasso Domini Bartoli by name, had his vision so obscured an obscuring of vision, that when he saw one man, it seemed to him that he saw many men: who recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso with no small devotion, through whose merits he received full clarity of vision. A certain woman named Vanna, of Vite Grossa in the territory of Gubbio, had a disabled arm: an infirmity of the arm, recommending herself with tearful cries to Blessed Tomasso and coming to his tomb, she received full health there through the merits of the said Saint, as she affirmed with her oath and showed to all the people. At Gubbio, Matthiolus Vannis had one of his testicles a dangerous swelling, so diseased and large as a loaf of bread, so that the physician said he would have to lose it and could in no way otherwise be treated. Also the same man was suffering from an inguinal infirmity with a very severe fever, so that for all these reasons he could neither eat nor sleep: whence, thus anxious amid his pains, he cried out and said: "What is the name of that Saint of Colle Stacciario, that I may invoke him?" When he had learned this from the bystanders, he most devoutly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso: who, sleeping, through the merits of this Saint, arose in the morning free and healed of all such ills.

[50] A certain woman of Isole in the territory of Gubbio, Nicolutia by name, had a broken arm, a broken arm, and coming to the tomb of Blessed Tomasso, and devoutly recommending herself to him, through the merits of the said Saint she set out for her home with full health of her arm. Five women at different times, namely, Tomassa of the village of Sassi near Goreggio, Catharina Pascutii of Fonte Cippi, Amperutia Petri of Burano, five demoniacs are freed, Novella of Agello near Goreggio in the territory of Gubbio, and Vanna of Fossato in the territory of Perugia, possessed by unclean spirits, were led to the tomb of Blessed Tomasso by many men by force. They were frequently emitting miserable gestures and also insane and horrible cries, to such a degree that all bystanders were astonished and marveled, saying unanimously: "Saint Tomasso, pray for them." What more? However cruelly they were vexed by the demons, to the astonishment and wonder of all, through the merits of Blessed Tomasso they were soon freed, and returned to their own homes with joy.

[51] a dying girl recovers, The daughter of Mercatutius, of Tagiano in the territory of Gubbio, was laboring in extremis, to such a degree that she could not speak at all: her mother, however, with tears recommended her to Blessed Tomasso. Wondrous indeed: suddenly, she who had been sick began to raise herself up and to call her father, and so through the merits of Blessed Tomasso the girl was fully freed. Salimbene Ioannioli of Ghicia in the territory of Perugia, being gravely ill with fever and headache, a fever with headache is healed, recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso and sought his patronage, promising to go to his tomb and there to place a large candle according to the length of the body of the said Saint. When the vow was made, immediately the sick man began to recover, and through the merits of the aforesaid Saint he was restored to his former health.

[52] In the city of Gubbio, a certain woman named Miliutia, from the seventh day after she had borne her only daughter, a spell upon a newborn, was struck, together with her daughter, by spirits: from which striking that infant wailed day and night, to such a degree that her mother could no longer endure it: for which reason she gave her to another wet nurse. Which nurse likewise could not bear her: whence it was said by all to be something diabolical. The mother of the girl, however, hearing the fame of Saint Tomasso, recommended her to him, vowing and promising that with bare feet, if she received grace for the girl, she would visit his tomb: which was accomplished: therefore immediately the aforesaid girl began to be quiet, and through the merits of the said Saint she was restored to perfect health.

[53] Ceccolus Petrucoli, of Colle dei Figli d'Ugone in the territory of Gubbio, severe hernia, having his small son who had the infirmity of hernia on one side, carried him to the body of Blessed Tomasso, and humbly recommended him to him: and placing the hand of the Saint, while he lay on the bier, on the place of the boy's infirmity, having done this, the boy was immediately, before leaving the place, made well, as his father affirmed with an oath and showed to all the people. At Colle Stacciario, Florella, wife of Bartholo, an infirmity of the foot, having had a foot impeded for about five months, humbly recommended herself with prayers to Blessed Tomasso, and wrapping her foot with the cloth with which the body of the said Saint had been wrapped, she immediately regained full health. And she also had some fingers totally disabled, and through the merits of the said Saint she was restored to her former health. Butius Ioannis of Costa San Paterniano, having one of his eyes impeded on account of a certain blow, an obscurity of the eye, so that he could see only slightly, devoutly recommended himself to Blessed Tomasso, through whose merits he regained full health and clear vision.

CHAPTER VI.

The later cult of Blessed Tomasso: a twofold translation and inspection of the body, from Razzius and authentic Instruments.

[54] Thus far the very words of the ancient manuscripts: now from Razzius we continue the rest as far as he could learn, publishing his work on the Saints of the Camaldolese in the year 1600; the remainder will be provided by the authentic Instrument sent from the place itself. Thus Razzius continues chapter 6 of the Italian Life. After the solemn translation noted above, not much time elapsed A chapel is built, before the pious Community of Costacciario commissioned for their holy Guest and Patron an elegant and precious chapel to be built in the middle of the church, on that side which bears the name of Saint Anthony; and they placed the holy Relics in it beneath the altar, whose open front, fortified with an iron grate, displayed to the eyes of the venerating the ark, guardian of the sacred deposit. Which ark indeed, as often as Confraternities came on pilgrimage from neighboring places, or other devout persons approached (which was very frequent), veneration of the relics: was touched with a cloth affixed to a rod, and this was offered for a kiss on its behalf. When this was done, the indigenous people, alerted by the ringing of bells, almost all ran together, to be themselves likewise in a similar manner participants of the veneration to be rendered to their Saint and of the benefit flowing from it. The same Razzius continues chapter 8 thus: Nor are the sacred relics of Blessed Tomasso only in that veneration which we have described and which they deserve, and of his hairshirt, great, but also the hairshirt which he is known to have used while living. For indeed, just as we know of the veil of Saint Agatha, so also this hairshirt, carried through the hand of some Priest and exposed toward that part of the sky which threatens damaging storms and hail to the fields, has very often dispelled all fear. Moreover, it is exceedingly formidable to demons, as has been shown on various occasions, when it was presented to persons possessed or badly harassed by an evil spirit.

[55] As for the veneration of the tomb, it perseveres to the present day, the multitude of miracles, on account of the frequency of miracles, which could have been written in innumerable quantity, had not the reader's weariness been consulted by brevity or silence: nor indeed is there need for them to be written, since the efficacy of the said Blessed one's patronage is most well known to all, sufficiently attested by the very many signs of graces obtained, to be estimated by the wax offerings, tablets, and garments hung up: for such a multitude of these is brought in daily that if all were kept at the same time, not only would the church not suffice for holding them, but not even the entire town, however large it is, as the very Reverend Father Master Dionysius of San Matteo of Costacciario, of the Franciscan Order, and presently General Inquisitor for the entire Florentine dominion, affirms.

[56] Since, however, nothing in human affairs is perpetual, it is about fifty years the chapel having been destroyed in the year 1550, since, under the Generalate of Bonaventura Pio, a native of Costacciario, Master Bonaventura of Assisi, a Conventual Minorite, preaching there and judging that the chapel of this Blessed one was detrimental to the beauty of the whole church, persuaded the Prefects

to consent to its removal from the middle. And so the ark, guardian of the holy body, was placed above the main altar beneath the tabernacle of the most holy Sacrament. The body is transferred to the main altar. This ark, however, when it seemed to that pious community to be too old and not elegant enough, they had another one made of walnut, beautifully carved and gilded: into which the sacred bones were transferred, the flesh having dissolved into ashes and separated from each other, except for the skull; for the reverent preservation of which the aforesaid Father Master Dionysius, out of his devotion toward the Blessed one and gratitude for the many benefits received through him, ordered a most beautiful silver bust to be made, which I myself saw; with the intention that together with the treasure enclosed within it, it should be placed at the front of the church behind iron gratings, where it could be more conveniently honored by all the people, and easily taken out at greater solemnities to be placed upon the main altar, and reverently carried around in public processions.

[57] About ninety years had elapsed from the aforesaid translation, In the year 1640, when another translation was made, about which public documents, drawn up by the late Don Sebastiano Bonifacio, public Notary, were arranged to be transmitted to us, and attesting to the legality of Francesco Maria Chigi of Costacciario, Notary and Archivist of the same place (at whose command they were copied and collated with the original, and signed with his hand and seal), authenticating them with the same affixing of his episcopal seal through Santus de Angelis, an episcopal Canon, Alexander Sperellus, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Gubbio, of the College of Bishops assisting the Supreme Pontiff, which Instruments are of the following tenor, in a certain book at page 266.

[58] In the name of God. Amen. In the year of the Lord 1640, Indiction 8, The Provincial, visiting the church, in the time of the pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord in Christ, our Lord Urban, by divine providence Pope VIII, on the 30th day of August. The very Reverend Father, Master Felix de Ciattis of the city of Perugia, at present Provincial of the province of Umbria of the Conventual Friars Minor of Saint Francis, in the act of visitation of the convent of Saint Francis in the town of Costacciario, moved to this purpose so that the most holy Sacrament of the Body of Jesus Christ might be more fittingly preserved on the main altar of the said church, before the undersigned witnesses and me the Notary, ordained and first ordered that the box or ark, standing on the said main altar, be opened, and that the sacred bones of Blessed Thomas be removed, and having removed the sacred bones, in a box prepared for this purpose, diligently guarded, and kept in another box with three keys, until the larger box itself should be fitted or accommodated. Which ark, having been opened by the craftsman, bones were found inside and extracted from it, namely: two shoulder blades, the bone called the sacrum, two bones called the forearm bones, eighteen and a half ribs, whole and broken, one hip bone, four bones of the arms or hips, twenty-four spinal bones, two principal bones of the feet, twenty unnamed bones of the joints placed in white paper, various joints placed in white paper, twenty in number.

[59] All of which were enclosed in the aforesaid small box, and then the aforesaid very Reverend Father Provincial ordered the key of the aforesaid small box to be entrusted and given in deposit to the very Reverend Don Paulo Giuliano, Archpriest of the church of Saint Mark in the said town, he arranges for the box to be repaired and cleaned: as the same Reverend Don Paulo received the key, on the condition that when the particular box should be accommodated, he return and restore it. And he consigned the aforesaid box to the Reverend Father Master Ambrogio Lorenzo, Guardian of the said Convent, to the end that he might guard it and deposit it in the box with three keys, to be returned and consigned as above. Afterward he ordered the larger box to be cleaned, the dust and ashes collected and kept in a decent small vessel, so that they might afterward be placed back together with the bones to be guarded. And he left the aforesaid box in the hand of the craftsman for its refitting, asking me the Notary, etc. Done in the church of Saint Francis of the said town, in the presence of the very Reverend Don Sebastiano Paliano and the Illustrious Lord Marcello Fauno of Costacciario, witnesses, etc.

Into which on August 31, Likewise, on the last day of August 1640. The very Reverend Father Master Felix Ciattus, who is named above, before the said witnesses and me the undersigned Notary, continuing the visitation in the church of Saint Francis in the town of Costacciario, ordered the key of the box deposited with the very Reverend Don Paulo Giuliano, Archpriest, to be presented, as it was presented and consigned into his hands, and likewise he ordered that the box in which the bones of Blessed Thomas had been kept, extracted from the large box and given for safekeeping to the Reverend Father Master Ambrogio Lorenzo, Guardian of the said Convent, be presented, as it was presented. Which box was opened, with many people standing by, and from it were extracted the same bones, duly recognized, and through the hands of the same very Reverend Father Provincial, decently and diligently replaced the same are recognized and replaced, in the box standing on the main altar, newly fitted, for the purpose described in the Instrument drawn up by me the undersigned Notary under the date of the 30th of the present month: which bones were the following and the very same contained in the above Instrument: namely, two shoulder blades, the bone called the sacrum, the shin bones, two arms, two bones called sico, two bones called the forearm bones, eighteen and a half ribs, whole and broken, one hip bone, four bones of the arms or hips, twenty-four spinal bones, two principal bones of the feet, twenty unnamed bones of the joints, various joints twenty in number, dust and ashes decently preserved in a glass vessel. Which replacement having been made, the same very Reverend Father Provincial ordered the craftsman present to close it diligently in the manner it had been before, and as was done and carried out by the craftsman with great diligence, before the said witnesses, me the undersigned Notary, and many people standing by. Asking me the Notary, etc.

Sebastiano Bonifacio, Notary commissioned, etc.

to consent to its removal from the middle. And so the ark, guardian of the holy body, was placed above the main altar beneath the tabernacle of the most holy Sacrament. The body is transferred to the main altar. This ark, however, when it seemed to that pious community too old and insufficiently elegant, they had another one made of walnut wood, beautifully carved and gilded: into which the sacred bones were transferred, the flesh having dissolved into ashes and separated from each other, except for the skull; for whose reverent preservation the aforesaid Father Master Dionysius, out of his devotion toward the Blessed one and gratitude for the many benefits received through him, ordered a most beautiful silver bust to be made, which I myself saw; with the intention that together with the treasure enclosed within it, it should be placed at the front of the church behind iron gratings, where it could be more conveniently honored by all the people, and easily taken out at greater solemnities to be placed upon the main altar and reverently carried around in public processions.

[57] About ninety years had elapsed from the aforesaid translation, In the year 1640, when another translation was made, about which public documents, drawn up by the late Don Sebastiano Bonifacio, public Notary, were arranged to be transmitted to us; and attesting to the legality of Francesco Maria Chigi of Costacciario, Notary and Archivist of the same place (at whose command they were copied and collated with the original, and signed with his hand and seal), authenticating them with the same affixing of his episcopal seal through Santus de Angelis, an episcopal Canon, Alexander Sperellus, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See, Bishop of Gubbio, of the College of Bishops assisting the Supreme Pontiff, which Instruments are of the following tenor, in a certain book at page 266.

[58] In the name of God. Amen. In the year of the Lord 1640, Indiction 8, The Provincial, visiting the church, in the time of the pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord in Christ, our Lord Urban, by divine providence Pope VIII, on the 30th day of August. The very Reverend Father, Master Felix de Ciattis of the city of Perugia, at present Provincial of the province of Umbria of the Conventual Friars Minor of Saint Francis, in the act of the visitation of the convent of Saint Francis in the town of Costacciario, moved to this purpose so that the most holy Sacrament of the Body of Jesus Christ might be more fittingly preserved on the main altar of the said church, before the undersigned witnesses and me the Notary, ordained and first ordered that the box or ark standing on the said main altar be opened, and that the sacred bones of Blessed Thomas be removed, and having removed the sacred bones, diligently guarded in a box prepared for this purpose, and kept in another box with three keys, until the larger box itself should be fitted or accommodated. Which ark, having been opened by the craftsman, bones were found inside and extracted from it, namely: two shoulder blades, the bone called the sacrum, two bones called the forearm bones, eighteen and a half ribs, whole and broken, one hip bone, four bones of the arms or hips, twenty-four spinal bones, two principal bones of the feet, twenty unnamed bones of the joints placed in white paper, various joints placed in white paper, twenty in number.

[59] All of which were enclosed in the aforesaid small box, and then the aforesaid very Reverend Father Provincial ordered the key of the aforesaid small box to be entrusted and given in deposit to the very Reverend Don Paulo Giuliano, Archpriest of the church of Saint Mark in the said town, he arranges for the box to be repaired and cleaned: as the same Reverend Don Paulo received the key, on the condition that when the particular box should have been accommodated, he return and restore it. And he consigned the aforesaid box to the Reverend Father Master Ambrogio Lorenzo, Guardian of the said Convent, so that he might guard it and deposit it in the box with three keys, to be returned and consigned as above. Afterward he ordered the larger box to be cleaned, the dust and ashes collected and kept in a decent small vessel, so that they might afterward be placed back together with the bones to be guarded. And he left the aforesaid box in the hand of the craftsman for its refitting, asking me the Notary, etc. Done in the church of Saint Francis of the said town, in the presence of the very Reverend Don Sebastiano Paliano and the Illustrious Lord Marcello Fauno of Costacciario, witnesses, etc.

Into which on August 31, Likewise, on the last day of August 1640. The very Reverend Father Master Felix Ciattus, who is named above, before the said witnesses and me the undersigned Notary, continuing the visitation in the church of Saint Francis in the town of Costacciario, ordered the key of the box deposited with the very Reverend Don Paulo Giuliano, Archpriest, to be presented, as it was presented and consigned into his hands, and likewise he ordered that the box in which the bones of Blessed Thomas had been kept, extracted from the large box and given for safekeeping to the Reverend Father Master Ambrogio Lorenzo, Guardian of the said Convent, be presented, as it was presented. Which box was opened, with many people standing by, and from it were extracted the same bones, duly recognized, and through the hands of the same very Reverend Father Provincial, decently and diligently replaced in the box standing on the main altar, newly fitted, the same are recognized and replaced, for the purpose described in the Instrument drawn up by me the undersigned Notary under the date of the 30th of the present month: which bones were the following and the very same contained in the above Instrument: namely, two shoulder blades, the bone called the sacrum, the shin bones, two arms, two bones called sico, two bones called the forearm bones, eighteen and a half ribs, whole and broken, one hip bone, four bones of the arms or hips, twenty-four spinal bones, two principal bones of the feet, twenty unnamed bones of the joints, various joints twenty in number, dust and ashes decently preserved in a glass vessel. Which replacement having been made, the same very Reverend Father Provincial ordered the craftsman present to close it diligently in the manner it had been before, and as was done and carried out by the craftsman with great diligence, before the said witnesses, me the undersigned Notary, and many people standing by. Asking me the Notary, etc.

Sebastiano Bonifacio, Notary commissioned, etc.