ON BLESSED PANACEA THE VIRGIN
D. P. OF QUARONA IN THE NOVARA DIOCESE OF ITALY.
THE YEAR 1383
CommentaryPanacea the Virgin, of Quarona in the Novara diocese of Italy (B.)
BY THE AUTHOR D.P.
[1] Charles of Bascapè, a man endowed with exceptional learning and virtue, by Clement VIII was chosen in the year 1593 Bishop of Novara: who having discharged the office of an excellent Pastor, departed from the living in the year 1615, leaving illustrious monuments of his erudition, among which are two books concerning the Church of Novara, the first on places, the other on Bishops. Where in the first page 99 he describes the boundary of Romaniano, and asserts that toward the mountains is a region, which from Romaniano is called; and beside the same hill is Agamium, Sitianum, or Sirtianum, and Romanianum itself on the bank of the Sesia; where on the opposite, The site of Agamium, and Sitianum, which is of the Duke of Savoy, bank now mountains rise, and enclose Romanianum in a valley. In the letters of Innocent is named the parish of Agamium with its appurtenances, and in the same manner the parish of Sitianum: in each place, indeed ancient, the benefices are simple and there is a separate old baptistery; but at Agamium more entire and apt: but Agamium a much greater village. Hence we understand, since these two villages are near, that baptisteries and the parochial prerogative sometimes were given not for the cause of necessity but of dignity. These things concerning Agamium and Sitianum the villages, The time of the slaying and the veneration. celebrated for the birth and cult of B. Panacea. She died in the year 1383, and is venerated on the first Friday of the month of May, which in the said year fell on these Kalends of May. Meanwhile Ferrarius in the general Catalogue of the Saints for the sixth weekday, assumed the sixth day of May and so has: At Agamium in the territory of Novara B. Panacea Virgin and Martyr. Ferrarius is followed by Arthur du Monstier in the Sacred Gynaeceum. The Acts of her life, slaying and veneration the said Bishop Charles describes page 101 and the following, which from him we give.
[2] There is venerated in the church of Agamium the body of B. Panacea, in a chapel of her name, in a tomb fortified with iron gratings: she born of rustic parents and indeed with great and celebrated veneration of our people and of foreigners. This Virgin (as once Rochus the Presbyter, parish-priest of Quarona, is said to have written, and is handed down from the elders) is said to have been the daughter of a certain Lawrence of the Cillia from the Sesia valley, who born in the village called Domus-Rafaniorum afterward dwelt at Quarona, where from Mary of Agamium a wife married he received Panacea: and when she had died at Agamium, another he married. Who most hardly treated Panacea, committing to her flocks and beasts of burden to be pastured: wood too to be collected and brambles to be carried, and addicted to prayer and tasks daily she enjoined her, which she could not at all complete; for this reason chiefly that, intent on prayer, in the old church of St. John the Baptist, parochial of Quarona, situated on the mountain, whither she was wont to lead the flock, she was frequent, and to the prayer of the Crown assiduously gave her effort.
[3] But the stepmother, severely exacting the task, cruelly beat her, if she had effected anything less. The girl by the divine Spirit, by the stepmother exercising her patience who breathes where he wills, by no human discipline or document, instructed and confirmed, with wondrous patience bore all things: and besides endowed with other Christian virtues, an exquisite modesty in manners and in every action she displayed, but especially exceptional charity toward all. For when
she labored under the utmost want of all things, and scarcely received from the stepmother bread which would suffice for life, yet to the needy she took care always to impart something. But the stepmother seemed so much the more to be indignant and to rage, the greater the patience and virtue by which she saw her stepdaughter to profit, so that she even chastised things rightly and holily done; and that she might turn her away from prayer, impiously snatched away and destroyed her rosaries.
[4] But the Lord, for his immense benignity, unwilling to defer the reward of such virtue and piety, struck with a distaff she is slain: permitted the woman's anger and fury to proceed so far, that she should slay the innocent and pious girl, who was now fifteen years old; and that on account of her exceptional zeal for prayer. For on a certain day in the evening, when it was to be returned home, the beasts of burden she indeed began to drive thither; but about to take up a bundle of wood, going to the stone, where she was wont to pray, taken with the love of prayer, she so lingered, that the beasts of burden came to the stables without a keeper. At which thing angered the stepmother, coming to the pastures, struck the praying Virgin with a rude and mountain distaff so, and fixed the spindles in her head so, that she killed her: for which reason she is wont to be painted with the spindles themselves fixed in, often also with the stepmother striking.
[5] The matter being heard Lawrence the father, who had often in vain rebuked his wife, running up, the body is illustrated with miracles: is said to have found the bundle burning, nor to have been able to extinguish the fire or to move the body by any reason. The matter being divulged very many came together there: and so great was the approbation of the virtue of this Virgin and of the event of the matter, not only of the multitude, but also of the chief men, and even (as is narrated) of the Clergy of Novara itself, that, as partaker of the heavenly and eternal life and blessed, she began to be venerated and preached. For also certain miracles concerning her body, translated to Agamium during that time, they narrate; two oratories are founded and oratories were built in her name: one on that very mountain where she was struck, whose altar they say is placed over that very stone on which she prayed: the other in the valley near the river Sesia, in which the year is noted 1409, although she in the year 1383 departed from this life.
[6] The certain day of her death is not expressed: but on the sixth weekday, which first occurs in the month of May, the feast is wont to be venerated of this and of other peoples and of very many men with veneration, whether from free piety, the annual veneration on the first Friday of May: or from a vow. On which weekday it is wondrous what a multitude of men, even from the diocese of Vercelli, is wont to come together to Agamium; and with prayers, offerings and holy Sacrifices to be offered to God to venerate the memory of the Virgin. The people of Quarona on that day have a procession with their Parish-priest a way of ten miles to this church, and offer a taper, each father of a family conferring for it a certain sum: which the same other peoples have done and ought to do they relate. the remaining arguments of public cult, In that church not a chapel only, but also a benefice, for celebrating Masses, has been instituted: and in other churches everywhere through this diocese her images and altars are seen. She is wont to be invoked for the cause of the falling sickness; and many proclaim health obtained Panacea being invoked, which indeed is consonant to her salutary name.
[7] Of this ancient cult nothing has seemed to us to be changed: and the approbation. for all of it we believe by the divine will to have been attributed by the faithful to the exceptional virtue and beatitude of this happy girl. Thus far Charles, on whom from the office of his Episcopal rank it lay to examine the single things and to estimate by what faith they were supported, so that by his judgment it must wholly be stood. If the writings of Rochus the Presbyter still survive (whether Italian or Latin matters nothing) we ask that they be communicated with us, to be of use for the Supplement: for to delay the press for the cause of that matter, or to write many letters hither and thither on an uncertain event we did not think worth the trouble. One thing I add that what here always Quarona (nor do I doubt but rightly) is found written, Quarona where. seems to be that which the Topographical maps name Parona, a village of the Lomellina valley and the diocese of Pavia, between the rivers Terdoppio and Albonetum, distant as much from Novara on the one side, as Agamium is distant on the other part, that is five miles on each side.