Maurelius Bishop

ON S. MAURELIUS BISHOP, MARTYR,

PATRON OF FERRARA IN ITALY.

7TH CENTURY.

Maurelius, Bishop and Martyr, Patron of Ferrara in Italy (S.)

By the author D. P.

CHAPTER I.

The origin of the See of Vicus Habentia and its translation to the church of S. George of Ferrara.

The city of Ferrara (concerning whose origin many say many things, nor without fables) before it stood in that place, where even today most ample it is seen, namely on the Northern bank of the lesser Po (the Po of Volano they commonly call it) once either wholly or in its greater part on the other bank of the said river stood, Before the institution of the Bishopric of Ferrara where even today is named the parish of S. George, which is found called Ferrarola in the XIII century; when namely the buildings and churches for the greater part being translated together with the name of Ferrara, the village which remained diminutively thus began to be called, as it were little Ferrara, which also old Ferrara could have been called. Here certainly at first was constituted the Episcopal See, which when and how it was done, since it makes not a little to this place, and the matter is most intricate, it pleases through the ancient vestiges of obsolete antiquity to investigate by conjecturing; not so much that my own opinion on that matter I myself should affirm, as that I may admonish the learned men of those parts to seek further, which being found there may be paved a way for avoiding the rough places, by the diligence of preceding writers not yet leveled. That the Ravenna church under Valentinian the Emperor was augmented with the Archiepiscopal dignity is by almost all held for indubitable; but that the privilege of the said Emperor brought forth thereon, as in Ferdinandus Ughellus it stands volume 2 column 331, by Baronius and others with reason of supposition is suspected: that in many ways it was interpolated, and indeed most ineptly, no one will doubt, who has any knowledge of antiquity.

[2] The See existing at Vicus Habentia Much more solidly that seems proved from S. Peter Chrysologus sermon 175 concerning Marcellinus Bishop of Vicus Haventia and S. Mary and the virgin's childbirth, of which this is the beginning. Of all things indeed the beginnings are hard, but harder are the beginnings of one giving birth. The holy Church of Ravenna, that it might first give birth, made a way, endured anguishes, felt pains: and this it did, Brothers, that the order of the divine childbirth in the whole track of truth it might guard. But when he had shown the order of the divine childbirth to have been such, that, the edict of Caesar going forth, in Bethlehem as if on the way of the Virgin Christ should be born: by S. Peter Chrysologus the 1st Archbishop of the people of Ravenna By the edict, he says, of the Pagan Caesar the Lord about to obey came to meet, and by the decree of B. Peter, by the decree of the Christian Prince (which concerning the institution of the Archbishopric, not without the contradiction of certain ones received, I should think is to be understood) does some servant still resist? But, Chrysologus continues, because neither prosperous things with adverse, nor with joys are sad things to be mingled, these being omitted of today's offspring let us pursue the gladness. Let him only have, the born one, who first was born, the reverence of the firstborn, let him hold also the honor. Marcellinus today of the home-born childbirth wholly seized and acquired the affection. There stand round the sons, the kinsmen are present, the whole kindred runs together, the whole family exults, the very inner parts of the house dance and rejoice; because to see with their eyes, to receive with their hands today for the first time the parent's childbirth and offspring they merited. From these clearly it appears I judge, that as Marcellinus was the first, whom the church of Ravenna, by Archiepiscopal right thenceforward of several subject Churches the mother through Episcopal ordinations to be, as Bishop from itself begot; so the first was S. Peter Chrysologus and no other, who by Pontifical and Imperial decree that power received. it receives Bishop Marcellinus about the year 450. But he received it under S. Leo the Great the Pontiff and Valentinian the Emperor about the year of the Lord CCCCL; who before from Leo's predecessor S. Sixtus III the simple title of Bishop and power had received.

[3] Marcellinus's successors all in obscurity lie hidden; of none of them a subscription in the Councils held in the fifth and sixth century or even the seventh appearing, unless he who in the Lateran under Pope Martin in the year DCXLIX is noted as John Bishop of Vicus Sabinae, should be read Vicus Habenae, which seems to be the opinion of Rubeus book 4 of the History of the people of Ravenna. But this is the more verisimilar, there John seems to have sat in the year 649, wrongly called of Vicus Sabinae: that of the Vicus Sabinensis Bishopric nowhere is any vestige to be found: but those who in the age of S. Peter Chrysologus were called of Vicus Haventia, could have been called of Vicus Habenae with the voice somewhat softened. However it be, not long after the aforesaid Lateran Council remained the See of Vicus Habentia: but to that which I have called old Ferrara, to posterity Ferrarola, it was translated. The author of the Translation that he was Pope Vitalian the people of Ferrara will have, after whom the See translated to Ferrara, who in the year DCLVII began to sit. The cause I suspect to have been of Maurus the Archbishop of Ravenna, propped by the power of the Imperial Exarch joined to himself, a defection from the obedience of the Roman See, to such insolence advanced, that being cited to plead his cause at Rome, he himself the Roman Pontiff presumed to cite to his own tribunal to be judged: and he remained in that obstinacy until death, so that of the throne thus also of the fault he found a successor in the year DCLXXII Reparatus: who when he had quickly come to his senses, from Vitalian's successor Adeodatus by no other law obtained pardon and grace, than that the name of Maurus he should expunge from the diptychs. Meanwhile it seems to have happened that the Bishop of Vicus Habenae or of Vicus Habentia, abhorring the pride of his Archbishop, betook himself to Rome; and that from the sworn enemy of ecclesiastical unity he might withdraw farther, asked and received the faculty of translating his See to Ferrara. But Ferrara he chose therefore, and that either for avoiding the tyranny of Maurus of Ravenna, because pertaining to the diocese of Vicus Habentia, but by the Lombards possessed, it was outside the power of the Exarch of Ravenna. But this lest it be thought said gratuitously, let the reader consider that already from the time of S. Gregory the Pope, the kingdom of the Lombards so widely in Italy extended, that all this, except

Rome and Ravenna, with the places pertaining to them, from the Alpine mountains as far as Reggio of Calabria, obeyed them: as says Baronius at the year 591 number 41.

[4] The truth of this matter appears from the bounds of the County of Perugia, through those at that time instituted, as far as Horta extended, which itself, although placed across the Tiber, and only 24 Roman miles distant from Rome, that the Lombards possessed we know from Paul the Deacon book 4 chapter 7. Nothing therefore wonderful we say, when we assert, that Ferrara, distant from Ravenna at least 40 Roman miles, on the bank of the Po against the Imperialists held and fortified by them was, nay then was the head of the whole County against the Exarchs of Ravenna. But as the same Lombards all things even up to the very Roman walls had infested by their incursions, with the extreme desolation of most of the places around; so also Vicus Habentia can be believed by the same to have been depopulated. Wherefore if to any one the cause of the See to be translated less pleases laid upon the rebellion of Maurus the Archbishop; he will be able from the Lombards themselves, for the greater part then Christians, to take the cause, or the Lombards its possessors so wishing thinking, that they themselves judged it just, that the Bishop of the County of Ferrara constituted by them, not elsewhere than at Ferrara should reside: and so it came to pass that Vitalian the Pope, they so wishing, Marinus, by him constituted Bishop, ordained, about to have his See at Ferrara. To this from the same nation succeeded Oldradus, by some very ill placed back to the times of S. Sylvester the Pope, by others believed the first under the same Vitalian Bishop of Ferrara, and S. Maurelius's, for whose cause these things are examined, predecessor.

[5] notwithstanding the bull of foundation, certainly supposititious. Concerning Marinus certainly whether he was ever Bishop of Ferrara, by no sufficiently solid authority is proved. For that concerning the institution of the Bishopric of Ferrara there stands a document volume 2 of Ughellus column 546, he himself indicates it seems supposititious to many, and for such seems to hold it. Enough surely it is even the beginning to read, that you may so think: it therefore receive. By command of Vitellianus, the servant of the servants of God, and Constantine the Emperor of the Romans Augustus, there went forth a Roman edict, that it should be described, in what manner after the destruction of our church of Vicunveria, which was of the right of B. Peter the Apostle, by the petitions and prayers of the Clerics and laics within our Duchy of Ferrara, in that namely Massa-Babylonia, which is called Ferrara, which of the patrimony of our holy Roman church is and of B. Peter, in that same Massa another we founded and it augmented and built a church, to the honor of God almighty and the Martyr S. George, and into a Bishopric we consecrated, to the right and dominion of the H. R. C. and of B. Peter; and in its dominion and power or care and governance we constituted and subjugated: and in it a certain Bishop from the Romans, Marinus namely, a religious man, just and honest, and venerable, and from noble stock born, by the authority of B. Peter and ours, with the Cardinals namely and Bishops of our Roman city, in that holy church of Ferrara, to the Episcopal effect we chose, invested and consecrated &c. Blind is he who does not see almost as many indications of imposture as words, and that this whole figment was concocted after the patrimony of S. Peter, as they call it, was constituted, and so several centuries after the kingdom of the Lombards was extinguished through Aemilia and Flaminia: superfluous therefore it would be to weigh the individual things.

[6] But it was translated to the old church of S. George. But whatever it be concerning the time in which was founded the church of S. George (for it can be that that appellation either more ancient or more recent much is) it seems to have been given to it, after thither was brought the arm of S. George, which now in the new cathedral is kept, which to SS. George and Maurelius sacred is. There are indeed those who those Relics in the XII century beginning first to have been brought believe, by Robert Count of Flanders: but this will be shown below to be erroneous: but that more anciently there was S. George's patronage (of which not easily another beginning you would assign) the diploma of the Emperor Henry proves in Ughellus volume 2 column 564; which in the year MXIV signed, its rights and liberties confirms to the Canons of the Holy church of Ferrara, in honor of S. George constructed; to which then pertained all that land, which between two rivers as far as the Comacchio fields, or more truly marshes extended, is called the Polesine of S. George. A similar confirmation made afterward in the year MLXVIII by Pope Alexander II through a Bull which stands column 568, inscribed to Everardus the Archpriest, the Roman Archdeacon, and the rest of the Canons of the holy church of Ferrara: and there is named among others the church of S. Stephen in the Borgo of Ferrara (where you see called Borgo what now itself is the city) moreover also the half of the tithing of the parish of S. George in the Bishopric, and the half of all things which for the souls of the faithful departed to the same church are left &c.

[7] but in the year 1135 to the new Cathedral, The See afterward through Bishop Landulfus being translated, about the year MCXXXV, there were translated also at least in part the Canons, with the same rights; as is proved through the Bulls of Adrian IV, in the year MCLVII, and of Alexander III, in the year MCLXXIX in the same words the same half of things and of tithing expressing. The other half seems to have pertained to the Bishop: yet so that to the Curate Presbyter and the Canons there to be left, for the care of the parish and the ministry of the church, a congruous portion should be left. some Canons remaining at first in the old one For Pennottus book 2 chapter 22 n. 1 alleges a privilege, which in the year MCXLI on the day XI of May, Griffus the Bishop, Landulfus's immediate successor, for his own soul's and his predecessors' and successors' in the Bishopric of Ferrara salvation writes, to Hugo the Priest and John the subdeacon of the Transpadane church of S. George Subdeacons, in which the See of the Bishopric of Ferrara once flourished.

[8] Meanwhile there had arisen and excellently begun to be propagated the institute of the Lateran Regular Canons, then the Lateran Regulars being introduced into the same which into the said church of S. George being received, Gravendinus the Elect of Ferrara, Ugucio the Provost, and other Canons of Ferrara, irrevocably handed over to Bruno, Canon of S. George of Ferrarola present, and in the name of the church and Canonry of the aforesaid S. George of Ferrarola receiving, the whole and entire tithing which to the sacristy of the Cathedral of Ferrara pertained, or had pertained, or ought to have been given of the possessions placed in the Parish of the aforesaid church of S. George of beyond the Po. Done in the year MCCXXXVII, and afterward by Innocent IV confirmed it was on the Nones of July in the year of the Pontificate X of Christ MCCLIII rescribing to the Prior and Convent of S. George of Ferrarola of the order of S. Augustine of Ferrara in Ughellus column 576. Thence, says Pennottus, that there stood in the same church Regular Canons show the letters of Pope Benedict XII to the Abbot of S. Peter in Caelum-Aureum of Pavia and to the Prior of the same church of S. George of Ferrarola directed in the year MCCCXXXIX. But also of the year MCCCLXII the Canons of the monasteries of S. James of Cella-Volana, and of S. Laurence in Caesarea near Ravenna mutually united, of a head being destitute, into their Prior Canonically elected Antonius Canon of S. George of Ferrarola of the same Order of S. Augustine, whose election confirmed Innocent VI, by his letters given at Avignon in the year X of his Pontificate.

[9] Afterward when the said church was to a certain Petrus Deacon Cardinal of the title of S. Angelus commended and after his death to a certain Jordan Bishop of Albano, and finally in the year 1411 to the Olivetan monks. the Regular Canons it altogether deserted: which John Pope of this name XXIII, at the urging of Nicholas Marquis of Ferrara, to the Olivetan Monks united, by his letters given at Bologna in the month of September in the year MCCCCXI: who when they had taken care to restore the church, it was in the year MDLXXIX on the day XVIII of November by Filiasius Roverella Archbishop of Ravenna solemnly consecrated, as from the instrument of John Aemilianus to have known he writes Marcus Antonius Guarini, in the Historical compendium of the Ferrara history, about the year MDCXXI published, after years XXIV after Don Michael-Angelus the Olivetan in Italian had published the life of S. Maurelius Bishop Martyr, Protector and Defender of the city of Ferrara, in the form of a dialogue between a Monk and a Pilgrim, as a mirror of Christian humility. But this is that Saint of whose Life both MS. and in type printed, Ferrarius pronounces in his General Catalogue, that it much needs censure: wherefore also we judged it necessary the whole origin and fortune of the oft-named church to recount, that there may be understood, what things concerning this Saint are offered, to be explained from the enormous figments with which they are implicated.

CHAPTER II.

The most recent finding of S. Maurelius in the church of S. George, his translation, cultus, miracles.

[10] That from things more known and more certain to other more obscure little by little we may ascend, come let us draw the beginning from the last finding and translation of the sacred body, which thus describes Michael Angelus page 53. In the year MCCCCXIX, In the year 1419 after a great flooding of the river when in the Chair of S. Peter Martin Pope III presided, but the Roman Empire Sigismund, the Lordship of the city of Ferrara Nicholas III Marquis of Este held, of finding and translating the holy bodies of Maurelius and Albert this occasion offered itself. There lay these gems nay treasures, in a certain sepulchre within a crypt or paradise (for so in many places it is called) in the manner of a chapel formed, under the tribune of the greater altar. And that place was indeed at first quite apt for prayer: but since it was low and subterranean, in the process of time wholly damp, dark, and desolate it had ceased to be frequented, and had almost come into oblivion; either on account of the frequent wars which had supervened or other chances, or on account of the scanty devotion of these times. However it was, God opening the cataracts of heaven poured so much of waters on the lands, that the rivers having gone out their banks not only the valleys were inundated, but the tops of the trees also were almost covered. In such a necessity recourse was had by the people of Ferrara to God and their S. Maurelius, whose relics in the damp crypt were in peril by whose intercessions and merits the waters were little by little diminished. Then our monks, who not so long before the place had obtained, considering that the holy Relics were held in the aforesaid cave, neglected commonly and unhonored; and with reason fearing, lest wholly into dust at length they should go, by the waters thereupon poured in repeatedly to be consumed; determined that they should be carried thence and in the church itself placed on high, where outside the peril of such a kind thenceforward they could be: which yet to undertake they did not presume except with the consent of the most Illustrious Lord Marquis and the most Reverend Petrus Bojardus then Bishop of Ferrara.

[11] On May 7 a serene day first then a rainy one, Both praised the pious counsel: and by their sentence was chosen the day VII of May, to S. Maurelius himself sacred, for the matter to be performed; being invited to it the Religious and all the secular Clergy, that with congruous apparatus processionally to be present they would. But on the very day rising, such as it was fitting to rise on such and so glad a festivity, our most Reverend

Pontifically clad, with the Clergy and the Religious all convened into the Cathedral church: who, when from the church they had orderly gone out, lest the too great multitude which gradually had flowed together, and greater than the square could hold, the festivity itself should make mournful, with the certain destruction of not a few certainly to be trampled; God provided, the face of heaven being suddenly changed, and a most dense cloud poured upon the lands, with so great vehemence of winds, that everyone was compelled, the empty square being left and the ways leading to it, himself elsewhere to betake. (which was an effect of Providence) The most Illustrious Marquis with his Barons and Knights, and also the Bishop with the Patriarch of Robert, and many Religious and a good part of the people, hastily returned into the church; and there stood, until the rain ceasing the pomp could be ordered anew. It numbered about four thousand men: whence you may gather, how great it would have been, and how difficultly to be advanced, unless heaven itself had made innumerable others yield place.

[12] This therefore, amid the chants of the sacred hymns, coming outside the gate of the city, to meet it came forth our Fathers: and at the same time all, whom to be present it was fitting, marked with the names of S. Maurelius and B. Albert with the highest reverence entered into the crypt: and opening the sepulchre they found in it two leaden caskets, one ell long, of which that placed on the right with this title above was inscribed, here is the body of saint maurelius bishop of ferrara and martyr; the other with the following words was distinguished, here is the body or bones of blessed albert bishop of ferrara and confessor. Then all on their knees prostrate adored the sacred relics, and the due ceremonies being performed severally lifted up each casket, with a great voice singing, Behold a great Priest, they are carried to the altar. who in his days pleased God and was found just. So they bore them to the greater altar, before which the sacred office of Mass most solemnly was celebrated by the most Reverend Lord Bishop. But from that time the waters ceased, nor thence the region inundated until the present day, although from time to time it has happened that the river swells with copious waves, and a great destruction threatens. But I recall to have happened in my times, that in such a dread the sacred hand of S. Maurelius was carried out to the bridge: and the marked waters with great roaring ran back to the sea, and freed the people from the present dread. But I return to the series of the proposed narration.

[13] The rumor of the aforesaid finding divulged everywhere in a short time stirred up so great a multitude of men, thence to the sacristy desiring to adore, to see, to touch; that the monks considering the danger, lest by no means equal to sustaining the multitude, they could not sufficiently keep from the sacred treasure the piously rapacious hands; they shut it up in a certain archive within the sacristy, until a new sepulchre should be fabricated. But the rumor growing among the common people, that the holy bodies elsewhere to carry away the Fathers were endeavoring, little was lacking but that, an onset being made, they would break the door of the sacristy. Wherefore care was taken quickly, that a wooden altar in the manner of a greater chest should be fabricated, and finally in the chapel of the B. V. which to be opened above should be placed in the middle of the temple, in the chapel, which then under the name of the Divine Virgin was reckoned; and there they enclosed the aforesaid caskets, first to all the people openly shown; all vying with each other bowing their head, lifting hands and arms to heaven, striking their breast, with a great voice crying out, Succor us, Have mercy on us. But thence so many miracles were done, that for expounding them I do not suffice. Yet to be silent I cannot of a thing wholly new and admirable. In the same place whence the sacred relics had first been drawn out, A Fountain springing up in the prior place, springs up there began a fountain of water most beautiful, and most savory, and also most healthful to those who for the cure of various infirmities thither descend, it either as a drink drawn about to take, or in a bath or aspersion received about to pour on their bodies: of whose vast number I will recount a few, named by name.

[14] A certain woman of a very honest family, by name Seregaita, already for two years bearing useless through the contraction of the nerves her hands, and them, a prayer being premised, there washing, suddenly received them sound. Another, to several it furnishes health by drink or aspersion. Lucia called, the handmaid of the very Illustrious Lord Ugotion de Contrariis, a ten-year pain of one arm hardly bearing, in that she could not use it, the remedy long desired in the same bath found. A certain Jacobus Bolognese painter, the same water to his mouth applying, was freed from a malady loathsome and ungrateful, which the necessary taking of food itself difficult to him and odious rendered. The little son of Bon-Joannes de Levezolis bore a foot ulcerous and twisted, for which no remedy did the physicians find: but the mother of the boy, having heard the popular devotion about the aforesaid water, thither ran: and first herself suffused with hot tears, asked help for her son; then with the salutary liquid she washed the foot, and sound suddenly wondered at it. Another youth, John by name, son of Paul de Montagnana, of one of his eyes through a certain infirmity deprived, by the same aspersion the lost light recovered. The same benefit thence brought back a Paduan girl, by name Florina, who for three years of both eyes had lacked the light. For as many years a broken arm had borne a woman of the territory of Bologna, called Bartholomaea, and wholly bruised with blows received from a ferocious husband: and another from the village of Sermine, who with elephantiasis labored, similarly bore an arm for a long time infirm and ulcerous: but each from the said infirmities was healed by the use of that water.

[15] These things being reported as far as page 60 by Michael-Angelus, I think there should be added, what the same before page 26 had written, for proving the virtue of the Maurelian presence for the defense of that place, which by the treasure of his body he wished enriched: the words of the author rendered into Latin are these. The bell-tower of the church is believed to have been preserved by him I recall from our elders to have heard, and also in a certain old parchment to have read, how under Leo Pope X, on account of certain warlike fears, there was cut on each side the bell-tower of our church, at that corner which looks toward the gardens; and there being placed for sustaining the mass machines, which, the necessity pressing, being set on fire, the props in that part failing, would make it fall down to the ground. But a certain one of ours P. Fr. Philip by name, from his age surnamed the Elder, for distinction from his synonymous junior, a man of great integrity and a most fervent lover of S. Maurelius (whose body and altar and chapel taking care by office, there not only days, but nights sometimes in prayer to pass he was wont) by divine, as is credible, inspiration moved, went to the Duke, namely Alfonso the first; and said, that God by the prayers of S. Maurelius was to be conciliated, and would preserve sufficiently that place. Credit the words found: the machines being removed the walls were restored, as even now to the eye is discerned: and until today that tower stands unhurt. as also a bell useful against tempests. They say also the same Elders, that when from several towers were taken the greater bronze bells (I believe for making thereof warlike engines) and also to our greatest bell it had come, that the aforesaid good old man cried out; Let go, let go that one: for it cannot be useful to you, because it is the bell of S. Maurelius. The workmen nonetheless proceeded to execute their commands, and it to the castle dragged; where when all the other similar bells, with the second or third stroke of the hammer were broken to pieces; this one of ours, even eight and ten times struck, remained whole. By which miracle admonished the Prefects of the works forbade it any longer to be touched; and adorned with flowers and crowned, as with triumphal pomp, carried back the victorious one. Whence so great reverence toward it the dwellers began to be affected, that as often as a dangerous tempest heaven threatens, hither vying they run, to ring the bell of S. Maurelius, by whose sound to be dissipated the storms they altogether trust, and the matter itself demonstrates.

[16] each body is now in its own chapel. Thus Michael Angelus, who when he wrote S. Maurelius's life, his body was deposited, within a bronze monument; and the body of B. Bernard similarly rested under the altar of another chapel. The matter more distinctly explaining Marcus Antonius Guarini teaches, that that monument is seen to the right of the greater altar and within it is enclosed a silver little chest. But the body of B. Bernard he says is to the left of the same altar within a sepulchre, of white marble elegantly sculptured and overlaid with gold. Then the chapel of S. Maurelius wholly he says is most elegantly storied with the Saint's deeds and miracles, by John Baptist Benvenuti surnamed Hortulanus. Whence also from the aforenoted place of Michael Angelus it is understood, that on each side of the greater altar is the proper chapel of each, and in this his monument. It is credible that then when restored, as above we have said, the church was in the year MCCCCLXXIX, in that manner which we have designated was ordered the altar and chapels and monuments; they then at least one century later in such a manner and so sumptuously to have been adorned: from which time also, in the said bronze monument from the inner part are read these words inscribed, The venerable bones of Divus Maurelius Martyr and Bishop, whose divinity the frequent debtor of vows testifies daily: but on the posterior these, The Olivetan Fathers, with their own money and that of the pious, placed them. But there displeased, nor undeservedly, the title of Divinity, in a sense plainly other than the common people take used; wherefore to expunge it by some one of the Roman Pontiffs the monks were bidden, as from Marcus-Antonius is gathered; it seemed then to the Holy See, that this could be dissembled; since the monks not inconveniently that word explained, and perhaps from its change some scandal among the common people they feared. Adds the same Author, that John Fontana Bishop of Ferrara, from the year MDXC until MDCXI, was wont yearly on the day VII of May, to the Saint's festivity there to be celebrated, to proceed with most solemn pomp, all the nobility on horses accompanying.

[17] A Life most recently published Thus far almost the press had proceeded, and this very leaf was now under the hand of the typesetters; when from P. Heraclius Cristanelli, of our College of Ferrara now Minister, already otherwise concerning this work when was to be given B. Ursulina of Parma's Life well deserving, whose diligence in transcribing the more ancient Acts of S. Maurelius a frustrating event had been, the carrier being despoiled or shaken down (as these calamitous times of war bring) we receive new letters, an indication of that loss bearing, and for some solace the life of S. Maurelius, in the new style of Francius Benedettus in Italian expressed, to which the title, The King of Mesopotamia and the sacred Pastor of Ferrara, in this very city at the Marestus's printed in the year MDCLXVII. For although as to substance only by the embellishment of exquisite diction it differs from the others; yet the author having endeavored concerning the more recent miracles to add whatever he could by investigating attain, by their fewness the hope of receiving more from us took away. To this Life, after the dedicatory, inscribed to Marquis Franciscus Estensis Tassonus, of the people of Ferrara with Alexander VII the Orator, this Prayer concerning him is prefixed: O God, who B. Maurelius Your Pontiff, the enemy being vanquished by the palm of martyrdom, to the glory of supernal contemplation didst make to come; grant we beseech, that we who seek the grace of Your protection, by his pious interceding merits of our petition

may obtain the salutary effect. Whether for the private only devotion of the people of Ferrara to be fostered this composed Prayer is, or also into the public use of the ecclesiastical Office brought, we know not, nor now is there leisure to examine. But to the graces above reported the later ones at the end of his little work descending the same author, these he recounts.

[18] In the year MDCXXX, of the whole city and especially of his own residence the protector that he was the Saint showed. in which is narrated a pestilence extinguished, There had breathed upon a pestilential contagion the city, which lest from the sick it should creep forth to the sound, those being set apart outside the popular concourse assigned for a Lazaretto was the monastery of S. George. And already to that matter the prefects appointed, the space of the most ample monastic refectory being occupied, that it still more spacious and of a greater crowd capable they might render, commanded to be broken through the wall, on which Balthasar the King's last supper was carved with the elegant chisel of Thomas Lauretus the Sicilian, commonly called the Neapolitan. But to those applying their hand to the work, so constantly themselves opposed those who still there resided the Religious, by indignation, by lamenting, the wrath of the Saints threatening; that to desist from the counsel they thought: and it was believed by S. Maurelius interceding to have been done, that, quickly extinguished what first to be kindled had begun, the pestilence, not only ceased the danger of the deliberated ruin; but also the place itself remained immune from the filth, for which it was destined for the public health. Similarly in the year MDCXXXIX, when the King of rivers Eridanus, the flooding of the Po restrained. with angry brow against the city inveighing, destruction to it under its waves threatened; on this side the Clergy of the city with the arm of S. Maurelius, on that with the hand of the same the people of the Georgian suburb the monks, to the swelling floods opposed themselves, by turns supplicating: and by that office it is thought to have been done, that the waters, an outlet being opened elsewhere, toward the town called Zocca, through the woods and valleys poured themselves out, snatching away with them the danger they were carrying. Finally in the year MDCLIX, when Laurentius Fiaschi, the Steward of the said monastery, in the neighboring place, which is called Decima, for threshing to be done hired workers and beasts had, suddenly the heaven grew bristly, with rain-bearing clouds on every side heavy. Therefore the most Reverend Abbot then ruling, the rain prohibited from the place of threshing. D. Hyacinthus Bonacossa, that the work should be deferred persuaded, on account of the present danger of damage; otherwise to follow. Against him the Steward, with great confidence in the Saint impelled, bade the beginning to be made of the threshing, vowing a sacrifice of Mass to be offered upon that altar, under which the sacred bones of D. Maurelius rest. And behold, the clouds being burst which the turbid conception longer to bear could not, so much indeed round about was poured of waters, that the public ways into torrents converted soon seemed: yet the very place, in which it was threshed, not even lightly indeed did they sprinkle, with the greatest admiration of all those, to whom the notice of the miracle so manifestly came.

CHAPTER III.

The apocryphal and fabulous Legend concerning the Life and first translation of S. Maurelius.

[19] That Blessed Albert Bishop of Ferrara, of whom mention has already been made and a fuller is to be made on his birthday the day XIV of August, After the bones of S. Maurelius and B. Bernard translated in the 13th century, died in the year MCCLXXIV, and as writes Ughellus column 581 was buried in S. George's temple against the sepulchre of S. Maurelius the Martyr, as in his testament he had provided, instituting as its executor the Prior of the place D. Augustinus the Lateran: but when miracles some also at his invocation were celebrated, it appears from the aforesaid that the body was elevated from the earth in some of the years following, in the same perhaps XIII in which he died century: when it seemed good to the Prior and Brothers from the old sepulchre to elevate the bones of S. Maurelius; and both to be laid up in a new and common tomb, to take care to have made twin chests of the same form of lead, with the same style inscribed. Now little by little to more ancient things about to proceed, we ask by what reason to Ferrara were brought and in S. George's temple laid up S. Maurelius's sacred pledges.

[20] The written Latin Life of S. Maurelius, which we desire The Olivetan Fathers had, by the testimony of Michael-Angelus page 44, the Life of the Saint written in Latin; which we believe after the institute of the Regular Canons into the church of S. George being introduced, by some Canon of the Lateran Congregation first composed; and which, as the first fountain of all thence written and published, we have endeavored to obtain, various to that effect letters to the Fathers of our College of Ferrara directed; who in their part indeed were not wanting: but the transcribed exemplar perished on the way. In this it was said that some holy Emperor the sacred body had brought; but who he was was kept silent. Perhaps also there is kept silent, whence and when it was brought. And concerning the time indeed hitherto it is controverted among the people of Ferrara, as also concerning the author of the aforenoted translation. But concerning the place Michael-Angelus says in various Chronicles of that city to be read, The body is said to have been brought from Edessa by some Emperor, that the author of the venerable gift, being in the city Edessa in Mesopotamia on a certain night by S. Maurilius appearing was admonished, from the city, which shortly was to be subjected to the infidels, his body to translate into Italy; the part being indicated and the right side of the temple, at whose wall under the sign of a little cross it was to be found. Which being dug up, and thence carried away, when it itself to Rome to bear he had proposed who the revelation made before had been; a second time the Saint appeared, and admonished that into the Adriatic gulf he should bend his navigation, and the mouth of the Po of Volano entering, the pious deposit to Ferrara should carry into S. George the Martyr's temple, then indeed from the city's walls excluded, once however its Episcopal See.

[21] He pursues then the same Michael-Angelus to narrate the miracles, accompanying or following the said translation, in this tenor: At the very arrival of the sacred body, a certain boy, John by name, not without miracles followed at Ferrara: from the crowded and self-pressing throng from the bridge into the Po had fallen, and now not of the life only but of the burial of their son despaired the parents, when for two whole days the body sought by the fishermen did not appear. At length to S. Maurelius's intercession recourse being made, it was seen above the water, cold and livid wholly: but carried before the sacred altar to grow red and to move it began; and the boy, as if raised up from sleep, to those asking what had happened to him, answered, that in the very moment in which he fell there had appeared to him a man of venerable countenance, to whom a white garment and a miter on his head, and had promised that after two days safe he should be restored to his parents. It is read also that a certain Priest, called Bartholomew, and dwelling in the town of Voghiera, with a troublesome arthritis for whole seven years afflicted his hands and feet he grieved, of the use of both deprived: who admonished in sleep, that to the sacred relics of S. Maurelius to be healed he should commit himself, thither he caused himself to be carried; and in a moment of time, the knots of his hands and feet being loosed, and the nerves to their state being restored, healed himself feeling, the sacrificial vestments he asked for; nor before departed, than the Mass in thanksgiving being completed, the grace made to him before the congregation he had announced. It is read also that a certain noble woman of Bologna, Margaret by name, betrothed to a man, from the girdle downward paralytic made from a heavy disease; when to the church of S. George of Ferrara a great concourse of peoples there was, on account of the frequent miracles, fame reported; thither by her mother she was carried: and when together both before the altar prayed, the sick woman recovered her health; and therefore the most consoled mother, various there gifts left.

[22] But Edessa never had Pagans from the time of the Apostles To these miracles more readily would anyone give credit, than to the translation received from the aforecited chronicles. For as to what pertains to Edessa, where S. Maurelius from a Pagan father and King of Mesopotamia born, and then by a brother similarly Pagan slain, and secretly buried is feigned (of which matter below) gloried that city, by the testimony of William of Tyre book 4 chapter 2, that in that which from the beginning and from the times of the Apostles it had received under King Abagarus the sincerity of faith persevering,… and alone among all the cities of that region inviolate by the infidels, who the cities round about had already long occupied the provinces, neither had been subjugated, nor of another profession anyone had borne as an inhabitant. But when in the year MXCVII the fame of Count Baldwin (this was the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon) with the army of the Christians as far as the Euphrates having advanced thither was brought; and to him with their Regulus, but it was taken by the Turks before the translation is said to have been made, a Greek man, the citizens had handed themselves over, that they might shake off the yoke of the Saracens (who dwelling outside in the neighboring cities and confining garrisons, so great troubles brought upon them, that to go out of the city it was not permitted, nor their affairs outside to manage; although tributes and taxes yearly they paid, and their vineyards and fields with almost continual exactions compelled they redeemed) the city remained under the empire of the Latins until the year MCXLII, when Sanguinus King of the Turks holding Assyria, it ill-guarded besieged and stormed, the citizens to the slaughter being destroyed. But until that time no King, much less of the Western Emperors, had the sea crossed for the cause of the sacred war: only of Constantinople John Comnenus, in the year MCXXXI into Cilicia penetrated, but the Euphrates he never crossed, that it could be believed he had seen Edessa.

[23] But the Chronicles of the people of Ferrara, by Michael-Angelus alleged page 42, ascribed to the year 1106, and to Henry the third agree, that the translation was made in the year MCVI; at which time indeed the Roman Empire held Henry of that name the third, King of Germany the fourth; but neither he nor another of that name crossed the sea for the help of the holy land. Wherefore neither to Ferrara to have translated the body of S. Maurelius could he: and in vain do the people of Ferrara wrangle about Henry, whether the third or fourth or fifth should owe so great a good. In vain also Michael-Angelus conjectures weaves concerning the Emperor Conrad, the nephew of Henry V, or S. Louis King of France, who long after the lost Edessa thither crossed. or Robert of Flanders. But what he suggests concerning Robert Count of Flanders, of the first conquerors of the Holy land one, who S. George's arm, of which the people of Ferrara glory, brought, and to the Countess Matilda gave, that he this body similarly could have brought, has not much more of verisimilitude. For nor anywhere in William of Tyre, the deeds done by Robert sufficiently accurately pursuing, is any vestige of him across the Euphrates extant: and he himself in the year MCV returning into Flanders, neither the Adriatic sea to have sailed is known, or Italy at all to have touched, nor to the Countess Matilda could have given the aforesaid arm, which by him to the monastery of Anchin in Flanders to have been delivered is established; so that if any part of it by Robert's gift had Matilda, she must have received it through intermediaries, by some other occasion from Palestine or Flanders to her by the aforesaid Count directed.

[24] A Synopsis of the no less fabulous Life, But as the history of the said translation is clothed with circumstances of persons and places, having no affinity with verisimilitude; so much more absurd are those by which the Life is implicated and obscured: of which this would be the compendium. Maurelius, at Edessa in Mesopotamia, his father Theobald King of that province

in the XVIII year of his age the kingdom communicated to him by his father began to rule: and then for the first time his brothers born to him, Hippolytus and Rivallus, with the same religion with himself imbued. But after eight years of governance, weary of the world, to his father and brothers he bade farewell; and by the fame of Theophilus Bishop of Smyrna allured, to him he betook himself, at which time that city was troubled by Severinus the heresiarch, denying the divinity of Christ. And so Maurelius ordained by himself a Presbyter to Rome to be sent Theophilus decrees: and he having entered the journey, Severinus the heresiarch by a sudden thunderbolt is extinguished, lest by his entrance he should pollute the cathedral temple. Maurelius, this message being heard, while to Smyrna he bids the sails to be turned back, by a tempest compelled as far as Ostia, to Rome moreover proceeded, while thither, Oldradus Bishop of Ferrara being dead, another from John Pope IV about to ask were present the legates of the people of Ferrara, in the year DCXXXVI. But the Pope by a heavenly admonished oracle, Bishop Maurelius for the same to be consecrated willed: who at his first into the city of Ferrara entrance, a girl blind from birth illumined. But after eight years he was recognized by the people of Edessa, him everywhere seeking, because, Theobald being dead, Rivallus had killed his elder brother, and the whole kingdom back to idolatry was dragging; and them to restore matters following, by his perfidious brother and impatient of reproof, the loss also of the kingdom fearing, cast into prison and tortured, and at last (lest a tumult should arise among the people) secretly was beheaded; and by the Christians who survived buried he lay hidden until the time of his translation into Italy.

[25] This is the sum of the more prolix fable. Where first, against the perpetual tradition of the people of Edessa, Kings in their city Pagan you see; as by some indications is shown. and indeed not with Syriac or Greek or at least Latin names, but Lombard, Theobald and Rivallus. Then I note the Bishops of Ferrara to be said under John IV, at least thirty years before, than the people of Ferrara themselves believe the Bishopric among them constituted, inasmuch as they make its author Pope Vitalian; to say nothing of the age of John Pope IV himself, since with the year DCXXXVI ill composed, who not before the year DCXLI Pontiff is known to have been ordained. What further of Severinus, among the people of Smyrna a heresiarch, and the orthodox Bishop of the same Theophilus shall I say? Truly nothing else, than that more faithful monuments are needed, that they may be believed to have existed in the nature of things, than is the Life by so many titles to be rejected. But what heresy he is pretended to have taught, that either Arian or Photinian would have been, long known and condemned both. Known is in ecclesiastical history that Severus, of Antioch, under Anastasius the heretical Emperor, an adversary of the Chalcedonian Synod for the Eutychian impiety, with certain proper errors mingled: who about the year DXIII very many troubles in the East stirred up, and whose followers even into Asia Minor and the city of Smyrna could have penetrated. He had condemned them together with their associates the Acephali and Eutychians Pope Vigilius, in the year DXLII, gnashing in vain their patroness the consort of Justinian the Emperor, as S. Gregory book 2 Ep. 36 teaches us. In the year also DCXXII Paul, of the Princes of the Severian sect one, in Armenia by the Emperor Heraclius confuted, to read it is in Baronius. To this similar someone in the same century could also to the Bishop of Smyrna have made trouble: but, as I said, nothing except uncertain conjectures can upon a life so fabulous be founded.

CHAPTER IV.

Concerning the fatherland, Episcopate, martyrdom, translation of S. Maurelius more verisimilar conjectures.

[26] Such since is the Legend of S. Maurelius, at least the Italian one (for the Latin, as I said, to see not yet has it befallen us, it is verisimilar however that the Italian from the same is taken) and since Michael-Angelus page 42 acknowledges in the Archive of the Church of Ferrara not to be found ancient concerning the Bishops of that city monuments; and them to be believed all to have perished by a fire, which the old Bishopric before the translation made under Landulfus consumed; concerning S. Maurelius more certain things to those seeking, what at length certain can be hoped? What if Roman by nation Certain, I confess, altogether nothing. If however in this defect it please to follow conjectures, to me a double one occurs, of truth at least the verisimilitude having: let the Reader choose one or the other, or suggest a better. First therefore to me it falls to suspect, that S. Maurelius, not from Mesopotamia brought, but from the Roman Clergy a Presbyter, under John Pope IV was sent as legate to Smyrna, to Theophilus the Bishop, concerning the Severian heresy among them spreading to complain: thence returning to Rome, about that time in which at Vicus Habentia in the year DCXLII. But when Maurus, and in the year 642 made Bishop of Vicus Habentia the Archbishop of the people of Ravenna, in the year DCXLVIII created, to the Roman See obedience denied, and that withdrawal Vitalian the Pope was pursuing; it could be that the zealous for Roman union Maurelius, advised and persuaded farther from Ravenna to be translated the See of Vicus Habentia. [on account of the Ravenna schism and the translated See was he slain in the year 670?] The said therefore Bishop of Ferrara, in the very attempt of the See to be translated was slain by the emissaries of the people of Ravenna, and by that it came to pass that the one substituted in the See of Ferrara Oldradus as the first Bishop of Ferrara some named, and that wishing to hold others and yet to the Bishops of Ferrara to number Maurilius, this one to him they said to have succeeded: but others to both even Marinus prefixed by the supposititious instrument of Vitalian persuaded; until there came Marcus Antonius Guarini, who Oldradus and Maurelius from the people of Ferrara taken away to the people of Vicus Habentia would leave. But if thus the body of the slain Maurelius was in some church about the streamlet Idissa buried, and about the I. dissa buried? this name gave occasion of Edessa in Mesopotamia to be devised. Then by S. Henry the Emperor, there perhaps having his passage, after at Rome he had been crowned in the year MXIV; it was brought to the church of S. George of Ferrara.

[27] or rather Lombard by nation This first to me occurred a conjecture; which if it less please (because the Legend of him of whom we treat the Saint not so much corrects in a few some circumstances, as wholly almost its substance, as if gratuitously devised, changes) behold for you another, to the Legend itself more closely adhering. It is established from Paul the Deacon, that the Duchy or County of Perugia, already from the beginning of this century the whole comprehending Umbria, as also the Duchy of Spoleto under the Lombards was with the rest as far as the Alps Italy. It is established also, that the same Lombards not all at the same time to the Christian faith were brought over, as soon as it their King Agilulphus embraced; after his however conversion, benignly treating the Christians dwelling among them, and to them both their churches and their Bishops permitted. What therefore forbids among the Dukes or Counts of this nation, to have been some Theobald, his father Theobald a pagan, born in Umbria, set in charge of one of the cities; who a pagan although himself, not with difficulty yet bore, both his subjects most of them to be made Christians, and his sons also in the same religion to grow up? But of these the elder Maurelius, until the XXIV year of age with his father remaining, the cares of governance sustained; seeing then his family established with two brothers of excellent disposition, Hippolytus and Rivallus, to the world to bid farewell and for religion's cause into the holy land to set out willed; whence returning and at Smyrna having put in, to the Bishop of that city (Theophilus perhaps called) adhered, and in sacred things under him instructed and in letters, on his return from the holy land he stayed at Smyrna, and the order of Presbyter being deemed worthy, to him not useless service against the Severian heretics he gave: but after some years about to return to his fatherland, when to some port of the Lombard dominion on the Etruscan shore his navigation he directed, by a tempest compelled to Ostia, not unwillingly there he disembarked. The Apostolic thresholds about to venerate, when over the Roman church John, not IV, but V presided, in the year DCLXXXVI ordained, and by John 5 ordained Bishop and for one only year Pontiff: by whom in a manner almost similar to the people of Ferrara asking a Bishop he himself was given, in which before two hundred and more years to the people of Ravenna designated by Sixtus III was S. Peter Chrysologus; and that Church for eight years he ruled, already of mature age a man, and about the year DCXXX born.

[28] His fatherland if you seek, not difficultly in the Perugian, which above I named, County you will find; provided you turn your mind to Interamna, by Latin name the same which by Greek would be called Mesopotamia: but the Greek before the Latin to use preferring some smatterer, others rashly following across the sea and across the Euphrates to carry away advised Maurelius's birth; and to his brother Rivallus to Interamna having set out, and there Theobald a King in a royal city Edessa to feign: whom it had been better as Duke or Count in Italy to leave. But he departed from the living, when the people of Ferrara Maurelius now Bishop ruled: after whose death succeeding in the paternal dominion the elder brother, when the younger Rivallus had expelled from life, and to ancestral impieties returned to all good men an offence and grief was; Maurelius was begged, that his fatherland his presence he would indulge, the younger brother, to whom once of his own accord he had yielded, about to bridle the insolence: which when he had assented, and to Interamna had come in the year DCXCIV, first courteously received by Rivallus, then by the same impatient of admonition secretly taken out of the way; there for justice slain? by the faithful of that place buried he was, where some one of the Henries returning from Rome, the body the Saint revealing it found, and translated to Ferrara. Him I that S. Henry was not only therefore the more willingly shall say, because a holy Emperor calls him the Legend, and the year MXIV assigns Rossius, in which he crowned at Rome was; but also because thus between the said translation and the time of the Legend by the Regulars written, would intervene a space of several years, and thence to Ferrara translated by S. Henry: through which not only the Saint's life and passion, but also of the Translation itself a more accurate and more distinct notice could be obscured; especially a fire supervening, by which the better monuments of the Bishopric of Ferrara were burned up.

[29] But, you will say, Marcus Antonius Guarini, in the compendium of the History of Ferrara about the year 1621 in Italian, and from it in Latin Ferdinandus Ughellus in the year 1647 in the Bishops of Ferrara, Marinus's successors thus number: Andreas in the year DCLXXVIII, Justinus DCLXXX, John DCCLXXII, whom with Privileges and graces honored Adrian the first and Leo the third the Supreme Pontiffs DCCXCVIII; Andreas DCCCXXIV, who sat at the Council of Mantua, but in these no place for Oldradus, none for Maurelius.

[30] I read all these; and of the Synod indeed of Mantua, in the year DCCCXXVIII by command of Pope Eugenius convoked, where he had been after a See established there for the Bishops for the controversies of the Churches of Grado and Aquileia, for many years ventilated, to be terminated before the Pontifical Legates Benedict the Bishop and Leo the Deacon Librarian, makes mention Hippolytus Donesmundi: whom in the Bishops of Mantua transcribed Ughellus, but in those of Aquileia that very thing correcting, in that Eugenius died sooner, bids to be written the year DCCCXXII. Adrian's and Leo's privileges I would that Marcus Antonius had brought into the midst: but the more certainly their truth the people of Ferrara shall have proved, which I wish; the more evidently they will make mutilated to be the catalogue of the Bishops, in which from the death of Vitalian

the Pope, until the beginning of Adrian, that is for whole hundred years, besides Marinus only two are named Bishops: of the first ones one. but the years which to them are assigned DCLXXVIII and DCLXXX, by no documents are established, so that they can from mere conjecture ascribed by some smatterer seem. But let us grant them to be rightly noted; there succeeded therefore to Marinus about the year DCCLXX instituted Andreas, to Andreas Justinus, to him Oldradus, to Oldradus Maurelius, all within XXIV years dead; and there is left a gap of LXXVIII years until John: which space perhaps could fill Andreas and Justinus, if after Oldradus and Maurelius they were affirmed to have sat in the VIII century of Christ; and that still more conveniently they would do, if Oldradus be conceived not the predecessor but the successor of Maurelius.