CONCERNING SAINT BONOSUS
BISHOP OF SALERNO.
CommentaryBonosus, Bishop of Salerno (S.)
G. H.
[1] Salerno a city of the kingdom of Naples among the Picentini Archiepiscopal, and metropolis of the further Principate, among the holy Bishops venerates S. Bonosus, whom Ferrarius in the general Catalogue and the other of the Saints of Italy reports on the 13th day of May, The cult 13 & 14 May yet indicates that his birthday is by some referred to the following day. There are cited by Ferrarius Gaspar Musca on the Bishops of Salerno (but he assigns no day to his veneration) and especially the Tables of the Church of Salerno. We have under this title the proper Offices of the feasts of the Church of Salerno reformed by the most illustrious and most reverend man the Lord Mario Bolognino Archbishop of Salerno, by Apostolic authority, and printed at Naples in the year 1594. In the Calendar of these on this day 14 May is prescribed the feast of S. Bonosus Bishop under a double rite, and then on page 22 these things are read: On the fourteenth day of May S. Bonosus Confessor and Bishop of Salerno. All things from the Common of Confessor Pontiffs in the Paschal time, except the following Prayer. Thy devout people, the proper Prayer, most benign God, clemently hear, that, he who with pious affection recalls the venerable solemnity of Blessed Bonosus thy Confessor and Pontiff, may by his merits obtain with thee the remission of sins. Through the Lord etc. The same Prayer is extant in the cited Musca, who sets him as the first Bishop of the Church of Salerno: as also is done in the Constitutions published by Antonius Marsilius Columna Archbishop of Salerno, in the diocesan Synod in the year 1579 and printed the following year, in which on page 383 are indicated the Bodies and Relics of the Saints, which are found buried in the Metropolitan Church of Salerno, and on the following page these things are had: In the altar, which is built to the honor of the Confessors on the side of the south, The body in the altar, rest the Bodies of B. Bonosus Bishop of Salerno, B. Gramatius, B. Verus, B. Eusterius, B. Gaudiosus, B. Valentinus, Bishops of Salerno. In which order Gaspar Musca recounts them. But otherwise feel Antonius Caracciolus in the Sacred monuments of the Church of Naples in the Acts of S. Gaudiosus a citizen of Naples and Bishop of Salerno, and following him Ferdinand Ughellus in volume VIII of Italy sacred in the Archbishops of Salerno column 487 in these words. Caracciolus thinks Musca had no account of time in recounting those Bishops of his, but before all others, set the Saints, soon subjoined Gaudentius and the rest who were not Saints: and esteemed Bonosus, to whom succeeded Gaudiosus, to have flourished at Naples and Salerno many years after Gaudentius. The time of his See: For since Pomponius at Naples built the church of S. Mary, which Gaudiosus served after the year of Christ five hundred, it is probable that Gaudiosus lived long after that year, and so also that Bonosus his predecessor was Bishop of Salerno after Gaudentius. If it be allowed to use conjectures in an unascertained matter, I should say that Gaudiosus and so his predecessor Bonosus died not long before the times of Grimoald Duke of Salerno. For from him the Duke of Naples sought and obtained the body of this his citizen. Therefore not many ages or centuries preceded, and so while his memory was vigorous satisfaction was made to the just petition. I know this can also be elucidated from that great dearness of provisions, which at that time invaded the city of Naples, and from the war between the Salernitans and the Samnites. These things from Caracciolus Ughellus. Whether the Salernitans have opposed anything to these it has not yet been allowed to know. S. Gaudiosus is venerated on the 26th of October. But the Acts of S. Pomponius we have already given, to which we subjoin these things concerning S. Bonosus, but without prejudice concerning the order and times of the ancient Bishops of the city of Salerno. Moreover Caracciolus writes that Duke Grimoald lived in the year 800, but it does not sufficiently appear, why the Duke of Naples could not have sought from him the Body of S. Gaudiosus, although he had been dead here for several centuries. But these things will be able to be more accurately discussed at the Life of S. Gaudiosus on the said 26 October: in which month also, on the 11th day is venerated S. Gramatius, in whose feast the VI Lection is thus concluded: His body in the altar of the Pontiffs of the lower basilica of the Cathedral Church, a memory in the Acts of S. Gramatius. where B. Bonosus rests, was placed: that of those whose had been the same lot in the Pontificate, and the same glory in the heavens, the same also might be the place of veneration of those same.