Domninus

ON SAINT DOMNINUS,

DEACON AT PIACENZA IN ITALY.

ABOUT 643.

Domnus the Deacon, at Piacenza in Italy (S.)

G. H.

Piacenza, a noble city of Cisalpine Gaul on the river Po, an Episcopal city, venerates also very many native Saints, of whom we have referred Sabinus the Bishop on January XVII, Gelasius on February IV, Victor on March VI; Sacred worship, and to their Acts we set forth various things, which opportune to know we here briefly touch in a few words, to unfold the deeds of S. Domninus, who under a semidouble rite on the present XV of May is venerated through the whole diocese, but so that all things be read of the Common of Confessors not Pontiffs. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, from the monuments of the Church of S. Sabinus or Savinus, published some such encomium of his life.

[2] Domninus flourished at Piacenza, under S. Maurus the Bishop of that same city: by whom ordained Deacon, together with SS. Victor and Gelasius, he gave his labor to the preaching of the word and other pious works, A eulogy of his life, but especially laboring about the divine worship. He was especially intent on the divine offices and the salvation of souls. But also exercising himself with fasts, vigils and assiduous prayers, he offered a host worthy of God and acceptable. But when in the divine exercises he very greatly profited, and the fame of his sanctity day by day grew more widely current; beloved of God he was hence translated to eternal life on the Ides of May, buried at Moxiae by S. Maurus: and immediately after death he began to be a veneration to all. His body afterwards by Everardus the Bishop was translated to the basilica of S. Savinus, with the bodies of other Saints, and in the year of the Lord 1481 by Fabricius reposited in a more decent place. Thus Ferrarius, who also celebrates the same in the General Catalogue.

[3] Of the place of Moxiae, commonly le Mosie, we treated at the Life of S. Victor on March VI; the burial at Moxiae, and we said it was so called from the pools frequent in the low and marshy place, and distant three miles from the city, where the Piacentine field looks toward the East and the river Nura. That in this place the church of Moxiae was built to the honor of the twelve Apostles, and consecrated by the most blessed Sabinus, says, in Ughello, volume 2 of Sacred Italy among the Bishops of Piacenza, Ruffinus a monk of the monastery of S. Savinus, in a little book on the building and restoration of his monastery, written about the year 1253. But S. Savinus being buried there, it began to be called the church of S. Savinus. In that church therefore S. Domninus and others S. Maurus the Bishop buried, the successor of S. Savinus: of which burial in the said Ruffinus are read these words, taken from an ancient stone or parchment: I Maurus the last Bishop, from the kingdom of Lothair and on account of an Angelic vision came to my own city, and buried the body of S. Sabinus the Bishop on the XVI Kalends of February: that altar I consecrated in his honor and of S. Antoninus the Martyr. On the day before the Nones of February I buried S. Gelasius. On the day before the Nones of March I buried the body of S. Victor the Deacon. On the Ides of May I laid up the body of S. Domninus. On the X Kalends of January S. Victoria migrated from this world. After their death Maurus the Bishop lived six years, on the Ides of September he migrated. I Abbot Effrem buried his body beside the body of S. Sabinus on the left side, and wrote with my hand and laid him up here. And a little above… There was in another vault toward the East the sepulchre of SS. Victor, Domninus the Deacon and Gelasius the infant. Thus Ruffinus. But Gelasius elsewhere is called a boy, who seems to have ministered to others preaching or performing the sacred rites.

[4] S. Maurus the mentioned is related by Peter Maria Campi in book 5 of the History of Piacenza, and Ughello following him, his death in the year 443, to have departed from the living in the year 449, and at least six years after the death of S. Domninus, who in the same Campi is referred to the year 443. But because, the same Ruffinus in Ughello being witness, The 1st Translation in the year 933, the said Church of Moxiae or S. Savinus was burned by the Hungarians in the year nine hundred and second, a new church of S. Savinus with a monastery added near the city was constructed by Everardus the Bishop, and into it the bones of S. Domninus and of other Saints were translated in the year 933; and at last by Fabricius Marlianus the Bishop of Piacenza, the 2nd in the year 1481. in the year 1481, as said above, reposited in a more decent place.

ON S. FLORENTIUS THE BISHOP

OF CAMPIGLIA IN ETRURIA.

ABOUT THE YEAR 550.

Florentius the Bishop, of Campiglia in Etruria (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Concerning SS. Florentius and Vindemialis, African Bishops and Confessors, whose bodies from Corsica Titianus the Bishop translated to Treviso, while we were treating on the II day of May, there was offered fortuitously the notice of this holy Bishop, who is venerated at Campiglia, To those asking notice of this Saint a place pertaining to the diocese of Massa-Populonia, formerly under the dominion of the Pisan republic, now of the Grand Duke of Etruria. To us, moreover, asking a more distinct notice from the Reverend Father Sebastian de Comitibus, he who before published the Sienese Calendar, and himself being intent on it; it opportunely happened that there was at Siena the Bishop of Massa himself, the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Nicholas de Aciaria, a Sienese Patrician: who gratefully accepting the offered occasion of deserving well of the Saints, ordered it to be written to the Parish priest of the church of Campiglia, the very Reverend Lord Laurence Donati, that if any monuments perhaps were preserved there concerning that Saint, the Patron of the place, he would take care to have them transcribed.

[2] He answered, that either by the negligence of the elders, or the injury of the times, it had come to pass that nothing written is now found: the answer, formerly the birthday on December 18, yet that some greater and more distinct notice of the Saint seems formerly to have been with the people of Campiglia, since in their statutes it is found noted, that the XVIII day of December was to be kept as a holiday among the people, as being the birthday of S. Florentius the Bishop. But that observance now being abolished, a more celebrated worship recurs yearly on May XV, as on the feast of the Translation: now the Translation is venerated on May 15, when the sacred body with processional pomp is carried to the church of S. John, outside the town of Campiglia, from the Parochial church in the town; where it is wont to be preserved with great honor, and has its own altar, with its ancient image, in Episcopal habit. But the people of Campiglia are wont to proceed armed to that procession, on account of the contention which they once had concerning the aforesaid body with the neighboring people of Piombino; for ending which they believe a means was employed, often otherwise used in a like case, namely that untamed bullocks yoked to a wagon were allowed to carry away the sacred pledge placed on the wagon, and where they should carry it there it should be deposited; but that it was carried to the aforesaid church of S. John, whence the people of Campiglia then received it to themselves.

[3] The Bishop related that his predecessor the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend in which Pope Alexander VII judged nothing to be changed. Bandinus Accarisius, equally a Sienese Patrician, when he had gone to the threshold of the Apostles, judged it of his office to admonish Alexander VII then the Supreme Pontiff, that this Saint was venerated in his diocese without

any authentic and certain notice; and asked what he judged should be done by him: and that the most wise Pontiff answered these precise words: Leave the world as thou hast found it. For he had known that Urban VIII, likewise the Supreme Pontiff, in the Decree of the year 1625, by which he set a measure to the abuses, which had begun to creep into the venerating of certain ones, deceased with the fame or opinion of sanctity or martyrdom, who were marked with neither the honor of Canonization nor of Beatification by the Apostolic See; he had known, I say, that Urban had expressly declared, that by it he would not nor intended in anything to prejudice those, who either by the common consent of the Church, or an immemorable course of time, or by the writings of the Fathers and holy men, or the knowledge and toleration of a very long time of the aforesaid See or of the Ordinary, are celebrated. Since S. Florentius of Campiglia was such, it was superfluous to doubt what should be done concerning him hereafter, on account only of the defect of written notices.

[4] The inhabitants now believe him brought from Corsica, Meanwhile it is permitted to doubt and to inquire, who that S. Florentius was. The people of Campiglia say, as their aforepraised Parish priest writes, that his body miraculously carried from the island of Corsica, in a marble ark, in which it now rests, put in at the Etruscan shore between Piombino and Campiglia, and thence the contention arose, terminated in the manner we set forth above. But an opinion of this kind, and the tradition thence born, perhaps then first arose, when there was published the Catalogue of the Saints of Peter Equilinus, and from it became known that S. Florentius, of whom with S. Vindemialis carried to Treviso we made mention above. Certainly nothing is more usual than for persons to be confused on account of the identity of name: nor does it appear how of a body thus brought the place whence it was carried could be known. which is little likely: Since besides the bare name of each, and the title of Bishop, the day of death being added at most, nothing was wont to be inscribed on the little tablets of lead, marble or clay, which it was the custom to entomb with the bodies of holy Bishops, as will appear in S. Lucifer the Bishop of Cagliari on May XX: but in the ark itself nothing is seen sculpted, whence it might appear that it came swimming from Corsica.

[5] [I would rather say he was the Bishop of Populonia praised in the Life of S. Cerbonius,] Wherefore the conjecture of the aforesaid Parish priest greatly pleases, notwithstanding the tradition of his people of Campiglia, judging that it can be that this is that Saint Florentius, of whom in the Life of S. Cerbonius the Bishop of Populonia, to be given on October X, it is read thus. B. Cerbonius came into the Populonian city, in which was the church of the Blessed Mother of God Mary, where was the venerable Florentius the Bishop of that same city, praying to the Lord day and night with all devotion. But the venerable Florentius the Bishop, when he saw B. Cerbonius, rejoiced with great joy, and received him with all love and honor, dwelling together as long as the Bishop lived, serving the Lord with all alacrity and simplicity of heart … But it happened in those days that B. Florentius received his sleeping in the Lord, whose soul B. Cerbonius saw borne by the Angels to heaven. Thus far that Life described from the Vatican Codex 6453: and almost the same things are read in the parchment Passional of Cardinal Barberini.

[7] S. Cerbonius flourished in the time of King Totila and Pope Vigilius, after the middle of the VI century, who died about the year 550. so that the death of his predecessor Florentius can be referred to the year about 556: and his body indeed, dead in the island of Elba, whither on account of the Lombards he had fled, was secretly by his command carried to Populonia, to the sepulchre which he had prepared for himself, and there entombed (as S. Gregory relates in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 11), yet did not remain there long: but within a few centuries, Populonia being deserted and destroyed utterly, it was translated to Massa, to a distinguished temple dedicated under his name there; the body of S. Florentius remaining under the ruins of Populonia. and lay hidden buried among the ruins of Populonia, But if this was afterwards by some divine indication revealed, and found in that place where formerly the city had stood, midway between Campiglia and Piombino; nothing was more obvious than that the inhabitants of each place should contend among themselves about the possession of it; and if indeed the tomb was first detected by the sea washing against it (as could have happened), it could also be persuaded to men, with whom no memory of the ancient Bishops of Populonia before Cerbonius survived, that the ark was miraculously carried across the sea; and to those asking whence, there occurred Corsica, where the name of some S. Florentius was famous, the notice of the body long ago lost, hidden or carried off on account of the incursions of the Saracens: especially after in Peter de Natalibus there appeared also S. Florentius (although verisimilarly distinct from each of the already said), cast out of Africa, who in Corsica lived with S. Vindemialis.

[8] Nor ought it to seem wonderful, that I have said the memory of the first Bishops of Populonia perished with Populonia itself, so that not even of Florentius, unknown to posterity mentioned in the Life of S. Cerbonius, did the people of Campiglia think. For that very Life was long not known to the people of Massa, who have the body of S. Cerbonius, as Ferdinand Ughello shows, while in volume 3 of Sacred Italy concerning the Bishops of Massa-Populonia he speaks thus: Even now, however much I have investigated, I have not attained, who was the first Bishop of that diocese, or who first preached the Gospel there. For it is established that before S. Cerbonius, who lived in the year 573, none at all occurs, who flourished in the See of Populonia and Massa. This certainly would not have happened, if the aforesaid Life of S. Cerbonius had then been in hands. as also that very Life. It lay hidden, namely, transcribed in the Legendaries of other churches: as lay hidden the Life of S. Appianus, a monk of Pavia at the golden Heaven, given by us on March IV from the MS. of Cardinal Barberini: while meanwhile, those who possess and venerate the body there now, the Augustinians, both Canons and Hermits, judged it to be of some Bishop from Africa, which with the body of S. Augustine was brought from Sardinia by King Liutprand.