ON SAINT DOMNINUS,
DEACON AT PIACENZA IN ITALY.
ABOUT 643.
CommentaryDomnus 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.