Ubaldus

ON SAINT UBALDUS,

FROM A PRIOR OF THE CANONS REGULAR

BISHOP OF GUBBIO IN UMBRIA.

IN THE YEAR 1160.

Ubaldus, Bishop of Gubbio in Umbria (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Gubbio, a city of Umbria ancient, and already from the first of Christian peace times among the Episcopal known, to the Roman See was always immediately subject in spirituals; The mountain over Gubbio imminent named St. Ubaldus's, in temporals indeed the same with the other of Italy cities suffered fortune, and at last to the Duchy of Urbino joined, with the same returned to the Apostolic See's dominion, the Roboreorum Dukes' male line failing. It, as now it is after the old ruins restored, at a mountain's certain from the Apennine proceeding roots lies, Inginium called of old they will: which our age from a century and a half and more St. Ubaldus's mountain by a more sacred name calls, after namely that place with a notable of the Canons Regular Congregation Lateran monastery is adorned, in the time of Julius II and Leo X the Roman Pontiffs. For augmented the cult of religion, augmented also is the veneration of the Saint, before several centuries thither translated, from that which burnt he had restored as Prior, and as Bishop afterward had enriched, the Canonical at the same time and Cathedral church, of the Saints Marianus and Jacobus with the names and bodies sacred.

[2] His Life soon after his death wrote, and to Frederick the Emperor of that appellation the first Milan besieging sent, his Life by Tebaldus the successor written Tebaldus the successor, premising that he this to do, as much as from the relation of the faithful, who truly had known him, to learn he could: of the miracles after death … those only to write, which either with his own eyes to see, or by their relation in whom they were wrought he could recognize. That Life here we give, by Vincent Armanni, a man most learned and of native antiquities most studious, to us communicated, as from a most ancient Codex original, in the Episcopal Chancery of Gubbio exhibited and produced, it is given as it was sent to Frederick the Emperor extracted and transcribed it was, by Count Gabriel de Gabrielibus a Patrician of Gubbio, by the public and general Council of the City of Gubbio with a mandate of Procuracy elected in the year 1593, for these and other things pertaining to the same Saint to be produced and exhibited, extracted and transcribed to be made. It is believed this with second cares polished a little by that same Tebaldus and with some additions augmented, when it was to be sent to the Emperor, whom the prologue and epilogue calls with titles of Majesty and Serenity. Without such titles the same Life written to those St. Marianus's Canons, as to Brothers, only uses the title of "Your Charity." The same, as first written for the Canons, twice printed. And in this manner to be had it in the book of Reformations of the years 1326 up to 1327 existing in the Chancery of the Palace of the said city, testified Octavius Castelloctus a Notary public, making faith in the year 1622, that by other businesses hindered it through another to himself trusty to be copied he made, and the collation made to agree he found: therefore it at Perugia to be printed the following soon year took care Charles Oliverius of Vicenza, a Citizen of Gubbio, Ubaldus's church Provost. But in this edition not with the best faith to have been acted perceiving the aforepraised Vincent Armanni, worth the trouble he judged the same, with the very original under the judgment of the Chancellor again collated and emended, in into the 3rd part of his Letters: to which what in the other later life accrued enough we have had with these signs [ ] to indicate.

[3] The same Life, but without the Prologue, and the name of Ubaldus into Theobaldus changed, The same in Belgian MSS. under the name of St. Theobaldus, we had found in a MS. of the Carthusians of Liège; and before the aforesaid we had received, we had fitted for the press, collated with a MS. of Utrecht of St. Salvator; in which besides the change of the name, was added at the end a note of the time of this kind: Flourished moreover St. Theobaldus in the year of the Lord 1210, whose Translation is on the first day of July. This last about another, truly Theobaldus called, and through Gaul and Belgium on account of his Relics variously distributed most celebrated, about whom we shall treat in the month of June, to be verified knowing Surius, in the year 1574 the Saints' Lives to be reprinted about to insert this also life (but changed somewhat the style and restored the Ubaldus name, as taught him I know not what or where made printing) the day indeed of the Translation he omitted, the year however in which he flourished from that MS. his he retained. and in the year 1220 for 1160 But the first of the year thus to be noted authors not I believe anything else to have written than 1160; where then a careless someone copyist C for L transcribing, to others more gave of erring an occasion. About this indeed to doubt does not allow the history and succession of the Gubbio Bishops, and likewise the age both of Honorius Pope II, under whom the Perugia Episcopate refused Ubaldus, the Gubbio not long after compelled to admit; both of Frederick the Emperor, to whom the Life was sent. The same confirm the marginal Additions subscribed to another most ancient of the life copy, whence some appendix of miracles we give, by which Ubaldus died May 16. in which expressly it is said, that migrated the venerable Pastor Bishop Ubaldus … in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred sixty, in the year of his Episcopate thirty-first. And this most well agrees with the character expressed by Tebaldus at no. 21, where he says, that the following night, which the holy Pentecost's Lord's day had preceded, he migrated to the Lord, that is on the day May 16, which from all back memory the Gubbio people observe, as their holy Protector's birthday; his Translation September 11 wont to celebrate. For in the year 1160, and another no one through all the next 78 years, was celebrated Easter March 27, and Pentecost May 15, with the Cycle of the moon 2 of the sun 22, with Dominical letters CB.

[4] By the Italian Life's authors is alleged Jordanus a coeval: What of the Life compendia are had in Peter de Natalibus and others, nothing it pertains to commemorate: the more recent of this and the prior century writers we shall recount after the Life in the posthumous Glory, there also to give miracles, to be received from the aforepraised Oliverius and Michael Angelus Eugenius, who both in Italian wrote and edited the life, the one at Perugia in the year 1616, the other at Rome 1628 often

by us in the Annotations to be named. Both moreover ascribe the Saint to the Congregation of the Canons Regular Lateran, having followed Stephen of Cremona one century earlier, by whom written and edited in Latin a life in vain wished to obtain Surius, equally as we. But more we would have wished to see and obtain, that which is said Stephen to have had, of Jerome Jordanus Prior of Città di Castello the same almost living he composed. By this indeed no to be made mention of the Lateran ones so much I am secure the more, who certainly did not ascribe the Saint to the Canons Reg. Lateran. the more certain that St. Marianus's Gubbio Canons, of the century XII at the beginning nothing less than Canonically living, then by St. Ubaldus brought that they should take up of the Apostolic institution the Rule, such as for his in the church of B. Mary in the Port of Ravenna Brothers, had prescribed Peter de Honestis, and Paschal II had approved in the year 1116; and which the same St. Marianus's Canons professed held up to the year 1515, when Leo X them from its observance absolved. These indeed as now they are not, so neither then, nor ever before, to any Regular of several monasteries Society were bound; but lived to one Prior by themselves elected subject, without any to another Superior Regular respect, both before as after the reformation undertaken, and from him (if necessary it were) to the only Roman they appealed Pontiff, as from their archive, and public from the year 1029 up to the secularity introduced instruments, to demonstrate prepared is Vincent Armanni.

[5] True indeed it is, that the same very who the Port Rule approved Paschal, with whom the Gubbio and Port ones were not united, also the Lateran his Canons was zealous to reform, according to the form from Lucca received from those Clerics, who already from the beginning of the eleventh century at St. Pantaleon's had begun the common life to lead; then to St. Frigidianus passing, with the sweet of the Canonical conversation's odor also the Roman Curia they had breathed upon. But those Lateran ones thus reformed, no formed Order, that is a Congregation of several from one common head depending monasteries: but as they themselves of their own were right and independent from the Lucca ones, from whom however they had received: so also the Gubbio ones in nothing depended on the Port ones, although from them the life's form borrowed: but of their own right the individual Canonries were. and both nothing common had with the Lateran and Lucca ones, except the purpose of life in common and from a common to be led, according to the ecclesiastical Canons and the Rule of the Holy Fathers, by use rather than by writing comprehended: whence it came that various various Constitutions for themselves established. Some also a Rule by St. Augustine, for Nuns written and to men however adapted, began to profess: which Rule, by the author's name rather than by its sufficiency commended, at last became common to all the Canonical life Regularly leading, from that especially time, in which the discipline of the Canonical churches again collapsing, by the institution of Congregations Regular began to perpetuity more certainly to be stabilized.

[6] The Lateran Congregation begun in the year 1400, And of these indeed Congregations the chief among several now is that which first Frisionaria or Frigdionaria called, from a hill of this name three from the Lucca city miles, where it took its origin about the year 1400; and into the Lateran introduced, obtained the title of Lateran in the year 1446. For which when with Lord Hippolytus, of that Congregation the Procurator and Syndic and Provost of St. Ubaldus, to be proved it was in the year 1514, that there had accrued an express consent of the Chapter and Canons of Gubbio for the imposing and placing a new Order in the said church of St. Ubaldus; he produced an Instrument, in public form drawn up by Matthew Bartholomew de Ponto, in which was contained, that the Canons of Gubbio and their Chapter consented and license granted, that in the place of St. Ubaldus be placed a new Order and a new Religion. it obtained in the year 1513 his church, and himself to itself Whatever therefore either the Lateran ones in in another to Paul V, for St. Ubaldus into the Breviary's Calendar to be referred said; or from these into their briefs transferred the aforesaid Pontiffs; that no efficacy has to prove, that to the Order of the Canons Regular Lateran to be ascribed is St. Ubaldus, although truly a Canon Regular he was before the Episcopate; perhaps also the Rule of St. Augustine professed, which only and chiefly in the Roman Breviary now is read, prudently omitted the word Lateran. About the Augustinian Rule can be read Nicholas Desnos, Conventual Prior Master and Administrator general of the Greater House of God of Provins of the Order of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, in a book at Paris printed 1674, whose title is "The Canon Secular and Regular," where in bk. 3 ch. 22 he asks Whether St. Augustine sinews to prove strives Gabriel Pennottus bk. 1 ch. 18; concludes moreover Nicholas thus for women to have been written, that to men hardly adapted it could have been, altogether moreover insufficient it was, especially for Clerics: then he teaches, in what time and by what author the epistle 109, for Nuns composed, into a Rule of Clerics emerged. In these moreover thus Pennottus he refutes, that here especially seems to be understood to wish (which about him he said in a letter to the Reader, and which not to him only, but to others also several of the Eremitical especially Orders historians from Elias, Augustine, Jerome their origin deriving agrees) in most things of greatest moment and to be known necessary to have been silent; and in the more difficult things too much in proving, sometimes little or nothing to have proved.

[7] From another letter of Lord Vincent Armanni to Lord Charles Cartari Consistorial Advocate, It is treated for obtaining a Double Office, by whose mediation also the Works of him liberally to us given are directed into Belgium, it is understood, under the present Innocent XI's Pontificate to be treated through the most Serene Duchess Victoria, of Ferdinand the Great Duke the widow, of Cosmo III happily now reigning and of Ferdinand the Cardinal de' Medici the mother, that the Office of St. Eusebius by the whole Clergy be celebrated everywhere with a rite Double. The same business is said by the same already long ago to be treated to have begun under Clement Pope VIII in the year 1593, procuring from a public mandate Count Gabriel de Gabrielibus (on which namely occasion was transcribed a copy of the Life which we follow) and among other MSS. of that Count, in the possession of his nephews Michael-Jerome and Raphael kept to be found an information, offered to the Cardinals of the sacred Congregation of Rites presiding, where among other things is read, that from the history of the life by B. Tebaldus composed was anciently composed and ordered an Office proper of St. Ubaldus for the day Festal and through the Octave and for the 3rd Weekday, which formerly was done with 27 lessons about his Life. received thence Lessons twenty-seven and other of the sacred Office parts: just as to see it is in a most ancient Breviary manuscript on membranes, which in the Cathedral church is kept. Of which Office the use why it was before the Council of Trent's Decrees abrogated, vehemently I wonder.

[8] Mention of him after the Life of St. John the Bishop his predecessor. The Rev. Lord Offredus, formerly of the monastery of St. Peter of Gubbio Abbot, in the Preface to the Annals (as I believe) of the City of Gubbio, testifying the same Vincent Armanni in the aforecited letter, With many, he says, and most holy Bishops is illustrated this city, whom the highest and divine Clemency for the people once to them entrusted with assiduous prayers to pray, without doubt we believe. From these were, of blessed memory John of Lodi, formerly B. Peter Damian's disciple, Stephen, Ubaldus, Raphael Salutius, and of pious memory Villanus, all God granting to this very day with signs and miracles illustrious. The youth Ubaldus from St. Secundus's church to his of St. Marianus brought back John, and is venerated on the day September 7; whose translation made in the year 1648 we have in Italian described and printed by Vincent Armanni: the Life indeed composed by John the Cardinal, the same namely who the Bishop to be made had taken care, by Ughellus praised, in Jacobillus by us seen, we wish to obtain; although we have some compendium of it, written by an Anonymous Monk of the holy Cross of Fonte Avellana, with this by another added note: In the times of that B. John Bishop of Gubbio, Among the successors of the Blessed two: B. Ubaldus a youngling was and a virgin most pure, and ecclesiastical letters well learned, first in the Canonical of SS. Marianus and Jacobus, and afterward in the church of St. Secundus. About Raphael Salutius nothing except the name Ughellus found, much less of life or cult monuments any. About B. Villanus we treated May 7 almost from Jacobillus, to which could be added this also note, to the aforesaid Life of St. John adjoined in these words, About the year of the Lord 1230, on the 7th of May St. Villanus was Bishop, on the side of the mountain under the citadels constituted.

[9] But before all those was to have been commemorated Rodulfus, by St. Peter Damian in Epistle 19 to Alexander Pope II so greatly praised straightway after his death, which he is said to have died on June 26 1070: Rudolphus the predecessor is praised by Peter Damian as a Saint, where to be corrected is Ughellus, the praise by St. Peter Damian attributed to Rodulfus, by an error of the pen transferring to his predecessor Theobaldus or Tedaldus. Moreover from those things, which by the same Peter Damian, of the desert of the holy Cross a perpetual cultivator, written and noted are found, gathers Lord Maurus John of Soperchio, Vicar of the monastery of St. Peter of Gubbio, in the memoirs MS. by Vincent Armanni in the letter to Charles Cartari alleged, that among the most holy several Bishops of the city of Gubbio, Decentius, Gaudiosus, Fortunius and Deodatus with the highest doctrine and religion flourished, whether also others? about whom B. Jerome sometime made mention. We these names in SS. Jerome and Peter Damian have not yet found, nor to have found seems Ughellus, unless perhaps of Fortunius alone in Peter. The same indeed Ughellus, in the order of the Gubbio Bishops, the place VII gives to Decentius; in whose time, namely in the year 416 because almost desolated was the city of Gubbio, he presumes himself of him elsewhere a poor life leading the want by St. Jerome to be indicated, in a certain Epistle, in these words: Wherever there shall be a Bishop, whether at Rome, or at Gubbio, or at Constantinople, or at Reggio, or at Alexandria, of the same merit, of the same is the Priesthood. The place then 14, 15, 16 is given to Gaudiosus, Fortunius, Deodatus, as noted in the year 590, 603 and 680; but just as Ughellus to none of those attributes the title of Saint, so neither to any I think a public cult at Gubbio fell.

LIFE

By Tebaldus the Bishop successor.

From the MS. of the Episcopal Chancery.

Ubaldus, Bishop of Gubbio in Umbria (S.)

BHL Number: 8357

BY TEBALDUS THE SUCCESSOR FROM A MS.

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

[1] To Frederick of the Romans the Emperor Tebaldus, against vow and merit of the Church of Gubbio Elect, of the heavenly Kingdom a perpetual Diadem. The Life

about to write and the miracles of the man of God Ubaldus, whatever of memory of him worthy truly I could learn, to You faithfully to direct I have determined: to whom so great grace the Divine goodness's clemency conferred, that his both most sweet discourse to enjoy, and with sacred you merited benedictions to be strengthened: whose also piety divinely taught, his sanctity both by reverence of obsequy and by an offering of a gift attested. Not yet had seen him your Majesty coruscating with miracles, and yet most devoutly venerated his glory of Sanctity. Whence to glory You in the Lord, and more exultantly it befits to rejoice, because of the divine gift it was the grace, that him, who with so great now shines wonders life-givingly dead, a Saint you merited to understand mortally living. About whose birth, and life, and also death, only to write I have determined, as much as from the relation of the faithful, who truly had known, to learn I could. For about his miracles, which after his vital death on account of him the Lord did, those only to write I wished, which either with my own eyes to see, or by their relation in whom they were wrought I could recognize. A few indeed about those also, these and upright men relating, in far-off and remote parts truly to have been done I have perceived. Faithfully therefore your Serenity let believe, whatever the present writing about B. Ubaldus to your Glory commends.

CHAPTER I.

The Life of St. Ubaldus before the Episcopate.

[1] The blessed therefore Ubaldus, in the City of Gubbio begotten, noble indeed in lineage, ^a but nobler shone with integrity of life. When he was a little infant, and still in the cradle wailed, of his father bereaved, he was delivered to God through a certain his uncle, a religious namely man, by name ^b Ubaldus. Delivered he was moreover to be nourished under the discipline of the Ecclesiastical Order, From boyhood to the Clergy ascribed, and was offered to the Prior of the church of the holy Martyrs Marianus ^c and Jacobus. Who when now made was docile, to the studies of letters is delivered: and in the same church to of intelligible age the time he had come, and that church's Clerics to live inordinately, and of no religion he betook himself, and there for some of time most honorably lived. More slowly indeed of the coming maturity of old age, with honesty already grave it rendered the age of his adolescence.

[2] Seeing moreover of Blessed memory John ^f the Grammarian, of the aforesaid City the Bishop, he refuses to take a wife. a youth of religious conversation, to his church him was zealous to recall: and with his gravity with paternal love rejoicing, often him with himself made to remain. To whom on a certain day one of his friends more secretly speaking, by carnal affection of friendship ^g moved, such words said: Behold the inheritance of your parents your kinsmen retain; and you no thence gain, and no service have. Take a wife, who your nobility may befit, and recovered manfully you will possess your inheritance. To whom the man of God Ubaldus thus answered, saying: Far be it that what once to the Lord I have consecrated my virginity I should lose, and of my integrity the cleanness with womanly luxury I should pollute. As much moreover as to my inheritance pertains, my portion is in the land of the living, and the part of my inheritance is my God.

[3] But when the servant of God of adolescence the years in an aged manner had passed, Prior in the Cathedral made, and morals' gravity him to all commended, in the aforesaid church of the holy Martyrs Marianus and Jacobus Prior is made, and with of Prelacy Ecclesiastical the dignity by the common of all vow honorably is sublimated. And indeed of the undertaken Priorate the dignity enough was honorable; but, who had been undertaken to be ruled the Clerics, of all honor and reverence were unworthy. For in the aforesaid church no then time of the Order observance, no at all of religion was cultivated memory. With an annual wage was hired, who the bells should ring at the hour of the Offices: and because of the Clerics each one in a house his own feasted and slept, almost all the observance of the ecclesiastical worship was kept in the ringing of the bells. The cloister lay open to all, the depraved morals of the Canons men namely and women, nor at any there time the gate was closed. Each had his concubine, and the discipline left of the ecclesiastical Order, to turpitude and luxury served womanly.

[4] What therefore should the man of the Lord do? whence counsel, whence help should he hope? He saw of his church the ship so broken, and by tempestuous storms on every side shattered. Was shaken his to God devout mind, fluctuating in the midst of tempests; because in the midst of perverse men a brother he was of dragons and gives much power, to his Prior Ubaldus evidently bestowed His help. For first of all those Clerics three to himself with the help of the Lord he joined, whom by benign persuasions to the keeping of the Order with himself more closely he coupled: with whom as much as he could regularly to live, and the cloister, and the table, and the dormitory, and the choir he was zealous canonically to keep.

[5] Afterward indeed to the church of B. Mary in the Port ^h he proceeded, where enough honorably of the Apostolic was kept the rule of institution, and a splendor in all things shone of all sanctity. and the Port people's rule for a three-month period having tried, There therefore for three months under the discipline of those Brothers regularly he lived: so that a disciple of truth made, without error afterward he might teach, what first by sight and hearing truly he had learned. The written therefore of the Canonical Order rule returning he brought ⁱ [and in his very return, although by the journey wearied, never the fast he broke. When moreover in a certain wood with his companion he had slumbered, thence rising the codex of the Rule by oblivion he left, and solicitous for the book's loss, or at least devastation, on account of a shower very great, his own according to it he reforms. which had fallen, he returned. The book he found where he had left it beside the way, neither snatched by a man, nor by the rain wetted] and that Rule to all the Brothers proposing, by divine accompanied help to be kept he enjoined. And it was done, that from that already time all regularly lived, and the Canonical Order all devoutly kept.

[6] These things thus composed, the city of Gubbio for the greatest part is burnt and by the terrible judgment of God the venerable Ubaldus's Canonical utterly is consumed by fire. By which loss's grief sharply saddened, the Prior of the desert ^l of Fonte Avellana Peter of Rimini he went to, whose life in God's service very much was held wonderful, and the proclamation of sanctity far and wide more brightly coruscated. To this therefore simply he made known, the Canonical burnt that both the Priorate to forsake, and the place to change he wished. By whom with a benign rebuke corrected, and by a reasonable exhortation admonished, he learned the man of God, as gold in the furnace in temptations to be proved, and the crown not except to the lawfully contending to be able to be bestowed, and a grave too much sin himself to perpetrate, if the entrusted to himself Brothers in such adversity he should leave. Believed the man of God Ubaldus to so great a man's exhortations; and hasty with alacrity returning, happily he restores, began both the burnt church, God himself in all things helping, to repair, and of the lost things the loss with the consoling friends and neighbors manfully to repair. And so in a short time divinely helped, not only all the loss of the church burnt he restored; but also in estates and possessions, and the other of human life necessaries, it so much augmented, that the fire that, not detriment to have brought, but a profit rather both of religion and of substance proved to have afforded.

ANNOTATA.

hence you may correct: for neither do we doubt but that to the Gubbio MSS. greater is the faith to be had. Oliverius thinks the same also to have been the Saint's godfather, and therefore his to him name to have placed.

in the passing of a certain Queen his eyes with a pall he veiled, lest her and her companions he should see. Eugenius the thing with more things exaggerates and amplifies, and the Empress Bertha names, Henry IV's wife, who to Rome went to meet her husband, there by Clement the Antipope to be crowned with him. A year these things would indicate 1084: when in the same Eugenius's reckoning (who thinks the Saint to have been born in the year 1074) ten years only would have been Ubaldus. And he himself indeed of the Fano stay another than studies' cause invents, because neither a University ever was at Fano (just as to suppose seems Oliverius) nor of the graver disciplines capable a boy's age. To me indeed that it be persuaded, elsewhere than at Gubbio educated to have been the Saint, his fountain on the Perugia way, an older witness it needs, than is Stephen of Cremona, about the year only 1519 writing. Wherefore neither great with me faith has, that the same Oliverius and Eugenius from the same Stephen narrate about a fountain, which to his thirsting between Gubbio and Perugia mother, at the twelfth milestone, in memory, than to divine with Eugenius, acknowledging nothing to be of likelihood in that which with his mother the boy had made a journey, since he still an infant was, when she died, as it seems from the same Stephen to be deduced.

in Eugenius Vandinus in the MS. Life was shown long a little cell, in which he lived, now by the building of a greater apse occupied: there was also in the garden an aged walnut, which St. Ubaldus's was called, and was believed by his hand planted: and the same says Eugenius himself to have heard from the elders, who remembered it to have been cut down about the year 1590. And into this Church under Innocent 2 were introduced Canons Regular in the year 1142, namely by the striving and aiding of St. Ubaldus already long ago Bishop.

by Paschal 2 ordained in the year 1105, one only year and a few months presided, dead 1106 on the day September 7, on which he is venerated. Under this when still an Adolescent Ubaldus to be called here I see, and elsewhere a youngling; I am compelled to believe, by no means born to have been him in the year (as wishes Eugenius) 1076, but ten years or twelve years later. Nor also would I believe Oliverius, making him an Episcopal Vicar.

g. Against so express a Tebaldus's sentence Eugenius thinks, this solicitation to have been feigned only, for taking of the Saint an experiment, whether truly thus he had renounced the world, that he was for a Profession religious to be made, and after this for Orders sacred to be taken up fit.

in the Ravenna territory, where lived Peter de Honestis, and the gathered there by himself Clerics or Canons Regular Constitutions he wrote, which Paschal 2 approved in the year 1115. Consult Pennottus part 2, ch. 47, and what on the day February 23 before the Life of St. Peter Damian deduced Henschenius. Died indeed that Peter in the year 1119. Each moreover Peter by Eugenius is confounded, and the same to do seems Oliverius, when he says, that St. Ubaldus in the third of his probation month between his hands made the vows of Religion, in which he is refuted by Eugenius, wishing that already long ago those he emitted. The same Oliverius more gravely and with greater right is refuted by Vincent Armanni, that the text he presumed to alter, just as he did first at no. 3, for "the dignity of Prelacy ecclesiastical," which had obtained the Saint, in the church of SS. Marianus and Jacobus Prior made, supposing the of Prelacy regular appellation: then in this place, where simply is read "the church of St. Mary in the Port," writing "the Church of St. Mary in the Port of Ravenna of the Canons Reg. Lateran" which is a notable falsification; before which can be excused, that below, where is read "the Rule to all the Brothers proposing," for "Brothers," he wrote "Canons." Meanwhile it is established the Canons Regular of the Congregation of St. Mary of Frisionaria, which afterward was called Lateran, first under Pope Martin V to have received the monastery of St. Mary in the Port, as writes Jerome Fabri part 1 of the Ravenna memoirs.

in the prior of this Life context are not had: but they are believed by the author added in his revision. Moreover the book itself of the Rule or Constitutions never into light has been given, that I know, worthy indeed that in the Library of the Holy Fathers or another similar collection a place it have, itself by itself perhaps more of light to bring to the obscure of this Canonical reformation beginnings, than what Pennottus disputes against some others, not undeservedly doubting, whether St. Augustine's Rule by the Port ones, and so by the Gubbio ones by their example informed, was received and observed.

l. Oliverius, no indicated author, adds, Ubaldus the sign of the Cross made to have extinguished the fire, and hence begun to be held by his people a Saint; which deservedly Eugenius disapproves.

CHAPTER II.

The Perugia Episcopate refused to the Gubbio compelled Ubaldus, with miracles grows famous.

[7] Meanwhile of blessed memory the Perugia ^a Bishop the human debt paid, and the man of God Ubaldus is elected to the Episcopate by the Perugia people. The Perugia people him a Bishop asking, But of whom was the purpose the heavenly in all things to follow as master, just as he the earthly had avoided on earth to receive a kingdom, so this one the Perugia to take up he shunned Episcopate. For just as the blessed Evangelist says: After from five loaves and two fishes had satisfied the Lord five thousand of men, when He had known, that they would come that they might snatch Him and make Him therefore of fleeing honor the example the good disciple having imitated, when he had known, that the Perugia people about him had disposed; secretly he fled away, and in a desert, which ^b Inter-ambas-partes is called, for some of time himself he hid. Afterward thence withdrawing secretly to Gubbio he returned, and thence four Clerics taken, he excuses himself at Rome before Honorius 2. on foot with them, without anyone's of conveyance support, to the Roman Pontiff he went. To whom when himself humbly he had presented, the vow of his soul simply he made known; and as much as he could through himself and through his friends the Cardinals him suppliantly he prayed, that him to the Episcopate benign the Pope not should compel, nay rather from the election made about him by Apostolic authority should absolve. Assented therefore of holy memory Honorius the Pope ^c to so devout petitions of his, and not wishing to grieve, according to the Apostle, whom in him he saw to dwell the Holy Spirit, received the prayers, heard the vow, and fulfilled the desire. Eph. 4, 30 Reserved therefore the man of God Ubaldus by divine ordination to the Episcopate to his Citizens, rejoicing and exulting Gubbio he returned.

[8] After these things of blessed memory Stephen the Bishop namely of God Ubaldus's city, of Episcopal care is widowed. But the Gubbio people in the election dissenting, But when there was not a consent to the Clerics of the city of electing a Prelate, the servant of God with some to Rome proceeded, namely that from the Roman Church they should elect, whom for themselves the Roman Pontiff Bishop should consecrate. But who the stone, which reproved his Ubaldus, by his citizens indeed his reproved, but by Himself the knower of merits elected, constituted Pastor over His people. For when the aforesaid servant of God together with his Clerics asked, whom the Pope by no reason to grant acquiesced; he himself through himself the Pope divinely taught Ubaldus named, and that him for themselves a Bishop they should elect, who were present, by the same named and ordained, to the Gubbio Clerics commanded. Therefore so honorably elected, and more honorably afterward by the same Roman Pontiff ^f consecrated, to Gubbio he returned, and the cathedra Episcopal to be ruled happily through the ages undertook.

[9] Now indeed the Bishop consecrated, just as had grown the dignity of honor, so grew the virtue of meekness, and all goodness. For above the measure of human conversation meek he was and humble, simple, benign, with rare virtues he shines forth, and affable. The mortification of the body, the tolerance of labor, and the contempt of the world, more than can be believed was in him. For about his patience what shall I say? when always it inseparably he had embraced above the human measure. His words few, but always with wisdom's salt seasoned. His food sparing, but discreet, and therefore of vainglory empty. For when of every kind of foods although most sparingly he took, and the vainglory familiar to the abstaining he avoided, with bread dry and arid more he used, whereby both his little body he might refresh, and to delicious meals not serve. His clothing slenderly modest, and more nourishing, than expelling the cold: thus humbly and temperately abject, that neither by price dear, nor altogether by vileness would it be despised. Now indeed about of his little bed the abjection what shall I relate? Where with little straw, a modest little sack, and a vile enough and very small he used covering. But when the harshness of cold him constrained, he cast upon himself his hose and breeches. Of the frequency indeed of his prayer to be silent rather than few things to say we have decreed, since in all time every place was for him an oratory. And because patient him above the human measure we have said, just it is that one of many of that patience an example we set.

[10] Injuriously thrust into liquid lime, On a certain day, while the wall of the city was being built, and in that wall a certain edifice the masons made, which to the vineyard ^g of the Bishopric, which under the wall lay, a too injurious detriment would bring; he prohibited, and lest to his vineyard injury ^h they should do humbly forbade. Whose interdict he, who over the work presided, pertinaciously refused: and him with injury pushing, into the liquid mortar, which prepared was, he cast. About which wholly stained when he had risen, humbly he was silent: and with the highest patience, as if nothing he had suffered to the bishopric he returned. But the citizens, the injury of the Bishop not bearing, to him who the injury had done, not only the house to destroy, and all which he had threatened to take away, but also him they wished outside the city further to drive. The Bishop moreover the tumult of the people benignly restrained, the guilty he withdraws from popular vengeance, and as if him more sharply to punish he wished, to his command the vengeance he reserved. Is led therefore the guilty before the Bishop, and asked if his he would observe command, promises the man himself to do whatever the Bishop upon him should command, even if upon him a punishment of death to pronounce he wished. The Bishop moreover protests him in no way his to keep sentence, which so much hard upon him to bring forth he disposed. But the man with devotion much and obtestation horrible promised himself to do, and for a punishment a kiss he asks. whatever the man of God wished to pronounce upon him. Astonished therefore very many, and what the Bishop to command thought awaiting, Blessed Ubaldus from his seat rose; and to him, who himself to the earth had cast, approaching; Give, he said, to me a kiss, son, and the Lord Almighty remit this and all your sins to you ⁱ.

[11] A sedition hard on a certain ^k day had arisen in the square of the city, and the citizens sharply among themselves fighting, here and there many wounded were slain. Which when he had heard B. Ubaldus, exceedingly grieved; and to the place of the fight swiftly running, anxious he arrived. But when by no reason the war to settle he could, into the midst of the lines of the contending with a course most rapid he rushed, and among the fighters' swords and of stones the hailstorms, as if mortally wounded, himself suddenly to the earth he cast. Thinking the people him to be dead, all at once their arms they cast away, the seditious by a pious stratagem he placates. their hair they tear out, and to of so great a father, as was thought, so terrible a funeral men and women equally run. Ascends the clamor of those lamenting to the heavens, and each one himself guilty of his death, himself cries a homicide. But when the man of the Lord by this art that war perceived to be settled, gently rising, with the nod of his hand he assented, and that of no of a wound pain he suffered he indicated. And so it was done, that while the Bishop himself delivers to death for the people, both the people lived, and the Bishop did not perish.

[12] He when at Fonte Avellana for the cause of rest frequently withdrew, and from custom daily Mass sang, and the place's Sacristan ^l, from this that to himself for that very fit he was, much loved; it happened, once while he had gone, that Brother to be sick even unto death. To whom when others said: Lord, behold whom you love is sick, he said to them: Where lies he? But they said to him: Lord, come, see. And when to him he had come, and had greeted according to custom; a dying man he heals, he said to him the blessed man: Although, Brother most dear, exceedingly you are sick, yet, if to you it pleases, cause for us to be given the book and the vestments, and the rest which we have for the Mass necessary. And when the requested he had received, and amid the sacred things for the sick man the Lord he had asked, in the same hour the Monk, who was dying, was made most whole, nor awaited the Bishop in his little bed.

[13] Rode with certain ones B. Ubaldus on a certain day to the parish ^m of St. Crescentinus: a blind man he illuminates, and when he had approached the parish, a certain blind man met him; who from

the answer of those going before the man of God knowing, with great obtestations crying out began to ask, that to him a hand to be kissed He would deign to hold out. Which soon, as the blind man with the kiss of his mouth touched, the light, which through a four-year period he had lost, he received. Which the servant of God having known, to him terribly forbade, that while he himself lived, what in him had been done to others he should intimate. But it could not remain hidden, what to the glory of His servant God willed to be manifest: for he himself, who blind had been, to many became known, and while the Saint lived to many manifested. he cures a paralytic woman. To the church of St. Orphitus ⁿ to be consecrated B. Ubaldus with other Bishops had come, to which with a multitude of people a certain paralytic in a little cart had been brought. And when the man of God, as is the custom, mitred before her passed; she divinely taught his garments seized, and on him while confidently she leans, from the little cart whole rose.

[14] another blind man, for receiving sight to him sent, To a certain blind man it was answered in sleep, that he should go to Ubaldus the Bishop of Gubbio, since from him he would be of light about to receive. Narrated the blind man in the morning the dream to those, who had assembled at the Mass: and comforted by all that he not be slow to obey, to come he began to the city of Gubbio. Coming moreover he turned aside to a certain cherry-tree, in which two men had climbed, who of that same tree the fruits gathered. Whom when had seen the boy, who him drew by the hand, he made it known to him, and exhorted to ask. Asked therefore the blind man those, who stood in the tree, that to him for the love of God of the cherries they would give. They answering said: Climb to us, and gather for yourself, just as also we gather. At whose answer the blind man vehemently blushed, and from his heart drawing a sigh, that of him He would have mercy he asked the man of God Ubaldus. A wonderful word! At once opened were his eyes: and when on every side he looked about, he is illuminated on the way. he began on every side clearly to see. Seeing moreover the men in the tree, he said: Eat you of these of the cherry fruits, because I by the grace am refreshed of divine propitiation. Rejoicing therefore and exulting he began to run before the boy, by whom before he was drawn by the hand: and who through a ten-year period the light of heaven, had not seen, through the invocation of the name of B. Ubaldus all things clearly saw. He came to Gubbio and all things narrated to the man of God Ubaldus: which the servant of God exceedingly grievously took, and rebuking him admonished, that not to his merits, but only to the Divine he should ascribe goodness. He extorted therefore from him with many obtestations, that to no one ever this he should presume to relate, as long as in this common life he himself with men lived. When therefore the aforesaid servant of God had migrated to the Lord, manifestly he who blind had been to all made it known, how through B. Ubaldus him the Lord illuminated.

[15] A numerous army of enemies In those times eleven cities powerful, with all their strength came together into one, and to Gubbio coming a camp near the walls placed. And so great was the people of the enemies, that hardly one of the Gubbio people would be numbered to forty of them. Some days before the man of God Ubaldus with a Procession great for three days the city had gone around, and for the salvation of the people most devoutly the almighty God had besought. When therefore the day of the fight had come, the Saint of God the people his with a prudent exhortation admonished, and to hope undoubtingly from heaven the victory constantly animated. And these indeed, with their Bishop's benedictions fortified, proceed to the war: the Bishop moreover of his cloister ascended the roof, a place namely elevated, whence he might see his people. But who Moses praying the Amalekites before Israel prostrated, He Himself Ubaldus beseeching before the Gubbio people all the adversaries into flight turned. by his prayer into flight he averts, For at the first encounter of the fight all turn their backs, flee, their arms cast away [and while themselves to save they desire, all their things leaving for nothing they reckon. For who the camp of Sennacherib through an Angel His struck, and in one night a hundred eighty- five thousand, by King Hezekiah's prayers, slew; He Himself by the power of His might that innumerable people by His servant's prayer terrified; and who before through three hundred armed of Gideon an inestimable pursued of the Midianites multitude, He Himself with few armed of Ubaldus of the Gubbio people put to flight the enemies. And what is not less to be wondered, so the fear of the Lord invaded all, that in their houses returned they trembled, and from too great a dread in their beds themselves hid.]

[16] Of a certain Presbyter, Azo by name, of the city of Gubbio, he cures a finger most ill affected, the finger of his hand exceedingly had swollen, and thence even the whole hand so much pained, that neither to rest, nor to sleep in any way he could. To this therefore through a vision the man of God Ubaldus appeared, and making the sign of the Cross over the finger, the Presbyter freed. Awakened moreover the Presbyter, when in truth he had known himself whole made; he blessed God and the man of God venerable Ubaldus. Coming therefore, to the very servant of God all which had happened to himself narrating, and for the conferred to himself health reverently to him thanks rendering; the man of God him sharply rebuked, and not without a certain indignation of mind, that any more such he not should say, threateningly commanded.

[17] he reconciles to the city Frederick the Emperor. The glorious of the Romans Emperor Frederick, when to the Teutonic parts from Rome he returned, by the enemies of the city led, came to Gubbio. They tried moreover the Gubbio people's enemies victorious the mind of the Emperor, to the subversion of the city and the perdition of the citizens, by prayers and gifts to bend. But God almighty, who under so great a Father's solicitude the Gubbio people guarded, did not permit the mind of the most meek Emperor to be destitute of the clemency of piety. For for the salvation of His people going gave God grace to B. Ubaldus in the sight of the most serene Emperor, or rather to the Emperor gave God grace in the sight of B. Ubaldus, that him a Saint he understood, reverently received, honorably treated, and what the man of God asked gladly assented ^o. To whom also the munificent Emperor a silver dish [p] with many other gifts offered; and at his knees inclined, to his prayers suppliantly commended himself, and humbly the asked of benediction grace obtained. And when afterward the Gubbio people's hostages to the custody of the holy Bishop the good Emperor to render wished, and the Bishop for his quiet providing to receive would not; a little nephew of his, the son namely of his nephew, humbly asked, and absolutely received.]

[18] with various diseases he is exercised. But this Saint of God, that worthy he might be of heaven purged of all rust, harshly too much very often scourged he was in the world; for twice a fracture suffered he of his leg, and once a rupture of his right shoulder. [q] Many also other grave frequently suffered he infirmities, but no one ever him in his sorrows murmuring heard, or any indication of murmur from his mouth perceived. He gloried indeed with Paul in his infirmities, and then stronger and more devout was he in mind, when more harshly he was scourged in body. 2 Cor. 12

ANNOTATA.

is said to have died in the year 1128 in Ughellus: and that almost it is necessary, if the Saint died in the year 1160, of his Episcopate in the year 31, as below will be said.

e. Hence perhaps took Eugenius, that very Ubaldus to have been one of those, about whom disagreed the election: but in that case I do not think the Saint, of Prelacy most fleeing, to Rome to have set out. Oliverius a contention to have been says between the Clergy and People: but objects Eugenius, that already from the year 1106 by Paschal 2 the right of suffrage from the People was taken, and much more expressly by a certain convention of the year 1119 between Calixtus 2 and Henry the Younger Emperor.

f. The same Oliverius, cited a certain Trullus a Spaniard, notes the year 1145, years namely 15 after the death of Honorius, which a wonder is to have escaped Oliverius. Eugenius assigns the year 1130 and the day March 15, a Saturday before Passion Sunday: but noticing Honorius to have died in the month of February, he acknowledges an error to seem in the month. The preceding year Easter had on the 14th of April, the Dominical letter F, therefore March 15 was the 6th Weekday before the 3rd Sunday of Lent: but on a Sunday to be made Episcopal consecrations, is known.

g. Oliverius and Eugenius think this to be the very same vineyard, whose dominion through Provost of Fano, in the year 1607 fell to the monastery of St. Ubaldus, at the gate today St. Angelus called.

h. An injury in this to have been the same wish, that in that part was made a channel, flowing from the top of the mountain the waters into the vineyard under the wall pouring.

injuries with like patience tolerated adds Oliverius, namely that him standing in the gate of the church, a doorkeeper so violently pushed, that the dashed against the door forehead copious blood flowed: which to silence to be pressed the Saint wished. Likewise that outside the Gate, Faux called, which into the March leads, meeting a certain armed horseman, and to him for dignity's cause from the way to yield refusing, with so great a blow struck by him on the jaw he was, that his face against the rock dashed a vestige of his face to it impressed, which even now is seen and religiously is venerated. Each fabulous seems to Eugenius, equally as other things narrated by Oliverius; namely, that on account of secular pomp neglected he was held in contempt by the citizens, and an Idol baptized sometime called: likewise that refusing at their judgment some commonly hated to excommunicate, deserted by all, he had not who to himself now to the Mass prepared should minister, denied by all obedience, and thus compelled he was the sacred vestments laid down home to return.

k. Eugenius, from the Ghibellines arisen the sedition thinks, from this that the city to the Guelf, that is the Pontifical, party addicted, the rest from public offices excluded: but those names and factions in the following century especially prevailed.

is venerated June 1. Eugenius calls St. Crescentinus of Cantiano, under the jurisdiction of the city of Gubbio.

to have been in the very place of St. Crescentinus: and refutes those who the miracle there done refer to the dedication of the church of St. Benedict, not far from the suburb of St. Lucia, where formerly Olivetan monks now the Poor Clares reside.

He suffered here also at Città di Castello, and is venerated September 10.

The Emperor Frederick, the nephew of Conrad the Emperor past, by Lord Hadrian the Pope crowned was at Rome, and returning Spoleto he besieged, took it and destroyed, because to him it had rebelled (done these things in the year 1155) and then the enemies of the Gubbio people procured that he should destroy similarly Gubbio, The state of Gubbio under Frederick I slender. with its citadels on the top of the mountain through the mountain's appendages built… because the Marquesses, Counts and Soldiers, who through the circuit in little castles dwelt, and the plain and the valleys divided among themselves possessed, feared lest the city growing into its former dominion as the ancient one, would be reformed and by peoples be filled, and on account of this from them would be taken the power and the districts which they held; therefore with the Gubbio people they disagreed, and thus the enemies of the Gubbio people the Emperor Frederick to destroy Gubbio incited. But the Gubbio people foreseeing it, to the Emperor hostages transmitted, of the fidelity and subjection of them making certain. At last Frederick, Spoleto supplanted through the Duchy passing, Lands others subjecting, approached Gubbio: and when in the plain near St. Benedict it was poor little, with valley and hedges surrounded, at the petition of St. Ubaldus, Frederick the Emperor the Gubbio people received into grace, and with good them fortified privileges, nor in anything harmed, but as

p. Oliverius adds a chalice and a reliquary-case, with many of the Saints' Relics furnished: for which Eugenius puts, a silver of the Imperial chapel instrument, for the use of the formerly burnt church and lately restored (although that fire happened before 20 years) and a finger of St. John the Baptist: which others however by Charlemagne to the city given assert.

q. These things to him within the last of life two-year period to have happened says Oliverius, and adds an abscess in the right hand, whence continually flowed blood, he was wont to say, justly this to himself to have come the plague: because when first he heard himself himself to consent to be going to the election. Likewise an ulceration of the whole body, through the minutest pustules, so grave, that five times a day to be changed for him the undergarment was, nor to sit he could except with feet on another seat placed: which exaggerating Eugenius, denies sleep to be able to take except with body hanging between two seats, of which one the shoulders, the other the shins sustained.

CHAPTER III.

The death of St. Ubaldus and the miracles that followed it.

[20] After a two-year disease After B. Ubaldus to a senile age gravely had come, and almighty God the prerogative of his patience and the other virtues' works of his to remunerate had decreed; that in the Kingdom heavenly's diadem the pearl from earth taken more brightly might shine, through a two-year period almost with a grave of infirmity trouble He seized him: and whatever through of the undertaken governance the negligence humanly he admitted, whatever through of remiss meekness the dissolution less discreetly he spared, whatever finally in whatever manner of earthly dust of stains he contracted, both within a furnace boiled down of bitterness, and without washed with the water of paternal striking. For the mercy of the Lord, as is written, is in the balance: and on the contrary, Drink is given in tears in measure: so that neither of mercy the scale a merit unremunerated should leave, nor of punishment the vengeance the guilt's limit should exceed. Ps. 79, 6 But when had approached of his deposition the time, home brought back from the church, his weak little body of all was destitute of strength ^a: whence it was done, that on the tenth day before of his migration the hour, from the church of St. Lawrence

[21] At the coming moreover of the ^c Saturday, on which the holy Pentecost's vigils are celebrated, by the divine Spirit led the citizens with the women to the Bishopric come, candles light, and of so great a Father the glorious exit with the highest devotion await. he dies the night after Pentecost. Through all therefore the day of Saturday and the holy day of the Lord, most reverently he is frequented, venerated, and guarded. Blessed himself believes, who his hands or feet can kiss. To his prayers all themselves suppliantly commend: and whoever himself against him to have sinned remembers, with the highest humility asks, that to him to remit he deign. The following moreover night, which of holy Pentecost the Lord's day had preceded, he migrated to the Lord. And brought into the church of the Blessed Martyrs Marianus and Jacobus honorably he is venerated, and celebrated. Run the peoples, not only from neighboring villages and castles, but also from far-off cities: assemble also Bishops ^d and clergy, Abbots, and monks, every age of both sexes runs. there is made a concourse to the body And because alive by all held had been Send meanwhile the good citizens a legate to their Contadini, with whom war they had, and them, that to of so great a Father the obsequy securely they come, call: they remit to themselves mutually faults: and especially to the noble Contadini, all, which through the war they had contracted, offenses they pardon ^e.

[21] exposed in the temple. But how gloriously so holy a soul received had been in heaven, manifest was made through the body, which dead lay in the bier; and whatever in the flesh living he had merited, through the lifeless the Lord deigned to show members. For it began with divine to coruscate miracles, who in cloths wrapped lay human; and of heavenly wonders to show the power, who of an earthly body seemed to have lost the strength. For a certain woman of Cagli, by name Maria, through much of time from one side had been contracted. She to the little bed, in which the Saint lay approached, and full faith in mind conceiving, for her languor mercy asked. By chance still to the hand of St. Ubaldus ^f a maniple had been wanting, which indeed, when with Pontifical vestments he had been clad, There is healed a contracted woman through oblivion had remained: of which when his chamberlain had remembered, swiftly runs, and the maniple into the hand of St. Ubaldus, as is the custom of a Priest, put. Wonderful to tell! As soon as the Saint, what of Pontifical vestments to himself had been wanting, received, both to infirmities health to render, and from obsessed bodies demons he began to put to flight. For the aforesaid woman at once the Saint touched, and all that contraction withdrew: and she rose at once whole, and who before had been wont to walk bent, before all to stand began erect. [She ran everywhere swiftly, who before scarcely lightly could walk; praises in common to the Lord are rendered, the bells are rung, and B. Ubaldus so much the more gloriously a Saint is proclaimed, the more his sanctity with evident signs more manifestly is shown.

[23] and very many others: This first after his deposition of miracles sign were many other signs followed; and just as evidently it is known, daily they follow.] For through four days, in which unburied he lay, to the blind sight, to the deaf hearing, and to the lame he restored walking: mutes also he made to speak, demons he put to flight, and others several with various languors laboring to health he restored. To Maria indeed of ^g Castiglione of Sytria sight: and to Martino, who of his Bishopric's dominion had been, he restored hearing. To a certain Boy of ^h Certaldo, who had been lame, walking; and to Maria of Boibo, of speaking he restored the office. To a certain also woman of his county a hand through a twenty-year period contracted he restored. A certain Majolus of the Parish from demons Imyza of the village of Fenocletus, and another woman of Colle St. Donatus.

[24] In a castle also, which Collis de Arbore is called ^k, which namely castle is in the county of Perugia, already seven years old was a certain little infant girl, elsewhere moreover a girl, of ears, tongue and feet use deprived, who of ears and tongue from birth office lacked, of feet also so destitute was of strength, that neither from place to place to proceed, nor in place could by herself with her feet stand. Of this therefore the mother, when she had heard the wondrous things, which through B. Ubaldus were done; prayed most devoutly the Lord, that them in her daughter to experience she might merit. Are called meanwhile the women, who dwelt in the aforesaid little castle, that they should carry sands and stones to build the wall. When therefore the mother of the aforesaid little infant girl was invited by a fellow-godmother, that with her she should go; she complained lamentably, because she had not, to whom her wretched daughter to be guarded she should leave. But because the voice of the crier under a ban's threat urged, when the enjoined she could not omit service, she commended her daughter more attentively to the holy man of God, To the Saint commended by her mother. saying: Of my bowels the pledge I commend to your custody, and it to your defense to be guarded I leave: and, if true are, what about you are said, now in herself my daughter to of your name the glory let experience. She said, and went away, and the enjoined to herself service for the time discharged. But when from the work home she returned, she found her daughter safe, and unharmed: for both she spoke, and heard, and with her own feet, which never she had done, walked: to the loom indeed of her mother she had come, and as if to weave wishing, at it she sat; and the returned mother to her congratulating she beheld, and to the asking what she did, with a clear voice, and a right speech she answered. Which the mother, when she perceived, with great clamor to God thanks rendered, and the friends called together and neighbors, no less of the health of her daughter, than that woman evangelical rejoiced of the finding of the drachma. He wrought also many other virtues and miracles, before he was placed in the sepulcher: and as a physician from heaven sent he healed all infirmities. m

[25] On the fourth moreover day intervening B. Ubaldus is placed in a tomb, and through the venerable hands of the Bishops, who had assembled, Is fulfilled his prophecy in the election of his successor: to the earth is rendered what had been of the earth; but that the prophecy of the holy Man about him, whom after himself they would elect, quickly might be fulfilled; in the same hour, nay in the same moment, in which the Saint is placed in the tomb, who was to be elected, coming enters the church: and so of all the will of the prophecy of the holy man serves, that no one at all, who otherwise felt, was found. And when few were, who knew what the Saint had foretold: all altogether, who were present that say, that affirm. Often indeed holy Ubaldus was wont to say, and to those inquiring of him some not by commanding, but by prophesying he said; That he will rule the Gubbio church. And so it was done, that while he, whom the Saint had foretold, without delay is elected; also with the spirit of prophecy St. Ubaldus to have shone is seen. They made for themselves meanwhile every day with candles lighted to St. Ubaldus they would come: they came moreover with a procession all together singing, men and women: and who by themselves not

could come, were brought also infants. and the citizens the whole year a festive keeping, There resounded the Gubbio city with the voice of those singing, and it coruscated from the splendor of the light of the candles. The night was turned into day, and of the whole night were put to flight by the light the shadows: and what about Jerusalem through Tobias prophesied is read, "That through all its streets Alleluia will be sung," was seen then fulfilled in Gubbio, of which through all the squares and streets praises to the Lord were rendered. Tob. 13:22 Through all mouths St. Ubaldus is sung, through all voices St. Ubaldus is proclaimed; and as if there is no other name which to be named ought, so St. Ubaldus, St. Ubaldus all frequent.

[26] All that year ^o becomes for the Gubbio people a jubilee, all full of gladness and joy: becomes that year pleasing by of all good things the abundance, peace and justice are renewed, becomes sweet and lovable by concord and peace. For what to the Prior of Fonte Avellana before had been intimated, this all fulfilled was in of His Deposition the year. For when the same Prior, who after him was elected, was at Jesi, [p] on the fifteenth night before the migration of the holy man, this very often word began in his mouth, as well of him sleeping as waking, to be frequented: "There will arise in his days justice, and abundance of peace." Which when to his two Brothers of Fonte Avellana in the morning he had related, it was answered by them, that in those parts he himself peace would make. But, as afterward most evidently it shone, about the days of B. Ubaldus, and the Gubbio city, then it was signified; in whose deposition's days, both abundance of peace arose, and justice which is owed to the poor was born: about which namely justice the Prophet says, "He dispersed, he gave to the poor, his justice remains in the age of the age." Ps. 111:9. For in that day and year reformed was between the city and the county of peace the concord, and the war which through much of time between them had been to the full was settled. Mercy also on the poor so largely was done, with charity toward the poor and pilgrims. that against custom they had not need the needy by asking to beg; but rather they themselves were asked that they would deign to receive. [Pilgrims moreover to be lodged, not only were invited, but even were drawn]. Sweet enough a spectacle it was to see two hundred and three hundred, sometimes four hundred poor in the church eat, and with all which necessary were affluently to abound. There were brought alms of every kind of foods, and whatever necessary were for the healthy and infirm were brought copiously from villages and little castles. About the Gubbio citizens it is not necessary anything to say, how for their Saint's love prepared they were all to give. Then therefore began that devout of the poor service, which the Gubbio people charity call: then in truth began of peace and justice to be strong abundance.

[27] But now to narrating the rest of St. Ubaldus's miracles let us come, and as more briefly as we can them by abridging let us number. The Saint being buried, But that faith more certain may be applied, of certain freed ones, both the places, whence they were, and the names we put. Placed therefore B. Ubaldus on of his sacred slumber the couch, as a most powerful Prince having obtained the principality, to expel he began of demons a multitude, and all diseases and all kinds of infirmities to put to flight. He freed indeed of St. Victorinus by three demons vexed; and Berta similarly of the county [q] of Camerino, by a most evil demon obsessed. Clarius also, [there are freed various energumens, and Flandula of the Castle of Castagna, and another woman of Reggio by name Maria, and a certain girl of Anxiano the daughter of Adalmarius. He saved also Adoleita of Fossato, and Berta of Sigillo. Bona also two girls of Postiniano. Berta also of Trunca, when by a demon she was vexed, heard from the very demon, whom she suffered, that if she began the journey to St. Ubaldus the Bishop, in the middle of the journey she would be freed. Believed the woman the words of the demon, and began to come to the walls of St. Ubaldus. And although the devil is always of this Saint truthful he was: for as he had said, in the middle of the journey the woman whole he left, and the very woman to B. Ubaldus most whole, rendering to God thanks, came.

[28] In the festivity also of B. John the Baptist a people innumerable had assembled at the church of St. Ubaldus; and a fiercer one on the feast of John the Baptist. to which namely people when the Elect a sermon made amid the solemnities of Masses, a certain demoniac woman came to the church, but by no reason he, who her vexed, to enter permitted. The clamor of the people is raised, for the salvation of her devoutly to the Lord prayers are offered; but the clamor of the demon conquered, and surpassed all the clamors of the people. At length by a multitude of youths she is seized, and is drawn, and even to St. Ubaldus's body, although violently, is led. Whither soon as she came, without delay she vomited, and most whole rendered, to the place, where the aforesaid Elect preached, proceeded. She was seen therefore by all the people rendering to God thanks, who before had been seen horrible to speak blasphemies. There are therefore sixteen, whom freed the Lord at the invocation of the name of Saint Ubaldus.

[29] Others also, whom He saved from various infirmities, with as great as we can brevity to touch upon we will try. there are healed various sick: He raised Bonus, a man of the village of St. Peter in Scorcetus with the languor of the gout and of the cruces, and the boy John of Fossombrone of all the strength of the hips and legs destitute. He restored speech to Benedict a boy of the village of Palcadus, which never he had had; and to Basil of Loreto, who it through a three-day period to lose was wont: who also when he was also mad and mute the mind he restored, and the office of the tongue. Paul of Colle Nucis from a fever, and Maria of the County Castellano from a great tremor he freed. He restored sight to Meldus of Sorbolongo, and to a certain woman, who was called Burgha of Castello. To two also Pilgrims Geraldus and Jordanus the light of the eyes he restored, of whom namely Geraldus utterly the light had lost; Jordanus indeed with one only eye little saw. He saved Pisarinus of Camerino of an ulcer, which through twenty- five years he had suffered; and a certain woman likewise of the county of Cagli, whose name was Altemilia; Martinus also of the Plain of Ravenna, when he suffered a fistula two heads having, to come began to Gubbio, to ask for his infirmity St. Ubaldus. But while still he was on the way, he wished, as he was wont, to change his fistula; loosing moreover the little cloth so whole it he found, that not any sign appeared of a scar. Similarly Himelda of Fossato, when a grave fistula she suffered in her breast, coming to the sepulcher of St. Ubaldus, when there she wished to cure the fistula, she found it whole. In the same manner Stephen of the Parish of Bunginianus from the same ulcer was healed before the sepulcher of St. Ubaldus. Not differently Avolina of Fano whole was made of an ulcer of another kind at the tomb of St. Ubaldus.

[30] [A certain also woman, by name Teuza, long torment so hard she suffered, that hours by single to death to be led she seemed. She the heard wondrous things of the holy man prostrated herself on the earth, and the Lord prayed, poured prayers, and vowed a vow, that the Lord her to free would deign through His servant Ubaldus. But as soon as from the earth she rose, the serpent with blood she vomited; and so unharmed made she came to the Saint of God, the vow and thanks about to render. He saved Maria of Pregio, thus through paralysis trembling, that by those not knowing a demon she was thought to have. Of the same disease John Bonelli of Montelanciani he healed.] Bertrama of Cortona had her buttocks with worms full, and the sick of every kind. of whose torment miserable while she labored, neither by day nor by night could she sleep; soon moreover as she made a vow to B. Ubaldus, the worms began to be quiet. Freed moreover she began to God thanks to give, and to B. Ubaldus, by whose merits she had escaped, free from the worms' torment. [Many also other miracles, as well in life as after death, he did, and several men of both sexes from infirmities he freed; the blind he illuminated, and from infirmities of the eyes the lost sight he restored: those contracted in members and lame he raised, paralytics, of the members' impotence he healed]. A few moreover before the multitude of his deeds to your I have proposed Serenity of those, which wonderfully wrought God by the merits of His Confessor Ubaldus; asking more attentively, that if less elegantly are they proposed, to my smallness pardon you not deny, to Him alone thanks rendering, who wonderful is in His Saints, and through all the ages of ages lives and reigns. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

a. Oliverius says, on the very Paschal feast, that is March 27, invited to the Mass for the people to be said, although gravely he lay sick, to have risen and of the heavenly beatitude and of hell's punishments to have added a sermon, which with a final benediction he concluded. Eugenius, in his manner something adding, premises the lamentations of the people consternated at the news about the extreme of their Pastor peril, whom he consoled by promising a Mass and sermon on such for a while recovered.

at Gubbio is none. Eugenius writes, it to have been at the very time when he was printing destroyed, to have stood moreover in the quarter of St. Martin called, which place formerly outside the city was. He adds from Vandinus the Saint thither himself to have betaken, after the Paschal Mass in the Cathedral celebrated, and for the whole 40 days in further departed from the mind of Tebaldus when he wrote, the Saint after Mass on the feast of the Ascension said, thither himself to have betaken, and there to have spent the ten last days of his life.

c. Pentecost celebrated in that year was May 15: from which rightly follows the death undergone in the night beginning the day 16. About which death in the already before cited Marginal Notes thus is read: Migrated moreover the venerable Pastor Ubaldus, the Saint of God elect, and Priest worthy, in the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred sixtieth, in the year of his Episcopate thirty-first. Another moreover Life this place about the death of the Saint more prolixly extends, as follows: The following moreover night … B. Ubaldus, into the hands of the Lord most devoutly commending his soul, in peace migrated to the Lord; and that soul most holy, into eternal brightness assumed by Christ and the blessed spirits and all the saints eternally is glorified: and the sacred body of him in the church of the blessed Martyrs Marianus and Jacobus with much solemnity and reverence is placed.

p Jesi commonly, between Gubbio and Ancona an Episcopal city, but much nearer to Ancona on the river Esino.

q Camerino a city Episcopal at the roots of the Apennine in Picenum is distant from Gubbio about 25 thousand paces. But we do not think it worth the trouble to inquire more laboriously into the other places here indicated.

r Lentiolum for linen, commonly Lenzuolo.

APPENDIX.

Ubaldus, Bishop of Gubbio in Umbria (S.)

BHL Number: 8358

In another most ancient manuscript, in which among several other Histories of the Lives of the Saints is had the same Life of S. Ubaldus, but without that preface of Tebaldus the elect, and also sometimes with its style changed, at the end of it these miracles concerning the same Saint were added by hand at a recent time; which therefore here also have been separately transcribed, and are reported also by Stephen of Cremona Canon of the Lateran, as taken from Jordan Provost of the church of Città di Castello, who was a contemporary of S. Ubaldus, and wrote his deeds and miracles.

[31] Peter a Priest of Camerino, and Mary of Orvieto were freed by S. Ubaldus from the falling sickness. The Prior of S. Erasmus, who fell ten times a day, Various sick are cured, as soon as he lay down in the little bed, in which B. Ubaldus had lain sick, rose healed. Gualdinus de Clancano, and Lawrence de Pinna of S. Marinus, through Blessed Ubaldus received their lost hearing. When we were returning on horseback at a very harmful and harsh time, we found two footmen swiftly going away: whom when we asked, where they went so hastily? they told us, God and B. Ubaldus has worked wonders: for to one of us he restored hearing and speech: from the belly of the other he shook out an arrow, carried by him for three years: and we go quickly into our country of Siena, that there we may preach these benefits, which we have received. a

[32] Six men also by various robbers, in various places and times, captured, six captives are freed, were strongly guarded: and neither by money, nor by any security, which they could give, were they able to go out of their chains. And these making a vow to the God of heaven and to B. Ubaldus, that if he should free them, they would always be his servants and devoted; the Blessed Confessor of Christ Ubaldus, on the following night appeared to them in a vision, and leading them out of the prisons, with chains and fetters, through woods and pathless places, even to the place of his sepulcher led them safely and without error. One was called Albericus, another Saxo of Cagli, the third Tribitus of Monte Episcopi, the fourth Baroncellus of Castiglione Aretino, the fifth Ubertus of Monticello, the sixth Marcorellus of Pieve di S. Stephen of Verona.

[33] A certain ship on the sea, while it was in peril from a tempest, all shrieking cried confusedly, and one of them said, Come, holy Ubaldus, and those in peril of shipwreck, help the dying. And at this voice all turned saying: B. Ubaldus, help the dying. And behold the glory of the Lord; and at once appeared the image of the Pontiff, saying to them: Why are you troubled, O of little faith? behold called I have come; behold the mercy of the Lord has freed you. And at once the sea grew quiet, and he who spoke did not appear. Then all run together to a vow: then to the mast of the ship a purse is hung, and a great offering of the faithful is made.

[34] And when through the world far and wide the fame of B. Ubaldus in a short time had exceedingly grown, on this side and beyond the sea, likewise 35 pilgrims from the servitude of the Saracens, thirty-five men, who had left all their things, and for God's sake had gone to Jerusalem, at b Rovasia once of Christians but, our sins demanding it, of the worst men… were held captive by the Saracens. And hearing the miracles, which God did through B. Ubaldus, with tears they poured forth prayers to God, that as through Moses his servant he led the sons of Israel out of Egypt, so through his holy Confessor Ubaldus he would rescue them from the most hard yoke of the Saracens. What more? They were quickly heard and answered in the heavenly palace; and at once S. Ubaldus sent by the Lord, in the habit of a Pontiff descended from heaven, shining like an Angel; he illuminated the dark prison, and consoled the fearful, saying: Peace be with you: I am Ubaldus, Bishop of Gubbio, whom you invoked. And at once all their chains were broken, and he took them out of custody: and so without impediment they both crossed the seas, and returned to their own roofs. Of whom we saw one, and this miracle devoutly recited by him we wrote down. A certain Religious Priest of Gualdo of the diocese of Nocera, when he was long held by fevers, B. Ubaldus being devoutly invoked, Fevers are cured. was at once freed: and there, and elsewhere did very many signs.

ANNOTATIONS.

POSTHUMOUS GLORY

Collected from various monuments

Ubaldus, Bishop of Gubbio in Umbria (S.)

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.

CHAPTER I.

The Canonization and Translation of S. Ubaldus.

[1] To S. Ubaldus Tebaldus, Tebaldus, as is said above, elected after S. Ubaldus, and perhaps never consecrated Bishop, Bonactus being substituted, is entitled Elect of the Church of Gubbio in the Privilege of Frederick, which Armannius says is kept in the public archive, given at Lodi on the 6th of the Ides of November in the year 1163. This one Ughelli accuses, by an argument perhaps taken only from that privilege, of having fostered the most noxious parties of Barbarossa. to him Bonactus, But the contrary rather can be proved from the Privilege of Pope Lucius III, in the same

Ughelli, in the year 1181 confirming to the Prior and Canons of S. Marianus the liberties and immunities granted to them by the Bishop of Gubbio of good memory. Meanwhile by which he may be proved to have lived long after the year 1163, you will not easily find anything; since Armannius wishing to refute Eugenius, who had made Bonactus prior to Tebaldus, found no other monument concerning him, than what we have just indicated. Since however until the year 1171 no name of any other Bishop is found; the time of life, which Ughelli had wrongly given to Tebaldus, we will willingly leave to this Bonactus: under whom Jordan Provost of the church of Città di Castello, who was a contemporary of S. Ubaldus, wrote his deeds and miracles. These Stephen of Cremona is said to have had, at the beginning of the 16th century treating the same argument; but now they seem to have perished, since in the title of the Appendix they alone are alleged on the faith of Stephen citing Jordan; and they could escape the diligence of Armannius, who scrutinized all things to communicate them to us.

[2] Who afterward presided over the people of Gubbio as Bishop, Offredus or Offreduccius, To Bonactus Offredus before Abbot of S. Peter of Gubbio and of the Benedictine Order, is named in the year 1171; and is said by Ughelli to have subscribed to the decrees of the Lateran Council celebrated in the year 1179, which I would rather read proved from the subscriptions themselves, which lie hidden hitherto, than so simply asserted. Much more would we wish the Annals to be found, which the same Ughelli says were written by him, and many things in them pertaining to the Church of Gubbio. and Bentivolus succeed: Offredus had as successor Bentivolus, ordained in the year 1188, as Ughelli will have it. This one therefore numbering the second or third year in that Chair, and Frederick dying (but he died in the year 1190 on the 10th day of June) Henry his son taking up the Empire held the people of Gubbio, and they under him in concord obeyed him. But when the two fortresses on the summit of the mountain, which were held for the Emperor, had been broken by certain men of Gubbio, and very much thence taken; the Emperor hearing this, was disturbed: and the people of Gubbio terrified sent to him legates asking mercy: and the Emperor indulged them kindly and piously, and conferred on them the best privileges, and determined their district and county. So the marginal notes to the Codex on the Life of S. Ubaldus: who after the grave fear was dissolved the city but the Imperial Diploma itself is extant in Ughelli, given in the year of the Lord 1191, in the 9th Indiction before Naples, which under the fervid heat of the dog-days Henry was besieging, thus writing; Absolving the Citizens of Gubbio from the annual Imperial due, all the offenses, which against us or our envoys they committed, we sincerely remit to them, and by name the breaking of the fortress of the mountain of Gubbio and the things thence taken away by them: and we grant them the mountain placed above the city on every side with its appendages, to build a new city, which they may both form and reform at their own discretion. So happy an outcome of a business so perplexed the people of Gubbio seem to have ascribed to the patronage of their holy Patron: and that they might in turn show themselves grateful to him, they acted for his canonization with Pope Celestine III, and accomplished what they desired, a Brief of this kind being soon obtained.

[3] Celestine Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brother Bentivolus Bishop and the beloved sons B. the Prior, Clergy and people of Gubbio, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Blessed be God in his gifts and holy in all his works, who according to the multitude of his mercies grants to those, who by nature had been children of wrath, the spirit of adoption, in which we cry Abba Father, and men constituted of clayey matter takes up by his goodness into the consort of Angels and his glory. As was done in our times concerning Ubaldus your Pontiff of holy remembrance. S. Ubaldus illustrious for miracles Who when pious and just, while he lived in the flesh, was held; after his passing by the near and the far placed, on account of the miracles which through his merits God wrought, deserved to be esteemed a Saint. Ps. 44. There was fulfilled in him, what the Prophet said in the Psalm: For thy fathers sons are born to thee, thou shalt constitute them Princes over all the earth: they were mindful of thy name O Lord. But thou, Brother Bishop, constituted at the Apostolic See, he asked to be canonized by Celestine III in season and out of season, in the humility which was fitting didst insist, that we should canonize the memory of the aforesaid Pontiff, and enroll him in the Catalog of the Saints by Apostolic authority, consideration being had to his religious life, and to the many miracles, which through him, after he departed from the world, the Omnipotent deigned to work. But we considering that work to exceed our sense and understandings (because it is rather of divine judgment than human, since he alone fully knows who are his) suspended your desire for some while, that to us and our Brothers, what rather should be done, the grace of the Holy Spirit might reveal. By thy supplication therefore at length induced, and inclined by the testimonies of many Bishops and others, not on our own merits, but chiefly trusting in the mercy of the Creator, by the common counsel of the Brothers we acquiesced in your vows, and canonizing the aforesaid Saint by the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and obtains it, which we exercise though unworthy, we decreed, that the feast of his passing, as of a most blessed Confessor, be held perpetually among you. Wherefore we admonish and exhort your University in the Lord, that you receive not this grace in vain, but by the example of the blessed man be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and in reverence of God and of the aforesaid Saint and of all others be more fervent than usual; that his feast be kept annually, and his feast on the seventeenth of the Kalends of June cheerfully each year celebrating, solicitously work, that your devotion about the divine worship may deservedly seem to have profited, and that others from your deed may take an example of progress, and he moved by your prayers, for the state of the whole Church may intercede with the omnipotent Lord. Given at the Lateran on the fourth of the Nones of March, in the first year of our Pontificate.

[4] Celestine had entered the Pontificate in the year 1191 on the 12th of April, accordingly the following year 1192 was now in course, when that Bull was dispatched: in the year 1192. but Bentivolus did not long survive, since his successor Marcus, Ughelli being witness, together with twelve other Bishops, was present at the consecration of the church of the monastery of Fonte Avellana, where before he had been a monk in the year 1193. Yet in that brief space, which intervened between the Canonization of the Saint and the death of Bentivolus, the Translation of the body must have been made if it was truly made in his lifetime, as Oliverius and Eugenius write, I know not by what error noting the year 1194. The same assign a cause of the Translation much less probable, If the Translation happened a little after, when they say, the new city being founded and brought down from the slope of the mountain to the plain, a new Cathedral also was founded, for that which had stood higher on the mountain; and consequently from the one to the other the Relics of the Saints had to be translated, according to the faculty, obtained from the time of Clement III by a Brief of about the year 1188. But Eugenius thinks, that even from the time of Ubaldus himself the building of the new walls was begun, and on such an occasion happened what is related in the life at number 10. But against this is, that the Emperor Henry granting the appendages of the mountain of Gubbio in the year 1191 to the citizens, to build a new city, manifestly supposes, that then first counsel was taken concerning that matter. But that hands were at once put to the work, so great a matter could not be completed within one or two years, as is the building of those walls which today are seen: but before these were completed, it is not credible that thought was given to building new buildings, nor after the completion of the new Cathedral, especially public ones. Wherefore I altogether think the notable basilica of SS. Marianus and James which is now seen, is not the work of that still most troubled age; and the Brief alleged by Eugenius, is not of Clement III, but IV, who in the year 1265 on the 5th day of February crowned, held the Pontificate nearly four years, and that pacified enough Manfred the tyrant of Sicily being conquered by Charles of Anjou, and happy with the cities pertaining to the patrimony of S. Peter: and so from the day of the privilege given by Henry, until the completion of the new city and finally of the Basilica itself, there would have flowed at least 74 years. The whole matter could be more certainly defined, if Eugenius for the year of Christ, which was not written, and is defined by him by conjecture, had noted the year of the Pontificate and of the Indiction, which Clement III, when he was crowned on the 6th of January in the year 1188, numbered the sixth; but Clement IV, the fourteenth: for from the agreement of this with the year of the Pontificate the decision would be had.

[5] To the difficulty concerning the cause of the Translation and the time, as they are handed down by Oliverius and Eugenius, there is added another concerning the manner. For Oliverius thus institutes the narration, nor was it made onto the mountain on account of a miracle, as if among the four regions of the city there had arisen a contention over the body of S. Ubaldus, to which of them it ought to be translated; which to settle Bishop Bentivolus ordered two yet untamed bullocks to be yoked to a cart: but these drew it to the very top of the mountain of Gubbio, no one leading, into a chapel or oratory sacred to S. Gervasius. But Eugenius denies that the regions were then yet distinct, accordingly holds that contention for a fiction; and prefers that by some prodigy, namely the immobility of the holy body, the Saint declared, that he would not be conveyed to the new Cathedral, and therefore that counsel concerning the bullocks pleased the Bishop: he adds moreover, that it was not a chapel, but a parish dedicated to SS. Gervasius and Protasius, to which the animals drew the body. But Vincentius Armanni, very long and very diligently versed in scrutinizing the antiquities of his country, by a letter given to me on the 3rd of October last passed, signifies, that concerning such a miraculous translation he has nowhere found anything which surpasses the age of Oliverius; and that it is the more suspect to him of falsity, because in the aforementioned marginal additions to the most ancient MS., equally old, this also is read: In process of time, when discord between the Lord Pope Innocent and Henry the Emperor, son of Frederick the first, but more probably on account of fear of the Emperor Henry had arisen, and a persecution of the Heresiarchs against the church, the Fortresses of Gubbio, situated on the top of the mountain, were held for the Emperor: but by the working and zeal of the faithful the Imperial soldiers were slain and expelled, and Ecclesiastics introduced. For which cause the Clerics and Laics of Gubbio fearing the indignation of the Emperor, lest he should come against them, taking the body of B. Ubaldus, the Defender of the citizens, from the Canonica carried it to the brow of the mountain near the fortress, and there reverently founded a new church, where it rests until the present time. The Monks and Canons of S. Peter and S. Secundus, fleeing into the mountain, dwelt in poor little habitations. There stood the Monks of S. Peter, where the church of S. Angelus is: and the Canons of S. Secundus were, where is the plain of Areola. But why did they not also carry off

the bodies of SS. Marianus and James? I believe because, firmly closed and walled under the altar they could not so easily be carried off, as that which stood openly exposed for veneration, the chest of the incorrupt body.

[6] In the same Additions it is also said, that as Frederick the first and his son Henry conferred the best privileges on the people of Gubbio, under Pope Celestine III. so this same did the Emperor Otto, and Frederick the second Emperor similarly: nor is anything further added: wherefore it becomes probable that about the year 1300 those Additions were written, and indeed not without some confusion; while for Celestine III, who excommunicated the aforesaid Henry in the year 1195, and had grave difficulties with him, Innocent III is named, made Pontiff only three months after Henry's death on the 8th of January in the year 1198. The cause of confounding them seems to have been, that likewise Innocent at the beginning of his Pontificate, as is read in his Life, having possessed himself of the Duchy of Spoleto, which was held by the Imperial Prefect Conrad, while meanwhile Philip Duke of Swabia and Otto Duke of Saxony, elected Kings through the Schism, contend among themselves, recovered also Perugia, Gubbio, Todi and Città di Castello with their counties, an oath of fidelity being received from the citizens, barons and captains. But this does not prevent that the people of Gubbio had already before tried to shake off the yoke of the Imperials, the fortresses being occupied; but distrusting their new city, and terrified by the coming of Henry with an army into Italy in the year 1196, betook themselves to safer places together with the body of S. Ubaldus taken from the Canonica. Nor does the tradition of the people of Gubbio concerning the bullocks contradict this cause, in the year 1196 on the 11th of September. applied to that matter by an old and often used example; which the people of Gubbio wished not to lead but to follow, where the animals should halt about to deposit the holy pledge. And let there be a monument of such a matter the chain which hangs in the porch of the church, now called the church of S. Ubaldus, as once bound for drawing the cart; and the twin elm, sprung up before the doors (as is reported) from the goads of the herdsmen, fixed in the ground, when the chest was to be carried off from the cart. However it be, the feast of the Translation the people of Gubbio keep annually on the 11th day of September, when there a solemn Procession is led by the religious and secular Clergy and the people.

[7] In the Theatre of the cities and Wonders of Italy, edited by John Blau at Amsterdam fol. 97, The present site of the city makes it probable, Gubbio is seen, delineated by the elegant hand of Ignatius Cassetta, and described by the pen of Vincentius Armanni, in that site which it holds today, in the manner of a triangle: whose base extends to the roots of the mountain, so that the city lies almost wholly in the plain, and only the upper part, in which is the Basilica of SS. Marianus and James with the Ducal palace and the Episcopal residence, hangs from the gently sloping mountain; and beyond the palace and church, what space remains up to the walls, drawn into a cone, has not even one house, but gardens and vineyards. But of the battlemented walls, and of the square towers at nearly equal intervals the same form everywhere, referring an age of more than four hundred years, sufficiently indicates, that this is that very site, which the new city began to have under Henry son of Frederick. But the more I consider it, the less probable it appears to me, that there is contained part of the ancient city, what Oliverius and Eugenius suppose, namely that the smaller city, which in the time of S. Ubaldus burned, was so highly drawn up on the mountain, that the site of the Cathedral church had to be changed; and I would rather say, that all that which today hangs from the mountain was not the least part of old Gubbio, only therefore included in the new, because it contained the Canonica and the Episcopal residence. For if, the city being drawn down, it had pleased to found a new Canonica and a new Episcopal residence elsewhere; they would not have done it in the extreme corner of the new city, but in the middle of the city, whither access from every side would have been easy: besides there would survive traces or at least some memories of the prior church and palace, in a place outside the aforesaid walls more elevated, such however as nothing is indicated by anyone; but rather the contrary.

[8] Indeed since the monks of S. Peter fleeing upward are said to have stood, where the church of S. Angelus is, which however is scarcely 300 paces from the wall and the gate leading to the top of the mountain, it is sufficiently understood that that church as now, so also then was outside and above the city: nor that the city being changed the Cathedral was also changed. and that so far the circuit of old Gubbio, hanging from the slope, was nearly the same on the mountain side as now it is, namely from the bank of the river Caminianus, where one goes into Picenum, even to the torrent of Cavarellus, or the road which leads to Nocera: but whatever within those limits far and wide through the plain, subject to the region now defined, extends, accrued to the city, dilated under Henry VI. What? that opposite the Episcopal residence, at the first ascent of the slope leading toward the present Cathedral, is a modest church of S. Nicholas, the first titular Patron as it is held, before the bodies of SS. Marianus and James translated to Gubbio gave occasion of changing the appellation. Since therefore I see the most ample Basilica of these, as it now is, placed above the Episcopal residence in a more spacious area; it comes to mind that that church of S. Nicholas is that very Canonica, which utterly burned S. Ubaldus restored while still Prior; and which received its first nomenclature, after, the fortune of the city now much increased, it pleased the citizens to place a far more august Basilica in the neighboring, but vacant place above the Episcopal residence; to which finally about the year 1266 completed, the translation of the holy Martyrs was made; but not of S. Ubaldus; because this one long before had been conveyed up into the mountain, from that fear which we said above of the armed Emperor Henry, after his garrison was cast down from the fortresses, the new city not yet fortified. And these I would have proposed for the sake of learning rather than teaching to the examination of D. Vincentius Armanni and the other learned men of Gubbio.

CHAPTER II.

The body with the church committed to the Lateran Canons. Whether a joint of a finger was carried off into Germany.

[9] In whatever manner the body of S. Ubaldus was carried from the city into the mountain, it is credible that the place of this deposition was already before sacred to God, and that (as the tradition of the people of Gubbio holds) under the invocation of the Holy Martyrs Gervasius and Protasius; The church of S. Eusebius on the mountain, under the care of one Priest, but by what documents it can be proved, what Eugenius says, that a Parochial church already then existed there, I will willingly learn. Meanwhile that I may more probably believe, only a small oratory was there so far near the fortress: until the people of Gubbio, for their religion toward their holy Patron, who doubtless by evident indications showed that he wished to remain and be venerated there, reverently founded there a new church, where it rests until the present time, as the author of the MS. Additions says, perhaps more than three hundred years ago. But if to the Priest of that church this also of honor was given that he should enjoy the right and power of a Parish priest; it was given to him for the convenience of those garrison soldiers who inhabited the fortress. But he was subject to the Prior and Canons of the Cathedral church, and in this state the matter remained until the year 1512, when an occasion arose of changing it for the better, which I please to give from the Italian of Oliverius and Eugenius explained into Latin.

[10] The Pontiff Julius II of glorious memory was gravely sick, and the disease had so grown upon him, Julius II being healed at his invocation, that on a certain day for many hours he was held for dead. There was present to the sick man his nephew Francis Maria della Rovere Duke of Urbino, there were present Francis's mother and wife: who in such a case, as was fitting, afflicted, found nothing more present than vows to God, by which they should promise, that, if through the intercession of S. Ubaldus, the singular Patron of their family, the Pontiff should preserve his life, into his church at Gubbio Canons Regular of the Lateran Congregation should be introduced, with the obligation of adding a dowry competent to their just number. God then heard the pious vows: and the Pontiff now almost given up he prolonged his life until February of the following year. Then Julius, it is delivered to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, ratifying the vow of his own, issued a decree, by which to the Lateran Canons, commended to him by his Nephew, he ordered to be delivered the Oratory of S. Gervasius (for so it is called in the Brief itself, says Oliverius) together with the body of S. Ubaldus there preserved. It was needful that the Chapter of the Canons of S. Marianus, with whom had been so far the right of instituting the Priest in the mountain oratory, should yield this same to the Lateran Canons: wherefore there was sent to Gubbio Angelus of Cagli a Notary and Ducal Chancellor: who obtained the required consent on the 15th day of November of the same year 1512; an instrument being thereupon made, to which subscribed D. Charles Gabrielius Prior, and eleven Canons. in the year 1513 So in the year 1513 on the 4th day of January, by mandate of the Duke coming to Gubbio D. Antony Urbani, Canon of Urbino, entered into possession of the place, to this end that he might deliver it to D. Hippolytus Canon Regular of the Lateran, about to come there with five companions; but these were Evangelista of Brescia, Augustine of Rimini, Marcus of Cremona, Augustine of Spoleto, and Titus of Ferrara: as is plain from the instrument of the Notary of Gubbio John Francis son of the late Peter Abbati.

[11] Besides the church or oratory there was then nothing else there than a tiny little house, sufficient for the uses of one Priest, to which a monastery is added: so narrow for several religious. The city of Gubbio therefore added by a liberal gift the surrounding space of the mountain; and Leo X, substituted for Julius, dispatched a Brief, by which instructed they should gather such alms as they could, for the building of the monastery and the enlargement of the church. But these for love of S. Ubaldus being collected abundantly, with the title of a Provostship the monastery rose; and the church was reduced into that form which now is seen: to which finally was added a cloister, adorned with paintings, representing for the greater part the life of the Saint: and thence it obtained that the mountain itself should be called the mountain of S. Ubaldus. These however could not so be done, but that for the preservation of that place there had to be a struggle for the Lateran Canons. For the Canons of S. Marianus, when in the year 1514, by the intercession of the aforenamed Duke Francis Maria, absolved by Leo X from the Rule, became and were called Seculars; nor saw with sufficiently equal eyes the increase of the Lateran Canons on the mountain, which in the year 1516 the Canons of Gubbio invading, thinking the rebellion of the people of Urbino against their Duke to be the occasion, in the year 1516 proceeded to such insolence, that force being done to them, seized by the arms they expelled them from the place. That matter moved the people of Gubbio, with whom the honor and worship of their Patron, notably reflourishing through the Lateran Canons, had conciliated to these the greatest favor. Wherefore a general Council being convoked, without delay and with the highest consent of votes it was decreed, that the Lateran Canons should be restored and maintained in that possession: and the people going out in troops into the mountain, against the Canons who had shut up the occupied monastery

they are restrained by law. insisted and urged that the gates be opened to them, and the expelled Fathers received. But they by no means willing to yield, at length some manner of concord was entered upon, that the monastery and church should be left to the custody of two Canons, one of the Lateran and the other Secular, until by a higher power it should be discerned, whose right in that cause should be the stronger. It was gone therefore to the Governor of the Duchy of Urbino the Bishop of Veroli, residing at Urbino, whence the Duke had departed: who the matter being known, sending a Commissary with a military garrison to Gubbio, ordered that to the Lateran Canons their possession be restored: as also was done.

[12] These same things are narrated in the Lyceum of the Lateran, which digested in two volumes in the year 1649 Celsus Rosinus, Abbot of the aforesaid Congregation at Cesena, and our most kind host when we journeyed there to Rome, published with Roman types. But they are narrated on occasion of Stephen of Cremona, whose life and elogium is extended in book 16, and after those things which we have related is thus continued: Stephen of Cremona sent there. Among these and about those times, among the chief workmen, who from the annual Synods of the Lateran were enrolled from their own body, to advance and illustrate that colony to the best of their power, and to spread abroad the greater glory of God in D. Ubaldus, Stephen Serva of Cremona was one. This one now confirmed in discipline, and now strong in vigor, and for many enough years usefully serving in his vocation among the veterans, an accession to the Lateran body being made of a Canonry, asked to be assigned to it. For affected with a special propensity of devotion toward D. Ubaldus, as the most splendid radiance of the Order; and now feeling himself inwardly impelled, both to venerate his most holy pledges, which there both entire and palpable and almost living are preserved, and to render there some special obeisance to him, he moved every stone, that he might be numbered among the new dwellers. Many prayed earnestly for the place, a man of great spirit, whom neither the roughness of the mountain nor the difficult winter and summer comings and goings, nor the poverty of family means, nor the begged-for victuals in part, nor the strict habitation according to the Canonical rite deterred. There he gave himself wholly to the laborious, continual, and most arduous exercise of exorcizing the possessed, full of strong and efficacious charity, through which both the profitable intercession of most holy Ubaldus with God shone forth, and the useful discipline and fatness of spirit of the Canonical Order was commended. But the multitude of the languishing and infirm of every kind flowed together there the more, the greater the ardor of charity with which they were sustained and the more vigorous the hope and confidence: which thence received progress and increase, because perennially were seen restored healths, and as to the soul always better off all returned to their own.

[13] He at once from the begun work began to be eminent above the other fellow-laboring Canons, and by experience for the exorcisms of demons, because for carrying on that province he seemed made above all. Age, doctrine, cheerfulness, skill, firmness of strength, sobriety, and the compassionate power which they call commiseration, and zeal of souls were displayed in heaps united in the man. Nay also the experience acquired by the exercise of a few months over the arts, cunning, deceit, and devices of demons constituted him in a manner the foremost teacher of the rest, who by a constancy truly Priestly and a command full of safe confidence might break through the whole power of the adversaries and the obstinacy of the rebellious spirits. Another face was given to the place in the space of six years from his coming, while for the one secular Priest, depending on another's nod, so many strenuous men contend for the glory of God and of the Saint. These indeed in moderating the reins of the Provostship and government, he notably promotes the place, those in promoting the buildings and construction, these in curing and consoling the most miserably afflicted, desolate and vexed; all finally conspiring into one by sacrifices, prayer, fasting, discipline and the ministry of the sacred synaxis and sacred confession. And although by many adversities they were assailed, yet they were not overcome: but as gold in the furnace were purified; and the tribulation itself added strength, and among the peoples flowing together it was proved by experience how great the religion was, which formed such holy workmen.

[14] Stephen himself, increased on every side in talents and in spirit, began first to note down the graces, and the wonders, which daily He writes the Life and miracles of S. Ubaldus, were done there at the intercession of the most holy Father Ubaldus, and to reduce them into commentaries. Then to increase more and more among the faithful devotion and hope, he put his hand to writing his Life. A wondrous tenderness of heart toward the Saint and toward those devoted to him exerted its powers, namely that God might be honored in his glory, and in his glorification both good things of soul and of body might be obtained by them. A diligent and assiduous investigation gave into his hands a little work, which concerning the life of the same most blessed Father, while he himself was almost still surviving, Jerome Jordan, Prior of the Cathedral of Città di Castello, had written: whose introductory light he followed before the rest more securely. following Jordan a contemporary of the Saint. But that he might be able to profit more widely, who professed himself with the Apostle a debtor to the wise and the unwise, he wrote in Latin and Italian. For pitying the lot of those, who Transalpine either from Gaul or from Germany came, having measured a long pilgrimage, their health restored returning to their country, but because of ignorance of the foreign idiom could not celebrate the acts and merits of the life of their liberator and benefactor, he held it good and the outcome approved that by that one prescription of the Latin tongue he had opportunely succored them. Stephen therefore wrote the Life, Graces and Miracles of the most holy Father Ubaldus the Bishop in Latin and Italian, which was printed at Parma in 1519.

[15] We indeed would first wish to obtain that same little work of Jerome Jordan sincere and pure: then to discern what taken from elsewhere Stephen added by a comparison of both writings; but we have not even hitherto been able to obtain the lucubration of Stephen himself, and we are compelled to learn from Oliverius and Eugenius, those things which they, Jordan being nowhere named in the margin (as being equally destitute of him as we) edited under the name of Stephen. The narration concerning the joint of a finger taken from Stephen, Meanwhile we altogether believe it to be of Stephen alone, that from I know not what confusion of names and persons, under his authority, is narrated a miracle, as done at the bier of S. Ubaldus, still standing openly in the church. There came to him, says Oliverius, one of the servants, by nation a German, and said: Thou, Lord, while still living didst promise to give me so much, as would suffice for life honestly to be sustained: but now I both lose thee my most beloved patron; nor do I receive anything, by which to sustain my old age. When he said this before all the people weeping; behold for thee, O wondrous thing! he who lay dead, applying his left hand to his right, at once took from it the glove, at once one joint of the right thumb, and gave to the servant, thinking he received the glove alone, and glad even with that alone. This therefore he carried with him into his country, to the castle called of Pinetum of the diocese of Basel: to which when he drew near, all the bells began to ring no one moving them, the people astonished at the novelty of the prodigy, nor understanding its cause. The next day the servant unfolded the glove of the Saint, it being translated into Germany, and wondering at the joint of the finger found in it, showed it to the chief men of that castle, and declared how great had been the sanctity of his deceased Patron. This was enough for the pious men that alms being collected for the building they founded a noble temple under the name of that Saint, and instituted a College of Canons, whose first Provost should be the same, who had brought the holy Relic, to be sustained not with difficulty by alms, flowing there on account of the frequency of miracles.

[16] These things if in that manner in which Oliverius rendered them, Stephen also wrote, we must needs confess, that he was versed in writing with greater credulity than prudence: since having the holy body itself at hand, it never occurred to him to explore, whether in truth a finger was lacking to it, which was said to have been carried off into Germany; when meanwhile every year, as below will appear, it was the custom to cleanse the holy body of dust before the Confalonier and Consuls, and to clothe it with new garments. But this negligence of investigating the truth was made much more portentous twenty-five years after the Life was written by Stephen, when there was received, what follows and is kept in the Chancery of the Community of Gubbio, a testimony, signed with public faith in this tenor. in the year 1544 confirmed by those coming thence: To all etc. let it be evidently plain. In the year of the Lord 1544, on the 5th day of April there came to the city of Gubbio the venerable Lords John Ulric and Theobald Sessus Cantor, Canons of the Collegiate church of S. Theobald of the town of Thann, of the diocese of Basel, for the cause, as they asserted, of seeing and visiting the church and the most holy body of S. Ubaldus, affirming that they had come only for the said effect, because in the said town is kept a particle of the finger, of the aforesaid most glorious Divinity: under whose devotion a very great temple appears constructed, and successively the town on account of infinite miracles was built, by the name of Thann (to which church all the neighboring and even from afar infinite persons of both sexes flow together, stretching out helping hands) and by the merits or prayers of so great a Divinity, under the reverence and devotion of the finger, immortal thanks they affirmed are obtained, the lame and blind being healed, and even the dead raised, and from any languors freed. But the town of Thann is, from the pines commonly called Dann, and therefore by Oliverius and Eugenius also called Pinetum in the Sundgau of Alsace, distant from Basel about six leagues.

[17] Could it have been, that these things being related with so certain (as it seemed) faith, no one's mind was struck by a pious curiosity, in the year 1593 to be satisfied with no labor, when again that holy treasure should be uncovered? especially since the very novelty of the miracle ought not only to detract nothing from the estimation of it, on account of the deficient joint; but to add very much, on account of the worship of the Saint so far and with so great celebrity diffused? At length however, after fifty years passed from the receiving of the aforesaid testimony, something was done; and to the perpetual memory of the matter, and the confutation of the now-spread error, by the hand of Marcantonius Timotellus an instrument was signed, which Eugenius from the same archive of public writings transcribed exhibits in these words: In the name of God. Amen. In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1593, in the 6th Indiction, in the time of the Pontificate of the most holy in Christ Father and Lord Clement, by divine providence Pope VIII, in the church of our Divine Protector Ubaldus, outside the city of Gubbio. after an examination made publicly, Since a certain voice was long sent forth, and through the ears of many had flown, both in this city of Gubbio and outside it, that to the Relics or Body of the most blessed and most glorious our Protector Ubaldus, which is kept on the mountain named from the same Saint, there was lacking one finger of the right hand. Hence it is that the most illustrious Lords the Confalonier and Consuls, transferred to the church of the aforesaid D. Ubaldus, to cleanse the said body, according to the most ancient custom of the same Lords, moved by the divine Spirit, both for the greater conservation and cleansing of the said holy Relics, and for the greater elucidation of the truth, decreed to make themselves more certain of this matter. And to the said effect with that reverence which was fitting the body being transferred into a corner

of the said church, and placed upon a wooden table, covered with white linen, for the greater convenience of those who had to perform this pious work; and there assisting the most illustrious D. Annibal de Benis Confalonier, and D. John Francis de Leonardis, D. Antony Milli Regis, D. Spera Traversa Consuls, and the illustrious D. Count Gabriel de Gabrielibus, and the very reverend D. Constantius Barzius; the said Body was, by the hands of the reverend D. Dionysius Vicentinus Canon Regular of the Lateran, under whose custody it dwells, and by the hands of the reverend D. Antony Maria Vespasianus Chaplain of the same most illustrious Lords the Confalonier and Consuls, all diligence being applied cleansed of dust, it was found false; and to the aforesaid effect there were drawn from his blessed hands the gloves, and the hands and fingers were seen, which were both by the aforesaid Lords there assisting, and by me the undersigned Notary and Chancellor, diligently inspected and numbered. And the said Body was found intact in all its parts, lacking no finger, joint, nor other member: nay rather, what is to be wondered at, there are still present all the nails distinct and clear, as if the said most blessed Father still lived. And there still lasts a single mole under the right jaw near the throat: which now is so discerned, as if a few days ago he had died. And so afterward the Body fitted up was placed back in its place, and thanks rendered to God the Best and Greatest for so great a gift.

[18] The more laboriously and solemnly these things were done, the more they seem to have had to be the more effective utterly to abolish, and yet in the year 1616 still believed by Oliverius. if any survived, the opinion of a joint deficient in the holy body: and yet that Charles Oliverius of Vicenza whom I mentioned, in the year 1616 Exorcist at S. Ubaldus, and so only twenty years after the matter done, published with Perugian types the often-cited Italian Life of S. Ubaldus, dedicated to the Confalonier and Consuls of Gubbio, and into it in chapter 13 inserted concerning the German servant, the things which above from him I have rendered into Latin. So difficultly do prejudiced opinions go out of minds, which once any community, much more a nation or whole religious order, has received as true and handed down by its elders. But if perchance among them some more prudent one, struck by the light of the contrary truth, wishes to act less pertinaciously; he yet torments himself on every side, that since he cannot hold the whole, he may hold some part of the fiction. So the other writer of the life of Ubaldus, Eugenius, seeing that it could by no means be, Eugenius thought it could be understood of the successor, that at the funeral of S. Ubaldus was done the miracle which is narrated, presumes that in his successor and the writer of his life Tebaldus, who also himself died with an opinion of sanctity, this was done. To that presumption it favors, that the aforesaid Canons from Germany call their Collegiate church by the title of S. Theobald; and by this make it manifest, that of SS. Ubaldus and Tebaldus as the names, so also the persons are confounded.

[19] But Eugenius did not know, that besides Tebaldus Elect of Gubbio (for I would scarcely dare to call him Bishop, not knowing that by the Germans SS. Ubaldus and Theobald are confounded. who whether he was ever consecrated I know not) notable for no worship even among the people of Gubbio themselves, there is another S. Theobald the Hermit Priest, as I said in the preceding Commentary, who is venerated on the 30th of June: where we shall show, how he also somewhere is painted and venerated as a Bishop, because he was confounded with his great-aunt's uncle, Theobald Bishop of Vienne, or with Ubaldus Bishop of Gubbio; elsewhere simply as a Confessor not a Pontiff, painted in the habit of a Hermit. But this Saint, as from the Life then to be given will be clear, sprung from the territory of Sens, brought up at the castle of Provins, and variously a pilgrim, at length in Italy near Vicenza a city of the Venetian dominion lived and died now a Priest ordained in the year 1066. Whose bones (as is read in the Breviary of Amiens) translated into Gaul, found much veneration in many places, namely in the dioceses of Paris, Reims, Toul, Metz, Trier, Liège, Autun and Dijon: through which his Relics were distributed: why not also of Basel in Germany? For that his worship was propagated even to Vienna of Austria we shall show on the said day the 30th of June; there also about to treat of various other Saints of the same name, not sufficiently distinct from one another; nothing meanwhile doubting, that he whose parish at Venice exists from the year 1171, by the aphaeresis of the first letters most usual to the Italians called di San Boldo, is not of Ubaldus of Gubbio, but of Theobald of Vicenza.

CHAPTER III.

The happy industry of Charles Oliverius in promoting the worship of S. Ubaldus.

[20] Charles Oliverius sent to the monastery of Gubbio, The author of the Lateran Lyceum Celsus Rosinus in book 3 treating of Charles Oliverius, after he has led him through three other monasteries of his Congregation, finally coming to that of S. Ubaldus of Gubbio, briefly describes it, and, transferred to this house, he says, Charles conceived in the very first days that devotion and veneration toward the Divine Prelate, by which afterward he so greatly flourished, and by which he was protected and helped to perform and complete so many excellent things. Perpetual were the vigils at the holy tomb, continual the prayers for the direction of life and morals to obtain the greater glory of God. Together with the Priestly dignity he is clothed with fortitude of mind and excellence in the exercise of exorcisms, although otherwise he had been made by nature of a more delicate temperament of body. Hence little by little with practice grew so much his capacity, spirit, intelligence, that the utterly arduous art becomes on every side obvious to a mind panting for the safety of so many languishing ones. It is scarce credible what he endured, what he performed, and assiduous in the office of exorcist, how many myriads of labors willingly he met, undertook, perdy in adjurations and exorcisms, pernoctant in vigils and prayer. The rebellious contumacy of the most lost enemies, and the obstinate efforts of the most wicked spirits he hedged in, blunted, broke, with greater constancy and a mind more than iron or adamantine. Eight or ten continuous hours more than most often he gave to the holy work, amid sweats and toilsome contests, with prayers, reading, commands, and other things from his art pressing the adversary.

[21] happy From nearly the whole Christian world I might say, certainly from all Italy on every side called to the holy things by the intercession of Ubaldus, by whose prayers God was most wont to grant deliverance: and very few and perhaps none are there, who do not go back either wholly unharmed, or very much better. But he intensely devoted to the Saint, and wholly in increasing his worship and devotion, moved every stone, that with Christian and truly Priestly and Canonical charity he might help all. Hence the special blessings of water, hence of oil, hence from the lamp burning perpetually before the holy body the marvelous effects and graces of other oil distributed, according to the piety and devotion of those asking. And therefore after some years he became so known, and industrious, that in admiration of so many labors and in love of the laborer and in chief esteem the peoples flowed together in troops. Everywhere called, everywhere he passed through. For those who by ligatures, charms, incantations, fascinations, maleficies were held, nor yet for some reason could go to Gubbio, found in him the most present help. The whole coast of the Umbrians and Picenes especially he traversed when requested, the Lombards themselves sometimes had him as a prayer-helper, and among them the Magnates and Princes, whose humble letters and more effective offices we too sometimes knew, to which however he accommodated equal labor, God perhaps moving otherwise within and disposing otherwise. Wherefore by these and similar other proofs of his blameless life and integrity of morals moved the people of Gubbio, he is endowed with citizenship and a Prelacy. chose and created him by Senatorial decree a Citizen and Patrician, and liberally and spontaneously endowed him with every right of the City. Nay also the Congregation, in reward of so many good works, by the chief promotion and procurement of Seraphinus Merlinus and Jerome Onophrius Definitors, decorated him with the Provostship of that monastery, the Fathers of the Province alacriously bearing that known virtue should still in an external man be rewarded, although it were without example, if we attend to the present form of government introduced in the Religious Order.

[22] From the conferred insignia of the Prelacy he felt his stimuli increased to emulate still better charisms, and to run the course of the illustrious work more eagerly. Therefore relaxing nothing of his accustomed practice, helped by Elizabeth Brancaleone he allured and conciliated, both by the administration of the Sacraments, and by familiar and pious addresses and salutary admonitions and exhortation, as many companions as devotion and piety gave to the wretches vexed by diabolical rage. Elizabeth Brancaleone de Ansideis, a most choice woman and the ornament of the matrons of Perugia, he had especially as the chief helper of the holy temple and canonry, commended above the rest by reason of benefits conferred. Her exceeding piety toward God and toward D. Ubaldus and singular devotion, proved by the outward testimony of signs, ought eternally to be in the heart of posterity to repay prayers from gratitude of mind. She, having accompanied her son, conspicuous in the flower of age and illustrious in virtues worthy of a patrician man, but ruinously vexed by a maleficy; when God so disposing, she entombed him there called to a better life; conceived such piety toward D. Ubaldus and such propensity of mind toward Charles, that both for several years she gave herself as a pilgrim to the holy house, and a sequestered woman to pious exercises and meditations, he publishes the life and miracles of S. Ubaldus, and enriched the temple with an erected altar with worthy ornaments, and the sacristy with precious furniture, and ordered an ample guest-house at Perugia opened to the Fathers. By her helping hand animated Charles, the life and miracles of most holy Ubaldus, and the Staff of demons, composed, published. In which it became clear enough in him, that charity works all things. Since the good and innocent man was not instructed with that furniture of letters, from which it could be believed such a thing could be drawn forth, since he had scarcely superficially tasted something of the Philosophical doctrines, and the rest, weary of them as inflating and dry to the spirit, had left.

[23] Thus far concerning Charles, Rosinus: who then in the enumeration of his writings, after the book on the Life and Miracles of D. Ubaldus, likewise the graces received from him, to the Standard-bearer and Consuls of Gubbio reprinted at Gubbio in the year 1623 by Marcus Antony de Triangolis; adds the Graces done by the same D. Ubaldus to those supplicating his intercession, in one book, to Alexander de Monte Bishop of Gubbio, who, Charles perhaps already then dead, died at Rome in the year 1628 on the 18th of July, four months after there was published at Rome, with the types of Paul Massotti, another Italian life by Michael Angelus Eugenius of Gubbio, which Michael Angelus Eugenius also did, and dedicated to Francis Maria, the second of this name, sixth and last Duke of Urbino: which Eugenius, besides other authors known to us and named above, praises Lives of S. Ubaldus, edited by D. Count Francis Falcuccius in prose, and John Andrew Palatius in Latin verse, and another in MS. by Fr. Francis Vandini of Gubbio, and the miracles collected from all, in an order convenient enough through eighteen Chapters digests, after he has the older

miracles related in the Acts at number 22 briefly, as they are reported, run through in the Life itself chapter 24. Whose order following, since other older written and edited miracles which we would wish are not submitted to us, we shall bring in Eugenius speaking Latin from the Italian, beginning from page 98 of the book, chapter 2.

CHAPTER IV.

Various benefits bestowed on various persons, especially the possessed being freed.

[24] It was the custom that on the eve of the feast of S. Ubaldus, his body, flexible in all its members, An impure Priest cannot move the holy body. the old garments being removed, should be clothed with new. When the Priests, to whom before the Canons Regular were introduced that care was committed, were once about to do this, and to that end wished to lift one of the arms, they found it altogether rigid. All being astonished at these things, one of them, who gave their labor to this action, conscious to himself of some sin, by which defiling body and soul, he had lost the purity congruous to such a ministry, went away from the place: and soon to the others the body was tractable. But that custom died out, after by doing it on a certain occasion the right side was somewhat injured: for from that time there perseveres unmoved, that which they then put on the holy body, a waxed garment of most fine shroud, covering the whole except the face, hands and feet: nor is anything else now changed annually, than the chasuble and miter with the flower which is inserted into the mouth, and the cotton which is placed over the throat, and afterward usefully applied for curing many infirmities. So Stephen of Cremona.

[25] A woman of Parenza, says Stephen (D. Charles makes her of Piacenza) whose name was D. Palma of Master Antony, A little girl who fell is revived. had committed to one of her two little daughters the more grown-up the other smaller one to keep: of which that one lifting her little sister in her arms, so unhappily attempted the matter, that the little one falling with head turned backward dashed against a stone and suddenly died. Coming upon a case so deadly the mother invoked Holy Ubaldus: and soon she who seemed extinct began to move, and an infant crushed by his sleeping mother, and appeared healed. Another mother going to bed, had so improvidently placed her infant little son at her side, that sleeping she crushed him, and waking found him altogether dead and livid in the whole body: who however, D. Stephen being witness, at the vow of the afflicted mother recovered life and vigor.

[26] In the year 1517 a certain woman of Forlì was leading her possessed daughter to Assisi: who passing by Gubbio when she was only one mile from the church of S. Ubaldus, met a certain man in Franciscan habit, asking whither she was leading her daughter. And when she had answered, To Assisi; he answered, At Assisi the possessed are not freed: lead her to S. Ubaldus, there she will be freed: and the way being shown with his finger, he disappeared. She obeyed, and as soon as she entered the church, she saw the girl freed: nor did she doubt, as Stephen and Charles write, that S. Francis himself appeared, and yielded that honor to S. Ubaldus. The same report that at Norcia there was a nun, whom three demons sitting on her so cruelly vexed, and a nun of Norcia. that sometimes snatched into the air they cast her down thirty and more cubits, sometimes also sent her into the fountain of the monastery to be drowned. To various holy places her kinsmen had led her in vain, when at length the fame of S. Ubaldus was carried to them. When the demons understood themselves to be led to him, in vain striving, since they said they had there no greater enemy, they accomplished nothing else, than that those who were certain to go were the more confirmed in their purpose; the outcome of which was this, that before they went out of the borders of Norcia, the poor woman felt herself freed: yet she was led to S. Ubaldus, where it was fully established concerning her deliverance, after all things had been applied, through which certainty is wont to be sought.

[27] The son of a certain noble matron of Montone, a town situated toward Città di Castello, There are healed diseases of various kinds brought on by the besieging demon. was ill in stomach and breast by the work of a demon sitting on him, and was freed: as also from foul ulcers inveterate by the working of the same was John Antony, an inhabitant of the territory of Cantiano under the power of the city of Gubbio; and that in the year 1519. From the very town of Cantiano was born Paula, who for the most part seemed to rage, infested by three thousand demons: who exorcisms being applied under the invocation of S. Ubaldus all went out, except one, whom for the exercise of the woman's virtue it pleased the Lord to leave one only she bore Marina Martini of S. Juliana of the county of Perugia: but not even at Rome could she be freed: but she was freed at S. Ubaldus. By a similar guest was freed Primavera of Borgo San Sepolcro, making a vow to God and the Saint. Pasqualinus of the County of Gubbio was brought to be exorcized, and so freed from pains in the whole body so great, that he did not even suffer himself to be lightly touched; but exorcized, within one day he was free. Born thence Stephen, from a like torment of the whole body and from scrofula was healed. An unchaste woman, pricked to penitence of her former life by the torment of an incurable cancer eating away her hip, as soon as she was brought to S. Ubaldus, knew the cause of the evil to be the demons, to whom she had been handed over; and these being expelled soon appeared healed.

[28] Thirteen thousand demons a certain possessed woman of Gubbio was said to suffer, Likewise other unknown sufferings from a similar cause with a pain of the head so bitter, that on any day she suffered at least three faintings, most like a dead woman, until by the intercession of S. Ubaldus she was cleansed. In the year 1519 five years had flowed, that in vain a woman of Perugia had wearied physicians, laboring with an infirmity unknown to all: but when she was brought to S. Ubaldus and exorcized, one of the five devils besieging her began to cry out, We are slain, we are slain: and within an hour all went out. Brought to the same place a nine-year-old girl, as possessed, by several spirits, after the exorcisms were applied, was dismissed, one only remaining, who going again and again from the neck to the breast upward and downward seemed to mock the labor of the Priests adjuring him. and a ten-year-old girl, One therefore of them suspecting a hidden sin to lurk in the girl, asked her parents, and it being detected sent her away free having confessed sacramentally. But when the poor girl had returned to the same sin, the demon also returned to her: who being again expelled in a like manner, the little one was seriously admonished to act more cautiously, and so dismissed. By a similar impediment Sanctes of S. Andrew was detected to be held that the exorcisms profited nothing: and two men not duly confessed. but when he had expiated the most grave fault which he bore by confession made, he suddenly felt himself immune from an unknown three-year infirmity, on account of which he had come to S. Ubaldus, all other remedies tried in vain. So also a certain citizen of Gubbio, wont for two or three days to be driven into furies, was detected to be therefore handed over to the demons, because he concealed certain enormous crimes: but as soon as restored to his mind, he confessed them, thereafter remained of sound mind.

[29] Bernardinus Bassettus of Caresto, a castle of the territory of Gubbio, for five months remained sick so that he could take neither food, Likewise other possessed persons. nor drink, nor sleep nor any rest: but persuaded by D. Stephen, the same who wrote this and the preceding and several following things, to take care to be transferred to S. Ubaldus to be exorcized, he obeyed the counsel: and the cause of the evil manifested, the demons being quickly driven out, he could thereafter do all things, which are necessary for sustaining nature. There by the holy exorcisms procured Oliva de Villa-nova, the demons being detected within an hour was freed, and at the same time from the pains, which she had suffered incurable in the whole body, now for ten years. The same, the same Stephen and Charles being witnesses, befell Joannina Bettona. Of Elizabeth Andrew from the town of S. Constantius of the diocese of Urbino it is said, that besieged by four hundred thousand devils, and brought to S. Ubaldus, within four days she was freed. There after the accustomed exorcisms and a vomit of copious blood by similar guests was freed Gratiosus of the family of Castalda, contracted in his members, nor curable by any remedy hitherto. By three thousand demons also Elizabeth Rosati was believed besieged for three continuous months, and exorcized as she was, she suddenly experienced herself free. A certain matron of Perugia, noble by house, by vow brought her possessed daughter: and impatient of delay could not stay within the church. When yet she returned a third time, at the very point of time, at which the Priest at the altar intoned Glory in the highest; On the occasion of such a possession, the demon began to cry out from the girl's mouth, We are slain: and an exorcism being soon applied he departed, leaving the girl free. But that from seven principal spirits, for many years now occupying a certain Venetian nun, she might be freed, twelve days of adjurations were needed.

[30] John Christopher, son of Master John Antony Tintus, seeming to be held by an utterly strange disease, exercised the diligence and industry of physicians for several years with no fruit; The Saint in the form of a poor man was seen to ask alms, when again and again, no cause appearing, he was turned to flight, and then fell down in the middle of his course, like a dead man. At length his friends suspecting what it was, led to S. Ubaldus, he was freed on the fifteenth day. At the very point of the deliverance his father was taking dinner at Cremona (whether himself a Cremonese the writers are silent) and felt the door knocked at by a poor man, asking alms in the name of God and S. Ubaldus. To whom when he had ordered bread to be given, soon remembering his son led to S. Ubaldus, he wished to have the same poor man as a table-companion: but sought by those returning to the door, he so nowhere appeared, that afterward the deliverance of the master's son being learned, accomplished at the same time, they did not doubt, that the Saint himself willed, this to be a sign of the benefit then conferred by him on that family. A certain girl of Parma, whom it was clear to be possessed, after a vow made by her father to S. Ubaldus at once appeared free. But Francisca of Bernardinus dalla Cerasa of Mondavio, besieged by several demons, needed for the cure fifteen days.

[31] A woman, whose name D. Stephen suppressed, that he might narrate the whole matter more distinctly and freely, and a sinner devoted to the Mother of God, for many years had been subject to three demons, whose uncleannesses she with difficulty resisted: but she was very devoted to the Mother of God, whom she was wont to honor with a Saturday fast, besides the set times of the Lenten and Advent fast, and for this cause the demons were prevented from killing her, as they strove to do. In this state the Mother of mercy pitying the sinful soul, appeared to her every night, saying: Go, daughter, to S. Ubaldus, and confess to the Fathers that sin, which you know to have never been explained by you for shame. But Easter approaching she added the same: I beseech you, daughter, do not with so great filth receive the body of my Son, for it would more profit you so polluted to receive heated iron in your mouth. Moved by these she came to the church of S. Ubaldus, and confessed indeed, but not entirely. she induces to confess entirely, The Mother of God ceased

therefore for a whole month to appear to her indignant: yet because the woman continued the devout fast, she again appeared to her, reproving her for the confession not entirely made, and adding: Know, daughter, that unless I and S. Ubaldus preserved you, you would long ago have been suffocated by the demons. But that she might know this more certainly, it happened on the occasion of washing the linen furniture she was vehemently impelled by the demons, to throw a certain little son of hers into a cauldron of boiling lye: who then is freed at S. Ubaldus. but at the same time she heard at her ear the voice of the Mother of God speaking to her, and deterring her from so great a crime so effectively, that at length she ordered herself to be carried to S. Ubaldus, and duly confessed she was fully freed.

[32] In the year 1596 in the month of May there came a great number of possessed persons, of whom shortly twenty-two were cleansed. In the year 1596 several others freed, Nay also in the very journey to the church of S. Ubaldus Andreana de Frontone, of a place of the territory of Gubbio, felt herself freed, after terrified by specters and horrible voices she had commended herself to the Saint. Yet it was judged that exorcisms should be applied to her, lest perchance the demon had hidden himself for a time: and it was established that her deliverance was certain. Martius Govidone of Foligno, long took no other food, than that handed by the hands of Priests: but at the sepulcher of S. Ubaldus he was quickly freed from the unknown infirmity by which he was held. Something similar befell a certain thirteen-year-old youth, much wearied: and Livius of Gubbio invoking the patronage of the Saint. Much more fiercely was agitated another ten-year-old boy, called Christopher: whom several strong men could not restrain, from slipping out of their hands tearing his clothes, running naked through the streets, digging earth for himself for a grave, terrifying any he met with snatched-up weapons, and striving to cast himself down, or to wallow in mud like a pig. But at the sepulcher of S. Ubaldus the demons suffering force were at length compelled to go out. The sight taken away by the demons, the adjurations being applied under the invocation of S. Ubaldus, D. Peter of Perugia recovered: in a like manner Cassandra of Fabriano was helped, that she might no longer be hindered by the demons from hearing the holy sacrifice of the Mass, confessing her sins, receiving the body of Christ.

[33] Let this argument be closed by the most illustrious D. Lucretia Bufalini, and among these a most illustrious matron who not content with what was written by Count Frederick Falcuccius, wished the grace done to her to be more distinctly explained by me. With her own mouth therefore she narrated to me, that when for the cause of trying the exorcisms she stayed at S. Ubaldus, on a certain day unobserved by all she came down from the chamber, and on foot toward the city went along the slope of the mountain to that fountain, which under the appellation of S. Ubaldus gushes there modestly. Then bare-footing herself and entering the water, feeling the greatest refreshment and no small solace, she vomited up a certain thick matter like a fungus. Meanwhile the household came up, seeking her who had secretly departed, and led her back to S. Ubaldus, where the exorcisms being soon applied it was plain that the sick woman was much relieved. Yet by these she was not fully freed, but on the vigil of that most glorious Saint in the year 1596 standing before the holy chest, that for herself and some girls of hers, she experienced also the power of oil taken from the lamp. laboring with the same trouble, she might obtain a cure, she obtained the entire effect of her prayer. But she relates that at the time of the adjurations applied to her, she always was the more relieved, the oftener she was anointed with oil taken from the lamp burning before the holy body, for always moved to vomit she emitted I know not what kind of black liquid from her mouth. And when for the same cause she had once sent one of the girls, to receive the aforesaid oil from the Sacristan in a dish prepared for it; she went and returned to her Lady, with the oil: but as soon as she stood before her, the saucer slipped from her hands, and came inverted to the ground. The pavement was of stone, the saucer of clay, the oil fluid: and yet not only was it not broken, but neither was the oil spilled; which lifted from the ground soon afforded the use of its liquor, differing nothing from that which it naturally has.

CHAPTER V.

Persons rescued from the gravest perils of life and cured of various diseases, S. Ubaldus being invoked.

[34] Marinus Mariotti Rosellini, of Pilonico a castle of the jurisdiction of Perugia, Saved, one hanged three times: when he was a captive, was three times hanged by the throat, and as many times freed from death, the help of D. Ubaldus being invoked: and at length loosed from the bonds, brought to his liberator in testimony a little wax statue. Agnellus Brugnori, from the town of Cornabetum of the diocese of Gubbio, others under the ruin of a tree, seeing the tree he was cutting fall, wished to flee the ruin threatening him but could not, and received its branches between his shins; but he was not harmed, because he had invoked S. Ubaldus at the very point of danger. John Herculani of Gubbio, in a precipice, digging the earth under a certain tree for cultivation, the root of that tree being broken more easily than he believed, while about to avoid the fall he drives his body backward with force, fell from the mountain of S. Ubaldus, where the matter was done, into a precipice: but invoking the Saint he felt one foot held for him, and so escaped the extreme peril; which he could ascribe to no other, no one appearing about, than to S. Ubaldus whom falling he had invoked. In a like manner John Marchellus, a furrier of Gubbio, and those in peril by a torrent, while for the cause of his work he was in the torrent flowing at the foot of the mountain, suddenly from the abundance of the previous day's rains a great whirl of water collected from above came on: against which in vain he sought refuge for himself on some projecting rock of the mountain. For when by this very rock seized by the force of the raging element, he was in peril of life, until invoking S. Ubaldus he beheld an old man, who seized him by the hair and set him safe on the bank.

[35] In the year 1514 a certain woman of Cesena, washing clothes, had set the water of a cauldron over the fire, a boy fallen into a cauldron, and into the same now boiling by chance fell her little son: whom when she could not better succor, she invoked the Saint, and going to the cauldron drew him out wholly unhurt. In a certain military encounter, carrying a weapon fixed in him, a soldier had received in his shoulder the iron of a weapon so deeply fixed, that that weapon by no art the surgeons could draw out: but what they could not, he himself with his own hand did, as soon as he commended himself to the Saint a vow being made. Sebastianus Boldrini, of Serra S. Abundius in the territory of Gubbio, about to be killed by an enemy, seized at night in his house by a certain enemy of his, to whom the Prefect of the garrison of Pergola had come as helper; not knowing by which part to escape their hands, went up through the chimney of the house toward the roof: and the Saint being invoked, he felt himself drawn by the hair out through those straits, and so escaped. A certain woman, Simona of Gubbio by name, while serving Mariottus the Innkeeper she was about to draw water from a well, about to be cast into the well, the iron breaking which held the little wheel, the falling rope entangled her neck: and because it was heavy and long, it drew her entangled with it into the well. But a certain man assisting there caught the garment of the falling woman, and holding her back asking how she was, heard that she ascribed her life saved to the Virgin Mother of God and holy Ubaldus, to whom she had commended herself, and who had been seen to put a hand under her chin. But this said she fell mute, and remained mute for twenty-four days. Meanwhile it happened that D. Stephen who wrote these things passed by there, and the case being heard by the accustomed exorcisms extorted from the demon a confession of the deed, namely that he himself had broken the iron, that he might cast the poor woman down into that very deep well; and that now he was compelled to go out by the merits of S. Ubaldus.

[36] Penon a Lombard at Perugia had undertaken to empty a well, a certain man from a triple peril. and looking into the same too improvidently had fallen in: but with no harm, because falling he had vowed himself to S. Ubaldus. The same there attending to building work, had received a falling wall above himself; and when his companions anxious about burying his corpse remove the rubble, by which they doubted not he was wholly crushed, beyond all hope they drew him out alive and unharmed. The same finally at Fabriano, captured in a certain military sedition, when he could give no money for ransom to the soldier demanding it, was ordered to offer his head to be cut off: which he so doing as at the same time to commend himself to S. Ubaldus, the furious soldier felt himself hindered by a hidden force, and asked whom at last he had called into his protection as a Saint; understanding indeed that S. Ubaldus, the patron of Gubbio; not only did he abstain from inflicting harm, but seizing him by the hand led him out into the field, lest perchance some other should attempt anything similar against him.

[37] Bernardinus Mengacci a citizen of Gubbio, going elsewhere with his merchandise, fallen among robbers, fell upon two robbers: of whom one having seized and dashed him to the ground had now made him despair of life, had not, while he invoked S. Ubaldus, the other robber attacked his companion as an enemy and so entangled him in wrestling, that meanwhile space was left to Bernardinus to flee. another alone against 50 enemies In no lighter peril escaped a certain soldier of Ferrara, more than fifty horsemen of light armament pursuing him. For when he was compelled to halt his flight at the bank of the Po, he leapt from his horse, and committed himself heavy with fear and arms under the invocation of the name of Ubaldus to swimming; and crossing that rapid and broad river, happily reached the opposite bank, the enemies frustrated of their hope. In the year 1584 Bernardinus d'Agelle of Città di Castello, gravely vexed by demons, twice by them into a deep well, once into a valley beneath the mountain of Ubaldus was cast down: others variously in peril. yet always without harm, because (as he related to his kinsmen leading him back) the most holy Virgin and the Pontiff Ubaldus had brought help to him in peril. Finally life was preserved to a boy, fallen into a boiling cauldron; to a Canon of the church of Ubaldus, about to be suffocated by much snow; to a mason, caught under the ruins of a wall; to another crushed by a huge oak; Stephen and Charles, writers of the miracles of Ubaldus, attesting all the aforesaid, whose also are the following cures.

[38] the blind and dumb cured, Bartholomaea del Franchetto of Gubbio, for nine years deprived of sight, recovered the same a vow being made to S. Ubaldus. Lullus of the county of Perugia had six sons blind, dumb and deaf, for all of whom by a like vow he obtained the use of their senses. Lucas de Schieggia, of a castle of the jurisdiction of Gubbio, for five months mute, when he had come to S. Ubaldus, within the space of an hour recovered speech: but returned to his home, again lacked the same, and that going and returning happened to him up to the sixth time: for then with a more ardent affection he prayed S. Ubaldus, that he might be absolved from the power of the malign enemy, hindering not only the faculty of speaking but also of clearing the throat, that he might suffocate the man: and what he asked he obtained, thereafter free from all trouble. A woman of Città di Castello, for ten days mute; and Jerome of Philip de Brusa and another woman de Crocicchio, which are twin castles of the county of Perugia, S. Ubaldus being invoked similarly

recovered speech. Finally Octavius Marchini, an arquebusier near Rome, of the church of the Canons Regular surnamed of Peace, at the mere touch of one glove, which had been S. Ubaldus's, recovered sight, speech and health.

[39] D. Stephen relates, that in the year 1519 going from Gubbio to Parma, likewise the lame near Cantiano he met a certain John Antony miserably limping, who when asked of his evil what it was, having said it was called by the physicians an ant; It is not so, said the Father, but demons afflict you, go to S. Ubaldus, and you will be healed. So each went his way. But two years after, when Stephen had returned to Gubbio, there came to the same place the said John Antony, seeking exorcisms: which begun, from eighteen wounds which lay open in his leg so great a stench emanated, that although for that cause he had gone out into freer air with his possessed exorcist, yet he could not run through the holy adjurations for nausea, except with his shoulders turned to another part: but meanwhile the sick man suffered more gravely than before, who however within one month without any other medicine recovered there, and those grieving in head and stomach, by the merits of S. Ubaldus. In the same year on the feast of S. John the Baptist from the March of Ancona there came another lame man, who without help could not walk: nor did he remain long in the church invoking the Saint, but he obtained the hoped benefit. Similarly a certain man of Perugia, suffering great flying torments in one of his arms, after the exorcisms praying in the church, as long as would suffice for hearing one Mass, was wholly healed. A matron also of Perugia labored with pain of the head and trembling and palpitation of the heart and stomach, so that she did not suffer any part of her body to be touched without grave trouble, for the cure of which whole six years she had applied every medicine: but the exorcisms being applied within the space of an hour she wholly recovered: as also another of her city, who laboring with a like evil, and understanding what had befallen the other, experienced the same physician, and found the same benefit.

[40] Anastasia de Firminiano, of a castle of the territory of Urbino, besides pains of heart and stomach suffered such cold in her feet, that they seemed frozen. She as soon as she came to S. Ubaldus was at once freed from the two prior evils: but for fifteen days she needed to be freed from the demons sitting on her feet, who at last with much labor expelled departed with horrible shriekings. A like benefit in a like case befell on the twentieth day of her supplication Bernardina of John son of the late Lawrence de S. Angelo of the diocese of Urbino. A certain boy at Gubbio, laboring with a great hernia, had an anxious mother: who one evening putting him to bed, turned toward the church of S. Ubaldus, asked that he would succor her son. But that same night the Saint appeared, ordering that she carry the little one to his sepulcher: which she about to do the next morning, found him healed: yet she went where she had been ordered, that she might recount the grace done to the boy rejoicing, and offer alms competent to her slender means for the same. Of the same trouble freed at the invocation of the Saint professed themselves John Benedict Manfredini, and Barnabas Pasquini de Gezolo.

[41] the Saint appearing to them in grave sickness, Fr. Silvester de Callio of the Order of S. Mary of Scopeto, gravely made sick in the canonry of S. Secundus of Gubbio, invoked S. Ubaldus: who appearing to him that same night, Because so fervently, he said, you invoke me, behold me present, what do you wish that I do for you? He seemed to himself to leap out of bed, and on bent knees to ask health: and then to be led by the hand of the Saint himself through the monastery, and one by one to the refectory, where he tasted a fasting little supper, plums and grapes, and led back to bed in it the next day found himself healed: wherefore early in the morning he came to S. Ubaldus, and there by a votive sacrifice rendered due thanks for the health recovered. Mariottus son of Antony Cellini de Costano, of the diocese of Assisi, brought by quartan fevers to death, and admonished by the bystanders to turn to Ubaldus, what he could not with his mouth he did with affection: and at once the Saint appeared to him, and said he ought to succor a certain very needy woman, and disappeared. At the same time the sick man received the use of his tongue, and the woman, who was called Blasina, being ordered to be called, asked her of the state of her affairs: whom finding truly needy, according to his small measure he helped, and at once recovered. A citizen also of Pesaro, of whom many of his family had died, and now his wife and son were gravely sick, brought to knowledge of S. Ubaldus by the bystanders, commended himself and his own to him, and all soon recovered.

[42] Maria Altimaris of Caorle, and Magdalena Gasparini of Urbino from pains of the head, likewise the frenetic, heart and stomach deserved to be freed through S. Ubaldus. More gravely was in peril Elizabeth Mariani of Master James-Antony of Gubbio, frenetic and for twelve days refreshed by no food, whence given up by the physicians, was said to be about to die the next day: but carried to the church of S. Ubaldus and procured with exorcisms, recovered. In the whole body was tormented, sometimes also cast down from his right mind Peter of Baptist from the county of Foligno: but coming to S. Ubaldus, and asking that exorcisms be made over him, the demons being driven out he returned free. Balsia de Parenzo applying her ill-affected head reverently to that chest, in which lies the holy body of S. Ubaldus, drove the pain from herself. Within the hour also, in which she was there, Marinus Angelus de Camerino, was freed from a frenzy wont oftener to recur: which also befell Paul de Sanctis of Gubbio: and a certain rustic of the Island of Costacciaro was loosed from a most atrocious torment of the arm: and the daughter of a certain noblewoman of Perugia, contracted from the girdle to the feet, received the straightness of her body. Another noblewoman of Cremona, weighed down by a melancholic humor, appeared weak of mind and frenetic; but a vow being made to S. Ubaldus by her kinsmen, she was exorcized, and with great effort the demons expelled dismissed her free. Very many also laboring with epilepsy, were cured by his merits: of whom are named Marcus Ferrarii of Parma, and Aloysius de Quintavelle of the County of Gubbio.

[43] those variously sick, Sebastian, from the same County of Gubbio, suffered scrofula with pain of the whole body; but coming to the church of S. Ubaldus was within a day healed. So also Francis of Fano recovered from sciatica, and from a most bitter fever Clara, daughter of D. Antony Marioni of Gubbio. But Francisca of Fabriano shook off a grave melancholy, lying upon the bed of S. Ubaldus. Angela of Sutri, a vow being made of visiting the holy body, at the time when everywhere dysentery was spreading, escaped immune from the public plague: and a certain matron professed, that by the touch of a prayer-bead chain, which had been applied to the holy body, she was freed from a most savage pain of the ears; but Francis son of Simon of Perugia from a tertian fever; and finally a noble matron of Perugia from a grave infestation of demons, as relate the oftener-named Lords Stephen and Charles.

[44] an orphan cast into a pit by her guardian, Under the Pontificate of Alexander VI a ten-year-old girl, heir of great means, had been left an orphan under the guardianship of a certain own cousin of hers: who thinking this his occasion, to acquire immense wealth with little danger, having led the little innocent out to the vineyards, in that place where a subterranean way anciently led lay open at intervals by various air-holes, cast her down into one of them, a great stone being thrown from above, by which she might be crushed. Roused at the noise of the falling stone she invoked holy Ubaldus and thereafter held back her voice unharmed: and saw an aged old man coming to her, by whose sole presence the serpents and other venomous animals were driven away, approaching her: and so for whole nine days she remained there, using no food. Meanwhile it happened that the huntsmen of the Lady Duchess of Urbino Elizabeth passed by there, on the ninth day she is brought out safe: and heard the voices of the lamenting girl: who coming to the mouth of the air-hole, and understanding from the girl what had been done, related to their Lady the whole matter: but she soon sent certain men, to bring out the poor girl. So those who had been sent, fitted to each end of the rope, prepared for it, a pair of horse-stirrups, and let it down into the crypt, in such manner that the feet being placed within the stirrups, the hands grasping the rope, she could not difficultly be drawn out. But weakened by long fasting she was too feeble, than that she could rule and help herself. She needed therefore the help of the old man her keeper, who fitted the stirrups to her soles, the rope to her hands, and lifted from the ground composed her in such a position, as was necessary that she could be drawn out. Which done she was offered to the Duchess, who having her well cared for and shortly restored to her, held her dear thereafter; nothing doubting, that the old man, seen by the girl, was S. Ubaldus whom she had invoked. So both the aforesaid writers.

[45] 400 men captured by the Turks, Peter Antony Frederici de Marcatello of the Duchy of Urbino, with four hundred others captured at sea by the Turks, and applied to the oar; and when he himself and his companions were more harshly treated, each began to invoke the Saints to whom they were more specially affected, and Peter Antony chiefly implored the help of the Virgin of Loreto, S. Ubaldus, and S. Francis. Three days had flowed from the vow made, when Peter Antony, conquered by weariness, Ah S. Ubaldus, he said, how can it be that you do not help me, who have always lived so devoted to you? Dawn was rising when he said this: and soon seeming to be lulled to sleep he beheld the three Saints called by him, who also appeared to all the rest alike, saying to them, Rise and depart free. and one struck by lightning Then at the same time from all the chain fell from their feet, and the Turks bound by sleep they partly rolled into the sea, partly reduced into their power, and used them in their turn ordered to row for the return into Italy. In the field was Antony of John de Castello Sigelli; when suddenly a vehement storm rushing on poured forth rain and thunder with lightning, which falling on him consumed all his clothes on one side down to the shoe, but to his person itself brought no harm: because he had invoked S. Ubaldus: and this also befell the daughter of Antony de Cisterna.

CHAPTER VI.

Help given by S. Ubaldus to the besieged, captives, women in childbirth. The injurious punished.

[46] A strenuous protector of the city of Gubbio S. Ubaldus always showed himself, Gubbio defended from enemies, and especially in the year 1517, when all around were shaken by war, slaughters, and rapines, the city and territory of Gubbio escaped the peril common to others. The thing said I confirm by more specific examples. Wishing to occupy the Duchy of Urbino the Duke Valentino, had proposed to lay waste the people of Gubbio. He sent therefore to that end with much soldiery one of his Tribunes, D. Michaelettes: who when he was now only seven miles distant from Gubbio, heard a voice from behind crying out, threateningly ordering him to retreat. And this he testified, ordered to render the cause of the mandate not fulfilled: nor can it be divined, whose else that voice was, than S. Ubaldus's. three times, At another time a certain Captain, with an army placed in the field

near Mondolfo, a town near Senigallia of the Duchy of Urbino, had decreed, the aforesaid place being stormed, to pass to Gubbio for the same end. When he had indicated this counsel to certain more familiar friends; By your safety, said one, do not do it: for that city has too robust a defender on the mountain overhanging it. The other laughed at the vain terror objected to him, as he believed, and persisted in the counsel: but that same morning going out to skirmish, he carried back into his tent a grave wound, which even unwilling compelled him to abandon the proposed expedition. Braccius de Montone, relying on a treachery prepared by his friends of Gubbio, was going to subdue the city; and the matter had so proceeded, that he being now received within the walls many of the citizens took flight into the mountain. These when they had come to the middle of the mountain, there where the fountain of Lavellus gushes, S. Ubaldus appeared to them, ordering that they return into the city, for it would be that Braccius should withdraw, and at the same time toward it formed with his hand the sign of the Cross. They therefore returning saw the men of Braccius fleeing with force, as if an innumerable army were pressing; and so was fulfilled the prophecy of Braccius himself, by which he had said entering, that the city was his, unless that mountain Old man should prevent.

[47] In the year 1557, when the victor Charles VIII King of France was overrunning Italy, Civitella, about to enter the kingdom of Naples on the Abruzzo side, he was compelled to halt at Civitella, whose inhabitants for some time sustained the force of the French, and their repeated assaults. But wearied by the abounding number of the besiegers, and also by want of food brought to extremity, they resolved generously to break out and try their last strength: which that they might do with a mind more Christianly prepared, it pleased them to seek whose Saint's day occurred the next day, to whose protection they should commend themselves. It was found that S. Ubaldus presided over that day. And the citizens indeed committed themselves, but the next morning they saw the army, by the King's order hastening elsewhere, led away from the walls, and themselves loosed from peril. Bastia, Bastia is a castle of the country of Perugia, whose defenders when they had defended themselves more spiritedly against the Spaniards, some of their Captains also being slain, and feared themselves all therefore to be slaughtered, invoked S. Ubaldus, and their life was granted to them. Montecchio, In the time of the Duke Valentino was besieged the castle of Montecchio of the diocese of Nocera, and the inhabitants fearing, lest the place be taken by force, resolved that the whole crowd of the female sex should be sent out. They going out met a certain cavalry troop, which the son of Peter Corazza led: who seeing them was borne toward them with loosed reins, about to rush upon them with force, had not they perceiving the danger invoked S. Ubaldus. Which done their horses could not be driven forward by the spurs, but driven back compelled their riders to acknowledge, how great was the virtue of S. Ubaldus, and to turn aside elsewhere, the women rejoicing at so unhoped a deliverance.

[48] The injurious are punished against his body, There came once to the church of S. Ubaldus a man, either little believing, or too curious, who touched the holy body with a rod, and added blaspheming; This body seems to differ in nothing, from any other dead body. But the divine vengeance was not long deferred: for scarcely had he reached the foot of the mountain, when suddenly seized with a trembling he fell to the ground and expired. Before the same church stood two elms, which fame holds sprung from the goads of those who drove the oxen, against the trees standing before the church, drawing up the holy deposit in the cart. But when the Duchy of Urbino was under the rule of the most illustrious Lord Duke Guido, and two hundred garrison soldiers were placed for the custody of the mountain of Ubaldus; one of them, by country of Cagli, holding two lances in his hand, now one now the other brandished against the said trees. This seeing as he came up D. Bernardinus dalla Branca, then Custodian of the church, and admonished the man to cease from striking the trees, standing there for the memory of S. Ubaldus. The importunate admonisher the soldier petulantly despised, and again brandished one of the lances: but soon constricted with the greatest pain in his arms, and that growing every moment, within the space of an hour the wretch expired, no sign of penitence being given. These things D. Stephen, who also wrote most of the following. against the Saint himself,

[49] With John Baldinacci of Gubbio there dwelt as a guest a certain man of Bologna. To him when Baldinaccius praised on occasion S. Ubaldus: Deservedly, said the man of Bologna, you praise him, for he could have been the cook of S. Petronius. But so great a torment suddenly rushed upon him, that he believed he would die; and admonished to ask pardon of the Saint contumeliously treated, he cast himself on his knees, and at once was relieved. A certain citizen of Gubbio, and those violating the feast. seeing a rustic of Gualdo plowing with oxen, admonished that on such a day, which was sacred to S. Ubaldus, work must cease. But he contemptuously answered, that S. Ubaldus had no right across the river. Nor indeed are the people of Gualdo bound to the same observance, to which the people of Gubbio. The contempt however was avenged that same night, by the death of one of those oxen. On a like day a woman of Pergola was cleansing the crops of useless weeds, and similarly answered, that the Saint had nothing he cared for beyond the mountains: and that very night, she was extinguished by sudden death. On account of such an answer also a certain woman of Montone, the bread which on such a day she had put into the oven, drew thence black and stinking like putrid flesh, so that not even brute animals would taste it. To a certain man of Perugia, going out to hunt, when it was said to him, that on the feast of S. Ubaldus he should first hear Mass: What have I, he said, to do with S. Ribaldus: and at the first shot his gun burst for him, and took off his hand.

[50] On a certain place of the territory of Gubbio a vehement shower and a dire tempest threatened, Tempests turned aside. which a certain poor little woman fearing, turned to the church of S. Ubaldus saying: O S. Ubaldus turn away this storm from my little field: and I, the harvest being made, will offer the fourth part of a bushel at your altar. The event manifested the prayers heard: for when the rising whirlwind had ruined all around on every side, that little field alone remained unharmed, and afforded that devout woman whence to fulfill her promise. A village of the territory of Perugia, named Bosco, now several times damaged by annual hail, when it had seen so often the hope of the future harvest lost, the afflicted inhabitants, vowed each year some Masses to be procured in honor of S. Ubaldus, and thereafter suffered nothing of the kind. the driven-off flocks restored; Sebastianus Boldrini of Serra S. Abundius, for fear of the enemies whom he had there, had sent away his animals to the territory of Senigallia to be pastured: but those same enemies working it was persuaded to the magistracy of that city, that the said animals, under a certain colored pretext, should be adjudged to the treasury. Which Sebastianus understanding and vehemently grieving, his knees bent to the ground, asked the help of S. Ubaldus; and that very night those animals, no one leading, returned to the master's stable.

[51] a fire extinguished; Francis Georgii, a farmer of the territory of Gubbio, the passage of soldiers being perceived and fear thence conceived, had fled into the neighboring mountains; whence he saw the soldiers enter his house, and they having departed a great smoke rise from it. Turned therefore toward the church of S. Ubaldus, he prayed him, that he would be touched with mercy of him: and returned home, and found the straw indeed, with which the bed was spread, and the bedstead burned; yet that the flame had spared the rest of the house, which except the walls consisted almost wholly of wooden boards. 3 captives are freed the bonds being loosed, Peter-Antony and Frederick brothers of Pesaro were held captive in the Rock of Pesaro, divided into chambers one above the other; when one asked the other, how he was. But this answering, that he was ill: Do, said the first, as I did make a vow to S. Ubaldus: for behold to me doing this the bonds were broken. Nor delay they were broken also for the other following the example, and both escaped free. A certain Barnabas, from the castle of S. Peregrinus, which is of the ecclesiastical dominion, was there held captive, hands and feet bound: but S. Ubaldus being invoked he found himself loosed, and took flight. But to him fleeing there appeared suddenly a man in the habit of a Canon Regular: who to him asking answered nothing, but so swiftly walking went before, that the other could scarcely follow; but when Barnabas had now come to a safe place, that man disappeared, and was believed to have been the Saint himself, who had been invoked.

[52] Baldantonius of Evangelista of Gubbio, captured at Pergola and brought to Pesaro, likewise 2 others. was in peril of his head, unable to pay the ransom which he was ordered to produce within three days, otherwise to be punished with his life. In this fear he invoked Holy Ubaldus, and put his head into a certain iron grating, and at length drew his whole body also through it, and leapt down helped by a certain old man, appearing there and showing the way and manner of escaping. Francis of Peter Andrew, captured in the same place as the former and led away to Senigallia, for four continuous nights found his bonds loosed for him, the Saint being invoked. But taking flight, and always drawn back, at length was also struck by a lance in the throat, yet without harm. The fifth night finally invoking the Saint more ardently, again loosed he returned to his country, no one withstanding. Twenty-six others were held at Pesaro all in the stocks and chains with just custody, and 26. but after the first sleep were found loosed, and again bound more tightly than before. But when also this time the guards saw the bonds loosed, they would not bind them any more, but more solicitously detained them until the ransom which they had agreed should be present: who under this title gave thanks to the Saint whom they had invoked. Matthew of Master Francis of Mantua, bound at Camerino, asked the Saint, that if indeed he himself were on account of his sins unworthy of mercy, likewise another, he would yet regard his wife and daughter: and to him saying this it came into his mind to explore the door of his prison: which when it opened of itself, he rushed out and returned to Gubbio. and an innocent man from a slaughter imputed to him. Thomas of James of Fossombrone, accused of the slaughter of a certain companion of his, was held at Pergola in prison, where the third time he was subjected to torture, when the Saint being invoked he had not felt the torture. On a certain night therefore setting forth his innocence and his great devotion toward him to S. Ubaldus, he asked help: when the Saint appeared to him and seizing him by the hand led him out of prison: but he beholding himself covered only with a shirt, asked that it be permitted him to return and take his clothes. He returned, but found the prison firmly closed. Then at last perceiving what was being done (for the former things seemed done as in a dream) he returned where he had left the Saint, and devoutly inclined himself to him: but he disappeared, and left Thomas plainly free. And all these things Stephen narrated, and Charles confirmed.

[53] Joannina of Joanninus de Murano at Venice was in peril in childbirth, and had her husband vehemently anxious: whom when one of the neighbors exhorted, that he should make a vow to S. Ubaldus for his wife, women in childbirth are helped, he heard within speaking to him and saying, Pardon your enemy what he sinned against you, if you ask grace. Joanninus obeyed, and the woman gave birth: as also did Silvestrina of James Baldassini of Gubbio, at the first sight

of the image of Ubaldus. There happened to be at Norcia Antony of Mantua, when he learned that a certain woman was in peril in childbirth now for the fifth day: he sent therefore to her a little piece of the stone of the old chest of S. Ubaldus, at the touch of which at once the infant came forth into light. At which time the holy body was still under the custody of some secular Priest, The unworthy cannot see the body, it happened to one of them that opening the chest, in favor of certain guests, he found it empty, perhaps because they were unworthy of the sight of so holy a thing. Troubled at that outcome the Priest, and fearing the indignation of the people of Gubbio, was descending toward the city: and had now gone two thousand paces, when meeting him a certain old man, the cause of his grief being understood, began to console him, and persuaded him to return whence he had come, and again inspect the chest. He went therefore, and finding the body in the chest as before, scarcely doubted that his old consoler was S. Ubaldus himself.

[54] Angelus Gambocci of Gubbio, approaching death, ordered his children to be called, other necessities are cured, to whom he commended the worship of the most blessed Virgin and of S. Ubaldus, and asserted, that because he had visited their church every Sunday, he had had them visibly assisting him in the last struggle against the demons, and had valiantly overcome them. In the year 1615 a certain girl from Valtopina, came led to S. Ubaldus; because betrothed to a husband, she was until then prevented by a demon from cohabiting with him: but in the four days, in which she stayed at S. Ubaldus, she could without any impediment stay, speak, and converse with him. also by the oil of the lamp. These last things are D. Stephen's; to which from D. Charles add, that almost infinite miracles could be written, if there were enumerated those which are done by means of the oil, taken from the lamp, burning before the holy body: for it is clear that by its use various persons were freed from scrofula, pain of the head, or ears, and other infirmities. Nor indeed does the great multitude of those who piously ask the aforesaid oil suffer doubt of these, and for the giving of it not moderately weary the keepers: whom no one truly would for such a cause disturb, had not experience taught, that much efficacy was divinely put into that oil.

CHAPTER VII.

On the Baldassina Family, from which S. Ubaldus is believed to have come.

[55] In this our work, by which the virtues of the Saints are explained, we are not wont to treat of each one's lineage and ancestors, except so far as among the ancient writers of the Acts we find it noted; because by experience we have found, that nothing is more uncertain and entangled with more obstacles, From the remaining monuments of that family, than the study with which the vain curiosity of the present age exercises the diligence of most writers especially in Italy, that they may make the families, which they desire to be praised, as ancient as possible, and if it can be done connect them also with the older Romans, and weave into them various ancient Saints. I could not however deny the most learned of the men of Gubbio Vincentius Armanni, that I should here treat of that family, which is believed to have produced S. Ubaldus, through the Saint's own Grandmother Prudentia, daughter of Armannus de Armannis, connected to the family of the Armannii. And indeed it is not so ancient a matter, that it exceeds the verisimilitude of the knowledge hitherto preserved in public writings. It is also fitting to preserve the memory of a most noble family, given to Vincentius Armanni in the year 1670, now nearly extinct among the people of Gubbio. Perhaps the last Baldassinus de Baldassinis Canon of Gubbio, in the year 1670 afflicted with gout and chiragra and fixed to his bed, to Francis Thomassini de Costacciaro a public Notary, writing for him on the 29th of October, before Horatius Marioni and Horatius Rafaelli Canons and the Counts Francis Maria Gabrielli and Antony Rinaldo della Branca, as witnesses called for this, dictated and signed a donation of papers, pertaining to his family and remaining with him, in favor of the aforesaid Vincentius Armanni, whom he trusted would best preserve them: as one wholly given to the study of antiquarian investigation, although now long since deprived of sight, knows best to use such treasures, instructed for illustrating the affairs of his country with more than a thousand manuscript codices.

[56] This Vincentius therefore, all the knowledge which could be gathered concerning the Baldassina family, sent to us under this Epitome. the epitome being collected To very many of the Court of the most Serene Francis Maria de Rovere sixth Duke of Urbino, and a Prince among all others of his age without doubt the most learned and wisest, it is known… that he said many things praiseworthily of the nobility of the Baldassina family, which it enjoyed in ancient times. But we have found no other stock more ancient than Baldassinus, a noble and strenuous man, leading his life at Gubbio in the year 960, as is most probable, from the age of Pax his son, who was married in the year 1002. His wife was Prudentia, daughter of Armannus de Armannis Count of Agellum, who gave her for a dowry one thousand seven hundred florins in goods of the County of the castle of the aforesaid Agellum, as is clear from the Instrument by the act of Leo Fornarius Notary and Imperial Judge of the year 1002. To Pax her aforesaid husband Prudentia bore two sons, Rovaldus and Ubaldus. it teaches the grandfather and grandmother of the saint, his father and uncle Rovaldus begot D. Ubaldus Bishop of Gubbio and Sperandia, a woman likewise most pious. From the sons and descendants of Ubaldus were made very many stocks under the name of the Baldassini; which in our city are either extinct or lost, perhaps gone elsewhere; as happened to that which is said to have flourished and still to flourish in Germany, under the same surname of the Baldassini: for there it took its beginning from Baldassinus of Gubbio, who served in the camp of Frederick Barbarossa in the year 1162, and was enriched with honors by the Emperor himself. After a long course of time, namely in the year 1400, John, of the same posterity of the aforesaid Ruvaldus-Ubaldus, going to Senigallia, planted in that city his family, which is strong in wealth and nobility under the very surname of the Baldassini. and the posterity born from him, Of a family so great and so ancient, in its country small scarcely the relics survive on the side of Lucas, who by his descendants was called Lucas of the Recollections, on account of the documents which he left to his sons in the year 1402. This progeny the most powerful Counts de Montefeltro, after Gubbio fell into their dominion; then the succeeding Princes, that is the Dukes de Rovere, and the Public itself of Gubbio embraced with privileges and benevolence, in honor of D. Ubaldus.

[57] But that it may appear on what foundations this compendious relation rests, it pleases here to subjoin the Recollections themselves, that is the Memorials of the aforesaid Lucas, such as from the originals, written of old by his own hand, he found, on thick paper with ink now reddish and vanishing, and reduced into proving form, the day after the donation indicated above Hippolytus Ronconi, public Notary and Chancellor of the Community of Gubbio: which from the most simple vulgar Italian rendered into Latin sound thus: The 6th day of July 1401. according to the Recollections of Lucas Baldassinus of the year 1041. I (Lucas of Pax Baldassinus) commemorate to my sons (Pax and others) how Baldassinus was the grandfather of holy Baldus. He lived in the year 1002; and had a son Pax born in the year 1020. Pax had sons Rovaldus and Baldus. From Rovaldus were born Baldus the Saint and Sperandia. From Baldus (uncle of S. Ubaldus) proceeded in the year 1080 Baldassinus, who begot Baldus and Andreas; Baldus in the year 1108, Andreas in the year 1110. Baldus begot Giobelardinus in the year 1136; Andreas Theodorus in the year 1139. Giobelardinus begot Pax and Baldassinus, Pax in the year 1160, Baldassinus in the year 1162; and this one in the war followed Frederick Barbarossa etc. Others being omitted there follow the things written below. Further I tell you that D. Prudentia, born of Armannus Armanni, was the grandmother of holy Baldus, and had a dowry of one thousand six hundred florins in lands situated within the territory of Agellum, as is clear from the instrument enacted by Ser-Leo Fornari about the year one thousand: and so I understood from my grandfather, but he from his progenitors.

[58] found in the year 1608. Thus far the words of Lucas, which together with the old copies from which they were excerpted delivering to Vincentius Armanni, Baldassinus de Baldassinis thus testifies: I make faith that the aforesaid writings were by me as long as I lived in my country and by Francis Baldassini my father solicitously guarded, as certain and true: and of them also my aforesaid father makes mention in a certain memorial book of his thus writing. Lucas our progenitor left some memories concerning our family: which when I had found with my grandfather, nor could conveniently read them myself, I showed to be read to Count John Baptist Cantalmaggio: who told me they concerned the antiquity of our family, and were beautiful and diligently to be preserved. Also the father of Lucas had written with his own hand there I know not what concerning the antiquity of his ancestors, which I do not think will be of great moment, after I by God's help have removed every difficulty. Yet preserve, sons, diligently the same papers, lest they perish, but keep them joined together, since it pleased God that by a happy chance they were found: for if I had found them while the suit was pending, which I had with Falcuccio, there would not have arisen for me from it so great inconveniences and expenses. Let God be praised in his gifts, on this 10th day of August 1608.

[59] Three years after these things so dictated and delivered, restored to his health the aforenamed Canon Baldassinus of Francis de Baldassinis, with which agrees a MS. Daybook, produced on the 20th of May of the year 1673 a quinternion, as he himself says, ancient, or as the Notary Caesar Triangolus names it, an authentic copy of it being requested, a Daybook concerning the domestic affairs of the family de Baldassinis, where among other things was read in the vulgar Italian tongue. As much as I can I wish to deduce all things clearly: for I saw all things going to ruin, nor the memories of our ancestors esteemed, which they left many and beautiful. Yet I say, from memories written in the 12th century that Theodorus, who was born in the year 1139, left written in his memorials, that Pax took to wife Prudentia, born of Armannus Armandi, son of Alfonsus Armanni; Alfonsus was one of the more generous soldiers whom our city of Gubbio had, and served many Princes in supreme functions: and more than ninety years old he walked, with a body erect like a reed, and carried a sword, and ate very moderately, but lived a hundred and five years, and some months and days; of the family of the Armannii, and his funeral the whole city accompanied. But Prudentia was of the more beautiful girls of all Umbria, much sought by magnates, because her father was very rich. But she had only one brother, who was loved by all, and everyone sought his friendship, because he was good with the sword, very noble and most wealthy; he took to wife a noble woman of Perugia of the family of the Ranerii: and for a whole eight days was lodged at Carpianum, which was a castle of the Baldassina family, bought by our ancestors, who then possessed other places not far

from Carpianum. And this is all that Theodorus left written in the book, which had a wooden cover, overlaid with ill-conditioned leather.

[60] and in the 13th century Baldassinus, who lived in the year 1237, left written, that Baldassinus, who went to war with twenty-five young volunteers into Germany to the service of the Emperor Frederick called Barbarossa, with arms and horses at his own expense, was the ruin of our family, on account of the immoderate expenses which he made through his ambition, of which he brought back no other fruit, than that he was a companion to the Emperor in war, and was declared Count of the Empire, and received one fief etc. and others being omitted which follow, the author of the Daybook concludes it in this manner. I have written at the beginning of this book as much as is enough, after many similar ones being lost to the rest, read them often and write also yourselves those things which shall happen in your times. I am old and have seen some things, which displeased me not a little: especially that my mother had one of these books in the corner of the chimney for making roasts. Ah! consider how badly the old writings have perished: for in my time there were three books, one of which concerned the house, another contained the memorials, left by Baldus Giobelardinus, Baldassinus, Andreas, Theodorus and others of our elders; the third had inscribed all the instruments and agreements pertaining to the family, with the names of the Notaries, as you will see from the year 922, because Andreas wrote them there, who was born in the year 1110, and continued the writing (as you will see) beyond the year 1132; and says he found them so. The things are beautiful, which you ought not to turn into laughter, because time consumes and destroys all things.

[61] Such things were not yet found, when Francis Baldassini contended in suit with Falcuccio, as he says, over the truth of his family, descending from the same stock whence S. Ubaldus was born, and so he had to act by testimonies sought from common report and tradition, whence among the Acts of the said Process this kind of document also was exhibited. [To this is added the tradition of the people of Gubbio confirmed by 100 witnesses.] On the 5th of April 1606 by us present and the undersigned full and undoubted faith is made, how at all the time of our life we have always heard and commonly heard said, by public voice and fame, that the glorious S. Ubaldus was a citizen of our city of Gubbio, and of the family of the Baldassini: nor do we remember that we ever heard said the contrary, namely that the Saint was of another city or family. And this same thing we have always heard, and have by the tradition of our elders: from whom also we have heard, that they had this successively from their ancestors. Of which most public voice and fame most fully informed, at the instance of devout persons, approving whatever is written above, with our own hand we have subscribed to this paper; which we wish to be valid in every place and time for public and authentic faith, as if it were written by the hand of a Notary. And in faith of the truth.

[62] I Ludovicus of Ludovicus make faith, in the name of D. Antony Rogai, my father-in-law of eighty years, who has affirmed as much as above, because he himself on account of disease is unable to write, and has committed to me this faith to be made.

[63] I Bartholomaeus Biscazanti, of about sixty-six years, affirm as much as above. And in this manner subscribe others up to a hundred: but to the paper itself, exhibited in judgment on the 27th of July in the year 1627, subscribes Pinolus the Notary. and the process against him who had substituted the Ubaldini.

[64] There is still extant with Vincentius Armanni the whole process: which if it lasted twenty years, as seems to be gathered from the so disparate years of the writing and exhibiting of the aforesaid attestation, it appears the suit was difficult; nor wholly decided; when Eugenius wrote the Life of S. Ubaldus, who therefore did not dare to define anything; excusing himself, that no one of the ancient writers expressed the name of a certain family. Meanwhile the names of Count Falcuccius and D. Charles being noted in the margin, he sufficiently indicates these to be those, of whom one ascribed the saint to the Ubaldina, the other to the Baldassina family; which perhaps gave the first occasion to the aforesaid suit. Meanwhile Eugenius acknowledges, that for the Baldassini stand the public voice and fame and tradition of the people of Gubbio: but concerning the Ubaldini he says it is clear through the author, who wrote the history of this family most accurately, that they at the time of S. Ubaldus had not yet extended themselves outside the City and Dominion of Florence: and that their possessions in the valley of the Mugello, so royally shown forth in the time of Frederick II, had not yet extended themselves propagated across the Apennine even to the Adriatic sea, when they passed to Gubbio, and chose to have it for their country, where for some centuries to the present they hold the more honorable offices. The saint's sister Sperandia

[65] As to Sperandia, the sister of S. Ubaldus, she is called by the author of the Daybook Saint: but I altogether think, that this was done on the occasion of the name common with S. Sperandia of Gubbio, born, as Jacobillus says, about the year 1216 of the family of the Sperandii: whose feast is kept at Cingoli in Picenum in the monastery of the Benedictine Virgins, called from her itself of S. Sperandia, on the first Sunday of September, although she died on the 11th of that month: on which day we shall treat of her copiously enough, as being best instructed from manuscript and printed documents concerning her life and worship. But the sister of S. Ubaldus, far older than she, seems to have been joined in marriage; and from her son to have proceeded the little Nephew of the Saint, son of his nephew, whom alone of all the hostages of the people of Gubbio he humbly asked from Frederick and absolutely received, as is said in the Life at number different from the younger Saint of this name. 17. But that progeny seems long since to have been extinct, since no one of the families of Gubbio today pretends to descend from the Sister of the holy Protector. Concerning Baldus, the same Saint's first cousin once removed, who is said born in the year 1108 in the same Daybook, it is read that he was called Father of the Country, a plainly excellent man; and concerning this Baldus's son Giobelardinus, that he bought the Dominion of Carpianum with ready money, a man of the best life, generous and wealthy: finally concerning Giobelardinus's son Baldassinus, that he had as companion of war Horatius of Baldus Armannius, his kinsman or relative by marriage, a youth of 19 years, beautiful of face, cultivated in virtue, generous of mind.

ON BLESSED SIMON STOCK

OF THE ORDER OF CARMELITES PRIOR GENERAL

AT BORDEAUX IN AQUITAINE

IN THE YEAR 1265.

Simon Stock, Prior General of the Order of Carmelites, at Bordeaux in Aquitaine (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[1] The Supplement of the common Martyrology, printed for the use of the Carmelite Order on parchment before the end of the 15th century, on the 17th of the Kalends of June orders these things to be added: In the city of Bordeaux B. Simon Stock the Englishman, The worship in the Martyrology singularly devoted to the God-bearing Virgin Mary, and glorious for the coruscation of miracles: which words also are read in the Additions of Molanus to Usuard, printed in the year 1593. But before that Supplement was printed, nay before the typographic art itself was received into use, there was composed at Bordeaux a proper Office, of which a copy written in the year 1435 is there preserved, as by authentic letters informed Lezana writes that he himself has been. It was then printed in the same city in the year 1580, and in the Breviary of the Order. and lately in the year 1672 inserted into the Breviary of the whole Order, plainly as the same had before been inserted into his Carmelite Vineyard by the reverend Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary at number 878, where, or in the Breviary it can be read. Meanwhile it is certain, that an Office of the Common of a Confessor not a Pontiff, and indeed double, was in use at least from the year 1554. For in the Calendar of the Breviary printed at Rome it is thus had, Lezana being witness, who recites this Prayer from it: God, who hast given us Saint Simon as Ruler and Father; whom, while he lived, thou didst will to serve thy Son and his most glorious Mother, with pure heart and sincere devotion; we implore thy clemency, that we, whose merits we rejoice in, may rejoice in tranquil prosperity in thy continual praise, and be instructed by his examples.

[2] His Life was written, says in the year 1557 John Bale Century 4 number 7 of the writers of England, by Monaldus Rosarius the Gascon, The Life written in French by Roland Bouchier in the year 1513 Roland Bouchier of Hainaut, and Nicholas of Haarlem the Batavian, men learned in their times, that is on the confines of the 15th and 16th centuries. Of these only Roland came to our hands, in the Carmel of Valenciennes, where he in the year 1513 wrote the aforesaid Life as Prior of the place, rendered into Latin by the reverend Father Philip of the Visitation, Subprior of the same Carmel ten years before this, who also asked that I should insert the same into these our Acts of the Saints. I would do it indeed most willingly, if, what perhaps is permitted me through him, it were equally permitted through others of the same Order, to add some Annotations after our manner, by which errors might be indicated and doubts distinguished. Besides there holds us back from that counsel Peter Swaningthon, B. Simon's inseparable companion, another author Swaningthon a contemporary is said to be extant at Bordeaux, and the writer of his Acts, who first at Bordeaux, B. Simon having ended life, was public Professor of Theology, as I read in our Theophilus Raynaudus in the Partheno-Carmelite Scapular part 2 question 1 chapter 1. For those Acts John Cheronius asserts to be preserved in the archive of the monastery of Bordeaux page 165 of the Vindications of the privileged Scapular, and from them produces the Vision of B. Simon, suspect to John Launoy. For why after so great contentions about the truth of that vision, is that Life still suppressed, and withdrawn from public judgment and examination, even in this most recent and most ample edition of the Carmelite Mirror, augmented with monuments sought through all Europe? Surely before the Bellorosian Life of S. Angelus, now printed four or five times, it deserved to be inserted into the new mirror.

[3] while this is awaited I wish nothing prejudged for it, but neither do I think myself bound, either to believe an author still hidden, or in the place of a contemporary writer to produce another, two whole centuries later. Let then a part of the elogium suffice from the aforecited John Grossus Key 3 of the Orchard, which is concerning certain Saints of the Order. The eleventh was S. Simon Stock by nation English, the sixth General of the Order. Who before the coming of the Carmelite Friars to England awaited them in a prophetic spirit, in a hollow trunk leading a solitary life, and therefore from the trunk, which in the vulgar English is called Stock, is commonly named Simon Stock. But after he understood through his minister, that the Lords namely Vesci and Grey, Barons, had led some Friars from Mount Carmel to England, and had religiously founded them in the convents of Alnwick and Aylesford, he relinquished the aforesaid solitary life, and the holy Order of Carmelites, which he long by divine revelation awaited, there with great devotion entered. But in the process of time in a certain general Chapter, celebrated in the English Province,

he was miraculously elected General of his Order, the elogium is given from Grossus. which he ruled religiously and holily. At which time S. Lewis King of France, by reason of a miracle shown to him by the glorious Virgin Mary in the sea near Mount Carmel, led the Friars from that mountain into France… This Saint in his life became renowned for many miracles, of which let us bring some into the midst. For on a certain day he proposed to celebrate Mass, believing he had all things requisite; and when he had come to the ministration of the Chalice, destitute of wine, water, after the likeness of Our Lord Jesus Christ, he converted into wine, with which he celebrated the begun Mass. Continually abstaining from the eating of flesh, at a certain time he was taking food in the house of his brother: to whom the brother at dinner presented a cooked fish: which at the command of the man of God being cast into water, soon swam unharmed… This Saint Simon in the hundredth year of his age, while he was visiting in the Province of Gascony, on the 16th of the month of May, in the convent of Bordeaux migrated from this light, where his body, renowned for many miracles, rests: and therefore by some is called S. Simon Stock of Gascony, by some is named S. Simon Stock of Bordeaux: but S. Simon Stock of England, where he drew his origin, is more rightly said and called. Thus far Grossus in the Frankfurt MS.

[4] Alnwick is in Northumberland, the last of the English provinces toward the North, S. Simon entered the Order in the year 1240 as on the contrary the first of all the Southern is Kent, and in it Aylesford: but concerning both foundations we have in Lezana these ancient verses, described with a clumsy Minerva: in which however as to time we trust more, than Palaeonydorus or others, instituting (as we have seen elsewhere) a most disturbed Chronology.

In the year one thousand two hundred forty, Once the Carmelites take to the times of life, The first cells being granted, in the North the places of Vesci. Richard in the cloister Grey first fixed in the South. Which places I Vesci granted to the Carmelites, Perci founded: God joined us to him for himself.

It is probable that these verses, either by John Vesci himself or at least by his order composed, were taken from some marble tablet, exposed, after the manner of ancient foundations, above the gate of the Alnwick convent; whence it would be clear, that the ground was given by the Vescii, the house constructed by the Percii, which also itself is a noble family in Northumberland. But the time agrees best with the year of the decreed and begun transmigration, the same Brief being augmented he becomes Prior in the year 1245. which was 1238. Nor does it exceed faith that B. Simon, most celebrated for fame of sanctity in England and perhaps 85 years old when he entered the Order, conciliated to it so great favor with the English, that augmented with hastened increases the convent of Aylesford was fit, that before other new foundations it should receive in the year 1245 Alanus the Prior, conveyed from Syria into Europe to know more certainly and order the affairs of the Order, so happily begun to be propagated. So there was celebrated there the first Chapter in the Cismarine parts: in which it was judged expedient, that here, where now was a greater and was hoped soon to be a greatest number of Religious, to be divided through several convents and provinces, should be the common Head of the whole Order; for which in the East a Vicar would suffice, who there should foster and console the Relics of the elders and the more generous, willing to persevere in the Holy Land. But among these wishing to be Alanus himself, yielded the Priorate, and in his place by common votes was elected Simon.

[5] I would now wish to collect the Acts of Simon in the Generalate, and the excellence and miracles in life and after death, and also to discourse concerning the Relics which are said to be in some places: but it seems to me much more advisable, to preserve all these for posterity, about to make a supplement of May, after they have obtained the entire narration of Swaningthon. Meanwhile let there be seen part 4 of the Carmelite Mirror on this 16th of May, and among the prefatory Notes to the Life §6, and the Appendix to the same Life; from which I note that in the year 1645 on the Roman journey to the Chapter of his Order the reverend Father James Emans, Doctor of Sacred Theology of Cologne, turning aside to Bolzano (that town is in the Tyrol, commonly Bolzen) saw and heard and by a letter given after his return from Cologne thus testified: There in the church of the Fathers Preachers is a chapel, dedicated to S. Simon Stock, his worship at Bolzano in the Tyrol. and in it a most beautiful altar of S. Simon himself, constructed about the year of Christ 1626, by a vow by a certain noble Gaudentius Botsch zu Zwingenberg, Marshal of the Tyrol of Archduke Leopold of happy memory, to this end, that by the mediating intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and S. Simon, he might obtain an heir. But it happened that the altar being now erected God heard his vow, and granted him a daughter as heir. And behold the hour in which the wife of the aforesaid Noble conceived, it happened that at night the little bell of the same chapel in the belfry, which the same chapel of S. Simon has special, was rung of itself. But the same Noble being dead, at the same hour of his death, the tablet or image of S. Simon fell from the altar to the ground: and this is very celebrated with the Fathers Preachers of that place, and begot to the same chapel great devotion among men, which even now there perseveres: for always in the same chapel are frequent men, supplicating S. Simon.

* alternatively Concessi

ON BLESSED FRANCIS OF SIENA OF THE ORDER OF THE SERVANTS OF B. MARY

AT SIENA IN ETRURIA.

IN THE YEAR 1325.

Francis of Siena of the Order of the Servants of B. Mary, at Siena in Etruria (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[1] Ancient Siena, the city of the Virgin (for by this title before all the rest of Etruria it glories) as many Saints as it has brought into heaven, and it has brought very many, partly already mentioned, partly to be mentioned hereafter in this Work; just as many masters it has given to the world remarkable for love toward the most holy Mother of God. Among these that not the last place is due to this B. Francis, Concerning this remarkable worshipper of B. Mary Presbyter of the Order of her Servants, was declared even by his death by that Hail Mary, which flowering forth from the mouth of the deceased, increased the admiration of him, offering on each leaf a Hail Mary to be read. The Life from the Chronicle of the Servants of Michael Poccrantius of Florence transcribing into the Annals of the same his Order Archangelus Gianius Century 1 book 7 chapter 10, concluded it with this Annotation in the year 1617; The deeds of B. Francis for nearly two hundred years several have written, from the old monuments of the Notable men of Siena: yet all things more concisely collected about the year 1450 Fr. Paul Atavantes to Pius II, the ancient instruments sought in vain: and Nicholas Borghesius, from whom afterward Pocciantus in the Chronicle. Nor much from these does our Possevinus differ in the Apparatus, where treating of Nicholas Burgensius, Knight and Senator of Siena (of whom we more at length on the 30th of April in the Analecta concerning S. Catharine of Siena) when among his writings he reckons a Life of B. Francis, which Paul Florentinus a Theologian of the Order of the Servants dedicated to Pius II: yet so that according to Possevinus one and the same is the Life, which Nicholas wrote and Paul dedicated.

[2] the Life is given from the Chronicle of the Order However it be, we labored much through the reverend Father Sebastian de Comitibus, now Rector of our College at Siena, then, that is, in the year 1673 there a preacher, that either that Life, or anything of the old Notarial instruments we might obtain: but in vain: although the most reverend Father General of the Servants Vincentius Luchesinus, for his affection toward our Society, in which he had three full brothers, had ordered the whole archive to be searched; for all the authentic things were said to have been carried to Rome, in order to promote the business of canonization. We shall give therefore the Life from Pocciantius, who one century after the two aforesaid wrote, and published his Chronicle in the year 1566; about to relate in the Annotations, if anything in Gianius and other books edited after pertaining to it be found. We shall give then the depositions of the witnesses Latin from the Italian, from the Process which in the year 1622, as is mentioned, was instituted in the Archiepiscopal Court of Siena, and the Process formed in the year 1622. at the instance of the reverend Fathers FF. John Maria de Savinis and Philip Monte-Boni of Siena, in the place and name of the Prior and Confraters of S. Mary of the Servants of the city of Siena, the deputies of the most illustrious College of the Balìa acting, the most illustrious and most excellent D. Federigo de Forteguerris, and the most illustrious Don Octavius de Silvestris, two of that most illustrious College, and the most illustrious and most excellent Don Virgilius de Vecchis, secretary of the Laws and Patrician of Siena; as they said it was clear of their deputation from the decree of the same most illustrious College, on the 15th day of the month of July in the year 1622, in the book of Deliberations fol. 30, by the hand of the excellent D. Ventura de Burghesiis, Chancellor of the same College.

[3] But since the witnesses cited, and personally constituted before the aforesaid, began to be heard in the very year, which we mentioned, 1622 on the 22nd day of October; but the last of them is read to have appeared on the 7th of February of the same year 1622; whose deposition on the 11th of February of the same was followed by the inspection of the holy body, made by the most illustrious D. Vicar General the Judge delegated in the cause; it is evidently plain that with the people of Siena until the aforesaid year and beyond there endured (nay even today I hear it endures) that Notarial Style, which we have often noted in various Lives of holy and blessed Bishops, and the public Instruments pertaining to them; namely the custom of anticipating by nine months the beginning of the common or Roman year; and auspicating it on the 25th of March, namely on the feast of the Lord's Incarnation itself. From this moreover it is consequent, that, that the Blessed died in the year 1325 when B. Francis is said to have died at Siena in the year 1326, on the Vigil or Feast of the Ascension of Christ; the year still ought to be numbered after the common manner 1325: who since he celebrated his Easter on the 7th of April, must have celebrated the Ascension on the 16th of May: so that this day was B. Francis's birthday, or at least the day preceding this. The Vigil note Pocciantius and Gianius, by the example of older (as it is permitted to presume) author. The day itself the delegated Procurators in the Process. The cause of this difference I think to be, either the ecclesiastical usage, by which any feast in order to the Choir is reckoned to begin from First Vespers; or the changed manner in all Italy of numbering the hours: which since once they took beginning either from midnight or from dawn, the 15th of May. now with the Italians are begun from sunset: so that what to us Belgians, dividing the nocturnal and diurnal hours twofold, would be on the 15th of May the 10th hour after noon, that is to the Italians regarding sunset the 2nd hour of the 16th day.

[4] These things notwithstanding I refer him here to the 16th, both because it can still seem to someone, that the author from whom

Pocciantius wrote, that on that holy day arriving Francis passed to the heavenly realms (whether he was Nicholas Burgesius or some older other) wished to signify, that toward the dawn of that very feast the Blessed died; both because on this day we promised that we would treat of him among the Passed Over on the last day of April, and so it is not now wholly entire for us to do so. Posterity will be able, about to revise May, to change the day if they wish, and to follow the founder of the Marian Year, not 1326, the last of April: concerning whom below; provided they do not change the month, by following Ferrarius, who defining the day from the 23rd of March, on which Easter of the common year 1326 was celebrated, chose the last day of April. But not in this alone did Ferrarius err, that he did not advert to the special reckoning of the year of Siena; but in another article also concerning the worship, when he said, that the body is visited by the people of Siena yearly on the 30th of April, the whole city flowing together. For the public worship which is exhibited to B. Francis at Siena, without any respect to the course of the month, regard being had only to the movable feasts, is deferred to the Sunday within the octave, in whatever month or day of the month this is celebrated: and then the wooden chest, skillfully made, so that the front part being removed the body is offered to be beheld through the crystals interposed, is transferred from the altar, above which we ourselves saw it in the year 1661 on the 11th of October, to the middle of the church under a most adorned canopy above a temporary altar erected there, at which the whole of that day holy things, but of the Sunday are done. Moreover if Philip Ferrarius about the day of worship so errs, the worship on the Sunday after the Ascension. writing of a Blessed of his own Order (of which he was afterward Prior General) illustrious enough; who can charge us with arrogance, that in many other matters, whether when he first gave to someone the title of Saint or Blessed, or when he changes the day or month, we do not think him to be followed; but the laborious Collector's sedulity being praised, we require in him the diligence of a somewhat more accurate writer.

[5] The other arguments, by which the lawful and ancient worship of B. Francis can be proved, will be plain from the Depositions of the Witnesses. One thing here remains for us to be said, that the Process itself (which in our transcript, written in a smaller character, scarcely fills five folios of paper) written in a larger letter fills a just Codex, which to be transcribed with singular testification of benevolence lent the most excellent Marquis Patritius de Patritiis, embracing the cause of the hoped canonization as an inheritance received from his father and grandfathers, perhaps the more zealously, because the Academicians of Siena, whom they call the Inthronati, began a few years ago to call into doubt, whether B. Francis, whom they commonly surname Tarlatus, is sufficiently certainly and securely ascribed to the Patritian race, among the families of Siena most noble; whence also John Baptist Ferrarius, one of the same Academicians, in the Sienese Annals, a good part of which he composed, abstains from the title of the Patritian family, content with the vulgar surname of Tarlatus. We have left the suit to be defined by the people of Siena, and only the surname taken from the country, after the manner of the ancient age and of the Order itself, rejecting the insignia of worldly nobility, we here append to him: we note however that the surname of Tarlatus could have been seized by the common people, because the body is not so entire, but that in some places it appears Tarlatum, that is, Worm-eaten.

LIFE

From the Chronicle of the Servants of Michael of Florence under the year of Christ 1326, of the Religious Order 94.

Francis of Siena of the Order of the Servants of B. Mary, at Siena in Etruria (B.)

FROM THE CHRONICLE OF THE SERVANTS.

[1] At this time B. Francis, of the city of Siena, Holily dead, son of Arrighus and Raynalda, and the best servant of the most holy and immaculate Virgin, on the Vigil of the Ascension of our Lord (as he himself had foretold) leaving human things sought the heavenly, and is placed in eternal rest: but his glorious body, in which the holy soul, while he led this life, had been hidden, in a certain wooden chest, as a precious gem, to be preserved is placed, and by decree of the Prelate of Siena is ordered to be placed above the major altar. Nor wonder indeed. For among the sons of women of Siena, and among all the Friars of the Servants, in his days he always was the greater. as he had lived Greater indeed in fasts, in disciplines, in prayers, and in corrections: greater in explaining the words of the Lord, in opening the holy mysteries of God, in freeing the oppressed not only from the hands of the impious, but also from the vexations of demons and from the languors of various infirmities; justly and piously, as to himself, taming the flesh; as to his neighbor, rendering to each what is his; and as to God, adoring him with interior and exterior worship: but in the rest small, humble and abject, esteeming himself a worm and not a man, as Lord Nicholas, golden Knight, a citizen of Siena noted.

[2] That the matter is altogether so will easily be plain, if the things which preceded the praiseworthy life of this holy man, and as it had been shown to his mother pregnant with him, if the things which accompanied and followed it shall be recalled to memory. For Raynalda his mother, before she brought such a man into the world, affirms to her own husband that she saw in her sleep through nocturnal rest that she bore a lily, and from its root several others arise, and like a woven crown place it on the sacred head of the Virgin Mother of God. Again while sleeping she seemed to see a Bishop, marked with Pontifical ornaments for celebrating the divine service, who she testified said these words to her: Fear not, you shall bring forth a lily, which shall pass the dregs of the fluctuating world uncontaminated; and these words said with the pastoral staff touching her pregnant womb, he signed it with the seal of the life-giving Cross, and vanished. She, conferring all these things in her heart, like another Anna the Prophetess, did not depart from the temple; but serving God with fasts and obsecrations, prayed him, that he would deign to effect in reality, what he had shown her in her sleep. Which at length was done: for, as some assert, in the year one thousand two hundred seventy-three she gave forth the sacred lily to the world, and that happy mother bore her son, who at once washed in holy baptism, began beyond nature to rejoice, and to cast his eyes with great joy toward the image of the Virgin.

[3] Then reaching the boyish age, he is so inflamed with desire of the divine worship, given to piety from a boy, that he esteemed the church of God his home and peculiar habitation; from which he departed last, and entered first. At midnight he rose to praise God, saluting the Virgin five hundred times. But to hear the holy words of God, he put all things after. But when by a certain Father Ambrose a most holy preacher of the Order of the Servants the usefulness of that sentence was set forth, which says: You will merit God, if you flee men; at once he resolved, and thought of the solitary life, like another John the Baptist, to lead a solitary life, and in some most rough place to subjugate the body to the spirit. Which he certainly would have committed to execution, had not his most pious mother recalled to memory the divine precept concerning the love of parents. Which precept indeed he fulfilled to the best of his power, until the twenty-second year of his age; at which time, when his mother had catholicly migrated to the Lord; that upright man, not unmindful of the words, which by preaching the Servite declaimer had explained, resolves to commit them to execution. To him thinking such things the Blessed Virgin within foretells, that she had numbered him among her Servants. Which the best servant of the Virgin perceiving, but at the admonition of the B. V. he was joined to the Servants, went to her Servants, and all things being most humanely related he is received into the Order, and excites the greatest expectation of himself. For clothed with the virginal habit he began so to insist on prayers, so on fasts, so to chant the psalms of David and the praises of the Virgin; so finally, what pertains not only to cenobites, but also to hermits living in the deserts, he began to exercise; that he seemed not the newest, but the oldest Friar. Nay all admiring a life so glorious, strove to imitate it as a model set before them: and stretched all their nerves at least from afar to follow his footsteps; and made a model for them who this life so praiseworthily begun at the entrance of the Religious Order, in the progress and in the going out of his days constantly and perseveringly followed. For the flowery little bed, in which his body afflicted not only with scourges, by a stricter penance, but also with sharp stones rested, was the dry earth: the garment, with which he covered his flesh, exposed to colds and fasts, was a hairshirt: the chamber finally, in which he dwelt, was a certain cavern, which still exists on the mountain, above which is built the monastery of the Servants of Siena.

[4] But what should be said of his most wise answers? If the things which come out of the heart, indicate what a man is; his answers, which from the inmost dwelling of the heart he uttered, will easily indicate his probity. For he was often wont to say, I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ: adding; To me to live is loss, and to die is gain. He added even, that one must neither pray, nor pour forth prayers to God without tears: he affirmed moreover, By desire of divine things that a Servant of God ought to have a care of those Gospel words: Be ready. Asked by a certain Confrater, why he came with so great joy to sacrifice; God forgive you, answered the ineffable man, who have so fixed your eyes on me; for to gaze too closely on one sacrificing, is unlawful; nor likewise is it permitted to one sacrificing to behold any other: for the face of Moses was not permitted to be beheld by the sons of Israel. Asked by another, whether in celebrating he saw anything secret, he said: My secret to myself; for he who carries it openly on the way, makes robbers. When very often publicly and extempore he preached to the people, by some he was asked, in what manner he trusted himself, not having first premeditated those things, which pertained to reforming life; to whom he is reported to have said, by the fervor of preaching, Blessed the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth and glory. Which indeed afterward was found to be true: for two virgins, while he was preaching, affirmed that they saw a fiery globe above his head: who although among all he was held in the greatest esteem, there were yet, as is the custom, certain disciples of Judas, detracting from him, objecting too great intimacy with women. Which being known he humbly prays the Virgin, that she would deign to take away from the midst the offense of such men. Nor in vain did he pray this, for while he was present at the matins Offices, he became suddenly deaf: for which cause when he did not admit anyone about to speak words to him, he was excused. Which the Friars and citizens bearing ill, and wishing to apply physicians; he altogether refused, and vehemently praised God; from whom he always sought pardon, by the tolerance of deafness, if he had offended anyone only by a word; and did not cease to pray to him for all; especially however for the poor, some of whom meeting him naked, imitating his best Father Philip, he sometimes bestowed his own garments; and many times cured them of the infirmities, by which they were held, by charity toward his neighbor. as also he strove to reconcile the hostile minds

of souls, and so applied effort to effect this, that by all with one mouth he was surnamed Pacialis, nay rather a miracle of God.

[5] Nor that undeservedly; for as his nativity was admirable, so admirable his life, and at the same time precious his death: to which when he drew near, it was done by the disposing divine counsel of God, that having gone out of the city to preach according to custom the Gospel, as if destitute of all the powers of nature, falling forward he fell to the ground. A handful of roses being offered through the B. V. he is recalled from a swoon, To whom suddenly an unknown woman comes, and offers him a handful of roses; which receiving with most willing mind, he rises; and at the same time with his companion, thus forewarned by the same woman, returns: and prayer being made, at the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary he hung the roses. Carried thence by the Friars into the place appointed for the sick, laying up in his deep mind the mysteries, he speaks no word. But asked how he was, not answering, he showed a certain wondrous joy in his face. Which joy at length he joined with good words, and the Psalms of David, which they call penitential; and began to chant them to the great admiration of all. he prepares himself for a pious death, Which finished, he left certain salutary precepts to all his friends and Friars, and showed that Christ Jesus must be served with all one's strength, whom to serve is to reign in heaven. To whose port when he knew he was about to migrate, therefore on the same day, which precedes the Ascension of our Lord, asked what he was doing, he answered: Do you know, my son, that our Lord tomorrow is about to ascend into heaven? I know, he said, Father. Then he: do you believe that our most kind Savior wishes me to stay longer in so fetid a vessel? But the other being silent, he adds: I hope indeed by the divine bounty soon to go out from this dark prison of the body. whereby having died he begins to be renowned for miracles: Which indeed was done: for that holy day arriving, the Angelic spirits accompanying him he passed to the heavenly realms. The death of which holy man being divulged, at once a most frequent multitude of men flowed together, to see and touch the glorious body; which being touched very many sick were given health, as the public notaries noted. Which marvels also Lord Nicholas Burgensis, of the city of Siena an illustrious golden Knight, diligently described.

[6] The first of these: Andrew a citizen of Siena, sharpening his tongue against the holy friend of God, among which also the punishment inflicted on his detractors, and mocking those rendering him honor, at once is oppressed by a sudden pain, from which when by human remedies he could not by any means be freed, he at length knew this had befallen him on account of the iniquitous words. For which led by penitence, he vowed a vow, namely that he would go with bare feet to the holy relics of the blessed man, provided he be restored to his former health. Which done at once unharmed he rises from his bed, and publicly fulfilling his vow, the whole people admiring, chants praises to B. Francis. The second: A certain Bartholomew himself also detracted from the miracles of this Saint; paying the penalties of which thing, his right arm, which he was wont ridiculously to move against the holy man, is rendered immovable like a stone: wherefore acknowledging his rashness, he runs to the holy tomb, and life restored to a drowned boy, asks pardon, pours forth tears, confesses his fault, and at length deserves to be freed from the infirmity. The third: A certain boy playing near a fountain of water, incautiously falls and is overwhelmed: whom his parent most bitterly lamenting thus dead, carries to the holy tomb of B. Francis, and a vow being humbly undertaken, commends his son: whom recalled to life he beholds with the greatest joy, and everywhere proclaims the praises of so great a work.

[7] B. Father Francis, reckoned among the Saints, is renowned for nearly every kind of miracles: for he freed those contracted in body, the deaf, the blind, those held by malignant spirits, and several diseases cured, those laboring with the falling sickness. So testifies the illustrious Knight in praise of so great a man: whose holy ashes still are renowned for miracles, and with the people of Siena in the church of the Servants in a wooden chest above the major altar are kept: but his feast is still celebrated with great joy by the people of Siena. Some of our elders report, and so confirm that they received from the older, that a lily came forth from his mouth, at once when he migrated to Christ: which lily indeed the messengers of the most invincible King of France, from the Republic of Siena and the Fathers of that monastery by many prayers obtained, they confess. a lily finally born from the mouth of the dead man: Which to believe seems not alien from the truth: for the mother of this best Father testified that she had seen herself bring forth a lily, who in the most ancient pictures and especially on the old altar of D. A. is seen depicted with a lily. But he, who knows all things before they are done, may reveal it to us, and lead us by his merits where are the lilies of the valleys. The Life of this most celebrated Father the reverend Father Master Paul Florentinus also published, to Pius II the Supreme Pontiff, as is gathered from his Dialogue, in which it is had, that in his salutary preachings to the people, by the hands of Angels before his eyes a codex open was seen to be held: who all things, as they were written, uttered with the highest charity and virtue. He adds besides that innumerable kinds of sick were cured by him, and that he brought back four lifeless boys to a brighter light.

[8] Thus far in the Chronicle Michael, the last two articles of which Gianius reserving to the miracles of B. Francis after death, to be explained under a new title, and also the incorruption of the body. leaves the Life itself with these words. His body in a wooden chest was honorably laid above the altar of the B. Virgin, in the chapel which is situated near the sacristy on the left of the major altar: where still after three hundred years it is seen incorruptibly preserved with so great integrity, that to all it has always been the greatest admiration and veneration: especially on that day Sunday after the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, on which there the Senate and people with great frequency yearly flow together to celebrate his feast. But his image as of a devout man, with shaved beard and emaciated body, having in one hand a bundle of lilies, in the other an open book upon his breast with these words, Come sons hear me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord, antiquity figured. As his very ancient copies still indicate. Here ending, Gianius begins the miracles from the aforementioned book, in whose, he says, every leaf in golden letters was read Hail Mary, then completes the rest with the words related above; and adds: But that lily the French most greatly venerate, as a notable monument of Paris, even to these our times it is plain (namely the year 1618 in which the Annals were edited) since formerly many of them, traveling through Italy and passing through Siena, often asked, Where is the body, where is the body of B. Francis of the Order of the Servants of Holy Mary? etc. Wherefore it is permitted to conjecture how the fame of this blessed man was then promulgated in those regions, and also to assert too whatever has hitherto been said of the lily: concerning which not unadvisedly Master Gaspar a Venetian Poet, in Triumph 6, chapter 6 concerning the beatific vision testifies in vernacular trimeter, which was thus turned into Latin.

There meets me on the ground one, who round about the white Lilies casts from his purple mouth: And the snowy leaves from gold held the words, Thou Queen of heaven and holy Mother, Hail.

ANNOTATIONS.

He holds the stars, since he loved peace, and that To be preserved he sanctioned by his admonitions in the city. With sweet eloquences to persuade placid quiet To the citizens and the country, was his sedulous care. A peace-bearer he too: for he calmed the scandals of the land, And restored to the exiles their native homes.

p Similar to these I believe to be that, which printed on fine silk, from a certain convent of Nuns, while I inquired into the monuments of this Blessed in the year 1674, was brought to our College, with a Title, Epitome of the Life, and Dedicatory, all in Italian. The Title was, The true effigy of B. Francis Patritius, Servite, Noble of Siena. The Epitome had certain singular things, which in these Annotations we have all exhibited. The Dedicatory was directed to the most illustrious D. John Patritius of Siena, with a very brief encomium of the Patritian family, under the name of John Florinius.

q This author is hitherto unknown to us, much less do we know whether, where, how many, and when his Triumphs were printed.

DEPOSITIONS OF THE WITNESSES

Concerning the life and miracles of B. Francis heard about 60 years ago.

From the MS. of the Most Excellent Count Patritius de Patritiis

Francis of Siena of the Order of the Servants of B. Mary, at Siena in Etruria (B.)

FROM THE MS. PROCESS.

CHAPTER I.

The Articles proposed to the Witnesses offered in judgment, and the names of these.

[1] The deputies from the College of the Balìa of Siena On the part of the most illustrious College of the Balìa of Siena, the Triumvirs, whom we named in the preface, according to the Memorial in the name and place of the Prior and Confraters of S. Mary of the Servants of this city of Siena offered in the year of the Lord 1622 on the 27th day of September… the names being given set forth, that the blessed memory of Fr. Francis de Patriciis, noble of Siena, of the Order of the Servites, while he was in human affairs, a man conspicuous for piety and admirably adorned with Christian virtues, exhibited many signs of sanctity, and in the year 1326, on the day of the Ascension of the Lord, migrated from this life. Whose body was delivered to ecclesiastical burial in the church of the same Order of the Servites, in the city of Siena, and is fittingly and honorably preserved and rests; and both in the said city and in the neighboring places, the fame of sanctity and the working of miracles began to thrive.

[2] they intend to prove, And because men are daily borne of their own accord to veneration toward that servant of God, and the fame of his sanctity more and more daily with the working of miracles grows and increases; therefore these things being narrated, speaking in the mother tongue, for the easier understanding of the witnesses, they article, set down, and intend to prove I That the glorious Father Francis Patritius, the common opinion concerning the sanctity of B. Francis, from the time of his death to the present day, has been held and reputed, as he is held and reputed, by all the faithful Christians, especially in the states of the most Serene Grand Duke of Etruria, a most religious, most pure, most chaste man; of great abstinence, humility and obedience, of most ardent charity toward God and his neighbors, endowed with most holy morals and rare virtues, a most upright servant of God and of the most blessed Virgin Mary; and therefore was and is wont to be invoked, both in life and after death, by Christ's faithful, in their necessities, straits and infirmities, believing and holding it certain, that he reigns with God and the Saints in eternal beatitude: and that all this was and is public and notorious.

II Likewise that, both in his life and after his death, resting on miracles, God, by the merits of this faithful servant of his and of the most blessed Virgin, by the mediating intercession of him, deigned to work many miracles to testify his sanctity.

III That in ancient times and exceeding all memory of men the body of the glorious Fr. Francis aforesaid was exposed and conserved in the parochial church of the Saints Clement and Michael the Archangel of the Servants at Siena, the incorruption of the body, above the altar called of B. Mary of the People, in a wooden chest: which in our times was found, with many miracles and deeds of the aforesaid Saint painted on it, to manifest his sanctity to posterity.

IV That not only in the said church, by ancient pictures, but also in various other churches and public places, are found many most ancient pictures, transcending the memory of the elders, representing the image of the said Father, in that form in which the images of the Saints are wont to be painted, with rays around the head and the title of Blessed.

V That to his sepulcher, from the time of his death to the present, there has always been a great concourse of people, by the concourse to the sepulcher, not only from the city but also from the neighboring places and parts of Italy, on account of the fame of miracles and of sanctity, which had diffused itself far and wide concerning him.

VI That on his feast day there was always and even now is the greatest concourse of the faithful: by the annual feast, and then concerning his miracles and praises a sermon is wont to be held to the people.

VII That on the same day there is a similar concourse to the cave, by the veneration of the cave, into which the Blessed was wont to withdraw for the cause of penance.

VIII That his body is preserved and seen even today incorrupt in the said church of the Servants at Siena. of the body,

IX That both the aforesaid body and his images, which are seen depicted in various places, of the images, are held in great reverence by the faithful, who are wont before these and that to bow the head, bend the knees, light lamps and tapers, affix votive tablets of silver or other material, in acknowledgment of graces received from the Blessed.

X That so great is and always was the devotion of the people toward this holy Father, the trust of the sick in him, that many who are held by various grave and dangerous diseases, turn themselves to him, and implore his intercession, ordering flowers to be brought to them, consecrated by the touch of the holy body: which placed upon the sick, by the grace of almighty God, have worked and daily work the health of many.

XI That formerly there was erected for him a Sodality of secular men: the protection of a sodality, and that under the same patronage today serves the Sodality of the most holy Trinity, erected by him under the name of the lesser Sodality of the most blessed Virgin.

XII That in the year 1619 the body of the aforesaid blessed Father was carried about processionally with solemn pomp, a procession with the body, with the greatest train of people running together from everywhere, and a number of wax torches, and the intervention of several secular confraternities, the banners of the same being carried before, and a great multitude of religious of every profession and habit: and that after a consultation held thereupon in the Archiepiscopal Palace, in which, no one at all dissenting, there was consent to that matter.

XIII That in the proper Lections of B. Peregrine of Forlì the supreme Pontiff expressly calls the said Father Blessed: and the title of Blessed. and approves that he reigns in heaven, when he says, that B. Francis of Siena came to take the soul of B. Peregrine, and to lead it into paradise.

[3] Interrogated as to the questions These are the interrogatories, conceived in the Italian idiom in the place where we have noted, and to be proposed to the witnesses: to which it is subjoined, that first each witness be seriously admonished of the gravity of the oath to be taken etc. be asked of his name, surname, country, etc: then faith is made that the above-written preparatory and interrogatory things etc were exhibited and produced: and finally certain sayings and some attestations of the witnesses are described, examined before the most illustrious and most reverend D. Fabius Sergardius Patrician of Siena etc in this order.

I In the year of the Lord 1622, on the 22nd day of the month of October the most illustrious and most reverend Father Alexander Vasolius, Ten witnesses on the 28th of October. Auditor of the most Serene Grand Duke of Etruria the first Witness brought in, produced, alleged, named, admonished, sworn, his breast touched in the Priestly manner etc, whose are these responses to the preparatory questions, in the mother tongue, in which all the rest also spoke. I had no knowledge of the said Father except from that time in which, at Florence I read the Life written by Father Master Michael of Florence: but afterward on various occasions I was and stayed at Siena, and lately indeed for a whole year, when I heard many things of those which were treated concerning the sanctity of the said Father.

II Father the most illustrious and most reverend Don Fabius Piccolomineus, Bishop of Massa etc. whose are these responses to the Preparatory questions; That he has no personal knowledge of the said Father, as one dead for so many years: but well of the relics of his body, from which he saw it entire … but concerning the person of the same most reverend Witness, he said, he is a Bishop, often celebrates, and of the age of 54 years.

III On the 29th of November 1622 the most reverend Master Benedict de Ventanis of the Order of Preachers etc. whose are these responses to the preparatory questions. 29 November. I have knowledge of Father Fr. Francis of the Order of the Servants, on account of the feast which is kept for him yearly in the city of Siena, on the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, and I have often seen his incorrupt body … but concerning the person of the Witness himself, he said he is of the age of 40 years and celebrates daily.

IV On the 6th of December 1622 the most illustrious and most excellent D. Mutius son of the late D. Ascanius de Britionibus, 6 December. Patrician of Siena, another Witness said: I have knowledge of the said Blessed, because I read his Life, I saw the incorrupt body etc. and of all the things which I have deposed there is a public voice and fame among those who have known these things.

V On the 4th of January in the year 1622, the most illustrious D. Archangelus, son of the late D. Antony Maria de Archangelis.

4 and 13 January. VI On the 13th of January 1622 Cosmus son of the late Angelus de Carratellis of Cuna of Siena another witness, sworn

etc… Concerning the person of the Witness himself he said, I am in the fiftieth year of age, confessed and communicated, and possessing in goods a thousand scudi and more.

VII On the 17th of January 1622, the very Magnificent and most excellent D. Angelus Cardus of Siena, Doctor of Arts and Medicine. 17, 21 and 28 of the same,

VIII On the 21st of January the most reverend and eminent Father Fr. Master from the Counts of Alcium, of the Order of the Minors of S. Francis…

IX On the 28th of January 1622 the most illustrious and most excellent D. Antony son of the late D. Alexander de Ugulinis, Patrician of Siena.

and 7 February 1622. X On the 7th of February 1622, the reverend Father Fr. Camillus de Baldis, of Siena, of the Order of the Servants of S. Mary, Bachelor in sacred Theology, and Lector of Philosophy…

[4] To these witnesses were proposed the interrogatories related above; not separately (as I distinguished them for the sake of greater convenience into 13 articles) but in one continuous series: What were their responses? whereby it came about, that the depositions of the same do not respond accurately to the several articles; but are conceived in those words and in that order, as each remembered that he had seen, heard, or read; many also, as to several articles, concerning which nothing particular occurred to be said, seem to be defective. We, about to collect into one whatever special and noteworthy each one deposed, have judged that the deposition of the last Witness should be premised at length; why the last is given entire? because concerning the life of Francis and the miracles of the living one he came more instructed and prepared than the rest, whence he narrated not a few other things or otherwise and more distinctly than Pocciantius, so that the Life written by Paul Burghesius, which the same Witness as read by him alleges, seems to have been much more copious: besides because he more diligently collected the rest, concerning which in his time existing or done he could testify, after accurate observation and curious interrogation of several. Thus then having spoken in Italian he is written.

CHAPTER II.

The former part of the last testimony concerning the virtues of B. Francis.

[5] I know that the body of B. Francis Patritius is buried above the altar of S. Mary of the People, in our church of the Servants at Siena. After the indications of his Sanctity in general, I know that the said body did many miracles, as I shall say below. I know that it was carried about processionally through the said city of Siena. I know that the said Father must have been in various places of Italy, namely at Milan, Como, Pavia, Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Florence, Lucca, and in other places in which I have conversed. From these things which I have said and others which I am about to say I intend to prove, that he was a great servant of God. But that he was also a singular worshipper of the B. Virgin Mary, clearly is plain from his life, diffusely written and printed in various places of Italy, in which it is said, that the Queen of Angels and of the heavens, Patroness and Protectress of our Order, sent him by herself to the Religious Order of the Servants, often called him son, often spoke with him familiarly as friend with friend; and his singular affection toward the V. M. and confirmed and helped him in his necessities, visited him in sickness, and to him dying obtained paradise from her Son, inviting him thither, and with a great multitude of Angels and Saints male and female and also her Son accompanying her led his glorious soul into heaven: and that he as in his life he was most heaped with graces and merits; so also was seen in the sight of God, clothed with most bright light of glory surpassing the splendor of the sun, and crowned with a most rich and most resplendent crown by the very hands of the most blessed Virgin, as in its place we shall say from the authors who wrote concerning him, namely Paul Atavantus, Nicholas Burghesius the Knight, Father Dominic William, Father Abbot Don Silvanus Razzi, Matthioli, Bernardinus Florini, and the most reverend Philip General of the Servants; and of all these there is a public voice and fame.

[6] But that in particular I may say something of the virtues of the glorious servant of God contained in the article, his unsullied virginity is proved, I say it is most true that he was a most religious, most pious, most chaste man: because he never stained nor defiled his soul or body with any carnal sin, and kept the flower of virginity unsullied, and a chaste and holy virgin was taken up into heaven, because such was promised to the world, and foretold to his devout mother by S. Peter the Apostle, as elsewhere we shall say. But although it is probable, that he was solicited by many temptations and grave stings of the flesh to such sins, yet confirmed and helped by the efficacious grace of the Savior, he conquered and overcame all uncleanness, in that he would not consent even to the least impure offense. It is also most true that he was a man of the highest abstinence, understanding that hence are sought the most efficacious remedies against the temptations of the enemy. Hence also at a tender age, although noble and rich, he made it his custom to spend two days in the week, namely Wednesday and Saturday, frequent fasting, with bread and water alone in honor of the B. Virgin: but made a Religious he added a similar fast on Fridays in honor and memory of the Passion, as our Rule prescribes; but the times of the Lord's Advent and of Lent, except on Sunday, he spent content with bread and water, sometimes even with vegetables alone. From flesh and wine he was very far, wont to call his body a little ass, to which only precisely so much should be given, as would suffice to bear the burden.

[7] By the same virtue of abstinence, he shortened the times of sleep, the rigor of penance, abhorring it as a most harmful lethargy: nay even he often passed whole nights sleepless and watchful in holy studies, meditations, contemplations, and prayers: but if he wished by means of a little sleep to give some part of rest to the body, he nevertheless kept his mind watchful and his heart toward the Lord. He beat and scourged his body often, and fled idleness as a vice contrary to all virtues. His bed was no other than the bare ground: and of this thing the cave or cavern situated under our convent makes faith, in which while he lived there were never seen mattresses or feathers, or pillows; not skins of animals, not straw, hay or chaff. But for a pillow there were for him hard stones, to the confusion of those, for whom sumptuous palaces and feathered and soft beds do not suffice. For tapestries there were crosses, scourges woven of little cords, marks of blood scattered through the walls, which he continually drew from his afflicted flesh. For menservants and maidservants virtues: society none except of Christ, the Mother of God, the Angel, the holy man and holy woman. He exercised abstinence also in clothing, using no other cope, tunic or scapular than of altogether coarse cloth: under which he was clad with a long and rough hairshirt, which he girt with a cord no more delicate. Very often moreover to tame the flesh, and lest he have occasion proudly to lift up his heart, on account of the miracles which through him God worked and on account of the praises with which he was adorned by men, he wallowed among thorns and nettles and brambles. Finally from every harmful thing he was most abstinent.

[8] In the same servant of God excelled humility. For although he was as to the world born of a noble stock, humility, and in religion, on account of his singular virtues and rare ornaments of grace, esteemed by all; yet not therefore was he ever noted to make much of himself, much less to praise himself: from his heart wont to affirm that before all he was vile, foolish, ill-composed and a sinner: but that he alone ought to be called noble and wise, who from virtue led his life. He never suffered himself to be preferred to others, although it was due to him by the title of Priesthood: and therefore to the three accustomed vows of religion, namely of obedience, poverty and chastity, he added a fourth of humility: because it is not read that he ever wished to admit any dignity or prelacy whatever, not the Priorate, not the Provincialate, not finally the Generalate itself: but despising whatever to this world seems great, he sighed for the heavenly: and having his whole felicity and ultimate end placed in God alone, he lived content with the Priestly dignity; into which to be received he had consented, on account of the singular joy of mind, with which he was affected, offering daily in the morning to his Lord the sacrifice of the Mass. He proved himself most humble also in the very many journeys, which he undertook even to far regions. For whether for the cause of preaching or on the occasion of other business he went out of the city, he did not take litters or carriages or horses, but walking on foot with a staff in his hand, he begged alms and food and lodging in place and time, as the Apostles and the first Fathers of our Order did. He proved himself most humble finally in this, that, when he received so great graces and so great favors divinely, he would never manifest anything of them; to those urging and insisting that he make them partakers of some, he was wont to answer, My secret to myself. But when once a companion asked, whence was that jubilation of mind, which he bore in his face while sacrificing, he would not indicate the cause.

[9] To so great humility was added the queen of all virtues charity toward God and Neighbor: for he loved God above all things, charity toward God nor can it be explained in words, how much that love exceeded the common manner of loving; but at the same time he both venerated and feared him with the whole affection of his heart. And therefore some of our elders took care to have the glorious Father painted with emaciated face, carrying a lily in one hand, in the other an open book with these words from Scripture, come, sons, to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. And in truth all his life could be called a continual excess of divine love and fear. For since on no day he did not celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, daily with much shedding of tears both before he was wont to pray to God, and after to give thanks: nay and to teach others, that they should never present themselves to the divine Majesty about to pray without tears. The same excess of love his sighs betrayed, frequently bursting forth with these words, I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ: because nothing else did this true servant of God so greatly wish, than to be united to his Lord, and more closely and more closely joined.

[10] and his neighbor With so great charity also was he borne toward his neighbor; that night and day he thought, by what means chiefly he could succor his necessities, especially those which pertain to the soul. Therefore to instruct the erring, to teach the ignorant, to correct sinners he did not cease; compassionating all, pouring forth for all prayers, full of spirit, zeal and love, especially while preaching, that as many as heard him, pricked might depart from their former vices. But that of this virtue also I may explain something in particular, I say it is read in the authors of the Life, that, when nothing else was at hand to be given to the poor, he bestowed his own garments on them. From the same charity he continually ministered to the sick: from charity he was not wearied by the journeys to be made everywhere, publicly and privately preaching to extirpate vices and to insert virtues congruous to the Christian profession: from charity finally he attended to pacifying

the citizens dwelling in this city among themselves, whom if he had found dissenting in anything, he soon like a most firm wall interposed himself to the parties: and in this so great authority and favor he prevailed with the citizens, that by extinguishing capital enmities, and unraveling the most intricate affairs, he obtained the surname Pacialis, or by it was called by antonomasia.

[11] Moreover his prayer was not only fervid, but almost continual, wont to spend on it a great part of his time, when he was still secular, the fervor of his prayers frequenting churches; to which and to hear the divine Offices in them he came first, went out last. But although he was then altogether tender and delicate, yet after a little rest indulged to the body, at midnight he rose from his bed, and his mind turned to God, prostrate before some image of the Mother of God how many nights he recited five hundred times the Hail Mary. He was also most studious of hearing holy exhortations, nor by any title ever did he suffer himself to be prevented from being present at all. But this his zeal God would not frustrate of a congruous reward. For when once Ambrose Sansedonius of the Order of Preachers was preaching, and he had heard him explaining these words, You will merit if you flee men; at once he felt himself moved to embrace the state of religious life, the secular being dismissed; and firmly resolved to strive toward the greatest perfection he could. But made a Religious, and the efficacy, he was seen to pray with so great fervor, that he was an object of admiration to all: because his soul perpetually adhered to God: and when he celebrated Mass, he showed so great jubilation of mind, that all were astonished at so great an ardor of praying, by which both with the holy Cross mediating he did many miracles, and divinely obtained many graces, as below we shall say; he also converted many sinners, and finally asked nothing of God which he did not obtain. An example of this so efficacious prayer once was plain. Francis was praying the divine Majesty, that it would deign to free him from the calumnious tongues of those, who murmured against him, as if more than just inclined to external conversation with men and women. But behold at midnight insisting on such a prayer he became deaf, so that he perceived neither any voice nor any sound however great. But the citizens wishing to deliver him to be cured, he would not assent; knowing this to be the effect, not of any natural cause, but of his predestination.

[12] Francis was also most poor in spirit, both in the world and in religion; poverty of spirit, never wishing to have anything which he could call his own: not money, because this he never admitted, not even for the long journeys, which he made on foot living by begging: not garments, because these he often bestowed on the poor: not finally his own place in the choir or refectory, always choosing the lowest of all. Nay neither is it found nor read of him, that in the Convent, to which he was assigned, he had a chamber or cell; content with that cave, of which above we have said and below shall say: which he preferred to however sumptuous a palace; in which, as he said, there were no flatterers, murmurers, calumniators or other wicked men; but quiet, peace, silence, holy visions and revelations, colloquies with God, the Mother of God, Angels, and the heavenly ones, finally every spiritual good. and obedience. Besides the servant of God Francis was a most accurate observer of devout obedience to God: for whenever the Superior spoke or commanded anything, at his least sign prompt, he at once applied his hand to the demonstrated work, or moved his foot toward the indicated place: but if it were commanded that he preach extempore, he did not say, that being unprepared he could not ascend the pulpit; but relying on the mandate of the one commanding, he went forward to speak, to be set before all religious as an example of obedience.

CHAPTER III.

The latter part of the same testimony concerning the marks of his sanctity.

[13] Nor were lacking to the servant of God Francis the graces freely given. Sacred knowledge, For first when he was well lettered and very luminously instructed in sacred and profane disciplines, he manifested that the gift of knowledge was in him, when he sat among the Fathers of the Council of Vienne under Clement V, as it can be seen in the Annals of the Order, and in the epitome of the life printed under his glorious image, copies of which are extant in the public squares for sale to the faithful people. Likewise when he published certain works under the title of Sermons, as Father Gregory de Sastia relates to me, a venerable man and worthy of faith, who asserts that the aforesaid works are reverently preserved in our library. Moreover in eloquence and the grace of preaching the divine word he was strong, as an excellent preacher, and as such heard in various places of Italy, great authority, especially in the diocese of Siena, in which there is neither city nor town, where there does not survive the memory of his most useful sermons. His great nobility in the world the splendor of the Patritian family proves, from which he came: his singular authority with all the Princes of Italy especially the people of Siena declare the affairs of the public State, which he treated most dexterously. Hence to Clement V he was sent with his companion the reverend Father Bernard de S. Nuccio as orator for the Clergy and diocese of Siena, as we are taught by an instrument written on parchment, which with some other instruments of great moment is preserved in the archive of our Convent. He was also invited by Can, the famous Prince of Verona, to found in those parts convents of his institute. Finally it is held for certain and explored, that he founded the convent of S. Mary de Scala. From all which it clearly appears, that whatever is asserted in the first article is most true.

[14] Very many were the miracles, which on account of the merits of this his servant the Lord, miracles preceding his nativity, glorious in his Saints, worked, namely before his nativity and after it, both in life and death and after death. And indeed before the nativity, the future sanctity of the boy was manifested to his mother through various visions, in one of which she dreamed, that within a church she brought forth a most white lily, whence many other lilies were born, which all together seemed to form a beautiful crown, to crown the mother of God; so all the authors. At another time in the midst of the silence of the night, S. Peter appearing to her in majesty and glory and Pontifically vested, the rest being ordered to go out from the choir, seemed to give her the Papal benediction, and to foretell, that she would bring forth a lily, which passing happily through all the dregs of this world, would be defiled in no part of itself; as afterward in fact was plain. Moreover in his nativity it was believed full of mystery, and following, that after the holy baptism conferred on the boy, set before the image of the most blessed Virgin, according to the custom of this city most devoted to the same Virgin, although still deprived of all use of reason and knowledge of sensible things, instead of the wailing which nature has taught other boys to give, he began to exult with joy and applaud the image, in sign of his future devotion toward Our Lady most holy; as the authors of the Life write, and by name D. Knight Nicholas Borgesius.

[15] His life also God adorned with various signs and miracles, as in order we shall say. apparitions of the Mother of God, And first he had many apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, diffusely narrated by the Writers of the Life, and by name, that to him while still a secular youth offering herself to be seen, in reward of the praises so often repeated to her, she signified that he was enrolled in the number of her servants; accordingly the world being dismissed let him embrace the religious state. But when this coming to the convent he had narrated, he was received to the habit by our Blessed Philip, then General of the Order. At another time when the servant of God was speaking to the people, God wishing to declare how great then was the zeal of Francis, made appear fiery tongues and little flames, which flitted around and above his head, as the aforesaid authors report, and in various places is seen painted. At another time when he similarly preached the word of God, Angels and Cherubim were seen to stand around, and to hold the book of the Gospels open before him. There was a time when the glorious Father Francis, set on a journey and wearied by the town, asked something of a certain rich miser for the love of God, the injurious to the Blessed punished, nor obtained at least kind words, and was bidden to go in peace; but with much evil-speaking and reproaches was repelled. Which did not remain unpunished, for the blessed man scarcely yet departed, beyond the season of the year and the course of nature a sudden tempest lay upon that place, formidable with lightnings and thunders, and dissipated all the substance of the evil-speaking man; as the authors and by name the Knight Borghesius narrate.

[16] As often as the servant of God went out, as he did often, to visit the sick and those laboring with various diseases, after he had exhorted them to patience and instructed them with salutary admonitions, the poor healed by the cross or the touch of his garments, full of faith he healed many of them by making over them the sign of the Cross; as both they themselves who had been cured sick testified, and those who were present to them for solace or service. Many times also that marvelous thing happened, that when to the poor asking alms, by the example of his Master, he had bestowed his own garments, by the mere touch of them the same poor were cured of their infirmities. When the fame of these and other graces, divinely granted to Francis, was diffused far and wide through all the region around; it is wonderful how great a number of men and women it stirred up, to frequent him devoutly. But it was grievous to him to be so often and so continually disturbed: and so he obtained from God a miraculous deafness, as already above is said, through which thereafter it was permitted him to live quietly to God alone and to himself.

[17] He nonetheless went on according to custom to go out of the city to preach the word of God. his death foretold to him by the Mother of God, On a certain day therefore doing the same, and on the very way suffering a swoon from weakness and weariness, he had conspicuous the glorious Virgin Mary clothed with a most white robe, who offering him a bundle of roses and consoling him fainting, Return, she said, my servant Francis, for the time approaches, in which from here you pass to the heavenly paradise. But he soon rose, and returned into the city with his companion and entering the church, prostrated himself before the image of the most blessed Virgin: and thanks being given for the benefit received he hung the very bundle of roses on the image already mentioned, and betook himself into his cavern to await death. But sick he foretold that he would pass to a better life on the feast of the Lord's Ascension, as in truth it happened in the year 1326. Finally at the point of approaching death again the Virgin Mother of God appeared to him, accompanied by her only-begotten son, and said: Francis, my dearest servant, what shall I repay you for the faithful service which you have rendered me, and for the love with which you have always followed me? But Jesus Christ answered in the place of Francis: It is fitting, mother, that he who loved you, should come to reign forever with us in the heavenly country. Then both broke into these words: his beatitude revealed, Come, come, faithful servant, into the heavenly country with us: and here suddenly the vision disappeared, and the glorious soul of the servant of God was translated into Paradise

. But at the very hour in which the blessed man expired, a certain noble and holy matron of Siena, beheld him more splendid than the sun led before the sight of the most holy Trinity, and to his head a most precious crown placed by the Mother of God, in an evident sign that he who in this life had shone with a grace and merits by no means common, in the heavens also was adorned with no ordinary light of glory. and the following miracles But while the body stood above the earth, to its veneration a people almost infinite ran together: and through the whole County many sick were healed, and various other miracles happened, which were taken down and confirmed by the hand of public Notaries. There was also born from the mouth of the deceased a most white lily, having on each of its leaves written in golden letters Hail Mary.

[18] God so adorning his Saint, there was a certain noble of Siena, by name Andrew, who incredulous of so great miracles, nay even blaspheming Francis himself, suddenly felt the sharpest torments, by which urging him to death, and the physicians despairing of prolonging his life longer, the wretch began to repent of all the things, which against the servant of God he had imprudently blurted out: and commending himself to him from his heart, promised that for the public scandal of his sin he would undergo public penance. At once at this vow the torment ceased, and Andrew raising himself from his bed, his arms folded in the form of a Cross, came to the sarcophagus of the blessed man himself, narrated to all the miracle done on himself; vengeance taken on the blasphemers, and professing himself devoted to B. Francis, thereafter led a holy and exemplary life, as the Knight Borghesius testifies. Another, by name Bartholomew, wont to turn the name of Francis into laughter and to detract from the miracles done through his intercession, and in sign of contempt to swing his arm raised into the air uncouthly; while he does this one day too petulantly, his arm began to stiffen for him like a stone. Acknowledging therefore his offense, accusing himself publicly along the way, he came to visit his holy Relics. Where when he had come, and had begun to weep bitterly, by a new miracle he rejoiced that motion was restored to his arm: and thereafter devoted to God and to his servant Francis he led a life with piety.

[19] the dead raised, It happened besides that a boy was playing near a fountain, and fell unhappily into it and was drowned, no one being present there who could bring help. The corpse then drawn out and recognized as such by all, lamented by the father and mother, was at length carried to the Relics of B. Francis: which soon the soul being received rose, and the boy revived set upon his feet walked home without stumbling, Borghesius being witness. Finally it is said by the authors, that four dead, through the merits of Francis, returned to life: and that the maimed received health, the lame, and the contracted, the blind were restored to light, the possessed cleansed, the elephantiac cured; but one of the authors so reporting these things says, Francis, reckoned among the Blessed, became renowned for nearly every kind of miracles.

[20] images as of a Blessed, I myself saw the effigy of this Blessed in various places of this city, namely in the Cathedral of Siena, in the church of S. John under the Cathedral, in the Palace of the most illustrious Lordship, in the Roman Gate, and elsewhere; at Florence likewise, at Bologna and at Milan. Nor within Italy does the fame of the said servant of God contain itself, it is diffused even to remote provinces, nor does any of the foreigners land at Siena, but he comes to adore that holy body; and I myself often showed it to very many transmontane men, Spaniards, French, Imperials. Nor have many months passed, that there landed at Siena two Jesuit Fathers from the most remote parts, the veneration of the body, and with them one Japanese, who all together were returning into the Indies, and admired that excellent pledge. I saw also come to venerate it various and many Prelates of the holy Church, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and many temporal Princes: namely the most eminent Cardinals of Este, Bichi, of Medici; the most illustrious moreover Camillus Archbishop of Siena and Archbishop Petruccius, the most illustrious also the Archbishop of Pisa with the Apostolic Nuncio through Etruria, finally from the secular Order some most Serene Princes and Princesses. It is moreover most true, that the body is incorrupt, holding its right hand and head a little elevated in the air: that lamps and tapers shine before the images of the Blessed, and that the sepulcher is crowned on every side with votive tablets.

[21] health restored to those invoking him. It is also most certain that Cosmus the Sword-maker, burdened with the stone, recovered health: that finally a certain Franciscan Father of the Conventual Minors, contracted in body, when he had understood the body of B. Francis to be carried about processionally, commended himself to him from his heart, and was made whole: and this happened in the year 1619. Lawrence Merciatus, suffering the stone, sent a shirt to be applied to the holy body, and recovered in the year 1622. Bartholomew of John Dominic Panduocius, a little boy of six years, coming with his mother to honor the aforesaid Relics, fell from the stairs; but his mother invoking Francis, he took no harm. Francis Tercarinus, of the Order of S. Francis, laboring with a malignant fever and a great torment of the head, made a vow to the glorious Father, and was made possessed of his vow: which the same a vow being made happened to Christopher Guasti an apothecary, sick unto death and given up by the physicians on account of the gravity of a pestilent disease, which blackish pustules breaking out over the whole body betrayed. And of all these the public voice and fame testifies. Catharine wife of Cosmus the sword-maker, at the touch of those roses, which had been applied to the holy body, was freed from a most grave sickness. A certain Lord, of the most noble family of Reccafuori, was loosed from a bitter pain of the teeth, at the touch of a similar rose. But whatever has been said above, as true Fr. Camillus Baldi set forth.

CHAPTER IV.

Analecta from the depositions of the other witnesses: the inspection of the body: the judgment of the Roman Consultor.

[22] Let us begin from the miracles after death: of which one chief, An abscess is cured, already indicated in very few words at the end of the preceding chapter, the aforesaid Catharine's husband Cosmus, as an eyewitness, sixth in order, so narrated, that he subjoined another no less evident thing done in his own person more at length. I know that Catharine daughter of Leonard Calefatus, my wife, received a miraculous grace. For when she suffered an abscess in the shoulder, and had ordered a rose to be applied to her, sanctified by the touch of the holy body; within very few days she recovered, and took care that a tablet be made as witness of the benefit obtained. But I myself related a not a little greater and more marvelous grace, in this manner which I shall narrate. For about twelve years I began to be tormented with nephritic pains and stones growing in the bladder, of which I again and again voided some, and an intolerable pain of the stone, not without the greatest torment: and in that state I remained until the year 1518; when, the pains growing more and more grievously, not able to bear them longer, I was compelled to lie down in bed. Then the physician called to my aid (he was Jerome Pinellus of Naples, celebrated for curing singular infirmities) judged that no remedy could be found for my evil, because a larger stone now resided at the bottom, nor could be recalled upward by any medicines: he added that he would prepare for me a water, by whose benefit the increase of the burdening mass would be checked, and so my life would be prolonged at least for some months. But I considering that so great a part of substance, hitherto spent on the price of physicians and medicines, had profited nothing, lest I be compelled to make new expenses, refused to take that water.

[23] So set when I was in my shop, on the 12th of May in the evening, or rather at the hour of Vespers before the Sunday (where the curial and popular difference of the year comes to be noted: for that which from the usage of the common people, he who speaks, the witness calls the year 1618, namely the year in which the 12th day of May fell on a Saturday; that the Court, wont to anticipate the Roman year by nine months, would have called the year 1619) there came to me Master Guerrinus Chioccioletti, after the body was visited, a tailor, of sixty years; and, Do we wish, he said, to walk to Our Lady in the Roman Gate? I assented: and so step by step we both began together to go forward, and I indeed always holding my hand applied to the groin, on account of the great pains of the stone which I suffered. But as we drew near to the church of the Servants: What if we enter, he said, to gain the Indulgences here proposed by reason of the Forty hours, for the cause of which also the body of B. Francis Patritius lies exposed? I offered myself prepared for this also, provided we should walk as slowly as possible, otherwise I would take care that he lead me there. We came therefore, at a slower pace, as I wished, to the church of the Servants, and I said: I wish to commend myself to this Saint: and entering within I took the Indulgence before the most Holy, then I came to the chest in which was the body of the said Blessed, supplicating him, that he would intercede for me with the most Holy Trinity, that the following morning he would deign to heal me; for not a few at that time were dying of the pains of the stone. So my devotion completed we returned each to his own home, having parted from one another in the middle of the way.

[24] It was the hour of supper when I returned home: whence after a little supper I again went out into the square to watch the games which were held there, the stones being voided with the urine: at the persuasion of my wife, wishing that by that means I should dispel the melancholic humors and forget the pains which I suffered. But these did not suffer me to make long delays there; but a short interval having remeasured the way, about the third hour of night I ordered my household to betake themselves to bed, while I, not able to lie down for the greatness of the torment, walk about through the chamber until the fourth hour. Then, God granting it, feeling urine to be stirred in me, a chamber-pot being taken I voided the same without grave trouble. My wife heard this, and at the same time the sound of the stone following the urine; and at once said; Lo, you are healed, my husband. I had not felt on account of the pain (which though not the greatest, was yet not nothing) the stone descend; therefore, how she so confidently asserted it, I asked. But she, Inspect, she said, the chamber-pot, for now you have voided the stone; which when with my hand put in I had found to be so, I gave thanks to God and the Saint; and my clothes set aside I betook myself to bed, and most comfortably began to sleep. The day then risen I carried the very stone to the church of the Servants, and the Sacristan and Prior being called I narrated the grace done to me such as I had asked, and exhibited the very stone to them: who after they had made me gain the Indulgence, hung a votive tablet procured by my order at the altar, on which the body stood exposed. But after two days, I again voided two smaller little stones, and from that hour until now I have felt no more any pain: and I plainly think myself wholly healed, nor do I observe any choice of foods.

[25] The 5th Witness among other things said, that in the church of the Servants at Florence, which has its name from the Annunciation, the images are honored, or rather in the cloister of that church, are seen painted various miracles of B. Francis, by the hand of Andrew del Sarto

and other most excellent painters, the 3rd Witness affirms that he saw his image printed on paper. But the 6th Witness, to preserve the memory of the benefit conferred on him, had his image painted for himself on harder paper, and said that for the sake of veneration he kept it at home. Now what pertains to the rest of the worship of B. Francis, that Processional carrying about of the year 1619 is by the 5th Witness described in these words. I know that three or four years ago in the octave of Easter the body was publicly carried about by four Sodalities, deputed for the conveyance of some notable Relic in the general procession, the body carried in a procession, on Low Sunday wont to be led around. But by some Theologians a difficulty was raised, saying, that a more special indult of a higher power would be needed for that work, because the aforesaid body was not a Relic approved according to the prescript of the Council of Trent Session 25. But after a long contention it was defined by all the Theologians of this city, that it was a lawful Relic, in carrying which no scruple should be placed. But the 4th Witness had said, that the consent seemed to have been miraculous, resting on a most certain argument, that, when in the time of Pius V most severe Apostolic Visitors were sent, permitted to be kept above the altar, they found the aforesaid body above the altar, on which Mass is celebrated, and judged nothing to be innovated about it, but permitted it so to remain, although in the churches of Siena they reformed many things about bodies elevated above the ground. Concerning that Visitation, made about the year 1570, we treated on the 13th of March at the end, where concerning B. Eric Peregrinus, who died at Perugia: in whose body the Visitor set an example of his severity, ordering it to be carried from the major altar of the church to the sacristy, until concerning the origin and foundation of such worship it should be more certainly clear, as ten years after it was clear a Process being formed.

[26] The body of B. Francis was therefore carried about, under a new Baldachin, as the 4th Witness said, borne on the shoulders of D. Mutius Pecci, D. Lewis Accarigi, D. Asso a Knight of Malta, D. Pompilius Pepucci a Knight, D. Fr. Calistus Borghesius a Knight of Malta. and not only by the common people But on whatever day the body itself is exposed to the people to be beheld, there is a great concourse of those desiring to apply their prayer-chains to it, or to take care that they be applied by others; and also of those desiring the flowers placed within the chest. Nor do the common people only eagerly behold it, but also men most distinguished in secular and ecclesiastical dignity. So I remember, says the 8th Witness, that it in the year 1613 was visited for the sake of veneration by the most eminent Cardinal de Pondeo with great devotion. but also by a certain Cardinal The same in the deposition of the 2nd Witness is written Cardinal de Podio. In both I believe error was made by the copyists or notaries, for no Cardinal of that name is found in the whole Pontificate of Paul V, from the year 1605 to 1621. Nor yet of the truth of the double testimony, given on ocular faith, is it permitted to doubt. Nothing therefore would be more probable to me, than that here is understood Peter Gondius (commonly de Gondy) Bishop of Langres and Paris, if I could prove, that he in the 81st year of age (for four years more than an octogenarian he was, when at Paris he died in the year 1616) could and would sustain the labors of the journeys to and fro from Gaul into Italy. Now no other escape remains, if the continuators of Ciacconius passed over no one of the Cardinals of this century, than to Peter's nephew Henry Gondius, who in the year 1608, his uncle yielding made Bishop of Paris, could on account of some affairs of the Kingdom of France have passed through Siena in the aforenamed year 1613, and here by prolepsis be called Cardinal, although he was made this only five years after.

[27] and by other Princes seen, The same 8th Witness asserts that the body of B. Francis was visited with similar devotion by the Dukes of Etruria, by name by Cosmus II of glorious memory, and D. Justina de Medicis, and by the most Serene Prince of Condé: who also left an alms. And to these and other Magnates it was granted to behold it out of the ordinary. But the 2nd Witness; I know, he says, that the said body was last inspected by D. the Archbishop of Pisa (this was Julian de Medicis, in the year 1620 substituted in the place of the deceased Francis Boncianni) before Ascanius Vasolius, my brother. But in what state they saw it, will be understood from the following Latin instrument, with which the Process is closed. In the year 1622 on the 11th of February the most illustrious and most reverend D. Vicar, and last by the Archiepiscopal Vicar, the Judge delegated, came after dinner, together with me the undersigned Notary and Chancellor, to the church of the Convent and Friars of S. Mary of the Servants of the city of Siena; and having come before the major altar, genuflecting he adored the most holy instrument of the Eucharist: and a brief prayer being made he visited the altar, called under the title of S. Mary del Popolo, situated in the left arm of the said church, near the door of the sacristy toward the south: above which he saw there was a chest, in the form of a sepulcher, of walnut wood adorned with gold; in which he saw was preserved the body of the said B. Francis de Patritiis, all entire, with the hands elevated, and especially the left, in each part of it surrounded everywhere with dried skin and flesh; except the head, on the left part; the chest being opened, where the cheek is found not everywhere covered with skin, but vitiated with some holes, as also the same part is found at the end of the ribs and at the top of the neck: but the back of the head uncovered in the manner of an Episcopal crown. There is found also on the right part and in the place of the breast a very large hole, oblong by the length of one finger; and without the genitals. The mouth appears somewhat open, showing the front teeth. The hands and feet it has with the nails: but the hinder part remains wholly unhurt, and everywhere covered with flesh and skin. And the said body is seen composed, so as to beget devotion and admiration alike.

[28] In the front part of the aforesaid chest are seen painted three miracles: namely an Angel, in which also some miracles are painted: showing an open book to the said B. Francis preaching; and also a flame on the head of the same Father preaching; and the apparition of the blessed Virgin outside the city of Siena, who appeared to the said B. Francis, who on the journey had fainted, and recalled his senses. There is found also above and in the middle of the said chest a painted tablet, in which is seen the body of the Blessed lying clothed in the bier, and from his mouth a lily rising, surrounded on every side by those standing around, venerating the aforesaid body, adorned with various silks with lights, here and there assisting Friars of the same Order clad in surplices, touching crowns and flowers for the people asking etc. Done at Siena in the aforesaid church, before D. Augustine de Bronzis a Priest of Volterra, etc. likewise others concerning the appellation Tarlatus, To this so accurate description can be added from the deposition of the 1st Witness, that the interior chest is fortified with transparent crystals, through which the body is beheld: and from the words of the 5th Witness, that the chapel, in which is the altar of S. Mary aforesaid, is of the family of the Luti. More notable still is, that the 3rd Witness calls B. Francis Tarlatus, and says he is so called by the whole city; while all the rest surname him Patritius, except the 8th, who names Francis Patritius and Tarlatus. and the lily carried into France. Finally concerning the lily mentioned above the 9th Witness asserted, it was told him by some French, that each year on the feast day of B. Francis it grows green again, as if then first plucked from the field: but the day being passed it becomes dry again. It moved me conferring these words with the text of the Life at number 7 where the very lily is said to have been given to the King of France, asking it through his messengers, that with pious curiosity I should order it to be inquired, whether it still survives at Paris in the Chapel, as they call it, Holy, where such sacred treasures with the Thorny Crown of our Lord are kept. But he who undertook this care upon himself Father Lewis Jobert of our Society, the more willingly doing this, the greater zeal with which for more than twenty years he has collected the Marian Year, and in it now almost prepared for the press treats of the life of B. Francis: he I say in these words answered on the 28th of July 1679. The most illustrious Lord Treasurer of the holy Chapel, who was formerly Bishop of Coutances in Normandy, consulted concerning the lily, which came forth from the tomb of B. Francis of Siena, denied that any memory of that matter was had: then gave opportunity of seeing the whole treasury, in which there is nothing similar. Elsewhere the confirmation of that truth must be sought, if any survive.

[29] This process being so formed and sent to Rome, received in the Rota and committed to one of the Auditors, The Consultor of the Roman Rota a familiar Theologian consulted by him, in the year 1627 on the 16th of April, gave a response: which in a great collection of such matters, preserved with the Procurator General of our Society I found fol. 320. Most illustrious and most reverend Lord, judges it to be clear from the process formed in the ordinary way before the most illustrious D. Archbishop of Siena, concerning the sanctity of life and the certitude of the miracles of the servant of God Francis Patritius, of the Order of the Servants of the B. V. Mary the things written below are concluded.

[I] concerning the opinion of sanctity, That the servant of God himself Fr. Francis Patritius, noble of Siena, his parents Rainalda and Henry being dead, entered the religious Order of the Servants in the year 1296, and departed from this life in 1326. Which servant of God was marked with every kind of virtues, most religious, and a most zealous observer of his Rule: and for such was always held and esteemed by all Christ's faithful especially in Etruria: and so was and is: and accordingly in necessities all had and have recourse to his intercession, as concerning these and his sanctity the ten named Witnesses depose.

[II] by the austerity of his life, In proof of the aforesaid sanctity there is added the most rough penance, which he always did wherever he stayed, afflicting his body with continual disciplines and abstinence from food and drink; but especially in the subterranean cave, which is placed beneath the monastery: where with continual prayers and meditations he was free for God day and night, without bed or other convenience, but on the bare earth sometimes for weariness he lay: and therefore that cave was always in the greatest veneration with all the people, and on his feast day with a great concourse of the people it is visited and venerated: and these things all the aforecited Witnesses depose and prove.

[III] The frequency of the people at his sepulcher: for not only on his feast day, by the veneration of the sepulcher, which is celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, is it visited and venerated by the fellow-citizens of Siena, the neighboring peoples and often by Prelates and Princes: but in the continual course of the year the faithful have recourse to his intercession and obtain graces: of which thing faith is made by waxen votive offerings, tablets, lamps lit before his body, and other

things which indicate the sanctity of the servant of God: whence the Witnesses alleged above prove the universal devotion of the people toward the servant of God Francis.

[IV] The same sanctity of the servant of God is corroborated from the Lections of B. Peregrine of the Order of the Servants approved by Paul V of happy memory, in which it is read, by the beatitude of his soul, that the soul of B. Philip and B. Francis of Siena elevated the soul of B. Peregrine into heaven. And accordingly his body, which to the present day is seen incorrupt, was solemnly with a great concourse of people and devotion carried about processionally through the city in the year 1519; and his images from time immemorial are seen depicted in several places with splendors: and the Witnesses who all depose and prove above, that the servant of God is called Blessed, and that they saw the procession and the incorrupt body.

[V] Among the many miracles which God worked in the life of this his servant, by miracles in life only two for the sake of brevity are set forth: of which the first is, that while he was preaching, Angels served him holding the book of the Gospels; and on his head appeared a flame of fire. The other is, that when on a certain day he was on the way and fainted for weariness, the blessed Virgin met him strengthening him with a bundle of roses. So depose the 1st, 2nd and 10th Witness. After death from his mouth there came forth a most white lily; on each leaf of which were written these words Hail Mary. So prove the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 10th Witness. He recalled to life four dead: so especially the 2nd, 7th, 9th and 10th Witness.

[VI] and after death, In the year 1618 Cosmus de Cartellis of Siena, when for several years he had suffered the infirmity of the stone, and had found no remedy; by chance one day walking with a companion came to the church of the Servants, where seeing the body of the servant of God Francis exposed, he said to his companion, I wish to commend myself to this Blessed; as he did with all his heart, for the obtaining of health, which a little after followed: for scarcely returning had he entered his house, when by urinating he voided the stone. Catharine his wife, suffered a most grave pain of an abscess in the shoulder: yet touched in the part by a rose, which once had touched the body of the servant of God Francis, she was freed from such infirmity. Concerning which the same Cosmus deposes this truth, and the Witnesses 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 also confirm it.

[VII] Wherefore it seems, that there are sufficient arguments to obtain the Remissorial letters, and accordingly that Remissorials should be given for a further Process. for examining witnesses formally by Apostolic authority; both because from those it is clear concerning the diligent information and inquiry into the fame and universal opinion and devotion of the peoples toward him: and because the contents which are narrated in fact to be proved in the said process, inasmuch as by Apostolic authority they are formally and conclusively proved, seem such, as to suffice not only for beatification, but also for solemn canonization; since from these it seems to be concluded, that it is clear concerning the faith and excellence of life and sanctity with the working of miracles by his intercession, which for Canonization suffice after the chapter Venerab. Innocent confirms in chapter 1 on Relics and the veneration of Saints, and there commonly all the Canonists.

[30] which hitherto has been omitted. That those Remissorials were obtained, and a new Process formed, I have nothing whereby to define. For when concerning that matter I had consulted the most illustrious Bernardinus Casalius, Secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites, of his singular humanity and affection toward this work beyond what he had promised offering to ask whatever from the archive of that Congregation it should please, in the year 1679 on the 5th of August he answered in these words: Since from the letters given on the 14th of July last passed I have learned that Your Reverence desires from me information on the state of the cause of the canonization of B. Francis Patritius of Siena, of the Order of the Servants of B. Mary; and whether after the presentation of the processes, by Ordinary authority down to the year 1627, others by Apostolic authority were exhibited in the sacred Congregation of Rites; I, about to satisfy my office, can answer nothing else, than that in the Acts of this sacred Congregation no Process of the aforesaid Blessed is found, of which through the 18 years, in which I was Secretary, any knowledge is had, nor have the Servite Fathers ever insisted for the reassumption of this cause.

ON BLESSED JOHN OF NEPOMUK

CANON PRIEST OF THE METROPOLITAN CHURCH OF S. VITUS OF PRAGUE

MARTYR AT PRAGUE AND NEPOMUK IN BOHEMIA.

IN THE YEAR 1383

John of Nepomuk, Canon Priest, Martyr, at Prague and Nepomuk in Bohemia (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

To the glorious martyrdom, by which S. Stanislaus Bishop of Cracow in the year 1079 triumphed over the cruelty of King Boleslaus, three centuries after one not very dissimilar Bohemia saw, under the bloody rule of Wenceslaus IV. The miracles of a Martyr comparable to S. Stanislaus The cause indeed and manner of death for both was unlike; for that one for having rebuked, by his Episcopal obligation, the King's lust, cut down by his hands died; John for the secret of the penitential Confession preserved, by the Emperor's order cast into the river perished; yet similar was the constancy of both, and confirmed by many miracles from God; which if they had been preserved in writings with equal felicity, and continued with equal assiduity, perhaps a similar honor to John which to Stanislaus would by the whole Church be borne. But the calamities soon assailing Bohemia from furious heretics, under the heretics they perished. and the subversion of the Catholic religion, of which John is said to have been not a vain prophet a little before death, took away from him the glory of solemn Canonization, from posterity the knowledge and continuation of the miracles wrought at his sepulcher: whereby it came about that he who attempted to collect his Life and virtues in the year 1670, from old MSS. and edited books Bohuslaus Balbinus, long since praised by us when we treated of S. Adalbert Bishop of Prague and Martyr on the 23rd of April, did not find so copious material, as Longinus found, intent on describing the great deeds of his holy Patron. Yet what he committed to us, wishing to render with some interest; to the composition, although so new, our annotations, or rather paralipomena collected from others, we shall not be burdened to add.

[2] The year of his death all set the same, namely one thousand three hundred eighty-three of the vulgar Era. His death wrongly ascribed to the 2nd and 4th of May, Of the day what certain we may set there does not occur. Wenceslaus Hagecius in the Chronicle of Bohemia, on the day after S. Sigismund, that is, on the 2nd of May, called to the Emperor, says, this holy Presbyter, and solicited in vain to reveal the Queen's confession, was ordered to be cast into the river: and Hagecius our Crugerius followed, in the sacred Memorials of Bohemia, John Nadazi in the little book which he published at Prague about the year 1664, and called it the Year of John, because it contains the memories of all the Saints of this name or remarkable for the fame of sanctity digested through the days of the year, the monuments of Bohemia being cited, ascribing John to the 4th day, asserting that on this day he was called to betray the secret of the Sacrament. Albert Chanowski in the Vestige of pious Bohemia, others are silent about it, and George Ferus in the Posthumous Fame of B. John, both Priests of our Society; and also the Provost of the church of Prague George Bartholdus Pontanus in pious Bohemia, and the Dean Thomas John Pessina in Phosphorus; and finally the aforepraised Balbinus in the Epitome of Bohemian affairs, edited seven years after the life sent to us, were deeply silent about the day, all following the example of Dubravius Bishop of Olomouc. The chief cause of being silent was, that since certain most ancient MSS. of that very age (which John Dlauhowesky or de Longavilla, it happened on the Vigil of the Ascension: Provost of the Church of Prague and Suffragan of the Bishop, wrote that he had seen to Balbinus) teach that B. John was cast from the bridge and drowned on the eve of the Ascension of the Lord, which in the year 1383 agrees with the 29th of April; and when on the other part the MS. Codices of the church of Prague (as the aforesaid Dean of Prague, now also Bishop of Smederevo, asserted to the same Balbinus) admonish that the memory of John of Nepomuk is on the day of S. Ubaldus the 16th of May, it was difficult to explain, how these could be reconciled among themselves, especially since others named above referred that death to the beginning of May. Admonished of this difficulty Balbinus, who not adverting his mind to the Paschal calculations, had joined the eve of the Ascension with the 16th of May in the life sent to us; the Provost and Dean, whom I mentioned, being consulted, and the monuments which each alleged for his opinion being heard; he at once went with me into the opinion that both could not otherwise be reconciled, than by setting that about the beginning of May indeed the martyrdom of John happened, but the honorable burial in the church of S. Vitus, or at least his anniversary memory, must be ascribed only to the month advanced to its middle: for which assertion a sufficient foundation is afforded by the history, by which we learn that the body drawn from the river rested for some time in a corner of the church of the Holy Cross.

[3] Meanwhile the said Martyrdom is commemorated at Nepomuk, in the country of the holy man himself, on the Sunday next after the Ascension, a sermon concerning the virtues of John being held to the people, and with every other worship usual to the Saints, but the feast is kept on the Sunday after: except only the Masses, which are of the most holy Trinity, as Balbinus wrote to us: but why this is done on the Sunday after the feast, and not on the Vigil, he gives this reason in other letters thus: In the archdiocese of Prague and the neighboring churches it is preserved by perpetual custom, that as often as some Saint is venerated in the choir, not in the square (if he is known and dear to the people) the feast is transferred to the next Sunday, and on it by the Parish priests a procession of supplicants is led to his tomb, altar, image or relics. This is done even today with S. Norbert, who since he has no feast of the square with us, on the next following Sunday to his holy body the people of Prague with a supplication run together. The same is done with S. Iwan the Hermit, whose Birthday since it is celebrated nearest to the day of S. John the Baptist, as several others of the choir not the square, on the next Sunday a supplication of all Prague to the hermitage of S. Iwan, distant three miles from Prague, our Fathers accompanying, is arranged. The same was done to S. Joseph, before the most august Emperor Leopold had ordered his feast also to be kept in the square: the same I can establish by innumerable examples. And so at Nepomuk in the country of S. John, whither thousands of men yearly flow together to his honor, the supplication is performed on the Sunday after the Ascension of the Lord: namely for this cause common to all, that the people and the crowds of workmen, otherwise to be hindered by servile works, may have a free and unencumbered time of venerating that Saint. and the anniversary day not being hindered, That therefore this honor is exhibited to John with respect, not to the 16th of May, but to the feast of the Ascension; seems to me a certain sign, that about the very feast, and so about the beginning of May his martyrdom was performed; although the Canons of S. Vitus ascribed his

Anniversary to the 16th day, either because on such a day he was entombed with them, or on account of the frequency of feasts, according to the proper Calendar of the church of Prague occurring from the 29th of April, which falls within the Octave of S. Adalbert, to the middle of May. For also in the most ancient books of the Distributions of the Church of Prague (which with these eyes I have often noted) the memories and anniversaries of very many are noted on a different day, than that on which it is clear from elsewhere they died; on account of the concurrence either of some greater feast, or of another older anniversary to be kept on that day.

[4] Thus far Balbinus, who however is moved by the authority of Hagecius and Crugerius, not to assert without doubt that the Saint was drowned on the 29th of April. But I am little moved by that: for I see that Hagecius, On the occasion of the error concerning the 2nd of May, whom Crugerius simply followed, could be deceived, because he believed that a small interval of time after the Queen's confession was heard John was solicited concerning revealing it, and on account of the tenacity of the secret was incontinently taken from the living; but he presumed that very Confession to have been made to him on the day of the Lord's Ascension, since the citizens of Nepomuk undertook the feast to be kept on the Sunday next after it. But to that hypothesis are repugnant all the things, which concerning the repeated solicitation twice or thrice, not without the interpolation of several days, Balbinus deduces. But I would so order those things, that John first suffered an assault a little before or after the feast of Easter, that year celebrated on the 22nd of March, on the occasion of a Confession made then according to the law of the faithful Christians: then when on another occasion he had been captured and cast into prison, but soon brought to the table and again and again solicited, at length also subjected to torture; but superior to promises, threats, and torments he was permitted to depart. For although toward ordering the slaughters of his own the tyrant was borne headlong, that in John he long delayed the vehemence of importunate curiosity persuades, the times being rightly distinguished being removed, even after repeated repulses repressing the impulse of anger, by hope of eliciting at some time the secret. Meanwhile John, seeing that the unbridled desire of the King would not there stop, and that death was to be awaited by him for that cause, on the 3rd Sunday that is the 12th of April about to speak to the people, took for himself a theme from the Gospel, A little while and you shall see me, and Now I will not speak many things with you: in which sermon his near death, foretelling the evils threatening the kingdom from heresy, he bade farewell to his hearers and his Concanons: and from that day he set his affairs in order at home, then went out from the city to the Holy One of Stará Boleslav, to commend his struggle to God at leisure; finally on the 29th of April he returned to Prague on the very eve of the Ascension. The King therefore beholding him, and not doubting that he was present to hear the Queen's Confession on such a day, ordered him to be brought, about to persuade by whatever means that he should promise to reveal it, but firm in the purpose of keeping the secret ordered him to be drowned that very night.

[5] Hence therefore to the people of Nepomuk flowed the custom of celebrating the feast on the Sunday after the Ascension: but the Canons of S. Vitus transferred to the next unhindered day the memory of the body translated and deposited with them, that is the 16th day of May: if perhaps after the third day from death (which Dubravius writes) this was done. But if for the whole half of May (which is more probable) the body cast off and buried rested in the church of the Holy Cross until by a heavenly odor it betrayed, with what honor God held it worthy, and the Canons had hastened a magnificent tomb in the Cathedral, animated by the King's absence and some kind of penitence, a more certain reason will be had, for which to the 16th day of May that memory was ascribed. To us, whose custom it is not to prefer the birthdays of Saints in heaven, though certainly known from history, to the days of their worship on earth; nor permitted to follow the wandering course of the movable feasts through five weeks; today we have chosen to treat of S. John because that anniversary memory with the Canons of Prague, although decorated with no peculiar worship, whatever cause finally it had; has some appearance of honor in the church, and suggests something fixed which we may hold, especially April being now printed, in which we could have treated of him, for want of a fitter day.

LIFE

By the Author Bohuslaus Balbinus of the Society of Jesus.

Collected from manuscripts and printed copies.

John of Nepomuk, Canon Priest, Martyr, at Prague and Nepomuk in Bohemia (B.)

BY BOHUSLAUS BALBINUS

PROLOGUE.

[1] No age ever so unhappy, so hostile to good men, and condemned with so great sterility of the Christian commonwealth dawned, In the highest corruption of the times in which piety and virtue could not be born and grow: nay the worse the times were, the same were more fruitful of sanctity: for adversities do not oppress virtue, but make it, and the made strengthen it. Which even in our Bohemia the rule of Wenceslaus, the degenerate son of Charles IV, King and Emperor, sufficiently showed: who although he was a most cowardly Prince, and the same sat in mud soaked with blood (which it is written by Paul Zidets in the MS. Chronicle of Bohemia befell him ominously both in baptism, and afterward while as an infant he is crowned), that is reigned lustfully and cruelly; yet in so great corruption of the whole kingdom from its head, the Bohemian Church, and especially the Metropolitan of Prague, abounded at that time with so signal a number of men, of the highest splendor of family, doctrine, things bravely done for the immunity of the Church, innocence of life and sanctity, and the rest of the virtues of great Priests, there were not lacking holy men among the Bohemians. that not iron, or clay; but golden and gem-like times of the Church seemed to have returned. Of these illustrious men of the Church of Prague in the history of the Metropolitan Church of Prague we have treated: now the life and most happy death of B. John of Nepomuk or Nepomuk I shall comprehend in a brief compendium, and that to the honor and glory of the secret Sacrament of Confession (to which he devoted his life). And I would not at all doubt, that the Life of so great a Martyr was long ago written in antiquity: but the heresy, which followed B. John's death a little after, with the same flames, by which all the temples and convents with us sank down, seems to have corrupted it. What therefore concerning the blessed Martyr we shall bring forward, found in very many manuscripts of men living in that age (of which I have a supply) and in codices printed in type, and collected into one with the highest faith and religion, let it be ascribed not so much to any diligence of mine, as to the felicity, that they were found.

CHAPTER I.

The boyhood of B. John, his Priesthood and other offices.

[2] B. John of Nepomuk was born in the Bohemian town of Nepomuk, Born at Nepomuk in Bohemia, or (as the ancients called it) Pomuk, in the region of Pilsen, distant from Prague toward Bavaria ten great miles. The town of Nepomuk once noble for its silver mines, then for the vestiges of ancient religion, and no less celebrated for the Mountain, which overhangs the town, and is called the Green; because namely on that Mountain (as is clear from the Bohemian Annals) S. Adalbert Bishop of Prague, returning from Rome to his Bohemian countrymen, the rain for many years denied to Bohemia, by the sign of the most holy Cross, with good prayers formed over the fields lying wide, at once brought down from heaven; and first this mountain, then all the rest of Bohemia he refreshed with the most pleasing greenness of springing herbs; whence also Pomok or Pomuk, from being moistened, I think the name was given to the place. In what year B. John was brought into light, we cannot know, from the rest of his age we suspect he was born between the year 1320 and 1330. from a long barren marriage after a vow made to the B. V., His parents were townsmen and of middle fortune, more illustrious for piety than for family and wealth. Of piety this is an indication, that being now of an aged age, when they lacked all offspring, by prayers and vows poured forth to the Mother of God (who in her statue under the Green-mount in the Convent of the Cistercians, not so far from Nepomuk, was religiously venerated by the people) they obtained a son; to whom, that he might by his very name be reminded of affection toward Mary the Mother of God, they imposed the name of John. But not content with one benefit the Virgin Mother, who lately from a barren womb had brought forth John, and almost created him, the same recreated him: for when the little boy John had fallen into a most grave disease, a vow being made to the image of the same holy Virgin by his parents, and obsequies promised for his remaining age for their son, at once he rose unharmed.

[3] not without indications of future sanctity: But before that also God had proved by a heavenly indication the holiness and heavenly life of his servant: for at the birth of John at Nepomuk certain most serene flames, seen to descend from heaven, with a lovely and innocent light, a most pleasing spectacle to the city, had poured around the whole house, in which John was being born. This augury of flames granted to certain most holy men at their birth, our B. John in all the rest of his life; by most ardent sermons to the people, and fiery prayers to God approved: and the same heavenly flames also accompanied him dead, and betrayed him drowned in the channel of the river. But in history it is not fitting to anticipate. The boy John, as soon as he was set to schools, exactly learned the form of ministering to the divine Sacrifice; as a boy assiduous at the ministry of the Mass, and it being put into use, no one afterward impelling him, daily with the first dawn from the town to the Cistercian convent to run down, to all in order as many Priests as performed the holy things to minister at the altar, he made it his custom; with so great and so persistent piety, that now as a domestic and stable minister of the Sacrifices he was occupied among the altars. By which, small indeed in appearance, but not altogether futile argument to the end, the prudent believed that they saw something great already then in the boy John.

[4] a little after he is cultivated in the more humane letters at Žatec, He had, with a sweet and rosy and modest piety, a sharp, lively and fiery genius; to which that his parents might give means of growing, they sent him to Žatec to the schools of Latinity celebrated at that time. Here the first elements of Latin grammar, and the rest in the following years the more humane disciplines, he received with excellent progress and rare commendation of genius. Especially to the youth born to good hopes the study of eloquence pleased, to which nature itself had conformed and fashioned him: for the most part by each one's genius impelling we follow that in our studies, which we trust we can attain: to aim at progress without hope, is vain labor. When now at Žatec (it is a celebrated city of Bohemia) nothing remained to be learned; to the higher sciences, and not only the tongue, but the breast itself to be cultivated, John hastened to Prague. A little before the times Charles IV Emperor and King of Bohemia had raised a University of studies at Prague: and Masters being sought from all lettered Cities, Paris, Bologna, Padua, had opened Schools of all divine and human doctrine. To these therefore our John applied himself, and first was created among the first a Master of Philosophy, then he applies himself to the more severe studies at Prague. then a Doctor of Theology and of the sacred Canons and

Decrees. It is clear that he heard Theology at the Collegiate Church of S. Apollinaris in the New City of Prague (where it was most frequently taught: for from the neighboring Church of Vyšehrad all the Clerics came hither), under the best Masters; in which Colleges he received the other sciences, is uncertain.

[5] prepared by a whole month for the Priesthood, Long since from the time he began to give attention to letters John had felt himself called to the Priesthood and the service of souls: more ardently, when now he was near the goal, he was borne toward it. But although he always joined piety and virtue to the studies of letters; yet since he esteemed, that the more anyone equipped from the cultivation of mind came to receive the Orders of the Priests, the more happily afterward he would be engaged in the salvation of souls; he premised to the Priesthood a whole month free from all profane business: which whole month he passed in afflicting the body, cleansing the conscience, obtaining heavenly helps for so great and so divine an office, and in pious meditations and counsels for the future. Going out from this solitude, and initiated in the sacred Orders, when he sent into the subject congregation from on high no trappings to the people and honeyed sayings, as the Comic poet says, but words animated by the divine Spirit and heavenly sentiments, like javelins with thongs, or rather the very scythed chariots, and reigned in minds; from the commendation, emotion, tears of his hearers, and more the amendment of life, he prepared for himself great authority, and shortly obtained the name of an excellent Churchman with the people of Prague. So with the approbation of all to John in the basilica of the most Blessed Virgin before the Glad-court (commonly they call it the Teyn) in the old city of Prague, the chief place of the city, the office of preaching is imposed. It could have been difficult, to hold by speaking hearers long since accustomed to the greatest and most eloquent men. He succeeded Conrad of Stiekna, whom alone the most eloquent of his age the people of Prague had believed to be: he succeeded he begins to preach with great applause and fruit, John Milicius, not so long since dead, at whose preaching, all the matrons of Prague together had cast off the luxury of garments, harlots penitent in great number had shut themselves up in convents, the citizens themselves had thrown down the brothels. Yet our John fulfilled all that expectation of the people, and extinguished the desire for the former preachers, by a most prudent modesty always abstaining from the contentious kind of speaking, and the invidious invectives against the Mendicant Orders, which to those great Churchmen whom I just named, as the times then were, we read brought grave hatred with many, accusations at Rome, and almost destruction.

[6] Now B. John's labor, doctrine, virtue, and the authority gained with all by so many merits deserved a higher grade. and made a Canon So by the commendation of John the Archbishop, by common sentence, he is chosen into the College of Canons of the holy metropolitan Church of Prague; and at the same time to him in the same Church of S. Vitus before the Emperor the office of preaching is committed. That first honor B. John long refused, also before the Emperor, and long it was struggled with the blessed man's modesty, but when he said himself unworthy of that place, he was yet overcome by the voices of all, crying out, So much the better! and that he was the worthier, who not as the rest sought honors, but was sought by honors. For several years therefore in the Church of S. Vitus B. John now a Canon discharged the office of Bohemian Churchman: and him not only the King and the whole Court, but the same, who once had heard him preaching in the Teyn, followed. The chief argument of his sermons was penitence for crimes; then against the licence of the nobles and the Court, against drunkenness which then had prevailed, against luxury and the rest of the morals of that most corrupt age the contention, and the representation of the punishments to be inflicted from heaven. Not yet had Wenceslaus the Emperor come to the lowest of evils. So the man taken by his doctrine, wisdom, and interior letters, and conquered by his eloquence, having heard John did many things.

[7] The old memories hand down, that when by chance about that time the Episcopal See of Litomyšl in Bohemia was vacant, the Bishopric being refused John was destined by the King to that Chair before all: but he many causes probable in appearance being alleged, removed the Emperor from that thought. The dignity of Provost of the exempt Church of Vyšehrad at that time in the kingdom was equal to the first dignities: the Prince of the kingdom Chancellor, the first after the Archbishop the Primate of the kingdom, was the Provost of that Church (which noble is immediately subject to the Roman Pontiff alone) reckoned: add the immense force of wealth, for the annual revenues ascended to eighty thousand Hungarian florins: a sum truly excellent, which, the Indies not yet opened by navigation, today would make as much again. This very dignity of Provost was offered by Wenceslaus King and Emperor to B. John, but this too he repudiated, because he held it most grave to be drawn away from the gains of souls and the holy sermons, he undertakes the office of Royal Almoner: by which he inflamed all. But the office of Almoner (it is a dignity in the Courts of Kings usual and gracious) offered by the King and Queen with great honor and courtesy of words, lest he should seem to spurn all things, and the contempt of honors should turn into pride, he accepted: and in that office so proved himself, that his dexterity and skill and integrity the courtiers, his mercy the poor, his prudence and in distributing his justice all commended.

[8] The authority of the holy man grew daily: so the Empress, by name Joanna, daughter of Albert Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland, he is taken as Confessor by the Queen and the nuns of S. George: a matron most distinguished for candor of mind, innocence of morals, piety and the rest of the virtues of Queens, who by B. John's holy speech was wonderfully held, and felt herself most strongly incited to every virtue, chose him as the arbiter of her conscience, him as the master of her life, him as father. The example prevailed with several. The Religious Virgins in the holy convent at S. George in the Castle of Prague, themselves also B. John leading and teaching to the highest summit of religious perfection, were borne not so much by steps, as by flights. The old memories add: that B. John was elected Dean of the Metropolitan Church at this time. But since the inscription of the sepulcher lacks this title, and the better codices do not subscribe, it is credible that an error underlies. This more certain: that in B. John the holy church of Prague had a kind of oracle of doctrine, and, so to speak, a master of sentences. For so great was the esteem of the man's virtue and wisdom with all, that whatever B. John consulted determined, the parties approved as full of equity, and without contradiction followed. And of that matter certain old codices make faith, where in the most difficult causes, which by the sentences of judges could not long be ended, John of Nepomuk the elder (for another John Pomuk Doctor of Decrees, Canon of Vyšehrad and Vicar General of the Archdiocese, first began to flourish after B. John's death, after the year 1396) our, I say, B. John is chosen arbiter, and as they say, praiser: and that the Blessed man often undertook this from confidence of doctrine and love of peace, and freely pronounced, from the very sentences, which are recited, we know.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The obsequies of B. John for the preserved secret of Confession in vain tortured and at last drowned in the river.

[9] Meanwhile Wenceslaus the Emperor (as all slippery wickedness is, By the Queen, wont to confess oftener. both into descent and fall headlong) daily became worse than himself. Queen Joanna, whom present he hated and could not bear, the same absent he miserably pined for. The depraved and by a preposterous education corrupted genius of Wenceslaus (as the opinion of many holds) certain magic philters had made savage, and altogether mad from depraved, the ministers of the royal crimes had made him. This is not the place to describe that licentious, and bloody and foully spotted Life of the king: let the Annals of those times be consulted. The year was passing after Christ's birth 1383: the Queen, offended by Wenceslaus's daily crimes, when she could take no more solace from human things, nor through her husband's suspicious eyes could take it; shuddering at his cruelty (especially because he held even the royal table and feasts, sprinkled with the slaughters of nobles and blood, for delights and dainties), what seemed safest, to cast off all love of the world, and to give herself wholly to God alone (as far as conjugal life would allow) she resolved. Nothing so binds to God a mind once occupied with divine love, as a grave, long-lasting calamity, and one which you see continually impending over your head. So the Queen to approach the holy tribunal more frequently, with tears to disclose the very least little stains, to afflict herself, to undertake the care of the needy, and to minister to them while it was permitted, assiduously to think of God, to pray, that he would give a better mind to her Husband, day and night to pray.

[10] What ought to have pleased Wenceslaus, if he were wise, that he turned into hatred; asked to reveal the sins heard, then a desire assailed the lustful and from lust furious King, if by any means he could learn, what the Queen brought to the Priest to be expiated, what sins especially she had, what she ever thought of her husband, whether she loved any other, and other things of this kind, which a foolish tyranny, kindled with love, and surrounded with suspicions, can and is wont to fashion for itself. But to express these things by interrogating the Queen herself was vain. He calls B. John, whom alone he knew to be intimate with all the Queen's counsels. After many ambages of words, as if he did something else, mention of the Queen being thrown in, little by little he glides to the sacred Confession; that this is the condition and subjection of wives, that all their things ought to be known to their husbands, especially

in the families of Kings and Emperors; generously he refuses the crime: then wealth, honors, and whatever of felicity John could ever expect he promises by the royal word, if he would bring it into his mind, to entrust to him alone even the few things which the Queen had once disclosed to John in the sacred tribunal of Penance; that this indeed would be to him for all solace, amid so many Royal and Imperial cares. The blessed man shuddered at the wicked prayers, and by a grave and free speech showed how great a crime was demanded, accordingly let the King condemn his own curiosity, and cease to desire what could not be done. The holy rebuke moved the sulphured, so to speak, Prince: yet he repressed himself, when he considered, that often those who in the first assault and effort of enemies have proved themselves strong, at the second, and third grow soft and are conquered; that this first engine had been applied, which if it should not succeed, he would apply a stronger, which even from one unwilling would easily extort the victory.

[11] Nor was it long before something ulcerated the sick mind more. By chance the royal cook had sent to the King's table a capon badly roasted. That unforeseen matter drove Wenceslaus into so great a rage, and interceding for the cook ordered to be roasted, that forgetful of human nature and of all humanity, he ordered the cook at once bound to spits, to be applied to the flames. Struck by the barbarous cruelty all the courtiers shuddered, grew pale, looked at one another: they saw, if they should stumble a little, the same punishments appointed for themselves: but there was no one, who would intercede for the Royal cruelty. Alone B. John, who then was at the court, and taught to be silent and to speak in season, an access to the Emperor being asked and obtained, first with soft words to treat the business; and when with the angry and uncontrolled Prince they availed nothing, with graver sentences began to explain the atrocity of the deed. He had brought forth very few words: at once the irritable and most cruel Prince calls out for his satellites, and with no reverence of the Priestly Order, with no respect even to himself and the royal majesty, orders John to be seized, and thrust into the deepest prisons. he is dragged to prison. There some days in the squalor and horror of the place, and the saddest darkness, then by hunger and thirst almost destroyed he spent; resting in God alone, and glad in this, that for his honor and love he was held worthy to suffer both prisons and contumely. B. John was not ignorant, whither the King's anger looked: for even the keeper of the prison had admonished, that there was one way of safety, if he should gratify the Emperor, and accommodate himself to his will. But the Blessed Martyr against had hardened his mind, and had resolved to be torn a thousand times and to die rather than to bring forth a word from the sacred Confession.

[12] A very few days had intervened, when behold an honored man of the courtiers sent by the King appears, announces; that the King repented of those things, which against John he had too illiberally committed: accordingly let him at the Emperor's request pardon the injuries, forget what was done, and go free; but that he might be more firmly received into favor, Again solicited by the King, tomorrow let him not be burdened to come to the King's table. John came, and with the highest signification of honor is brought to the King's table. The tables removed and the witnesses, the Emperor again opens why he had ordered him to be summoned: that he could not rest, let him at length disclose what the Queen in the sacred confession had said in his ear all things in order; he mixes blandishments, promises silence; now offers dignities and rewards, now threatens all torments: let him not wish to experience anger before favor. B. John with lofty mind despised honors as well as threats, explained the office of a Confessor, extolled the sacrosanct law of silence, exaggerated the temporal and eternal punishments prepared for those who do not keep the secret; finally admonished the King, to abstain from catching at what is reserved to God alone to be known; that without sacrilege such things could not be attempted; that in all else he adored the King's commands, this one he deprecated, which if a thousand deaths were to be undergone he would not do. The King burning with anger, without delay orders the executioner (whom he always had at hand, and called as a delight his godfather) with his companions to be present: he is tortured on the rack the torches being applied, by whom dragged to prison most cruelly on the rack by the King's order he is stretched, and the torches being applied is tortured. That the Emperor was present at the punishment (although I have read it handed down by no one) the rest of his life makes a probable conjecture; because we have heard he was wont to be delighted by such spectacles and to feast his eyes, and also because without doubt he hoped in the torments to hear at last, what John had never before wished to bring forth into public. But the Blessed man and Martyr of Christ, his mind withdrawn as far as was permitted from the present punishments, redoubling the holy names of Jesus and Mary, having spoken no other word, commended all his pains, his life and death to the Lord. but in vain: The bloody executioners left themselves no diligence for the utmost cruelty, especially the Emperor's presence urging: yet all that torture was within B. John's patience. At length when they profited nothing, the Emperor himself departing, wearied and conquered they desist, and deposited from the rack desert him. The old codices hand down that John was refreshed by heavenly consolation: but what that consolation was, whether some internal one divinely glided into the mind, or also an external one, from the colloquy of the holy Angels, or some other heavenly sight (as we often read happened to other holy men in their acts) they did not explain.

[13] After this the Emperor, whether fearing lest the matter should leak out, or the Empress acting, dismissed from prison who perhaps had heard the blessed man was detained, whom she herself held in the place of a father; dismisses John. John, as if having suffered no injury, digested all those pains and torments in silence, disclosing them to none of his own: and the wounds which the torments had made being cured, he came forth into public; then his old offices, with a greater ardor of spirit than ever before he began to resume, in such manner preparing himself for death, which either by heavenly admonition, or from the very most importunate nature of King Wenceslaus and his anger most greedy of human blood, and resuming his sermons. he could not doubt would be inflicted on him a little after. Returned therefore to his station, when he was speaking at a sermon in the church of S. Vitus; those words of Christ, A little while and you shall see me, and, Now I will not speak many things with you again and again repeating, with a glad and easy face, foretold distinctly the death to be undergone by him for the laws of Christ and the Church: then the way being once disclosed by heavenly oracles, full of a prophetic spirit, with tears flowing copiously, he began to describe the future state of Bohemia, and the calamities soon to come: the heresy to be roused from hell, he foretells his own death, the evils threatening the kingdom. to which sacred and profane should be alike, and would make no distinction; all churches, and the convents through Bohemia would burn, some also be cast down by hands; the sacred and religious men tormented with all torments would perish; finally the destruction of the whole Religion was at hand. An almost incredible thing it seemed, to those thinking of the happy state then of the Bohemian Church, and the Religion flourishing in wealth and the highest power. In his last speech he said farewell to all, and especially asking pardon of the Prelates and Canons of the Church of Prague with most humble words, and accusing himself and his life and vices much, he ended, with great grief, and in a matter so new and with so many prophecies, with the admiration of all his hearers.

[14] A few days after B. John undertakes a journey to Boleslav, to the most ancient image of the Divine Mother of all Bohemia, by the Holy Apostles of the Slavic Nation Cyril and Methodius handed down and commended to the Christians, after the B. Virgin of Boleslav was visited which in that place is most religiously venerated. Here with how clear a sense of piety and love he prayed the Queen of heaven (to whom from his first age he had consecrated himself, and in whom he had all his hopes laid up), that she would be present to him about to die a little after, that she would render the Son propitious, anyone from John's old love toward the Mother of God, from the magnitude of the impending peril, from the horror of near death, can make a conjecture concerning. As John was returning to Prague in the evening hours from Boleslav, Wenceslaus the Emperor, then by chance as he was an idle Prince, looking out from a window observes; at once recur to the furious Prince all those sad images concerning Queen Joanna his Wife, he grieves at the repulses so often received from B. John, nor could he now rule his mind. Therefore breathing not a man, but an evil demon, he sends at once those who summon John: nor did he use many words, as in headlong anger: Hear, he said, Priest, unwilling to obey the King again soliciting you must die: unless on the spot now here you set forth in order my wife's Confession, and whatever she ever confessing said to you: it is done, you have perished. I swear by God, you shall drink water: drowning in the river the Emperor wished to be understood by that word. B. John, thinking it unworthy to be so often dinned about that matter, turned away from the sacrilege not with words, but with his whole head and severe face. Scarcely had the Emperor given the sign, now most powerful satellites surround the most holy man, the King shouting; and in their hands carry him aloft to another chamber. The old codices signify that silence was sought for the punishment, and that the people were avoided, lest any witness should intervene. By night therefore he is led to the Bridge, which placed over the river Moldau of Prague joins the two cities the Greater and the Lesser; then with hands and feet bound (which is read distinctly expressed) he is cast from the bridge into the river below on the eve of the Ascension of the Lord in the year 1383.

[15] The death which the Emperor had wished to be most hidden, heavenly miracles at once betrayed. Fires and flames, which once had signified B. John being born, encircled him dead; the whole river Moldau at once shone again. There were to be seen innumerable, and of wondrous whiteness, lights innocently float on the whole river, for conveniently at that time the river had swollen, and wider and higher the waves were lifted; but the body of the Blessed Martyr, slowly descending down the river, more numerous and more spread torches accompanied, and the body indicated by nocturnal flames thence others and others followed, as if they led the pomp of a funeral. The city of Prague poured out to the spectacle thought what had been done, or what was being done. Queen Joanna also, looking down from the Royal castle, and hitherto ignorant of the whole matter, so new a spectacle drew. She hastens at a run to the Emperor her husband, shows the miracles of the lights, and with innocent simplicity asks, what that portent meant for her. The conscience of the crime at once struck his mind, and seeing the heavenly miracle as if struck by lightning he rushed himself from sight, and whether from fear or grief, true or feigned, for three days is said to have abstained from public, admitting no one but the necessary. That whole night around the body of the blessed Martyr the flames had shone, but the day showed what had been done: there lay on the sand the lifeless body, in its habit, with placid and shining face, most becomingly composed. At once through the whole city the rumor is spread, nor could the author of the slaughter long lie hidden

since the Emperor had given several examples of his cruelty: besides the accomplices, the executioners, courtiers, satellites knew not to be silent. At length to the Canons of the Metropolitan Church of Prague the fame of the atrocious matter came. it is carried by the Canons into the church of the Holy Cross. They at once a supplication being arranged, lifting the holy body of their Brother from the river with the highest honor, to the nearest church of the Holy Cross, of the Religious whom they call of Penance, for so long deposited it, until a more glorious sepulcher in the Metropolitan church should be prepared. This piety of the Canons, joined with a signal fortitude of mind (for who would not greatly fear the anger of a bloody and so irritable Prince, or could not hold it suspect?) was not without reward. For when they dig a coffer in the church of S. Vitus, a rich treasure, and many talents of gold and silver and the prices of other things buried they find; as if the holy man, for the tomb and the honor of the sepulcher, had appointed this reward for the church and the Canons.

[16] But below in the church of the Holy Cross an innumerable force of men flowed to see the holy body, where frequented by the people, and that was the first worship of the blessed Martyr by the people: to proclaim his constancy and fortitude, to kiss his feet and hands in rivalry, to commend themselves to his prayers, to touch the holy body reverently they made no end, especially because the very day of the Lord's Ascension, free from labors, afforded greater leisure and means. Not so had the Emperor hidden himself in his familiar darkness, that he was ignorant what was done about the body. So (as are the suspicious and violent counsels of all, who have tyrannical minds) to those religious men of the Holy Cross, he sends satellites with mandates: let them abstain from the new thing, not stir up a tumult, ward off the crowd, and cast the body of John of Nepomuk far from sight into some corner. It was done, what the King had commanded, solicitously: but with greater glory of B. John: since the body shut up poured forth from itself so great a fragrance of heavenly odor, that it could not be hidden, and the place was again celebrated by a great concourse of men. Now all things were prepared for conducting the funeral, the Canons, and the whole Clergy, it is carried into the prepared sepulcher at S. Vitus, accompanied by an innumerable multitude of the people, the bells sounding through the whole city, arrange a supplication, and carry the body of the blessed man from the church of the Holy Cross (over so great a distance!) to the castle of S. Wenceslaus into the Metropolitan church. The people asking had to be obeyed, and the funeral chest being again opened he was shown for veneration. The old manuscripts testify that very many sick were cured by the touch of the holy body. At length, that an end should at some time be made, he was buried with tears. The poor especially, of whom he was the father, mourned: a great stone was thrown over; an inscription added later, which we read even today; afterward an epitaph is added, The honorable Lord Master John of Nepomuk, Canon of this church, the Queen's Confessor, because he was the keeper of the sacrosanct seal of Confession even unto death, by Wenceslaus IV, King of Bohemia, son of Charles IV, tried with torments, cast from the Bridge into the Moldau, renowned for miracles, here lies buried, A.D. 1383. Thus far the inscription. But Queen Joanna, after she received the sad news of the death of B. John, whom she held for a Father; and perceived that death to have been inflicted by her cruel husband on her account; when besides she saw no way of escaping from so many and so great evils, fallen into a grave sickness of mind, began to be wasted little by little, and four years from then, no offspring brought forth from her, pined away, dying in the year 1387, on the 1st day of January, as against Hagecius shows Lupacius.

ANNOTATIONS

p In the historical Calendar, as is noted in the margin. Hagecius had set the following year. Crugerius in the sacred memorials of the kingdom of Bohemia on the Kalends of January passed over this death in silence: perhaps because in Crantzius he had read, that the Queen had taken her own death upon herself, because she could no longer bear her husband's impure life: but the ancients writing nothing of the kind, Balbinus deservedly judges, that this ought to be added to the rest of the fabulous narrations of Crantzius.

CHAPTER III.

On the veneration and worship, which to John, as a Blessed and Martyr, is given from all memory.

[17] It will not perhaps be amiss, before we come to review the miracles of B. John, to premise a few things concerning his public worship with us. The tomb of John, esteemed among the Patrons of Bohemia, It is first to be known, that although the memory of B. John is honored neither by Sacrifice nor by divine Office in the temples (which without the authority of the holy See is not wont to be done) yet all the rest, by which the names of the Saints are consecrated, are applied to his holy tomb. So as often as to salute the holy Patrons of Bohemia, Vitus, Wenceslaus, Sigismund, Adalbert, and to honor their tombs in the Metropolitan church, the Magnates, Nobles, Priests, Prelates, Canons, Religious, Matrons, in a word, the least and the greatest assemble, you may see the tomb of B. John never omitted. Here prostrate on their knees they supplicate, pour prayers to him, implore his help. There is hung at the tomb a tablet, in the Latin, Bohemian, and German idiom, in which a Prayer in capital letters to B. John of Nepomuk is written: the people are wont to recite it. Wax lights hang here and there, and various votive offerings; then the radiated image of B. John. The tomb is fortified with iron gratings in a double order: on the painted plates, in which John's name is read, is added the word Martyr and Blessed: a lamp from all memory overhangs the tomb, and burns: other wax torches the almost daily devotion of pious men lights: some of them equal the size of a human body: these torches consumed, others new are liberally added, especially by those, who rejoice that they have received some heavenly benefit at the tomb of B. John. The most Serene Leopold, it is visited even by Emperors Archduke of Austria, set up a most elegant candelabrum (concerning which afterward the discourse will recur) for this Saint, and on it caused B. John's effigy of brass with the other Patrons of Bohemia to be skillfully made. Our Kings and Princes always venerated B. John: Ferdinand I the Emperor, as often as he came to the Church of Prague, before this tomb placed his knees: that the pious Prince Ferdinand II and also III did the same many remember. This last, Cardinal Archbishop of Prague Ernest II being called into counsel,

is related to have often treated of the public worship of B. John, and concerning his canonism (as they call it) to be sought from the Apostolic See: but the pious mind of the best Emperor first wars, then death broke off.

[18] But now images of B. John engraved on brass are had in hands: he is everywhere painted with rays, a palm and the title of Blessed. in these both the title of Blessed is applied to John, and the top of his head is seen burning with heavenly light and surrounded with rays. Nor can these honors be called lately invented, and new: but already from his very death, and from all memory of men living today, and by all bestowed. In the sacristy of the Metropolitan church of Prague there is a certain altar: above it (as is wont to be done) are seen painted on the wall by an ancient hand the images of the holy Patrons of Bohemia, Vitus, Wenceslaus, Adalbert, and the rest: the painting (which the added numbers of the years indicate, and the very manner of painting unknown to our ages) exceeds in antiquity a hundred and eighty years. Among these images of the Saints therefore John of Nepomuk holds a palm in his hands, with radiated head everywhere illustrious. And lest you could doubt, whom the artist thought, and whom the Canons ordered to be painted, the title is read in beam-like letters; S. John of Nepomuk. A few paces from the tomb of B. John in the Metropolitan church of Prague there is a chapel or sacristy, notable for precious images by art, and for the mausoleum of the Berka Barons of ancient Bohemia: in that Sacristy, under porphyry marble highly raised, lies entombed John Wlassimius, the second Archbishop of Prague after Ernest I. In the most beautiful altar of the chapel on certain days the Priests perform the holy things: An altar under his name is consecrated in the year 1621 the title of the altar, written by the proper hand of Caspar Arsenius, Doctor of sacred Theology and Dean of the Metropolitan church, has these things: In the year 1621, on the 16th of July by the most illustrious and most reverend Lord John the third of his name, Archbishop of Prague, an altar was consecrated in the chapel opposite the sepulcher of B. John of Nepomuk, the Confessor, in honor of the Visitation of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the holy Virgins and Martyrs Lucy and Ottilia, and also of S. Clement Pope and Martyr, and of B. John of Nepomuk, in which are enclosed these Relics etc. This tablet of Arsenius described by himself, lately gave into my hand the most reverend D. Thomas John de Czechorod Dean of the same Metropolitan Church, Official of the Archdiocese of Prague etc. a man illustrious for his office, for books edited, and other merits, and he ordered that title to be put into this history.

[19] Now also the authority of all our writers, in asserting the martyrdom and sanctity of B. John, agrees. By the writers he is called Martyr, Let Dubravius Bishop of Olomouc be seen, Hagecius Provost of the Collegiate Church of Boleslav, and several others. Simon Fagellus, Dean of the Collegiate church of All Saints in the castle of Prague, who more than a hundred years ago wrote Hymns concerning the holy Patrons of Bohemia and published them in type, composed one Hymn with a title to B. John of Nepomuk, in verse for that age not altogether ungraceful. George Bartholdus Pontanus, Provost of the Metropolitan Church of Prague, calls John of Nepomuk Blessed Martyr. The same appellation give the rest of the writers of the higher ages, and also of this our age; as the venerable Father Albert Chanowsky, an Apostolic man (such as his Life lately edited by the most friendly man the reverend Father John Tanner sufficiently shows) then George Ferus of the same Society, and several others.

[20] Long ago I had related that B. John was born at Nepomuk in Bohemia. From that house therefore, in which John first beheld the light of life, the piety of the townsmen built a chapel to the honor of B. John immediately after his death: the natal house is turned into a chapel, and the old memories hand down, that no one could take nocturnal rest in that house, and all wearied by sleeplessness were always compelled to depart, until it had been turned into a Sacrarium. In our age the most illustrious Baron Francis de Sternberg, Lord of Nepomuk, the reverend Father George Ferus inciting, ordered this chapel, by age little by little falling, wholly to be pulled down: and a new and beautiful church to the honor of B. John of Nepomuk at great expense built. where now is his new church, That church Ernest Archbishop of Prague and Cardinal wished to be blessed by others, since he himself through ill-health could not be present and consecrate it. At the top of this new temple's altar B. John's radiated image is seen, and is held in veneration. Through this cause of the temple lately built the same reverend Father George Ferus in the year 1641 edited a little book, which he entitled the Posthumous Fame of B. John of Nepomuk: in which with beautiful images, the highest painter Charles Screta a Bohemian lending his labor, he comprehended the life and death of B. John in very brief titles in the triple idiom Latin, Bohemian and German. The church of B. John is approached with many supplications: the parish priests from many miles to a certain day free from works, on the Sundays between Easter and Pentecost, lead the people: and that is done from time immemorial. renowned for the worship of John and for miracles, The holy things concerning B. John indeed are not read, but of the most holy Trinity: yet a sermon to the people concerning B. John's virtues is held. There are seen hung at his altar very many votive offerings, and various persons confess that by his merits they obtained various benefits from heaven. It is found by experience, that if the fields labor with drought, a supplication or two being publicly led to this church, rain is quickly obtained. A certain very old song concerning B. John is carried about through this neighborhood, which the rustic common people sing willingly, wont to commend their flocks and other beasts to B. John, and to feel his help. In the plague, which roving through Bohemia in the year 1649 most gravely afflicted it, all who had commended themselves at Nepomuk to B. John were snatched from peril.

[21] as also the tomb at Prague. At Prague also the tomb of B. John, as I had said before, is held in the highest honor: and although certain unskilled and in religion too cautious and timid men, under the pretext of religion itself, attempted to disturb something in the veneration of B. John; yet the people and all the rest could not be moved from the constancy of just piety, and his glory always returned to B. John, whatever one and another of the timid attempted. Concerning such ancient religion and the old worship of the Blessed, that most learned man, and in describing and illustrating the deeds of the Saints most diligent, and most skilled in those matters, Godfrey Henschenius, best said: To the veneration of the Saints, he says, from a time exceeding the memory of one century, Urban VIII, the Supreme Pontiff, willed nothing to be derogated, but that it should henceforth be perpetual. Now B. John's worship being proved from antiquity, to the miracles, wrought at his holy tomb, let us make a step: at the same time this will be plain, how deservedly so great a worship is paid to him by the people.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

Certain marvels wrought at the tomb of B. John, and heavenly benefits of every kind.

[22] So many and so great benefits obtained from heaven by the intervention of B. John the manuscript memories hand down, that from them our forefathers made a just book, which was kept in the sacristy of the Church of Prague. That book is cited by Wolfgang Chanowsky de Longavilla, The book once written about the miracles has perished. Canon of the Metropolitan church, an illustrious man, who dying in the year 1583, from love of that Blessed, obtained to be entombed not far from his holy tomb. He writes, that in that book of miracles, B. John of Nepomuk is called the Wonder-worker of Bohemia: that a blind man at his tomb received sight, others felt his most present help, others standing on the border of life and death, some also condemned to the punishments of death by the sentences of Judges, by the help of the blessed man, whom they invoked, marvelously escaped death. He adds, that he does not describe more, because the book is at hand, which however together with me all the Ministers of the church cannot find, and we grieve that it was withdrawn from sight, on account of the heresy lately reigning.

[23] This is most marvelous, nor less certain and most divulged: whoever should tread on the tomb of B. John, especially if they have despised it, In 1588 a Palatine treading contemptuously on the tomb, they on that very day incur infamy, and cannot avoid it; this is clear by the consent of all the Catholics of Prague of our and the higher age, and by very many examples. In the year 1588, when Prince Radziwill, in the name of the King and Commonwealth of Poland, was discharging a Legation with Rudolf II the Emperor, there had come to Prague the Magnificent D. Christopher Sluska Palatine of Wenden (whether Catholic or heretic by Theophilus Cristeccus, Rector of the College of the Society of Jesus at S. Clement at that time, whose handwriting written in the same year

I have, is not handed down) but this man illustrious in dignity, having once entered the Metropolitan church of Prague, the other monuments of the church being curiously surveyed, is led to the sepulcher of B. John. The Canon who was leading the Palatine relates, that this is a marvelous tomb; for if anyone should tread on it, on that day he does not escape punishment. The Palatine laughed, and at once pressed the tomb with his foot; thinking it glorious (as natures are) to tread on what the rest feared. But behold on the spot, as if struck on the forehead and disturbed in mind he feels; and feeling the disturbance he goes out of the temple. His servants had brought the Lord his horse and carriage (for the man very powerful among his own was surrounded by a numerous retinue); he names first the horse: it is presented. But behold, as if driven by distempers, he attempts the ascent from the right side of the horse: at length he mounts and gets up on the horse. The horse by no urging nor by spur suffered itself to be moved from the place. He is therefore compelled to descend from the horse, and mounts the carriage: but again by no force, whatever the drivers did, could they move it even a step forward. At length confused with shame the Palatine, the Emperor's court watching and seeing from the Castle, that whole and encumbered journey accomplished on foot, much wondering, and turning over with himself what had been done, returned to his lodging in the city.

[24] In the Life of the venerable and Apostolic man Albert Chanowsky of the Society of Jesus another example is read, which it will please to hear in the words of our own writer. While at Prague Albert was attending to Grammar, the same attempting a girl is affected with great shame, and was fourteen years old, his father John Chanowsky came to Prague, and with him visited for the sake of veneration the Bodies of the Saints and especially the Patrons of Bohemia. But it happened, that they also came to the monument of B. John of Nepomuk: where his father relating he learned, how great veneration the place was of, how great the honor of that martyr was a care to God, how certain the punishment of those who should petulantly dare to trample that earth: so much so that to a certain virgin who had impudently dared to tread on that holy sepulcher with petulant foot, while amid the greatest frequency of the people she returned home through the Prague bridge, a vehement wind suddenly arising, as if by a kind of whirlwind her garment or gown was wrapped up, and lifted from the bottom on high with incredible shame of the virgin. At this I began to think (it is pleasant to hear Father Albert writing this of himself) that this could easily befall a woman, but to a man or boy by what means could anything similar befall? Wherefore for the sake of trying, since at that time the bars around the Saint's sepulcher were still few and low, I purposely set my foot there, so as to tread on the sepulcher. But it happened, when we returned to the old city through the small bridge, and the boy with a twofold one; walking I followed my parent: and behold I fell into a certain hidden pit up to the knees, such as at Prague are wont to be in the streets in winter from heaped ice and snows; and there I almost left my shoe, and all the people mocking me, I was suffused with signal shame. And coming to the Prague bridge, near the image of the Crucifix, there I fell again, and was wrapped about in mud everywhere on my cloak; and as it were then inwardly I heard this voice: In this place that Saint was cast from the bridge into the water and drowned. But I was affected with the highest shame, men wondering and laughing, what and why and how this had befallen me. Thus the venerable Father Albert Chanowsky with his own hand.

[25] Another and that a far graver punishment followed a Calvinian man, Wenceslaus William de Raupowa a Baron, of the rebellion which in Bohemia by foreign men almost, Count Thurn and Hohenlohe, A Calvinian Baron likewise Fels and other new inhabitants of Bohemia, by a foul beginning, and a fouler outcome was moved, not the last instigator. This man when once in the Metropolitan church of S. Vitus, as in a profane house, with his companions idly walked about in the year 1619, he chanced upon the tomb of B. John. The old tradition concerning that sepulcher recurs to the man; wherefore much wondering at and mocking the folly of the Catholics, as he thought, who were held by things so vain; he treads on the tomb of B. John, and as if he had done nothing, surveys the rest of the monuments of the Catholic idolatry, as they call it, nor much after goes out of the temple. On the very threshold of the temple a servant breathless with sad news runs to his Lord; that the son, whom Raupowa had as his only one, had at this moment unexpectedly expired. he is punished by the death of his only-begotten, Namely at the same point of time God avenged the contempt of his servant B. John by the death of the only son. Learn justice, you who are admonished, and not to despise the Saints. And would that the divine anger had had this end of vengeance! It is agreed among all, that after very many years Raupowa the heretic was driven into rage, while with drawn sword he attacked men, and miserably perishes: and miserably perished at Litoměřice. Of this wicked rashness of Raupowa, not to say more, and of the punishment inflicted, there is in my hands a Testification lawfully made, signed with the ring of a most illustrious family, confirmed with handwriting, which the most illustrious Count Zdenko Wratislaw de Mitrovicz, Lord of Vilemov, Zerotin, and Prefect of the district of Slany, made in the year 1648: who testifies both to have known Raupowa familiarly, and that all these things are clear to him by the conscience of his mind.

[26] I come now to narrate an example, than which nothing sadder happened at the tomb of B. John. And I know not indeed what that ought to be, that with so great hatred always against the memory and sepulcher of B. John the heretics are borne. In that, of which I just spoke, reign of the heretics in Bohemia, after the year 1618, when the Calvinians had occupied half of the Metropolitan church of Prague, namely the hinder part, and had contaminated it with their profane and shadowy Supper; they had without doubt before their eyes the bodies of the holy Patrons Vitus, [others having undertaken to demolish the gratings that they might exhume the body,] Sigismund, and the other Saints, and bore it calmly; only the humble tomb of B. John of Nepomuk they could not bear to see. Nor only to pull up the gratings around the tomb, but the very body of the blessed Martyr (a deed truly unworthy even in any human body!) to exhume and cast into a common place they resolved. But B. John excellently protected the place. There are sent on a certain day most powerful and most confident satellites, to whom that business had been given. Scarcely had they attempted the sacrilege, and had begun to pull up the iron gratings with mattocks; when behold two, as if struck from heaven, suddenly fall to the ground: one altogether lifeless never recovered life; the other, set over the work, an Englishman, the tutor of the pages of Frederick the Palatine (who carried himself as King of Bohemia), half-alive and scarcely breathing carried out of the temple in their hands, a little after himself also breathed forth his wretched soul: the rest admonished by the peril and harm of their own, only one part of the sepulcher's gratings being cast down, they are smitten with a dire death, left the work unfinished. The matter is tragic, but confirmed by the testifications of those who were present; among whom there lives even today an old man, set over the bells in the church of S. Vitus, once a spectator of the thing done: and this whole history before the sepulcher of B. John of Nepomuk, expressed most elegantly in inlaid work in wood, is seen with the admiration of pilgrims. This sad miracle also recounts the German book, whose title is The Truthful, edited in type at Augsburg in the year 1630 page 89 and following, and first the sacrilegious words of that Calvinian Englishman, insulting the sepulcher, then the heavenly vengeance, his body dashed to the ground, finally the same night amid horrific vociferations and wailings, as if he were burned by some fire, the most unhappy death he describes in many words. There is added in the same book; a little before the decisive battle on the White Mountain, and the Saints appear as if consulting about the vengeance; in which the affairs of the heretics fell, when in the year 1620 on a certain night the heretic satellites, in the same church, in throwing down the statues of Christ Crucified and other images of the Saints labored strenuously; by a Catholic and pious man, who then was present and grievingly watched what was done, were seen three men more august than human form come forth from the sepulchers: the first conspicuous in Royal dress, the second in Episcopal habit, the third in a sacred habit indeed, but unknown. These to have met together, and standing, as if about the future state of affairs they conferred heads, afterward to have been lost from sight; nothing being doubted by the Catholics that S. Wenceslaus the King, and S. Adalbert the Bishop were the first two, the third all suspect to be B. John of Nepomuk, whom the heretics so greatly hated, and whom they had also wished to exhume. So that book. In a matter so recent let the faith be with the author: to the tomb of B. John let us return.

[27] For this cause therefore, and the savage examples produced against those treading, when long since iron gratings to the height of nearly one ell had been stretched before it, the Canons girt the sepulcher with other new gratings: which gratings easily equal three ells in height, so that except most difficultly it can scarcely be permitted to any wicked and injurious man. Moreover the Calvinians, so ill received by B. John, the rest terrified by the examples cover the place, as long as they used the Church of Prague, the very tomb wholly, crying out that delusions lurked in it, with boards and certain planks they shut up, lest in any way it could be approached, nay lest it could be beheld. To disturb them, while they sat at supper in the temple, B. John seemed; and like a deathly shade, too odious and not called, to intervene at the banquets. But now this very profanation of the Metropolitan church, and the abomination standing in the holy place B. John signified from his holy tomb. whence before sad groans had broken forth. Since that calamity from the heretics impending, often by night groans and certain tearful voices were heard from the bottom of the temple: but the keepers of the temple, diligently following those groans, perceived more than once, that they came out from the tomb of B. John. Namely it grieved the blessed man (as far as the Blessed can grieve) that the beloved Church of Prague should shortly be profaned with so many sacrileges, which never before, from the time it had been founded by S. Wenceslaus, not even in the times of Huss or afterward of Rokyczana, had been profaned by the impure rites of heretics. But more prerogatives of that holy tomb could be brought forward: for at other times also the watchmen of the church of S. Vitus, to indicate perhaps the sanctity of the blessed man and his glory in heaven, saw that sepulcher girt with a certain lovely light, and coruscate with rays. Nor that wonderful: B. John is for a treasure to the Church of Prague, but where treasures lie hidden, they say fires emerge.

[28] The Blessed patronizes those fearing public infamy B. John of Nepomuk is held the chief Patron and Protector of those, to whom some peril of infamy threatens, and who fear lest a committed crime or deed should leak out into public: for he marvelously meets the perils, and hides the deed. Examples for that matter public I neither can nor dare give: because that I should be silent, and even should not know, the Blessed John himself, who covered, effected: but the matter is

attested among all: and they are wont to send those, who afflicted, know not whither to turn, to the sepulcher of the Blessed, that they may set forth and commend their fears. By the argument of this hastened and so often experienced help, a Prayer was long since edited in type, which under B. John's effigy is read conceived in these words: Grant, we beseech, almighty God, to our prayers, which in veneration of B. John the Confessor we offer, a pious and benign hearing; that, supported by his merits and intercession, freed from infamy and temporal confusion, we may be able before death to expiate our guilts by a sincere Confession, to blot them out by salutary penance, and happily to attain the port of eternal salvation. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son. To those also B. John brings help, who from ruinous shame dread to disclose their crimes in the sacred tribunal: and to the bashful in confession. for those supplicating at his tomb felt a certain boldness added to them for bringing forth all things, and this they openly testified to the Priests. That very many votive offerings once hung at the tomb of B. John the old men remember: the Calvinian heresy in the year 1619 tore all, or corrupted them with flames. he is honored with votive offerings: In our memory some mothers, laboring most gravely in childbirth; others by dropsy, others by long fevers most cruelly vexed, prayers being poured forth to B. John, recovered, as the votive offerings of today testify. To some the very faith and love toward B. John seems to have brought help: for when other things were lacking, dust, modestly scraped from his sepulchral stone, they felt availed against various diseases.

[29] An illustrious Matron (whom to name nothing avails) when once mention was made of the Saints buried in the Metropolitan church, those disapproving his worship are corrected by a miracle. and I know not which of the domestic girls had numbered B. John of Nepomuk among them; she with eyebrow raised, Whom, she said, do you name John? Rome knows nothing of him: he is venerated by the unlearned wrongly, nor perhaps does he deserve this veneration: for if he were a Saint, long ago the Pontiffs would have reckoned him in the number of the Saints. After some days when the same matron, thinking nothing now of B. John, was praying in the temple; she finds in her little prayer-book the most beautiful effigy of the Blessed with radiated head in the habit of the Canons, which she had never before seen. A little after when at home in her little chest she sought something else, another image likewise of the same Blessed as if of its own accord came into her hand. That unforeseen matter so wounded the tender mind of the matron, that at once dissolved into tears, she invoked B. John of Nepomuk. And on the other day going to the Metropolitan church, a Confession of sins being premised, she took the divine Eucharist; and prostrated at the sepulcher of the blessed Martyr, asked pardon for her boldness. Nor is to be omitted the rashness of a certain religious man, divinely as it seems chastised. This man in a dispute begun with a companion of his Order, denied that it was rightly done, that B. John was venerated by the people; and added with vexation, that they did ill, who when they could easily prevent it, tolerated the worship of a man so unknown. The day had not yet passed, lo for you a grave sickness: no cause given he is shaken with an unusual trembling of his limbs; and lest he should be ignorant of the origin of the evil, at the same time of its own accord the thought occurred that B. John was taking vengeance on him. Nor was it otherwise: for neither the trembling nor the pain ceased, until the sick man had honored B. John with a vow, and asked pardon. But the matter, as it had been done with him, the religious man himself consigned to perpetual memory in writing. There burns at the tomb of B. John a hanging lamp, Water poured into the lamp burns: as I said before. From that lamp the Servant-of-the-chapel (so they call the Custodian of the temple) had poured out all the oil, and in place of oil had poured pure water, to vex his fellow (to whom the lamp had been committed and to be nourished). The fellow ignorant of all things approaches, the other namely Sacristan, that former one observing from afar, and rejoicing that kindly material for mocking the fellow was offered. The lamp is lit, the water without any combat of the elements blazes up, the lamp shines most brightly. Terrified by the novelty of the matter that ocular Servant confesses what he had done: both acknowledge the miracle: several Ministers of the church are called: they find the matter to be so, glorifying God in his servant B. John.

[30] There stands above the tomb of B. John a great candelabrum of brass, whose foot distinguished with most skillful statues of boys playing everywhere, some having stolen a little statue from the candelabrum dedicated to him, and other brass images, among the rest of the spoils, the city of Milan being destroyed by Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor, Wladislaus King of Bohemia his ally in that war, easily five hundred years ago; because it was said to have been from the temple of Solomon, had brought to Prague, and given to the church of S. Vitus. That foot, a new mass being added, now for a hundred and eighty years, antiquity elegantly fitted into the form of a candelabrum, and set it upon the tomb of B. John; which in the manuscript codices of the temple is called no otherwise than the Candelabrum of B. John. That candelabrum in our memory the most Serene Archduke Leopold, brother of Ferdinand III the Emperor, took upon himself to adorn, and ordered the statues of all the holy Patrons of Bohemia, each in his own habit (among whom our B. John is seen) likewise of brass to be added, above standing in an orb as in a crown, fashioned in a most graceful spectacle by good artificers, as he was a Prince most fond of such arts and a most skilled valuer. This new work, they are compelled to restore it. when certain men had beheld with sacrilegious eyes, and believed it to be gold; conquered by greed, broke off and snatched the statue of B. John, which seemed fairer than the rest. The sacrilege brought them great care, for day and night their mind was torn with distempers, so that they could take neither sleep nor any rest. Driven therefore by the monitor and assiduous tormentor, whom they had within, they brought back the statue: and prostrate at the tomb of B. John, soon at the sacred tribunal of Penance, disclosed the whole matter to the Priests.

[31] Thus far the Narration composed concerning the Life and Miracles of B. John of Nepomuk. Whose labor did the author use to compile these things? Moreover lest I defraud anyone of his praise, the chief material was supplied to me by the most illustrious and most reverend Lord John Ignatius Dlauhowesky de Longavilla, Apostolic Protonotary, Canon of the holy Metropolitan of Prague, and also of the exempt of Vyšehrad, and the Collegiate churches of Stará Boleslav: with whose words, from his letter to me, I shall conclude this narration: I send, what concerning B. John of Nepomuk I could find; and these collected from various most faithful and undoubted manuscripts, under Priestly faith I communicate: may God grant, that whom we honor on earth, we may fully enjoy his consortship in heaven. Amen.

PRAYER TO B. JOHN OF NEPOMUK

Which written in three tongues, Bohemian, German and Latin, and hung on tablets before his tomb, the people are wont piously to recite, described word for word.

B. John, Martyr and Patron, born at Nepomuk in the kingdom of Bohemia, Canon of the temple of S. Vitus in the castle of Prague; because at the instance of Wenceslaus IV the king, wishing to avenge himself on his wife, often admonishing him concerning amending his life, before and after torture, you refused to reveal the Confession of the Empress, cast from the Bridge into the river Moldau, shown by lights, appearing by night over the river where your body lay, the most certain witnesses of your innocence and sanctity, you were solemnly carried by the whole Clergy and people to the Cathedral temple; where even today, he who dishonors your sepulcher, is not wont to escape the infamy of the common people. For you left after you an admirable, unheard-of, and everlasting memory of guarding the secret of confession. Through these your merits and the gifts divinely granted to you, we pray suppliantly and trustfully, with almighty God obtain for us that grace, that his anger may be quieted, that he may clemently turn away the punishments of sins, as pestilence, war, famine, and other plagues both of body and soul; and that we may be able before death to confess, to make satisfaction for our sins, to escape every peril and the disgrace of the world, and the scandal of men, to please God and to adhere to him, to conclude life laudably, and to attain eternal life. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

from the same Phosphorus consequently here we bring forth.

in royal dress and above human stature more august; a crown on the head everywhere shining with gold and stones, holding a scepter in the left hand; another, a certain old man in a long ankle-length garment, and over it clad in a Priestly (as they call it) surplice and stole, holding a book in his left hand; the third, a youth, most beautiful in face, more like an Angel than a man, adorned with a purple cloak; standing in the middle of the temple in a line from the gate, at the steps by which one ascends to the high altar: and a little after three others; one also dressed in royal manner, and conspicuous with a crown, but a lesser one; another in Pontifical apparel; the third all in armor, holding in his right hand a very tall lance and above shining like a ray of the sun, approaching the first three, and standing together, and, as if they conferred counsels concerning the present state, mutually conversing. Those who watched this vision, were five: three soldiers, SS. Wenceslaus, Adalbert, Sigismund, John and Charles IV. and a certain man by name John de Blumenstein with his servant, by chance passing there about that time of night: who then were so suddenly seized with great horror, that they could in no way await the end of the matter; but, as is wont to befall those terrified by too great fear, by what way each could they fled away. It was believed to have been the shades of the Saints, who in that church piously rest: of S. Wenceslaus, who represented the armored man (for so he is everywhere painted), of S. Adalbert, who the Pontiff; of S. Vitus, who the youth clad in purple; of S. Sigismund, who the King; and of B. John of Nepomuk, who the person of the Priest, clad in surplice and stole. And because two appeared conspicuous in Royal attire, one of them was held for Charles IV, there also gloriously entombed, and by God clarified with not a few miracles and also revelations in life, but after death by the long incorruption of his body, and once the highest lover of the same church and the greatest benefactor of all. But this Charles died in the year 1378 on the 29th day of November, and there is extant his Life in MS. by Benessius de Weismil. Canon of Prague a contemporary (who also left a Chronicle of Prague) often cited in Phosphorus, of which Life we desire to obtain a copy.