CONCERNING B. ALBERT THE ABBOT,
OF THE VALLOMBROSAN ORDER AT BOLOGNA IN ITALY.
IN THE YEAR 1245.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Of his cult, Acts, and distinction from S. Albert the Carmelite.
Albert, Abbot of the Order of Vallombrosa, at Bologna (B.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The diocese of Bologna in Romandiola, the past century inclining to its end, when Eudoxius Locatelli of S. Sophia completed his work concerning the Vallombrosan history, numbered only two Abbeys of that Order, four Priories. Of these Priories one outside the gate of S. Vitalis, by the testimony of Antonius Pauli Masini on August 7, called S. Albert de Savena, He leaves his name to the church in which he was buried, simply to Eudoxius S. Albert, sometime had the title of a Parish church, but the name of S. Albert (when perhaps before it was simply called de Savena, with the title of the Saint to whom it was dedicated added) is believed to have received about the year 1244 from B. Albert of Paris, Abbot of Bologna, of the Vallombrosan Order, buried there and famous for miracles. Of this in the already cited little book of Jerome the Vallombrosan to Lorenzo de' Medici these things are read.
[2] There is at Bologna, near the city, a certain monastery of this our Religion, which from the name of B. Albert the temple is called of S. Albert, for in it his body is established to be buried. He therefore as in life, also and after death, shone forth with many miracles: of which one to relate at present has not seemed amiss, which we received from many religious worthy of faith both of our own and of the Camaldolese Congregation. For they said that there were at Bologna of the Beccaria certain citizens, the Commendatory Abbot, attempting to plunder its pavement, great in birth, and then flourishing in the city, powerful in riches and forces, to whom (as today ecclesiastical laws are) that monastery came in Commendation; if it is right to call it Commendation, which would be proved by many reasons to be a destruction, did not the time warn us to hasten elsewhere: but this I would dare to say, that the Christian Religion has lost almost the true names of all things. These citizens therefore, to return to my purpose, from then little by little deprived both of dignities and of honors, yet by no means perceived the divine vengeance: but, as the Wise man says, they held discipline odious, and neglected the precept of the Lord. And especially one more unjust than the rest, who although he labored with constant gout and intermittent fever, yet from the unjust work, when many of his friends advised him, did not turn aside; nay he preferred, for the possession of fallacious and fleeting things, both in this miserable life to be tortured by various scourges and straits, and in the future eternal age to be tormented, than here, content with his own and small as it is said, to live holily and justly. He therefore when he desired to adorn his palace with polished stones without his own expense, is miraculously hindered. ordered marble stones to be carried off from the aforesaid temple. But Jesus willing, by the prayers of B. Albert himself it came to pass, that not even one stone could the workmen and country-folk move from there: for when they tried to attempt so great a wickedness, soon they were miserably tortured. Turned into stupor and admiration thereby, the workmen, stiff and trembling, return to Bologna; and narrating what beyond the usual had happened to them, they vehemently extolled his sanctity. Nay, those dwelling near and far, not once a year, Seeds are blessed under his invocation. but every month flock from all sides to that place in throngs with offerings, for the sake of devotion and of fulfilling vows. There is also another thing no less to be reported, that all the farmers of the same country would dare neither to sow grain, nor to commit other seed to the earth, unless first through a religious man, inhabiting that monastery, the grain or part of the threshed earth, brought in a basket or hamper, were blessed.
[3] In the table, containing the names and a brief eulogy of seven Blessed of the Vallombrosan Order, reckoned among the Blessed hung in the Sacristy of the Vallombrosan monastery itself, of which above, the last is B. Albert of Bologna, by whose prayers that field is both preserved and yearly rendered more fertile, so that the rustics in throngs, with baskets filled with earth, from the Presbyter of that place where he is buried, seek a blessing. Eudoxius book 2 chapter 31 narrating nearly the same things which Jerome in Latin, himself in Italian; adds, that the rustics mix the seed or earth so blessed with the seeds to be scattered through the fields, and find this most useful: but that citizen, whose sacrilegious avarice gave occasion to the aforesaid Miracle, he calls John de Beccariis, who in the year 1404 obtained that Abbey then still for his son. But he supposes B. Albert himself to have flourished as Abbot in it, is said to have died in the year 1245 in the time of Valentinus I, the 16th General, that is, between the year 1235 and 1254. Arnoldus Wion, the faith of the tables sent to him being cited, thus writes: At Bologna in the monastery of S. Albert, Abbot of the Order of Vallombrosa, who left his name to the monastery from his own name: and in the Notes he asserts that he died in the year of Christ 1245. Arnoldus is transcribed by Philip Ferrarius, in the Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, but for the year 1245 he has 1243, perhaps by the fault of the typesetters. Gabriel Bucelinus corrected this error, who in the Benedictine Menology, as before Hugo Menardus in the Martyrology, ascribed Albert to this 20th day of May, namely from the authority and faith of Arnoldus.
[4] Antonius Pauli Masini wondrously entangled everything. For since on the 20th day of May, on which this Vallombrosan Albert is placed by the aforesaid authors, he had made mention of S. Albert the Martyr, having his cult in the church of all Saints in Brainia of the square of S. Stephen, He is confounded with S. Albert the Carmelite. where his Relics are preserved; of the Vallombrosan himself, as we saw, and his church he treats on August 7, when S. Albert Confessor of the Order of Carmelites in that whole Order, and specially at Bologna, is venerated: and he adds that in the aforesaid church of S. Albert, on account of the equivocation, there seems painted on the high altar S. Albert the Carmelite, in place of the Vallombrosan. Who were the authors of this confusion, is not difficult to divine: and the age of the picture itself will easily indicate, when first it was introduced. The fortune of the church, transferred from Religious to seculars, had obscured the memory of the former Albert, and had made him almost unknown to the common people of Bologna. Hence it was easy, the cult of the latter growing famous, after the Canonization celebrated in the 15th century, and the authority together with the discipline of the Carmelites of Bologna, joined to the Mantuan Congregation, reflourishing, to persuade the people that he whom they formerly venerated there was the Saint of their own Order: which indeed I would say is to be attributed not to any bad faith, but to excessive simplicity and negligence of scrutinizing the truth. Albert the Martyr, whose Relics are in that other Brainensian church, we know of none; therefore concerning these we ask to be more fully informed, whence and when they were brought thither. For as regards S. Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem, he indeed died a Martyr: but that his Relics were ever translated from the Holy Land, we nowhere read; and the Order which venerates him by reason of the Rule received, venerates him as a Confessor.