Bona the Virgin

ON ST. BONA THE VIRGIN, DEVOTED TO THE ORDER OF CANONS REGULAR.

AT PISA IN TUSCANY.

A.D. MCCVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

On the year and day of death and cult, the body now kept among the Poor Clares, the Acts most faithfully written.

Bona the Virgin, at Pisa in Tuscany (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Pisa, an Archiepiscopal city of Tuscany and a University, once of its own right and a powerful Republic, now subject to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, is distant from Florence the Ducal Seat toward the sea XL Italian miles, equally as that one conspicuous by the Arno washing it. It has among other Patrons St. Bona the Virgin, who born there, educated, and after a life there most holily passed dead, buried, and by illustrious miracles in life and after death famous shone forth. But born about the year of Christ MCLVI, still ten years old by divine inspiration she is assumed as a Devotee and Sister by the Prior and Brothers of St. Martin of the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and after very many pilgrimages into the Holy Land, and to Rome to the thresholds of the Apostles, and also to St. James in Galicia most piously made; to Christ her Spouse, the body being left on earth, she flew in the year MCCVIII, as below in the Acts, number 55, is read. But because it is a common custom for the Pisans to anticipate the beginning of the year by nine months, as we have often noted elsewhere, therefore here is to be understood the year MCCVII. There too is added, that there was, when she died, the third day of departing May, that is the third day before the end of May, which is the XXIX day of the same month. This is confirmed in the Appendix added below, where in the Translation of the body made in the year for the Pisans MCCCLXIV, is said to have been found a leaden tablet, with this inscription. She died on 29 May. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation MCCVIII, on the IV Kalends of June, the venerable in fact and name Bona, Devotee of this Church and Minister, rests. Behold the day IV Kalends of June is the same, which above the third day of departing May, and falls on this XXIX of May.

[2] The writing, witness of the said Translation, was made in the very year MCCCLXIV, on the XIV day of April, which perhaps was the very day of the Translation itself. it is wrongly referred to 24 April by Ferrari, Meanwhile, as if that were the day of death, and indeed not the XIV, but the XXIV, Ferrari takes upon himself to treat of it in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the said XXIV of April, with some elogium, in which toward the end he has this: At length worn out with labors, praying and psalming, glad she migrated to her Spouse, on the VIII Kalends of May, in the year of Salvation MCCVIII, after death glittering with many miracles: which again he repeats in the general Catalogue afterward published, the Pisan monuments being alleged and the book of Silvano Razzi on the Saints of Tuscany. But here he accurately agrees with the Acts themselves, which he translated into the Italian language, and on page 270 writes this: in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred eight, on the third day after her return, which was the third of departing May, the cultivator of the Trinity, the burden of the body being left, went to the Lord. Which below, number 55, are thus expressed: In the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred eight, on the third day after the return, which was the third of departing May, the cultivator of the Trinity, the burden of the body being left, migrated to the Lord. Meanwhile many have followed the erring Ferrari. Abraham Bzovius in the Annals at the year 1208, number 8, writes this: On the eighth Kalends of May of this year to the heavenly beatitude departed St. Bona, the Pisan Virgin: and then, a compendium of her life being related taken from Ferrari, Bzovius, this at the end from the same he added; From the MS. codex of the Church of Pisa. Ferdinando Ughelli, volume 3 of the Italia sacra, the death of Ubaldo Archbishop of Pisa being related, column 494, toward the end adds this: Which Ubaldo being Prelate, on the VIII Kalends of May to heaven flew Bl. Bona the Pisan Virgin, Ughelli: after death glittering with many miracles, about the year of Christ MCCVIII. Ferrari in the Catalogue of Saints and the Pisan monuments.

[3] Arthur du Monstier ascribed the same to his Franciscan Martyrology, on the said XXIV of April; At Pisa in Tuscany Bl. Bona the Virgin: and in the Notes, She flourished, he says, she is also wrongly ascribed to the Franciscans, about the first beginnings of the nascent Order in the year 1218, or 1228, but not in the year 1208, unless, the letters being changed, it be read In the year 1280. She is mentioned by Ferrari in the Catalogue of Saints on this day, and in the new Topography to the Roman Martyrology under the word Pisa, by Silvano Razzi on the Saints of Tuscany, by Brautius in the Poetic Martyrology. But could not Arthur also read this Annotation of Ferrari? I wonder that this Virgin is by some reckoned among the Nuns of the Minors, since at the time, in which she lived, the Order of the Minors did not exist. But soon after her death the Order began, and in the year MCCXI St. Francis left at Pisa two of his Companions, who should lay the foundations of a convent offered by the citizens and care for the structure: as at the said year writes Wadding, number 25. The occasion seems taken from this, afterward into the church where the body was led, that the aforesaid church, long after the Life was written, came into the power of the Friars Minor: who the old church being destroyed, building a new and ampler one in the year MCCCLXIV, translated the body itself of St. Bona to its new altar also; as is plain from the public Instrument drawn up thereon, which below will be given in the Appendix. Yet there were when the Life was written Franciscans at Pisa, as is established from number 72, And not only they, but also Preachers, of whom some in numbers 57 and 58 are said to have been freed from their infirmities. Gerard de Frachet in the Lives of the Brothers of the Order of Preachers, written by command of Humbert V the General, book 1, chapter 2, prefixes the title, That there the Order of Preachers was by many foreseen and foretold, which prophesied the Order of Preachers would come. where the third foresight is thus narrated. In the Pisan city there was a certain most devout woman, of whom it is reported, that whole in mind and body she was by Christ the Lord betrothed with a ring, and the ring in a certain monastery near Pisa with devotion is kept. She by the Lucchese and Pisans was called St. Bona. She indeed among the many things, which she predicted, said this Order of Preachers was to come, as those testified who heard it from her. Thus there: which I would fear lest they ought to be understood of her girdle, of which mention is made in the Life, numbers 10 and 16, and which then, number 49, transformed into a Cross she herself gave to the church of St. James del Poggio, constructed by herself outside the city: but this scruple the Lessons of the Life remove, of which the first in several places could not be read, the letters of a whole page being corrupted, yet this toward the end somehow exhibited; In the desert where she completed a forty-days' fast, and in the Jerusalemite places… performing… with a golden ring… he espoused her; and the circlet of St. Bona, iron, which she wore against her flesh, placing it where his cross on mount Calvary had been… he sanctified. A spousal ring given her by Christ. The Ring therefore is different from the Circlet, and there remains only the wish of knowing, whether and where it survives: but it can be believed given her in the cavern of mount Quarantena, when she there kept Lent; where Christ, as is said in the Life, number 14, calling her at once daughter and spouse, constituted her mother of many spiritual sons whom He showed her, of whom more there.

[4] The Acts themselves, on which the whole faith of the said things depends, we received from the ancient Pisan monuments in the year of the Lord MDCLXV, The Acts are given from MSS. by the care of Valerio Chimentelli, Professor in the University of Pisa: in which then holding the first Chair of Civil law

Francesco Maria Ceffini, Knight of St. Stephen, suggested moreover some things to be produced in the Appendix. But those Acts were written a little later, when St. Bona was openly venerated as a Saint (yet with no Papal Canonization, so far at least as is known, preceding) and had dedicated to her an altar in the Church of St. Martin, and under it her sacred body deposited; the Pisans celebrating her feast with solemn veneration, with a Vigil and cessation from servile works, and also reciting a proper Office concerning her, which has been transmitted to us also. There is distant from the Pisan city ten Italian miles the city of Lucca, written when she had a cult, in which also to public veneration in a certain church her image exposed the Acts, number 63, confirm. Mention also is made in the Acts, number 74, of the year MCCXLIX, in which someone neglecting to celebrate the feast of St. Bona, was punished by pain of the hand, and his servant by a like affliction in the feet, who, a vow being emitted of celebrating the feast while he lived, obtained health; but seven years being past wavering in his purpose, that he should continue, he was admonished. That year therefore was MCCLVI, after which the said Acts were written. So also, number 36, a little boy of one year by St. Bona, about the year 1257, while she lived, by a kiss and the sign of the Cross healed, is said still to have survived a man of about fifty years, when the author wrote the Life. Which things being collated with each other, it seems this was done about the year MCCLVII, almost fifty years having elapsed from her death.

[5] She indeed still living, Dom Paul, a Canon Regular, had intended to collect in writing the miracles which she wrought, but was prohibited by her, number 47, she asserting that this was afterward to be done by another, to whom God Himself will reveal, that he may do what that one proposed to do. The Author of the Life therefore is not Paul, which under doubt Razzi indicates: but another; who although he nowhere indicates that the Saint was seen or known to him, yet seems to have had all things from those who familiarly knew her. So number 8, Dom Ciconia, and certain pious men, saw and afterward related, that the image of Christ inclined itself wholly to Bl. Bona, in which often eyewitnesses are alleged. and with extended hand blessed her. So number 10, Bonacursius Boschettus, a companion in pilgrimage, saw with his own eyes St. Bona with the ass and boy fall into the water of a river running impetuously, but neither in limbs nor garments wet pass through, and the boy after her draw, and so that work was spread abroad. So number 28, the image of Christ, given by this one to St. Bona, still persevered in the church of St. James. Besides, numbers 40 and 44, Mark a Presbyter of holy life, most familiar with St. Bona, what he had known of her, revealed to Gerard the Presbyter; likewise to the Guardian, who related to the writer of this work, still surviving when he wrote. Nay the pits impressed by the hand of Christ, brought by St. Bona, on the crown of the said Mark, several beheld with their own eyes and handled with their hands, who still survived. At length, number 53, the boy related his sins revealed to him by St. Bona, and that burial should not be given him at St. James, to Gerard the Presbyter, and he by living voice to the writer. And number 71, Henry freed from an incurable abscess, when the author wrote, was alive and whole. More to collect there is no mind, but we add from the Office the proper Prayer, that by those who shall implore her patronage it can be recited: O God, who didst show Blessed Bona, by the singular love of Thy son Jesus Christ toward her, pleasing to Him; grant to us sinners, by her merits to be cleansed from sin, and to come happily to Thy joys. Prayer. Through the same Lord etc.

THE LIFE

By a writer of nearly the same age, received from the mouth of eyewitnesses.

From a very old MS. codex of the Church of Pisa.

Bona the Virgin, at Pisa in Tuscany (B.)

BHL Number: 1389, 1390

FROM A MS. OF NEARLY THE SAME AGE.

PROLOGUE.

The good God, the Creator and Bestower of all good things, so willed all things, by this very thing that they were from Him, to be good, that among them by an ampler participation of goodness certain ones should exist better. Pre-chosen by God, Of whose innumerable multitude a certain better Virgin, Bona in fact and name, by His gratuitous gift He made such, that of her that Davidic saying can deservedly be said; God chose her, and pre-chose her from many, namely into His own service. For her Creator God wishing concerning her, to show and expand the nature of His goodness, poured forth on her manifold gifts of graces most abundantly and infused them. For nature is said by Bl. Dionysius the Areopagite to be diffusive of itself. Which in her very name is sufficiently evidently shown, while she had Bona as her proper name, which is sufficiently common to all others. By which also by a certain consequence of necessity she is made and shown gracious to all, who suffused with divine grace is deservedly to be venerated by all and loved. For all things desire the good, as a certain Wise man says. Which in her most openly was fulfilled the Saint, who not only by those seeing her, but even by those placed far off, and hearing of her, was straightway loved; Grace is diffused, he says, not only in the interior things, but also in your lips, O St. Bona: therefore the Lord rendered you blessed to all. Of this holy Virgin the birth, conversation, and death, and also certain miracles, indications of her sanctity, with truth preceding and ever accompanying, I have undertaken to describe: trusting, that she herself by her most holy prayers and merits will obtain the grace of completing it. Bona appeared in fact and name.

OLD DIVISION.

After this Prologue, begins the Legend of holy Bona the Virgin, of the Pisan city, and first of her nativity; and so by short Chapters the rest of the Life is distinguished, whose titles it pleases here consequently to subjoin, that it may be whole for us to introduce a new partition more apt for us, according to the numbers to be noted subsequently.

2. That her nativity was at Paris revealed to John the Presbyter, and she herself commended to him.

3. The likeness of her nativity to the rising of the sun.

4. Of her progress, and the precept given her by Christ, and the holy first beginnings of her life.

5. Of the second revelation made to John the Presbyter concerning her.

6. How by the precept of Christ she bought and put on a hair-shirt.

7. That a picture of the image of Christ inclined itself to her, and blessed her.

8. How Christ appeared to her, and by His insufflation she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and accustomed to His presence.

9. How still a girl, with the will of the Lord, by the Prior and Brothers of St. Martin received as a Sister, and she herself profited in devotion.

10. How Christ asked her of her mother, and led her beyond the sea.

11. How her father and brother wished to take her beyond the sea, and how she fled and hid.

12. How after nine months beyond the sea, she directed herself to a certain holy Hermit, and visited the sacred places.

13. That she kept the Quarantena where Jesus Christ: and of the sons promised and given her, and of the toleration of sufferings by her.

14. How she returned to the Hermit, by whom she was admonished to return to Pisa; what befell her on the aforesaid way.

15. What concerning the iron girdle, with which she was girt, Christ wrought on Calvary.

16. Of adversities on the way, and of her patience, and how she returned to Pisa.

17. How by the precept of Christ she visited the thresholds of Bl. James, and on her return promised the building of the church of St. James del Poggio, and did it.

18. Of the commendation of her pilgrimages, and the miracles there shown.

19. How she crossed the water not wetted, and freed a boy clinging to her.

20. Another like, but greater.

21. How on the way of St. James she healed a Pilgrim by reproving him, and converted a robber by preaching.

22. That she knew at Rome the thought of Lady Gaitana, of carrying her head to Pisa.

23. How after the likeness of Bl. Peter she healed a crippled boy in his church at Rome.

24. How by Christ she was carried beyond the Arno, and by Him and Bl. Mary and St. Peter going to Rome was accompanied.

25. Of the miracles wrought by her, not on any journey, but in her life.

26. How through her Dom Paul was sent to St. James del Poggio.

27. How to certain Clerics singing Christ appeared to her, most sweetly singing.

28. Of the icon, which Christ gave her, and she the church of St. James.

29. How that image spoke to her, and to her the form of the Trinity was shown.

30. Of the bread, presented by Bl. James at St. James del Poggio, and by the same to holy Bona.

31. How to St. James del Poggio she went and flew invisible, and led the Monks unseen.

32. Of the freeing of Brother Thomas, by the holy wine, from a fever.

33. Of the healing of a certain girl.

34. How Christ, on account of Bl. Bona and with her, appeared to a certain girl, and foretold her the end of her life.

35. Of the healing of a wound of the head in a boy of one year.

36. Of the gift of prophecy and of knowing the secrets of hearts, which St. Bona excellently had.

37. How she foretold the peril of a certain ship, and of the men existing in it; and so it came to pass.

38. How she foretold the coming of three women, bringing her dates, and the mind of one of them.

39. What concerning a lamp happened to the man of God Presbyter Mark.

40. Certain praiseworthy things concerning the said Presbyter Mark.

41. How she knew that on account of a nocturnal pollution Presbyter Mark refused to sing Mass, and reproved him for it.

42. How she foretold to Presbyter Mark the coming of a certain woman, and what concerning her she enjoined.

43. How she freed the man of God Presbyter Mark from an infirmity of the head, and foretold him the end of his life.

44. How she reproved and convicted a certain woman, saying her St. Gregory.

45. How she foretold that a certain boy would die within nine days, and so it came to pass.

46. How she knew and revealed the purpose of Dom Paul, of writing her marvelous deeds.

47. Of the change of her countenance, and how she freed the Monks from scandal.

48. Of the marvelous formation of a Cross from the iron girdle, which the Saint in her life carried against her flesh.

49. Of the virtue of that Cross.

50. Of those things which happened about the Saint's passage:

and first of her last journey to St. James, which in the space of one hour she marvelously accomplished.

51. Of the black horse, and the striking of the boy James, and his marvelous healing.

52. Of the revelation, which she made to the same James about the place of her burial.

53. How she remained at St. James del Poggio, and thence to Pisa was marvelously carried.

54. Of the happy passage of St. Bona, and of her burial.

55. Of the miracles shown after the Saint's decease.

56. Miracles done about religious persons.

Of the sudden healing of a certain Monk, existing in the Curia.

How she healed Brother Rebaldus of the Order of Preachers, who had detracted from her, from a most grave infirmity.

57. How she freed the same from an intolerable pain of the tooth.

How she freed the Provincial Prior of the Friars Preachers, for four years a quartan-sufferer.

58. Of the miracles perpetrated about Lay Persons, in which as far as possible the order of time is observed.

59. Of a certain man thrown from a horse, and by the Saint a third time restored.

How she freed a ship with four galleys from imminent shipwreck.

60. Of another ship, and two galleys likewise freed.

Of a certain ship, in the port of Acre, marvelously by the Saint defended from breaking.

How in the ship upon a Cross she appeared, and freed the ship and the men from peril.

61. How St. Bona is the patroness of seafarers.

How in the appearance of a physician she restored the broken arm of a certain noble woman.

62. Of a boy of nine months, cured of a mortal infirmity.

63. Of a boy, suddenly freed from fevers, of whom the physicians despaired.

64. Of a woman, healed from a most strong infirmity.

65. How she defended from death a girl falling.

66. Of the healing of a girl, who lay crippled seven years.

67. How she hindered certain mortal enemies, that they should not slay one another.

68. That she freed a boy, of whom the physicians despaired, from the disease of the stone.

69. Of the healing of a fractured boy.

70. Of a girl suffocated by the rubbing of the gums.

71. Of the healing of an incurable abscess.

72. How a woman, who had given herself to the devil, she admonished and taught to escape his power.

72. Of a war-horse, suddenly freed from a most grave infirmity.

73. Of the healing of the hand of a certain one, and the feet of another, unwilling to observe her feast.

74. Of the freeing of a woman, for three days tortured by a miscarriage.

76. How she freed a certain one from the bonds of adversaries.

77. Of a little jug, turned without effusion of oil.

78. Of a youth nearly lifeless, freed.

CHAPTER I.

Chaste education, familiar conversation with Christ. The Jerusalemite journey.

[2] Therefore St. Bona was born in the Pisan city, in the part which is called Chincitha, near the river Arno, in the parish of St. Martin, Born at Pisa, the father Bernard, the mother Berta, of the Order of St. Augustine: in whose church of St. Martin up to today serve God Canons Regular. Her father by nation a Pisan, was Bernard by name; but her mother of Corsica, was called Berta: from whose matrimonial union was born St. Bona, as a certain most precious pearl. Her father, his wife and daughter at the same time, when she was only three years old, leaving, set out beyond the sea, nor returned to them any further.

[3] The nativity of this Virgin to a certain Presbyter, John by name, but Musellino by nation, studying at Paris, is commended by an Angel to John the Presbyter: was divinely revealed by an Angel; that even her very first beginnings, after the manner of certain privileged Saints, might not lack Angelic service. For there appeared to the said Presbyter the Angel of the Lord, saying to him: A certain girl is born in the Pisan city, whom the Lord wishes to be recommended to you: whence executing the divine will, go to Pisa, and there from the Prior and Brothers of St. Martin you shall ask to be received as a Canon Regular: and being made a Canon, you shall also cause that soul to be received by the same as a Devotee and Sister. Behold how greatly Christ wished to exalt this holy Bona about her first beginnings: granting her a privilege of custody like His Mother: for thus hanging on the cross He recommended the virgin Mother to John the virgin Apostle: so presiding in heaven the virgin St. Bona, whom, as below will be said, He wished and made to be a mother, He recommended to John, a most honest and chaste Presbyter.

[4] she shines like the sun: Thus this Virgin as a certain sun with miraculous splendor enters the world, by her holy examples, and through her divinely shown miracles, as by most resplendent rays, about to illustrate the Pisan city, nay rather to adorn the whole Church, so that that saying of the Wise man about her seems near: As the sun rising to the world in the highest things of God, so is the hope of a good woman to the adornment of her house. Eccles. 26:2

[5] But the girl being born, as a tree planted divinely in an affluence of graces, profited in age and grace: and that even tender and little she might not be void of fruit, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her, when she was seven years old, and was lying with her mother after the manner of little ones; commanding her, that with no person, nor even with her own mother, she should be joined in bed: which she all her life-time devoutly obeying fulfilled. Moreover mattresses, linens, and coverlets she did not use, as if she now abhorred the delights of the flesh: she is commanded by Christ to sleep alone: but on a little bed of straw or stubble reclined her tender limbs; to the child Christ in this the little one herself rendering the like, who for the instruction of all and salvation was reclined in the manger upon hay. By fastings also and abstinence even at that time she afflicted her body so much; that in every week three days she fasted on bread and water. Let the bearded men of our time blush, who not, I say, three days, nor on bread and water, but even one day in the week are burdened to fast. and she instituted her life rigidly. Useless wandering also she avoided, at home staying in body and heart, that there the more purely, the more secretly, she might pray to the Lord. These and like things in the beginning of her ways the holy Virgin imposed on herself, as the foundations of her life, accustoming herself in these little, from which she would not depart living; as if she had now read that Proverb of Solomon, A youth according to his way, even when he shall grow old will not depart from it. Prov. 22:6

[6] In these holy and to God acceptable first beginnings the Virgin had passed some time, To John now a Canon Regular and the aforesaid John the Presbyter, according to the Angelic command, had now come from Paris to Pisa, and at St. Martin had been made a Canon Regular; where serving under the Rule of Augustine, he was acceptable to God, and gracious to men; and leading a life full of virtues, by the merit and virtue of continued perseverance, he obtained a happy end on earth, and in heaven the glorious fruit of his good works. To him on a certain morning, the Matin lauds being finished, according to custom insisting on private prayers, appeared the Angel of the Lord, saying to him: The girl, admonished again by the Angel, who clad in mean things will come to you this morning, she is the one whom I recommended to you at Paris and is called Bona. When therefore the girl Bona, divinely as is believed admonished, in the morning as the Angel had foretold, had come to John the Presbyter, he says to her: What do you wish, daughter? She, with prudence at the same time and simplicity answering, says: I wish to be at the precepts of God and yours. To whom conforming his answer to her answer, and she admonished comes: and trembling to enjoin anything to so great a Virgin without condign deliberation, he said to her: What God commands you, that do: and to me, when it shall please Him, you shall return. Prayer therefore being made she returned home.

[7] And behold, on a certain day there appeared to her visibly the Lord Jesus Christ, commanding her, that she should procure for herself a hair-shirt. Who when as a girl, Christ commanding she buys a hair-shirt, she answered that she had not its price; Christ says to her: Spin only on silk, whence you may earn two denarii. And when again trembling she weighed, that she could not find it for so small a price; the Lord comforting her, said to her: On the bridge you will find a certain merchant, from whom when you shall ask it, for those two denarii he will give it to you. Two denarii therefore gained by spinning, when on a certain day by the precept of her mother she went to the market to buy herbs, that the divine precept might be totally fulfilled, she bought also the hair-shirt, which a certain merchant on the bridge, as the Lord had foretold, for those two denarii gave her. She, formed by divine instruction, straightway in its middle made an opening for a hood; and, in the manner of a hood hanging before and behind, and under her garments she put it on: putting it under her other garments, returned home to her mother. Behold with what garments Christ wished His Spouse, with which she also gladly clad proceed. Let them have, who wish and can, garments delicate and various, sometimes from the inheritance of orphans and the sweat of widows procured, made with much vanity, adorned from the dung of worms, finally by their amplitude and length ponderous: our Virgin Bona, admonished by salutary precepts, and formed by divine institution, goes clad in a hair-shirt, that having a memorial of death before the eyes of body and mind, she might not sin.

[8] But how the heavenly Spouse of this His such spouse was jealous, nay rather a venerator, He straightway showed. For when she returned home from the market thus clad, it happened that before the doors of the church ^c of the holy Sepulchre she passed, over which, on the North side of the church, is painted the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. To which when, as one devout to divine and sacred things, signing herself after the manner of the faithful, she had with reverence inclined her head, adoring Christ in it; Christ in the image saluted by her blesses her. the same image, in turn inclining itself wholly to Bl. Bona, with extended hand blessed her: which Dom Ciconia, and certain pious men sitting outside openly saw, and afterward related. But when with such an over-garment hood she had returned home to her mother; the mother seeing this, devoutly praised her thence with certain other women.

[9] Another time also, when still very young by the precept of her mother she had gone to the market, by the same with the Mother of God and St. James appearing before the aforesaid church of the holy sepulchre she was passing. Outside which because she had now obtained a divine gift, trusting in an ampler one, for the sake of praying she entered the same church. And behold to her devoutly and instantly praying, there appeared beside the chancels the Lord Jesus Christ, with His Mother glorious and ever Virgin Mary, and the two other Marys her Sisters, and also with Bl. James the Apostle, whose thresholds in Galicia, which are visited by the men of the whole world. She, stupefied by the greatness of the vision and the glory of the things seen, because she was not yet accustomed to such things, fled: whom Bl. James following, comforting her, said to her: Daughter, fear not, for

He who has deigned to appear to you is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He breathing on her she receives the Holy Spirit, with His blessed Mother, and her two Sisters. She, confidence being conceived from the words of the Apostle, returned to the chancels. Then Christ laying His most holy hand on her head, said to her: Open your mouth. Which when she had done, Christ breathing three times into her mouth, said to her: Receive the Holy Spirit; and straightway St. Bona was so filled with that Spirit, that thereafter in her countenance, words, and gestures the grace of that Spirit abounded. And because by the mediation of Bl. James the Apostle she had obtained so great a grace, she conceived from then a special devotion to him, and kept it uninterrupted at all times. and is often visited by him: Who rendering her the like; was most frequently her companion, with her standing, going, and speaking, in the appearance of a hoary Pilgrim. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself also from then began to be so familiar and known to her, that He appeared to her all her life-time. Accustomed now to His apparition and presence, with Him she familiarly spoke, walked, and stood, as one man is wont with another.

[10] But Blessed Bona, made ten years old, in prayer it was said to her, that she should go to John the Presbyter, that he should cause her to be received by the Prior and Brothers of St. Martin as a Devotee and Sister: which by them, the said John the Presbyter mediating, was with much devotion fulfilled. at ten years she is assumed as a devotee, For age could not prejudice a revelation and heavenly gift, that on account of defect of age she should not be admitted as a Sister, on whom divinely such gifts had already been conferred, and that she should become a Sister a revelation made. And because, as a poor person, she had not whence to clothe herself after the manner of the Sisters; the often-said Presbyter John, to whom she had now been several times recommended by an Angel, gave her his cope for making a mantle; in the division of garments imitating Blessed Martin, girt with an iron girdle, in whose church he served the Lord. But made a Sister, daily she became more devout to God, harsher to herself, and more merciful to the needy; profiting in merits with God, and growing in fame with men. An iron girdle also from that time beneath against her flesh in her pilgrimages too she continually carried, until near the term of her life by the precept of Christ she laid it aside: she dwells near the church of St. Martin, about which girdle the Lord wrought several great things, as from what follows will appear. Nor did she now stay with her mother in her own house; but laboring with her own hands what would suffice for her frugality, and whence she might succor the poor, she lived in a certain house near the church of St. Martin; that, bound to divine obeisances, she might be near to the place of prayer, and to him to whom she had been divinely commended.

[11] But when she had attained the thirteenth year, and on a certain day her mother had come to her; in the 13th year of her age by Christ there appeared to them in the appearance of pilgrims the Lord Jesus Christ, with the aforesaid company; and Christ said to the mother of St. Bona: We pilgrims from the transmarine parts announce to you, concerning your husband Bernard, that he is alive, and there prosperously stays. And we wish, that this his and your daughter you deliver to us, that we may lead her to him beyond the sea. She, by the one speaking outwardly, inwardly inclined to consent, forthwith with liberality answered: Because you seem good pilgrims to me, I grant her to you, as you ask, and humbly recommend her: yet who these were she wholly was ignorant; St. Bona is led off on pilgrimage: knowing them well, as most familiar to her: whence she straightway followed them setting out without any trembling; Lady Gaitana accompanying her, and a certain girl named Massaia: who were the inseparable companions of this whole pilgrimage; yet these pilgrims, and what concerning her was divinely done, they wholly were ignorant.

[12] She sails into the Holy Land. These therefore sailing, concerning St. Bona beyond the sea public fame came, that namely the daughter of Lord Bernard, whom of a Corsican wife he begot, was coming; her Angel spreading this for her testing, as is related. But her father therefore grieved over this fame, because long before he had matrimonially joined to himself at Pisa Berta the mother of St. Bona, in the transmarine parts he had had a certain Lady very noble as wife, of whom also he had begotten three sons; one of whom then was Patriarch of Jerusalem, another was Master of the Temple, the third of the Hospital. Who together with the Father grieved, and especially the Patriarch, that this one would come there, whom they heard from the father born of a Corsican mother: reckoning this to their reproach, because Corsican women are there held in contempt, and they attended more to the nobility of the flesh, than the fellowship of the soul. where lest she be taken by the father and brothers The ship therefore arriving, for taking St. Bona the father came to the ship, and the Patriarch through messengers labored greatly. But others speaking with her and seeing her, by these she could neither be seen, nor heard. The Holy Spirit also revealing she fled by night with her companions, passing through wooded and rough places. And it seemed to St. Bona while she fled, that after her ran a multitude of men, Take her, Take her, redoubling with a cry. fleeing she hides in a pit: But they were demons, envying her progress. Fleeing therefore she cast herself into a certain pit, that she might hide.

[13] And when she stayed in it, to a certain holy Hermit, Ubaldo by name, who in the neighboring parts for thirty years enclosed in a cell had served God, it was revealed from heaven, that he should send for that young girl, who in that pit lay hid, and that he should cause her to be led to him. she is led to Ubaldo the Hermit: Which through a certain man of God, his brother, the Hermit obedient to God fulfilled. When therefore she being led had come to him, since neither had before any knowledge of the other, by their proper names they saluted one another, seeing each other with great joy. To that Hermit's counsels and precepts St. Bona directed herself in those parts for nine months. In which time the sacred places, in which the Lord procured the salvation of all, and also the river Jordan, she visits the holy places: where the Lord was baptized, with her two companions she most devoutly visited; in the places, where the feet of the Lord stood, fixing kisses, and for the kindly sacrament, in each place wrought, with tears there rendering to the Lord pious and devout thanks.

[14] But when the sacred Lent had come, she in a certain cavern, She keeps Lent in a cavern: in the same place in which also Christ, observed it with much abstinence. Which being completed, there appeared to her there the Lord Jesus Christ, with the same with whom He had appeared to her at Pisa, and said to her: Daughter, it is necessary that you have sons; that you who are my daughter and at the same time spouse, on account of me and for me may be made also a mother. She conscious to herself of the purpose of preserving virginity perpetually, the name of sons and mother being heard, imitating Blessed Mary, with a certain fear answered: And how shall I have sons? Christ said to her: Fear not, for not of carnal, but of spiritual ones I said to you. And leading her out of the aforesaid cavern, He showed her upon a certain lofty mountain many little ones, she is constituted mother of spiritual sons whiter than snow, brighter than milk: and said to her: Those will be your sons, who all out of reverence for you incline to you their heads and hands to the ground: in indication of which thing He put a ring on her finger, constituting her of the aforesaid sons spouse and at the same time mother. Those sons we can deservedly take, who in all subsequent time by her most holy merits, salutary admonitions, assiduous prayers, glorious examples, evident miracles, were, either by conversion from evil, acquired for the Lord; or by preservation in good, nourished; or by promotion to better, afterward to be directed by her: educated: of whose numerous multitude several at St. Michael de Orticaria, and at St. James del Poggio, were and are sons. But Blessed Bona, confidence being conceived from these things, said to Christ: All infirmities, which can befall men and beasts, I wish for You and such sons to sustain. Christ answered her: And I receive this promise, as you have said. Which promise by her and in her was fulfilled in deed in the subsequent time, one infirmity for some space of time in her lasting, and another succeeding. Whence also she can not incongruously be called a Martyr, because she failed in no suffering, who was ready to tolerate even others.

[15] There too Christ commanded her, that returning to the said Hermit, what he should say to her she should fulfill; assigning her an Angel, who should accompany her on the way. She fulfilling the Lord's precept, returned to that Hermit, admonished about the return, joyful at her return, and with him for a space of seven days she stayed. Who a divine revelation being made to him, said to her: It is the will of God, that you return to Pisa, yet many adversities will befall you on the way: for into the hands of the Saracens you will come, and you will be wounded, and incarcerated by them.

[16] When she, obeying God even through His servant, had begun the journey for the return with her companions; Christ leading, accompanied by the accustomed companions, they came to Calvary. Where the Lord said to St. Bona: Give me the girdle, she visits Mount Calvary girt with iron. with which you are girt. She conscious to herself of the concealment of the iron girdle, as if even the Lord Himself were ignorant of this, offered Him the woolen girdle, with which above she was girt. But the Lord betraying to glory, what the Saint hid for caution, straightway that girdle was loosed, and fell to the ground at her feet. Which Christ taking up, put it in that hole, where once the wood of the salutiferous Cross was fixed. And afterward girding Himself with it, He returned it to the Saint. She reckoning it for the rest more precious, and keeping it more dearly, was again girt with it.

[17] But that the truth of the words of the servant of God, and the patience of St. Bona might be proved; all things foretold by him concerning her were so veraciously fulfilled, that from the Saracens, after the likeness of Christ, in her side she received a wound, on whose account she vomited blood through her mouth at diverse times as long as she lived. taken by the Saracens she is wounded: Fevers also at almost all times she suffered. All which, a woman of virtue, clad in the armor of God, for love of the Spouse and of her sons she most patiently tolerated. Whence also the fever, her companion, with joy as it were in play she called. Furthermore Lady Gaitana and her companion did not abandon her even in prison,

but were her inseparable companions and diligently served as her attendants. But certain Pisan merchants and citizens hearing that St. Bona was detained in prison, redeemed her from the Saracens by a price given, and led her with her companions to a ship. Returned to Pisa she leads a heavenly life; Who at length returned together to Pisa: and she herself entered the house dear to her, in which made a Sister she had begun to dwell. Where while she was not on pilgrimage, she observed many Lents in strict abstinence and rigorous and continued silence, content with pulse for food, and water for drink. There too, as far as possibility permitted, in assiduous reading, intent on meditation, given to prayer, suspended in contemplation, she led a heavenly life on earth. And when now, by the odor of her virtues and fame, to her flowed together a multitude of men of diverse sexes, morals, states, conditions, and wills; to all she exhibited a glad face: although, as has been said, she suffered almost continual fevers; and all she received with abundant affection, and as the apothecary's shop of the heavenly physician, a gracious woman, and benignly instructs many. offered to each suitable medicines; so that of so great a multitude she suffered none to depart from her, without an antidote of consolation or edification. Whence that house, the workshop of these and other spiritual works of hers, truly was made the house and gate of heaven: in which not only the holy Angels descended to visit her, but also the very Holy of Holies most frequently came, with His Mother the Lady of Angels.

ANNOTATIONS.

e. About the year 1169.

CHAPTER II.

Her various pilgrimages, and the miracles done in them.

[18] After some time from her return Christ appeared to her, accompanied by the accustomed company, and said to her: Having made pilgrimage to St. James, I wish you to visit the thresholds of this Bl. James in Spain, who has now several times visited you with me. She with devotion obeying, undertook the journey, and completed it. But returning, when she had come to a certain place outside Pisa on the North side at the space of one mile about the setting of the sun, where in a certain little straw cottage a certain old woman dwelt, she turned aside to her with her companion St. James, who inquired for the sake of lodging, and for what cause she stayed there. She said it was of her will; to construct some church there, although whence she might do this she had not. St. Bona answered: If you wish to construct that church to the honor and name of Bl. James, this old man (showing him with her hand) loves Bl. James greatly, and all necessary things we will minister to you. She giving consent, St. Bona together with Bl. James designated the whole disposition of the walls of the church; on her return she constructs the church of St. James del Poggio: then in subsequent times stretching a helping hand, until that church, which today is called St. James del Poggio, and the necessary houses were completed. Which place from then, by the devotion and work of St. Bona while she lived, and after she was dead, on account of reverence for her, in goods grew and grows. But morning being made the Saint returned home, there in affliction of the flesh, in mercies to the needy, in compassion to the wretched and afflicted, in psalmody and prayer almost continual, and in other works leading her life.

[19] But among her other holy and to God acceptable works, amid her pilgrimaging she is famous for miracles pilgrimage was frequent. For nine times the thresholds of Bl. James, and often of Bl. Peter, and of St. Angelo, content with a little food, and always girt with the iron girdle, she visited. But how acceptable to God her pilgrimages were, the Lord Himself deigned, to the praise of His Saint, and to the admonition of the faithful, to declare, both by accompanying her with Bl. James, and by showing several and various miracles, about her or through her, in those pilgrimages. Which although they were wrought at diverse times, all however together for the commendation of pilgrimages, in her and in other faithful, are deservedly to be coupled.

[20] fallen into a river, she emerges with dry garments, When on a certain occasion St. Bona visited the thresholds of Bl. James in Galicia; she came to a certain river with other pilgrims, which indeed by the bridge, on account of its swelling, no one could cross. There were there with asses boys, transporting pilgrims for a price. When therefore Bl. Bona, wishing to pursue the begun journey, a price given had mounted one for the crossing, and behind her on the same ass carrying a boy, was crossing the river; the ass stumbling, into the impetuously running water the ass, the boy, and she herself together fell. But St. Bona, wet neither in limbs nor garments, crossed through; the boy pertinaciously retaining her clothes, drawing him after her upon the water. Then men, thinking the boy full of water, were planning to suspend him by the feet, and draws the boy out with her, and make him vomit the water. Which the boy perceiving, Do not, he said; for I am not full of water, as you believe, but I have enjoyed unspeakable grace, and am suffused with immense delight, as long as I was in the water with this glorious Lady. The men hearing these things, and seeing her and her things suffused with no moisture at all, surrounded her with admiration, gazing at her insatiably. She seeing the multitude, on this account flowing together to her from everywhere, fled. Behold in one and the same deed the Virgin of Christ offers us a salutary example, of fleeing human praise and glory, and follows her Christ, companion and master on the way. Yet through Bonacursus Boscettus, a witness who had been present. who was her neighbor in the house, and then a companion in pilgrimage, and who with his own eyes saw these things, the work of the Lord, to the edification of men, the honor of the holy Virgin, and the glory of God, was spread abroad. So that it is true, that if we be silent of the glorious things concerning us, others will publish them, and as far as the manner of a shadow glory follows the one fleeing.

[21] By the command of Christ she crosses a ruined bridge: Something similar, in another pilgrimage to the same place, the Lord wrought concerning her. For walking she came to a certain river, whose bridge was so ruined, that no one of the pilgrims, who had assembled there about a thousand, could or dared to cross by it. Then the Lord Jesus, who was with the accustomed companions with Bl. Bona, in the pilgrim appearance unknown to the other pilgrims, said to her: Cross by the bridge with hands ever raised to heaven. When she had begun the crossing, by all it was cried to her: Do not attempt it, Lady, for without doubt you will be submerged. She, secure of the power of the One commanding, confidently while all the pilgrims with fear beheld, crossed through. and by her prayer obtains a crossing for the others, And straightway an innumerable multitude of Saints, adorned with Episcopal mitres, into that river in bodily appearance descended: whom yet no one of the pilgrims saw, only one excepted, to whom by a special privilege, for the testimony and spreading abroad of the miracle, was divinely granted this grace of seeing them. But when St. Bona had crossed the bridge and river unhurt; Christ, who had likewise crossed with her unseen, said to her: Call to you all the pilgrims, standing on the other side of the river, for none of them will perish, if until they have crossed you keep your hands raised. She did, as He said, and so all the pilgrims unhurt by her prayers crossed. But that pilgrim, who knew the miracle, after Bl. Bona panting ran. The other pilgrims therefore say to him: Why do you run thus, brother? What is the matter with you? To whom he answered; Did you not just now observe a divine miracle? And they, what? And the pilgrim to them: Did you not see five pilgrims, and therefore bidden to hide herself, first with that Lady marvelously crossing, and who descended to her into the water? Saints are those and she also a Saint. That pilgrim repeating these and like things, and after St. Bona crying and running, the Lord Jesus Christ said to St. Bona: Hide in a little house, lest the pilgrim, who saw the miracle, find you. Whom the Saint as gladly, as profitably obeyed. And when nonetheless that pilgrim persisted in running and crying, he found a certain man sewing clothes in a certain villa beside the way: and thinking, that there St. Bona with her companions had crossed, he asked him; Did you see a certain Lady, with two male pilgrims and three women crossing? And as a sign he expressed their garments, and figures and statures. The cobbler wondering, that he thus panting and running sought; began everywhere to attend diligently, whether he might see them, and her. And behold by the given signs, but chiefly by grace infused into him for this, recognizing those five pilgrims and the Lady, not yet understanding that they were Christ and the Saints, he saw them enter the house of a certain host. And thinking them good pilgrims, he ran to the host, saying to him: You would greatly rejoice, if you knew those, who are in your house. And the cobbler turning to one of those five, and nonetheless recognized by one, who was Bl. James, said to him: Make me to be blessed by that Lady: for her proper name he did not know. The Apostle says to him: Take her hat, and when we shall go out departing, that she bless you you shall ask of her. He did as he said. She not denying the blessing, but deferring to the Apostle, said to Bl. James: Sign you him. He says: Not

I, but you. She therefore humbly obeying blessed him. Furthermore that blessing straightway kindled him with so great a fervor of spirit, that after the manner of the Apostles, all things being left and the household unsaluted, he followed Bl. Bona and her companions, forgetful of all earthly things. Whom when Bl. James had several times admonished about returning, and he nonetheless pertinaciously adhered to them, saying; Because Christ is with you, I will not depart from you; at length the Lord Jesus Christ Himself likewise admonished him, that he should return. Who a blessing being received from Him returned indeed, but with sadness and grief: and being on the way of returning home, seized with fevers he fell asleep in Christ: whose death and salvation the Lord straightway revealed to Bl. Bona. by her blessing she obtains for him a happy death. From this miracle this Saint evidently appears compared to Moses the servant of the Lord, not only in the frequent apparition and familiar divine colloquy, but also in the virtuous elevation of the hands. And likewise, if you the hearer and I the reader attend, we are admonished, of fleeing human favor and glory, of honor mutually to be paid, and that to the Saints reverence and obedience are to be paid.

[22] Another time and occasion, while she again visited the thresholds of Bl. James, how free, effective, and salutary her reproof was, and she herself a knower of secrets, A Pilgrim gravely injured by a robber by what happened was shown. For a certain pilgrim, on that journey separated by some space from the others, fell upon a certain robber: who said to the pilgrim: Draw out your money, and give it to me. He not giving it, but suppliantly entreating that he should not take it from him, the robber said again to him: Give me what you have, otherwise I will do to you what I had resolved not further to do to any pilgrim: for by a divine nod seized he had resolved indeed to spoil, but not to kill pilgrims. When therefore the Jacobipeta by no means exhibited the money to the robber, the robber with drawn sword struck him in the left breast so, she admonishes about sins, that as if dead he fell upon the ground. Then Bl. Bona, going by the same way, a revelation being made to her understood the whole matter; and hastily approaching, cried from afar to the fleeing robber; Do not flee, but await me a little. Who wishing to flee, but not able, near the pilgrim immovable and trembling waited. To whom the Saint approaching, saw the Jacobipeta lying half-alive: and rebuking him said to him: and heals him by the sign of the Cross: Wretch, what kind of pilgrimage were you making? For two mortal sins you knowingly kept silent, when you received a superficial penance: whence, if you had thus died, without doubt you would have gone into eternal punishment. Furthermore touching his wound with her holy fingers, the virtuous name of the Trinity being invoked, she impressed on him the sign of the salutiferous Cross: which straightway was so consolidated, as if no blow had ever been made there, and he himself whole and strong rose. And when she had caused his money to be restored to him by the robber; St. Bona enjoined him, that he should confess those two sins, to the first Priest who should meet him. But turning to the robber, she sharply rebuked him for the perpetrated crime, recalling the torments prepared for such men. He being seized by the voice of virtue, the Saint joining an admonition to the rebuke; Have mercy, she said, on your soul, that it perish not forever. And these things being said and done St. Bona proceeds on her journey: but that robber converted by divine grace, and for the converted robber she builds a cell. and allured by the sight of the Saint and the sweetness of her words, through the whole journey followed Blessed Bona, until they came to Bonithi-podium: where through her a cell was made for the robber, in which he from then for all the time of his life faithfully served the Lord, and finished his life in peace. Behold how evidently it appears, that our holy Bona was not a forgetful hearer of the divine words, but a doer of works; while imitating the Evangelical Samaritan, both to the pilgrim and to the robber she poured wine and oil, rebuking the former of the wound of his putrid mind, and mercifully healing him from the wound of the body: and the latter likewise reproving of the atrocity of the perpetrated crime, and converting him by gently admonishing to penance.

[23] In her pilgrimages also to St. Peter her virtue and divine grace was not wanting: Sick at Rome, she reveals her companion's thought: for in the last of the quarantenas, which at Rome with much abstinence and devotion she performed, she was so gravely sick, that Lady Gaitana, her devotee and companion, despairing of her life, planned to cut off her head, and bring it to Pisa. To her thinking such things Bl. Bona, as if waking from a heavy sleep, said: Prepare us food, Lady, that we may be able to complete our pilgrimage: for my head you will not carry to Pisa, as you have thought, but I myself will carry it. She wondering at the revelation, prepared food as she had said, and together they undertook the journey of returning.

[24] at the church of St. Peter she heals a crippled boy. Yet before they withdrew from Rome, they entered the church of Bl. Peter for the sake of prayer; at whose church doors a crippled boy for the sake of asking alms was placed. Blessed Bona therefore with her companions, prayer being completed, the church going out, the languishing one according to custom from them asked alms. St. Bona, abounding more than the rest in the affection of compassion, said to him; That my master Bl. Peter, by devotion to whom I came to this city, and visited this oratory, I may follow in word and deed; silver and gold I have not, but this little vessel of wine (showing the little barrel of her pilgrimage) which by God's grace and virtue I can, this to you imitating him I grant. In the name of Jesus Christ rise, and drink. Who forthwith rose whole, and from that little vessel drank. But she pursuing her journey with her companions, returned to Pisa with good prosperity. And in that miracle she so evidently followed Bl. Peter the Apostle, that this seems not to be judged like that, but rather the same repeated. Nor let it seem wonderful to anyone of so great a conformity to him, since going to his thresholds, she more frequently used his company.

[25] For when according to custom at a certain time she wished to visit the thresholds of that Bl. Peter the Apostle, About to go to Rome she takes a boy as companion, from the Prior of St. Martin and John the Presbyter, her procurator and at the same time guardian, she asked license of going. Who, license being granted, inquired with whom she would go. She said, that Guido and Guida would go with her, and Peter. Furthermore Guido and Guida, she named Christ the Lord and the Mother, as she herself afterward set forth being asked. And indeed very properly, since they were her Rectors and Leaders, and the ducal one is commonly called Guida. Yet the youth James, who had most frequently accompanied her, she asked of the Prior, that he should accompany her a little beyond St. Michael de Orticaria, where in a certain meadow by the aforesaid three she asserted she was awaited. This being granted her, when very early at dawn they proceeded toward the river Arno; with whom across the Arno, that James said to her: How shall we cross, Lady? She answered: We shall find Guido, who will transport us in his little boat. And when they had come to the bank of the river; she said to James; Call, call, Guido. Who when he had cried, O ser Guido; straightway he answered, Who is it? And James to him: A certain Lady, who wishes to cross the river. And Guido subjoined: Is it she, who is partly Pisan, partly Corsican? For Blessed Bona, which at the beginning of this work we have said, of a Pisan father and Corsican mother was born: and therefore Christ most familiar to her, with her and of her as it were in play, said things of this kind out of much familiarity. But St. Bona said to James: transported by Christ, Answer, that it is she. Which when he had said; Guido answered: If it is she, I will transport her gladly. By Guido's little boat therefore transported, when at the very rising of day they had come to the meadow, in which the Saint said she was awaited; James looking round on every side, saw no one present. And reckoning the opportunity of accompanying her up to Rome to be granted him, alone he said to holy Bona; Thanks to God, that those, of whom you had spoken, are not present, and I will come with you. To whom she answered: Behind this hedge look, for here they ought without doubt to await me. And when he had diligently looked, and seen no one; made more cheerful, again he said to her: Behold they are not, and I will come with you. She again said to him: Turn yourself, and look round on every side. And when turning himself he looked, he sees three pilgrims come out of the hedge. And he said: Behold here they are. And she: Those are, she said, Guido, and Guida, and Peter, whom I said would come with me. Furthermore James, attending to one of these, namely Guido, young in age and beautiful in appearance, she found him with the Mother and St. Peter as companions, and suspecting something sinister on account of the excessive love by which he was held toward the Saint, said to the Saint: I do not wish you to go with these, lest perchance on the way violence be inflicted on you by some one of them. Then those three and St. Bona likewise smiling, of whom Christ kissing the boy, said to him: Let her come securely with us, for no evil or violence will we inflict on her. And he: I will not allow it, he said, unless this one, who is the more beautiful among you, showing Guido, give me peace, as a sign and pledge of this your promise. Then Guida turning to Guido said to him: Although he has asked a great thing, yet do for him, son, what he asks. Guido therefore James, in sign of peace and covenant, having kissed, gave him two roots of ginger; fills him with an odor of wondrous sweetness: saying, that one to Presbyter John, the other to Presbyter Mark on his behalf they should carry. But James himself straightway, by that kiss, was filled with so great an odor of sweetness, as if in his body were gathered all the aromatics of the world: so that that sweetness untried, was to him a full security of the promise. After these things they set out with the Saint, and to St. Martin James returned: and before the doors of the church he found John the Presbyter, to whom all these things had now been revealed, awaiting. And seeing James he said to him: whom he transfers by a kiss to John the Presbyter. A good mouth you have kissed today. Come hither, my son, and give me the kiss of peace, and the root of ginger sent to me. He did, as he said: and straightway after the kiss, that odor of sweetness going forth from him, wholly entered into John the Presbyter himself: but with the root of ginger touching his mouth and eyes, he kept it for Relics. But Presbyter Mark ate his root.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Various miracles wrought at Pisa.

[26] But St. Bona, not only being on pilgrimages, but also dwelling at home, At home also she is famous for miracles: was strong in sanctity of life. And that the sanctity of her life might be proved by the testimony of miracles, the virtue of the divine power was ever present to her for healing the sick, and (as it was expedient) perpetrating diverse miracles. Of whose numerous multitude certain ones here as it were for the sake of example are subjoined, which through her still living in the flesh the Lord wrought: from which how powerful she was with God, and how compassionate to her neighbors, evidently appears.

[27] When now the church of St. James del Poggio was, by the help of that Bl. James and St. Bona, as she had promised, consummated; that being constructed by divine counsel, it might not lack the divine Office; and Bl. James, its designer and maker, might there have due veneration; the Monks of St. Michael de Orticaria, who by the will of St. Bona had obtained that church, A monk chosen by herself began to treat of sending a Presbyter there. And at length in this prudently and in common they consented, that he of the Monks, whom St. Bona should have willed, should go there to stay. To whom when Abbot Simeon had on that account come, she answered: The Lord Jesus Christ wills, that Dom Paul go, there to serve St. James. And through that Abbot, after the likeness of the strong woman, sending the girdle to the Canaanite, that is to Dom Paul, changing him from his own will by reverence for the Saint, to St. James del Poggio to stay, she said, that the next morning Paul should undertake the journey to her, that he should come to speak to her. When therefore the Abbot had reported all things to the Monks, Dom Paul answering, said: Lady Bona has thought best of me, that to St. James I should come about to drink vinegar. Nevertheless consenting to the will of St. Bona, morning being made he undertook the journey, going to her, as she had commanded through the Abbot. Whose hand she out of reverence for the Order wished to kiss, but he refusing she could not. St. Bona therefore said to him, she frees him from the fear of penury to be endured there. knowing his mind and words; Go, for you will not drink vinegar, as you fear, but of good wine you will have sufficiently. For Bl. James told me, that he wishes to be your friend and brother, nay he wishes to have you for Lord. Who departed, and served that church.

[28] To the said church on the feast of St. James seven Pisan Clerics, the best singers, came. And when there with modulated voices they had sung; the singing finished they began, pricked with compunction, of the passing of all things, except the service of God, from the passing of that singing itself, to think. And at length, that at St. Michael de Orticaria in common they should serve the Lord, Certain Clerics devoutly singing by an oath they bound themselves to one another. The next day three of them returning to the same church, and having seen from afar in it Lady Bona, with a certain devout woman and girl; said to one another: Let us sing to the Lord, that Lady Bona may be delighted in His singing. And while singing that Responsory, which begins, In the sight of the Angels, they had come to the doors of the church; they sang there more attentively and sweetly. While they sang there appeared upon the altar of St. James the Lord Jesus Christ, with the twelve Apostles, with them there most sweetly singing. Which yet no one could see or hear, except St. Bona and that girl: who also therefore terrified, cried to her mother: for with the pure and simple her speech and singing. The singers' singing finished, Dom Paul said to Bl. Bona: These Clerics sang marvelously. Bl. Bona, preferring better things to good, answered: Their singing in comparison of that, she sees on the altar Christ and the Apostles singing more sweetly: which meanwhile I heard, was the singing of asses. At which Dom Paul wondering, said to her: And what singing did you hear? To whom she answered: Because those singers sang from devotion, they pleased Christ the Lord: and therefore He with His twelve Apostles appeared visibly on the altar, and there most sweetly while the singers were singing chanted. In this deed in Bl. Bona blessed Cecilia is presented to us, except that a greater gift of grace appears, that the Lord to her, than that she to the Lord chanted.

[29] an image of His own received from Him, In the same church when on a certain occasion according to custom she familiarly spoke with Christ, holy Bona said to Him; I would wish to have from You an icon, which would contain Your expressed similitude; that through it a memorial and seal of You holding in the arms of body and heart, I may oftener be consoled in it. He straightway bestowed on her one, which she afterward gave to the church of St. James, in which it had been given her, and in it up to today perseveres.

[30] Before the same icon when on a certain occasion in the same church St. Bona given to prayer stayed; that image with St. Bona, as it had frequently been wont, spoke. Which seeing a certain spiritual woman, she grows pale at the glory of the Trinity seen in it. being with her there, was made pale as ashes. But Bl. Bona, as having contemplated more subtly and attentively, was made pale enough, so that to her as to His own spouse fits that of the Spouse; I am black, but beautiful. That woman crying out to Dom Paul, that he should come to see marvels; he came: and while he beholds Bl. Bona most pale, turning his gaze to that image, he saw it, as if incarnate and swollen, and from it as it were scintillating rays of the sun. Cant. 1:4 And while inquiring he insisted on the cause of her paleness, at length the Saint said to him: There appeared to me in the most resplendent form the Trinity, whose glory and splendor I could not endure. By this indeed to her that Epithalamic saying fits evidently; Do not consider me that I am dusky, because the sun has discolored me, who by His roundness, splendor, and heat expresses the Trinity. Cant. 1:6

[31] bread given to St. James by the cellarer she receives from him. Wishing also Bl. James to augment toward his said church the devotion of St. Bona, and toward St. Bona herself the reverence of men, to the often-said church he came in the appearance of an old pilgrim, and from the Cellarer asked alms. He saying that he had not denarii, asked of him whether he wished bread. And Bl. James answering, that he would gladly take bread, the Cellarer delivered him one bread. Which straightway at Pisa to his St. Bona Bl. James presented and gave, saying: This your Monks delivered to me, who at my church and yours of the Poggio stay. A little after that Cellarer coming to St. Bona, then accompanied by several; St. Bona said to him: Lately to you came a most excellent pilgrim, and you did well in bestowing on him bread. and she shows it to him, At which he wondering of the singularity of one pilgrim and praises, since almost innumerable pilgrims pass thence; St. Bona added: That pilgrim was Bl. James; and to me he brought the bread, which you gave him. In sign and faith of which she produced that bread, asking whether he knew it. Who recognizing the bread most certainly, wondered the more at these things heard. When of that bread from St. Bona, those who were present, asked, she would not give it to them. But to give she refused not from tenacity, whose hand was quite stretched out, and who had her palms ever extended to the poor: but of that bread she thought I know not what mystical thing. Perhaps also she understood there to be some person there, unworthy to eat and receive of that bread: whence if she had then given it to all, against the Evangelical precept, she would give what is holy to dogs, but to others to give of it she refuses. and would set pearls before swine. Furthermore if giving to some she should deny to someone, she would necessarily have generated a sinister suspicion of him in the minds of others. That therefore she might at once avoid sin and scandal, the most prudent Virgin refused to give of that bread to anyone.

[32] She leads the Monks with her invisible, There was sometime a contentious disputation among the Monks of St. Michael de Orticaria, which of them ought to be sent to the impending feast of St. James del Poggio, so that up to the Vigil of the said feast no one went. But Bl. Bona not wishing their discord to be published into the scandal of the people, and the church of her St. James, on its feast especially, not to have necessary ministers; to St. Michael on the very Vigil of the festivity she came, and in the church stood in the midst of them. And that she might fulfill that, for whose cause she had come, she said to them: Is there any of you, who wishes to go to St. James? They excusing themselves from going, lest of them men should speak, because the hour was now late, and because the road was full of the multitude of those going there; St. Bona said to them again: And if by no one you should be seen would you come? Which heard hoping to see some miracle, straightway a sufficient number with her undertook the journey. And going, through the whole way, by no one of so great a multitude likewise going were they seen. But when thus invisibly walking, they had come to a certain broad plain; that miracle might grow upon miracle, and they obey the Saint in all things, she says to them: Do you wish to see how to St. James I walk, when I wish? They answered that they greatly desired this. And straightway while they beheld she was raised from the earth, and she raised passes along the way: and through a bow-shot in the air, as an arrow, passed. And when they beheld her thus going, by running they followed her, feeling no hindrance from the multitude of those going. Behold through this Saint the deed of Christ repeated for us, while as He through the example of a little one led the elated disciples to the way of humility; so this one recalled the discordant Monks by the exhibition of a miracle to concord. By the spirit also of Elisha she was strong, except that it seems greater to make others see invisible things or unseen, than to make others not seeing see things seen by others.

And lest the spirit of any of her companions be believed to have been wanting, in holy Habakkuk let us contemplate his motion through the air.

[33] Brother Thomas at St. James del Poggio being sick, on account of fevers abstained from wine. Who the wine, she drives away a fever, of which the Saint had tasted, drinking in part, by her merits straightway sweating escaped.

[34] But behold one of the days, Dom Paul, Abbot of St. Michael de Guanio of the Lucca diocese, sitting with holy Bona in her house, a certain girl carrying a board fell; and was so gravely dashed upon the marble, that half-alive, she was believed never able to live. By devout women therefore, who from other miracles already knew the sanctity of St. Bona and her power in such things, the young girl was lifted into the Saint's house, and set before her, that she might succor the girl set in the article of death. She from abundance of humility and reverence of sex and order, said to the Abbot: Sign that young girl. He wholly refusing, Bl. Bona, over the afflicted bearing pious bowels, she heals one gravely hurt by a touch: gently touched the young girl, saying; What is the matter with you, daughter? What is the matter with you? She, healed by the virtue of the voice, first sighed a little; and opening her eyes, as if she had been roused from sleep, answered: I have nothing wrong: and straightway as if she had not fallen, was most fully freed.

[35] Vinibaldus a Pisan citizen loved Bl. Bona with a vehement affection: who recognizing her sanctity, when he named her an incomparable treasure, but unknown to the Pisans, and recounted innumerable things of the praises of her sanctity; his daughter of sixteen years was inflamed with an incredible desire of seeing Bl. Bona. Whom when he had led to Bl. Bona; she being seen and heard, A girl piously devoted to her, toward her was so affected, that she most gladly suffered her braids very dear to her to be cut off by her, and forgetful of her father and home, with St. Bona wished further inseparably to remain. Who when at length by the persuasion of the Saint she had returned home with her father, chiefly because the Saint promised to her that she would come; she was seized with fevers, and nonetheless in the desire of seeing the Saint again persisted. And behold, that girl being alone in the chamber, there appeared to her Christ with the accustomed company, and with Bl. Bona. And by divine grace knowing them and her, she began with loud voices to call the day, on which she had known Bl. Bona, blessed. Which voices the father and family hearing entered to her, and inquired why she so cried. appearing with Christ visits her: To whom she answered: Here is Bl. Bona, and see her; but the others who likewise entered with her, are not to be named by men. And when the father and others looking round on every side had seen no one, the girl being left they went out of the chamber. Then Christ, and those who were with Him, and Bl. Bona said to the girl: At midday tomorrow from this vale of misery to the heavenly kingdoms you shall pass. And these things being said they departed. But the girl raising herself in the bed, because she could not follow them with her feet, with loud voices after them cried: Hear me, hear, and what you have deigned to promise me, fulfill. And because a thing hoped and promised, if it be deferred, afflicts the soul of the one awaiting; she ceased not to ask what hour it was; until midday being made she heard from her father, That it is midday. And when thence filled with joy she praised the Lord; behold again the Lord Jesus Christ, with those with whom He had come before, and with Bl. Bona, appeared to her saying, that with her father and the other household she should make a communion of wine by singing. Which being done, and admonished about the hour of death again revisits her. commending her spirit into the hands of Christ, she rested in peace. In that girl is most openly demonstrated to us, how great reverence and devotion Christ the Lord had received toward St. Bona; since to that girl, praised from this alone, He granted the gift of His apparition while living, and bestowed the glory of eternal fruition already dead.

[36] Another Pisan likewise, by name Bonseniorus, of his wife, Palmeria by name, begot an only son. And when on the holy day of the Epiphanies they sat glad at supper according to custom, and the mother held the son, who was of one year, in her lap; she took a knife about to cut something. Which the little infant unexpectedly seizing, fixed in his own forehead. Which the father and mother seeing, were made most sad, Absent she knows the curses cast by the father of the hurt boy on his wife, because another son they had not had, nor had, nor further expected. Yet upon the mother of the boy the father, goaded by sadness, redoubling words of malediction said. Morning being made the Saint seeing the father of the boy, coming to the church (as is the custom), and calling him; first of the curses sharply rebuked him, which against the merit of his wife he had said against her; admonishing that secretly he should bring the boy to her. Whom when he had brought to her, as she had admonished; she having kissed the wound three times, impressed on it the sign of the salutiferous Cross: and straightway the wound was so consolidated, that in the place of the wound not even any vestige of a scar appeared. The boy also alive up to today perseveres, by name Bonajonta, of about fifty years. But the Saint, filled with the truth of virtues, and heals the boy by a kiss, despising human praise as vain and false, and teaching it must be despised, enjoined the father of the boy, that this deed, while she lived, he should reveal to no one. Behold how evidently in the manner of the deliverance St. Bona imitated Elisha, and in the precept of discipline Christ.

CHAPTER IV.

By the prophetic spirit future things foreknown, and the secrets of the heart known.

[37] But as in Bl. Bona the sanctity of life by the preceding miracles is most openly proved, Knowing future things and the secrets of hearts by the prophetic spirit, so specially and appropriately the purity of her mind by the few following is demonstrated: in which and from which it appears openly, how greatly in her the gift of prophecy was strong, while she foretold so many future things, and the secrets of many hearts, and also certain hidden things of the Scriptures, as far as it was expedient, disclosed. Nor let this seem wonderful or difficult to anyone. For the Virgin, holy in body and spirit, had a spirit in the manner of a mirror, broad by compassion, smooth by gentleness, pure by simplicity, wiped clean by exercise, and joined to the divine Spirit by intense desire. Whence in it without any difficulty by the divine Spirit Himself, in whom are all things, most clearly both the secrets of hearts, and also the future and mystical things, which the divine Spirit willed, were reflected.

[38] A certain Pisan citizen, a ship and necessaries being prepared, had proposed to cross over, but prevented by death he could not. a contract entered secretly by her about a ship to be conducted, Lest therefore from the preparation of the aforesaid one his wife should incur damage, a certain man compassionating, concerning conducting the ship made an agreement with her. Which being done he grieved vehemently, that without the counsel of his St. Bona he had done this: because in all his business, needing counsel, he was wont to require her counsel. Therefore grieving and sad he comes to St. Bona. But behold to the Saint praying this whole business was revealed, and moreover his coming to her. Who having sent out Agnes her servant, says to her: Go, tell such a one coming, that he has done his deeds badly: nor now will he speak to me, yet to me at vespers let him return. She did, as her Lady had commanded her: and he too then withdrawing, at vespers returned. The Saint therefore said to him returned: You have done your business badly. Say nothing to me: but go, and with that Lady, to whom you are obligated, so treat, that she absolve you from the bond of your promise. For if you go, with the ship you will perish and the goods. Likewise, also if she send the ship this time, both the ship and the goods and all existing in it will perish, she bids it be rescinded, only one excepted, who shall report the truth of the matter done. He departed, and as the Saint counseled, by his own industry was absolved from the promise made to that Lady. Who deriding the prophetic words of St. Bona, sent the ship by another. But, wonderful, and sad to say! all things, as the Saint had foretold, came to pass; and one was divinely saved, and that she, if she loose it, would perish, she foretells. who after the likeness of Job should announce the deed done to the aforesaid Lady, and consequently prove Bl. Bona in all things veracious, and likewise teach that Lady and others, not to despise the words of the Saint.

[39] Amid pious colloquies Dom Paul, of whom above we made mention, and another Monk and her Presbyter John, on a certain day with St. Bona in her house had spent no small time, she to them and with them speaking of spiritual and heavenly things. They asking of her license of withdrawing, that she might confirm her useful discourses by a following sign, the Saint said: Wait a little, for I wish to give you of the dates, which three women bring me, each of them bringing her own. One of whom carries hers as it were unwilling, inasmuch as to be given to Presbyters; and now they are crossing the bridge. But for her who carries unwilling, those very dates in the tavern-keepers' game will fall on the way; but those being washed and wiped, at length with the others she will bring them, and you will have thereof. And behold after a little hour three women entered to her: she who had carried unwilling, and to whom had befallen, she indicates by whom and with what affection the dates are brought to her, what the Saint had foretold, was suffused with much blush of shame in her face. The offered dates therefore the Saint placidly receiving and with much benignity, first those of that unwilling one, she mingled all together. That the Saint might lessen her shame, those were not discerned which had been brought by her, although (as has been said) they alone a little before had been washed and wiped, and the Saint gave of those dates, as she had promised, to the aforesaid Presbyters and Monks. Yet that unwilling one of her thought and words she duly rebuked, saying: that not to Presbyters is done, but to God, what to them in view of God and reverence of the Order is exhibited, the Lord Himself protesting; Who hears you, hears me; and what to one of the least of mine you have done, to me you have done. Luke 10:16, Matt. 25:40 And, that for all her marvelous deeds it may suffice to have said of this one alone; since this, and her other miracles always (if it be well attended) some utility and spiritual instruction accompanies; it is plain openly, and she requires a cheerful mind of the giver. that they were done not by any art, but only by the virtue of God. For miracles wrought by any art or the ministry of the devil, such as will be the miracles of Antichrist, no utility accompanies, as is to fly through the air, and for an hour to make some dead person move or speak. It is plain also that the miracles of St. Bona

were like the miracles of Christ, because to each always some utility followed.

[40] The Saint had a lamp in the church of St. Martin, Absent she defends her lamp, by whose light she was wont, the Matin Lauds finished, to read the psalmody: and when on a certain night the Presbyter Mark of venerable memory could not sleep, lest he should pass the idle nocturnal time, before the Matin hour rising from bed, that he might read the Psalms, he came to the aforesaid lamp. To which progress the devil envying (because he was a holy and good man) the lamp itself toward his face by pushing moved, that he might either extinguish or break it. But neither could he effect, St. Bona by her merits restraining him. Morning being made the Saint said to Presbyter Mark, do not further go out of the dormitory before the striking of the clock, because I will not defend for the rest, in favor of Mark, as this night I defended. Salutary admonition of the Saint, since a sheep is safer in the flock than alone, and by Solomon it is said, Woe to one alone: and as the Lord says, It is not good for man to be alone. Eccles. 4:10, Gen. 2:18

[41] And because of Presbyter Mark we have now made mention, all the deeds and sayings of the Saint touching him, conjointly here we have resolved to narrate, although they were perpetrated at diverse times; of that Presbyter Mark premising a few things, for the knowledge of his sanctity. Of the Presbyter of holy life That Presbyter in the often-said church of St. Martin serving under the rule of Bl. Augustine, for sixty years and more up to the happy term of his life in virginity of the flesh, purity of mind and work, served the Lord and the numerous people of the same church. And because he was simple and pure in work, God gave him grace in speech, especially in those things which are required in a useful Confessor, namely the benign reception of sinners, and of the prudent Confessor, the affable handling, the discreet enjoining of satisfactions; so that not only the men of the Pisan city, but also of other cities of Tuscany almost innumerable flowed together to him for the sake of confessing. Yet of their multitude so great, no one ever departed from him unconsoled, since from St. Bona he had received this in command, to whom she enjoined not to dismiss penitents without solace. that he should suffer no sinner to depart from him without consolation and counsel, as he himself three days before the term of his life revealed to a certain Presbyter of the same church, Girard by name, namely for the instruction of him and of others in the same people to come.

[42] From that Presbyter Mark certain devout women on a certain morning, that he should sing Mass for them, asked. She rebukes the same, that having suffered pollution he would not sing Mass. Who saying that he had not the skill of singing, what they asked to do he refused, the chief cause, why he renounced singing, keeping silent. St. Bona, who was in the same church, knowing this all fully, said to him secretly: You do not wish to do, what these from devotion ask, because into pollution you fell this night. But confess this to some Priest; and, the Our Father being said, confidently come to sing, because the devil by this wished to hinder your progress. Who, I beseech, of the masters would have resolved a question of this matter more clearly and discreetly, since by the discernment of spirits she knew the cunning of the devil, and according to the requirement of justice and the reason of sin, she attended that that is not to be imputed to a man as sin, to whom in no way it communicated free will: and for the caution of humility persuading confession and satisfaction, she taught that fault is to be feared in this, where fault was not.

[43] Again on a certain morning, the Matin Lauds finished, St. Bona said to the same Presbyter Mark: She prescribes the penance to be enjoined on a woman sinner about to come, Now to you for Confession will come a woman, laden with sins: to whom for satisfaction enjoin, that she visit the thresholds of St. James in Galicia, clad in woolens against the flesh: for which cause her sins will be remitted to her, and returned to Pisa according to custom, soon by death she will pass to eternal life. Like this very often and almost innumerable times she did, foretelling the coming of diverse persons, for the sake of Confession, to him. Whence he forewarned and instructed by her, knew better, how he should bear himself toward each one. And therefore he obtained special grace in enjoining penances; and in freeing sinners.

[44] The often-said Presbyter Mark for no small time, interpolatedly however, she frees him from a pain of the head, suffered in his head heaviness and pain: of which to St. Bona complaining, he heard from her: Do you wish me to free you? He, with desire and at the same time humility answering, said; I wish it, Lady. With her hands therefore the woman of virtue began about the temples to press his head, and to press at the same time upon the crown of the same Presbyter the most powerful hand of Jesus Christ. Who feeling pain from the pressure and constriction, a complaint nature extorting, said; Alas! do you wish to kill me? And wondering at the third hand pressing, his eyes raised he saw there the Lord Jesus Christ, and upon his crown His most holy hand. Furthermore the difference of hand to hand was not only in dignity, but also in a visible sign was demonstrated. For in the skin of his crown, where the hand of Christ had pressed, three or five pits from then all his life-time appeared, as is wont in soft wax or earth, when in them a finger is impressed, to appear: which pits in his crown several, who still survive, with their own eyes beheld, and with their hands handled. Then St. Bona said to Presbyter Mark: Further up to my death, and thence up to thirty years you will not suffer in your head. These being completed for infirmity indeed you will not drink warm water, nor lie in bed; but soon after; when the Lord wills, and foretells he would survive her by 30 years: to glory you will fly. All which the event of the matter afterward proved. For thirty years being completed from the death of St. Bona, the following day, which was then Sunday, he called the aforesaid Presbyter Girard: who up to today in the same church serves the people and God, and who to me the writer of this work this and many other things related, which from the said Presbyter Mark, most familiar with the Saint, he had received. And admonishing him to diligence and benignity about the government of the people, especially of benignity to be had toward sinners, he said to him: Now are completed the thirty years, of which St. Bona foretold me. I shall live little longer, because this week I shall die, but on what day I do not say. And so it came to pass, as the Saint foretold and he himself. For on the following Wednesday, which from the completion of those years was the fourth day, in the evening after supper the term of this misery was the beginning to him of eternal fruition; since no infirmity in him had preceded, nay on the same day through the city more than usual he had gone, in diverse places with diverse persons making the last communion of charity. But he was buried in the often-said church of St. Martin, outside the chancels on their left side, near himself on the same side of the chancels having the burial of Presbyter John of venerable memory. Furthermore on the other side and the other side of the chancels, is the tomb and grave of St. Bona. But sufficiently fittingly in the midst of them the same Presbyter John dead rests, who living was of the one master, but of the other minister and guardian. This holy man of God Mark, in life and after death, is reported to have been famous for miracles; who also is buried near her. of which more remain to be said, but those on account of their multitude and dignity desire a proper work: and moreover this treatise concerning St. Bona is prolonged beyond what we believed. From all these things concerning St. Bona it is gathered evidently, how powerful with God she was in work, and how veracious with men in speech.

[45] But as by the immediately preceding it is shown, how worthy she was of God, A matron devoted to St. Gregory as her own, who deigned to associate her in the same work; so by this following, how greatly she was loved by the Saints. For a certain woman, Theodora by name, devoted to St. Gregory, dwelt near St. Bona; who in all her necessities was wont to invoke that St. Gregory, calling him her own. When therefore she so very often invoked him, St. Bona said to her on a certain occasion: Is Bl. Gregory so totally yours, that you so invoke him? She answered: He is. And she: Labor, she said, if you can hold and defend, that he is yours. Time running on the feast of St. Gregory came: and because the aforesaid Theodora had now for a long time not visited the church, which near a certain castle, Fisecchum by name, of the Lucca diocese she had built in his name and honor; thither she went with Priestly garments, which for that church she had prepared, on that feast desiring to be there. When therefore she had thither according to her desire come, the morning of the festivity being made, she seeing herself deprived of the company of the Devotees pleasing to her, the Lord causing it, straightway the will of returning was present to her. Lest however without Mass she should come, she asked the Priest of the said church, that by reading he should say Mass for her. Who scarcely giving consent, while for the Mass he prepared the necessaries, calling her to herself through that very Saint, suddenly a certain man entered the church, who calling the said Theodora said to her: Lady Bona and your other associates and sisters, send to you, that the Mass, food, and all things being omitted, to Pisa to them without any delay you return. She wondering, not grieving, said; Why do they send thus? What has happened? He answered: Other I do not say: and these things being said he departed. But that the miracle might evidently be believed, she began to say within herself: Why did I not ask of this messenger, who he was. For with much wonder stupefied, she had neither invited that messenger to eat, nor inquired his name. The messenger therefore, who had now departed, being recalled, she inquired of him who he was. Who after many things said, that he was named Gregory. And when she wished to retain him at least for dinner: he, by no means acquiescing, departed. That Lady also the same day to Pisa about Vespers returned. And when St. Bona, and the often-said Presbyter John with certain devout women sat together, the said Theodora being seen returned so swiftly, they smiled. Who understanding this laugh made on account of her so accelerated return, said to them: Why do you laugh? Did you not for me destine a messenger? Presbyter John and the others (only St. Bona excepted lest she should lie) said they had sent no messenger. And when she asserted that she had received a messenger from them, adding, that the messenger himself was called Gregory; St. Bona, conscious of the whole business, said to her: You said St. Gregory singularly yours; but he more me, than

you he heard this time; at my petition, offered for your correction, she teaches that he is common to others also. thus suddenly making you return. Do not therefore further say, Mine, but Ours. The religious woman instructs us in these words and deed, that no spiritual gift is by anyone from any presumption to be appropriated to himself; and that the common good is to be preferred to one's own, as more pleasing to the Lord, who desires all to be saved.

[46] To the same Sinibald, of whom above we made mention, a certain friend of his most frequently persuaded, that he should deliver his son to him to be instructed in the merchant's art. Who about this, as also about his other affairs, without the counsel of St. Bona was unwilling to do anything, because in many things he had now experienced, that her prayers, merits, and also counsels had profited him. And at length to St. Bona those three together came, namely the father, and the son, and the friend: and to the Saint setting forth the cause for which they had come, they heard from her: Now withdraw: but to you as it shall please Christ and when it shall please, I will answer. As the Saint had bidden they withdrew. Furthermore that friend, who after the father and son had remained a little, the Saint recalling, said to him secretly, no one at all hearing: Do not labor further for the instruction of this youth, because he within nine days will without doubt die: which although at first when you came I recognized, yet with the father or son hearing I was unwilling to reveal, lest before the time they should suffer a long sadness. But then when you shall see this completed, as I have said, persuade the father of the youth, that you cause him to be buried at St. James del Poggio. These things being said he withdrew from the Saint. But what she had foretold, and what she had persuaded, were fulfilled. Behold how discreet a foreteller, and diligent a procuress she was in the promotion of the church of St. James del Poggio, intending the honor and praise of that St. James most familiar to her.

[47] When now through His Saint the Lord had wrought many marvels, and by her grace causing it, new ones were daily added to the prior ones, so that, their number growing, their multitude was rendered almost innumerable; Dom Paul often above named, very devoted to St. Bona, prudently considering that these were not to be given to oblivion, and now they could not without the help of writing be defended from oblivion the mother of ingratitude itself; for writing things of this kind he proposed to procure papers. Him proposing to write her miracles But it happened that he visited St. Bona, as he and the other Monks of St. Michael were most frequently wont. She his purpose, stored in the cupboard of his heart, the Spirit revealing it knowing, with a certain modest inhibition said to him: Do not be so bold as to do what you propose, because it does not please the Lord, that now it be done. But a time will come, in which God Himself to someone, of whom He shall will that he do what you propose, will reveal to do it, to the glory and honor of His name. But Dom Paul, either forgetful of that his purpose, or, whether she knew determinately his purpose, desiring to make trial, with a certain ambiguity as of ignorance answered; And what did I propose to do, Lady? She most certain of the knowledge of his purpose said; I know well, well. For writing some things which through me His handmaid the Lord has wrought, she bids it be left to be done by another. you have thought to buy papers. Behold our Virgin Lady St. Bona, truly is prudent as a serpent, and simple as a dove, while from purity of intention for the caution of humility, she so on her own account concerning herself prohibits marvels to be written, that yet from abundant prudence she leaves to the writing of them place and time, asserting them at some time to the praise of the divine name to be written, after the likeness of a serpent, the honor of her head in all things and above all things preserving.

CHAPTER V.

Acts of the last two years of her life. Disease, death, Burial.

[48] Two things worthy of memory concerning our Saint therefore seem here to be set apart, Before two Monks because it is believed, that these two happened not much before the term of her life. One of which is this. One of the days Dom Paul and another Monk with St. Bona, from morning until the appearance of the stars, sat together: for absorbed by the sweetness of the words, which proceeded from the Saint's mouth, neither of food, nor of time, nay nor of themselves thought anything. Her aspect also and face during those discourses changed so, that when she then had fifty years and more, suddenly her face appeared as of a girl of twelve years: and again, when over her own face she had drawn her hands, her face and countenance according to the requirement of age and the debt of time was rendered: and so when and as often as she had wished this most easily she did, as if in her hands were the power of transmuting nature. In marvels of this kind they spent the whole day, as the space of one very short hour: and at length evening being made the Monks returned to themselves, said to the Saint: How shall we at such an hour now withdraw, passing through the city, and the bridge? For they feared to incur a stigma, if by night among men they should walk; which they inevitably had to do: because since they had wholly to return to the monastery, lest outside they should pass the night; and between the Saint's house, in which they had stayed, and their monastery a great river, speaking of spiritual things she repeatedly changes her countenance: by name the Arno, flows; and on account of the lateness of the hour there were not at hand the little boats, transporting men; it was necessary for them so great a space, namely almost half a mile, through the city and men, both descending to the bridge, and from the bridge toward the monastery ascending, to cross, as that monastery and the Saint's house are distant from one another. And although by so doing it happened to them to double the way, in comparison of the journey which would be made by crossing through the river; yet they weighed scandal more, than the weighing of the journey. To them therefore, set in this distress, and detaining them longer with her, St. Bona succored, saying; Go securely by the way of the shortcut, for near the Arno you will find a youth, who will transport you in a little boat. Furthermore from the Saint's house up to the river both the way was short, and men few. They went, and the river by the help of the youth, as the Saint had foretold, they crossed, shortening the way, and avoiding all scandal. And by so great a desire of returning by fear of scandal they were held, that while they crossed nothing at all to that youth they spoke. But afterward when they had crossed, they turned, desiring to inquire who that youth was: and looking round on every side, neither the youth, nor the little boat could they see. From which it is gathered, that that youth was of the number of the Angels or Saints, she causes them to be carried over the river by an Angel. who by the prayers and merits of St. Bona freed the Monks from that article of perplexity: for so dear to the supernal citizens was she, that not only she herself, but also others on her account were present as a help, in every business and opportune time.

[49] But the other is this. Two years or thereabouts, Her girdle is formed into a Cross, before the Saint's death there appeared to her her Lord Jesus Christ, saying to her: The iron girdle, with which you are girt, take off; and delivering it to your Presbyter John, tell him, that thence he himself make a Cross. The devout Virgin did what the Lord commanded. The Presbyter John too, a portable forge being obtained, when he was alone, put that girdle into the fire; and drawing it from the fire heated, placed it on the anvil. And when he had raised the hammer, to strike the girdle; soon without any blow that girdle was marvelously turned into a most beautiful Cross; that Cross without doubt being fabricated by Him, who fabricated the dawn and the sun, and who was called the son of a smith. And suddenly a great light coming from heaven, shone round about John the Presbyter: from whose light's splendor one drop of blood fell upon the Cross, John the Presbyter himself beholding it: which drop from the divine body of Christ, and from His most precious blood is believed to have emanated. Whence that Cross, from its marvelous formation, is deservedly to be venerated, and from the effusion of the most holy blood is consecrated. Which Cross, marvelous and so worthy, the most holy Virgin delivered to her church of her St. James del Poggio, there for Relics to be kept, where also up to today in memory of this miracle it is shown: and as truly venerable is adored. From that miracle it is gathered evidently, how greatly that carrying of the girdle was pleasing to the Lord, and is besprinkled with a drop of blood: and from that carrying the holy Virgin was acceptable to God; since that girdle by so marvelous a miracle the Lord Himself exalted; from the girdle, which the Saint carried against her flesh, Himself making the form of a Cross, to which the divine flesh was applied, that so by means of the cross the flesh of the Saint, might seem coupled and associated to the divine flesh. The Presbyter John too is compared to the most holy Abraham: because as he to God, by the promptitude of an obedient will, without the following of the proposed work, is shown to have pleased the Lord; so also this one's obedience, without a blow, by the association of the divine work, and the exhibition of a sublime miracle, is proved acceptable to God.

[50] The reverence of this Cross by the words of the sacred Virgin was increased. For when a certain Monk of St. Michael, Magnus by name and as is believed in fact, gravely sick, had approached the term of this life, and the beginning of the future; Dom Paul, wishing to fortify his departure by the virtue of that most holy Cross, held that Cross in his hands before him, until the said Monk expired. But on the fourth following day, when Dom Paul, as if announcing said; Our brother Dom Magnus is dead; by whose virtue a monk passes to heaven without purgatory. she answered: He is not dead, but from death without the trouble of any intermediate penalty he passed to life. And the Cross, which you believed him to hold in his hands, he did not hold, because at his passing it was taken from his hands, and then beyond purgatory carried. From which veracious words of the Saint it is gathered, that that Monk from the penalties of purgatory, by the virtue of that Cross, was freed; since according to the words of the Saint, not on this side, but beyond purgatory it was carried.

[51] But the time approaching, in which it pleased the Lord to compensate the merits of His most holy Virgin with a condign reward, her death imminent, and to satisfy the will of the heavenly court, which desired the presence of this soul of so great virtues (nay, that I may so say, which on her account could not otherwise fittingly take vengeance, that the Spouse of the universe of them and Lord, with the most blessed Mary their Lady, glory and Queen, and many others from that court not slight, from the heavens to the earth by her odoriferous merits and most powerful prayers so often she drew; and there long, as it were at the arbitration of her will, detained) St. Bona together

with her familiar Presbyter Mark humbly came to the Prior, and saying that it was the purpose of her mind, again to visit the thresholds of Bl. James in Galicia; for doing this from him, as from her Prelate, asked license. To whom the Prior, she asks license of going to St. James in Galicia; as if wondering, answered: Whither do you wish to go, Lady, since all say that the time of your death is imminent (for her Angel, as is believed, spreading it abroad, they then as it were commonly said, that the passing of Lady Bona of St. Martin was imminent) I do not therefore wish that you go now, lest it befall this house to be deprived of you, and consequently of the many goods, which by your at least bodily presence are hoped to come to it. She not ignorant of these things, but conscious, with humble instance said: Give me license of going, grant me your horse and the boy James up to the bridge of the Serchio: because before I cross it, I shall know the truth about my passing: and, if I shall know I am to die, with the boy and horse I will return, otherwise my journey I will pursue these being sent back. The Prior secure of her promise, that she could not deceive or lie, permitted her to depart, and thither within half an hour transported, and granted the things asked. When therefore she with the boy a little beyond St. James del Poggio had proceeded, descending from the horse, she said to that boy James: Behind this hedge I will rest a little, but you here with the horse patiently waiting, in no way call me. Thither therefore behind the hedge came to her her familiar companion and associate Bl. James the Apostle: and lest His Saint should be frustrated of her purpose, in the space of about half an hour to His thresholds in Spain He led her likewise and led her back, whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not, but she knows. After these things returned to the boy, awaiting as had been bidden him by her, Blessed James accompanying her, clad in the appearance of a certain white pilgrim, she says to that boy weeping: Son, I am sick, and after I departed from you, to St. James I went, as I had proposed and wished, and as you see I have returned. In indication of which journey she exhibited to him those things, which pilgrims were wont to bring back from St. James of Galicia, she returns thence with the accustomed signs: and which it was established to the boy she had not at all had before. Who hearing of the sickness, and seeing the tears, suspecting violence inflicted on her, said: Perhaps that pilgrim inflicted injury on you. She answered: No son, for that one is a good pilgrim, and carried me in going and returning. Which being said that pilgrim disappeared.

[52] But St. Bona, wishing to fulfill what she had promised the Prior, and the boy's leg broken by a demon, for returning wished to mount the horse, and could not. She said therefore to the boy: Help me, that I may mount: and behind me you shall sit on the horse, that on it you may hold me weak and wearied. These being humbly fulfilled by him, and they thus returning to Pisa, there appeared suddenly a certain black war-horse, gnashing and roaring, and without a bridle running about everywhere. St. Bona therefore says to the boy: Do you fear that horse, which is without doubt evil? Who, strengthened by the presence of St. Bona, answered: I fear nothing as long as I am with you, Lady. But behold suddenly that war-horse approached them, and the boy James in the hip with its hoofs so struck, that it utterly broke it, the skin of that hip only on that part, which clung to the horse, unhurt. Which straightway blessed Bona knew, and compassionating the boy said: James, have you suffered anything evil? Who for love of her not feeling the pain, said: No, Lady. She however who by force of compassion could not be alien from suffering, said to him: Stand firmly as you are upon the horse, and I alone will descend from it. And by the merit of compassion strength being given to the Saint she descended, and held the boy's leg and the hip hanging. she restores by a touch. Which thus hanging the boy beholding wept, but the Saint comforting him, said: Fear not. And bringing part to part, her virtuous hand she gently drew over it. Wonderful to say: forthwith joined to one another and totally consolidated were the parts, and the boy himself was restored to his pristine safety and strength. To whom, in testimony of full healing and as a sign, she bade, that he should descend from the horse, and for her mounting hold the stirrup. Who the Saint in all things cheerfully and humbly obeyed.

[53] And when the Saint sitting on the horse, and the boy James going on foot, together proceeded toward Pisa; Blessed Bona, To the same boy she reveals that on account of sin, a revelation being made to her sad from compassion toward the boy, who very devoted to her had several times accompanied her, said to him: It seems your soul is in sin before God, because in mortal sin you will depart, and therefore in the cemetery of St. Martin you cannot be entombed: for no one so dying there will be able to be buried. Which in that James in the subsequent time was fulfilled. For when he had come living up to old age, at length sick to death, at St. Martin he wished to be buried: the following day again by a public hand causing the same will to be corroborated. But the disease growing strong, and evening being made, as if prudently considering, he said within himself; he will not be buried at St. Martin. God is greater than the Saints. Whence the Priest of the holy Sepulchre being called, he adjudged himself to his church, and straightway died and was buried there. These words said to him by the Saint, and also those things, which on this last way happened, this James, the third day before the term of his life, to the often-said Gerard the Presbyter, and he afterward to me the writer related by living voice.

[54] Now her words by proceeding the Saint had finished, when near her church of her St. James del Poggio she had come and the boy, where there still was the little house, of which we have spoken, and the old woman who dwelt in it. And St. Bona said to the boy: I cannot further ride, but this night with that woman and that old man I will stay. But that old man was Bl. James, who disappearing had a little preceded them. But you go to Pisa with the horse, and tell the Prior, that I am sick with the sickness, by which I shall die. Whence tomorrow before light, Presbyter Mark and Presbyter Vitalis the Brothers and Canons let him send me, causing likewise the bier of the dead to be brought, in which I wish to be carried, because I cannot ride: and beware, lest of these things you speak to another than the Prior. Who departed, and the things commanded him fulfilled. Those Presbyters too in the morning, as the Saint had asked, came; and in the aforesaid bier of the dead her house at St. Martin they carried her, the sick woman is brought to Pisa. passing through the midst of the Pisan city, no one at all asking of them who she was, and (as therefore we believe) no one seeing them.

[55] But behold after her carrying, suddenly flew the fame, sounded the rumor, that Bona of St. Martin (for thus she was wont to be called by all) was sick with the sickness, by which she would die. Whence to her flowed together a multitude of men, desiring to see her gracious face, and to be able from her to obtain a final blessing for the greatest gift. Fortified by the Sacraments of the Church But the Saint by sickness compelled lying, and instantly and devoutly asking, by the Prior and Brothers of St. Martin were exhibited after the manner of the faithful all the Sacraments, at the end to the faithful to be exhibited. Which by her with due devotion being received, and all things duly performed, in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred eight, on the third day after the return, which was the third of departing May, the cultivator of the Trinity, the burden of the body being left, migrated to the Lord; the term of this life continuing with the everlasting beginning, that she might in heaven thenceforth continually without intermediary in His own form contemplate Him, she dies on 29 May. who to her on earth many times and with all the other Saints more frequently and familiarly in another's form appeared. And so of so great a treasure, namely her blessed soul, the earth was impoverished, and the heavens enriched. But her virgin body, bowed by frequent pilgrimages, worn out by various and to her succeeding infirmities, attrited by spiritual studies, dried up by fastings and abstinence, and to kiss which, when in the church of St. Martin it lay lifeless, almost the whole Pisan city flowed together (because by spiritual grace her hands not of a dead, but of a living woman, and as it were snowy seemed) by a certain Archbishop and certain Bishops, many Religious and Clerics standing by, and an innumerable multitude of lay men and women being present, and with a great concourse of people honorably is buried. with due reverence, as the apothecary's shop and organ of the Holy Spirit, in the often-said church of St. Martin, outside the chancels on the right side, was given to burial; that there might be a place of rest for the dead one, which had been of prayer for the living. At whose tomb, at the time of her burial, in testimony of her most happy passing to the Father, demoniacs were freed, the crippled raised up, and many and various miracles divinely perpetrated, to the praise and glory of Him, who made St. Bona by the gift of His grace such, that she was admirable in life by glorious miracles, and at length after death on earth deservedly to be venerated, and in heaven blessed without end, namely unto the ages of ages.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VI.

Miracles wrought after death.

[56] After the Saint's passage from this world to the heavens, divine miracles were not wanting, From very many miracles a few are selected by which her entrance into the powers of the Lord might be proved; nor did her mercies fail, by which after the likeness of her merciful Father she was wont to be ready as a help to all invoking her. But many and almost innumerable things by her prayers and merits were divinely shown, all which if they were written would by their numerous multitude generate weariness to the reader, and so individual ones would be hidden by the multitude; and while we wish many things, nothing would be known. It is therefore to be esteemed better, that a few be known of many; than that, the laziness or weariness of reading intervening, a few be unknown with many. Of the innumerable multitude therefore of miracles, through the merits of St. Bona at her invocation divinely perpetrated, truth ever presiding, certain ones as it were for the sake of example are written, and first of one done about Religious, for those especially who from a few know how to gather and conclude many. And since among others let there be set those miracles, which about religious persons through His Saint the Lord wrought: that through her magnificent merits the cured Religious may be witnesses of the clean and immaculate religion in her.

[56] A certain Monk of St. Michael de Guanio of the Lucca diocese, while by the precept of his Abbot in the Roman Curia he stayed, incurred an infirmity, which by the physicians is called the evil "moreca," and could neither rest, nor sleep. There are healed a monk of St. Michael, He having entreated the almighty Lord, that He would free him from that infirmity by the merits of the holy Virgin; the prayer finished, straightway he was so most fully freed, as if in him no such infirmity had preceded.

[57] Brother Rebaldus, of the Order of Preachers, sometime in his preachings of St. Bona spoke sinisterly, and Rebaldus of the Order of Preachers, when men named her a Saint. And because vexation sometimes gives understanding, more than a word; for this or another cause he incurred so grave an infirmity, that even medicines did not profit nor the counsels of physicians. Destitute therefore of human help, and excited by the proclamation of the virtues which through the merits of His Saint in the sick the Lord showed, before speaking sinisterly of her, of the words which against the Saint of God he had said, he repented: and before her tomb prostrated in body and heart, with these words he entreated her: O Lady St. Bona, I pray you, that as Christ loves you and has loved you, so for me ask the same, that He deign by your most holy merits to free me from this greatest infirmity. Wonderful to say! One was the end of the prayer and of the infirmity, and as one most fully freed, in testimony of this miracle afterward he lived long. In which deed the Saint teaches us, that we be not difficult or slow to spare those offending us, and from a grave disease and if they should need also to succor them. The same Brother when in process of time he was much tortured by pain of a tooth, by an operator wished it to be drawn. But the tooth being broken through the middle, the pain of the tooth was increased, although the tooth was diminished. Necessity therefore compelling, he had recourse to the place of prayer and the manner, by which before he had felt the virtue and help of the Saint: and straightway, without any difficulty or trouble, the part of the tooth which had remained with his own hand he drew, as if not in flesh, but in soft wax that part of the tooth were fixed. and from pain of a tooth: Learn, O man, by the example of the Saint, to put no end in doing good even to enemies, but the former ones with new benefits to heap up.

[58] The Provincial Prior of the same Order in Tuscany, four years suffered the quartan fever. Who at length excited by the miracles of holy Bona, and these especially which about the said Brother Rebaldus the Lord had wrought; by the example of his subject, before the Saint's tomb, for his freeing, and the Provincial of the Preachers from the quartan fever. devoutly prayed God and her: and straightway the cause of that infirmity being cut off, that fever withdrew from him, and afterward he lived long whole.

[59] In the following miracles the order of the time of their perpetration, as far as we could investigate, we have resolved to observe; unless perhaps, on account of the identity of place, or the similitude of matter, some be connected: of which the first is this. John a Pisan citizen, in a certain conflict of the people, from his war-horse was thrown down; and set among adversaries, he was mindful of St. Bona. Invoking her therefore as helper, by her straightway he was lifted on the horse. And when again engaging from the same war-horse he had again fallen; she, whom lately he had felt ready for help, again invoked, from her under like swiftness of restoration the benefit he obtained. A third time going to battle, more gravely than the other times he was thrown down, In a fight thrown down from his horse so often he is restored upon it. so that lying on the ground, he was strewn by the feet of horses and adversaries. In such an article of necessity therefore set, he emitted a vow to the Saint, that if she should restore him, as before, on the horse, and free him from that peril, before her tomb a lamp, as long as he lived, he would always cause to burn. Who having obtained what he asked, fulfilled the vow which he had vowed. Behold St. Bona, not ignorant of the good of nature, by the divine example does not reproach what she has already given; but the things asked instantly, she bestows abundantly.

[60] A certain ship, which was called Leo, with four galleys, From shipwreck is freed a ship with 4 triremes, on account of the greatest commotion of the sea, set in so great peril, that the men existing in it esteemed death already in the doors; suddenly to certain of them came into memory St. Bona. She for their freeing being by them invoked for help, straightway in the upper part of the ship there appeared to them the Saint herself, in white garments in testimony of most entire virginity and as a sign of joy clad: and the tempest being allayed, there was made a great tranquillity. In like necessity, in like manner the Saint was present invoked to the ship of St. Christopher, it and two galleys with it, and the goods, and the men existing in them freeing. Who as freed from peril of death, and another with 2 triremes, barefoot and clad in woolens against the flesh, to the Saint's altar in the church of St. Martin with wax candles processionally came, giving thanks for their freeing to God and the Saint. Like exactly about the ship of Bulgarinus and his companions, in the port of Acre laden with precious things, the Saint rendered help invoked: and the men set in it like reverence to the Saint, for their and the ship's and the goods' freeing, made. likewise a third

[61] When on a certain occasion there was so great a tempest in the sea, that the men existing in a certain ship expected only the issue of death; a certain Pisan, and a fourth, the Saint appearing upon a Cross. John by name, holding a Cross taken set against the tempest. And when the sea with its swell swelled over the ship, necessity recalled to his memory St. Bona: who by him invoked for help appeared upon the Cross, and the sea ceased from them, the presence of the Saint most placidly restraining its fury. And because it would be too long to narrate individually all the marvels, which in marine perils about ships and men through St. Bona were divinely perpetrated, this one for all let it suffice to have said, that in that Saint, from the multitude of miracles of this kind, the Spirit of the most blessed Nicholas the Bishop and outstanding Confessor seems raised up, so that now in both sexes seafarers have a Patron and a Patroness.

[63] A certain noble Lady of the city of Lucca, when sitting on a horse outside that city a little she had proceeded; suddenly her horse fell, and she came under the horse, and her right arm so strongly the horse by trampling pressed, that it was enormously broken. Who upon the horse with pains restored, Her broken arm is cured home and to her own bed was led back. And when alone existing in the chamber with open eyes she watched; a certain woman clad in white she beholds coming to her, and her broken arm binding. Of her unknown coming therefore and the binding of the arm wondering, she asked; Who are you? St. Bona, from her coming and the event taking a name for herself, answered: I am a physician (medica). And that Lady said: Whence are you? The Saint answered: I am Bona of St. Martin of Pisa, who that I might heal you have come: and again she bound the hurt arm, drawing over it several times her hands. Which being done the Saint disappearing to her departed, and that Lady's arm to its prior health and strength was restored straightway. But that Lady feeling herself most fully freed, called those existing outside, commanding that the doors and windows be opened. At which they wondering, the Lady said: Do not wonder, for I am fully freed. And they to her: Who freed you so suddenly? She, believing the aforesaid physician to pass by them, with a certain wonder answered: Did you not see the physician, who came to me? They denying and wondering, she told her habit and form, adding that she was called Bona of St. Martin. For the truth of the miracle therefore to be sought messengers are destined to Pisa, to scrutinize, whether at the said St. Martin some Saint or woman of such a name was had. Who as had been bidden them inquiring, of St. Bona, a Virgin most acceptable to God, praiseworthy in works and marvelous in virtues almost innumerable things heard. by St. Bona appearing of her own accord Which when the returned messengers had faithfully related to Lucca; that noble Lady freed from the breaking of her arm, with an honorable company barefoot to the tomb of St. Bona the physician came clad in a hair-shirt; and as long as she lived, to Pisa on the vigil of the Saint's festivity every year came, and before her altar most devoutly passed the night. So began the name of St. Bona and the fame of her virtues in those places round about to be diffused, and to her by the men of those parts reverence to be exhibited. So it came about, that on occasion of the arm healed through the prayers and merits of St. Bona, the arm of the divine virtue was extended in those parts to work many marvels.

[63] To Mornetto a Lucca citizen and his wife Julia there was a son of nine months, who was so gravely struck by infirmity, a moribund boy first that the physicians despairing of his freeing, the immediately following night they fixed for the term of his life, and the coming of his death. The mother therefore, destitute of all human help and counsel, before a certain image of St. Bona, which in a certain church of the same city was had, the Saint herself prayed, and under a votive obligation promised her, that if her son the Lord should free, every year a meal for six poor she would furnish on the feast of St. Bona. The votive prayer finished, through St. Bona, the procuress of the poor and consoler of the mourning, by votive alms, the boy was freed: and in the sixteenth month he was found more beautiful and bigger, than were the other neighboring boys, of a year and a half or two:

so that this very thing was a most certain sign, that the Lord had healed him.

[64] A certain boy of the same city was held by so great a force of fevers, and another: that of his life all the physicians called despaired. Whose mother and sister when to St. Bona in the church of St. Martin they had vowed to give one pall, straightway the boy was most fully freed. The Saints love to be honored by men, because in this the praise and glory of their Creator is procured.

[65] A woman in the same city was pressed by so great an infirmity of body, likewise a woman. that nature almost succumbed to the disease. She for her freeing entreated holy Bona, and by the efficacy of her goodness was freed straightway. A girl of two years, of the parish of St. Christopher of Pisa, was standing at a certain window, raised from the public way by two stories. Whom when by childish incaution from the said window falling her mother sitting opposite with others had beheld; with hasty devotion she cried; St. Bona, to you I commend her. And behold, when the girl falling had come to the ground, who by the beholders, A girl fallen from on high is saved, on account of the height of the fall and the tenderness of the girl, was thought broken and lifeless, straightway by her own power she rose, by her to whom she had been commended kept unhurt; and the eating of the bread, which by falling she had interrupted, she resumed.

[66] Another girl of seven years, of the parish of the often-said St. Martin of Pisa in Chinzica, and another crippled for 7 years. had been so from her childhood crippled, that by herself from bed she could not rise, nor apply food to her own mouth. To whom when several women, on a certain Vigil of the festivity of St. Bona, for the sake of visiting had come; by the ringing for Vespers made mindful of the same Saint, they said to the girl's mother: Why do you not vow St. Bona this your daughter, that by her merits and prayers she may be freed from so great distress? Which she wholly refusing to vow her; the aforesaid women, compassionating the girl thus lying, and excited to devotion to the Saint on occasion of her feast, in common emitted a vow, that if the Lord should free her, a waxen image of seven pounds, according to the number of years of the sick one, they would offer at the Saint's tomb. The vow being emitted, straightway the girl began to extend her little arms: and rising from the bed, was freed from that distress, to augment the reverence of the venerable feast of the Saint. Furthermore those women, what they had devoutly vowed, fully discharged.

[67] When certain powerful men with armed hand approached the house of adversaries, and those adversaries armed nonetheless stood against them, two brothers namely against ten; suddenly a certain kinswoman of those brothers, The Saint being invoked the fight is broken up. among them now striking one another cast herself stretched out on the ground, for so great an imminent peril invoking St. Bona. And suddenly the fierce men, and angry with one another, were without any blow separated; the Lord, through the merits of the Saint dear to Him, prohibiting the effusion of blood, and mitigating their cruel minds.

[68] To Bonajonta, of the same parish of St. Martin, there was a son of a year and a half, who from the disease of the stone goaded by pains, with querulous voices tortured his parents and family. And when the physician called had said that no remedy could be applied to that evil, a boy is freed from the calculus: only incision excepted; by the will of the boy's father, he fixed the following day as the term for the incision to be made. Furthermore the mother, from tenderness of love toward her son, abhorring and fearing the incision, evening being made ungirt and unshod, and to the ground with humble devotion prostrated, when for some time she had prayed St. Bona for the freeing of her son, at length completed her prayer in a votive obligation; promising, that if without incision it should happen the boy to be freed, to the tomb of St. Bona with unshod feet clad in a hair-shirt she would come. Morning being made, when the physician for the boy's incision had come, she said to her husband and to him: Let not the boy be cut, for since he has rested from his accustomed cries in this night, perhaps without incision the Lord will free him. And when the physician investigating after the accustomed manner handled the little member of the boy; he found the stone had come out to the neck of the little rod near the orifice, and gentle compression being applied without any trouble the little stone came out. The mother therefore, blessing the Lord and the Saint, what she had vowed with much devotion fulfilled.

[69] another a hernia: To Teberto, of the same parish, there were two sons: the younger boy in age of five years, Hugolinus his brother for the sake of love embracing, while upon his knees he was caressing him, by that sportive motion the boy was ruptured: who by querulous cries indicating his suffering, his father and brother very much saddened. And when, that on account of this the little boy ought to be cut, the counsel of the physicians was inclined; the mother abhorring incision in her son, did not permit. Evening being made prostrating herself in prayer, for the freeing of her son she humbly prayed the Lord and St. Bona, under a vow's obligation promising, that clad in woolens against the flesh, with bare feet his altar with reverence she would visit. And by the grace of God and the merits of St. Bona, that boy was found totally freed. The mother therefore discharging her vows, to the altar of the Saint, as she had promised, with many present came; giving thanks to God, who through the merits of His Saint Bona to her ruptured son bestowed health.

[70] Bartholomea, of the same parish, when she rubbed the gums of her little niece of nine days, on occasion of a certain infirmity with which she had been born; the breath being impeded, suddenly the little infant was suffocated. Whom when Bartholomea herself had beheld livid, the head-covering cast off, crying herself a murderess, a suffocated girl revives: she began to strike her breast. Many men and women run together: by evident signs they judge the girl to be dead. Of whom one the said Bartholomea, guilty of this peril, consoling her admonished, that the strikings and cries being omitted, to St. Bona, who works so many marvels, she should commend her little niece. Who acquiescing in the sound counsel, on bent knees with tears humbly vowed a vow, that if St. Bona should restore the girl, whom against her vow by suffocating she had killed, to her alive; a wax candle of one pound to her altar with bare feet, clad in woolens against the flesh, she would carry. The words of the vow being completed, suddenly the girl opened her eyes, and extended her little arms and hands; and the breast brought to her mouth she sucked milk, as before, and for a year and more afterward survived; and that woman discharged the things promised by vow.

[71] Henry, of the same parish, had a most grave abscess in his body: which when the physicians had perceived incurable, despairing of his recovery, they abandoned him. Destitute therefore of human counsel and help, the divine he humbly implored, emitting a vow to the Saint; that if she, whom he heard to succor so many in need, an incurable abscess is taken away. to him too should confer the benefit of health; with bare feet, clad in woolens against the flesh, with lights to her venerable altar he would come, and further always on her Vigil on bread would fast and water. Morning being made the man found himself freed from the said abscess, and discharging the vow which he promised, up to today whole perseveres and alive.

[72] Benvenuta, of the same parish, when on a certain day she had long quarreled with her mother-in-law, at length stirred by the spirit of anger, with extended hands several times invoked the devil, that he should receive her into his power. And the enemy of the human race causing it, who is ever ready for the ensnaring of men, she felt her hands somewhat constricted. But the following night there appeared to her St. Bona, saying to her: Into evil hands yesterday you gave yourself. But having had pity on your soul, go to Presbyter Gerard, Canon of St. Martin; and confessing to him what you have done, A woman who had devoted herself to the demon, from the power of the devil, through his ministry and the virtue of the Priestly order, you will obtain freedom. And that she might show Benvenuta herself to need absolution, and likewise render her solicitous and attentive for obtaining it, the same night the same she enjoined her a second and third time. Morning being made, to the said Presbyter, on account of shame of him, as to one known she was unwilling to confess what she had done: but half-fully fulfilling the precept made to her, the Saint appearing and bidding her confess she is freed: to a certain Friar Minor in Confession the whole business she revealed. Who conforming his counsel to the precept of the Saint, to the said Presbyter sent her back. Behold our Saint, to the confusion of many, exhibits reverence to the order of the keys and teaches it must be exhibited.

[73] Albert, of the same parish, had a war-horse, esteemed at the price of a hundred pounds: which suddenly on a certain day in the stable fell stretched out on the ground; and there with much sweat so lay unmoved, that neither by the feet drawn, a moribund horse is healed: or by the ears, or by the tail, in any way did it move itself. And when for so great a damage so suddenly happening the said Albert and the whole family wailed; at length his wife, mindful of Bl. Bona the virgin, fixed her knees on the ground: and straightway the horse, all the others being omitted, who had most frequently handled it, on her alone its eyes directed and fixed; as if it intimated to her, that her, of whom she had been mindful, for its freeing she should ask. Who began her prayer with these words: Although it seem unworthy, you, so precious and to God most dear a virgin, for irrational animals to entreat: yet because this damage is great, you most pious Lady for this horse's freeing I instantly entreat; promising, that if it from this article of death shall be freed, clad in woolens against the flesh, with bare feet with condign lights, to your altar I will come. Wonderful to say! to the end of the prayer was continued the rising of the horse, He freeing it by the prayers of St. Bona, who saves men and beasts. But that Lady, to the divine grace, which through St. Bona she had obtained, not ungrateful, to God and the Saint rendered her vows.

[74] neglecting her feast, and therefore punished, Master John, by nation of Salona, of the parish of St. Andrew in Chinzica, when by his neighbors observing the feast of St. Bona he was admonished, that he should keep that feast with the others; answered; And who was this St. Bona? And when it had been answered him, that she was a holy woman, serving God and devout, and therefore her feast celebrated by the people; the said John added; If she practiced her good deeds well, she did well, I too well wish to do mine. And returning to the workshop with the purpose of working, suddenly he felt a pain in his hand, and looking at it saw it swollen with redness. And when nonetheless he had thus come to the workshop, he found a certain bone had entered the foot of his disciple and hurt it, who was with him in the same purpose of working. Considering therefore the often-said John, that these things had happened on account of irreverence to the feast of the Saint; amendment being promised he is healed, to her altar he came, asking her, that she would free him by her prayers; and vowing, that if she should do this, her feast perpetually while he lived he would keep. The prayer finished, when home he returned, from the pain, redness, and swelling of the hand he was most fully freed: the bone

also went out of the disciple's foot, and the wound made from that bone, totally was healed. But these things were done about the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred forty-nine. But seven years from thence being past, when a certain necessity of working was incumbent on him; and lest he further violate the feast, trusting that by the assumption of the Cross he was absolved from any vow whatever, on the feast of St. Bona, which then was imminent, to labor, he firmly proposed. Yet in the evening of the day preceding the term with prayers he beat upon the Saint, that what concerning this pleased her, in a vision she would deign to show him. And behold the following night he saw in a dream, himself placed near the aforesaid church of St. Martin, opposite a certain street, through which he could look toward the river Arno to the North; and two men upon the bank of the same river, cutting wood with axes; from whom up to the face, they being so occupied not a little, particles of wood came. Those men too beholding, after a little he saw, that the wood being left they struck one another with axes. And when of these things with himself in the dream he greatly wondered, with grief he cried in the dream; Alas! whence comes so great an evil? And straightway he heard a voice answering him; Why do men not keep the feasts of the Virgin? Roused therefore from the dream, by a certain dream he is admonished. as if by a divine oracle he were certified, that feast with the other faithful he kept. It is not therefore to be wondered, if at this time, the world is full of pestilences, sterilities, wars, and other tribulations, in which the feasts of the Saints, who are the intercessors of men with God, are most badly observed. For as the Saints intercede for the devout and humble, so the proud, and those despising the feasts of the Saints and God, justice requiring, in their hardness and in the distresses arising from it they abandon.

[75] Pretiosa by name, of the often-said parish of St. Martin, having suffered a miscarriage, she is freed when dying from a miscarriage, for three days lay in the greatest torment and pain, since the dead creature, within the womb crosswise turned, could not come out. Who beset by such distresses, admonished her kinswoman, that she should vow herself to Bl. Bona in her stead. When therefore she had done so, suddenly the abortive came out, and that Pretiosa was freed from the distresses and from the peril of death; and afterward at a fitting time to the altar of St. Bona with lights she came, with bare feet and clad in woolens against the flesh, as for her freeing her kinswoman had promised, under a vicarious votive obligation.

[76] and another from the bonds of adversaries. Bonajonta, of the same parish, in a certain army was captured by adversaries and bound. And when the adversaries dragged him after them thus bound, of his goods and arms, of which of them they ought to be, with one another treating; necessity recalled to his memory St. Bona. With a devout and humble heart therefore entreating her, he vowed a vow, that if she should lead him freed from their hands back to his home, to her altar with a wax candle of one pound he would come. After the vow emitted, those who dragged him, so far were stirred with the spirit of anger, that striking one another they left Bonajonta himself bound. To whom feeling indeed, but seeing no one, suddenly the hands from the bonds were loosed. And returned home, he rendered his vow; giving thanks to God, who through the merits of the holy Virgin broke his bonds, and freed the bound one from the hands of his adversaries.

[77] A certain devout woman a little jug of oil, on the Vigil of St. Bona, at the evening hour, before her altar carried. Which when a Cleric, walking about the altar, on occasion of lighting the wax candles, inconsiderately with his feet had pushed, several seeing it, that very jug was overturned to the ground. Which the woman, who had carried it, beholding, commended that jug to St. Bona, saying: a little jug of oil before her altar is overturned without effusion, Come, Lady St. Bona, I carried that jug out of reverence to you. A thing new and wonderful! the jug being raised, it without any diminution under the eyes of those standing by was found full, and not even a vestige of any moisture in the stone, upon which the jug had been overturned, could be found.

[78] Two youths on horses running against one another, those horses with their heads so strongly struck against one another, that both horses fell to the ground together, and the girths of the saddle of one of them being broken, that saddle with the one sitting in it, by name James of the parish of St. Martin, by the force of the collision fell backward: and what is greater, that horse, on which the aforesaid James was sitting, fallen from a horse and near death he is healed. from that place was no longer moved alive; and the other horse too, on account of that collision, a little time after expired. Furthermore the said James on the ground so lay lifeless, that since the pulsing motion was not felt in him, very many thought him not home, but immediately to the church as dead to be carried. Yet lifted from the place of the fall onto a bed, without any speech or voice, up to midnight he remained unmoved. When his father, by the persuasion of certain ones, he being as it were dead, emitted a vow to the Saint, that if his son the Lord should restore to him alive, a waxen image of ten pounds to her altar he would carry. The vow being completed, straightway the youth, as if from a most deep sleep awaking, with the first motion of his body emitted a certain voice: and afterward food being asked and taken, to his pristine life and health was restored. The father too of the youth, what he voluntarily vowed, devoutly fulfilled.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the Translations and present cult of the sacred body.

[87] Of the first Translation indicated in the preliminary Commentary, number 3, the monument, written in authentic form, is found thus: Let it be manifestly clear to all, that the body of St. Bona, in the renovation of the church of St. Martin, from the altar, in which it rested, was translated to the new altar of the new church. But then with the body was found a leaden tablet, beneath the said altar with the said body, on which tablet were sculptured the words written below, namely. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation MCCVIII on the fourth Kalends of June, the venerable in fact and name Bona, devotee of this church and minister, rests. Which tablet saw, and with their own eyes read the Brothers, Ligelius de… then Guardian of the said place, and John de Sancto Vito Lector of the said place, The translation of the body made in the year 1364, and Bartholomew de Sarzana, and James de Sardinia all of the Order of Friars Minor, in the aforesaid place staying. All these things both saw, and read, and wrote the aforesaid with his own hand Specialis Bettus Stephani, of the said Chapel of St. Martin of Pisa, who at that time was actually the Visitor of the holy Bodies. Written in the year of the Lord MCCCLXIV on the XIV day of April.

[80] the Franciscans holding the place From this instrument, in which are so expressly named, the Guardian, and Lector, of the aforesaid place, and two other Brothers in the aforesaid place, namely St. Martin, staying; clearer than the noonday light it seemed, that the Friars Minor then held the same, with a just number of so many Religious, that it was worth the trouble for a Lector to be given to the younger ones: yet I believed they did not long persist there; but at the beginning of the XV century being translated to that place which now too they hold, of the Holy Cross, substituted for themselves Sisters of their Order. This opinion moreover that I should lay aside persuades indeed, but hardly persuades the ancient Codex, kept among the aforesaid Sisters (which they call the Agnesine) where in Chapter 2 it is said, that in the year MCCCXXXII, the Prior of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine being dead, the Magnificent Lord Boniface, the new Count of Donoratico, by the indult of Pope John XXII built and endowed there a monastery of St. Clare for forty Nuns, or at least the Poor Clares, to live under the rule of the Friars Minor, who for this should elect four of their number: but the care of souls, attributed to that church (inasmuch as parochial) should bear four Chaplains, for this to be chosen by the Pontiff. Would that there existed that very Pontifical Brief concerning that change: for until it be produced, making express mention of the Sisters of St. Clare, there from then to be placed, there will ever remain a more vehement presumption for my prior opinion, founded in the already said Instrument. Since it could have come about, that the author of the aforesaid book conflated two changes of place into one; and the Brothers held the Parish indeed with all its right, yet with the burden of feeding from the revenues of the place four secular Chaplains for ministering pastoral things: and when experience taught this to be a seedbed of quarrels between the Clergy and the Brothers, these preferred elsewhere more freely to live, with some Chaplains. and so yielded the place to the Nuns, perhaps returning to the same place where first they had dwelt. However it be, by such or another occasion the revenues of that place were quite diminished, so that for four Chaplains, scarcely two could be sustained; and the whole burden at length fell back upon one, constituted in the year MCCCCXLIX, in the time of Pope Nicholas V, by the consent of Julian the Archbishop; under whose rule too the monastery was, it is not known when exempted to the jurisdiction of the Friars, as up to today it remains.

[81] The same Francesco Maria Ceffini, who communicated these notices, also added the following, which from the Italian Latin I exhibit. After the aforesaid Translation the Relics rested upon the proper altar of her name, within the chapel of the most noble family called da Colle, up to the year MDCVII, In the year 1607 the altar being renewed, when a certain Knight Filippo Capriani built and endowed there a new altar under the invocation of St. Mary Magdalene. But while that was being built, the Relics remained with the Nuns within their cloister; and the work finished, thither with great solemnity they were brought back, and placed upon the altar not very splendidly. Yet there remained within the monastery the head, enclosed in a silver vessel, and only on the feast day of the Saint was it wont to be exposed to public veneration. But the devotion of the Pisans toward this their Patroness flourishing again little by little, and alms accumulated to a notable quantity, all things received a more honorable form: the head remains apart. and the head indeed in the year MDCLXXVII was placed in a most elegant case of silver of new work, and one arm too enclosed in another silver vessel: but the other members of the sacred body placed within a chest, wooden indeed, but with precious crystals so encircled, that the whole work, together with the cases of the head and arm, to two hundred fifty

ducats are esteemed to have consumed. in the year 1677 the bones are transferred into a new chest: And the head indeed and the arm are kept upon the inner altar of the Nuns, but the body upon the outer; and all are presented to be seen on the third day of Pentecost, after on the evening of the second day a solemn procession has been instituted, with the greatest concourse of citizens and neighbors.

[82] The feast is nonetheless celebrated by the whole city and diocese on the day XXIX of May under the rite of a Double, and that this was even of old in use the ancient calendars prove. But while these things are written, in the month of August of the year MDCLXXXII, under the press is a little book, comprising the Exercise of a certain devotion, An Exercise of Thursday instituted in her honor specially applied to Thursday; when the devotees of that Saint acknowledge that they receive many graces through her intercession, of which however there is no account taken of writing them, because for us the living fervor of our devotion suffices. The sacred Relics themselves oftener visited by the Ordinaries, were always without any ambiguity approved: and the same came not a few times themselves, to celebrate Pontifically before them the Holy Sacrifice. Several too in various places for the convenience of the people images of St. Bona are had: chiefly in our Cathedral, where the panel of one altar represents her, receiving the habit of St. Augustine. But before the altar, images in the temples. over which the body is placed, a lamp continually burns; and besides this on Thursdays, in the time of the aforenoted Exercise, there are kindled wax candles at the least four.