ON ST. DOMINATOR, BISHOP OF BRESCIA,
AT THE END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
CommentaryDominator, bishop of Brescia. (S.)
BY C. D. S.
[1] Mention of St. Dominator in the calendars of Brescia from the 14th century on. The cult of St. Dominator seems to have been neither so very ancient nor very celebrated. For not only is he not mentioned in any of the martyrologies which are reckoned classic, but, although several ancient calendars of the church of Brescia have been preserved, his name is not read in the calendar of the 11th century G. Brunati, Vita o gesta di santi Bresciani, 2nd ed., vol. I (1854), pp. 11–13., nor in the calendar of the 13th century Ibid., pp. 13–15., nor in another of the 14th century Ibid., pp. 15–16., but first in the calendar written in the year 1346 Ibid., p. 17. and then in the calendars of the 15th century Ibid., pp. 19, 20, 21.. In all of these he is announced at the nones of November in roughly these words: Of St. Dominator, bishop of Brescia. Thence this same mention passed into the martyrology of Galesini and at length into the Roman, in which is read at this day: At Brescia, of St. Dominator, bishop.
[2] His body translated into the cathedral church in the year 1581. Nor, besides that mention in the calendars and more recent martyrologies, can any other indication of cult be brought forward older than the end of the 16th century, at which time, namely in the year 1581, St. Charles Borromeo translated the sacred remains of Dominator himself and also of Paul II, Anastasius and Dominic, his successors. Of this translation our predecessors treated at the 20th of May, in the commentary on St. Anastasius, from the papers of Giovanni Francesco Fiorentini transmitted to them by Bernardino Fayno Acta Sanctorum, May vol. V, pp. 226–27.; they could not, however, inspect the instrument itself. A transcript of it, from the copy still kept at Brescia among the Instruments of the School or society of the Most Holy Sacrament in the archive of the cathedral church [Another copy of the same document is presented by the "Registrum" P under no. 1538, deposited in the municipal archive of Brescia.], was transcribed and most kindly transmitted to us in the year 1895 by the most learned priest D. L. Grammatica, then in the diocesan seminary
of Brescia as lecturer in Holy Scripture, we shall not be loath to publish here word for word (except that we have expressed the form ȩ by the letters ae).
[3] The instrument of this translation. In the name of the Lord, amen. In the year from his nativity one thousand five hundred and eightieth, in the ninth indiction, on Wednesday the sixteenth day of the month of March, in the eighth year of the pontificate of our Most Holy Lord, the Lord Gregory the Thirteenth, by divine providence Pope. Whereas the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Charles, Cardinal of Santa Prassede, Apostolic Visitor of the city, and especially of the church of St. Stephen situated in the citadel of the same city, found in the same church a marble ark, closed, in the nave on the northern side, and since it was reported that in it, as is also handed down by the annals of the city of Brescia, there were the bodies of Saints Dominator, Dominic, Paul and Anastasius, formerly bishops of Brescia [That these relics were previously kept in the church of St. Andrew and passed thence to the church of St. Stephen in the citadel is indicated by Giovanni Francesco Fiorentini (Acta Sanctorum, vol. cited, p. 226* F), bringing forward, however, no ancient authority.], he saw the said ark and ordered it to be opened, and found there three heads with several bones of the remaining parts of several bodies and certain fragments of garments, and ordered the same ark to be closed again, as it was closed, there being present there the Most Reverend Lord Giovanni Delfino, Bishop of Brescia, and in the presence of the Magnificent and Reverend Lords Giovanni Antonio Seneca and Ludovico Moneta, priest of Milan, members of the household of the aforesaid Most Illustrious Lord, and of the very Reverend Lords Marco Antonio Grillo, Archpriest, and Giovanni Paolo della Corte, Provost of the Church of Brescia, and a very great multitude of the people. Then, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-first, in the tenth indiction, on Tuesday the last day of October, the aforesaid Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal and Apostolic Visitor, who after the above-written viewing had considered that the aforesaid sacred bodies were not kept with the decency that befits them and had therefore decreed that the same bodies ought to be removed thence and translated to the cathedral church, having had communication and mature deliberation on this with the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord Bishop, with the consent also of the Most Serene Ducal Dominion of Venice given by ducal letters to the Most Illustrious Rectors of this city, gave commands to the aforesaid very Reverend Lords Marco Antonio Grillo, Archpriest of Brescia, Doctor of Both Laws, and Ludovico Moneta, cleric of Milan, that they go to the said ark and diligently take up the bones of the aforesaid holy bodies from the marble ark and put them into a leaden ark prepared for this purpose, so that the translation already decided upon might be made more easily, there being present the Magnificent Lord Girolamo Luciago, son of the late Magnificent Lord Alessandro, and the Reverend Lord Alessandro Gratarola, chamberlain of the Most Illustrious Lord; and successively, in the same nearest years (sic) and indiction, but on the feast day of All Saints, the first of the month of November, the aforesaid Reverend Lords the Archpriest and Lord Ludovico Moneta, carrying out very early in the morning the mandate received from the aforesaid Most Illustrious Lord, made for the aforesaid citadel and opened the ark in which the bodies of the saints were, through the efforts of men summoned for this, and there were found by them three heads almost whole [The curious reader will have noticed that, although the relics of four saints are said to have been laid up in that ark, only three heads were found in it.], which heads, thus whole, were placed upon two bricks secuspolitis So the transcript. Should secus positis be read?, and also very many other bones of different parts of the body, some whole and some broken and reduced almost to the appearance of dust, with some fragments of garments consumed by length of time; which heads, bones and fragments were taken up by the Reverend Lords themselves with the reverence that befits, and placed separately in the leaden casket mentioned, namely the bones at the bottom of the casket in a white silk cloth, the heads above in another white silk cloth, and the fragments of garments and the sacred dust wrapped in a linen cloth; and they had the aforesaid leaden ark closed with a solder of tin and, decently adorned with golden cloths and silk ones woven with gold, left it in the middle of the church upon a bier, there being present Lord Giovanni Battista Rostano and Lord Paolo Roverso. And at once the aforesaid Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal, together with the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord Bishop, having called together the whole clergy, both secular and regular, and all the schools and congregations of the laity, went in procession to the said church of St. Stephen situated in the aforesaid citadel, and there, both being vested in pontificals, namely the said Most Illustrious Cardinal and the Most Reverend Bishop, and the rest of the clergy… they raised the leaden ark in which, as is stated above, the aforesaid bodies were, and, the Most Illustrious Cardinal and the Most Reverend Bishop having put their own shoulders under it, and successively by turns the dignitaries (sic) of the cathedral church, they carried it back, also in procession, from the said church of St. Stephen to the cathedral itself, and left it upon the altar of the school of the Body of Christ situated in the chapel of St. Peter; and at that altar a solemn Mass was at once sung by the aforesaid Most Illustrious Cardinal, the same Most Reverend Lord Bishop assisting, and during the solemnities of the Mass a sermon was delivered to the people in praise of the aforesaid saints. These things being completed, the same bodies, laid up and closed in the aforesaid ark, were left upon the altar itself for two days to be venerated by the faithful of Christ, with trustworthy guards and many lights… And on the fourth day of the aforementioned month, in the year and indiction aforesaid, the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord Bishop, vested in pontificals, with the dignitaries and canons of the aforesaid church assisting in copes and the rest of the clergy of the said church, the due prayers and ceremonies having been performed and the leaden casket having first been examined, which was opened there by command of the Most Reverend Lord Bishop, and the sacred things enclosed having been shown for a short space of time to the people flocking there and having been allowed to be touched with rosaries and other things for the sake of devotion, a bronze tablet having been placed in the same ark on which these words were engraved: "The sacred relics of Saints Dominator, Paul, Anastasius and Dominic, bishops and confessors, translated hither from the citadel by Charles Borromeo, called Cardinal of Santa Prassede, Archbishop of Milan, Apostolic Visitor, and Giovanni Delfino, Bishop of Brescia, under Gregory the Thirteenth, Supreme Pontiff, in the year from the birth of Christ 1581," had the leaden ark itself, in which, as is stated above, the aforesaid sacred relics lay laid up, restored all round and closed in right order, and had it put into another wooden ark, which he ordered to be locked with two keys made of different work, one of the keys being retained with himself, to remain perpetually with whatever bishop his successor, and the other being handed to the Magnificent Lord Ettore Grillo, at present Abbot of the aforesaid school of the Body of the Lord, and to remain perpetually with whatever Abbot of the kind for the time being; then he laid up the same casket in the body of the aforesaid altar, the necessary work of the ministers having been employed for each of the foregoing respectively. Concerning all and each of which things, step by step and successively, I, the undersigned notary and Chancellor, was asked to draw up a public instrument, one and several of the same tenor. All these things were done in the year, indiction, month and days written above…
I, Camillo, son of the late Lord Giovanni Antonio de Guidis, citizen and inhabitant of Brescia, public notary by apostolic and imperial authority and Chancellor of the Episcopal Curia of Brescia, because I was present, having been asked, at all and each of the foregoing while they were thus being done, have therefore subscribed in witness, having affixed the customary sign of my notarial office.
(Sign).
[4] Another translation in the year 1604. Not long afterwards, namely in the year 1604, another translation of the same relics was instituted, which a little note in a certain codex of public acts kept in the municipal archive of Brescia N. 1025, fol. 37. describes in summary thus, conceived in these words: The translation of the bodies of SS. Dominator, Dominic and Paul and Anastasius, 1604. Because the church of the Duomo is to be destroyed so that it may be rebuilt, the bodies of the saints, as above Namely, the instrument of the translation of the year 1581 is mentioned above. translated from the citadel by the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Charles Cardinal Borromeo, Apostolic Visitor, to the said Church and deposited in the chapel of St. Peter, the wall of the chapel having been broken by the Most Reverend Lord Marino Giorgi, Bishop, the Lord Abbot and the other Deputies so requiring, were publicly elevated and translated in procession to the altar of St. Justina or of the Pietà in the Church of St. Mary of the Assumption, to remain there until, the said Church having been rebuilt, they may be put back in the said altar. Of this translation too, a transcript of the public instrument, which Ludovico Calimio, the other Chancellor of the said city (of Brescia), drew up in agreement with Lord Camillo Ghida, Chancellor of the Bishopric, is still kept by the municipal archive of Brescia "Registrum" Q under n. 1539, fol. 7v.. Whence it is established that the translation was made on the 16th of February of the year 1604 by bishop Marino Giorgi with the same rite as the translation of the year 1581 by St. Charles Borromeo [Both documents just indicated, diligently copied out by himself, were communicated to us by the praised venerable man D. L. Grammatica.].
[5] That church to which in the year 1604 the bodies of St. Dominator and of the other three holy bishops were translated is the one which they think was built by Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, about the year 590 I.-H. Gradonicus, Pontificum Brixianorum series (Brescia, 1755), p. 93., and which is commonly called the Rotonda, the winter cathedral Ibid. and in the place shortly to be cited in the following note., and also the old cathedral, after, namely, the church of San Pietro Maggiore, which was called the summer cathedral [Ibid., p. 46, note 25. "Of a church both winter and summer frequent mention occurs in the antiquities of the Church of Milan of the middle age… Galeardi in his notes on St. Gaudentius, page 389, brought forward some examples, to which we could add not a few, if the plan of the work required it… The character of the place, suited to warmth, can teach that the winter church was the one which is now called the Rotonda, while that of San Pietro Maggiore … we judge was called the summer church. Whence it follows that among us too a double cathedral existed at the same time, as also among some cities of Italy, as becomes known from the monuments of the middle age."], had been demolished, and a new one built at the beginning of the 17th century Ibid., p. 386.. The bodies of the saints were not translated to this new church, but remained deposited in the Rotonda, in an altar formerly sacred not to St. Justus, as is read by a printer's error in Galeardi's notes on Ughelli, but to Justina, virgin and martyr, and which today serves for keeping the Most Holy Body of Christ Ibid., p. 85.. On the door of that tabernacle of the Most Holy Body of Christ there was placed a painting showing the translation of the four holy bishops, with this inscription added: The opposite altar contains SS. Dominator, Paul, Anastasius, Dominic, Bishops of this See, translated from the citadel in the year 1581 by St. Charles in the Apostolic Visitation and by Bishop Giovanni Delfino on their own shoulders. Of which three heads and other bones for the veneration of the faithful
in the year 1633, by the bequest of the pious Rev. Giovanni Battista Bottani, they are kept in this sanctuary, enclosed in silver images. The Society of the Most Holy Body of Christ, the altar having been more fittingly renewed, set up this everlasting monument in the year of salvation 1667 Ibid., p. 84, note 2..
That painting and inscription are still to be seen in the same place.
[6] The holy bishop sat, as it seems, in the sixth century. Apart from these monuments bearing on the cult of St. Dominator, no writings or traditions concerning his history have come down to us. Nor is it even sufficiently certain in what age he lived. Gradenigo Ibid., p. 84., Cappelletti Chiese d'Italia, vol. XI, p. 564. and nearly all the other more recent writers after Ughelli Italia sacra, ed. Coleti, vol. IV, p. 529. bind his times to the times of St. Gregory the Great, that is, to the end of the sixth century; although Ferrari Catal. SS. Italiae, at 5 Nov. and F.-M. de Aste In Mart. Rom. disceptationes (1716), p. 498. assert that he sat before the year 490, but without adducing any document except, in general terms, manuscripts of the city and church of Brescia. But neither could those cited first bring forward anything else besides that list of the bishops of Brescia in order of succession from St. Philastrius which Rampert wove into his sermon delivered in the year 838 at the translation of this saint Act. SS., July vol. IV, p. 388, col. 2 at the end.; in which list Dominator occurs fourteenth. Philastrius, however, flourished in the time of St. Ambrose, who consecrated his successor Gaudentius as bishop. Hence, if you suppose that the fourteen bishops each occupied the pontifical see fifteen years, more or less, you will arrive at the end of the sixth century. But how uncertain all this is.