ON BL. LOUIS MORBIOLI, CONFESSOR, AT BOLOGNA,
c. THE YEAR 1485
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Louis Morbioli, confessor at Bologna. (Bl.)
BY H. D.
§1. On the sources of the history of Blessed Louis.
[1] Of Blessed Louis there wrote The first and chief of the writers who committed the deeds of Blessed Louis Morbioli to writing was that Battista Spagnoli, "doctor of sacred theology, philosopher, distinguished poet and most celebrated orator So Trithemius in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers.", called Mantuanus from his homeland. He, born in the year 1448, embraced the institute of the Carmelites about the year 1466. Baptista Mantuanus, Appointed lector in the monastery of St. Martin at Bologna in the year 1472, he was called to discharge the office of prior in the convent of Mantua in the year 1479/1480. He was elected vicar general of the Congregation of Mantua in the year 1483, to which office he was taken up again in the year 1489, and four times thereafter, in the years 1495, 1501, 1507, 1513. In the same year 1513 he was elected general of the whole Carmelite Order, and three years later he died at Mantua with a reputation for holiness [Florido Ambrosio, De rebus gestis ac scriptis operibus Baptistae Mantuani, Turin, 1784; W. P. Mustard, The Eclotum]. He wrote very many things in Latin [gues of Baptista Mantuanus (Baltimore, 1911), p. 11 – 40. In the year 1885 the cult shown to Baptista Mantuanus was approved. Fanucchi, Della vita del B. Battista Spagnoli (Lucca, 1887), p. 217.], both in prose and above all in verse, which were once in everyone's hands and were often reprinted; among which is the Life of Dom Louis Morbioli, dedicated to Pope Innocent VIII (1484 – 1492). It was written before the 4th of July 1489, on which day the church of St. Chrysogonus in the City was granted to the friars of the Congregation of Mantua E. Monsignanus, Bullarium Carmelitanum, vol. I, p. 407 – 409.. For in the last little verses of the poem he asks the supreme pontiff that his brethren be given something in the Romulean City (v. 495). Now, if it is true that Blessed Louis departed from the living in the year 1485, his Life was written within the years 1485 – 1489. Battista undertakes to narrate the deeds of Louis Morbioli both in order to sing the praises of the pontiff, whose familiarity he enjoyed, and to offer him a little gift (vv. 4, 496), and in order to obtain a solemn judgement by which Louis might be inscribed in the roll of the saints (v. 487 – 490). He used no Life of the blessed man, and of the things he brings forward he must be thought to have seen some with his own eyes when he was staying at Bologna, and to have heard from witnesses those which were done afterwards. For he sets forth the deeds of Louis distinctly and simply, though mixed with digressions foreign to them; nay, he sets out the manner of living adopted by him so meagrely that in these things he seems to have indulged himself in nothing of what is agreed by all to be permitted to poets. The Life of Louis Morbioli was published both separately and among the works of Baptista Mantuanus, which were often reprinted [On the editions earlier than the sixteenth century, M. Pellechet, Catalogue général des incunables des bibliothèques de France, vol. I, n. 1758 – 1815. Best known are the Paris editions of the works by Badius Ascensius of the year 1507, another by the same of the year 1513, and the Antwerp edition of the year 1576.]. We have chiefly used the edition of the Life which came out at Deventer in the year 1497 Hain, 2390; Pellechet, 1815. and that emended recension of the works which Jodocus Badius Ascensius brought out in the year 1513 with his own and others' very ample commentaries. And this indeed we have followed in publishing the little book [Primus operum B. Mantuani tomus in quo sunt commentariis Murrhonis, Brantii et Ascensii haec illustrata…, fol. 239 – 246v.].
[2] From the principal testimony of Battista there are not to be separated some instruments which we shall bring forward in their places, and two letters written by the blessed man himself, which I. B. Melloni published, and of which the first was sent to the wise young man Antonio de' Morbioli, his honoured brother, at Bologna. Da Vinexia a di 20 (otherwise 10) di dexembre 1462 From Venice, on the 20th (otherwise 10th) of December 1462; the other was addressed to the same on the 23rd day of December 1471 by Lodovico de Morbiolo in Roma Lodovico de' Morbioli, at Rome [Melloni, Atti e memorie degli uomini illustri in santità nati e morti in Bologna, cl. II, vol. III (Bologna, 1780), p. 416 – 18. There is in codex 82 of the library of the University of Bologna “Copia di due lettere scritte di mano del B. Lodovico Morbioli Bolognese. (10 decembre 1462 e 23 decembre 1471)” [Copy of two letters written in the hand of Bl. Lodovico Morbioli of Bologna (10 December 1462 and 23 December 1471)]. Sorbelli, Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d'Italia, vol. XV, p. 105.].
[3] Leandro Alberti, Next to Mantuanus is Leandro degli Alberti [G. Mazzuchelli, Gli Scrittori d'Italia, vol. I (Brescia, 1753), p. 306 – 310; Quetif-Echard, Scriptores ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. II, p. 825.], who was born at Bologna in the year 1479, while Louis was alive, yet was not a witness of his way of life. But he could certainly hear very many things from witnesses and see the beginnings of the cult with his own eyes. The things, therefore, which he seems to have added to Mantuanus are not to be despised. And he writes this about the blessed man in his work, hitherto unpublished, Storie di Bologna, vol. III, decade V, book VII, under the year 1485: 1485. Alli 7 di novembre passò all' altra vita Lodovico Morbiollo con gran fama di santa vita, perchè già dodici anni haveva pigliato un habito molto aspero di vivere. Andava scalzo, senza cosa alcuna in capo, vestivasi di una veste bianca di panno grosso, lunga oltre mezza gamba con una croce di panno rosso nel petto, havendo dal collo pendente una banda di panno da ogni lato tanto quanto era la lunghezza della veste. Cosi sempre vestivasi da ogni stagione, eccetto che ne' tempi asperi del verno havereve portato una bereta leggiera, ma imperò rade volte. Portava nella mano una crocetta di legno con il librizzuolo dell' ufficio della madonna. Ero il suo cibo poco et grosso in casa di Paulo Luppari et dormiva in terra sopra una semplice stuora tenendo un sasso sotto il capo in vece di guangiale. Nella picciola stanza, ove si riposava vedevansi molti capi et ossa di huomini morti. Essortava le persone non solamente in Bologna, ma anchor altrove a lassiar li peccati et redurse ad Iddio. Accompagnava li sententiati alla morte, ammonendoli alla patientia et a sostener fortemente la morte per remissione de suoi peccati. Hor essendo mancato di questa vita, da tutta la città fu tenuto esser passato in vita eterna. Et per tanto fu sepellito in una sepoltura nel cimiterio di S. Pietro. Poi essendovi gran concorso di popolo et parendo che Iddio facesse nel infermi gran gratie per suoi meriti, parve al vescovo quindi si dovesse portare nel confessionale di detta chiesa, et fecelo piu honoratamente sepellire, ove hebbe gran concorso di popoli lungo tempo, come io mi ricordo essendo
[1485. On the 7th of November Lodovico Morbiollo passed to the other life with great fame of holy life, because twelve years before he had taken up a very harsh habit of living. He went barefoot, with nothing on his head, and dressed in a white garment of coarse cloth, reaching beyond mid-leg, with a cross of red cloth on the breast, having hanging from the neck a band of cloth on each side as long as the length of the garment. So he always dressed in every season, except that in the harsh times of winter he would have worn a light cap, but rarely. He carried in his hand a little wooden cross with the little book of the office of Our Lady. His food was little and coarse, in the house of Paolo Luppari, and he slept on the ground on a simple mat, keeping a stone under his head instead of a pillow. In the little room where he rested were seen many skulls and bones of dead men. He exhorted people not only in Bologna but elsewhere too to leave their sins and turn back to God. He accompanied those sentenced to death, admonishing them to patience and to bear death bravely for the remission of their sins. Now, when he had departed this life, he was held by the whole city to have passed into eternal life. And therefore he was buried in a tomb in the cemetery of St. Peter. Then, since there was a great concourse of people and it seemed that God was working great graces in the sick through his merits, it seemed good to the bishop that he should therefore be carried into the confessional of the said church, and he had him buried more honourably, where there was a great concourse of people for a long time, as I remember, being]
fanciulino Melloni, volume cited, p. 424 – 25.. a little boy.
[4] others. Those who thereafter, up to the year 1780, narrated the Life of Blessed Louis depend almost on Mantuanus alone. Into the Surius edition which came out in the year 1580 through the labour of Jacob Mosander there was inserted, on the 28th day of October, the Life of St. Louis Morbioli of Bologna, from the poems of Brother Giovanni Battista Mantuanus, Carmelite, to Pope Innocent the Eighth, written in compendium by Carlo Sigonio, a most learned man, which the most illustrious cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, bishop of Bologna, sent to us De probatis Sanctorum historiis, vol. V, p. 1076.. In the year 1586 a Life of Blessed Louis was published by I. P. Chizzola, of the Order of Carmelites G. P. Chizzola, Vita del beato Lodovico de' Morbioli Bolognese, Bologna, 1586., dedicated to the aforesaid cardinal Paleotti. Various little books also came out in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries under the title Compendio della Vita del B. Lodovico Morbioli [Melloni, volume cited, p. 425; L. Frati, Bibliografia Bolognese, vol. I, n. 1311 – 1315. Add to these: Ristretto della vita del B. Ludovico Morbioli Bolognese del Terz' Ordine del Carmine. At Vercelli, 1745, in-8°.]. Those who carried the history of the city of Bologna down to the fifteenth century, P. Vizani under the year 1472, C. Ghirardacci under the year 1485, Fr. Negri, I. I. Brocchi, A. F. Ghiselli under the year 1472, made mention of Blessed Louis [Melloni, volume cited, p. 425 – 26; Frati, num. 3195 – 3196, 3174, 3136, 8553, 3212.]. The writers of the Order of Carmelites are wont to inscribe Blessed Louis in their calendars; so Lezana Annales Sacri, IV, 9232., Philip of the Most Holy Trinity Decor Carmeli, vol. I, p. 167.. I omit very many whom you will find in Melloni; for he treated of our blessed man more copiously and aptly than the rest in the Acts of the men illustrious for holiness in whom the city of Bologna glories Same volume and column, pp. 121 – 66, 416 – 27.; he himself diligently collected from the archives and monuments of his homeland whatever seemed to contribute to illustrating the history of Blessed Louis and his cult. He searched everything with such diligence that the process for the approval of the cult, held in the years 1842/1843 before the Sacred Congregation of Rites, rests almost on Melloni alone.
§2. On the deeds and cult of Blessed Louis.
[5] On the year of his birth: Blessed Louis lived 52 years from his birth, 15 from his conversion, as Mantuanus witnesses, who however kept silent about the years in which he was born and departed from the living. Vizani Dieci libri delle historie della sua patria (Bologna, 1596), p. 410. and not a few of his followers, Ferrari, Bombaci, Sigonio, Spondanus, etc., and also the anonymous man who placed the inscription in the house "de' Lupari", supposed that Louis died in the year 1472 Melloni, volume cited, p. 148, n. 1., relying, as it seems, on no document. This can by no means be reconciled with an instrument of the year 1474, by which Ludovicus son of the late… de' Morbioli Melloni, volume cited, p. 149, n. 2. is shown to have been alive then; for it is very probable that this Louis is ours. It is also repugnant to the reckoning which asserts that he devoted fifteen years of his life to the harsher exercises of the ascetic life, since in the year 1462, in which his first letter was written In Melloni, volume cited, p. 416., he had not yet begun them. Others contend with cardinal Paleotti, in the Archiepiscopale Bononiense, that the year of his death was 1480, for whom an inscription in gilded letters carved in marble and placed in the atrium of the metropolitan church votes:
B. Lvdovico Morbiolo Bononiensi | viro vitae sanctimonia admirabili mo|rvm integritate miracvlorvm | claritate illvstri. | Cvivs inclyta facta Baptista | Mantvanvs lvcvlento carmine prosecvtvs est. | vixit an. LII. obiit V non. novemb. CIⅠƆCCCCLXXX.
Christvm dilexi, fovit me deniqve Christvs; Qvaesivi Christvm, Christvs et ecce mihi [Benedict XIV, De servorum Dei canonizatione, book II, c. XV, n. 6: "on the left side outside the door of the church, toward the archiepiscopal palace."].
[To Blessed Louis Morbioli of Bologna, a man wonderful for holiness of life, illustrious for integrity of morals and for the renown of miracles, whose famous deeds Baptista Mantuanus has pursued in a splendid poem. He lived 52 years. He died on the 5th day before the Nones of November, 1480. I loved Christ, Christ in the end cherished me; I sought Christ, and behold, Christ was mine.]
[6] It seems to stand in the way that the inscription is of a more recent age, nor is there lacking a suspicion that the mark of time was deduced by conjecture by a man otherwise not very attentive, who wrote the fifth day before the Nones instead of the fifth day before the Ides of November, although November does not have a fifth day before the Nones. The year 1480 Melloni rejects Same volume and column, p. 150., because it seems to fit less aptly with the saying of Mantuanus:
He lately closed the happy times of his life, and made his way to the thresholds of heaven (vv. 83, 84),
since the word nuper, "lately", can hardly be understood of a space of about ten years. Moreover, so Melloni, the Life of Louis must have been composed after the year 1489, since in it there is a clear mention of Zizim, who was the brother of Bayezid, admitted before the pontiff for the sake of salutation:
Kings placed far off approach your holy thresholds and fix bowed kisses on your feet (vv. 33, 34).
Now it is admitted that Zizim came to Rome in the year 1489 Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici ab anno 1198, under the year 1489, nn. 1, 2.. These things were devised by Melloni not very happily. For besides the fact that the word nuper is apt to designate also a much longer time, it is hardly right to understand the words of Mantuanus of the Turkish prince, since neither was he called a king, and he himself had refused to kneel before the pontiff in the rite of the Christians and to kiss his feet [Raynaldus, place cited, n. 3; compare Burchard's Diarium, ed. Thuasne, vol. I, pp. 336, 527; L. Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, vol. III, p. 216 – 18.]. Mantuanus, therefore, by no means relates facts, but a usage, and Ascensius rightly interpreted the passage, in the scholium on the words: Kings placed far off] as emperors and the kings of Naples come to Rome to be confirmed by you. Melloni's argument being therefore set aside, it nonetheless remains that the year 1480 is not established, since it is confirmed by no contemporary or nearly contemporary document. Open to no difficulties, as it seems, is the opinion of Leandro Alberti, who carries the life of the blessed man down to the year 1485. I would not dare to contend that it is certain, yet it is judged to be preferred to the others, since Leandro is next to Mantuanus in the matters narrated. If we embrace it [S. Muzzi too embraced it, Annali della città di Bologna, vol. V (Bologna, 1843), p. 108.], since Louis lived fifty-two years (v. 473), he must have been born in the year 1433.
[7] His parents and kinship. He had as father Francesco son of Antonio Morbioli, as mother Agnese, as is asserted in various instruments. She was alive in the year 1471; it is certain that he died within the years 1463 – 1468 In Melloni, volume cited, p. 124, nn. 6, 7.. He had four brothers, Antonio and Gaspare, of whom mention is made in the letter of the year 1462 In Melloni, volume cited, p. 416 – 17., Domenico and Niccolò; and the latter is named with Louis and Gaspare in the will which Domenico made in the year 1468, when he was about to make profession among the Olivetans Melloni, volume cited, p. 124, n. 7; p. 125.. Finally their sister Bartolomea was joined in marriage in the year 1464 with Stefano Coradini Melloni, volume cited, p. 126, n. 15.. That our Louis took a wife is certain Mantuanus, v. 237.. Negri testifies that he has her name from an old chronicle: Un altra chronica antica senza nome d'autore dice, che sua moglie fu Lucia di Giovanni Tura, donna di somma onestà e prudenza dotata, e così tollerante degli aggravi del discolo marito, tutto applicato al giuoco, alle meretrici et alla gola, dissipando la roba con pessimi compagni, che da tutti era riputata essempio singolare di vera pazienza Melloni, volume cited, p. 129, n. 21.. [Another old chronicle, without the name of its author, says that his wife was Lucia di Giovanni Tura, a woman endowed with the highest virtue and prudence, and so tolerant of the injuries of her dissolute husband, wholly given to gambling, harlots and gluttony, squandering their goods with the worst companions, that she was reputed by all a singular example of true patience.]
[8] He stays at Venice and Rome. At the beginning of the year 1462 Louis was still staying at Bologna. It is established from an instrument of the 19th of January of this year Melloni, volume cited, p. 124, n. 6; p. 130.. But soon he went off to Venice, where, received as a guest by the canons regular of St. Saviour, he was seized by a violent fever, which seems to have been the beginning of his salvation [The letter written in the month of December 1462. Above, p. 289. Compare Mantuanus, v. 141 and following.]. How long he remained at Venice we do not know, and besides the few things which Mantuanus narrates, and the letter of Louis himself sent from Rome In Melloni, volume cited, p. 418., nothing has been handed down to memory about his journeys. Nor have the beginnings of his more severe penance been fixed to a certain year. If, however, from the year of his death, say 1485, we count those fifteen years of Mantuanus (v. 276) in which Louis lived on bread, apples, nuts and raw vegetables, he must be said to have entered on this way in the year 1470. For three lustra Leandro Alberti notes twelve years. But there is no reason to prefer his testimony to the assertions of Mantuanus.
[9] Whether he was a tertiary of the Carmelite Order. That Louis was a tertiary of the Carmelite Order is read here and there in the writers of this religion, and on that ground it was granted by Gregory XVI in the year 1843 to the Carmelites that the proper office be recited for the blessed man on the 9th day of November [Bononien. seu Ordinis Carmelitarum. Concessionis et approbationis officii et missae in honorem beati Ludovici Moriboli (so), Rome, 1843.]; which seems to rest on these verses of Mantuanus (v. 185 – 88):
As soon as, the world quenched, he began to come to his senses, he turned his first coverings into a pitch-dark gown; nor was the colour of art, but born in the very fleece, such coverings as the true Carmel has.
By these it is by no means asserted that Louis was in any way enrolled in the Order of Carmelites, but that he took a garment of undyed cloth, such as they contended the true habit of Carmel was. These things will be better understood by those who remember that a dispute arose in the Order, while Mantuanus was discharging the office of vicar general, about the colour of the habit. The supreme pontiff Sixtus IV, by a letter of the 13th of April 1483, had ordered all the friars and sisters of Blessed Mary the Virgin of Mount Carmel to wear tunics of black colour in future; yet the decree had been suspended for the fathers of the Congregation of Mantua by an oracle of the living voice. Of these things the pontiff in a letter of the 26th of May of the year 1484: Indeed, a petition lately presented to us on behalf of our beloved sons Baptista Mantuanus, vicar general, and all the friars of the Congregation of Mantua of the Order of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel contained that, there having arisen some time ago between them on the one part and our beloved son Marco of Montecatino, professed member and procurator general of the said order, on the other part Understand: arisen between them on the one part and Marco on the other., about and concerning the colour of the habit to be worn by the friars of the said Congregation, which the vicar and friars of the aforesaid Congregation grey
and of undyed colour, according to the ancient constitutions of the said order, but the aforesaid Marco, on the contrary, asserted that the habit itself was to be wholly of black colour and ought to be worn so by the friars of the said Congregation, the matter of the question, we by an oracle of the living voice committed the cause, discords, disputes and questions of this kind to our venerable brother Oliviero, bishop of Sabina, and our beloved son Edition: nostris. Giovanni Battista, cardinal priest of the title of St. Cecilia, protector of the said order, to be heard, examined, settled and brought to a due end jointly Bullarium Carmelitarum, vol. I, p. 385 – 88.. Mantuanus, therefore, when he speaks of a gown which had no colour of art [A garment not dyed, that is, simple. Compare the Chronicle of Laon, M. G., Scr. vol. XXVI, p. 450: "These called themselves Humiliati because, not wearing dyed garments, they are content with simple ones."], intends nothing more than, the occasion having offered itself, to assert his own opinion on the colour of the genuine habit of the Carmelites. For if Louis had worn the very garment of the Order as one of the brothers [This, whatever you think of the origin of the Third Order. By a letter of the 7th of October 1452 Nicholas V laid down that virgins, widows, Beguines and mantellate could be received to the Carmelite habit (Bullarium, vol. I, p. 233). The beginnings of the Third Order of men are referred to the Constitution of Sixtus IV of the 28th of November 1476, which they call Mare Magnum (Bullarium, vol. I, p. 319). Compare Helyot, Histoires des Ordres religieux, part I, c. 52.], he would by no means have exchanged it a few years later for whitish tunics (v. 189). Add that Leandro Alberti, who describes Louis's garments at length, did not even think of the dress of the Carmelites.
[10] The deeds of Brother John ascribed to Louis. To our Louis C. Sigonio refers what he culled from the chronicles, whose words are: "In the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-two, on the Kalends of December, a certain layman sitting on a little ass and carrying a huge wooden cross in his hand entered the city and began to preach daily outside the churches, rebuking the foul crimes of men, foretelling the anger of God that was impending, and exhorting mortals to do penance. And so, drawn by admiration of the man, a huge number of men and women attached themselves to him. For, since he had a very rustic and cheap garment, he desired nothing from anyone except the food necessary. Then on the seventh day before the Ides of December he left the city, after he had shown on the day before that a great evil was hanging over the citizens. Which indeed came to pass, the family of the Caccianemici being almost destroyed by their enemies on the fifth day before the Ides. So far from the chronicles. And this seems to have been Louis Morbioli, who at this time led a life very like his C. Sigonius, De episcopis Bononiensibus libri quinque (Bologna, 1586), p. 200.." Certainly Louis, as Mantuanus witnesses (v. 345), was sometimes carried on a little ass, and bore a standard in his hand — a little cross, says Leandro Alberti — (v. 411). Yet it stands in the way that the deeds of that man are described as those of a pilgrim, previously unknown to the Bolognese, and who spent only a few days among them. Negri relates Annali, in Melloni, volume cited, p. 135 – 36. that Brother John of Milan, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, at the beginning of the year 1472 stirred up the people of Bologna with almost the same display and exhortations; he seems to have used an anonymous contemporary chronicle, which Melloni asserts he read in the library of Vincenzo Masi, and from which he draws out these words: "Lo dicto anno venne a Bologna uno Fra Zoane da Millano, lo quale se deseva che l' era profecta, e predicò parichi zorni in Bologna et non predicava in ghiesa, perchè non era sagrato, et la soa predicatione si era, che se dovesse temer Idio, e molto tochava del Turco, e venia da Venesia et andava a Roma et alozò a Bologna in Ghaliera in chasa de Lodovigo Muzarello, e fè fare la processione et vestiva de selico et portava una crose grande de legno in mano e mai non l'abbandonava, e chavalcava uno asinello; e predicò dal spedale della Morte e a Sam Piero, dal Charobio, al Barachano, a li Servi, et disease che non manzava se non tre volte la setemana Same volume and column, p. 135, n. 5.." [In the said year there came to Bologna a certain Fra Zoane of Milan, who was said to be a prophet, and he preached several days in Bologna, and did not preach in church because he was not ordained, and his preaching was that God was to be feared, and he touched much on the Turk; and he came from Venice and was going to Rome, and lodged at Bologna in Galliera in the house of Lodovico Muzzarello, and had the procession made, and dressed in sackcloth, and carried a great wooden cross in his hand and never left it, and rode a little ass; and he preached at the hospital of La Morte and at San Pietro, at the Carrobbio, at the Baraccano, at the Servi, and said that he ate only three times a week.] The things which both Sigonio and Negri bring forward flowed beyond doubt from one source, and are not to be understood of Louis. I do not deny that the deeds of Brother John could have been transferred to Louis by Mantuanus, although he was called to Bologna in this very year 1472. What if, kindled by the example of Brother John, our Louis tried to imitate him?
[11] The day of his death. That Blessed Louis died on the fifth day before the Ides, that is, on the 9th day of November, is the express assertion of Mantuanus (v. 471). Leandro Alberti wrote the 7th day of the same month, by a slip of the pen, unless I am mistaken, which Negri and Ghirardacci followed Melloni, volume cited, p. 151.. The Life of Blessed Louis is placed in Surius on the 28th day of October, which goes back to a manifest error of Sigonio — for he was using Mantuanus. For where the fifth day before the Ides of November had been written, he read the fifth day before the Kalends. Hence it is that Ferrari, Chastelain and others who read Surius announce Blessed Louis on this day. In the Order of Carmelites the feast has been transferred to the 15th day of March. For in the martyrology of both the Calced and the Discalced there is announced on the Ides of March Blessed Louis Morbioli, Carmelite confessor, whose birthday is held on the fifth day before the Ides of November. And: On the fifth day before the Ides of November, at Bologna, Blessed Louis, confessor of the Third Order of Carmelites, illustrious for the praise of penance and the austerity of his life, whose feast is celebrated on the Ides of March Martyrologium Romanum, Mechelen, 1846, at the end..
[12] The body of the blessed man was laid before the doors of the cathedral church (v. 475), but after the sixth year it was translated into the church itself (v. 478), and indeed into the confession of the church, as Leandro Alberti has it; and at once the holiness of the man began to be proved by miracles (v. 485). But when, in the time of cardinal Gabriele Paleotti (1566 – 1597), the choir and confession of the basilica, falling into decay through age, were brought into a more elegant form by long and arduous work, the memory of the place in which the remains of Blessed Louis rested perished, nor could it ever be found, even after a careful inquiry instituted in the year 1759 More fully Melloni, volume cited, p. 157 – 60.. Yet the veneration of the faithful for the blessed man seems not to have been interrupted, or at least must be said to have revived a few years later. For they had a picture of the blessed man painted by the most celebrated painter Giulio Morina, and placed it in the cathedral church [Many things on these matters in the Process of the year 1842. In codex 82 of the library of the University of Bologna there is kept "Proposizione diretta al M. R. Custode dell' immagine del B. Ludovico Morbioli Terziario Carmelitano venerato nella Metropolitana di Bologna." [Proposal addressed to the Very Reverend Keeper of the image of Bl. Ludovico Morbioli, Carmelite Tertiary, venerated in the Metropolitan church of Bologna.] Sorbelli, Inventario, volume cited, p. 106.].
[13] The process on the fame of his holiness. At the request of the chapter of the cathedral church, the archbishop Girolamo Boncompagni, afterwards cardinal, in the year 1654, ordered a process to be instituted on the fame of his holiness and on the cult from time immemorial. And in the following year six witnesses were heard before three deputies: I. B. Scali, a nobleman, O. Artimini, a merchant, M. Malvezzi, a patrician of Bologna, I. Bertolotti, a notary and advocate, R. Ariosti, a patrician of Bologna, Pietro Refrigeri, a mansionary of the metropolitan church, all, with one exception, nearly eighty years old, who testified, from their own knowledge and from what they had heard from their elders, that Louis Morbioli had always been honoured with the title of blessed, that his picture, exposed in the church to public veneration and surrounded with lights, was held to be old; that votive offerings were wont to be hung around it, and that on the 9th day of November some signs of a feast were shown to the blessed man, all of which were wont to be done with the toleration of the bishops Summarium, in Melloni, volume cited, p. 160 – 61.. That process, however, was never brought to an end, nor was a sentence on the immemorial cult given by any bishop of Bologna. "Yet since about the very antiquity of the cult," so Benedict XIV, "no one has ever doubted, he remains in possession of his cult, nor has any controversy been raised or is being raised on any point De Servorum Dei beatificatione et canonizatione, book II, c. XV, n. 7.." In the forty-second year of the past century the prior general of the Order of Carmelites asked the Holy See for the confirmation of this cult, and in the following year obtained it, with the concession of an office and Mass on the feast-day, namely the 9th of November.
[14] The cult among the Bolognese. In various ways, in the course of time, the Bolognese showed cult to Blessed Louis. That the people were wont to pour out prayers before his images in necessities, that cures of diseases and other benefits were obtained by his help; that in the year 1665 a silver lamp, procured by a collection of alms, was lit near his picture; that a congregation of clerics was erected under his invocation, has been carefully noted by others Melloni, volume cited, p. 161 – 68, and the Process of the year 1842.. Louis's name was inscribed in the catalogue of the saints and blesseds of Bologna published in the year 1582, a little later in the Archiepiscopale Bononiense under cardinal G. Paleotti In the year 1594, p. 595. Compare Melloni, p. 157., and from the year 1717 in the calendar of Bologna, on the 9th day of November: Today is the feast of Blessed Louis Morbioli of Bologna. From the newest Proper of the Saints of the church of Bologna we have it that his feast is now kept on the 15th day of March, with double rite, with proper lessons in the second nocturn. Honour was shown him not only in the metropolitan church, but also in the church of San Martino Maggiore, of the Carmelite Fathers of the Congregation of Mantua; in the Carmelite church called Santa Maria delle Grazie; in the public oratory near the church of the Fathers of the Third Order of St. Francis, called of Charity [These are found in codex 82 of the library of the University of Bologna: "Grazia miracolosa ottenuta per intercessione del B. Ludovico Morbioli Bolognese l'anno 1655" [A miraculous grace obtained through the intercession of Bl. Ludovico Morbioli of Bologna in the year 1655] and "Memorie del B. Ludovico Morbioli raccolte da un sacerdote Carmelitano delle Grazie." Memoirs of Bl. Ludovico Morbioli collected by a Carmelite priest of the Grazie. Sorbelli, Inventario, volume cited, p. 106.]. In the house formerly "de' Lupari, afterwards de' Magnani", in the narrow cell which he is said to have once inhabited, his picture was exposed; the little room was also changed into a private oratory, and this inscription was placed: In questa celletta per molti anni ha allogiato e dimorato il B. Lodovico Morbioli nostro cittadino di Bologna, e quì morì alli 9 di decembre (sic) 1472 [In this little cell for many years lodged and dwelt Bl. Lodovico Morbioli, our citizen of Bologna, and here he died on the 9th of December (so) 1472] [Melloni, volume cited, p. 147, n. 9. There is read in the codex 82 already mentioned "Misura della celletta dove dimorò e morì il B. Lodovico Morbioli … ridotta in cappella, che tuttavia si conserva e si tiene in somma venerazione,
posta nella via detta del Luccio, in una casa già de' Lupari, oggi del sig. Marchese Magnani, sotto la parrochia di S. Maria del Carrobio, disegnata l'anno 1740." [Measurement of the little cell where Bl. Lodovico Morbioli dwelt and died … turned into a chapel, which is still preserved and held in the highest veneration, situated in the street called del Luccio, in a house formerly of the Lupari, today of the Signor Marchese Magnani, under the parish of S. Maria del Carrobio, drawn in the year 1740.] Sorbelli, Inventario, volume cited, p. 106.]. Also in the house of Count Carrati (Borgo Nuovo), with the inscription: Blessed Louis Morbioli of Bologna. He died 1472, November 9. Count Baldassarre Carrati had this made for the sake of kinship and devotion, in the year 1577. The two letters of Blessed Louis are kept with great veneration, the first, which is entire, in the basilica of San Petronio, the other partly in the church of Santa Maria "delle Grazie", partly in the oratory of Sant' Anna outside the city, in the place called Barbiano Melloni, volume cited, p. 163 – 66.. In the catalogue of relics of the church of San Pellegrino there are also listed relics of Blessed Louis, of what kind I know not Melloni, volume cited, p. 427..
LIFE OF BLESSED LOUIS MORBIOLI BY BLESSED BAPTISTA MANTUANUS
Louis Morbioli, confessor at Bologna. (Bl.)
BHL Number: 5053
From the Ascensian edition of the Works of Baptista Mantuanus of the year 1513 (= A), with the Deventer edition of the year 1497 (= B) collated. Compare Preliminary Commentary, no. 1.
To Innocent the Eighth, Supreme Pontiff, a poem of the most cultivated man Baptista Mantuanus, Carmelite theologian, on the Life of St. Louis Morbioli of Bologna.
Praise of the pontiff; Greatest of pontiffs, who wear the triple crown upon your brow And bear the two arms in your consecrated hand, Our eloquence, unequal to your merits, has not yet Dared to unfurl its sails in your praises. [5] That it may grow meanwhile, we shall sing some lighter things; Small things make the way easy toward weightier ones. That it may go with daring course over the spacious seas, The skiff learns to run on a little lake. nobility of his family; I shall not, then, speak of the illustrious beginnings of your Family and of your stock, lofty in nobility [John Baptist Cybo, a Genoese by birth, cardinal of the title of Santa Cecilia and bishop of Amalfi, was proclaimed pontiff on 29 August 1484.] ; Nor recounting the endowments of your homeland, which alone suffices With its fleet to stir up wars on the whole sea. To stir up wars on the sea, and to bring back the triumphs won, So stoutly does the Ligurian handle oars and arms. [15] The Adriatic and the shores of the Adriatic sea remember How heavy a fury came from the city of the Ligurians, When the soldier of Genoa, having laid waste land and sea, Pressed hard the Venetian hearths with siege. he dedicates the poem to him I pass over your noble manners, and your kindly mind, And the golden gifts sent to me when I was sick, Gifts which restored my failing strength, And by which my life goes on into long days. Such refreshment as the rain is wont to bring to the parched Earth, when it lies sick beneath the burning Dog-star, [25] Such did the fisherman in yellow gold give to us, Who draws his nets full from the deep sea St. Peter with the boat, which is the mark of the papal gold coin. Ascensius. . Your gifts restored the labouring ship, twisted in the swift whirlpool, To calm harbours. I pass over the highest favour of earth and of heaven, And the so great rewards granted to your virtue. You rule the immense world with everlasting laws, And press proud necks with an even yoke. Kings set far off approach your holy thresholds, And bending fix kisses upon your feet Preliminary Commentary, no. 6. . [35] Yet your mind is not puffed up in so great an honour, But, gentle, is borne along with a calm hand on the rein. These things and more, to be recorded one day in their own time, Let the languid strings of my cithara now keep silent; of a wonderful man Now read the songs which we, at leisure, have hammered out In a slender web, on the piety of a heavenly man. On the piety of a man whose wonderful ardour Has brought back our times to their ancient glory. His virtue gives lustre to the present ages, And raises our times from the lowest place. [45] Reverence for the saints had perished in our age, And there was no regard for divine things. In place of piety guile, in place of religion lust Had come; faith had fled from the whole world. Men laughed at the divine powers, and thought it vain To offer religious vows to their Maker. He, sending Lycaonian manners Lychaonios B; Lycaonias A. [Lycaonian manners, that is, perverse and deceitful ones, such as Lycaon had, the most wicked king of Arcadia, who was accustomed to kill his guests and for that reason was turned into a wolf. Ascensius.] into pale Tartarus, brought the virtues into their own realms. Such piety as was in Abraham, or such as was in the very Breast of the priest Melchisedech, [55] Such was in this man while he lived; he subdued every crime, A victor, and brought forth every kind of uprightness. He had a patience surpassing human custom, Such as was in the seed of the ancient people, Such as was in the fathers of Egypt, who tilled the pathless Lands, and the rocks baked by the burning day. His name was Louis, drawn from the sacred stream From the sacred stream, that is, from the baptismal font. When the mystic water washed his tender head. But he is called Morbioli by the surname of an ancient family; By this word the whole house is known. [65] Learned Felsina brought him forth, and nourished the boy from his tender years, And was his native soil. born at Bologna Bologna was called Felsina in the ancient speech, When it was the metropolis of the Tuscan region. The Boian settlers held the Flaminian tracts tenueret B. [Livy, XXXIII, 37, 3: "With their armies joined they had first gone through the territory of the Boii, laying it waste as far as the town of Felsina." Cf. Holder, Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz, under the word Bononia.] , From whom, they say, this name was given to the city. New happenings can change ancient names, And novelty is wont to arise from novelty. It is now Tunis Tunicium B. ; earlier men called it Byrsa Rather, Carthage. Vergil, Aen. I, 367. ; It is now the New City Naples. ; once it was Parthenope; [75] The walls which in the old speech had been Byzantine Bear the renowned name of a Roman king. His family was neither illustrious nor without a name; of an obscure family; It was of the middle blood of the city's common people. His limbs were not over-robust, but not without strength (sed - membra) non imbecilia multum B. ; His body neither rose too high nor was short membra nec immensum nec breve corpus erat B. his limbs, his body neither huge nor short . he was of middle stature and comely in form; His form was becoming in a man, his hair black on chin and crown, His locks curling, and his face somewhat dark. He lately closed the happy times of his life, And made his journey to the thresholds of heaven. [85] His last years served better pursuits; His first youth had unclean hands. For he felt the contagions of the venomous world, And all but went down into the shallows of the water of Lethe. The first age arises surrounded by evil manners, from his earliest years And stirs up very many wars in new minds. Youth is foul, and is a huge sink of crimes, And it suffers no bridles, nor can it bear the yoke. It can bring darkness over the whole of life, And stain grey hairs with its vices. [95] It is wild, and reveres neither laws nor public rights. It rages, and is proud after the manner of an untamed horse. It must therefore first be curbed with hard bits luparis B. And always be harassed with heavy fear, Lest it carry the man headlong; it must be subdued with scourges, Tortured with thirst, worn down with hunger. Add that the reckless rage of Dis Deceives the human race with unheard-of cunning. Here it is pleasing to show the streams of the infernal spring Which carry the black rivers of the Styx into the world. 105] Ambitious honour, and wealth, and foul pleasure, [to ambition, These three the world holds in place of the threefold Godhead; These haec B. are the headlong Furies which burning Orcus uses, and through them sows every crime upon the earth. Here the whirlpool snatched away wretched Sapphira with her husband, And one earth buried the two liars. This dark abyss sank pious David; Hence Solomon went headlong into every wickedness; to lust, Absalom, driven by the furies of lofty honour, Hung, a lamentable burden, from the oaken bough. [115] These beget quarrels, arm the courts with raging lawsuits, These whet the wars of Mars with their sharp sound. These drive man to attempt hard labours, And to disturb the floor both of sea and of land. Hither human prudence turns its senses, Hither men bring their cares and their prayers. You too, Louis, these three tyrants strove To destroy, and to cast headlong into the Stygian lakes. The perils of sea and land are divided among us, And his own Syrtes and his own Scylla awaits each man. 125] He sank his green years in unlawful gains, [and he was given to avarice; And, watchful, heaped up unjust wealth, Skilled to feign, to cheat, to compose a feigned countenance, And to ensnare unwary feet. As the wolf lies in wait for the winter sheepfold, While the lamb lies at the warm side of its mother, So he kept watch for coins, and thought This a work worthy of exceptional praise. Such men, they say, are born under the star of Mercury: Crafty, double, treaty-breaking men. [135] He was shrewd at merchandise, ingenious for gold, Nor was he less prone to the joys of Venus. Shut in by such snares he languished, and to these Arts his youthful wit gave itself. There came the indulgent clemency of the highest Father, And drew back his foot as it slipped from the Stygian stream. A savage fever surrounded the man with blind heat, overcome by a grievous sickness And a burning heat invaded his inmost bones. He lay prostrate on his bed; groans and laments arise, And his wounded heart trembles with deep fear. [145] His parched tongue suffers thirst; his panting breast Sighs, and his lips groan with alternating cries. He thinks he is pressed by death, that his fate has come, and the day Of his funeral, and the last hours of his life. he is converted to God He turns to those above, and prays to the holy powers And makes vows. Fear is a religious thing religiosa B. . So too Francis fled the darkness of pale Avernus, And was caught up to the stars in such a way. There are those who are called by allurements, those who are called by terror, And yet one Spirit moves them all. [155] Simon by allurements, Paul by flames and lightning, Who was struck from his horse by the fierce thunderbolt. The sick flesh profits the soul; the health of the mind, born From the sick body, came back to life when it had died. The mind, turning its eyes upon itself, saw its wounds, Blushed, and groaned over its filth. It saw the heavenly light, the darkness being driven off, And a new day shone from the citadel of heaven. Soon the fury for wealth was quenched, the harmful pleasure blotted out, The love of worldly honour driven away. [165] The divine art formed a new man, that he Might rouse us to the true riches of the homeland, That there might be one et B. who could turn sluggish men From Orcus to the holy thresholds of the eternal house; That by his example mad Felsina might Come to her senses, and put bridles on her error, Felsina, which is ever foul with quarrels and shed blood, And roars with everlasting sedition, and he is an example to the Bolognese; Felsina, which swells, distended with proud disdain, Felsina, the parent of avarice and luxury. [175] He showed you the short ways of a holy life, And opened to you a brief road to heaven. So God granted Albert to Trapani [On St. Albert of Trapani, Act. SS., Aug. vol. II, p. 215 – 26. He obtained the honours of the saints in the year 1476, while Mantuanus was living.] , that the whole Island might walk by the counsels and the deeds of the old man. Him great Eryx, him Lilybaeum honours, And the shallows of the Messina sea, made free. But I should now have to sound with a better plectrum, For now I shall sing the several deeds of his virtue. This was a matter to be extolled in the heroic buskin, Nor was it to be recorded in unequal measures. [185] As soon prius B. as, the world being dead to him, he began to come to his senses, He changed his first garments into a pitch-dark gown. he put on a dark garment, Nor was the colour that of art, but born in the very fleece velere B. , Such garments as the true Carmel has Preliminary Commentary, no. 9. . then a white one After some years he began to be clothed in whitish Tunics, and to be covered with poorer attire. But neither did he go at once to the highest citadel of virtue; He bore himself to the lofty places with a ripe step. As his virtue, growing powerful, took on greater strength, So he was the more hard and harsh toward his body. [195] As a tree comes up stronger from its deepest root, Its bark is harder and its inner rind rougher. These two grew equally; hour by hour there rose The harshness toward the body together with his uprightness, As, where the vine is joined to the elm of equal age, Each in rivalry lifts its head to the stars. He bore the December winters and the colds of January and thin clothing even in winter; In rough and simple rags. He bore with naked heel the heavy star of icy Aquarius, When the Po whitens with its waters congealed by the cold. [205] With naked heel he bore the mud, the ice and the rains, And the dusty backs of the stony ground. Perhaps you will object that they walk with bare soles Who inhabit Meroe and the houses of the Ethiopians, And where the Nile, which brings the rains from the black Garamantian The Garamantes, a people of inner Libya. , Fertilizes the fields with rich sand, Where Semiramis built the old city of Babylon, Where the Tigris Tigris B. rolls the Armenian waters into the sea. We know it, and the clemency of a gentle sky has given These gifts to those places, and has granted a mild climate. [215] There the earth is clothed with perpetual grass, And always has the gifts of a continual spring; Always the Arabian fields nourish fragrant cinnamon cinnama B. , Always the happy soil has rich frankincense, Always the warm moist valleys have their balsams, Always the ground has violets, always lilies; There you see fields whitened by no frosts; One may bear bare feet through those lands. Our region slopes too far toward the icy Bear, And the land languishes, scorched under barren frost. [225] Boreas assails us too much with his piercing blast, And our colds surpass the Scythian snows. We have seen the swiftest rivers, their backs bound fast, Bear men and laden wagons over long roads. He endured the summer suns with bared head, And the sickly signs of the heat-bringing Dog-star. With worn-out garments he wrapped his needy shoulders, He who before had been resplendent in burning purple. The hair of his head was uncombed, and uncombed his beard, he lets his hair grow unkempt; And his face was of neglected rusticity. [235] A rope, found by chance on the filthy ground, drove out The girdle shining with the splendour of silver. Having deserted the wife whom he had married (c. n.) quam duxerat B. in his green years, he deserts his wife; He led a chaste time to his last day. And because it is not lawful to dismiss a bride without cause, Very many hold that this was not permitted him. But it is a crime, a crime to fasten this upon a holy man, For whatever the cause was, it was a chaste one. Wandering with no fixed abode, he went under the roofs of others; He did not bear to have a house of his own. [245] he hides in the house of Paolo Lupari, A wanderer in the city, at last within the thresholds of Paolo Lupari [Paolo Lupari, known from an instrument of 17 August of the year 1475. Melloni, vol. cit., p. 139, n. 12. Cf. Dolfi, Cronologia delle famiglie nobili di Bologna (Bologna, 1670), p. 482.] He made a mean cloister in an obscure place. Nor was the house ample, but a small, dark and hidden Dwelling, scarcely to be entered at midday. He had chosen this, imitating the manners of the ancient Alexius, A pale lodging and a hut of many openings. This was a mournful image of the pale tomb; So could he be mindful of his lamentable fate. So could he restrain the many motions of his mind, And weaken the goads in such a way. [255] With this sickle the saints are wont to cut back the evil weeds, And to mortify fires that burn too hotly. His bed was the ground, or brushwood strewn on the soil, or a hard Plank, and hard cloaks against the bare skin. he lies on the ground He strewed brittle straw, when his sick flesh Asked for a soft pallet for its feeble limbs. So when he was well, so when he lay in sickness, A life a little delicate was a crime. For a pillow no soft duck, no feathered goose, he uses a stone for a pillow; No shorn flock, stripped of its fleece, gave him anything; [265] But a stone, or a trunk torn from a stiff tree, Lest sleep should weigh down his limbs with sluggish rest. Long hunger had worked his slender limbs with leanness, And a pale wrinkle furrowed his hollow skin. And lest relishes should catch his famished tongue, Much ash went into the dishes set before him. And lest you think him accustomed to recline at sumptuous tables, I shall go back further over these things and sing them more clearly. he abstains from meats, He abstained from rich food, nor did he touch flesh with his mouth, Lest the flesh become seditious against the mind. [275] Bread, fruits, nuts nusces B. , garden herbs seldom Cooked: these were his food for three lustres. If he cooked herbs, he never yet dressed them with oil; He gave no joys to his belly, none to his gullet. If perhaps he wished to eat a scaly fish, He roasted his sparing meal on a burning fire. His food was such as the primeval earth gave To the new world, not yet spoiled by the salt sea, Before Noah's ark, and before the waves of the sea, Before the fatal water bore it to the high ridges. 285] Then there was a simple life under the rustic turf, [using rustic fare In the smoky hearth and in poor huts. Then gluttony spared the flocks; the turtle-dove lay Secure, and the boar did not fear ambushes. If a beast had died of old age, or by the bite of wolves, And if perhaps a wild beast had been caught by a daring hand, The hide torn off dirrepto B. , the flesh laid bare from the ribs [Verg., Aen. I, 211: "they tear the hides from the ribs and lay bare the flesh."] , They gave it to be torn apart dillanianda B. by the beasts and the birds. With skins they veiled vellabant B. the shaggy limbs of the body, Against the Massagetae and the Bistonian snows The Bistones, a people of Thrace. . [295] No wool glowed with foreign purple, For neither was there the practice of dyeing the fleece. after the norm of the ancients. Their clothing was of the colour the flock had had before; The shepherd himself was of one colour with his flocks. Dried figs, walnuts, the common fodder of the table, For the ancient rich men, the milky mass of the honeycomb. But now the widespread licence of the ravenous belly Devours grass, birds, cattle and wild beasts. Neither sea nor land is enough; the air is invaded, And the elements are the prey of conquering gluttony. [305] The paunch [Isidore, Orig. XI, 1, 136: "Aqualiculus … properly belongs to the pig; hence it is transferred to the belly."] grows, gluttony Lemargia, that is, gluttony and surfeit. Ascensius. paints fat Faces, and gapes ever for the fodder of the belly. Hence Venus arises, and the offspring of Venus, and sloth; The mind grows dull, art sleeps, and the wit totters. But lest by chance it withdraw too far from its own path, Let the ship, turned about, abandon its wandering excursions. His highest pleasure was to defraud his appetite, And to waste away Venus with sparing food. He declares war on pleasure; His drink was the river, or Bacchus made weak With flowing river water, and cold wines in a small ladle. [315] Earth is all-powerful; Bacchus becomes useless with water; Therefore he was booty and sport for sailors. At night he dissolved his eyes in tears, his breast in blows, And was the avenger of the crime committed. With a bitter heart he turned over the heavy pains of Christ, And the limbs torn dillacerata B. by a cruel hand, The chains, and the rivers running with innocent blood, The wounds, and the thorns fixed in the sacred head, The eyes heavy with weeping, the pillar wet with slaughter, And the ground moist with the dew of flowing gore. [325] Rapt captus B. by these images he had conceived the Godhead, And his breast was full of the divine light. For the wretched he was a beggar, for the poor a collector, he gives out alms for the poor; he carves images; In his need he often helped the needy with riches. Lest languid leisure should lull his weary mind, He carved white figures with a ready hand. He marked sacred effigies in white bone, Imitating with mind and hand the men of heaven. Taught to render to himself in their bones The countenances and the manners of those men, in both offices his labour was holy. [335] Lest light glory should tempt his unwary mind, He closed the suspected road with an armed soldier. For that plague rises from the seed of the virtues, As a harmful growth comes out of rich soil. Very often the vintage passes into vain leaves; Crops are wont to degenerate into darnel. Virtue, unless it is hidden, passes into vice, And vain glory despoils pious minds. Therefore, fearing this storm for its own crops, His diligent care found an easy way. [345] he seeks the mockery of the common people; For now, carried on a bow-backed little ass through the crowd, He went along, and was the talk of the city's common people Preliminary Commentary, no. 10. . Now, with the tip of his tongue pressed in a double withe, He was the common laughing-stock through the public squares. Now, putting his hands into chains and a halter on his neck, He was the true image of a captured robber. Often by this stratagem the good soldier conquered His enemies, and often returned from the fight in triumph. By these arts he subjected empty cares to the law; These were the chains of the rebellious flesh. [355] More worthy is he who conquers himself than he who conquers The strongest towns, nor can virtue go higher. The nature of men is fierce and hard; the onset of lions Is lighter, the wrath of the tigress less. The Centaurs, the hydra, the Lapiths Lapitas B. and the lion of Nemea, Cacus, and Geryon, and the bronze-footed beast Cf. Verg., Aen. VI, 802. , The Phlegraeans, Eryx Ericem B. Cf. Verg., Aen. V, 402, 412, etc. , the birds and the strong Amazon, Antaeus, the Hesperides and the Oebalian hearths, And the twin serpents, the horns of Achelous, Troy, And the three-headed dog Alcides tamed. [365] He who tamed all things was the slave of Venus and of anger. He bore this yoke, though conquered by no enemy. Learn, you whom desire leads through foul haunts, You whom a wandering path has turned along a small pravum B. road, Learn what laws honour, and what reins pleasure Requires, what remedy there is for unjust wealth. Turn your footsteps along the steps of the holy man; The holy track will carry you into pious manners. This evil prosperity, which is about to bring a great storm, Leads to the shallow pools of an unknown strait. [375] Turn your sails quickly ciri B. ; the places now seem ill-secure; Scylla, close at hand, rouses her angry dogs. Through him the holy reverence of sacred worship grew, the cult of the Most Holy Sacrament And piety, increased, flourished in a wonderful way. For nanque B. he forbade the venerable body of the saving Christ To be worshipped with scant religion. That the shining mysteries might be celebrated with solemn rite, He instituted torches and many fires. He set burning lamps lichmos B. round about the altars, he increases it with lights provided; That the sacred place might shine with kindled fire [That the rite instituted by Bl. Louis continued in the church of Bologna is testified by Melloni, vol. cit., p. 142.] . [385] The supreme glory of God claims bright light for itself; Flame ought to be given to God and to the dwellers in heaven. For as there is eternal night under gloomy Orcus, So the court of heaven has perpetual day. In such a way we bear witness to the immense honours of those above, Nor is light the least work of religion. He prayed at the burning altars with bare feet, Pressing the very bare marble with bare foot. Meanwhile his limbs grew numb with trembling cold, And the chill, gradually penetrating, went into his bones. [395] His fervent virtue, kindled by the divine heat, Endured, to be lessened by no frost. God hates the soft allurements of life; the house of Olympus Is closed to pleasure and to sloth. As the Phoenix places itself in the burning fire, That it may renew the long times of its life, So Louis, meditating on the long honours of heaven, Of his own will underwent every toilsome work. Nor by example only tantam B. he teaches the ignorant; but by speech too he called The ignorant crowds to the holy thresholds of those above. [405] Everywhere he strove to scatter his teachings through the neighbouring Cities, and to bring the extinguished faith to life. This the youth of Modena remembers, and the nearby walls Of Lepidus Regium Lepidum, now Reggio Emilia. and the rustic huts through the tilled fields, And new Ferrara, which whitens with snowy walls, And older Mantua, girt with its glassy lake. For the Roman generals the eagles were their standards; but for this man Christ was painted on a whitening linen. This ensign he carried in his hand through countryside and cities, he carries a banner; Teaching that the camp of the great God alone was to be followed. [415] Learn what cares, what great fires he had conceived, How great a fervour was in his kindled breast, With what zeal, with what love he held fast to Christ, What great strength holy faith gave to his soul. By these arts he moved sluggish souls and deaf Breasts, and was a spur toward the powers of heaven. And not wishing to be thought better or greater than others, He often feigned some work of a fool. For nanque B. he canvassed for the sacred honours of priests, And pretended to be driven by swelling disdain ["He seemed to desire too much the sacred honours of priests, that is, either to become a priest or to be venerated (so) as a priest, and he pretended that he was impelled by ambition." Ascensius.] . [425] Yet he did not fall from the highest summit of the austere Life; he continued on the narrow road. And now, seeing the times of his last life at hand, he joyfully awaits death; He joyfully lifted his heart to the eternal riches. The swan sings and longs to finish the thankless labours of life, [430] When it comes to the thresholds of death Or cygnus. Verg., Aen. XI, 58; Ecl. IX, 36. . The ploughman, beholding the rewards of his long sweat, Rejoices that the day of the fruitful harvest is at hand. So Louis, eagerly fleeing from our world, Signified that this journey was pleasant to him. [435] A sickness, pressing his anxious heart, had now taken the thresholds Of his life, and the path was opened to fate. When the household, pitying the sick man lying on the ground, Gave his limbs, now dying, to a soft bed, He could not bear feathers, nor wooden coverlets, he refuses comforts; But, crawling, he pressed the cold ground with his body. The body, he says, is earth; give bodies to the lowly earth; Let the mind go with happy foot to its stars. After the sacred rites of the faith had been performed according to custom, he is fortified with the sacraments; His mind departed, separated from the rotting clay. [445] Fever, and a bloody humour bursting forth widely from his nostrils, Were the cause of his mournful death. His lifeless body is given back to the tomb with a solemn funeral, And his burial place was laid in a crowded spot. he foretells his death, For one treating each thing, it must by no means be passed over in silence That he had seen his own death long before. He saw it, and nine months before he told of his funeral, And that his last day was not far off. and he rejects the art of physicians. His pious mind did not wish for itself the help of the medical art, Taught after the manner of Agatha Agates B. to trust in God alone St. Agatha shunned medical help, Act. SS., Febr. vol. I, p. 617. . [455] The tree bears the cold and the winter rain without its hair, And, its body stripped, trembles naked. But when the warm west wind enters the closed countryside, It begins to luxuriate with whitening foliage. The moist nourishment creeps through the slender veins of the wood, And the heat drunk in awakens its bones. It mingles purple beauty with the flower of the leaf, And brings forth the riches of a many-coloured adornment. So this man lay without glory for many years, And, mean and sick, bore an immense burden. [465] But now, taken up after his death into the heavenly court, He flourishes, and is green with everlasting fruitfulness. So too the body, dead after the appointed ages, Will rise, and will clothe the bones with their ancient skin. Then again the soul will glide into its familiar limbs, And will go with earthly foot to the lofty stars. The ninth light of frosty November had now risen, When the light shade bore itself to its Father. He had completed ten lustres of life and two years; This was the last goal of his human way. [475] Before the doors of Peter, turned toward the icy Bear, There is a place, the work of ancient religion. Here he lay at first; six months after his funeral he was Taken up, and was laid in the great church. The translation into the cathedral church. Here new miracles take place with a great concourse, And all Felsina makes vows at the sacred place. He who comes sick returns free to his thresholds, And the buried bones help wretched men. He begins to become famous for miracles. The lame, those robbed of their eyes, and those with the knots of gout Bear witness that divine help glides in upon them. [485] The supreme uprightness of the man, and the miracles too, prove That he is a saint, if faith is to be had in faith. Great father, who look upon the affairs of men from the lofty Summit, take counsel and bring in judgement. The poet foretells for him a place among the saints For nothing is to be dared rashly, nor is it fitting To call men saints before the assent ascensum B. of your divine power. But if it should be permitted to add him to the heavenly saints, The highest glory of your age would rise. May prosperity be yours; may the ages of Nestor and of the Sibyl Bear you to the fields of everlasting nectar. [495] Thus far these things; when one day you have presented us with the city Of Romulus Preliminary Commentary, no. 1. , I shall sing of you with a better plectrum.