ON ST. MAGNUS OF ODERZO, BISHOP OF ODERZO, AFTERWARDS OF HERACLEA, CONFESSOR, PERHAPS AT HERACLEA IN THE VENETIAN DOMINION,
PERHAPS ABOUT THE YEAR DCLX.
SYLLOGE.
The announcements of the Saint in the more recent Martyrologies: the translation of his body from the city of Heraclea: the Saint's solemn cult. His birth, the epochs of the episcopate of Oderzo held by him and of that of Heraclea afterwards erected, the erection of eight churches made at Venice, and the place and time of his death, are discussed.
Magnus, bishop of Oderzo, afterwards of Heraclea, confessor, perhaps at Heraclea. (S.)
BY J. G.
This holy Prelate, whom Peter de Natalibus, in the Appendix of his Catalogue, chapter 17, calls Magnus Great not so much by name as in effect, that is, by his illustrious deeds, of St. Magnus, bishop, whom Maurolico at Heraclea, none of the old or classical martyrologists, as far as I know, brought into his Fasti. Of the more recent, whom I know, the first to mention him on this day, but too sparingly, is the author of our Florarium, written in the year 1486, in these words: Likewise of the holy confessors Magnus the bishop and Dulcis (or Dulcidius, of whom we treated among the Passed-over on this day), bishop of Agannum (nay rather of Agen). He was followed by Maurolico, who on this same day not only assigned the Saint's place of death, but also inserted in his announcement the name of the one city over which he presided as bishop, and the very translation of his body to Venice: At Heraclea, he says, in the gulf of the Adriatic, of Magnus, bishop of that city, buried at Venice in the church of St. Jeremiah in the year of Salvation MCCVI.
[2] But not even Maurolico himself, as I have just indicated, others announce him at Oderzo, comprised in this eulogy of his all the things which could be announced of St. Magnus; for he was silent about his episcopate of Oderzo, which, besides an ancient, though, as will appear below, in some part less accurate, inscription of the church of Oderzo, and various authors to be cited below also, Galesini and the present-day Roman Martyrology also seem to ascribe to him, and indeed in such a way that from the announcement of both you would believe that he died at Oderzo; on which matter there will be discussion afterwards. But let us now hear the announcement of Galesini: At Oderzo among the Carni, of St. Magnus, bishop and confessor: whose body, translated to Venice, was piously and religiously laid up in the basilica of St. Jeremiah. Let us hear also the words of the Roman Martyrology: At Oderzo, of St. Magnus, bishop, whose body rests at Venice, namely in the church of St. Jeremiah, into which it was translated on this day in the year 1206, as the annotations added to the Roman Martyrology testify from the Appendix of Peter de Natalibus.
[3] his sacred body carried to Venice in the year 1206, Concerning this translation, so that we may not be compelled to separate elsewhere the things which bear on the Saint's cult, and so that by the same labour the things just said may be illustrated, it has seemed good to set here, discoursing learnedly after his fashion, the most illustrious senator of the Venetian republic, Flaminio Corner, who in Decade X of the Monuments of the Venetian church, page 417, treating of the relics of the Saints kept in the sacred church of St. Jeremiah, reviews in the fourth place the body of St. Magnus, a citizen of Altinum, bishop first of Oderzo, soon of Heraclea; and then comprises the translation of his body made to Venice in these words: The venerable remains of the most holy Prelate were carried to Venice in the year MCCVI, and placed in the parish church of St. Jeremiah, as the Legend of St. Magnus, bishop and confessor, which the said senator shows entire from page 419, expressly relates, composed either at the very time of the translation, or certainly not long after, as will be shown below.
[4] But why, says the same most illustrious writer, the church of St. Jeremiah was chosen before others in the church of St. Jeremiah, more probably not for the reason alleged here, to be enriched with so great a pledge, an ancient manuscript codex gives the cause, from which we have received that St. Magnus, bishop of Oderzo, had his origin in the city of Altinum from the Frigeria family, which family afterwards, coming to Venice out of fear of barbarian incursion, set up its house for itself in the furthest part of the city; in which the holy Bishop himself also stayed for some while when he was living at Venice; in testimony of which there is shown a certain narrow and dark little room, situated at the level of the ground in the same house, in which it has been handed down to memory that the holy Man dwelt, and which even now from his residence is called la Camera di S. Magno.
[5] Thus far the most illustrious Corner, who, however, so far from confirming the cause asserted in that manuscript codex for the sacred body being translated into that church, but for another, which the most illustrious Corner hands down, presently affirms on the contrary that it can with just right be called into doubt, speaking thus: But since a narration of this kind is supported by no document of more certain mark, it can rightly be called into doubt. Then, no mention being made of the Frigeria family from which St. Magnus was sprung, he gives another cause, which seemed to him more probable, why the body of the Saint was carried into the church of St. Jeremiah. If, however, he says on page 418, it is permitted to catch at conjectures, it is probable that Pietro Ziani (in the time of whose dukedom the translation was accomplished), emulating the piety of duke Sebastiano, his father, who had renewed the falling church, ordered the sacred remains to be brought to the church within whose bounds he had inhabited his father's house: which reason of the learned man indeed pleases me also entirely, in preference to the one alleged in that manuscript codex, which is not ancient enough.
[6] But whatever the reason was for translating the body of our Prelate into the church of St. Jeremiah, [it was honourably deposited, having been carried there before from the city of Heraclea,] certainly it was translated thither by the men of that district, as the Legend cited above says, under MCCVI years, in the ninth Indiction, in the month of October, on the sixth day. But from which city, Oderzo or Heraclea, was the sacred pledge carried to Venice? That it lay, before it was translated to Venice, in the aforesaid city of Heraclea, which is now called Cittanova, the same Legend testifies; which, since, on the testimony of the most learned Corner, page 418, it is even older than the ancient parchment codex once kept at Venice in the sacred church of St. Mark for the use of the Matins Lessons, nay exists in a Chronicle of an older age, perhaps not only of one or two, and accordingly was composed either in the very year of the translation or certainly at a time near to it, leaves no place for prudently doubting on this matter. The other things which pertain to the Ecclesiastical veneration of St. Magnus it now pleases me to recite from the said Venetian senator, than whom there can be no fitter witness on this subject.
[7] That the feast day of St. Magnus the bishop, he says in the same Decade, page 421, and afterwards, by decree of the Venetian senate, with a solemn feast should be numbered among the principal solemnities of the city (of Venice) was enacted by a decree of the Senate on the 21st day of December in the year MCCCCLIV; and he subjoins at once the said decree, composed in these words: There was, at the beginning of the origin of this our city, the glorious St. Magnus, bishop, from the city of Altinum, who by heavenly revelation caused to be built in this city eight notable churches, namely of St. Peter of Castello, of St. Raphael, of St. Saviour, of St. Mary Formosa, of St. John in Bragora, of St. Zachary, of St. Justina and of the holy Apostles: whence many good things have followed, through which this our city, divine grace mediating, has been much enlarged, and, the same favouring, is enlarged day by day. Whence it is most fitting, beyond the merits of such a Saint, on account also of the benefits conferred on this city, that he be befittingly honoured and venerated. The motion passes, that the day of his festivity, which comes on the VII * day of October, be a day and a solemn feast which ought to be observed throughout the whole city, as was decreed in former days concerning St. Theodore, so that by the continual prayers of these Saints our most clement God may deign to preserve our state in perpetual tranquillity and peace.
[8] St. Magnus was more probably honoured on 6 October with another public cult. For the rest, I think that the VII day of October was put in that decree by a typographical error in place of the VI day, for this reason if no other, both because from the very Legend of St. Magnus, some words of which we transcribed at number 6, it is evidently clear that the translation of the body was made not on the VII day but on the preceding one, and because by another decree of the senate of the Venetian republic it was enacted that public and solemn veneration should be shown to St. Magnus on the 6th day of October, which the directories of the Venetian church for this latter day testify is shown even today. That decree of the senate indeed the often-cited Venetian senator did not record word for word, but that it was in fact issued in the year 1563 it is safe to believe on his assertion. His words, for this reason too, that they comprise the rest of the Saint's cult, I transcribe here from pages 421 and 422. Then in the year MDLXIII, he says, it was enacted by decree of the Senate that a bone should be extracted from the remains of St. Magnus by Giovanni Trevisan, patriarch of Venice, and this, a solemn supplication being proclaimed, should be brought to the ducal basilica of St. Mark, where, enclosed in a rich reliquary, it should be kept among the other more precious relics of the same church, and on the 6th day of October should be shown annually to the public veneration of the people with fitting honour.
[9] Sprung, as is handed down, from the city of Altinum The Saint's cult being now established and illustrated, it remains that we set about discussing, as far as the dearth of old documents allows, the things which various writers have handed down about him. That St. Magnus drew his origin from the city of Altinum, which lies beside the Adriatic sea at the mouth of the river Sile, at about equal distance between Padua and Concordia, the author of his Legend cited at number 6, Peter de Natalibus in the Appendix of the Catalogue, chapter 17, Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, page 632, Coleti in volume X of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 153, and the most illustrious Corner, Decade X, page 417, write with unanimous consent. But I could wish that one of them
had indicated to us the ancient source from which this birth of St. Magnus was drawn, so that the holy Prelate might more safely be set down as a citizen of Altinum. For, although the author of the Legend, who is the most ancient of them, entirely merits credit in those things which pertain to the translation of the body made in the year 1206, he certainly has not equal authority for those things which he writes were done six centuries before him, adducing namely no witness who was contemporary or nearly contemporary with St. Magnus.
[10] Moreover, that his parents were most noble in blood Peter de Natalibus and from most noble parents, as is reported. hands down, and that they were of the Frigeria family, afterwards illustrious at Venice, the manuscript codex mentioned at number 4 openly hands down. But, since these things too rest on not sufficiently ancient authority, it is better to leave them in the middle than to assert them without an old witness, or to deny them without a solid reason to the contrary. If credit is to be given to the aforesaid Legend, to Equilinus, Ferrarius and others, St. Magnus began from the first flower of his age to seek the Lord, and, that he might be the more free for Him, led a solitary life for some while, and afterwards, renowned both for virtues and for miracles, was adorned with the episcopal dignity, namely, as what is to be said will reveal, more probably before the year of Christ 638. But since neither the Legend of St. Magnus nor the authors just cited anywhere suggest that our Saint at any time presided over the church of Oderzo, nay rather seem to hand down that he was taken from the priestly grade to the episcopate of Heraclea, someone will ask on what foundation we make him bishop of Oderzo before Heraclea.
[11] I answer that we do so both from the far more common and older opinion, He was raised to the episcopate of Oderzo, and afterwards to that of Heraclea, and on the faith of one of the ancient inscriptions which, on the testimony of Nicola Coleti, volume X of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 152, are fixed on the walls of the major church of Oderzo. This, in the same Coleti, column 153, is composed in these words: St. Magnus, bishop of Oderzo, together with the people of Oderzo, their city having been taken by Grimoald (nay by Rothari, as we shall say below), king of the Lombards, fleeing to the lagoons, founded Heraclea there in the year of the Lord DCXXXVIII. With this agrees Andrea Dandolo in the Chronicle, book 6, chapter 7, part 9, writing thus of our Prelate: Then (namely when Rothari had stormed and destroyed Oderzo, a town hostile to him) Magnus, a holy man, and Catholic bishop of the place (Oderzo), coming with the devout people to the neighbouring shores, built a city, which he called Heraclia under the name of the emperor, and dedicated to God a cathedral church under the name of blessed Peter the Apostle, and by the authority of Pope Severinus and the patriarch Primogenius, and with the approval of the people, placed his see perpetually in the same city. That one should stand here by these express testimonies rather than by the silence of the Legend and of Equilinus is openly indicated by Bernardo Giustiniani, On the Origin of the City of the Venetians, book 7, column 84, volume 5, part 1 of the Thesaurus of the Antiquities and History of Italy, Flavio Biondo, Italy Illustrated, folio 108 verso, Carlo Sigonio, On the Kingdom of Italy, book 2, Milan edition, column 102, Nicola Coleti, volume X of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 153, and, to pass over many others, the often-cited senator Corner, when they set down without doubt that St. Magnus was bishop first of Oderzo, soon of Heraclea; to whom, as far as the see of Oderzo is concerned, Galesini and the present-day Roman Martyrology, whose words we gave at number 2, seem not undeservedly able to be joined.
[12] Further, Oderzo, whose episcopal chair St. Magnus held before that of Heraclea, of which cities notice is given, is described by Coleti in the cited volume, column 151: Once a populous and celebrated city of Venetia, distant twelve thousand paces from Ceneda towards the south-east, which gave its name to the mountains of Oderzo, today commonly called Oderzo or Uderzo; but Heraclea, or Heraclia, of which we speak here, was situated in the Venetian lagoons on the shore of the Adriatic sea, and in the place of it, after it was destroyed, the Venetians raised up another city, which it pleased them to call Cittanova. It will be helpful to have heard Nicola Coleti discoursing more fully about this city, for this reason if no other, that the things he hands down serve to bring out sufficiently closely the epoch of both episcopates held by St. Magnus. Among the maritime cities, he says at column 113, which the citizens of the old province of Venetia founded when the barbarians were invading Italy, Heraclia or Heraclea was not of the last renown. That the people of Oderzo built it when the seventh century of Salvation was already grown is the constant assertion of writers; for when the chief men of the people of Oderzo were lamenting their country destroyed by Rothari, king of the Lombards, imitating the example of the other Venetians, they too, betaking themselves to the lagoons at the instigation of St. Magnus their bishop, built this city in the year DCXXXVIII on the shore of the Adriatic sea… and called it Heraclea from the name of the emperor Heraclius, who at that time was guiding the reins of the empire, Severinus holding the Pontificate of the whole Church. Thus far Coleti, who presently subjoins the words of Dandolo which we transcribed above at number XI.
[13] [and he perhaps held the former see from the year 630 until 638, and afterwards that of Heraclea,] From those words of Dandolo, therefore, and from the words of the inscription of Oderzo cited at the same number, we have in some way defined the epoch of the episcopate of Oderzo held by St. Magnus and of that of Heraclea undertaken by him, and we seem to ourselves to come sufficiently near the truth if we determine that St. Magnus was adorned with the episcopal dignity about the year 630, sat at Oderzo at least until the year 636, and, his episcopal city having been destroyed, soon began to found Heraclea in the Venetian lagoons, in whose major church, erected by him to St. Peter, he placed his episcopal see perpetually in the year 640 by the authority of Pope Severinus and of Primogenius, patriarch of Grado. But the reason why I said above that St. Magnus sat at Oderzo at least until the year 636 is that only in that year did Rothari, by whom, on the testimony of Paul the Deacon, book 4 On the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 47, Oderzo was stormed and destroyed, receive the kingdom of the Lombards, as the most learned Assemani clearly proves in volume 2 of the Writers of Italy, page 267; so that accordingly the holy Prelate perhaps still sat at Oderzo even at the beginning of the year 638, which see nothing forbids us to believe that he had already held for some years before. But against this epoch of the see of Oderzo left and that of Heraclea entered by St. Magnus there arise some difficulties, which must be cleared up before we proceed to the Saint's other deeds.
[14] [nor does the inscription of the church of Oderzo much hinder what has been said, which, one word being emended,] And the first indeed lies in this, that in the said ancient inscription fixed on the walls of the church of Oderzo, Grimoald, king of the Lombards, is set down as having undertaken the fatal expedition against the city of Oderzo not after the year 638, whereas Grimoald was made king of the Lombards from duke of Benevento only in the year 662, and could not have besieged Oderzo and, having taken it, destroyed it utterly before the latter year. I answer: so the matter stands: and therefore I confess that that inscription, namely as it is published in volume X of the Italia Sacra, column 153, is faulty in this, that in place of Rothari, king of the Lombards, it puts Grimoald at the year 638; whether this error is to be imputed to the author of the inscription or to its restorer I cannot declare. But this being emended from the words of Dandolo cited at number XI, the aforesaid inscription is consistent with itself, and all things fit together excellently. For he who, while the emperor Heraclius was still living, and probably about the year 638, after taking the cities of the Romans situated on the shore of the Ligurian sea as far as the borders of the Franks, stormed and destroyed Oderzo also… in like manner, was, on the testimony of Paul the Deacon, book 4 On the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 47, cited a little before, none other than king Rothari, who afterwards waged war with the people of Ravenna and the Romans at the river of Aemilia which is called the Scultenna, in which war, on the part of the Romans, the rest turning their backs, eight thousand fell.
[15] Further, that already before that war of king Rothari with the people of Ravenna, the words of Paul the Deacon and Andrea Dandolo, illustrated by Sigonio, the emigration of the people of Oderzo to the lagoons of the Adriatic sea, their city having been taken by Rothari, took place, Dandolo, cited above, expressly writes, and wholly in conformity with Paul the Deacon, as will be manifest from the words of both these writers illustrated by Sigonio in book 2 On the Kingdom of Italy. It will be worth the trouble to hear him at column 101 of the Milan edition. Therefore, at the beginning of his reign, he says of Rothari, king of the Lombards, in order to establish his power, he removed from the midst certain nobles of the Lombards whom he had perceived to bear minds estranged from him, and thence turned his mind to moving war against the Romans. For there were in Hither Italy two provinces among the Lombards still subject to the imperial dominion, the Cottian Alps and Oderzo with all its towns as far as Treviso. Desiring therefore to join these to the kingdom of the Lombards, at the beginning of the following year (that is, the year 638, as Sigonio would have it, and perhaps even before) he entered the Cottian Alps with a hostile army, and at his first coming took, plundered and burned the towns of Genoa, Albenga and Luni… Thence, the terror of war being transferred into Venetia, he drove Oderzo and the other places which we have mentioned to surrender.
[16] But the Exarch, after he perceived that he could not bring an army in time to those places, fits excellently, yet did not think he should refrain from breaking with the greatest forces he could into the nearest territories of the king, and filling all with terror and tumult. Therefore Rothari, after he learned that he, having recovered Perugia, was hastening with a huge army to Aemilia, opposed himself to him with the greatest speed he could attain, and, having found him at the river Scultenna of Modena, the boundary of that province, went down into battle without delay. There, the standards being joined, eight thousand of the Romans were slain in a massacre; the rest were compelled to commit themselves to headlong flight. That battle was thenceforth the end of all the wars between the exarchs and the kings until the times of Liutprand. The chief men of the people of Oderzo, having lost their fatherland (namely before Rothari clashed with the exarch), imitating the ancient Venetians, themselves also betook themselves to the lagoons, and, having been carried to the mouths of the river Piave and having placed their dwellings there, founded for themselves a city by the authority of Magnus their bishop, which they named Heraclia from the name of the emperor. Magnus, a basilica having been dedicated to St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, placed there his perpetual see.
[17] But, you will say, Muratori in the Annals of Italy nor do the things which can be objected from Muratori against our opinion, determines that Oderzo was first taken by king Rothari in the year of Christ 641, at which time certainly Pope Severinus, mentioned by Dandolo, was not surviving, nor even, at least in the advanced part of the year, the emperor Heraclius himself, by whom Dandolo and others would have the name given to the new city. Moreover, since Dandolo composed his Chronicle about the year 1330, he has nothing from his age by which to win certain credit for his assertion, so that the inscription of Oderzo mentioned above could be emended with sufficient safety from his words. Add that Pope Severinus, by whose consent
he writes that St. Magnus fixed his see at Heraclea, he asserts to have sat two years, four months, eight days, whereas that Pontiff held the chair of St. Peter not beyond two months and four days, that is, from the 28th of May to the 1st of August of the year 640. Wherefore it seems that the founding of Heraclia, and consequently the end of the see of Oderzo occupied by St. Magnus, ought to be set rather about the year 667, at which time king Grimoald, as Paul the Deacon also testifies, book 5, chapter 28, destroyed the city of Oderzo utterly, than about the year 638, that is, after the capture of the same city by Rothari.
[18] bring it about that it becomes less probable, I confess that this opinion of Muratori, that Heraclia was first founded about the year 667, can indeed be reconciled with the words of Paul the Deacon alone, and that the things which can be objected against our opinion are of such a kind as forbid it to be held as certain. But since an answer to the difficulties proposed is not lacking, and all the things on which Muratori relies are not equally certain, I do not see why one should withdraw from the older and more common opinion, which determines that Heraclia was not only founded in the times of the emperor Heraclius while still living, but also so called from his name. And first indeed, when Muratori hands down that Oderzo was first taken by the Lombards under king Rothari only in the year of Christ 641, he brings forward not even one ancient witness of this epoch, and confesses in volume 4, page 86, that it is only probable to him; so that accordingly, since nothing at all stands in the way, it is equally permitted us to adhere to the opinion of Sigonio, Coleti and others, and it is even more probable on this head, that it does not appear why king Rothari, on the testimony of Paul the Deacon a man strong in strength, and in all likelihood not lightly incensed against the Romans on account of the deadly potion given by their malice to Aio, son of the duke of Benevento, should have granted a truce to the Romans up to the sixth year of his reign, especially when, many of the forces of Heraclius being occupied against the Saracens in the East, he had already from the year 636 found a favourable occasion of invading the cities of the Romans which he coveted.
[19] so that on the contrary with greater probability Moreover, if you say, according to the mind of Ludovico Muratori, that Oderzo was stormed and destroyed only in the year 641, after the capture by Rothari of the cities of the Ligurian coast, nay even that the inhabitants emigrated from there elsewhere with their Prelate not before the year 667, in which Grimoald utterly overthrew that city, what cause, I ask, will you find why the people of Oderzo in the year 667 gave to the new city founded by them the name of the emperor Heraclius, who was snatched from the living either in the month of February or of March of the year 641? I for my part will gladly grant to Muratori that the people of Oderzo, their city having afterwards been utterly destroyed by Grimoald, emigrated to Heraclia about the year 667 in no small number, since Dandolo too testifies to this very thing in the Chronicle, book 6, chapter 8, number 16; but Dandolo himself too suggests in this place that Heraclea was founded not then for the first time, but already a good while before, since he writes that very many of the Inhabitants… of the utterly destroyed city of Oderzo came with their families into the city of Heraclia, as having been built already before by their fellow tribesmen. All which things indeed make more probable to me the opinion which determines that before the Pontificate of Severinus, that is, before the year 640, both Oderzo was taken by Rothari and afterwards the new city was founded by St. Magnus, who gave it its name from the emperor Heraclius; in which city, as Dandolo says in the Chronicle, chapter 7, number 9, he dedicated to God a cathedral church under the name of blessed Peter the Apostle, and by the authority of Pope Severinus and the patriarch Primogenius, and with the approval of the people … placed his see perpetually.
[20] But Dandolo is too young to give certain credit by his authority to so ancient a fact. I confess it; but since no one opposes to us a more ancient and more learned writer who has handed down the contrary, and it is shown that our opinion rests on the testimony of older writers. I see no cause why we should depart from Dandolo here, especially since in his Breviary, volume 1 of the Writers of Italy, page 4, Dandolo openly testifies that of the things he narrates he saw some himself, while others became known to him from reading Annals which have now perished; of which kind it is permissible, not without reason, to suspect were the things he hands down about the Prelate of Oderzo. But, you will say again, Dandolo slips almost in the same place, when he narrates that Pope Severinus sat 2 years, 4 months, 8 days, whereas in truth that Pontiff held the chair of Peter only 2 months and 4 days. I answer: even if Dandolo's Chronicle has not been corrupted in this place by the fault of some smatterer or copyist, who changed the months designated by Dandolo into years, the days into months, and added 8 days out of his own store, which indeed I should not find hard to believe happened; nevertheless one should not depart from the authority of the Venetian chronographer, on the ground that he went astray in ordering the chronology of the Roman Pontiffs, in those things which he committed to writing without doubt in more than one place about a city near Venice and about its Prelate, either from domestic Annals or from constant tradition, the antiquity of which had been ascertained by him. However these things may be, his authority certainly, and that of the other learned men who follow him, seems to me to be held weightier than that of Muratori alone, relying on no ancient witness.
[21] Another difficulty, which arises against the epoch we have fixed of the see of Oderzo being left Coleti proposes to himself and resolves another difficulty against our opinion, and that of Heraclea being erected by St. Magnus, Coleti proposes, volume X of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 152, and also resolves in these words. But here, he says, a difficulty arises from the asserted birthplace of Titian (the immediate predecessor of our Prelate in the episcopate of Oderzo). For if St. Magnus founded Heraclea only about the year DCXXXVIII, how did St. Titian, born at Heraclea, precede St. Magnus, and was both pupil and successor of St. Florian, bishop of Oderzo, who is reported to have died about the year DCXX? A knotty matter indeed, which nevertheless we easily disentangle by asserting that Titian could have been brought forth into the light in that place which afterwards, enlarged into a city and well fortified, the people of Concordia, Altinum and other peoples running thither after the disaster of Aquileia, as Leandro writes, took the name of Heraclea in deference to the emperor Heraclius. But the author who centuries after collected into one and described the deeds of Titian pronounced his native soil from the name of Heraclea afterwards assumed. Thus far Coleti, and indeed quite rightly and consistently with the things he had asserted at column 113 about Heraclea built by the people of Oderzo in the year 638, if he had here substituted the people of Oderzo, from the words of the said inscription and of Andrea Dandolo, for the people of Concordia and Altinum, or at least had subjoined them by name to the others. But Coleti suffered something human in it, as also when at column 151 he writes that Oderzo was restored by Rothari, king of the Lombards, when from the testimony of Paul the Deacon, which exists in book 4, chapter 47, he should have written stormed and destroyed.
[22] Orlendi, wrongly copying Coleti in this in part 2 of the Sacred and Profane World, [whom Orlendi wrongly copied in another place, contradicting himself in various things bearing on this:] strayed much further, be it said now in passing, from the truth, and, what is the chief point here, turned upside down the epochs fixed both by Coleti and by himself, being here wholly contrary to himself in more than one thing: and first indeed, when on page 324, wrongly producing Paul the Deacon, book 4, as witness, he writes that Oderzo was restored by Rothari, king of the Lombards, while nevertheless on page 341 he sets down with us Oderzo destroyed by Rothari, king of the Lombards; and again, when, Oderzo having been overthrown by Rothari, and so at least before the year 652, he asserts on page 341 that Heraclea was built by its fugitive citizens and named in the year 688 from the name of Heraclius, then reigning, whereas at that time Heraclius had already been dead 47 years and Rothari 36 years. Finally, when on page 324 he affirms, according to the more common and also our opinion, that St. Magnus, bishop of Oderzo, with Severinus the Roman Pontiff and the emperor Heraclius approving (and so before 641), withdrew into the lagoons and founded a new city, and nevertheless on the same page 324 maintains that these things were done not before the final disaster brought upon Oderzo by Grimoald, king of the Lombards, or, as he says more manifestly on page 341, not before the year 688. But let us dismiss these things so contradictory among themselves, and rather, as we did before, and have now shown we could rightly do, let us determine that Oderzo was destroyed by Rothari about the year 638, that thereafter Heraclea was founded by its fugitive citizens, St. Magnus being leader and author, while the emperor Heraclius was still living, and finally that in this latter city the episcopal see was erected in the year 640 with the consent of Pope Severinus.
[23] the reason is inquired why St. Magnus transferred his episcopal see to Heraclea. Now, what cause there was why our Prelate emigrated elsewhere with at least the greatest part of his flock from the city of Oderzo, although not utterly destroyed by Rothari, let us hear Bernardo Giustiniani setting it forth in book 7 On the Origin of the City of the Venetians, and at the same time illustrating what we said before. So he, at column 84 of volume 5, part 1 of the Thesaurus of the Antiquities and Histories of Italy: Magnus, of Altinum, a man of outstanding sanctity, presided as bishop over Oderzo, namely when king Rothari stormed and destroyed Oderzo. He (St. Magnus) pitied the continual calamities of the flock committed to him. Yet he bore that Arian poison far more grievously, since * contentions about the faith were more bitter to him than any inconveniences of things whatever. Men blasphemous against God seemed to him unable to be borne. Nor was there any hope of recalling to a saner mind avaricious and proud men, whom he saw the Lombard magistrates favoured. It seemed safer, then, for souls and bodies to yield. He takes a place in the lagoons not far from the mainland. The love of the most holy Man drew with him a very great crowd of mortals, and much nobility accompanied him, who could not desert one who was rather a parent than a prelate. There he founds a city, which he calls Heraclia in deference to Heraclius… afterwards called Cittanova by posterity. Severinus the supreme Pontiff and Primogenius, patriarch of Grado, thereafter confirmed that see. The piety and love which he showed with a certain fatherly loving-kindness towards the fugitives increased very greatly among all the opinion of his sanctity, not by words only and by gentler speech, but also by the thing itself conferred, either from his own or from the bounty of friends. So far the said Venetian patrician, illustrious no less for letters than for distinguished embassies, whom Jacopo of Bergamo called both a philosopher and the prince of the orators of the 15th century among his Venetians.
[24] [The Saint is handed down to have caused eight churches to be erected in the city of Venice,] I now proceed to those eight churches which, after the episcopal see was fixed, as appears, at Heraclea, St. Magnus is generally handed down to have either erected, or caused to be erected, in the city of Venice itself at the admonitions of those above. It will be helpful to hear the most illustrious Corner discoursing on this matter in volume XI of the Monuments of the Venetian church. He, after he had set down first on page 198 that he had rejected from his Work certain popular little histories, from which otherwise pleasure and admiration would have accrued to the narration, for this reason, that he thought there could be no true ornament of history in which truth was not present, presently adds: Meanwhile, however, I have thought one of those traditions should be adopted which at first sight are referred to the rudeness of the common people, but, if it be accurately weighed, is certainly to be exempted from their heap. This tradition, as we have also said elsewhere (namely in very many volumes of his Work), has carried down even to our age that eight churches (whose names you have at number 7 and below at the following number) were erected at Venice at the exhortation and by the labour of St. Magnus, bishop formerly of Oderzo, then of Heraclea. The holy Man accomplished this about the middle of the 7th century, both from a command given him from heaven (examples of which kind occur everywhere in Ecclesiastical History), and from the impulse of pastoral care, since he saw that our city was taking greater increases from day to day from the influx of those who were avoiding the barbarian raids and disasters, and on that account needed new and ever new spiritual aids, especially in administering the Sacraments. That this was the cause of those foundations very many of the Venetian chronologers assert with unanimous opinion, whose statements are supported by the constant and immemorial tradition of those churches themselves, which acknowledge and venerate St. Magnus as their first parent and founder, and perform his solemnities with great celebrity on the 6th day of October.
[25] But in what manner St. Magnus was admonished from heaven about founding those churches, from a previous heavenly admonition, as various documents report, and obeyed the admonitions, Equilinus narrates in chapter 17 of the Appendix of his Catalogue in these words: Once, rapt in spirit (St. Magnus) was admonished by revelation to build eight churches at that time: the first to Peter the Apostle; the second to Raphael the angel; the third to the Saviour; the fourth to the glorious Virgin, which is now called Mary Formosa, for she appeared to him in beautiful array; the fifth to John the Baptist; the sixth to Zachary; the seventh to Justina; the eighth to the XII Apostles in number, the Saviour and His Mother appearing with each of their Saints individually, and showing the places of the buildings, faithfully promising there their patronage to the city of Venice that was to rise; and he, laying open all things to the citizens, the places and signs being found as he had been admonished, together with his most obedient sons, that they might obtain such and so faithful a patronage for the city, not long after erected them honourably. The same things, as to substance, are handed down by the often-cited ancient inscription of the church of Oderzo, the Legend of St. Magnus, the ancient Lectionary of the Ducal basilica of Venice, the decree of the Venetian senate issued in the year 1454, and Bernardo Giustiniani at the cited column 84, who, however, writes that not eight only but nine churches were founded by St. Magnus.
[26] But, you will say, since there is none of all these documents and the substance of this fact, although not historically certain, which certainly comes sufficiently near to the times of St. Magnus, or was undoubtedly drawn from so ancient a source, and moreover certain circumstances of those apparitions, especially those mentioned in the Legend of St. Magnus, seem to savour of fable, it can rightly be denied that those churches were in fact erected by St. Magnus at the admonitions of those above. I confess indeed that the inscription of the church of Oderzo, as is also clear from the manner of computing the years of Christ used there, is certainly younger than the 7th century, and that none of these documents is endowed with such antiquity that it could render historically certain the fact of which we treat; nay indeed, I by no means deny that the Legend of St. Magnus is adorned beyond the appearance of truth in recounting the circumstances of the fact. But, even if the apparitions of those above, and the erection of the eight churches consequent thereon, were not made in that manner in which that Legend, or not even in that in which Equilinus, hands them down, not on that account must the substance of the fact itself, as it is recounted in the inscription of Oderzo in Coleti, in the decree of the Venetian senate and in the tradition received by the learned, be called fictitious, especially since it contains nothing which is beyond measure singular or unlike the truth, and which has not been generally asserted by many writers renowned for learning and confirmed by the constant and immemorial tradition of the eight churches.
[27] [yet on account of a sufficiently ancient tradition, notwithstanding the silence of Dandolo, it is not to be rejected.] And of this immemorial tradition too a not contemptible witness is the Bernardo Giustiniani cited above, a writer of the 15th century, when in the cited book 7, column 84, he writes thus: A constant report has held to this very day that that holy (Prelate of ours) built nine (nay eight) churches in this Rialto (which is a part of the city of Venice), admonished by divine revelation, whose names are carried about even today. And although Andrea Dandolo did not mention this tradition, nay even, treating of the building of those churches, assigns their authors wholly different from St. Magnus, yet this silence of his does not seem of such moment as to overturn the antiquity of that tradition, resting on documents even older than Dandolo. But as regards the builders of the churches assigned by Dandolo, wholly different from St. Magnus, his words can be so explained that he wished it to be signified that they repaired those churches, or rather renewed absolutely those founded before by St. Magnus, rather than first erected them. However these things may be, no sufficiently urgent reason militates against the consensus of the churches of the city of Venice and of the writers, to a man, if you except the silent Dandolo, why such illustrious churches should be driven from their ancient possession, which for so many centuries have held St. Magnus as their parent and first builder, and on this title have honoured him with singular cult.
[28] St. Magnus seems to have died in the city of Heraclia It remains that we discourse also somewhat on the place and time of St. Magnus's death. After the holy Prelate, about the year, as it seems to us, 638, had emigrated from the city of Oderzo, taken by Rothari, king of the Lombards, and for a great part at least destroyed, with the greatest part of his flock to that place where it presently pleased him to found a new city, to which he gave its name from Heraclius, then reigning; and then, about the middle of the 7th century, both by a command given him from heaven and certainly by a certain divine impulse, as the constant tradition runs on the testimony of Corner and others, had caused eight churches to be built in the city of Venice itself; returning to Heraclia, he strengthened in the Catholic faith by his admonitions the people committed to him, increased in no small part since he had founded Heraclea, and finally, full of merits, fell asleep in peace in his church. These latter things Dandolo expressly hands down, writing thus in book 6 of the Chronicle, chapter 7, part X: This Magnus, bishop of the city of Heraclia, a man of outstanding sanctity, the clergy and people in the same city being now manifoldly increased and strengthened by his admonitions in the Catholic faith, rested in peace in his church.
[29] As regards this place of the Saint's death, there appears no reason why we should oppose Dandolo's assertion, the year 660, nay even later, if however Bernardo Giustiniani wrote rightly. and for this reason too, that it is not probable that St. Magnus ever at any time carried back to Oderzo, a place safe neither for himself nor for his people under the Lombards, the see fixed at Heraclea with the consent of the supreme Pontiff and the patriarch of Grado, or used any fixed domicile other than that of the episcopal city founded by himself. Add that the body of the holy Prelate, before it was translated to Venice in the year 1206, lay at Heraclea, on the testimony of the Legend, worthy of credit in this matter, and is not read to have been brought thither from elsewhere; so that accordingly it is not undeservedly determined that St. Magnus passed to those above at Heraclea; although nevertheless, the testimony of a sufficiently ancient author being lacking, it cannot be called certain; and on that account in the title of this Sylloge I have written that he died not undoubtedly but perhaps at Heraclea. But at what time did his death take place? I answer that, since our Saint, on the testimony of Dandolo, saw his clergy and people manifoldly increased in the same city of Heraclia, and a great increase of clergy and people is wont to come about only gradually and in silent years, he can quite probably be set down as among the living even after the year 655, and perhaps not before the year 660, when he was full of days and good works, to have obtained the eternal reward. Nay indeed, if in fact, as Bernardo Giustiniani writes, St. Magnus lived up to extreme old age, his episcopate could be extended, on the hypothesis that when he founded Heraclea he was only fifty years old, even beyond the year 660; which, however, I would not dare to assert on the sole authority of Giustiniani.
[30] For the rest, before I put an end to this Sylloge, He was not the last of the bishops who bore the title of bishop of Oderzo, I must again meet Orlendi, who, tying the episcopate of Oderzo of St. Magnus to the times of Heraclius, still reigning, in the cited volume, page 324, makes our Prelate the last bishop of Oderzo, and nevertheless mentions in the same place Benenatus, bishop of Oderzo, who is read at column 1138 as subscribed in the year 680, with the title of bishop of the church of Oderzo added, to the Letter of Pope Agatho and the Roman synod, which you have in Hardouin, volume 3 of the Councils, from column 1115. Certainly, if Orlendi wrote these things in this sense, that after St. Magnus no one bore the title of bishop of Oderzo, his assertion destroys itself and needs no further refutation; but if that writer wished nothing else to be signified than that St. Magnus was the last of the bishops of Oderzo who undoubtedly had his see in that city, I gladly agree with him, since, as I said before, it is not probable that the episcopal see established at Heraclea was carried back by St. Magnus to Oderzo, or even that this was afterwards done by another, especially since Oderzo had been destroyed a second time, and indeed utterly, by Grimoald about the year 667. I would believe, however, that our Prelate, the episcopal see having been transferred from Oderzo to Heraclea, never laid down the title of bishop of Oderzo and the pastoral care of this most wretched diocese, and had in this matter an imitator of himself in Benenatus, who in the year 680 wrote himself bishop of the church of Oderzo rather than of Heraclea, not only because he governed the latter together with the former, but especially, as I am pleased to conjecture, because the episcopate of Oderzo was, by antiquity and other titles, better known and more illustrious to the Christian world than that of Heraclea.
[31] and was subject to the Catholic patriarch of Grado. Further, that at that time the bishops of Oderzo were subject to the Catholic patriarch of Grado and had long before been recalled from the Aquileian schism, rightly
observes Giovanni de Rubeis in the Monuments of the church of Aquileia, column 307, which is also abundantly confirmed both from Dandolo's Chronicle and from the ascertained sanctity of our Prelate. More about St. Magnus I have not to say; nor do I know whether the compositions of those whom Bernardo Giustiniani, column 84, maintains to have written many miracles and the Life of the Saint exist today, and whether they are of such a kind as would not undeservedly have had a place in the Work of the most illustrious Corner, and would have been worth mentioning in this of ours.
Annotations* Perhaps VI?
Perhaps quia* since?