Reparata

ON ST. REPARATA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, AT CAESAREA IN PALESTINE,

More probably under Decius.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Reparata, V. M., at Caesarea in Palestine. (S.)

BHL Number: 7189

BY C. S.

§ I. The Saint's memory in the Martyrologies: the Acts to be published, less faulty than Mombritius's: others in verse, not to be given: the arena and time of the martyrdom.

This holy Virgin and Martyr, of Caesarea in Palestine, as is believed from her Acts, more celebrated for her ancient cult in various cities throughout Italy Her, almost by name alone, the most ancient Martyrologies, than for certain deeds, many old and more recent Martyrologies commemorate on this 8th day of the month of October. The older Hieronymian of Lucca, published by Francesco Maria Fiorentini, announces her in the first place thus: Of St. Reparata, being silent on the place as well as on the laurels of martyrdom and virginity. Nor is it read less meagrely in that of Murbach, in Martène, volume 3 of the Thesaurus of Anecdota: On the 8th day before the Ides (namely of October), of Reparata. The palm of martyrdom is added in the Martyrology bearing the name of Bede, printed from a manuscript of St. Germain of Auxerre in the said Martène, which has thus: The Passion of St. Reparata; which may be read in the same words in the Martyrology of Gellone, in volume 13 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, of the Paris edition of the year 1677. Virginity is joined to her by the Usuardine Rosweyd codex, reported by our Sollerius among the Auctaria of Usuard, in which it is said: Of St. Reparata, virgin.

[2] But Florus, or whoever enlarged Bede's Martyrology, but other old and more recent ones as the manuscript codices of Arras and of Liessies have it, cited by us before volume 2 of March among the Auctaria of the Martyrology of the same Venerable writer, omitted neither the palm of virginity, nor of martyrdom, nor her arena, and also distinguished the latter from cities of the same name by adding the province, in these words: At Caesarea in Palestine, the passion of St. Reparata, virgin. Rabanus has more about her in his Martyrology, which he put together before the middle of the ninth century, speaking thus: On the 8th day before the Ides of October, the Birthday of Reparata, virgin and martyr, who suffered at Caesarea, a city of Palestine, under the governor Decius. When she would not sacrifice to idols, first a pot filled with boiling lead was applied to her, afterwards her breasts were cut off, and burning lamps applied; then she was cast into a furnace of burning fire: and when she had been in no way harmed there, at the last she was beheaded; and at once there went forth from her neck a white dove: her body the Christians seized, and, embalmed with spices, buried it.

[3] Somewhat more briefly, and substituting for the governor Decius the emperor of the same name, and the Roman, with an elogium, commemorate her today. Notker, a martyrologist of the same century after Rabanus, has similar things. On the other hand, the governor Decius is named by the author of our manuscript Florarium of the Saints, completed toward the end of the fifteenth century, who, just like Rabanus and Notker, used in composing the Saint's elogium the Acts presently to be examined. I forbear to review other things, both the Usuardine Auctaria and the Martyrologies of other more recent writers, and I add only the present Roman, which has thus: At Caesarea in Palestine, the passion of St. Reparata, virgin and martyr, who, when she would not sacrifice to idols, having been tortured under the emperor Decius with various kinds of torments, is at last struck with the sword; whose soul was seen to go forth from her body in the form of a dove and to ascend to heaven. Let it suffice to have said this of the memory of this Saint in the sacred Fasti, old and more recent; of her cult we shall say much more below.

[4] The Acts of the martyrdom, published by Martène, compared with our manuscripts Edmond Martène published her Acts in volume 6 of the Ancient Writers and Monuments, column 741 and following, with this preliminary Observation: We present here the Acts of St. Reparata, virgin and martyr, from a codex of Metz of the best mark, written about eight hundred years ago. Boninus Mombritius brings forward other Acts of the same Martyr, far more prolix, in which also very many things are read which are lacking in the Metz manuscript. But those, both by their prolixity and by their frequent additions, are deservedly rejected by learned men as doubtful and suspect. But these which are published here by us breathe, by their brevity, that sincerity which is accustomed to please all students of antiquity. So far he. We have the same in a distinguished parchment manuscript codex, Q. Ms. 6, perhaps of no lower age, which our Bollandus acquired by exchange of books from the college of our Society at Fulda. These sometimes differ by a few words from Martène's Metz Acts; which slight variation seems ascribable to the copyists alone. The rest agrees.

[5] compared, We have besides a copy of the same Acts from our Fulda codex, compared with the manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, and another of St. Salvator of Utrecht, and yet another of Signor Nicolas Belfort, who, as is noted in the margin, had copied this from the manuscript of the Celestines of St. Pierre de Castin, and had compared it with the manuscript of the Celestines of Soissons; but with the words, as appears, changed here and there. Further, in our Fulda codex this title is prefixed to the same Acts: Here begins the Passion of St. Reparata, a girl, who suffered in the city of Caesarea, of the province of Palestine, on the 8th of October: which words, unless they are the author's of the Acts, the original Acts themselves must have had another opening; for in all the cited codices it is this: Under the governor Decius there was a monstrous persecution of the Christians. In that same place there was a certain virgin, named Reparata… Decius the governor therefore entered into the city of Caesarea, etc. Certainly the little word In that same place* plainly indicates that either in the title prefixed to the Acts or at their very beginning the province, or the place, had been named where the persecution then raged and St. Reparata dwelt: whence follows what I said, namely that either this or a similar title was prefixed to them by the very author of the Acts, or that their opening was different from that which is read in the cited codices and copies.

[6] As regards Martène's judgement of them, I agree with him indeed of which I cannot think as favourably that these excel Mombritius's both in brevity of style and in the deeds which they contain; yet I cannot place so much credence in them as he seems to have placed. For so many marvels concur in them that, to admit them without scruple, a more certain author would be needed. That little girl of twelve years is said to have remained unharmed when drenched with molten lead, to have likewise endured burning lamps applied to her breasts, and, cast into a kindled furnace, to have sung psalms unhurt, like the three Children in the Babylonian furnace. Nor is this enough, but also that her bowels were cut to pieces by a sword, which were at once made whole again; and then at last she was beheaded; and it is added: And at once there went forth from her neck a white dove, which had first comforted her when she was in the contest. And all these things indeed are narrated to have happened as on one and the same day, and in a series of torments not interrupted by confinement in prison.

[7] As regards the torments divinely overcome, I am not unaware as he did, that also in the Acts of other Martyrs, and namely of SS. Tarachus, Probus and Andronicus,

Acts (which nevertheless are deservedly held as genuine), similar miracles of the divine power are reported. It is so; and I should not hesitate to place certain credence in the Acts of St. Reparata with which we are dealing, if these, like those, had been taken for the most part from the proconsular Acts, the remaining part having been added by witnesses not only contemporary but also eyewitnesses, who professed that they were present in person at the consummation of their martyrdom, and if they could not here be held of suspect credit on any head. But we have nothing of this kind for the Acts of St. Reparata, whose anonymous author nowhere insinuates that he was present at the events, or received them from someone who had been present, nor finally does he cite any witness or monument; although certainly he could not otherwise have known the governor's conversations with the Saint, that is, the questions and answers.

[8] Little, too, does that exaggerated multitude of accusers of a twelve-year-old Girl commend either the sincerity or the accuracy of the writer, as of slight credit I shall reprint; when he says: Decius the governor therefore entered into the city of Caesarea: then all the citizens came to him, and said to him: This Virgin mocks our gods, most invincible one; and she adores we know not whom, who is called Christ. For which reason I cannot place certain credence in an anonymous author of uncertain age, narrating so many marvels, and among these that the bowels or members (for he uses both words) of the same holy Martyr, after they had been frustata (as he speaks), that is, cut into pieces, by a sword, were at once made whole again, an example of which I have not hitherto read. No one, therefore, I think, will wonder that I reprint the same Acts — however it may have seemed otherwise to the learned Martène — only as of slight credit, at least in some circumstances of the martyrdom, from the edition of the same Martène compared with our Fulda codex.

[9] Let us come to Mombritius's Acts. In these, besides the things which they have in common with those to be published, for Decius the governor there is read Decius Caesar, these are nevertheless much less faulty than Mombritius's. or emperor, and other tortures are added, likewise overcome by divine help, and besides some prodigies of divine vengeance, of which I shall advise the reader in the Annotations; there are also in them many speeches between Decius and the Saint. Cardinal Baronius noted on the Roman Martyrology that the same Acts, written more copiously, are read in a certain Roman codex of the monastery of St. Cecilia across the Tiber; and Fiorentini, in his Annotations on his older Lucca Martyrology, asserts that Acts similar to Mombritius's exist in his very old manuscript Hagiology, except that in this Decius appears as governor, not Caesar or emperor, and the city of Caesarea indeed is assigned as the Saint's arena, yet of Palestine is not added. Finally, Petrus de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, had Acts similar to Mombritius's, and drew them into an abridgement in his Catalogue of the Saints, book 9, chapter 39.

[10] Other Acts by Antonio Sebastiano, bishop of Crotone, Not a little do the Acts composed in heroic metre differ from all these, which are inscribed: The divine Reparata, of Antonio Sebastiano Miturninus (that is, Minturninus), bishop of Crotone, which we received from the Collection of the Cardinal of Santa Severina, and of which the opening and at the same time the argument is this:

Thee, Reparata, will I sing, added as an ornament to highest heaven,

Holy one, borne in wondrous ways over various waves

To the ports of Ausonia, to the Minturnian fields,

The harsh command of the cruel Cyrinus driving thee,

Brought all the way from the borders of Palestine under the guidance of the flying

Heaven-dwellers, troubled by no storms.

That you may know the author, I subjoin here part of that elogium which Ughelli has in volume 9 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 387, in the series of the bishops of Crotone. Antonio Sebastiano Minturno (namely from his native place), formerly bishop of Ugento, translated to this (the see of Crotone) on the XIII of July MDLXIII. A prelate assuredly most learned, whether in verse or in prose, so that he has deservedly been numbered among the learned men of his age. He left many monuments of his genius, which are partly thumbed by the learned, partly lay hidden at Rome with Cardinal Montalto of good memory, the nephew of Sixtus V… He departed about the year MDLXXIV, etc.

[11] written in Heroic verse, His learning and poetic art are abundantly proved by that Poem, which contains four hundred and thirty-three verses; but his age, so many centuries later than the holy Martyr, can produce no probable credit, while he, without witness, without monument, narrates things foreign to the more ancient ones. He sings that Reparata suffered indeed in Palestine, yet not under Decius but under the governor Cyrinus; and not straightway out of hatred of the Christian name, but after she, refusing to consent to the governor's lust, had by divine power rendered blind a sorceress summoned to shake her constancy; then at last, by the raging Cyrinus, because she was a Christian and did not obey the edict of the Caesar, whose name he passes over in silence, that she was ordered to be seized, and was vainly tempted to sacrifice to idols with torments which the Acts mentioned above also record, and was finally beheaded.

[12] [which also contain the translations of the body; yet they are not to be published.] But of this lust, which incited the governor, eluded by the Virgin, to rage against her under the pretext of the Christian profession, nothing, of the sorceress brought in and blinded nothing, is to be read in the same Acts mentioned above; so that I do not know whence the bishop of Crotone received these things. From ours too, as from Mombritius's, there is absent the twofold translation of the body which the same bishop attached to the martyrdom, and the first of which, which he also mentions at the very beginning of the Poem in the words already given, he describes poetically at very great length. But of these we shall have to treat more fully below in their place. For the rest, since these metrical Acts are far more recent than all the prose ones enumerated; and we do not know whether, and from what monuments, their author drew the things which he added to the older ones, and he is besides rather verbose, and has liberally used what they call poetic licence, the reader will not wonder that I abstain from publishing this composition of his, which I have in manuscript.

[13] We saw at number 1 that some of the older Martyrologies announce St. Reparata without the place of her arena, She suffered at Caesarea in Palestine others at Caesarea in Palestine, which was an ancient episcopal and afterwards also archiepiscopal city, and the chief after Jerusalem, founded in the region of Samaria on the coast of the Syrian sea. The Acts in Martène, and ours in the Fulda codex, name only the city of Caesarea, omitting the province of Palestine, which nevertheless, as I already observed above, the title prefixed to the same Acts in our same Fulda codex expresses, so that this Caesarea may be distinguished from other cities of the same name. In the Hagiology cited as very old by Fiorentini in the Annotations on the Lucca Martyrology, the city of Caesarea is likewise assigned as the place of the Virgin's martyrdom, but equally without the province of Palestine, which on the contrary Mombritius's Acts add; nor does it seem that any solid reason can be brought why we should deny that Caesarea was in fact the arena of today's St. Reparata, or suspect that this was different from that celebrated city of Palestine.

[14] On Decius as the name of the persecutor all agree, except Antonio Sebastiano, bishop of Crotone, more probably under the emperor Decius but some of them, as we saw, name this Decius governor, others Caesar. The Martène Acts, and our Fulda ones, and those with which we said these were compared, constantly call him governor. In agreement too are the very old manuscript Hagiology of Fiorentini, already cited, Rabanus in his Martyrology, and, among the Usuardine auctaria in our Sollerius, the codices Antwerp-Maximus, Utrecht, Leiden, Albergen and Danish. But Decius Caesar is assigned by the Acts published by Mombritius, by Notker in his Martyrology, by St. Antoninus in Historical part 1, title 7, chapter 7, §7, and by Petrus de Natalibus in the Catalogue of the Saints, and they relate that he, as others relate of the governor, was present at Caesarea when St. Reparata suffered.

[15] Each opinion suffers its difficulty, the one, however, a greater one than the other. moving a general persecution, Decius, governor of the province of Palestine, just like the Cyrinus of that time, is wholly unknown from other sources; but of Decius Caesar, or emperor, it is indeed established that in the middle of the third century he most bitterly persecuted the Church, but not whether, from the time he obtained the empire, he was ever at Caesarea in Palestine. Yet so constant an agreement of all in naming Decius as him under whom the Saint suffered moves in me a strong suspicion that she was crowned under the emperor Decius, and that the governor who ordered her to be put to death in person at Caesarea was either called by the same name (as the less faulty Acts have it), or was so named in the same Acts from a confusion of the emperor, ordering the persecution by an enacted law, with the governor executing it, namely from a similar error to that by which also in some less accurate Acts of other Martyrs we read the deeds of governors ascribed to emperors as though present.

[16] and therefore in the year 249, or one of the two following. Perhaps Cardinal Baronius was of this opinion, who, having read Acts similar to Mombritius's, named in the Roman Martyrology, in the words already reported at number 3, only the emperor Decius, in whose persecution she suffered, passing over the governor in silence. In the Ecclesiastical Annals too, at the year of Christ 253, he placed the martyrdom of the same St. Reparata under the emperor Decius, and likewise was silent on the governor. To him I think one must adhere so far as concerns the emperor, but not so far as concerns the year of the common Christian era; since Decius lost by his own death in the year 251 the empire which he obtained in the year 249 through the slaughter of the Philips, as is now certain among learned chronologers. Under the emperor Decius therefore, and consequently in one of the three years in which he reigned, I thought the martyrdom of St. Reparata, virgin, should more probably be fixed.

Another reading: introiens* (entering).

§ II. The holy Martyr's body, first buried at Caesarea, was probably at some time translated to Italy; but the time of this translation is unknown and its circumstances fabulous: uncertain also is at what time it was brought to Teano.

Her body translated from Palestine into Campania in Italy The Acts to be published from Martène's Metz codex and our Fulda one, and those with which these were compared, after narrating the beheading of the Martyr, presently end with these words: But a few Christians, God-fearing men, coming up, seized her body, and, embalmed with spices, buried it, and she rested in peace on the eighth day before the Ides of October, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.* This concerning the burial of the body of St. Reparata at Caesarea in Palestine, and nothing more about it is to be read either in these or in Mombritius's. The Italians nevertheless affirm that it was formerly translated thence to the shores of their Campania; and the things we are about to say about the cult of the same Saint among them, and the belief in their possession of her body there, favour them. Certainly Orlendi, in the Sacred and Profane World, part 2, volume 3, page 1606, number 10, records her body among the relics of the Saints preserved at Teano, surnamed Sidicinum, which is a small episcopal city of the present kingdom of Naples, in the province of Terra di Lavoro, in the Cathedral church of St. John the Evangelist; and Ughelli agrees, in volume 6 of the Italia Sacra, through Coleti

enlarged, column 549.

[18] She is said to rest at Teano and at Lucca. Filippo Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, indicates that it is attributed both to Teano and to Lucca: for in the Alphabetical Index of the Saints which he set before the same Catalogue he has thus: Reparata, virgin and martyr of Caesarea … Body at Lucca in the church of St. John; and then in another Index in the same place, presenting the bodies of the Saints assigned to various places, he says again: Of Reparata, virgin and martyr, at Lucca in the church of St. John; at Teano in her own church. These can easily be reconciled if (as often happens elsewhere) a part of the sacred body is called the body; nevertheless, what is to be thought of the relics of this Saint at Lucca we shall see below from Fiorentini, a nobleman of Lucca, in the Annotations on the Lucca Martyrology, already cited elsewhere. The people of Teano, for whom the greater probability stands, relate indeed that this sacred treasure came to them after Formiae was destroyed by the Saracens in the middle of the ninth century; but at what time, by whom, or in what manner it was translated from Palestine into Campania, I have read no one who teaches, except Antonio Sebastiano, bishop of Crotone, in his Diva Reparata, or metrical Acts.

[19] If credence is to be given him, this first translation happened straight after the Saint's martyrdom, [That this translation was made by divine power straight after the Saint's martyrdom] God turning the impious design of the governor, whom he calls Cyrinus, to the glory of His Martyr. For after the poet had said that the Virgin's body, cut off from the head, at once shone in that same place with many miracles, he went on to sing thus of the same governor:

Whereupon, the more driven by the furies and goad of wrath,

The most wicked enemy ordered a pine-built boat, stripped of oars and naval tackle,

To be drawn down into the deep ,*

And, put out by the aid of sailors, its master taken away

(Not far off the shore re-echoes with the sea's waves),*

He ordered the virgin head, and the body that lies on the bare shore,

Placed here, to be tossed by wind and sea,

Broken on the rocks, and sunk in the deep:

And moreover those who are called by the holy name of the great Christ

To be put to death, harassed by a long-drawn death.

But it turned out otherwise than he had thought in his wicked mind,

The governor, not yet sated in his impious breast:*

For God almighty sent down from high heaven

Ethereal ministers, swift to guide and steer the skiff,

And set it safe upon the shore of Latium.

[20] Then he poetically describes at length the whole voyage through the Mediterranean Sea, sings the bishop of Crotone; but these things seem to have been taken and at length brings the skiff to the borders of New Latium and of Campania about the mouth of the Liris, continuing thus:

And at length it came to the fields of Laurentine Marica.

There is a Promontory, which the ancients called Piras,

But now, the name changed, they call it Argentum:

On this shore the ethereal princes set it,

With a great sign of joy and favouring clamour;

The heaven thundered, and shone with wondrous light.

Now let us see how much these are worth. At the 16th day of December, in the Roman Martyrology of Baronius, it is read: At Formiae in Campania, of St. Albina, virgin and martyr, under the emperor Decius; on which the cited Cardinal noted that her Acts, received from the ancient monuments of the church of Gaeta, begin with these words: The time approaching. Hence I gather that these are the same Acts of St. Albina which we have laid up in our Museum at the same day of December, with likewise this opening: That time approaching.

[21] Further, in these the body of this St. Albina, virgin and martyr, and wrongly added to the Acts of St. Reparata from the Acts of St. Albina beheaded at Caesarea in Palestine by order of Decius Caesar or emperor, is said to have been carried to the shores of New Latium or Campania in exactly the same manner as the body of St. Reparata above. Here are the words for you. Then the executioner stood by, and cut off her (Albina's) head forthwith; and he (Decius) held counsel with the soldiers; and he said to all who stood around: Hear my counsel, seize this Sorceress (he indicates St. Albina) and many other sorcerers (that is, Christians) who dwell in this realm, seize them all; and bring to me an old little boat, fragile, without any tackle. And the attendants did as Decius Caesar had commanded; and at once they put into it (namely the little boat) St. Albina with other Saints: but the angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and entered with them into the little boat, and brought it to the place which is called Scauri, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory for ages of ages.

[22] which to the Acts of the same St. Reparata Whoever compares these with the verses of the bishop of Crotone recited above will not doubt that, only the name of the holy virgin martyr being changed, the same translation is reported in both places: for from what follows afterwards in the same Acts about the second translation of St. Albina it is also established that no other terminus of the first translation is indicated than the shore of Campania near Minturnae; and the place Scauri is perhaps the very one which in Blaeu's geographical Map of Campania is called Torre Scaura. From these Acts of St. Albina, therefore, Antonio Sebastiano, bishop of Crotone, or whoever else preceded him in this argument, seems to have borrowed the translation of the body of St. Reparata, either because he himself, or another who preceded him, believed that Reparata appeared in those Acts under the name of Albina. This error could be committed the more easily, the greater is the conformity between the deeds of the two Virgin martyrs; and Tillemont, in volume 3 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, in the Persecution of Decius, article 15, rightly observed that almost everything that is read in the Acts of St. Reparata in Mombritius is reported by Filippo Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the 16th day of December concerning St. Albina. It is fitting to review briefly here the principal points that agree.

[23] are very similar, The Acts of St. Reparata, both those to be published and Mombritius's, relate that she suffered at Caesarea (the latter add in Palestine); concerning Albina her Acts which we have agree entirely. Both Saints, each in her own Acts, are said to have been about twelve years old when they underwent martyrdom, both to have suffered under Decius, present at Caesarea, and the Acts of St. Albina, with Mombritius's, make him Caesar. Both are asserted to have overcome by divine power the same torments, namely lead melted by fire, lamps applied to burn the breasts, a kindled furnace, the cutting of the members, to have been led about publicly with shaven head, and at length, their necks cut off, to have consummated their martyrdom. These are roughly the things which the Acts of St. Albina have in common with the Acts of St. Reparata to be published.

[24] and from the same, especially Mombritius's, Now take also certain other things which are narrated besides of each holy Virgin martyr in the Acts of each, namely of St. Albina, and of Reparata in Mombritius's, not in Martène's and ours. They are, first, certain torments, besides those already mentioned, endured without injury, namely boiling vinegar poured into the mouth, burning lamps applied to the sides but extinguished by divine power; the stretching of the bodies on a gridiron with burning coals placed beneath, the members rubbed with potsherds, and drenched with vinegar and boiling water, vinegar likewise mixed with mustard dropped into the nostrils, etc. Second, there are certain miracles, namely a terrible earthquake by which the greatest part of the people perished; some of the executioners struck with blindness, others, their arms suddenly withering, prevented from torturing. So great a conformity in all things could without difficulty persuade the bishop of Crotone, or anyone else whom he himself perhaps followed, that Reparata appeared in those Acts under the name of Albina, and consequently that the translation mentioned in them pertained to Reparata, whose body he knew was believed to have been carried from Caesarea in Palestine into Campania, but at an unknown time and in an unknown manner; and so he referred that history of the translation to St. Reparata, to whose deeds the author of the translation had attached Albina.

[25] But perhaps someone may ask why the Acts of St. Albina are to be believed fabricated from the Acts of St. Reparata, fabricated, as from their comparison rather than these from those. Not one reason is at hand. For first, today's Reparata is commemorated by the old Martyrologies reported in the preceding §, in which you will seek in vain for this Albina, whom the first, so far as I indeed know, Cardinal Baronius, brought into the Roman at the 16th day of December, and announced as having suffered not at Caesarea in Palestine but at Formiae in Campania, as though here. Second, that the Acts of St. Reparata to be published are ancient is proved by the codices of Metz and Fulda from which they were taken. Third, Rabanus and Notker in the ninth century knew the Acts of St. Reparata, not of Albina, as is established from the Martyrologies of both. Indeed, if the writer of the Acts and of the first translation of Albina is the same as of the two later ones which are added there to the first, those are not older than the twelfth century, and perhaps even much more recent, since in them mention is made of the church of Gaeta dedicated by the supreme Pontiff Paschal II, Albert being then bishop of Gaeta, of whom Ughelli, volume 1 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 537 and following.

[26] Fourth, as regards the Acts of St. Reparata to be published, is shown. if anyone had composed these from the Acts of St. Albina, he would not have passed over those other torments divinely overcome, and the miracles, which are indeed to be found in Mombritius's, but not in ours. Fifth and finally, neither in these nor in Mombritius's is there any mention of the translation of the body of St. Reparata from Palestine into Campania; indeed the opposite is indicated, when it is said that her body was buried near Caesarea by a few Christians: and yet it concerned the writer who had attached the deeds of St. Albina to Reparata to report that same translation. It appears, therefore, that it is by no means to be doubted that the patcher-together of the deeds of St. Albina borrowed them from the Acts of St. Reparata, and added the translation of the body, I know not whether from his own store or from another's.

[27] Further, however it may have seemed otherwise to the bishop of Crotone, The same translation of St. Reparata commended, as we saw, for his learning, I cannot admit as probable that translation set forth of the body of St. Reparata, from wherever he received it, both because it is so marvellous that it needs an ancient author of good mark to produce belief, and because, as was just said, it is contrary to the other Acts of the same Saint, certainly older. I should like also to ask here what at length became of those Christians of Caesarea whom the governor Cyrinus committed, placed together with the body of St. Reparata in a fragile skiff without oars, to be tossed by the waves of the sea. Did these perish on the way, or did they land safe and unharmed in Campania with the same sacred body? Certainly no mention is afterwards made of them. Utterly remote from all probability, too, are the things which the same bishop sings of the solemn translation of the same body from the ship into the city of Minturnae, and of a church founded there. For having premised that the bishop of Minturnae was admonished by an angel at night concerning the merits of St. Reparata and the arrival of her body, he continues thus:

[28] Then indeed he snatches his feeble limbs from his couch, the same bishop poetically adorned with circumstances

Pondering much with himself, and made ready to obey the admonitions,

As soon as Aurora left her rosy chamber.

Meanwhile winged rumour goes stirred through the city,

That there had come to the shores of Scauri from foreign coasts

A pine-built boat, bare of canvas sails, without a rower;

The astonished throng of the people suddenly runs together:

He, hastening, calls them all, both commons and fathers

And the watchful companions of the temple, and unfolds the matter in order;

And he puts on a scarlet cloak sprinkled with snowy roses

And stiff with gold, and sets upon his head a tiara

Adorned with various gems and glad with emeralds: in long order

A great procession of priests is sent ahead, shining in white vesture;

And kindled torches double the day with abundant

Light, the curved pipe gives forth manifold song.

The leader himself follows, a great senate accompanying,

And far and wide a countless gathering of young and old,

And they sang great thanks and praises to God.

And now they were drawing near where the Saint lay in the boat ,*

When suddenly, rising, a great fire shone forth,

Having the likeness of a star, which through all the ether pours

Its bright tresses, radiant, and the flames of its tresses;*

And then it stood fixed above the remains of the Virgin;

With reflected light it marked both the skiff and the place.

Marvellous without doubt, marvellous this star seemed

To all, and they venerate the King of the Heavenly ones in it:

They recognize Reparata enrolled among the Saints and set

In the ethereal seat, and reverently adore.

Be thou our Goddess in place of the Laurentine Marica of old:

To thee we flee: thee we call upon in our wishes;

And do thou bear our pious vows and prayers before God,

And with thee as leader, let us at length implore help from Him.

She seemed straightway to nod assent (wondrous to tell!),

And at the nod earth and sea to be moved.

All trembled; but thou, venerable priest,

Undaunted, redoublest thy prayers, and persistest in praying,

And biddest the blind be brought, and those dragging

Sick bodies; and forthwith to some all strength of walking

Is given entire, to others then sweet sight.

All shout aloud, and raise the Saint to the stars

With praises, and strive to pay due thanks,

And bear her remains in a silver casket, and lay them in a marble

Sepulchre; a temple of solid marble

The priest founded, heaps it with gifts, and, venerating her with Roman

Rite, consecrated it to the divinity of the Saint.

So the cited bishop of Crotone, who doubtless, while he wrote, did not advert how foreign these things were to those calamitous times of the Church, in which the Christians, among their persecutors, were concerned rather about hiding-places in which to perform the sacred rites than about leading festive processions publicly or erecting marble temples.

[30] Finally, not to dwell longer on these in vain, I prefer not to know the time and manner of the bringing of St. Reparata's body from Palestine, [yet that her body was at some time brought into Italy is made probable by the cult.] rather than rashly affirm it from that Poem. Nor yet do I on that account deny that the translation itself was at some time made, which is made probable by the things which I have already intimated, and will set out more fully, about her exceptional cult in some cities of Italy, and the common opinion about her body preserved at Teano. Assuredly, unless this is so, it is very difficult to grasp by what reasoning the people of Teano persuaded themselves that that sacred body, which they think came to them after the destruction of Formiae, is that of St. Reparata, virgin martyr of Caesarea in Palestine, hardly known outside Italy; and that the people of Florence, Lucca and Nice anciently honoured her with so distinguished a cult that they also dedicated churches to her name, and kept as a feast day the 8th of October, on which Reparata of Caesarea is read inscribed in the old Martyrologies.

[31] That in the middle of the fourteenth century it was believed without doubt In the fourteenth century it was certainly believed to rest at Teano, that the body of St. Reparata rested at Teano, surnamed Sidicinum, of which I made mention above, in a monastery of girls, a contemporary witness is Matteo Villani of Florence in the History of his time, published by Muratori in volume 14 of the Writers of Italian affairs, book 3, chapters 15 and 16, where he teaches that the envoys of the Florentines, sent in the year 1352 to Naples to the coronation of Louis and Joanna, asked of the same sovereigns in the name of their city this favour, that it might be permitted them to translate to Florence some portion of the same sacred body, which was preserved at Teano, a city of their realm, to be honourably deposited in the cathedral church dedicated to the same Saint: and that, the aforesaid sovereigns assenting, and Count Francesco of Montescaglioso, to whose jurisdiction Teano then belonged, favouring it, the abbess of the monastery was commanded to hand over the right arm of the body to the Florentine envoys; but that the abbess, having fraudulently bargained for some days of delay, had a likeness of the same arm made of wood and plaster; and that this was handed to the envoys and solemnly received at Florence, and preserved, until, a whole four years later, when it was to be inserted into a precious reliquary, the sacrilegious fraud of the abbess was detected.

[32] But at what time the people of Teano received that sacred body is no more established about which by a certain prince of Benevento, than when it was first brought from Palestine into Campania. I have at hand a relation of this matter, which our Papebroch copied in his own hand from the collection of old manuscript Offices in Carlo Strozzi's, number 691, folio 325, and noted that it was divided into nine short Lessons, namely for the use of the divine Office. It runs thus: But after the course of years (so it begins), when now the whole world served the Christian faith, many miracles began to be wrought at the tomb of the aforesaid Virgin. For there demons were put to flight, the tongues of the mute were loosed, hands were restored to the maimed, feet to the lame; in short, those oppressed by any languor whatever who came thither were cured by the merits of the holy virgin Reparata. That place therefore began to be held most celebrated, and a church built there in honour of the same Virgin began to be frequented with great veneration.

[33] whose daughter had been freed from a demon by the patronage of the same Saint, Meanwhile the fame of such great powers, spread far and wide, came to the ears of the prince of Benevento. He had an only daughter, named Paga, who had for a long time already been vexed by a demon. At once the prince, moved by love of his daughter, whom indeed he loved tenderly, hastens with his daughter to experience the benefits of the holy Virgin. After they had come there, Paga is dragged unwilling into the church, and, prostrate on the ground, began to be harassed by the demon more grievously than usual. Then the prince, shedding tears, approaches the tomb of Reparata, and with tearful voice began to say: Most holy virgin of Christ, Reparata, drawn by the odour of thy virtues, I come to thee to pray for my daughter; before thy venerable body I pour out tearful prayers; attend to one prostrate; look upon one weeping; console one mourning; free, I beseech thee, my daughter from this plague by which she is held, and through thee may I merit to recover her whom I seem already to have lost; and may all who stand here glorify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for love of whom thou didst not fear to undergo martyrdom. While therefore the father importunately persisted in such prayers, he is heard, and by the merits of the holy Virgin his daughter is freed from the demon.

[34] deposited in a church dedicated to the same. Then the prince, glad and exulting, with all who were present gave thanks to God, and by common counsel resolved to translate the body of the glorious Martyr of Christ to Benevento. Having therefore brought it out of the sepulchre, and wrapped it in a most clean linen cloth, the prince returns with gladness, and crossing the river comes to the road by which one goes to Teano. But when they came to the place which is called Aquensis, the body of the Martyr of Christ is fixed with such a weight that it could by no means ever be moved. The most sagacious prince understood the will of the Virgin of Christ, and, having set down the body, ordered a basilica to be built and dedicated in the same place, and, having bestowed many goods, he gave his daughter, clothed in the habit of sacred religion, to serve there; who, living a long time after quite honourably and religiously, and faithfully serving Jesus Christ the Lord in the same church, at length commended her soul in peace to the Lord.

[35] and afterwards brought into the city by the bishop After her death, many years having now rolled by, a true worshipper of Christ, who then presided over the church of Teano, hearing that the holy body of the Virgin rested there, burns with exceeding love to carry it to the greater church, where the bishop's see is. Pressing on his wish, therefore, taking with him some of the Brethren and of the Religious, he hastens to go thither, and coming to the place he worshipped face down. Then with those who were with him, prostrate on the ground, he worshipped for a very long time; and rising from prayer he lifts with fear the precious treasure of the body, and having lifted it carries it with reverence and gravity. But before the bishop came to the place which is called Opius, it pleased the holy body to rest; for it was not fitting that so precious a gift should be received by the citizens without great honour. Then the clergy and people of the city came, and, going out honourably to meet it, received the sacred body with immense joy, and, carrying it, received, with hymns and praises within the walls of the city, placed it in a most worthy little coffer in the greater church. But how great powers the virgin and martyr of Christ Reparata then wrought, how many benefits of salvation she bestowed on the people of Teano at her coming, it is difficult to recount. And in that place where, as has been said, she willed to rest, the citizens with diligent care undertook to make a monastery of girls under the name of the same most holy Virgin, praising and blessing the Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns God with the Father and the Holy Spirit in perfect unity, God for ages of ages. Amen.

[36] So far the old Lessons of the Office of the Translation of St. Reparata, is narrated in Lessons of an ecclesiastical Office of uncertain credit, probably formerly customarily recited in the church of Teano, which, while they serve to assert her sacred body to that church, are of no help in fixing the time at which it received it, since the author names neither the prince of Benevento who first carried it there, nor the bishop who afterwards translated it into the city; and of Paga too, whom he makes the daughter of the same prince, I have found no mention anywhere. Quite suspect to me also is the very opening of the Lessons, namely: But after the course of years, when now the whole world served the Christian faith, many miracles began to be wrought at the tomb of the aforesaid Virgin, etc. For their author speaks either of the Saint's tomb at Caesarea in Palestine, or of her tomb in Campania. If the first, he is a manifest fabler, who leads a prince of Benevento in Italy with his daughter to Caesarea in Palestine and back, as to a place little distant; if the second, he makes his authority slight to me, resting on the opinion which narrates, or rather fables, that the body of St. Reparata was brought by divine power in a skiff from Palestine into Campania straight after her martyrdom. Now as regards the age of the same author, he seems altogether to be later than the fourteenth century; since it is established from Villani, cited above, that in the middle of that century the body of St. Reparata rested at Teano in a monastery of girls; which this man writes was translated into the cathedral church, without any indication of a contemporary or near-contemporary writer.

[37] Another cause of the translation made to Teano is assigned by the often-cited bishop of Crotone in his Diva Reparata, of the bishop of Crotone, on the cause of the same translation or her metrical Acts, in which, after a church to her at Minturnae

had been built (but at an unsuitable time, as I observed), and an annual festival customarily observed, he had said, subjoined the following:

Which custom the chaste descendants kept thereafter,

So long as Minturnae was preserved from hostile wrath,

So long as they enjoyed in safety the flourishing region.

After the Hagarene race, the impious despiser of God,

Overthrew them utterly with furious arms, the whole of them,

The Sidicine city, alas! after the walls of the Syrians were destroyed in cruel war,

Preserves with great piety, and venerates, the Saint's captured

Relics, under prince Pandulf.

He says, then, that the Saint's body was translated to Teano, which we said is surnamed Sidicinum, after the destruction of Minturnae by the Saracens, while Pandulf held the principality of the people of Teano. But these things are entangled, and seem to be confused with the affairs of Formiae.

[38] The city of Minturnae had already fallen from the sixth century, when the Hagarenes, or Saracens, had not yet been seen in Campania, the opinion is weighed: destroyed by another enemy, and its episcopate had been joined to that of Formiae by Pope St. Gregory the Great. The city of Formiae suffered a like fate from the Saracens about the middle of the ninth century, and its episcopate too was translated to Gaeta; on all which matters the Ughellian Italia Sacra, enlarged by Coleti, may be consulted, volume 1, among the Bishops of Gaeta, and volume 10, among the extinct episcopates, column 98 and following, under Formiae, and column 140 under Minturnae. See also, if you please, our Work, volume 1 of June, page 212, on St. Erasmus, bishop and martyr, number 4, where you will read that the body of this Saint too was translated from Formiae to Gaeta for the same cause. What is certain about the time and occasion of the translation of the body of St. Erasmus, the same people of Gaeta seem to think also of the coming of the relics of St. Albina; for these too, at the end of her Acts, are said to have been translated to Gaeta much … time having passed (since they had been brought from Palestine to the shores of Campania, in the same manner as St. Reparata's, not approved by me) when Formiae and the places situated near had been destroyed by the Hagarenes; and this translation is said to have been effected by a bishop of Teano named Bonus, who is read in Ughelli, volume 1 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 529, to have presided over the same church in the said ninth century, then decrepit.

[39] perhaps it happened after Formiae was destroyed in the ninth century. He will not depart from probability, therefore, who suspects that the sacred remains of St. Reparata too came about that time either to Teano, or first to Gaeta and thence afterwards to Teano, and will agree with the bishop of Crotone, who places this after the devastation inflicted on Campania by the Saracens. But who is that prince Pandulf under whom the cited prelate of Crotone affirms this was done? There were indeed in the tenth and eleventh centuries princes and dukes of Benevento and Capua of that name, and among them in the tenth century a count of Teano; but whether he means this one or another to be designated, I do not discern.

Another reading: illud*.

* That is, the ship.

Perhaps reboabat*?

Add sic*.

Read in alga*.

Read radians or radiis*.

§ III. The Saint's ancient cult at Florence and Lucca in Etruria, and at Nice in Provence: her solemn feast at Atri in the kingdom of Naples from the fourteenth century.

At Florence the cathedral church dedicated to her I observed above that the distinguished ancient cult of this holy Virgin Martyr in some cities of Italy greatly favours the asserted translation of her sacred body, made at some time, to that region. Francesco Fiorentini, a nobleman of Lucca, in the Annotations on his Older Lucca Martyrology, did not hesitate to call her the most Illustrious Martyr in Tuscany (namely in cult and in the celebrity of her name). That at Florence, which is the metropolis of Etruria and the seat of the Grand Dukes, the cathedral church was anciently dedicated to her, writes Matteo Villani, a Florentine historiographer of the fourteenth century, published by Muratori in volume 14 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, in the History of his time, book 3, chapter 85, and he adds that this was done by the Florentines because the slaughter of the army of Radagaisus, king of the Huns, from whose siege they had been delivered by divine power, happened on the feast-day of St. Reparata.

[41] As to the cause of the church dedicated to her Ughelli agrees, she had of old, and is at present co-titular of the metropolitan church, in volume 3 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, column 7; but how long after the said slaughter of the army of Radagaisus, which occurred a few years after the fifth century had begun, neither he nor the other clearly teaches. From the cited Ughelli (in whom, at column 20, mention of the same church exists in the testament of Speciosus, bishop of Florence, who in the year 724 bequeathed many things to the bishop's house of Blessed John the Baptist, or of Reparata the martyr) we have besides that in the year 1294 there was substituted for the same church that magnificent and most ample basilica which is now the metropolitan, and has the name of St. Mary of the Flower. Nor on that account, however, was St. Reparata deprived of her ancient cult and the title of Patroness. So I learn from the proper Offices of the same archdiocese, in which on this very 8th day of October her annual feast is prescribed under the name of Co-titular. Take the words.

[42] On the feast of St. Reparata, V. and M., Co-titular of our metropolitan church of Florence, in which, and in the whole diocese, she has a distinguished cult; and there a double of the 1st class; and it is celebrated with an Octave by immemorial custom: in the diocese a double. All from the Common of a virgin martyr, 1st place. Among the daily Commemorations too, to be made at Lauds and Vespers outside double feasts, there is prescribed in the same little book of proper Offices one of St. Reparata, Co-titular of the metropolitan church, in the metropolitan itself only, the Antiphons, Versicles and Prayer being likewise taken from the Common of a Virgin martyr. And as in former centuries the cities of Italy were accustomed to celebrate the solemn feasts of their holy patrons also with secular games, so, by the same witness Villani, on the feast-day of St. Reparata there were formerly held at Florence foot-races from her church, a prize being offered from the public treasury to the first to reach the goal, of red cloth of slight value, eight ells; but in the fourteenth century horse-races were substituted for the foot-races, and as prize a precious scarlet cloth of twelve ells was offered.

[43] Further, that the Reparata venerated at Florence, as we have already said, both formerly and up to now, is the Martyr of Caesarea in Palestine, yet her body does not rest there, although it cannot be determined from her Office, which is made from the Common of a Virgin martyr, is gathered both from the 8th day of October, on which the Florentines venerate theirs, and on which we have shown that she of Caesarea is announced in the old and more recent Martyrologies; and because no other of the same name is known in the sacred Fasti. From this so distinguished cult of hers among the Florentines the bishop of Equilio, Petrus de Natalibus, seems to have been misled, when in the Catalogue of the Saints, which he wrote after the middle of the fourteenth century, book 9, chapter 39, after the abridgement of the Acts of St. Reparata of Caesarea, he added: Whose body was buried near the walls of the city (of Caesarea) on the 8th day before the Ides of October; and thence, translated in course of time, it rests in the city of Florence.

[44] This error is refuted from book 3, chapters 15 and 16 of the History of Matteo Villani cited above, nor does it seem ever to have rested there. from which it is established that at least in the year 1352 there were no relics of this holy Martyr at Florence (so far, at least, as the Florentines knew): for to what end otherwise would they have had recourse to the sovereigns of Naples to obtain some portion of them from the people of Teano? See what was said above at number 31. But that her sacred body was either carried elsewhere from Florence before the middle of the fourteenth century, or was brought to Florence as the same century was drawing to its end (at which time the cited Petrus de Natalibus wrote), no one has related, nor is it likely on any ground from elsewhere; so that accordingly the origin of this Saint's ancient cult among the Florentines is to be sought from elsewhere than from the possession of her sacred body. What others think on this matter, consult what was said at number 40 and following.

[45] At Lucca likewise in Tuscany an ancient church Of the sacred veneration which the same Saint obtained at Lucca, which is another city of Tuscany and a republic of its own right, Fiorentini, the learned man of Lucca cited above, observed various things in the Annotations on the Martyrology which he published. I do not doubt (he says) that she (today's St. Reparata) was anciently celebrated at Lucca in Etruria. She had a church dedicated to her name, which in the old monuments of that basilica is called the Parish of the whole city. This is for the most part called by the sole title of the holy Virgin and Martyr; sometimes of SS. Reparata and Pantaleon; now it is called the distinguished collegiate church of SS. John and Reparata, from the adjoining church of St. John the Baptist, once, even before the coming of Christ, dedicated to the superstition of some idol, as ancient tradition bears and the structure of the temple itself suggests. Some manuscripts relate that the body of the holy Virgin and Martyr at one time rested there; but now where she rests, and whether her relics are there, is unknown.

[46] and she is honoured with a cult, yet not her body, In all the Calendars of the church of Lucca her festival is noted, and in the very old Hieronymian Calendar of the canons of Lucca it is read thus in the month of October: "On the 8th day before the Ides, of Reparata, virgin." In an old codex of the sacred Ceremonies in the same library, in the Calendar prefixed to it, it is written: "On the day of St. Reparata, greater Vespers, and Mass at St. Reparata's." In another Breviary on kid-skin, in my possession, it is marked thus in the month of October: "On the 8th day before the Ides, of Reparata, virgin and martyr." In a manuscript book in my possession, in which are noted in the Italian language the Histories of the Saints whose bodies rest in the city of Lucca, at page 1 it is read thus: "The body of St. Reparata, virgin and martyr, lies in the church of St. John the Greater." And at page 101 the Life of St. Reparata, taken from our Hagiology or a similar one, is narrated, and in it at the end these things are read, noted in Italian, at page 103: "Her most holy body was buried by the Christians (namely at Caesarea in Palestine) very devoutly, and afterwards translated to Florence, and thence to Lucca; and it lies in the church of St. John the Greater, and it (namely this church) is called that of St. John and Reparata, whose body is venerated by the supreme magistracy on her solemnity."

[47] as someone asserted, The book is not old, but was written by Lorenzo Trenta, a noble citizen of Lucca, in the year MDLXXXV, from Latin and old (as he professes) monuments, and before Cesare Franciotti published the History of the Saints of Lucca. So far Fiorentini in the cited Martyrology, which he published in the year 1668, at which time (by the same witness) it was unknown at Lucca where the body of St. Reparata rested, indeed whether any relics of her were even preserved there. Nor was it more known at Lucca in the year 1613, in which Cesare Franciotti, whom he mentions, put into print the History of the images illustrious for miracles, and of the Saints and sacred bodies resting in the city of Lucca; for among these too I found no mention of the body or relics of St. Reparata; so that it cannot but seem to me very suspect, not to say plainly false, what Lorenzo Trenta

affirmed above concerning the body of the same Saint, that it was customarily honoured on her solemnity by the supreme magistracy of the city, if he indicated that this was customarily done in his own time, as his words reported from Fiorentini altogether imply.

[48] For by what reasoning should I believe it came about that those sacred remains, honoured every year by the public visit of the magistracy, is to be believed to have rested there, or to rest there still: in the space of twenty-eight years, which intervened between the year 1585 and the year 1613, were so given over to oblivion that Cesare Franciotti was wholly ignorant of them, or at any rate passed them over, in the History published, as was said, in the latter year, in which he treated expressly of the bodies and relics of the Saints resting in the city of Lucca? But if you plead that they were carried elsewhere in that space of time, how was it that no memory of the translation of so celebrated a treasure survived at Lucca in the time of Fiorentini, a diligent investigator of such matters, who published his Lucca Martyrology 83 years after the book written by Trenta? And so, as the things alleged by Fiorentini prove an old and celebrated cult of St. Reparata among the people of Lucca, so they are of no help in asserting her body to them.

[49] Again, the enlarged Ughellian Italia Sacra, volume 4, column 1104 and following, assigns another city devoted to the cult of St. Reparata, a church of the same at Nice in Provence. namely Nicia, or Nice of Provence, which some of the ancients attribute to Gaul, others to Italy; and it is an episcopal city under the metropolis of Embrun. Further, as regards my present purpose, it venerates among its Tutelary Saints, after the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, St. Reparata, virgin martyr (and which, if not her of Caesarea? for we know no other), and has its cathedral church, formerly a parish church, dedicated to her. In agreement are Denis de Sainte-Marthe, volume 3 of the Gallia Christiana, column 1269, among the Bishops of Nice, and Pietro Gioffredo in Nicaea civitas monumentis illustrata, from whom we learn that that church, while it was a parish church, belonged to the monastery of St. Pons at Nice of the Order of St. Benedict, and that the episcopal see was translated to it in the sixteenth century, when the old cathedral church, sacred to St. Mary assumed into heaven, had been enclosed in the new citadel. For the rest, the beginning and origin, or cause, of this cult of St. Reparata among the people of Nice is likewise unknown to me: but the cited Gioffredo relates at page 164 that that church already existed in the eleventh century, and was given or restored to the aforesaid monastery of St. Pons.

[50] Of the celebrated cult of the same holy Virgin and martyr of Caesarea at Adria or Hadria, At Atri in the kingdom of Naples, as principal patroness commonly Atri to the Italians, which is a city of the kingdom of Naples in Further Abruzzo, having an episcopate perpetually joined with that of Penne, much is taught by Doctor Niccolò Sorricchio of Atri in his learned Historico-critical Dissertation on St. Reparata, principal protectress of the city of Atri, composed in the Italian tongue, which (I do not know whether it was ever published in print) we received in manuscript from Rome in the year 1767; from which we learned what we are about to say on this subject. First of all the people of Atri have for some centuries now solemnly venerated her, and venerate her today, under the title of principal Protectress, through whose manifest patronage (the author's words, from Italian into Latin) they have experienced not once only, and always equally, in universal calamities, that they were withdrawn from the greater scourges of the avenging hand of God, whether by earthquakes, or by pestilence, or by scarcity of crops, or by devastating storms; of all which, besides that it is established by daily experience, there is frequent record both in public and in private monuments.

[51] is now venerated with an annual festival and was formerly venerated Her principal feast, which they call the Triumph of St. Reparata, the people of Atri now celebrate every year from the Saturday, at least from vespers, before Low Sunday, and on the two following days; that in the fourteenth century it was fixed to no certain day, but was nevertheless customarily celebrated at Atri within the month of April, the cited Sorricchio proves from public instruments of the same city and century; and that the rite with which it was then celebrated was partly sacred, partly profane, he likewise teaches there from the Acts of the said city, from which he brings forward a decree, made (if, however, rightly) on the 5th day of April of the year 1362, on the manner of performing that festival. It will help to have transferred it here in the same words in which it stands in Latin in the same Dissertation. It runs thus: Item he said (Signor Pietro, son of Signor Transimondo, before the rectors of the city of Atri, and with their approval) that properly on the XI day of the said month of April it (the feast of the Triumph) should be held, and with the solemnity of the divine Office, in the square, if the weather is good; otherwise in the church, with sufficient wax, at the expense of the Commune, with rush, myrtle, players , dances and games, as best it can.*

[52] most solemnly, both with sacred rite And that on the Saturday a ban be sent out, that all persons, both men and women, of the city and district, on the Monday next coming, abstain from any mechanical works whatsoever, or crafts of labour, within and without the city, under the penalty contained in the chapter, and on the said day in the morning come to the greater church to hear and see the divine Office celebrated; and that torches be made in the evening. Item he said that for holding and ordering the feast four good men be chosen, who are to order it, and may spend and provide as they will. And there were chosen Zuzio Testa, Luzio di Nicolai, Matteo di Giacomo Runci, and Riccardo di Rainaldo d'Acquaviva. So the cited decree in Sorricchio's recension, which let us now illustrate a little.

[53] and with cessation from servile work, Unless the year 1362 is faultily marked, I cannot sufficiently wonder that the 11th day of April was appointed for celebrating that festival in that year, especially if it was otherwise fixed to no determined day. For since in the year 1362 Easter fell on the 17th day of April, the eleventh day of the same month was the Monday of Holy Week, which certainly by no means suited so joyful a festival, and much less the games, dances and spectacles of mimes by which it was profaned. Whatever meanwhile may be the case about the day or year, it is clear from that decree that the feast of the Triumph of St. Reparata was customarily celebrated at Atri in the fourteenth century very solemnly, even with cessation from all servile work both in the city and in its territory, and with a penalty sanctioned against transgressors; as an example of which Sorricchio cites in the same place the book of the Revenues of the city, in which at the year 1363 a certain Angelo Janlongo is noted to have been fined seven and a half carlini for that cause, and again at the 27th year of the fifteenth century a certain woman to have paid a similar money penalty because she had spun on that festival. To the solemnity also, and to satisfying the piety of the people flocking to Atri from the neighbouring places, pertains the fact that the divine Office, when the serenity of the sky so permitted, was celebrated in the public square, otherwise in the church.

[54] as was usual at that time elsewhere too, as with profane And this indeed concerning the sacred rite with which the feast of the Triumph of St. Reparata was celebrated at Atri in the fourteenth century. Among the profane rites then also employed Sorricchio also places a fair; and among the games the representation of the martyrdom of the same Saint, adducing as an example what is brought forward by Muratori in volume 2 of the Italian Antiquities of the middle age, Dissertation 29, column 849, from the Friulian Chronicle of Giuliano, canon of Cividale, at the year 1298, in this manner: A representation of a play was made, namely of the passion, resurrection, ascension of Christ, of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and of the coming of Christ to judgement, in the court of the lord patriarch, honourably and laudably by the clergy, etc. Of the representation of the martyrdom of St. Reparata, customarily made on that feast, another decree of the city of Atri, of the year 1531, to be recited below at number 79, also expressly makes mention; but other games too are indicated by these words with … instriones, or histriones, in the decree recited at number 51.

[55] That races for a prize were also run on the same festival, rite. as we saw above was done at Florence too, I believe Sorricchio, who says besides, and deservedly disapproves, that the dances, which the related decree also mentions, were customarily performed by men and women around the statue of the same holy Martyr, assuredly not becomingly, as the less chastened manners of that time namely allowed. Finally an illumination of the whole city by night, by kindled torches and a pile of wood set on fire in the public square, ended the solemnity. Lastly, when it is said in the same decree, with … rush and myrtle (mortella to the Italians is myrtus to the Latins), it is ordered that on the same festival either the church or the squares be strewn with rushes, flowers and myrtle, which usage obtains in our own times too in our Belgium in the squares through which the sacred procession of suppliants is to pass on the greater festivals.

[56] Another decree of the same city of Atri in the sixteenth century, A decree of the people of Atri in the sixteenth century namely in the year 1531, made on the same subject but with some circumstances changed, Sorricchio recites in the same place, and I subjoin it here on his faith. When the time of celebrating the festivals of St. Reparata shall be at hand, the lords of the government who shall then be in office shall choose two men from the nobles and greater men of the aforesaid city as masters of the fair, or market, of the said days, who on the said festivals shall see to it, and with solicitude press, that the divine Offices be celebrated, sermons, and everything be done ceremonially and most honourably; nor shall expense be spared on those days; but, as the need of the matter shall require, so shall it be spent, and alms be made to the praise of almighty God, and of the most blessed Virgin Mary, and to the honour of our said Virgin Advocate; nor shall they distribute all the meats to the officials and to the rich of the city itself; but rather shall they attend to the poor and needy, helping them with the said alms. How blessed is the man who understandeth concerning the needy and the poor, for in the evil day the Lord will deliver him!

[57] And they shall hire various sounding instruments, concerning the same solemnity to be worthily performed. for which instruments they shall pay nothing more than the quantity here described; namely, for each trumpeter, or tubist, three carlini, for each piper two carlini, for each harper nine grana together with board, and from the first Vespers of Saturday through the whole day of Monday; and if the said masters of the fair make a greater payment than the amounts noted above, they shall do so at their own expense, not of the community, and shall incur a penalty of two ducats; and all the aforesaid expenses and alms shall be made not otherwise than from our treasury, and shall be noted by it, and they shall render account and reckoning of the same. From this decree, in which no mention is made of games, dances and players, it appears that the people of Atri in the sixteenth century were more religious in celebrating the festival of their holy Protectress than formerly before, and, as they were liberal in performing the divine Offices most honourably then, so they were more sparing in the other expenses (if you except the alms). Besides, since in the same it is said that the same

festival lasted from the first Vespers of Saturday through the whole day of Monday, it is clear that already then it was customarily kept at least for three days, and therefore also probably from the Saturday before Low Sunday until the following Monday, as the cited Sorricchio testifies that in this our century it is done every year most solemnly and with very great expense on music and musicians.

That is, histrionibus* (players).

§ IV. The doings of the people of Atri in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for increasing the Saint's cult: their tradition about the origin of the aforesaid festival, and Sorricchio's opinion opposed to that tradition.

[At the beginning of the seventeenth century at Atri there is action for increasing the Saint's cult,] Of the increase of the same Saint's cult among the same people in the seventeenth century the often-cited Doctor Sorricchio speaks thus, but in Italian: Meanwhile, at the beginning of the past century, the devotion and religious veneration of the people of Atri grew toward her who, by her uninterrupted special patronage, procured that benefits be poured out from heaven upon our suppliant citizens. Hence our grandfathers, made even more certain of her kindly patronage, rendered the due offices of a grateful mind, and instituted various pious works, which with unanimous consent they referred to the immortal glory of St. Reparata… I have found that they applied their efforts to making a silver statue of the Saint, to obtaining from the Roman curia a proper Office of the same, to adorning the structure of the church according to the laws of the architecture of their time, and finally to erecting a magnificent chapel of precious marble; which was never done. We shall speak of each of these one by one, as the monuments bear which have come into our hands, and which were taken from the autograph books of the convents of the city.

[59] and for making a silver statue of her, The first design of the people of Atri was about making a silver statue, which they undertook on the XV day of January of the year MDCII through the effort and fervour of Father Francesco Pepe, Jesuit, and it was negotiated with Father General on behalf of our city that he should be sent back here the following Lent (namely to preach), after an alms of one hundred and fifty ducats had already been collected in the first one (to that end). At first the city had determined to spend three hundred ducats on this matter, besides other small sums of money to be levied. On the XV day of March in the year MDCIII it was negotiated with the craftsmen about the fee for making the statue, and one was found who would undertake that work for only two hundred ducats. The capitular body on the XIX day of the said month of March contributed gratis two annual revenues of its office, amounting to twenty-four ducats.

[60] By the council held on the XXIII day of December of the year MDCVII which is at length completed. it was decreed that the statue should be made not of the whole body, but of half the body (that is, a herm); and this was repeated in the council held on the XX day of February of the year MDCXI. On the XVI day of April in the year MDCXII two hundred and fifty more ducats were still lacking to complete it. When afterwards in the year MDCXXIV a scarcity of crops pressed, so that a tumulus (in Italian tomolo is a certain measure) of wheat sold even for four ducats, something other than the statue had to be seen to; and it was necessary in the common need to pawn it for one hundred and fifty ducats; and on the XV day of January in the year MDCXXVI, he to whom it had been given in pledge gave notice that he would sell it unless the agreed two hundred and fifty ducats were returned to him. At length in the year MDCXXIX, in order that the silver statue of our St. Reparata might finally be perfected to a nicety, it had to be sent to Naples, and about a hundred more ducats had to be spent there; and on the XXV day of the month of October of the same year it was sent back here entirely finished, such as it is seen today.

[61] In the year MDCVI nothing was left undone to obtain from the supreme Pontiff a proper Office of St. Reparata, Labour is spent in vain to have her proper Office approved at Rome: nor was what was so greatly desired obtained, although seventy ducats had been spent to this end; as may plainly be gathered from the public decree of the VI day of April. Nevertheless it was attempted anew in the year MDCCLI, Lessons also being sent to Rome which the father master Fra Angelo Maria Orgio, of the Order of St. Augustine, had composed from the Acts of the martyrdom of the same Saint; but although the honourable princess Strozzi, the lady Isabella Acquaviva, also interceded to obtain it, it was nevertheless flatly refused. From which it is gathered that the sacred Congregation of Rites did not readily assent to the demands of importunate devotees, because the Acts of her martyrdom were held as apocryphal.

[62] The Acts from which the cited father master Orgio composed those Lessons, her chapel is adorned: most similar to those to be published, Sorricchio also recites in the same Dissertation, and disapproves, though a little more vehemently than is fair. From these I observe here only that the St. Reparata venerated by the people of Atri as the chief Protectress of their city is none other than the Virgin Martyr of Caesarea in Palestine. Sorricchio further sets out at length the doings of the people of Atri in the same seventeenth century for erecting a magnificent chapel to their holy Protectress in the cathedral church, but adds that these efforts, after the expenditure of no small sum of money, finally came down to this, that they adorned a little with plaster her chapel within her own church. Let us now go on to turn Sorricchio's words from Italian into Latin.

[63] When in the year MDCCII they noticed that the old church of their holy Protectress threatened ruin, in the eighteenth century the old church is renewed these senators of ours, either because they judged it unworthy of the city to see it any longer so unsightly, or chiefly because in the same year it had been freed through her patronage from repeated deadly earthquakes, considered with serious and mature counsel renewing it from the foundations according to the laws of the architecture of our time. They agreed therefore on the sum of the expenses to be made, had a design of the work made by the celebrated architect Giovanni Battista Gianni of Milan, procured the material, and at length the building was begun by the same craftsman and architect, who completed it in the following years, except the cupola (in Italian it is Cuppolino, which word signifies a dome built in the manner of a tower or lantern), placed upon it in the year MDCCXLI: others piously devoted to the Saint added the side paintings out of pious liberality; and finally the most illustrious Signor Perrelli, burning with pious zeal, before he died, willed to consecrate it with solemn pomp at his own expense, so that, as it is seen today, nothing seems lacking to it that pertains to its completeness.

[64] To the tradition of the festival begun from the raising of a Saracen siege If now you ask from what time, or from what cause, this festival of the Triumph of St. Reparata began among the people of Atri, Sorricchio here dissents greatly from his fellow citizens; by whose testimony their opinion is that St. Reparata, when the city of Atri was besieged by a leader of the Saracens whom they call Mirocco, with an army of one hundred and eighty thousand, being invoked by the inhabitants, suddenly appeared in the air with fiery swords, and scattered those formidable troops of the barbarians on Low Sunday; and that this annual feast has hence both its origin and its beginning. But to us, says Sorricchio, who profess historical truth, this opinion is no more pleasing than ill-founded popular traditions; and he strives to overthrow this opinion with arguments both negative and positive, and undertakes to prove that the beginning of the festival is to be sought far later and from an altogether different cause. Let us begin with the negative.

[65] there is opposed first the silence of the writers on the matter; The Saracens (he says) either never saw our region (Further Abruzzo), or if they perhaps at some time entered it, they are not read in any of the writers who have treated accurately of the doings and dispersion (throughout Italy) of the Arabs to have in the least molested Atri, at that time a most flourishing city. By the common opinion of authors of approved credit these Mahometans broke into this kingdom (of Naples) only in the ninth and tenth centuries, and in the latter century they remained in it. We know besides that they made raids and held places in the more fertile provinces, namely in Terra di Lavoro, in Calabria, and in almost the whole of Apulia; but no one has related that they also ran into the Abruzzo to inflict similar slaughter. So he, whose argument, sought from the silence of the writers, though negative, has no small force against the tradition of the people of Atri about their city besieged by one hundred and eighty thousand Saracens and so prodigiously freed through St. Reparata; especially since other things too accord with this silence, and another probable reason for the beginning of the festival can be solidly assigned.

[66] second, because in the new church built in the thirteenth century Let us pass to his second argument, likewise negative. From a parchment manuscript written in the year 1222 he teaches that in that year the chief church of Atri, then newly rebuilt, was dedicated; and that at that consecration were present three bishops, namely Walter of Penne, Odo of Valva, and Gilbert of Guardia Alferia, and as many abbots, Raynald of San Giovanni in Venere, Gentile of San Clemente in Pescara, and Hector of Santa Maria di Pacciano. And the altars, nine in number, then consecrated in it and enriched with sacred relics, he lists thus from the same manuscript: The first, the high altar, dedicated to the most blessed Virgin Mother of God: the second to Blessed Giles; the third to St. Blaise; the fourth to Blessed Peter; the fifth to St. Nicholas; the sixth to St. Michael the archangel; the seventh to St. Thomas the martyr; the eighth to St. Silvester; the ninth to Blessed Emidius. These were (so he continues) the Saints who were honoured in our underground and principal church of St. Mary in the year MCCXXIII; whence it is credible that they were all perhaps the Tutelary Saints of our city, of whom St. Emidius, as Protector, always preserved it unharmed from dreadful earthquakes.

[67] This being laid down, he asks of the patrons of the aforesaid tradition, which he attacks, no altar was dedicated to her; why the people of Atri of that time dedicated none of these nine altars in that new august church of theirs to St. Reparata, the signal preserver, as they contend, of their city from the Saracen siege. He thinks one of two things must be answered; either that at that time St. Reparata was not venerated there under the title of Protectress; or that those good Forefathers of his (whom, however, it was fair should duly know the affairs of the preceding centuries) were ignorant of that famous Saracen siege raised and scattered by the sole work of St. Reparata. For if for a moment (he says) we suppose that the knowledge of this miracle had flowed down to them by certain tradition from the fathers through the sons, what prevented them from procuring for themselves, for the aforesaid consecration of the church, as very many relics of other Saints, so also some relics of their holy Preserver; or, if this could not be done because of their rarity, why did they not at least dedicate to her one of those nine altars out of particular devotion and as a due testimony of a grateful mind?

[68] He deservedly adds too that he cannot grasp how the more recent supporters of the same tradition narrate so clearly and so accurately the marvels of a most ancient fact of nearly nine centuries; [third, the silence of the old writers and the unusual name of Reparata at Atri in the same century.] while the old people of Atri, who lived more than five hundred years before them, kept so deep a silence about them that we should accuse them of the crime

of having granted none of the nine altars to their principal Protectress, such as St. Reparata is in this our time. Similar to this is the argument from a certain old Necrology of Atri, or rather Index of the dead, which, although it begins from the middle of the thirteenth century, presents no one by the name of Reparata, but many called Emidius, Giles, Silvester, Thomas, Michael, or by some other name of the aforesaid Protectors. Hence he again asks what probable reason can be brought why (if already before the thirteenth century the cult of St. Reparata as chief Protectress flourished at Atri) at that time none of the people of Atri gave the name of the same Saint to their daughters in baptism, contrary to the common usage received in all other cities, and which we have just seen was also kept at Atri in very many males who received the names of Emidius, Giles, etc., from the patrons of the same city. Indeed I do not discern what can solidly be replied to this negative argument so as to make it probable that the cult of St. Reparata under the title of Protectress already flourished at Atri in the thirteenth century.

[69] Having rejected in this manner the tradition of his fellow citizens, Sorricchio derives the origin of the same feast from the peace Sorricchio thinks the origin of the same feast is to be sought from nowhere else than from the peace concluded in the fourteenth century among the citizens themselves, of whom some, following the party of the Guelfs, others of the Ghibellines, had miserably torn their fatherland apart; and he confirms this opinion of his with various arguments, the chief of which I subjoin here from Italian into Latin. First (he says), in a diploma given at Naples on the XIV day of June of the year MCCCLII, King Louis and Queen Joanna I, asked by our Commune, strove with all their strength to establish at Atri peace and tranquillity among the citizens, which the accursed partisanship had most unhappily ruined. To this end they deigned first to remit the most grievous penalties which the ill-advised followers of the parties had incurred by their very many crimes, and they extended that grace to the whole month of April just past of the 5th indiction. They likewise ordered that the public solemn instrument of Peace should be put into execution and confirmed with a most strict obligation of obedience under penalties by no means to be remitted, and with inviolable oaths, and other most rigid formulas.

[70] [made in the fourteenth century among the citizens, who, attached to the Guelf and Ghibelline parties,] The dreadful mention which is made in it of the cruel devastation of the city will make our age shudder, and will fully convince of the lamentable destruction which had preceded. Let us hear the account of no ordinary slaughter among the citizens themselves. "Indeed the syndics of the community of the men of the city of Adria, of the province of Abruzzo beyond the river Pescara, lately present in our court, set forth most devoutly to our Majesty in the name of the said community that, FORMERLY, the enemy of peace and envious disturber of quiet so working, AMONG THE MEN, CITIZENS AND INHABITANTS OF THE SAID CITY AND ITS DISTRICT there so arose THE DIVISION OF PARTISANSHIP, ENVY AND HATRED, that, scandals having likewise arisen AMONG THEM ON EITHER SIDE, crimes of homicide were committed, BEATINGS, BURNINGS, RAIDS, ROBBERIES, AND WOUNDS, DESTRUCTIONS OF HOUSES, RAPES AND VIOLENCES OF WOMEN, AND OTHER DAMAGES AND GRAVE INJURIES AND OFFENCES; on account of which not only of THE CITY, BUT OF THE SURROUNDING REGION THE STATE WAS HARMED, ENORMOUSLY AND NOTABLY DISTURBED."

[71] had most grievously afflicted their fatherland In another privilege too, issued by the same sovereigns on the same day, month and year, this is read besides: "Because, however, the same city, on account of THE DIVISION OF PARTISANSHIP ARISEN in it SOME TIME AGO, AND THE GRAVE DESTRUCTIONS which likewise followed, has been so exhausted in its rich resources and has declined from its former condition … that it has been rendered wholly unable to bear, as before, the public burdens." Here that word Some time ago (as will be better explained below) indicates that the destruction of the fatherland happened as it were at the beginning of the fourteenth century, but that its pernicious effects lasted through the whole month of May of the year MCCCLII, when the same sovereigns, of special grace and with settled counsel, kindly laboured to extinguish the fire kindled by abominable partisanship, and in that way to restore the goods of peace among the infuriated citizens.

[72] as he proves from several instruments adduced Second, in a public and general assembly of the hundred councillors, held on the XV day of February of the year MCCCLXII in the cathedral church of St. Mary, among other things wholesomely enacted the following certainly was one: "Item, that no person, male or female, dare or presume in any manner or under any colour to name, or contend about, partisanship, or to cast up injury concerning the past times of the year of the Peace of Adria concluded, contrary to the form of the chapters, under the penalty contained in them." Acts of the city, folio 6 verso. Behold therefore, since a peace concluded at Atri is there spoken of, it is deservedly believed that a war had blazed among the citizens, which had raged some years before. But what war? Certainly that which had been waged from the unsound partisanship of the Guelfs and Ghibellines; for which reason men and women were forbidden under any pretext to contend about it; indeed even lightly to name it, under the penalty enacted in the municipal Chapters.

[73] Third, King Ladislaus, who had sold our city of Atri to Antonio Acquaviva in the year MCCCXCIII, he proves; considering its ancient splendour, and at the same time pitying the calamities which it had incurred of its own accord by following pernicious discords, in a diploma given at Naples on the XX day of January of the year MCCCCIV spoke thus: "Formerly the city of Adria of the said province of Further Abruzzo, as its traces and ancient foundations indicate, and the site and circuit of its amplitude, was great, and abundant in citizens, inhabitants and settlers. But at length, the perverse character of the times working, and the abominable faction and partisanship which wickedly and not without loss long flourished in the same, it was diminished manifoldly in people and inhabitants; from which it was necessary that the remaining citizens and inhabitants, abandoning the first and ancient members, should draw themselves in, leave very many places uninhabited, and reduce and compress the body of the city to the stronger places and those most crowded with cultivation and habitation."

[74] In the following times too the names of Guelfs and Ghibellines were so disgraceful and abominable in our city which parties it was severely forbidden even to name. that, up to the year MCCCCXXX, by severe edicts which the governors promulgated every year, a grave penalty of ten ounces (or three hundred of our ducats) was inflicted, AS OFTEN AS IT HAPPENED, on those uttering them, and besides also on others who, hearing them uttered, did not at once denounce it either to the duke or to the governor. Hear the formula of this severe chapter: "Item, that no man or no person of the said town ought or presume TO NAME the Guelf party, or the Ghibelline, in the said city or its district, under a penalty of ten ounces for each man and woman and each time: AND IF ANYONE SHALL HEAR THE AFORESAID PARTY NAMED in the aforesaid manner and shall not report it to our magnificent lord Josias and to the lord captain within two days more, we will that he incur a similar penalty; and if he shall tell the lord captain within the aforesaid term, let him have the third part of the aforesaid penalty." From the book of public Resolutions of the year MCDXXX, folio 2 verso. So severely, then, was it decreed against those who, whether by chance or with deliberate intent, were to renew almost a century after that fatal memory. And what more could have been enacted at the time when these destructions had most boiled over?

§ V. Sorricchio's remaining arguments against the tradition of the people of Atri, whose opinion we believe should be subscribed to: what seems to be thought of the relics of St. Reparata honoured at Atri.

In favour of Sorricchio's opinion I forbear to review more of Sorricchio's arguments for confirming the calamitous state of the city of Atri in the thirteenth century, in which the Saracens certainly had no part, all of which he thought should be produced in order to teach that the cause, and that a most grave one, of imploring the patronage of St. Reparata, and, it being most happily obtained, of adopting her as chief Protectress of the city and honouring her with an annual solemnity, was far other than it seems to his fellow citizens. To persuade that this was done so, he observes first of all that it is altogether probable that very many among the people of Atri who were pious and lovers of peace, when they recognized that by no human effort could they remedy so many and so great evils, at length had recourse with fervent vows to divine help for restoring the concord of their fellow citizens, and implored the powerful patronage of the Saints; and above all of St. Reparata, who at that time, as we saw above, was in great veneration among the Florentines, and had the cathedral church dedicated in her name with the title of principal Patroness, on account of a memorable benefit conferred on their city.

[76] a public instrument Peace having presently followed, he continues, the magistracy and the whole people of Atri, persuaded that this admirable pacification was altogether owed to the most powerful patronage of St. Reparata, willed to honour her with a truly religious cult, and to adopt her as principal Protectress of their city, a municipal decree being made on the matter, that they might transmit to posterity the Acts of a due Thanksgiving, together with a well-ordered and at the same time magnificent triumphal procession and a most devout solemnity. Accordingly, not long after, that is, thirty or forty years later, namely on the V day of April of the year MCCCLXII, when the festival of St. Reparata, previously introduced, was to be celebrated, a discourse was held in the public senate, preserved up to now among the autograph Acts of the city, in which at folio 25 it is read thus: "Whereas SOME TIME AGO a chapter was made concerning a feast to be celebrated each year in perpetuity to the reverence of God, of the Virgin Mary, and of Blessed Reparata, on the XI day of the month of April; and the Monday next coming is the XI of the said month, what manner is to be observed in holding and celebrating the said feast for the perpetual memory of the peace of the city of Adria."

[77] of the city of Atri of the fourteenth century, Two things in this text come opportunely to be observed for our purpose. The first is that particle Some time ago, which does not indicate a very long time of a hundred years, and much less one still more immemorial, of which certain knowledge is not had through the lapse of some centuries. The word Dudum refers to a certain space of years which old men may remember, or of which certain knowledge may be had from tradition transmitted by these to their children, and not sought further back. That space, in the opinion of authors, and namely of those learned in the laws, is usually bounded by an interval of about thirty or forty years, and one which does not exceed fifty years, as Jacques Godefroy teaches in many places of the Theodosian code. For which reason I shall confidently say that that admirable event (of peace restored) could have fallen in the year MCCCXXX, or MCCCXX, or at the most nearer toward the year MCCCX, or, according to the manner of speaking received among the learned, about the beginning of the fourteenth century.

[78] This opinion of ours is well favoured by the register of the canons in the often-cited Necrology, the old Necrology, in which at the XXIV day of November of the year MCCCXXXI they say thus: "Accorimbono di Nicola di Tommeo. Gervasio, and Bernarduzio his brother. Arizonio del Poggio. Andrea Testa. Nicola di Francesco: who all died at Sulmona on account of the depopulation of Adria." This depopulation could have happened one decade of years earlier, and therefore about the year about

MCCCX. Second, there is to be observed the reason why these Forefathers of ours established a sacred cult and a magnificent annual festival to be celebrated in perpetuity; which is read in the Public Acts alleged to have been no other than that they might honour the memory of the prodigy of the devastating discord utterly rooted out through the Saint, and at the same time of PEACE restored to our city of Atri, which before had seemed ruined by implacable hatreds, deadly enmities, and endeavours to destroy its own fatherland.

[79] There persevered in the sixteenth century the same reason for renewing every year with a devout and solemn feast the memory of the same PEACE once procured by the Saint. and another instrument of the sixteenth century. Of this the municipal chapters issued in the year MDXXXI make us certain, which survive up to now in manuscript, and persevere almost in their full force. In them, at chapter 6, these words are read most clearly: "But because the Community has decreed to venerate her yearly also in the Octave of the Resurrection of the Lord, and on the following day, and it has been so concluded, therefore let this festival be celebrated unanimously both by the venerable clergy and by the whole people of Atri, with all the honour that it can and that befits; and let there be summoned also on these days all clerics, and Religious of whatever Order, who may happen to come here, that they may praise the Lord our God, and the blessed Virgin Mary, and blessed Reparata, and all the Saints, for peace and the good of the republic, with the customary representation of the martyrdom of this our Advocate; and let these days be celebrated with holy and devout sermons, or preachings, etc." Here you have clearly set out in what manner the people of Atri of the sixteenth century celebrated the day dedicated to the glory of St. Reparata in the Octave of Easter of the Resurrection by the prescription of a public chapter and decree, and for no other cause than for the peace and good of our Community: but nothing is said of the memory of a believed triumph, or of a liberation from the faithless Saracens.

[80] Now at length let us say what seems to us to be determined from all the foregoing. From what has been alleged thus far by Sorricchio, The tradition of the people of Atri about the feast of the Triumph of St. Reparata, instituted because of the Saracen siege of Atri so marvellously raised by her help, lacks an ancient witness, and rests on a history unknown to the writers of Saracen Affairs, by whom nevertheless it could not easily have been unknown if it happened, nor, if it was known, ought it to have been omitted. Second, if that feast had its origin from that miracle, it would be far older than the fourteenth century; but that it is not so becomes most probable from the deep silence of the old monuments, of which none is produced earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century in which mention is made of the same festival, and in this later one too it is said to be celebrated for the perpetual memory of the peace of the city of Adria; not a word at all being added about the city so prodigiously freed from the siege of the Saracens. And what better reason for this silence shall we believe than that even in the middle of the fourteenth century the tradition with which we are dealing either was not yet born, or was by no means believed by the senate of Atri, as new and foreign to the truth?

[81] with arguments both negative, Third, if the veneration of St. Reparata as chief Protectress of the city is so ancient among the people of Atri, who could sufficiently wonder that not only was no altar erected to her among those in the new church in the thirteenth century, but also that no one of the female sex, contrary to the custom of all other cities, is found named Reparata in the Necrology of Atri, which begins from the middle of the same thirteenth century? On the contrary, the reason is clearer than midday light in Sorricchio's opinion, according to which the origin of the feast is to be sought from elsewhere than from the Saracens driven from the city, and the cult of St. Reparata as chief Protectress was received at Atri much more recently; so that accordingly the public Acts which treat of the feast of the Triumph of St. Reparata could not, except ineptly, have mentioned the Saracen siege, even if this had truly happened, nor could instruments older than the fourteenth century make mention of the same feast at all, and every reason ceases for wondering that the older people of Atri of the same fourteenth century neither dedicated an altar in the new church to the same Saint nor named their daughters by her name; since at that time she had not yet obtained at Atri the title of chief Protectress, indeed perhaps no cult at all.

[82] and positive, arguments So far of the negative arguments (as they call them); now let us weigh the positive. That peace and concord were restored to the city of Atri, after the most grievous calamities which it had suffered from the Guelfs and Ghibellines, before the middle of the fourteenth century, is proved by the public Acts adduced by Sorricchio; nor would anyone deservedly deny that this was a most worthy cause why St. Reparata could obtain the title of Protectress of the same city, and an annual festival to be celebrated in perpetuity could be decreed to her, if the people of Atri really owed this most happy event to her, or at least ascribed it to her. And that they ascribed it is urged by the first mention of the same festival, to be celebrated every year at Atri for the perpetual memory of the peace of the city of Adria, by a decree made some time before, in an instrument drawn up a little after the middle of the fourteenth century (as has been set forth), and by the things which we have produced above from Sorricchio concerning the distinguished cult of the same Saint and the same festival, of which no older record of the same century is produced, continued thereafter up to these our times.

[83] diligently weighed, Besides, in the same fourteenth century the people of Atri not only dedicated to her an altar, which they had not done in the thirteenth century, but also erected a church, by the same witness Sorricchio, whose words I again subjoin from the Italian tongue. The people of Atri of that time (he says) (of the fourteenth century) did not omit to build to her a devout and elegant church of Gothic work, mindful of the peace prodigiously restored among them, and as if given from heaven by the Saint, whom they had chosen for themselves as singular Patroness. Which church, beautifully built in that architecture, our citizens at the beginning of this declining century (the XVIII) wished to reduce to the norm of the architecture of this time: but we do not know whether they brought it into a better state, at least as regards the front, which is much inferior to the former, which, most elegantly wrought of marble, they demolished.

[84] The first mention of this church which occurs in our Collection of antiquities we adhere to his opinion. we found in a quire of five leaves of paper made from linen … written in the year MCCCLV, which survived in the archive of the city. On folio 2 verso of this it is read that Antonio Altonato was at that time appointed by the Community to receive the money destined for the building of the church of blessed Reparata. There is no need to report here the sum of money there divided into various portions; but it plainly appears that the church of the common Protectress was not yet wholly completed in that year. Besides, in the same Collection of Antiquities there is transcribed an instrument of the XXV day of June of the year MCCCLVII, by which a contract was made in the cloister of the same church. In the following years we found in more than one testament that the faithful of Atri were piously moved to bequeath something, or at least to give a torch, to the church of their preserver, St. Reparata. These things Sorricchio; and whoever is willing to compare them all with the silence of the instruments of Atri older than the same fourteenth century about the veneration of St. Reparata among them, will without difficulty (I think) agree with him, leaving aside the vulgar and not sufficiently ancient tradition which asserts that the origin of her cult at Atri is to be sought from the city freed from a Saracen siege, equally unknown to the other writers.

[85] But, you will say, if these things are so, by what reasoning could this tradition of the people of Atri about the annual feast of St. Reparata instituted in memory of the city freed from the siege of the Saracens be introduced? Probable conjectures are presented I admit: this is not so easy to say; yet the things which Sorricchio observed on this matter are not inept. Let us hear him. As far as it appears more probable to us (he says in Italian), this opinion about the Saracens could have arisen in our city in two or three ways, which I shall set out to those who love only the truth, not the marvellous happenings of human affairs. We proved above from irrefragable testimonies that in the fourteenth and following centuries the names of the factions from which our fatherland had suffered so many evils and slaughters were so odious that even their memory alone struck horror. Among the same people of Atri, mindful of the evils by which they had been afflicted through the fault of their Forefathers, it was held the greatest and most atrocious injury to name anyone a Guelf or a Ghibelline; and whoever did so was most severely punished; indeed it was not even lawful for them to pronounce these names without incurring a penalty of three hundred ducats, as we have shown.

[86] Besides, the people of Atri were bound to celebrate solemnly every year the Triumph of their Protectress St. Reparata for the PEACE restored to the afflicted city; concerning the manner in which, of the people of Atri but they were not on that account permitted to indicate by even one word, or to mention by their proper names, the very authors who had been the causes of the general slaughter. What then did the citizens of that earlier time, placed in these straits, do? From the image which they formed for themselves of the civil enmities, on account of whose extinction that feast was kept, and which they compared with the times of the Saracens, of whose horrendous crimes they had heard, they gave a beginning to the tradition. For the more abominable names of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, therefore, they substituted the Saracens, a race equally of ungoverned wrath and ferocity: and perhaps it may even be permitted to say that the people of Atri, followers of the factions of that time, were in their daily intestine wars more ferocious than the Saracens themselves. And this tradition, according to our conjecture, could have begun at the end of the sixteenth century, and then, growing more and more up to our age, must have struck deeper roots in the minds of the pious, so that in this our time they would reckon it a grave impiety to wish even lightly to unteach it. To give credence to this thing the sacred orators also contributed, who in their annual sermons most zealously endeavoured to establish it ever more and more out of the lively imagination of their fertile genius.

[87] about the origin of the festival of St. Reparata among them I should believe that another basis of this tradition was probably that the people of Atri knew that a like cult of St. Reparata was shown at Nice in Provence, of which a similar liberation from a Saracen siege was narrated. We know certainly, and all historians confirm with unanimous consent, that the Saracens made incursions into Provence, and at length also fixed their seat in it. Hence it ought not to seem difficult for anyone to believe, since the cult of the holy Protectress had been propagated in that city from a most ancient time, that a miracle of that kind was wrought there by her, the fame of which has come down to our age. Nor perhaps would anyone say it is unlike the truth that our forefathers, led by zeal for the greater glory of their Protectress, transferred that stupendous prodigy from Provence into this region of ours. So far Sorricchio: I too read that Nice in Provence was devastated by the Saracens in Sigonio, book 4 On the Kingdom of Italy, at the year 813, and from him in Gioffredo in the Sacred Monuments of the same city illustrated, page 32; but neither in these nor in others do I find anything about the Saracens repelled from the same city by the help of the same Saint, or about a miracle the fame of which has come down to our age, and which to the people of Atri in the fourteenth century

might have lighted the way for devising that tradition of theirs.

[88] the tradition may seem to have arisen. If this conjecture of Sorricchio's does not please someone, he himself adds another as well, namely that the people of Atri perhaps devised that tradition after the example of the Florentines, who in the same fourteenth century believed that their city was freed on the day sacred to St. Reparata, when Radagaisus, who had besieged it, was slain with an army of two hundred thousand barbarians, and that on that account the cathedral church was dedicated to the same Saint, by the witness of Matteo Villani; on which matter see what was said above in § III. Sorricchio therefore judges that it is not to be wondered at if what the Florentines narrated of King Radagaisus with two hundred thousand Goths, Suevi and Vandals, the people of Atri in a similar manner narrated of the furious leader Mirocco with a most numerous army of one hundred and eighty thousand Saracens, whom they brought on the stage in later times. So far the conjectures of the cited man, assuredly most probable; which if anyone thinks should be rejected, let him produce others; for that the tradition of the people of Atri about their city besieged by Mirocco, leader of the Saracens, and freed through St. Reparata, is not older than the fourteenth century, nor rests on any older monument, at least that I have seen produced, is proved by the things we have brought forward thus far.

[89] It remains that we add from the same learned Historico-critical Dissertation something about the sacred bones honoured at Atri The body of St. Reparata, V. M., which are believed, or were believed, to be St. Reparata's. By Sorricchio's witness, the people of Atri, while they were dealing with making the silver statue of their holy Protectress (of which it was spoken above), were anxious to obtain at Rome through Cardinal Ottavio I Acquaviva relics of her, of which they acknowledged they had none, to be enclosed in the same statue; but in vain. At length in the year MDCVII Claudio Acquaviva, General superior of the Society of Jesus, gave to the people of Atri the sacred body of a certain holy virgin and martyr called Reparata, obtained by request from the supreme Pontiff Paul V, and enclosed in a becoming reliquary at the expense of the cited Cardinal Ottavio Acquaviva, together with the approbation of the same supreme Pontiff that it might be exposed to public veneration; and these received it with great joy as being their Protectress's.

[90] The same Claudio Acquaviva had written on this matter two letters, which the people of Atri received from Rome in the seventeenth century, one to the Community of the city of Atri, which Sorricchio affirms is no longer found in the public archive; the other, which he recites in the same place, to the chapter and canons of the same city, which, turned word for word from Italian into Latin, runs thus: Very reverend lords. Father rector (of the college of Atri of the Society of Jesus, by name, as is said afterwards, Girolamo Alaleone) brings with him the body of St. Reparata, virgin and martyr, with its authentic instrument, that it may be publicly exposed; and although it is sent to the city, it must nevertheless be handed over to your lordships, to be placed in your church, for which I procured it: I thought it my duty to congratulate myself and you on so great a treasure acquired, and on the increase which I hope will come of devotion and piety in the citizens and people, and therefore also of heavenly gifts and graces in all through the merits and intercession of this Spouse of Christ our Lord; from whom I beg every true good, and finally offer myself most ready to the services of your lordships. Very reverend … Rome, 1 June MDCVII… Your most devoted servant in Christ … Claudio Acquaviva.

[91] Sorricchio teaches that that body is by no means entire; more probably belongs to another holy Virgin martyr, nor did Claudio Acquaviva assert this in the letter just recited. He called it a body, however, by a quite received custom (yet not one to be approved), by which the greater, or even only a large, part of a body is more liberally called the Body. If Father Girolamo Alaleone called this same (as Sorricchio notes) an entire Body, he could have erred. He judges besides (what is of greater moment) that the aforesaid sacred body, whether it be entire or diminished by a great part of itself, is not that of St. Reparata, virgin and martyr of Caesarea, venerated by the people of Atri under the title of Protectress, but some anonymous one, received from the Roman cemeteries, on which the name of Reparata was then imposed. Assuredly neither can be affirmed from the alleged letter of Claudio Acquaviva; for neither is it said in it that it is that of St. Reparata of Caesarea, nor is it read whence it was received.

[92] To me, however, it also appears more probable than the one of Caesarea; that it is not that of the celebrated Virgin of Caesarea, because I have read nothing anywhere about her translation to Rome; but that it is another's, found in the Roman cemeteries with the laurels of virginity and martyrdom attached; for otherwise it would not have been permitted to be publicly exposed as the body of a Virgin and Martyr. But it may be doubted whether it was also found with the name of Reparata, both because it rarely happens that names inscribed to the sacred bodies are found in those crypts; and because the word Reparata is one of the appellatives which are common to all the Saints; such, namely, as are customarily imposed on sacred bodies of this kind when they are taken out of the crypts. More certain things will perhaps be taught either by the Pontifical letters of Paul V for the approbation and cult of the same Relics, or by the letters of Claudio Acquaviva given to the community of the city of Atri, if they survive.

[93] [nor do we know anything certain about other relics honoured there under the same name.] Still less do I know what is to be said about other bones of a certain St. Reparata, likewise honoured at Atri in a monastery of girls, of which the cited Sorricchio has this besides: Not yet forty years have passed since a certain Father Candido, of the Order of Reformed Minors, whom we knew, procured for himself (we know not how) the principal bones of St. Reparata with the authentic letters of a certain bishop, whose name has now slipped from my memory. They were, however, laid in an urn of gilded and becoming wood. The said father, while he was at our house, said that he wished to give them to the lady Donna Marciana Acquaviva, who at that time presided as abbess over the monastery of the nuns of St. Peter. It was done altogether so, as we have said, and in the same monastery the said sacred bones are likewise preserved with pious cult.

ACTS OF SLIGHT CREDIT,

By an anonymous author,

Published from an old codex of Metz by Martène, volume V of the Thesaurus of Ancient Writers, from column 741, and compared with other manuscripts.

Reparata, V. M., at Caesarea in Palestine. (S.)

BHL Number: 7183

By an anonymous author.

A girl of twelve, before the governor, Christ Under the governor Decius ^a there was a monstrous persecution of the Christians. In that same place ^b there was a certain virgin named Reparata, twelve years old; she was cheerful of mind, chaste of body, she adored Christ rather than deny ^c Him. Decius the governor therefore entered into the city of Caesarea: then all the citizens ^d came to him, and said to him: This Virgin mocks our gods, most invincible one; and she adores we know not whom, who is called Christ. Then Decius the governor ordered the Girl to come to him; and when he saw that she was most beautiful, he began to speak with her in flattering words, saying: Girl, O happy is the mother who nourished thee! and therefore I know that thou art sprung of noble race; come hither, and sacrifice to the immortal gods.

[2] freely confessed, St. Reparata answered: Behold, I am more or less twelve years old; it is enough for me already to have seen the life that will pass away; I hope for another, trusting in Him who willed me to be born from the womb of my mother, and I desire to immolate myself to the Lord my God, Jesus Christ ^e. Be it known to thee, enemy of God most high, that He will destroy thee and all who consent ^f with thee. Decius the governor said: Before thou perish, take counsel for thyself. St. Reparata answered: I cannot console myself; the Lord my God will console ^g me, who deigned to die for us. Decius the governor said: If He is true God, in whom thou believest, how did He descend ^h to earth and undergo passion? St. Reparata answered: He underwent passion that He might free us from the snare of death: He put on the form of servitude that He might lead all to liberty.

[3] Decius the governor said: Deny, then, the Christ whom thou speakest of, nor moved by threats, and immolate to the immortal gods. St. Reparata answered: Anathema, do thou immolate to thy gods, full of dung: but I will not cease to confess my Lord Jesus Christ, in whom my soul trusts. To Him I am ready to immolate a victim of praise. Decius the governor said: See how great torments thou canst endure. St. Reparata answered: In no way dost thou confound me, but rather thou strengthenest my soul ⁱ. Decius the governor said: Fill a pot with lead, and, heated, bring it before her. Show her the first ^k punishment; and if she will not sacrifice, so drench her. St. Reparata answered: God is true to deliver His Handmaid, and He will rescue me from this punishment. When she had said this, at once he presented ^l the lead.

[4] Decius the governor said: What hardness of a Virgin, who brings sentence upon herself ^m by evil torments. various and most grievous St. Reparata answered: I do not enter ⁿ upon sentence by evil torments; but I am greatly helped by my Lord. Decius the governor said: Kindle lamps, and take away ^o the breasts from her bosom. St. Reparata answered: Thy fire is cold; but the charity of Christ, whom I hope to see, has enlarged me. Decius the governor said: Kindle a furnace, and make an end of [p] her by fire, until she perish. And when the governor's command was being fulfilled, and the Girl was being led, and as she entered, she began to sing psalms in the furnace, saying: I was exalted like a cedar on Libanus, and like a cypress on mount Sion; like myrrh I yielded a sweetness of odour: and do Thou, Lord Jesus, show mercy with me, as Thou didst with Sidrach, Misach and Abdenago: and she walked about as if upon dew [q].

[5] But Decius was walking about before the praetorium: the place where the furnace was being kindled [r] was close by there; tortures and when he heard her singing psalms in the power of God, he said to his men: Behold what a Virgin in her evils: I believe we are conquered: bring a sword, and cut her bowels to pieces [s]. And they did as he commanded: and at once her members were made whole again [t]. Then St. Reparata answered: Are these thy torments, most ancient one grown old in evil days [u]? Thou canst do me no harm; but rather thou strengthenest my soul. Decius the governor said to his attendants [x]: Bring a razor, and shave her head, and lead her through the public [y] places. St. Reparata answered: I endure ignominies, and, shaven, I desire to come forth in public [z]: for I know how, for this which I suffer, in what manner [aa] my God, Jesus Christ, will exact it of thee, enemy of God.

[6] Decius the governor said: If thou fearest to come to deformity, unharmed she marvellously overcomes approach, and immolate to the most invincible gods. St. Reparata answered: Thou hast heard what I said to thee: I do not immolate to thy gods; but I offer to God a clean sacrifice, and a victim of jubilation. But see what thou doest; for in the sight of the Judge

of my God I shall plead my cause with thee. And many standing round there were pricked in heart and terrified. Decius the governor said: I wonder that thou art of so hard a heart: take counsel for thyself now, before thou perish from our eyes. St. Reparata said: O power of the devil, with how many arguments thou pressest upon me! Wretch, thou hast perished from the face of God. Decius the governor said: Lead away the wordy one, and behead the guilty one, and take her head away from my eyes [bb].

[7] and at length, beheaded, she is buried by the Christians. But St. Reparata, when she was being led by the executioners, said: I give Thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast deigned to lead me from this world of pilgrimage to Thee with the palm of the triumph of virginity [cc]. And the executioners, hearing, struck her head, and it fell [dd]: and at once there went forth from her neck a white dove, which had first comforted [ee] her when she was in the contest. But a few Christians, God-fearing men, coming up, seized her body, and, embalmed with spices, buried it [ff], and she rested in peace on the eighth day before the Ides of October, the Lord Jesus Christ reigning, to whom is honour and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. In the Fulda one: Dejicite (cast down): in the Trier one: Diversate.

q. In the same, and in the manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier, it is read: And thou didst walk about upon them, as dew. Of the Babylonian furnace read chapter 3 of Daniel.

r. In the Fulda one: But Decius was walking about before the praetorium, which was in the nearest place there where the furnace was being kindled; but the little word which has been added in another hand.

s. That is: cut into pieces. In the Fulda one there is read written beside it: Incidite (cut into).

t. To be able to give credence to these things, I require a more certain witness: for it is also little likely that so many and so great torments were continuously inflicted on the holy Martyr, and that she was not meanwhile, at some intermediate time, thrust into prison in order to take counsel for herself, as is not seldom read in the Acts of other martyrs. In Mombritius nevertheless other torments and miracles also are set before these; namely that burning candles were applied to her sides, but were extinguished by divine power, and the hands of the executioners who applied them suddenly withered; then that she was moreover placed on a gridiron with burning coals beneath, and in like manner escaped unhurt; and with all these he intermingles various conversations of Decius with the holy Martyr, all of which are better absent from the Acts which we give.

u. In the Fulda one it read: Most ancient one, who hast grown old in evil days; but for inveterator there has been substituted in another hand inveterate. Here in Mombritius's Acts again other things are read inserted, namely that, the Saint praying, a vehement earthquake took place, the greatest part of the people died, the hands of the executioners withered, and many were converted to the Christian rites.

x. In the Fulda one, but in a different hand: Excubitoribus (guards).

y. Understand public streets or quarters.

z. In the Fulda one: Into public.

aa. In the same is added: Me; but even so the word quomodo is superfluous.

bb. Mombritius's Acts here again set first other tortures, namely quicklime, potsherds, iron tripods, the rubbing of wounds, the pouring of mustard and vinegar into the nostrils, thorny clubs; and they add once more that some of the executioners were punished by divine power with blindness, others with withering hands, all of which argue an inept interpolator.

cc. In the Fulda one and the other codices with which it was here compared there is added: And with bended knee she prayed, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit.

dd. In the Fulda one: Striking her head, it fell; for which in a different hand these have been substituted: They struck her, and her head fell.

ee. Did the author then think that that dove was the Holy Spirit? More rightly (if it was then truly seen) he would have believed that the soul of the holy Martyr was indicated by it.

ff. This word is better absent from the Fulda codex. On the burial of the sacred body Mombritius's Acts agree in almost the same words in this manner: But a few Christians, God-fearing men, coming up, seized her body, and, embalmed with spices, buried it on the eighth day before the Ides of October, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in the Trinity for ages of ages. Amen. This burial of the Saint at Caesarea in Palestine is most probable, and suffers no difficulty; nor can there be reconciled with it a translation of the same body to Campania such as Antonio Sebastiano, bishop of Crotone, put forward, and as we reported and rejected in the preliminary Commentary from number 37.