ON ST. PLACIDIA, VIRGIN,
AT VERONA IN ITALY
PERHAPS IN THE YEAR 460.
SYLLOGE.
The memory of St. Placidia among the martyrologists, and her sacred cult: was she the daughter of Valentinian? The uncertain epoch of her death.
Placidia, virgin, at Verona in Italy. (S.)
BY J. B.
St. Placidia at Verona, a most famous city of the Veneti in Lombardy under the patriarchate of Aquileia, St. Placidia, the Roman Martyrology inscribes at this day in these words: At Verona, of St. Placidia, virgin. I have nowhere found her name inscribed in the somewhat more ancient Fasti of the Saints; but of the more recent martyrologists Maurolycus has this of her at the 15th day of October: At Verona, of St. Placidia, a most holy virgin, daughter of the emperor Valentinian. In agreement with Maurolycus, keeping the same day of announcement, are Felicius in the Italian Martyrology, Greven, and Molanus in the Usuardine Auctaria in Sollerius, page 503. Petrus de Natalibus also, in book 12 of the Catalogue, binds the feast of St. Placidia to the Ides, that is, the 15th day of October; on the other hand, to the 11th, Galesinius, Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Brautius in the Metrical Martyrology, and Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology. Perhaps St. Placidia was formerly venerated among the people of Verona on the Ides of October, and then on the 5th day before the Ides of October, on which day her feast is also marked in the Roman Martyrology most recently edited by the authority of Benedict XIV.
[2] Two ancient monuments above all prove the sacred cult of St. Placidia among the people of Verona, with sacred cult indeed namely a marble tablet fixed to the wall of the church of St. Stephen, and a certain ordo of the cathedral church of Verona, called the Carpsum, in which St. Placidia is numbered among the Saints venerated at Verona: the latter the most illustrious Scipione Maffei, in book XI of the History of Verona, column 343, conjectures was compiled between the years 900 and 1200 by a certain Stephen, priest and cantor; the former he suspects, at column 342, was made in the 11th or 12th century, or perhaps even earlier. Further, after mention of the holy bishops of Verona whose bodies the church of St. Stephen boasts — Simplicius, Petronius, Innocent, Felix, Salvinus, Theodore, Senator, Probus, Andronicus, Maurus, and the confessor Mamas — there presently follows this mention of St. Placidia: And of the venerable virgin of Christ Placidia. Whoever wants the entire text of the tablet may go to volume 6 of September, page 24, where he will find it transcribed from Onofrio Panvinio; or to Biancolini, volume 1, On the Churches of Verona, page 13, where he has reproduced the very form of the tablet and of the letters. The inscription agrees in both places,
if you except that the Panvinian one ends in this manner, "and of the other innumerable holy women", while the other ends in this, "and of the other innumerable Saints", and, as I think, more accurately.
[3] The other things which pertain to the cult and relics of St. Placidia are explained thus in the ancient Monuments of the Bishops of Verona, she enjoys among the people of Verona. edited by Raffaele Bagata and Battista Peretti, page 29 and following. The body of St. Placidia, virgin, rests in the church of St. Stephen at Verona, as (supply: is evident) from the ancient Lectionary of the cathedral church, from the Martyrology of the said cathedral church, from the marble stone of which above, where we spoke of St. Andronicus, from the old parchment tablet of which where we spoke of St. Alexander, from Francesco Corna, and from the table of the Saints for the 11th day of October. Then, having recited the words of Maurolycus already quoted, they continue thus: On the feast of St. Placidia and through the Octave an indulgence of twenty days is granted in the church of St. Stephen for criminal sins, and of the half part of venial ones, as from the old parchment tablet in the sacristy of St. Stephen, of which above. Her Life is written in the ancient Lectionary of the cathedral church, but not the whole of it: it is written complete in an old parchment book in the church of St. Stephen, and in book 9, chapter 70, of Petrus de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio. How the body of St. Placidia was laid in one and the same chest together with the body of St. Simplicius, bishop of Verona, which serves as the base of the altar erected in honour of St. Simplicius and St. Placidia, has been said above, where we spoke of Simplicius. The feast of St. Placidia, virgin, is celebrated at the church of Verona under a simple Office, by custom, on the 11th day of October. They make an enumeration of the relics kept in the church of St. Stephen at pages 4 and 5, and call St. Placidia a Queen; and concerning the position of the bodies of St. Simplicius and St. Placidia they speak thus: Likewise from the head of the chest of St. Placidia towards evening, the body of St. Simplicius, bishop of Verona… Likewise the body of St. Placidia in her chest. These words, however, are not to be taken as though the relics of that Virgin were thought to be preserved nowhere else: for the same authors relate, in the Index of the relics preserved in the churches of Verona, that some portions of them are kept at Verona in the churches of St. Catherine, virgin and martyr, of St. Martin, of St. Michael at the Gates, and that in the year 1550, on the 20th day of February, some bones of St. Placidia were taken from their chest by John, archpriest of the church of St. Stephen.
[4] but, that her Acts, As for the Acts of St. Placidia, of which mention was made by them above, here they are, as they are written in Petrus de Natalibus at the place cited. Placidia, virgin, was the daughter of the emperor Valentinian and of Eudoxia Augusta, daughter of Theodosius the Great. She, having spurned the world, clung to her grandmother Galla Placidia, intent on fasts and almsgiving. Concerning her sanctity it was revealed to a certain old man that by her merits the sister of that Placidia, Honoria by name, had been freed from a most grievous infirmity. He related what he had seen to Eudoxia, her mother. And from then the mother began to hold her daughter in devotion. Now when Placidia, with both her parents and her grandmother Galla, was coming to Ravenna by ship, a most grievous storm arose at sea. They all vowed to blessed John the Evangelist that a basilica would be built for their deliverance. And immediately the same blessed Apostle appeared to them, and, the storm being calmed, brought them safe to port. The Queen Galla therefore built a church to him at Ravenna, in which St. John appeared to the same Augusta and to the presbyter Barbatianus, and left his sandal for relics to them, as was treated above in the Acts of Barbatianus on the day before the Kalends of January. After some time, however, Placidia went to Jerusalem, where she spent two years visiting the holy places. And then she came through Venetia to Verona, and there granted to a certain Druta, daughter of Orabilis, a noble matron, who was deaf and dumb, the faculty of ears and tongue: where also she slept in Christ, buried in the church of St. Stephen, on the Trent road, on the Ides of October, shining with signs.
[5] The praised writers complain in their Preface, not without reason, that very many monuments of the city of Verona perished both through fires and plunderings, even domestic ones, and through the devastations of barbarian peoples: as also certain other things, they say wrongly, but it is equally to be lamented that it has very often happened that writers of later times, while they wished to repair the ancient losses, disfigured the deeds of the Saints with fables and errors, and in this manner heaped losses upon losses. That the Acts of St. Placidia (if indeed it be permitted to address them by this name) were not immune from that blemish, we are about to show in a few words. And first, Eudoxia, the mother of St. Placidia, who is here said to have been the daughter of Theodosius the Great, was the daughter not of him but of Theodosius the Younger, born in the year 422: for so Marcellinus has it in the Chronicle, in the 5th Indiction, at the consulship of Honorius for the 13th and of Theodosius for the 10th time: The emperor Theodosius begot a daughter Eudoxia; and by the same witness, Theodosius the Great departed from this life at Milan in the year 395. Next, Galla Placidia, when she was tossed by the storm at sea and vowed a temple to be built to St. John the Apostle at Ravenna, is said to have had as companions Valentinian, his wife Eudoxia, and the daughter of both, Placidia. That storm befell Galla Placidia when she returned to Italy from Constantinople, where she had been sent by her brother the emperor Honorius on account of disagreements, in the year 425: but Valentinian, born in the year 419, as Marcellinus witnesses, was then only five years old, and Eudoxia three; nay, only in the year 437 did Valentinian, according to Marcellinus, take Eudoxia to wife, and therefore Placidia, the daughter of Valentinian, being not yet born, could not have been the companion of her grandmother's journey. What he writes about the sandal of St. John is truly a wonderful thing and not easy to believe, which can be discussed more fully when St. Barbatianus, to whom it more closely pertains, is treated at the 31st day of December.
[6] Finally, St. Placidia, venerated at Verona, was neither the daughter of Valentinian III, of the emperor Valentinian III which those who write of her affirm everywhere, nor the sister of Honoria; seeing that she has perpetually enjoyed the title of Virgin among the people of Verona and been venerated as such; whereas it is established that Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III, was married to Olybrius, consul, and afterwards, in the year 472, though for a short space of time, emperor, from Evagrius, book 2, chapter 7, where, in the translation of Henri de Valois, he speaks thus: The city having been burned and all its riches plundered, he (Gaiseric, king of the Vandals) returned to Africa, carrying off with him Eudoxia (the widow of Valentinian III) with her two daughters. Of these he gave the elder, Eudocia by name (whom Petrus de Natalibus above names Honoria), as wife to his son Huneric (not to Thrasamund, as Panvinio writes, Antiquities of Verona, book 4, chapter 19). But the younger, Placidia by name, together with her mother Eudoxia, he sent some time afterwards with royal state and retinue to Byzantium, to appease the emperor Marcian… Moreover, Placidia, by order of Marcian, married Olybrius, who was held the most noble among the Roman senators, and who, the city of Rome having been taken (in the year 455), had betaken himself to Constantinople. Procopius also testifies the same, book 1 of the Vandal War, chapter 5; and Cyril of Scythopolis, in the Life of St. Euthymius, abbot, among the Analecta Graeca edited by the Benedictine monks of the congregation of St. Maur at Paris in the year 1688, page 64, calls Olybrius the son-in-law of the daughter Eudocia, widow of Theodosius the Younger.
[7] the daughter of the emperor But, say some, she was so joined to Olybrius as nevertheless to preserve the glory of virginity entire and undefiled: Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III, had, I admit, the notable example of the empress St. Pulcheria, which she could imitate in that matter: but Procopius, book 1 of the Persian War, chapter 8, stands in the way of my believing that she actually imitated it, where he mentions the general Areobindus in these words: There were four commanders of the war: Areobindus, son-in-law of Olybrius, who had held the empire of the West a few years before, and at that time master of the soldiers throughout the East. The Alexandrian Chronicle stands in the way, which, edited by Rader, has this at page 743: Olybrius, sent to Rome by the emperor Leo, is there compelled to be inaugurated emperor, having taken to wife that Placidia freed from servitude among the barbarians. These built the church of St. Euphemia, which they called Olybrius's. Olybrius begot of Placidia Juliana, wife of Areobindus, that great hero who in Persia engaged with the enemy in single combat. Of whom was born Olybrius the younger, who is marked as consul in the consular Fasti in Pieter Reland at the years 491 and 526, but in the Alexandrian chronicle in the 317th Olympiad, 14th Indiction, and in the 326th Olympiad, 4th Indiction.
[8] was not; Finally Cyril of Scythopolis stands in the way, who in the Life of St. Sabas, in Cotelier, volume 3 of the Monuments of the Greek church, page 303, calls the patrician Juliana the granddaughter of the emperor Valentinian: I ask, from Eudocia or from Placidia? For I have nowhere read it recorded that Valentinian had male offspring. Not from Eudocia, who was first indeed given as wife by the tyrant Maximus to his son Palladius, but, both being soon slain, was carried off as a captive into Africa by Genseric, with her mother Eudoxia and her sister Placidia, where she fell as wife to his son Huneric. She did indeed return about the year 472, hating her Arian husband, having secretly taken flight, into the empire of the East; but accompanied by no children (so far at least as may be gathered from Theophanes, edited at Paris in the year 1655, page 102), and she died not long afterwards. Not from the Honoria mentioned above: for she is no other than the one who is called Eudocia by Procopius and others: for of her it is read thus in the Alexandrian Chronicle, page 741: Genseric kept Honoria, betrothed to his son Huneric. It remains therefore that the patrician Juliana was born of Placidia, daughter of Valentinian; which may likewise be seen in Genealogical Diagram IV of Valentinian I in Lambeck, volume 2 of the Imperial Library, page 585. To these is added that it seems hard to believe and to grasp that the more ancient monuments of the church of Verona should have recorded nothing at all about the captivity of St. Placidia, of which the people of Verona could not have been ignorant; nothing about the temple of St. Euphemia, called Olybrius's, founded with her wealth at Constantinople; nothing about the faculty of choosing whom they wished as bishop, granted to the Catholics of Carthage by Huneric partly on account of her prayers, as Victor of Vita witnesses; things which would surely have contributed very greatly to her praises; it is hard, I say, to grasp that these things should have been wrapped in deep silence, if, that is, she had been the same as Placidia, daughter of Valentinian III. The words of Victor of Vita, book 2 of the Vandal Persecution, number 1, in Ruinart, are these: He (Huneric) gave leave, at the request of the emperor Zeno and of Placidia, widow of Olybrius, that the church of Carthage should ordain there whom it wished as bishop, which had already for twenty-four years been deprived of such an ornament.
[9] Whoever shall have weighed these things will, as I think, determine with me that St. Placidia, virgin, did indeed flourish among the people of Verona in the 5th century by holiness of life; and neither the year nor the day on which she died is sufficiently certain. but that her virtues and deeds were in great part blotted out of the memory of men by the lapse of time and the vicissitude of things; and that she began in later centuries to be held for the daughter of Valentinian III for this reason only, that both lived in the same century and had the same name; which Scipione Maffei also seems to indicate in book XI of the History of Verona, column 345, writing that St. Placidia was once believed to be the daughter of Valentinian on account of the agreement of the name. In what year she ceased to be among the living I am not able to say: I have, however, marked the year 460, following, that is, Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy and Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology; although, if St. Placidia was the daughter of Valentinian III, as Ferrarius believed, it would be certain from Victor of Vita, just cited, that she prolonged her life at least to about the year 481, in which Eugenius was ordained bishop of Carthage. La Hier, in the Menologion of the Holy Virgins, writes that St. Placidia died in the year 495: but since he brings forward no witness for his statement, I judge it was done by him from conjecture. Nothing more certain shall I say of the day on which she passed from this life to the blessed one; some, as has been said above, making mention of her at the 11th day of October, others at the 15th, and Francesco Tinto, but likewise without surety or witness, affirming that she put off her mortal remains on the 2nd day of October.