ON BB. ALBERT AND GERARD, CONFESSORS, NOT BISHOPS, MONKS AT SASSOFERRATO IN PICENUM,
IN THE YEARS 1350 AND 1367.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Albert, confessor, monk at Sassoferrato in Picenum. (Bl.)
Gerard, confessor, monk at Sassoferrato in Picenum. (Bl.)
BY V. D. B.
§ I. Description of the monastery of Sassoferrato. Lost documents. Different opinions on the age of Blessed Albert, resting on various Lives of Blessed Gerard.
In the Martyrology of the whole Camaldolese order, which is at the same time an appendix to the Roman Martyrology, there is read on this day, by order of Pope Gregory XVI, At Sassoferrato, whose saints are reviewed and whose monastery is described, who himself made the Camaldolese habit illustrious by learning, wisdom, and virtues, the following commemoration: At Sassoferrato the deposition of Blessed Albert, confessor, who wonderfully restored the collapsed regular discipline in the monastery of Holy Cross of Tripudio; whose sacred body rests and is venerated in the church of the same monastery. Sassoferrato, which is also called Sentinum (since it was built out of the ruins of neighbouring Sentinum [Nicolai Peranzoni de laudibus Piceni, ap. Colucci, Antichita Picene, t. XXV, p. 144 et seqq.]), lies in the diocese of Nocera, in the district of Fabriano and in the delegation of Macerata, and about the year 1836 it had 2060 inhabitants Indice alfabet. dello stato pontificio, p. 297.. This place has given many saints to the Church of God; among whom are reckoned Blessed Hugh, commonly called degli Atti, whose feast is kept on the 27th of July and of whom there will again be talk below; Blessed Alexander Vincioli, Minorite and bishop of Nocera, whether whose cult is lawful will be examined under the 17th of November; St. Nicholas, one of the seven Minorites who in the year 1221 were killed by the Moors at Ceuta in Africa and of whom it was spoken in our Work under the 13th of October; and besides these Blessed Peter of Sassoferrato, a Minorite lay brother, crowned with martyrdom in the year 1230 at Valencia in Spain, and whose feast, by leave of Pope Benedict XIII, is kept on the 3rd of September. A quarter of a mile from the town there exists, as Lubin testifies Abbatiarum Italiæ brevis notitia, p. 358., the abbey under the title of Holy Cross of the Counts, commonly called de' Conti, of Sassoferrato; it was founded and endowed about the year 1215, out of the ruins of the city of Sentina, by the lords of the family de' Atti, counts of Tripozzo and of Sassoferrato, etc.; whence the monastery obtained the name of the Counts. On this cœnobium, which Blessed Albert inhabited and also Blessed Gerard (of whom, for reasons to be declared below, it has pleased me to treat at the same time), Vincenzo Patrizi addressed to Francesco Bossi, apostolic protonotary and referendary of St. Pius V, a splendid letter; so that it seems worthwhile to excerpt a few things from it: Among so many churches, he says Mittarelli, Annales Camaldulenses, t. V, p. 8 et 9., which adorn Sentinum, perhaps the first place is held by the building of Holy Cross of the Counts of Triputium, and this not only by antiquity and a certain holy religion, but also by its site, its building, and all other things. This church is situated outside the town, not further from the walls themselves than about three hundred paces. The place where it is situated is not so elevated that the winds can do great harm to its inhabitants; not so low as to be always full of mists. On the right it has a mountain most pleasant on every side, abounding in limpid and cold springs; on the left the most delightful river of Sentinum; and the town itself is surrounded by slightly elevated buildings, on either side green meadows, which bring to those walking there in summertime, especially at the very rising of the sun, as much delight as our minds perhaps can take in… The building of the holy church and monastery, constructed of squared stones, is certainly most ancient, erected in the year of our salvation 1200 and beyond by the most noble counts of Triputium, whose fortresses were in this region, and indeed very strongly fortified, although today only bare traces appear…
[2] [lived Blessed Albert; but since most of the records of this ascetery have perished,] The names of those who had so great a church built, and the ample endowments bestowed on it, we would easily report, had not the dire rage of the impious brought it about that the writings containing such things were consumed by fire. Among them were innumerable immunities, gifts, privileges, prerogatives, indults, and indulgences, granted at various times by different pontiffs to the monks there, and to all who should visit that sacred building; there were there certain privileges bestowed by a certain emperor; who, passing through here to kiss the feet of the vicar of Christ at Rome, left in this church many gifts, very great privileges, together with the corpse of his most beloved daughter, who, overtaken by sickness in this place, exchanged life for death. All these things were burned in the city of Jesi , captured in the most unhappy times of Alexander VI by Valentino Borgia; who with such greed seemed to usurp the empire of Italy by so many killings, until death took away both his days and his desires. All those privileges of the abbey and indults, together with most precious things, were carried away by the monks; who, when they saw Borgia preparing arms against that region, supposed, and wrongly, as experience taught, that all these things could be better and more safely kept in a fortified city than in a place open to any kind of disturbance… This monastery is inhabited by monks of the divine Benedict, clothed in white garments… Here there are most convenient cloisters, a portico, a refectory, a dormitory, with a chapter-house added… The church is [not] in the town, so that its inhabitants may be drawn away from prayers by the continual concourse of people and that it may be always filled with noises; it is not so far from towns and cities that those same persons, removed from all society of men, may seem to lead their life in a desert. But these praises of this ascetery can by no means extinguish the longing for the burned charters; all the more because it seems more certain that by that burning it came about that many documents on the deeds of Blessed Albert perished.
[3] [very little is known of him. Some will have it that he lived at the beginning of the twelfth century with St. Gerard, on account of a certain Life of the latter offered to Paul V,] For these matters are so obscure that there is no agreement about the time in which the blessed man lived. Hear on this matter John Rosatini and Francis Mercurelli, who in the year 1837 pleaded before the Sacred Congregation of Rites the cause of the immemorial cult of Blessed Albert: It is not, they say Informatio, p. 2., sufficiently established in what year this blessed man passed to God; and the question has been made even more perplexing by Jacobilli, Doria, and Perotti, who rashly assigned his death to the year 1350; whose authority has then been imprudently followed by the author of the Annals of the Camaldolese order Tom. V, p. 401. and the author of the Synopsis of the Life of St. Romuald Summarium super dubio de cultu, p. 8.. For the rest, there are many things which do not allow it to be doubted that Blessed Albert departed from this life before the middle of the tenth
third century. For first the author of the Life of Blessed Gherard, presented to Paul V, which author most accurately investigated the individual epochs of the acts of that holy man, narrates that he received the religious habit from the hands of Blessed Albert, and, pursuing then the series of events, says "che nel 1232 era abbate Compagno" that in 1232 Compagno was abbot; which certainly demonstrates sufficiently that at that time he was already of rather advanced age, and that therefore Blessed Albert, from whom as prelate he had received the monastic life, must have been much older (if not perhaps already dead). Next, since all authors admit that Blessed Albert founded or at least first reformed the cœnobium of Holy Cross of Sassoferrato, and the epoch of this reformation is commonly put back to the end of the twelfth century; it is altogether impossible that he, who must already then have been advanced in age, prolonged his life beyond the middle of the following century. And this very strong argument is supported chiefly by the fact that Gregory X in the year 1275 sent to the same cœnobium of Holy Cross Roland of Fonte Avellana, to restore regular discipline, which had already fallen away among those monks. For it is known that zeal for regular observance does not usually grow cold and dissolve suddenly, but grows lukewarm as it were by degrees and gradually; and that this requires a longer space of time, the closer religious families are to their foundation or reformation, and the holier their founders or reformers have been: for which reason, since in the year 1275 the discipline of that cœnobium had so far lapsed that a new reformer had to be sent there by pontifical authority, it must be believed that the former reformer had been removed from among the living already many years before.
[4] [and the series of the abbots of Sassoferrato: from which, however, nothing can be concluded.] This whole line of argument has been taken from the Commentaries on the monastery of Holy Cross, of which he was rector, which Alexander Morosi collected from its archive and completed in the year 1770 Ibid., p. 4 et seqq.. In these it is certain that about the year 1232 Compagno was abbot, since Mittarelli Annales Camaldulenses, t. IV, p. 323 et app. n. 316, col. 509 et 510. has published the complaint in which this abbot before Philip, bishop of Camerino Cfr Ughellius, Italia sacra, t. I, col. 555., wrongly or at least vainly complained against Raynald, abbot of St. Victor of Chiusi, because the latter, disregarding the rights of Holy Cross, had built the church of St. Blaise in the borough of Fabriano. What is related of Roland is taken from Jacobilli; who in this place seems to have followed the best documents Annales Camaldulenses, t. V, p. 130.; and so the times of Gregory X agree, who occupied the chair of St. Peter from the year 1271 to 1276. He could have added (for this too bears on the present question) that afterwards a certain John was abbot of Holy Cross of Triputium up to the year 1322, in which this same man was created abbot of Classe, as is established from the register of the 6th year of the pontificate of Pope John XXII, letters 764 and 770, on the Ides of January at the entry of this year Ibid., t. V, p. 322.. And from these things it is well established that Blessed Albert, whose rule they will have to have been long, did not wield the abbatial crosier from the year 1232 up to the year 1322; but from this it is by no means permissible to conclude that the blessed man did not die in the year 1350, but before the year 1232. For which reason they invoke the authority of the Life of Blessed Gerard, by which they will have it related that Blessed Albert was abbot before the beginning of the thirteenth century and the master and superior of Blessed Gerard for a space of forty years: so that the whole hinge turns on the Life of Blessed Gerard; and for that reason we have judged that both should be joined together.
[5] [There exist other Lives of Blessed Gerard, altogether different and of (as it seems) better mark.] There are several Lives of Blessed Gerard. You have first of all that very one which is said to have been offered to Pope Paul V at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The advocates Rosatini and Mercurelli have adorned it with many praises; but they seem never to have read it, but to have known it only from Moreschi, another biographer of Blessed Gerard, or rather from Morosi, who invoked as an aid to himself not that Life itself, but Moreschi, who had seen it Summarium super dubio an constet de cultu, etc. pag. 5.. But I find in Morosi no commendation of that Life, except that he esteemed it a safe guide, probably on the ground that it had been offered to Pope Paul V, that the cult of the blessed man might be approved by the pontiff: for this is the mind and persuasion of very many, that a certain singular authority resides in all those things which in any way bear the name of the Roman pontiffs. Nevertheless before and after that Life was offered to Pope Paul V, others wrote altogether otherwise, and bring forward so many indications of times and places that I cannot persuade myself that they dreamed all these things or imagined them of their own accord. If you listen to Rosatini and Mercurelli, Jacobilli seems to be the one author and the guide of the others; but it is not so. Hear Mittarelli, treating of Blessed Gerard: We have written these things, he says Annales Camaldulenses, tom. VI, p. 95., from the manuscript Lives of Blessed Gerard, from the records of Sassoferrato and Serra de' Conti, from Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano, excerpts from whom Jacobilli brings forward in volume III of the saints and blesseds of Umbria, pages 49 and following. Elsewhere too Ibid., p. 94 et tom. V, p. 147. Mittarelli mentions a manuscript Life, which he himself used and which Jacobilli had previously reduced to a compendium. Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano is likewise older than Jacobilli, inasmuch as he, after he had long shone among the Friars Minor in theological and historical learning, was made first bishop of Venosa, then of Senigallia, and finally died in the year 1602 Ughellius, Italia sacra, tom. II, col. 878 et 879.. Torquato Perotti and Doria are reported likewise to have said that Blessed Albert died about the year 1350. That Torquato Perotti, of a house of Sassoferrato, died in the year 1642 as bishop of Amelia, leaving besides other works the Lives and elogies of illustrious men of Sassoferrato, which were never published [Ibid, tom. I, col. 257; Augustin. Oldoinus, Athæneum augustum Perusinorum, tom. II, pag. 320; Annales Camaldul., tom. V, pag. 402.]. Durante Dorio, who in the year 1638 published at the press of Foligno the History of the Trinci family, with added commentaries on Foligno, Nocera, and Gualdo Bibliografia storica della città e luoghi delle stato pontificio, pag. 89., left besides a manuscript Commentary on Umbria; and this Jacobilli used Cfr Annales Camaldulenses, tom. V, pag. 402.. These therefore are likewise earlier than Jacobilli, who only in the year 1661 brought out the third volume of the Lives of the saints of Umbria. After Jacobilli comes Germano Botta, who in the Synopsis of the life of St. Romuald and his followers related also that Blessed Albert met his death on the 7th of August of the year 1350. Not otherwise the anonymous writer who in the year 1773 brought out the Italian Hagiology: similarly Colucci, who in the year 1795 published the Chorographic and historical description of the lands of Barbara and Serra de' Conti Antichità Picene, tom. XXIV, pag. 88 et 89., in which he decided that St. Gerard died only in the year 1367. Whence it is established how little account was taken of the Life of Blessed Gerard which is said to have been offered to Paul V about the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Annotations* Jesi
* capitulum?
§ II. Chronological arrangement of the life of Blessed Gerard. His monastic life at Sassoferrato. His birth, parochial office, miracles, and cult at Serra de' Conti.
[According to these Blessed Gerard was born in the year 1280 at Serra de' Conti, which town is described.] But let us now set out the deeds of St. Gerard. Of rustic, says Mittarelli Annales Camaldulenses, tom. V, pag. 147., but pious parents there was born in this year 1280 St. Gherard, protector of the town of Serra de' Conti, at Morazzano in the territory of Sassoferrato according to some, but according to others in the fortress of Monte Vecchio of the diocese of Fossombrone; but from very old manuscript codices and statutes it has been ascertained that he was born in the same town of Serra de' Conti, which, in the diocese of Senigallia, is ten thousand paces distant from Sassoferrato. And since there is now to be continual talk of this town or little town, it will be helpful for it to be a little better known. And Serra de' Conti, says Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano In Chronico Minorum, ap. Colucci, Antichità Picene, tom. XXIV, p. 80., a small rising hillock, bright and green, so called because certain counts held under their faith and dominion many other fortresses; these being overthrown by the barbarian nations, in order to avoid the rage of the Goths, driven out, they betook themselves in flight to that place as to a most strongly fortified citadel; and having surrounded the fortresses with a wall, they kept themselves there in safety; and because that part, which now exists, was a village and the fourth part of the fortress, it was called the quarter of St. Stephen. Formerly, then, that town was much larger than it is now and than it was even at the end of the sixteenth century, as Civalli gathered Visita triennale, ap. Colucci, tom. XXV, pag. 113. from the circuit of the old walls, and also Colucci Tom. XXIV, pag. 80. at the close of the eighteenth century. It lies next to the little river Nebula (commonly Nevola), which, having received the waters of the Misa, pours itself into the sea at Senigallia; and to the former Roman road, which was carried almost straight from Fabriano to Senigallia; and not far from ruined Ostra Colucci, tom. VI, pag. 39., out of whose ruins they will have it that it was partly built. Although about the year 1836 it had only 1855 inhabitants Indice alfabet. di tutti i luoghi, p. 304., it is nevertheless furnished with many churches, and formerly with even more. There comes in the first place the church of St. Stephen, which, formerly a parish church, was in the year 1213 or, as others will have it, in the year 1263 changed into a convent of Friars Minor. The parochial rights are then said to have been transferred to the suburban church of St. Lucy, which is the second. While this was threatening ruin (although it did not fall into ruin; for it still existed at the end of the past century), the parish was joined with the parish of St. Mary of the Abbesses; of which, since there will be talk again below, we shall note here only that this church was first a priory of Sassoferrato, and then passed to the secular clergy; and that Pope Pius VI in the year 1783 by an apostolic bull brought it about that it should thereafter be a notable collegiate church, furnished with dignities and other things of that kind and at the same time retaining its parochial rights. The fourth church is the parish church of St. Michael; the fifth that of the Clarissan nuns of St. Mary Magdalene; the sixth likewise of Clarissans under the title of St. Charles Borromeo; the seventh of the confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament; the eighth of Holy Cross, or of the confraternity of Death. There then come eleven rural or suburban churches: St. Lucy's I have already mentioned. St. Anthony of the house of the Palace, St. Sebastian
and St. Joseph, churches, had been destroyed a little before the end of the eighteenth century. But there survived besides these the buildings of St. Mary of the Plain; St. Partinianus; the Blessed Virgin Mary of the River; St. Fortunatus; SS. Cosmas and Damian; Blessed Mary of Mercy; and St. John of the Borough Colucci, tom. XXIV, pag. 82 et seqq.. All these churches indeed did not exist when Blessed Gerard was born; yet at that time more had already been built than were necessary. In two of these Blessed Gerard was parish priest; but before that his boyhood must be narrated by us.
[7] [In the year 1289 he becomes a monk in the monastery of Sassoferrato, which only in the year 1353 joined the Camaldolese order.] In his ninth year, so Mittarelli continues, in the year 1289, he put on the monk's habit in the cœnobium of Holy Cross outside the town of Sassoferrato; and in the year 1305, being initiated into the priesthood, he devoted himself wholly to the reading of sacred books and especially of divine Scripture, and he shone out in the same cœnobium with the praise of constant observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, and also of assiduous prayer and penitence. Roland was perhaps still living, formerly a monk of Fonte Avellana, thereafter abbot of Sassoferrato, under whom the cœnobium of Holy Cross had been reformed; but this conjecture of the writer of the Camaldolese Annals is less good; since he himself afterwards found Tom. VI, pag. 32. that Roland, who in the year 1275 had taken up the rule of the cœnobium of Sassoferrato, died in the year 1285. That after the death of Roland the monks of Sassoferrato sought the communion, fellowship, and institutions of the monks of Valdicastro, who were serving God not far from their monastery, is not, the same Mittarelli adds, far from the appearance of truth; and in fact Lubin relates Abbatiarum Italiæ brevis notitia, pag. 358. that the ascetery of Holy Cross, which had hitherto been free, was united in the year 1285 with the abbey of Valdicastro. And from this it may be understood what institutions Blessed Gerard followed. For the monastery of Valdicastro, which was also called of the Holy Saviour and of St. Romuald, lived up to the year 1406 by its own laws and usages; and although St. Romuald had raised it from the foundations, who also had wished to be buried in it, up to this time it had never subjected itself to the discipline of the hermitage of Camaldoli, which so many congregations and monasteries had taken up immediately in the first centuries. In the year 1369 indeed, and again in the year 1394, a union had been attempted, but it was accomplished only in the year 1406 Annales Camaldulenses, tom. VI, pag. 103.; but by then the monastery of Sassoferrato had long since, namely in the year 1353, joined the whole body of the Camaldolese order Lubinus, Abbat. Italiæ notit., pag. 358.; so that Blessed Albert, who died in the year 1350, can only improperly be reckoned to this order; St. Gerard, on the contrary, who died some years later, can. There was not, however, a huge difference among the manners that were observed in all those monasteries. The Rule of St. Benedict was everywhere the first law; to which had been added certain institutions, by which it was permitted to join the hermit life with the cenobitic.
[8] [At that time monks, even of hermit orders, were sent out with a companion to administer parishes: Blessed Gerard long discharged this office at Serra de' Conti,] In the general chapter celebrated at Bologna in the year 1328 the Camaldolese had decreed that prelates, when establishing monks as chaplains and rectors in the churches and oratories of their monasteries, must assign them a companion, that they might not live alone Annales Camaldulenses, tom. V, pag. 337.: a prudent decree indeed, but by which it appears how far those hermits had little by little withdrawn from their first institution. Not otherwise were things done at Valdicastro and in the dependent monasteries: monks also, outside the cloisters and hermitages, lived with a companion lay brother or convert and exercised the ecclesiastical ministry in the parishes which belonged to their monasteries. At Serra de' Conti there were then at least three parish churches, which I have indicated above, but on which a few things must be added here. The first was the church of St. Michael, built in the year 1240 and possessed by the monastery of Sitria; the second St. Stephen's; and since this in the year 1263, or, as it pleases others, in the year 1213, had been transferred from the Benedictines by order of Innocent III to the Friars Minor, the parochial rights had passed to the church of St. Lucy, not far distant from the town. So Colucci [Collucci, Descriz. di due terre Barbara e Serradeconti, Antichità Picene, tom. XXIV, pag. 82.]. But it must be noted that it is related by Wadding [Annales Minorum, ad an. 1314, num. 46, et ad an. 1399, num. 16, tom. IX, pag. 183.] that not in the year 1213 or 1263, but in the year 1314, the care of souls was transferred from the church of St. Stephen, which the friars held, to St. Lucy's, or rather was united with the parish of St. Lucy: so that it seems one must proceed cautiously in this place. But in whatever way these things stand, after the year 1314 out of the former parishes of St. Lucy and St. Stephen one parish of St. Lucy had been made. There was besides the parish of St. Mary of the Abbesses. Moreover, as is clear from a bull which Innocent IV gave on the 8th before the Ides of February of the year 1252 to confirm its goods to the cœnobium of Sassoferrato, this monastery had at that time, besides many other parishes, in the bishopric of Senigallia the church of St. Mary of the Abbesses, with the chapel of St. Lawrence dependent on it, and that of St. Lucy of Serra, and in the bishopric of Nocera the church of St. Stephen of Bosseto Annales Camaldulenses, tom. V, app. col. 33.. Since, then, it was the custom that monks should occupy the parishes of their monasteries, hear what Blessed Gerard did. Having passed, says Mittarelli Tom. cit., pag. 313., thirty years in the monastery, and running through the fortieth year of his age, not content with taking care of himself and longing to provide for the salvation of his neighbours, he was sent as rector in this year (1320) by the abbot of his monastery to the parish church of St. Mary of the Abbesses, a little distant from the town of Serra de' Conti and subject to the monastery of Sassoferrato; where with an example of admirable charity he carried out the care of souls committed to him. But, undergoing the persecutions of envious persons, he passed to another parish, of St. Lucy, on the opposite side of the fortress of Serra; thence to a third, of St. Stephen of Bosseto; finally he returned to the first, of St. Mary of the Abbesses; where, besides the offices of piety, by the illustrious grace of miracles he obtained health for the possessed and the sick.
[9] [where he heals a wounded woman and is divinely freed from a calumny that threatened him on account of the theft of a deposit, committed by his companion, a lay brother.] Some benefits which the blessed man then conferred on men or obtained for them Mittarelli recites, following the version which Grandi had prepared from Jacobilli. Among other things, he says, these are narrated. A certain woman, in whose hand, as she fell on the spindle with which she was spinning, the wood driven in had produced a fistula, and who had been brought to the point that the physicians had already announced that her hand must be cut off, coming to Blessed Gerard in her pain sought help from him; he, prayer being offered first, touching her hand and wrapping it in a bandage, sent her home, directing her to tell no one that she had come to him. Returning, she felt her pain lessened, and having unrolled the bandage she found her hand whole and sound as before. At one time he was living in a hospice of his monastery, which was situated in the town of Serra itself, in the road called Geronis. The demon drove the convert servant (understand a lay brother or convert, the companion of Blessed Gerard), when some money had been stolen which a certain noble of that place had deposited with Gerard while making a journey, and which had been received by Blessed Gerard (that he might not sadden the lord) and shut up in a chest, to flee from there; when this had been done, on the following day the lord returned and asked that his money be given back to him. Gerard, not finding it, called to himself the convert, who had fled on the preceding night; who at once replied and came; and confessing his error, he revealed that he had toiled the whole night to walk further, and had never been able to get out of the garden of his house; then he begged pardon; which the man of God at once offered him and besought the Lord to receive him back into his former grace. Thus the devil, who had arranged this for the sake of violating his fame, was confounded.
[10] [In the same place, as a favour to the poor, he produces bread and preserves the town from Nicholas of Buscareto.] At one time he was sick in the same place; and when not a crumb of bread remained in the house, his aforesaid convert set about making bread. Behold, meanwhile, two needy persons knock at the door, seeking alms: to whom the man of God ordered bread to be given. And when the convert said that he was then making bread, and asserted that he had left no crumb remaining in the chest, which he had then cleaned, he was ordered to go to the same chest again. He, obeying, found the chest stocked * with fresh, white, and warm bread, and so, astonished, he reported the matter to Blessed Gerard; who, giving thanks, ordered that four loaves should be distributed to each of the needy who were waiting at the gate; and that he should divide the rest also for the uses of the poor, saying that this bread had been given him by the Lord not for himself, but for the needy; which also was done; whence he ordered the convert to make bread for domestic uses from the household flour, who indeed supposed that his labour had been lessened by divine providence. Nicholas of Buscareto often tried with seditious men to penetrate by night into Serra by stealthy entry; but, Gerard exercising the protection of his homeland, by the force of his prayers a band of armed men appeared on the walls, who drove off in flight the traitors, thrown down from the ladders which they had set against the walls. At other times too by his prayers he freed his homeland and its citizens from various misfortunes, always with new miracles. What has been said in this place about the walls of Serra de' Conti can be explained by what we have reported above from Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano.
[11] [In the year 1367 he dies, is solemnly buried by the bishop of Senigallia, and shortly after his death works miracles.] On the death of Blessed Gerard the writer of his Life, as Mittarelli is witness for me Annales Camaldulenses, tom. VI, p. 94., relates these things: After many years, he says, of his infirmity, in which he had borne his pains most patiently, the disease growing more and more serious, he understood that the day of his death was at hand; wherefore, fortified with all the last sacraments, in his eighty-seventh year, he gave back his soul most quietly to his Creator on the 16th of November of the year 1367, in the hospice of the monks of Sassoferrato, in the town of Serra de' Conti, in the road called Gerronis. There was present at his death John Pananeus, of the order of Minors, from the year 1357 to 1368 Ughellius, Italia sacra, tom. II, col. 873. bishop of Senigallia, together with many clerics of his church, who deserved to see the most pure soul of Gerard carried by angels into heaven in great splendour of glory. Having carried out, therefore,
through the said bishop the solemn obsequies for the holy man, at which a great multitude of men was present, arriving from the provinces of the Marche and Umbria, new miracles also confirming the merits of the holy man, his body was given venerable burial in the church of St. Mary of the Abbesses outside Serra de' Conti, over which he himself had presided, being laid up in a noble and devout marble tomb; where it receives veneration with an innumerable concourse of peoples, but especially of the inhabitants of Serra de' Conti, shining with other unremitting prodigies; so much so that he is held to be the protector of the place itself, namely of Serra de' Conti; where his feast has been celebrated from time immemorial on the 16th day of November. In the year 1380 a certain sick man from the city of Fossombrone was brought to visit his sacred body, who, resting a whole night at the tomb, in the morning found himself healed; wherefore he promised that on the next day of his solemnity he would return with a rich gift to his solemnity to give thanks. Thus far the old biographer. To which Mittarelli subjoins that Jacobilli, in whom the said Life of Gerard exists in compendium, rightly infers from the miracle just narrated that thirteen years after his death his feast was customarily kept there; for so many years run from the year 1367, that of the holy man's death, to the year 1380, in which the miracle took place. Mittarelli then goes on to pursue the cult of Blessed Gerard; but first what is reported about Blessed Albert must be examined; and first of all it must be asked of the reader at this very place whether the Life of Blessed Gerard, which he has just read, can be reckoned among the fables. A few miracles are met with in it, but none that do not occur in good Lives. Otherwise all things are arranged by definite years; the places accurately designated; the men who are indicated lived in that age; nothing moreover is foreign to the morals of those times; in a word everything persuades, nothing dissuades, that this Life is sincere and genuine. For which reason we plainly do not dare to depart from it, so as to take the way indicated by Morosi and Moreschi, after the example of Rosatini and Mercurelli.
Annotation* refertam?
§ III. Blessed Albert was not the author, abbot, or reformer of the monastery of Sassoferrato.
Blessed Albert does not seem to have been abbot, nor reformer of the monastery, Further, in the Life of Blessed Gerard which we have just given, it is nowhere said that he received the monastic habit from the hands of Blessed Albert, his prelate; as those will have it who relate that Blessed Albert and Blessed Gerard lived in the monastery of Sassoferrato before the beginning of the thirteenth century. And indeed in no way does Blessed Albert seem ever to have been abbot of Sassoferrato, and much less the institutor or reformer of its ascetery. In very truth in the imperfect and never published Camaldolese Martyrology of D. Guido Grandi Citat. in Summario super dubio, etc., p. 7. Blessed Albert is called the author of the Camaldolese congregation which is called of Sassoferrato; which he testifies that he received, with the rest that he subjoins, from the Catalogue of saints of Domenico Portesani of Cremona. In the Lessons, however, proposed for the approval of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, these other things are read Summarium in festo, p. 3.: Made superior out of obedience, he restored to its ancient fervour the regular discipline in the same monastery, which had collapsed on account of the harshness of the times and the rough vicissitudes of the age. He had as disciples Blessed Gerard and Blessed Peter, monks of the same cœnobium of Sassoferrato, and wished to have them as helpers and companions of his reformation: which things are there said in the margin to be taken from the author of the Life of Blessed Gerard offered to Paul II (or rather V), supreme pontiff, from records existing in the archive of the monastery of Holy Cross of Sassoferrato. But those records are not brought forward; nor do they seem to be other than the commentaries of Alexander Morosi on the monastery of Sassoferrato, completed in the year 1770 and already indicated by us above; and since these rest only on the Life of Blessed Gerard offered to Pope Paul V, it is clear that all things are reduced to this one source. But this Life cannot prevail, since it is recent and conflicts altogether with the ancient Life of Blessed Gerard, whose accuracy in designating places, times, and men the reader cannot but have looked up to. Next, in old images Blessed Albert is shown without an abbatial crosier or any sign by which it may appear that he was an abbot; nor with a church supported in his hand: by which token founders are designated. Besides, on his images there is inscribed the bare name, Blessed Albert or Blessed Albert, monk; in which way abbots are by no means customarily designated.
[13] [much less the author of the congregation of Sassoferrato, which did not even exist.] Whence the new tradition arose that Blessed Gerard and Blessed Peter (this latter name was hitherto unknown in Mittarelli's Camaldolese Annals) were companions of Blessed Albert in reforming the monastery is not difficult to find. In one of the images, of which shortly, his figure is represented, under which two monks kneel in prayer, as Mittarelli says Annales Camaldulenses, t. V, p. 401.; and these two monks, by whom (as commonly happens) the painter certainly wished to indicate that monks of Sassoferrato had this picture painted for the sake of veneration, Morosi has converted into the two companions of the blessed man in reforming the monastery Summarium super dubio, etc., p. 4.. But he was not only abbot of Sassoferrato, but also author of the Camaldolese congregation which is called of Sassoferrato. I marvel that a man so accurate as Grandi, and so greatly versed in Camaldolese history, said these things. Lubin invented and devised this congregation; to whom, when there had been communicated a diploma given at Perugia by the hand of William, master of the schools of Parma, vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, on the 8th before the Ides of February, in the 10th indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1252, and in the 9th year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Innocent IV, by which, as we reported above, the pontiff took under the protection of the apostolic see the monastery of Sassoferrato with all its goods, among which were many parish churches and chapels, he interpreted all these as having been monasteries; whence he said Abbatiarum Italiæ brevis notitia, p. 358. that the monastery of Sassoferrato was the head of a particular congregation, distinct from the order of St. Benedict, called of Holy Cross of the Counts of Sassoferrato, having many monasteries under it in Umbria and the March of Ancona, which was confirmed by Pope Innocent IV in the year 1251 *
[14] [His miraculous conversations with Blessed Hugh degli Atti do not seem to have been possible on account of the difference of times.] When in volumes V and VI of the Camaldolese Annals Mittarelli or his associate Costadoni were writing about Blessed Albert, they had nothing ascertained about the deeds of the blessed man. But when in the year 1764 they published volume VIII, they seemed to themselves to have come to the knowledge of the friendship of Blessed Albert with Blessed Ugo or Hugh, monk of the Silvestrine congregation. Hear their words Annales Camaldulenses, t. VIII, p. 239.: We have said many things about the blessed Gherard and Albert, most holy monks of Sassoferrato; concerning this latter we add this, that he was most intimate with Blessed Ugus or Ugo, monk of the congregation of St. Silvester; and as often as these two blessed men wished to converse (Morosi turns this into to chant the psalms Summarium super dubio, etc., pag. 5.) together, although the monastery of one was half a mile distant from that of the other, they prostrated * themselves on the ground in their little cells, and the one gave and returned words to the other. These things indeed, as they are scarcely likely, I should like to see confirmed by better testimonies than usual; but it is not so. In the first place no mention is made of this marvellous intercourse in the Life of Blessed Hugh, which Staccioli wrote after the cult was approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in the year 1757, and in which he shows himself by no means difficult in admitting miracles. Next, the blessed Hugh and Albert do not seem to have been able to be contemporaries, whether you say that the latter died before the year 1232, or in the year 1350. For if you say the former, you stumble upon the age before which Blessed Hugh, previously a scholar of the general university of Bologna, certainly did not put on the monastic habit. For St. Silvester only in the year 1231 founded or rather began the cœnobium of St. John of Sassoferrato or of Montefano near Fabriano, in which Blessed Hugh lived Compagnoni, Memorie della chiesa e dei vescovi di Osimo, t. II, p. 235.; and to this Blessed Hugh did not come until it had already been built to some extent [Staccioli, Breve compendio della vita e dei miracoli del B. Ugo degli Atti, p. 4.]: so that it is clear that Blessed Albert could not have died before the year 1232 and at the same time have associated with Blessed Hugh. Similarly it does not agree that Blessed Albert should have been a contemporary of Blessed Hugh and have died in the year 1350. For both do not seem to have reached a great old age; since Blessed Hugh a little before his death was still preaching Ibid., p. 25., and so does not seem to have reached the end of the thirteenth century, and Blessed Albert is reported to have worn the monastic habit for only forty years, as we shall presently see. Since, then, neither, and especially the former, can stand, I marvel that Rosatini and Mercurelli (who, when the antiquity of the cult was at issue, had brought forward Summarium super dubio, etc., p. 5. a place of Morosi, by which it was shown that Blessed Albert could have had no intercourse with Blessed Hugh, if he died before the year 1232 (as they affirmed and in fact persuaded the Sacred Congregation of Rites Cfr Decretum de casu excepto, in Summario in festo, p. 6.)), afterwards proposed these things for approval in Lesson V, or the first of the second Nocturn: He is reported to have been most intimate with Blessed Ugo, monk of the congregation of St. Silvester, and as often as these two blessed men wished to converse with each other, although the monastery of one was half a mile distant from the other, they prostrated themselves on the ground in their own cells, and the one gave and returned words to the other. Very rightly indeed did Pescelli, promoter of the faith, say that there would be a place for the disquisition and examination of the Lessons and of the encomium in the Martyrology, to learn what variations and corrections and other things of this kind were to be made in what had been presented; but it is to be regretted that promoters of the faith sometimes seem to preach in the desert.
[15] Blessed Albert died in the year 1350 and many images were put up to him. Surely, although the following things are scarcely magnificent and stupendous, those advocates might have stood by them without detriment to the truth: There passed to God in this year (1350), these are the words of Mittarelli or Costadoni Annales Camaldulenses, t. V, p. 401. , Blessed Albert, monk of Sassoferrato, in the cœnobium of Holy Cross of the Counts of Tripudio, who about the year 1310 had received the monastic habit in the same monastery. Forty years of holy conversion having been completed, which in assiduous prayers and
constant penitence he passed, he died on the seventh day of August on the testimony of Jacobilli SS. Umbriæ, etc., t. III, p. 368.. His sacred body, venerably buried in the church of the cœnobium, is seen to lie under a side altar through an iron grating placed before the eyes, and receives from the peoples flocking there a cult never interrupted. Likewise to the left side of the same altar on the wall is read Blessed Albert, and an image is shown of a monk clothed in an old white habit. On another very long panel painted in colours there is seen another very large image, under which two monks kneel in prayer, with this inscription:
THE PICTURE OF THIS MAN IS DECLARED THE FIGURE OF ALBERT
HERE IS MARVELLED AT ALBERT THE CHOSEN MONK
DIED AT HOLY CROSS AND THERE HE IS BURIED.
And this is the older image of the blessed man, together with a third painted at the high altar of the church, with the letters beneath: Blessed Albert. Aureoles are painted around the head in those images.
[16] The diversity of garments in the monastery of Sassoferrato. The writers of the Camaldolese Annals then continue: Of the older image, which experts heard in the process on immemorial cult Summarium super dubio, etc., p. 2. judged to have been painted about the middle of the fourteenth century, we set before the eyes a copy engraved in copper (see it in them;) noting this one thing, that in that image the upper garment of Blessed Albert is an ample cappa, closed as far as the breast, thence open to the ground; so that the scapular inside can be seen; and that the sides of the cappa come down from the arms and form great sleeves as it were, open downward. Clothed in nearly similar cappas are seen SS. Parasceve, Barbara, and Marina on an old Greek panel which exists in the museum of St. Geneviève at Paris and has been stamped in the CP. Christiana, p. 104. That form of garment, however, flourished little in the abbey of Sassoferrato; for at the same age on the wall of the said church the same Blessed Albert is shown in colours clothed in a cowl; a cowl is also worn by the third, more recent image, painted on the square panel of the high altar together with Blessed Gerard, likewise a monk of Sassoferrato (and many other saints Ibid., p. 1.); or at least it must be said that both, the garment open in the form of a cappa and that closed in the form of a cowl, were in use in that monastery in the fourteenth century. This latter opinion the same writers afterwards approved Annales Camaldulenses, t. VI, p. 95., noting that in the liturgical codices of the monastery of Fonte Avellana there are seen at the initial letters monks clothed in cowls, chasubles, and cappas; which is an argument that those garments were used indiscriminately. Rather often elsewhere the same authors return to the form and colour of the garments of the monks who in Italy partly kept the hermit life; but from their disquisitions this one thing follows, that those monks were little severe in this matter. But we have already withdrawn too far from the cult of Blessed Albert.
[17] [His cult, of which many proofs existed, was approved in the year 1837 by the Sacred Congregation of Rites.] For a long time lamps have been accustomed to be lit and candles brought by the faithful; as many testified in the process Summarium super dubio, etc., p. 8 et seqq.. To this pertains the testament, drawn up on the 25th of July of the year 1490, by which Anella, daughter of the late Balignanus of the fortress of Monte Sicco and formerly wife of the notable man John Peter de Humanis of Sassoferrato, at Sassoferrato in her home left to the church of Holy Cross of the Counts, for the fabric and repair of her chapel of St. Albert, four and a half florins Ibid., p. 3.. To this also bears the testimony of Alexander Romagnoli; who, aged 97, on the 16th of September of the year 1836 at Sassoferrato deposed Ibid., p. 10. that he had always understood from the tradition of the elders that there was a constant veneration with which the faithful honoured Blessed Albert as a patron against pains of the head (and of the intestines Annales Camaldulenses, t. V, pag. 402.); wherefore they put their head through a small window which is above the gratings placed before the body; that he was a witness of and participant in the feast which is kept every year on the 3rd of February at his altar in his honour with a great concourse of people; that besides, on the feast of Holy Cross in the month of May (or the 3rd day, on which the Finding is recalled) and on the Fridays of the month of March, he had seen a great multitude of people in the church of Holy Cross, and lighted candles offered by the faithful at the tomb, and lamps burning before the gratings of the same tomb: which things others also confirmed by their testimony Summarium super dubio, etc., p. 8 et seqq.. But although it is called the altar of Blessed Albert, do not suppose that it was dedicated to him; its genuine title is of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ibid., p. 4.; and it has the name of Blessed Albert on account of the presence of the body. There was therefore no doubt that the cult of Blessed Albert was to be reckoned among the cases excepted from the decrees of Urban VIII. For which reason with much confidence the Camaldolese in the year 1836 collected documents by which this might be established, and then approached the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Their wishes were satisfied on the 23rd of September of the year 1837. In the following year the Camaldolese again approached the Sacred Congregation of Rites about obtaining leave to celebrate an ecclesiastical office in honour of the blessed man; and this leave also was granted them, and it was decreed that his natal day should be celebrated on the 25th of October. We shall give below the decree of approval of cult, in which what is known of his Life and his immemorial veneration has been compressed. But first we shall set out what remains to be said about Blessed Gerard.
Annotations* read 1252.
* prosternebant
§ IV. The cult, translation, dedication of the altar, and fame of the miracles of Blessed Gerard.
[At Serra de' Conti and Senigallia the cult of Blessed Gerard was much more solemn;] We saw in num. 15 that the image of Blessed Gerard in the monastery of Sassoferrato was painted on the panel of the high altar together with the image of Blessed Albert and many other saints, namely the Blessed Virgin Mary with the child Jesus, Christ fixed to the cross with the two Marys, SS. Peter and Paul, the four Evangelists, St. Stephen, St. Peter Damian, and St. Helen Ibid., p. 1.; which panel the painter Bartolini judged to have been painted in the fifteenth century Ibid., p. 1 et 2.. In any other way I do not find that Blessed Gerard was formerly venerated at Sassoferrato. But at Serra de' Conti, where he was born and for very many years discharged the parochial ministry, he had obtained much more splendid public honours. Mittarelli and Costadoni, after they had observed (as is reported above) that in the year 1380, or the thirteenth after his death, the religious veneration of the blessed man had already begun, continue in these words Annales Camaldulenses, t. VI, p. 94.: In the old statute of Serra de' Conti, which was renewed in the year 1524, St. Gerard is four times called protector, governor, intercessor, and defender of the commune and people of the land of the same place and most glorious confessor; where it is also decreed that his solemnity is to be observed by precept; and it is enjoined on the podestà and priors of the place that at public expense they should give a most beautiful pallium to the church itself and see to it that a most solemn office with a procession of the people be celebrated there. In the old calendars of the church of Senigallia there is noted at the 16th of November: "Of St. Gerard, confessor, not a bishop, double. With us there is a church in the diocese; whose body rests in his own church. Lessons of the first Nocturn of the feria; all the rest from the common. Vespers of the same. Commemoration of the following day." In an older manuscript Breviary of the church of St. Mary of the Abbesses, afterwards reprinted at Venice in the year 1495 and again with some additions in the year 1501, is read: "On the 16th of November the death of the most blessed Ghirard of Serra de' Conti." The holy man was of tall stature, of olive-coloured dried-up flesh, of rather long beard; he wore a tunic of rather coarse white cloth made in the manner of the Camaldolese hermits. His cappa is preserved up to the present day in the same church where his body rests. On an old icon of the church of the Abbesses itself, at the altar dedicated to St. Agatha, there is seen a wooden image of St. Gerard with the Camaldolese habit, but with a narrower cowl fixed to the tunic, and also with a skullcap, and at his feet is written in ancient characters: St. Gherard.
[19] [Cardinal Oliva testifies in the year 1451 to his miracles; in the year 1659 his body is translated and many miracles follow.] Cardinal Alexander Oliva, a native of Sassoferrato, presbyter of the title of St. Susanna, bishop of Camerino and formerly superior general of his Augustinian order, most celebrated for holiness and learning, and called the prince of the theologians of his time, when he was acting as legate in the duchy of Spoleto and the March of Ancona, on the twelfth day of March of the year 1451, from the convent of St. Mary of Sassoferrato of the order of St. Augustine, bestowed a perpetual indulgence of a hundred days on those visiting the aforesaid church of St. Mary of the Abbesses on the feasts of St. Mary the Virgin, and in the diploma itself he uses these words: "Where the most glorious body of Blessed Gerard is said to be laid up; by whose merits renowned miracles have occurred there, and more are seen to take place daily." Most recently, adds Jacobilli, in the year 1659, on the 19th of May, with leave of superiors, the translation of Blessed Gerard was made, Francis Maria de Honoratis, a noble townsman of Serra, apostolic protonotary, vicar of the Holy Office and episcopal vicar of Serra de' Conti, most magnificently adorning out of his devotion the chapel of Blessed Gerard, with the intervention of Honoratus, bishop of Urbania, his brother, and about four thousand people from the neighbouring populations, with many confraternities flocking there uninvited, the sacred body of Gerard was laid up in a chest of cypress, within another of walnut very beautifully adorned, the old marble tomb being placed under the altar, to which the peoples bring the sick, who receive health. After the said translation also God made his servant illustrious with innumerable miracles; whence, the fame being spread abroad, almost the whole March and Umbria were moved, so that more than a thousand a day hasten to visit him. So Jacobilli, who wrote his book in the year next after that translation; he adds that from the time of this translation up to the time at which he was writing more than thirty thousand people came together there.
[20] [An altar is dedicated under his title, which is described together with the tomb.] While the rumour of so many prodigies was spreading and so great a concourse of people was taking place, the aforesaid prelate of Urbania on the 18th of September of the year 1659 consecrated the altar of Blessed Gerard in the church of the Abbesses. So Colucci [Descrizione della terra di Serra de' Conti, in Antichità Picene, tom. XXIV, p. 91 et seqq.], who also adds the following: The altar, in which the relics rest, is situated in the middle of the nave at the Epistle side and has the form of a marble compartment. It is surrounded by large and strong gratings, made at public expense. On the frieze, or that part which runs between the cornice and the architrave, these abbreviated words are read:
GHID. HVC TVMV DIVO SAC PERENE This tomb here sacred for ever to the divine Ghid.
PFECT STATVT PLEBSQ. PRESQ. SIM.
DEFESOR PRIÆ CVM SIT PTECTOR ET OES
DEMONIB. PSSOS LIBERET IPE MALIS
By which the following seem to be signified:
Ghirardo hunc tumulum divo sacravere perennem;
Perfectum statuunt plebsque patresque simul:
Defensor patriæ cum sit, protector et omnes
Dæmonibus pressos liberet ipse malis.
[To the divine Ghirard they have made sacred this perpetual tomb; the people and the fathers together decree it completed: since he is defender of the homeland and protector, may he free all who are oppressed by evil demons.]
The altar itself, or the lower part of the altar, is more recent, of carved marble, and bears these words written around it: THIS ALTAR, AFTER 156 YEARS, ERECTED IN THE HONOUR OF GOD AND DEDICATED TO BLESSED GHIRARD, WAS CONSECRATED BY THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS BISHOP HONORATUS ON THE 18TH OF SEPTEMBER 1659. In the old part of the altar there is a stone, covered by the antependium and inscribed with these words: A NEW CHEST HAVING BEEN PROVIDED FOR THE MOST BLESSED GHIRARD, THIS OLD MARBLE ONE, THAT HEALTH MIGHT BE MORE FITLY OBTAINED BY THE POSSESSED AND THE SICK, WAS TRANSLATED HERE ON THE 6TH DAY OF JUNE 1659.
[21] [In the year 1777 his cult is approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and his feast is kept by some on the 1st of April, by others on the 16th of November.] From what has so far been recited it is clearer than the sun that the cult of Blessed Gerard began not only a hundred but many more years before the decrees of Urban VIII; that it always persevered, and that accordingly there was place for reckoning it among the excepted cases. The Sacred Congregation of Rites held this in the year 1777 and granted to the secular and regular clergy of that region leave to celebrate on the 16th of November, on which the blessed man died, a Mass and office in his honour. Hence in the Orders of the divine office of Senigallia for the years 1841 and 1846, at the 16th of November his feast is ordered to be kept with lesser double rite. Afterwards the same faculty was given to the Camaldolese order; but since the 16th of November was impeded by the feast of SS. John and Benedict, martyrs of the Camaldolese order in Poland, the natal day of St. Gerard was for them put at the 1st of April. For which reason at this day in their Martyrology is read: In the town of Serra de' Conti of the diocese of Senigallia, of Blessed Gerard, confessor, who, notable for constant observance of the monastic rule, for assiduous prayers, and for the praise of all virtues, on the fourteenth before the Kalends of December flew away to heaven. Long ago Ferrari had made memorial of him at the 16th of November in the General Catalogue of Saints; but he had omitted his encomium in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy: which gap was filled at the 16th of November by the author of the Italian Hagiology; who four years before the cult of Blessed Gerard was approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites noted that his office was celebrated in the calendars under double rite. It may be that at some time we shall obtain the old Life of St. Gerard, hitherto hidden; if this should happen, it can be given under the 16th of November.
DECREE
ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT, CONGREGATION OF THE CAMALDOLESE: ON THE CONFIRMATION OF THE CULT SHOWN FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL TO THE SERVANT OF GOD ALBERT, MONK OF HOLY CROSS OF SASSOFERRATO OF THE SAME CONGREGATION, CALLED BLESSED.
The immemorial cult of Blessed Albert, of whom almost nothing is known, That Order, brought into the Church by the holy patriarch a for its splendour and defence, among the very numerous b heroes which it has produced, at the turn of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth c displayed at Sassoferrato the servant of God Albert, monk of the congregation of the Camaldolese d, who, having been a light before his associates for a space of forty years, before the middle of the same thirteenth century e happily departed from this life in the kiss of the Lord. He appeared indeed furnished with all virtues f, especially with assiduous prayer and constant penitence, from which came forth that good spirit, so that, if he may not be reckoned the institutor g of the cœnobium of Holy Cross of Sassoferrato, yet there is no one who will deny that he restored its collapsing regular discipline to its former fervour h. The particular fame of this sanctity, which day by day increased more and more on account of the odour of his virtues, obtained a certain singular crown, when Albert, co-opted among the heavenly ones, was glorified by God, as is reported i, with the most ample testimony of miracles. For this reason immediately k after his death he began to be honoured by the faithful with the honours of altars; his sacred remains, buried under the altar, have been venerated with the highest honour up to the present day; and finally a small chapel and altar were dedicated to him l.
[2] is approved in the year 1837 by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Pondering all these specimens of immemorial cult, the Rev. D. Albert Marini, procurator general of the aforesaid congregation of the Camaldolese, humbly asked the Congregation of Sacred Rites that, according to the laws sanctioned by general decrees, that cult should be formally confirmed by this holy apostolic see. And this Congregation, gathered in ordinary session at St. Mary above Minerva in place of the sacred apostolic palace of the Quirinal, by mandate of His Holiness, on the day written below, on the report made by the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Charles Maria Pedicini, bishop of Palestrina, vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church and prefect of the same Sacred Congregation and ponent of this cause, having heard the Rev. Fr. D. Virgil Pescetelli, promoter of the holy faith, who set out his opinion in writing and by voice, all the reasons being duly and accurately discussed and examined, and the replies given by the defenders to the animadversions being seen, judged that it should reply: "That the case excepted from the decrees of Pope Urban VIII of holy memory is established. The 23rd of September 1837." On all of which a faithful report having afterwards been made by me, the undersigned secretary, to our Most Holy Lord Pope Gregory XVI, His Holiness approved the rescript of the Sacred Congregation, and confirmed the cult shown from time immemorial to Blessed Albert, monk of the congregation of the Camaldolese. The 30th of the aforesaid month and year. C. M. bishop of Palestrina, Card. Pedicini, vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Place † of the seal. J. G. Fatati, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.