ON THE BLESSED ALEXANDERS MACHIAVELLI, LEGENDARY CONFESSORS, NOT BISHOPS, AT BOLOGNA IN ITALY,
A CRITICAL COLLECTION
Alexander Machiavelli, confessor, not a bishop, at Bologna. (B.)
BY V. D. B.
[Brocchi gave Bl. Alexander Machiavelli a place in the Lives of the Saints of Bologna,] When at the beginning of this day I gave to the printer to be printed the catalogue of those passed over and referred to other days, it was wholly unknown to me that Bl. Alexander Machiavelli, a hermit enrolled among the Carmelite tertiaries, who is related to have departed from the living in Palestine on the present day in the year 1300, had ever been publicly venerated, and on that account I wrote his name, which has been received by no hagiographers of Bologna, among those passed over Compare Acta SS. volume XI of October, page 790. But him whom the hagiographers of Bologna did not know, Giuseppe Maria Brocchi, a distinguished writer of the Lives of the saints of Florence, did not pass over; who, having received from the advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli, public lector in the archigymnasium of Bologna, some documents of excellent appearance, brought his praises into part II of volume I of the Florentine hagiology Vite de' santi e beati Fiorentini, volume I, part II, page 333 and following; judging that his veneration had not been confined within private and domestic walls, nor had flourished less than a hundred years before the Urbanian decrees; but had long since been admitted into public churches. What then? Shall we supply that omission in this place? Nay rather, we shall try to show that rotten fables and abominable lies meet us here, and that they were peddled not in obscure centuries or by obscure men, but in the middle of the 18th century, when the critical art was flourishing in a wonderful manner, and by a man who discharged many eminent offices and who allowed himself to be called on a medal the salvation of the archigymnasium of Bologna, namely by that advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli from whom Brocchi received his instruments. For this work of ours has not only this purpose, to illustrate the Acts of the saints; but also to purge them of tares, and also to expel and delete names preposterously intruded into the catalogues of the saints. Which latter office is no less useful than the former.
[2] deceived by the advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli, a forger of the 17th century, Alessandro Macchiavelli, then, born on the 26th day of October of the year 1693 of a citizen family of Bologna, and having obtained the laurels of philosophy and jurisprudence and public chairs, began to search into the affairs of his homeland and also of his family; but, by I know not what fault of mind or depravity of disposition, a man who is said to have been good and pious, and who brought innumerable books to light and left others in manuscript, consumed his life in inventing false documents, with which to fill up the gaps of history, or to spread opinions dear to him; abstaining no more from sacred and religious matters than from civil and political ones. Therefore he is called by Giovanni Fantuzzi Notizie degli scrittori Bolognesi, volume V, page 96 and following another Annius of Viterbo; a fabricator of authors, witnesses and monuments which existed only in his imagination; a corrupter of the works of Sigonio; a violator of coins and of the old calendar of Bologna, and a deceiver of the Bollandists in the controversy on the affairs of St. Dominic. Not more mercifully does Domenico Maria Federici receive him, who calls him a dreamer of no authority Istoria de' Cavalieri Gaudenti, volume I, page 201; an author who painted wonderful things at his pleasure Ibid. volume II, page 99; and finally the publisher of so many documents and anecdotes, casting amazement into minds, that he lost faith and reputation Ibid. page 159. From which it appears into what a muddy mire we have fallen.
[3] who taught him that this Bl. Alexander is spoken of in a feigned book of Artusi From this source, then, the Florentine hagiographer Brocchi learned in the first place that this blessed man is spoken of at some length in the Epitome of memorials of the more illustrious men of the noble family of the Macchiavelli of Bologna [Compendio di memorie de' soggetti piu illustri fioriti nella nobile famiglia de' Macchiavelli de Bologna], which Epitome Flaminio Artusi is said to have carried down to the year 1515 and Angelo Nerozzi then to have continued. But why is it not indicated where that book was published or where it is kept? Certainly nothing of it was known to Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, who in the year 1710 in a whole volume, and Giovanni Fantuzzi, who in the year 1781 and following in eight volumes, published Notices of the writers of Bologna; mentioning of Flaminio Artusi only one Journey of the imperial army through the territory of Mantua, given to the public in the year 1629 [Orlandi, Notizie degli scrittori Bolognesi, page 115; Fantuzzi, volume I, page 297], and wholly silent about Angelo Nerozzi. That book of Artusi and Nerozzi, therefore, is wholly suspect, or rather it is a manifest fiction of the advocate Macchiavelli. Brocchi brings forward besides a document received from the same workshop, than which nothing more splendid could be devised, namely part of a letter which Collatius, or Niccolò Macchiavelli I (for several Collatii come in the stemma of the Macchiavelli of Bologna produced by the advocate Macchiavelli), about the year 1420, when he was discharging an embassy in Germany for his homeland, wrote to his son Francischino, sending him a book whose title
was: Politices morales sententiae Moral sentences of politics; to which book he is said to have prefixed that letter in place of a preface.
[4] and in a feigned letter of Collatius Macchiavelli, Hear this shred: Hence therefore (Collatius is alleged to have written these things) I myself shall ever give thanks to God, Best and Greatest, which you too, my Francischino, will give especially to Him for this, and almost infinite thanks for that at which we rejoice above all, that both of us were born of the Macchiavelli blood (which was plainly renowned at Florence and, transferred to Bologna through Lenzio, our stock, for the sake of following the Guelph party and adhering to the Roman pontiff, has given not few or slight proofs of faith and devotion towards this our homeland), and are called by that name, born to which so many of our forebears shine, and shall likewise gleam (as I most certainly hope and trust) as many as shall be our future descendants, because it has always seemed to me a thing plainly impossible that, where the seeds of virtue have been implanted, degenerate and less polished men could spring from there, their very blood almost forbidding it. That these things may turn out prosperously and (as I pray and augur) happily for our family, see to it, I pray, my Francischino, that our race be incessantly commended to the Mother of God, the untouched virgin, and at the same time to our kinsman Bl. Alexander; whom, so that we might feel him the nearer as our patron, Giovanni, surnamed Gophia, my sweet parent, willed that your uncle and my dearest brother Alexander, knight of glorious St. Mary, should be called by that auspicious name (and whom I wish you to greet very much in my name and to adhere to his counsel, because it is mature and grave); so, as you know, I too took pains that your most sweet brother, and to me too a most choice son, should be distinguished with the name of Alexander.
[5] the support of a fictitious genealogy. So that this passage may be understood as it were at one glance, it seems that part of the stemma of the Macchiavelli of Bologna should be put before the eyes, so far as it pertains to our present matter: which stemma that same advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli also sent to Brocchi.
LENZO OR LORENZO MACHIAVELLI, who in the year 1260 transferred his seat from Florence to Bologna.
BL. ALESSANDRO THE HERMIT, born at Florence about the year 1219, died in Palestine on 26 October 1300.
PACE
GHILLINO
PIETRO, doctor of laws and reformer of Bologna.
GIOVANNI GOPHIA
COLLATIUS, doctor of laws, public lecturer, gonfalonier of justice in the year 1421, died 1425. ALESSANDRO, knight of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
BL. ALESSANDRO OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS, legate of Eugene IV, died in the year 1441. FRANCESCHINO, from whom the advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli is descended in a direct line.
[6] It is shown that that letter is false What, then? To state the opinion of my mind in one word, I judge all these things to be fabricated. In the first place Orlandi and Fantuzzi, who reviewed not only the printed books of the Bolognese but also those written by hand, wholly omitted Collatius Macchiavelli and his Politices morales sententiae; then neither "sentences of politics" nor "moral sentences," which words are read in the title, savour of the beginning of the 15th century, but of the 17th and 18th; moreover the whole passage differs by the whole heaven from the Latinity of the schools of law in the 15th century, and on the contrary seems to have been written by a man who had read Cicero in the schools of the Society of Jesus; besides, Lenzio, OUR STOCK, a race which is INCESSANTLY COMMENDED TO THE MOTHER OF GOD, the untouched virgin, and at the same time to OUR KINSMAN Bl. Alexander, who is also called a patron, and above all this propagation of the name of Alexander on account of the patronage hoped for from it, these things, I say, and other similar things which are read there, have nothing in common with what was customary at the beginning of the 15th century or with the forms of speech of that age, but were manifestly written in the 17th or 18th century; finally it must not be omitted that these things were supplied by a dreamer, if not a forger. The aim besides is evident: the author tried to commend the nobility of his family and also the perpetual devotion of his race towards the apostolic see; which nobility and devotion in the middle of the 18th century were still the principal steps at Bologna by which one might arrive at a share in the benefits of the Roman pontiffs. But that Collatius too, who is said to have been a jurisconsult, public lector and in the year 1421 gonfalonier of justice, does not come among the names of those who at that time in great number professed jurisprudence and the arts at Bologna [Compare Ghirardacci, Historia di Bologna, part II, page 637; Muzzi, Annali della città di Bologna, volume IV, page 159]. Let the Bolognese see, moreover, whether in that age that same man was gonfalonier of justice.
[7] [and that Bl. Alexander of the Order of Friars Preachers and Bl. Alexander the Carmelite, asserted in it, are unknown to others.] I am likewise troubled by the other Bl. Alexander, son of Collatius, who in the order of Friars Preachers is said to have been master of sacred theology, public lector, delegate of Pope Eugene IV, dying in the year 1441. All the hagiographers and historians of Bologna are ignorant of him; he is not reckoned among the distinguished men or writers of the order of Preachers; his name is not read in the series of the saints, blessed and venerable sons of the same order; nor does it occur even in the ecclesiastical history which contains the deeds of Pope Eugene IV: so that I plainly fear that I have fallen upon a fiction of the advocate Macchiavelli. Did this Bl. Alexander, then, son of Collatius and ornament of the order of Preachers, never exist in the nature of things? He did not exist; neither the Friars Preachers knew him, nor anyone else, except the advocate Macchiavelli alone. But that former one, the son of Lenzio or Lorenzo, a hermit under the Carmelite habit, who is said to have died on the 26th day of October of the year 1300 in Palestine, is he too to be held fictitious? For my part I ask only this, that there be brought forward, besides the advocate Macchiavelli, one witness, whether Bolognese or Carmelite, who ever saw him or came upon ancient memorials of him. But on the faith of one forger I shall never believe anything; indeed I am persuaded that it was said by him that the imaginary Bl. Alexander, the Carmelite hermit, died on the 26th day of October, so that the day on which he himself had been brought into the light in the year 1693 might be as it were sacred.
[8] [Images, engraved on copper or painted, in the houses of the Friars Preachers, of the Carmelite Friars and in the private houses of the Macchiavelli, are the offspring of the advocate Macchiavelli.] But not only does the image engraved on copper exist, which I accurately described among those passed over, but also images of both Bl. Alexanders Macchiavelli, adorned with rays, are exposed for public veneration at Bologna: the one, namely that of Bl. Alexander the Hermit, in the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi in the Carmelite church of St. Mary of the Graces; the other, namely that of Bl. Alexander the Preacher, in the renovated church of the Friars Preachers; and both in the domestic oratory of the Macchiavelli family: which oratory is dedicated to St. Alexander, inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the 22nd day of October Brocchi, Vite de' santi e beati Fiorentini, volume I, part II, page 336. Will there be no authority in all these monuments? I would dare to ascribe none, unless it is first shown that all these things were not done by the care and zeal, or rather the fiction, of the advocate Alessandro Macchiavelli. For he willed other things to be feigned at pleasure by painters on huge panels in the church of the Friars Preachers of Bologna, as Federici, himself a Friar Preacher, complains in the History of the Knights Gaudenti Istoria de' Cavalieri Gaudenti, volume II, page 99; nor is there any reason why they should have been more difficult in admitting a fictitious panel of their Bl. Alexander than in receiving so many other ravings of their benefactor. Nor would the Carmelite Friars have been obstinate in rejecting the image of the other Bl. Alexander, their confrère. For historical studies then lay wholly asleep at Bologna, nor was anyone taught to doubt learnedly the assertions of others and to inquire into their truth. Then, who would have held suspect the faith of a pious man, a public lector, a copious writer and conspicuous far before all in the knowledge of Bolognese affairs, a consultor of the Holy Inquisition and adorned with other public offices? For a long time, therefore, Macchiavelli prevailed at Bologna with the greatest authority; but he deceived not only the citizens, but also foreigners, such as Brocchi and indeed (as I have already noted) the Bollandists Fantuzzi, volume V, pages 96 and 99. Let no one, therefore, wonder that the Preachers and Carmelites of Bologna experienced the common lot. This one thing is to be asked of them, that, if those painted panels are still in their churches, they will be willing to investigate on what faith these fictions rest.
[9] Deeds attached to them are not to be examined. Since, therefore, I judge that both Bl. Alexanders Macchiavelli, namely the one a Carmelite, the other a Preacher, are wholly to be struck out, I would not wish to waste effort in reviewing the deeds which are attributed to them. These the advocate Macchiavelli, and Brocchi following him, put together after a fashion with the political history of Florence and Bologna. But this new fiction was not difficult; since in feigning Macchiavelli did not neglect history.