ON BL. JOHN CHIGI, LAYMAN OF THE ORDER OF HERMITS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, AT SIENA IN TUSCANY,
IN THE YEAR 1363.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
John Chigi, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. (Bl.)
BY V. D. B.
§ I. The origin and the blessed men of the congregation of Lecceto. Who have called John Chigi blessed. Whether his cult is lawful, because a hundred years older than the Urbanian decrees; or because permitted by Pope Alexander VII.
At the third milestone from Siena, on the eastern slope of Monte Maggio *, [The origin of the two convents of Lecceto, inhabited by the superiors of the congregation of Lecceto: the beginnings of this congregation; most of the saints ascribed to it are older than these beginnings.] in the midst of a wood of holm oaks and not far from a lake, the archiepiscopal seminary of Siena now has its country house. The common name of this place is Lecceto, the Latin Ilicetum, formerly Fullignanum and Silva Lacus. There are no records older than the year 1123, in which the church of St. Leonard, situated in Silva Lacus, was given fields, vines, and groves by Count Uguccione of the house of the Ardengheschi Repetti, Dizionario geografico fisico storico della Toscana, vol. II, p. 665.; except that Bl. James Piccolomini is recorded to have died there already in the year 1074 Ambrogio Landucci, Sacra Ilicetana silva, pp. 15 and 80.. Not far from here a sacred building, erected at the beginning of the thirteenth century, was dedicated in the year 1202 to the Holy Savior, Blessed Mary, and St. Benedict by Bonus, bishop of Siena Repetti, vol. II, p. 665.; which second building, called the hermit church in Silva Lacus, was again solemnly consecrated by order of Gregory IX by Bonfilius, himself also bishop of Siena Pecci, Storia del vescovado di Siena, p. 205. Compare Landucci, p. 16.. In the year 1233 the older church of St. Leonard was not yet in the hands of the hermits; but in a diploma of the year 1293 there are reckoned the hermits of St. Augustine of Fultignanum of Silva Lacus, and of St. Leonard of the same Silva, and of Poggio Sant'Agata of Siena; who had one syndic Repetti, vol. II, p. 665.. The hermits of St. Savior and of St. Leonard remained distinct, though both were called of Lecceto. They hold that the sacred Hermitage or convent of St. Savior was the head of the province of Tuscany, until in the year 1259 the foundations of the cenoby of St. Augustine at Siena were laid by the men of Lecceto and the provincial government was transferred there; that then the fruitful tree of Lecceto put forth new shoots through the provinces of Siena and Florence; and that thence arose the congregation of Lecceto Landucci, p. 39.. But these things are by no means accurately said. When, namely, in the year 1387 Bartholomew of Venice, prior general of the Augustinian Hermits, set Nicholas Cerretani over the monastery of Lecceto, he thought it well to exempt him from the jurisdiction of the provincial and to subject him directly to the authority of the priors general: by which ordering the beginning, as it were, of a new congregation was laid. Some convents gradually accepted the institutions of Lecceto; and by a stable law the congregation of Lecceto was confirmed in the year 1449, when Julian of Salem, a Sicilian, prior general, gathered all the Observants at the convent of Montespecchio into a general chapter, and then divided them into diverse congregations, with vicars general set over each [Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 249. Compare Crusenius, Monasticum Augustinianum, p. 162.]. The head of the new congregation of Lecceto was the Hermitage of St. Savior itself; but the major superiors afterward preferred to reside in the convent of St. Leonard, already partly renewed in the year 1330 and then magnificently embellished. By secular authority the Hermitage ceased in the year 1783; the convent of St. Leonard in the year 1810, except that it was converted, as we have noted, into the country house of the seminary. The Chorography of the congregation of Lecceto, which Lubin published in the Orbis Augustinianus in the year 1659, reckons eleven convents: those of Prato, Florence, San Miniato, San Gimignano, Colle, St. Martin of Siena, St. Anthony del Lago, the sacred Hermitage or St. Savior and St. Leonard, both of Lecceto, then Montespecchio, and finally Vallaspra; which one after another joined the congregation of Lecceto. And to these, not to the one sacred Hermitage, pertain the thirty men who are called saints or blessed of Lecceto and are celebrated by Landucci and his followers. For these did not all inhabit the sacred Wood, but some inhabited other houses of the congregation of Lecceto; and thus we read that Bl. John Chigi, for whose sake we explain these things, never went to Lecceto, but lived at Vallaspra, and indeed a much earlier time than the congregation of Lecceto was born, then at Siena, afterward at Pavia and again at Siena; in which last city he died in the year 1363.
[2] [There are reviewed the historians who called John Chigi blessed before Fabio Chigi, afterward Pope Alexander VII, began to be renowned;] But in truth, whether he, like the others who are called blessed of Lecceto, has been lawfully counted among the saints, we have been very doubtful. Assuredly he departed from the living in a great opinion of holiness, as is manifest from the Life which half a century after his death Filippo Leonardi della Agazzaia wrote according to the testimonies of his confessor and other brethren, and much more from the pious opening of his tomb. Yet neither an elevation nor a translation of his body was carried out, nor did Filippo distinguish the servant of God with the title of blessed, but called him a devout brother, Brother John, this brother, a venerable man, and blessed Brother John. Once indeed in his writing he is named Blessed John; but in a place most certainly interpolated, and indeed so that it is ambiguous whether this praise touches his person or his morals. He who in the year 1543 copied this Life with his own hand, Fr. Bernardo Monaldi, at the beginning of the codex in which the Lives of the saints of Lecceto are contained, placed among the names of the blessed Beato Giovanni da Vall'aspra converso de Chigi Blessed John of Vallaspra, lay brother, of the Chigi; by which words he would have to be said to have wished without doubt to reckon him among the approved heavenly ones, were it not that at that time and much later still (as is established from Arthur's Franciscan Martyrology, Arthur's Gynecaeum, and from similar books of others) the title of blessed extended much more widely than now, and had the same force as now pious and venerable. Moreover this writing of Monaldi is some years more recent than would serve to demonstrate that John Chigi was named blessed a hundred years before the decrees of Pope Urban VIII against the improvident veneration of religious men. Almost a whole century after Monaldi silence seems to have fallen, when Marcellino Altesi, a Sienese by origin, a Hermit of Lecceto by profession, who died piously in the year 1635, gave much effort to collecting elogia of the illustrious men and blessed of the congregation of Lecceto, to which he gave the name Pinacotheca Ilicetana, in the vernacular Galeria Leccetana Landucci, Sacra Ilicetana Silva, p. 146.: which never saw the light; but from a passage sent to our predecessors by Fabio Chigi, afterward Pope Alexander VII, we have learned that by him too John Chigi was named Blessed. This Pinacotheca (which he also received as a gift from Filippo, Marcellino's brother, after the author's death) was seen by the said Ambrogio Landucci, likewise a Sienese; who, enrolled in the house of Lecceto at the age of ten in the year 1610, afterward made prior, then at Siena discharging conspicuous offices both in the university of studies and in the convent of St. Martin, at length was created visitor general of the congregation of Lecceto, and finally in the pontificate of Pope Alexander VII was set over the apostolic sacristy with the customary title of bishop of Porphyreon. He spent a great part of his Life in copying and gathering the monuments of his congregation, which he distributed into five volumes Ibid., p. 4.. Being a pious man, he turned his eyes chiefly to the memorials of the men who had stood out by the splendor of their virtues; and to make their names known, in the year 1629 he gave to the press his Sacra Ilicetana Propago, which he and others often called also the Tree, cut on two larger copper plates and finished on the 1st day of December. In this Propago or Tree the chief place is occupied by blessed John Chigi of Vallaspra (for these are the words subscribed); and below is read his elogium or epitome of his Life.
[3] [The Augustinians of Cologne dedicate to Fabio Chigi, nuncio at Cologne, the Life of his BLESSED kinsman, written by Hoyer according to the documents of Landucci;] Through this Propago, sent in all directions, the name of Bl. John Chigi doubtless became known to the Belgian Augustinians; and indeed very opportunely. For when in the year 1639 Fabio Chigi, whom all said to be sprung from the same family as the servant of God, came to the Rhenish parts, enhanced with the office and dignity of apostolic nuncio, it is incredible to say how great the praises he then merited among all good men, and what zeal to please he stirred up. He stood out by most holy morals; he excelled in sincere love of religion; he was affable to all and benevolent, not avaricious and no extorter of gifts; moreover he was conspicuous for uncommon learning; and he sedulously promoted the business of peace, which after thirty years of wars was at the heart of all: see these things abundantly set forth by Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino Vita di Alessandro VII, sommo pontefice, vol. I, p. 70 ff., his biographer, and the memory of them has not yet perished among the Belgians. Nor did the Hermits of St. Augustine of Cologne wish to be last among his clients; being well mindful that between their order and the house of the Chigi there had always existed a great exchange of benefits and of love and veneration. With the help therefore of Ambrogio Landucci, who, having found in the cenoby of Lecceto the writings of Filippo or Monaldi on the Lives of the holy hermits of the congregation of Lecceto, was eager to communicate this treasure to the public, they resolved to bring to light the Life of Bl. John Chigi and to dedicate it to the excellent nuncio, with the elogia of other noble men of the same Congregation inserted according to the Propago Ilicetana. There was then flourishing with the praise of Latin poetry in the province of Cologne or Belgium, which was bounded by the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Saar, and thus nearly contained all Belgium and the provinces of Cologne and Trier, Michael Hoyer, by nation of Hesdin, a son of the convent of Ypres, who is recorded to have been second to none in humane letters in his age Ossinger, Bibliotheca Augustiniana, p. 456., but who in fact wholly lacked judgment and excelled only in this, that he knew how to load the simplest things with a huge apparatus of poetic words and to extend to hundreds of pages what was to be declared in three or four. He wrote, then, having the writing of Filippo Leonardi before his eyes, the Life of Bl. John Chigi of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, to the most illustrious Lord Fabio Chigi, apostolic nuncio; to whom the convent of Cologne dedicated it in the year 1641, printed at Antwerp and embellished with some images. Fabio Chigi believed it the offspring of Fr. Jan Mantel, visitor of the province and writer of many books Ibid., p. 540., but he did not much approve it: "If before the booklet was printed, so he wrote to our predecessors, they had waited for my hand, there are many things that I should have deleted and changed. Only two pages were substituted, to emend an error in the surname, which they had made of a castle, whereas it is of a man, and to add that he enjoys the title of BLESSED from the peoples, not from the Holy See. The proper names swarm with faults. Thus Fabio. Everywhere there, then, he is called Bl. John Chigi; but not even in a word is it insinuated that anything is done in his honor. The Protestation, ordered by Urban VIII to be made at the beginning and end of books of this kind, is absent; but probably the Urbanian decrees had not yet been publicly proposed in Belgium.
Whatever that may be, it did not please Chigi that the servant of God should be named blessed, unless it were added that this was done by popular voice, not by apostolic authority.
[4] [what others at about the same time presented John Chigi with the title of BLESSED.] The monuments, as we have shown, had been supplied by Ambrogio Landucci, from whose store also seems to have drawn Gregorio Sangiorgio of Foligno, Augustinian Hermit and writer of more than three hundred panegyric orations Jacobilli, Bibliotheca Umbriæ, p. 129., who in his manuscript Sacri Orrori Ilicetani is reported to have spoken also of the blessed man Landucci, p. 92.. The Tree of Lecceto and the writings of Filippo Leonardi or Monaldi were known to Herrera, when in the year 1644 he published the Alphabetum Augustinianum; and he did not hesitate, following others' example, to adorn John Chigi with the title of blessed Alphabetum Augustinianum, p. 377.: which Luigi Torelli also did in the year 1647 in his Centuries [Ristretto delle vite degli uomini e delle donne illustri in santita ed altri famosi soggetti per rara e singolar bonta insigni e venerabili dell' ordine agostiniano, diviso in sei centurie, cent. III, p. 246. [Summary of the lives of the men and women illustrious in holiness and other famous subjects distinguished and venerable for rare and singular goodness of the Augustinian order, divided into six centuries.]]. Meanwhile Landucci was excerpting from his collections all those things by which he might make manifest the origin and history of the cenoby and congregation of Lecceto. This work he published in the year 1633 in four sheets, in the vernacular, at Siena, with the title of Sacra Ilicetana Silva Sacra Ilicetana silva, edition of 1653, pp. 33 and 75., and in the year 1653 in twenty sheets, in Latin, again in the Sienese press, with the same title of Sacra Ilicetana Silva, though the elogia of the saints inscribed on the Tree or Propago Ilicetana had been added, slightly corrected and illustrated with copious annotations: which Silva, again enlarged, was published again in the vernacular by his nephew Fabrizio Landucci at Rome in the year 1657 [Ossinger, Bibliotheca Augustiniana, p. 496; Moreni, Bibliographia della Toscana, vol. I, p. 503.]. So that three editions of this book were made. We shall use the Latin, which we have noted appeared in the year 1653. At this time it was expected that Fr. Giovanni Battista Ferrari, a not inelegant writer of the Society of Jesus, would shortly publish an elogium of Bl. John Chigi together with the praises of other Sienese blessed [Compare Landucci, Sacra Ilicetana silva, p. 94. The title of Ferrari's work is: Sagri fiori di Siena. Sacred flowers of Siena.]; and likewise a certain son of the Order of Preachers, by name Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini, in his Sienese Heaven Compare Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 68. (which, the third part of his Sienese Pomps, comprising the Lives of the saints, never saw the light [Compare Moreni, Bibliografia storico-ragionata della Toscana, vol. II, pp. 454 and 455.]), was collecting the deeds and praises of Bl. John Chigi.
[5] [Images, Lives of Bl. John Chigi, and other things of the kind, made in the pontificate of Alexander VII.] At that time Fabio Chigi had already received the cardinal's hat. Two years later he was given as successor to Pope Innocent X. Further, if those who were courting the favor of the nuncio of Cologne judged that they should celebrate the name of Bl. John Chigi, what must have been done when Fabio Chigi was promoted to the chair of St. Peter in the year 1655, the cardinals everywhere declaring that they had chosen an honorable man, and the people crying out that he was a holy pope Sforza-Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII, vol. I, pp. 209 and 264.? Which reputation he sustained for a whole year, admitting no nephew to Rome; nor did he afterward altogether lose it, though he departed from his severer undertakings by the authority of Paul Oliva, general of the Society of Jesus Ranke, Hist. de la papauté, vol. IV, p. 107, Brussels edition., or by the counsel Fr. Bruys, Histoire des papes, vol. V, p. 322. or at any rate the approval Sforza-Pallavicino, vol. II, p. 72 ff. of Pallavicino, his confessor and biographer. So the election of no pontiff perhaps ever stirred up such joy everywhere as that of Alexander VII; but the Sienese surpassed all, glorying in their countryman deservedly Gigli, Diario Sanese, p. 69.. The senate therefore had an image of BLESSED John Chigi painted, to be shown to foreign guests in the public consistory of the city, with a distinguished elogium added Capisucchi, Life of Bl. John Chigi, p. 110.. He who reports these things, Camillo or Raimondo Capisucchi, much praised by his colleagues the Friars Preachers Quétif and Échard, Scriptores ordinis Prædicatorum, vol. II, p. 730. and master of the sacred palace, in the same year 1655, in which Fabio exchanged his name for Alexander, to flatter and oblige the new pontiff somewhat enlarged the Life by Hoyer and printed it more accurately in the Roman press Ibid., p. 731.. By which service and other blandishments he earned for himself the mind of Alexander VII entirely, though to find out how changeable is the air of every court Ibid., p. 730.. In the following year this same Life was set forth in distichs and annotations by Fr. Nicephorus Sebastus Melissenus, Master of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine Here are the titles of the three Lives: I. Life of Bl. John Chigi [of Maciaretto, of the order of Hermits of the holy father Augustine, to the most illustrious and reverend Lord Fabio Chigi, Apostolic Nuncio. Antwerp, at Henri Aertssens, in the year 1641. II. Life of Bl. John Chigi of Siena, of the order of Hermits of St. Augustine, first written by the fathers of the same order at Cologne and published with Plantin types (rather Aertssens's) in the year 1641, now again at Rome enlarged and more accurately printed. Rome, Bernabò, 1655. — A synopsis of the Life of Bl. Angela (likewise a Chigi and an Augustinian tertiary) and a summary of the Lives of several of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine are added. III. Life of Bl. John Chigi of Siena, of the order of Hermits of the holy father Augustine, kinsman of Alexander VII, Supreme Pontiff, by the most reverend Fr. Raimondo Capisucchi, Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, of the Order of Preachers, lately enlarged, illustrated, and printed at Rome, and according to his oratorical pen poetically delineated by Fr. Nicephorus Sebastus Melissenus, Master of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Hermits of the holy father Augustine, Academician of the Oziosi of Naples. Rome, press of Francesco Caballi, 1656. This was published again at Rome in the press of Michele Ercole in the year 1675, with an added short Life of Bl. Angela Chigi, niece of Bl. John.], and represented with the images of the Cologne or Hoyerian Life. To which Life in the same year he added notes and a manuscript critique on the same Life, with a reply by the same Sebastus. Further, in all those books, in which the Tree or Propago Ilicetana and other writings of Landucci had gone before, John Chigi is called blessed. To these is added Philippe Elssius, a Belgian, a son of the cenoby of Brussels, who in the year 1654 published the Encomiasticum Augustinianum in alphabetical order Pp. 338 and 339., and who seems to me the same who by Melissenus Life etc., p. 12. is called Philip Elich and is reported to have sent to Rome in the name of the Belgian province an image with an elogium of Bl. John Chigi of Maciareto, dedicated to Pope Alexander VII. With him you may join Fr. Augustine Lubin, who in the Orbis Augustinianus in the year 1659 published a Chorography of the congregation of Lecceto of the order of Hermits of St. Augustine, in which flourished Bl. John Chigi with many others: in which Chorography there is seen an image of the servant of God, adorned with a shining nimbus, a token of heavenly glory, with a skull placed beside.
[6] [It is wrongly asserted that John Chigi was venerated as blessed a hundred years before the Urbanian decrees;] Now although the Italian writers whom we have just adduced protest that they have no intention of doing anything that opposes the decrees of Urban VIII, yet in very truth all these things are contrary to those decrees, unless public veneration of the servant of God was in use in the year 1534, or is a hundred years older than the laws of Urban. But, even if it be granted that the appellation of blessed with which Filippo Leonardi once distinguished him pertains not to morals but to the person, does a lucubration kept in a convent archive suffice to establish public or ecclesiastical cult? Assuredly Melissenus wrote Ibid., p. 21. that the venerable man has been designated with the title of BLESSED for nearly THREE HUNDRED years by the learned pens of the fathers, the veneration of the peoples, and public paintings; but that there is nothing so ancient besides Filippo Leonardi the reader will easily gather from what has been said. No more credit seems to be given to Herrera, whose words are these: Shortly after his death, an altar having been built by the kinsmen of the same blessed man, AS THEY SAY, of porphyry and illustrious marble beside the door, above it his sacred pledges ARE BELIEVED to rest; or to Landucci, who, in a commentary sent to Alexander VII while he was still at Cologne or at Münster of the Westphalians, and afterward brought to our predecessors, after he had accused the Sienese Augustinians of negligence, then added these words: Yet it is asserted by some of them that the bones and other relics of this servant of God rest above the older altar, built and dedicated to God rising again by the most illustrious family of the same holy man. For who would trust the phrases as they say, are believed, it is asserted by some? Then Filippo Leonardi, who wrote almost fifty years after the death of the man of God in that very cenoby of Siena, knew or reported nothing of this exaltation of relics. What of the fact that, as Torelli long since observed Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, pp. 67 and 68., in the middle of the seventeenth century there was no agreement among the Augustinians about the very tomb of the servant of God? It is much safer, then, not to employ the fortune of the relics as an aid to establishing the lawful antiquity of the cult.
[7] [yet because of the tolerance of Pope Alexander VII his case seems to be called one excepted from those decrees.] What then? Shall we strike the name of John Chigi from the catalogue of the saints and blessed? Far from it; but in my judgment one must rely less on the antiquity of the cult than on the tolerance of the Holy See, or rather this tolerance must be joined to the exceptional veneration with which the memory of the servant of God has been preserved for so many centuries. Assuredly Pope Alexander VII knew the writings of Filippo Leonardi and Altesi; for he obtained them from Landucci and sent them to our predecessors. The Life by Hoyer, offered him by the people of Cologne, he knew so thoroughly that he touched it in many places with the censor's rod. Whatever pertained to the deeds or veneration of his kinsman he had himself diligently examined, as is plainly manifest from his letters to Bolland. He professed, then, that the name of blessed did not belong to the man of God by decree of the Holy See; and the flatterers themselves agreed, who, when they publicly requested that that title be secured to him by the seal of apostolic confirmation, in fact or in most open words declared that this praise had never been given him by pontifical authority. Nor did the decrees of Pope Urban VIII escape him, which at that time were explained by most with so severe an interpretation that, when the same Alexander VII was thinking of counting among the saints St. Thomas of Villanova, archbishop of Valencia, according to the Urbanian decrees, a thing hardly possible was said to be attempted
Sforza-Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII, vol. II, p. 333., and everywhere the entirely lawful cult of the blessed was suppressed, if they did not dare to refer it among the excepted cases. Yet, though these things were so, Alexander VII permitted to be published at Rome, fortified with the due approvals, Lives of BLESSED John Chigi, and that they be dedicated to him by a singular address; and likewise images in which his kinsman was honored with the title of BLESSED and bore his head encircled with a nimbus or glorious rays. Nor were these things done once or by stealth; but often before the eyes of all by public authority. Indeed he permitted [Compare Novaes, Elementi della storia de' sommi pontifici, vol. X, p. 179, note a, edition of 1822.] that in his Life by Cardinal Pallavicino Vita di Alessandro VII, vol. I, p. 5. it should be written, for the highest honor of his family, that his kinsman John Chigi by holiness of life and the wonder of his works had merited from the faithful veneration and the title of blessed. Nor is there reason to object that no decree intervened confirmed by the hand of the pontiff himself: Pope Benedict XIV plainly teaches that this is not necessary De canonizatione SS., book II, ch. XX, nos. 5 and 6.; who also brings forward very many examples of veneration permitted by the Roman pontiffs that have been referred among the excepted Urbanian cases Compare ibid., the whole of ch. XX., though they are much less notable than those which Alexander VII allowed to be done in honor of Bl. John Chigi.
[8] Who after those times have named John Chigi blessed. For which reason he would seem rash who, knowing that Pope Alexander VII permitted bishops vicegerent and masters of the sacred palace to approve Lives and images of BLESSED John Chigi, and that he consented to the dedication of these to himself, should think that the title of blessed is to be removed. This Fabrizio Landucci did not admit, who (as was said above) in the year 1657 published in the Roman press his uncle's Sacra Ilicetana Silva translated into Italian; nor Aurelius Knippinga of Groningen, Augustinian Hermit, who, preposterously at the 31st day of May, celebrated the praises of Bl. John Chigi in an epigram [Ephemeris Sanctorum Ord. Erem. S. P. Augustini ex authenticis scriptoribus collecta et vario metri cultu exornata, p. 41.]; nor Torelli, who, putting the sixth volume of the Secoli Agostiniani to the press in the year 1680, wrote excellently of Bl. John Chigi Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 66 ff.; nor Girolamo Gigli, who in the Diario Sanese, published in the year 1722, at the 27th day of October at Lecceto set the birthday of Bl. John Chigi, Bl. Francis Nuti, and Bl. Stephen Ciogni, Sienese Diario Sanese, p. 214.; nor finally Carlo Guido Forti, who in the distinguished Catalogus Hagiologicus Hetruscus Catalogus etc., pp. 86 and 87., which he had printed in the Roman press in the year 1731 and dedicated to Pope Clement XII, reckoned Bl. John Ghigi, a Sienese noble, among the other blessed of Lecceto; nor finally did Giuseppe Novaes, most skilled in the affairs of the Roman curia, abstain from the appellation of blessed Elementi della storia de' sommi pontifici, vol. X, p. 60, edition of 1822.: likewise the very wise Domenico Moreni, who in the Historical Bibliography of Tuscany, printed in the year 5 of the present century, twice Bibliografia storica ragionata della Toscana, vol. I, p. 212; vol. II, p. 328. called John Chigi BLESSED. No otherwise Gaetano Moroni, whom others may tear apart, but whom I shall never pass over without praise: for he too named John Chigi blessed, but erred by one century Dizionario di erudizione ecclesiastica, vol. XIII, p. 79.. Whether any have come afterward is unknown to me; but if they have come, I do not doubt that they too have called John Chigi BLESSED. Moreover among his old praisers Torelli reckons Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 68. Fr. Girolamo Bonsignori, whom Ugurgieri Pompe Sanesi, tit. XIX, vol. I, p. 631. testifies to have really written on the affairs of the cenoby of Lecceto in the year 1511, and Onorio Martini, a Sienese by nation, a son of the cenoby of Lecceto and writer of the Life of Bl. Christina of the Cross in the year 1593. But, since Landucci omits them, and since, in the lifetime of Girolamo Bonsignori, the affairs of Bl. John Chigi had not yet been brought to Lecceto, and in the age of Martini, whom no one moreover reports to have written on the affairs of the congregation of Lecceto, they lay hidden in the archive, I do not at all doubt that Torelli brought these names forward by divination. These being omitted, then, let us approach others; concerning whom this one thing must be noted, that their statements must be tried, as it were on a Lydian stone, against the writing of Filippo Leonardi dell'Agazzaia or of the Agazzari: for he is the sole source of all that has become known about the servant of God.
Annotata* Monte-Maggio
§ II. The more ancient biographers of St. John. By what authority he is said to be of the house of Chigi. Maciareto, place of his birth. The convents of Vallaspra, of St. Augustine at Siena, and of Pavia, which he illustrated with his virtues. The time of his death.
[Who was Filippo di Leonardo di Niccolò degli Agazzari, who first wrote the deeds of Bl. John Chigi;] That Filippo, then, born at Siena of his father Leonardo degli Agazzari, on the last day of the year 1353 put on the hermit's habit in the convent of St. Augustine at Siena. The art of writing pleased him wonderfully, so that nearly all the convents and cells of the brethren were full of books written out by his hand. Created prior of Lecceto in the year 1398, ten years later he assented to Stephen and James of Siena, who were planning to change the hermits of Lecceto into canons regular, and on the 28th day of June of the year 1408, with the consent of Pope Gregory XII, he changed his habit. On the next 2nd of July he was appointed prior of the new canons at Lecceto; but soon so many dissensions arose that he begged from the pontiff leave to return with his colleagues to the former institutions: which he then kept until the year 1422, in which he laid down the offices of prior and of vicar of the society of Lecceto, and not long after he died on the 30th day of October. Landucci inscribed him on the sacred Propago or Tree of Lecceto with the title of blessed and also praised him at length in the Sacra Ilicetana Silva; whence it has come about that he is everywhere referred by the Augustinian Hermits among the heavenly ones of the congregation of Lecceto [Landucci, Sacra Ilicetana silva, p. 101; Herrera, Alphabetum Augustinianum, p. 245; Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 528 ff.; Gigli, Diario Sanese, p. 214; Forti, Catalogus hagiologicus Hetruscus, p. 89.]. Paraclitus Binus calls him of the noble stock de la Gazaia, Ambrogio Landucci in the manuscript commentary to Fabio Chigi B. Filippo di Leonardo dell' Agazzaia Bl. Filippo di Leonardo dell'Agazzaia, but in the Sacra Ilicetana Silva Bl. Philip Agazzari; Atanasio Marcucci F. Filippo di Leonardo di Cola (of Nicholas) di casa Agazzari Fr. Filippo di Leonardo di Cola of the house of Agazzari: which form of the name is seen also in Filippo's autograph See the statements of all these in Landucci, Sacra Ilicetana silva, p. 101.. And this no doubt is to be retained, since the house of the Agazzari of Siena is very well known. De la Gazaia, however, or dell'Agazzaia comes from the omission of the letter r; which, as it lacks an accent, is easily suppressed, especially in the termination arius, aria, arium. Thus (to indicate only old Sienese words) Cartoraio comes from Chartularius [Ricordi di una famiglia Sanese del secolo decimoterzo, in Archivio storico italiano, append. XX, p. 68.], Barlettaio from Barlettarius Ibid., p. 34., Genaio from Januarius Ibid., p. 35., Primaia from Primaria Ibid., p. 65., etc. But, what is chief, the writer was pious and diligent, and what he preserved for the memory of posterity concerning Bl. John Chigi he collected, as he himself professes at the end, from the mouth of his confessor; likewise from the mouth of his spiritual son, a brother of the convent of Siena; from many other brethren with whom the servant of God had great familiarity; and finally from the four who drew his body from the tomb and gave their effort to washing it. He wrote in the year 1411, 48 years after the death of the servant of God; but he had learned everything long before from the witnesses brought forward.
[10] who was Bernardo Monaldi, who copied the same: interpolation of the copies. This Life was found in the convent of Siena and copied in the last year of his life, 1547, by Bernardo Monaldi of Siena, a son of the convent of Lecceto, appointed prior and definitor in the year 1540, and in that year 1547 vicar of the whole congregation [Ugurgieri, Le Pompe Sanesi, vol. I, p. 633; Ossinger, Bibliotheca Aug., p. 595; Landucci, S. Ilicetana silva, p. 142.]; which he brought into his book on the blessed of Lecceto and stored in the archive of Lecceto; where on the 26th day of December of the year 1629 the same was copied by Ambrogio Landucci, often already mentioned. This copy of Landucci came into the hands of Fabio Chigi, nuncio of Cologne, then Pope Alexander VII, who sent it to our predecessors. Yet we are using a source not altogether limpid. For Filippo Leonardi could by no means have relied on the testimony of Giuseppe Panfilo of Verona, bishop of Segni, who only in the year 1581 published the Chronicle of the order of Friars Hermits of St. Augustine, which is adduced in that copy. And the same interpolated place existed in the copies which Hoyer, Herrera, and Torelli used.
[11] [Whether Chigi is the name of a place or of the father of Bl. John Chigi. What is recorded of his family] Difficulties of another kind besides are not lacking; of which the first of all concerns the family of the servant of God. For Filippo Leonardi begins with these words: Encomincia la Vita d'un devoto frate dell' ordine di S. Agostino, il quale hebbe nome frate Giovanni laico di Chigio da Maciareto [Here begins the Life of a devout friar of the order of St. Augustine, who had the name Fra Giovanni, lay brother, of Chigio of Maciareto]; and then: Nel convento de' frati di S. Agostino di Siena fu un frate laico, il quale hebbe nome frate Giovanni, e fu del convento di S. Antonio di Vall'Aspra, nato di Chigio appresso Maciareto [In the convent of the friars of St. Augustine of Siena there was a lay brother, who had the name Fra Giovanni, and was of the convent of St. Anthony of Vallaspra, born of Chigio near Maciareto]: for which reason Hoyer recorded Life etc., p. 10. that he drew the first breath of heaven in a castle which was called Chisium, near Maciareto. That this does not agree with the traditions of the house of Chigi was long since pointed out to Bolland by Fabio Chigi, nuncio of Cologne, who affirmed that Chigio of Maciareto is the name of the father of Blessed John; and indeed Landucci in the Tree or Propago Ilicetana said that he was born in the year 1300 of the petty lords of Maciareto, of Chigio his father, and in the Sacra Ilicetana Silva P. 94. that he was born near the same castle, of his father Chigio, his grandfather Anselmo, his great-great-grandfather Ranuccio, petty lord of Maciareto; and Herrera, Torelli, and others agree. Gigli, a Sienese writer of the beginning of the eighteenth century, explains a little more distinctly the Chigi traditions, which he drew partly from the genealogical Tree of the Chigi family, partly from Pallavicino's Life of Alexander
VII, then unpublished, now in print. The greatness of this ancient house, he says Diario Sanese, pp. 69 and 70., did not begin with the receiving of the apostolic keys: witness is the head of the genealogical Tree, Roland, who lived about the year 1020 and of whom was born Ardengus, at the year 1072 count of Ardenghesca; whence sprang the counts of Orgia, the counts of Formalium *, and the lords of Maciareto; from whom in a straight line descend the Chigi; and in the year 1248 Anselmo had the arms of six golden mountains with a star on a red field. Nearer to our times, that is, in the century before the pontificate of Alexander VII, the Chigi held the county of della Sughera, bought from the ancestors of Julius II, who were called counts Ghianderoni.
[12] The genealogical stemma of the Chigi For my part, since I lacked documents on which these things might rest, I well understood that I should labor in vain to persuade of them people beyond the mountains, who have little or no confidence in old Italian genealogical trees (since by a common saying there genealogists were once held to be the most mendacious of all men); for which reason I addressed by letter His Excellency Fabio Chigi, apostolic nuncio at Paris, asking him to have the solution of some doubts sent to me. The first arose from those very words which I reported from the Life, namely that Bl. John did not have Chigio for a father, but was born in the hamlet of Chigio near Maciareto; for I knew of no monument that is older than that Life and in which the blessed man is said to have been born not in the hamlet of Chigio, but of a father Chigio; that Chigio was unknown to me as a man's name; that the antiquity of the nobility of the most illustrious house of Chigi is much more easily understood if it is said to have taken its name from a fief called Chigio than from a man by name Chigio; then, that the genealogical table which Emanuele Repetti, a man most skilled in Tuscan affairs, composed from good documents Dizion. della Toscana, vol. VI, app., p. 68 ff., does not agree with the assertions of Gigli; third, that the same Repetti affirms Ibid., vol. III, p. 8. that it rests only on report, by no means on ancient documents, the common persuasion by which the Chigi are said to originate from Maciareto, and so to have something in common with Bl. John, born at Chigio near Maciareto. I received therefore a copy of the genealogical chart of the most illustrious house of Chigi, engraved on copper in the last century; from which chart I shall excerpt only those names that pertain either to Bl. John Chigi or to Pope Alexander VII. The added numbers are said to indicate the years in which the diplomas were drawn up from which those names are reported to be taken. But now there follows that genealogical fragment, comprising nearly seven centuries.
GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE CHIGI.
I have cut off the side branches everywhere; but I cannot but add that on that Tree there are assigned to Bl. John two sisters, Margherita, married to Michele Berti, and Ambrogia, wife of Cristoforo Marsili, and three brothers, Lorenzo, whom I have indicated, Bernardo, abbot of St. Savior, and Agostino, father of Angela, who in the pontificate of Alexander VII began also to be called blessed.
[13] and the documents sent to us, To confirm this genealogical tree the librarians of the house of Chigi, Giuseppe Cugnoni and Scipione Cappello, added a few documents. The first is the Life of Bl. John Chigi; which we shall give at the end, and which they themselves copied from the autograph codex of Alexander VII, entitled: Commentaries on the Chigi family, and marked: Cod. Chis. A. I, p. 150. The second document is taken from the same codex, p. 163, and is framed in these words: From the years 1108 and 1120. The beginning of the family of the Chigi was made by Anselmo or Anselmino, son of Ranuccio of Maciareto, a knight, who in the year 1248 served under the Emperor Frederick II against the Guelphs at the siege of Parma. From that time, the archives of the hospital of St. Mary of the Scala having been unrolled, and other ancient monuments appearing, it has been ascertained that also the paternal uncle of Chigio was named Chigio, and his descendants Chigi, and that the father of Ranuccio was Bernardo or Bernardino, surnamed Melpollone of Orgia, born of Uguccione, count of Ardenghesca; which Uguccione's father was Ardengus, son of Raniero and grandson of Roland; which Roland lived about the year of Christ one thousand: as may be seen in the complete Tree of the Chigi family, where to each of those ancestors is ascribed the year of some public instrument in which he lived and carried out an act of sale or of purchase: which autograph instruments exist in the family's archive. Hence also is resolved the objection, that the sons of Chigio subscribe themselves de Chisiis adjectivally, since this did not happen except in the third degree, since in the second the father's name was affixed substantively, as Federico Petrucci. Namely because the brother of Anselmo and uncle of Chigio had preceded him by the name Chigio, whose sons Agostino and Giovanni had lived in the year 1294 at Maciareto, of whom in the archive of the Friars Hermits of St. Augustine of Siena, and among the novellas or little fabulous stories of Strascino of Campagna, and afterward of Bandello, which have been printed on Pia de' Tolomei, wife of Nello of Pietra d'Ilci, of whom Dante Alighieri in the Purgatory, canto 5. Where note the sluggishness of the interpreters, who seem to condemn her as guilty against chastity: though this vice is not punished by the poet there, but in another place, and she was most chaste and innocent, put to death by her husband, a wicked soldier, in order to win for himself a marriage with the widow of Pitigliano; which by no means happened by the just judgment of God. But Pia herself may not have forgiven her husband's iniquity with her whole heart, so that she was placed by Dante in Purgatory for the expurgation of that fault. Which has been written elsewhere separately and more fully, when consideration was given to this matter.
[14] by which that is confirmed. The second document is drawn from a manuscript book of Giovanni Battista Cenni, dedicated in the year 1677 to Cardinal Flavio Chigi. This passage, made Latin from the Italian, I shall also bring here: In the year 1200 and perhaps before Ranuccio Chigi was lord of Maciareto; which castle is three leagues distant from Siena and was once celebrated for its baths. There follows Anselmo, his illustrious and very brave son; who in the year 1248 was designated by the republic of Siena among fifty nobles to go to Parma, to serve at the side of the Emperor Frederick. Chigio, his son, was himself also lord of Maciareto; from whom his descendants had their surname. To these the librarians added a few notes, which likewise I shall make Latin: If there be compared, they say, the histories and chronicles of Siena, especially the writers produced in the Historical and Genealogical Notes on the house of Chigi and its origin, written by the hand of Alexander VII and preserved in a thick volume in the Chigi library, every doubt raised by Repetti will vanish, who proposed no argument and let himself be carried away by an itch for contradiction. By historical tradition, which many report, it is established that Maciareto, before it was leveled with the ground, was a flourishing castle and village and celebrated for water wholesome for bathers. It is certainly known that the house of Ardenghesca, from which the Chigi descend, among other fiefs which they held with the title of counts of Fornolium and Orgia, possessed the castle of Maciareto and dwelt there perpetually according to the custom of the nobles of that time. It is no wonder, then, that the feudal lords of Maciareto were the Ardengheschi and then their descendants and heirs the Chigi, since even today the firstborn of patrician houses are accustomed to assume the title of some fief: for example, Don Mario Chigi calls himself prince of Campagnano, and his great-grandfather on his journeys used the name of marquis of Formello. Nor is it to be wondered at that Bl. John Chigi in his Life is named Fr. John of Maciareto, since even today mendicant religious, their family name laid aside, are called from their place of origin. And indeed Bl. John was born at Maciareto, and in the genealogical Tree he is called son of Chigio, son of Anselmo, son of Ranuccio of Maciareto, and brother of Agostino, who was father of Bl. Angela, whose uncle he was. Thus they.
[15] Weightier writers, whom this stemma has pleased. Those who wish to be more severe will perhaps desire monuments by which there may appear more manifestly and certainly the community of blood which is said to obtain between Bl. John and the most splendid house of Chigi, especially since to this tradition the blessed man, so distinguished by the ornaments of so many virtues, owes it that he is safely and according to the Urbanian decrees counted among the saints. But I must take care not to be numbered among the detractors of noble families; for which reason, though history loves old testimonies more than more recent persuasions, I shall rather note that Pallavicino, who had proposed to write truly about Alexander VII, as even men less friendly agree Archivio italico, app. XXII, p. 388 ff., did not hesitate to indicate these honors of the Chigi; that Giuseppe Novaes, whose sincerity everyone respects, did not dissent Elementi di storia de' sommi pontifici, vol. X, p. 63 ff.; that Moroni Dizionario di erudizione ecclesiastica, vol. XIII, p. 77., who often indeed followed faithless guides, but never set the rights of truth after favor, also narrated these things; and moreover that by the consent of all the house of Chigi long since flourished in the nobility of Siena, and that some men of it abounded in huge riches; which however in the seventeenth century were so diminished that Fabio Chigi, when he first came to Rome, had to be helped by the subsidies of Pallavicino and other friends, until his uncle came to his aid and Pope Urban VIII increased him with some offices [Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII, vol. I, p. 37; Archivio italico, app. XXII, p. 390.]. These things he himself wished preserved for memory by his biographer. Add that Fabio Chigi himself, who gave credit to the Tree of his house, did not wish to shine by false kinships, as is established for me from his letter to Bolland; in which he warned him that no heed was to be paid to flatterers who wished his family illustrated by a fictitious relationship with the Chisii of Grenoble. But if anyone is unwilling to assent to these positions, or to grant that the nobility of Bl. John, which Filippo Leonardi insinuates in no words, has been demonstrated, I shall neither slacken nor draw back the rope of contention, leaving that to the vindicators of Sienese families. I shall note, however, that the following testimony of Ambrogio Landucci cannot be neglected: In days past, he says Sacra Ilicetana Silva, p. 94., we had in our hands public parchment records, by which Donna Angela, daughter of Agostino Chigi, and widow left by Ghino, named Paccia, citizen of Siena (we think it should be read de Peccis), before the father provincial in the chapter of the monastery of St. Augustine of Siena offers herself and her goods to the house of Vallaspra, under the attestation of Guido Francesco Azzolini, the witnesses being Bartolomeo Fazi and Ambrogio Venturini, in the year 1386 *. Which Agostino, father of this Donna Angela, was the brother of our Bl. John; whose niece Angela was. This Angela Melissenus narrates to have been involved in a fourfold marriage Life of Bl. John Chigi, p. 37., and the other editor
made her blessed, just as did Gigli and those who spread her image with the title of blessed through Tuscany Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. VI, p. 85.. But why did Landucci not bring forward those records themselves? Whence did he know that Agostino, in Italian probably called Agostino di Chigio, was the brother of Bl. John? So that here too not all doubts cease.
[16] Where Maciareto is situated and how large it once was. Now Maciareto or Macereto, in whose vicinity Bl. John was born, is distant from Siena eighteen kilometers to the south, on the left bank of the little river Merse, on the road laid between Grosseto and Siena, in the very place where, by a very high bridge built in the year 1368 and rebuilt in the year 1827, it is carried over the waters; whence a village has arisen, in the vernacular called Ponte a Macereto or Maciareto. The place was formerly much more notable; for two kilometers above the bridge there flows on the left into the Merse a stream named the river of Macereto, flowing, of course, within the circuit of the village. Then in the thirteenth century there was a parish there with the title of St. Nicholas; but, the church having been destroyed, it has long since been joined to the parish of St. Lawrence on the Merse. There still survive there celebrated baths, of which records are kept from the year 1273 in the Sienese archives. At that time there existed there also a hospice of St. James, open to pilgrims and bathers [Repetti, vol. III, pp. 7 and 8; Zuccagni-Orlandini, Atlante della Toscana, map XIV.]. In a village so notable and once so large, who would doubt that there were formerly many rustic or noble estates? These however I find nowhere reviewed. Let the local people then inquire whether there was a place there called Chigio and, if there was, where it stood. Most think that the servant of God was born about the year 1300; a probable conjecture, agreeing with the rest of his life and his death, which he met in the year 1363.
[17] [The site and fortunes of Vallaspra, where Bl. John professed the eremitic life. He lived then in the cenoby of St. Augustine at Siena, not in that of St. Martin.] Filippo Leonardi narrates that in the 18th year of his age he went to Vallaspra to lead the eremitic life. This valley, now simply called Valle or Valle sopra Follonica, lies about sixty kilometers from the city of Siena to the southwest, between Follonica and Massa, or in the Maremma * of Massa, nearly twenty kilometers from Piombino to the east, on the right side of the river Pecora Compare Zuccagni, Map XV.. The old name of the convent of Vallaspra was St. Anthony in Ardigneta, or in Ardengesca of Silva Juncta, and also above the Baths of Petriolo Torelli, vol. IV, p. 179, and vol. VI, p. 655.; not however St. Anthony at the Ambrosian lakes or St. Anthony del Bosco, as Herrera recorded Alphabetum, vol. I, p. 67.; which latter names pertain to another cenoby Torelli, Secoli etc., vol. VI, p. 655.. If we wished to lend our ears to fables, very many will try to persuade us that as early as the fourth century there lived there hermits, disciples of St. Augustine. But beyond controversy there was there a gathering of hermits in the year 1206, in which it was enriched with many goods; shortly afterward passing over to the institutions of St. William the abbot Ibid., vol. IV, p. 178 ff., p. 201., and somewhat before the year 1251 embracing the Rule of St. Augustine Ibid., pp. 456 and 457.. It was part of the province of Tuscany until in the year 1434, as Herrera recorded Alphabetum, vol. I, p. 67; Compare Torelli, vol. VI, p. 655., it was united by the prior general Gerard of Rimini to the congregation of Lecceto, in which the more observant houses were comprised. At the end of the last century it seems to have been suppressed: certainly Repetti records nothing of it [Dizionario della Toscana, under Valle o Valli sopra Follonica nella Maremma Massetana, vol. V, pp. 671 and 672.]. The reputation of his holiness was the cause why Bl. John was requested by the fathers of Siena; among whom he lived ten years, namely in the convent of St. Augustine. For the Augustinian Hermits had two convents of men in this city; which it is the easier to confuse, in that the very distinction of common Augustinians and those of Lecceto aids the confusion in this place. From the year 1258 the Hermits occupied the convent of St. Augustine, the first stone being laid by Tommaso Balzetti, bishop of Siena. Slight beginnings; but gradually the church and convent were so increased that they have long been reckoned among the most splendid. In the year 1810 the Augustinians were suppressed; into whose buildings, bought in the year 1815, the Masters of the Pious Schools in the year 1818 transferred the Tolomei college of nobles, directed from the year 1628 to 1773 by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus [Ibid., vol. V, pp. 367 and 368; Ristretto delle cose più notabili della città di Siena, 1761, p. 64; Guida della città di Siena, 1852, p. 78 ff.]. The church of St. Martin was parochial from the remotest times; it was for some time in the hands of the Lateran canons, and only in the year 1439 by authority of Pope Eugene IV was it given to the brethren of Lecceto; who being suppressed in the year 1783, a school of mutual instruction was erected in the buildings in the year 1820 Repetti, vol. V, p. 368; Ristretto, p. 100 ff.; Guida, p. 109 ff.. Whence it is clear that Bl. John lived in St. Augustine's, Monaldi and Ambrogio Landucci in St. Martin's.
[18] [Why he was sent to Ticinum or Pavia in the year 1338. Returning to Siena, he dies in the year 1363 on the 28th day of October.] Thence Bl. John was sent to Ticinum or Pavia in the year 1332, as Marcellino Altesi held; but in the year 1338, as he holds who interpolated his Life. Of which matter this was the occasion. Pope John XXII had thought of reckoning among the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church William Tocchi of Cremona, prior general already from the year 1326, many times confirmed in office; but he, having long been watching for an opportunity of introducing his Hermits into the church of St. Peter in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia, where the body of St. Augustine was kept, begged in the year 1327 in place of that favor that room be made by the canons regular for his men, to perform there the ecclesiastical offices with the former occupants Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. V, p. 418.. In the year 1331, then, the Hermits were solemnly introduced into the choir Ibid., p. 478 ff.; in the following year in the general chapter of Venice money was imposed on other respectable convents, with which a new cenoby might be built there Torelli, Secoli Agostiniani, vol. V, p. 485.: which gradually became indeed the most splendid of the whole order, but through the overturning of public affairs in this century has been changed to other uses; and in the year 1338 a temporary feast was instituted in memory of the order's establishment beside the body of its most holy patron or (as they would have it) founder Ibid., p. 510.. The blessed man could have been sent there, then, at any point in all that time; so that I do not know whose statements are to be stood by, those of Altesi or of the anonymous interpolator. In very truth the biographer speaks of reform, but this must be so understood that William of Cremona wished to establish great severity of discipline in the new convent. Nor does the year 1338 displease, since, as in this year the general chapter was held in the cenoby of St. Augustine at Siena, William of Cremona could have come to know the holiness of Bl. John there. For it was necessary to send approved men there, since the canons regular had admitted the hermits into their church only unwillingly Pennotto, Clericorum canonicorum historia, p. 209 ff.. The blessed man then lived at Pavia many years; but before his death he asked of the prior general that he be permitted to return to Siena; where he piously fell asleep in the Lord in the year 1363, on the day (as Marcellino Altesi recorded) 28 October.
Annotata* Fornolium?
* 1336 Torelli.
* The Maremma
LIFE OF BL. JOHN CHIGI
By Filippo di Leonardo degli Agazzari, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, translated from the Italian.
John Chigi, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. (Bl.)
aFROM MANUSCRIPTS.
[Bl. John Chigi, distinguished for virtues and understanding, discharges excellently the office of sacristan.] Here begins the Life of a devout b brother of the order of St. Augustine, whose name was Brother John, a lay brother, of Chigio near Maciareto c. — In the convent of the friars of St. Augustine at Siena there was a lay brother, by name John, a son of the convent of Vallaspra, born at Chigio near Maciareto. This Brother John was a man of the greatest humility; and, wherever he lived, he had the office of keeping the church and of satisfying and answering those who called for the brethren in the church. With what speed he knew men, with what judgment and prudence he answered and called the brethren, I do not wish to say at length, lest I put anyone to shame. He was very much practiced in prayer and contemplation; and although in the world he had been most simple d, he yet came to such understanding that there was no lector in the convent who understood the text better than he, nor was any to be found among the masters who knew him who was ashamed to ask his counsel on any matter; for at once, even if he were a wise man, when in serving the priests celebrating Mass he saw a defect committed by them at the altar, when they returned to the sacristy he privately pointed it out, answered, and admonished with such sweetness, love, and charity that there was none who was not confounded with shame; so that even the best brethren were not without fear when he served them at the altar. He himself, however, served Mass with such reverence, piety, and attention that on his part no defect ever occurred. Nor was anyone in however great tribulation and sadness who, by chatting or talking with him, did not depart refreshed with wonderful peace and consolation; nor was anything in him ever disclosed worthy of reprehension. When they wished to make him a cleric, he would never consent. All who knew him, brethren or seculars, followed him with singular love and reverence.
[2] [He hardly conquers in the cenoby of Vallaspra the lust to which he had been given in the world.] This Brother John came to the order in the eighteenth year of his age, and was received in the convent of St. Anthony above the Baths of Petriolo e. With what humility he carried out all commands and with what charity he ministered to the sick and the well without disgust at anything, cannot be told. In the world he had been dissolute and lustful: wherefore the devil undertook to vex him with many grave carnal temptations, which he could not resist unless he went away into the wood. In which wood he had made himself a little hut; to which, if he had leisure, he often went to pray; and to it he carried a bundle of nettles, which he scattered on the ground; then, stripping off his garments except his breeches, he rolled himself naked on those nettles and rubbed his body with them.
And in this way he very often brought it about, with the grace of God, that he conquered the enemy; and he was freed from all carnal temptation.
[3] [Thence he is sent to the convent of St. Augustine at Siena, where he excels in patience, obedience, and poverty.] As it pleased God, it came about; for it was not fitting that so great a treasure should be hidden in that solitude. The brethren of Siena, then, having learned of his virtue and holiness, summoned him and kept him at Siena against his will. He lived there at least ten years, not having a cell of his own: for before the plague of the year 48 f many brethren, on account of the fewness of the cells, often suffered want. Since, as the proverb has it, flies always infest lean horses, and he was a horse of this kind, the flies settled on him; that is, since he was perfectly obedient, every kind of command was laid on him; which he carried out well and cheerfully. And so every day he was sent out to make purchases; and, when he had returned home, if there was anything mean to be done, this was always enjoined on him. He lived always in the convent, and never went out of the conventual life, nor would he ever accept food from any outsider. Of other necessary things he accepted, as extreme necessity urged, from certain good men to whom his condition was known. He had this virtue, that from the day on which he put on the hermit's habit no one heard him complaining or grieving of anything, whatever happened; then, that he was never seen to feel disgust at anything; third, that whatever was commanded him, he never put forward excuses; fourth, that he never asked anything for himself, though he accepted things offered, if he needed them.
[4] Lacking a garment, he asks clothing of Christ with the highest humility; He was so poor that, as he used the chapter house at night for a cell and slept on the benches of the chapter, he had nothing to store in his cell except the garments on his body; and with these he slept, though he made little use of them for sleeping, since he spent the greater part of the night in prayer. Without necessity he was never seen outside the church or his cell. It happened once that he returned home from buying bread while the brethren were sitting at table; so that, having given back the bread to the steward, since he was to eat at the second table, he went meanwhile to his usual exercises, that is, to prayer, while the first table lasted. While he was thus engaged in prayer, he began to pray in these or similar words: "God, I ask of you mercy and remission of sins; and, if I ask of you anything that is not just in your sight, I beg you to give me pardon, or to hold the thing as not asked, since assuredly I desire nothing beyond your will. You, my Lord, see that the garment I am clothed in is so torn and worn that I can no longer wear it. I, my Lord Jesus Christ, do not ask of you clothing with which to be defended from the cold; for I know that you were stripped, made naked, and bound to a pillar, and there you suffered not only the most cruel cold, but also bitter and hard scourging; so that there is just cause that I suffer for my sins. Nor do I ask of you clothing with which to ward off human shame; for I know that you suffered all shame, and that above all on the cross you were afflicted with reproaches, mockeries, and revilings before all, and that for me you suffered such great tortures and torments, and that you redeemed me with your precious blood and prepared for me the kingdom of eternal life; and I beg you to make me mindful and grateful for such great graces, gifts, and benefits; so that on account of my sins and ungrateful heart so great a love and charity may not turn to my judgment and condemnation. I beg of you to grant me the habit of St. Augustine, which was blessed for me at my profession; since I have it no longer, nor do I have the means to procure one; so that I ask this habit of you through the merits of your holy passion." And with these and similar words he asked of God the habit of St. Augustine, which he could not have in another way.
[5] [There comes to him a pilgrim, who gives him three gold denarii, with which he buys a cappa from another brother.] And as he was saying these words, a man of venerable aspect knocked at the door; and although an old custom and even a law stood in the way, by which doorkeepers were forbidden to open the gate and admit anyone within the house while the brethren were eating, the doorkeeper opened the gate and let the stranger enter, saying nothing to him, and as if he had lost his senses. That venerable man at once entered the church under the stairs by which one goes to the pulpit of the church, where Brother John was accustomed to pray. And when he had come to him, he said to him: "Accept this for the love of God;" and he put in his hands three gold denarii g. When he had received them, the good man at once went off. Then Brother John suddenly arose and followed the pilgrim, to learn who had made him so large an alms; but that good man went out of the church, entered the cloister, and suddenly vanished. Then the brethren had finished their meal and were coming into the church to give thanks to God; so that Brother John waited until they had given thanks. The day before, Brother John in passing had heard some brother saying that he wished to sell a cappa, which had cost him three florins, without the tailor's fee; and that he was willing to lose only this fee. Between the two, then, the bargain was at once agreed, and Brother John had the cappa for three gold denarii h.
[6] He is sent to Pavia, where he finds prodigiously the tomb of two martyrs. A long time afterward the prior general of the order wished to reform the convent of Pavia i, bringing in the best brethren he could find, on account of reverence for the body of St. Augustine, which lies in this convent k; and among them was sent that blessed Brother John. [In which convent the prior general of the whole Augustinian order was the Reverend Fr. Master William of Cremona; who afterward was bishop of Novara, a man of most holy and most miraculous life; and this reform was made in the year 1338; and at this time Blessed John Chigi went to Pavia, as can be gathered from the Chronicles of the Reverend Fr. Master Giuseppe Panfilo of Verona, bishop of Segni, who was an Augustinian religious l.] In the church of St. Augustine there was among other saints the tomb of two martyrs; which indeed all knew to be in the church of St. Augustine, but no one in what place. Since the pavement had been laid with lime and was beautiful, they did not wish to spoil it, and yet the brethren wished to find their tomb. The prior of the convent therefore, seeing that it could not be found without great detriment, summoned the blessed Brother John and asked him in tender words to pray devoutly to God that, if it pleased him, he would reveal the tomb of those two martyrs. This request the blessed Brother John held in place of a command, and for many days he gave himself to fasts, prayers, and many tears; and then, some days later, while the convent was at table, he went into the church or remained alone. Nor could it ever be known how that tomb was revealed to him by God, except that the brethren, entering the church after eating to give thanks, saw that the tomb had been found by him; and he had broken only the surface of the pavement, as much as was necessary m.
[7] [He returns to Siena, where, having received the sacraments and indulgence, he dies reading the passion of Christ, in the year 1363.] Some time after this grace he asked the prior general to let him return to his homeland to die. This favor being received, he returned to Siena. When he had come there, his old office was given him, namely of keeping the church. Shortly afterward there came on the mortality of the year 1363; and he was seized by the disease. After he had been ill some days, he called his confessor to him, and had indulgence given him and the other sacraments. Moreover he had the missal book brought to him, and, all the brethren present being sent out of the cell, he remained alone in the cell and put on his cappa, as if he were overcoming all with his health; then, resting on his knees, he laid his arms on the bier, having before him the missal book open at the place of the Passion according to St. Luke the evangelist, where is read: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit." And the brethren, when they returned, found that while reading this Passion he had given back his spirit to God, when he had come to that place. Six months after his burial, some brethren who followed him with the greatest devotion wished to see his body; and, having dug it up, they found it whole and supple , just as on the very day on which it had been buried; and taking it by the hands and feet they drew it from the tomb, washed it, cleaned it of earth, clothed it in new garments, and placed it on a bier ; which they buried again in the pit, somewhat filled up. All the things aforesaid and others that I have not written I learned from his confessor, from a dear spiritual son of his of this convent, and from many brethren with whom he had much intercourse, and from those four who drew him out of the tomb and helped to wash his body. He died in the year 1363 n.
ANNOTATIONS.
* schietto. sound
* cassa. coffin
JOHN CHIGI.
From the autograph codex of Pope Alexander VII, entitled: Commentaries on the Chigi family, now preserved in the Chigi library at Rome.
John Chigi, of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. (Bl.)
aFROM MANUSCRIPTS.
Summary of the Life of Bl. John. John, son of Chigio, born about the year 1300, when he had reached 18 years of age, gave his name among the Brethren of St. Anthony of Vallaspra, who served in the Augustinian observance under the congregation of Lecceto. Nor was he ever initiated in sacred orders, but was enrolled among the lay brothers, since, ignorant of letters and set chiefly over the keeping of the church, he was so strong in learning that he interpreted the Sacred Scriptures, and in serving the priests in their sacred rites he piously detected and emended their hidden errors. He sometimes, enticed by the allurements of the senses, made it his custom to lie with naked body on bundles of nettles and to roll himself for a long time, until he drove away the temptation. At another time, asking a garment of God with fervent prayer, he was at once presented by an unknown guest with money, as if sent from heaven, with which he was able to procure the same. In the year 1338, when the superior general was attempting to bring the cenoby of Pavia to the norm of a severer life (he was Brother William of Cremona, afterward bishop of Novara), he summoned there from Siena Brother John Chigi alone, as Panfilo of Verona, bishop of Segni, reports in his Chronicles. And, since the bodies of two martyrs had been buried in the church at Pavia, whose particular place was unknown, the prior of the cenoby asked John to obtain from God by prayers that he would reveal to him where the relics of the saints were. John obeyed; and, while the others were feasting at table, he alone in the church after long prayer was found to have opened with a mattock only as much of the soil as the bodies of the saints, buried in a lower place and afterward found, occupied. Finally in the year 1363, on the 28th day of October, having obtained a return to his homeland, long ill, fortified with all the sacraments, the hour of death now approaching, he asked for the missal, and, all being ordered to go out of the room, he arose from his bed, put on his sacred garments, as if he were well, and with bended knee, his elbows resting on the coffin, reading the book in that part where the words are prescribed for the dying to implore the divine help: "Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit," he gave back his spirit to God. Which his companions, finding him shortly after remaining in the same posture, committed to writing. His corpse six months later, dug up from the ground whole and pure, was put away in a coffin . Let him who wishes more approach what has been written by Fr. Filippo degli Agazzari in the year 1411, by Fr. Bernardino Monaldo in the year 1543, by Fr. Ambrogio Landucci in the year 1680; also the printed Stemma of the congregation of Lecceto, and also the Pavian commentaries, the archive of the same congregation of Lecceto, and the old paintings on the walls, in which the virtue of John, still recent, shines out illustrious with the title of blessed.
ANNOTATION.
* read anno.
* read arca.