ON BL. PAULA OF MONTALDO, VIRGIN OF THE MITIGATED SECOND ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS, AT MANTUA IN ITALY,
IN THE YEAR MDXIV.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Paula de Montaldo, virgin of the mitigated third Order of St. Francis. (B.)
BY R. D. B.
§ I. On the cult of Blessed Paula, pronounced legitimate by Pius IX.
Since from the beginning it has been the custom among the Bollandist Hagiographers Blessed Paula began to be venerated at least from the year 1521, to relate the history of the cult of those saints whose Acts they illustrate, we cannot but do so, being about to treat at this day of Blessed Paula of Montaldo, a nun of the house of St. Lucy at Mantua. This done, it will have been clearly shown that for three hundred and fifty years, up to these times, she has been continuously honoured with public and ecclesiastical cult. Nor is that task arduous at present, since very many documents were not so long ago collected by those asking of the Holy See the power of performing a liturgical office in honour of Blessed Paula. For Giovanni Corti, bishop of Mantua, the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis of the Observance, and others asked of the Sacred Congregation of Rites that, having examined the matter, they would not be reluctant to pronounce that ecclesiastical and public cult had been paid to Blessed Paula from before the memory of men (already in the year 1534). To obtain the purpose, these arguments were put forward. First, indeed, the servant of God was given the name of blessed Sister in the year 1587 by the Ven. Francesco Gonzaga De Origine Seraphicæ Religionis, part II, page 321., and in the year 1680 by Cimarelli, chronicler of the Friars Minor Chronicle of the Friars Minor, part IV, book V, chapter 10.; likewise she was called blessed in the year 1612 by Ippolito Donesmondi Istoria ecclesiastica di Mantova, book VII of part 11., historian of Mantua, in the year 1637 by Wadding Annales Minorum, volume VIII, at the year 1514, Lyons edition., in the year 1638 by Arthur du Monstier Martyrologium Franciscanum, at the 4th day of August., in the year 1679 by Benedetto Mazzara Leggendario Francescano, part II volume I, page 202., in the year 1772 by canon Alberto Baccanti Vita della B. Paola, page 160 and passim.. Moreover, in the epitaph which was placed near her present tomb at Volta in the year 1813, she is called Bl. Paula. And that this designation was given to her shortly after her happy passing to heaven they gathered from this, that three nuns of the house of Bl. Lucy, restored to health by the help of the most devout virgin on the day of Pentecost of the year 1521, when asked how so salutary a change had been made in them so suddenly, using the appellation BLESSED, answered that the benefit received was to be referred to Blessed Paula Montaldi.
[2] but especially from about the year 1535. The wonderful healing of the three nuns was afterwards narrated by two physicians, eyewitnesses, to Margherita Paleologa, wife of Federico, duke of Mantua. She, impelled by piety, earnestly asked the abbess that she and the other nuns, through the intercession of blessed Paula, would obtain for her from God the benefit of conceiving and bringing to the light a daughter. The nuns of St. Lucy at once complied, and it came to pass that after some months the duchess Margherita gave birth to a daughter, whose name was Isabella; who in the year 1554 was joined in marriage to the marquis Francesco Ferdinando of Pescara, and became the mother of the marquis Alfonso of Pescara and Vasto. Further, the duchess Margherita Paleologa, to show her gratitude, ordered the incorrupt body of Bl. Paula to be clothed in a garment of dark-coloured silk damask, in which it was still clothed in Baccanti's time. That Margherita's piety had the appearance of cult no one will easily deny, although the benefit conferred on the princess is not to be called a miracle. But Baccanti less correctly linked to the same year 1521 the healing of the three nuns of the house of St. Lucy, made through the intervention of Bl. Paula, and the conception of Isabella: for Isabella's parents did not enter into marriage before the 16th day of November of the year 1531: and to them was first born, on the 10th day of March of the year 1533, a son Francesco, then at an unknown time the daughter Isabella of whom we have just spoken, afterwards on the 24th day of April of the year 1538 a second son Guglielmo: likewise on the 22nd day of September of the year 1539 a third son Ludovico, and finally in the year 1540 a fourth, posthumous son Federico [Maffei, Annali di Mantova, book XI, chapter VIII, pages 861, 871, 879; Gionta, Fioretto delle croniche di Mantova, page 82; Moréri, Dictionnaire Historique, volume I, page 47, Avalos; Imhoff, Corpus Historiæ genealogicæ Italiæ et Hispaniæ, page 148.]. Hence it is evident that, if indeed the three nuns were healed in the year 1521, the daughter Isabella was not conceived by Margherita Paleologa in the same year. From this time the cult of Bl. Paula received many increases, and in her honour oil, wax, votive offerings, lamps, or even counted money were offered by many princes, bishops, noblemen and others of every condition and sex. The series of these from the year 1535 to 1703 is inscribed in a book which is kept in the archive of the monastery of St. Lucy. To show the long duration of the cult the Postulator of the cause of the blessed nun mentions three images, of which the first two were painted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the third in the eighteenth century: At Mantua, he says, in the episcopal palace an image of Paula is kept; who, with a mourning face, holds in her left hand an image of Jesus Crucified leaning on her shoulder, and in her right a linen cloth. Clothed in the habit of the nuns of the Order of St. Clare, her head is encircled with a conspicuous aureole. On the painting is placed the inscription B. Paola Montaldi Bl. Paula Montaldi. The image was painted in the year 1700. Another, painted in the past century, may be seen in the church of St. Martin, which likewise bears the inscription B. Paola Montaldi Bl. Paula Montaldi. In the Orphanage of Mantua too, formerly a house of nuns, there is another marked with an aureole, which the judgment of those skilled in the art holds to have been painted towards the end of the year 1600 Informatio super cultu B. Paulæ, page 4; Compare Summarium super dubio, page 9.. These paintings are an indication that the cult of the saints was paid publicly to Bl. Paula in churches, and in the episcopal palace itself, in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[3] [She is commemorated in the Litanies and Calendars of Mantua: her relics too are honoured.] Add that the most devout Francesco Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, following his own remarkable devotion to the holy virgin and that of the whole people, raised her incorrupt body in the year 1603, and numbered blessed Paula among the patrons of Mantua in his synodal constitutions Summarium, page 18.. Then at Montaldo from the most remote times there is a little shrine sacred to Bl. Paula: where the people have been accustomed to venerate her; indeed the members of the confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament have been accustomed to add to the prayers which they all recite together, in honour of Bl. Paula, a Pater, an Ave and a Gloria: likewise in the Litanies of All Saints, after all the holy Virgins have been invoked, they pray to blessed Paula too. Nor is it to be forgotten that the bishop of Mantua, on the 19th day of April 1731, granted to the marchioness Beatrice Spinola a part of the shift of Bl. Paula, together with relics of Saints Anne, mother of the Mother of God, Cajetan the confessor, Andrew Avellino and others, placed in the same case; giving the faculty of keeping them with her, of giving them to others, and of exposing them to the veneration of the faithful in any church or public oratory. Moreover the feast of Bl. Paula in the Calendars of Mantua of the years 1704, 1705, 1706, 1707 at the 18th day of August is indicated thus: Today in the church of St. Lucy is shown the body of Bl. Paula de' Montaldi of Mantua, formerly a nun in the same convent, who on this day in the year 1514 departed to the Lord. Likewise in the Calendars of the year 1708 and following in these or similar words: The feast of Bl. Paula de' Montaldi, whose body rests incorrupt in the church of St. Lucy. She died on this day in the year 1514. In like manner in the Calendars of the years 1753, 1764, 1765: The feast of Bl. Paula de Monte Alto, a virgin glorious for holiness and wonderful signs, who on this day in the year 1514 flew to the eternal bridegroom, whose sacred body from the year 1689 until this day is honourably kept incorrupt above the high altar of the church of St. Lucy and is devoutly venerated and adored with solemn cult by a multitude of people flocking there. Likewise in the Calendars of the years 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, when the sacred body was already in the church of St. Catherine of the Order of St. Dominic: The feast of Bl. Paula de Monte Alto, virgin of the Order of the Poor Clares, whose body rests incorrupt in the church of St. Catherine. She died on this day, 1514. But of this feast nothing is said in the Calendars which, at the time of the suppression of the monasteries, that is, from the year 1787 to the year 1813, were printed
published. Again in the Calendar of the year 1814 is read: The feast of Bl. Paula Montaldi, virgin, whose incorrupt body is now kept and venerated in the parish church of Volta of this diocese; she died on this day, in the year 1514, in the 71st year of her age. Almost the same announcement is also put forward in the Mantuan Order of the divine office of the year 1847.
[4] Her body was several times translated with great solemnity. There are also to be reviewed, as being so many most illustrious signs of cult, the several and solemn translations of the incorrupt body of Bl. Paula, which we have already indicated and shall describe below. First it was carried in the year 1783 to the monastery of St. Catherine: thence in the year 1797 to the house of St. Vincent, and finally in the year 1813 to Volta, the native soil of the blessed virgin. Where, as the Postulator of the cause says, the people are accustomed to go to the tomb of Paula and to make her propitious to themselves by prayers, their piety being fostered the more by the benefits with which Paula does not cease to load them in return. And every year in the same place, always with a very great concourse of citizens and strangers, and with new signs of religion and gladness, the feasts of the translation are renewed for eight days. Every year too the birthday into heaven of the servant of God is kept. Panegyrical orations are often held on the feast of the translation, which always distinguish Paula by the name of blessed, recall the feasts of the translation, and elegantly elaborate the prodigy of the incorrupt body to stir up the faith and piety of the people. These have sometimes been printed [Informatio super dubio de cultu publico præstito etc. Servæ Dei Paulæ Montaldi, page 6.].
[5] Which cult, as legitimate, Pius IX confirmed in the year 1866, These things having been set out, the advocate of the cause of Bl. Paula concludes that public and ecclesiastical cult was paid to Bl. Paula more than a hundred years before the decree of Urban VIII of the year 1634, and has been continued and increased without interruption up to our times. Hence, in the name both of the people of Volta and of the whole province of Mantua and of the entire Order of Minors of the Observance, he asked that the apostolic see would deign to confirm by the weight of its authority this cult so ancient and so widespread. Assenting to these wishes, the Sacred Congregation of Rites, on the 1st day of September of the year 1866, declared that public and ecclesiastical cult had been shown to Bl. Paula of Mantua, a nun of the second Order of St. Francis, from before the memory of men, that is, from before the year 1534, up to our age. This sentence Pius IX approved by his vote on the 6th day of the same month of September, and decided the case in favour of the Postulator of the cause of Bl. Paula. He would indeed have entered on an easier way if (as the Postulator of the cause of Bl. Peter Favre did, putting forward the decree of the Congregation of Rites in the cause of Bl. Lucy of Narni) he had computed the hundred-year period of Urban VIII not from the year 1534 to the year 1634, but from the year 1552 to the year 1652: or also if, rightly understanding the decree of Urban VIII, he had shown that Bl. Paula had already before the year 1634 been honoured with ecclesiastical cult for a very long time, that is, for thirty or forty years, with the knowledge and toleration of the ordinary [Informatio etc. in causa B. Petri Fabri, page 27 and following; Responsio ad animadversiones etc., page 32 and following, page 46.]. The sentence of Pius IX having thus been given, the most reverend lord Giovanni Corti, bishop of Mantua, since Bl. Paula had spent her whole life in this diocese and had died a happy death, asked the Sacred Congregation of Rites that it would deign to grant to the clergy of Mantua the privilege of performing in honour of Bl. Paula … an office with the Mass from the Common, with the addition of a proper Prayer and Lessons of the second nocturn proposed by him for suitable approval. Further, on the 31st day of August of the year 1867, the faculty was given of performing the Office and Mass on the first free day occurring in the diocesan calendar after the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, on the feast of blessed Paula Montaldi, virgin: provided the rubrics be observed. The same faculty the Sacred Congregation granted on the 24th day of November of the same year to the whole Order of Minors of St. Francis, at the petition of its minister general, yet in such a way that the feast of Bl. Paula be kept on some free day occurring after the sixteenth day before the Kalends of September, to be fixedly assigned by the minister general, and not to be varied thereafter without consulting the apostolic see; the rubrics being observed. The day chosen by the Friars Minor was the 29th of October: by the bishop of Mantua, on the contrary, the 18th of August. And the ecclesiastical Office used in honour of Bl. Paula is entirely from the Common of Virgins, except the prayer and the lessons of the second nocturn, which we subjoin in this place: Prayer: O God, who didst give us blessed Paula, Virgin, recalling in constant meditation the pains of Thy crucified Son, as an example of purity and penance, mercifully grant that by her intercession, crucifying the flesh, we may happily expire in the embrace of the Lord's cross. Through the same Lord.
[6] [and assigned in honour of the blessed one the fourth lesson of the second nocturn] Lessons of the second nocturn. Lesson IV: Paula Montaldi was born at Montaldo near Mantua of pious and honourable parents. Excelling in integrity of life, and singular modesty and candour of character, she was vehemently moved from her very childhood by the love of divine things; whence, commonly distinguished by the appellation of saint, she turned to herself the admiration and homage of all the inhabitants. Disdaining more from day to day mortal allurements and worldly blandishments, it soon came about that she left her father's house, and gave her name to the Sisters of St. Clare in the Mantuan house of St. Lucy. She put on the monastic habit in the year one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight, when she had completed only her fifteenth year; and then, another year having passed, with the congratulation and votes of all she pronounced her solemn vows. It is wonderful how much she strove within the cloister, with the united powers of body and soul, towards the summit of perfection. Constantly intent on the contemplation of heavenly things, she received from her divine intercourse such an abundance of graces, and burned with such an ardour of charity, that, not being able to restrain herself, she poured it forth outwardly too in a new manner.
[7] the fifth lesson Lesson V. To afflict herself she used the arts of Christian penance up to her very last breath. With long fasting, vigils and savage scourging she mortified her body; and when, broken by their rigour, rest had necessarily to be given to her limbs, she was accustomed to lie on the bare ground with her head laid on a stone. To moderating every motion of the mind and restraining the senses she applied herself with unremitting spirit. Closing the entrance to idle wanderings of the mind, she enjoyed an almost continuous converse and fellowship with God. For when discourses on divine things were prolonged, it often happened that she seemed to be rapt out of herself. And though she shone with the gifts of charisms and with all virtues, she thought herself the lowest of all. Yet the nuns, admiring her virtues, three times chose her as their superior, in which office she served the increase of the monastery and the perfection of the nuns with equal sweetness, prudence and humility; with which, while holding office, she did not cease to perform any of the meanest offices, to which from her very first entry into religion she had in a manner bound herself.
[8] and the sixth lesson. Lesson VI. Burning with divine charity, she laboured to the best of her strength for herself and her sisters in such a way that she spent her efforts also outside the monastery for the salvation of others. For since the fame of her virtues spread more widely, very many kept coming to her cloister, to whom she was at hand with counsels, exhortations, and prayers efficaciously poured out to God. The enemy of the human race, hating so salutary an example of holiness, hurled all his weapons against her, but in vain. For, ensnared by no deceit of temptations, she routed as a complete victor all his attempts, both hidden and open. And so, advancing daily more in virtue, worn out by long affliction of the body rather than by old age, after she had duly fortified herself with the sacraments of the Church, at more than seventy years of age she most peacefully breathed out her soul on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the year one thousand five hundred and fourteen. Her body, because of popular disturbances and the vicissitudes of realms translated hither and thither with the greatest care, was at last carried over in triumphal pomp to her native place by the people of Volta, who took it ill to be deprived of their fellow citizen, and was laid in a skilfully built place under the altar of the chapel sacred to the blessed Virgin, where it is still religiously kept and venerated. Wherefore Pius IX, supreme pontiff, by his decree issued on the eighth day before the Ides of September in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, confirmed her cult, so ancient and widespread, and approved by the authority of bishops.
§ II. The family of Bl. Paula. Whether she was born at Genoa, or at Mantua or Montaldo in the territory of Mantua.
Bl. Paula is born in the year 1443, not of a Genoese family, Bl. Paula was born in the year of the Lord 1443, as Baccanti relates in the Life of the blessed nun [Vita della B. Paola, page 19; Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano, part II, volume I, at the 4th day of August, page 202.], which is also gathered from a note written in the Breviary used by the most devout virgin herself, and formerly kept in the Mantuan monastery of St. Lucy. Further, this is the note: This breviary was for the use of Bl. Paula de Montalti, who put on the habit of religion on the 1st day of April of the year 1458, in the fifteenth year of her age. But in treating of her native soil not all writers have held the same view, until at length Baccanti made the matter plain. But since the earlier opinions are not entirely lacking in the appearance of truth and seem to be supported by some documents, it seems necessary that we briefly set them out with the weight of their reasons; so that it may appear that they must entirely yield to the view of the Mantuans, especially of Baccanti. Some indeed say that the blessed nun was a Genoese, because the family of Montalti flourished there, some of whose men discharged rather distinguished offices among the Genoese, and also because Bl. Paula is read in a manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Lucy to have been born of the ancient family de' Montaldi, illustrious even today for its nobility in the city of Genoa. But, as Alberto Baccanti observes, first, the writers who think that Bl. Paula was born of the Genoese family de' Montaldi rest on no ancient document: then Leonardo Antonio de Centaura, secretary of the Seraphic province, to whom Baccanti had applied by letter on this matter, wrote on the 28th day of February of the year 1772 that, having used much diligence, he had found no ancient testimony of this matter; adding that a noble family de' Montaldi had once lived at Genoa, but was now extinct; and that in his own time there was there a certain family Montaldi, not noble, given to the mechanical arts, and entirely unaware of its common origin with Bl. Paula. And so few things favour the Genoese opinion.
[10] but of an honourable house There are those who think that she came from the duchy of Mantua. These, however, go different ways, since some hold that she came into life at Mantua itself, others in the neighbouring fief called Montaldo, of an honourable family. And indeed, to begin from there, that Bl. Paula was born in a distinguished station seems scarcely possible to deny. For, as appears from her letter given in the year 1472 to Ludovico III, marquis of Mantua, which we shall publish below in the Appendix, she entirely distinguishes the rank and condition of her nephew Ludovico, who is expressly called an honourable citizen, from the humble state of another man, who was both a simple farmer and Ludovico's servant. Then, to win indulgence for herself from the marquis, she recalls that the marquis had always been
of benevolent mind towards her brother Giacomo, so that he seems to have been his ministerial, that is, one in his service: which class of men was held almost among the nobles. Moreover, in the same letter the abbess of the monastery is called by her father's name Elisabetta d'Ippolito; whereas Bl. Paula is called by the name of her family or fief, de Monte Alto: which things show that her birth was not humble.
[11] of the Montaldi, Much more difficult is the question of her native place, namely whether she took her surname from those men of Montalto who had their seat in the fief itself of Monte Alto near Volta, or from those who, born of the same family, lived at Mantua: for it is most probable that it was one and the same family. That the matter may be settled more easily we subjoin a little index on the family of Monte Alto: which has this title: Memoirs of the most illustrious count Carlo d'Arco on the family of the Montaldi, excerpted from volume III of the manuscript of the Mantuan Families. And it continues thus: In the Mantuan church of St. Dominic there existed an ancient sepulchral monument, from which Galeotti and Dell'Acqua drew the marble coat of arms of Niccolò Montaldi, in this form: (What sort of coat of arms this was, let the reader see for himself). From the old writings of Schivenoglia and Quadri the following genealogical tree has been constructed.
TOBIAS.
He lived at Mantua about the middle of the fourteenth century. He had these five sons:
I Cristoforo, II Paolo, III Bartolomeo, IV Niccolò, V Francesco.
I Cristoforo had a son Bartolomeo. He indeed is called "Bartolomeo, son of the late D. Cristoforo de Montaldo." The same was elected councillor of the community in the year 1455, and is said to have had his seat at the Massara bridge towards Santa Carità. It is added that he was an upright man whose industry did not flourish, but that through his brother, a Franciscan religious, it came about that he did not altogether lack work.
II Paolo in the year 1402 is found called "the commendable man D. Paolo de Montaldo." And between the years 1386 and 1395 he was massaro (that is, custodian) of the consortium. Zucchi relates that he was a philosopher and physician, and that in the year 1380 six horses were stabled with him on the occasion of the wedding of the marquis Francesco I.
III That Bartolomeo had a son Niccolò is gathered from a testament written in the year 1458 by Francesco Maria Torelli. For in this instrument is read "witness the distinguished man Niccolò, son of the late Bartolomeo de Montaldo, in Ca[lle] del cavallo." He seems (n. b.) to have moved his seat to a villa near Volta, and hence in the course of time the name de Montaldo to have come, and perhaps (n. b.) Bl. Paula was his daughter.
IV Of Niccolò, in the register of the councillors of the community of Mantua at the year 1407, these things are read: "Niccolò de Montaldo, mezzadro and councillor, son of the late D. Tobias, of the church of St. Giles; who died on the 12th day of May 1426."
V Of Francesco it is read noted at the year 1417: "The distinguished and prudent man the lord Francesco de Montaldo, citizen of Mantua."
Other names in that paper, which the venerable canon Savoyo of Pavia sent us with much kindness, have been handed to us; but since they are of a later age, they concern us too little for us to subjoin them here. This one thing we will add, that it seems to Zucchi that this family became extinct at Mantua before the year 1630. From this whole passage, therefore, only this can be gathered, that some Montaldi lived at Mantua in the fifteenth century, which we already knew from elsewhere. But what is said of Niccolò, as if he had been the father of Bl. Paula and had moved from Mantua to Monte Alto, are mere conjectures.
[12] not at Mantua, Galvani puts forward almost the same view, namely that Bl. Paula was born at Mantua. He shows first of all the sepulchral inscription of Paolo Montaldi, formerly existing at Mantua. There exists, he says, The tomb of the distinguished man Paolo de Montaldo and of his heirs: At the time when Alberto Baccanti was composing his book, this tomb was still to be seen in the Mantuan convent of the Friars Preachers. Galvani adds that, having searched the records both of families and of testaments and of the taxes of the town of Mantua and its territory, he found that the family Montaldi lived at the bridge called Massara: likewise that he had in hand two testaments, of which one, of the year 1491, was of Elisabetta, wife of Ludovico de Montaldo, the other, of the year 1503, of Ludovico de Montaldo himself. Whether this Ludovico was the nephew of Bl. Paula, whom we shall see involved in the question in the year 1472, I should not dare to determine. The same Galvani, in order to defend his view against the people of Volta, of whom below, having scrutinized the book of taxes of the parish of Volta, affirmed that he had nowhere found the name of any Montaldi. But, as will soon appear, he was not diligent enough in investigating the records of Volta. From the whole of Galvani's disputation only this can be gathered, that there were formerly Montaldi at Mantua, which no one has denied, but not that Bl. Paula was born there.
[13] but in the fief of Montaldo, We come at length to the last view: others, namely, think that Bl. Paula was brought into the light by honourable parents in the village of the parish of Volta called Montaldo, in the diocese of Mantua Baccanti, Vita e gesta della B. Paola Montaldi, page 25.. Which opinion is supported by arguments not to be despised. And indeed this was, at the end of the eighteenth century, the common persuasion of that place, as Antonio Maltini, a native of Volta, archpriest of Marmirolo, openly affirmed in the eighteenth century. Indeed the house too, the former dwelling of Bl. Paula, was shown. Nor was the report recent that the Montaldi had formerly lived at Volta; for on the 18th day of July of the year 1532 a certain family called Montaldi inhabited the place Montaldo itself, as is established from the genuine testament of Pellegrino Francesco Delbono Boselli, a citizen of the parish of Volta. Add that in the catalogue of the nuns putting on the habit of the Order, Bl. Paula, like her other companions, is called de Montaldo, the name of her native place being added. For there it was written: Sister Anna of Friuli, clothed in the year 1449; Sister Giacoma of Mantua, in the year 1450; Sister Angela of Ottolengo, in the year 1453; Sister Costanza of Brescia, in the year 1455; Sister Bernardina of Verona, in the year 1455; Sister Giustina of Governolo, a lay sister, in the year 1455; Sister Paula of Montaldo, in the year 1458; Sister Lucia of Soragna, in the year 1460, etc. The same is gathered from two public instruments which the same Alberto Baccanti had before his eyes Ibid., page 33.: of which the former is a contract entered into on the 14th day of January of the year 1461 between count Lancillotto Ippoliti and the nuns of St. Lucy. In the presence of Sister Dorotea of Milan; Sister Marta of Canedo; Sister Agnese of Brescia; Sister Susanna of Mantua; Sister Marta of Verona…; Sister Paula of Montaldo, and Sister Lucia of Soragna. The latter too is a contract made by the same, on the 2nd day of June of the year 1471, in the presence of Sister Dorotea of Milan, Agata of Verona, Barbara of Brescia, Paula of Montaldo, Lucia of Cremona, etc.
[14] in the parish of Volta of the diocese of Mantua. Those reasons of Baccanti for showing that Bl. Paula was born at Montaldo certainly seem very firm. Yet the argument which is drawn from her surname de Montaldo troubles me. For since in that age not all had family names, it may have happened that Bl. Paula alone among the Sisters had a family name: which, namely, her fathers had drawn from the place from which they originated. Certainly, if Bl. Paula had not been of the family of the Montaldi, she would less fittingly, writing to the marquis Ludovico II, have called herself de Monte Alto because of her place of origin, since in the city of Mantua itself an honourable family was living which had that same proper name. In which letter, moreover, she not only calls her nephew, as by a family name, Ludovico de Monte Alto, but, adding no surname, she names her brother simply Giacomo, as if sufficiently known by her own name of Paula de Monte Alto. Yet I would not deny that nothing prevents the blessed nun from having been born at Monte Alto, and some of her kinsmen from having moved to Mantua, taking the additional name de Monte Alto from their place of origin. For the tradition of the people of Volta is not to be rashly rejected, that Bl. Paula was born in the parish called Volta in the village of Montaldo, which, as we have seen, a certain family called Montaldi inhabited. In our own age indeed this view has seemed so certain to the Mantuans themselves that they most willingly allowed the incorrupt body of Bl. Paula, as we shall narrate below, to be carried in the year 1813 to the church of Volta, as to her native soil: although, since the blessed nun had died at Mantua in the monastery of St. Lucy, her body was the property of that town. Of which dwelling of the blessed girl something must now be discussed briefly.
§ III. Of the entry of Bl. Paula into the monastery of St. Lucy. The origins of this monastery. Of the rule of St. Francis mitigated by Urban IV and Eugenius IV.
The monastery of St. Lucy, founded in the year 1380, The monastery of St. Lucy, situated in the town of Mantua, was contiguous to the parish church of St. Giles, near the house of Bl. Osanna Andreasi, a familiar of Bl. Paula. This house took its beginning in the year 1380, under Ludovico II, marquis Gonzaga, and the Roman pontiff Urban VI, and was the daughter of another house, likewise established at Mantua. On which matter we have learned from Gonzaga that in the year 1238 a house was founded for the companions of St. Clare, then still living, at Migliarino, near the Cerese gate, three hundred paces from Mantua; but as the number of nuns increased daily, as Baccanti read in the unpublished Mantuan History of Amadei, because of the life remarkable for holiness for which the seraphic virgins were renowned, they could no longer stay in their old house. Wherefore, says Wadding, in the year 1380 the citizens of Mantua decreed to build another within the city under the name of St. Lucy, which within a few years they brought to completion, most capacious for ninety and more Sisters [Wadding, volume III, page 16; volume IX, page 42; Gonzaga, part II, page 321; Gionta, Il fioretto delle croniche di Mantova, page 55.]. The nuns did not persevere in the most devout disciplines, and little by little, neglecting their Rule and forgetful of their holy profession, they did not blush to lead a life not at all religious. But, helped by divine light, they perceived how far they had departed from the path of perfection, and, God helping, at length in the year 1449, as Donesmondi relates in the Ecclesiastical History of Mantua, they gave much effort to reforming their morals. That they might accomplish this more easily, they brought in from the monastery of Migliarino Dorotea of Milan or, as others contend, of Monza, Elisabetta del Puro, Barbara de' Ceresari and Anna of Friuli, virgins wholly devoted to God, who introduced among the nuns of St. Lucy the reform, that is, the observance of the institute, fasting, prayer, monastic discipline and the practice of the best virtues; so that thereafter the norm of regular living flourished there, not such as St. Francis of Assisi in the year 1224 to St. Clare and her companions
proposed, but such as it had been either changed or mitigated by several Roman pontiffs, Gregory IX, Innocent IV, Alexander IV, Urban IV, and Eugenius IV.
[16] first it took up the Hugolinian rule What we set forth here about the origins of the houses of Migliarino and St. Lucy, and especially about the change of the institute made there, will perhaps put into the reader a suspicion that Bl. Paula gave her name to a community whose discipline had lapsed. But he would greatly err in this; since those changes, by which the most devout virgins might lead a less harsh life, were introduced by the Roman pontiffs, the nuns for the most part reluctant, as will appear from the fortunes of the Rule of the Poor Clares De Gubernatis, Orbis Seraphicus, volume II, page 603 and following.. At first indeed St. Clare and her companions, having their seat in the Assisi monastery of St. Damian, after the example of St. Francis procured their food only by receiving alms; but while he in the year 1219 was expounding Christian doctrine in the East, cardinal Hugolino, protector of the Friars Minor, held out to the Poor Clare nuns the Rule of St. Benedict to be observed, and permitted them to possess goods in common in future Wadding, Annales Minorum, volume I, page 312 and following.. This norm of living the nuns of St. Clare spread throughout all Italy adopted: yet so that to the virgins of Assisi, over whom St. Clare presided, at their earnest request, it was granted to keep the original abstinence and to live destitute of all possession or revenue Ibid., volume II, page 78.. But in the year 1224 St. Francis, substituting a new Rule for the milder precepts of cardinal Hugolino, who had changed his mind, ordained that no goods anywhere were to be possessed by St. Clare and her companions. This discipline of St. Francis is called the First Rule of St. Clare. But Hugolino, thinking it too hard, having become Roman Pontiff as Gregory IX, in the year 1228 urged St. Clare that, because of the events of the times and the dangers of the ages, she should consent to have some possessions, which he himself also liberally offered: but the holy woman resisted with the strongest mind, and in no way acquiesced Acta SS., volume II of August, page 758.. Meanwhile in many houses of St. Clare the earlier Hugolinian Rule was obeyed; which Gregory IX himself approved by word, and, the necessary changes being made, Innocent IV Wadding, volume III, pages 187 and 482. by a bull of the year 1247.
[17] then that of the Urbanists, That indulgence of both pontiffs St. Clare bore only most unwillingly, and when she was near death, she earnestly asked and obtained from cardinal Rainaldo, protector of the Order, bishop of Ostia, and nephew of Gregory IX, that he would urge Innocent IV to revoke the mitigation of the First Rule introduced by his paternal uncle. Hence Rainaldo (afterwards Alexander IV), in the name of Innocent IV, in the year 1252 Wadding, volume III, page 287., no differently from Innocent IV himself in the year 1253 Ibid., page 303., approved the First Rule, yet in such a way that full power was given to the houses wishing to follow the Hugolinian Rule to do so. Moreover the same Roman pontiff Innocent IV forbade that, either by the Friars Minor, or by bishops and others, whether clerics or laymen, any other Rule be imposed on the Poor Clares of Assisi following the First Rule Orbis Seraphicus, volume II, page 614.. Likewise he ordered that, in whatever houses the same First Rule had already been taken up, it should be regarded as the law of the Order. But after a few years the First Rule suffered other vicissitudes: for Urban IV in the year 1263, at the request of St. Louis the king, permitted the nuns of Longchamp near Paris to possess goods in common, and prescribed a less rigid life Wadding, volume IV, pages 162, 507.. Almost the same manner of living the same Urban IV, on the advice of St. Bonaventure, imposed on all the Poor Clares. And the pontiff entered on this way because it greatly displeased him that in some houses the prescriptions of St. Francis were used, in others those of Gregory IX, in others those of Innocent IV, in others those of Alexander IV, and also that the nuns themselves were called in various places now Damianites, now Poor Ladies, now Minoresses, now enclosed Sisters, now Clares. And the institute of Urban IV is called the Second Rule of the Poor Clares. Many monasteries took it up. But the remaining convents, wishing to order their life according to the First Rule, asked and obtained this faculty from Urban IV himself. The latter were called Clares of the First Rule, or simply Clares, the former Clares of the Second Rule, or Urbanists De Gubernatis, Orbis Seraphicus, volume II, page 618.. To the second class belong the nuns of Migliarino and therefore the Clares of St. Lucy, as having been drawn from this monastery almost from the Urbanian beginning, as Gonzaga relates Origo Religionis Seraphicæ, part II, page 319 and following.. Hence it follows that Bl. Paula never lived in a monastery of Clares of the First Rule, but of Urbanists, and is therefore rather to be called an Urbanist than a Clare.
[18] afterwards that of Eugenius IV; In the time of Bl. Paula the house of St. Lucy followed not the original Second Rule, but one much milder: since twelve years before she was enrolled among the Urbanists of St. Lucy, the Rule of all the Clares seemed so hard to Eugenius IV, the Roman pontiff, that by apostolic letters of the year 1447 he greatly mitigated it. From which letters we excerpt a few things, both because Bl. Paula ordered her life according to their norm, and because, when they have been set out, her deeds to be related below will be more easily understood. But first I should like it noticed that Bl. Paula, in embracing the institutes of Pope Eugenius IV, used no dispensation from the Rule (such things men illustrious for holiness reject): for first Eugenius IV, no differently from Urban IV, substituted new prescriptions for the old ones against the will of many Clares: then Bl. Paula was co-opted among the Clares after the discipline of the Order had been changed. Now hear, reader, the words of Eugenius IV.
[19] which Bl. Paula followed: Since in the Rule of Bl. Clare a perpetual fast is enjoined, which indeed we hold to be too rigorous, it pleases us and we will that the aforesaid Sisters, and those of the third or other Orders, be bound only to those fasts to which you Brothers of the Order of Minors observing the Rule are obliged, and that they keep the same manners in Lenten food, the weak and sick excepted: but in the other fasts, such as the Ember Days, the vigils of the apostles and the like, let the custom of the region be kept, according to which it is lawful to eat eggs and milk-foods. Since also in some monasteries the Sisters or nuns go barefoot, unshod, which we judge too rigorous, it pleases us and we will that the Sisters or nuns may wear those things which are not reckoned under the name of shoes, for instance wooden clogs and sandals, and also, when it shall be necessary, shoes. Likewise, since in some monasteries, places and congregations they enjoin perpetual silence, which indeed is too rigorous, we grant to you and your successors in office, and to the vicars of the provinces subject to you, with the advice of the discreets, the faculty of dispensing both in any other perpetual things and in the aforesaid silence. Moreover, since our beloved son Brother John of Capistrano, your predecessor in the office of vicar, has declared that in the first Rule of Bl. Clare are contained one hundred and three regular precepts, in the transgression of which the professed nuns or Sisters incur mortal sin, and we judge this too hard and scrupulous, by the aforesaid authority and tenor we declare and will that in the transgression of none of the aforesaid, except those four which concern the principal vows of obedience, poverty, enclosure, chastity, and moreover the election of the abbess and her deposition, do they incur mortal sin. Likewise, since certain monasteries and places of the aforesaid live in mendicancy, it pleases us and we dispense that in the dish, that is the portion, they may use fat and lard [Wadding, volume XI, page 273. Bullarum Amplissima Collectio, volume III, part III, page 57, Mainardi edition.].
[20] She had the Observant Friars Minor as directors. By this pontifical decree it came about that the discipline admitted by the house of St. Lucy was much milder than that which had been ordained either by St. Francis or by other Roman pontiffs, especially Urban IV. Keeping this exactly, blessed Paula soon reached the summit of perfection. To which thing Eugenius IV contributed not a little, committing the care of the monastery of St. Lucy to the Observant Friars Minor, who at that time, under the leadership of St. Bernardino of Siena, St. John of Capistrano, Bl. Alberto of Sarteano and many others, were greatly promoting the affairs of the Church with remarkable prudence almost everywhere on earth. Now, that the Observant Friars Minor were the directors of the nuns of St. Lucy we gather first from this, that the four virgins of the Mantuan house of Migliarino, to whom at that time the amendment of the Lucian monastery had been entrusted, had already from the year 1434 used the Friars Minor of the Observance as rectors [Gonzaga, part II, page 320 and following; Wadding, volume III, at the year 1238, page 16.]; then that Eugenius IV, Roman pontiff, by apostolic letters given on the Nones of February of the year 1447, willed that all the monasteries of the first, the second, the third or another Order of St. Clare and St. Francis in these parts be entirely subject to the Friars Minor of the Observance Bullarium, volume III, part III, page 57.: which he also ordained by a special decree of the year 1449 for the house of St. Lucy Gonzaga, page 321; Wadding, volume IX at the year 1380, page 43.. It does not escape me that this state of affairs, as being by no means in accord with the mind of Saints Francis and Bonaventure, was admitted most unwillingly by their successors [Compare Wadding, volume I at the year 1219, number 44. Likewise, volume IV at the year 1263, number 15 and following; Orbis Seraphicus, volume II, book XI, chapter VII, page 663 and following, Bullarium Franciscanum, volume I, page 538.], and that it was so ruinous to the Minorites that Wadding, the most diligent historian of the Friars Minor, did not hesitate to call the care of nuns burdensome, troublesome, dangerous, and an incurable wound of the Seraphic Order Wadding, volume I at the year 1219, page 318.. Nor was the judgment of several regular Orders different, which bear either no government of nuns or only the most sparing. Hence St. Ignatius, taught by his own experience and that of others how grave a harm it would bring to the Society of Jesus if it undertook the care of nuns, obtained from the Roman pontiff that neither he nor his members be set over them as directors Acta SS., volume VII of July, page 708.. Nor does it seem to have succeeded for the Carthusians Helyot, Histoire des Ordres religieux, volume VII, part V, chapter 53., the Premonstratensians Jacques de Vitry, Historia, book II, chapter 22, page 324, Douai edition 1597., and also the Minims [Ignace Joseph Marie, Histoire d'Abbeville, book I, chapter 64, article 12, page 295 and following; Lanovius, Chronicon generale Ordinis Minimorum, at the year
1621, page 507 and following; Helyot, volume VII, part V, chapter 57.] the institution of nuns: for they tried either to stop or to hinder their propagation.
[21] Alberto Baccanti, the biographer of Bl. Paula, is discussed. These things completed, it is time to speak of the biographer of Bl. Paula, Alberto Baccanti, whom we have already mentioned several times, and who in the year 1772 published his little work with this title: Vita e Gesta della beata Paola Montaldi, monaca professa nel monasterio di S. Lucia di Mantova, scritta dal sacerdote Alberto Baccanti, dottore di sacra teologia, cavagliere della Milizia aurata pontifizia, abate titolare di S. Lucia, e canonico della insigne collegiata di S. Stefano di Casalmaggiore. In Casalmaggiore MDCCLXXII [Life and Deeds of blessed Paola Montaldi, professed nun in the monastery of St. Lucy of Mantua, written by the priest Alberto Baccanti, doctor of sacred theology, knight of the pontifical Golden Militia, titular abbot of St. Lucy, and canon of the distinguished collegiate church of St. Stephen of Casalmaggiore. At Casalmaggiore 1772]. The sources from which that man, distant almost two hundred and fifty years from the holy nun, took the deeds of blessed Paula are almost the same as those which we adduced at the beginning in confirmation of the immemorial cult. At the end of the book he laments the loss of a compilation written at the beginning of the eighteenth century; which collection contained many particular things about blessed Paula, and was formerly kept in the monastery of St. Lucy. He asserts that he has said nothing of his own. He was guided chiefly by a little work, written in disorderly fashion by an anonymous author, on the deeds and miracles of Bl. Paula, which was printed at Mantua in the year 1732 by Alberto Pazzoni, and of which the postulators of the cause for confirming the cult of Bl. Paula found a copy nowhere, nor could we again discover one, the help of booksellers and others having been employed in vain. It is very probable that this anonymous writer had that collection at hand, so that fewer things have perished than appears at first sight. For the rest, the things that have become known about Bl. Paula are of such a kind as could be gathered from the acts of the convent, or heard from the nuns; certainly most of them pertain much more to the manner of things than to the things themselves, and are of the kind which could easily be handed down faithfully in a monastery through several centuries. Ippolito Donesmondi, who wrote in the year 1612, and Wadding, twenty-five years later, teach that the more recent miracles of Bl. Paula were collected by Ludovico Grazia of Tridino (Trino), a noble and learned man, who in the year 1597 published the Life of Bl. Osanna Andreasi of Mantua, a tertiary of the Order of Friars Preachers and a friend of Bl. Paula. Which Life is so rare that our predecessors could not obtain it, Andrea Rossotti, author of the Syllabus of the writers of Piedmont, was ignorant of it, and Gio. Andrea Irico, writer of the history of Trino, obtained it with effort Res Patriæ, book III, page 313.. In this Life he mentioned, in two chapters Baccanti, chapter LV, page 220., the intercourse of Bl. Osanna with Bl. Paula, a summary of whose Life too he inserted. And although I find it nowhere indicated that the more recent miracles of which Wadding and Donesmondi speak were published in this very Life of Bl. Osanna, yet I do not doubt that the anonymous author of 1732 and Baccanti took them from there. For if Ludovico Grazia had written a separate book on Bl. Paula, Ippolito Donesmondi would have mentioned not the more recent miracles collected by him, but rather the Life itself, as being the principal thing. The same seems to be said of Irico, who of all was most engaged in the praises of Ludovico Grazia, and nevertheless made absolutely no mention of a separate little book (either written by his hand or printed) on Bl. Paula. And the benefits or miracles which happened through the intervention of Bl. Paula after Baccanti's book was published we have taken from the Summary of the Information on confirming the cult of the blessed woman. From all of which it appears that the Life which we shall publish, although it is not taken directly from wholly contemporary monuments, is nevertheless of an authority not to be despised. We have used Baccanti's work above all for sketching the Life of blessed Paula: indeed it would have been converted by us word for word from Italian into Latin, if that author did not labour under too diffuse a style. This however does not prevent us, drawing our narration from this rich source, from adding many facts excerpted from Wadding and other genuine writers.
LIFE OF BL. PAULA OF MONTALDO, VIRGIN, A CLARE OF THE MITIGATED SECOND RULE,
collected from Alberto Baccanti, Wadding, and many others.
Paula de Montaldo, virgin of the mitigated third Order of St. Francis. (B.)
BY R. D. B.
CHAPTER ONE.
The birth of Bl. Paula, her youth, her entry into the monastery of St. Lucy, and her religious vocation.
Bl. Paula, born in the year 1443, the Order of Poor Clares, Being about to write the deeds of Bl. Paula, a nun of the Mantuan house of St. Lucy a, we cannot but begin from her birth. The blessed girl was born, then, in the year 1443, of parents commendable in condition, morals and piety, in the fief of the parish of Volta b called Montaldo c, in the territory of Mantua, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga being marquis d. The writers are silent about her family, her brothers e, and other domestic matters. Of her childhood they relate scarcely anything else than that from her tender years, as she had been taught by her mother, she strove to please God, and that all wondered at her modesty and her piety in church, especially at the time of the most holy sacrifice of the Mass. To converse with Christ hanging on the cross was most delightful to her. The prayer: "Passion of Jesus Christ, Blood of Jesus Christ, Jesus, Mary, mercy," which she had composed for herself, she used a hundred times every day. When she was stronger in age, being asked by her mother about the kind of life to be chosen by her, she answered that she had long been asking God with suppliant prayer to give her His Only-begotten Son as her spouse. And indeed no one thought her unworthy of so sublime a state of life: for so great was the fame of her holiness that she was called by the people the little saint. And one day, when she had received the Eucharist in the parish church, she set out to her parents that she was called by God to embrace the religious life: "God," she said, "calls me to the religious life. I have read the Life and Rule of St. Clare of Assisi. I desire to follow them and to become a nun of her Order; provided I am assured that my purpose will not displease you, I renew before you the vow which I have just taken in the church, of going to the sanctuary of Blessed Mary of the Graces, and there asking counsel of the Mother of God, towards whom I am moved by filial veneration and in whose supreme patronage I have placed all my hope."
[2] having first consulted the Mother of God, Now the church of Blessed Mary of the Graces is a magnificent sanctuary, which the inhabitants of that district and strangers call the Grazie of Mantua, on the southern side of the lake and contiguous to the lake itself, distant five thousand paces from Mantua, and seven thousand from Montaldo. The origins of this sacred building are described by Gonzaga De Origine Seraphicæ religionis Franciscanæ, part II, page 304: "There once stood," he says, "at the fifth milestone from the .. city of Mantua … a certain little shrine … dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which a certain poor anchorite … inhabited. When therefore in the year … 1399 … a contagious plague was raging among the Mantuans, .. the marquis of the Mantuans … bound himself by vow to the construction of a church to be dedicated to the glorious Virgin, if the aforesaid plague should depart from Mantua. Having therefore obtained his vow … he raised the aforesaid little shrine into a most beautiful church under the title of Holy Mary of the Graces …" To this church, the care of which was afterwards committed to the Friars Minor of the Observance, innumerable faithful of Christ come throughout the whole year, but especially on the feast of the Assumption, to venerate the Mother of God herself: and many and precious gifts offered to the holy Virgin Mary by princes and other magnates are kept there. When Bl. Paula was being taken here by her parents across the lake, a storm, in the middle of the lake, tossed the boat in which she was carried with such violence that the rowers tried in vain to overcome the whirlwinds. But the blessed girl, placing all her confidence in God, said: "Be certain that God will help us." Then with great piety she recited the ejaculatory prayer: "Passion of Jesus Christ, Blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus, Mary, mercy," and immediately the storm was calmed. And in the very sanctuary of the Mother of God she poured out most humble and most fervent prayers, and, fortified with the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, she seemed to hear within herself a voice saying: "Paula, embrace the religious life: let the Seraphic Order be yours: go to Mantua, to ask to be co-opted among the nuns of St. Lucy. There you will find what you seek, your divine mother and your divine spouse." After this Bl. Paula at once resolved to join the community of St. Lucy, and renewed the vow of perpetual virginity which she had long since taken.
[3] She enters at Mantua; where after the novitiate And since at that time the nuns of St. Lucy f, formerly unmindful of their duty, had already for nine years been returning little by little to amendment g, it was by no means shameful to join their flock. And so Bl. Paula asked urgently to be co-opted among the nuns: and, since the fame of her exceptional goodness was spreading, she obtained it by the votes of all. A few days later, on the 1st day of April of the year 1458, Ludovico the Turk, or III, being marquis of Mantua h, she was clothed in the monastic habit, being in her fifteenth year. As a novice she went before her other companions to the church, to the choir and to the divine office. And the time to be passed in solitude she spent in all heavenly contemplation, and gave thanks to God that by His benefit she had been enrolled among the nuns of St. Lucy. She held no motion of divine grace visibly working in her of little account: she also made continual war on her body, cultivating the other monastic virtues in a wonderful way. And if afterwards there was talk of her year of novitiate, she was accustomed to say that at that time she had been truly happy; for, continually turning over in her mind the sublimity of her vocation, she regarded nothing but God in word or in work. Add that she very frequently meditated on the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and also on His presence in the Most Holy Eucharist, no differently from the most bitter sorrows of His mother. She was also most inclined to service towards the other nuns. Moreover, most sparing of her time, whatever remained after her exercises of piety were completed, she tried to spend wholly on the benefit of the monastery. Hence, in a few months, she contributed more by her excellent examples to restoring monastic discipline in the house than Dorotea of Milan and the other virgins, to whom this task had been entrusted by the ecclesiastical superiors, had in nine years: hence too it came about that the monastery of St. Lucy held not the lowest place among the religious houses of Mantua.
[4] having made her solemn vows, Her novitiate completed, and her sixteen years of age i fulfilled, she made the four solemn vows, as was the custom in the stricter houses of St. Clare, of poverty, chastity, obedience and enclosure k. Nor was it enough for her to promise obedience to her superiors, as is done in the Seraphic Order; she also resolved to obey all the nuns of the house, her confessors and other directors of her soul. To the vow of obedience she held the more tenaciously because of her rectors not
otherwise than as the commands of God Himself she received, and therefore it was her customary saying: "I cannot err in carrying out the commands of my superiors." Then, binding herself to perpetual enclosure, she promised God not only, as all the other nuns did, that she would never set foot beyond the threshold of the monastery, but also that she would never go either to the door or to the gratings l, unless it was absolutely necessary, or commanded by her superiors. After she had pronounced her solemn vows in this way, by God's favour she thereafter experienced an incredible peace and gladness of soul, exulting with joy if she could render service to God or to the house. Nor did she make much of anything except the things of God: hence the delights of this life, honours and other things of this kind were cheap to her: hence too her equanimity in adversity and prosperity, and her perfect and perpetual union with God: hence her most grateful mind towards God for so many and so great benefits.
[5] She burns with the love of God. Burning with the divine ardour of charity, she frequently exclaimed: "I love Thee, my God, I love Thee without measure, nor will I ever cease to sing Thy praises: I will give Thee most humble thanks until death, that Thou hast willed me to spend my life in this monastery, where, far from allurements and hindered by no business, I can serve Thee most perfectly. I know indeed that I owe very much to Thy mercy; which has lifted me out of unlawful pleasures, lest wickedness should change my understanding: Thou alone knowest how many and how great offences I should have committed, if Thou hadst left me in the midst of allurements. Wherefore I owe Thee a grateful mind, not only for these benefits, but also because by Thy help I have been free from sin, and Thou hast deigned continually to accompany me with Thy heavenly goodwill." But much more abundant thanks she rendered to God on the days on which she had been refreshed by the Most Holy Eucharist; then she exclaimed: "My Jesus, who truly art that which under the species of bread I have received, the Most Holy Sacrament, which Thou Thyself didst institute as the compendium of all Thy wonders, by which all men might for ever be roused to render due thanks: behold, I ask Thee to accept the affection of my mind as a pledge of the grateful mind which I owe Thee for so remarkable a benefit. I render Thee thanks, most holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God, who hast deigned, through Thine infinite mercy, without any merits of mine, to nourish me, Thine unworthy handmaid, with the precious body and blood of Thy Son."
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER TWO.
Bl. Paula three times abbess of the house. Her confidence placed in God, her piety towards the Most Holy Sacrament, and her other virtues.
Bl. Paula, three times abbess of the house, Since Bl. Paula passed her life within the domestic walls of the house, and was never summoned to apply her efforts to matters of the greatest moment, we easily understand that she shone among men only by the Christian virtues, which indeed before God are more precious than gold. Of these charisms we shall touch on a few, and first of her prudence. In the fifty years in which Bl. Paula lived in the house of St. Lucy she did not offend even one nun in any way, nor was she offended by a nun. She did everything so that all her companions, bound by the law of charity, might savour the same spirit of Christ, being persuaded that in ecclesiastical affairs, no differently than in political ones, by concord small things grow, by discord the greatest fall apart. Wherefore no one will wonder that she, since she was so renowned for prudence, was three times chosen abbess of the monastery by the votes of her companions: in which age, since Nicholas V had so ordered in the year 1447, the abbesses of the nuns of St. Clare discharged their office for one year only: which discipline however was not always the same a Ibid., volume II, book XI, chapter VII, page 688 and following.. And since he who lives for the order, as St. Bernard writes, lives for God, Bl. Paula enjoined that all the nuns should religiously keep the rule. Nor did she omit, following in the footsteps of Christ the Lord, who taught His disciples all virtues first by deeds, then by words, to shine before her companions as a lamp of the religious life. She knew too that the greatest harm is brought to houses when less suitable girls are admitted into them; and therefore, as is prescribed in the Rules of Gregory IX, of St. Francis Wadding, Annales FF. Minorum, volume II, page 78. and of Urban IV Ibid., volume IV, page 508., she joined no one to her community unless she had found her suitable and the other nuns had approved her. Add that, as she herself had rendered obedience rather out of love than out of fear, she also diligently taught this manner of obeying to the nuns; who complied with her admonitions the more easily because they held for certain that they were loved by her most perfectly for God's sake, all partisanship being set aside. She was sad with the sad, rejoicing with those who rejoiced, and especially solicitous for her companions troubled by infirmity of body or mind: in short, she had become all things to all.
[7] she discharges her office perfectly, But although she longed only for heavenly things, she was far from letting domestic affairs go to ruin; for she knew that the goods of the house were Christ the Lord's, and therefore worthy of every care; indeed that in religious families regular discipline had often collapsed, and the communities themselves had perished, because of the lack of necessary things. Of this solicitude indeed, at the end of the eighteenth century, a monument (which perhaps still survives today) was shown in the monastery of St. Lucy, namely a well, called "the well of Bl. Paula": which she ordered to be dug because the nuns suffered many inconveniences from the scarcity of water. The water of this well was so abundant that it not only sufficed for the monastery, but many townspeople also used it for daily use or for driving away diseases.
[8] placing all her hope in God. Further, in the governing of the monastery Bl. Paula was wonderfully helped by God, in whose goodwill all her hope was placed. There was no benefit that she desired which she did not obtain; wherefore it was a common saying among the nuns of St. Lucy that if Bl. Paula greatly desired any gift, she was always satisfied. And not being able to restrain the pious sentiments of her soul, she was accustomed to break out into these words: "I trust in Jesus; I know who He is; I know also that I can place all my confidence in Him." She sometimes used also these words of St. Paul the apostle: "I know whom I have believed." Which last words sufficiently indicate that she had so great a confidence in God because, loving the Lord more and more, she knew that men, the more closely they bind themselves to God and the more liberal they show themselves towards the supreme majesty, the more liberal they will also find Him towards themselves. Bl. Paula burned so vehemently with divine love that, whether obeying her directors, or offering prayers to God, or direly mortifying her body, or performing any other works whatever, she regarded the divine will alone. And if anyone asked a benefit of her, interposing the name of God, he never met with a refusal. Indeed, that she might burn daily with a more perfect divine love, she complied with Blessed Paul the apostle when he says: "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all to the glory of God." Very frequently she exclaimed: "Blessed, my God, is he who loves Thee: a thousand times more blessed he who has loved none but Thee: woe to the man who does not burn with love towards Thee! Cursed be he who will not love Thee."
[9] She often used the Most Holy Sacraments To increase in herself the love of God and of Christ she did not fail to use frequently the chief helps which Christ conferred on His Church, the Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. In the Rule which Urban IV gave in the year 1263 to the nuns of St. Clare we read: "And let all of the Rule make confession at least every month, and so, confession having been made first, on the following solemnities, namely on the Nativity of the Lord, the Purification of Bl. Mary, at the beginning of Lent, the Resurrection of the Lord, Pentecost, on the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, of Bl. Clare, of St. Francis, and of All Saints, let them receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Body b." But Bl. Paula was not content with these, and, her confessor approving, on every Sunday, on all the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Apostles, and on many other days, she received the Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, now that God might be propitious to the living, now to the dead, or that she might obtain some other benefit from Him. Reclining at the sacred table she shed tears for joy; and on that day she refreshed her body with no food. Nor could she think of this supreme charity of Christ the Lord without being forthwith rapt into ecstasy, her senses suspended: which indeed happened on days of holy communion, especially at the time of the Holy Sacrifice. During the communion itself she was in possession of herself; but when it was over, she was at once lifted up to the things above. At other times too she underwent ecstasies, namely when she gave herself beyond her custom to the contemplation of divine things. Moreover, so that her soul might be a more worthy dwelling of Christ the Lord and be enriched with more abundant gifts, as often as she refreshed herself with the Body of Jesus Christ, so often did she wash away the stains of her soul by sacramental confession: which were so slight that she seems never, through her whole life, to have committed even one light fault wholly willingly. But on the days on which she abstained from the holy Eucharist, she did not fail to receive it spiritually, as they say: for which pious work she was accustomed to prepare her mind not only by praying to God and the saints, but by examining whether in deeds and thoughts she had displeased the Deity.
[10] with the greatest profit to her soul. And so great was her devotion towards the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist that, when there was talk of Christ present there, she was as if all on fire and burned with the desire of pouring the sentiments of her piety into the souls of her companions: indeed, even when she was very weak in health, she would never be absent when the benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament was imparted to the nuns in the church c. When she was about to obtain from God benefits of soul or of body, or also to give thanks to God for gifts obtained, she was accustomed to approach the Most Holy Eucharist. And if the priest, elevating the Most Holy Sacrament, set it before the people to be adored, she perceived Jesus as if radiant; several times she seemed to see and hear the Mother of God and a choir of angels around the altar. This spirit of prayer received no small increases from Bl. Paula's familiar intercourse with Bl. Osanna Andreasi of Mantua, a tertiary of the Order of St. Dominic [Acta SS., volume III of June, page 667 and following. Summarium super dubio de immemorabili cultu B. Paulæ, page 3 and following.]. This holy girl at seven years of age had vowed virginity, which she kept unblemished to the end of her life with fasts, the hair-shirt and other torments of the body. She was very intent on prayer and especially on contemplating the sufferings of Christ, and it is scarcely credible how much she availed among the townspeople by the example of her holiness. Since Bl. Paula, bound by the vow of perpetual enclosure, could not go out of the house, Bl. Osanna, being freer, very frequently visited her, to hold converse with her on divine things: in which conversations they roused one another to serve God more perfectly. It also very often happened that they visited each other in spirit.
[11] Devoting herself to prayer From this most pious fellowship Bl. Paula attained a truly wonderful spirit of prayer. Indeed day and night she conversed with God and His Only-begotten Son, set out to them the needs of her soul, asked that she might be able to please them and be faithful to the end of life, and also that her thoughts and desires might always be holy. She also poured out prayers that unshaken faith, firm hope and perfect charity might grow in her, and that she might always faithfully keep the divine and seraphic law. Three exercises of piety, however, she had at heart above the rest, continually honouring the Most Holy Eucharist, of which we have just spoken, the Most Holy Passion of Christ the Lord, and the blessed Virgin Mary. From childhood she was accustomed to turn over in her mind what torments Jesus had to endure from the beginning of His life up to death, so that she might be more roused to love God and might come to a more perfect knowledge of God and of the Christian virtues. So great indeed was the piety with which she burned towards Christ disfigured with wounds, that very frequently she venerated now His hands, now His feet, now His bloodied side, no differently than the Most Holy Blood, and had almost continually in her mouth her chief prayer: "Passion of Jesus Christ, blood of Jesus Christ, Jesus, Mary, mercy."
[12] she often used short prayers composed by herself, By this prayer she obtained whatever she asked of God: then she vehemently exhorted the other nuns that by reciting it they might obtain heavenly gifts of every kind. Likewise she frequently said: "O my most sweet Lord, I pray Thee, by the most precious blood which Thou didst shed for sinners. O my beloved Jesus." She frequently used this prayer too: "Hail Mary, mother of the most sweet Jesus Christ, we pray also thy beloved Son, who ascended into heaven on that most blessed day, that He may give us a share of His kingdom, as He gave to His holy apostles and to all His disciples. Lord Jesus Christ, as Thou didst hear Mary Magdalene and Martha, who asked Thee to raise their brother Lazarus from the dead, and by Thy power didst call him back to life, already four days dead; I pray Thee, my Lord, to free me from eternal death, and that I may merit to stand at Thy right hand, to hear Thy holy, sweet and wise voice, most pleasing to Thy servants: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Lord, be gentle to me, as Thou wast in the house of Simon to St. Magdalene, and grant that very many tears may flow from my eyes."
[13] and she shone with piety towards the Mother of God Bl. Paula shone also with devotion towards the blessed virgin Mary, to whom she had devoted herself wholly in the sanctuary of the Graces: and this consecration she renewed in perpetuity in the monastery of St. Lucy. Moreover, on bended knees she honoured Mary now as the mother of God, now as the mother of mercy or advocate of sinners, and prayed her to obtain for her from her divine Son the grace of pleasing God in all deeds and words. To her she was wont to say these words: "Ah! Mary, mother of God, whom I know to have the bowels of mercy, who, in being willing to be the mother of the divine Word, didst also undertake the office of interceding for us with thy Son Jesus; in no way doubting of thy singular kindness, prostrate at thy feet, I venerate thee, I give myself wholly to thee, and I consecrate myself to thee as thy handmaid for ever, I choose thee as my Lady, my patroness and, if indeed thou permit it, my most sweet mother." Many other prayers of this kind, composed and used by Bl. Paula, were sent to Rome at the beginning of the eighteenth century, no differently from many other documents concerning the blessed nun, and were lost there. She frequently indeed prayed God for herself, for her monastery, for Mantua, for the universal Church: no one had recourse in vain to her prayers.
[14] She also wrote little works. Indeed, so that all men might be partakers of the spiritual goods in which she herself abounded, Bl. Paula wrote in the Italian language eight little works, whose titles sufficiently indicate what their subject is. For they are these: I Sweet is the love of Jesus. II He who has the name of Jesus in his mouth cannot perish. III Always Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. IV By the sign of the cross from our enemies deliver us, O our God. V Jesus in my mouth, Jesus in my soul, Jesus always in my mind. VI Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed. VII Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. VIII. Remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin. These works contained the true philosophy of Bl. Paula. Whose sum was this: one must strive with all one's might
that, after this fleeting life, we may attain the end which God has set before men; nothing is more fortunate than to love Jesus alone, whose name must be had constantly in the mouth and in the breast.
[15] She was humble, Although she was eminent for so many and so excellent charisms, she took no arrogance from them (having before her eyes on the one side her own lowliness, on the other the infinite majesty of God). Whence it came about that, when the nuns chose her as abbess of the house, she openly showed them that it pleased her more to be subject than to preside. Which office she would never have accepted had she not been certain that God had spoken by the mouth of her companions, and that therefore she must obey. It was also among her wishes (but the custom of the house stood in the way) to be called by her own name rather than by the name of abbess. She not rarely discharged the office of the serving or lay sisters; indeed she performed servile works of every kind, such as drawing water, sprinkling the garden, cleaning the monastery's wheat for grinding, washing the bowls and cooking vessels in the kitchen, sweeping the house and the domestic church, mending garments, and other things of this kind d. Nor did she think it shameful to serve with her own hands those lay sisters or even her maidservants, especially when they were afflicted with illness: and if there were things to be done, she would rather do them herself than enjoin them on others. Then, because it seemed to her that she had wrongly used the so many and so great gifts with which she had been loaded by God, she thought herself the vilest of all things. And if any disaster threatened the town of Mantua, her monastery, the Seraphic Order or the Church itself, she was persuaded that God permitted it because of her offences. She took it ill to be visited by a frequent crowd of people for the sake of honour; all of whom she treated with such reverence that she would never sit down first. When she was visited by religious of any regular Order, she always begged their blessing on bended knees.
[16] sparing of food, drink and sleep; She who thought so lowly of herself could not but be sparing of food, drink and sleep. For she feared lest, if she were more indulgent to the senses, she should be ensnared in the nets of sin, or burn less with the love of God. Hence she took such slender food that the other nuns said she prolonged her life by a miracle. She too, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux once did, loathed food and drink. Although she was not bound to the fasts enjoined by Urban IV, but only to those which Eugenius IV had left untouched, she would not use the indulgence of this pontiff, but rather approached the Urbanian severity, which is expressed in these words: "And let all the Sisters, and the serving ones, the sick excepted, from the feast of the Nativity of the glorious virgin Mary until the feast of the Lord's Resurrection, except on Sundays and on the day of the Lord's Nativity, keep a continuous fast: and from the Lord's Resurrection until the feast of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin, let them be bound to fast on Friday. At all times also, except the sick in the time of their sickness, let them abstain from eating meat. But the abbess may dispense with the weak, as she shall see to be expedient for their weakness. And they may lawfully use eggs and cheese and milk-foods, except from Advent until the Lord's Nativity, and from Quinquagesima Sunday until Easter, and also on Friday, and in the fasts generally instituted by the Church." Nor did Bl. Paula stop at these. For she fasted throughout the whole year every week on Wednesdays and Fridays and on Saturday. Then on many other days she was sustained only by bread and water; likewise on many other days, especially those on which she reclined at the Eucharistic table, she ate no food. And although she never indulged in sleep except most moderately (for when she was wearied she slept only three hours), yet she regarded sleep as time lost. Sometimes she spent whole nights in prayer, and when she was overcome by sleep, then she took it now lying on the ground, or on straw, or with a stone or dry branches placed under her head, now sitting in a chair, with her head leaning on one or the other elbow, or on a stool, or even on a step of the altar or of the stairs.
[17] She was savage against her own body. She went continually clothed in rough hair-shirts, and very frequently and very harshly tore her body with scourges made either of iron, or of thorns, or of cords. Consumption, weakness, blindness she endured in extreme old age for more than four years with the greatest patience: in which time she did not cease to speak of the passion of Christ. And while she was affected by so many and so great pains, she would converse with all on divine things, glad and cheerful, and as if she enjoyed the best health. Indeed, that she might cleave more to God and obtain heavenly benefits, she asked Him daily for new pains: and when her body was pressed by the direst infirmities, then in a wonderful way she gave herself to continual contemplation of divine things, no differently than if she had been in the best health. Nor did she then fast less, or pass the nights less in vigils, or treat her body less cruelly. Meanwhile she was gentle towards the nuns and complained of no pain, saying that she was pressed by no infirmity, so that the nuns doubted whether she was really tormented by disease. She seemed less glad only when medicines were prescribed for her by the physician: not because of their nausea, but because she thought this care of the body too refined. Wherefore she was accustomed to say: "It would be better to give this medicine to some poor person, who needs health and strength more than I. My infirmity pleases me greatly; I know that it is the will of God, which I wish to fulfil in all things and everywhere."
[18] The citizens of Mantua honoured her greatly while she lived. And these were the chief virtues of Bl. Paula. Nor could the holy woman, like a lamp under a bushel, be hidden in the monastery of St. Lucy, or fail to shine before the citizens of Mantua and of other places. Hence the marquis of Mantua, and his wife and sons, not rarely went to greet her, or to seek her opinion on matters of the greatest moment. Noblewomen, or even those of middling condition, were accustomed very frequently to go to Bl. Paula, so that God might favour their affairs, but especially that He might give them a happy delivery. The sick had greater confidence in her prayers than in the art of physicians. Noble and rich men, no differently from the poor and beggars, did not hesitate to communicate their cares both of soul and of body to her, and to obey her admonitions, as being salutary in every respect. Nor did distinguished men of the ecclesiastical order, of both kinds, think it a disgrace to meet her for the sake of counsel, and to follow her as a mistress: for it was the persuasion of all that Bl. Paula was wonderfully helped by divine light because of her holiness. But the end of her life was approaching; of which we shall treat briefly.
[19] She dies piously on the 18th day of August 1514. Bl. Paula died in the seventy-first year of her age and the fifty-sixth of her monastic life. Exhausted by vigils, fasts and other torments of the body applied, she had fallen into a most grievous illness, which was the more dangerous because, one day, praying before an image of Christ on a high stairway, she had been thrown to the ground by the demon and had so failed in body that her companions thought her dead. Near the end, although she was distressed by dire and continual pains of the body, she could never turn her mind away from God or divine things. Meanwhile, strengthened with the last sacraments, the other nuns and her confessor standing by, she breathed out her soul on the 18th day of August of the year 1514, embracing her most beloved Lord Jesus Christ fixed to the cross, and most devoutly pronouncing her accustomed prayer: Passion of Jesus Christ, Blood of Christ, mercy. Her companions did not doubt that, rich in merits, she had received the eternal reward immediately after her death, and that her intercession availed much in heaven. Hence they commended themselves to her patronage, touched her hands, and signed the cross of Christ on themselves with them; they applied to her body, as to sacred relics, rings, chaplets, medals, images of Christ fixed to the cross and other things of this kind.
ANNOTATA.
CHAPTER THREE.
The burial and translations of Bl. Paula.
The body of Bl. Paula is publicly honoured in the private church, The relics of Bl. Paula, because of the fame of her exceptional holiness, were deposited in an entirely separate place of the domestic church of the monastery of St. Lucy: indeed thereafter the office of guarding them was entrusted to one of the nuns. But since many obtained particular gifts from God through the intervention of the most devout woman, and there was talk of them through the whole province of Mantua, Gabriele of Mantua, sprung from the Galvani family, then minister provincial of the Friars Minor of that district, ordered the sacred body to be honourably deposited and kept in a cypress case. Meanwhile the relics of Bl. Paula, since God kept them free from all corruption, were held by pious men in greater reverence from day to day, until at length in the year 1603 Francesco Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua a and long before minister general of the whole Order of Friars Minor, of his own accord and moved by piety, permitted, and indeed ordered, that they be exposed to public veneration every year on the 18th day of August in the place where they were laid.
then from the year 1689 in the public church of the monastery of St. Lucy; There the sacred body rested until in the year 1689 it was translated into the public church of the convent; of which this was the cause. When Carlo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua b, had set out on the 26th day of June of the year 1687 into Hungary, to make war against the Turks for Leopold I, emperor c and king of Hungary, his most devout wife Anna Isabella, that he might return to Mantua as soon as possible, approached God pouring out prayers through the intervention of Bl. Paula. Hence she also gave the abbess of the monastery of St. Lucy fifty candles, one of which was to be burned on alternate days at the tomb of the blessed virgin, so that after a hundred days all the candles would have been burned up. Moreover two nuns were to recite daily a hundred times before the body of Bl. Paula the ejaculatory prayer composed by her, "Passion of Jesus Christ, etc." These vows God did not reject: for on the day on which the last candle was lit, the most noble Anna Isabella learned that her husband, duke Ferdinando, had already girded himself for the journey to Mantua: where shortly after, on the 12th day of October of the year 1688, he arrived safe Il fioretto delle croniche di Mantova, pages 140 and 142.. But since, after this benefit was received, Anna Isabella's piety towards Bl. Paula increased not a little, it came about, so that her zeal might be satisfied, that, in the presence of Enrico Vialardi, bishop of Mantua from the year 1687 to the year 1711 Italia Sacra, volume I, column 875., the body of the blessed virgin was translated with solemn pomp from the domestic church to the public one, to the high altar, on the 18th day of August of the year 1689. But the duchess, before this was carried out, ordered that the incorrupt body be deposited in two artistically adorned cases, one of marble, the other of crystal and transparent Baccanti, page 182..
[20] [from the year 1783 in the church of St. Catherine; from the year 1798 in the church of St. Vincent;] But when the emperor of Austria, Joseph the second, in the month of June of the year 1783, had suppressed the Mantuan monastery of St. Lucy, there were not lacking communities of religious who left nothing undone that their monastery might be enriched with the remains of Bl. Paula. The matter indeed succeeded for the nuns of St. Catherine of the Order of Friars Preachers d, and the sacred pledge was, at the emperor's command, publicly exposed in their church under the high altar Acts of the Confirmation of the cult, Summarium, page 14., and the feast of the blessed virgin was kept every year with solemn rite on the 18th day of August. In which place the holy relics remained until the 7th day of August of the year 1798 Ibid.. Then it was carried at 5 o'clock in the morning to St. Vincent's, also a monastery of nuns of the Order of Friars Preachers, and there in the domestic church under the high altar it was honoured with public cult. And this was done because a few days before, on the 3rd day of August, it had been decreed by Girolamo Filippini, at Mantua the commissary, as they called it, of the executive power, in the name of the Cisalpine Republic, that the inhabitants of St. Catherine's should move to the nuns of St. Vincent's e, and coalesce with them into one community Ibid., page 14..
[21] and in the year 1813, at the request of the people of Volta But since in the year 1810 the nuns had also been driven out of the monastery of St. Vincent, which was put to the use of soldiers, Bartolomeo Candrina, the parish priest, together with the inhabitants of the parish of Volta, asked in the year 1813 that the body of Bl. Paula, their fellow countrywoman, be translated to her native place. Assenting to these lawful wishes, Girolamo Trenti, vicar capitular of Mantua, the see being vacant, ordered that on the 13th day of August, in the presence of the principal priests and citizens of Mantua and Volta, they should first carefully examine the seals which had been placed on the urn when it was to be translated from the church of St. Lucy to the church of St. Catherine: then that it be carried to the cathedral church of Mantua and guarded there. Meanwhile the citizens of Volta, for piety's sake, asked that the remains of Bl. Paula be enclosed in a new urn, the price of which they themselves would pay: which faculty was granted them, because it was most surely certain that no harm would thereby be done to the incorrupt body, even if it were adorned with new garments.
[22] it was carried to Volta. And so on the 18th day of September the body of the blessed girl was taken out of the old urn, and, the garments having been cleaned and partly changed, was placed in a new one, gleaming with woven gold. The worn-out garments, as sacred relics, the vicar capitular ordered to be kept most religiously. Then about the first hour after noon, on the 25th day of September, the body of Bl. Paula was entrusted to the priests and citizens of Volta, who, setting out at once, the following night deposited the urn in the parish church of the parish of Goito, and on the next day about the eighth hour on the altar which had been erected in the place called Ghisiolo. Then the vicar capitular of Mantua, clothed in the insignia of his dignity and surrounded by a crown of clergy, ordered the urn of Bl. Paula to be uncovered, and a silver reliquary adorned with gems, which Tullo Guerrieri had given as a gift, to be hung in it. Then, in the sight of the marquis Tullo Guerrieri, prætor of Mantua, Ludovico Bonomi, prætor of Volta, and many others, the vicar capitular again ordered the urn, on which he placed his seal, to be closed. These things done, the clergy, followed by the vicar capitular, as also the confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament, and many people, in a continuous column, singing psalms, the band striking its brass, led the holy urn, which four priests carried on their shoulders, with four others standing by, to the parish church: on whose threshold they began to sing the hymn Te Deum: likewise, near the urn which had been placed on the table at the high altar, the antiphon "Veni Sponsa Christi", to which the vicar capitular added the prayer from the Common of Virgins "Exaudi". Afterwards the urn was placed in the upper part of the same altar in the sight of all: where it remained both through the Mass most solemnly celebrated by the vicar capitular, and through the Vespers sung in harmony and the benediction given with the Most Holy Sacrament, and then it was laid in a compartment under the table of the altar in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary. In perpetual testimony of which these letters were cut on the gospel side:
I, PAULA MONTALDI,
VIRGIN OF CHRIST, AM LAID HERE,
WHO, 355 YEARS AFTER I DEPARTED HENCE,
300 AFTER I DIED AT MANTUA,
WITH MY BODY NOT DISSOLVED,
BROUGHT OVER WITH SOLEMN POMP TO MY NATIVE PLACE,
REST HERE BENEATH THE ALTAR OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD,
ADORNED WITH AN ELEGANT TOMB BY THE PIETY OF MY PEOPLE OF VOLTA.
O YOU WHO KISS MY RELICS,
GIVE THANKS FOR MY SAKE TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST; HAVE HIM,
WHOM I PRAY TO BE EVER MOST PRESENT TO YOU,
THAT HE MAY SET YOU ALL BLESSED BESIDE ME.
Likewise on the epistle side:
BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE PREFECT OF THE PROVINCE
AND BY THE INDULGENCE OF GIROLAMO TRENTI,
ACTING IN PLACE OF THE BISHOP OF THE MANTUANS,
BY THE WORK AND ZEAL
OF TULLO M. GUERRIERI, MARQUIS, PRÆTOR OF MANTUA,
WITH BARTOLOMEO CANDRINA, PARISH PRIEST,
DOMENICO DOGINI, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR,
ALOISIO BONOMO, CARLO VILLAGROSSI, ALOISIO BOSELLI ASSISTING,
THE BODY OF BL. PAULA MONTALDI, OUR OWN,
FROM THE HOUSE OF THE FRANCISCAN SISTERS WHICH WAS AT ST. VINCENT'S,
THE COMMUNITY HAVING BEEN DISSOLVED, WAS TRANSLATED HERE
THE SIXTH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF OCTOBER, IN THE YEAR 1813.
ANNOTATA
at Migliarino near the Cerese gate, might have a dwelling. Although this house was abolished by Joseph II in the year 1797, yet it was granted to the nuns of this and of several other Orders that they might all use both the house and the church there together, until they were forced to move out of it in the year 1810: then their house was fitted for military uses Ibid., page 163 and following..
CHAPTER FOUR.
Miracles wrought through the intervention of Bl. Paula at Mantua and elsewhere.
At the prayer of Bl. Paula there are healed Ludovica Panizza, In the year 1251, on the very day of Pentecost, Ludovica Panizza, a nun of the house of St. Lucy, crippled for many years in a leg which, by order of her father Ludovico Panizza, a distinguished physician, she kept bound in a surgical instrument, was restored to health at the prayer of Bl. Paula. Namely, when she asked Vittoria Fera, also a nun of St. Lucy, who was in charge of guarding the remains of the blessed virgin, to obtain some relief for her through Bl. Paula, Vittoria answered: "Daughter, the first of the canonical hours is just about to be begun in choir: have yourself carried into the church near the body of the most devout virgin, and commend yourself fervently to her: the nuns too will join their prayers to yours. Do so and do not doubt." This said, Serafina Quaglia and Veronica Acerbi carried Ludovica near the sacred body; who, after she (together with the nuns) had offered some prayers, in the greatest fervour of prayer suddenly cried out: "Sisters, stop, I am dying, pray no more: oh, how great a pain!" But as the nuns went on more eagerly, she suddenly throws off the bandages of her leg, raises herself, walks through the whole church, and at length, on bended knees before the Most Holy Sacrament, gives most fervent thanks to God and to Bl. Paula for so great a benefit.
[23] Perpetua Marasca, On the same day Perpetua Marasca, another nun of St. Lucy, recovered her health by the merits of Bl. Paula. She had been so weak for many years that in her leg, which she could in no way move, she felt neither pain nor heat from the prick of a needle or a burning coal. When she had heard how wonderfully Ludovica Panizza had driven off her disease, she exclaimed: "Alas! I am wholly unworthy of so great a benefit, but I, who am much sicker than Ludovica, most need it." But, the nuns giving her courage, she ordered herself to be carried to the tomb of Bl. Paula, asking health of her with incredible confidence. There Nicolosa Rodiani, then abbess of St. Lucy, no differently from the other nuns, after the canonical hour of None had been recited, sang the litanies, and said other prayers for Perpetua Marasca. And she, in the midst of the prayer, began to cry out: "No more, pray no more: I am dying!" She was indeed lying on the ground half-dead, when at once she was restored to health, stood, walked through the church, bent her knees before the body of Bl. Paula, rose to adore the Most Holy Sacrament and to give thanks to God. Then she ran through the house and garden, and did not delay to discharge her usual duties, as before her illness.
[24] Felicita Pistroni, A third miracle was wrought on the same day of Pentecost at the prayer of Bl. Paula. Felicita Pistroni, also a nun of St. Lucy, now very old, had long been suffering from crippled hands. But, when she had heard how Ludovica Panizza and Perpetua Marasca had been freed from their disease, she asked health of God with the greatest confidence through the merits of Bl. Paula. Wherefore, Vespers having been recited, she went into the church to pray with the other nuns at the body of Bl. Paula. Where, after her hands had been signed with the sign of the cross, they were suddenly wholly restored from their weakness. Seeing this, all the nuns, exulting with joy, sang the hymn: "Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur." On the same day, when the fame of the three miracles had been spread through the whole town, there came to the monastery of the nuns a physician, and also the father of Ludovica Panizza: to whom, asking how they had driven off their disease, the three virgins, suddenly healed a little before, answered: "Our blessed Paula has made us well." These wonders, when they had been narrated by the physicians to Margherita Paleologa, wife of Federico II, marquis of Mantua a, contributed much, as we saw in the Preliminary Commentary, number 2, to increasing piety towards Bl. Paula.
[25] a nun called Ciriachi, A nun of St. Lucy, named Ciriachi, fell from a high window: and her artery, which is commonly called the pulse of the head, was broken. The physicians and surgeons, having made an examination, said she was dead: but behold, after she had been commended by the nuns to Bl. Paula, she suddenly recovered her health. This benefit was testified by Alessandro Andreasi, bishop of Mantua, who occupied this see from the year 1583 to the year 1593.
[26] the chaplain of the house of St. Lucy, When these things were happening, the bishop's chaplain was present, who, suffering at that time from a most acute pain at the heart, also turned to the kindly Bl. Paula, and at the same moment was freed from the disease. Wherefore he offered to Bl. Paula a silver votive offering, which in the year 1772 was still kept in the house of St. Lucy.
[27] a workman of the bishop of Mantua, A certain workman of Alessandro Andreasi, bishop of Mantua, of whom we have just spoken, was so afflicted with gangrene that there was every question of cutting off his arm. But, since he lacked the courage to undergo so cruel an amputation, he committed his cause to Bl. Paula, and formed the resolution of hanging up a silver votive offering; he also recited a hundred times the short ejaculatory prayer composed by Bl. Paula. Nor did the outcome deceive his hope: for, no remedy being applied, no physician or surgeon being called, beyond the hope of all, he suddenly recovered his health, and was able to take up his accustomed labours again without inconvenience.
[28] Diana Borromeo, Diana Borromeo of Florence, first lady of honour of Eleonora of Austria b, then duchess of Mantua, had received in a fall so grave a wound that in the judgment of all she would shortly die. But she committed the care of her life entirely to Bl. Paula. She added also a vow of lighting five candles at her tomb, if she recovered her health. Which piety so pleased God that He restored health to the sick woman.
[29] the ox-driver of the house of St. Lucy, The ox-driver of the monastery of St. Lucy, driving a loaded cart into the house, fell under the wheel and was so cruelly wounded that no hope of healing him shone forth. When a certain nun of the house had seen this, she laid upon him part of the garment of Bl. Paula, and he at once rose wholly unhurt.
[30] a matron of the Calipuli family, To a matron of the Calipuli family, when she was pregnant and had already for a long time been suffering most acute pains of the shoulder, and feared an unhappy delivery, Eleonora of Austria, duchess of Mantua, gave this counsel: "Send," she said, "someone to the monastery of St. Lucy, to get for you a cloth once used by Bl. Paula, and it will be as you wish." Eleonora's words pleased the pregnant matron, who, when the time of delivery was at hand, clothed in the cloth of Bl. Paula, beyond the usual brought forth her child most happily.
[31] a certain noblewoman, Another noblewoman, who herself too, as often as she was about to give birth, was in most manifest danger of death, when delivery was again at hand, laid the garment of Bl. Paula on her back, and suddenly brought the infant into the light most easily.
[32] Domenico Menini, Domenico Menini was so gravely affected by pleurisy and acute fever that the physicians no longer administered any medicine to him, as being incurable. But when he had put on a garment of Bl. Paula received from the monastery of St. Lucy, which he favoured, he suddenly recovered his health. A similar benefit was obtained by many others by touching either the garment or the veil of Bl. Paula, and even flowers, medals, chaplets, and other things of this kind.
[33] Francesco Niccolò Gonzaga of Vescovato. Francesco Niccolò Gonzaga, lord of the imperial fief of Episcopatus (Vescovato), who was born in the year 1731 and died about the year 1792 [Almanach de Gotha, years 1792 and 1793, page 28; Compare Moréri, Dictionnaire, volume V, part II, page 274.], when he was a boy was so weakened by diseases that his recovery was entirely despaired of. His father, very anxious about this, after the art of the best physicians had been diligently applied, approached Bl. Paula with humble prayers, that she might obtain health for his son from God. At his request the nuns of St. Lucy for nine days asked the same benefit from God through the intercession of the blessed woman. Nor did the outcome deceive the hope; for towards the end of the novena of prayers the sick boy began to recover and little by little was entirely restored to health. In perpetual testimony of a grateful mind, the boy's father decreed by testament that every year a great quantity of wax should be most liberally given to the nuns of St. Lucy for celebrating a nine-day devotion in honour of Bl. Paula.
[34] A fire is put out in the house of St. Lucy. On the 6th day of May of the year 1731, about the second hour of the night, in the monastery of St. Lucy the chamber of the abbess Floribalda Chiusole began to catch fire. Seeing this, the nuns implored the help of Bl. Paula, and behold, the fire, no water or other remedy being applied, was extinguished.
[35] Giuseppe Fedele dalla Porta recovers, On the 12th day of September of the year 1730 Giuseppe Fedele dalla Porta was violently seized by a tertian fever, and could keep no drink, not even water, in his stomach. But commending himself to Bl. Paula and drinking water from her well, he was entirely freed from the fever. He was granted a similar benefit on the 2nd day of June of the year 1731, as he himself testified in writing on the 15th day of June of the year 1731.
[36] A certain two-year-old daughter The two-year-old daughter of Camilla, wife of Francesco Succhi, of the parish of St. Lazarus near Mantua, suffering from fever for eighteen months, had been brought to the last extremity. But being carried to the tomb of Bl. Paula, and touched there with the garment of the same holy woman, she was at once rid of the fever.
[37] Teresa Ferraresi, Sister Teresa Ferraresi, a nun of the house of St. Louis at Mirandola c, in her twenty-first year, was not only spitting blood for fifteen days, but was very sick with a burning fever and pain of the head and breast. When her father Giuseppe Ferraresi, the physician of the house, had applied all means in vain, the holy virgin of Mantua was invoked. Meanwhile in sleep the sick woman seemed to herself to see Bl. Paula, to whom, asking from what part of the body she was suffering, she answered: "I am suffering from the breast and the head." But Bl. Paula, giving her courage, said: "Do not doubt: you are healed." From this hour the nun Teresa was freed from all disease. Of which thing testimony was given on the 6th day of May of the year 1732 by Brother Francesco of Mirandola, of the Order of Friars Minor, ordinary confessor of the monastery of St. Louis.
[38] Giovanni Pietro Carrere, On the 26th day of January of the year 1732 Giovanni Pietro Carrere was so affected by hæmorrhoids that, after sixty days of intolerable pains, as being entirely incurable, he was fortified with the sacraments of the dying by order of the physicians and surgeons. When matters were in this condition, he was visited by his friend Francesco Padovani, conservator of the monastery of St. Lucy, who said these words to him: "Friend, commend yourself to Paula of Mantua, whose body is most religiously kept in the church of St. Lucy. I will ask the nuns to open her case,
and expose it to the people for veneration, and also to pour out prayers that through her merits you may obtain health from God. Meanwhile do you and your household commit yourselves with great confidence to Bl. Paula." The sick man assented: and on the night on which he was said to be about to die, behold, the swelling within his body subsided. Then he rested in sleep, which he had not been able to enjoy in the preceding sixty days. And when he woke, he was entirely well. Rising from his bed, he went at once to the church of St. Lucy, to give abundant thanks to Bl. Paula, at her tomb, for the benefit received.
[39] Beatrice Spinola, In the month of February of the year 1732 the marchioness Beatrice Spinola, wife of the marquis Ambrogio Spinola, who was the brother of the duke of the fief of San Pietro in Galatina (in the diocese of Otranto in the kingdom of Naples) [Sacco, Dizionario Geografico del Regno di Napoli, volume III, page 313; Giustiniani, Dizionario Geografico del Regno di Napoli, volume VIII, page 213 and following. Compare Miræus, Gentis Spinulæ illustrium elogia, page 36.], had been lying in bed from the 1st day of February of the year 1732, suffering incredibly from a cramp of the nerves. Hence it came about that on the 5th day of the following March she miscarried, and the disease on the 12th and 17th days of the same month took such increase that the physicians entirely despaired of saving the sick woman's life. Then the marchioness asked health of Bl. Paula: the same was the prayer of the nuns of St. Lucy. Their confessor gave the sick woman a blessing with the cross which the blessed woman had been accustomed to wear while living. Having received it, she suddenly recovered, and exulting said to the matron Margherita Vilimpenta: "I am restored to health, I am restored to health, Bl. Paula has conferred this benefit on me." The physicians, seeing this a little later, having made an examination, could not but wonder greatly. And Ambrogio Spinola and his wife Beatrice, on the 17th day of July of the year 1732, confirmed the whole narration of the matter on oath.
[40] Vittoria Rosmini In the year 1732 Vittoria Rosmini recovered her health through the merits of Bl. Paula: which her physician relates in these Latin words: "I give undoubted credit, and I, the undersigned, ordinary physician of the most illustrious Lady Vittoria Rosmini, attest that, called in the year of the Lord 1732, in the month of September, on the day of St. Michael, to visit the same lady suffering from a continual fever with such symptoms as indicated that the fever was malignant; the disease therefore proceeded in such a way that her recovery was already despaired of. Certainly the remedies were in vain. But she from her heart invoked Bl. Paulina of the house of St. Lucy at Mantua, from whom immediately, God favouring, she began to be well; and so from day to day she obtained her former health. All these things I am ready to corroborate with my oath, if need be. This 4th day of December 1739, at Mantua. Bartolomeo Soliani, collegiate physician." Thus far Soliani.
[41] and Valentino Dogini. In the year 1814 Valentino Dogini of Volta, aged twenty-two years, suffering first for some months from colic, then three times from miliary fever, had taken gravely to his bed. Further, when he was almost abandoned by the physician as being desperate, he asked health of Bl. Paula with great confidence, and ordered himself to be carried to her tomb in the parish church of Volta, against the will of the physicians. Domenico Dogini, Valentino's father, had asked that the sacrifice of the Mass be celebrated at the altar of Bl. Paula. Then indeed the sick man began to be better and soon was entirely restored to health. Of this benefit very many were witnesses Summarium, page 30..
ANNOTATA.
APPENDIX. TWO LETTERS OF BL. PAULA
Paula de Montaldo, virgin of the mitigated third Order of St. Francis. (B.)
aI Letter to Ludovico II, Marquis of Mantua.
The 9th day of July 1472. Most illustrious Lord. We, sister Elisabetta d'Ippolito, abbess of the monastery of St. Lucy, and Sister Paula de Montaldi, professed nun of the same monastery, humbly ask you that you be pleased to hold commended to you the wretched Ludovico de Montalto, nephew of Sister Paula. Which we think lawful for us, because you have always been of benevolent mind towards our house and our beloved brother Giacomo. Namely, as we have been informed, Ludovico on Monday of this week was dreadfully tortured five times, and yesterday evening four times, with the torture called the strappado, and nevertheless, being innocent, he denied that he was guilty of any crime. Likewise his servant was tortured six times with the same penalty, on two evenings. He, the torments of the net having moreover been applied, acknowledged no fault. Which constancy of both is a most evident sign of innocence: Ludovico is an honourable citizen twenty-six years old b, and his servant is a simple countryman. Wherefore, most clement lord, we ask your Most Illustrious Lordship that you be pleased to hold them commended to you, and not permit them henceforth to be subjected to torments. For if they were guilty, they would have confessed their fault under the torments; for, to be freed from them, there are frequently found accused persons who, though innocent, yet confess themselves guilty. This grace we ask for the love of God from your Lordship, for whom we beseech the same God that He not only preserve your prosperous affairs, but make them better. Our cause too we commit to you. At Mantua, the 9th day of July of the year 1472. Sister Elisabetta, unworthy abbess, and sister Paula de Montaldo, of the monastery of St. Lucy, humbly reverence your Lordship. To the most illustrious and most excellent lord the marquis of Mantua, Gonzaga c.
ANNOTATA.
II Letter to Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua (?).
The 4th day of May of the year 1492. Most illustrious mother and lady very merciful towards the poor. The Sisters of the monastery of St. Lucy humbly set out to you that some alms were brought to their house, and that they used them to relieve their own needs and those of the monastery. Hence indeed they received as a loan from your Most Illustrious Lordship forty-seven pounds, one shilling and three pence. They ask you that, according to your accustomed goodness and great humanity, you be pleased to remit to them the aforesaid sums which are owed to you; which alms they would use for restoring their monastery, as it entirely needs. For the rest they will pray fervently to God and His glorious mother Mary that He preserve your Lordship, to whom they wish to be perpetually commended, and to whom they humbly confess themselves bound, safe, adorned with (divine) grace, and most happy.
Sister Paula, unworthy abbess of the monastery of St. Lucy, most obedient to you, as are all the other Sisters of the house.