Arealdus

ON ST. AREALDUS, MARTYR, AT BRESCIA IN ITALY,

PERHAPS IN THE YEAR DLXXVI.

COLLECTION.

Of the Saint's cult, and the place and time of his martyrdom.

Arealdus, M., at Cremona in Italy. (S.)

Written by J. V.

That this holy Martyr is honored with a public and immemorial cult is sufficiently certain, as will be plain from what is to be said; The Saint who is venerated at Cremona, of the time of his martyrdom it is not so well established, as Ferrari confesses in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, page 562: When, and by what kind of death, this holy Martyr was put to death, has not yet been able to be known; since no memory of him is extant in the Annals of Brescia. (which would that it had been permitted to inspect!) And in the general Catalogue, page 346: He is reported to have suffered at Brescia. When, is not known. First therefore we shall bring forward the things which pertain to the Saint's cult, then we shall track down the time of his passion. Ferrari in the Catalogue just cited announces him in these words: At Cremona, of St. Arealdus the martyr. In the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy on this day he had written the following: Arealdus was crowned with martyrdom at Brescia, and was buried there. Whose bones Gerardus, a citizen of Brescia of the noble family of the Madii, created bishop of Cremona by Clement V, Supreme Pontiff, in the year of salvation MCCCV, having obtained them from the people of Brescia, among whom he availed very much by authority and favor, translated to Cremona, and laid up in a chapel dedicated to him; whence afterwards they were translated into the Cathedral church, and are there piously preserved and venerated. This Giuseppe Bresciano testifies in the Cremonese Diary, page 72: The first of September, St. Arealdus the martyr. The feast in the cathedral church, where his most holy body is preserved beneath the confession. Likewise in the church of the Saint himself, which is governed by the Reverend Fathers Minim. More things Pellegrino Merula has in the Cremonese Sanctuary, page 248, wrongly however confounding Arialdus the deacon and martyr of Milan with him of today; as will afterwards be seen.

[2] Bernardino Faino, praised by Papebroch in tome 11 of April, page XL, thus writes in the Martyrology of Brescia on the Kalends of September: suffered at Brescia At Brescia, of St. Arealdus the martyr, translated to the cathedral of Cremona: who in the time of the Lombards, with two sons, adorned the church of Brescia with his own blood. On which he notes the following: Of the same the Records of the church of Cremona have it under a semi-double rite. Likewise the Diptych Table of the bishops of that church composed by Biagio Rossi *, who, treating of the memory of Gherardo Maggi, bishop there, and kinsman of Berardo Maggi, shining in the see of Brescia with the title of prince also, thus writes (page 355, after the Decrees of the synod of Cremona published in 1599): Gerardus de Madiis, a patrician of Brescia, succeeded Rainerius de Rubeis of Parma, bishop of Cremona, who died in the year MCCCV, Clement V being supreme Pontiff. He, since he availed very much by favor and authority among his own, took care that the bones of the divine Arealdus, crowned with martyrdom at Brescia, be translated thence to Cremona; and they were first laid up in the church built to his memory in the quarter of All Saints. But afterwards (in the year 1484) they were translated into that part of the cathedral church where now is the altar dedicated to the Most Holy Sacrament, by the work of Isacco Restalli, canon of the church of Cremona. At last (in the year 1614, on the eighth of June) into its underground part; and there they lie in a marble chest, the head being laid up in a bronze vessel. The cited Merula relates that the following inscription was engraved on the chest: In the year after the birth of Christ MDCXIV, on the seventh day of June, to this little chest was committed, at no small expense of the whole city, the body of St. Arealdus the martyr, by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Giovanni Battista Brivio, bishop of Cremona. And on the triumphal arch: To the divine Archelaus and Arealdus, who, their blood being poured out for Christ the Savior, obtained golden crowns, and who from heaven look upon their own ashes here and upon the republic of Cremona, the same pious and faithful hostess founded, dedicated, and erected these chests, altars, and arches. This most solemn translation, described by Bollandus, see in tome 11 of January, in St. Babylas, page 581: and its anniversary memory is announced in tome 11 of June, page 52, in the Prætermissi at the eighth day. Thus far of the Saint's cult and wrestling-ground; now we must treat of the time.

[3] Ludovico Cavitelli in the Annals of Cremona, reprinted at Leiden in 1704 in tome 3 of the Thesaurus of the antiquities and histories of Italy, column 1356, probably under the Lombards. writes at the year 1305 that St. Arealdus was put to martyrdom at Brescia about the year CXXXIV, Hadrian being emperor: perhaps because he believed him to have been the companion of SS. Faustinus and Jovita, whom Pagi will have to have suffered then, at the year 134, number 2. But we think this less verisimilar, and rather agree with Faino, who, after he had alleged Cavitelli, certainly read by him, subjoins this: Of this holy Martyr, with his two sons Carillus and Odericus, Ottavio Rossi makes mention in the manuscript Annals of Brescia, citing ancient memorials written on parchment leaves, from which he reports , that in the year DLXXV the kingdom of the Lombards (king Cleph being dead) was for ten years parceled out among ten dukes also, and that when the dominion of Brescia had fallen to the duke Alahis; in his first year, which was DLXXVI, he (not yet faithful to Christ) so inveighed against the Christians, that it was necessary for St. Honorius, then bishop of Brescia, to flee with a crowd of citizens into the woods, that he might escape the persecution. In which chiefly Arealdus and his sons Carillus and Odericus, in the course of that same year, obtained the palm of martyrdom for the faith. Of St. Honorius there was treatment in tome III of April, page 276. The Martyr's sons, since of their cult it is not established, we have omitted in the title; as to other things following the credit of Faino: for the Monuments of Brescia of Ottavio Rossi, which we have in tome 4 of the Thesaurus of Italy, as also Capriolo on the affairs of the Brescians, tome 9, part 7, and likewise the Chronicle of Brescia of Malvezzi, tome 14 of Muratori, we have searched in vain. And so we have set the Saint's martyrdom under a doubt, perhaps in the year DLXXVI.

[4] Faino goes on, correcting the error of Merula in this manner: Merula's error is corrected: and it is disputed, That Arealdus is different from Arialdus the deacon and martyr of Milan: for the birth into glory of the latter was on this day, in the same year DLXXVI, Benedict (I) being Supreme Pontiff and Justin the younger emperor. But his birthday was the twenty-seventh of June, not in the year MLXXVI, Gregory VII sitting, as Faino wrongly copied it out; but 1066, Alexander II sitting, and Henry IV reigning, as Baronius has in the Annals. That one

was a martyr without any sacred Order: but the other was initiated in the Order of the diaconate. The one with two sons; the other without sons. The one of Brescia: but the other of Milan. But Pellegrino Merula in the Cremonese Sanctuary, because he lacked these reported monuments, therefore deceived himself concerning these two Arealduses, taking one for the other. Of St. Arialdus the deacon and martyr there was treatment in tome V of June from page 279: but of today's Martyr we have no Acts or miracles. There now remains no light difficulty concerning Gerardus de Madiis or Maggi, by whom we reported above that the bones of St. Arealdus were translated from Brescia to Cremona: namely whether that Gerardus was bishop of Cremona. Ughelli denies it in tome 4 of the new edition, column 610, where among other things he has this: After Rainerius (de Casulis) some without ground invent a certain Gerardus de Madiis of Brescia, elected bishop of Cremona in the year MCCCVIII *, and they will have it that he translated from Brescia to Cremona the relics of St. Arealdus the martyr, and brought them into a church built in honor of the same Saint in the little quarter of the Saints, as they call it, on the first day of the incoming September, on which day the feast of the same Saint is celebrated at Cremona. But in the Vatican Registers no memory of Gerardus is held.

[5] who first translated the Saint's relics. But Ferrari above affirms it, and Giuseppe Bresciano in the Roses and Violets of Cremona, where against others he makes him of Cremona, bringing forward on page 65 this epitaph: Gherardus Maggi, bishop of his native Cremona &c., and Faino, concluding his annotations with these words: Some doubt that Gherardo Maggi was prelate of Cremona. Others, from the almost uniformity of the name with Berardo, the sameness of the surname, and the time of the funeral, affirm that he was Berardo himself, bishop and prince of Brescia, who, the church of Cremona being vacant through the death of Rainerius de Rubeis, took care of that too. But besides the things which Ludovico Cavitelli and Biagio de Rossi and others assert to him concerning the prelate Gherardo, at Brescia in the tree of the Maggi family and in other monuments of the same and in the paintings, he is written down only as bishop of Cremona. On the contrary Ughelli holds Bonuius de Narnis, as Rossi calls him in the Diptychs, page 355, or de Naldis, for a fictitious bishop, and contends that Rainerius de Casulis of Volterra was substituted for Pontius Ponzonus by Boniface VIII in the year 1296, adding: So it is held in the Vatican Register, letter 181, folio 39, year 2: and that he prolonged his age until the year 1317, Egidius de Madalbertis succeeding him in the year 1318; and so that there is no place for Gerardus among the bishops of Cremona. This knot and others we leave to the learned men of Cremona to loose: especially because it is all one to the holy Martyr's cult whether his bones were first translated from Brescia to Cremona by Berardo or by Gerardo.

* in Latin, Rubeo

* read refert

* rather 36. See Muratori, tome 1, page 436.

* rather 1305