ON ST. AUXANUS, BISHOP OF MILAN IN INSUBRIA,
AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA.
In the year DLXVIII.
SYLLOGE.
His cult; his illustrious family; his eulogy; his date; the translation of his body.
Auxanus, bishop of Milan in Insubria (St.)
BY J. P.
The Roman Martyrology thus announces this
Bishop on today's
day: He is found in the Roman Martyrology, and is proved from elsewhere At Milan, the deposition
of St. Auxanus the bishop.
The same Saint is praised also by
Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints
of Italy, adorning him with the following eulogy, taken, as he
affirms, from the Breviary and the Tablets and the Acts of the church of Milan:
Auxanus of Milan, born of the noble family of the Crivelli,
was, on account of his signal piety and innocence of life,
substituted by John III, supreme Pontiff, for Vitalis, bishop of Milan,
who had succeeded St. Datius. And he
so discharged with all zeal the parts of the office committed to him,
that he greatly increased the evangelical discipline. He suffered many
hardships (because at that time Alboin,
king of the Lombards, besieged, took, and plundered Milan); and when he had governed the church of Milan
most holily for the two years that he lived,
and had proved his sanctity by miracles, he flew, leaving his body here,
into the heavens on the 3rd of the Nones of September
in the year of salvation DLXIX, John III being still Pontiff,
and was buried in the church of St. Stephen ad Rotam.
[2] his cult: This eulogy furnishes me occasion to inquire into various matters,
when I shall first have premised to them some other things concerning
the public veneration of this holy Bishop. In the catalogue
of Saints before the Missal, printed at Milan in the year
1522 according to the institution
of the most holy … Ambrose, etc., there is written on this day
the memory of St. Auxanus, archbishop of Milan.
Among the proper Offices, or the proper and common
lessons, printed in the year 1642 for the Saints of the church
of Milan, there is placed the Office of St. Auxanus, bishop
and confessor, double (in St. Stephen's), and a proper fourth lesson
is subjoined. In John
Francis Besozzo, in his Pontifical History of Milan,
at the year 566, he is written buried in
the collegiate church of St. Stephen, where with great devotion
his relics are honored by the faithful. From these
the public cult of this holy Bishop is sufficiently established.
Concerning his illustrious family I subjoin the following.
[3] Paul Morigia, in the Italian book which he published
On the Nobility of Milan, book 1, ch. 9,
calls the family of the Crivelli, he is written to have been born of the illustrious Crivelli family: from which St. Auxanus is said
to have drawn his origin, most illustrious and ancient.
Besides this Bishop, he records that from this illustrious tree
several others distinguished for holiness of life came forth,
namely Bl. Alexander the hermit, an intimate of St. Ambrose,
protector of the Milanese: to whom he subjoins
several Crivelli, Religious of various Orders, whom
he honors with the title of blessed. Then, comprising in a few words the many
ornaments of this family, it has always, he says, flourished most nobly
in numbers, in riches, in ranks, in dignities,
and in every kind of profession of the virtues;
and it has had bishops, cardinals, and supreme
Pontiffs, besides men famous in war. In
the sixteenth century flourished Alexander Crivelli,
cardinal, whose eulogy may be read in Ciacconius,
in the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and of the Cardinals of the Holy
Roman Church, vol. 3, col. 967 and following.
Him there preceded Lambert, or Humbert, or
Hubert, or Obert Crivelli, who, having previously been bishop of Milan
and cardinal priest
of St. Lawrence in Damaso, was raised to the government of the Apostolic See
in the year 1185, and was called Urban III,
as is narrated in Francis
Pagi's Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, vol.
3, p. 127 and following, where the deeds done by him are related;
concerning which see also Ciacconius, vol. 1,
from col. 1123.
[4] In the eulogy of our Saint which I gave above from Ferrari,
the Saint's eulogy, and likewise in the proper lesson just now
indicated, the same holy Bishop is said to have presided over his church
for two years: concerning which matter Ferrari says thus
in his Annotation: Onuphrius Panvinius in his Fasti
assigns three years of bishopric to Auxanus; but
he confounds his times with those of his successor Honoratus.
Baronius in the Annals at the year of the Lord DLXX notes that Alboin
took Milan and the other cities of Insubria, of Liguria,
and of the Venetias, Honoratus, bishop of Milan, having set out for Genoa in flight.
From which it appears that Milan was besieged under Auxanus,
but taken under Honoratus. Ughelli dissents from Ferrari,
in vol. 4 of the reprinted Italia sacra,
cols. 57 and 58, in these words, assigning three
years to his bishopric: He was created bishop of the Milanese
in the year DLXV, and for three
years bore this burden, at the time when Alboin,
king of the Lombards, came into Italy and occupied Cisalpine
Gaul, which was DLXVII *.
[5] But in the chronological Table of the bishops
of Milan, the time of his see which is found before vol. VII
of May among us, there is placed as thirtieth in order the bishop St.
Auxanius, in the year DLXVI, the span of his bishopric 2 years,
the year of his death DLXVIII, and the day the 3rd
of September. There may also be consulted in the same place the Exegesis on
the same bishops, p. LXV, where St. Honoratus,
who is there placed as our Saint's next successor,
is also treated of. Altogether singular, and not to be followed,
is Galvaneus de la Flamma in his Chronicle
of Milan, or Manipulus Florum, when among
the Writers of Italian Affairs published at Milan
he writes these things in vol. XI, ch. 60, col. 577:
Ausanus, holy archbishop of Milan,
the twenty-second, is ordained in the year of the Lord DXCIV. And he sat
for VIII years.
[6] and of his death: Moreover, to the placing of the year of his death
at 568, Paul Warnefrid the Deacon contributes not a little,
who flourished in the eighth century, in his Deeds
of the Lombards, book 2, ch. 25, where these things are narrated
concerning Honoratus: Alboin, therefore, entering Liguria,
at the beginning of the third Indiction, on the third of the Nones
of September, in the times of Honoratus the archbishop,
entered Milan. Thereafter
he took all the cities of Liguria except those which are set
upon the seacoast. But Honoratus
the archbishop, deserting Milan, fled to the city of Genoa.
These things agree with the year
569, in which indeed the 2nd Indiction was running; but the third
had then been begun from the month of September, after the manner of the Easterns;
and thus I explain Paul the Deacon.
From what has been said, therefore, it follows, first, that St. Auxanus did not
die in the year 569, but in the year 568. It follows, secondly,
that Milan was not besieged under Auxanus,
against Ferrari cited above; but that, if
a siege took place, since it does not seem to have lasted long,
it is to be referred to the time of Honoratus. If a siege,
I say, took place: for the authors vary in narrating
the entry of the Lombards into the city
of Milan and the circumstances of Honoratus' flight,
as you will find related at greater length on the 8th day of February
in St. Honoratus, in vol. 2 of that month,
p. 164, from n. 3. It follows, thirdly, that to St. Auxanus
there do not belong those many hardships which
Ferrari attributed to him under Alboin in his eulogy,
which was given above.
[7] the translation of his body. As regards the burial of his body, Puricelli writes
that it was removed from its former place and translated with solemn rite,
and more becomingly placed, in his
Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica of Milan, etc.,
volume one, under number 475,
from p. 862; where he adduces from the basilica of St. Stephen an inscription
on the side wall of the choir chapel, on the left
as one enters, engraved upon a marble tablet in these words:
The bodies of the holy Martinian, Auxanus,
and Mansuetus, archbishops of Milan;
of Protasius the martyr, and of Martian the hermit: formerly buried under the old
choir of this church, and
removed thence on account of the new structure of the temple,
and carefully recognized from ancient monuments, paintings,
and traditions, Federico, Cardinal
and archbishop of Milan, after their most celebrated
translation in the seventh provincial
synod, most numerously attended, celebrated by him, together
with the bodies of the holy Arsatius, archbishop of Milan,
Marinus the martyr, and Leo the hermit,
which had long since been laid in that chest by Bl. Charles, Cardinal and
archbishop of Milan, being enclosed with them,
placed more becomingly under this altar on the day before
the Kalends of June, one thousand six hundred and nine. It is worth
observing, however, that difficulties have been proposed by us
against the Milanese bishopric of St.
Arsatius, as may be seen in the aforesaid Exegesis from
p. LXI, where his most fabulous Life is discussed.
He may be treated of on the 12th day of November,
on which it was there said that he is venerated at Munich in Bavaria.
Annotata