Grata

ON ST. GRATA, VIRGIN, AS IS REPORTED,

AT BERGAMO IN ITALY

Perhaps in the ninth century.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Grata, virgin, as is reported, at Bergamo in Italy. (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The Saint's cult: what has been written about her by more recent authors; her Acts.

[ ] That the acts of St. Grata, entangled with the gravest difficulties, may receive some light, The Acts of St. Grata are utterly intricate: it seems that we must first investigate what the older martyrologists have about her, for we have no very ancient Acts. Then it must be set forth what more recent writers have written, so that, when these have been compared with one another and the aid of the history of the time in which she lived has been joined to them, we may in some fashion be able to determine how much credit is to be given to her Life, written only in the thirteenth century, and to the later writers who followed it. Wherefore I proceed to show the Saint's ancient cult, meaning afterwards to use the sayings of the martyrologists as I go along, and perhaps to find two Gratas, whose confused deeds have bred such darkness in the Acts of Grata.

[2] I find no memory of St. Grata in the classical Martyrologies, in some Fasti called a Virgin, in others a Widow: neither in the Hieronymian ones, nor in the ancient Roman, nor in the Martyrologies of Ado, Usuard, Bede, Florus, Rabanus, Notker. I find her first in the various additions to Usuard. Belinus at the 1st of May thus announces the Saint: At Bergamo of Cisalpine Gaul, of St. Grata, virgin. Grevenus celebrates the Saint on another day and with another elogium, namely on the XXVI of August, in these words: Of the holy matron Grata, who buried blessed Alexander. Molanus in the additions to Usuard, the 1st of May: At Bergamo of Cisalpine Gaul, of Grata, virgin. Galesinius thus records the translation of the same Saint, under the title of virgin, on the 1st of May: At Bergamo in Cisalpine Gaul, the translation of St. Grata, virgin. Baronius also called her virgin in the Roman: At Bergamo, of St. Grata, virgin. But the present-day Roman Martyrology names her a widow at the day 1st of May: At Bergamo, of St. Grata, widow. Ferrarius likewise celebrates her as a widow at the 1st of May and the XXV of August. I pass over other more recent martyrologists, who partly call her Virgin and partly Widow.

[3] The people of Bergamo venerated St. Grata until the year 1706 with an Office suited to widows, not to virgins, venerated likewise sometimes as a Virgin, sometimes as a Widow. and that on the XXV of August. In it there were three lessons taken from her Life. But in the year 1706 the fourth day of September was assigned to her festival by the sacred Congregation of Rites, and an Office proper to virgins, in which, however, no lessons are said to be drawn from the Life, but all are prescribed from the common Office of virgins. In an older Calendar containing the saints chiefly venerated at Bergamo, and transmitted to us with other records, St. Grata is commemorated on the 1st of May after the holy Apostles Philip and James, and Sigismund the king, and then again on the XXVII of August with St. Narnus the bishop, and it is not added whether she was a Virgin or a Widow. That St. Grata had a cult from at least the eleventh century is clear from the translation of her venerable body in the year 1027 by Ambrose Martinengo, bishop of Bergamo, as will be more fully related in its place. Hence we have the Saint's cult abundantly established, but not the difficulties removed which occur about her Life. Present-day or recent writers of Bergamo attempt to reconcile with one another the martyrologists and other writers, of whom some call her Virgin, others Widow, by an answer more subtle than probable; and they contend that she was at once a Virgin and a Widow. But that it may better appear how much probability each point has, their opinion about St. Grata and her family must be briefly set forth to the reader.

[4] [How the chronology of the five whom they will have to be leaders of Bergamo has been arranged by more recent writers:] The emperor Probus in the year 280, as Guerrinus will have it in the Synopsis of the affairs of Bergamo, reprinted in the year 1734, page 2, appointed Crotacius, on account of his brilliant achievements, leader of Bergamo and of the whole Venetian dominion. Crotacius being dead, there succeeded in the year 285 his son Lupus, then a pagan, afterwards a Catholic and a saint, and he guided the reins of the city for 15 years, says Giovanni Antonio Guarneri in the Life of St. Lupus. The same writer, in the Life of St. Adleyda, writes that when Lupus had departed to a better life, Adleyda was substituted by the people of Bergamo in the year 300; and that Adleyda after one year and 18 days, namely in the year 301, on the XXVIII of June, exchanged temporal dominion for the eternal kingdom. In her place the people of Bergamo, even against her will, put her daughter Grata, who at length, says Guarneri in her Life, worn out with many labors and oppressed by a grievous illness, in the year from the birth of Christ CCCV, in the LX year of her age, and in the IV year since the government of the commonwealth of Bergamo had been committed to her, on the VI of the Kalends of September flew away into the company of the Blessed. After Grata they set at the helm of the commonwealth her friend and companion St. Hesteria, or Asteria the martyr, who after nearly two years of rule, her head being cut off, bore away the most abundant reward of martyrdom and virginity on the IV of the Ides of August in the year CCCVII, as the same Guarneri has it in her Life.

Thus does he arrange the chronology of the holy leaders, and he writes it all clothed with such circumstances that a contemporary eyewitness could not do it more exactly. Now it must likewise be explained what they will have each of these leaders to have done for the advancement of the Catholic faith.

[5] the deeds of SS. Lupus and Adleyda according to their view: Guarneri relates that Lupus, after the death of St. Alexander the martyr, which in his Life he places in the year 290, was converted by the help of his daughter St. Grata. After his conversion he records among other things these deeds of his: Very many temples had been consecrated in the city by the people of Bergamo to false gods, and were adorned with images of the gods. Not only were the images overthrown, but the temples also were pulled down: and — which was a great proof of the truth received — the images, cut off and mutilated, were seen lying among the fallen doorposts of the temples, without any fear of those gods. But a new temple, where sacrifice might be offered after the Christian rite, was raised on the highest hill, and dedicated to Christ the Savior, and endowed with several estates. There Lupus and his household and kinsmen were initiated by baptism. Such was this Josias of his time, and that too with impunity under the reign of Maximian, if we give credit to Guarneri. Let us hear what Adleyda, according to the same author, did for the advantage of the Catholic religion. She built a temple, he says in the Life of Adleyda, on the highest hill, and dedicated it to St. Mary… Another she founded in the old forum and consecrated to St. Michael; from a neighboring arch they called it by the name of the arch of St. Michael. She likewise assigned to it estates, from whose revenues the priests who should preside over the church might be maintained. And this under Maximian. The things attributed to St. Grata must be taken up a little further back and explained more fully.

[6] It is necessary that St. Grata was born about the year 245 of her parents Lupus and Adleyda, St. Grata's year of birth, her marriage, the death of her husband, if she died a woman of sixty in 305, as Guerrinus reported above at number 4. Grata, says the same author in the Life of Lupus, when she was already grown and marriageable, her excellent beauty as well as her admired modesty — which is wont to stir up wonderful love of itself in the minds of sound men — brought it about that very many young men, distinguished in birth and wealth, sought her as a wife. Nor did the fame of so great dignity and comeliness confine itself within the bounds of Italy, but was carried into Germany also. Wherefore a certain young German of royal nobility (others say the son of a king, and hence that Grata was afterwards called queen) … sending envoys to Bergamo, demanded that she be betrothed to him. Presently there is deliberation, and the Virgin consents, her father desiring it: the nuptials are celebrated, and she is sent with a great retinue into Germany to her bridegroom. Grata, the marriage being celebrated in Germany also, by her chaste disposition, says the author, her pious humility, and her moderation in dress and bearing, not only won for herself her husband's love and favor and wiped barbarism out of his manners and discipline, but within a few months trained him to the standard of Gospel piety. But when he was cut off by an untimely death, although he was most dear and delightful to Grata, yet she thought it wrong to follow with womanish tears and lamentations the death of him whose soul she was persuaded had passed into the abodes of the pious.

[7] He then relates that the Saint, laying aside her royal apparel, was brought back to her country, her return to her country, and other deeds, how set forth by the same writers. and led an almost solitary life with St. Hesteria: at which time, with the same companion, she buried St. Alexander the martyr, and converted her parents to Christ, if we believe the author. When she was set over the government of the city, She built, says Guerrinus, three magnificent churches and dedicated them to St. Alexander… The greatest of all her works was that she built a hospital for the feeding and care of the sick poor, where now the quarter of Canale is situated. There she not only passed her already advancing age holily and religiously, but applied medicines with her own hands to those laboring under disease. Thus he — and not he alone about St. Grata; but recent writers of the affairs of Bergamo everywhere, following in many things Brother Pinamonte Peregrino de Brembate, a Dominican, who in the thirteenth century committed the Life of St. Grata to writing. And since they rest almost wholly upon his authority, it must be carefully weighed how much credit he deserves from his date and from his manner of writing: but let the reader observe that not everything is drawn from Pinamonte: for it will appear in the course of things that much was added by recent authors beyond his meaning.

[8] The date of Pinamonte, the first author of the Life of St. Grata: Jacques Échard, in the Library of writers of the Order of Preachers, volume 1, page 246, hands down among other things this about this author: Brother Pinamonte Peregrino Brembate, an Italian of Bergamo, born of noble family, already ripe in years, notably cultivated in learning, especially in the knowledge of both laws, and of great authority and repute among his fellow-citizens, entered the Order of Preachers. And in the same place he says at greater length that, being Prior of the convent of Bergamo in the year 1266, he died with the fame of sanctity. Pinamonte therefore lived more than 900 years after St. Grata, whose Life he wrote — if all that he relates is true and to be attributed to one Grata. Wherefore his date can give him but slight authority, unless he had records by which this disadvantage might be remedied. It must therefore be considered what records he used in writing the history of the Life, and by what aids he was helped: Pinamonte himself will teach us this abundantly.

[9] the records which Pinamonte used in writing it, In the prologue to the Life the author writes thus: The diligence of the ancients has left in writing many memorable things to posterity by its watchful zeal, which the sloth of the moderns, given over to the vanities of the world, has through carelessness lost. Hence it is that the deeds of many venerable Saints can scarcely be had, or only half-full, or from report alone, or even from conjectures; and of those whose names are written in the heavens, the Acts are either lost, or burnt, or consumed by fire, or were never written on earth, and their memory is rather rare. Let us therefore call back to memory the glory of the most blessed Grata, and how she deserved heavenly things, according to what authority has transmitted to us through ancient writings and most true sayings, by suitable witnesses, sanctita (perhaps sancita). When he says, Let us therefore call back to memory the glory of the most blessed Grata, he hints that she was of the number of those Saints whose names are written in the heavens, but whose Acts are either lost, or burnt … or never written on earth, whose memory is rather rare. The author therefore did not have ancient Acts of St. Grata. But we shall gather this more clearly from what follows.

[10] the records Pinamonte used, In chapter 28 of the Life he thus tells whence he drew his materials: Receive this Work, most beloved, and you above all, handmaids of Christ, watched over with great diligence. In which many things which were in various places, either written in books and quires, which also I caused to be brought from the surrounding cities and lands, or noted in charters and privileges, or engraved on walls and partitions, or even in certain verses, or in certain writings in the Beneventan script, which few could read — at the prayers and instructions of the venerable abbess named Gratia, have been faithfully and devoutly compiled into one, to the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God, and of his glorious Mother the Virgin Mary, and of his holy Grata. He also intimates in chapter 29 that he wrote certain things hitherto unknown, and added certain things from popular report or from hearsay, in these words: But I beseech in the name of Jesus Christ those who read and understand this little Work, that if perchance they find some things which they do not find elsewhere, they should not think that I invented them, but should know that I wrote things read in various places, as I mentioned above, and heard from persons worthy of credit.

[11] Thou hast, reader, what records this man, pious rather than critical, used in writing the Life of St. Grata. they are apt to lead into error those not much versed in history. Now as records of this kind avail very much to enlarge history, or to prove certain facts, if a man uses them who is endowed with a keen judgment for discerning particulars and imbued with a perfect knowledge of history, and especially of chronology and geography — so from such records innumerable errors must needs gush forth if a man, without discrimination, without judgment, and without the previous light of chronology or history, compiles every several thing and throws it upon paper, provided only it seem to serve for illustrating the memory of the one of whom he treats. For if we find that men most fully furnished with every aid for passing right criticism often stumble when they put forward their conjectures from records of this kind, then he must most frequently strike his foot who, equipped with lesser aids, forms conjectures out of these uncertain records, and does not propose them as conjectures but relates them as ascertained histories: which will happen still more if love of one's country be added, that enemy of historical truth. Now that Pinamonte was not much versed in history, in chronology, in geography, his slips, to be noted upon the Life, sufficiently show. We ought not therefore to wonder if he confused many things, if he joined together what was separate, if in fine he related things unheard of before him and unknown to all — using indeed, as one may suppose, good faith, but furnished with more credulity than criticism, as will appear in the following §, when we show that what he himself wrote about the Saint's parents, and what more recent writers have added, are incredible, if they lived at the time at which these writers will have it.

[12] The Acts of St. Grata, written by the said Pinamonte, whence the Acts were received: we received from Bergamo through Martino Antonio Guerrini, often praised in our Work, doctor of sacred theology and of both laws, and canon of the church of Bergamo, who took care that they should be fortified with most authentic attestations and even with the bishop's own subscription and seal, so that we may be certain that the transcript agrees with the Manuscript codex. Now they are found at Bergamo in a large codex on parchment in folio, fenced on every side with plates of copper, in Gothic character, containing the Acts of the passion of St. Alexander, of Grata, of Hesteria, and of others, belonging to the ancient archive of the monastery of St. Grata in Columellis of the city of Bergamo, of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, which appears from the last page to have been collected about the year 1240… They are found from the first page to the 16th. So the notary who transcribed them. They are divided into 29 chapters: we shall divide them into fewer, and shall observe in notes the less credible things contained in them, unless they have already been discussed in the Commentary.

[13] Besides the Acts already mentioned, the people of Bergamo have a Manuscript Lectionary, Manuscript Lessons not to be published. in which are two Offices of St. Grata, divided into nine lessons, the one relating a summary of her Life, the other the translation of her body. This Lectionary was written in the fifteenth century, but from an older one, as they assert. Bosch, in the Acts of St. Hesteria, volume 2 of August, page 541, inquires at what time these lessons appear to have been first written; and he proves that the lessons about St. Hesteria inserted in the same could not have been written before the year 1290, in which the body of St. Hesteria was translated, since before that she had no cult. Now

indeed it can scarcely be doubted that the lessons about St. Grata were composed at the same time, since all the lessons are compiled in plainly the same style and manner, and contain the same things which breed confusion in the history of Bergamo. It appears also from another quarter that these lessons were formed after the Life written by Pinamonte; for they contain many things which were unknown to him, and could not have been unknown if they had already existed when he was writing the Life. In these lessons is found almost everything which the more recent writers Benalius, Guarneri, Celestino, and others have related more fully. But since both the Life and the translation were written by Pinamonte, I have not thought these lessons should be published. Where I cite them, I shall do so under the name of the Manuscript Lessons.

§ II. Whether the five leaders of Bergamo asserted by more recent writers are to be admitted at the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century.

[ ] [Henschen did not dare to admit leaders at Bergamo in the third and fourth century.] Henschen, in volume 2 of June, page 239 and following, having briefly treated what he could then find pertaining to SS. Lupus and Adleyda, reckoned up certain reasons why these Saints cannot belong to the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, yet suspending his judgment on the whole matter. The judgment of that most weighty man stirred up the people of Bergamo — proposed doubtfully indeed, yet supported by such reasons that it was not ambiguous to which side he inclined. All the archives at Bergamo were therefore ransacked, all records diligently sought out and transmitted to us with equal courtesy and diligence. Above the rest the most courteous Guerrini, praised above, labored at it, sending us a lengthy dissertation in which he strives to show that the leaders of Bergamo at the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century were Crotacius, Lupus, Adleyda, Grata, Hesteria, as the tradition of Bergamo has it. He added to the Dissertation a most courteous letter, in which he asked that the matter be examined further as soon as possible, and that, the first occasion being seized, Henschen's doubt be laid aside. My Elders modestly declined to do this out of its proper place, especially because, all the reasons being weighed, the opinion to which Henschen inclined seemed not to be retracted but confirmed: to this place therefore that tradition about the leaders of Bergamo was remitted. For which cause I shall diligently weigh all the reasons on which that tradition rests, and, these being weighed, I shall allege the reasons why it does not seem admissible.

[15] [In support of these leaders the authority of writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is brought forward,] To prove the tradition of his city, Guerrini brings forward the authority of certain more recent writers, all of whom I shall briefly mention, since the answer to them is the same. Bartolomeo Peregrino in the Vinea Bergomensis, Francesco Bellafino in the History of the origin and times of the city of Bergamo, Giovanni Crisostomo Zanchi in the Work on the Origin of the Orobii and the Cenomani, mention these leaders; but these writers are of the sixteenth century. Jacopo Filippo Foresti of Bergamo, who flourished at the end of the fifteenth century, in the Work on Famous women, chapter CXI, asserts this about St. Grata: Grata, a matron and a most chaste virgin, distinguished in birth and rank, but more distinguished by her admirable virtues and sanctity, in that year in which the divine Constantine the Great obtained the monarchy of the whole empire, having overcome the course of this world, glorious in merits and in a most excellent old age, met the end of her life at Bergamo, her own city of Cisalpine Gaul. She, then, deriving her origin from the city of Bergamo, had for her father Lupus, the very wealthy leader of that city, whose heiress, being his daughter, she was, and to whom fell a most opulent patrimony. And since from her very youth she had grown to be the most beautiful among the other women of her region, they assert that she was betrothed to a certain great prince of the Germans; but the nuptials were never celebrated. These things partly favor the present-day tradition of Bergamo, and partly oppose it. For he mentions only one leader of Bergamo, Lupus, and is silent about Grata's leadership. But it is of no use to investigate this more zealously; for the date of the man of Bergamo is not such that his authority can add great weight to the tradition: we must go back therefore to the sources whence those recent writers drew their materials.

[16] Now the source of this whole tradition seems to be the history of the Life of St. Grata written by Brother Pinamonte, [and of Pinamonte the biographer: the Manuscript lessons, and an ancient inscription, as they will have it;] of which we treated more fully in §1. But how little fitly this history is written for producing belief, we have already shown, and shall further show in the notes upon it. Yet they add certain other things to the authority of these writers. First, the Manuscript lessons, of which at number 13, which they call ancient records. But that these are later than Pinamonte we have already proved in the same place. Then an inscription, as they say, ancient, reported by Celestino in the History of Bergamo, part 1, book 2, chapter 16, in these words: Because for his brilliant deeds both of prudence and of fortitude Crotacius deserved to be declared by the emperor Probus the first leader of Bergamo — he who begat Lupus, under whose rule the seeds of the Catholic faith formerly sown by the divine Barnabas flourished among the whole people — this city dedicated to him monuments of perpetual and venerable memory. He relates that this epigraph was beneath the image of a seated Cæsar placing a crown on the head of a certain knight bending his knees, such a crown as the Venetian doges now wear. Celestino does not say how ancient this inscription is. But that it is not very ancient is manifest from various things.

[17] First, in the same hall there was another inscription, which Guerrini in the said Manuscript Dissertation sent to us testifies to have been set up two centuries ago, but this is proved to be quite recent. and which Celestino recites after the first, framed in these words: In the year of the Virgin's childbearing CCLXXX it began to be ruled by its own leaders: first by Crotacius, in whose rule it was the head of the whole Venetian province: then by the divine Lupus, Adleyda, Grata, Hesteria. It is likely, therefore, that the former was set up at the same time as this one. Secondly, the ancient Christians did not call their saints Divi, as St. Barnabas is here called: that was the custom of the heathen, who called divi those whom they reckoned in the number of the gods. Thirdly, the whole inscription is utterly inept, without any epoch of the time in which the thing is claimed to have been done, or in which the inscription itself was set up: then the monument is ineptly said to have been erected to the pagan Crotacius, because religion flourished under Lupus. Fourthly, there is no mention of this inscription in Pinamonte, who elsewhere recites less pertinent ones: whence you may gather that it is at least later than he. Finally, that this inscription is lying and fictitious we shall prove by all the arguments with which we shall show that these leaders of Bergamo did not exist.

[18] [other inscriptions, none of which is ancient: the Moses whom they cite belongs to the twelfth century.] The people of Bergamo bring forward other inscriptions of this kind, but let it suffice to have said in one word that none of them is ancient. They also call to their aid the poet Moses, already cited by Pinamonte in the Life, chapter 7, in our division chapter 2, and they will have it that he wrote in the year of salvation 707. But Muratori, who in the writers of Italian affairs gave the poem of Moses to the press, volume 5 from page 529, in the preliminary notice to it learnedly shows that Moses wrote his poem in the twelfth century, not in the eighth: and at the end of the preface he thus warns: For the rest, Moses stuffed the origin of the city of Bergamo with many little fables, namely according to the temper of his times. Wherefore the reckoning of this Moses can be of small moment, whether you regard his date or his method of writing. Guerrini indeed, in the reprinted Synopsis of the affairs of Bergamo, page 23 and following, tried to answer certain of Muratori's arguments, but he did not touch on all of them, nor did he resolve those he touched so solidly that Muratori's opinion should not seem preferable. Of Moses, however, we shall treat a little later at greater length, and speech will now and then return to the inscriptions also. These are the things I find in favor of the tradition of the people of Bergamo about their ancient leaders; now the arguments must be weighed which quite overturn this opinion — arguments neither few nor slight.

[19] [The dukedom of Crotacius is proved fictitious by the silence of all the ancients,] The first of the leaders of Bergamo is said to be Crotacius, appointed, as they will have it, by the emperor Probus. The deeds of Probus have been written by various authors, most accurately of all by Flavius Vopiscus, and from him and others by Tillemont, volume 3 on the Emperors, from page 420. Whence then shall we say it came about that they did not commit so great a matter to the memory of posterity? Was Vopiscus ignorant that Crotacius had been made leader of Bergamo? But this is utterly incredible, since that principate of Crotacius was continued to four successors, if credit is to be given to the people of Bergamo. Did he not think this deed worthy to be inserted into his history? But he inserted matters far smaller. And at the end of his history he gives the following notice: These are the things which we have learned about Probus, or which we have judged worthy of record. Therefore, since the dukedom of Crotacius would have been too famous to be unworthy of record, and too wide — as embracing the whole Venetian province — and, in his successors at least, too long-lasting to have been able to escape Vopiscus, there seems no other reason why the leader Crotacius is not mentioned by that author than that he was never appointed by Probus. This negative argument ought to have the greatest force, because that same Crotacius was down to the twelfth century wholly unknown to all authors whatsoever.

[20] and because the institution of dukes in Italy is far later; Another argument against the tradition of Bergamo is drawn from the beginning of dukes in Italy; which the praised Henschen already objected in the Acts of SS. Lupus and Adleyda, where at number 6 he has this: Against such credulity there stands the popular tradition itself, which makes leaders of the people of Bergamo, such as there were none before the kingdom of the Lombards in Italy. Not all, if you regard the words only, agree with this saying of Henschen. But if the substance be in question, they will not disagree, or certainly ought not to disagree. Antonio Caracciolo, in the Records of the church of Naples, chapter 30, section 1, proves that the institution of dukes in Italy is later than Constantine the Great, and is to be brought down to the times of Justinian, which is enough for our purpose. Scipione Maffei, in the History of Verona, book 10, treats at large of the first institution of dukes in Italy, and contends that it is to be attributed not to the Lombards but to the Greeks, before the coming of the Lombards into Italy. That too is enough for our purpose: yet it is worth examining in a few words whether the Lombards, as Maffei will have it, introduced no other change than that, when the cities were occupied, they set their own men in place of the Greek dukes.

[21] Paul the Deacon, book 2 on the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 32, after relating at chapter 31 the slaying of Cleph, king of the Lombards, whose beginning, if we speak properly, is to be referred to the Lombards: writes thus: After whose death the Lombards, having no king for ten years, were under dukes. For each of the dukes held his own city: Zaban Pavia, Uvaillari Bergamo, Alachis Brescia, Evin Trent, Gisulf Cividale del Friuli. But besides these there were thirty other dukes in their own cities. Thus he, in volume 1 of the Writers of Italy, page 436. Those dukes indeed were afterwards subject to the king of the Lombards when he had been chosen again, as vassals

to a supreme lord, yet they remained in the government of their own cities, and handed that government on to their posterity also. Such were not the dukes of the Greeks; for the dukes of the Lombards ruled their cities as their lords, whereas the dukes of the Greeks ruled as ministers of the emperor or of the exarch. At this point, therefore, that is, after the death of Cleph, the second king of the Lombards in Italy, the beginning of dukes seems to be placed, if we are looking for dukes who were lords of their own cities and distinguished from governors by more than name alone. So much briefly for the opinion of those who have said that Italian dukes had their beginning from the Lombards, from whom the praised Maffei differs in words rather than in fact. Now let us return more closely to our matter.

[22] The dukes whom the people of Bergamo thrust upon us from the third and fourth century [from which it is proved that the inscriptions of the people of Bergamo are fabulous.] are described in such a way that they were lords of their own dominion, yet subject to the supreme lordship of the emperor — such as are vassals or feudatories, as we speak today. For while they paint Crotacius crowned with a ducal crown by the emperor Probus; while in another epigraph they say, It began to be ruled by its own leaders, first by Crotacius … then by Lupus, Adleyda, Grata, Hesteria; while they write that Adleyda, Grata, and Hesteria were brought by the people to the government of the city, and that Lupus succeeded his father — either all this must be fictitious, or else the said leaders presided over Bergamo not as prefects of the emperor but in their own name, in the manner in which the Lombard dukes continued to preside over their cities even after the kings were restored. But we have already proved that such dukes did not exist in Italy under the empire of the Romans before the kingdom of the Lombards. Therefore we must needs say that these inscriptions, these elections by the people, these hereditary successions are fabulous, and that this series of leaders of Bergamo is utterly incredible.

[23] In the Acts of St. Alexander, which I gave at the XXVI of August, The opinion of the people of Bergamo is overthrown by other reasons, it is said at number 9 that a certain matron … most chaste in merits, and Grata by name (in the ancient Office of St. Alexander she is called a Widow) buried the body of St. Alexander in her own little estate. This very woman they will have to have been afterwards leader of Bergamo, the daughter of the leaders Lupus and Adleyda. But who would believe that so great a dignity of Grata was wrapped in silence by the author? Who would suppose that the author would have made no mention of Lupus and Adleyda, if they had then been administering the commonwealth of Bergamo? They contend that Hesteria was Grata's companion in burying the sacred body. Again there is deep silence about Hesteria in the Acts of Alexander. They write that one church was built by Lupus, two by Adleyda, three by Grata. Who could bring himself to believe that this was done, as Henschen observes, at the beginning of the fourth century, while the persecution against the Christians was then raging at its very height, as is most well known, the tyrants Diocletian and Maximian making their utmost efforts for the extermination of the Christian name, both in all the other provinces and most of all throughout Italy? Could Maximian and his prefects have been ignorant that so many churches were built at Bergamo? Could the tyrant, unlike himself, have permitted it? The thing indeed must have seemed like a miracle, that four Christian princes reigned at Bergamo, built very many churches, and converted almost all the citizens to the faith, while Maximian's sword raged through Italy and even at Bergamo sent some to heaven. And yet a matter so great and so astounding either was unknown to the writers of that time, and to others who followed in the same century, or else they thought it unworthy to be handed down to memory — which is no less astounding. Nay, those who afterwards wrote the Acts of St. Alexander make no mention of a church built for Alexander, where the place required it: In which place, says the author of the Acts at number 9, marking out the place of the tomb, the Lord, entreated by the merits of the blessed Martyr, always shows prodigies, and fulfils the vows of the suppliants. Why does he not mention the church, if a church had already been founded there by Grata?

[24] many things being omitted for brevity's sake. Henschen objects besides that the name of Adleyda is Lombard, or Teutonic, and that the marriage of Grata is asserted to have been with a German prince in Germany. For these things are not probable for the third or fourth century. Still less probable is what some add today, that she lived with her husband in virginity, in order forsooth to show acutely how she was both widow and virgin. For Grata was sought in marriage by a bridegroom taken with the beauty of her form; but when he receives her as wife, the heathen man abstains from her altogether. That is a prodigy, if the people of Bergamo relate truly: but prodigies of this kind find no credit without suitable witnesses. More arguments can be brought forward, which I forbear, since I think these enough. Likewise I do not press the chronological slips, lest I be too long. Yet the verses of Moses of Bergamo, so far as they bear on the matter, must be sifted, that it may appear how on every side the chief argument of the people of Bergamo totters.

[25] that the poet Moses is wrongly explained by the people of Bergamo I shall set down the words of Moses as they are cited by Pinamonte in the Life, chapter 2.

Hence, when thou goest forward a little toward the rising of the sun, Look upon the happy garden of the rich Crotacius (hortum:) Which the powerful queen Grata surrounded with marble, When she ruled the blessed sceptres of the see of Bergamo.

Grata is called queen, they say, because she was married to a German king. But if we believe the poet, she is called queen because as a queen she was administering the commonwealth of Bergamo; for that is what these words mean: when she ruled the sceptres of the see of Bergamo — and not merely queen, but a powerful queen. And indeed she must have been powerful in riches, if in the four years of her reign she built three churches with a hospice and endowed them with ample revenues; if she girded the garden of Crotacius with marble. But it is greatly to be wondered why a Christian queen should have so greatly loved this garden, in which idolatry flourished, where Crotacius — if we are to believe the said Celestino, book 2, chapter 18, and Guerrini in the Synopsis, page 3 — was worshipped, having been reckoned among the gods by the superstition of the heathen, so that she girded it with marble in royal magnificence. But let us return to the verses of Moses.

There flourishes there every kind of flower at every season, From which there goes forth a power of scents that heals the sick.

These flowers, if they had a prodigious power of healing, seem to be attributed to St. Alexander, slain in that place: but we rightly wonder that no mention is made of them in the Acts of this holy martyr. Yet from this passage seem to have flowed the things which Guarneri hands down in the Life of Lupus about Lupus being converted to the faith by means of flowers, although they are very different. It came about by divine counsel, he says, that those who were carrying out the body of St. Alexander, being wearied on the way, set down the bier and rested awhile until they should refresh themselves from their labor. In the place where the bier was set, the earth, drenched with blood, brought forth purple flowers, from which a most sweet fragrance breathed. This occasion of a miracle being offered, Grata brought to her father a little bundle of the flowers she had plucked, and when she had told the whole matter in order, she put the flowers to her father's nostrils: and using words suited to the matter, she converted her father to the faith. I suspect, I say, that this conclusion was deduced from the flowers of Moses; for I find no other trace of this conversion. The same conversion of Lupus by means of flowers is related in the Manuscript lessons of St. Lupus, but the flowers are said to have been taken from the place where St. Alexander was slain, which at least comes nearer to Moses. But those lessons are not so ancient that we can safely give them credit.

[26] Let us go on with Moses.

Crotacus, the grandfather of this queen, is said to have Established for her that farm greatly out of his own goods. Whence the ancients said the place was called by his name, And that very place preserves his buried body. The lofty column will give thee manifest signs of the god, Which after his death the fostering people fashioned for their lord.

After which Pinamonte thus subjoins: For in this place there was set a certain statue, which was called Plotacius, where demons were worshipped: from this statue also some have called the aforesaid place Plotacium. Both the statue and the place are certainly called Plotacio in the Acts of St. Alexander, which are far more ancient than both Moses and Pinamonte, and no mention of Crotacius is there made. Whence in the Commentary on the Acts at the XXVI of August, number XI, I said that Moses more probably has in view more ancient times, in which he had a little before said that there were also kings at Bergamo, in these words:

Here shine the wondrous palaces of the ancient kings.

From which I conclude that we should need an Oedipus to understand what that poet meant, and that no argument for the tradition of the people of Bergamo can be drawn from him, since it is uncertain of what time and of what persons he treats. Besides, we gather from what has been said how uncertain were the records which Brother Pinamonte followed: so that from this alone it becomes likely that he confused into one St. Grata many things which he found about different women of the same name, and handed down to us a history of a Life whose confusion one may easily perceive but very hardly unravel. For the rest, that Moses, even if he had spoken of Grata, is not against us, will appear in the following §.

§ III. The age of SS. Lupus and Adleyda, leaders of Bergamo, probably assigned: a conjecture about two Gratas confounded: some doubts about the Life discussed.

[ ] What we have disputed in the preceding § does not tend to this, that we should call in question whether the people of Bergamo have SS. Lupus and Adleyda as princes of their city; we intend to prove only that they did not live at that time at which the people of Bergamo today contend, without the testimony of the ancients, that they lived: A coin of Lupus, leader of Bergamo, struck in the time of the Lombards, that those Saints were of Bergamo, and were also princes of the city, we believe on their tradition; nor do we think it matters, either to the glory of the Saints or to that of the people of Bergamo, whether the Saints flourished in the third or in the eighth century, provided it be established that they were Saints and princes of Bergamo. In this place, therefore, we inquire at what age it is more probable that the holy leaders Lupus and Adleyda flourished; from which we shall then gather whether they had St. Grata for a daughter: and, if they seem to have had her, whether this is the same woman who took care that the body of St. Alexander should be committed to burial. Celestino in the History of Bergamo, part 1, book 2, chapter 17, exhibits a coin which bears on one side Bergomum, on the other the leader of Bergamo with this epigraph: Lupus dux pergami. See here the coin, such as Celestino gave it, and of which he affirms that a golden one like it is found. The praised Celestino rightly observes that this leader is not the man whom they will have to be the son of Crotacius and the father of Grata in the third century, but a Lombard duke: and likewise that this coin was not struck by later men in honor of St. Lupus; for they would not have omitted the title of Saint. The aforesaid author besides inquires at chapter 31 by what duke the aforesaid coins were struck, and proves by many reasons that they were struck by Lupus, the Lombard duke, whom Charlemagne subjected to himself together with the kingdom of the Lombards, and converted to the Catholic faith. I shall touch briefly on the chief reasons, not that I may follow his opinion about a twofold Lupus, leader of the people of Bergamo, but that I may show that some Lupus presided as duke over Bergamo at the end of the eighth century.

[28] and other records prove, The first reason, brought forward at chapter 17, is drawn from the crown with which Lupus is represented as encircled: for this ducal crown does not seem to have been in use in the third or fourth century. The second reason is that the faculty of striking coins does not seem to have been given under the Roman emperors to the cities of Italy, but was given by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, to the Lombard dukes, as, he says, Giovanni Nanni testifies that it was granted to the duke of Viterbo. The third, by which he says every doubt was removed from him, are the Manuscripts, and among them the Chronicle of Gregorio Morelli, all of which assert that a Duke of Bergamo named Lupus was found by Charlemagne when he was waging war with Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and subduing the Lombard kingdom to himself. He adds another argument also from the long beard of Lupus which the coin exhibits. To these reasons I add this argument. On the coin he is written duke of Pergamum. But Celestino excellently proves at chapter 30 that before the times of the Lombards the city's name was Bergomum, not Pergamum, which was introduced in the time of the Lombards. Therefore that coin was struck after the entry of the Lombards into Italy: nor is there any reason why we should attribute it to another than the Lupus converted by Charlemagne. Of this Lupus he relates at chapter 32, from Gregorio Morelli and two other Manuscripts, that after a slight defense he submitted himself to Charles and embraced the Catholic faith: for he was a pagan, that is, an Arian, as Celestino will have it from what follows — whether rightly, for want of records I cannot assert.

[29] The same author, book 3, chapter 1, relates that Lupus set out with Charles that Lupus was leader of Bergamo in the eighth century: to subdue certain remnants of the Lombards; at chapter 2, that Charles, returning with Lupus, granted various privileges to the church of Bergamo, which other authors also report. He had already said at chapter 32 of book 2 that he likewise restored certain churches, built certain new ones, and venerated the body of St. Alexander. But it is not necessary to treat these things more curiously for our purpose. It is enough for my intention that Lupus was found leader of Bergamo, and that he was converted to the Catholic faith. Yet it will help also to remember that churches were restored at the same time. For these things being presupposed, we shall at least probably detect the age of SS. Lupus and Adleyda his wife, and shall find perhaps two Gratas for one. But that we may proceed more clearly, two things are to be observed: first, from the long-standing tradition of the church of Bergamo, that St. Lupus at some time presided over the commonwealth of Bergamo and had Adleyda for wife; for this has been constantly believed from the thirteenth century until now, as we understand from Pinamonte and the authors who followed him: nor do we see whence this opinion could easily have arisen if the matter were not so. The second we think sufficiently proved, namely that Lupus did not flourish in the times of Diocletian and Maximian. These things then being noted, I conclude the whole matter with a brief piece of reasoning.

[30] Bergamo had St. Lupus as prince and leader of its city. that this is St. Lupus But it had no other leader of its city named Lupus except the Lupus who at the end of the eighth century was conquered by Charlemagne and converted to the faith. This very man therefore is to be believed to be the Lupus whom the people of Bergamo venerate with an ecclesiastical Office, and whom they have long venerated with his wife Adleyda. Let us now clear up each point a little. That the people of Bergamo had no other leader Lupus we gather from the silence of Paul the Deacon and of all writers; for it is not lawful to invent Lupi, or leaders of the people of Bergamo, without any witness. But that this one lived at the end of the eighth century has been proved from various authors: nor does the silence of Paul the Deacon stand in the way, who did not carry his History down to those times; nor that of other writers; for no writer, at least one living near Lupus's own time, who has treated accurately the affairs of the people of Bergamo and of the Lombards, has hitherto, I think, become known. Therefore we cannot wonder that Lupus is not commemorated by the chief writers of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, and by those who followed afterwards, and that from this arose the confusion which we perceive reigning today in his history.

[31] If we had at hand the Manuscript records which Celestino cited, and which indicated the duke Lupus, various arguments persuade. perhaps we should find there also Adleyda his wife and Grata his daughter. Certainly the name Adleyda, being Lombard, suits the time particularly well; so do the nuptials of Grata with a German prince, which Pinamonte already asserted, and which others after him have written, though not in the same manner. There suit this time also the churches built by Lupus, Adleyda, and Grata, helped to this perhaps by the wealth of Charlemagne, since some also attribute it to Charles, who certainly did not stay so long at Bergamo as to have been able to accomplish it himself. There suits this Lupus also the fact that St. Lupus is said to have been converted to the Catholic faith. Nor can we wonder that a man newly converted soon turned out a saint: since at almost the same time we have an illustrious example in Widukind, duke of the Saxons of Westphalia, likewise converted to the faith by the labor of Charlemagne, about whom our Elders speak thus in volume 1 of January, page 380: Since, as the Apostle preaches, where sin abounded, grace has often more abounded, it sometimes happens that those who had persecuted the Church of God with the fiercest war afterwards fight gloriously for her honor and flourish with a notable praise of holiness. In which kind the virtue of Widukind, duke of the Saxons, raised itself eminently; who, when for many years he had waged wars with the Franks, not so much for the liberty of his nation as out of hatred of the Christian religion, at last, being softened by divine grace, set his mind to embrace the rites he had before abhorred with such ardor that thereafter he obtained both, while living, no common glory of piety, and after death the honors of the Saints. These things can for the most part suit our Lupus. Therefore we strongly suspect that this is the St. Lupus whom the people of Bergamo venerate.

[32] Various reasons persuade that there are two Gratas, That St. Grata was the daughter of Lupus and Adleyda, Pinamonte asserts in the Life, and very many authors who followed him. But that the Grata who took care of St. Alexander's burial was not their daughter has been abundantly demonstrated from what has been said. Further, we do not think that Pinamonte, a pious man, wished to impose upon his readers; nor do we see whence he could have been led into this opinion, unless Lupus and Adleyda really had a daughter called by this name. Whence I am led to this opinion, that I think St. Grata, whom the people of Bergamo venerate, was really the daughter of Lupus and Adleyda, since there are other things too which persuade this. For first, at number 2 we gave four martyrologies which name Grata a Virgin; but they could not have named a virgin that holy woman, likewise Grata by name, who buried St. Alexander, since in the Acts of St. Alexander she is called a matron. Therefore these martyrologists seem to have had in view an altogether different Grata. Add that the one Martyrology in which we saw at number 2 that St. Grata is called a widow attributes the burial of St. Alexander to her, and commemorates St. Grata on another day, namely at the XXVI of August with Alexander. But the martyrologies which call her virgin neither mention the burial of St. Alexander nor announce Grata on the same day as Alexander. Whence it is likely that different Gratas are commemorated, and that the Grata who was Lupus's daughter is called virgin, while that Grata who buried St. Alexander is called widow.

[33] whom the biographer confounded; There is added to the aforesaid arguments that I find no trace of a cult of St. Grata before the eleventh century, in which her body was translated by bishop Ambrose, as we shall say in §4, from the place of burial to a church dedicated to her name. But it is not credible that a woman who had lain hidden for seven hundred years already, and had been inserted in no Martyrology, then at last obtained a cult. Add the tradition of the people of Bergamo, which records a hospital built by her and various churches erected: for these things do not fall upon the woman who took charge of St. Alexander's funeral, as we have shown; but they suit most excellently the Grata who was daughter of the leader Lupus. From what has been said I conclude that St. Grata, whom the people of Bergamo venerate, is more probably the daughter of Lupus and Adleyda, and seems to be assigned to the eighth century, or to the beginning of the ninth: and that for no other reason has she been referred to earlier times than that Pinamonte the biographer confounded her with the other. But lest this confusion seem incredible to the reader, I shall briefly show how easily Pinamonte could have slipped into it.

[34] The said author had the Acts of St. Alexander the martyr: that it could easily have happened is shown. for he copied certain things from them, as I shall note in the annotations. In these he found Grata, a pious woman, who buried the holy martyr. He had the writings of Moses of Bergamo, which he cites, where he found a certain Grata, granddaughter of Crotacius, and the same called queen. He had doubtless certain records, or at least the tradition of the people of Bergamo, which taught that Grata was the daughter of the leaders Lupus and Adleyda: for I do not suppose that he invented this. He had a tradition, or perhaps even certain writings, about the churches built by Lupus, Adleyda, and Grata. Hence, since he was not sufficiently skilled in history and chronology, he could have thought that Grata was everywhere the same woman, especially since he testifies that he had collected the Life from charters and inscriptions on every side; and so he could reason with himself thus. Grata is the daughter of Lupus, the granddaughter of Crotacius; Crotacius therefore is the father of Lupus. Again: Grata buried Alexander, crowned with martyrdom in the time of Maximian; therefore both Grata and Lupus lived at that same time of Maximian, and Crotacius not long before. Dost thou see how things most widely separated could be joined together by an error so easy, if we understand Grata to be everywhere the same? But if we distinguish the Grata who was Lupus's daughter from that matron who committed the body of St. Alexander to burial, that whole series of leaders, invented against historical truth, vanishes at once. But that queen Grata, mentioned by the poet Moses along with her grandfather Crotacius, seems to be relegated to the ancestral kings, long before the birth of Christ, if some have related true things about them; unless one should prefer to think that Lupus's daughter is by poetic license called Queen, which is not against our opinion: for she too in the eighth century could have had a grandfather Crotacius, whom Moses called rich, not prince, as it is now corruptly read, nor leader of Bergamo, any more than did Pinamonte the biographer. Later men wrongly gathered this from their words — so that we may the less wonder that Pinamonte too gathered some things incorrectly.

[35] Here someone will ask, if we admit St. Grata to be Lupus's daughter, distinct from the earlier widow of the same name, Pinamonte asserts St. Grata's marriage with a German prince, whether we must think it should be believed that her nuptials with a German prince really took place, and that she was leader of Bergamo after her parents. These two points come to be cleared up in this place. Of the nuptials the authors speak in very various ways. Pinamonte in the Life, chapter 4, hints that the nuptials altogether took place and the marriage was consummated, when he writes thus: Grata in her youthful years is betrothed to a king, the son of a king; already then she had obtained a good spirit.

At length, joined to him in the marriage bed, by persisting in almsgiving and works of mercy she made her noble husband, so far as she could, devoted to God. But the biographer does not altogether persuade me of the matter, because he seems to have gathered it from the poet Moses, who calls Grata a queen, as what follows intimates: And not only because the father of St. Grata … descended from a royal stock, but also because she herself was married to a king, therefore this blessed Grata was called queen, and that excellent versifier Moses, who composed the Pergaminum, treating of her, did not fear to call her queen. If Pinamonte had had a better proof of his opinion, he would, I think, have brought it forward.

[36] Certainly Jacopo Filippo of Bergamo, in the Work on Famous women, chapter CXI, the man of Bergamo asserts only a betrothal: whose opinion is to be preferred: although in many things he follows Pinamonte, opposes his opinion about the marriage of St. Grata, and relates the matter thus: And since from her very youth she had grown to be the most beautiful among the other women of her region, they assert that she was betrothed to a certain great prince of the Germans; but the nuptials were never celebrated. The betrothal, as you see, he reports on the opinion of others; the marriage he altogether denies. Whence not even the betrothal itself seems to me altogether certain; and the marriage even more uncertain and less probable: for I do not doubt that the man of Bergamo had certain reasons why he dissented from Pinamonte and called her virgin; nor likewise did the martyrologists cited above name her virgin without reason, making no mention of nuptials. But as to what certain recent writers assert, that she was married but preserved her virginity with her husband — that invention is indeed subtle and convenient for solving the difficulty, but not sufficiently solid: for it should first have been proved that she lived bound to a husband in wedlock, before they invented a thing so great and so unusual without any testimony of older writers: for the fact that a few women have lived as virgins in marriage is not a sufficient foundation for asserting that this happened here also. We gather from what has been said that St. Grata, Lupus's daughter, is more probably a virgin, whether she was betrothed, or perhaps even married by proxy, or not even betrothed — which things I reckon uncertain. Now let us proceed to the other doubt.

[37] It is proved that St. Grata was not leader of the people of Bergamo. Pinamonte, the writer of her Life, did not acknowledge that St. Grata governed the commonwealth of Bergamo. For first he prefixes to the Life this title: Of St. Grata, noble matron of the people of Bergamo. Thus he calls her matron in the title of chapter 1, and widow in the title of chapter 2. Then nowhere does he teach that she was chosen leader by the votes of the citizens, nowhere that she succeeded to her parents' dignity or presided over the city. But at chapter 13 he writes thus: Because the blessed handmaid of God, Grata, could not fitly have the silences of the quiet she desired, the Handmaid of God thought to withdraw a little, and there to choose another place near by to dwell in, in which she might remain in God's service to the end of her life. Presently at chapter 14 he subjoins the hospice founded by her and her retirement into it, and at chapter 18 he says: When therefore she had persevered in God's service in the aforesaid hospital through the space of many years, … she began to sicken in the aforesaid hospice with a grievous bodily illness; and he immediately subjoins her death in the hospice and her burial. From these things I think it manifest that those writers are contrary to Pinamonte who have said that she was brought by the votes of the citizens to the government of the city and died in that office. Nor does the man of Bergamo differ from Pinamonte in denying her the ducal dignity, when he writes thus at chapter CXI: For this cause, that she might show herself dead to the world, she was the first in that city to begin to practise the cloistered life, and gathering to herself very many virgins in God's service, she shone forth exceedingly renowned for glorious virtues and miracles. The Saint can therefore be called a leader on account of her parents' rank, but not, as it seems, on account of any administration of the city by herself.

[38] St. Hesteria, the companion of St. Grata Pinamonte joins Hesteria to Grata as her companion in several matters: but he does not call her a saint or a martyr, much less a leader of the people of Bergamo, although he greatly commends her piety. It may seem doubtful whether this Hesteria is the same as the St. Hesteria whom the people of Bergamo venerate on the XI of August, if we admit as true whatever they now relate about St. Hesteria: for what Pinamonte writes does not sufficiently agree with what is related about St. Hesteria. But in so great a confusion of matters pertaining to the Saints of Bergamo, I would more easily believe that from that same confusion certain errors crept into the deeds of St. Hesteria too, than say that Hesteria the companion of St. Grata is distinct from St. Hesteria, which the people of Bergamo themselves will not admit. Certainly St. Hesteria was almost unknown to the people of Bergamo until the year 1290, in which her sacred body was found with the bodies of three martyrs, as is related in volume III of July, page 204, so that we cannot doubt that what is afterwards found written about her is very uncertain. But what Pinamonte has about her familiarity with St. Grata he could have taken from certain documents treating of St. Grata, and thence have thought that she who was not absent in all other matters was not absent at St. Alexander's burial. Hence we see on what ground she could have been referred to the persecution of Diocletian, even if we believed that she lived in the eighth century in the closest union with St. Grata. Further, there are many things which persuade that she was among men rather in the eighth century than in the reign of Diocletian.

[39] First, St. Hesteria is read to have been buried in the cathedral church of St. Alexander the martyr: various reasons persuade that she belongs to the eighth century; but in the year 307, in which they will have her to have been crowned with martyrdom, the church of St. Alexander was not yet built, as we have proved. Nor can it be said on any foundation that the treasure of her sacred body was afterwards brought into the church of St. Alexander: for no mention is made of any translation before the year 1291; nor, if she had once been translated, would the Saint's memory have been so utterly abolished. Secondly, Celestino, History of Bergamo, part 2, page 291, brings forward these words from the Sanctuarium of Bergamo: It is also reported that at her translation her bones were found most bright, and as though mixed with gold and silver, wonderfully fragrant, although they had lain hidden for five hundred years. This discovery happened in the year 1290, as may be read in volume III of July, page 204, together with the history of the discovery and translation. From Lesson 6 of this I take the following: They saw also the bones entire, bright as silver, from which flowed a fragrance of the best odor. Whence, if "hidden for five hundred years" be the same as "buried for five hundred years," we shall be led back from the year 1290 to the year 790, and shall arrive at the age of St. Grata, daughter of the leader Lupus. Which argument, provided the words are correctly cited by Celestino, in some fashion also confirms what I disputed above about a twofold Grata. Thirdly, in the Acts of St. Alexander there is no memory of Hesteria. So she seems rather to have been the companion of the other Grata than of the one who paid the last service to Alexander: for the author would not have omitted Hesteria, a holy and illustrious woman, if she had had a part in the burial.

[40] Yet it seems to stand against these reasons that St. Hesteria or Asteria is venerated as a martyr, [and that from the confusion of two Gratas she was wrongly referred to the persecution of Diocletian.] for Pinamonte records nothing about Hesteria's martyrdom. But it may be answered that nothing about the Saint's martyrdom is established from ancient records, and therefore that this opinion about her martyrdom is quite uncertain. Certainly Pinamonte would not have passed over her martyrdom if anything about it had become known. Then, if it were altogether established that she was a martyr, there is no reason why she could not in the eighth century also have been slain either out of hatred of the faith or for the defense of her virginity, and so have been crowned with the laurel of martyrdom. Wherefore, unless we invent two Hesterias without sufficient reason, it seems we must say that this is the very Hesteria whom the church of Bergamo venerates on the XI of August, and who by the same error as Lupus, as Adleyda, as Grata their daughter, was referred to the persecution of Diocletian, so that, the error being detected, she seems to be restored to the eighth century. These things, probably disputed about the twofold Grata, from whose confusion the whole error seems to have arisen, and about Lupus, Adleyda, and Hesteria, I would have the reader so receive that he attributes to them only as much as he shall judge ought to be attributed on the grounds alleged. For we do not think we have brought forward certainties, which in so great a scarcity of records could not be done: but since the cult of those Saints was established, and we saw their deeds confused and entangled on every side, we have tried, so far as we could, to unravel them. If anyone furnished with better documents can do this more surely, we shall gladly and thankfully embrace his opinion.

§ IV. The deeds of each Grata probably arranged: the translations of the body.

[ ] The deeds of the first Grata distinguished: If, according to what has been said in the preceding §, we admit two Gratas distinct from one another, whose deeds the biographer confounded and attributed to one, most of the things which he related will be able to be admitted as true, the confusion of persons and times being removed. It helps therefore here to indicate what seems to belong to each, and in what order. The first, who was among men in the time of Diocletian and Maximian, buried the body of St. Alexander the martyr on her own estate, which is related in the Acts of St. Alexander given at the XXVI of August, number 9, in this manner: Then after some days a certain matron came, most chaste in merits and Grata by name, and finding the blessed body received it with joy and gladness, and carried it with her own people to her little estate, which is seen situated beside the walls of the already-mentioned city of Bergamo, and there with spices buried it in the best place. To which a little after is subjoined: In which place the Lord, entreated by the merits of the blessed martyr, always shows prodigies and fulfils the vows of suppliants. From these words we gather that the church afterwards built there for St. Alexander does not seem to be attributed to this Grata, since its author makes no mention of it, as he undoubtedly would have done if it had already been built. These things alone about this matron Grata have become known to us: all the rest, unless one prefers to hold them fictitious, comes to be ascribed to the other Grata. The memory of the first Grata is announced by Grevenus in the additions to Usuard at the XXVI of August, in the words given at number 2, on occasion, as it seems, of the other Grata, whose memory began to be celebrated in the eleventh century when her body was translated, as we shall relate below.

[42] as also those of the second: The other Grata, and she, as it seems, the daughter of SS. Lupus and Adleyda, must, according to what was said in the preceding §, have been born about the middle of the eighth century; since we said that Lupus was overcome at the end of that century by Charlemagne and embraced the Catholic religion. When marriageable she was perhaps betrothed to a certain German prince, and, if we believe Pinamonte, even married. But if the betrothal and nuptials really took place, then, her husband or her betrothed being carried off by an untimely death, she devoted herself wholly to pious works and to divine worship, and led an almost solitary life, yet in such a way that she spent her wealth on restoring or building churches. After her parents' death, being heiress of an ample patrimony,

she seems to have spent it all upon pious works. Three churches being either restored or built for St. Alexander, she raised a hospice, into which at length she herself withdrew for the sake of a quieter life; and having long since become a mother of the wretched and the poor, she gave herself wholly to relieving their miseries and made herself their servant, as Pinamonte relates at chapter 14: until, full of good works, she passed to the Lord in that same hospice, which Pinamonte at chapter 18 writes happened on the VI of the Kalends of October, but the man of Bergamo on the Kalends of May; but he seems to have confounded the day of her death with the day of her translation.

[43] Almost all these things seem to have been done under Aginus, bishop of the people of Bergamo, about what time these things were done. of whom Ughelli in volume 4, column 414 and following, among the bishops of Bergamo, writes the following: Aginus was elected in the year DCCLVIII, and for the space of LII years most prudently ruled the church committed to him, and died in the year DCCCX, and received burial in the cathedral. The authors cited above relate that in the times of this Aginus Charlemagne came to Bergamo and set up several churches, and raised again not a few that had been demolished. We have already noted that Charles did not stay so long at Bergamo as to have been able to accomplish these things himself; and hence the churches which are read to have been built by Lupus, Adleyda, and Grata seem to have been designed by Charles, and by their care either built or restored. These are the things in the Life of St. Grata down to her death which seem to me probable. But what is read in the Life about the Catholic faith propagated by her labor I do not think should be utterly rejected; yet those things seem to have been accomplished by the bishop and the priests, with her exhorting and helping with her wealth.

[44] Having related St. Grata's death, Pinamonte at chapter 18 immediately subjoins thus: Her burial and the first translation of the body: the epitaph, And she was buried at Bergamo in the aforesaid hospice which she herself had built, where her most sacred body rested until the times of the venerable Ambrose, bishop of Bergamo: that is, until the year of Christ 1027, in which it was translated, as he relates at chapter 26. Of this translation Ughelli, volume 4, column 445, writes the following: In the year MXXVII, on the first day of May, (Ambrose, bishop of Bergamo) translated the body of St. Grata from the ancient church of the hospice founded by herself into the church of the monastery of St. Mary the Old of the Order of St. Benedict, which thereafter they called by the name of St. Grata de' Colonnelli, inasmuch as not long before they had dedicated it to the same Saint. The noble sepulchre where she lies honorably laid up they adorned with these epitaphs.

Bishop Ambrose, worthy in merits and in name, buried the Matron's body with due honor. Worthy of heaven was the faithful Matron to the Lord: and ever she enjoys the Apostolic throne.

The same epitaph Pinamonte recites: whence you may gather that it is in some measure already ancient, and perhaps was set up not long after the translation, certainly before Pinamonte. But there is nothing in this epitaph which favors the opinion of the more recent writers, nothing which does not agree with what we have disputed.

[45] Ughelli subjoins to this another, which is much more recent another and more recent epitaph: and later than Pinamonte, and seems to have been composed from his history; or at least it agrees with him in everything. That it is later than Pinamonte I gather from this, that he does not bring it forward, but says: About those places such an epitaph is contained — the one which we have now given. Yet take the other, from Ughelli, that you may perceive that not even in it is there anything which Pinamonte had not handed down.

Here lies she whom father Ambrose once translated, whose bones the father of a pious country laid up. She taught Bergamo not to trust in vain gods, bearing witness that Christ holds the kingdoms of heaven. Duke Lupus begat her: a German King also bound her. When he died, she sought her land again at her father's call. She succors the wretched, hating the marriage torches: powerful in wealth, she founds many churches to God. Faithful enough, the virgin Hesteria joined herself as companion, that she might the more warily serve God. Now joined to the heavenly choir, blessed Grata brings back to God the pious vows of those who pray, and they are heard.

All these things agree well enough with what has been said, except for the confusion of the twofold Grata, as we suppose it to be, in which the poet, as in other matters, follows Pinamonte. More about this translation the Life itself will give in its place.

[46] The Saint's church solemnly visited every year by the bishop. The people of Bergamo celebrate the feast of this translation every year, on the first day after the Kalends of May not impeded, with a semidouble Office from the common of Virgins, as may be seen in their own proper Offices, given to the press in the year 1707. In memory of this translation, says the praised Ughelli, on Palm Sunday the bishop of Bergamo, after the solemn blessing over the branches of olive, used to proceed solemnly from the cathedral of St. Alexander to that of St. Vincent, and thence to the church of St. Grata, and there to hand an olive branch to each of the nuns kneeling, and, having prayed well for them, to complete that solemn procession. The biographer relates this a little more at length at chapter 27. At this time, on the 1st day of May, the bishop with the chapter visits the church of St. Grata in memory of the translation, as Guerrini writes in his Synopsis, page 59.

[47] A second translation, Other translations of this sacred body are recorded by a printed authentic instrument, subscribed by Antonio Facherio, public notary of Bergamo, and transmitted to us, whose title is: The translation of the most ancient marble sepulchre in which were first laid the sacred bodies of St. Alexander the martyr, standard-bearer of the Theban legion, and successively of St. Grata, patrons of Bergamo. In this instrument, after the first translation of St. Grata has been related, there follows thus: And when afterwards, on account of the fortification of the city begun as has been said, the aforesaid ancient church of St. Grata not only threatened ruin but had already begun to fall, therefore in the year of the Lord MDLXIX, for the execution of the command of the aforesaid most illustrious Cornelius the Elder (bishop of Bergamo, whom Ughelli, column 504, writes to have been translated to the see of Padua in the year 1577) the said chest with its case was drawn out, closed as aforesaid, and the case was with due reverence carried into the inner little church of the aforesaid monastery called St. Mary the Old, where the aforesaid most ancient monument of St. Alexander was found deposited, and in it likewise was laid up the said case containing the sacred relics and body of St. Grata, and it was kept there until the year MDCXV.

[48] a third, When, from the said vessel of the sepulchre of St. Alexander, within which a certain moisture had been seen to penetrate through its little chinks or fissures, so that it was feared that the sacred relics of this Blessed Virgin might in course of time easily rot or be consumed — the most illustrious Lord Giovanni Emo then ruling the church of Bergamo — the said case was drawn out, and, those relics having first been devoutly cleansed, the same case was honorably laid up in the former ancient marble chest, or gilded mausoleum, of blessed Grata herself, engraved with these letters, "The sepulchre of St. Grata, virgin," raised behind the altar of the said little church of St. Mary, and was kept there until the year MDCXXVII.

[49] And then, the most illustrious Lord Agostino Priuli being bishop, a fourth, to the new church dedicated to the Saint. the said wooden case, closed with two locks as before, was likewise drawn out, and then reverently carried with torches and other lights, and again laid in the said lofty mausoleum, inscribed to the same St. Grata, behind the first outer altar of the new church of St. Grata, lately rebuilt in an ampler and more august form, prepared near the choir on the right-hand side of the entrance of the church, and covered also with a marble lid and smeared with plaster; the same most ancient sepulchre of our divine patron being kept within the same monastery to this day. He then subjoins the account of the marble tomb, in which after St. Alexander St. Grata had been placed, being honorably deposited within the altar of St. Alexander; which we gave in the Commentary on the Acts of the same Saint at the XXVI of August, number 26. Now we subjoin the Acts, in which the reader will find certain miracles, about which we have thought nothing need be premised: for if any doubt occurs, we shall explain it in the annotations.

A LIFE

By Pinamonte Peregrino de Brembate.

From a Manuscript of Bergamo.

Grata, virgin, as is reported, at Bergamo in Italy. (S.)

BHL Number: 3628

A. By Pinamonte.

THE EARLIER DIVISION OF CHAPTERS.

Chapter 1. Here begins the Prologue to the Life of St. Grata, venerable matron of the people of Bergamo.

II. The Prologue ends. Here begins the Life of the illustrious widow St. Grata. And first of her noble birth.

III. Of her good disposition.

IV. How she was given in marriage.

V. Of her husband's death, and how, returning to Bergamo, she remained in holy widowhood.

VI. Of her companion Hesteria, and how she conducted herself with her.

VII. Of the death of blessed Alexander the martyr, and of the place of Crotacius, grandfather of the most blessed Grata.

VIII. How blessed Grata buried the martyr Alexander on her own estate.

IX. Of the miracle shown concerning blessed Grata's pig.

X. How the people of Bergamo were converted to the Lord by the help of St. Grata.

XI. How St. Luppus, father of St. Grata, made the church of St. Salvator on the mount, and other things about that Saint.

XII. How blessed Adleida, mother of St. Grata, caused the church of Our Lady St. Mary the Old to be built, and the church of St. Michael of the Arch, and other things about that handmaid of God.

XIII. How blessed Grata built the first church of blessed Alexander, and bestowed many things upon it.

XIV. How blessed Grata built a hospital beside the place where she had buried Christ's martyr, and how she conducted herself there, and that she gave many things to it.

XV. Of the character and manner of life of St. Grata.

XVI. Of the praise and imitation of the venerable Grata, God's handmaid.

XVII. Of the thanksgiving and suffrages of God's holy Grata.

XVIII. Of the happy death of St. Grata, and how she passed to eternal glory.

XIX. Of the miracles after St. Grata's death, and how she was glorified, and of the cure of a certain crippled woman.

XX. Of the giving of sight to a certain blind man by blessed Grata.

XXI. How by the merits of blessed Alexander and St. Grata certain men were delivered from most savage beasts.

XXII. Of a certain woman delivered from the danger of childbirth by blessed Grata. And of another like miracle.

XXIII. How blessed Grata helped a certain lady who was falling from her horse, so that she felt no hurt.

XXIV. Of another benefit conferred by blessed Grata on one devoted to her.

XXV. The conclusion; and why all the above things were written.

XXVI. Of the translation of the venerable and illustrious matron the lady St. Grata.

XXVII. How the station was begun which is made on Palm Sunday at the red bank by the bishop, the clergy, and the people, out of devotion to the lady St. Grata.

XXVIII. Whence and how the legend of St. Grata was compiled, and the rest.

XXIX. The author's prayer and apology. Here end the chapters in the legend of St. Grata.

PROLOGUE.

Chapter I.

To the sons of almighty God, and most dear in God's Son Jesus Christ, He gives the reason why he wrote this Life. as sons of grace and coheirs of glory, to all who are reckoned by the Christian profession, greeting, and to follow after holy gladness in that profession, and to spurn the things which are hostile to this name, and to pursue those which are fitting. The diligence of the ancients has left in writing many memorable things to posterity by its watchful zeal, which the sloth of the moderns, given over to the vanities of the world, has through carelessness lost. Hence it is that the deeds of many venerable Saints can scarcely be had, or only half-full, or from report alone, or even from conjectures; and of those whose names are written in the heavens, the Acts are either lost, or burnt, or consumed by fire, or were never written on earth, and their memory is rather rare. Let us therefore call back to memory the glory of the most blessed Grata, and how she deserved heavenly things — according to what authority has transmitted to us through ancient writings and most true sayings, by suitable witnesses, sanctita * — and let us set it forth in brief, with Jesus Christ, who is the way and the truth, leading and teaching us, in a rude indeed but truthful style.

perhaps sancita*

CHAPTER I.

Her birth, parents, good disposition, marriage, the death of her husband, her return to her country, her manner of life as a widow with her companion Hesteria.

II.

In the year of the Lord, then, two hundred and eighty-nine, The Saint's father, blessed Marcellus ^a, Pope and martyr, presiding over the Church of God in the city of Rome, and the most impious Cæsar Maximian reigning, there was in Italy, in the city of Bergamo ^b, of royal stock ^c, a noble man worthy of memory, a praiseworthy leader named Luppus ^d, not as it were a wolf *, but as it were a lamb, gentle to those subject to him, a most upright man, warring strenuously, and not turning aside from justice. For at that time, according to what the ancient history of the Lombards ^e relates, this province, which is now called Lombardy, was divided into three parts ^f. Of which one was called Liguria ^g, and stretched from the river Adda ^h to the Apennine ⁱ mountains toward the West, leaving the river Po ^k on the South. But the second was called Æmilia ^l, from the river Po to the sea toward the South, and toward the sea it stretched to the river which is called Reno. And the third stretched from the river Adda toward the sea as far as Pannonia: this had mountains for its boundary on the North, and was called Venetia ^m.

[3] In this province, then, Bergamo was reckoned one of the noble cities: her country, birth, name, whence by very many it was called the head of Venetia ⁿ. And therefore the seat of the duchy ^o and the sceptre resided in it. In this city therefore the venerable leader received from his noble wife, named Adleyda, a daughter, whom by a certain presage of things to come he named Grata, which the event of the matter afterwards proved. For she was pleasing not only in name, but also in deed and in merit. For she was pleasing (grata) to God, pleasing to the angels, and pleasing to men. For she was pleasing to God by true and profound humility, to the angels by the purity of her cleanness, to men by unceasing charity. For about these three things were her labor and her zeal, not only in the time of her widowhood but also in her youthful age, in the days of her gladness: for she kept the violet of humility, the lily of cleanness and purity, and the red rose of charity.

III.

[4] This young girl Grata, brought up in noble fashion, excelled all in wisdom, the character and virtues of the Maiden: in modesty, and in beauty. Noble in flesh, but nobler in mind: beautiful in face, but more beautiful in faith; a girl in body, but hoary in soul. For in that youthful age of hers she already had within her an old heart, and a venerable hoariness of understanding lay hid beneath a tender face. For venerable old age is not that of long duration, nor counted by the number of years: for the hoary head is the understanding of a man, and the age of old age an unspotted life. Her fame flies everywhere, and she stands gracious in the eyes of all. But the most noble Virgin Grata, acknowledging in herself her Creator's benefits, does not grow proud of such things, but strove to please him alone from whom she knew she had received all. Her parents rejoiced at their Daughter's progress and applauded her in everything, arranging and anxiously considering how they might marry her highly and nobly.

IV.

[5] There was in those days in a certain part of Teutonia, which is called Germany [p], a royal marriage: a most powerful and rich king, who reigned widely after the Teutonic manner. He had a son of great and good disposition, whom he loved the more closely, and had arranged that he should reign after him, and he was already beginning to reign. Hearing therefore the famous report of so great a Virgin, he reckons it the highest advantage and honor to himself if she should be joined to the young king, his only-begotten son. The young king burned for the same thing, and in many ways urged his father not to delay to send envoys. Envoys are chosen, faithful messengers, greater and wiser than the rest, and with great riches and with all the world's glory they are sent to Bergamo, to the leader, the Virgin's father, for the virgin Grata. Audience is given to the king's ambassadors *, who add the highest flatteries to great promises, if the leader and his people will engage to make this marriage. The leader consents to the envoys' entreaties, and Grata in her youthful years is betrothed to a king, the son of a king: already then she had obtained a good spirit. At length, joined to him in the marriage bed [q], by persisting in almsgiving and works of mercy she made her noble husband, so far as she could, devoted to God. And not only because the father of St. Grata, as has been said above, descended from a royal stock, but also because she herself was married to a king, therefore this blessed Grata was called queen, and that excellent versifier Moses, who composed the Pergaminum, treating of her, did not fear to call her queen [r].

[6] Loosed at length from the law of her husband, of a spouse so beloved, by his death, her husband being dead, the widow returned to her country, and modestly although she saw herself set far from her kindred and acquaintance and as it were abandoned among strangers, she did not despair, nor allow herself to be swallowed up by excessive grief, nor did she purpose thereafter to marry any other mortal, but resolved to serve wholly the Lord Jesus Christ, who had bestowed all upon her. Whence at once, casting away the pomps of the world and the garments of vanity, she went about in mean and humble dress, having God before her eyes, and the fleeting glory of the world, which so quickly deserts those who hope in it. Meanwhile her pious father, exceedingly anxious about his beloved daughter Grata, sends solemn envoys to her; who, when they behold her thus humble, sighing say: "Is not this the queen, the daughter of our so renowned leader? This is not the dress of a queen, a leader's daughter." But her countenance was not changed to another sort — she whom no love could sever from the love of Jesus Christ. And the said messengers, taking her and conducting her with due reverence, brought her to Bergamo to her father, where she clung ardently to her heavenly bridegroom the Lord Jesus Christ, serving him at all times. For she hoped in the Lord as a true widow, desolate in the world, persisting in prayers and supplications day and night according to the Apostle's teaching. For a widow who lives in pleasures is dead while living. Whence she strove with the utmost zeal that by the help of the Savior's grace she might remain blameless. She did not mingle with those who play, nor make herself a partaker with those who walk in levity. She feared God greatly, and there was none who spoke an evil word with her. For she was joined to the virtue of chastity, so that she knew no man all the days of her life from the time her husband died.

VI.

[7] But that Grata, God's handmaid, might be able better and more honorably to be free for divine things and lives piously with her companion Hesteria. and to remain in God's service, she took to herself as a companion, for the comfort of holy fellowship and the increase of religion, a noble woman, honorable and religious, named Hesteria [s], who was her inseparable companion in good works all the days of her life. For who could suffice to tell what and how great goods these holy women did? But they, like lamps set upon a candlestick, offered to all a delightful and bright spectacle of sanctity, being made to all a mirror of life, an example of religion and honor. For they rejoiced if they could live sparingly for Christ's sake, knowing that a spare life kills vices, extinguishes lust, nourishes virtues, strengthens the soul, and lifts the mind to heavenly things. For they were assiduous in prayer, frequent in fastings, outstanding in charity, anxious in compassion, submissive in humility. God had bestowed on them a special grace of weeping for sinners, for the wretched and the afflicted, and, kindled with zeal for perishing souls, they sometimes passed the night in prayers. And often they beat upon the ears of the divine clemency with this special petition, that God would deign to take away iniquity from the hearts of the people of Bergamo, so that, leaving their idols, they might be converted to the living and true God, and to his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

ANNOTATIONS.

cutting it into Cispadane and Transpadane.

p. He distinguishes Germany from Teutonia, and calls it a part of Teutonia. But although the Teutons were not always the same as the Germans, yet Germany was never a part of Teutonia; rather the Teutons were formerly in a part of present-day Germany. The author, by that vague designation of the prince, shows that he did not sufficiently know who that king of Germany was, and so makes the whole matter more doubtful.

q. In §3 of the Commentary we inquired whether these nuptials appear to have been consummated.

r. That Moses perhaps spoke of another Grata we said at number 34 of the Commentary. Further, while he brings forward such an authority for the nuptials, he gives occasion to suspect that those nuptials, like many other things, sprang from conjectures alone, and those ill founded.

s. On Hesteria consult the Commentary, §3, from number 38. The things said thus far are to be attributed to Grata the daughter of Lupus.

lupus* legatis*

CHAPTER II.

The martyrdom and burial of St. Alexander: churches built by the saint: a miracle: the conversion of the people of Bergamo.

VII.

Now at that time there were in the city of Bergamo very few Christians, The martyrdom of St. Alexander, who for fear of Maximian ^a did not dare to confess Christ publicly. In those days it happened that the venerable soldier of Christ, Alexander ^b, who was standard-bearer of that holy and devout legion of God, the Theban, by the dispensation of divine mercy, that Christ's glory might be increased, came to Bergamo: where, near the city, on an estate which is called Prætoria, he remained some days in prayer. But suddenly there came upon him soldiers and ministers of Cæsar Maximian, who after the manner of beasts presently with bloody hands seized the holy martyr of God, who neither fled nor turned aside from his enemies, and led him to the village which was called Crotacium: where now there is a church in honor of the same renowned martyr Alexander, which is called in Columna. For the noble and rich Crotacius ^c, grandfather of St. Grata, built this village with his own riches, and from him the place itself was named, and there he was honorably buried.

[9] It is also related that in that place flowers sprang up the place where he was slain, by whose scent the sick were healed. Moreover in that place, after the death of the illustrious Crotacius, the people caused a lofty column to be built as a sign of triumph and as a title of memory, as in the Pergaminum that excellent versifier Moses, above mentioned, described in noble style, saying all this:

Hence, when thou goest forward a little toward the rising of the sun *, Look upon the happy garden * of the rich ^d Crotacius: Which the powerful queen Grata surrounded with marble, When she ruled ^e the blessed sceptres of the see of Bergamo. There flourishes there every kind of flower at every season, From which there goes forth a power of scents that heals the sick. Crotacus ^f, the grandfather of this queen, is said to have Established for her that farm greatly out of his own goods. Whence the ancients said the place was called by his name: And that very place preserves his buried body. The lofty column will give thee manifest signs of God ^g, Which after his death the fostering people fashioned for their lord.

[10] For in this place there was set a certain statue and the idol of the place: the manner and day of the martyrdom. which was called Plotacio ^h, where demons were worshipped. From this statue also some have called the aforesaid place Plotacium ⁱ. To this statue therefore they violently dragged the venerable soldier of Christ, Alexander, that, if he would not sacrifice to the idols there, he should according to the command of Cæsar Maximian be beheaded. When Christ's soldier came to that place, filled with the Holy Spirit, he most steadfastly confessed Christ. He asks therefore for water, and washes his hands, and blesses the Lord in many ways, and looking up to heaven he said: Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. And so he is beheaded on the seventh of the Kalends of September ^k. And the angels, receiving his soul, brought it to the joys of the heavens.

VIII.

[11] But when the detestable ministers of the most impious Maximian had departed, Grata with her own people, having built a church where he had been slain, leaving the most sacred body slain in the place of its passion, the most blessed Grata, kindled with zeal for God — herself also thirsting and longing for the palm of martyrdom, and having compassion on Christ's martyr — taking her most faithful companion Hesteria ^l, of whom we made mention above, and some of her handmaids, and taking also some of the company of her servants who had already become most faithful Christians, went together with them to the place of the passion. And having found the sacred body, the most blessed Grata herself with her own hands reverently and with great devotion lifted the martyr's head and placed it in the fold of the sleeve that hung from her garment, carrying it with her own hands ^m. And the rest of her servants took up the sacred body with veneration. But in the place before the lofty column where he had been slain, afterwards, as time went on, blessed Grata, manfully kindled, threw down, broke, and shattered the statue of the idol which was called Plotacio, and, all the filth of idols being cleared away ⁿ, caused a church to be built in honor of the holy martyr, which is called in columna ^o, of which mention was made above.

[12] And because at that time there was no easy ascent to the city beside the mount and buries him on the way, on her own estate: on which there is now a church built in honor of the protomartyr Stephen, carrying the sacred relics through the meadows they went toward the East to another village. And when they had come to the crossing of the public road, they set down the sacred body, wishing to rest and to change the shoulders on which they had carried it. And because the bearers there made such a change, therefore thereafter that village was called Burgus de Mutatione, though some wrongly write de Murgazone [p]. And because some drops of the renowned martyr's precious blood fell there, afterwards at another time the illustrious Grata caused a church to be built there in the middle of the road, which is called St. Alexander of the Cross, in honor of the precious martyr — which I myself have looked upon with my own eyes. Then carrying the most sacred body they came to the estate of blessed Grata, which was outside the walls of the city of Bergamo, where now there is a noble cathedral church built in honor of the martyr: and there, holy Grata rendering service at the head and blessed Hesteria at the feet [q], they honorably and devoutly buried him, where such an epitaph is contained.

The martyr is laid in the land of blessed Grata. He is seen by many, nor lies he buried far from the city.

And he shone with many miracles, and to this present day the Lord works wonders by his merits.

IX.

[13] The venerable martyr Alexander being buried, blessed Grata commanded the steward of her house in place of a pig killed for the workmen another is found: to kill a certain pig which she had, and to prepare a meal for the servants of God who had labored in burying the martyr, and for the rest of the household. And when he had fulfilled her orders, they refreshed their bodies after their labor, eating with the fear of the Lord and giving him thanks. And when, dinner being over, the steward had gone to do some piece of work, he presently (wonderful to tell) found another pig just like it, alive and sound, in the place where the other, which had been eaten, used to stand. And the steward, going out, told this to his mistress, the venerable Grata, and to Hesteria her companion, and to others of the household. And they, hearing it, rejoiced over God's mercy and gave him thanks. And that pig the handmaids of Christ consumed in works of mercy and in the refreshment of the poor, of widows, and of orphans, giving him back to the Lord who had divinely furnished him to them [r]. Many miracles from that time the Lord did by her merits in the life of the most blessed Grata: but the Handmaid of God herself strove the more carefully to conceal them.

[14] At that time the martyr Alexander flashed with miracles, the conversion of the people of Bergamo to the faith. and thus, like a lamp set upon a candlestick, by his glorious merits and miracles he gave light not only to the people of Bergamo but to all round about, so that many, illumined by his brightness, clearly saw the light of faith. And the most blessed Grata busied herself, as much as she could, to call back her own people from the worship of idols: for she knew that, according to the Apostolic teaching, we ought to have care of our own and especially of those of our household. Desiring therefore first the salvation of her own, Grata the handmaid of God pressed on with prayers day and night, and gave them saving admonitions. Whence it came about that she so labored among her own that, by the help of the grace of the Savior, who wills that none should perish, but wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, all were converted to the one living and true God, and to his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, spurning the vain idols, deaf and dumb. For they saw that they are unhappy, and that their hope is among the dead, who have called gods the works of men's hands. Or if some craftsman, a carpenter, has cut a straight tree out of the wood, and, skilled in his art, scrapes off all its bark, and by the knowledge of his craft shapes it and makes it like the image of a man, or likens it to some one of the animals, and makes for it a fitting dwelling, setting it in a wall and fastening it with iron lest it should fall — knowing that it cannot help itself, for it is an image and needs help — and, making a vow concerning his substance and his children and his marriage, inquires of it: is not such a man most foolish? He is not ashamed to speak with that which has no soul. Does he not entreat for health one that is sick? and ask life of one that is dead? Does he not call for help upon one that is useless, and ask for a journey of one that cannot walk? For the beginning of separation from God is the seeking out of idols, and their invention is the corruption of life. For they were not from the beginning, nor shall they be for ever. Whence the people of Bergamo, by the merits of the most blessed Alexander and by the merits and teachings of the most blessed Grata, abhorring and execrating the idols, were converted to the Lord,

and by the few Christian presbyters who were then as it were in hiding they were all baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And so it was accomplished according to the desire of blessed Grata, who above all things in this life desired that her people should be converted to the Lord [s].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Whether this name, and the reason given for the name, are correct, those of Bergamo who are nearer can inquire.

q. In this place the author seems to have forgotten that the head had been cut off the holy Martyr: so incongruously does he relate the manner of his burial.

r. I know not whether the people of Bergamo can reconcile this with ducal and royal magnificence; certainly I profess that I cannot.

s. If St. Grata had accomplished so much for the faith of Christ in the time of Maximian, it would indeed be a wonder that she took no care that a bishop should be created at Bergamo, which they will have to have been then the head of the whole Venetian dominion. Therefore these things must be referred to later times, and must be thought to have been set forth rhetorically rather than historically. Consult what was said in the Commentary, number 43.

titanis* hortum*

CHAPTER III.

Churches built by SS. Lupus and Adleyda: likewise a church and a hospice by St. Grata.

XI.

At that time the venerable and renowned leader, namely the aforesaid St. Luppus, St. Lupus, having built the church of St. Salvator father of blessed Grata, having become a most Christian man and desiring his own salvation and that of others, began to pant after the way in which he might better and more easily draw the people subject to him to the Christian faith. Whence by his prayers and by the examples of his good works he helped them, and instructed them with holy admonitions, seeing that the grace of God our Savior has appeared to all men, instructing us, that denying impiety and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and piously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. For we ourselves have heard and know that this is truly the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, who was appointed by the Father judge of the living and the dead: whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory. And therefore the above-mentioned St. Luppus willed to build a venerable church in honor of the Savior, the eternal God Jesus Christ, in a certain more eminent place of the city of Bergamo, and that by all subject to him God the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, should be worshipped and venerated.

[16] and having built it, died, and is said to have shone with miracles. And when with much labor, passing through temporal things, he had sweated in the governing of the peoples, and had finished his course in the service of God, being brought to the end of his life, he joined the term of mortality to the beginning of immortal life, entering into the grave in abundance, into a rich repose. It is also reported that after his death he shone with miracles: nor is it a wonder if blessed Luppus, reigning in his country, shone with signs of virtues, who while still warring on the way was full of virtues. And he is said to have been buried in the said church of St. Salvator which he himself had built: and even to this present day his image or figure, painted beside the altar with the circle of a crown upon his head, as other Saints are painted, and with the superscription of his name, plainly appears. And this is said to be the first church which was built in the city of Bergamo ^a: for it was fitting enough that the building of churches and of houses of prayer should have its beginning from the Savior, who is alpha and omega , the beginning and the end: for other foundation no man can lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.*

XII.

[17] Meanwhile the venerable and most faithful Christian noblewoman Adleyda, St. Adleyda, having built the church of St. Mary the Old, mother of blessed Grata, of whom we made mention above, wishing to imitate blessed Luppus her husband in good works, considered also herself how she might devoutly serve the Queen of heaven, the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of the Savior Jesus Christ, the eternal God. Whence a good counsel came to her, and she caused another church to be built, not far from the aforesaid church of St. Salvator, in honor of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, which was afterwards called St. Mary the Old ^b. Beside which also, in honor of the most blessed Grata, a noble monastery was built and dedicated, and privileged with many gifts, where a praiseworthy number of nuns dwell, and in which to this present day the handmaids of Christ, the brides of God, render a service pleasing to God.

[18] Wishing also, the aforesaid blessed Adleyda, mother of St. Grata, and of St. Michael of the Arch, dies piously. not only to follow her husband in good works but even to abound above him and surpass him in works of piety and of Christian religion, and that she might gain for herself and all her own the prayers and merits and suffrages of all the blessed spirits, she caused another church to be built to the honor and glory of blessed Michael the archangel and of all the angels, which is now called the church of St. Michael of the Arch ^c. In this church also handmaids of Christ served God a long time, living under the obedience of the venerable abbess of the monastery of St. Grata, which is situated beside the church of Our Lady St. Mary the Old, above mentioned. Whence also long afterwards the priest who ministered in the said church of St. Michael received his appointment from the venerable abbess of the aforesaid monastery of St. Mary and St. Grata. And the blessed handmaid of God named Adleyda, persisting in works of piety and mercy, and persevering in holy converse, and serving God in good works, passing to the Lord entered into the joy of her Lord, where with blessed Luppus her husband she beholds the King of glory, the Son of God, in his beauty, Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through all ages of ages. Amen.

XIII.

[19] Blessed Grata also, not unmindful of her martyr Alexander, A church built over the body of St. Alexander, but ever solicitous about him, and being most faithful and most devoted to him, considering that God's martyr lay unbecomingly on her estate, without house and without roof, put her hands to strong things, arranging and considering how she might raise a becoming church over the holy body, in which the faithful Christians might obtain the suffrages of Christ's martyr: she considered, I say, and what she considered she accomplished. For out of her riches, which she most willingly spent in God's service, she caused the first church of blessed Alexander to be built, seemly and serviceable, according to what the quality of that time required. And she gave to that church great and lavish gifts, namely all that the Handmaid of God possessed about the place dedicated to the Saint, which even to this present day are known to belong to that church. And this church remained in honor of the martyr a long time, until that which now is was built ^d.

[20] which being destroyed, another was built. For as the miracles by the merits of the most blessed Alexander grew frequent, the people, kindled to no small devotion, desired to honor and exalt on earth the holy martyr, whom it was beyond doubt that the Lord honored in heaven. Whence that noble church which now is was built and enriched by the faithful of Christ. For many rich and great men most willingly bestowed many and great gifts to the honor of Christ and of his martyr, hoping from the Lord an eternal reward, for love of whom he that shall give a cup of cold water shall not lose his reward. But because the faithful Christians very frequently and constantly thronged the place of the earlier tabernacle, so much so that the blessed handmaid of God, Grata, could not fitly have the silences of the quiet she desired, the Handmaid of God thought to withdraw a little, and there to choose another place near by to dwell in, in which she might remain in God's service to the end of her life.

XIV.

[21] Therefore blessed Grata, the widow of God, not far from the place St. Grata builds a hospice, into which she withdraws, where she had reverently buried the body of blessed Alexander, Christ's martyr, built a hospice ^e or hospital for the reception of the poor, and there gave herself wholly to works of mercy, and made herself there the servant of all the poor. She shrank from no one, so much so that she fed the sick, washed their feet, ministered their necessaries, and rejoiced in tribulation: for she was long accustomed to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep. All persons who came she received in the wide bosom of charity, and since she loved all, she was loved by all. And she had not only built a material hospital, but had made a hospice of the lodging of her heart, and knew not how to close her bowels of mercy to anyone, overflowing with piety and mercy, and pouring herself wholly into care for her neighbors and compassion for the wretched. For since she had many riches and possessions, as a duchess ^f and queen and lady of the city, either in founding, building, and enriching churches and hospitals, or in supporting the poor, the orphans, and the widows, she dispersed and gave to the poor: and therefore her justice remaineth for ever and ever.

[22] she consecrates herself wholly to relieving the miseries of the poor. For no one could be needy where the most blessed Grata, mother of mercy, was. She brought up the sons of many, she received many into her lodging: she ministered to those suffering tribulation: she followed after every good work. For truly, and not undeservedly, that can be said of this woman pleasing to God which the blessed apostle Paul writes to Timothy, saying: Let a widow be chosen who has testimony in good works. For she is that evangelical widow who put two mites into the Lord's treasury. She put in men, she put in women, she put in her own, she put in strangers. For by this very thing, that she offered herself in service to Christ's martyr, exposing herself to martyrdom, desiring herself also to be made a martyr for Christ, she offered to Christ into the treasury of faith both her own and strangers, both those set far off and those near, about the parts of Bergamo. Many goods also and many riches did the venerable Grata, mother of the poor, bestow on this place of charity, of which many endure to this present day in the service of the poor and the sick.

ANNOTATIONS.

ω or o mega*

CHAPTER IV.

The virtues of St. Grata: her death and burial.

XV.

Not only, however, in the aforesaid things, The Saint's various virtues but also in herself, the most blessed Grata excelled in uprightness of character, and was borne along by such an impulse of divine fervor that no one who diligently considered her life would doubt that she was a vessel of honor and of grace, a vessel adorned with every precious stone. So great a light of divine grace also shone in the Handmaid of God that she seized upon herself the love of all, and drew even the adversaries of the faith themselves by a certain force of her uprightness, so that she was loved even by them. Whence also wise men declared of her that such a Handmaid of God must needs be predestined to life. And therefore many by the example of her sanctity deserved to lay hold of the discipline of the true faith and of Christianity: for God's holy one restrained unlawful motions under discipline, and strove to hold in her members and her senses, lest they should be able to serve wantonness and levity: her look was simple and humble, lest her eye should gaze fixedly upon what her mind might unlawfully covet: her hearing was pure and discreet, rejecting the things that are superfluous and vain, and Grata, pleasing to God, gratefully receiving the things that are God's. Her speech was seasoned with salt, detesting idle and hurtful things, commending the good and useful: in her heart was cleanness: her walk was with gravity; in her countenance was modesty, her bearing with reverence, her movement with maturity, her dress with decency. Wherever she was, her sanctity shone forth, her honor was kept: in all her movements she strove so to labor that she might do nothing which should offend anyone's sight, but what befitted her sanctity: for so did her light shine before men that they saw her good works, and they glorified the eternal Father who is in heaven.

[24] from which, as also from her miracles, her sanctity is known. That God's holy Grata possessed these virtues none doubted who had known her manner of life while still set in the flesh; and how full of virtues she was, even though the tongue of flesh be silent, the miracles proclaim, both those which preceded her happy passing and those which followed it. And these things have been briefly touched upon in a kind of summary about the character and the sanctity of life of the most blessed Grata, so that it may shine clearer than light how worthily she is to be held most holy and glorious in merits before God and before men, no less from these holy and noble manners than from the prodigies of miracles. And both, namely the sanctity of her noble manners and the flashing of divine miracles, are directed at last to our profit; since in the miracles we behold what we admire, and in her holy and honorable manners we find what is set before us for imitation — to the honor and glory of him who both adorns his Saints with the virtues of merits and, when he wills and as he wills, grants them to flash with miracles also: Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of the living God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit in perfect Trinity lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

XVI.

[25] Who could suffice to imitate in every way the virtues and holy works of the most blessed and most holy Grata? He sets forth her virtues for imitation, We can wonder, and by her example weigh the sloth of our body and the misery of the present time. But to be able to do what she was able to do is not of human virtue but of a singular grace. Let us therefore praise her magnificently and say: Thou art the glory of the people of Bergamo, thou the joy of the nobles, thou the honor of our people, because thou hast done manfully, and thy heart has been strengthened, in that thou didst love chastity and after thy husband didst know no other; and therefore the hand of the Lord has strengthened thee, and thou shalt be blessed for ever. Let us therefore imitate, so far as we can, our mother's footsteps, and at the same time give thanks to the Redeemer, who has shown such a Guide to his handmaids in the way in which we walk; and let us beseech the Father of mercies that, under the guidance of that Spirit by whom the sons of God are led, through the bounds which our fathers set, we too may deserve to attain by an untiring path to that same goal of perpetual happiness and everlasting blessedness into which that most blessed woman, Grata to God, entered happy without end.

XVII.

[26] Who then, most blessed Grata, could worthily render to so great a matron the dues of thanks and the proclamations of praise, and the author invokes the Saint with thanksgiving. thou who by thy singular work didst succor the lost city of Bergamo? What praises would the frailty of the people of Bergamo pay thee, who by thy special help came to the faith of Christ? And what praises shall our frailty pay thee, O most holy one, who hast offered us to so great a Lord? O holy Grata of God, made pleasing by Christ, adorned in character, blessed in faith, established in hope, rooted in charity, and founded in every place! O our mother, O our Lady, O our Mistress, make us pleasing to God, adorn us in character, instruct us in faith, confirm us in hope, strengthen us in charity, and establish us in every good. Receive, holy one of God, receive, Grata, receive, consecrated one, receive, our Lady; receive then our slender thanksgivings, unequal in every way to thy merits: and when thou hast received our vows, excuse our faults by thy prayer: let what we do be excusable through thee, let what we ask with faithful mind become obtainable: receive what we offer; give back what we ask; and excuse what we fear. Let all who celebrate thy holy commemoration feel thy help. Stand ready for the vows of the people of Bergamo, and repay to all round about the effect they desire: let it be thy care to pray unceasingly for the venerable Gratia ^a thy abbess, thy vicar, very solicitous for thy praises, for thy handmaids, for all of thy monastery, for me, brother Pinimonte ^b, a wretched sinner but devoted to thee, for me thy servant the writer, for me thy praiser, though insufficient and unworthy, for the whole clergy, and for all the people of Bergamo, whom, blessed one, thou didst cause with thy help to be converted to the faith of Christ. Let it not be, O most holy one of God, let not thy labor in us be empty or vain, but as thou didst lead us to the faith of Christ, so by thy merits and prayers may we deserve to be led to the joys of paradise, with thee for guide and our Lord Jesus Christ helping, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

XVIII.

[27] When therefore she had persevered in God's service in the aforesaid hospital through the space of many years ^c, The Saint's last illness, death, and burial. and all the nations round about were already serving the Lord ^d, desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, full of good works and of many days, as the end of the contest, the goal of her course, and the glorious fruit of her good labors drew near, being about to receive in heaven the crown of justice laid up for her, she began to sicken in the aforesaid hospice with a grievous bodily illness, yet in spirit she clung untiringly to God. Calling together therefore the elders of the hospice, she began to exhort them to the observance of charity and hospitality, to constancy in virtue. Being sure of her own salvation, she was solicitous for that of her own. At length the most blessed Grata of God, after long labors in which she had faithfully sweated in the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth — namely in the conversion and salvation of the people of Bergamo and in good works — entered into the joy of her Lord, and received the day's penny, and completed her days in good and her years in glory, on the sixth of the Kalends of September ^e, departing from the body and exchanging the sojourn of this present misery for a heavenly dwelling and blessedness, where she is happily made drunk with the plenty of God's house, beholding the King of glory and Lord of hosts in his beauty, Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through all ages of ages. Amen. And she was buried at Bergamo in the aforesaid hospice which she herself had built, where her most sacred body rested until the times of the venerable Ambrose, bishop of Bergamo.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

Miracles wrought after her death.

XIX.

But from the time when blessed Grata of God passed over from death to life, from the world to heaven, Miracles in general, from labor to rest, from prison to a palace, from mourning to joy, from the place of a hospice to the throne of a kingdom, from a temporal dukedom ^a to the sceptre of paradise, from the battle of the world to the reward of heaven — after the death, that is, of that noble St. Grata — divine miracles were not lacking: of which very many indeed oblivion, the mother of ingratitude and the enemy of grace, has through negligence blotted out; but very many have been written down, being first sifted by diligent inquiry and proved by the attestation of the faithful. For she gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk, set upright the crippled, healed the paralytic, restored hearing to the deaf and speech to the dumb; and wonderfully cured many of divers sicknesses and various infirmities. And hearing these things with our ears, did we not marvel? For truly God is wonderful in his Saints. For he is the God who does wonders. And therefore, as the prophet says: Sons of men, know that the Lord has glorified his holy one. The Lord glorified her within, with the gladness of conscience and with most sweet affections. He glorified her also in many ways: for he glorified her within, as above; he glorified her without, he glorified her toward others, he glorified her above: he glorified her within, namely with gladness of conscience and most sweet affections; he glorified her without, with noble manners and with works of piety and mercy. He glorified her toward others, namely toward her neighbor, with the powers of miracles and with holy enlightenments. He glorified her above, with most splendid glorifications, being already glorified in soul: at last she shall be glorified in body, namely at the resurrection, when the just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, who is over all blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

[29] walking granted to a lame girl, But returning to the history, I have resolved to insert into this little Work certain miracles which authority has transmitted to us sanctita through suitable witnesses. Among which, and worthy of admiration, there first occurs one clear in credit and worthy of praise: that a certain girl of Telgate, surnamed Abbatissa, bound for many years by infirmity, was deprived of the use of her legs and feet. Her own legs she bore uselessly and as though they were another's: for with crutches ^b she could scarcely walk, and without these or some other support she could not walk anywhere. And when the lady Pax, her aunt, had placed the said girl in the monastery of St. Grata for the sake of teaching and instruction in the knowledge of letters, both the said lady Pax and the girl herself, often entering the oratory of blessed Grata, implored her help and mercy. When therefore they had long asked the suffrages of the most blessed Grata for the deliverance of the said girl, at once the power of God was there, and by the merits of St. Grata she received the strength and use of her legs and feet. She departed therefore, restored to full health, and left her crutches in the aforesaid monastery of St. Grata as a proof of so great a miracle, giving thanks to the name of Jesus Christ and bearing witness to the sanctity of blessed Grata.

XX.

[30] Certainly we must not pass over an abundant and evident proof of her sanctity, sight to a blind man; that by the merits of blessed Grata not only is health restored to the sick, walking to the lame, speech to the dumb, but also the light of the eyes to the blind. For a certain blind man long endured the loss of his extinguished sight, and could not be helped by the application of any medicine. He, by the divine clemency revealing it to him, saw in a vision that he came to the most sacred body of the most blessed Grata, and recovered and received entire the light of his eyes long since lost. Whence at once, as though a light of assurance had been poured in, confidence of recovering health and the light of his eyes was made perfect in him. Coming therefore with great confidence and with no small devotion to the body of the venerable Grata, having invoked the most blessed Grata, he made a vow, and straightway received sight. Nor is it a wonder if she, reigning in her country, opens the eyes of the body, who while yet living in the flesh unlocked the eyes of the mind.

XXI.

[31] This too must be added to the praises of God and of his holy Handmaid, wolves restrained, for grinding down the jaws of the wicked slanderer. In the diocese of Como ^c there are two villages, of which one is called Moltrasio, the other Vercana. Near these villages there appeared ravening wolves and most savage beasts, which attacked men, and entering the houses carried off children and killed them: and so great fear and trembling seized all, and they did not dare go out to their work, nor to their labor even toward evening. But they remembered the holy and venerable Grata, because her monastery had formerly * been wont to have possessions there. And a vow being made by the inhabitants of the land to the most blessed Martyr Alexander and to the most blessed Grata of God, that people found itself straightway freed from the most savage beasts. And their vow was that as long as they lived they would once a year, with crosses and in procession, devoutly and carefully visit the most sacred body of the martyr Alexander and the most holy body of the venerable Grata. Which vow they fulfilled a long time, so long as peace lasted and so long as that generation lived which had bound itself by such a vow. And they came singing and praising the Saints, and rendering manifold thanks to God and to blessed Alexander and to blessed Grata, because they had freed them from the most savage beasts.

XXII.

[32] Nor must we be silent about the wonderful deliverance of a certain young woman, to the glory and honor of him two women freed from the peril of childbirth; who knows how out of the mouth of infants and sucklings to perfect praise, that he may destroy the enemy, the defender of his own perfidy. For the said girl, being with child, came to her delivery, and was pressed with grievous pain of childbirth. And so, driven by the goads of the most violent torment, she could neither take food nor rest, nor did she take sleep with her eyes: for her pains were as of one in travail. Whence, like one frenzied, she howled with continual cries. But a vow being made to the most blessed Grata, she obtained in a moment deliverance both for herself and for the son she brought forth. A like miracle I have learned of another woman, who, being much afflicted with great pains in childbirth, most devoutly invoked blessed Grata, and was suddenly freed from the most grievous pains. Nor is it a wonder if she who reigns in heaven takes away bodily pains, who while yet living in the world took away infernal pains from many: for by her merits and examples and holy admonitions she taught many, drew them to God, and converted them to the faith of Christ. For there was in her a wonderful zeal for the salvation of all, and above all of the people of Bergamo, and, bearing a manly spirit in a woman's breast, she ground down the jaws of the wicked one and took the prey from his teeth.

XXIII.

[33] This too must be blotted out by no forgetfulness: that a certain noble lady of Bergamo, a woman in danger from a frisking horse is helped: worthy of credit and known to many, experienced in her own person a miracle wrought. For when at one time she was going with a becoming and honorable company to Triscurio, it happened on the way that the horse on which she was sitting, frisking and lifting its forehoofs, reared up upon its two hind feet. But the said lady, considering that great danger threatened her, devoutly invoked the most blessed Grata, and at once had God's holy one visibly ready there to help her. For it plainly seemed to her that blessed Grata took her in her arms, and set the said lady down from the horse so gently that she felt no hurt at all. And that the said lady might not be ungrateful for so great a gift, coming to the monastery of the most holy Grata, rendering no small thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior and to God's blessed Grata his handmaid, she devoutly and faithfully told all this to the lady abbess of St. Grata and to very many others.

XXIV.

[34] Let these things too be written for another generation, that the people that shall be created may praise the Lord in his venerable handmaid Grata, the power of writing granted to the author: and no less extol Grata with praises in the Lord, who gives strength to the weary and multiplies force, and opens the mouth of the dumb and makes tongues eloquent. But I, that I may not be found ungrateful, freely confess that before I began to labor in the service of the most blessed Grata I was weak for writing; speech was a horror to me, and I could scarcely do anything. But when I had first invoked the grace of the Holy Spirit and the suffrages of the most holy Grata, devoutly indeed so far as I could, I at once perceived that divine help was with me. For there was straightway conferred upon me from heaven ^d both the power and the faculty of writing, and the grace and ease of composing: and a certain ardor blazed in my heart, so that I could not rest until I had brought the Work of that same venerable and renowned Grata to its due end: blessed be God in all things, who helps those that hope in him.

XXV.

[35] Many other miracles too became known, both in the life of the most glorious Grata, the illustrious queen and duchess, the conclusion of the foregoing. and wrought after her death, which have not been set down by the office of the pen. Of cures of infirmities also many became known, which have not for the present been committed to writing, tokens of her sanctity. But these things have been briefly, faithfully, and devoutly noted for the establishing of her sanctity, for the commendation and instruction of the people of Bergamo, for the edification of all Christians, and also to the praise and glory of him who alone does great wonders, who, Three in persons and one in essence, lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

i.e. quondam*

CHAPTER VI.

The translation of the body: from what documents the Life was written.

XXVI.

I desire diligently and faithfully to set forth the translation ^a of the blessed and glorious illustrious matron, Bishop Ambrose, at the prayers of the abbess of St. Mary the Old the lady St. Grata, and to call back to the memory of your devotion how the most sacred relics of her sacred body were carried from the place of the hospice to the place of the monastery. For it pleased

God, and she was translated. And before the translation she had manifold testimony that she had pleased God: and without faith, as the Apostle says, it is impossible to please God. And this Handmaid of God had most fully the faith of Jesus Christ, the eternal God, from the earliest of her age, and at last made the people of Bergamo have the Christian faith. So then the sacred body of blessed Grata rested in the hospice which she herself had built, in the place where it had first been entombed, until the times of the venerable prelate Ambrose, bishop of Bergamo, a man adorned with knowledge and character. In his times there was in the monastery of St. Mary the Old, which is now that of the same St. Grata, a venerable abbess, in fact and in name Officia, wise and discreet, who in divine things, according to the consonance of her name, was most dutiful and solicitous. She, inspired by the Holy Spirit, began to turn over in her heart how she might obtain the sacred body of St. Grata, so precious a treasure, and set it reverently in her own monastery. Whence she caused a venerable church, a beautiful and devout house of prayer, which endures to this present day, to be built in honor of St. Grata, and becomingly adorned. Which being done, the lady Officia herself went to the aforesaid venerable bishop Ambrose, and began to entreat him with importunate prayers, with great insistence and inconsolable anxiety of heart, that he would deign to grant her the most sacred body of the most blessed Grata, so that in the venerable church which she had prepared for her it might be reverently and with manifold devotion set behind the altar of the same St. Grata. Very many others also pressed him, both for the sake of that lady abbess and because, being kindled with devotion, they purposed to exalt and honor the holy one of God: and moved by a holy desire they urged the man of God, bishop Ambrose, the more insistently to yield to her petition.

[37] But he, being most full of compassion, translates the Saint's body to the new church dedicated to her, conspicuous in knowledge and discretion, considering the honor of God and the exaltation of St. Grata, yielded to their holy desires and just requests. For the man of God considered that she could be more often and more easily frequented and visited by the people, and that she would rest more becomingly and more honorably in a noble and seemly church, built to the honor of God's holy one, than in a humble oratory far enough removed from the citizens. And so the aforesaid venerable pontiff Ambrose, inspired by the Holy Spirit, having called together the clergy and a multitude of the people, on the day of the Kalends of May went with them, with great reverence and devotion, to the hospital which Grata of God had built while yet living, where the sacred body had first been entombed. And when they had opened the monument, it is reported that a most sweet odor breathed forth from the sacred relics, so much so that it seemed the odor of a full field which the Lord has blessed. Many miracles also shone forth on that day by the merits of St. Grata, which through negligence were given over to oblivion and neglected. But when, carrying the sacred relics, sounding forth divine praises and rejoicing, they had come to the place which is called Ripa russa or Ripa rubea, that is, beneath the mount of St. John, they could by no means move the sacred body.

[38] [which, having become immovable on the way, is moved after prayers, and is laid behind the high altar:] Wherefore the venerable prelate preached and appointed prayers, that the merciful God and the most holy Grata would deign to grant such a grace that they might be able to carry the clay of the sacred body to the appointed place. Which being done, straightway without any difficulty the sacred body could be moved, and it was brought to the becoming church built in her name: and so behind the high altar it is devoutly and faithfully laid up with honor. And a solemn feast is appointed on that same day, and many benefits are bestowed to the praise of God and the exaltation of St. Grata. About those places also, dedicated to God and to St. Grata, such an epitaph is contained:

And after the body of blessed Grata had been translated to the aforesaid place in which it now rests, it pleased the venerable bishop of Bergamo and the canons to transfer the hospital and to place it in the spot where now is called the hospital of St. Grata, in the Vineyards.

XXVII.

[39] And from the time of the translation of St. Grata it was ordained and appointed, the visitation of that place on Palm Sunday. both by the venerable bishop Ambrose and by the other pontiffs his successors in the bishopric of Bergamo, and has been observed as though by law, that on Palm Sunday, after the pontiff has blessed the olives with the palms at St. Alexander's, the bishop with the clergy and the people should make a station at the aforesaid place which is called Ripa rubea, in which the holy body of blessed Grata remained for a time immovable and could not be stirred. And when preaching has been made there and the blessing given, they proceed toward the holy martyr Vincent. And when the procession has come before the door of the church of St. Grata, the pontiff with his own hand honorably presents a fair and becoming palm to the venerable abbess of St. Grata, and, the blessing being given her, the pontiff proceeds with honor to St. Vincent's, and the divine offices are performed with joy.

XXVIII.

[40] Receive this Work, most beloved, and you above all, From what documents this Life was written: handmaids of Christ, watched over with great diligence, in which many things which were in various places, either written in books and quires, which also I caused to be brought from the surrounding cities and lands, or noted in charters and privileges, or engraved on walls and partitions, or even in certain verses, or in certain writings in the Beneventan script ^b, which few could read — at the prayers and instructions of the venerable abbess the lady Gratia, have been faithfully and devoutly compiled into one, to the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God, and of his glorious Mother the Virgin Mary, and of his holy Grata. Truly and fittingly through the solicitude of the lady Gratia we ought to have had this grace, that, according to the consonance of her name, all that has been done about this business is to be attributed to the grace of God, so that there may be grace for Grace. Wherefore henceforth let him who among the people of Bergamo has the Christian faith not omit to keep the devout festival of the most holy Grata, nor let the handmaids of Christ, the sisters and daughters of St. Grata, omit to chant her glorious memory day by day. For the praise of the venerable duchess and queen, the most blessed Grata, has drawn tears of devotion from many, has melted the affection of the hearers, softened their hardness, and brought a pious ardor into their hearts, as a devout soul will be able to experience in the sweetly sounding spiritual songs lately published. Which things have been mentioned for this reason, that the devotion of the readers may henceforth be stirred carefully and faithfully, and more fervently, to the praise of God's holy Grata. Therefore, handmaids of God, receive devoutly these things which have been written above to the honor of God and of the most holy Grata, for your consolation and edification and that of all Christians, and keep the emulation of the chastity and charity of your holy mother Grata.

[41] But I beseech in the name of Jesus Christ those who read and understand this little Work, that if perchance they find some things which they do not find elsewhere, they should not think that I invented them; the conclusion. but should know that I wrote things read in various places, as I mentioned above, and heard from persons worthy of credit. But if they find fewer things than they know of, let them not impute that to me either, because either I did not have the copies, or I did not know of more things that were worthy of belief. Blessed therefore of the Lord be they who shall have read, written, possessed, lent to others, heard, or reported these writings. And that they may have fellowship with the most blessed Alexander and the most holy Grata, and with the other just whose memory is had in this little book, let them deign to pray for me, a wretched sinner, brother Pinimonte. Pray, says blessed James, one for another, that you may be saved. May the Lord Jesus Christ deign to lead us, by the prayers and merits of the most blessed Grata, to eternal salvation in the glory of paradise, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen. Here ends the legend of St. Grata. Thanks be to God. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.