Rosalia of Palermo

ON ST. ROSALIA OF PALERMO, VIRGIN,

AN EXCELLENT PATRONESS AGAINST THE PLAGUE,

AT MOUNT PELLEGRINO NEAR PALERMO IN SICILY

In the twelfth century, after its middle.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Rosalia, virgin anchoress, near Palermo in Sicily. (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The chief writers who have treated of St. Rosalia.

[ ] Although St. Rosalia led a hidden life, and one utterly cut off from the intercourse of men, yet she has obtained very many heralds of her virtues, [No ancient writer is known to have treated of St. Rosalia: yet several before the discovery of her body,] but only recent ones, and later than her death by many centuries: or at least, if any contemporary related some things about this Saint's deeds, his writings have not come to the knowledge of posterity. The Saint's deeds therefore had to be drawn from tradition, from inscriptions, and from painted panels, which alone survived as records: and therefore it must be diligently examined how accurately and how solidly, out of those doubtful instruments, most liable to the danger of error, the deeds of the holy Virgin have been gathered and related: for the Saint's chief eulogist communicated to posterity all the records which he used. Antonio Ignazio Mancusi of the Society of Jesus, in the History of St. Rosalia written in the Italian tongue and published in two volumes in quarto in the year 1721 from the press of Palermo, reckons up the chief writers who, both before the discovery of St. Rosalia's body and after its discovery, have discoursed on the Saint's deeds. Now he enumerates five authors who before the discovery of the body, that is, before the year 1624, briefly wrote some things about the Saint; and among them he assigns as the most ancient Valerio Rossi, whom he says wrote in the year 1590. And that his writing was seen by Vincenzo Auria, of whose writings I shall treat below. The second is Filippo Paruta, scribe of the Senate of Palermo, who in the year 1609 recorded some things about St. Rosalia. As third he reckons Simone Parisi, baron of Milocca, who in the Description of Sicily, published in the year 1610, mentions the same Saint. Fourth is counted Vincenzo la Farina, baron of Aspromonte, who wrote a letter about St. Rosalia in the year 1620, as the aforesaid Auria will have it in the Rosa celeste, page 21, where he recites it.

[2] The fifth and chief author before the discovery of the body is Ottavio Gaetani of the Society of Jesus, in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, among whom the chief is Ottavio Gaetani: where he composed a brief Life of St. Rosalia, for the scarcity of records under which he labored. I have a letter written to Gaetani from Bivona on the III day of July in the year 1607 by Father Barnaba la Vecchia of the Society of Jesus, which abundantly shows that scarcity of ancient records. Yet, after he had said some things about the festival and the church at Bivona, to be reported in their place, he makes mention of some ancient Life which he perhaps hoped might be found, writing thus in Italian, as I render his words into Latin: They say that there is at Palermo some man who found the Life of this Saint on Mount Pellegrino, where there is a cave with an image of St. Rosalia above the door. He adds the way in which he believed that man could be found, and asserts that he was named Vincenzo Traina. But Gaetani sought in vain, as is gathered from another letter likewise communicated to us, which after the death of Ottavio Gaetani was written to his brother Alfonso Gaetani on the last day of July of the year 1624. In this Bernardino Lanfranchi writes among other things thus: I have inquired into the matter, and what I could learn is this. That Vincenzo Traina who had the Life was a soldier; nor is it known where he died, nor did he have a fixed dwelling. Both letters were transcribed for us by Girolamo Giustiniani of the Society of Jesus in the Manuscript collection about St. Rosalia transmitted to us in the year 1727. From both the ancient cult of that Saint is clearly gathered, as we shall see in its place; but from both likewise it is understood that Gaetani labored in vain to obtain any ancient writing about St. Rosalia.

[3] Further, the studious reader must be warned that Gaetani's Work on the Lives of the Sicilian Saints was published in the year 1657, but since his Work was corrected and published after the discovery, that is, thirty-seven years after the author's death; and that it was not printed exactly in the manner in which it had been written by Ottavio Gaetani. The matter is clear from the very preface of Pietro Salerno, who published Gaetani's Work: for there, where he had related that Ottavio Gaetani died with the Work almost finished, he thus continues: That Work was then handed on, as it were from hand to hand, to priests of our Society and religious men, Agostino Gaetani, kinsman of Ottavio, and thereafter to Alfonso Gaetani, the author's brother; but since they themselves wished to complete and change many things, and above all to conform everything to a single style, as they said, they kept it back until the year MDCXL. Then it was committed to me to see what ought to be done, lest a book so pious, and so eagerly and long desired, should lie hidden any longer within our chests. These things, and others that follow in the same place, sufficiently indicate that the edition of this Work was so made that it cannot be known what is Ottavio Gaetani's and what is others'. Further, although for the Acts of other Saints it matters little by whom they were written, since his correctors can have for them an authority equal to his;

With the Acts of St. Rosalia, however, the case is not the same, since Octavius Caietanus wrote before the finding of the body, whereas his own correctors wrote after the body had been found. For this reason we judged that it would be worth the labor if we could obtain the manuscript account of Octavius Caietanus himself, as it is preserved in the library of the College of the Society of Jesus at Palermo; and we obtained a twofold copy of that manuscript account.

[4] [From his manuscript there will be published a short Life of St. Rosalia, written from traditions alone.] From the manuscript we obtained it is possible to understand what Caietanus was able to discover about St. Rosalia before the body was found; and therefore I shall henceforth cite the manuscript account alone under the name of Caietanus. In the first place, he indicates in these words whence he himself drew his material: What we write concerning the holy Rosalia we have received from report and from the tradition of our elders. We grieve exceedingly that we have found no monument concerning her composed by our ancestors, although we have expended every effort and study upon this matter. So Caietanus in the remark appended to the Life, which I shall publish in the first place together with his own remarks, because that writer is worthy of no small praise, even though he was able to gather only a few things, since he was compelled as it were to grope in the dark, at a time when the name of St. Rosalia was less celebrated and the Saint herself little known. For he carried the torch that led to the finding of the body, by the finding of which not a few things were brought to light that had lain hidden before. Moreover, Caietanus' writing will be of use for distinguishing between the ancient traditions of the Sicilians concerning St. Rosalia and the opinions that arose among certain persons after the finding of the body, which some contend are to be held as ancient traditions. So much for the writers who preceded the finding of the body: now, in like manner, the chief of those must be reviewed who, after the body was found, had more resources for writing.

[5] After the finding of the body the chief writer is Jordanus Cascinus, Among these the first to be reviewed is Jordanus Cascinus of the Society of Jesus, a man to be celebrated for integrity of life and holiness of manners no less than for learning and skill, and for the chief offices he discharged in the Society, as may be seen more fully in the Library of the Writers of the Society of Jesus in Alegambe and Southwell, where this too is read, which bears upon our purpose: In the finding of the body of St. Rosalia at the time of that plague his sagacity and industry shone out above all, so that on that account he was held in a manner to be the father of his country. Antoninus Mongitore, doctor and canon of Palermo, celebrates Cascinus with no lesser eulogy in his Bibliotheca Sicula, where he sets out the later events thus: In the year 1624, when the body of the holy Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, had been found by divine agency, he was chosen by the same Giannettino Doria, archbishop (the Cardinal to whom he had said Cascinus was welcome) as chief theologian, that he might take part in the consultations appointed for the examination of the relics of the same Virgin: and he labored beyond all the rest that the truth of the matter might shine forth; and by his utmost zeal, wisdom and singular prudence he saw to it that the Virgin's relics were exposed to public veneration: and by that Virgin's aid Palermo, and almost all Sicily, was delivered from the plague: and Jordanus shone forth, venerated as it were the father of his country. He adds that he died on the twenty-first of December in the year 1635, and that funeral rites were duly paid him by the Senate of Palermo.

[6] [he published various things concerning the Saint, of which the Latin Life is to be reprinted:] In the year 1627 Cascinus published the Life of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, from tablets and ruined walls overgrown with neglect and age, from rocks, from caves, from rubble once buried in blind oblivion and lately called forth into the light — so says the aforesaid Mongitore, transcribing the first part of the longer title which the author gave to his little work. For Cascinus had had the ancient images of the Saint engraved on copper, and had added certain new ones taken from the caves and from the body that had been found, explaining each with a brief inscription; and thus he published a Life of the Saint sketched out in images. The same writer afterwards, in the year 1631, brought to light the Life and Finding of the Body of St. Rosalia, narrated in continuous prose, and dedicated it to the most eminent Giannettino Doria, Cardinal and archbishop of Palermo. This Life, both because it was written in Latin and because it was published by the author himself, I have judged should be reprinted before the rest, in the second place. Finally Cascinus undertook to compose a work of greater bulk in the Italian tongue, and chose to divide it into three parts. The first book contains the finding of the body, the ancient cult of the Saint, many miracles, and other matters annexed to the foregoing. The second book consists of many dissertations in which the deeds of St. Rosalia are set forth by means of the images published earlier, which he reprints in this book. The third book is wholly concerning the honors paid to St. Rosalia in various parts of the world, though with some miracles added. To these three books or parts are subjoined as many digressions, of which the first is on the place of her death, the second on the Saint's lineage, and the third and last on the various compositions made in her praise. All these together fill a volume in folio, which was published long after the death of Cascinus, namely in the year 1651, by the labor of Peter Salernus, whom I have already noted as the editor of Caietanus' work.

[7] Now, whether Cascinus fully completed the aforesaid work for the larger Italian work was corrected by Salernus, may deservedly be doubted, since it lay hidden for so long after his death. But whether the author brought his work to a finish or left it imperfect, it is certain that we do not have it altogether in the manner in which it was written by Cascinus, since we have manifest indications of interpolation. Receive a few of them, studious reader. Cascinus died, as I have said, in the year 635. Yet in the aforesaid work, book 1, chapter 7, page 48, a decree of the sacred Congregation of Rites given in the year 1641 is adduced. Assuredly Cascinus did not insert that in his work in the sixth year after his own death; it was without doubt added by the editor. Again, in book 2, chapter 6, page 184, it is narrated that the opinion which traces the lineage of St. Rosalia back to Charlemagne was inserted in the Roman Breviary; and that when it was proposed to remove it from the Breviary, it was so defended that it remained in the Breviary: but this latter happened in the year 1642, that is, long after the death of Cascinus, as Vincentius Auria relates in his Rosa cælestis, page 36. More things can be adduced which do not appear to have been written by Cascinus. But those brought forward suffice for us to understand that not everything is Cascinus' own that is read in print in the work which bears his name. For this reason I strongly suspect either that that work was not completed by Cascinus, or at any rate that it was not so corrected and cleansed by its author that the editor Salernus did not have full liberty to add, remove, change and correct everything that in his own prudence he wished added, subtracted or altered — as is wont to happen in posthumous works, which have not been brought by their authors to such perfection as to deserve to see the light without any change at all.

[8] From what has been said it follows, first, that the Latin Life which Cascinus himself published and perhaps not a few things composed by him. is more useful for understanding his opinion than is his larger Italian work, into which Salernus was able to insert opinions of his own. It follows, secondly, that not everything read in the aforesaid Italian work is necessarily to be admitted as written by Cascinus; but that it may be doubted whether those things which are not read in the Latin Life, but only in the Italian work, are Cascinus' or Salernus'. Indeed, that the three historical digressions placed at the end of the work are not Cascinus' but Salernus', is taught by the Library of the Writers of the Society of Jesus and by Mongitore's Bibliotheca Sicula in its eulogy of Peter Salernus, although the latter nowhere indicated this, wishing to leave all the credit of the work to Cascinus. Who does not see how great a suspicion these things bring in, that no small part of that work is Salernus' rather than Cascinus'? I confess indeed that it makes no difference whose the greater part of the work may be, since each of them was adorned with excellent piety and learning, and each wrote after the finding of the body. But since from various letters sent to us from Sicily I see clearly that almost all the credit of that work is attributed by the Sicilians to Cascinus alone, I have been unwilling to defraud Salernus of his share, but rather, so far as can be done, to attribute to each what is his own.

[9] [The Latin work of Salernus, from which much will be given in the Commentary, and from which the miracles will be published.] Further, Peter Salernus — of whose piety and erudition excellent eulogies may be seen in the Libraries already praised — composed in Latin, out of the Italian work of which we have spoken, a Life of St. Rosalia, and inserted it into Caietanus' work on the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, published by himself, volume 2, page 147, along with the Finding of the body and some miracles, partly transferred from the same work, partly added from elsewhere. But since everything has been narrated more fully by Salernus than in the Latin Life compendiously written by Cascinus, I shall insert nearly the whole of that work of Salernus into this Commentary piece by piece, as each part shall serve our purpose. The miracles I shall reprint after the second Life, illustrated with the due annotations. Now of all the writers on St. Rosalia, the three just reviewed — namely Caietanus, Cascinus and Salernus — are held in chief place among the learned Sicilians. I too judge that they are to be followed before the rest; yet by no means is one to swear by their sayings, but each must be examined and discussed with mature judgment.

[10] Other writers who followed the preceding: Many other more recent authors have written the Life of St. Rosalia, of whom I shall mention only the chief. Vincentius Auria, of Palermo, doctor of both laws and distinguished by many other writings, composed in Italian the Rosa cælestis, in which he discusses carefully the finding, life and miracles of St. Rosalia. This little work was printed at Palermo in the year 1668; and soon in the following year another little work of the same writer came out, entitled Life of St. Rosalia, which is as it were a compendium of the preceding. I have both little works and shall cite them where it seems worth the trouble. Antonius Ignatius Mancusi of the Society of Jesus first published a compendious Life, and then a fuller one under the title of a History, which was printed in the year 1721, and will be adduced in its proper places, especially for the more recent miracles, which this author was able to collect after the others. The writers thus far mentioned, and several others whom it is not necessary to recall, tread almost in the same footsteps. But another Life of St. Rosalia has also come out, much different from the preceding, which has had both its praisers and its followers, even though others judge that Life altogether to be disregarded.

[11] [Another Life written, as is reported, from revelations, which is commonly disapproved.] Sister Maria Roccaforte, of the Third Order of St. Benedict, dictated to Father Franciscus Sparacinus of the Society of Jesus, her confessor, a certain Life of St. Rosalia drawn from those things which she asserted had been revealed to her. Sparacinus himself did not publish this Life; but it was put to the press in the year 1650 by the care of Franciscus Forte, under an Italian title which I render into Latin thus: Life of the glorious St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo. The wonderful Life of Maria Roccaforte was written by Josephus Romanus of Bivona, doctor, as in the Library

Bibliotheca Sicula Mongitore has it; and from that Life Mancusi, pages 22 and 23, praises Maria for holiness of manners and for wonders wrought after her death; but he does not on that account attribute greater authority to that Life. Cascinus too, and other Sicilian writers, long since withdrew credit from the aforesaid Life; and although it has had some followers, as I have said, the rest of the Sicilians have commonly and consistently rejected it as contrary to their traditions. And indeed, things said to be revealed in this way do not appear to have a foundation firm enough for them to be held as historical truth or as undoubted facts, both because the revelation itself is not sufficiently established, and because it may be doubted whether all that she learned by revelation was set out with sufficient exactness after the revelation, and because it is no less uncertain whether, to the few things that could have been known through revelation, many others have not been added from conjecture. Wherefore I do not greatly lament the loss of this Life, which the Sicilians, otherwise most obliging, have never transmitted to us. Nevertheless I shall be able to learn sufficiently from other writers on what chief heads it differs from the rest, especially since Augustinus Inveges has inserted most of it into his Annals of Palermo.

§ II. From what monuments chiefly the deeds of St. Rosalia are to be sought: the Quisquina inscription: another, in Greek, found in the past century.

[ ] The Saint's deeds are to be gathered from traditions and from inscriptions, Since there exists no monument written concerning the deeds of St. Rosalia except four hundred years or more after the Saint's death, someone will rightly ask whence her deeds could have been drawn and known, especially since the tradition concerning her was exceedingly obscure in the time of Octavius Caietanus, as I have shown above. Cascinus, in his larger Italian work (which I shall always cite under his name, though I have said it was corrected by Salernus), book 2, chapter 1, confesses that not much can be known about this holy anchoress, and rightly adds that it is better to know a few things about St. Rosalia, and to endure ignorance of most of her deeds, than to follow fables or to corrupt what is true with what is invented. But the foundations of his History, which he judges to be tested and solid, he enumerates as follows. In the first place he sets down the ancient and solid traditions; in the second, writings, and especially the inscription found in the cave of Quisquina, which is believed to have been made by Rosalia herself, and is conceived in these words: I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, lord of Quisquina and of the Roses, for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ have resolved to dwell ini \ this cave habitari \. Of this inscription, as it was found in the cave of Quisquina, I have had two drawings engraved on copper, one older, the other more recent, and I set them before the eyes of my readers, that the arguments which persuade us that it must certainly be attributed to the Saint may be the better understood.

[13] Both drawings were sent to us in the year 1744 by the Rev. Fr. Ignatius Stanislaus Castiglia, of which the chief is here given engraved on copper, at that time provincial superior of the Sicilian province of the Society of Jesus, and our most diligent and obliging helper in gathering the acts of St. Rosalia, as will frequently be declared in the course of this work. To the drawing of the inscription he added these observations, either by himself or through Fr. Caietanus Maria Noto, whom he chose as his companion in the labor of furnishing us with many things and illustrating them with observations: We send two copies of this inscription. The one is less accurately drawn, which was engraved on copper many years ago; the other the most excellent lord Joseph Emmanuel Ventimiglia, prince of Belmonte and lord of Quisquina, being asked by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in these last days, ordered to be transcribed with the utmost diligence… The form of these letters agrees with the letters of the old coins of Count Roger and King Roger, which are reported by Paruta, by Agostini, and by Havercamp, namely in the work lately printed at Leyden under this title: Thesaurus of the Antiquities and Histories of Sicily, volume 8, in which several coins of both Rogers are exhibited with letters of the same form. I observe besides that on those same coins the word Domini is contracted just as it is here read contracted Dñi, and that the sign of the cross in the same form as here is to be seen on various coins. Concerning the two letters which were found long after the rest, and which are not unlike Arabic ciphers, the aforesaid Castiglia then adds this: After the known letters of the inscription, these two others … were detected a few years ago by men diligently inspecting the rock. But whether they were the beginning of another word which St. Rosalia left unfinished, or are Arabic numerals expressing the number twelve or fifteen, by which either the Virgin's age or something else may be indicated, I should not dare to divine. Thus far the observations mentioned.

[14] and by various arguments it is shown The Sicilians believe without any ambiguity that the inscription given was carved by Rosalia herself. And indeed neither few nor light are the arguments that can be brought forward to confirm this truth. The first argument may be the very shape of the letters already spoken of, to which may be joined both the sign of the cross and the contraction of the word Dni. But if the letters appear less exactly formed, and therefore are not altogether like the letters of the Rogerian coins, we can by no means wonder at it; rather we ought to wonder that they were carved so well upon hard stone. Cascinus, page 173, brings forward a second argument from the solecisms with which the inscription labors, in which for in is read ini, and for habitare stands habitari. For he asserts that these are Sicilian terminations, and therefore rightly observes that it could have come into no impostor's mind so to terminate the words. For this reason Salernus speaks thus of these solecisms in the Life: Had she not erred, she would the less have betrayed a woman's hand and the idiom of the Sicilian termination. Wherefore I should believe these faults to be the seals of a girl's hand not sufficiently taught the Latin tongue. But Mancusi, in his History, § XI, strives to show that in was written, not ini, and attributes that observation to his own discovery, as he does many other things which he reasons out about this inscription with pious meditation rather than accurate criticism. Yet he might rather have acquiesced in the observations of Cascinus, and have acknowledged with the more learned the error in the word, than have sought mysteries and miracles everywhere without likelihood; for it is not the part of a prudent historian to attribute to a miracle what could have come about in a natural way. The third argument for the genuineness of the inscription the aforesaid Cascinus expresses in these words: This writing is not modern, nor indeed are the words of today. No one at this time would have known that name Sinibaldus, a foreign name, belonging neither to these times nor to these places, nor ever heard of in these parts, but of a person altogether unknown, whom on the evidence of this stone alone we have at this time begun to seek out, and have found with great difficulty.

[15] Besides, the manner in which that inscription was found, which we shall relate in its own place, that it is to be attributed to St. Rosalia herself. and the witnesses lawfully examined, seem to remove all suspicion of forgery or imposture. For, first, when the inscription was found, the opening of the cave was so narrow that it afforded no man entrance, and it had to be widened with suitable tools before anyone could enter the cave, as Cascinus relates in book 2, chapter 2. For this reason he doubts whether any man besides Rosalia had ever set foot in that cave. Secondly, the whole inscription was covered by a certain crust formed from the dampness of the rocks, and only the cross was at first open to the eye, until, on occasion of the cross being seen, that crust grown upon the stone was diligently scraped away, and thus the whole inscription was uncovered. That was an evident sign that the inscription had not been made recently; and this was confirmed by twelve sworn witnesses, as we shall see in its own place. Thirdly, those who uncovered the inscription can in no way be suspected of imposture, both because they could not even read it, nor certainly understand it, being ignorant of the Latin tongue, and because many others were present when they opened the narrow mouth of the cave and found the inscription covered with the damp crust. All these things will be explained more fully when we treat of the finding of the cave of Quisquina, which happened forty days after the body was found. We shall also allege the reasons by which Rosalia may have been moved to write such things, when we treat of her entry into the cave of Quisquina.

[16] Another writing attributed by some to St. Rosalia, [Another writing in Greek, found in the past century together with a wooden cross,] but denied to her by others, was found in the past century in the monastery of St. Salvator at Palermo, which belongs to virgins of the Order of St. Basil. This writing is Greek, or Barbaro-Greek, as the times of St. Rosalia bore; and it is wholly without punctuation or accents, in this manner: Εγω αδελφη Ροσολια Σινηβαλδη βανω ετουτο το ξυλον του εδουκουμου αφεντος εις το μοναστιρι το οπιον παντοτινα το ακουλουθησα: and it is rendered in Latin thus: I, sister Rosolia, daughter of Sinibald, place this wood of my Lord in this monastery, which I have always followed. The finding of this writing together with the wooden cross, its alienation and its restitution, is reported in the instrument of restitution which was drawn up in the year 1699 before the most illustrious lord Philip Ignatius de Truxillo y Guerrero, judge of the tribunal of the royal monarchy in Sicily, and before many witnesses, by the Palermitan notary Antonius Terranova, of which one copy in manuscript and another in print is at hand. Receive from it the account of the matter. On the fifth day of the month of May, in the seventh Indiction, 1699: Whereas in the year of the Lord 1644, in the venerable monastery of the most holy Salvator of this city, when the altar of the patriarch St. Basil was being built in the church called the old one, on occasion of the erection of the new church, there was found in the rubble or masonry of the same altar by a mason … a certain little box (commonly called a bossoletta), which he at once carried off and hid; and having then departed from the monastery, and led by curiosity, he opened it. In it he found a wooden cross and a certain page enclosed, written with Greek letters and words, as at present, and at the present time, it appears. There follows the Greek writing with the interpretation already given.

[17] Then it proceeds thus: Which manuscript indeed, together with the aforesaid cross, the mason, which was long alienated by the finder's fault, without giving any notice to the same monastery, for reasons that seemed good to him, handed over and consigned to the Reverend Fathers of the venerable convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino; who, hearing that the cross with the aforesaid manuscript had been found in the most sacred altar, preserved them with the utmost diligence and veneration, etc. And although, while he remained among the living, the mason revealed the matter to no one, yet when the time was at hand in which he must render his soul to the supreme and immortal God, he called for his confessor and told him all the foregoing; and, asking pardon for his sins, he laid it upon his conscience that all that is above narrated should be revealed to the abbess and to the ministers of the said monastery, so that the aforesaid cross with the page might be restored to the monastery to which it belonged, and in which they were found: and accordingly, after the said mason had died, his said confessor by letters missive made the foregoing known, narrating it to the Reverend priest Don Joseph Bonfiglio, then ordinary confessor and chaplain of the said monastery, to

the end that the aforesaid Bonfiglio should give notice of this whole matter, as it was given, to the abbess of the said monastery at that time. Which abbess, assenting to this disclosure, attempted through Joseph Ciraulo, then agent of the said monastery, the recovery of the said little box with the cross and the manuscript kept within it, as above. But when many instances had been made, upon which they insisted, and the Fathers of St. Nicholas of Tolentino being unwilling to restore it, at length they agreed that they were willing to restore only the said little box, without the cross and without the manuscript found within it: and, the death of the said de Ceraulo, the aforesaid agent, supervening, the said abbess, and likewise the other abbesses who succeeded her, on account of the difficulties met with in recovering the aforesaid things, desisted from the business they had begun, etc.

[18] and after many difficulties, And whereas in times past there was by the Reverend Father Vincentius of the Most Holy Sacrament, of the Order and Rule of the said convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino of this city — a Father of the very greatest veneration and authority and exemplariness of life — confessed and said with his own mouth to Donna Anna lo Porto, at present a nun living within the said monastery, named Sister Aloysia lo Porto, who at that time was about to enter \ the said monastery, and was found in the world within the church of the said convent at the time when the said most sacred relic of the wood of the Holy Cross was exposed for the adoration of the faithful people, in these words, to wit (they were in Italian, which I render into Latin): “This wood which you see belongs to the monastery of the most holy Salvator, which you are to enter.” And he narrated to her all the foregoing set forth above, as concerning such saying and confession made by the Reverend Father Vincentius to the said lo Porto, as above, it appeared and appears fully enough from the account of the said Sister Anna Aloysia lo Porto, nun in the said venerable monastery, known to me the notary, being present with the authority of the undersigned mother abbess, Hippolyta Lancellotta Castelli, abbess of the same monastery etc., being present and authorizing her, etc.; the same lo Porto, by virtue of the present instrument and with the aforesaid authority, freely with a double oath said and declared, and does say and declare, that the foregoing was and is true, as she said, renouncing etc.* Presently there is added, in support of all this, the testimony of four other nuns, confirming the foregoing with a double oath.

[19] Then follows: Hence therefore the Reverend mother Sister Hippolyta Lancellotta Castelli, [in the presence of the judge of the tribunal of the Royal Monarchy and of many witnesses,] at present abbess of the said venerable monastery, led by the divine Spirit, has always with the greatest diligence cared, and does care, for the goods of the said monastery, desiring that what by her predecessors was for whatever cause not at all cared for, she might by the favor of the divine clemency be able to obtain and to have. For which cause she had recourse to the most illustrious and most reverend lord de Truxillo, judge of the Royal Monarchy, humbly setting forth the foregoing. Which lord judge, considering the great good faith of the said reverend mother abbess in recovering the goods of the said monastery, and especially a relic so notable, together with the authentication of our protectress the virgin Rosalia, placed there by her own hands and authenticated by her characters, being moved by the aforesaid entreaties, applied himself diligently to this so good a work. At length, after diligent inquiry had been made, he found it in the possession \ of the said convent. And when word had been had of his report with the Reverend Father Prior of the same convent, the same Father Prior — because he had full knowledge of the whole matter, and it fully appeared to him in the said capacity from the accounts of the Fathers and ancient Superiors of his convent — therefore, willing with a full mind to obey the precepts of his superiors, as soon as he had knowledge of the foregoing, determined to restore and consign to the said venerable monastery the aforesaid relic together with the said manuscript, found by the Reverend priest Don Antonius Bruno among the manuscripts and authentications of the relics of the said convent in the presence of the said Father Prior: and on that account to proceed to the undersigned act of the aforesaid consignation, that the foregoing may in future shine forth perpetually, etc.*

[20] Therefore today, on the present day above entitled, the aforesaid Reverend mother Sister Hippolyta Lancellotta Castelli, to the monastery of the Most Holy Salvator, abbess of the said venerable monastery of the most holy Salvator of this city, etc., being however first present with the authority and intervention of the Reverend abbot Don Hieronymus Filingeri, and of the most illustrious lord Balthasar Castelli, deputy and protector of the same monastery, etc., both present and intervening in the said capacities, and authenticating the said reverend mother abbess in these matters, etc.; and likewise with the authority, intervention and consent and express will of the undersigned nuns of the said monastery, called by the sound of the little bell and gathered in chapter in the accustomed and usual place, as is the custom, namely Sister Josepha Drago (and forty-eight others, whose names are enumerated), being present and intervening, none of them dissenting but all unanimously consenting; and likewise in the presence of the aforesaid most illustrious and most reverend lord de Truxillo, judge of the said tribunal of the Royal Monarchy, as below, being present; in the said capacity, with the aforesaid authority and intervention and with the undersigned presence, by virtue of the present instrument she said and confessed that she had had and received, and that there had been handed over and consigned to her in the said capacity by the very Reverend Father Benedictus of the Conception of the Mother of God, Prior of the said venerable convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino of this city, etc., being present and stipulating in the said capacity, and asserting that he had restored and consigned, the said most sacred relic of the wood of the holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, namely that very one found in the said year 1644 by the said mason in the masonry of the altar of the said patriarch St. Basil in the church of the above-said monastery (which at present is the old one \ by reason of the building of the new), which was at that time consigned to the said convent, as they said, renouncing etc.*

[21] where it had been found beneath the old altar of the church, Here it is added that a small particle of the wood of the holy Cross was left to the Prior, the abbess consenting; and then it proceeds thus: And likewise the said reverend mother abbess in the said capacity, with the aforesaid authority and intervention and with the undersigned presence, said and confessed that she had had and received, and that there had been consigned to her in the said capacity by the said reverend Father Prior, stipulating and asserting that he restored it, the said manuscript written upon the said page, in Greek however and not in Latin, namely that very manuscript which, as it appears to the said reverend father Prior in the said capacity from the accounts of the Fathers and ancient Superiors of the said convent, was formerly found together with the said relic consigned above, in the said little box, in the said monastery of the most holy Salvator, and handed over to the said convent; the words of which writing are set down below, to wit: Εγω αδελφη Ροσολια Σινηβαλδη βανω ετουτο το ξυλον του εδοκουμου αφεντος εις το μοναστιρι το οπιον παντοτινα ακουλουθησα. Which words signify to the sense of Latin speakers these, to wit: “I, sister Rosolia, daughter of Sinibald, place this wood of my Lord in the monastery which I have always followed.” Which writing indeed was by the said abbess, to the end that it might be preserved perpetually, placed in a certain little frame between two crystals; and thus, the said manuscript being in the same condition as above, it was with the said two crystals consigned and restored to the said abbess, stipulating in the said capacity, and this into her possession, as she said, renouncing etc.: there being present at all and each of these things the said most illustrious and most reverend lord Don Philip Ignatius de Truxillo, judge of the Royal Monarchy, etc., and being present at the act, and lending and bestowing upon all and each of the things contained in the present instrument his own, or rather the said tribunal's, judiciary authority and likewise decree, in every better manner, etc.: and likewise there being present at all and each of these things the reverend father Peter Justinianus of the Society of Jesus, and the very reverend father Don Nuncius Schiro of the Order of St. Basil the Great, etc., being present and asserting on oath, with hand upon the breast after the priestly manner, that they had seen, reviewed, read and well considered the said manuscript, and that it was translated from the Greek idiom into Latin in the above-said sense, as it was written above, and not otherwise, etc. The said reverend priests swore with hands upon their breasts, etc. Likewise the said women, etc. Whence, etc.

[22] it was lawfully restored. There follow the subscriptions, which I shall give in the idiom in which each was expressed.

Don Felippe Ignatio de Truxillo y Guerrero, etc.

Don Geronimo Filingeri, deputy, etc.

Sister Ippolita Lancellotta Castelli, abbess, etc.

Don Baldassare Castelli e Lercaro, protector, etc.

Father Petrus Justinianus of the Society of Jesus, etc.

Father Don Nuncius Schiro of the Order of St. Basil the Great, etc.

Father Benedictus of the Conception of the Virgin, Prior of the convent of St. Nicholas, etc.

Priest Don Antonio Bruno, etc.

Mother Sister Giovanna Caruso, etc.

Sister Gioseppa Geronima Sammaniati, etc.

Sister Nuncia Percolla, etc.

Sister Macrina Maria Restivo, etc.

Sister Anna Aloysia lo Porto, etc.

Witnesses: the Reverend priest Don Ignatius de Palermo, the Reverend priest Don Franciscus Bila, and Thomas Magliarditi, and very many others, etc.

From the Acts of the Palermitan notary Antonius Terranova, etc.

Saving collation, etc.

What could be found fault with in this instrument, apart from some solecisms which do not stand in the way of its validity, I really do not see. But I gladly acknowledge that it cannot be certainly deduced from it that this writing is St. Rosalia's. Wherefore it must be examined how far this is probable or improbable.

\ for in*

\ i.e. habitare*

\* about to enter

\* i.e. in the power

\* old

§ III. It is asked whether it can probably be believed that the Greek writing just treated of was penned by St. Rosalia.

[ ] It has been disputed whether the writing just given is St. Rosalia's: No slight controversy has arisen among the Sicilians out of the Greek writing just mentioned, and it has been agitated with great heat: namely because those few words, if it be established that they were penned by the Saint, clearly decide another dispute, and certainly prove that Rosalia was a nun in the monastery of the most holy Salvator before she embraced the solitary life. Mancusi, already frequently cited, in his History of St. Rosalia, and a certain anonymous writer in various Dissertations published against the Saint's monastic profession, contend strenuously that that writing is not to be attributed to Rosalia, and cry aloud that it is either a forgery or belongs to another Rosalia who has nothing in common with our Saint except the name. On the other side, Hieronymus Justinianus of the Society of Jesus transmitted to our predecessors a twofold manuscript Dissertation, in which he labors to show that the aforesaid writing can and ought probably to be attributed to St. Rosalia, unless with extravagant criticism we wish to look for a knot in a bulrush. Each writer used the Italian idiom, as did also the anonymous authors who have touched upon this controversy. Moreover they have used more words, and arguments more often repeated, than can all be transferred hither. Wherefore I shall select only the chief arguments of each side, and shall for the elucidation of the matter

set them before the learned reader without any partisanship, that he may be able to determine with me what should be thought of the whole matter.

[24] Justinianus, for the sake of clearness, describes the writing thus in his Historical Examination (so he entitled that Dissertation), §3, num. 10: [the form of that writing: the first objection against it, drawn from common paper] The paper is the eighth part of a folio sheet, worn away on all sides at the edges, and partly also eaten through in the middle by moths, made of common material, not of papyrus or parchment, so far as appears; thick rather than thin, of a yellow or somehow dusky color from age. It is written on both sides in the Greek tongue, but barbarously, whether the sound be considered or the orthography. The letters, as well as the lines, are unequal and distorted, so that from the stroke of the pen a woman's hand may be recognized. This whole description favors those who believe the writing to be St. Rosalia's. Nevertheless their adversaries have sought to take an argument for themselves from the same passage; and they have contended that the writing is not Rosalia's, because common paper, as they maintain, was not yet in use in her time. Indeed Mancusi in the Life, page 4, adduces the authority of Papebroch and Janninck to prove it. Their words, in a letter written in the year 1701, are these: It will be no more easily determined at precisely what time that paper began to be made which we now everywhere use for writing. It is certain, however, that its use has existed for 500 years, etc. This letter was published in the Historical Discourse of a Sicilian writer who called himself Jacobus Calafatus, page 122, where the occasion of that letter is also set forth. Now the aforesaid Mancusi says that the use of paper did not begin except toward the end of the twelfth century, and he infers this from the words quoted, for 500 years. But when Janninck wrote that it was certain that the use of paper had existed for five hundred years, and that the beginning of that use could hardly be assigned, he was so far from denying that paper was in use in the time of St. Rosalia, that is, in the twelfth century, that we may justly complain that the authority of our predecessors is wrongly employed to draw conclusions so frivolous.

[25] it is inept, since common paper Justinianus indeed refutes that objection excellently at length; but for me a few things drawn from elsewhere will suffice. Let us hear Mabillon, De Re diplomatica, book 1, chapter 8, num. 16: Concerning our paper, or common papyrus, which is made from the remnants of old linens ground up and macerated, there is no need for us to enter upon a long discourse: … although its use has prevailed for more than five hundred years, as that most learned man Hadrian Valesius observed, from the passage of Peter the Venerable cited above, in his notes on the Panegyric of the emperor Berengarius. But at what time it began, no one hitherto has dared to determine. Then, after certain things interposed which for brevity's sake I pass over, he proves his statements thus: For Peter the Venerable, in his treatise against the Jews, mentions books read in his own time which were MADE UP FROM THE SCRAPINGS OF OLD RAGS. Which without doubt is to be understood of linen paper. And further, although almost no diplomas and instruments of any importance whatever were written on our common paper, yet its use was sometimes employed in letters, as the letter of Joinville to Saint Louis, penned on paper of this kind, shows, which Antonius Herovallius communicated to me along with many others. The argument adduced proves that common paper was at least in use about the beginning of the twelfth century, that is, when St. Rosalia was either not yet born, or was a girl.

[26] was already in use in the time of St. Rosalia: For Peter the Venerable was elected abbot of Cluny in the year 1121, and in the year 1158 exchanged life for death, so that those books were without doubt written about the beginning of the twelfth century, and probably much earlier, since Peter speaks of them not as of a new thing but as of a thing in common use. Receive his words from the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, column 1070, where he thus mocks the Jews: God, he says, reads in the heavens the book Talmud. But what sort of book? If such as those we have in daily use for reading, made up, that is, from the skins of rams, of he-goats or of calves, or from the papyri or rushes of the Eastern marshes, or from the scrapings of old rags, or perhaps from some other still baser material, etc. It is also clear that paper made from cotton, which can differ little from linen paper, was in use before the twelfth century, that is, before St. Rosalia was born. Hear again the aforesaid Mabillon: More frequent in diplomas is the use of paper made from cotton, as is proved by the COTTON CHARTER renewed on parchment by Roger, king of Sicily, which his brother Simon and his mother had made, in Rocco Pirri's Sicilia sacra. The diploma of King Roger which is here cited stands in Pirri, book 4 of the Sicilia sacra, from page 91, and was given in the year 1145; and in it various diplomas are confirmed, written on cotton paper partly toward the end of the eleventh century, partly toward the beginning of the twelfth, and they are renewed on parchment. That cotton paper, therefore, was in use among the Sicilians in the eleventh century; nor can it be doubted that St. Rosalia could have used it for writing in the twelfth. Wherefore that first argument of Mancusi has been so dissolved that it cannot henceforth be resorted to by those who do not refuse to yield to acknowledged truth.

[27] A second objection against the writing that was found is the Greek idiom, [the second objection, drawn from the Greek language, is no better than the preceding,] since the Quisquina inscription is written not in Greek but in Latin. They add the barbarousness of the Greek idiom, and that the writing is without any accents or punctuation. But this whole objection has little or no difficulty in it, since both languages were in use in Sicily, and both could have been known to the Saint. Cascinus, book 2, chapter 5, writes that three languages, namely Greek, Latin and Arabic, were in use in Sicily in the time of St. Rosalia, and proves this from the diplomas, coins and inscriptions of that time, which are read written partly in Greek, partly in Latin, and now and then even in Arabic. And so it can seem in no way strange that a noble Virgin, such as Rosalia was, knew after some fashion the Greek of that time along with the Latin tongue. Nor is it any more to be wondered at that that writing was penned in Greek rather than in Latin, since it was penned in a monastery of Greek nuns, where the Greek speech was without doubt in use rather than the Latin. As for the barbarisms of the said writing, the omitted accents, and the other marks and punctuation, all these agree aptly with the time in which the Saint lived, especially if we consider that it is the writing of a Virgin who probably cared little for elegance of speech, or for the punctuation and the other marks customarily set upon words.

[28] Further, we can scarcely doubt that St. Rosalia used the common tongue of the Greeks, since the Saint probably used the common Greek tongue: not the tongue of the learned. Of this twofold language of the later Greeks, Leo Allatius speaks thus in his work On the perpetual agreement of the Western and Eastern Church, book 3, chapter 8, num. 7: Among them a twofold tongue is in use; the one ancient, which the old Greeks employed in composing books; the other more recent and more common and more usual. The former they use in celebrating the sacred rites; … the latter in familiar conversations, sermons and letters. And now at last in this same tongue they compose little histories, treatises, and poems of various kinds. Which nevertheless those who wish to be held wiser and more learned avoid in publishing their works, following the ancient tongue. The same author teaches that those marks which are usually written with Greek letters were not always in use, writing thus in his Animadversions upon the fragments of Etruscan antiquities, num. 47: Meanwhile William Canter, in his Syntagma on the method of emending Greek authors, chapter 6, proves, both from ancient codices and from the scholiasts, that the ancient Greeks were accustomed to write bare letters without any tittles; which Politian also often asserts, but chiefly in Miscellanea, chapters 58 and 80, where he affirms that poems were written after the ancient manner without any little accents. He then disputes further in the same place about the punctuation which more recent men have added to ancient writers. But these things suffice for us easily to believe that that whole writing could have been penned by St. Rosalia just as it was found.

[29] the third objection, better than the former ones, brings it about It is objected in the third place that the word αδελφη, that is, sister, occurs in this writing, especially since in the Quisquina inscription Rosalia did not call herself a sister. There is added another difference between those writings, namely that in the cave of Quisquina is read Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, but on the paper Ροσολια Σινηβαλδη. Both observations are directed to this end, that we should judge the writing that was found, if it is not a forgery, must be attributed to some nun distinct from St. Rosalia, who had a double proper name and was called Rosalia Sinibalda. Indeed Mancusi draws a third difference to the same end, objecting it in his History, §12, pages 109 and 110: for Christ is spoken of more reverently in the Latin writing, for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, than in the Greek, the wood of my Lord, or of my Master, as he will have it. But the word ἀφέντης has long been used by the Greeks for Lord, so that this last observation is of no weight. But the two former appear to me better than the other objections, since the writing may really be another's. Nevertheless that that writing belongs to another Rosalia cannot certainly be inferred from the objections themselves; especially since no Rosalia Sinibalda is pointed out who passed her life in the monastery of the most holy Salvator, and since the joining of two names does not appear to have been so usual at that time as it has become in our own. Moreover, although the name Sinibaldus was in use at that time, I have not yet found that the name Sinibalda was then given to women. Indeed the very name Rosalia was then rare, so that it can hardly be believed that those two names, Rosalia Sinibalda, were imposed upon the same girl as her own.

[30] that nothing certain is established. Wherefore I do not sufficiently see that the dispute about that writing can be decided well enough without the other writing which gave occasion to this one. Nor do I doubt that those very men who sharply attacked that Greek writing, because they were unwilling by any means to admit a monastic life for St. Rosalia, would have fought with no less zeal for attributing that Greek writing to the Saint, if it were as repugnant to the opinion concerning St. Rosalia's monastic profession as it is favorable to it. Certainly, so far as I can gather from their manner of writing, they would readily admit that Sinibalda is the same as daughter of Sinibald in the aforesaid Greek writing; they would readily understand also that the word sister could have been omitted in the cave by Rosalia, because she had determined to lead there a solitary life separated from all society of nuns. But the chief

reason for attacking that writing, and almost the only one, is that the monastic life of St. Rosalia, which they contend to be improbable, cannot be denied if that leaf be attributed to the Saint. And so, if the monastic profession of this Saint can be probably asserted and defended from other quarters, this writing too can with probable reason be attributed to Rosalia; nay, it will even increase the probability of the aforesaid opinion, as a probable argument joined to the rest. But if it is altogether improbable that the Saint ever lived in a monastery, then neither can this paper probably be ascribed to St. Rosalia. I pass over, therefore, the other objections, which have been sufficiently refuted from the instrument given above; and I proceed to the other monuments of her deeds.

§ IV. The many painted panels concerning St. Rosalia: it is examined whether the Saint, during the time of her solitary life, lay altogether hidden and unknown; and that opinion is shown to be improbable and contrary to ancient tradition: hence a judgment is formed concerning the authority of the pictures.

[ ] The ancient images are to be inserted in this Commentary, Cascinus, book 2, chapter 1, proceeds to enumerate the monuments he used, and, reviewing the painted panels, speaks of them thus: Lastly (we shall gather the Life) from the pictures and memorials that were ancient, partly already known, partly recently discovered. These, so far as we know hitherto, have not been drawn from any Life of St. Rosalia written in ancient times: they are nonetheless the foundations of the Life which we now write; since they preserve at least in part what had remained in the memory of men concerning the life of this Saint in past times. Moreover, for the consolation of those who do not know how to read, care was taken that seventeen panels should be engraved on copper at Rome, with the approval of those whose office it was to grant that faculty. He promises that he will give an explanation of these panels, and of the Quisquina inscription as well, in place of a Life, and he performed this diligently. Now since these are the chief monuments of St. Rosalia's deeds, I shall set those very panels before my readers' eyes. That I might be able to do so, I was much assisted by the Rev. Fr. Ignatius Stanislaus Castiglia, already praised above, who with wonderful kindness and liberality directed hither all the copper plates that Cascinus used; nay, he even collected money among the Sicilians for this purpose, so that at modest expense to us, or almost none at all, all those images of Cascinus, together with others added, might be inserted into our work.

[32] The studious reader will now ask how much authority we can or ought to attribute to those images. which would have no authority, I gladly answer that here I am at a stand, especially if the opinion of Cascinus and of others who have followed him is to be followed, by which it is contended that St. Rosalia lay so hidden away in her caves that she was never known to any man, not even when dying. For I do not sufficiently grasp how anything could have become known of the Saint's deeds in the caves and mountains, if no one ever saw the anchoress, no one knew anything of her while she lived, no one knew whether she was alive or dead. I know indeed that recourse may be had to revelations, by which the Virgin herself after death could have taught some things she had done in life. But we have no fit testimony of such revelations; no ancient writer ever mentioned so much as a word of any such apparitions of Rosalia. For this reason Salernus speaks thus of our Saint in the Life: But what Rosalia's manner of living was in either cave, if anyone should inquire, it will be quite lawful to borrow Jerome's words concerning his Paul, the chief of hermits: “How he lived in his middle years, or what snares of Satan he endured, is known to no one.” Nevertheless the same writer afterwards, where he treats of the cult of St. Rosalia, seems to depart somewhat from those earlier words, writing thus: Yet God did not so shut up Rosalia's life, death and tomb that the rays of her holiness did not shine forth again and again. In what manner this came about in a Virgin who while living had separated herself from the company of men, is hidden from us; but that it plainly came about we know, nor do we wonder at it, since we understand that it proceeded from the admirable counsel of God. So he, because he cannot deny the ancient cult of the Saint, which is beyond doubt. But it may be permitted to ask how that cult was begun, if neither Rosalia's solitary life nor her death became known to anyone. To this question Salernus is silent, nor does he dare have recourse to an apparition, because among the ancients there is no foundation for any such apparition.

[33] if the holy Solitary had been altogether unknown: Cascinus, in the place assigned, believed, or at least suspected, that something had once been committed to writing concerning St. Rosalia: for he says that he has not at hand those few things which were from time to time written of the Saint. He is speaking without doubt of ancient writings, since a little below he hints that that loss could have happened through fires and conflagrations of the archives. But if anything was once written about St. Rosalia, the question already put concerning the pictures returns: namely, whence did those ancient men have what they related about the deeds of St. Rosalia, if she remained altogether unknown until her death? The same writer relates various things about St. Rosalia which he affirms he drew from tradition. I ask again, whence could a tradition about those deeds have arisen, if no mortal knew Rosalia, or ever saw her, after she took up the solitary life? Indeed not even the Virgin's parents or kinsmen could in that case ever have known what manner of life she had embraced: they too must needs have been ignorant whether Rosalia had fled, or had perished by some misfortune, or had been carried off by theft or rape. Whence, therefore, arose the tradition from which Caietanus somehow learned the time in which the Saint lived, and many other things? Cascinus is silent too before all these questions, content with his traditions, his pictures, the deeds perhaps recounted, and finally the undoubted cult: for he was too religious a man to dare assert without foundation that all these had their origin from revelations alone; although he neither ought nor could have been ignorant that neither can traditions arise concerning a Saint altogether unknown, nor can her cult be begun. These difficulties are so natural that they offer themselves at once, as soon as anyone so much as hears that opinion about a Rosalia altogether unknown.

[34] but that opinion was born after the finding of the body, For which cause, lest we be compelled to walk in darkness, it is worth inquiring further whence the Sicilians learned that St. Rosalia was altogether unknown, both in her solitary life and in her death. Did the Saint herself perhaps reveal this to someone after her death? But that can be said on no foundation, and no one, so far as I know, has hitherto ventured to assert it. Or could anyone, in the Virgin's lifetime or after her death, have known that Rosalia, unknown to him as to the rest, led a life known to God and the angels alone? It would be ridiculous to affirm this, since it involves a contradiction. Whence then, I beseech you, was that opinion born among certain learned men? I shall say frankly that it could not have arisen except through failure to consider the matter sufficiently. For some assert that this is the tradition of the church of Palermo; and they do not explain how ancient that tradition is, nor whence it took, or could have taken, its rise. But I altogether judge that that tradition is no older than the finding of the body; and I shall easily prove that the opinion of Cascinus, which others have adopted, is clothed with that specious name of tradition. Caietanus collected the traditions current in his own time concerning St. Rosalia. But he nowhere asserted that Rosalia lived so unknown in her solitude that no one knew anything about her. Receive his very words from Caietanus' manuscript: Rosalia the virgin is reported to have been born at Palermo, and to have been one of the handmaids of Queen Margaret, who was the wife of William, king of Sicily; from whom, having received as a gift the mountain nearest the city of Palermo, which is named Pellegrino, she withdrew thither, and passed a life remote from all society in a cave: there she piously and holily died and was buried.

[35] Caietanus asserts indeed that St. Rosalia led in her cave a life remote from all society; and it was unknown to Caietanus: but he does not say that she was unknown to all men. Now she could lead a life remote from all society even if all the people of Palermo had known that she dwelt there, and had known her, and had even from time to time come to the Saint's cave, either to provide her with the necessaries of life, or to hear her pious admonitions. Nor can these things alone stand together with a life remote from all society, but many others also. If St. Rosalia went out of her cave on Sundays and feast days to be present at the most sacred Sacrifice of the Mass in the neighboring monastery or church, to expiate her lighter faults by sacred confession, to be refreshed with the Eucharistic Bread; or if a pious priest came at set times to her cave to render her the aforesaid offices, it could nonetheless be said that she passed a life in her cave remote from all society: for those pious exercises cannot stand in the way of the perfection of the solitary life, nor do they hinder such a life from being rightly called remote from all society. Wherefore, just as I would not affirm for certain that Rosalia went out of her cave from time to time, or admitted anyone into the cave, that she might become a partaker of the most sacred mysteries — because I have no fit monuments for affirming it — so I frankly profess that I shall put no faith in those who contend that those pious exercises must certainly be denied to the holy Anchoress, unless they bring forward better documents than I have hitherto seen adduced to establish that opinion: for Caietanus' account shows sufficiently that nothing is had from the ancient traditions by which it may be proved that St. Rosalia was more of a solitary than were many holy anchorites who at set times approached the divine mysteries.

[36] Now, however, whatever be the case concerning those exercises, about which nothing can be determined nay, and to certain monuments, especially the most ancient cult, except from mere conjectures, that opinion about a wholly unknown Rosalia — which I have already shown to have been born in the past century and to be destitute of ancient traditions — lacks also all likelihood. For so many things persuade us that Rosalia was known to the ancient Sicilians that it cannot prudently be doubted. Ancient tradition holds that Rosalia dwelt in a cave of Mount Pellegrino, and therefore a sacred building was erected there many centuries ago, as we shall see in its own place, with an effigy of the Saint. Whence, I ask, was that tradition born, of whose truth no one doubts? From nowhere else, I think, than that Rosalia was known at least to one or more persons, who after her death could make her known to all. Likewise there was an ancient tradition of St. Rosalia's dwelling in the cave of Quisquina, which must have had a like origin. Moreover the Saint's cult is so ancient in Sicily that Cascinus, book 2, chapter 19, would have it that she was already venerated in the time of King William and of Pope Alexander III, that is, one or two years after the Saint's death, as Cascinus fixes it. That opinion of Cascinus is not indeed certain, as we shall see in its own place:

but at least it is certain that the cult is very ancient, and was begun in the same century. I cannot therefore understand by what consistency Cascinus, and others who followed him, would have it that the Saint was so unknown during the time of her solitary life that not even in her last agony was anyone present with her, and yet that her cult began not long after her death. Did the Sicilians then begin to venerate a Saint whom they neither knew to be dead nor had known while she lived? Assuredly it ought first to have been explained by what deed at last this could have come about, or probably did come about. For which cause we shall say things far more credible if we assert that the Saint was known at least to some, and probably even to most of the people of Palermo, who could at the very least know that Rosalia was living in a cave of Mount Pellegrino, and afterwards died there, though perhaps they never saw her face.

[37] it is contrary to the images and to likelihood: Cascinus attributes so much to the ancient images of St. Rosalia that he not only relates the holy Virgin's deeds on their authority, but even discusses from them the outward appearance and dress of our holy Anchoress, in book 2, chapter 21. I do not disapprove that manner of arguing, if we are willing to suppose that the Saint was known during the time of her anchoritic life, and was from time to time seen, at least by some who could somehow instruct a painter about her clothing, stature and countenance. But again I do not grasp in what manner at last Cascinus could write that the Marturano panel, because it is older than the rest, must be reckoned the likest of all to the Saint, if he held that our Anchoress was never seen or known by any man after she had, in girlhood, forsaken her father's house. He believes that that panel was painted from the year 1257. Let us even suppose — I grant it for my part — that it was painted immediately upon the Saint's death becoming known. Could the painter on that account rightly represent garments he had never seen? Could he aptly delineate a face never seen by anyone (except perhaps in her girlhood, which cannot even be said with any certainty), or exactly represent a stature never set before his eyes? You see, reader, I think, how ill the inferences and many assertions of the learned Cascinus hang together with that opinion about a wholly unknown Rosalia, which is so read in his work that we may reasonably doubt whether he himself asserted it, or at least whether he stood firm in that opinion. But whatever be the case with Cascinus' mind, the great abundance of ancient images, the many churches scattered through Sicily, and a cult so ancient and so widely propagated as we shall see below, plainly suggest that the Saint was both in her life and shortly after her death well enough known and celebrated. Many arguments can be brought forward to confirm what has been said. But it will be enough to add one observation. Mount Pellegrino, says Salernus in the Finding of the body, lies scarcely two miles distant from Palermo, in whose cave St. Rosalia lived and died. Who then, without fit testimonies of the ancients, would believe, or could prudently believe, that in such nearness to a most famous city Rosalia so lay hid that she was detected and recognized by no one?

[38] the reasons brought forward for that opinion Weighty arguments and manifest indications are required for believing a thing so unusual and unheard of. But nothing is brought forward by Cascinus and Salernus except certain light conjectures. Let us hear Salernus in the Life: There have been anchorites, he says, who admitted some manner of dealing with men; but others, following a stricter kind of life, so separated themselves from human society that they lived to God alone, shut up in caves either always or for the most part. To this summit of perfection, which escapes the gaze of the human mind, Rosalia must needs have climbed: for a noble Girl could not have dwelt in her father's fields, or in those nearest to her native city, without being recognized; nor, once recognized, would she have been allowed to lead there a rustic life, exposed to the injuries of the weather, to the ferocity of beasts, and to the snares of robbers and of the most wicked men. Wherefore I judge it was prudently done that in that inscription of hers Rosalia did not write In this desert, or On this mountain, but carved that she would dwell In this cave. Thus far Salernus, who borrowed this argument from Cascinus, book 2, chapter 12. But this reason does not press so weightily that it can be brought into comparison with the reasons already adduced for the opposite view; and if it proved anything at all, it would only establish that Rosalia was probably unknown at the beginning of her solitary life, so long as there was danger of her being drawn back by her parents. But since that reason supposes many uncertain things as certain, it does not even establish that the Virgin's first flight was so clandestine that it became known to no one: nay, from that argument it cannot certainly be inferred that Rosalia went off to the solitary life secretly and against the will of her kinsmen.

[39] How many uncertain things are supposed as certain in the objection, receive first. they suppose many uncertain things, It is supposed that Rosalia was of tender age when she entered upon the anchoritic life. But that tender age of the Virgin can be proved by no ancient instrument or fit argument, and therefore is plainly uncertain. Secondly, it is supposed that the Virgin betook herself straight from her father's house or from the royal palace into the desert, before she had been exercised in the monastic life. But that again is uncertain, as will appear when this controversy is examined below. Thirdly, it is supposed that the Virgin's parents were alive, or at least others who would have the same right over the Virgin, when she chose the solitary life. That is equally uncertain, since at that time Rosalia may have been bereft of her parents, and may have been of such an age as not to lie under the right of guardians, or rather to have no guardians at all. Fourthly, it is supposed that Rosalia in her caves was exposed to many dangers, both from the ferocity of beasts and from the snares of evil men. But not even those dangers are certain enough, especially if we judge that the Virgin's cave was known: for it could be so closed up that no access lay open to beasts. And since the first cave was in her father's field, and the other not far distant from Palermo, it could likewise be sufficiently closed against wicked men, from whom there was the less to fear because the poor Anchoress had nothing in her cave that could arouse the greed of robbers. And so almost everything that Salernus assumes as certain is altogether uncertain. Yet if they were held to be certain, not even so would they establish anything other than that Rosalia was unknown to her kinsmen, and to all others by whom she might have been betrayed; but they would not prove that she was known to no mortal whatever.

[40] and not even so do they establish what is in question, Let us suppose for a moment that it is certain (though it appears not only uncertain but also less probable) that Rosalia fled against the will and without the knowledge of her parents, her kinsmen, and finally of all men through whom the Virgin's design could break out, lest, being recognized, she should be dragged back home. Why could a noble Virgin not have a faithful little maidservant, to whom she had approved her design, and whom she had bound to silence by her kindnesses, that she might secretly bring the necessaries for a slender livelihood to her mistress hidden in the cave? Certainly, if we believe that Rosalia lay hid in her father's field, service of that kind seems to have been in some way necessary: for she did not find in the cave the means of sustaining life, nor could she go out of the cave without danger of being soon recognized. Then again, though we should also be willing to believe that she was altogether unknown at the beginning of her solitary life, why could that hiding place not at length come to light, and the holy Anchoress become known by some chance to the neighboring people? Indeed, if we consider that the holy Virgin, who had purposed to pass her life in the cave of Quisquina, afterwards migrated from this one to another, we shall find no more probable reason than that the Saint had become known in the first cave more than she wished; and that therefore she sought another where she might lie more hidden and contemplate divine things more securely. And so from Rosalia's clandestine flight, even were it certain, it cannot first be proved that she was altogether unknown, or that she admitted no one's service. Secondly, even if at the beginning of her flight she had been quite unknown to all, it would not yet follow that she always remained unknown. On the contrary, the change of cave suggests that she did not remain unknown in the first cave: and the ancient tradition of her dwelling in that cave plainly shows that she was not altogether unknown there. Concerning the cave of Mount Pellegrino the matter seems no less clear, since the tradition of the ancients concerning Rosalia's dwelling in that cave has come down to posterity, and Caietanus has written that Mount Pellegrino was given to Rosalia by Queen Margaret, that she might withdraw thither.

[41] and they are repugnant to Caietanus and to ancient tradition. I confess indeed that whether Rosalia received Mount Pellegrino from Queen Margaret may seem as uncertain as many other uncertain things. But I do not see why the learned Sicilians, who are wont to make the greatest account of Caietanus' authority, should reject it as certainly false. But even if I were willing generously to grant them this too, they will certainly have to acknowledge that Caietanus could not have written it if he had believed that Rosalia had deserted the court by a clandestine flight and had always lain hidden and unknown: for the queen could not give a place to Rosalia if she did not know where she was hiding, if she did not even know whether she were alive or dead. And so Caietanus judged that Rosalia's design was known at least to the queen. Indeed, according to his view, it was not unknown to the people of Palermo either: for the gift of such a place as Mount Pellegrino could not lie hidden, especially if it were made by the queen. For which cause, since Caietanus says, What we write concerning the holy Rosalia we have received from report and from the tradition of our elders, and since Cascinus, Salernus and the others opposed to our view profess this of Caietanus and often urge it, the patrons of St. Rosalia's clandestine flight must needs also confess that not only the authority of Caietanus but also ancient tradition is contrary to their novel opinion; and that it is not only destitute of every testimony of the ancients, but is rendered altogether improbable by all the ancient monuments, namely the traditions, the pictures, and the ancient cult. Nay rather, if we weigh maturely the situation of each cave, it will not seem improbable that there was some little chapel near the Virgin's cave, in which the divine mysteries were celebrated for her sake, lest she should be forced to go out of her cave. This could be done in her father's field at Quisquina; it could also be done on Mount Pellegrino, if this was given to the Virgin by the queen. And that the Saint carved In this cave, and not in this desert or on this mountain, that she had determined to dwell, in no way favors a clandestine flight; but it does somehow suggest that she was not accustomed to go out of her cave, but to remain there constantly in the solitary life.

[42] These things, learned reader, I judged should be carefully discussed, It is uncertain whether the Virgin from time to time showed herself to men: intending to determine nothing certain about all the rest, save this one thing only, that the holy Anchoress did not so live in her cave unknown to all men that no one knew her to be alive. It also appears probable that her name, her fame,

and her dwelling in the cave were commonly known to the neighborhood, and especially to the people of Palermo; but that is not equally certain. That the Saint made use of the most sacred Sacraments of the Church, and was accustomed to assist at the sacred sacrifice of the Mass during the time of her solitary life, I am altogether persuaded; but it is entirely uncertain whether she was accustomed to go out of her cave for this end, or whether these offices were performed before the cave in some little chapel, or in a part of the cave set apart for that use. It is equally uncertain whether she gave pious admonitions to those who came, or whether she was unwilling to speak to anyone, that she might meditate on heavenly things alone. Concerning those things which I have called uncertain, nothing can be proved or disproved from the ancient monuments. Not a few writers have spoken otherwise of them, and have contended that various things are certain which I have placed among the uncertain. Not a few likewise have written things contrary to the former, and have handed these down as certain in like manner. But it is our practice to hold nothing for certain unless it can be proved by fit documents; and likewise to reject nothing as certainly false unless there appear certain indications of falsity: and from this practice it is not lawful to depart.

[43] Further, from what has been said a judgment must be formed concerning the authority to be attributed to the images of St. Rosalia. [from what has been said a judgment is formed concerning the authority of the Saint's images.] I could attribute no authority to them if I agreed with those who will have it that St. Rosalia was altogether unknown, because according to that opinion the painters would have known nothing of the Saint's deeds, and consequently would have painted their own meditations, or would have expressed with the brush only those things which they had themselves devised as suitable to a holy Anchoress. But since that view appears improbable to me, and I altogether judge that some of the Saint's deeds could have become known, I would not deny to the pictures of St. Rosalia that authority which we attribute to the pictures of other Saints. Now so great an authority is not usually given to pictures as to a Life written by a contemporary or nearly contemporary author, since painters take too much license, and often, where they have nothing certain, boldly express uncertain things with the brush. For the rest, the more ancient images are, and the nearer to the Saint's own age, the greater faith is owed to them, especially if they represent historical facts. But if things be represented which are not wont to lie open to men's eyes, such as the offices of angels and Saints, those images afford no sufficiently firm foundation for us to believe that everything was done just as it is set before our eyes; rather they ought for the most part to be held as allegories. Finally, Cascinus gathered some things from the caves and from the position of the body when found, and we shall examine these in their proper places. So much for the very ambiguous monuments from which the deeds of St. Rosalia can in some way be gathered.

§ V. It is disputed among the Sicilians whether the Saint professed the monastic life before she began the anchoritic life.

[ ] [Some will have it that the Saint was carried to the desert by a clandestine flight, and remained there unknown;] St. Rosalia led the eremitic or anchoritic life, as ancient tradition holds, and as absolutely all writers admit without controversy. But since it is wholly obscure and uncertain at what time, in what year of her age, on what occasion and finally in what manner the Virgin embraced the solitary life; and since we have nothing sufficiently explored or certain concerning her earlier deeds, authors have gone off into various conjectures about all these matters. Many contend that Rosalia rushed away from her father's house or from the royal court by a clandestine flight, with no mortal privy to it, and was thus carried to the first cave in which she began the solitary life. The same men will have it that the Saint lay hidden and unknown through the whole time of her solitary life, and was transferred from the first cave to the other by the guidance of an angel alone; and that not even at the time of her death did she become known to anyone. The first author of this opinion appears to be Cascinus, praised above, who drew it from the ancient pictures by various conjectures. Many other writers have followed Cascinus' authority, so that this opinion seems to have more patrons than all the others, and has commonly prevailed the more. But I have already examined that opinion in part in the preceding section, and have refuted it at least so far as to have shown that the Saint was not altogether unknown in her solitude.

[45] others believe she was not altogether unknown in her cave; The second view is that Rosalia did indeed lead a solitary life in caves and caverns, but not so hidden from all that she was known to no one whatever. I cannot doubt that this was the view of Octavius Caietanus, who briefly related the deeds of St. Rosalia from traditions, so far as he could for the scarcity of documents. His words I have given from the manuscript copy in num. 34. For the same view can be cited the proper Office of St. Rosalia, approved for the whole kingdom of Sicily by the supreme Pontiff Benedict XIII. For although in that Office a clandestine flight from her father's house seems to be asserted, yet nowhere in it is it asserted that the Virgin fled with no one privy to it, and that thereafter she always remained unknown to all, even in her very death. Nay rather it suggests that she was not altogether unknown, since it runs thus: That she overcame with a brave spirit the crafty snares of the demons … by raging fiercely against herself with an iron chain, by vigils and by lying on the ground, the ancient images signify. For the author of the Office neither could nor ought to have attributed authority to the ancient images unless he had believed that some things concerning the deeds of St. Rosalia had become known to the painters of those images. This view has had several other patrons ever since the time of Cascinus and Caietanus, and appears the more probable than the former opinion in that it is the more ancient and the more conformable to the ancient cult, as I have proved more fully above.

[46] others judge that she was first a nun and then a solitary: The third view, which also seems older than Cascinus, is that of those who judge that St. Rosalia began with the monastic life, and advanced from the monastic life to the anchoritic, as did several other Saints, both men and women, who by the lawful authority of their superiors departed from a monastery to the desert or to some cell, that they might there lead a solitary life and contemplate heavenly things. That this view is older than Cascinus himself is proved by his own words in book 2, chapter 7, where he writes in Italian what I render into Latin: Whence I wonder the more that anyone should have believed of the most noble virgin Rosalia that she went off to the solitude with the good leave of her own people, and that she has been so painted, as if she had bidden farewell to her kin in the presence of the king, the queen and the archbishop of Palermo; and he adds: And, what is worse, it has been said, but without authority or probability, that she left a monastery and went off into the solitude. Cascinus indeed reproves — if he has not been interpolated in this place — the opinion of the Saint's monastic life, as the same is disapproved in other places of the same work; and he says it has been asserted without authority or probability: but even so he shows that it already existed in his own time, nay, that it is older than his own opinion about a Rosalia entirely unknown, especially if we add his own words concerning the opinion of the inhabitants of Monreale, chapter 9, page 206, where he acknowledges that some argument is available to them by which they believe that St. Rosalia also dwelt near Monreale, since they point out that the neighboring region has borne the name of St. Rosalia from of old, and that lower down there is an abundant spring which has its name from a nun. He then adds that they judge that nun and Rosalia to be the same Saint. These men certainly held that St. Rosalia had been a nun before Cascinus asserted from mere conjectures that opinion of his, that Rosalia had been quite unknown. Nay, again on the same man's testimony, book 2, chapter 1, page 163, some have affirmed that St. Rosalia is not distinct from Rosalia the abbess, who flourished at the beginning of the thirteenth century, that is, in the time of the emperor Frederick II. Cascinus rejects the opinion of both parties without much discussion; but he could not on that account deny that the opinion concerning St. Rosalia's monastic life is ancient. And this antiquity of that opinion will appear more clearly from the ancient pictures, of which we shall treat below.

[47] Further, Petrus Antonius Tornamira, a Sicilian of the Cassinese Congregation, attempted by published tracts to claim St. Rosalia for his own Benedictine Order. [of these, one attributes the Saint to the Benedictine, another to the Basilian Order:] In the year 1668 he published a tract written in the Italian tongue, whose title is: Conjectural sketch of the life of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, nun and anchoress of the Order of the patriarch St. Benedict. The opinion asserted in that little book does not appear to have found many patrons, but rather to have been neglected. The same author nevertheless in the year 1670 published another little book in which he attempted to prove the aforesaid view by some new arguments; but not even so did he find many who agreed with him. And indeed that writer intrepidly affirms far more things than he proves or could prove. Yet he has adduced some arguments which raise a suspicion of St. Rosalia's monastic life, even if they do not clearly establish that she was a nun, much less of the Benedictine Order. No one at that time attempted to refute the aforesaid little books, so far as I know; but it is agreed that Rosalia was not commonly acknowledged as a Benedictine. But about the beginning of this century a little book was composed under the fictitious name of Demetrius Roscovizzi, by which St. Rosalia is claimed for the Order of St. Basil. The title of the Italian tract is: Brief reasons by which notice is given concerning the habit of St. Rosalia, virgin and anchoress of Palermo. This tract stirred up the vehement jealousy of certain men who judged that something would be detracted from the glory of St. Rosalia if it were believed that she had made the monastic life a step toward the anchoritic.

[48] hence a sharp controversy arose, and various little books were written. For this cause in the year 1701 there came out another little book under the name of Andreas Perruccius, which maintains the opposite view and attempts to refute the reasons alleged in the said tract for St. Rosalia's Basilian monastic life. I cannot conceal that this writer does not use the same moderation in disputing which the former had used, and that he deals with his adversary with more acrimony than weight of argument. To this tract the author of the former one, or his champion, replied under the name of Cornelius Dexter; but that tract has not come into my hands. Further, in the year 1703 another little book against St. Rosalia's monastic profession was published under the fictitious name of Jacobus Calafatus, whether by the same or by another author, which it is of no consequence to know. Certainly in that whole little book, read carefully through along with the others, I have found more bitterness than solid reasoning. This acrimony of both tracts seems to have provoked the author of the first little book, or the champion of St. Rosalia's monastic profession, to reply likewise more sharply to his adversary and to sprinkle his boasting with certain jests. And so in the same year 1703 he published a little book, again under the fictitious name of Joannes Rossi, and gave it an Italian title, Cerotto Specifico, etc. To this little book at last a reply was made by an anonymous writer, who is probably the same as the fictitious Calafatus. The title of this Italian little book is Generic Reply, etc. The author in the preface complains of his adversary's acrimony, and commends his own modesty in writing. But if anyone without prejudice, and without love or

hatred, shall diligently turn over the little books written on both sides, as I have had to read them through, he will easily see that both sides have disputed too sharply. The controversy, however, does not appear to have gone further, both parties keeping silence, except that Mancusi in the year 1721, in his History of St. Rosalia, attempts to assert that she was not a nun.

[49] The edict of the bishop of Palermo In the year 1701, on the tenth day of January, the most illustrious lord Ferdinand de Bazan issued an edict, which was afterwards printed and inserted into various little books, to take away credit from the fables that were being spread abroad concerning St. Rosalia. The mind of this prelate is not set forth altogether clearly, nor is it sufficiently plain what he meant to prohibit by his edict, and therefore it will be useful to subjoin his very words: Whereas among some, especially of the Regular Orders, the fervor of devotion toward the holy Rosalia, Virgin of Palermo, has come to such a point that they have even asserted, now that the holy Rosalia professed the Order of St. Basil the Great and inhabited the monastery of the most holy Salvator of this City of Palermo, and there did many things; now that she professed the Order of St. Benedict, and even that of the holy Augustine; and that from the cenobitic life she withdrew into the desert; besides which other Orders too have marked her out with the habit of their own Religion, especially in processions and on altars, and blurt out and disseminate many other apocryphal and empty things, all which both do not agree with ancient tradition, and are contrary to the Office of the same Holy Woman and to the Mass approved by the sacred Congregation, and to the Roman Martyrology, and becloud the splendor and excellence of the eremitic life, which writers extol and which contemplatives look up to and admire.

[50] concerning matters pertaining to St. Rosalia, Therefore the most illustrious and most reverend lord, my lord Don Ferdinand de Bazan, archbishop of Palermo, lest anything be detracted from, or rashly added to, the deeds of the wonderful life of the holy Rosalia, which are received according to the common sense of men, and lest in future any such things should have any weight, by virtue of the present act ordains, provides and commands that all deeds, acts and discoveries (besides those which become known to us from the Office and the Martyrology), and the accounts, histories and any writings whatsoever of them, given to the press or to be published, or penned or to be transcribed, and likewise the images printed since the year 1625, or in any way painted or wrought and set up in churches or in other places, and to be set up hereafter, which respectively affirm and express the above-said things, shall be of no force or firmness; and shall not and cannot produce any effect to the prejudice of truth and of ancient tradition: but that (until otherwise it be duly and lawfully declared) it is altogether to be held, and hereafter to be asserted, that the holy Rosalia led only an eremitic life, and that she exchanged the wealth of her father's house, its delights, and the hope of greater eminence by reason of her nearness to and the goodwill of the kings of Sicily, all despised, for the horror and roughness of a grim crag; and that for the love of Christ she fled her father's princedom and the court, and led a solitary, heavenly life in the mountains and caves — that is, that she transferred herself from the royal delights of the world into the solitude of the mountains of Quisquina and Pellegrino — as appears from the Office and Mass approved as above, and from the Roman Martyrology; under penalties to be inflicted at the discretion of his most illustrious and most reverend Lordship; which, that it may become known to all, the said most illustrious and most reverend lord has commanded also to be made an edict. Whence, etc.

[51] The most illustrious lord ordains that all things which have been written or printed concerning St. Rosalia (besides those which is rather obscure. which become known to us from the Office and the Martyrology) … shall be of no force or firmness, etc. And so, if these words are to be expounded in their rigor, whatever Caietanus, Cascinus, Auria, and other writers older than the edict have written about St. Rosalia, unless it has been adopted in the Office or in the Martyrology, must be rejected as of no force. Secondly, since all things to be published … or to be transcribed are also declared of no force, credit would be taken away from very many miracles which are related of St. Rosalia by Mancusi and others, because they are not inserted in the Roman Martyrology or in the Office. But (even though the words suggest such a sense if they are taken rigidly) it is by no means probable or credible that this was the prelate's mind, since the Sicilians have always made much of the writings of Caietanus and Cascinus; and since Mancusi, although he brings forward part of the edict in his own preface, has written very many things about St. Rosalia that are inserted neither in the Office nor in the Martyrology. Wherefore it is likely that the prelate wished only to warn his subjects not to lend ready ears to all those things which were at that time being written about St. Rosalia, and to hold as certain only her eremitic life and the other things asserted in the lessons of the Office or in the Martyrology. But whatever be the case with the mind of the bishop of Palermo, the controversy of which we are treating was more agitated after that edict than ever before.

§ VI. The reasons which are brought forward against the monastic life of St. Rosalia.

[ ] The dispute concerning the Saint's monastic life is exceedingly ambiguous: The longer and the more studiously I examined the little books penned to assert St. Rosalia's monastic life, or written to attack it, the more I began to doubt about that matter, and the more clearly I perceived that nothing certain can be determined about that uncertain controversy. Various reasons indeed are brought forward by both of the litigating parties; but none are so effective as to remove all doubt. Besides the printed tracts there came in manuscript dissertations, composed by learned men and transmitted to us. In favor of the monastic profession Fr. Hieronymus Justiniani of the Society of Jesus discoursed with equal erudition and modesty, submitting his opinion to our judgment. Justiniani's writings sent to us were seen in Sicily by the learned canon of Palermo, Antoninus Mongitore, very well known by his published books, who acknowledges and proclaims Fr. Justiniani's wonderful erudition and great industry in collecting monuments concerning St. Rosalia; but he disapproves his opinion and attempts to refute it in a manuscript dissertation sent to us, to which he joined another for refuting the opinion of Tornamira, who attributes Rosalia to the Benedictines, while Justiniani fights for the Basilians. Further, since Mongitore and Justiniani have treated the question far more rightly and much more modestly than their predecessors, whose tracts are in print, I shall allege chiefly the reasons of these two, with all the brevity I can; yet I shall add whatever occurs in others worthy of note, and whatever I myself have been able to find for either side.

[53] the first argument against the monastic life, drawn from tradition: Mongitore's first argument is taken from the tradition of the church of Palermo, to which he contends that the opinion of St. Rosalia's monastic life is repugnant, as all the other patrons of the same view with him have also maintained. He takes his proof from Cascinus, who in book 2, chapter 21, page 299, has this: Just as the tradition concerning St. Rosalia, that she was a solitary, was most constant, so there never was any tradition, nor was any word ever heard, concerning her habit, or that she was a nun of any religion. The same man speaks thus in book 2, chapter 1, page 164: Because she was not a nun but a solitary, and (as we shall say) one of those most hidden anchoresses of whose persons few things can become known except by some divine disposition; whereas if she had been a nun, the religious of that Order to which she had been enrolled would have taken account of her; and yet in no Order is there any memory of her. These last words suggest a new argument. To these Mongitore adds the authority of Vincentius Auria, who in the Life of St. Rosalia, page 54, affirms that it is a most constant tradition that nothing is known of the Saint's habit or monastic life, but only of her eremitic life. To this argument the defenders both of the Basilian and of the Benedictine institute reply that in those Orders there is an ancient tradition concerning St. Rosalia as formerly a nursling of their own Order. They also bring forward inscriptions and other things by which they strive to prove that tradition. But I have hitherto seen nothing brought forward that is older than the finding of the body, or at any rate nothing by which they can prove that the tradition about St. Rosalia existed in their Order before the finding of the body. In another way, therefore, that argument must be answered.

[54] Let us suppose for a moment that at the beginning of the seventeenth century, before the body was found, what may be answered to it in the first place, that is, when Octavius Caietanus was writing, no tradition was current concerning St. Rosalia's monastic life, just as Caietanus recorded nothing of that tradition. May it not be answered that neither at that time did any tradition survive concerning St. Rosalia's royal lineage, which the learned Sicilians gathered only from the inscription of Quisquina when it was found? For what is read in the printed work of Caietanus about her noble family, which touched the royal family by kinship, is not found in Caietanus' manuscript; but he there says of St. Rosalia's family: By most she is believed to have been called Rosa Lea because she was of the Lea family. If therefore the learned Sicilians, even though no tradition about it was current in Caietanus' time, nevertheless believe St. Rosalia's royal family to be certain from the Quisquina inscription, why do they judge that her monastic life, if it can be certainly or probably drawn from the monuments that have been found, must be altogether denied for want of a tradition current in Caietanus' time? Could her royal lineage be certainly proved without the aid of ancient tradition, while her monastic life cannot be proved even probably unless that tradition be added? Assuredly he will not think so who is willing to examine everything without prejudice and with equal criticism. And so St. Rosalia's monastic profession would not have to be denied altogether, even if it were as entirely destitute of ancient tradition as her royal lineage was destitute of it. But here too there is a great disparity: for the monastic life is neither against ancient tradition nor altogether destitute of ancient tradition, as can easily be proved, if we consider not what had been preserved in the memory of men in Caietanus' time, but what is suggested by the ancient monuments, from which we chiefly learn the ancient tradition.

[55] That there was no tradition against St. Rosalia's monastic institute what may more rightly be answered in the second place, is set forth. is plain enough, because there was current only the tradition of the Saint's solitary life, which is frequently begun after the monastic. Cascinus indeed denies the monastic life, but cites no author for his opinion: he asserts that no tradition is had of the monastic life; but nowhere does he affirm, nor could he truly affirm, that a tradition is had of a solitary life begun by a clandestine flight, or without a previous monastic life. That clandestine flight Cascinus asserted from slight conjectures without tradition, without any previous author; and yet the Sicilians did not complain that so extraordinary a fact was affirmed without tradition. Why then can they the more complain that others assign the more ordinary and more approved way by which the eremitic life is usually begun? Further, as I have already noted, St. Rosalia's monastic life does not appear to lack ancient tradition: for its defenders may rightly say that that tradition is suggested by several images, partly mentioned by Cascinus, partly by Tornamira, in which the Saint is seen represented clothed in a monastic habit. For since the deeds of St. Rosalia had chiefly to be gathered from the ancient images, as Cascinus confesses, images of the thirteenth century and of the following centuries before the finding

of the body show better what the ancient tradition concerning Rosalia is than the various opinions of the Sicilians can teach it to us, which arose at last in the seventeenth century out of Cascinus' conjectures. For Cascinus' conjectures could indeed please the Sicilians on account of the erudition and authority of that distinguished man, as in fact they pleased most of them; but they cannot on that account yet have the force of ancient tradition, except so far as they are found conformable to ancient tradition. But the ancient images, because they somehow supply the want of ancient writers, chiefly teach us the ancient tradition concerning St. Rosalia. Let it be permitted, therefore, to conclude that the monastic life is not repugnant to the ancient tradition of the church of Palermo, but only to the opinion of Cascinus, approved by many and more common among the Sicilians.

[56] Cascinus does not appear to have repudiated the opinion of the monastic life Now if anyone will investigate Cascinus' mind more accurately, he will easily discover that he at least doubted about St. Rosalia's monastic life, and that perhaps those passages in which the Saint's monastic life is more harshly denied are to be attributed to the editor of the work rather than to Cascinus. For in book 2, chapter 21, where he treats of the outward appearance and habit of St. Rosalia, he prefers the Marturano image to all the other pictures for investigating in some way the Saint's form; and presently, page 311, he attributes religious garments to that same image, as also to two others. Then on page 312 he begins to ask whether the dress expressed in that image favors the Benedictines more, or the Basilians, and he heaps up so many reasons for each Order that it may be believed that Cascinus suspected that St. Rosalia betook herself to the desert from one or the other Order, especially since he was not ignorant of that anchoritic institute which is reached after the monastic life; but he writes of those anchorites in chapter 10, page 211. For the Benedictines he alleges the goodwill of the Counts of Marsico and of the kings of Sicily toward the Benedictines, and the monasteries founded for them. Then, speaking of the monastery of Palermo called of the Hermits, he thus concludes: In every way it was, as I believe, a Benedictine monastery, and founded from the time of St. Gregory, a school of holy men, and at that time restored by King Roger; and its nearness to the court, and the example of those Fathers, could invite the virgin Rosalia to that profession, especially by the name of hermits, of which she was so fond. These words do not seem to be those of a learned man who repudiates the view of St. Rosalia's monastic life as altogether improbable; and therefore it may be believed that it was not absolutely repudiated by Cascinus.

[57] as certainly false, This suspicion is increased by his own disputation which presently follows in favor of the Basilians. He observes, first, that the Basilians likewise had a monastery near the royal palace, and many others in Sicily, both of men and of women: and from that observation he rightly infers that those men argued wrongly who had denied that in the time of St. Rosalia there were Basilian monasteries in Sicily, so that they might say the Benedictine habit had been worn by the Saint. He observes, secondly, that near the Basilian monastery which was called St. Mary of the Grotto there were many caves in which the ancient Christians had dwelt in the time of persecution. Then he proceeds thus: For this cause the aforesaid monastery could be pleasing to St. Rosalia before she went off to the desert, both on account of the venerable memory of the ancient Christians, and on account of the virtue of the Basilian religious who inhabited it, and who could be to her masters of the spiritual life. He also adduces an apparition of St. Rosalia in the church of that monastery; and says that she probably appeared in that church rather than in another because there she had laid the first foundations of the spiritual life, and because she wished to show that she loved the eremitic institute which had once flourished there. After some things he observes, thirdly, that both the Benedictine and the Basilian habit could have been pleasing to St. Rosalia on account of its roughness; and again he rejects the opinion of those who had denied that the Basilians wore a hood, in order to attribute to St. Rosalia the Benedictine habit and not the Basilian. He likewise rejects the argument which could be taken for the Basilians against the Benedictines from the Greek form of the habit which is seen in the Marturano panel; because all the painted images of that church represent the form of Greek dress.

[58] Cascinus indeed disputes these things only — unless here too he has been interpolated — [but rather to have been unwilling to affirm it, because it could not sufficiently be proved.] so as to inquire into the habit, and not into the profession of St. Rosalia, as if she had wished merely to take up the dress of some religious Order and not its institute. But some of the reasons alleged show that Cascinus probably was not without some suspicion or doubt about the Virgin's religious profession, but that he did not find reasons convincing enough to affirm that profession absolutely. Nay indeed, although at the beginning he had often said that the garment of the Marturano panel was religious, and had therefore reasoned so much about the Benedictines and the Basilians, afterwards on page 316 either he himself, or his interpolator, speaks thus: For affirming that the habit (which the Saint wore) was religious, a firmer foundation is required; and much more for saying that she was really a nun of some Religious Order. These last words seem to me rightly to express the mind of Cascinus, who only did not admit St. Rosalia's monastic life, so far as can be gathered from all that he has discussed on this question taken together, because he did not find foundations solid enough for attributing the Saint to any monastery.

[59] There remains to be solved the argument of Cascinus, who, alleged in num. 53, says The second argument, more pressing than the preceding: that no memory of St. Rosalia is had in any Order, and from thence gathers that she was not a nun. This argument is by no means to be despised, but militates more strongly than all the rest against St. Rosalia's monastic profession, if it be rightly drawn out. For if she was a nun, it is strange that her body after death remained on Mount Pellegrino and was not transferred by monks to some church; it is strange that more of her life and deeds did not become known through the religious of that same Order; and finally it is strange that the Saint's memory was not better preserved and honored with greater veneration in the Order she had professed. For monastic Orders are wont to preserve and venerate the memory of their own Saints more than the memory is sometimes preserved of those who belong to no one by any particular title, and who are therefore the more easily consigned to oblivion. It cannot be denied that these things are strange and do not appear very likely. Yet it cannot be made certain from these observations that Rosalia was not a nun, because by various unknown chances the body could remain buried on the mountain, or in the cave, and the Saint's memory could fall into disuse even among the monks of the same Order. The body could be buried in the same cave in which the Saint had lived, because immediately after her death her sanctity was not established, even if her eremitic life, austere and pious, was well enough known; and because the place itself was fitter to afford a tomb to the dead than a dwelling to the living. God himself could by a singular providence prevent the body from being removed thence, either by rendering it immovable, as has not rarely been done in the case of other Saints, or by declaring his will in some other way unknown to us. Finally, it could have come about in many other ways that the body was buried and remained in the cave in which the Saint had led the solitary life; but I gladly confess that the true cause is unknown.

[60] to which nevertheless some answer can be made. That that monastic Order which St. Rosalia had professed before the eremitic life did not preserve this Saint's memory, I confess to be strange, yet neither incredible nor without example. I would not here heap up many instances of the same forgetfulness; but one no less wonderful, and yet undoubted, I shall not pass over. On the second day of September I treated of St. Nonnosus, provost of the monastery of Mount Soracte, whose memory had so utterly perished in his own monastery that not only did he there lack all veneration and ecclesiastical cult, but the monks of Soracte were even ignorant that the Saint was solemnly celebrated at Freising in Bavaria, whither his body had been translated. Nay indeed, as may be read in volume 1 of September, from the Soractine clergy's and monks' own confession, while every year they heard the eulogy of St. Nonnosus read out from the Roman Martyrology, they marveled, and often spoke together, sighing and grieving that for such a Saint no feast was kept on the said mountain where he passed his life, nor was it known where his sacred body and his holy relics were; and in this state so many centuries of years passed by. This oblivion is the more to be wondered at because St. Gregory the Great had related some of the more celebrated deeds of St. Nonnosus in his Dialogues, so that his memory would seem the less able to fall away. Now if the memory of St. Nonnosus could fall away among the monks of Soracte notwithstanding St. Gregory's writings, why could not the same happen concerning St. Rosalia among the Sicilian monks, even if it were certainly established that she was a nun, as it is established of St. Nonnosus? Certainly the memory of St. Rosalia could perish among her own more easily than that of St. Nonnosus, because no ancient writing about her exists, whereas of Nonnosus we have a eulogy from St. Gregory. And so reasons of this kind do not overturn the foundations upon which St. Rosalia's monastic life rests, provided these be solid enough; especially since almost the same difficulties exist in the contrary opinion. For it may equally be asked why the people of Palermo allowed a cult once widely spread to grow cold, why they permitted the body to remain in the cave, if the place of burial was once known, as is likely from the little chapel built there.

[61] The third argument, of no weight. Some object another argument against St. Rosalia's monastic profession, and they seem to make much of it. It is not likely, they say, that St. Rosalia, if she had been a nun, could have obtained leave to desert her monastery and to shut herself up alone in a cave so horrid and so far distant from Palermo as that of Quisquina is. Calafatus, who so reasons on page 73, adds that no example can be brought forward to teach us that any woman in the twelfth century was an anchoress of such an institute near Palermo or in the rest of Sicily. But the patrons of the contrary view will easily answer that it is more likely and more credible that some virgin, after she had accustomed herself to the rigor of monastic discipline, obtained from her superiors leave to shut herself into a horrid cave, than that a virgin rushed away from her father's house with no one privy to it, in order to hide herself in a cave and thereafter for her whole life become known to no one. The noble and royal lineage from which St. Rosalia is believed to have sprung is as repugnant to the likelihood of a clandestine flight as to a solitary life undertaken with the leave of superiors. But if we consider which of the two ways of beginning the anchoritic life is the more agreeable to the laws of human and divine prudence, all will be compelled to confess that such a flight is contrary to all the rules of prudence, and cannot be excused from rashness except by the sole prompting of the Holy Spirit. But they will not pronounce the same of the anchoritic life, if it be begun by a nun long exercised, with her superiors consenting, although even so it be undertaken by the Spirit

of God impelling her. And so I do not see what force that argument has, since many wonderful things must necessarily be admitted in the life of St. Rosalia, whether she betook herself to the solitude in this way or in another; and since the things maintained by the adversaries of her monastic life are far more to be wondered at than those asserted by the patrons of the opposite view. What is added about the twelfth century is frivolous: for in that century examples of recluse or solitary women could easily be adduced, if the controversy were to be settled by examples.

[62] I pass over the other arguments brought forward against the Saint's monastic life, An observation of the author, by which certainty is denied to both views. because they seem to me altogether useless to the purpose, and I add only one observation. St. Rosalia's monastic life is not to be affirmed as certain unless it be shown by certain reasons, or proved by those monuments about which it is not lawful to doubt. But no authority can be brought forward so great, no reason so certain, no monument so evident, that by authority, or by reason, or by any ancient monument it be made certain that St. Rosalia ever lived in any monastery. And so those who have wished to assert the Saint's monastic life as certain have affirmed more than they could or can prove. Now that no certain and evident argument is brought forward by which the monastic life is certainly shown will appear clearly below, where I shall elucidate the arguments of the contrary party. To this observation it may be replied that sometimes, by a multitude of probable arguments, something seems certain enough, even though the arguments singly are not such as can make the thing certain; and that this holds in this controversy. I confess that this sometimes happens in historical matters, and that many things are held as certain or as good as certain, even though they cannot be proved by any one evident argument. But this is wont to happen only when that multitude of probable arguments does not lose its force through contrary arguments; whereas when arguments almost equally probable are opposed to probable arguments, as happens in this controversy, he acts too contentiously who desires his own view to be held for certain: for, things being so, only a greater probability can be had for one side or the other; and things that appear only more probable are neither certain nor always true. These observations being premised, which look equally to the patrons of either view, I shall subjoin the arguments which are alleged for the monastic life, that from them the learned reader may judge not what is certain, but what appears the more probable or likely.

§ VII. The reasons for St. Rosalia's monastic life which can be sought from her images.

[ ] The image of St. Rosalia which Cascinus prefers to the rest, The first reason which makes for St. Rosalia's monastic profession is sought from the images in which she is represented clothed in a monastic habit. Cascinus suggests this argument while doing something else, yet writing much to our purpose. I subjoin his words from book 2, chapter 21, rendered into Latin: It was perhaps less difficult to speak of the inward image of St. Rosalia than it will be to speak of the outward; since we cannot affirm with certainty which among all the ancient images is most like her in face and habit. Whence, just as, writings failing us in other matters of her life, we turned to the pictures, so we shall do here also; and indeed with the greater reason, because the nearer they were to the age in which she flourished, the more must then have been known — not indeed her deeds, which were afterwards given over to oblivion by time, but especially the figure of her body and her dress. Then, when he had observed that arguments are always wont to be sought from pictures when writings fail, he goes on thus: Further, the effigy that is the most ancient of all the others, or at least to be numbered among the most ancient, and the most honorable for its comeliness — not a light comeliness but a grave one, not artificial but of an august simplicity, of which we have spoken and shall speak again — is in the panel of the monastery of Marturano. Wherefore, since we may deservedly hold it for the likest of all to her (the Saint), we have had that one engraved on copper first among our images, that from it some good conjecture may be taken. These words indicate sufficiently in how great esteem Cascinus holds that effigy, and that chiefly so that the Virgin's outward figure and dress may be known from it by probable conjecture.

[64] in his opinion has a monastic dress, But he describes that image thus on pages 311 and 312: The religious dress of St. Rosalia is in the most ancient panel of the above-said monastery of Marturano, which must be no less than three hundred and seventy years old, since it is believed to have been brought thither together with the testament and the inheritance of the above-said Theophania, which is of the year 1257, and perhaps earlier. I have had a copy of this most faithfully reproduced. See, studious reader, the effigy itself, here appended. Cascinus then proceeds thus about it: She has a black hood and a veil for the head, except that it is somewhat whitened by the crimped silk with which it is doubled, white or lined. On her breast she has a rather narrow garment which they call a patientia \, wrought with Phrygian work; but she wears a red mantle adorned with golden bosses. In her left hand she holds a golden cross furnished with a double crossbar, such as patriarchs use; but raising her right hand a little, she turns the palm toward us as if in sign of protection. This description given, Cascinus asserts that another like image, but less ancient, is in his own possession, where St. Rosalia is joined with St. Roch as patroness against the plague. And he assigns these differences between the two. In the second the scapular is not embroidered with the Phrygian needle, as in the first, but is as it were lined. And the cross, which she likewise holds in her left hand, does not have a double transverse bar, but only one. Moreover there are two roses at the extremities of the cross, and a third above the veil in the middle of the forehead. To these he joins two others in which also a monastic habit appears: But, he says, in none is a complete religious habit to be seen.* These last words Cascinus seems to have added because he judged that purple, gold and Phrygian work did not befit a religious garment — as is certain of the gold and the Phrygian work; but not equally certain of the purple or red color, as we shall see.

[65] Justiniani, already praised, thinks with others that the habit of the aforesaid image just described agrees exactly with the ancient habit of the Greek nuns of the Order of St. Basil. which is very like the dress of the nuns of St. Basil as represented elsewhere. And his opinion appears to me the more probable and likely, the more clearly I perceive that the ancient habit of the nuns of the Basilian Order is expressed in almost the same manner in the Catalogue of Religious Orders of Philip Bonanni of the Society of Jesus, part 2, figure 13; as also in the History of the Monastic Orders of Hippolyte Helyot, volume 1, page 231. It is indeed certain that golden bosses and needle-painted ornament do not belong to religious garments. But it seems altogether to be said that those ornaments are additions, by which probably the Saint's glory is signified; because in many other pictures also we see that the garments of Saints who are known to have been religious are marked with golden borders for ornament, by which their glory may be indicated. The purple or red mantle Cascinus likewise denied to religious, page 312, and believed that that color too was added on account of her nobility or royal lineage, or to designate her glory. If this conjecture were true, it would establish nothing against the monastic garments which the image of St. Rosalia wears in the said picture, since the painter could change the color at his own liberty, just as he adorned the scapular with Phrygian work, in order to designate the Saint's glory by the ornaments and her monastic state by the form of the garments. But we shall presently see that the red color does not appear to have been altogether unusual for nuns.

[66] Now, however, receive, studious reader, how exactly all the garments assigned in Cascinus' effigy and description [The monastic habit of the Greeks is described, especially that which is called angelic,] agree with the Greek professed nuns who are called of the great and angelic habit, because they profess a greater perfection than the rest. If we look into the Euchologion or Greek Ritual which James Goar of the Order of Preachers published and illustrated with notes, we see that the Greek monks are distinguished into three orders, namely into novices; into those who are advancing, who are called μικροῦ σχήματος or μικροσχήμοι, that is, of the small habit; and into the more perfect, or those aspiring to a greater perfection, who are μεγάλου καὶ ἀγγελικοῦ σχήματος, that is, of the great and angelic habit. The same is the distinction of nuns; and for those different grades the garments too are different, as may also be seen in Helyot, praised above, volume 1, chapter 19, where he sets forth those three kinds of garments for men in as many figures. Further, the garments of those who are of the small habit are a tunic, a girdle, a cap, a mantle, and sandals. But those who are of the great habit have a cowl instead of a cap, and are besides clothed with the analabos, as it is there called, or the scapular, or patientia, as it is otherwise named. These things may be seen in Goar, in the Office of the small habit, page 478, and in the Office of the great habit, page 510. And the aforesaid Goar observes, page 498, that the same things are done in the consecration of monks and of nuns, with very few exceptions which do not bear upon our purpose.

[67] These things being observed, it can easily be proved that in the aforesaid effigy of St. Rosalia all the garments are seen whose several parts, so far as they can be seen, appear in the said image, that were given to the more perfect, except the girdle, which is covered by the mantle and therefore cannot be seen. For there are seen the tunic, the mantle, the scapular, and a woman's cowl, or hood, with which the head is covered: for that by cowl in the aforesaid Office is meant the hood or head-covering appears from the words which are read in the Office when the cowl is imposed: Our brother N. is clothed with the cowl of simplicity, as with the helmet or cap of saving hope. Cassian, book 1 On the Habit of the Monk, chapter 4, has this concerning the cowl: For they use unceasingly, by day and by night, very small cowls let down to the borders of the neck and shoulders, with which they cover only their heads. The shape indeed of a woman's cowl or hood, which may also be called a veil, differs from a man's cowl; but that is not repugnant to our purpose. As for the girdle and the sandals, the first cannot be seen in the effigy, since it is covered by the mantle; and of what kind the sandals in the same effigy are is not clearly enough distinguished, nor is it more certainly known of what kind they were in use among the ancient nuns in the time of St. Rosalia, so that these can neither hinder nor help. But the cowl, or veil of the head, and the scapular, especially when they are joined to the tunic and the mantle, manifestly establish that the garments of the aforesaid image are monastic, as Cascinus pronounced without hesitation, and indeed that it is the habit of the Greek nuns of the great

and angelic habit, as the aforesaid Cascinus partly asserted, and as the scapular and the cowl further establish.

[68] [so that it appears to be the Basilian habit, though increased with added ornament:] Nay, the cross too which she holds in her hands likewise suggests that Rosalia is here represented in the Basilian habit: for the effigy of an ancient Basilian nun cited in num. 65 from Bonanni and Helyot likewise holds a cross in the hand, just as her other garments are of the same form. Nor does it stand in the way that there the cross is a common one, while in Rosalia's effigy the cross is furnished with a double crossbar: for Cascinus himself, page 319, doubts whether it is really a cross of double crossbar, since the upper transverse bar may designate the title of the cross; or, if that bar is really the crossbar of the cross itself, the lower transverse bar may designate the place to which the feet were fastened on the cross. Then Cascinus, page 312, mentions another effigy of St. Rosalia which, marked with the same garments, has a simple cross. Cascinus therefore rightly affirmed that the habit of the aforesaid image is Greek and monastic. But the patrons of the contrary view, who elsewhere make much of Cascinus' authority, would here gladly weaken it: for they deny that that habit of St. Rosalia is monastic, and will have it that it is altogether symbolic. And lest they seem wholly to desert Cascinus, though in fact they do so, they observe that he said on page 312 that in no image is a perfect monastic habit to be seen. But he probably speaks thus because the monastic habit is increased with other added ornaments; yet for that cause that habit does not cease to be monastic, since we certainly know from elsewhere that the holy Virgin, after she left the world, was adorned neither with gold nor with Phrygian work nor with costly purple. Those ornaments, therefore, seem only to have been added by the painter, that by them he might indicate and honor the Saint's glory or nobility.

[69] the red or reddish color, since it was not altogether unusual among monks It remains for us to examine whether the red or purple color which is seen in St. Rosalia's mantle ought also to be reckoned among those added ornaments, as Cascinus believed. Tornamira, praised above, in his Answers to eight questions, page 85 and following, shows that red or rose color, or rather reddish, was not altogether unusual in the garments of his own Benedictine Order. To prove this he alleges ancient pictures in which Benedictines are seen represented with that color of garment. He writes, from the Benedictine Eftenus, that the Benedictines of the monastery of Reomaus in Gaul once used ruddy garments; and from Silvester Maurolycus in the Ocean Sea of Religions, page 150, he attributes the same color to the ancient Cistercians. Nay, he also testifies that in his own monastery of St. Gregory at Palermo certain Brothers were once clothed in rose color, and that of these a certain decrepit old man was known to him about the year 1642 who continued to use that same color. The Tenth Council of Toledo also shows that a ruddy color was not unusual among monks: for widows about to profess the religious life it bids in chapter 4 to be clothed in a religious garment, and describes it thus: But that henceforth nothing be called into doubt, let her cover her head with a mantle of purple or of black color from the beginning of the religion she has taken up.

[70] Let us hear how, before the disputes of the Sicilians, distinguished writers understood this passage. and unusual among nuns, Goar, citing the passage on page 498, understands a reddish mantle, and adds the words of St. Athanasius in the book On Virginity, which in Greek run thus: Ὁ ἑπενδήτης σου μέλας, μὴ βεβαμμένος ἐν βαφῇ, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοφυὴς, ἱδιόχρωος, ἢ ὀνυχίζων. These words Goar renders into Latin thus: Let thy garment (that is, the tunic, he says) be dusky, not dyed, but of native color, or at least reddish or purplish. So he expounds the ambiguous word ὀνυχίζων in Athanasius' text as reddish or purplish; but below he says more literally, of such a color as the nails are. In the latest edition of the Works of St. Athanasius, volume 3, page 166, the passage is thus rendered into Latin: Let thy ependytes be black, and not dyed, but of native color, or onyx-colored. The reader must indeed be warned that that book On Virginity is only reckoned among the doubtful works of Athanasius; but that does not stand in the way of our purpose, since it is at least by an ancient author, if it is not by Athanasius. Ambrosius Morales, Chronicle of Spain, book 12, chapter 32, speaks thus of the Tenth Council of Toledo: In this council mention is made of devout women (widows), whom in some points it distinguishes from nuns. There is given to them, besides other garments, as their habit, that they should wear on the head a black or a red veil. Both colors seem to be given them in memory of the passion of our Redeemer; the one in memory of the blood shed by him, and the other for mourning over torments so cruel. It is also in some way suggested that the same veil was worn by nuns. Mariana likewise, in book 6 of his History of the Affairs of Spain, chapter 9, calls that mantle of purple or of black color which the council prescribes for widows a black or red bridal veil.

[71] Wherefore the council alleged establishes that not all religious, even though they sought cheap garments and for the most part of the native color, shrank so much from red as some seem to think. does not stand in the way of the opinion already stated: The same can be proved from St. Dorotheus the abbot, who, as he is published by Corderius, in Instruction 1, page 45, reasons thus concerning the colobium, or the monks' tunic without sleeves: Now our colobium also has a certain purple mark. What does the purple mark mean? Whoever serves the King wears purple upon his cloak. For since the king wears purple, all who serve him put purple upon their military cloaks — that is, the royal garment — that by this they may show that they are the king's and serve the king. So we too take a purple mark upon our colobium, signifying that we have been enrolled in Christ's warfare, etc. If those Eastern monks, though they did not have the whole garment red, yet wore some red mark upon their garments by which they might show themselves soldiers of Christ, I do not see why it should be wondered at if others, led by the same or another consideration, wore a whole mantle of red, or near to red. I altogether judge, therefore, that the red color does not stand in the way of the garments of St. Rosalia in the Marturano panel being the more probably held for monastic. But if it could be certainly proved that the red color was in no way used by Sicilian nuns in St. Rosalia's century, then it could be said with Cascinus that that color was added to St. Rosalia's mantle for the causes already stated.

[72] and from that dress, the more probably monastic, Wherefore, since the life of this Saint must chiefly be gathered from ancient pictures and sculptures, and since there is no picture of better mark, on Cascinus' testimony, than that of Marturano, in which a monastic habit is the more probably exhibited, it cannot be denied that from that and from other pictures exhibiting like garments there arises no slight suspicion and a probable conjecture about the Saint's monastic discipline. For if, on account of pictures in which the snares of the demons are indicated and in which various instruments of penance are represented, this clause has been inserted into the ecclesiastical Office — That she overcame with a brave spirit, by raging fiercely against herself with an iron chain, by vigils and by lying on the ground, the crafty snares of the demons, which brought into her mind weariness of the harsh life and horror of the solitude, the ancient images signify — if, I say, these things have been rightly judged probable on account of images less ancient than that of which we are treating, why can it not likewise be said that the monastic life, which is the best road to the anchoritic, is suggested by the habit of a most ancient picture, and is gathered from it, not indeed certainly, but probably?

[73] a probable conjecture is made concerning the monastic profession. I know indeed that Cascinus required more solid foundations before he would assert that St. Rosalia had been a nun; and I gladly agree with him that I too desire more certain documents before I affirm that the Saint's monastic life is altogether certain. But if Cascinus should also wish to deny that from that picture a probable conjecture is had for the monastic life, I frankly profess that I depart from his opinion: for just as no reason has hitherto been brought forward which certainly establishes that the Saint was a nun, so neither has any been produced which overthrows the conjecture of a monastic life. And what Cascinus observes, that the Anchoress could take up the garment of some Religion even though she had not professed it, is absolutely true; and therefore from a religious garment a monastic profession cannot certainly be inferred. But it is equally true that from a monastic garment a monastic profession is probably inferred; especially since it could not have been known what garment the Saint used, if she, as Cascinus would have it, not only did not embrace monastic discipline, but remained altogether unknown in her cave. Finally it might be said by conjecture against this argument that perhaps the monks or nuns of the Order of St. Basil took care that the Saint should be painted in their habit, although she had never professed that Order. But not even that objection removes the probable suspicion concerning the profession of the Order, but only the certainty of the thing. So much from the pictures brought to light by Cascinus.

Tornamira in his Conjectural sketch, discourse 6, contends The Saint painted in various places as a Benedictine, that most of the ancient pictures of St. Rosalia represent the Benedictine habit of the Congregation of Monte Vergine, referring some to the conventual habit, others to the eremitic habit of the same Order, and some also to the Cassinese or Cluniac habit. But the Marturano panel, of which we have disputed, expresses the habit of a Benedictine Anchoress upon a journey, if we believe the aforesaid author, who asserts this in various places, especially discourse 4, num. 20, and who attempts to prove it more fully in his Answers to eight questions, answer 7. But he rightly shows indeed that red or rose color was not altogether unusual in his Order; yet nowhere does he establish that the habit of Benedictine Anchoresses upon a journey was such as is seen in the Marturano panel. Then that panel itself utterly overthrows that opinion, since the mere sight of it clearly shows that Rosalia is not painted there as set upon a journey: for nowhere does any indication of one going forward or traveling appear. Let the studious reader compare the Marturano panel, which is exhibited by us above, with the Bivona carving, which is Cascinus' sixth figure; and he will easily see that in the latter Rosalia is exhibited as setting out, but not so in the former. Wherefore there is no need to discuss that disputation of Tornamira (who is wont to assert more than he proves) more fully here, since by this one observation his whole foundation utterly falls to the ground. No better proved are the things he asserts about the other panels published by Cascinus and reprinted by us, nor is there need to dwell on them longer.

[75] Nevertheless the same writer in answer 8 adduces another picture and indeed in a panel said to be of the year 1255, which may favor more the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Vergine, provided that everything

which he asserts about that picture be true or certain enough. For he affirms, first, that that picture is of the year 1255, and consequently not a whole century later than the death of St. Rosalia. Secondly he asserts that above the head, in the diadem, these words are read, Saint Mother Rosalia, written in an ancient character. Thirdly he proves that that picture was found in an ancient church of the aforesaid Congregation of Monte Vergine; and he takes pains to show that all the garments are not only monastic, which is plain to the eye, but agree exactly with the habit of Monte Vergine. These things certainly suggest that the said Congregation already in the thirteenth century believed St. Rosalia to have been of the same institute, and therefore this argument of Tornamira is the chief of all that he has brought forward, provided that what is said about that picture be certain enough. This therefore must be discussed before the rest. A copy of that picture Tornamira exhibits engraved on copper, page 114, with this subscription: From a picture on the wall of the monastery of St. John at Capua, of the Congregation of Monte Vergine, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the year 1255.

[76] Further, to prove the antiquity of that picture, on page 107 he adduces a letter of Amatus Mastrullus, abbot of the monastery of St. Mary of Monte Vergine at Capua. as Tornamira attempts to prove from the time when the church was built, This letter, written in the Italian idiom to Tornamira himself, asserts that the aforesaid church of St. John, in which the picture was found, was built by the monks of Monte Vergine in the year 1255, and that this can be gathered from letters of Pope Alexander IV and of Cardinal Ubaldini, which he says he will send. And Tornamira in fact recites, page 102, the letters of Alexander IV, with the enclosed letters of Cardinal Octavianus Ubaldini, given in the year 1255 to the Abbot and convent of St. Mary of Monte Vergine, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the diocese of Avellino, in which faculty is granted them to build two oratories, one within the city of Capua, the other outside the city. It may therefore be admitted that that church of St. John, which was afterwards pulled down, was built in the year 1255, although it does not appear from the Pontifical letters that the same church is meant. But from the time at which the church was built it certainly cannot be inferred that the image of St. Rosalia was painted on its wall at the same time, since pictures could have been added afterwards. And so the antiquity of that picture is not sufficiently certain from this observation alone.

[77] on whose now ruined walls the image stands In the letter of the aforesaid abbot Mastrullus to Tornamira this is read: That the name of our Saint Rosalia was there (in the said picture) is a tradition; just as opposite, on the other wall, where another Saint is painted, that one's name is plainly to be seen, as also the name of the monk or superior who had the picture made, expressed in ancient letters. So I too should believe that the name of St. Rosalia was there, as tradition today holds; yet at the present time neither that nor any other name is read there, because the surface of the wall on which the name of St. Rosalia was painted or carved beneath the picture has been rubbed away. With these agrees the testimony of Vincentius Abbate, a painter of Capua, given and taken down by a public notary on the twenty-fifth day of November of the year 1657, which on the same page 110 has this concerning the same picture: The painter … asserted that within that ruined church he found painted on the wall on the right-hand side the image of Saint Rosalia, a nun of the Congregation of M. V. \, with white garments, namely with a tunic, a scapular, with a cape or mantle down to the ankles, with an undergarment, and with white veils; in whose hands she has in the right a lily and in the left a breviary; and at her feet, as he heard from many old men of this city, and especially from painters, there was the subscription of the name of the said Saint Rosalia, which at present is not visible because of the age of the picture, etc.*

[78] with the name afterwards found in a wonderful manner, The lack of the name could bring in doubt. But Tornamira relates on page 113 that the name was afterwards uncovered in a wonderful manner. He explains the matter in about this way. In the year 1668, when the devotion of the people of Capua toward St. Rosalia had been the more kindled by the Conjectural sketch published in that same year, many searched diligently over the wall around the aforesaid image, which they believed to be St. Rosalia's. By one of them, not without a heavenly impulse, he says, that part of the wall which had been worn away by age, where the virgin Rosalia was painted, was washed, as was the sacred image itself. And behold, unforeseen and all at once, with universal applause, her most precious name appears prodigiously, set in her diadem (and not below, as men of today had falsely believed and persuaded others), written in ancient letters, just as are written the names of the other Saints and monks who are painted on that wall. He adds that the matter was presently confirmed by a twofold testimony written by notaries, at the request of lord Silvester Ayossa, rector of the parish church of SS. Cosmas and Damian de Quadropanis, and with the consent of the magistrate of Capua. Both testimonies are given in the Italian idiom.

[79] as various men testify: The first is that of three notaries, who testify that they were called to the house of the Rev. Don Julius Minutolo, in which that ruined chapel was, and that there they found the wall and the image of St. Rosalia, which they describe as it is already described above. And presently they add: Above her head is a diadem, in which round about are read these words, Saint Mother Rosalia, written in ancient letters of that form in which the writing appears in the pictures of the said wall. Then they subscribed the testimony with their own hands on the fifth day of October of the year 1668 in this manner, but in Italian.

I, notary Angelus Ollettino, born in the said city, so attest, as above.

I, notary Joannes Angelus Rossi of Capua, so attest, as above.

I, notary Joannes Leonardus Pizzo, so attest, as above.

The credit of the notaries is strengthened by this testimony subjoined, written in Latin: We, the elect for the rule and government of the most faithful city of Capua, attest and testify that the above-said men who have subscribed the present attestation are public notaries by royal authority of this most faithful city of Capua, and that full and undoubted credit has been and is given by all to their writings, both public and private, etc. Subscribed, Notary Cæsar Sacconius, secretary. The second testimony is that of Hieronymus Paccone, rector of the parish church of St. Michael, likewise confirmed by oath and conformable to the preceding.

[80] It cannot be denied that this picture favors the cause of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Vergine, [from this image a suspicion arises of a Benedictine profession: but nothing certain can be determined.] and raises a suspicion of the Saint's monastic life and of her profession in that Order. Nevertheless that picture is not so ancient as to be able to make the thing certain. Moreover it appears strange that that picture was found at Capua, since no one affirms that Rosalia was venerated at Capua in ancient times, and it is not even established whether she was anywhere formerly venerated by the Order of Monte Vergine: for Tornamira adduces the sayings of some who assert that a tradition is current in that Order that Rosalia was its nursling; but he does not show that an ancient cult of the Saint flourished in it. Finally, the authentic credit of this picture is lessened by the fact that in the years 1655 and 1657 the name of St. Rosalia did not appear, as is plain from what was alleged in num. 77; whereas in the year 1668 the name was found with such ease, and appeared at last not beneath the picture, where by tradition the name was said to have been, but above in the diadem. All these things, which I have called strange, make it impossible for me to hold as certain what is asserted about that image of St. Rosalia. But what Tornamira's adversaries answer to his argument drawn from the said image, I have not yet been able to find anywhere. Yet it may be answered that, granting the genuineness and antiquity of the image, nothing certain can yet be concluded, since the Saint could have been so painted by order of the Benedictines even if her profession in that Order had not been established.

\ al. scapulare*

\* i.e. of Monte Vergine

§ VIII. Other reasons for the Saint's monastic life.

[ ] Ancient tradition alleged for the Saint's monastic life, The defenders both of the Benedictine and of the Basilian cause contend that there was long a tradition in their Order concerning St. Rosalia as having once been its nursling; but neither party will be able to allege any author who committed that tradition to writing before the year 1624, that is, before the finding of the body. And this observation makes it easy for anyone to suspect that the conjectures of some who, after the body was found, believed St. Rosalia to be of this or that Order, gradually prevailed, and after some years began to be adorned with the honorable name of tradition. This suspicion, I say, may not undeservedly arise, since no Religious Order is recorded to have claimed St. Rosalia for itself before the body was found, nor did any pursue her memory with a veneration beyond that given to others. Yet it must be confessed that the Sicilian Benedictines began not long after the finding of the body to claim St. Rosalia for themselves, and that Urban VIII favored that opinion of theirs in his bull of the year 1634, by which he willed that the monastery of St. Rosalia, to be erected at Palermo under the rule of St. Dominic according to the testament of the lady Margarita del Carretto, should rather be founded under the rule of St. Benedict, because St. Rosalia was believed to have worn the habit of the latter. Tornamira alleges part of that bull from the archive of the said monastery in the Conjectural sketch, discourse 7, num. 34, and another part in the dedicatory Epistle to the senate of Palermo, page 16. In the former place he recites these words: And that all women received and admitted into the said monastery shall wear the habit customarily borne by the nuns of the other monasteries of observant or reformed nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, with the sign of the holy cross of white cloth sewn upon it, as the same Saint Rosalia has from ancient times been wont to be painted; and shall take it up, and expressly make the profession customarily made by them, etc. Here the Pontiff asserts that St. Rosalia has from ancient times been wont to be painted in the Benedictine habit; which certainly favors the cause of the Benedictines.

[82] [chiefly for the Benedictine institute, and not without some foundation from the pictures.] In the other place he gives the reason why he wills the testatrix's will to be changed, in these words: But since it is more fitting that the monastery to be erected by the tenor of these presents be instituted under the rule of the observant or reformed of St. Benedict, whose habit the said Saint Rosalia is believed to have worn; since it is altogether likely that if the said Margarita had known that the aforesaid Saint Rosalia, toward whom while she lived she bore the greatest affection of devotion, had worn the habit of St. Benedict rather than that of St. Dominic, she would have ordered a monastery of this kind to be erected under the rule which the said Saint professed. These words of the supreme Pontiff are worthy of consideration: for although Urban by the words alleged does not declare, much less define, that St. Rosalia was of the Benedictine Order, yet he at least affirms that this was believed in his own time; and by alleging that reason he shows that this view did not displease him, but that he judged it likely

to himself, especially since he says that the Saint has from ancient times been wont to be painted in the Benedictine habit, and thus suggests on what foundations chiefly that view rests. Wherefore I greatly wonder that certain patrons of the contrary view have unrestrainedly cried out that the opinion of St. Rosalia's monastic life is contrary to the tradition of the people of Palermo, and have never, so far as I know, made any reply to these assertions of Urban VIII, which clearly show that that opinion prevailed immediately after the finding of the body, and that it has from the ancient images the foundation of an ancient tradition. For as to the tradition preserved in the memory of men, if there was none before the body was found concerning the Saint's monastic life, there was likewise none to the contrary, because almost all memory of St. Rosalia had fallen away. Rocco Pirri, Sicilia sacra, book 4, notice 1, page 165, likewise asserts that Rosalia was in his own time believed to be a Benedictine; and Tornamira proves this more fully in the epistle to the senate of Palermo just praised. From all these things it may be permitted to conclude that no other tradition indeed can be alleged for St. Rosalia's monastic state than that which is gathered from the ancient pictures; that this defect of popular report, however, is of small moment, since almost all the Saint's deeds had likewise fallen out of the memory of men before the body was found.

[83] Another argument for the monastic life is brought forward from the small silver cross From the small silver cross found together with the body, which in the year 1625 was found together with the body. Cascinus, book 2, chapter 21, page 31, testifies that this cross was found beside the body, and describes it thus: A tiny silver cross (was found beside the body and covered by the same stone), of the very lightest weight, since it is thin as a leaf of paper, and of so small an extent that it cannot savor of riches in a poor Anchoress. The figure of this cross engraved on copper I shall give below in §24, where it can be seen. Tornamira in the Sketch, discourse 7, num. 13 and following, asserts that Benedictines were wont to be buried with a small cross placed upon the breast, and says that this cross was placed upon St. Rosalia's breast when she was buried. But he shows this well enough of a wax cross, not of a silver one; and in this his reasoning wavers. For he says indeed that the cross could be of any material whatever; but he does not prove it. Justiniani, however, disputing more fully about the said cross, first shows that it was found and is now kept at Palermo in the monastery of St. Rosalia, which he confirms by an authentic instrument received from the archiepiscopal curia. Then he reasons thus in Latin: Further, that the silver cross is the habit of the Basilian nuns, by which alone in the West they are distinguished from the Benedictines, is in fact known to all: for in the rest the dress is the same, the color the same for both. And this the most constant and very ancient custom of putting on and wearing a silver cross asserts, when in this monastery of the most holy Salvator the virgins profess their religious and solemn vows. And so Rosalia, though a most poor anchoress, yet most tenacious of her profession, willed to wear and carry the token of the Basilian Order, namely the silver cross, even to the end of her mortal life. There exists on the use of such a cross a lucubration by a learned man, published under the name of Hellenius Agricola. Thus far Justiniani.

[84] Now the tract published under the fictitious name of Hellenius Agricola, such as the Basilian nuns are wont to wear, which he mentions, is an Apology for the nuns of the most holy Salvator, written in Italian, in which is defended the use of such a silver cross to be worn openly on the breast, which the author attempts to show is ancient. Nor can it be doubted, from the testimonies brought forward by the aforesaid writer, that the Basilian nuns received a cross from the abbess at their religious profession; but it does not appear equally established whether that cross was always of silver or of some other material. Nor does it appear altogether certain that that cross was always worn openly on the breast by the Basilian nuns of the most holy Salvator. Bonanni in his Catalogue of Orders, part 2, article 15, assigning the reason why he has exhibited the Basilian nuns with a cross in the hand, writes thus: The image set forth by us bears a cross in the hands, that from it may be known the rite by which the Basilian nuns are consecrated to God. For to them the abbess holds out a cross either of silver or of bronze, by which it is signified that Christ's cross is willingly embraced by them, so that, fastened to the cross with their Spouse, they may profess the laws of St. Basil even to death. The cross is here said to be of silver or of bronze, and it is not said whether it was hung before the breast or received in the hand; nor can that be gathered from the words of the abbess holding out the cross. Those words the writer praised above, who used the name of Agricola, recites from the rule of the nuns, page 64: Dost thou receive the cross of the Lord, and wilt thou follow him according to his holy word? says the abbess. And the novice replies: Yes, mother, with God's help. The author adds that it is established by perpetual usage that that cross was always of silver, and was hung by the abbess from the novice's neck before her breast.

[85] a probable suspicion arises concerning profession in that Order. The abbot general of the Basilian Order favors this view. For after the nuns of the most holy Salvator had obtained that many crosses of this kind should be blessed by Pope Clement XI for the aforesaid use, he gave such a testimony, reported in the same place on the last page: I the undersigned attest and testify to those who shall inspect these presents, how that by virtue of the aforesaid rescript, ninety-seven small crosses having been sent to the City in a certain casket by the nuns of the most holy Salvator of the city of Palermo, of the Order of our Holy Father Basil the Great — which crosses, according to the rule of the same our Holy Father, they are wont visibly to wear on the breast as the notable token of the Basilian habit, by a very ancient and immemorial custom of our Order — they have now been blessed after the customary manner by our most Holy Lord Pope Clement XI, to the effect of gaining the indulgences granted in the transcript of them. In testimony whereof I have subscribed myself at Rome in the college of our Holy Father Basil the Great, and have fortified it with the seal of the Religion, on the twenty-second day of June, 1715. The subscription was: Master Don Petrus Menniti, abbot general of the Order of St. Basil the Great. And below: Master of Sacred Theology, abbot Don Basilius de Laurentio, secretary and vicegerent of the Spains. From what has been said I conclude that that silver cross favors the opinion of St. Rosalia's Basilian monastic state, whether one hold that the Basilian nuns already in her time wore the cross on the breast, or only received it in the hand at profession. Nay, I observe also that in the Marturano picture St. Rosalia could for this cause too have been represented with a cross, as Bonanni says he did in the image of a Basilian nun.

[86] [From the Greek writing also, for the monastery of the Most Holy Salvator of the Basilian Order,] Yet another argument for St. Rosalia's monastic life is had from that Greek inscription of which I treated in §3. For if it were certainly established that that writing is St. Rosalia's, her monastic life too would be certain. But since the credit of that inscription is both attacked and defended, and since it is not certainly shown to be a forgery or to be attributed to another Rosalia, the argument drawn from that writing is added to the others as probable, not as certain. Further, that writing also assigns the monastery of the most holy Salvator at Palermo, in which the Saint would have professed the monastic life, as the patrons of the Basilian cause contend, although they will have it that she was first made a nun in another monastery and afterwards transferred to that one. And that that monastery was always under the rule of St. Basil, the Sicilian writers commonly agree. Rocco Pirri, volume 1 of the Sicilia sacra, in the Notice of the church of Palermo, page 220, has this concerning that monastery: The monastery of St. Salvator was begun to be built by Robert Guiscard, and in the year 1148 was enriched with goods by King Roger: therefore King Martin calls it ROYAL; three monasteries joined to it I have named on folio 114. There once lived in it Constance, daughter of King Roger, who afterwards married the emperor Henry. It is under Basilian discipline: it is not long since they still chanted in Greek. On pages 113 and 114 he had said this: In the year 1148 the royal monastery which takes its name from the Savior, of the Order of St. Basil, built formerly by the labor of Duke Robert and thereafter of King Roger, (Hugh, archbishop of Palermo) handed over to nuns to inhabit; who migrated from the ancient houses of St. Matthew de Cassaro, of St. Theodore, and of St. Mary de Oreto.

[87] Justiniani will have it that St. Rosalia was made a nun in this last monastery, no slight conjecture is gathered. and thence migrated with the others in the year 1148 to the monastery of the Most Holy Salvator; and for his opinion he alleges tradition, and an Italian inscription set on the wall of the monastery, by which it is indicated that St. Rosalia dwelt there. But neither that tradition nor the inscription appears ancient: for the antiquity of that tradition is nowhere proved, and Mongitore in the manuscript Dissertation transmitted to us testifies that the inscription is modern, asserting that he had carefully surveyed the place and had seen the inscription. Wherefore there is not so great a foundation for this monastery as for the monastery of the Most Holy Salvator, although she may indeed have removed into the latter from one of the three enumerated, if she lived in the monastery of the most holy Salvator, as the Greek inscription has it. The nuns of the Most Holy Salvator, in the year 1699, after the aforesaid writing had been restored to them together with the wooden cross, as was related in §2 from num. 16, do not appear to have doubted that St. Rosalia had once dwelt in their monastery as a nun of the same Order and monastery, and therefore they erected an altar to her. But since the credit of the writing is attacked, and the writing may belong to another Rosalia, a probable suspicion and conjecture arises indeed from the aforesaid writing; but it cannot be said that the matter is on that account certain enough.

[88] The patrons of the monastic life also take an argument from various apparitions Various apparitions also favor the monastic profession, in which St. Rosalia is said to have been seen as a nun. The defenders both of the Benedictine and of the Basilian cause use that reason. Justiniani in his Annotations to the manuscript Life writes thus: When Rosalia first offered herself to be seen (as is read in Cascinus, page 25, and as Vincentius Gariglianus relates) in the year 1623, in the month of October, to Hieronyma Gatto, or lo Gattutu, she appeared, according to the authentic process drawn up by order of Cardinal Doria, in a Religious habit and in the guise of a nun. Cascinus may be seen in the place assigned. The apparition I shall give below from Salernus, who speaks thus of the appearance of Rosalia as she appeared: She sees a young girl (the said Hieronyma Gatto does) in the guise and habit of a nun. Justiniani, after various texts of writers, subjoins the following apparition: In that same habit she appeared to Francisca dell'Arco of Palermo, laboring most grievously of the plague in the infirmary of Saint Lucy, in the month of October, in the year 1624, as Gariglianus reports from the process made by order of Cardinal Doria. He presently subjoins Gariglianus' Italian words, which I render into Latin thus: There appeared to her a woman as it were a nun, who said to her, etc.

[89] Justiniani presently proceeds thus: Almost the same happened on the twelfth of September in the same year to Vincentia de Bongiorno, who was breathing her last, in which she was seen as a nun. and was granted health by Rosalia. Of the Italian text which he recites, this is the beginning: On a certain night there appeared to her someone in the habit of a nun, dressed like the Fathers of St. Lucy, etc. The monastery of St. Lucy at Palermo belongs to the reformed Franciscans, as Pirri has it, volume 1 of the Sicilia sacra, page 218. Justiniani goes on again: The same is testified by Nympha Scarfillotta, to whom her former health was restored by St. Rosalia, as is established by the oath of five physicians, Jacobus Anastasi, Jacobus Vitranus, Antoninus Fausunus, Franciscus Cupacchi, and Jacobus Cajola. He subjoins Gariglianus' text, in which she is said to have appeared as a nun; and presently two apparitions offered to Philippus Salonia, a priest, and to Franciscus Facciolus of Palermo, which we shall insert in their places. Here let it only be permitted to conclude that so many apparitions, confirmed by oaths and approved by episcopal judgment, in which Rosalia was seen in the habit of a nun, favor not a little the defenders of her monastic institute. Since, however, she was not always seen in the same habit, nothing certain can be gathered from this argument either.

[90] [The last reason is drawn from the more usual custom of beginning the anchoritic life:] The last argument that is brought forward for St. Rosalia's monastic life, omitting other little reasons of less moment, is sought from the more frequent and more approved use and custom of beginning the anchoritic or eremitic life. It is certain and beyond doubt that some Saints passed straight from the secular life to the solitary or eremitic life, without any exercise in a monastery. Thus St. Paul the hermit, and some others of the ancients, betook themselves to the solitude with no previous monastic exercise: and this happened chiefly in the first centuries of the Church, in which the cenobitic life was rarer, and monasteries less frequent and less known. But after monasteries had been founded thickly through the whole Church, more men withdrew from the monasteries to the solitude, that they might there give themselves to contemplation more perfectly; and this manner of beginning the anchoritic life is the more conformable to the counsels of the holy Fathers and to the laws of the Church, and far more usual than the preceding. Suarez, volume 4 On Religion, book 1, chapter 2, num. 4, writes thus to our purpose: But granting the sanctity of that (eremitic) life, it must be shown that it was truly a Religious state. Concerning which it must be known that that solitary life can be taken up in two ways: first, by beginning from it immediately at the beginning of one's conversion; secondly, by passing to it from the cenobitic life. In this latter way the Fathers counsel that that life should be taken up — namely, after one has exercised himself in a monastery for many years and has made great progress in perfection.

[91] for the holy Fathers commonly advise Let us hear what St. Jerome, to whom a town was a prison and the solitude a paradise, writes of these matters to Rusticus the Monk, epistle 95, formerly 4: Now, he says, we are discussing the cradle and the manners of a monk: and of that monk who, trained in liberal studies in his youth, has laid Christ's yoke upon his neck. And first it must be treated whether you ought to live alone or with others in a monastery. For my part it pleases me that you should have the fellowship of holy men, and not teach yourself, nor enter without a teacher upon a road you have never entered, and at once have to turn aside to one side or the other and lie open to error; and walk either more or less than is needful; lest either by running you weary yourself, or by delaying you fall asleep. In solitude pride quickly creeps in. And when he had proved this at length, he goes on thus: What then? Do we blame the solitary life? By no means: for we have often praised it. But from the training-school of monasteries of this sort we would have soldiers come forth whom the hard rudiments of the desert do not terrify; who have for a long time given proof of their manner of life; who have been the least of all, that they might become the first of all; whom neither hunger at any time nor fullness has overcome; who rejoice in poverty; whose dress, speech, countenance, gait is a lesson of the virtues, etc. The same holy Doctor, in epistle 97 to Demetrias, so praises the solitary life as at the same time to show how perilous it is, chiefly in women: There is wont to be a dispute among most men, he says, whether the solitary life or that with many is the better: of which the former is indeed preferred to the second; but if it is perilous in men, … how much more in women, whose changeable and wavering judgment, if left to its own discretion, quickly slips down to worse things? etc.

[92] St. Benedict agrees with these in chapter 1 of his Rule, as to the probation in a monastery to be set before the solitary life, that the monastic life should come before the anchoritic; describing the second kind of monks thus: Then the second kind is that of the anchorites, that is, the hermits: of those who have learned to fight against the devil, not in the novice fervor of conversion, but by long probation in a monastery, being already taught by the solace of many; and, well instructed from the ranks of their brethren for the single combat of the desert, are able now securely, without another's consolation, with hand or arm alone, to fight, with God's help, against the vices of the flesh or of their thoughts. Nay, this Saint seems to disapprove the eremitic life of those who do not so begin it. Let us hear what follows: But the third and most foul kind of monks is that of the Sarabaites, who, tested by no Rule nor by experience as their mistress, as gold in the furnace, but softened after the nature of lead, still keeping faith with the world in their works, are known to lie to God by their tonsure. Who, by twos or threes, or indeed singly, without a shepherd, shut up not in the Lord's sheepfolds but in their own: their law is the pleasure of their desires; since whatever they think or choose, this they call holy, and what they do not wish, this they think unlawful. St. Benedict really seems by these words to comprehend all those who withdraw into the solitude at their own discretion, with no previous probation in monasteries, since these are neither subject to a Rule nor have experience of the monastic life. Nevertheless St. Isidore, On Ecclesiastical Offices, chapter 16, distinguishes hermits from Sarabaites, and praises the former while blaming the latter. This is certain, that certain hermits were most holy in the beginning of the Church, but that this manner of living was afterwards less approved unless it were taken up by lawful authority, that is, by the leave of superiors.

[93] Further, just as the Fathers advise that the solitary life be not begun except after the monastic, and the anchoritic life so taken up is more perfect so it can easily be proved that the solitary life so taken up is more perfect than a life merely eremitic which the monastic did not precede. St. Thomas, 2a 2æ, question 188, article 8, asks which life is more perfect, the cenobitic or the eremitic. And he answers, distinguishing various things, that the solitary life may be called more perfect because it is the life of the perfect: As therefore, he says, that which is perfect excels that which is exercised toward perfection, so the life of solitaries, if it be duly taken up, excels the social life. But if such a life be taken up without previous exercise, it is most perilous, unless by divine grace that be supplied which in others is acquired by exercise, as is plain in blessed Antony and Benedict. Suarez, praised above, in book 1, chapter 2, num. 14, expounding St. Thomas, speaks thus to our purpose: Lastly, it is plain from what has been said what must be said of the comparison between these two states, the solitary and the cenobitic. For St. Thomas … seems simply to prefer the solitary life, when it is taken up in the due order and manner; because it is compared to the other as the goal to the road; and a goal is of its own kind more perfect than a road. And in the present case monasteries exist for this, that men may tend toward perfection; whereas the solitary life supposes perfection already acquired: whence it is only for exercising perfection. But first of all, St. Thomas is speaking of the solitary life when the passage to it is made through the Religious life in a monastery or convent. In which way this solitary life already supposes a true Religious state, and so state is not preferred to state, but within the same state the grade of the perfect is preferred to the grade of those advancing. Whence also a diligent exercise in the common Religious life is supposed, so that perfection is already gained, and the solitude is chosen for exercising it, not by one's own judgment but at a superior's discretion: for such a solitary life does not lack the subordination of obedience, since it does not destroy the Religious state but perfects it. From these things it is certain that one proceeds in a better order to the eremitic life through the cenobitic than without it; because the perfection necessary for the eremitic life can be better acquired in a monastery than in the desert, as St. Basil admirably shows in the Rules treated at Length, chapter 7.

[94] than the same is if it be begun without the monastic. It follows, secondly, that the eremitic life which is taken up after the monastic is more perfect than the eremitic begun otherwise, not only because it supposes a perfection already acquired, but also because it contains the excellence of the monastic and of the solitary life together, as is plain from the words adduced. But those things have no place if anyone betakes himself straight from the world to the solitude, since he has neither acquired perfection nor is bound by Religious vows. Let us hear Suarez again, who in num. 16 speaks thus of these matters: But when this state of solitary life does not suppose a Religious state, although it may perhaps be called a manner of living more perfect as to action or as to use, it cannot be called a more perfect state, because it is not a state: and on that side it is an imperfect manner of life, because it can be changed by one's own will. In which way the Gloss on the said chapter QUI VERE said that a hermit, in passing to being a monk, passes to a stricter life, because he can no longer have anything of his own: add, and because he is now under obedience, which is the best of all things so far as regards the state. Here Suarez prefers the monastic life to that eremitic life which had no monastic life before it, while nevertheless he acknowledges that the eremitic life taken up after monastic exercises is more excellent than the monastic. How much more, therefore, is it more excellent than the other eremitic? Then the aforesaid writer goes on thus: Nay rather, even though a Religious state be supposed, if there be not supposed a Religious exercise in the congregation of the Brethren, and great virtue and perfection acquired, that kind of life, regularly speaking, is not to be chosen, because it is not a safe road to perfection, but full of dangers: Unless divine grace (says St. Thomas) supply what in others is acquired by exercise, as in St. Benedict and others. Wherefore, absolutely and speaking in a human manner, that wholly solitary manner of living, taken up in that way, does not fall under human counsel, nor can it be called simply better, but only with this addition, Unless a special prompting of the Holy Spirit intervene, so that a man receive inwardly from the Holy Spirit a certainty that He takes him up under His own protection and direction. Thus far Suarez, from whose later

words the patrons of the contrary opinion take an argument for themselves.

[95] [Some will have it that it is more honorable to the Saint if she be believed to have fled secretly:] They contend that it is more honorable to St. Rosalia if she came to the summit of sanctity by an extraordinary road than if she ascended to the perfect life by the ordinary road of the Saints; and therefore they will have it that the Saint did not advance to the solitary life through the monastic, but betook herself to the desert by a clandestine flight, so that everything may be attributed to a special prompting of the Holy Spirit. Assuredly it cannot be denied that the Holy Spirit can easily supply what is wanting to human industry, and lead a person from the worldly life to the eremitic, and so protect him in it and cherish him with such grace that he may overcome all the dangers of the solitary life and come quickly to perfection. Nay, it would have to be altogether believed that it so happened to St. Rosalia, if from elsewhere her hidden flight were sufficiently established, and a life so solitary that Rosalia, living in her cave, had never become known to any mortal. But I have already shown that that clandestine flight rests upon no ancient monument; and that a life altogether hidden from men not only lacks a solid foundation but is a conjecture of modern men not probable enough. Wherefore the chief foundation of that argument has already been removed. But even if we suppose for a moment that it is quite doubtful whether St. Rosalia fled secretly into the desert or began the eremitic life in another way, it will be easy to show with how many faults the reasoning of those men labors who will have it that St. Rosalia came to Sanctity in an extraordinary manner, and believe this more honorable to her.

[96] First, then, when we inquire into the deeds of any Saint, but neither is that what is sought, nor is it sufficiently proved, we examine what is truer, not what is more honorable to the Saint. Secondly, I do not sufficiently grasp why it would be more glorious to St. Rosalia if we said that she fled secretly to the solitude than if we say that after the monastic life she went on to the desert, that she might there lead a more austere life. Our adversaries say that the first was done, or must have been done, by a special prompting of the Holy Spirit, which I shall readily admit if the fact be established. But I say that the passage from the monastic life to a solitary life so austere as that which St. Rosalia led was also not made without a special prompting of the Holy Spirit. There is no difference here except that in the first case the Holy Spirit led the Virgin to the solitary life by an extraordinary road; in the other he drew her to the same life by the ordinary road. But why it should be more glorious to be led to the perfect life by an extraordinary road than by the ordinary one, I really do not yet perceive. If anyone should maintain that the difference between the worldly life and the solitary is greater than that between the latter and the monastic, and that therefore the passage from the worldly life to the solitary is more glorious than the passage from the monastic to the solitary, I do not see that this inference either is legitimate: for a nun can have better in view the difficulties, wearinesses and dangers of the solitary life than a worldly girl can, and can shrink from it no less; and for that cause, although she is less distant from that life, it is no less glorious for her to embrace such a life at God's call than it is for a secular girl, who, the farther she is distant from the solitary life, the less known she has the difficulties of that life.

[97] Cascinus, book 2, chapter 10, wonderfully extols the excellence of St. Rosalia since not all things that are more to be wondered at are more perfect. because she lived in the solitude without a guide and spiritual master, and followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit and of the angels alone. But I do not see what can stand in the way of her sanctity and excellence if we say that she was also instructed by men: for we do not call St. Paul the hermit, because he lived for a very long time without any society of other men, holier or more excellent than Antony, Benedict, and other like Saints, but leave the judgment of their preeminence to God. We confess indeed that a life without the society and support of men is more to be wondered at; but things that are more to be wondered at are not always more perfect or more excellent. And certainly it is not more perfect to have come to the solitude from the worldly life than from the monastic, which is the only thing here in question. And finally, whatever be the case as to greater or lesser perfection, it is more credible that St. Rosalia came to the solitary life by the ordinary and approved road than in a manner so extraordinary that it cannot be excused from rashness except by a special prompting of the Holy Spirit. For the rest, from what has been said thus far I presume to conclude nothing certain; but I have determined to leave the judgment upon the arguments reported and discussed to the learned reader. The Benedictines have their reasons, the Basilians theirs, and their adversaries too have theirs, repugnant to the claim of either Order. This is certain, that St. Rosalia ascended to the lofty summit of sanctity by a solitary and austere life; and this is confirmed by the glory of her miracles and by the famous cult that arose thence throughout the whole Church. Let all, therefore, and especially the Sicilians, pursue this most famous Saint with due piety and veneration; and let them not go on contending that those things are certain which, as I have sufficiently shown, are not certainly proved.

§ IX. The time in which the Saint flourished: her name, native place, family.

[ ] [Rosalia is commonly believed to have lived in the twelfth century, and to have died about the year 1160:] Cascinus, about to dispute in book 2 of his Italian work concerning the deeds of St. Rosalia, confesses that by the scarcity of ancient writers he is reduced to inquiring into the Saint's deeds by reasoning and conjecture, and therefore says that he calls that part A historical discourse on the life of St. Rosalia. Wherefore I shall weigh the conjectures of that religious and learned man so briefly that I may also set before my readers' eyes the images engraved on copper on which they rest. I shall also add the conjectures of others, where it shall seem worth the trouble, so that it may be discussed which are the more probable or improbable; and thus I shall proceed in order of time down to the Saint's death. First, therefore, it must be inquired at about what time St. Rosalia lived. The Sicilian writers commonly bind the age of St. Rosalia to the twelfth century, since most of them will have it that she died about the year 1160, and do not believe that she was of a very advanced age. Yet they agree with one another better in assigning after some fashion the year of her death than the year of her birth. Octavius Caietanus in the Lives of the Sicilian Saints, as his manuscript account was communicated to us, has this: Rosalea the virgin is believed to have been born at Palermo, and to have been one of the handmaids of Queen Margaret, who was the wife of William, king of Sicily; from whom, having received as a gift the mountain nearest the city of Palermo, which is named Pellegrino, she withdrew thither. These words make St. Rosalia dwell in the Sicilian court after the middle of the twelfth century: for Pirri in his Chronology of the kings of Sicily, under William I, binds his marriage with Margaret, daughter of the king of Navarre, to the year 1150, and says that in the same year he was brought by his father Roger to the administration of the kingdom, that he might reign together with him. And when his father died in the year 1154, he began to hold the helm of the kingdom alone, and laid it down with his life in the year 1166, as Pagi too shows with Pirri at that year, num. 9.

[99] Now concerning the testament of William I, Pirri in the same place, with others, has this to our purpose: but if she received Mount Pellegrino as a gift from Queen Margaret, By his testament he declared his surviving son William king after him, … and appointed his wife Margaret administratrix of the whole kingdom until William should be fit by age for rule. Margaret survived many years afterwards, and the epitaph published by Pirri sets her death in the year 1183, on the Kalends of August. But Pagi at the same year, num. 3, brings forward a diploma of Pope Lucius III in which the Pontiff speaks of Margaret as dead. And since the diploma was given in the year 1183, on the Nones of February, although it is dated in the year 1182 after the custom of that time, in which they began the year from the twenty-fifth of March, Margaret died earlier than is asserted in the epitaph, which was probably set up long after the queen's death. Further, since Margaret began to administer the kingdom in the year 1166, if Rosalia had Mount Pellegrino as a gift from Margaret, as Caietanus will have it, it seems not to be doubted that she prolonged her life long after the year 1160. For no other reason will easily be assigned why she is said to have received the mountain as a gift from Queen Margaret rather than from King William, unless because that donation was made after the death of William I, when Margaret was administering the kingdom, that is, in the very year 1166 or a little later, before William II began to rule in his own person.

[100] Tornamira in his Answers to eight questions, answer 5, pages 55 and 56, adduces for that donation of Margaret the words also of Philip Paruta as various writers have asserted, and of certain others, who allege a most constant tradition. Among others he praises Valerius Rossus, who before the finding of the body, in the year 1590, wrote in Italian concerning the convent of the Minors of Mount Pellegrino what I render into Latin: The church of this convent was built by the duke of Medina… Near this church is seen the cave in which dwelt St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, lady of the said mountain, which was granted to her by a certain king of Sicily. Afterwards the city of Palermo received the lordship of it. This writer, older than Caietanus himself, and dead long before the finding of the body, relates an ancient tradition, just as Caietanus wrote from tradition. And each may easily be reconciled with the other: for if Margaret gave the mountain, she could not have done so except in the name of the king her son. Justiniani in the manuscript Life brings forward many other writers for that donation, but for brevity's sake I pass them by. Cascinus himself was not ignorant of this opinion of the ancients; but on page 164 he reports it as written by Caietanus, although in book 1, chapter 1, page 9, he had already disapproved it — unless that was added afterwards.

[101] Further, the aforesaid Cascinus in chapter 19 disputes about the time the Saint's death seems to be placed later, yet in the same twelfth century. at which St. Rosalia died, and says that it is a tradition that she died about the year 1160, and for that opinion cites Ferrarius, who in the General Catalogue at the fourth of September writes: She died about the year of the Lord 1160. He praises Caietanus for the same epoch. But if we are willing to adhere closely to Caietanus' words, who without doubt is here to be preferred to Ferrarius, the Saint's death ought rather to be placed about the year 1170 or 1180. For although it cannot certainly be deduced from his words that Rosalia died so late, yet it probably follows from them; since the donation of Mount Pellegrino was probably made in the year 1166 or later, and since the Saint is believed to have lived some years in the cave of that mountain: so that, granting the truth of that donation, she does not seem certainly to have died before the year 1170, and could easily have lived until 1180 and longer. For which cause I doubt whether

the epoch established by Cascinus from Ferrarius, and commonly adopted by all Sicilian writers, can be held as certain enough. But what moved the Sicilian writers to adhere firmly to the aforesaid epoch, Cascinus on page 280, and others, have sufficiently indicated. They feared, namely, lest it should stand in the way of the Virgin's immemorial cult if she were believed to have lived and died in the time of Pope Alexander III. But it is clear that that fear was empty, since many other Saints have an immemorial cult even though they are later than Alexander III. Nevertheless, since neither Caietanus' opinion about the donation of Mount Pellegrino, which rests upon tradition alone, is altogether certain; and since it is still more uncertain whether the donation was made after the death of William I; I judge that nothing certain is to be determined about the time of St. Rosalia's life and death, except that she lived in the twelfth century and died after the middle of that century, with the greatest latitude.

[102] The Saint's name was formerly written in various ways; Cascinus disputes at length in book 2, chapter 4, about the name of St. Rosalia, because some formerly wrote not Rosalia but Rosolea, others Rosalea, others Rosa Lea. Salernus, however, set forth Cascinus' thoughts in compendium thus: There were men — not however before the year 1612, so far as I know — who believed the name of Rosalia to be a degenerate word badly corrupted by the common people: wherefore already then it began among most to be said Rosolea; which word, more aptly conformed to the more polished Italian nomenclature, was the more willingly received by learned ears. The error flowed from the roof of the church of Olivella, variegated with pictures of holy virgins, where on a stray scroll there was written by the painter S. Rosolea. (Cascinus says that there was written Rosa Lea in two words.) But the man's recent negligence or boldness in changing the name is convicted by all the ancient panels which bear the name of Rosalia, among which one in the church of Marturano was inscribed from the year 1257. To these add the volumes of breviaries of sacred prayers, and the names of the Saints arranged of old in a series for the litanies in the little book of the church of Palermo. At last the Quisquina inscription put an end to the question, where by uttering these words, I, Rosalia, the holy woman herself ratified her own name. Thus far Salernus, whose statements need some correction, or rather explanation: for it is not in all the places assigned that Rosalia is read, as he asserts, but in some Rusalia; yet Rosalia and Rusalia are the same name, but it is uttered in this latter way, and now and then so written, after the custom of the Sicilians, who change the letter o into u.

[103] the reason of the diversity is assigned, The often-praised Castiglia sent us the figure of an ancient image reduced to a smaller form, under this title: An ancient image of St. Rosalia, which was venerated at Bisbona in the sacristy of the now ruined church of St. Anthony among twelve holy virgins. This figure engraved on copper I transfer hither with the accompanying inscription, where Rusalia is expressed, as may be seen on the following page. Meanwhile I add the observations which Fr. Caietanus Maria Noto, praised already above, appended: Here it is worthy of note, he says, that in the first syllable of the name the letter o is changed into u, according to the accustomed idiom of the Sicilians, with whom it is usual to change the letter o in Italian words into u in the Sicilian word: and so they say russu for rosso, ruvettu for roveto, etc. Let Cascinus be read, book 2, chapter 4, page 176. Cascinus there testifies that that custom is ancient, and gives for an example the name Georgius, which in a certain choir book is written Geurgius.

Fr. Noto proceeds in this manner: In a certain Breviary of the metropolitan church of Palermo inscribed in Gothic letters, which Simon Bononia, archbishop of Palermo, had transcribed in the year 1452 from a more ancient one (whose lectionary still exists in the aforesaid church, written in the same letters in the thirteenth century, as the antiquaries think), in the litanies the name of St. Rosalia is read written thus between St. Margaret and Anastasia: S. Rusalia. So, lastly, the most ancient panel of all, which is kept in the monastery of Marturano at Palermo, has the name of St. Rosalia inscribed.

[104] Cascinus in the place just assigned proves sufficiently that the Saint's name was never written Rosolea before the Olivella panel, and it is proved that the true name is Rosalia. which was painted not long before the year 1498. But afterwards, before the finding of the body, that usage prevailed the more. Among those who wrote Rosalea was Octavius Caietanus himself, everywhere so forming the name in his manuscript, where he also adds: By most she is believed to have been called Rosa Lea because she was of the Lea family. But these words were cut out by the editor of the work, because he believed that opinion false, as I judge. And in truth from all the other panels, one of Olivella excepted, and from the other monuments adduced, it is abundantly established that the true name is Rosalia, although at the time when the body was found most wrote Rosolea or Rosalea, until the Quisquina inscription was found. Perhaps the name was written by the Latins Rosalia, but by the Greeks Ροσολία, and thence arose the variety in writing. For the rest, Cascinus disputes much in chapter 5 about the origin of that name, which I let pass. I only observe that he there wrongly adduces the spurious chronicles of Dexter and others in order to show some ancient example of that name: for those Chronicles are fictitious; but that had not yet become known while Cascinus was writing.

[105] Salernus goes on from the name to the Saint's native place and family, writing thus: That Rosalia was born at Palermo of a most noble family, [she is commonly believed to have been born at Palermo of a noble and royal family,] which touched the royal family by kinship, an old report, as I have said, handed down from our ancestors confirms. Wherefore he reports that she was born and brought up in the royal court: of which thing a rich witness above all is Octavius Caietanus, whom I have praised. But Caietanus does not testify all that in his manuscript. Concerning her native place Palermo, however, both Caietanus and the other Sicilian writers commonly have agreed in one view. But concerning St. Rosalia's lineage there is greater disagreement. For all the more recent writers indeed whom I have been able to see acknowledge the Saint's most noble family, and will have it that she descended from Charlemagne; and most judge that she was also either a blood relation or a connection by marriage of the kings of Sicily. But they form the genealogical line in various ways, nor does any of them prove his opinion so clearly that the truth appears. This is certain, that the view that Rosalia sprang from the lineage of Charlemagne seemed at Rome so probable that it was inserted not only into the ecclesiastical Office but also into the Roman Martyrology. It is agreed besides that that view was afterwards attacked at Rome, so that it might be deleted from the Office and the Martyrology; but that it was so sharply defended by the Rev. Fr. Josephus Spucces of the Society of Jesus that nothing was changed. I have before me a manuscript Latin Discourse which the aforesaid Spucces composed to this end. But the letters and other manuscript monuments which are alleged in the aforesaid dissertation I have not been able to see; and therefore I can judge the whole matter less accurately.

[106] which the Sicilians trace back to Charlemagne: For which cause I have determined to abstain from those genealogical entanglements. But I shall only transfer hither, without further discussion, the words of Salernus, who summarily exhibits the Latin dissertation just mentioned, and an Italian discourse conformable to it, published in the appendix of Cascinus' work from page 31. That her father's name was Sinibald, he says, and that he was lord of Quisquina and of the Roses — a truly ample tract of lands — first became known to us from that same Quisquina inscription. And when Cardinal Auria, archbishop of Palermo, had inquired more diligently into the old report of her family, he established by the consent of so many nobles and learned men that the holy Rosalia drew her descent from the emperor Charlemagne, that in a matter so ancient, so many centuries distant from us, no greater nor better attestation could be desired. Wherefore he persuaded Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, not only that this should be added in the Martyrology of the Saints to the praise of our Virgin, but also, when the same matter came a second time into examination, that nothing should be moved from its place. And love of so great a Virgin impelled all the most learned to go on investigating how at last Sinibald the father traced his descent to Charlemagne; and likewise why either he or his parents came into Sicily and fixed their seat at Palermo. In which matter Jordanus Cascini of the Society of Jesus, the first writer of this history, came at last to this opinion, and easily brought over the rest by this summary of the very many matters which he adduces. Constance, the posthumous daughter of our King Roger, that she might marry the emperor Henry V, was honorably conducted from Palermo to Rieti by very many magnates: among these is reckoned Matthew, of the family of the Counts of Marsico, a blood relation of the same Constance, and either the son or the grandson of Sinibald. But this kinship of Matthew depends upon that Beatrice who, the daughter of Oderisius, the last count of Marsico, once married Roger, king of Sicily, and bore Constance. Upon this Sinibald, therefore, who, being either father or grandfather of Matthew, was a connection of King Roger, fall those marks which indicate that he was the father of the holy Rosalia. He indeed traces his descent from the emperor Charles, to whom the name of Great was joined; for this is proved of the whole family of the Counts of Marsico by monuments of writers as certain as they are ancient: he falls also into those times in which the father of the holy Rosalia must have lived, by reason of the age of his Daughter presently to be fixed. That he inhabited Palermo, Roger's royal seat, the journey of Matthew of whom I spoke is an argument; and it is likely that Sinibald adhered to Roger at the time when that king, as they relate, was carefully choosing from Italy and from other regions the most distinguished leaders and the administrators of his youthful kingdom; and I should readily believe that he was there enriched with Sicilian goods by the munificent king.

[107] But if this connection which I have just explained does not sufficiently satisfy the report handed down by our ancestors of Rosalia's kinship with our Norman kings, [she is said to be a kinswoman of King Roger: her father Sinibald was lord of Quisquina and of the Roses.] it will be permitted me to conjecture that Sinibald perhaps married a blood relation of King Roger (which we know befell other distinguished men also at that time), from whom he obtained both Rosalia and a most ample lordship by way of dowry: whence also that will draw a greater likelihood of truth which report has long since spread abroad, that Rosalia was born and brought up in the king's court. This at last I wish to be certain and fixed, that Sinibald the father of Rosalia was lord of Quisquina and of the Roses; for Rosalia herself inscribed this on her own cave; which I think was done in order that, after the custom of that time, she might make or employ a surname for her father Sinibald, by which he might be distinguished from others. Now Quisquina is that mountain which we now call Coschina, where there is a town named from Saint Stephen; the Roses they today call the mountain of the Roses, where the duchy of Bivona is. Nor was all this lordship so narrow that no excellent greatness of soul, disdaining fleeting things, was needed to despise it: and it is plainly to this that we wish those things to tend which we have just related — the brightness of her family, the pomp of the court, the abundance of riches from the lordship, the

hope resting upon these roots and propped by the protection of kinship with the king; for all these things exalt Rosalia, who despised them and was therefore loftier than they, more than if she had loved to guard them and, gaping after them, as often happens, had all but been their slave.

§ X. The Saint's birth, her girlhood, and other matters down to her departure to the solitude.

[ ] [The Saint is said to have lived at court and to have been dear to Queen Margaret,] The words of Salernus just given suggest that St. Rosalia not only lived in the court of the king of Sicily, but was also born and brought up in it. The same Cascinus asserts more strongly in the Latin Life to be published below, num. 1, where he adds: Certainly she was dear above all to Margaret, who, daughter of Garcia, king of Navarre, married William the son of Roger (in the year 1150). That she was dear to Queen Margaret has been gathered from Caietanus, who said that she was a handmaid of Margaret and received from her as a gift Mount Pellegrino; from which it is rightly gathered that she was dear to her in her lifetime. Nevertheless Cascinus afterwards, in the Italian work, page 185, attempted to draw those words into another sense, because he saw that they did not agree well enough with the epoch of her death which he had established. Cascinus' mind was set forth by Salernus in Caietanus' work, volume 2, page 151, where he speaks thus: In what year of human salvation the most upright soul of Rosalia flew away into heaven is uncertain to us. This alone the report coming down to us declares, that this happened about the sixtieth year above eleven centuries. Wherefore what our ancestors reported of Queen Margaret's goodwill toward Rosalia could pertain to the queen's piety toward a Girl already illustrious for the report of her sanctity. For Margaret reached at least the eighty-third year of the twelfth century. Although, if anyone should assign very few years to Rosalia's eremitic life, she might, dwelling in the court among Margaret's ladies of honor, have paid her service and been loved in return: for in the fiftieth year of that twelfth century Margaret married William, king of Sicily. Thus far Salernus, who preferred to doubt whether she lived at court with Margaret rather than to hesitate whether Rosalia died about the year 1160. Yet the first Caietanus wrote from tradition. But for establishing the year of her death about 1160, the Sicilians will never, I think, be able to allege any tradition. Wherefore I should rather believe the first, at least as probable, and accommodate the epoch of her death to that tradition, such as it is.

[109] [and this is conformable to tradition: but she does not appear to have been born at court:] Further, that St. Rosalia was born and brought up in the royal court is indeed read in the printed work of Caietanus; but not in the manuscript, from which rather the contrary is gathered, since he says she was born at Palermo and is silent about the court. Whence, therefore, Cascinus and Salernus could have drawn that opinion, I am wholly ignorant. Certainly they allege for it no ancient monument, no inscription or picture. Nay, it is little likely that Rosalia was born in the royal court, since she was the daughter neither of the king nor of anyone who appears to have dwelt in the royal court: for even if the nearness or connection of her father Sinibald with King Roger were certain, the kinship of Sinibald with Roger could not have been so near that it is likely that he dwelt with his wife in the royal court and there begot children. I therefore by no means judge that Rosalia was born in the royal court. But that she afterwards lived at court, whether she lived there in the time of King Roger or under William and Margaret, as Caietanus has it, is by no means improbable.

[110] she forsook the court or her father's house in her youth, as is believed. This opinion seems to be inserted in the Roman Martyrology, yet not so clearly that the eulogy cannot be explained otherwise, which is conceived in these words: At Palermo, the birthday of Saint Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, sprung from the royal blood of Charlemagne, who, for the love of Christ fleeing her father's princedom and the court, led a solitary, heavenly life in the mountains and caves. The words fleeing the court can be so expounded that she may be believed either to have lived at court or only to have frequented the court. In the Office, lesson 4, no mention is made of the court, but the Virgin's beginnings are there set forth thus: Rosalia the virgin, born at Palermo, drawing her origin of noble family from Charlemagne, withdrawing alone into the mountain of Quisquina, distant about forty miles, exchanged the wealth of her father's house, its delights, and the hope of greater eminence, by reason of her nearness to and the goodwill of the kings of Sicily, all despised, for the horror and roughness of a grim crag. So much concerning her girlhood, whether it was passed wholly in her father's house or partly at court. But from her father's house or the royal court the Virgin passed to a harder life. In what year of her age she forsook the world is known by no fit monument. If safe credit is given to the Olivella image, which is Cascinus' second and will presently be given, Rosalia was a girl hardly of marriageable age when she left the world; and that is the common persuasion, likely enough. But whether she was then only thirteen years old, as some will have it, cannot be said, since they bring forward no fit proof.

[111] This would be the place for inquiring whether St. Rosalia, when she forsook her father's house or the court, Thence to the solitude, as from the Olivella panel first embraced the monastic life in some monastery, or went off at once into the desert to the solitary life. But that dispute has been sufficiently discussed above. For which cause I shall here only recall in what ways the patrons of each view relate the holy Virgin's departure to the solitude. Cascinus judges that Rosalia fled secretly, accompanied by angels alone, and thinks that this is signified by the panel of the Palermitan church of St. Rosalia of Olivella, which I exhibit from him. Of this image Cascinus, chapter 7, page 189, reasons thus: Here St. Rosalia is seen, not in public, not before the king or her father, but alone hidden in an oratory, in a very pious posture of body, with knees bent and her head bowed with singular grace, as if asking leave to depart and a blessing from the child Jesus, who stands in the bosom of his most holy Mother. And he, turned toward Rosalia and raising two fingers, is in the attitude of one blessing; while the Mother also, gently regarding her and moving her hand to her breast, gives her as it were a pledge of her protection. Meanwhile there stand on this side and that two angels, as if awaiting her after the manner of companions on a journey. But behind, to the right, according to the laws of optics, is represented the ancient figure of Palermo with its Mount Pellegrino. By the mountain set on the left perhaps Quisquina is designated.

[112] One of those angels, who stands before her, at the right of the Virgin Mary and of the Infant, Cascinus gathers, and many believe, that she departed: holds in his hand a rather long traveler's staff, like another ancient Raphael for leading the young Tobias: for this angel is not St. Michael, as someone might perhaps suppose, because it is not a lance but a traveler's staff that he holds in his hand. He is indeed clad in arms; but these signify the war to which he was leading her, and the defense which he was promising her. The other angel, who is on her right and on the left of the blessed Virgin, since with one hand he holds a book and with the other a prayer-chaplet, exhibits a true likeness of an angel of prayer, as one who wished to show to what end he was leading her, God willing, to the solitude. Thus far Cascinus, who presently repeats again that by this whole picture nothing is signified except that Rosalia was led by God through the ministry of angels to an unknown place. But, as I think, the painter by those various symbols wished only to signify the divine call by which the Saint was inwardly moved to embrace a better life, whether that call was to the monastic life or to the solitary: for she is represented clothed in secular garments, so that she does not seem to be exhibited as one about to depart at once. It may also be doubted whether what that armed angel holds in his right hand is rather a traveler's staff, as Cascinus will have it, than a lance. For the other arms suggest that it is rather a Lance; but a better judgment about it can be formed by those who have been able to look upon the picture itself, which he calls most ancient and testifies on page 190 to be partly consumed by age. Another figure to be given below exhibits Rosalia as about to set out upon a journey in a far different manner.

[113] Further, whatever be the case with the ambiguous meaning of the image, I would not have the reader persuade himself that such a vision was set before St. Rosalia the great soul of Rosalia, as the picture exhibits in appearance; which not even Cascinus contends. For it is the pious meditation of someone who wished to represent by outward signs St. Rosalia's inward call, or the Virgin's clandestine flight to the solitude, as Cascinus believed, discoursing at length in chapter 7 on the excellence of that call. Cascinus' reasoning Salernus gave in compendium, whose words I subjoin: Moved by a heavenly impulse, the noble Virgin withdrew from the royal court, her native home, and her parents into the caves of a mountain to cultivate piety: but what were the beginnings of her holier life must be explained, or rather must for a little while be wondered at by us. Who does not plainly perceive that it is a thing entangled with six hundred knots of difficulties to cast away the glory of the world, when everything proceeds prosperously to one's wish — propped by the sure hope of greater eminence, animated by the king's goodwill, ample in past honors and to be enlarged by future increases of dignity? He who attempts these things must indeed be of a lofty soul, so that, quickened by a more effectual motion of divine grace, and having from a higher summit perceived the slightness of earthly things, he may learn to look down upon all — especially since those specious things must not only be spat out, but exchanged for the horror of a grim crag, the roughness of rugged rocks, and the company of wild beasts. Wherefore when we think of the holy Rosalia, we must look up to something sublime and greater than common estimation, which can be compared with the first and most famous cultivators of the desert.

[114] and the power of divine grace There are those who are so taken with the things that are subject to the senses that without them they can scarcely conceive anything distinguished in the mind. Wherefore, when they try to explain that divine motion of the soul from which they understand Rosalia's withdrawal into the solitude and her renunciation of things to have arisen, they can persuade neither themselves nor the crowd of the greatness of its impulse otherwise than by relating some appearance set before our Virgin's eyes, either of the suffering Jesus or some other unwonted one. But truly I have found nothing here as yet certain and firm: nor must so much be granted to the ears of the crowd that we invent these things. Rather must the untaught people be taught with how great an inflowing God enters and pervades the heart of man; and with how great an impulse he acts and turns it whither he will. Let him learn that the mind of men is easily drawn by the most holy allurements of the God who attracts, is struck with horror by his threats, and that it comes about by an omnipotent hand that whatever is hard in the heart gently softens, whatever is rough grows mild; so that the soul, sweetly captured, embraces sorrows and is most pleasantly estranged from the sense of delights. If these be lacking, that the appearances of pious things set before the senses bring nothing

of profit; but if they be present, that they profit equally without sensible images. Wherefore let us rather conjecture from the difficulty of the work, which she generously undertook and most happily carried through to the end, how great motions of soul and what rays of heavenly wisdom God sent into Rosalia's heart, and let us weigh them for the increase of our own good.

[115] from the difficulty of this design It will assuredly be easier for vines or ivies to rise up with no prop or support than for women to sustain themselves without the company of others. Wherefore Aristotle very finely compared them to matter, which cannot be destitute of its own forms. Nor do I here regard only the weakness of nature or of the body, but also of the mind and of judgment; for a woman's spirit cannot in arduous matters, and still less in undertaking the heavenly journey, urge forward a single step unless it be propped by the help and counsel of an author and master. But that not merely a woman but a girl, a wealthy Virgin, accustomed to the court, born of a prince, and set on the most ample summit of honors, should have hidden herself away in the recesses of the mountains, was far more difficult. Since therefore these things could not be unknown, they had to be overcome by the Girl's manly spirit, and not without the singular benefit of heavenly grace; wherefore that withdrawal of Rosalia was the worthier of admiration and praise the weaker her nature was. Moreover the purpose of those who betook themselves to places deserted by men was for the most part either to avoid the rage of tyrants armed for their destruction partly with terrors and partly with allurements, or to wash away their own crimes with the sweet tears of penitence. But Rosalia, neither driven by tyrants nor harried by the fury of the heathen, provoked by no reproaches, nor driven by the goad of penitence, sitting secure in the highest abundance and felicity of all things, for the love of Jesus Christ alone — as she herself testifies — chose for herself the bristling dwelling of the caves in place of the royal palace of Palermo. To the flight of very many from the fellowship of men there was certainly joined a love of themselves and of their own tranquillity, though not one to be despised: yet our Virgin's flight, undertaken for Christ's love alone, looked not to the shadow of peace but to the arena of a more violent contest to be entered with the enemies of the human race.

[116] Finally, the withdrawal of the first inhabitants of the desert turned out so happily under the beginnings of the infant Church that, when peace was already flourishing, for several centuries an innumerable multitude of men, by the impulse of a more divine breath and in zeal for imitation, kept themselves within the bounds of the solitude: it is shown at length: and then indeed the example set before them lessened the difficulty of the thing; especially since hardly anyone ever penetrated so far as to seem to have fallen out of the memory of all others; at least the care of the Fathers presiding in the monasteries regarded him from afar. But this Rose of ours flourished in the twelfth century, when, by the way of the times, those examples of men fleeing, I might almost say, from the world into the solitude had languished; nor did the imitation of any woman who then inhabited the desert in our Sicily drive Rosalia on; and she needs must there deceive the eyes of all, who entered upon her flight without consulting any, lest she be delayed; wherefore, feeling that she would soon be destitute of food, clothing, bed and home, either forgetful or careless of herself, she rushed — a thing above the manner and the strength of men — into the embraces of the God who called her.

[117] These are the things which sufficiently commend Rosalia's flight, entered upon by the most holy allurements of the God who loved her. it cannot be said that the Saint was stirred up by outward signs. For the rest, what occasion of things she seized upon, or God's counsel sent in her way, and whether he impelled her by sensible objects of divine things, are uncertain and hidden, and are still concealed from us. An ancient panel indeed exhibits the holy woman as about immediately to go into the desert in this fashion. To Rosalia bending the knee \ the infant Jesus, with two fingers of his right hand raised, as though about presently to bless her with the sign of the cross, appears to grant leave to depart. His fortunate Parent holds up the Child, and, with her eyes cast upon our Virgin and her hand set to her breast, displays the pledge of her patronage. On this side and that stand two angels in dress fitted for a journey; the one propped with a staff and with arms, the other carries a book and prayer beads, the sacred baggage of this pilgrimage. Nor would there, I think, have been omitted there any sensible appearances of things, if such had impelled Rosalia to undertake this flight.* So Salernus, rightly enough for the opinion which he follows. But now it must also be seen in what manner at last others bring St. Rosalia to the solitude: nor in their opinion will Rosalia lack the praises already recounted.

[118] By what steps Tornamira brings the Saint to the solitude, Tornamira in the Conjectural sketch, discourse 2, relates from conjectures Rosalia's call to the Order of Monte Vergine; but in truth he does not prove what he reports. Wherefore I shall only indicate very briefly the chief heads of the matter. On page 13 he says that the Saint was destined by her parents for marriage, and that at first she did not resist their will; but that in her mirror she saw the face of Christ Crucified, and by that vision was so changed that she determined to renounce the world. These things are drawn from the revelation of Maria Roccaforte, to whom most learned Sicilians deny that credit is to be given. Tornamira says, secondly, on page 23, that Rosalia, being thus affected, chose for herself as director of conscience St. William of Vercelli, founder of the Order of Monte Vergine, whom he had asserted to have come into Sicily at that time. He says, thirdly, on page 25, that by the counsel and help of St. William Rosalia fled secretly from her parents and came to the monastery of St. Mary of Buffiniana, and there began her apprenticeship in the monastic life. But it must be briefly noted that most Sicilian writers contend that there never was in Sicily a monastery of that name; nor is it sufficiently proved by Tornamira that it was there. On page 37 he says that Rosalia asked that she might be allowed to pass from the monastery to the anchoritic life, and he asserts on page 45 that this was granted her after she had lived about twenty years in the monastery, and had been examined after the custom of the Benedictine Order by Hugh, archbishop of Palermo, and had also obtained the consent of King William and Queen Margaret. But let these things suffice concerning Tornamira's conjectures, which are clothed with not a few circumstances openly false.

[119] and in what manner at last Justiniani does so: Justiniani in the manuscript Life sent to us sets forth the Saint's beginnings and call in these words: Rosalia the virgin, born in the twelfth century of noble parents drawing their origin from Charlemagne, and brought up in the royal court, moved by a heavenly prompting withdrew into the desert out of zeal for the solitary life: which life she exercised among virgins noble and distinguished by birth in the monastery of St. Mary, situated on the bank at the edge of the river Oreto, two miles distant from the city of Palermo, having religiously professed under the Rule of the holy Basil the Great. There still remain traces of this dwelling of hers in the boarding of the narrow cells of the virgins, which they point out; and on the wall an inscription written in rather large letters, which records that Rosalia was in that place. Some years afterwards, having changed their ancient seats and left that ascetery (of which even now the Basilian nuns hold the right of patronage), they removed into this monastery of the most holy Salvator, built within the walls in the house of Robert Guiscard and enriched with goods by King Roger in the year 1148. But Rosalia, loving the anchoritic life and furnished with the virtues necessary for undertaking it, according to the rules of the holy Basil the Great and the sacred canons, set out for the town of Bivona \. Before she set out from Palermo, for the sake of attesting her faith and goodwill toward her sisters, she laid a relic of the holy cross with the Greek page upon the altar of the holy patriarch Basil; which relic it seems likely to Fr. Jordanus Cascinus, the chief writer on the life of Rosalia, that Rosalia had from her ancestors and kinsmen returning from the war of Jerusalem.*

[120] The same relic is at present most diligently kept, together with the Greek writing itself, at Palermo by the Basilian nuns in the church of the most holy Salvator; of which writing these are the words rendered into Latin: but in the view of both there are not a few uncertainties. “I, sister Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, place this wood of my Lord in the monastery which I have always followed.” Thus far Justiniani, in whose conjectures also many things are uncertain and not very probable, although nothing can be convicted of open falsehood. §§6, 7 and 8 may be seen, where these matters have been disputed on both sides. Nevertheless receive briefly the chief points bearing on this which I have called uncertain. It is uncertain, first, whether the Saint was ever a nun. Uncertain, secondly, of what Order and monastery she was, if she really was a nun. Uncertain, thirdly, whether she had already bidden farewell to the secular life from the year 1148; and, fourthly, whether she set out for Bivona before she entered the cave of Quisquina. It is uncertain, fifthly, whether that particle of the holy Cross, and the writing found in the monastery of the Most Holy Salvator, belong to this Rosalia; and, sixthly, it is uncertain whence that particle was received: for the aforesaid Cascinus, book 2, chapter 21, page 319, does not treat of this cross, and therefore it ought not to have been adduced. Finally, those traces of St. Rosalia's dwelling in the monastery situated on the bank of the Oreto do not appear to have lasted from the time when the Virgin dwelt there, but to be recent, as I observed in num. 87. Wherefore the whole heap of Tornamira, as well as of Justiniani, is neither likely nor probable. But from this it cannot rightly be inferred that the Saint's monastic life is equally improbable: for probable reasons can be had for it, although for lack of monuments all the circumstances cannot be explained.

\* i.e. bending

\* al. Bisbona

§ XI. It is uncertain whether the Saint, before she came to the cave of Quisquina, lived as a solitary in another: the cave of Quisquina which the Saint inhabited is described.

[ ] [The people of Bivona have wished the Saint to have dwelt in their neighborhood; but this is not proved:] Tornamira in the Sketch, discourse 4, num. 20, page 47, writes that St. Rosalia had her apprenticeship in the solitary life in a cave near Monreale, and was thence afterwards transferred to that of Quisquina. He also enumerates various places through which he writes that the holy Virgin made her journey; but he mentions those places from mere conjectures and without any fit foundation, as he does many other things, which I have therefore determined not even to touch upon. But as regards a dwelling in the territory of Monreale, Cascinus acknowledges that it is not destitute of all foundation, who in book 2, chapter 9, page 205, discourses thus of the various places in which the inhabitants supposed St. Rosalia to have dwelt: I shall not omit here to note that some think she (St. Rosalia) dwelt in other caves also (besides those of Quisquina and of Mount Pellegrino, of which afterwards). First he examines the conjecture of the people of Bivona, who, from an apparition of St. Rosalia commanding that a sacred building be raised to her there, as Caietanus reports below in the first Life, supposed that the Saint had at some time dwelt there. But Cascinus refutes their opinion as less probable in these words: For up to this time the people of Bivona, however much they have dug beneath the church, have been unable to find any indication of any cave. But that rock upon which I said St. Rosalia, appearing, wished a church to be built for her, and from which they conjectured that she had lived there — when the earth around it had been dug away, it was found to rest with no other foundation

upon loose earth, until at last, digging beneath the church, they built a little chapel there, as I saw with my own eyes. From what has been said he concludes this: The conjecture is not sufficient to show that there was there a cave in which she dwelt, since no trace of it is to be had. It may indeed be that the holy Virgin passed several times through the wood which was then in that place: and, to say something certain, it is agreed that the place was of her own lordship, and that she therefore deemed it worthy of a singular heavenly protection.

[122] [the people of Monreale have more reason for such a suspicion; but the matter is uncertain.] Then he proceeds thus to the conjecture of the people of Monreale: The people of Monreale have some argument (for St. Rosalia's dwelling); since they point out that the neighboring shore has from of old and up to now its name from St. Rosalia, and lower down an abundant spring which they call the Nun's (della Monaca), who according to them is the same Saint. To these they add five caves or caverns, of which the middle one still exists today, the rest being destroyed: and they believe that she dwelt there; whence they invoke her there and obtain graces. But by that argument a dwelling is not proved. So Cascinus, who presently adds that it may more probably be inferred that some crypt was there dedicated to St. Rosalia as a church, as was done in other places, as will afterwards be said. For it was fitting that to her who had passed her life in crypts churches should be dedicated in crypts. Nevertheless the arguments of the people of Monreale are apt to bring in a suspicion of a certain cave inhabited there by the Saint, especially because it is agreed that the Saint once passed from one cave to another, so that there is no reason why she could not have done so more often. Moreover that place is not too far distant from Palermo, and was fit for the anchoritic life. Yet I gladly confess with Cascinus that the matter is uncertain, since he found no sufficient foundation for determining anything certain. For the rest, whether St. Rosalia at some time dwelt there, or whether that persuasion of the people of Monreale arose from elsewhere, this place favors the patrons of her monastic life, as I said in its place.

[123] [Tornamira's empty conjectures about the Saint's entry into the cave of Quisquina,] Tornamira in the Conjectural sketch, discourse 5, after a year's apprenticeship in the anchoritic life passed, as he will have it, in a cave near Monreale, brings St. Rosalia to the cave of Quisquina, and, indulging his conjectures too freely, describes the journey also. But although I have observed that a dwelling in the cave near Monreale is not destitute of all probability, it is certain that those conjectures about an apprenticeship passed there and a year's stay, as also about the journey undertaken, are empty and destitute of fit reasons. But Justiniani, beginning the Saint's anchoritic life from the cave of Quisquina, relates its beginning in these words: And so Rosalia, about to begin the ordered manner of life of the anchorites, withdrew to the cave of Quisquina in her father's estate, two miles distant from the village of St. Stephen and four from the town of Bivona, with that mind which she declared by letters carved in the rock: “I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, lord of Quisquina and of the Roses, for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ have resolved to dwell in this cave.” A more accurate description of the cave of Quisquina is given by Cascinus, book 2, chapter 8, with an accompanying figure which I shall give when the finding of that cave, discovered in the year 1624, is treated of. But here I annex Cascinus' third figure, in which he represents the Saint carving those words just quoted upon the rocks.

[124] I add also the description of the cave of Quisquina which Salernus put together more briefly from Cascinus, [which is described: its first part, in which the Saint's little bed is believed to be:] since this suffices for us to understand what a hard dwelling the Virgin chose for herself in that cave: But whither at last, he says, Rosalia withdrew, with the love of Jesus Christ for her guide, must be more fully related for the heightening of her praises. About forty miles from Palermo lie the mountain and wood of Quisquina. Here a long and twofold cave, not without a peculiar counsel of the Deity, runs into the mountain's flank: its first part extends for six or seven ells with a varying bend of its sides, which are distant from each other now four, now six palms; in the middle of that cavern there is hollowed out, as it were, a cave within the cave, on the left. Here you may find a whole oblong stone shaped almost into the figure of a little bed, and raised a little from the ground. It lies on a slight slope, so that it seems a pillow set for one sleeping. By degrees the rock rises up on either side, and with a higher summit imitates a canopy. There is added a convenience for one resting: whereas in winter time the cave is rained through everywhere, this one place is spared. That is more worthy of admiration, that that stone does not appear native, but brought from elsewhere — yet not by men's industry through those narrow entrances, which could not admit it.

[125] But before you reach the innermost limit of the cave, drawn back to the left you will find the entrance of the second part of the cave, the second part, in which she appears for the most part to have sat: of such narrowness and lowness as to strike horror into one about to enter: for no one will penetrate thither unless, between the rigid rocks, with arm and shoulder first stretched out, he creep forward for two or three palms. This second part of the cave is drawn out to the length of five ells, and in its inner and hindmost cell, larger than the rest, we judge that the Virgin for the most part sat: for it is fitter for use, and has a seat shaped, as it appears, by hand. Through a few chinks the cave receives a grudging light. There was then no opening there after the manner of a door, but a narrow entrance from a higher place admitted the Virgin as she came down by a slanting way; not otherwise than as if she were let down into a well. This is the opinion of Cascinus, in that he believed that opening by which the cave is entered today to have been too narrow to afford a passage; but the matter is uncertain and will be examined in §26. These are, Salernus goes on, the narrow confines of a sepulchral workhouse, for which Rosalia exchanged the most ample splendors of the royal palace of Palermo. The Virgin, ennobled by a lofty soul, strove after these most harsh things, because she knew that love is nourished by harsh things; and she who burned for Jesus came following him as he called her hither, and there fixed her seat undaunted.

[126] Where one had to descend into this hollow, on the left side a rock rose up somewhat broader and smoother, the inscription carved by her upon the rock, streaked by the nature of the stone and marked with several furrows. Here characters, two fingers' breadth in height, deeply carved by the Virgin's hand and arranged in nine unequal lines, expressed the meaning of a most lofty mind: and it came to pass, by God's will, that this inscription carved in the rock, which had, I think, escaped the eyes of all men and was before this unknown, was found in the cave of Quisquina within a few days after the body of St. Rosalia had been found on Mount Pellegrino at Palermo. To that cave, indeed, there lay adjoining on the outside an altar sacred to the holy Rosalia, to which of old, in extraordinary supplication, many were wont to go for the appeasing of the Deity, and sacred rites were then wont to be performed; but there was no report of that inscription. And it, carved on the rock by the Virgin's hand, was conceived thus: I Rosalia daughter of Sinibald lord of quisquina and of the roses for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ have resolved to dwell ini this cave. On what occasion and in what manner that inscription was found will be explained in §26, and in §27 a more accurate description of the whole place will be given, which consult.

[127] the reason of which is rendered, The Office of St. Rosalia, lesson 4, recording the aforesaid things, seems rightly to explain the intention with which the Saint carved the inscription given upon the rock, namely that those words might keep her ever mindful of her purpose. And into the cave, it says, to which there then lay open a single and indeed narrow entrance from a higher place, she descended undaunted with that mind which she expressed in the characters carved upon the rock and still visible: I, Rosalia, etc. With this inscription before her eyes, she was accustomed to fix more deeply in her heart the purpose of the life she had undertaken, and in turn to call forth signs of the divine goodwill to the caresses of her most chaste mind. This was assuredly a most honorable and excellent reason for carving such an inscription; and by this reason there vanishes the objection of certain men in Cascinus, book 2, chapter 3, page 171, who suspected that the Saint could be accused of vainglory if she were believed to have written things which could conduce to her own praise and glory. But (to say nothing of the fact that the Virgin could have carved those words for herself alone, not that they might be read by others) this empty scruple would easily condemn very many Saints of vainglory, since most of them did, said or wrote many things for which they deserved praise among men. But it does not always belong to vainglory to do praiseworthy things before men, but to do them openly with such an intention that one may vainly hunt after human praise; which was far from our Saint. But why she afterwards appears to have gone out of that cave, notwithstanding this purpose carved there, will presently be said.

§ XII. The Saint goes out of the cave of Quisquina, and enters the cave of Mount Pellegrino near Palermo.

[ ] The Saint went out of the cave of Quisquina, That it is by no means to be doubted that St. Rosalia dwelt in the cave of Quisquina and also in the cave of Mount Pellegrino, Cascinus shows in book 2, chapter 9. Of Quisquina he proves it from the neighboring places which received their name from St. Rosalia, and from the inscription just given that was found there. Of the cave of Mount Pellegrino, from the body found there, and from the perpetual tradition of the church of Palermo and of other churches also. Since these things seem certain enough, he inquires further what could have moved the Saint to depart from the first cave to the second. First indeed he observes that that change is not to be attributed to lightness or inconstancy in the Virgin, since change of place was usual with the most famous and most holy anchorites, as he shows by various examples. Those examples, to which many others could be joined, I do not transfer hither, because the matter is more certain than that any doubt can arise about it. Secondly he rightly notes that it may have come about that the Virgin's dwelling in the cave of Quisquina became known, and that for that cause it was deserted by a Virgin most loving of solitude, lest she be forced to admit visits. He confesses himself much inclined to this reason for the change, yet he adds another also, of which I shall presently treat.

[129] Tornamira in the Sketch, discourse 6, says that St. Rosalia was invited by Queen Margaret to dwell on Mount Pellegrino, perhaps because she had become too well known there, which he contends was given her to this end — and not improbably, as we saw before. The same writer in the Answers, pages 56 and 57, adduces various things from Philip Paruta by which both reasons seem to be joined. For the aforesaid Paruta in the same place, page 57, where he had said that a horrid cave two miles distant from the village of St. Stephen had been chosen by St. Rosalia — where in fact that of Quisquina is situated — proceeds thus: When it was afterwards spread abroad that an illustrious Virgin was leading an angelic life in the solitude, not a few came running to visit her and to commend themselves to her prayers in their infirmities and afflictions. So he in Italian,

and he repeats almost the same things with the words somewhat changed, adding the following: She was forced (for this cause) to return to Palermo. The same man again in the same place, page 56: Wherefore she afterwards returned to Palermo, and, having received from Queen Margaret, wife of William I, king of Sicily, Mount Pellegrino, where there was a thick wood, she inhabited a cave found there suited to her purpose. This the most ancient tradition of our ancestors affirms: this the cave declares, and the small church named from her: and the same Fr. Octavius Caietanus writes. Lastly the same Paruta in the same place: From the village of Saint Stephen (that is, from the cave of Quisquina) the virgin Rosalia, an enemy of visits, returned to Palermo to dwell on Mount Pellegrino. He again proves this fact from most ancient tradition, from report, from the cave and the small church of Rosalia, and finally from the authority of Caietanus, whom he likewise cites for the donation of Mount Pellegrino. Thus far Philip Paruta in the manuscript Life, which Mongitore mentions in the Bibliotheca Sicula, celebrating the author for his erudition and teaching that he died in the year 1629. Paruta therefore lived before the finding of the body, and wrote before the publication of Cascinus' Life, so that he could know the tradition as well as Cascinus himself.

[130] Franciscus Baronius in his metrical Work on St. Rosalia, which reason appears probable enough; which was printed in the year 1630, in epigrams 10, 11 and 12 gives plainly the same reason for the change of cave. Let us hear the tenth, published under the title, She flees from the cave of Bisbona.

When the holy woman's fame poured itself into the neighboring cities, / and the Trinacrian shore felt that a Glory had been born:

She seeks caves, she flees, and demands remote rocks again, / where she may pass her human days without honor.

This resolve, Rosalia, deceives your mind: / these hollow rocks nourish your great renown.

There follows the eleventh, of plainly the same sense.

Scarcely had Rosalia passed some years in the cave, / and scarcely had she set foot forth from the very hard crag,

When the holy woman's fragrance poured itself abroad, and the people, roused, are at hand: / and with swift step the holy woman hastens her flight.

Depart with favorable omen: great glory shall rise again for you; / this flight, holy woman, shall be the mother of honor to you.

The twelfth, under the title She searches out a cave, suggests the same again: for the poet brings in the Saint speaking thus with herself:

Let me seek another wood, Rosalia; let me the more swiftly seek the farthest caves of the realm, / overgrown, with their light-shunning wild beasts.

By these dark crags a cave must be approached by me more safely, / that I myself may the more safely flee renown.

Thus shall I elude the darkness, thus shall the wicked force of honor fall; / where no foot comes, no glory shines.

Thus far Franciscus Baronius, agreeing with Paruta in assigning the reason for the change of cave, which Cascinus acknowledges as probable. And indeed no other more probable conjecture can be assigned, since anchorites and hermits changed their dwellings chiefly for that cause. Nevertheless it is only a conjecture, and therefore by no means certain.

[131] another reason assigned for this change, Justiniani in the manuscript Life alleges an altogether different reason for the change of cave, which would seem exceedingly probable if all the things that are supposed as certain were altogether certain. But what, he says, was the cause of the design being changed and of her coming to the cave of Mount Pellegrino, that of Quisquina being set aside, a most probable conjecture teaches us. For since the estate and princedom of Quisquina and of the Roses had passed from the power of her deceased father into another's (which appears clearly from the donation made to the Cistercian monks by Count Matthew Bonellus, and confirmed by King William I in the year 1161), it was no longer convenient for the Virgin to remain there, but she had to withdraw elsewhere, that she might obtain a convenience whereby she might pursue with equal method the anchoritic life she had begun. With that design, therefore, returning to Palermo, she went off to Mount Pellegrino, not far distant from the city of Palermo, given her by Queen Margaret, etc. The aforesaid donation of Matthew Bonellus he confirms by various things from Cascinus' manuscript, from Pirri, and from a Greek instrument, that is, from Greek letters of King Roger, which were given in the year 1136. And from this he infers that that change of lordship, or transfer of the princedom of Quisquina and of the Roses, was made before the same year 1136.

[132] which is less probable: But many things in these matters are uncertain, and therefore it is not necessary to inquire more accurately into all the circumstances of the donation. First, it is uncertain whether Rosalia began the anchoritic life while her father Sinibald was alive, or after his death. Justiniani indeed cites various writers who believe that Rosalia went off into the solitude while Sinibald was living, since they assert that the Saint, on hearing of her father's death, came from the cave of Quisquina to Mount Pellegrino. But this appears to be drawn from the revelation of Sister Maria Roccaforte, since most of the writers whom Justiniani cites for that opinion followed that revelation. Secondly, it is uncertain whether the Saint embraced the anchoritic life before the year 1136; nay, this appears little probable if she was dear to Queen Margaret. Thirdly, that conjecture of Justiniani involves an open contradiction: for if already before the year 1136 Matthew Bonellus had received Sinibald's lordship, and therefore Rosalia was departing from Quisquina to Mount Pellegrino, how could the Saint receive Mount Pellegrino from Queen Margaret, who was not married to King William until the year 1150? Wherefore, if Bonellus was already in the year 1136 lord of Quisquina and of the Roses, Rosalia could not, on account of the changed lordship, withdraw after the year 1150 from the cave of Quisquina to Mount Pellegrino; and the whole foundation of a dwelling changed for that cause falls of itself, unless one should prefer to say that the Virgin withdrew when Bonellus had died and the place had passed to another's lordship: but that is to divine without foundation. Equally uncertain and improbable appears what some say, that the Saint passed from the one cave to the other because she had heard of her father's death: for the father had perhaps died before the solitary life was begun.

[133] Cascinus, besides the reason given above, which I have called the more probable, Cascinus prefers to attribute the change to a divine prompting, adds another, and attempts to prove it by the Bivona carvings; namely some sign of the divine will received by the Virgin. And he reasons about thus. Not except by a divine prompting did she go off to the solitude the first time, when she forsook her native place and her parents. It is not credible, therefore, that she passed from the one cave to the other without the same motion of the Holy Spirit, especially since by that passage she drew near again to her native place, which she had once forsaken. Then, from his own fourth and fifth figures, which I here exhibit, he discourses thus: This moreover the pictures confirm to us, which now and then prevail over writings: and however much they may not be most ancient, it suffices here that they have the antiquity of many years, since according to ancient traditions they so reported these things at Bivona. For beneath her elegant statue, where her life is represented in several images, they have exhibited her in the carving also in two caves. The exit of the one is so low that she had to bend herself while going out. And there two angels await her, of whom the one takes her as it were by the hand, while the other invites her to another cave and increases her escort. Now who would not at once recognize those two caves as that of Quisquina and that of Mount Pellegrino? Who would not see that the passage from the one cave to the other under angelic guidance has been designated and carved? Thus far Cascinus, with whom I readily agree, since he seems to mean nothing else than that by the angels is signified the inward prompting of God by which the Virgin was moved to pass from the one cave to the other. But with that prompting the reason given before rightly stands, as Cascinus also admits, who does not oppose this prompting to it but joins it to it.

[134] Franciscus Baronius, praised above, in epigram 13, [nor does this conflict with the reason given before: for she could by divine inspiration] whose title is She is led away by angels, seems to express more, when he sings thus:

Scarcely had she safely committed herself to the hard road, and scarcely / had the holy woman set her feet forth from the first threshold,

When a throng of wing-bearers, gliding down from heaven, receives her / as she goes, and strikes the stars with joyful songs.

Behold, all heaven, Rosalia, favors your undertakings, / and exults to have shown forth its wing-bearers.

But these things we may attribute to poetic license; nor is it to be at once inferred from the pictures given that St. Rosalia was led by angels appearing in visible shape, as some have written too freely, not sufficiently considering that such unwonted favors of heaven are not rashly to be asserted. The Office, lesson 6, has this concerning this passage: Then by heavenly counsel Rosalia transferred herself from the cave of Quisquina to a more horrid cave of Mount Pellegrino, nearly three miles from Palermo, so that, the harder the battle she joined with herself in sight of her father's house, the more laudably she might triumph over the despised allurements of the world. There lay hidden on the left a narrow hollow, which she herself, after her relics had been found, told a hunter who came thither, to whom she showed herself, was her pilgrim cell, where she had spent much of her life. Salernus expresses his mind thus: After some time, it is uncertain for what cause, but not without the Deity's nod, Rosalia migrated from this cave of Quisquina, with heavenly beings as companions and guides on the way, as the old painted panels declare: nor did she forsake caves, but exchanged them. She came into a cave of Mount Pellegrino, near Palermo, of which I shall speak when the finding of her body is to be treated. This only I note here, that a fuller harvest of afflictions was reaped by the Virgin here. This cave is hidden in the most rigid and inmost bowels of the mountain, and, lying open to the blasts of the North wind, grows more cruelly stiff, and is made muddy with a perpetual and greater dripping. Wherefore no other place there could be fitted for human use than a little hut, and as it were a little nest hollowed out of the rock, lying hidden on the left behind the then most narrow entrance of the cave, which would scarcely hold the Girl, who entered by creeping through the opening.

[135] seek a place more horrid, such as the cave of Mount Pellegrino is. Cascinus in chapter 9 compares the cave of Mount Pellegrino with that of Quisquina, and shows that the latter was more tolerable than the former, and consequently that the Saint passed to a harder and more difficult dwelling: both because the sun's brightness was more withdrawn from it, and a greater cold arose thence, as also on account of the winds, to which he says the cave of Mount Pellegrino is more exposed; and because it is narrower and damper than the preceding, and finally more bereft of all pleasantness of view. A more accurate description of it, together with a figure, will be given in §25, where that cave will be treated of as adorned in honor of the Virgin after the finding of the body. But now it must be inquired what manner of life the Virgin kept in those caves. But here we have nothing except various pictures, to which Cascinus attributes more than they seem to me to deserve, because I should rather believe that they were painted from conjectures than from knowledge of the deeds of the holy Anchoress, who appears to have been greatly anxious that her deeds should lie hidden from men and be known to God. Yet I shall give all Cascinus' figures, that the prudent reader may also behold with his eyes upon what foundations his conjectures rest.

§ XIII. Conjectures concerning the Saint's doings in each cave.

[ ] Whether the Saint had any intercourse with men: Cascinus, book 2, chapter 10, attempts to show that Rosalia's solitude was so great that she never became known to any mortal, and that she lived without a director of conscience and of the spiritual life, without the use of the Sacraments, and finally without any human help, known to God and the angels alone. But that this opinion, however much it has pleased many, was unknown before Cascinus, and can therefore be called modern, and does not seem probable enough, has already been said in §4. Tornamira denies that Rosalia was so hidden away, as does Justiniani also. The former gives her various directors of the spiritual life, whom I do not care to name, because they are gathered from no ancient monument, but rather appear to have been invented without any probable reason. Justiniani, however, did not venture to name St. Rosalia's directors; but he attributes to the Saint rather more intercourse with men than I could wish. Yet receive his words: With that design, he says, returning to Palermo she went off to Mount Pellegrino … where she might lead a Life removed from the company of others, and, according to the institute of the anchorites, might come down into the city for the celebration of the more solemn feast days, might provide for the necessaries of life, might visit the queen, by whom she was wonderfully honored, in the service of a grateful mind, and might exhibit to the citizens examples of piety and religion and lessons of the other virtues. I should not believe that the Saint was accustomed to go out of her cave; but it is likely that she was not without a master of the spiritual life, by whom the most sacred mysteries could be administered to her in the cave. Nevertheless nothing certain is to be determined about an uncertain matter.

[137] Cascinus' sixth figure, which I here represent, exhibits various instruments what were the afflictions of her body: with which the Saint is believed after the anchoritic manner to have afflicted her body. Cascinus, discoursing of these in chapter 12, prudently says on page 226 that he cannot divine in what various ways, and by which in particular, Rosalia piously raged against her own body. He rightly observes that most likely conjectures can be made about her sparing and hard food, her frequent and rigid fasts, her rough clothing, and the blows inflicted on her innocent little body with various scourges. But he prudently adds these words: But I should not dare come to the particular ways (of afflicting the body) which were familiar to St. Rosalia, lest I weave a pious meditation for well-founded history; even though an account of it may seem to be set forth in the ancient pictures by the various instruments of penance: for I should rather believe that those things are painted there as the accustomed trophies of solitaries, and as their exercises, of which no one doubts. Rightly, I think, does Cascinus conjecture that the accustomed penances of solitaries are expressed by the aforesaid images rather than Rosalia's particular ones, although otherwise it can scarcely be doubted that she herself employed like chastisements of the body. The Office and Salernus seem to attribute rather more to the image; but I shall more conveniently give their words below, since they treat of several pictures together.

[138] Cascinus' seventh figure, which I subjoin, seems to be expounded figuratively. whether the seventh figure seems to be explained in the obvious sense; Cascinus disputes about it in chapter 17, where he suspects on page 260 that Rosalia perhaps, while she from time to time went out of her cave, gathered roses and other flowers growing in the neighborhood, and wove from them crowns which she offered to God with pious affection, as the image expresses, if it be explained in the proper sense. I render Cascinus' own words into Latin: This thought is favored by the ancient pictures, and especially by that which is on the roof of the church of Olivella, where the Saint, resting on her knees, but above a cloud raised a little from the ground, offers a small basket full of flowers. And an angel, likewise with knees bent, helps her with both hands as she lifts it, in order, I think, to show her how pleasing to heaven were those roses and flowers offered with so great an affection of reverence. But if some should wish to understand figuratively by those flowers her ardent prayers, which were no less acceptable than any crown of flowers, it can nevertheless be believed without difficulty that she offered gifts to the blessed Virgin Mary of true and natural flowers also, because love is ingenious in applying its industry and labor on every occasion in order to please, etc. That thought of Cascinus about flowers gathered in the neighborhood of the cave and offered in the aforesaid manner does not appear to me very likely; because it seems to me more probable that Rosalia was so shut up in her cave that she never went out of it: for this agrees better with the institute of recluses, and can better be gathered from the Saint's own words: In this cave I have resolved to dwell. Wherefore I judge that by the flowers must be understood pious prayers, or the various virtues, which may also be signified by flowers.

[139] Cascinus' eighth figure, which follows, signifies the divine favors whether likewise the eighth, the eleventh, the twelfth and the thirteenth: with which the solitary Virgin was heaped up by the Deity's kindness. Further, Cascinus in chapter 15, whose title is The converse of St. Rosalia with the angels, disputes at great length about the offices of angels toward men, and especially toward St. Rosalia, whom he asserts to be almost everywhere painted with angels, and therefore to have been named the angelic Virgin. And of this picture he speaks thus on page 248: A picture which not only expresses the gifts of earthly and heavenly flowers, but represents besides the flowering desires of the contemplating virgin Rosalia, and the increase of that same contemplation which was born thence; as also the other gifts of her heavenly Spouse, since all that sacred business is carried on by the hands of angels. This he explains a little more, and confirms it by these words of St. Bonaventure concerning the angels: For they are the bearers of lights, and the raisers of intellects to receive illuminations. By these things and by many others which he disputes at length, he seems sufficiently to declare that the figure is not to be understood of a visible ministry of angels but of an invisible one; and this appears to me far more probable, since it is the invention of the painter, who by these figures wished to express Rosalia's various graces, virtues and heavenly gifts, and not a historical representation, so far as appears; as must likewise be said, it seems, of the eleventh, twelfth and fourteenth figures, by which various graces are represented in figures. Nevertheless Cascinus in the same chapter supposes other favors also to have been rendered to St. Rosalia by the angels: for on page 247 he speaks as if he had believed that flowers and fruits were really offered to St. Rosalia by angels, and likewise he says on page 251 that she was refreshed by angelic music, because the twelfth figure exhibits angels with musical instruments. Nay, he also suspects on page 251 that food was for some time supplied her by the work of angels, referring back to what he had said on page 224. But such things need a more solid foundation than images not very ancient, or conjectures drawn from the examples of other Saints.

[140] the temptations of the demons overcome, Of St. Rosalia's temptations and of her battle with the demon Cascinus treats at length in chapter 20, where he exhibits the ninth figure, here inserted. But he reasons only from her institute of life, the place of her dwelling, and other things already reported or not bearing on this, and brings forward no ancient monuments, alleging only two images in which some indications of diabolical temptation are found. Wherefore it will be enough to transfer hither his dissertation in compendium from Salernus, who at the same time expresses his own opinion about certain images just given, writing thus: It was certainly necessary that she (St. Rosalia) should fight strenuously with the spirits, powerless against her, the authors of crafty machinations, while they recalled to her memory the majesty of her family, the caresses of the royal house, the opportuneness of her marriageable years; while at the same time they set before her the harshness of the cave, the solitude of the place, the dangers of her life: and presently brought in trouble of soul, weariness of life, sorrow or anger, and pressed on to the Girl's destruction. Wherefore the old panels show the monsters of Tartarus slipping away in flight for horror at the sight of the Virgin raging sharply against herself with an iron chain. For it was necessary for her to waste herself with perpetual fasts, vigils, and other such conflicts of the body; for the soul is not better nourished than by slenderness and roughness of food, nor from any other source are provisions and the instruments of war more happily got ready for sustaining the battles of the demons. Here Rosalia lived with no use of human things, after the measure of Divine love, under whose guidance she had come thither, and by which she was willingly detained.

[141] and the divine consolations received: Wherefore, since the images painted of old express nothing more frequently than Rosalia's blessed intercourse with the heavenly ones, with the Mother of God and with Jesus the Savior, and baskets of flowers and garlands for the head as caresses, they plainly hint by what cares and delights she was held in so great a harshness of place and of all things. For the flowery chaplets, arguing virtues and riches flowering in her soul, show how sweet a fragrance of heavenly contemplation breathed forth from that most chaste breast to those above. Thus far Salernus, whose words look also to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth figures, which I transfer hither. And of these this is read in the Office: That she overcame with a brave spirit the crafty snares of the demons, which brought into her mind weariness of the harsh life and horror of the solitude, by raging fiercely against herself with an iron chain, by vigils and by lying on the ground, the ancient images signify. And since, destitute of human supports, she drew no consolation from anywhere but from heaven, the Lord, who consoles and crowns his Saints, often refreshed her with angelic delights. So much concerning them from the Office, drawn from the images given, which are not all of the same antiquity; and they may be so called ancient that nevertheless most of them are several centuries later than the age of St. Rosalia. For this cause, I think, nothing particular is asserted as certain; but it is only said that the aforesaid harshnesses of life are expressed in the images; while that she was refreshed with angelic delights is affirmed in general; and this would be altogether likely even if the images were lacking, because the Divine goodness is wont to bestow heavenly consolations abundantly on his Saints in return for earthly consolations forsaken.

[142] Cascinus in chapter 16 disputes much on occasion of the tenth figure, whether the Marian chaplet was in use with the Saint: in which he exhibited the Saint with a Marian chaplet, because prayer beads were found with her body. He does not dare to affirm that the Marian chaplet or the rosary was recited by the Saint, because he judges that the institution both of the rosary and of the chaplet is more recent, and is to be attributed to St. Dominic. I am not ignorant that the institution of the rosary is in fact ascribed by many to St. Dominic. But that that view is not altogether certain, and that the beginning of the rosary is attributed by others to Peter the Hermit, who flourished about the end of the eleventh century, while to others the use of the rosary appears still more ancient, is shown at length by us in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Dominic, §§19, 20 and 21, that is, volume 1 of August, page 422 and following. Perhaps Cascinus, if he had known that the use of the rosary is set by some as older than St. Rosalia, and that that view is not without its probability, would have judged that the beads found with St. Rosalia belonged to her Marian chaplet, whereas on page 259 he will have it that Rosalia's chaplet was some other one for reciting the Lord's Prayers and the angelic salutations. I confess that the whole matter seems to me uncertain, since she could have had those beads for another use, or for other prayers

to be multiplied; but if it were established that Lord's Prayers and angelic salutations were counted on those beads by the Saint, it might also probably be said that the chaplet was Marian, and that it was used by Rosalia.

[143] What Cascinus discourses concerning the eleventh and twelfth figures in chapter 17, from page 264, I do not care to sift at greater length. with what crowns she was wreathed. For I can hardly persuade myself that anything else is signified by those crowns which are set upon St. Rosalia's head by the child Jesus than the crown of graces and virtues with which he marked her out on earth, and that of everlasting glory with which he crowned her in heaven. The author of the Office, lesson 6, writes things agreeing with these in this manner: Here, moaning like a dove in the clefts of the rock, fixed in the contemplation of heavenly things, she passed her life in the solitude after the most perfect rule of divine love, and most holily laid it down, crowned with the perennial roses of charity and the lilies of virginity. Finally, how long a time the Saint led that austere and anchoritic life in the mountains and caves, I profess myself utterly ignorant, since for want of monuments not even a probable conjecture can be formed about it. For which cause I proceed to the Saint's blessed death.

§ XIV. The Saint's death and burial.

[ ] In what manner the Saint's death is related by Cascinus and Salernus: Cascinus, about to dispute in chapter 18 concerning the death of St. Rosalia, confesses that among the very many ancient images none is found from which one may be made more certain about the manner of her death. He thinks, however, that from the position of the body when found he can teach by what death the holy Anchoress passed to a more blessed life. Wherefore he wished to exhibit an image of her dying peacefully, gathered from the position of the body as found, in the thirteenth figure, which I here represent. But by what conjectures or reasons he so formed that figure will presently appear. Salernus sets forth Cascinus' mind thus briefly: A life most holily spent was received by death, about to carry it over to immortality. When therefore Rosalia understood that she must depart, then, as she had lived to God alone in the horror of the solitude, so, tenacious of her purpose, she admitted, as it appears, the dutiful company of no man: which we read was likewise done again and again by the great anchorites. Upon the bare ground, then, of her pilgrim cave she composes herself: her right hand she sets like a pillow beneath her drooping head; with her left she holds in her bosom the sacred likeness of Jesus Christ crucified, with prayer beads twined about her fingers and hanging down: and, pierced by no other dart than that of love, Rosalia on the day before the Nones of September breathed out her rosy soul, to grow green again forever in heaven. In this position exactly, and in this dress, the Virgin's body was found after nearly five centuries: and from thence it was first permitted to conjecture that she had been afflicted with the labor of no wasting disease, since she presents the appearance rather of one sleeping than of one wrestling with death. Thus far Salernus, according to the mind of Cascinus, whose reasoning must be diligently sifted.

[145] the chief heads of the account are assigned, to be examined. First it is asserted that no mortal was present with Rosalia as she died, with nevertheless some indication of doubt added by the words as it appears. Secondly it is explained in what position of body the Saint met death; and from that position it is gathered, thirdly, that Rosalia died not of any disease or infirmity but of the sheer violence of divine love. Fourthly, for the day of her death the fourth day of September is assigned, on which the Saint is venerated. A great and wonderful favor indeed is attributed to St. Rosalia when she is asserted to have died without disease, as is believed of the most blessed Virgin Mary. But the more excellent and the more unwonted that grace is, the more certain and solid arguments are required for affirming it. Wherefore there is no reason why the Sicilians, most loving of St. Rosalia, should take offense when they see me not at once acquiescing in Cascinus' authority, but inquiring with a severe examination into each of his reasons, and admitting nothing as certain unless it be proved by certain reasons, especially where the matter treated is of the highest moment, such as a death met from love alone. Let us see, therefore, on what foundation each of the things alleged rests. And first indeed we must begin from the position of the body as found, because all Cascinus' arguments are drawn from it.

[146] The body of St. Rosalia, when it was found on Mount Pellegrino, [It is shown that the position of the body as found could not be sufficiently known,] as will be related in its place, was in a hollow rock, whose length was drawn out to six palms and more, while its breadth and height were contained within nearly three, says Salernus. Now in a part of that rock they first found the skull, and by that indication afterwards the rest of the body. But they never saw the whole body; rather, the stone being broken into many parts, they at length found all the bones in those various fragments of the rock. I ask, then, how rightly could Cascinus, or anyone else, judge of the position of the body, if no one ever observed that position? It appears certain that the position of the whole body could not be accurately represented, because some of the bones were found in very many fragments; nor does he anywhere assert that those bones were afterwards brought back to the former position which they had had in the stone, or that this could really be done. The one thing which Cascinus observed about the position of the body, and from which he gave by conjecture the position of the rest of the body, is what he relates on page 271. While he was diligently surveying with his companions the several fragments of the shattered rock, he came to a fragment large enough, and the largest of all, as he afterwards believed. Now in that fragment was the lower part of the head with some little bones attached to the head, which by three anatomists who were present were said to be fingers, and indeed of the right hand, because, he says, they were attached there where the head is joined to the neck on the right side. This is the reason why Cascinus represents Rosalia with her right hand set beneath her head. But the prayer beads that were found, one of which was among the fingers of the left hand, moved him to attribute a Marian chaplet to that hand. What he had for her clothing and for the rest of the position of the body besides conjectures, I do not know. The Crucifix he probably put in her left hand because a tiny cross was found with the body, as also a broken image of the Crucified, which also befitted the Saint.

[147] Now from the fingers found together with part of the head it does not follow nor can anything be inferred from that position as to the position of one dying: that the Saint, about to die, composed herself in that position of body, since it could have come about in many other ways that the fingers were afterwards joined to the head. For it can hardly be believed that the Saint's body was found in the fifth century after her death in exactly the same position in which Rosalia had composed herself as she died; especially since the Saint's body was found fifteen feet beneath the earth, and she could not have composed herself for death beneath the earth, so that the place in which the body was found was a place of burial, not of dwelling — unless one should wish to say that in that same place there was a narrow subterranean cave in which she had dwelt, and that it was afterwards filled up by the falling earth of the mountain. But neither Cascinus nor Salernus contends this, since they will have it that the Saint was probably buried by angels; and, if the Saint had really died in that place and had afterwards been covered by so great a mass of falling earth, the position of the body could have been notably changed. I do not see, therefore, on what ground the position of one dying can rightly be gathered from the position of the body as found, whether we suppose that the Saint's body remained without burial in the same place in which she had died, or whether we suspect that the sacred body was buried by angels: for if angels had shown the honor of burial to the Saint, why could they not equally have changed the position of the body, as is wont to be done in burial? But I shall prove below that the Saint was probably buried by the hands of men; and thus what Cascinus has discoursed about the position of one dying, and represented in the figure, utterly falls to the ground.

[148] Nevertheless let us suppose for a moment that St. Rosalia died in that position nor from the position of one dying, if it had really been such, in which Cascinus represented her dying; and let us see whether from thence the rest, gathered from that position, legitimately follows. From the hand set beneath the head he first gathers that the Saint died weakened by the vehemence of love alone, reasoning thus: Since we see that God has uncovered to us that holy hand, so peacefully set at the head of the dead virgin Rosalia, who does not at the same time see that all indications of a graver disease, or of the trouble of death, are absent here — on which occasions the arms and head fall and the limbs are disorderly placed? But here on the contrary we see only indications of a peaceful weakness in a gentle posture, since Rosalia both raises her arm and employs her hand as a pillow to support her head; and, more like one placing herself to sleep than one wrestling with death, so holds herself up even to her last breath. And so that spirit departed from the cave to heaven, not by the force of a fever but of love, to her most sweet Lord and Spouse Jesus Christ, as being the spirit of her who out of the same love of him (the Lord) had shut herself up in a cave. So reasons Cascinus, or his interpolator, more piously than solidly, so that he rightly prefixed to these words these: Unless devotion makes me see one thing for another.

[149] anything as to a death met without disease: For who, unless out of his own piety he has formed for himself I know not what meditations and imaginations, would at once infer from the little bones of fingers found with the bones of the head: This person died without disease; or This person is more like one sleeping than one wrestling with death? Who would fashion for himself out of dry bones the appearance of one sleeping, if he looks upon part of a dried-up head joined with the little bones of fingers? Such, however, is Cascinus' reasoning, which I should not so seriously refute if I did not see that it has pleased others. I say Cascinus' reasoning, because it is set forth in his posthumous book. But I rightly doubt whether it is Cascinus' own: for since it is agreed that his work was interpolated, and since in the Latin Life Cascinus does not say that Rosalia was pierced by the dart of love alone, I very strongly suspect that that opinion was stuffed into his work along with many others. But whether that opinion be Cascinus' — which I do not believe — or another's, I freely declare that one must not so reason about the deeds of the Saints, nor gather such privileges of theirs from conjectures so slight. Assuredly reasonings of this kind can by no means please the Saints themselves, since they are no less humble in heaven than they were in life, nor, now glorious, do they shrink less from fictitious praises than they shrank from vainglory while they aspired on earth to the heavenly and true glory.

[150] nor is a solitary death sufficiently proved from that or from elsewhere. The second thing which some wish to be gathered from the position of the body (and which Cascinus himself asserted in the Latin Life, although he did not there infer it from the position of the body) is a solitary death, with no mortal present. Let us hear Salernus discoursing for that opinion from the aforesaid position of the body. If besides, he says, any of mortals had been present in that place (with the dying Rosalia), he would surely have composed at her breast

both the Girl's hands, as is usual: he would after the custom have carried out the sacred remains on a bier to the sacred cemeteries not far distant, and would not have buried them under the earth, which was growing muddy to their ruin with the drops of water falling one by one. Wherefore, as she had led a solitary life, so, willingly and gladly, as I think, she endured a solitary death. This reasoning is less absurd than the preceding, yet it does not certainly establish what is claimed. For I do not judge that the Saint died without human help, unless she was overtaken by a sudden death, or died of an illness so brief that during the whole time of the disease no one came to her, because no one knew that she was sick. But that is not to be presumed; nor would she then have endured a solitary death willingly and gladly, but would have abstained from the last Sacraments by necessity rather than by her own will. And as for the argument drawn from the place of her tomb, it is not of such moment that it can be believed that the Saint lived on Mount Pellegrino unknown to all mortals and met a death there equally unknown, since from the most ancient cult it is far more certainly gathered that Rosalia was not unknown to all, as has been shown before. Why she was buried on the mountain rather than in some neighboring cemetery, we do not know; but this could have happened for various causes, as we shall presently say.

[151] Tornamira in the Conjectural sketch, discourse 6, num. 25, asserts [Tornamira asserts that the last helps of the dying were administered to the Saint,] that the last helps of the dying, that is, the sacraments of Penance, of the Eucharist and of extreme Unction, were administered to the holy Anchoress by St. Elias of Aquileia, her spiritual father, in the presence of St. John of Nusco, abbot of Monte Vergine in Sicily. But it cannot be shown that that Saint Elias of Aquileia was ever in Sicily, since he is unknown to all the Sicilian Martyrologies, and no notice of him is had from any ancient documents, as Mongitore observed in the manuscript dissertation transmitted to us, in which he refutes very many of Tornamira's assertions. That John of Nusco, whom Tornamira makes to found many monasteries of the Order of Monte Vergine in Sicily, is equally unknown in Sicily, the aforesaid Mongitore testifies and proves at length. But for my design it is not necessary to prove these things at length: wherefore let it suffice to have said that by no ancient monument, by no fit reason is it proved that that Elias or John of Nusco was ever with St. Rosalia, or rendered her any offices; and that everything asserted about them in Tornamira is not even worthy of serious refutation.

[152] Justiniani speaks thus of St. Rosalia's death in the manuscript Life: [as also Justiniani, who will have it that she died of the plague, but without fit reason:] And so, when she had passed her life piously and holily in the cave of Mount Pellegrino, Rosalia, being infected by the pestilence with which Palermo was grievously afflicted, having sent for a priest and being refreshed by him with the heavenly banquet and anointed with the sacred oil, the virgin Anchoress passed to her Spouse Jesus on the fourth of September about the year 1160, and was buried there. Various things in these are likewise uncertain. First, it is uncertain whether St. Rosalia died of the pestilence. For this conjecture of his he cites in his annotations, folio 31, various authors who assert that about the year 1160, when the body of St. Christina, virgin and martyr, is said to have been translated to Palermo, that city labored under a grievous pestilence. Concerning that translation volume 5 of July, pages 498 and 499, may be consulted. Meanwhile I observe that none of the writers praised by Justiniani says that Rosalia died of that plague; and since nothing certain can be determined about the Saint's year of death, as I have proved before, from the pestilence of that time, even were it certain, it cannot be gathered that Rosalia died of the plague. Nay, even if it were established that the Saint died at the time of the plague, from that it would not certainly follow that she died of the pestilence, since at a time of plague some are wont to die of other diseases also. Moreover that plague of the year 1160 lacks the authority of the ancients, and therefore is exceedingly uncertain. Some writers have asserted it from the Life of St. Rosalia written by Maria Roccaforte, to whom we give no credit. Others gather it from a most trifling conjecture, because on the door of a certain chapel of St. Christina these words were once carved, Here is the deliverer from your plague, which Mongitore in his manuscript dissertation against Justiniani testifies are now read on the door of the sacristy. From these words Cascinus, book 1, chapter 6, gathers that Palermo was delivered from the plague by St. Christina at the very coming of her body, that is, in the year 1160. But the aforesaid Mongitore observes that Cascinus' conjecture is mistaken, and that probably the plague of the year 1497 is meant, when, he says, the door was built. Wherefore that opinion of Justiniani has no fit foundation; nor can anything but a slight conjecture be brought forward for it, namely that St. Rosalia is a patroness against the plague: but there are several patrons against the plague, although they were not seized by pestilence.

[153] [it is likely that the Saint received the last Sacraments; but it is uncertain, like many other things.] Secondly, what is said about the priest being called to the sick Rosalia is likely; but for want of monuments uncertain. Maria Roccaforte indeed asserts that a priest named Cyril was called by an angel to the sick Rosalia, from whom others, her followers, took it; but I have already noted from time to time that that Life is unworthy of credit. For which cause it is probable and likely, from the custom of Christians and of the anchorites too, that the last Sacraments of the Church were administered to the dying Rosalia by some priest; yet it is not altogether certain, just as the cause of her death is plainly uncertain and unknown. Nay, both the year and the day of her death are equally uncertain. Of the year this has already been shown above. But the day seems certain enough to most Sicilians, since they assert constantly and without hesitation that Rosalia died on the fourth day of September, which is also read inserted in the Office. But if proof be sought, they will allege this one only, that Rosalia has always been venerated on that day. Now this proof of the day of death has indeed some probability and likelihood; but it is by no means certain, since not a few Saints are venerated on a day other than that on which they died. And this happens chiefly when the day of death is unknown. But whatever be the case with those doubtful circumstances of her death, it is certain that by it the Saint passed to a better life; and this Cascinus' fourteenth figure signifies, which I insert in this place.

[154] The Saint was buried on Mount Pellegrino: that this was done by angels, That the Saint was buried on Mount Pellegrino, all writers with one voice have handed down, both before the finding of the body and after the body was found there. That the angels rendered this office to the Saint, Salernus contends with Cascinus and other more recent writers, writing thus: Rosalia's tomb was laid there on Mount Pellegrino; but that it was built by the wonderful ministry of angels most are persuaded from this, that we behold a new form of tomb which is beyond men's industry. A stone drawn round the bones on every side, without joint or chink, no otherwise than a globe cast of bronze, embraced the Virgin's body in its hollow, that it might not be violated by the injuries of time or place. I should not deny that in some places falling drops of water turn to stone: but that this stone of ours grew together from that perennial flow I shall not believe. It lay buried in deep soil almost fifteen feet down, so that, removed on every side from the solid rock of the mountain, it was wrapped about only by diggable earth. But why should I judge that only that soil which was nearest the blessed body was so fortunate as itself alone to harden into stone by the aid of the waters, while the rest, below and above the rock, conceived no solidity? Not that part of the cave only, but the whole cave everywhere is rained through with frequent drippings. Nor yet has the soil elsewhere been seen to turn to stone.

[155] In a remote part of the cave a few bones of the dead had been buried, but not wrapped in stone compacted out of the soil; Cascinus and Salernus strive to prove: nay, these bones of others appeared black from the dripping of the waters, eaten away, decayed, hideous. But on the contrary it is wonderful how greatly the relics of our Virgin shone with a noble whiteness, like ivory: how greatly the marrow, already dry in the bones, interwoven with the finest fibers and without decay, here grew golden yellow, there whitened purer than silver or crystal. Moreover that stone so passed through the passages of the bones, the very skull of the head, the cavity of the mouth, that it preserved to the bones their native solidity and beauty, no otherwise than if it took the place of balsam, or of some other amulet against the devouring power of time. Finally, no one would ever see in that tract of country such a variety and beauty of colors as we admire in that stone under its rough rind; it is many-colored: in one place it counterfeits crystal in its brightness, with the light broken into many angles; sometimes it passes into hyacinth, gleaming with a dark-blue color; partly imitating the sea-green flash of the beryl, partly it degenerates into other gems with an appearance plainly admirable. And all these things not undeservedly persuade us that so lofty a structure of this tomb is to be attributed not to the powers of nature but to the singular providence of God the maker; so that the honor with which God once pursued the bodies of other Saints, when he had caskets prepared for them by the hands of angels, he bestowed the same upon Rosalia, a monument of his divine love; and at the same time, while he took care that a tomb should be built for the guarding of the Virgin's mortal and baser part, he manifestly declared how great delights he conferred upon her immortal soul, consecrated to himself of its own accord by the bond of charity. But if he willed that for so many years and centuries that body should lie hidden and unknown, buried in deep soil, he decreed that this should be kindly repaid by a greater benefit for the preservation of her country, and by more famous increases of the Virgin's cult. Thus far Salernus, whose reasoning does not seem of such strength as to be able to draw all to assent, as will appear more fully when that stone coffin is treated of in num. 263. Assuredly a burial procured by the hands of angels is not so usual a thing that it ought easily to be asserted from certain conjectures, especially since antiquity was wholly ignorant of so great a privilege of St. Rosalia: for no ancient picture represents such a burial of the Saint; no writer before Cascinus mentioned it even by conjecture.

[156] Cascinus says on page 274 that the strongest argument for an angelic burial but it is more probable is that the Saint lived so solitary that she was utterly unknown; nor do I deny that this would be the chief argument for such a burial, provided that supposition were sufficiently proved: for the Saint could not be buried by a man if her life and her solitary death were unknown to all men. But as I have shown before, from the ancient cult and from other reasons, that the Saint was probably not unknown, so from the ancient notice of the Saint's burial on Mount Pellegrino it seems rightly to be inferred that she was buried there by the work of men. That Rosalia lived on Mount Pellegrino, and there died and was buried, Caietanus knew from ancient tradition and asserted before the finding of the body; but he was silent about an angelic ministry in the Saint's burial. Now if the Saint had been unknown until her death and had been buried by

angels, in what manner would her life, death and burial have come to men's knowledge?

[157] Whoever wishes to cut this knot will necessarily say that all those things could have become known by revelation. I confess that God can thus manifest to men all hidden things. that she was buried by men. But we have no foundation for such a revelation, since no ancient writer asserts it and no ancient picture suggests it. And this knot is again difficult: for if the burial of Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino had been established by revelation, the knowledge of the revelation would have come down to posterity as much as the notice of the place of burial; and that revelation would have been no less committed to writing than the very place of the tomb. In whatever way, therefore, I consider the matter, it appears to me far more probable that St. Rosalia was buried on Mount Pellegrino by the hands of men. It may be, however, that God by a singular providence preserved the Saint's bones, just as he afterwards honored them with very many miracles.

§ XV. The most ancient cult of the Saint, from ancient churches, chapels and altars.

[ ] The Saint's ancient cult proved by various men: The ancient cult of St. Rosalia can be abundantly gathered from what has been said hitherto, and is further asserted in Caietanus in the Life, in Cascinus, book 1, chapter 2, and in Salernus, often praised already. But most clearly of all it is shown by Josephus Spucces of the Society of Jesus in a manuscript dissertation, by which in the year 1642 he defended at Rome the antiquity of St. Rosalia's cult. This manuscript dissertation, together with another by the same author on the lineage of St. Rosalia, was communicated to us in the year 1744 by the Rev. Fr. Stanislaus Ignatius Castiglia of the Society of Jesus, then superior of the Sicilian province, who also adds these observations in the index of the monuments sent to us: All the authentic monuments which Fr. Josephus Spucces cites in these dissertations were duly sought out at his command and distributed into two volumes by Fr. Hieronymus la Chiana of Palermo, of the Society of Jesus; and all of them, confirmed by public authority, were enclosed in a certain casket and laid up in the hidden treasury of the city of Palermo, in which the public money of the city is kept. All these things one of our men, whose labor I have used in collecting these monuments of St. Rosalia, saw and turned over, with the senate's consent. But since it was too long to transcribe them all, we send only an index of those monuments transcribed, together with the dedicatory letter to the senate of Palermo which the same Fr. Hieronymus la Chiana prefixes to the Work, with one or two of the same monuments added, which were in our hands. Thus far the most diligent and most courteous Castiglia, or his helper Fr. Noto.

[159] that cult is shown, first, from perpetual tradition, As for the monuments cited in the Dissertation, we do not greatly need them, both because the antiquity of the cult is clearer than to be liable to doubt, and because most of the author's assertions can be confirmed from Cascinus or Salernus. For which cause I shall subjoin nearly the whole Dissertation of the aforesaid Spucces, omitting the citations which by their too great frequency render his discourse less easy, and adding in their place the authority of Cascinus or Salernus. The author begins from the Saint's year of death, not altogether certain, as I have shown before; and writes thus: That Saint Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, died about the year 1160 in the cave of Mount Pellegrino, besides that the most constant tradition of the Sicilian church testifies it, as may be seen in the second volume from the first writing and those following as far as the seventh, both Pirri wrote in the Notice of the church of Palermo at the aforesaid year, and Ferrarius in the Catalogue at the day before the Nones of September in the notes… Further, that from those first years which followed her death she was venerated with the highest honor and held in that esteem in which Saints are wont to be held in the Church of God, the same tradition teaches in the writings praised above. This is the author's first argument, drawn from perpetual tradition. And the writings which he praises are seven letters penned in that same year 1642 and handed over to Fr. Spucces as procurator. They are enumerated thus in the catalogue mentioned before: 1. Letters of the senate of Palermo to our most Holy Lord concerning the ancient tradition of the sanctity and lineage of St. Rosalia. 2. Letters of the same to others on the same. 3. Letters of the most eminent Cardinal Doria, archbishop of Palermo, on the same. 4. Letters of the chapter and clergy of Palermo on the same. 5. Letters of the beneficiaries and parish priests on the same. 6. Letters of the leading men on the same matter. 7. Letters of the people of Palermo on the same matter.

[160] These letters, moreover, with all the subscriptions, are at my hand. asserted by Cardinal Doria and others: But since they all conspire plainly in the same sense, it will be enough to copy out from the letters of the Cardinal archbishop what bears on this, as I do: We, Don Giannettino Doria, Cardinal presbyter of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Peter in Montorio, archbishop of Palermo, to all and singular to whom the present shall be exhibited or shown, attest and testify that by the most ancient and constant and unvaried tradition of the people and church of Palermo, and of the other Sicilian churches, it is received and believed, and is implanted in the minds of all and current in their mouths, and confirmed and approved also by perpetual custom, that Saint Rosalia the virgin was born at Palermo and sprang from the royal blood of Charlemagne; that, having for the love of Christ renounced her father's riches and honors and the royal court in which she had been brought up, and trampled underfoot all the pomps of the world, she fled into the caves first of the mountain of Quisquina and then of Pellegrino, and there led a solitary life and died most holily; and that immediately after her death she was by the common opinion and faith of all called a Saint, and was venerated after the rite of holy virgins by churches dedicated to her and by images set up, invoked in the litanies, and honored with an ecclesiastical Office and the celebration of Mass, etc. On this I only observe a few things. First, those words, immediately after her death, are not to be explained too rigidly, since it is uncertain in what year after her death the cult was begun; yet it seems certain that the Saint began to be venerated in the twelfth century, in which she died. Secondly, that cult without doubt grew by degrees, and probably she did not begin to be called a Saint in the same year in which she died, nor to be venerated with an ecclesiastical Office; nor do I think that this is the mind of the most Eminent Cardinal. Thirdly, the tradition concerning the cult is without doubt most ancient and unvaried; but that does not equally hold of the year of her death, nor of all the things that are asserted about the Saint while living, as may be gathered from what has been disputed about each in its place.

[161] These things being briefly observed, I return to the aforesaid Dissertation, secondly, from very many whose author after the foregoing proceeds thus: But I shall now demonstrate this more clearly from the writings contained in this first volume. Certainly the cult which is wont to be paid to Saints in the Church is this: the dedication of churches and altars, images inscribed with the title of sanctity, benefices instituted in their name, public invocation, and the solemn and festal celebration of their birthday. I shall show that each of these was of old attributed to St. Rosalia by the Sicilian church; and, what is the chief point, with the supreme Pontiff's knowledge and approval. Then he discourses thus about churches and altars: First, at Racalmuto \, which is a town in the diocese of Agrigento, there is a most ancient church of St. Rosalia, whose antiquity is referred to the year 1208, as may be conjectured from marks found on a certain arch of the same church, which were of this kind: MCCVIII: for the last five, already eaten away in half their length, showed only this appearance.* This church of St. Rosalia is also mentioned very briefly by Salernus, page 152, and by Cascinus, pages 14 and 15. But the latter seems to make the church a century later, since he relates that it was built between the year 1320 and 1330, as may be seen there. But whether that church of St. Rosalia was founded in the thirteenth or in the fourteenth century, it is a certain argument of a most ancient cult.

[162] from the thirteenth century onward Secondly, at Palermo in the year 1257 a church of St. Rosalia was already famous, as appears from the bequest of Theophania, a noble matron, which by her testament she left to the church of St. Rosalia… Of the same church mention is made in the testament of the noble man John de Calavallis in the year 1337. Thirdly, of the same church, and at the same time of another chapel of the same Saint in the church of St. Catharine of Olivella, mention is made in a certain catalogue drawn up in the year 1439 by order of the archbishop of Palermo, who at that time was that most famous man Nicholas Tudeschi, who by antonomasia is called the Panormitan. Of both these sacred buildings Salernus speaks thus, page 152: The celebrity of her name, then, and the title of Holy Woman together with the religious cult long since employed by the Sicilian church, these things plainly attest: the cave of Mount Pellegrino, religiously venerated already many centuries ago; the title of a sacred building with the effigy of the virgin Rosalia, to whose altar there was once annexed an ecclesiastical benefice of the right of patronage of the senate of Palermo: likewise a second church raised there to the same Virgin before the year of salvation 1414, where next afterwards was built the church of St. Catharine, to which the olive tree from a neighboring plot gave the name Olivella. And that most learned doctor of canon law, Nicholas Tudeschi, archbishop of Palermo, who became renowned and is celebrated under the name of the Abbot of Palermo, mentions both buildings: for in the year 1439 he entered this twofold church of St. Rosalia in a catalogue of nearly two hundred sacred buildings to which the tunny fisheries pay some fish every year.

[163] dedicated to the Saint We read that alms were paid out to her: in which matter there must never fall from memory the most ancient testamentary disposition of a certain Theophania, written on parchment on the eighteenth day of April in the year 1257, which we have often read in the original and have taken care to have diligently preserved: for there, among other legacies to Saints, she ordered a gold tarì to be paid to the church of St. Rosalia; and she shows most plainly that within a hundred years from Rosalia's death a sacred building was raised to her by public cult. Cascinus on page 6 treats of the church of Mount Pellegrino, and on page 9 adduces the same testament of Theophania, doubting however whether she made the bequest in favor of the church of St. Rosalia of Mount Pellegrino, or in favor of another church of St. Rosalia which he affirms was then also at Palermo. Of the church of Mount Pellegrino there is certainly question in Amatus, in the letters of the people of Palermo of the year 1421, where the feast of St. Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino is said to be celebrated on the day of the Ascension. But it makes no difference for demonstrating the antiquity of the cult to which church of St. Rosalia that favor was granted.

[164] Fourthly, as Spucces goes on, at Rivello, which is a town in the diocese of Policastro in the province of Basilicata, churches, chapels, altars, in the year 1478 a church of St. Rosalia was founded. Salernus writes at Rovello in Lucania, but designates the same town. Fifthly, at Giuliana, which is a town in Sicily of the diocese of Agrigento, an altar of St. Rosalia was raised from time immemorial in the chief church, of which mention is had in a certain writing already

from the year 1522… Of the same altar mention is made in a certain record of the church of Agrigento, published in the year 1540. Sixthly, at Polizzi, which is a city in Sicily of the diocese of Cefalù, there was a most ancient church of St. Rosalia, whose ruins, and the very ground, are still held in honor. Cascinus agrees, page 14, and Salernus mentions the same very briefly. Seventhly. In the year 1594 the confraternity of St. Catharine of Olivella grants to the Reverend Fathers of the Oratory the most ancient chapel of St. Rosalia, with the charge of building another in the new church of St. Ignatius martyr: which was also done. The same Cascinus asserts on pages 10 and 11. Eighthly. At Bivona, which is a town in Sicily of the diocese of Agrigento, of the lordship of St. Rosalia, there stands a church of hers by far the most ancient, which they relate was founded three hundred, or even four hundred, years ago… Joined to the church is a confraternity whose beginnings they refer to the year 1250 on this argument: that when there was a suit about precedence in processions — which there follows antiquity — between the confraternities of St. Anthony, St. Bartholomew and St. Rosalia, and the confraternity of St. Bartholomew proved from writings their antiquity from the aforesaid year, that suit could not be terminated at law, but was settled on this agreement, that they should take precedence by turns. Whence it is gathered that at that time the confraternity of St. Rosalia produced writings of at least equal antiquity… To that church's antiquity belongs the fact that, having fallen down three times, it was thrice repaired… Again, that the bell-metal of the same church was, already from the year 1477, not founded but recast. Of the very ancient church of Bivona Caietanus also treats in the Life to be published, and Cascinus, page 15 and following, and briefly Salernus.

[165] Ninthly. That in the cave of Quisquina an altar was raised to the same Saint from the very first centuries after the death of St. Rosalia, which are assigned through nearly the whole the records of St. Stephen testify. That processions of suppliants were wont to be appointed to that place Cascinus testifies, page 17, and I shall prove it more fully from an authentic manuscript below in §26, where the finding of that cave will be related. Tenthly. Troina \ is a town of the diocese of Messina: that there was there a most ancient church of St. Rosalia the ruins testify, which still retain her name. Cascinus agrees, page 20, adding that the Saint was in his own time also wont to be particularly invoked there, although her church was destroyed. Mention of the same church is in Salernus. Eleventhly. Ragusa, a town of the diocese of Syracuse, has a church of St. Rosalia by far the most ancient. Of this, as of several other proofs of veneration in the diocese of Syracuse, Cascinus treats on pages 20 and 21. Twelfthly. Scicli, another town of the diocese of Syracuse, had a church of the same Saint from time immemorial, whose ruins are still held in honor… Thirteenthly. San Mauro, a town of the diocese of Messina, had a church of St. Rosalia from time immemorial… Fourteenthly. Another church of hers stands from time immemorial in the town of Tostoretum (Salernus: Tortorici), of the diocese of Messina. Fifteenthly. Another likewise most ancient in the town of Faficarra (Salernus writes Ficarra), of the diocese of Messina, repaired after its ruin in the year 1605, that is, nineteen years before the finding of the body.* About all these Salernus agrees briefly, and Cascinus more fully in chapter 2.

[166] of Sicily. Sixteenthly. The church of Olivella (of which we have already treated above), dedicated to St. Rosalia at Palermo from time immemorial… Seventeenthly. Another church of hers at Calascibetta \, of the diocese of Catania, fallen down from age… Eighteenthly. The ruins of a most ancient church of St. Rosalia, which retain her name and veneration, on the coast of Cefalù. These are the churches dedicated of old in honor of St. Rosalia, and frequented by the faithful with every cult and veneration: for the more recent ones which our own age has founded we pass by; among which is one built at Palermo by the authority of our most holy Lord Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, whom may God preserve for many years. Thus far Spucces on the Saint's churches, chapels and altars. Salernus adds one or two, writing of them very briefly thus: The memory of fourteen other shrines throughout all Sicily has now been renewed, their traces having been found: at Caccamo in the hospice, or, as they call it, the grange of the monastery of St. Nicholas de Nemore; at Cefalù on the shore facing east, two miles from the town; at Polizzi, Racalmuto, Bisbona, Calascibetta, Troina, Ficarra, San Mauro, Tortorici, Scicli, Augusta \, Paola \ in Calabria, Rovello in Lucania. Altars are reckoned far more numerous.* Let these things about churches, chapels and altars suffice, that we may proceed to the other proofs of the ancient cult.

\* Rahalmutum

\* Traina

\* Calatascibet

\* Agousta

\* Paola

§ XVI. The most ancient veneration further proved from ancient images and from other things: and how it was afterwards restored at the beginning of the seventeenth century, having somewhat languished.

[ ] Images of the Saint From churches and altars Spucces passes to the ancient images of St. Rosalia, and reasons thus: Among the images of St. Rosalia the most ancient of all seems to be that which is believed to have been painted from the year 1174, that is, in the fourteenth year after her death (according to his own view of the year of her death), on a beam of the topmost framework of the royal church of Monreale. For those pictures seem to have the same age as the first framework of the church itself, which was made in the year 1174, as appears from Pirri in the notice of the church of Monreale (volume 1 of the Italia sacra, page 397 and following) and from Lello, part 2; nor was it ever repaired before the year 1629. If the antiquity assigned to the picture is certain enough, the Saint was venerated very few years after her death: for I have shown in its place that she probably died later than the year 1160.

[168] referred to the twelfth century: But whatever be the case with so great an antiquity of this picture, which is not clearly enough shown, Salernus mentions another of almost the same age in these words: But images with the title of sanctity, a witness of public cult, are innumerable, and those most ancient: among which, many years after the finding of the relics, that one became known which was formerly painted in the cathedral church of Palermo; for beneath the greater beams, to support or rather to adorn them, wooden props aptly shaped are set against the walls: and on these are painted several effigies of Saints, which nevertheless so escape the sight of the eyes of those who stand on the floor of that church, by reason of their height, that they cannot be discerned from thence. But while that same church was being adorned most magnificently, as is the custom, for the celebration of St. Rosalia's feast, with silken hangings interwoven with gold and with rich treasure, there was recognized beneath the ninth beam, in an image of St. Rosalia, the eremitic fashion of her garment; for she is clothed in a sack of ash color, about whose shoulders after the manner of pilgrims is thrown a short little mantle steeped in a dark-blue but now faded color; by two roses on this side and that, where the arms are covered by the mantle, and by the characters S. R., the name of St. Rosalia is signified. And that beam with its ornaments displays an antiquity equal to the church, which is known to have been dedicated by Walter the archbishop, its author, in the year 1185. Of Walter II, archbishop of Palermo, Pirri treats in volume 1 from page 121, where also on page 127 he treats of the building of this cathedral church.

[169] Spucces further subjoins these things to the preceding: Next (in antiquity) comes the Marturano panel at Palermo. others likewise ancient, This one, which Cascinus suspected to be the most ancient of all, I have given engraved on copper at §7. At Palermo also there are two other panels of the church of Olivella, of wonderful antiquity. Both I have given from Cascinus, of which the one is his second and the other his seventh. There is also seen there another most ancient image of St. Rosalia in the hospital which they call the Great. It will be given below from Cascinus, whose fifteenth it is. There is there another very ancient image of hers in the parish church of St. Nicholas of the Albergheria. At Bivona, which was a city of the lordship of St. Rosalia, there stand eight most ancient images of St. Rosalia: the first in the church of the same St. Rosalia, painted in the year 1494. The second on the doorposts of a certain tabernacle in the same church, made in the year 1449. The third, which seems the most ancient of all, in the middle of the banner of the same church. The fourth is a gilded wooden statue which, when it had been almost worn out by age, was restored in the year 1532. Whence it is gathered that its age was far more ancient. The fifth is another statue of hers, still older than this and quite eaten away, which is kept in the chapel of the same church. The sixth in the parish church of St. Agatha, whose antiquity the Gothic characters testify. The seventh in the church of St. Anthony, made in the year 1508. The eighth on the outer front of a certain house. Of these I have given various ones from Cascinus, to be seen in their places.

[170] San Stefano is a town near Bivona of the lordship of the same St. Rosalia. of which several have the Saint's name inscribed: There is there a very ancient image of St. Rosalia from the year 1468 in the chief church. Another image of hers is on the banner of St. Mary Magdalene of the same town… At Ragusa, besides the church dedicated to St. Rosalia, there stands another very ancient image of hers in the church of St. Theodore, held in the highest veneration… At Calascibetta, besides the proper church of St. Rosalia, another image of hers is venerated from time immemorial in the church of St. Mary of Mount Carmel… Now most of those images bear the name of St. Rosalia inscribed, as the Marturano image, … the first image of Bivona, … likewise the eighth of Bivona, … and several others. Now therefore let us pass from images to benefices. But whoever desires more things about those images more fully discussed, let him go to the Italian work of Cascinus, who treats of them chiefly in book 1, chapter 2, although in other places also he discourses not a little about them. I meanwhile, since what has been said suffices for our purpose, proceed with the author of the Dissertation to the benefices anciently established under the title and name of St. Rosalia.

[171] various benefices also anciently instituted under the title of St. Rosalia: The most ancient of all, he says, is that of Palermo, erected on Mount Pellegrino, which of old was called Ercta. The first institution of this is immemorial: yet there are most ancient testimonies from the year 1393, … again from the year 1399, writing 7, folio 41. In which writing this is notable, that this benefice in those aforesaid years was conferred by the supreme Roman Pontiff: whence it appears that the cult of St. Rosalia was known and approved to the Pontiff. Moreover mention of the same benefice is had in the year 1408, … 1418, etc. The author goes on, from very many writings which are not at my hand, to show mention of this benefice throughout the whole fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the beginning of the seventeenth, that is, down to the year 1611; concerning which Cascinus also adduced various things on page 6. Then Spucces proceeds thus to other matters: The second is the benefice of Giuliana, of which mention is made in the year 1522, … and in the year 1541… To benefices may be referred the institution of fiefs. In the year 1468, therefore, in the territory of Calascibetta a fief was instituted by royal authority

under the title of St. Rosalia. These things dispatched, I go on with the same author to the public invocation of the Saint.

[172] the ancient invocation likewise proved: At Palermo, he says, that St. Rosalia was wont to be publicly invoked in the metropolitan church, the records of the old books which that church uses in its public offices testify… The same is testified by the book of prayers which the church of St. Michael in the same city anciently used, written in the year 1343, where among other virgins St. Rosalia also is set down to be invoked… That at Bivona the invocation of St. Rosalia was public and most ancient, the records of Bivona testify, … and more particularly for driving away the plague… The same about the town of San Stefano the records of San Stefano testify… The same about the monastery of St. Paul at Bivona the records of Bivona testify… The same about the town of Racalmuto its records testify… The same about the city of Mazara the records of Mazara testify. So briefly Spucces. But Salernus has the following to our purpose: That in the ancient litanies which were formerly recited among the supplications at Palermo the name of St. Rosalia was entered in the choir of the other virgins, is plain from codices written by hand many centuries ago. Cascinus relates like things on page 11, observing also that the name of St. Rosalia is found in ancient hymns in which are many names of ancient Saints, yet so that the names of SS. Bernard, Francis and Dominic did not yet occur in them. From which he gathers that Rosalia was venerated at Palermo before the aforesaid Saints.

[173] her feast likewise celebrated. Spucces at last proceeds to the celebration of the Saint's feast, and shows it briefly in these words: That the feast was anciently celebrated on the fourth of September at Palermo, the records of Palermo testify… At Racalmuto the same is testified by the records of Racalmuto… At Bivona the same is testified by the records of Bivona… The same is testified at San Stefano by the records of San Stefano… At Ragusa the same is testified by the records of Ragusa. And from all that has been said he thus concludes: Now therefore all these things show clearly enough that Saint Rosalia was already four hundred years ago (that is, from about the year 1242) held in that place in which the other Saints are wont to be held. The conclusion is legitimate, if the author only means to suggest that St. Rosalia was from that time honored with an ecclesiastical cult in Sicily and invoked by the faithful. But if he wished to infer that the Saint's feast has so long been celebrated with an ecclesiastical Office, as is done for the chief Saints, and indeed through the whole Church, as the words sound, he certainly had not sufficiently proved it; since he nowhere shows from what time the Saint's annual feast began to be celebrated, and since it is certain that it was not celebrated through the whole Church. But this was not necessary for demonstrating the immemorial and lawful cult of St. Rosalia: and that has been shown so clearly that no room is left for doubt.

[174] Cascinus, book 2, chapter 19, page 281, asserts that St. Rosalia was already venerated in the time of William I, king of Sicily, [The Saint does not appear to have been venerated in the time of William I, but before the end of the twelfth century:] who died in the year 1166, and suspects that her cult was approved by Pope Alexander III. But Mancusi in the Life, part 1, §21, page 165, affirms more confidently that the ancient prayer for St. Rosalia was composed or confirmed by Alexander III. But neither alleges the authority of the ancients, or fit reasons by which so great an antiquity of the cult may be shown: nay, it cannot even be sufficiently proved that St. Rosalia died before William I. Now the prayer of which Mancusi speaks is this: O God, crown of glory, who didst lead the blessed virgin Rosalia from the royal court to the desert and, crowning her with glorious flowers, didst take her up to the delights of paradise, grant, we beseech thee, by her helps, that we may be rescued from all evils and may obtain the longed-for crowns of perseverance. Through our Lord, etc. The same prayer is recited at the end of Cascinus' work, page 320; but it is not added from what time it was in use or composed. Wherefore so great an antiquity of that prayer ought not to have been affirmed but proved: and perhaps Mancusi would have labored much if he had wished to show that that prayer was composed before the seventeenth century. Vincentius Auria in the Rosa cælestis, pages 28 and 29, affirms from Philip Paruta that the Saint's church on Mount Pellegrino was founded from the year 1180: whether this is certain enough, I do not know. Nevertheless from what has been said thus far it is gathered that St. Rosalia was honored with some cult at least before the end of the twelfth century, and that this was further spread abroad in the thirteenth century and the following, until by degrees it began to languish, that it might be more gloriously restored in the seventeenth.

[175] Salernus writes this concerning the cult of the holy Solitary, first languishing and then restored: that cult afterwards somewhat languished. But — which you may wonder at — a cult so great and so widely spread had by degrees grown cold, the minds of the Sicilians growing numb and the fame of her sanctity departing: which I should believe flowed from no other source than that the most sacred relics of that Virgin lay hidden, which might kindle the minds of mortals with heavenly fire and cherish love by benefits. So when of old the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul lay hidden, they had ceased, as Platina and Ciacconius, writers of Pontifical affairs, write, to be in honor by reason of men's disuse and ignorance, until they became known under Urban V. Wherefore God allowed Rosalia's cult to fall away into the darkness of a certain oblivion, that it might rise again more happily and with a fuller celebrity. Yet the memory of St. Rosalia was never wholly blotted out (as may abundantly be gathered from what has been said above), but the seeds were kept from which it might sprout to glory. For in the cathedral church of Palermo, on the fourth of September, with the zeal for her cult renewed for the anniversary feast, divine prayers had already begun to be recited in the semi-double rite from the year 1609: and the hope of the future finding was sustained by a report, confirmed by a divine oracle, that the country was to be rescued from impending dangers. But in what manner the celebrity of her name, and men's homage and applause toward the holy Rosalia, flourished again through the finding of her relics, must presently be discussed when we treat of it. Cascinus agrees well enough with all this in book 1, chapter 2; and it is certain that the veneration of St. Rosalia so revived through the finding of the body that it became far more famous than it had ever been before.

§ XVII. Benefits and other matters preceding the finding of the body: the body sought in vain on various occasions.

[ ] [The people of Bivona, ordered to build a church to the Saint, and delivered by her from the plague:] Although most of the benefits of St. Rosalia which have come down to the memory of posterity were done about the time of the finding of the body or at a later time, yet some are related which long preceded it. Cascinus writes that Bivona was delivered from the plague by St. Rosalia already in the year 1348, relating the matter in this manner on page 16: That protection and love of the Saint Bivona experienced by a great benefit and to her glory on occasion of the universal pestilence which afflicted all Sicily, and which is recorded by Fazellus at the year 1347. For famous was the apparition of St. Rosalia, offered in her neighborhood outside the town upon a great rock to a girl who was washing linen cloths in a neighboring torrent: she was warned that the people of Bivona would be delivered from the plague if in that place they should build a church of St. Rosalia. At that time no credit was given to the report of the revelation. But as the evil still continued, the Saint returning in the following year appeared to a man worthy of credit; and when they had believed him, a church was built in that place, which is a few paces distant from the town; and the ceasing of the evil followed thereupon. Hence they invoke her with a particular prayer as their patroness. They assert that not long ago there was a beam in that church, and that on it was marked the year 1348, which agrees excellently with the time of the aforesaid pestilence. Thus far Cascinus, subjoining more things about that church of Bivona; but he does not indicate from what writer or ancient monument he learned that fact. Yet Vincentius Auria afterwards reported the same in fewer words in the Rosa cælestis, page 45. Someone might suspect that that apparition was drawn from Caietanus, who relates that St. Rosalia appeared at the time of plague and warned that a church should be built for her at Bivona; or, since he adds some things, that he drew from the same monuments as he; and that the year, which is passed over by Caietanus, [Cascinus, from an ancient picture in which St. Rosalia stands in the middle among four virgins,] was added from conjectures alone, and especially from the beam mentioned.

[177] Cascinus, book 2, chapter 21, page 318, forms from an ancient image, which exhibits St. Rosalia in the middle among four holy Virgins, a conjecture concerning some other benefit obtained by her patronage for the people of Palermo. That image the aforesaid writer refers to about the year 1400, and published it in the fifteenth place, just as I here exhibit the same. But Cascinus observes that the image had been restored in his own time, or not long before, because it had been much damaged by the damp of the wall; that the upper part, however, which represents five virgins, was then more entire. Then he expounds the whole figure in this manner: She who is in the middle among these (virgins) is Rosalia, crowned with roses, with hands joined in the manner of one giving patronage. At her right stands St. Agatha, who has for her sign her hands set to her breasts. Beside her stands another holding a rope in her hand, who seems to be St. Christina, since she was bound with a rope to a rock and sunk in a lake. On the left side is St. Oliva, holding a branch of olive, her accustomed emblem; and St. Nympha with a vessel, which signifies the vessel of boiling oil into which she was cast, and with a crown of lilies and roses on her head, because she was so crowned by an angel as soon as she received sacred baptism at the hands of St. Maximilian, archbishop of Palermo. Thus far Cascinus. Further, of St. Agatha we have treated on the fifth day of February; of St. Christina on the twenty-fourth of July; of St. Oliva on the third of June; and of St. Nympha we shall treat with the Roman Martyrology on the tenth of November, or on the twelfth with the Sicilians, where the facts here asserted may be discussed.

[178] The image being expounded, Cascinus subjoins his conjecture in these words: [suspects that Palermo was once delivered by her from the plague: which is uncertain.] But here I cannot go forward without planting my foot and weighing in my mind for what cause, two hundred years ago at the least and more, the middle place was given with so great honor to the virgin Rosalia among four virgins and martyrs who are the more ancient patronesses of Palermo; since these without doubt are wont to take precedence in the church both by their martyrdom and by their antiquity. For which cause I bring my mind to state my conjecture, namely that they were painted at the time of some other deliverance from pestilence obtained by the same virgin Rosalia, who is the ancient patroness against such an evil. This both the place — namely a hospital — confirms, and the time at which it is known that there was a pestilence there. So reasons Cascinus, whose reasons indeed establish that St. Rosalia has for many centuries been in great veneration

among the Sicilians as a singular patroness against the plague. Nevertheless it cannot be said with certainty whether St. Rosalia was painted in the middle among four virgins on occasion of a new benefit, or rather in memory of past ones, or for some other cause, especially since the time when the picture was made is not exactly known.

[179] Auria, praised above, relates on page 28 that in the year 1474 there was a grievous pestilence at Palermo, Palermo is said to have been delivered from the plague in the year 1474. and that, since the church of St. Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino was threatening ruin through age, it was at that time restored by the senate of Palermo, and the pestilence was quickly taken away; and that the senate as a token of a grateful mind restored the benefice which had formerly been annexed to that church. Joannes Maria Amatus of the Society of Jesus, in his work on the Chief Church of Palermo, book 9, chapter 2, page 225, writes thus from Camizzarius' manuscript, book 1, concerning the same benefice: The pious senate, when a grievous plague in the year 1474, in the eighth \ Indiction, was pressing Sicily and Palermo, Antonio de Mastro Antonio being prætor, decreed to build anew the church of their most holy fellow-citizen Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino, pulled down by age: oh wonderful thing! that epidemic at once ceased.* So they.

[180] Cascinus, book 1, chapter 2, page 17, reports a notable benefit of St. Rosalia, who kept the town of San Stefano free from the plague The town of San Stefano preserved by St. Rosalia appearing to a certain man, when it was then raging widely through Sicily. I shall faithfully render his Italian words into Latin. When he had observed that in the neighborhood of San Stefano is the cave of Quisquina, and that the Saint is there venerated with an annual supplication and feast; that earth also from the place of the cave is religiously taken by the inhabitants and by strangers against various diseases, and especially against the quartan fever; and that to the same place recourse is not had in vain in public evils of disease, drought or excessive rain; but that those benefits have not been committed to memory — he subjoins the following: One benefit, and that a very great one, the town of San Stefano reports, obtained at the time of another pestilence which before this one (of the year 1624) was in our own age the most grievous, in the year 1575. From this that town remained untouched by the benefit of St. Rosalia, who appeared to an upright man whose name was Paschalis Barbera, and said to him these words: “Thy wife bears in her womb a little daughter, whom when she is born thou shalt call Rosalia: and ye shall be free from the plague: report this to thy fellow-townsmen.” So it altogether came to pass, however much they were greatly surrounded by the violence of the contagious disease, which had seized various neighboring places.

[181] preserved from a manifest danger of the plague: And not only round about, but within also, the plague was without harm: for when Philippus di Alfieri had betaken himself thither from Bivona with his infected household, he himself died there, and in unbroken succession his wife, his sons and his sister. And because they were not suspected when they arrived, many were joined with them in intimate familiarity, whether by reason of kinship or of friendship, and joined themselves to them in various offices of piety, so that they even handled with their hands and clothed the infected corpses, from which the destruction of the town might have arisen. Nevertheless the infection did not cleave even to one, as eyewitnesses still living confirm by most certain testimony. These likewise relate that there was then a report that the same virgin Rosalia, appearing to divers persons, encouraged and strengthened them in times and occasions so perilous. Many circumstances of this account are confirmed by the sworn testimony of Franciscus la Barbera, a priest, who in the year 1642 testified that he had heard them from his parents; namely the apparition of St. Rosalia, and all that is here related about the immunity from pestilence; the prediction also about the girl to be born; but the prediction about the immunity of the inhabitants of San Stefano from the plague is not read in his testimony.

[182] speech granted to a dumb girl at the cave of Quisquina. To these he joins another benefit received from the same witnesses, going on thus: Moreover they report another benefit granted at the same times to a particular person by an extraordinary and great miracle, which must not be passed over. This happened to a maiden who was named Dominica di Palermo, daughter of Antoninus, who had reached the seventeenth year of her age without speech, and was altogether dumb. She was led by her mother, with not a few of the household accompanying, to that holy cave (of Quisquina), and after many prayers, all the others going away and wandering through that wood, she was left there alone. And she, fallen upon her knees, strove to obtain the desired grace from the powerful virgin Rosalia, until she graciously obtained it. Whence her companions, returning after an hour, found her joyful beyond measure and speaking, and explaining quite rightly what had befallen her with her Benefactress; although the benefit obtained needed no other explanation for all who heard the dumb girl speaking; and all were forced to pour forth most pious tears and to break out into thanksgiving; just as today also they keep with great fervor a most grateful memory of the benefit and bear witness to it. They also affirm that the girl, being likewise made better in soul, passed the rest of her life in many virtues and good example. Thus far Cascinus, from whose account it is plain that not in pestilence alone, but in any necessities whatever, the help of St. Rosalia was implored already before the finding of the body. And this healing of the dumb girl is confirmed by the sworn testimony of Joannes Gerardus, a priest, who in the year 1642 testified to it from the account of his parents, adding however that the girl afterwards stammered somewhat.

[183] Further, that the Saint's body was sought in vain by various persons, The Saint's body often sought: a pious solitary woman, Cascinus relates with others in book 1, chapter 1, pages 6 and 7, where he also testifies that there was a certain prediction that the body of St. Rosalia would not be found except at a time of the gravest necessity. He observes, first, that it was always well enough established that the Saint's body was buried on Mount Pellegrino, but not in any certain cave of the mountain, and that for that cause digging was done on the mountain on various occasions. Then he goes on thus: Many wearied themselves with that labor, but in vain, because it did not please God (that it should then be found). And truly it became known, not only by report but by certain knowledge, on the testimony of grave persons, that for many years (before the finding) there had been this oracle, that it (the Saint's body) would never be found except at a time of the gravest necessity. In confirmation of these things, omitting many others, I shall relate two or three very brief histories, not very old, but true and sufficient for the clearness of what has been said. First, a certain court lady in the year 1585, who, having left the court and the world out of pious affection toward this Virgin, desired to imitate her, dwelt there with simplicity and purity of a great soul, clothed in a man's garment. She had herself called Angelus, and strove to be such by her life and contemplation. She lived there twenty-five years and died holily, but in another place.

[184] And she, burning with the desire of finding the sacred body of Rosalia, [who in a man's garment presided over men unknown, is deterred from her search by prodigies,] who by her apparitions frequently refreshed her, began with great zeal to dig the earth. And behold, in the earth there appeared as it were a sweat of oil. The pious anchoress, not desisting from what she had begun at this prodigy, but pursuing it with greater spirit and effort, felt so sudden a movement of that earth, and then of the cave and of the mountain, that she ceased from the work begun, understanding from such signs that the time had not yet come in which that treasure should be uncovered which by divine counsel was hidden there. Of these things Caietanus also treated in the annotations to the life. I subjoin his words from the manuscript: Nearly twenty years ago, while I was writing this, a woman, having taken a man's garment and name, called herself Angelus, and in the habit of hermits hid herself away in the cave of the holy Rosalea, where she led a solitary life for some years. Then she took up the government of the neighboring monastery. In that administration a desire came upon her to dig up the body of holy Rosalea. But after she began to carry out the thing with a mattock, the earth she had dug was seen to sweat oil, and the cave to tremble: terrified by which prodigies she desisted from the deed. Thus far Caietanus, who wrote this before the body was found, and before the year 1620, in which he died.

[185] The same woman is treated of in a manuscript monument of about the same time, and, being better instructed, sets out for Rome: which Hieronymus Justinianus communicated to us from the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Palermo. It is there said that she dwelt among those hermit brothers for twenty-five years unknown, and presided over the training of the novices; but that afterwards she went off to Rome, because she had learned that it was forbidden to women to live in men's monasteries under pain of excommunication; and that at Rome at last she died and was famous for miracles. These things are not incredible, since it is agreed that in the earlier centuries of the Church like things were done again and again by pious women. That woman could take a man's garment because she hoped she would thus be the less recognized, and because she was ignorant that such a dwelling among men was so severely forbidden. That she was never recognized for a woman except after her departure is added in the same instrument, which was written in Italian by a certain superior of the same place, whose name is not added in the manuscript; but Cascinus names him Benedict, relating from the same manuscript the following history about him.

[186] [the superior of the place is taught by the Saint appearing that the body will not be found,] The second (history, says Cascinus) is of a certain brother, superior of that place, whose name was Benedict. He himself testified that he had sweated much and seriously in the search for the body, and had wearied himself for three months going round the mountain and searching in various caves; namely because, seeing his labors fruitless, he suspected that the body of St. Rosalia had been carried from its own cave to some other. But he testifies that by her intervention he was at last brought back to quiet, since by her revelation it was commanded him that he should not go on digging, nor allow others any longer to dig in that cave in which her body lay; and he subjoined these words of the Saint: “However much they may seek, they will not be able to find me, so long as my city of Palermo is not afflicted with a great calamity \.” These very words are in Italian in the manuscript, where there is added: And then they will find me — which Cascinus omitted, who goes on thus: She used this word \, which has been frequently used among us, and signifies a most grievous calamity. Further, for greater certainty, this was affirmed by him many years before the finding of the sacred relics. Thus far Cascinus from the said manuscript account, in which it is added that many seculars, and superiors and brothers of the monastery, had sought in vain; and that various men were warned by that superior not to go on wearying themselves with useless labor.

[187] except at a time of grave calamity: which is also suggested to another: Cascinus relates the third history in this manner: The third is of a good old man, pious and devoted to St. Rosalia, who out of desire of finding her sacred body began to dig. And behold, he felt a blow struck upon his head, and heard an inward voice saying that this was not the time for finding the body;

but when Palermo should have laid her hands upon her own hair, which is done in the utmost affliction by reason of the greatness of the calamity. After these things Cascinus passes to relating the greed of others who sought much for the Saint's body, because they persuaded themselves that a certain treasure was to be found together with it. He says these men were deceived by a certain Greek instrument, old enough, in which was described the place of St. Rosalia's tomb, and in which two chests were said to be there, in one of which was St. Rosalia's body, while the other was full of coin. Cascinus indeed observes that those greedy searchers after money were deceived; but that the rest was found almost as it had been described.

[188] it is likely that the place of the tomb was formerly less unknown. From this description of the place, which Justiniani also communicated to us, no small suspicion arises in me that St. Rosalia's tomb was not utterly unknown in ancient times, but began in course of time to be unknown, whether because the place was known to few only, and they died without communicating their knowledge to others, or on some other occasion. Certainly not a few other tombs of Saints were so consigned to oblivion because they were too much hidden. For the rest, what I have given from Cascinus about the body of St. Rosalia being frequently sought on Mount Pellegrino, and about the oracle that the body would not be found except at a time of the gravest calamity, is also reported in a manuscript account which was communicated to us, and which is said to be taken from the authentic process which was instituted at that time before Cardinal Doria.

\* in that year it was the seventh

\ in Italian, disastro*

\ namely disastro*

§ XVIII. St. Rosalia appearing heals a sick woman; appearing to her again afterwards, she teaches where her body is to be sought: the search for the body: meanwhile, the plague having arisen at Palermo, the Saint is invoked in a wonderful manner in a supplication.

[ ] [A sick woman, vowing to visit Mount Pellegrino, is healed by the Saint appearing:] Cascinus, book 1, chapter 3, teaches on what occasion it came about that in the year 1624 the body of St. Rosalia was sought more diligently than ever before, and more perseveringly, until at last it was happily found. And Salernus in Caietanus, volume 2, page 154, thus contracted Cascinus' narrative into Latin: In the year 1623, in the month of October, a woman whose name was Hieronyma Gatto lay sick in the public infirmary of Palermo, and was not far from death, for the bearing of which she had prepared herself, duly fortified with the Sacraments of the Church. Meanwhile, as she was awake at night and burning with a violent thirst, she sees a young girl in the guise and habit of a nun, who was trimming the flame of the hanging lamps: she was not then known to Hieronyma even by name; but who at last she was, the event taught, and she herself hinted in her own words. Called to her, therefore, by that girl, and having gone forward, she felt her thirst first appeased at the touch of her hand set to her parched lips, and then that she was addressed kindly in these words: Shake off fear from thy mind; thou shalt shortly be well, provided thou take upon thee a vow of Mount Pellegrino. Having therefore conceived the vow, after two days Hieronyma leaped from her bed in health.

[190] But since prosperity very often breeds negligence, and is afterwards taught on the mountain where the body is to be sought: she put off the pilgrimage by weaving delays until the month of May of the following year and the sacred days of Pentecost; nor meanwhile was there wanting either an incitement to religion forgotten, or a punishment for it neglected — a quartan fever, with which during this space of time she was afflicted. Toward the end of May, therefore (or on the twenty-sixth, as he notes in the margin), having got certain other women as companions of her design and journey, she came to the cave of Mount Pellegrino sacred to the holy Rosalia. Here, when prayers had been said together, while her other companions withdrew one this way, another that, not far off, Hieronyma alone, lingering in the cave, was seized by sleep and seemed to herself to see the Virgin Mother of God clothed in a dark-blue mantle and embracing the child Jesus in her arms, and addressing her in these words: Thou hast come to pay what thou didst promise; now therefore thou art well. At the same time there was offered the same appearance of the Nun whom she had seen in the infirmary, adorned in the same manner; and, marking with her finger the place where her body lay, she exhorts her to see that it be dug up, and promises that she will also give a surer sign, that she may have it more clearly in view.

[191] Vitus Amodæus, taught by this woman and having obtained leave to dig, When the vision vanished, Hieronyma discloses the matter to the religious men living in the neighboring monastery, and to others. There was present there Vitus Amodæus, together with his wife, Hieronyma's companion; he, though he had formerly spent fruitless labor in finding this sacred body, now at the woman's word — from whose disposition and character he saw her to be far removed from framing any such lie — felt his hope and courage restored, and the more so because no one hitherto, as those monks asserted and as he himself knew by report, had searched the place indicated by Hieronyma. The woman, having gone thither to point out more nearly the place to be dug, solemnly testified that she had seen a rock lifted up on high as though the ground were parting: wherefore, understanding that this was the sign which had a little before been promised her, she herself then eagerly set her hand to the work and begins to make a light trial. In the manuscript account, of which presently, it is not said that Hieronyma herself dug, but that she urged that it should be done, and obtained leave from the superior of the convent of the Franciscans that it should be lawful to dig in the place assigned.

[192] begins with others to seek the body, and goes on for many days: And Amodæus, having taken others as companions of his labor (of whom two are named in the manuscript account, namely Jacobus Genuensis and Joannes Tirintinus, as it appears; for the last word is written ambiguously), returning to the mountain on the fourth of the Kalends of June, diligently begins the work (four Franciscans of the neighboring monastery also helping). When they had carried out much of the dug earth, and had spent several days between working and interrupting the work, and no trace of the sacred body yet appeared, they had almost cast away the hope of finding it; and would have cast away their courage too, had not the coming of certain men, who knew not what was being done there by the others, renewed it by another hope. These kept saying that a treasure was hidden in that place, made known by I know not what report and writing. Since therefore in the human breast the accursed hunger for gold has very great power, and most mortals are driven by even the slightest breath of suspicion to the search for hidden riches, all these, taking counsel together — whether the hope of the sacred relics was turned into the hope of gaining a treasure, or rather the one increased by the other, thinking that one or other would by no means fall out in vain — go on to exhaust what remained of the labor. But the work proceeded slowly: for the place remote from the city, the minds of those men bent on other cares for feeding themselves and their households, and their languishing hope, not rarely caused delay. But God assuredly used this delay, that meanwhile a very great harvest of glory might be prepared for the holy virgin Rosalia.

[193] certain things observed concerning the aforesaid fact All these things are also related from the process instituted before Cardinal Doria in the account just mentioned, from which it is well to observe some things. First, the woman to whom St. Rosalia appeared was the wife of Benedictus lo Gattuto, and forty-seven years old. She, at night about the seventh hour, as the hours are reckoned in Sicily, saw a nun clothed in white garments, who was trimming and lighting a lamp before the altar. The sick woman doubtless believed the nun to be really such, since she is said to have asked water from her. But after she had been healed in the manner related, the Nun disappeared, and Hieronyma did not know her Benefactress: but the nuns of the infirmary, when in the morning they heard of the vision and saw Hieronyma well, suspected that it had been the most blessed Virgin Mary. Now the woman was healed, not after two days, as Salernus has it, but on that same night, as Cascinus too wrote; but after two days she returned home from the infirmary. But when she was at home and was not yet satisfying her vow, she was seized by a quartan fever which lasted from the month of October of the year 1623 until almost the end of May of the following year. The occasion of fulfilling the vow too long deferred was this. Jacoba, wife of Vitus Amodæus, being bound by a vow of visiting the church of St. Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino, because by her help she had recovered from a grave infirmity, took as her companion Francisca Amphusa, her kinswoman; and she brought in Hieronyma to accompany them. So those three women betook themselves to Mount Pellegrino, led by Vitus Amodæus, Jacoba's husband, on the very feast of Pentecost, that is, the twenty-sixth day of May of the year 1624; and there in the church of St. Rosalia they were not only present at the sacred sacrifice of the Mass, but, having made their confession of sins, were also refreshed with the sacred banquet.

[194] These exercises of piety being performed, Hieronyma drank of the water from the process instituted before Cardinal Doria. which glides by dripping into the cave of St. Rosalia, and thus was delivered from her quartan fever, as she herself and her husband, whose testimonies are cited in the manuscript, persuaded themselves. Others seem to have believed that she was healed because she had now satisfied her vow; and so sound the words spoken to her in the vision presently to be related. But it matters little to which cause the health obtained be ascribed, since it is agreed that it was obtained, and perhaps both causes concurred. Further, the vision after the water was drunk is said in this manuscript account to have been about such as it is described by Salernus: for Hieronyma asserted that she saw in sleep a beautifully adorned woman with a little child, and believed her to be the most blessed Virgin Mary. And she seems to say to her: Daughter, thou hast come to pay and fulfill thy vow: be well. Then, while the same sleep lasted, she seemed to see a Nun clothed in white garments, who taught where the body of St. Rosalia was to be sought. Of this nun who appeared the author of the writing judges that she was likewise the most blessed Mother of God; but Cascinus and Salernus here more rightly understand St. Rosalia, who pointed out the place of her own tomb. Some other things besides are read in the manuscript about the aforesaid vision, by which the search for the Saint's body was begun; but these, as of less moment, I pass over, and return to Salernus.

[195] He begins to relate after Cascinus, in this manner, the pestilence meanwhile brought into Palermo, which appears to have been that most grievous calamity While the body is being sought, a savage plague invades Palermo; at whose time Rosalia had foretold that her body would be found: For at the beginning of June of that year a barbarian baggage steeped in corruption brought the deadly plague into Palermo, imported through imprudence in that ship in which Christians ransomed from the servitude of the Moors were being brought home by right of return. That poison, poured at first into a few, then creeping into others and yet others, began to pervade the city in a wretched fashion: there was therefore alarm at Palermo, both at the strangeness and at the atrocity of the disease, which threatens devastation even to the most flourishing peoples. Nothing meanwhile was omitted by the magistrates that could be effected by human counsel, that the plague might be checked at its very beginning. A vacation was ordered from the public schools; women and children were compelled to keep themselves at home and not to go to the churches except those nearest to each one's house,

and on feast days only for divine worship: alms were sent to the needy, lest they should be forced to go out: an edict was made that whatever barbarian merchandise was in the citizens' hands should be brought forth and, the price being paid from the public purse to avert avarice, should be cast into the fire and burned. Those who had means, if by chance either the disease or the suspicion of the disease had invaded their house, were, with guards set and the penalty of death threatened, shut up in their own house and separated from the company of others: but for others whose means at home were narrow, an infirmary was set up in the nearest suburb, and another shortly afterwards built; houses were assigned there both for those wasting with the pestilence and, separately, for those whom their intercourse with these had made suspected; the funerals of all were provided at public expense, that those whom the plague had carried off might be borne out. In short nothing was spared in expense, but everything was abundantly supplied, with attendants, physicians and confessors. Yet grief, dread and trembling had so pervaded every man that a sudden disease changed the face of a city a little before most flourishing. This distressed them the more, that the counsels taken did not succeed, and the fire was not quenched, but, like a flame falling upon a wood with the wind driving it, raged the more widely. Therefore, when by human aid the violence of the disease, which seemed to grow worse daily, could not be lightened, recourse had to be had with a readier mind to the divine.

[196] for which cause, when besides other exercises of piety, In which matter there shone forth above all the fatherly charity toward his own flock of the most eminent Cardinal Giannettino Auria \, archbishop of Palermo, and his notable loftiness of soul in all things and his constancy unconquered above all mischances. He, when he was passing that summer at Termini Imerese for the relief of his sickness, on receiving news of the new calamity at once broke off all delays; nor did he make so much either of the mildness of the air of Termini, favorable to him, or of the danger to his none too firm health, as not to come at once to Palermo, that he might bring what help he could to his suffering people. Scarcely had he reached it when he gave the greatest proofs of a brave soul that loved its own: to raise up all whom he met, cast down with grief and fear, to strengthen them with the weight of his words, to console them with courtesy, to succor with a bounteous dole the want of the poor, whose multitude was growing daily as their crafts in part ceased and the trade of strangers failed; and to attend in due season to all the other things which were of his right and office. And having disposed through the districts of the city priests who, from the religious families and from the clergy, had devoted their lives to the salvation of souls, that they might be at hand to help the sick by the aid of the Sacraments, he bent his mind to this, that the whole people should turn their minds and prayers as suppliants to God, and — which is the chief thing — should bend him to mercy by right deeds.*

[197] a pious and solemn supplication was held, Nor did he think it enough to hold that perpetual prayer which even in prosperity is solemn at Palermo, and is performed for forty hours in each church of the city in turn, with the most august Sacrament of the Eucharist set forth for public veneration; but he ordered this rite of prayer to be celebrated at one time in all the sacred buildings together: to each of the Religious Orders too whose custom this is he appointed its own day on which they should go in supplication to the chief church; which office of piety they performed most religiously, walking barefoot, with mournful strains of voice and with other afflictions of the body, striking into the watching people a fear of the offended Deity: after the supplications of each of those families he proclaimed another, a solemn one of the whole Religious body and of the clergy, in which the sacred relics of the holy virgins and martyrs Christina and Nympha, in whose protection the city is, should be led through the city; and the prelate himself, adorned after the pontifical rite, and the senate also as suppliants, took part in this last supplication, the people following the sacred procession, bathed in tears and again and again raising cries imploring the divine help: and the supplication was held on the Ides of July in the morning hours. But God willed unhoped-for to teach us what chief refuge in calamity he was giving to Palermo, and put in the thought of imploring help from the holy Rosalia, that, being invoked, she might at once be present with a singular example of beneficence. But it is worth the while to write so great a matter more accurately, with exactly that credit with which four priests, grave no less in piety than in years, questioned separately and lawfully, set it forth confirmed on oath. Who first testified on oath that they had nowhere heard anything of what was being done on Mount Pellegrino, nor had thought of it beforehand, nor agreed among themselves that they would do what we shall relate was done only by the impulse of the divine Spirit.

[198] Two pairs of priests, therefore, with a most numerous line of clergy between them, the cantors invoke St. Rosalia in the litanies were walking adorned in sacred vestments befitting the office and the time; it was theirs to lead the chant for the rest in invoking the names of the Saints set out in the litanies; and the one pair of cantors did not depend on the other, but, since each led its own choir, they were separated from one another by an interval of nearly a furlong, which space the ranks of the clergy occupied; the sacred platforms too of the saints Roch, Sebastian and others, set between the two sets of cantors, and the multitude of men poured around these, took from them the sight of each other, so that the one pair could not even nod to the other, much less speak to it, nor could they hear each other distinctly. Now when in that invocation of the litanies they had come to the choir of the holy virgins, and there had been added after the others, out of the usual order, as is the custom, the patronesses of the city of Palermo, Christina, Nympha and Oliva (for the holy Agatha had already come in her own place), Don Petrus Garofalus, whose age had advanced to the sixty-fifth year, moved by a certain inward and divine impulse, with none of the bystanders suggesting it to him, asks his colleague Don Franciscus Moscarellus in a low voice whether it would please him that the holy virgin Rosalia be invoked besides. Ha, this very thing, said he, I was turning over in my mind. And so, by this sudden conspiracy of minds, lifting up their voices after the custom, they invoke St. Rosalia.

[199] And the other college of cantors, although it in no way knew what was being done by the other, with a wonderful agreement, although she was not then wont to be so invoked: at almost the same time, and at the same place among the virgins, uttered the same word divinely put into them. This alone was the difference, that, the cantors alternating, Don Joseph Pate was thinking of invoking St. Anastasia, whom they had passed over, and proposed to his colleague that it should be done; but he, whose name was Don Vincentius de Amato, judged that St. Rosalia should be set before St. Anastasia: and without delay with one consent they implored her help. For truly, although it was afterwards discovered from old codices that some centuries before St. Rosalia was wont to be invoked among the number of the holy virgins in the litanies, yet, the rite of the old litanies having been abolished by decrees of the pontiffs, with only the names of the three patronesses whom I have just enumerated retained, the custom of invoking our virgin Rosalia had long since fallen into disuse: and indeed, although these priests had discharged that office of leading the chant for several years, they had nevertheless never inserted the name of St. Rosalia into the litanies, nor thought of calling upon it, nor, if they had thought of it, would they ever have dared to do it, since archbishop Auria was most tenacious of ecclesiastical discipline and of the rites prescribed by the Church, and at once a hater of novelties and a most severe avenger of them, if anything were done amiss against them or beyond the custom admitted by usage.

[200] which they believed was done by a divine prompting. Wherefore those priests believed, while the fact was still fresh (as they afterwards solemnly swore), that that thought had been sent into them by God: and when at sunset the one pair heard of the other's impulse and deed, and much more after on the next day the report of the finding of the sacred body of St. Rosalia spread abroad, they affirmed that they could not doubt that they had done it inspired by the divine Spirit. Thus far Salernus, who made Cascinus' account Latin in compendium. Certainly in these matters that agreement of four priests in naming St. Rosalia, and in invoking her contrary to custom, is to be wondered at above the rest. Yet that matter is so confirmed by Cascinus that it seems altogether beyond doubt. Other writers relating the same history I do not adduce, because Cascinus' integrity is so great that in these matters, which he could see and could learn exactly from the sworn testimonies of many, his testimony is beyond all exception. Wherefore I come to the finding of the body, which happened on that same fifteenth day of July on which the aforesaid supplication was held in the city of Palermo, outside the city on Mount Pellegrino.

\* commonly Doria

§ XIX. The finding of the body; which being announced to the Cardinal archbishop, he orders it to be carried secretly to his own palace: the joy of the people desiring Rosalia as patroness: many benefits presently obtained.

[ ] Those seeking the Saint's body, after labor from time to time interrupted Cascinus, book 1, chapter 5, reports the finding of the body, and observes that about fifty days passed from the beginning of the work until the finding, yet not so that they dug every day, but that from time to time they interrupted that labor for some days and then took it up again. Hieronyma, who had learned the place in the vision, was always present, and her husband Benedictus lo Gattuto was also present when the body was found, as I learn from the often-praised manuscript account, in which not a few others are enumerated who from time to time came and again departed, because they despaired of finding the body. Some also dug not knowing what was being done, and believing that a profane treasure was being sought. But these things and some others related there conduce little to our purpose; and Cascinus, whom Salernus follows, selected from the process nearly everything necessary for an exact knowledge of the finding. Wherefore I return to Salernus, intending from time to time briefly to insert into his account a few things from the manuscript, where it shall seem worth the while.

[202] and long continued, find a great rock, But, he says, that we may hand down to the memory of posterity in what manner the virgin Rosalia, being addressed, heard on the instant the prayers of the suppliant people and hastened to bring help, let our discourse return to the diggers (whose leader was always Vitus Amodæus). They had taken up again the labor of digging out the earth (begun on the twenty-ninth of May, but) often interrupted. Nay, having set to it more eagerly, they had spent only six days, when on the Ides of July, the day being already far spent, in the course of digging, the earth having now been carried out to a depth of fifteen feet, they light upon a great and living rock, whose length was drawn out to six palms and more, while its breadth and height were contained within nearly three. From the manuscript, they had already found that rock on the preceding day, but went on digging around it, because they by no means suspected that the relics were hidden in it, until they broke that rock, as presently follows. Salernus goes on: It was whole, and (the rock) seemed solid: yet they deliberated about extracting it; for since it did not cleave to the other crags of the mountain, but was buried in the earth on every side, it was a hindrance to them from going further. But, destitute of ropes and the contrivance of machines, they set about breaking it with an iron bar; and first they cut off a fragment of no great mass. Then Amodæus urges his companion (Benedictus lo Gattuto) to lift it up and carry it out.

[203] He attempts the thing, but, struggling somewhat, pleaded the very great weight of the small mass. which, when they could not lift it, they break asunder: Amodæus laughs at the man, and

reproaching his companion with weakness of strength, leaps down into the hollow, thinking that he could accomplish the thing with easy labor. But presently he too felt himself unequal to it; nay, though both toiled together with every effort, it could not be lifted. Suspecting as yet nothing divine, in order to finish what they had begun they break that fragment with a blow of the bar into other pieces, and perceive that it is hollow. Then, struck with the greater wonder at their own weakness, they contemplate more attentively the natural condition of the fragment they had seized; when behold, they see a skull set in the rock where it was hollow. At once they cry out joyfully that they have found the body of St. Rosalia; they call the monks from the neighboring monastery; and while all, fixed in wonder, were beholding the singular brightness in the bones, some felt a sweetness of odor the more to be wondered at because it was not given from heaven to all to perceive it. And this beauty of the bones and the breath of a most sweet odor began to declare the heavenly Rose. According to the manuscript account, already during the digging, after the aforesaid rock had been found, a sweet odor was perceived in the morning of the fifteenth day of July, and again in the evening, when the first piece was struck off from the rock; but then, intent upon their labor, they did not turn their minds to that odor. But afterwards various men are said to have perceived the same odor, and Franciscus de Fiume, a Franciscan, confirmed this of himself by oath.

[204] Let us return to Salernus, who goes on thus: They were considering in their minds that it was not without a singular providence of God, beyond the common course of nature, that those bones were kept whole and covered in that stone and find in it the Saint's body, as in a marble tomb; they understood now that their strength had been overcome, not by the natural weight of the rock, but that an indication had been given them from heaven, unlooked for, which might rouse a mind distracted elsewhere and lying idle. More eagerly, therefore, they gird themselves to extract the remaining mass of the stone. But the Virgin, who had shown herself more difficult in the small fragment containing only the skull, that by that prodigy she might declare herself, being now recognized made lighter the mass which enclosed the rest of the body. Wherefore it was drawn out by the hands of two men with no support so easily that you would have said it lifted itself rather than was lifted. But when that stone tomb of a most entire body was set nearer before their eyes, it stirred up wonder; for, cohering by no joints, nor gaping with any little chinks, nor projecting at the sides, nor covered by any lid, it most plainly showed that it had given no entrance by which the body might have been brought in.

[205] which is carried to the archbishop's palace. After all who had gathered into the cave were persuaded that the body of St. Rosalia had been found, one of the religious men flies at once as a messenger to the senate: the senate reports the matter to prince Philibert, son of the duke of Savoy, discharging the office of viceroy in the government of Sicily. He left the cognizance of that matter entire, as was right and lawful, to Cardinal Auria the archbishop: but he did not suffer his own diligence, or a prudence equal to so great a matter, to be wanting for a moment. Wherefore at the same point of time he appoints certain men in whom there was the greatest trustworthiness, fortified by his own and the senate's guard, to keep whatever had been found entire from anyone's presumption and fraud. When day dawned he sent other men of greater authority to inquire, that with the greatest possible fidelity all the deeds and events might be entered in the records. And he ordered the body that had been found to be conveyed on the following night, as secretly as he could, to his own dwelling, and to be becomingly kept in the sacristy; judging that in a matter of such moment there was need of deliberation rather than of haste, and that one must wait until God should give surer proofs of sanctity. But among other things, both in the searching out and also in the conveying of those relics, that whole mass of stone gave a most notable proof: it was greater by as many parts than that fragment which could not be lifted by one man's effort as the head is exceeded by the rest of the body; for just as, when it was carried out of the hollow, it was light, so, when it was being conveyed to Palermo, it was made most light. Enclosed in a wooden chest it was carried on the shoulder of one man over the rough places of the steep mountain through a long stretch of road, yet with no trouble. The rock in which was the part of the head was brought to Palermo on the night before the sixteenth of July, and on the following night the rest of the body, as is read both in the manuscript account and in the discourse of the archbishop Cardinal in Cascinus, page 60.

[206] [The report of the finding being spread abroad, the Saint is chosen patroness with a wonderful ardor of all,] But it is incredible to relate, says Salernus, how very swiftly the report of the finding of the body ran through the city; how welcome it was to the citizens, and with how vast a feeling of piety and joy it sank deep into the minds of all. There was one voice of all, that the city would soon be delivered from the pestilence by the new patronage of her own Nursling. What else was it that God had reserved so great a good for the evil state of Palermo? Assuredly that God is not angry with men unto destruction: that the same both brings war and gives interpreters of peace: inflicts wounds and supplies remedies: that it belongs to his providence that, while on the one side poisonous herbs spring up, on the other antidotes arise; and where thorns prick, roses refresh. It is hard to say how greatly the people began to burn toward the Virgin, so that it might easily be believed that they were driven by the divine Spirit: to celebrate the name of St. Rosalia, which before the greatest part did not know; in frequent gatherings to mingle talk of her; to bring forth their own zeal; one to exhort another, and to bring him to hope of safety: to go up in crowds to Mount Pellegrino, to visit the cave, to hold in price the fragments of the cut stone, and to pick them out like gems; to seek dust from the earth, water from the dripping: presently each to procure for himself images of the holy Virgin printed from types, to venerate them and to fix them to the doorposts of his house as an amulet against the plague. Wherefore scarcely twelve days had passed when the senate and people, a council being called, by the votes of all sought and chose Saint Rosalia as their patroness; then they decreed that for her relics, when leave should be given to venerate them publicly, a chest of solid silver should be built at public expense, to be carried round every year through the streets of the city in solemn procession, and a most richly adorned shrine in the chief church.

[207] But who could enumerate the countless benefits and miracles of the holy Virgin, wrought through the city in the greatest variety of places and times beyond all the power of nature? who at once begins to grow famous by miracles. A beginning indeed was made by that man who, seized by the plague in the lazaretto (so the Italians call, from the ulcerous Lazarus, that kind of infirmary which is used for those touched by pestilence), when he had perceived nothing of the translation of the sacred body, being warned by God alone, said: Now the body of St. Rosalia is being carried down from the mountain; and to his words he immediately gave credit as a suppliant by health unexpectedly recovered. Presently, when either something gathered from the cave was piously applied to sick bodies, or a little water, whether dripping from the cave or into which a piece of that rock or bone had been put, was drunk, so many and so great prodigies followed, especially against pestilential and deadly diseases, that their number, no less than their wonderful manner, surpasses belief. Yet, lest anything should be conceded to the pious impulses of the people and the murmurings of the crowd, it seemed to the Cardinal archbishop best and necessary that inquiry should be made into them and that they should be entered one by one in the public records, the witnesses being lawfully questioned and sworn. But that same pestilence which was being driven off from most was the greatest hindrance; for since the sick and their households were not allowed to set foot out of the house, and a long interval of days ran on until they duly laid aside suspicion, lest any evil might spread to others, and since the disease crept widely likewise into others and yet others, and very many other cares besides delayed the speed of the proofs. But about many it was clearly established in a short time, which, lest we be forced to break off the thread of this narrative, it has seemed better not to report here; but from that number of miracles we shall weave in a few at the end. Thus far Salernus, whose collection of miracles I shall give after the Life to be published below: several also from Cascinus I shall afterwards render into Latin and subjoin.

§ XX. The archbishop's care for examining the relics: the plague somewhat mitigated: a fruitless consultation of theologians and physicians: the approval being deferred, the plague grows worse again: a second consultation of physicians.

[ ] Vows made at Palermo against the plague, Meanwhile the Cardinal's mind was somewhat distracted by the ill health of prince Philibert the viceroy, then by his death on the third of the Nones of August, and finally by the government of Sicily committed to that same Cardinal both by the prince's own vote and by the consent of the whole royal council. When therefore Cardinal Auria had entered upon his new magistracy on the day after the Nones of August, turning new cares in his mind, although he suffered nothing to be omitted of what belonged to human industry and vigilance, yet he perceived that the safety of the whole city and kingdom (for the plague had invaded other cities also, and danger threatened the rest from near at hand) rested chiefly upon divine remedies. Wherefore new appeasements of the divine anger began to be devised, and he determined from time to time to take on new patronages as new evils pressed. His first care was in acts of homage to the Virgin Mother of God, in which the greatest part of hope was placed. On the day, therefore, of the Virgin's Assumption into heaven, while the prelate was offering the sacrifice, the senate and the rest of the magistracy, and the people through their syndic, swore and publicly vowed that, prostrating themselves at the feet of the supreme Queen of men and of those above, they confessed from the judgment of their soul that the Virgin Mother of God, by the singular benefit of him whom she was to bear, was at her very conception free from that stain which has from its farthest origin pervaded the human race; and that they would never suffer that opinion to be wrested from them, so long as by the decrees of the Roman Pontiff it should be lawful to maintain it. Then they promised that they would celebrate the vigil of the day which is sacred to the conception of the Mother of God, in the month of December, with a fast, and the day itself with a particular and solemn public honor beyond the usual.

[209] and about venerating St. Rosalia as patroness, There were then added vows about venerating the holy Rosalia in the number of the patronesses, and about a silver chest to be built for her relics when they should be publicly set forth for veneration: then within a short interval of time other and more Saints were chosen by the senate as patrons of the city, that satisfaction might be given to the private feeling of some who piously asked it; but meanwhile the plague did not abate at all; for the Mother of God was assuredly sending us back to the patronage of the holy Rosalia, for whom God had decreed to procure by her benefits the celebrity of a name then not so illustrious. And, to say once for all what has been found out with experience often confirming it, the returning violence of the pestilence raged the more vehemently whenever the prelate's mind was retarded from urging the declaration of Rosalia's sacred relics, whether by the negligence of his ministers, or by the difficulty of the matter, or hindered by other cares; but it grew mild when he returned to it; and at last it was quenched, as we shall say, when they, carried round in solemn procession and acknowledged, obtained a public and famous cult. These vows of the city of Palermo, made with a wonderful agreement, Cascinus explains more fully in book 1, chapters 6 and 7, where he also enumerates several Saints whom the people of Palermo then chose as their patrons. Then in chapter 8 he enumerates the human devices which they multiplied in vain against the plague.

[210] whose feast was then celebrated more solemnly than usual. Meanwhile it came about, as Salernus goes on,

to the beginning of September, upon whose fourth day falls St. Rosalia's departure into heaven and her festal cult. And it was wonderful how greatly the zeal both of the magistrates and of the people blazed up in celebrating it then for the first time with a more solemn rite; for hitherto in the office of the sacred prayers and in divine worship her mention was contained among the virgins of the second rank with no sign of a fuller veneration. A fast was therefore proclaimed on the vigil, and a religious keeping of holiday; a supplication also was held, but with a more moderate outfit of procession, as the matter and the time allowed; and a great outpouring of the people venerated with an extraordinary feeling of piety the painted image of the holy virgin Rosalia as it was carried along — chiefly of women, who could be restrained by no fear of the edict published before from bursting out of their houses, relying perhaps too much, more than was fitting for human counsel, upon the help of the holy Virgin, that no harm would be taken from that going about undertaken for the sake of venerating her. Nor did their hope deceive them. From this supplication the force of the disease seemed so to abate that, since very few for those two months were either infected by fresh contagion or perished of it, the intercourse of the people through the city was at last relaxed.

[211] Meanwhile, when, the plague being somewhat allayed, both the city by enduring and the Cardinal archbishop, who was also viceroy, by deliberating drew breath; and when he saw that the miracles were not rashly bandied about among the crowd, [The plague being somewhat allayed, the Cardinal consults theologians about approving the relics;] but that within a short time the testimony of about three hundred persons had been reported; and when the senate and people also, stirred by the prodigies and benefits, did not cease to demand urgently that it might be lawful publicly to venerate the body that had been found, through him to whom the lawful power of decreeing this had been granted by the most sacred Council of Trent; by the prescript of the same council the Cardinal calls into council doctors of theology and other men distinguished for virtue and learning, and from the religious families their superiors. Having set forth the gravity of the matter, and unfolded from the records the series of the deeds and miracles, he charges each of them to study diligently at leisure at home the records, which were presently to be brought to them. The very discourse of the Cardinal by which he addressed the assembled theologians Cascinus recites in chapter 9. And he asserts in the same place that they were summoned on the last day of November. There were then communicated to those theologians three sets of acts of the events, as Cascinus testifies in the same place, page 60: the first, namely, about the finding and the handing over of the body; the second about the miracles done at Palermo; and the third about the miracles which had happened in the house or infirmary of those infected with the plague. The length of these acts caused a whole month to pass before they met to answer.

[212] When they came together again, says Salernus, going on, while the greater part inclined one way, a few said that they still stuck fast, but since some doubted, he asks for the opinions of each in writing: especially since no inscription had been found at the tomb which testified that that body was the holy Rosalia's; and about the miracles they added that they could be attributed to the faith and invocation of the holy Virgin; nor did they think that the genuineness of the relics could otherwise be plain from them, unless it were established that they had been performed after a declaration made beforehand for confirming it. Others urged that the tradition about St. Rosalia's body hidden here carried far greater weight than inscriptions; that these, forsooth, rest upon the private credit of their authors, that many new ones are set beside ancient things, or, moved from their place, draw things and opinions in different directions; but that into traditions scarcely any fault of this kind falls, since they are commended not by one author, but by the consent of many and almost of all, and by the memory of many centuries, without suspicion of fraud. On the force of miracles the matter was then debated by many, but more fully in another session, as we shall say. Cascinus, who was present at the affair among the chief men, testifies in chapter 9, page 61, that the theologians consulted met before the vicar general Franciscus della Riva, where each so gave his opinion that the greater part judged that it could be affirmed that the relics found were St. Rosalia's; yet some doubted. But the archbishop, having heard the doubt of certain of them, ordered the reasons alleged on either side to be written down, that so they might be more accurately examined; and meanwhile he employed the help of physicians also.

[213] Of these matters Salernus goes on thus: This hesitation of a few threw some delay in the way of the Cardinal archbishop's deciding the matter in due season, which he wished to be attested by the consent of all; [physicians, called in for the examination of the body, deceived by a grudging light,] wherefore, the council being dismissed, he ordered a more accurate inquiry to be made both about the miracles and about St. Rosalia's tomb; and, following every way by which he might be brought to determine the matter safely, he gave the business to six men of the medical art, and those most skilled in anatomy, that they should diligently inspect those bones set in the stone; for he perceived that perhaps, set before their eyes, they would give some surer ground of counsel. But the thing first attempted made little progress, and cast the Cardinal into other labyrinths; for when after sunset, the sky being already dark, they had met to inspect them, the light of household torches did not sufficiently reveal the matter; for not only did the rocks cast about the embedded bones deceive the sight of the eyes, so that they could easily conjecture nothing about the size and nature of those same bones; but since a mass of hardened stone had been drawn over beyond the just quantity of the skeleton, and there was no means of at once distinguishing the one from the other by that grudging light which even spread shadows about, that mass presented rather the appearance of some monstrous body, far exceeding the accustomed size not merely of a woman's but of a man's body.

[214] and then by a careless inspection, make the Cardinal doubtful: There was added also this doubt, lest those bones had already been confounded with others buried in the same cave; for there seemed to be there three rocks by their mass, and so three heads: one giant-like, another a child's, a third of middling size. This appearance being therefore set before them at almost the first glance, thinking that nothing needed more diligent searching, they reported to the Cardinal, deceived, what they had seen. That word struck the Cardinal's mind, a man otherwise by the prudence bred in his character by no means prone to give credit to uncertain matters. He therefore most severely forbade the physicians not only to spread anything abroad among the crowd, but even to communicate it to anyone. He turned over vast cares within himself, hoping that God, who had shone forth in so many miracles, would be at hand. Meanwhile not a little in silence turned aside his surging mind. God, the author of all counsels, so ordered these things that by the increase of the disease the sins of the whole people might be punished with a severer chastisement, and that thence a fuller glory might come to St. Rosalia in its own time.

[215] [the care of the approval being thus interrupted, the plague grows worse again, although] Therefore on occasion both of the people then coming together because of the relaxed intercourse, and of the interrupted care about venerating the sacred relics, as we have said, between the Nones and the Ides of November, that flame of pestilence which a little before had seemed almost extinguished began, at first with silent increases, then more and more to rage through the city; and, just as if from many places at once a great volley of balls had been discharged from engines of war, so from all the streets of the city new tidings of contagion clamored in men's ears: that many everywhere were falling into the plague, that most were perishing; that scarce time was left for tending them, so were they at once overwhelmed by plague and death; that houses were being deserted by their dwellers, families blotted out; that biers were dragged along heaped full with the bodies of the dead; that a hundred lifeless bodies daily and more, and as many all but lifeless with disease and fear, were being carried out of the city to the lazaretto to almost certain destruction. And when by night and by day the lamentation of friends, the bereavements of children, the grief of parents and spouses in squalor of countenance and in dark garments and in wailing were set before their eyes and ears, so great a terror was struck into them that those who before had stood undaunted fell in spirit. Meanwhile, when the day of the Conception of the Mother of God had come, which is the eighth of December, not only was that day most solemn, as had been established by the vow, but for seven following days also, with a vast concourse of people in the church of St. Francis, that privilege of the Virgin was celebrated with magnificent display and with daily sacred sermons. Yet the venom of the disease, creeping so widely, insinuated itself into every corner and, as it were, into the bowels of the city, so that no protection now seemed left in human resources.

[216] very many exercises of piety and penance are employed. But since the Mother of the Son of God had not prevailed upon the Father's mercy, nothing now remained to be moved but the sacred anchor. That was the image of Christ fastened to the gibbet, most religiously kept in the chief church, which is not wont to be moved from its place and shown through the city except when affairs at home are desperate. Wherefore at the beginning of the new year a three days' fast was proclaimed after the custom, and a sacred confession of crimes to expiate the soul, with the banquet of the most holy Eucharist, that to God the Father, best and greatest, the death of his only Son undergone for mortals might be set forth, the effigy of Christ Crucified being carried round, with the greatest hope of softening his anger. And this was done most religiously (on the fifth day of January of the year 1625, as he notes in the margin with Cascinus, who reports the same at greater length in chapter 10), with very many confraternities going before, all the religious families with the relics of Saints, and a most numerous clergy, and following them the senate, the rest of the nobility, and countless common folk without distinction. Those who counted have handed down that the number of burning tapers was contained between thirteen and fourteen thousand. But what is more to be wondered at, some with bare and chained feet, others with ropes cast about their necks, some wreathed with crowns of thorn and sprinkled with ashes, some wasting themselves with various afflictions or with barbed scourges, all bathed in tears, with cries at intervals raised imploring mercy, showing a deep feeling of grief by their squalor and their sighs, went forth: and in the same order, and with a still greater company, on the following day the sacred image was brought back from St. Mary of the Chains: then for the next eight days it stood in the middle of the chief church upon a high platform, the supplications being renewed and prayers poured out continually to God with so great a concourse of people and so great a stirring of souls that the chief church resounded continuously with groans, sighs and mournful outcries.

[217] No care of guarding against the contagion touched anyone; At the request of the senate and people that the relics be approved, for all were persuaded of this, that the remedy of the evil must as it were be wrung from heaven by prayers. You would have seen a Nineveh repenting of itself; and yet God did not seem to change the sentence for the destruction of the city of Palermo, as he did that of Nineveh, no diminution of the pestilence being made during that time. This one reward and benefit from so many supplications gone through before, from the victims of afflicted bodies, and from so great a pouring out of tears and blood, the city in the opinion of all seemed to have gained, that men's zeal grew hot again toward the relics of the holy Rosalia, on which, God willing, all safety depended. The people murmured with grief that so great a protection sent them from heaven had been all but taken from them: the senate did not cease to demand it again: certain sayings, as it were divine, of men of tried virtue were reported, that unless the due honor were decreed to the relics that had been found, all to a man would perish of the plague: the zeal of men of the greatest weight was at last kindled to promote that business diligently.

[218] Meanwhile the prelate, being asked by a man of notable piety, Jordanus Cascini of the Society of Jesus, [these, by the Cardinal's leave, are examined in clear daylight first by the theologians,] whose prudence above all he used in this matter, that it might be lawful for him at last to break those rocks in which the sacred

bones lay hidden, and to inspect them before he made an end of writing in favor of acknowledging the body of the holy Rosalia and refuted the doubts brought forward by some — then at last he disclosed what cares thrown in by the physicians were burning his silent breast; and he permitted Jordanus, having taken to himself two theologians of the same Society (nay, three, namely Hieronymus Tagliava, Josephus Agostini and Marius Domenichi, as Cascinus has it in chapter 11), to meet for that purpose with Don Franciscus Riba, the vicar general, and Don Vincentius Domenicus. When these had taken up the larger mass of rock which had seemed to the physicians a giant's head, they distinguished with their eyes, in a light clearer than midday, the adhering rock from the enclosed bones of the head, which displayed no more than a just size: what the physicians had called a child's skull was an earthen vessel; while what they had believed to be a middling and true head was a round stone which had been inserted into the other, larger one after the fashion of a vertebra. Finally they perceive that the bones could be better discerned if, the stony rind being broken away by degrees, they lay open, at least so far as this could be done without danger of their falling into flakes. This light scattered the darkness of sadness from the Cardinal's breast, and at the same time dispersed the shadows of doubt that had spread over it. For so great a doubt and dread had been thrown into the Cardinal by the physicians after that first and perfunctory inspection of the bones that, as Cascinus testifies on page 67, he had rather broken off the examination than deferred it. But, his courage being taken up again by the report of Cascinus and of the others who had surveyed the bones with him, he ordered the physicians to be called to a second inspection, and willed the above-said theologians to be present at it.

[219] Of this inspection of the bones Salernus, going on, has this: The inspection, then, was repeated by day by those same doctors of the anatomical art, men indeed distinguished and most learned, the clear light of the sun now illuminating everything. Then all looked about them fixed in wonder; they doubted whether these were the same rocks they had seen before, or whether others had been set before them to deceive and mock them. At last all frankly confessed that it had not been possible for them, when they were first compelled by night, by the uncertain light of torches, to pass a certain judgment upon them. And of what they then said, and afterwards, at the prelate's wish, each set forth in written statements, this was the sum. That the bones which, enclosed in a single, dense and precious stone and kept in their own chest, were from the beginning said to be St. Rosalia's, were of one form and one condition, and therefore of one body, far different from those which, buried before in other places and afterwards brought together into another chest, black, decayed, smelling of a corpse, so ill deformed, seemed even at first sight to have been exposed by the common law of nature to the mockeries of place and time. But that all these were white, comely, and shone as if polished on purpose, disfigured by no trace of corruption; that whatever appeared spongy in the bones already broken displayed indeed a wonderful beauty, and grew yellow like gold.

[220] and now give a better testimony; And although for the greatest part they cohere so intimately with the rock that they cannot all be separated with their integrity safe, yet that nowhere had they been turned into the nature of stone, and that their form was manifestly distinct — which was also most certainly established by an experiment made; for some bones, whole and most shining, could be drawn out like grains from a husk: especially the parts of the head were recognized, of which two composed the top of the skull and a third the bottom: that all agreed among themselves, and with the head itself, in the proportion of size and of other qualities: and that they were neither more nor fewer than one body requires; nay, they now called each by its own name from the anatomical art; which they performed far more accurately in the third inspection, when they were to be laid up in the chest for public veneration. That they exhaled no unpleasing odor, but a sweet one: some also, while they were searching into these things, perceived something divine to be fragrant, but for a short space of time, for a little after — which is an argument of a thing not natural — they returned to their former state. That the very slight difference which lies between the female and the male structure of bones is not easily discerned, but in this body, because of the stony coverings, could in no way be discerned; yet from indications they judged the body to be a woman's and not a man's; for the bones were smaller, whiter, and compacted as it were of finer grains than happens in men's bodies. Finally they asserted that the enclosure of the grown stone was a thing full of miracle, beyond what nature seemed able to do, and that therefore a singular benefit of God in protecting those bones must here be acknowledged. The thing was certainly of a wonderful elegance and comeliness not seen before, and such as not only held the eyes of the beholders but took their minds also, so that no one could refrain from looking upon it and loving it.

[221] Cascinus, book 1, chapter 11, recites the very words of the physicians in part. which is here recited in compendium. Five entire testimonies confirmed by oath were also communicated to us in writing. Now these physicians were Josephus Pizzuto, protomedicus general of Sicily; Joannes Franciscus Fiocchetti, protomedicus general of the royal fleet of galleys; Franciscus Guerreri, protomedicus of the city of Palermo; Hieronymus Spucces and Erasmus Salati, doctors of arts and of medicine, whose testimonies I have. Cascinus praises besides, on page 5, Laurentius di Natale, and recites some of his words. Further, the testimonies of all agree in these points: first, that they judged the bones to be a woman's rather than a man's, and gathered this from various things, yet so that they confessed it could not be shown for certain, because those bones from which they would have learned it for certain were sticking in the stone; secondly, that they were of ordinary size, of wonderful whiteness, and without any evil odor; and that they differed much from the other bones found indeed on Mount Pellegrino, but in another place and outside that rock in which the bones of St. Rosalia were enclosed.

[222] To these the first adds: When I consider this work so wonderful, it seems to me first that it has something divine, that is, that God our Lord made a wonderful tomb for preserving these bones, because in truth it does not appear an altogether natural work. The second added to the aforesaid the sweet odor of the bones, and said he was led to believe that these bones were those of some holy body. The third above the rest extolled the whiteness of the bones and the beauty both of the stone and of the bones, and said that these, whether quantity or proportion be regarded, do not exceed the quantity of the bones of a human body of middle stature. Nay, he added that all seemed to him so wonderful that he firmly judged there was in them something above natural power, and that the said bones had been preserved by divine power, not by an ordinary and natural cause. The fourth asserts more firmly than the rest that they are a woman's bones, and adds that in his judgment they have something of a gentle and sweet odor. The fifth, lastly, having praised the whiteness and beauty of the bones without any corruption, said that he judged the said preservation and beauty could not be natural, but proceeded from some supernatural and hidden cause. So much for the inspection of the physicians, after which the Cardinal archbishop appointed an assembly in which all the theologians consulted before should meet together with the physicians.

§ XXI. An assembly of theologians and physicians together appointed for approving the relics: a wonderful apparition by which the genuineness of the bones of St. Rosalia is confirmed.

[ ] Another assembly of theologians and physicians appointed, At last on the Ides of February (nay, on the eleventh day, according to Cascinus, page 71) the prelate called into council for the third time all those who had been present at this second inspection, and also the others who had been summoned at first. First, in a brilliant discourse full of piety and prudence, he explained the things done up to that day; then he set forth what was to be determined about the relics that had been found, adding those lights of learning which might carry the torch for the rest in deciding a matter of such moment. Cascinus recites part of that discourse on pages 71 and 72, and there asserts that the miracles were presently read from the threefold Acts. Of these the Cardinal himself had asserted that they had been examined and proved with great rigor and accuracy, both the more recent ones and those first ones already approved before, which were subjected to a new examination. These miracles will be given in their place. Meanwhile I observe that the order of things has been disturbed by Salernus, who, against Cascinus, who was present at the affair, asserts that the physicians' opinion was heard before the reading of the miracles. For he goes on thus: He ordered the physicians to bring forward their opinion about the bones they had examined; then to discourse both about the distinction of these bones from the others found in the same cave, but in another place, not long after, and about their preservation and beauty, and how far in each case the thing seemed to have leaped beyond the bounds of nature. He willed the most recent and the first miracles, more accurately proved by lawfully sworn witnesses, to be recited, passing over the countless signs given daily and everywhere, of which no account could be kept.

[224] [in which, when the matter had been disputed, all agree for the approval of the relics,] Here also it was weighed how much weight miracles have — which are the words of God speaking, and the divine seal of a truth confirmed — for claiming his relics for a Saint, when the question is of discerning them, and when they are done at the invocation of his name and the application of the bones; for then that condition is tacitly added to the petition for a miracle, if they are that Saint's relics; nay, in our case it was sometimes even added in express words, that by the miracle which was sought God might be willing to declare whether those relics were our own Rosalia's: there was compared and diligently discussed what the histories relate to have happened in the more famous findings of sacred bodies, and especially in that of the saints Placidus and his companions not long before in Sicily, and by what indications the head of the matter was reached. At last the heads of each of the religious Orders, and the other summits of the theologians, being asked, all went into this opinion: that it evidently seemed credible, and therefore was piously and prudently to be judged, that it pleased God the author of the miracles that those bones should be held in honor, as is fitting, and be venerated and adored by public rite as the sacred relics of Saint Rosalia; and that this was agreeable to the truth of the matter, to the Christian religion, to the doctrine handed down by the holy Fathers, to the institutes of the sacred canons, and to the custom of the Church. On these reasons Cascinus insisted for the approval of the relics, who himself recites his own dissertation in chapter 11 from page 73. But he added also not a few other arguments, as may there be seen.

[225] There was, however, one of this council who said that it had been abundantly declared by the miracles that those relics were holy; except one or two who at first desired a revelation: the approval then decreed. but that he would wish it more and more ascertained by some heavenly vision that they were the very relics of Saint Rosalia: that desire was indeed rejected by the rest, because it prescribed to God the manner of uncovering a truth which he had sufficiently declared. But God readily complied with these human wishes on this very thirteenth day of February, that no remnant of the slightest doubt might be left which might seem to stand in the way of the holy Virgin's glory. But that heavenly vision, which happened on the same day of the consultation, as I have said, was reported to the Cardinal some days afterwards,

when he already held it as settled to set forth the sacred relics for the people's adoration; and it was reported at that hour when the prelate and a few of his household were deliberating about the day and the display: which I should believe was done with this design, that God might show it had been by no means necessary for a matter attested abundantly and more. Yet this miracle, which exhibited a testimony to the relics and a prediction of the city's deliverance through them, it is right that I should write out entire, as it happened. Salernus seems to confound two assemblies which Cascinus distinguished, treating of the former in chapter 11 and of the latter in chapter 13. In the former, on Cascinus' testimony, page 73, two remained somehow doubtful; but in the latter, as he has it on page 100, all agreed except one who was absent, and then the exposition of the sacred body was decreed, the miracle and the following vision not yet having been heard, which after Cascinus Salernus reports thus.

[226] The plague, attacking the young wife of Vincentius Bonellus, had carried her off. St. Rosalia, appearing on that same day to Vincentius Bonellus, But he, who had concealed his wife's disease while she lived, contended that when dead she should be buried in a sacred building within the city, saying repeatedly that she had not been corrupted by the plague but had suddenly departed from among the living by an unwonted violence of disease. He also built up his lie by his own craft, in that his house had lain open to none of the physicians; for he himself, lest medical hands should be laid upon the body of a wife whom for the flower of her age and her elegant manners he loved beyond measure, had played the physician, learning from the skilled and applying the remedies of the disease. But he did not escape the diligence or the good faith of those who were in charge of the public health. When therefore signs of pestilence were discovered on the corpse, it was ordered that she should be carried out of the city, and that he should keep himself within his house. Here he was tormented with grief: nor did he sorrow more for his dead wife than he was ashamed at her having been inspected. Therefore, impatient of grief, on the next day, which was the day before the Ides of February, at nightfall, breaking the public law and the bars of his house, he goes out of the city, and passed that night in a little cottage set at the foot of Mount Pellegrino; then at the following dawn, to call his mind away from its sickness, driving before him the hunting dogs which he had brought out of the house with him, he began alone, carrying a gun, to range over the rough places of that mountain.

[227] When he had gone forward to that place which they commonly call the Stairs, teaches him that her body has been found, a woman met him, of eremitic fashion of dress indeed, but of comely face; and to the man, shuddering at that first and unlooked-for sight and scarcely raising his eyes for reverence, she speaks thus kindly: Free thy mind from fear: come up with me to the steep parts of the mountain: I shall show thee my cave and my inner chamber. Having said this she went before, and both in silence proceeded to the cave where, as we have said, the sacred body of Saint Rosalia was found. Here she, turning at once her face and her voice to Vincentius, said: Behold the cave where my body, lying, passed so many years. It was long ago sought for a long time, but now it is far from here. And marking with her finger the rock most of all hollowed out, which by a hole would narrowly receive a human body creeping in, she said: And this is my pilgrim cell, where likewise I spent much of my life. But now let us go down toward Palermo; for what thou must do I will set out as we go down. They had not gone far from the cave, and Vincentius, who as yet uncertain in mind and like one astonished had almost grown stiff, now at last, when he had somewhat gathered courage for himself, addresses her thus: Who shall I say thou art, woman? Oh, how great a comeliness is in thee! Truly thou bearest the face of an angel, not of a human being. At this she, smiling: Dost thou not know me? When the man said no: I, she said, am Rosalia.

[228] [that Palermo will be delivered from the plague by her patronage; and that he himself will die after four days:] Art thou then, Vincentius takes her up, that holy Rosalia? and with head uncovered he fell reverently at her feet. What then, he adds, renowned Virgin, dost thou not demand peace for Palermo? Why dost thou not keep from thy native place the raging plague, which is evilly devouring what strength, what flower there is of the citizens; and among these my wife too has been taken away? Then the Virgin: So it has hitherto pleased God. (Cascinus adds: And the grace has not been obtained for it because of the unbelief of some. They have disputed and reasoned too much about my body. But when it has been carried round through the city in a procession of suppliants, and the Te Deum laudamus has been sung, then my city will obtain the grace, as the glorious Virgin Mother of God, and queen of heaven and earth, has already promised me. Salernus expressed the latter part somehow, to whom I return, though with something changed in this manner:) But I have already obtained pardon from him for my city, chiefly by the interposed favor of the Virgin Mother of God and Queen of the whole world. When the relics of my body have been carried round through the city, and thanks have been given to God with the famous hymn, then the city shall be visited with the benefit of safety. Meanwhile God commands thee through me that, having returned to Palermo, thou purify thy soul by confession of thy crimes and by the sacred Eucharist: then through that priest who shall lend his ears to thy confession (for thou wilt not be allowed to go thyself) announce to Cardinal Auria that there is no need of longer debate: let him know for certain that my very body is kept with him in his sacristy. Dost thou grasp the matter rightly? Dost thou undertake to do it, or not? — I indeed, said he, undertake it, and promise it to thee. When as they went forward they came to that valley which they commonly call Suis, then the Virgin said: I charge thee that, obedient to my word, thou fulfill my commands: and let this be a sign to thee, lest thou think these things seen and heard are empty: thou shalt be seized by the plague, and after four days thou shalt die. Fear not. Purge thy soul by the sacraments, and I will that through thy confessor thou announce what I have said. Having said this she vanished.

[229] But Vincentius, seized by the disease, having called for a confessor, Now as Vincentius went on toward the city a fever attacks him, and that doubtful thought whether he ought to stand by his promises: for on the one side faith and religion drove the man to perform them; but on the other fear deterred him, lest, if he declared himself a breaker of the law and guilty of having eluded the guard, he should be punished with death. At last fear of human danger subdued the man, and, changing his design, he sought his home at nightfall. He had lain in bed four whole days, suppressing everything in stubborn silence and communicating nothing even to his household, when, after midnight was past which precedes the eighteenth day of February, his mother, sitting by her son and perceiving that through the increasing violence of the pestilence his mind was being called away from his senses, and that it was not far from being parted from the body, orders a priest to be summoned. In charge of the care of the souls of the sick in that district which the inhabitants call the Village of Saint Agatha was a priest of tried virtue, Don Petrus Monachus, who, while the plague was raging at Palermo, though he was free of danger, living in his own country at Termini, being kindled with charity toward God and men, demanded of the archbishop of Palermo, and by a second letter obtained, that this office should be committed to him, of ministering the Sacraments to those seized by the plague. He therefore, coming to help Vincentius, when he had found his mind estranged from its senses, aided the man with prayers and in whatever other way was possible at that time, and departing charged them to call him back if by chance his senses returned entire. This was done after some hours.

[230] But Vincentius, now master of himself, at his first meeting with the priest said: Many things, and those very great, must be brought forth by me before my sins, father. The priest on the other hand denied that anything should take precedence of Confession: for who could guarantee that his mind would not shortly be moved from its state? Wherefore Vincentius brought his mind to disclose his sins before all things; but on receiving assurance from the priest himself that, when these had been heard, he would lend empty ears to the rest. Therefore, when his soul had been absolved from its crimes and refreshed with the heavenly bread, and the time was at hand for relating the matter, his heart being variously affected and moved — on the one side by grief for the narration so long deferred, on the other by joy that there was now opportunity for uncovering so grave a thing — when he wished to break out into words, he first poured forth a great flood of tears. Then, his strength being gathered and his spirit sufficiently quickened, sitting up in the middle of the bed, he said: Attend, father; for the matter is of great price. And having thus prefaced, he set forth the appearance offered to him and the words that had passed in the order which I have said. Then he answered aptly the priest as he questioned him on many points; and at last he adjured him to hasten to carry the matter to the Cardinal. When he was dismissed, the priest delays not at all.

[231] But the Cardinal, having heard the message, ordered two of the family of the Capuchins, appointed likewise to help the souls of the sick, to go with the same priest to Vincentius, [and then repeats it to him and to two Capuchins who take down each point in writing:] that they might again hear everything accurately and take it down in writing; for so it would come about that the miracle should be more ascertained and established if the same things were told to three witnesses, and if the sick man were consistent with himself in the telling. Nor indeed did anything differ, but everything was eagerly repeated in one and the same tenor, and written down. Vincentius, joyful at having fulfilled the command of the virgin Rosalia, presently began to breathe his last, and sent forth his soul to heaven, as it is right to believe, on the twelfth of the Kalends of March. All these things are drawn from Cascinus. It may be added from him that the whole narration of the sick man was on the second occasion, while the two Capuchins were present, taken down in writing and read out to the sick man, who ratified it all. And this vision was announced to the Cardinal archbishop while the sacred bones of St. Rosalia were being separated by the anatomists, Cascinus himself being present.

[232] Therefore on the day on which the consultation entered upon concerning the relics of St. Rosalia decreed sacred honors to them, the plague also lessened on the same day. The Saint's bones, by the anatomists God seemed to confirm the matter by two prodigies: by the one, in sending from heaven the very appearance of the Virgin whose glory was in question, to establish by a new and heavenly vote the thing decreed; by the other, in checking the pestilence in the city itself; for from the registers of the officers of public health, in which the number of those touched by the plague and of those perishing was entered, one may observe that from that day that number, which before had contained a hundred on almost every day, was diminished by a notable decrease; nor did much time pass before it was reduced to ten, or even five. So did God seem to have set no other limit to his anger than the glory of St. Rosalia, and to have handed the reins of it into this Virgin's hands, so that, the more or the less her glory went forward, the more she should either draw them in or slacken them. Then shortly, to lighten the burden, and that the number of all the bones might be more clearly established, and that they might be laid up inscribed with their own names, the thickness of the flint which had for so many centuries defended them from the injuries of time was for a great part cut away with a chisel. And lest the city's safety should be put off longer, on the eighth of the Kalends of March, in the year of jubilee and of salvation one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, a full senate having been assembled with the prætor, and other chosen men, the bones one by one, called and marked with their own name by the anatomists, and still surrounded with stone not very thick, were placed in a casket which could be prepared for the straits of the time, elegant with rich ornament, handed over to the senate by the Cardinal archbishop.

[233] enumerated, and placed in an elegant casket, Cascinus in chapter 13, page 101 and following, treats more fully of that anatomical enumeration of the bones, and testifies that three physicians skilled in anatomy were delegated to it with four theologians. These were Franciscus Riba, vicar general; Vincentius Domenichi, apostolic protonotary; and Cascinus himself with another of the Society of Jesus. The physicians were Hieronymus Spucces, Erasmus Salati and Franciscus Guerreri. These, further, as is gathered from Cascinus' words, began to survey accurately the several stones, as they had been broken with the relics enclosed in them, from the thirteenth or fourteenth day of February, and continued this until the twenty-second day of the same month, on which the sacred relics were first shut in the casket and carried to the cathedral church. And of all the bones found — which they partly allowed to stick in the stone, lest they should be broken further, and partly had taken out of the stone — an accurate catalogue was drawn up, and that a long enough one, which Cascinus recites on pages 105 and 106, and which I shall give in Latin in §24. Then the aforesaid writer adds that all the parts enumerated were enclosed by the Cardinal archbishop in silken cloth and in an elegant casket, but that various particles were granted to the senators and to other persons, and that to him among others was given a particle of the arm where it is joined to the hand.

[234] which is honorably transferred to the chief church. These things being done, after the casket was closed and the keys given to the senators and canons, with a noble train of suppliants accompanying, the casket was carried by a direct way to the cathedral church, as Salernus relates, who goes on thus: And when the day was hastening to evening, with all the chief men of the city and the white-robed order of the clergy going before with waxen torches, that sacred burden, borne on the shoulders of men holding ecclesiastical dignity, was carried out from the archbishop's house into the neighboring cathedral church. There, the sacred remains being set on a lofty throne, Cardinal Auria the archbishop, all the royal magistracy, the senate of the city, and an immense multitude of people running up adored them most piously; and, the prelate leading the chant, praises were sung to God and to the Virgin with full choirs of music, and prayers poured forth. And when time enough had been allowed for satisfying the eyes and minds of the people, they were conveyed by the same priests into the sacred chamber where the ancient treasure of relics of SS. Christina and Nympha is honorably kept in silver chests. Then for three days there was festal ringing of the bells, the crash of bronze cannon, torches kindled at nightfall, and not only men but women too — to whom, the edict being meanwhile lifted, power was given of approaching the church — and six hundred other things at once declared and fostered gladness and piety. But these were the preludes of the honors and joy of Palermo. For, on Cascinus' testimony, page 107, the senators before they departed determined to enclose the sacred body in a casket of solid silver, and to see that a more magnificent chapel be built for it, to adorn splendidly also the chapel of Mount Pellegrino, from which they had received so great a treasure, and above all to see that a most honorable procession be prepared for carrying the sacred relics round through the city.

§ XXII. The body of St. Rosalia carried round through the city in solemn procession: the end of the plague obtained by her benefit.

[ ] The vast preparations of the people of Palermo Meanwhile it was debated, among the learned too, from the meaning both of the old tradition of the heavenly oracles and of those lately received from Bonellus, whether, the first honors having been paid to the sacred body, the pestilence would be utterly rooted out, or whether the benefit must be awaited until it should be carried round through the city in solemn procession. Most thought it safest that the relics should be led through the city as speedily as possible, without awaiting the anniversary day of the finding, and without any magnificent display such as was already being conceived in mind; for no one put off the hope of safety beyond this time. But this pleased neither the divine counsel nor the magistrate. Since therefore the event was now teaching that the whole plague had not at once, upon the veneration of the relics, been torn up by the roots from Palermo, yet that it languished more and more day by day, it was decreed that after one or two months, the number of workmen being increased as much as possible for the more speedy fitting together of a more solemn procession and display, they should go through the city; for that honor seemed agreeable both to the glory of the Virgin which God was promoting, and to that piety which it was fitting to foster in the people. Four triumphal arches on piles the Catalan, Florentine, Genoese and Neapolitan nations, which dwell at Palermo for the sake of trade, set up, elegantly adorned at very great expense with images, epigrams and other things by the industry of poets and painters. A fifth, most ample, the senate built at public cost in the middle of the city, where both the genius and art of the architect, the industry of the workmen, and the rich piety of the city shone forth together with liberality; some fifteen thousand gold pieces were spent on it: for with silken cloths embroidered with the needle and interwoven with silver and gold, rows of forty-eight columns and the arches were clothed; with thirty-six statues and countless other ornaments the lofty mass stirred up wonder: the chief church, great as it is, adorned throughout with precious hangings: the citizens were ordered, along the very long stretch of streets by which the way was to go, to clothe the walls of their houses from the base to the very top with the most elegant ornaments each could; and to erect at certain intervals of the streets thirty-three altars, filled with images and vessels of silver and gold skillfully chased, so that the whole city might present the appearance of a single church sacred to the holy Rosalia.

[236] for carrying the Saint's relics round through the city: Almost the whole city was noisy with the preparation of huge machines, and with craftsmen of every kind scattered through the most ample halls and houses. The work was carried on with the utmost expenditure of wealth in rivalry, nor did anyone fear either from the inclemency of the sky, or — what was the most present danger — from contagion, for his household property or for himself. Whatever had, at the onset of the plague, been hidden away in the inner chambers of the houses, the entrance of the gates being even walled up, was now brought out, however precious it was: those who under the pressure of fear had kept themselves at home, as though of their own accord delivered over to prison, all came forth; for this hope and religious confidence had assuredly taken possession of all men's minds, that they were now delivered from dangers by the patronage of the holy Rosalia. Nor indeed did this deceive anyone. But when more time than the magistrate had appointed had been consumed in so great a preparation of things — which nevertheless could scarcely have been enough for finishing so many and so great works, had not an eagerness impatient of delay, pursuing as it were the fleeing pestilence, applied the goads to itself — at last a solemn supplication after the manner of a triumph was proclaimed for the fifth of the Ides of June. Cascinus agrees with these things in chapter 14, adding however some things. For, first, he observes that the confidence of the magistrates was also so great that they gave leave to all, except the infected, to move about and pass through the city freely, as if no dread of contagion remained. Secondly, they ordered that mourning garments be laid aside by all in honor of St. Rosalia. Thirdly, he testifies that festal fires were begun on the sixth day of June; and that on the seventh the body was placed in a more precious chest; and that on that same Saturday a solemn fast was proclaimed. Let us return to Salernus.

[237] the noble and numerous train accompanying them through the city: The procession, he says, was led by citizens honorable in birth and fortune from the four chief districts of the city in a long line, and nobles distinguished into four classes; then ninety-three confraternities with the images of the Saints: there was added a choir of two hundred maidens not yet of age, who, wreathed with flowery garlands and carrying branches of palm in their hands, sang Io triumphe to St. Rosalia, if not with the voice, at least with the badges of virginity; and a most numerous order of clerics followed. The chest, put together of plates of crystal and marked out with silver plates, enclosing the sacred bones of Rosalia wrapped in scarlet silk, thirty-two of the first flower of the equestrian order, notable for the splendor of their garments and for jewels, bore upon their shoulders. Behind these the rest of the nobility gathered; then Cardinal Auria, archbishop of the city and likewise viceroy, followed, with the senate and the royal council thronging about him. With how great applause of the people occupying all the streets and windows, with how many signs of gladness and pious tears the sacred body was continually received; in what manner the nine days' celebration was kept with solemn rite, the relics being brought back into the chief church and set on a most lofty throne — since it cannot easily be explained, I willingly pass over, that I may not be long; and those more skilled in these matters have believed that a hundred thousand gold pieces were spent on the whole display, both public and private. Thus far Salernus. But if anyone should desire a fuller account of this most famous procession, he may go to Cascinus, who relates it at length in book 1, chapter 14.

[238] the relics being carried round, the plague almost ceases: The end of the pestilence, which the people of Palermo hoped for not in vain, Salernus reports thus: But let the end of the pestilence at last follow the end of the narration. The city had more than once experienced this year, to its own no small harm, how much the celebration of feast days and all gatherings made on occasion of supplications had done it harm: wherefore there was one voice of all, that from so great a display and use of furnishings, which was handed to and fro to be handled by servants, workmen and all the lowest common folk, and from so great and so long-continued a gathering of the people, the whole city altogether would be set ablaze with pestilence, had it not by divine power escaped that danger: yet the hope in the virgin Rosalia divinely conceived was the pledge of safety for performing these things: nor did it deceive them. All the heads of this most foul hydra were cut off: that harmful fire which had laid waste the city was quenched. Wherefore joy and wonder took possession of all minds, and the greatness of the miracle had almost stupefied them. Yet this struck most, that, whereas through the recent feast days in so great a throng of men and contact of furnishings no one had been attacked by the pestilence, after about ten days had passed some sparks flashed out again: and although they seized very few, yet they threw in a fear lest a very great flame of conflagration might be roused thereby. There was indeed discovered the rashness of some men who, while within the bounds of the lazaretto both those entangled in the disease and the attendants of the sick were performing a supplication to the holy Rosalia and venerating a particle of the relics carried round in procession, with the utmost license made their way thither out of the city, not only to see again the friends staying there, but even rushing into embraces and kisses of their dear ones; wherefore the hope best placed in the patronage of the holy Rosalia, being drawn by them into rashness, almost overthrew afresh the state of things restored.

[239] That new rumor of pestilence dismayed the citizens' minds; and it is utterly extinguished on the fifteenth day of July: but the disease crept altogether slowly, confined within a small number; and whereas before, when once the plague had invaded any house, it had spared scarcely a few of that family, now, with one sick, the rest were for the most part untouched. Mothers, overcome by love of their children, could now embrace them, when perchance affected by the plague, cherish and handle them with impunity. So that all now looked upon the teeth of that most savage beast as torn out by the hand of the holy Rosalia, congratulating themselves; but they still bore it ill that it lived. Meanwhile a thought came into the senate's mind about adorning the cave of Mount Pellegrino, which it had before promised to the holy Virgin, and had not hitherto been able to accomplish, being distracted by graver cares. Thither, then, the prætor went up to survey the condition of the place, and ordered the ornaments. That journey fell upon the fifteenth day of July, on which the first year from the finding of the sacred body was closing: and it happened auspiciously; for as he was returning it was announced to him that on that day no one in the whole city had either been seized by the plague or come under suspicion of it,

nor had any death from the old disease occurred. The little cloud therefore being dispersed, a clearer and gladder light of the heavenly benefit began to shine, and there began to be counted from that time the number of forty days, prescribed by ancient institution as by the law of nations for testing perfect soundness. And that period of days having passed most happily, and ten other days having been spent after the custom for purging the city, upon the third day of September, which precedes St. Rosalia's birthday, fell the proof of health perfectly restored: wherefore, praises having been duly paid to God most good and great and to St. Rosalia, fellow-citizen and patroness, Palermo was allowed to join again the long-interrupted commerce with all the cities of Sicily and of the world; and the same was the birthday of the holy Virgin and the day of Palermo's rebirth.

[240] Cascinus has things agreeing with these in book 1, chapter 17, but shows by several reasons that the benefit of the plague driven off must be attributed to the patronage of St. Rosalia. arguments for attributing this benefit to the patronage of St. Rosalia. It is well to review his reasons briefly. The first reason is only probable: that St. Rosalia had foretold to various persons that her body would be found at a time of the gravest calamity. This reason of itself does not prove that the benefit was obtained, but adds likelihood to the other reasons. The second reason is that wonderful invocation of St. Rosalia which was related in num. 198, since it appears to have been made by a divine prompting: and to this may be added the wonderful confidence of the people of Palermo in the help of St. Rosalia. The third indication of a benefit obtained from St. Rosalia is that it was observed that the violence of the pestilence decreased whenever men labored strenuously for the approval of the body or for promoting the Saint's glory; and on the contrary increased when delays were thrown in the way of the approval of the relics. The fourth, and that a clearer argument, is the apparition of the Virgin offered to Vincentius Bonellus, confirmed by sure testimonies and by the death of Vincentius which followed; since the Saint herself there foretold that the plague would cease after her body had been honorably carried round through the city, as in fact it happened. There can indeed be some scruple here, because the pestilence did not utterly cease on the same day on which the sacred relics were carried round. But the Saint had not promised that the plague would altogether cease on that same day, although the people of Palermo had perhaps understood her words in that sense; rather she had said that a grace would be granted. And a great grace was granted to the city on that same day, in that almost the whole plague was taken away; and the benefit was completed when after some weeks they saw to it that the Saint's chapel on Mount Pellegrino was adorned, as they had before promised. Moreover various things make this driving away of the plague the more illustrious: first, the time, since the plague ceased in midsummer, when it could naturally the less be hoped for; secondly, because on account of the supplication there was so great a liberty of going about and of using any garments whatever that the evil ought by that liberty to have crept the further; thirdly, that together with the plague like diseases and all others were so taken away that Cascinus testifies on page 148 that the infirmaries at Palermo were empty that summer and the following autumn; fourthly, because not even one of those who were ordered to purge the infected houses was infected with the plague. These things and many others Cascinus has in the same place.

§ XXIII. The plague seizes the people of Palermo again after five months: but by the help of St. Rosalia, as is believed, it is by degrees extinguished: the finding of the body and the driving away of the pestilence, from Pirri.

[ ] It is shown that at Palermo the pestilence Cascinus in chapters 15 and 16 enumerates various signs and benefits by which it is further proved that the relics found on Mount Pellegrino are St. Rosalia's. But since that now seems sufficiently established, I shall enumerate those benefits after the Lives, where they may be read. The same man in chapter 17 shows that the driving away of the pestilence must be attributed to the benefit of St. Rosalia, as I have just mentioned. There also he demonstrates that the pestilence was entirely taken away, which properly bears on this point: for a suspicion might arise that it was allayed and lulled rather than utterly extinguished, because after five months it raged again at Palermo. Now the signs of the pestilence utterly taken away are enumerated as these. First, forty days were counted in which no one is asserted to have been seized by the plague. Then afterwards eight days were waited, that the places formerly infected and suspected might be purged. Two thousand houses were purged, as also the merchandise kept in them; the infirmaries of the infected were purged too; and yet not one even of those who were engaged in so dangerous a work was seized by the evil. Secondly, neither swellings, nor pustules, nor purple spots, nor blotches — nay, neither fevers nor other diseases — afflicted anyone at that time, on Cascinus' testimony, so that no suspicion of pestilence could remain.

[242] Thirdly, when first forty and then eight days had passed, was entirely taken away: on the third day of September free commerce was given to the people of Palermo, and no harm arose therefrom. Of these things Cascinus has this on page 148: The third circumstance is that the completeness of the health miraculously obtained was exactly proved: for when the gates leading toward land and sea were open, and there was free commerce through the whole kingdom and abroad, so that they were even then excluded from three places only; and when merchandise was carried through the fairs of the kingdom, and men and goods were put on board ships, and the royal galley with the others that were in the port departed, there was no place in which by such commerce any indication of contagion was detected: and so perfect health persevered for five months, so that among all it was solidly confirmed and altogether certain. Fourthly, Cascinus recites in the same place, page 149, the diploma of the Cardinal archbishop, who at that same time was governing all Sicily for the Catholic king, promulgated with solemn rite on the third day of September. By this diploma the Cardinal governor of the kingdom most fully restored the commerce of the people of Palermo with the whole kingdom of Sicily, attributed the driving away of the pestilence to the patronage of St. Rosalia, and confirms by public authority nearly everything that has already been said. Wherefore it is not to be doubted that the pestilence altogether ceased at Palermo.

[243] Nevertheless, before that year was ended, the plague revived there, yet after about five months it revived there more mildly, as Salernus after Cascinus relates in these words: But about five months had passed since the pestilence was, so to speak, buried with it, when it revived at Palermo, whether some of the once infected garments had been hidden there by men's avarice and now brought out, or had been imported from other towns: for often the race of mortals, either not knowing how to use divine benefits or even abusing them, corrupts them through sloth. But this latter plague was far milder. Wherefore, although for the safeguarding of public good faith Palermo cut herself off from commerce with other cities and nations, yet she had no need to forbid the gathering of the citizens, or to order women and children not to set foot out of the house because of their greater danger of contracting the plague. And this too the more prudent believed was granted by God to the prayers of St. Rosalia, since by the law of nature they judged that there was strength enough in that venom, which shut up in hidden garments must have grown worse through summer and autumn, to corrupt and even to lay waste the city anew, especially since human defenses did not much withstand it. Cascinus, agreeing with these things, adds on page 155 that some believed that this scourge of pestilence was repeated on account of some negligence of the people of Palermo in venerating St. Rosalia. He certainly reports on page 157 that the adorning of the most noble chapel was begun on the twentieth of January of the year 1626, after in the month of December the plague had begun to rage again. And so, if we consider that the plague ceased on the same day on which order had been given that that chapel should be adorned, as was related in num. 239, that suspicion of pious men will not seem wholly empty; nor yet will it conflict with the cause of the reviving pestilence given above: for in punishment of their negligence God could have permitted the plague to be kindled again at Palermo through a natural cause.

[244] the distrust of a certain Religious punished by plague in his own convent: The same writer hints that the distrust of certain men was perhaps punished by this second pestilence. He also reports a wonderful example which he testifies happened at the time of the second plague to a Religious man of the Order of the reformed Augustinians, of whom he was provincial superior. The plague had invaded the convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, and two men had died there. One of them, whose name was Joannes Maria, and who, as a very religious man, foretold the day and hour of his own death, warned the Father Provincial that it had come about by his fault that the plague was raging in the convent, because, being Superior, he had not enough confidence in the patronage of St. Rosalia, saying that all would die unless he amended his fault by penance. And when the Father Provincial understood that what was said about his lack of confidence was true, he determined to go barefoot to the Saint's cave, although he could hardly perform it because of the arthritic pains with which he was afflicted. He began so to walk. Then, when he was too greatly afflicted, he put on sandals, that he might so walk. But he had scarcely gone two hundred paces when one of the sandals fell off: and warned by this sign he threw away the other too. At last he came barefoot to the cave and piously invoked the Saint with so great fruit that he himself returned home sound, and all the sick were healed, nor was anyone there thereafter seized by the plague. So Cascinus reports, but somewhat more at length.

[245] [this plague is believed to have been taken away by the patronage of the same Saint, as also through the rest of Sicily.] The same writer, with others generally, attributes the second deliverance of the people of Palermo to the patronage of St. Rosalia, although he confesses that the evil did not cease suddenly, as the first time, but was diminished by degrees and at last utterly taken away. The chief reason is that St. Rosalia was invoked before the rest, and that the confidence of the people of Palermo in her help was great, and that in the first pestilence they had experienced her help. There may be added the benefits granted to particular persons, and from these it may probably be gathered that at last all were preserved by the patronage of the same Saint. Salernus expresses his mind about that benefit thus: But that God might shed a greater light upon the repeated benefit of St. Rosalia, God set an end to this second pestilence in the month of June of the year 1626, when the day recurred of the triumph performed by the same Virgin in the preceding year. Nor much afterwards the same benefit of soundness flowed forth from the head into the whole body of Sicily, so far as it had been seized by that disease, beyond hope and human powers. Here the feeling and confession of all was that the disease of pestilence had been driven out both from those cities which it had occupied and from those which it threatened, by the patronage of the holy Rosalia. Wherefore it was both celebrated in the mouths of all, and was clearly set forth in the edicts of the viceroys, where the faculty of joining commerce and of transporting household property was treated of; and — what is more notable — in the year 1629 Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, kindled with a singular piety toward this Virgin, entered her name twice in the Calendars of the Church: her birthday on the day before the Nones of September, and the finding of her relics on the Ides of July, with a most honorable eulogy added, reporting the deliverance of Sicily as received from the benefits of the holy Rosalia. Thus far Salernus from Cascinus, whose account I have been unwilling to interpolate with the testimonies of later writers, because Cascinus alone has explained everything abundantly, and the other writers drew almost everything from him.

[246] Yet lest anyone should think that everything rests upon Cascinus' authority alone, Pirri's account of the pestilence of Palermo, I shall add a second witness beyond all exception, whose work was printed in the year 1630, so that he wrote before he had seen Cascinus' lucubration, and could see everything himself as well as Cascinus. Rocco Pirri, volume 1 of the Sicilia sacra, in the Notice of the church of Palermo, page 198, briefly relates the chief heads of the finding of the body and the driving away of the pestilence in these words: In the year 1624 a plague invaded Palermo, brought in from the shores of Africa with those who, ransomed thence from servitude for a price, landed here. When therefore the deadly flame of plague declared itself, the excellent prelate, who was then away from Palermo, staying at Termini, having received the sad news, forgetful of himself but mindful of his own people and prodigal of his life, cast himself into the midst of the fires. What did he not dare, what did he not attempt, to quench the evil creeping step by step? First he set himself to entreat the Deity's anger avenging our crimes; we saw at his instance bands of men as suppliants clad in cheap sackcloth, sprinkled with ashes, girt with ropes and iron chains, raging sharply against themselves with scourges, tearing their heads with thorns and beating their breasts from the heart, prostrating themselves in the churches, kneeling at the altars, bathing themselves with a flood of tears, imploring the benefits of the divine bounty, and hating, accusing and detesting the guilt of their own crimes.

[247] How greatly was the face of that most excellent city then changed! about the wonderful invocation of St. Rosalia, How quickly did the brightness which shone in the adornment of the body pass into squalor! How quickly, joy being cast out, did mourning triumph in the city, that it might bend the most merciful breast of the Savior to compassion! There were carried round through the city the sacred relics of SS. Christina the patroness and Nympha of Palermo on the fifteenth day of July: when that admirable thing happened which was the beginning, or rather the sign, of salvation. All the clergy was walking in order in the procession, imploring the aid of the Saints set out (as is usual) in the litanies: four led the chant, two among the first, two others among the last. After, therefore, they had given out after the custom the names of the virgins of Palermo, behold, by a mind divinely put into them, they all proclaim Saint Rosalia, pray for us, although that thing had never been wont to be done, nor had those priests, of virtue sufficiently tried and known, agreed or thought about it, as they affirmed under the religion of an oath. The unlooked-for name of the Virgin, which hitherto seemed to have fallen out of the minds of the people of Palermo, raised up the spirits of those who were present; but then, contrary to custom, it was employed not without a certain feeling of melting delight.

[248] Rosalia, most loving of her own citizens, was present at the supplications: about the body found on the same day, behold, on that same day a most joyful message is brought to the prelate Giannettino, that on Mount Ercta, which we commonly call Pellegrino, a mile distant from the city, the body of the holy Rosalia had been found in a cave, where hitherto the constant tradition of the citizens had reported that it lay hidden and was kept for the restoring of their country's happiness. For at the Virgin's warning certain men attempted to carry out the earth; and when they had come upon a very great rock — to which others digging for the same cause had often come — they were not dismayed in mind; but, Come, said one, break the rock, please, and go on further than the others have done. Another wields a blow with an iron bar; a piece leaps out: and thence they see enclosed in the rock thrown around it by God the body of the virgin Rosalia. They fall upon their knees, venerate the sacred remains, and handle with what honor they can the lovable rock, the heavenly treasure, the riches of Palermo. At once there is one who reports the matter to the prelate Giannettino; he ordered that divine amulet against the invading plague to be brought to him.

[249] and then duly approved, He understood, namely, that this defense was given from heaven to his city; but, being distinguished by the praise of prudence, and in matters that pertain to religion not loving a hasty counsel, judging that it could by no means be but that the Virgin would in so great a heap of evils declare herself by her benefits, he deferred setting forth those sacred bones of Rosalia for the veneration of all until what the old monuments say of that Virgin of Palermo, the report about their fellow-citizen creeping and once flourishing among the people of Palermo, the opinions of the theologians about the miracles, and the other indications, had all come together into one judgment. All suspicion of hasty counsel being therefore rejected, their glory stood entire for the people of Palermo; and in the month of January (nay, of February) it was decreed that those bones were relics of the holy Rosalia, which he ordered to be carried from his own house on the shoulders of the chief men into the church, that it might be raised up like a kind of standard for good hope.

[250] [about the relics magnificently carried round through the city, and about the plague ceasing thereupon,] Then, after other things interposed about Cardinal Doria, he returns to St. Rosalia in these words: But in the month of June of the year 1625, when (the Cardinal) had proclaimed to all that they should be present in crowds for the carrying round of Rosalia's relics, and should of their own accord offer to their fellow-citizen now in heaven, the Virgin their preserver, the greatest honors they could, an arch having been raised in the middle of the city, woven indeed of timber but most elegantly clothed with silken and golden cloths (the Senate of Palermo spent above twelve thousand gold pieces in building it), the Virgin's body was carried round through the city: but these things were done with so great applause of the citizens and with such signs of exulting gladness that the citizens seemed even then to have anticipated in mind that singular benefit of the Virgin which a little after flowed down to us from her; for not Palermo only, but all Sicily was snatched by the patronage of the holy Rosalia from the plague, both from the burnings of its raging and from the danger of its threatening; so plainly did these things lie open to the eyes of all that no one denies them but he who is foolish with a stubborn mind. There was then fixed to the doors of the cathedral church a marble tablet inscribed thus.

Under Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, and Philip IV, king, Giannettino Doria, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop, holding the royal person in Sicily for the third time: the body of St. Rosalia the virgin, reserved by divine providence for the refuge of her Country and the expulsion of the plague, by the piety of a most religious prelate and by the vows of the senate and people lately found on Mount Pellegrino, flashing with a multitude of miracles, received with an outfit of the church and of the streets the most richly adorned since men were born, and with a triumphal arch of immense mass besides the others, was borne through the city in a most splendid triumph and received on the fifth of the Ides of June, 1625.

[251] and at last about the precious chapel built in thanksgiving: Giannettino moreover had a most elegant chapel built for the virgin Rosalia, which, although it is not yet finished in all its parts, nevertheless ravishes the minds of very many by its riches and elegance. To that chapel, at the back, where it looks toward the street, this inscription was added.

Under Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, and Philip IV our Catholic king, Giannettino Doria, Cardinal presbyter of the Holy Roman Church, archbishop of Palermo, for the third time governor of Sicily in the king's stead, found the body of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, enclosed in a stone wrought by no human art, at the caves of Ercta; and, the learned councillors of the city and the senators demanding it and all desiring it, and it being known by the glory of deeds done above all the order of nature, he duly approved it, restored it to the Senate and People of Palermo, and set it forth for public veneration, a triumph being proclaimed, a supplication appointed, and it being celebrated with a famous procession and display, all the ages gone by being far surpassed by this example of a most noble magnificence; and he placed her among the other titular Holy Ones of the city, in the year of jubilee 1625.

To the thrice greatest Holy Woman, the best of citizens, the most deserving Patroness, the disease of pestilence being extinguished, he dedicated by a public vow pronounced this chapel as a slight token of her vast merits, and laid the first stone in the foundations. In the year of salvation 1626, on the eighth of the Kalends of February.

Finally I would not omit that by Giannettino's piety and industry the religious veneration of the holy Rosalia so grew up in the breasts of the citizens and of all Sicilians that all love, venerate and implore her from the heart: and hence, that it might not be contained within narrow bounds, that Virgin's fame flew abroad and has spread over almost all Europe, I might say. Of this magnificent chapel the discourse will return, when I shall give it engraved on copper.

[252] Lastly Pirri, after certain other things about Urban VIII's zeal toward St. Rosalia, Pirri's and Cascinus' authority in these matters is weighed. concludes his narrative thus: These things, which about the finding of the body of the holy Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, I have rudely pursued in order to give something to my love toward the Virgin, Fr. Jordanus Cascini, a most distinguished man of the Society of Jesus, will very soon give to the press most brilliantly; nor was it in my mind to snatch the matter from him: for I know how far he can surpass all others who might wish to treat these things — by the keen judgment in which he excels remarkably, by his erudition in Sicilian matters, by his truthfulness (since Giannettino employed him before the rest in the counsels of that affair and in all that was done), and finally by his love, piety and religious devotion toward the heavenly Rosalia. I grieve rather from my heart that, by ill health, and being for the second time superior of the Sicilian province of his Society and then for the third time rector of the college of Palermo, and pressed by an immense mass of cares, he has not yet given the History desired by the wishes of all. Pirri wrote this without doubt at the same time at which Cascinus penned the Latin Life printed in the following year, so that it is likely that not even Cascinus borrowed anything from Pirri. Wherefore by these two witnesses the truth of the history will stand firm, since they agree admirably in the chief heads of the matter and disagree only in the slightest points, in which Pirri could easily err, since he was not present at the events.

§ XXIV. Enumeration of the bones of St. Rosalia that were found: other things found at the same time within the same stone.

[253] The bones of St. Rosalia which could be discerned: the parts of the head, I said in num. 233 that the bones of St. Rosalia were examined anatomically, enumerated, and placed in an elegant casket; but I was unwilling to interrupt there the thread of the narrative with an enumeration of the bones. Yet since that enumeration clearly shows that the bones which were found in that stone, as it were of marble, are those of one body; and since this unity, joined with other reasons, brings it about that we cannot prudently doubt that those bones are St. Rosalia's, I transfer hither from Cascinus, chapter 13, page 105, the catalogue of the bones enumerated, and render it into Latin. The parts of the head, so far as they could be discerned on account of the adhering stone, he enumerates thus.

The greater part of the upper skull.

Another part of the same.

The lower part of the same, which is called the base, with a foramen: to this moreover adheres a part of the upper with the fingers of the right hand attached to it.

The right lower jaw with five teeth visible and others covered by the stone.

Part of the upper jaw with only one tooth visible. So much for the head.

[254] of the body down to the waist, And the parts of the body down to the waist he enumerates thus:

Part of the upper arm bone with another bone in the same stone.

Part of the shoulder blade with two pieces of the upper arm bone and four other bones in the same stone.

Another like part with other bones.

Part of the shoulder blade.

Part of the shoulder blade and of the arm.

A small piece of the shoulder blade and another of the arm, and a piece of the bone of the palm, and other bones together in the same stone.

Part of the arm and other bones in the stone: many pieces of bones, and some of the ulna and the radius, and two parts of a protruding bone, together in one stone.

Part of the ulna of the arm with a piece of the radius: a notable spongy piece, and other pieces in the same mass of stone.

Part of the ulna of the arm, of the fingers, of the ribs, and a bone of the hand to which a prayer-chaplet was attached, together in one stone: but they were afterwards each wrapped in separate papers, and the prayer beads taken away.

Many other bones of the same parts in one stone, in which five beads of the prayer-chaplet are seen, while others are covered by the stone.

Many parts of ribs in one stone.

Part of the ribs with a protruding bone.

Many parts of ribs, all in one stone.

A notable rib by itself.

Part of a rib together with another bone.

Eleven pieces of ribs, each in its own separate stone, all in one wrapping of paper.

Another ten pieces of ribs, wrapped in the same manner.

Of the spine of the back, or vertebræ, with parts of ribs in two stones. So much for the parts of the body down to the waist, as Cascinus says, that is, down to the loins.

[255] of the body below the waist, Then from the loins down to the legs he proceeds thus:

The greater part of the hip bone, divided into two.

Part of the thigh bone, or of the hip, with its protruding bone.

Another part of the same bones with other bones in the same stone.

Another part of the same.

Four parts of the same in one stone.

The last part of the same bones with many pieces of the radii.

Of the sacrum with some vertebræ.

Another chief bone of the same part. So much for that part of the body.

[256] of the legs and feet, Lastly he enumerates in this manner the bones of the legs and feet that were found:

Part of the bone of the leg without stone.

Three parts of the bone of the legs.

The protruding bone of the bone of the legs, and another bone.

A notable piece of the bone of the legs.

Two pieces of the ankle bone.

Bones of the toes.

Many particles of the bones of the toes.

Part of a protruding bone.

Part of a protruding bone, and other bones in three stones.

Various bones attached to one another in one stone.

Many particles of bones likewise joined in one stone.

Many pieces of smaller bones in other papers.

So Cascinus enumerates in Italian the bones that were found, who testifies that they were so named by the physicians skilled in anatomy whom I praised in num. 233. And the studious reader will easily see that the chief bones of the human body are here enumerated for the greater part, yet not all, both because many were broken and because some were hidden by the stone or by other bones sticking in the same stone. Moreover Cascinus testifies in chapter 12, page 79, that some particles of bones were gathered by those who were present at the finding of the body, because some bones were scattered when the stone was broken in which that treasure lay hidden.

[257] Further, that prayer beads were found in the same stone tomb has already been said above. Prayer beads found with the bones, Of these Cascinus disputed at length in book 2, chapter 16, where on page 253 he reports in what manner those beads were found in the examination of the bones, and were recognized as prayer beads, because they were pierced in the middle in such a way that a thread could be drawn through them, as is done when a Marian chaplet is put together. Nay, he also asserts that many were found as if strung on a thread; that one too was found, a little larger than the rest, between the fingers and the palm of the hand; and that all were zealously collected as precious pledges of St. Rosalia, except five which, appearing between the ribs of the breast and the fingers of the hand, they had allowed to stick in the stone, judging that in the same stone, which they were unwilling to break further, several more also stuck enwrapped. Twelve of these beads of various sizes fell to Cascinus himself, who afterwards gave them to the house of the third probation of the Society of Jesus at Palermo, where they are kept in a silver casket. A drawing of them was sent to us by the often-praised Castiglia, testifying that each is of the size in which I exhibit them engraved on copper.

[258] Further, Cascinus in chapter 16 strives to prove from these beads St. Rosalia's piety toward the most holy Mother of God; nor does he yet dare to assert that the beads belonged to such a Marian chaplet whether they made up a rosary is uncertain: as we use today, which we call the Rosary or psalter, because he altogether judges that the chaplet of today, or the rosary, was first instituted by St. Dominic, and is therefore later than St. Rosalia. Cascinus judged that view certain because he attributed much to the authority of Alanus de Rupe, who wrote many things about the institution of the rosary by St. Dominic, but things more wonderful than credible. But I have already noted in num. 142 that there are various writers who contend that that institution is more ancient than St. Dominic, nay, than St. Rosalia. I would not indeed call that controversy again to examination; but I only observe that Cascinus' opinion is uncertain when he judges that those beads were not of a rosary: for if that institution is really as ancient as some will have it, it will be exceedingly likely that the use of the rosary was not unknown to St. Rosalia but very familiar to her, since we cannot reasonably doubt of her piety toward the most blessed Virgin.

[259] likewise a tiny cross was found, Cascinus, book 2, chapter 21, page 317, and again page 319, testifies that there was also found with the body of St. Rosalia a tiny silver cross of the very lightest weight. This cross likewise fell to Cascinus, and is religiously kept to this day, as we shall presently see. A drawing of it was communicated to us by the most diligent Castiglia, from which I exhibit it engraved on copper.

And the aforesaid helper of our Work courteously sent, together with the drawing of the cross, some observations about it, under this title of the cross: An eight-sided silver cross, which was found with the body of the holy Rosalia. Where that sacred pledge is now kept he first sets forth thus: So precious a token, although somewhat eaten away by the long duration of time, is kept with diligent care — as may be seen from the figure set here, of exactly the same size — in a certain house of holy virgins which is named from St. Rosalia, in a silver casket fortified with crystal. But whence that cross came to the said virgins he teaches below in these words: This silver cross of the holy Rosalia Fr. Cascinus at his death left to Fr. Franciscus Laliotta of the Society of Jesus on this condition, that it should be handed over to Don Jacobus Bonfanti, apostolic protonotary; and he had it on the eighth of the Kalends of October of the year 1636, as appears from the very act of handing over, which we here transcribe. From him those holy virgins received it, to whom Urban VIII granted in the year 1634 that they should wear the sign of the aforesaid cross on the hood and on the scapular garment.

[260] The act of handing over just mentioned was written on the twenty-fifth of September by Jacobus Camali, notary. about which some things are observed: There is asserted in it the finding of the body divinely made, and the city of Palermo, many and various graces and miracles having gone before, delivered from the contagion; and about the aforesaid cross this is had: And among the other things which were in the said holy body, there was found a certain small cross made of silver landea \, by the most religious father Jordanus Cascini, at that time provincial of the religion of the Society of Jesus, with other and divers religious men assisting, in the presence of the said most eminent lord Cardinal: which silver cross was taken with his own hands by the same Fr. Cascini, etc. It is added that the aforesaid cross was handed over by the dying Cascinus to Fr. Franciscus Laliotta, that he might give it to the above-said lord Bonfanti, and that this was done before witnesses. The aforesaid Castiglia moreover observes certain things about that monastery of St. Rosalia, of whose foundation Cascinus may be seen, book 3, chapter 3, page 342. Lastly he notes that such a form of cross was in use and familiar enough among the Norman princes reigning in Sicily in the time of St. Rosalia and a little before, as is gathered from the coins of Count Roger, of Roger king of Sicily, of prince Bohemund, and of William I the king, which have been published in the Thesaurus of the antiquities and histories of Sicily* in Graevius and Burmann, volume 8, figures 186, 187 and 188. And on what occasion Roger seems to have begun to employ the sign of the cross on his coins, Sigebert Havercamp explains in his Commentary on the aforesaid coins, volume 7, column [ ] and following.

[261] Cascinus also asserts, book 2, chapter 18, page 273, and finally a figure of the Lord Crucified. and book 3, chapter 1, page 330, that with the body of St. Rosalia a tiny image of the most holy Crucified was found. Mancusi in the Life of St. Rosalia, volume 1, page 184, treats of the same image, and says that the head was at the finding separated from the rest of the body: which conjecture is very likely from the figure sent to us, which represents the head only. The drawing was procured for us by the often-praised Castiglia, and he gave the figure this title: The face of Christ fastened to the cross, of clay, found together with the body of the holy Rosalia. And he subjoined these annotations: Its size is expressed in the figure. It is venerated, enclosed in a silver casket, in the college of St. Xavier of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus at Palermo. He observes besides that the just-praised Mancusi is mistaken, who writes that the figure of this face is made of alabaster, whereas it is of clay. Whether that sacred pledge first fell to Fr. Cascinus, and after his death remained in the college of St. Francis Xavier, as Mancusi also asserts, Castiglia did not note. So much for the things found with the sacred body.

[262] of what kind was the rock in which the body was found, … and not only around the bones, but even within them and in the very hollows of the bones, as he asserts, adding that the bones were thus wonderfully preserved, yet in no way turned into the form or nature of stone. And that from these things it is gathered by Cascinus and others that the body of St. Rosalia was buried by the hands of angels has already been said in num. 154, where the burial is treated of; nor was that inference admitted, at least as certain. Cascinus himself confesses on page 275 that he judges that stony mass to have grown together by the drops of water flowing down from the crag; but not by fortuitous chance, rather by a higher power directing those drops.

[263] and whence the origin of that rock. But Joannes Maria Rosciolus, in a panegyric Discourse on St. Rosalia published after Cascinus' work in the appendix, page 51, however much he extols St. Rosalia according to her merits, and does not pass over in silence this admirable coffin, nevertheless sets forth his mind about its origin sufficiently in these words: A plainly august tomb, with which neither the pyramids of Egypt nor the mausoleums of Caria could contend in majesty. For however great those monuments of ancient magnificence may have been, they were fragments of mountains, nay, ruins. But a whole and untouched mountain was owed as a tomb to a most whole Virgin. And what was both a wonder to the eyes of the beholders and a matter of veneration to their minds: not only did the whole crag rise up like a pyramid of nature into the outermost mass of the tomb, but the moisture also, native to the cold place, flowing round the body of Rosalia laid there and frozen by the long duration of time, had shaped for her as it were a crystalline little chest and a translucent sarcophagus. Just as if it were not enough for her native mountain

to devote itself wholly to entombing its own Citizen and Nursling, unless it had also distilled its own tears, pressed out drop by drop from the brow of the ridge and gemming with an almost rigid grief, to lay her in a more illustrious tomb. These things are said after the manner of oratory, yet so that the orator's meaning is plain enough.

\* i.e. of sheet metal

§ XXV. The cave of Mount Pellegrino, which is exactly described, adorned in honor of St. Rosalia.

[ ] A brief description of Mount Pellegrino and of its cave: Of the cave of Mount Pellegrino I said a few things in §12, and deferred to this place a more accurate delineation of the whole place. Salernus, about to relate the finding of the body, mentions the mountain and cave of St. Rosalia thus: Mount Pellegrino rises high, distant scarcely two miles from Palermo on the side that faces north. Its lower slopes on the two quarters of the sky where the North wind and the East wind drive the Tyrrhenian waves are washed by the sea; the rest, stretched out over the territory of Palermo, look toward the West and South, and are hedged about with pleasant hills and green meadows: after two miles have been measured out in climbing from the plain below, not far from the summit a huge cave opens, running out to a length of a hundred palms; the breadth of the first entrance extends twenty-eight palms; then, as the left side goes on more and more toward the East, that breadth is widened to forty palms and more, up to that place whence the sacred body of Rosalia was dug out, as we have related. Thence the rocks return, narrowing to an angle, and the sides of the cave gradually come together into a narrow space of about three palms, opposite the mouth. The height, varying, as in eaten-away and irregularly overhanging rocks, was contained now in eight, now in thirteen palms, but in the middle of the cave it draws back into a huge gap. The mouth, opened a few years ago, lay wide: for before it was rather a narrow hole, which afforded entrance to no one unless he went with his side turned; nor did a broader way lie open to one who had at once entered; rather, for about ten palms one had to force one's way through the thickness of the rock by nearly the same narrows. Yet this mass of stone, which almost blocked the entrance of the cave, contained in its bosom, on the left within that same cave, another sort of hollow, extending twelve palms in length and breadth; and this corner alone seems to have been fit for dwelling, since it alone was free from the dripping. With this description of the mountain and the cave by Salernus Cascinus agrees well enough in book 1, chapter 1; but he sets forth some things more fully.

[265] But for a clearer exposition I have had engraved on copper a view of the cave, a more accurate exposition as it is adorned after the finding of the body; and a ground plan of the same cave on one plate, which I here exhibit — yet so that to the ground plan, given by Cascinus without letters, letters have been added by us for the more convenient explanation of the several parts, as the studious reader will see. And these letters the often-praised Castiglia had added, or his helper Fr. Noto, who also subjoined annotations answering to the several letters, which I communicate to the reader for a perfect understanding of the cave.

A. The first entrance of the crypt, running out ten Sicilian palms, so narrow that it would not receive the just breadth of the shoulders: but the far end of the entrance is a little wider.

B. The hollow and depth of the cave, a hundred palms in length; in breadth, from the entrance to the middle, twenty-eight; the middle of the cave itself, forty: at the end at last, the rocks gradually coming together, it ends in a sharp angle.

C. A semicircle situated toward the East, where the holy Rosalia gave up her holy soul to God. There her sacred body was found, joined and almost glued to a stone of six palms well hardened from the drippings, her right hand supporting the head, her left holding the prayer chaplet and the image of Christ hanging from the cross. And there of set purpose a marble effigy resembling the dying Virgin has been placed.

So indeed the author of these annotations. But it must be observed that most of these things rest upon mere conjectures and are not altogether certain. It is uncertain, first, whether the Saint died in exactly the same place, that is, in the same part of the cave where the sacred body was found. Most Sicilians believe this, because they contend that St. Rosalia died with no one present, and received burial not from men but rather by the ministry of angels. But I have said in its place that that opinion is at the least uncertain. Secondly, the position of the body here described is also conjectural, at any rate in part: for Cascinus nowhere set forth whether the image of the Crucified was found in the Virgin's left hand or in another place. Cascinus, book 2, chapter 18, page 273, asserts that an effigy of the dying Virgin was set in the place where the body was found, and that to it was added an image of the Crucified, because such an image had been found with the body in the same rock; but he does not indicate whether it was in her hand or elsewhere. Nor does he indicate this any further in book 3, chapter 1, page 330, where he repeats almost the same things and gives the inscription set up in that place.

[266] of its several parts, Let us return to the aforesaid annotations, which explain the place exactly.

D. A little hut at the left of the cave, of twelve palms, of an almost square shape, which was closed by a wall. This was afterwards pulled down, and that huge rough rock torn away which hindered a wider entrance. In that place an image of St. Rosalia has been added with a marble inscription, a perpetual monument, namely, that Rosalia chose for herself this place, free from moisture, for contemplation.

The inscription set there from conjectures Cascinus gives on page 332. This, although I am about to pass over nearly all the others for brevity's sake, I transfer hither as a specimen.

To the corner of the muddy cave, / the dry retreat of the holy Rosalia.

The cave is rigid on all sides, unapproachable, bristling, rained through: / yet this Rose withered in the hostile shower.

This corner was her springtime, this her fragrant little garden, / often wet with fresh dew, with tears, with blood.

For here she is warm with the sun of Christ and is soothed by his breeze, / and the ground, pressed by her rosy knee, flowers.

E. An altar sacred to the holy Rosalia from that first enlargement of the cave, when it took on the shape of a church. Above this altar is seen an effigy of the holy Rosalia painted on the square wall. At her right the Franciscan Fathers, who formerly held this place, represented St. Francis.

Of that church we have already treated in §15, where in num. 163 it was observed that the Saint's feast was formerly celebrated there on the day of the Lord's Ascension.

[267] and the ornaments afterwards added: F. The opening of another smaller crypt, two palms wide. This crypt, which was the holy Rosalia's dwelling, runs about seven palms in height and seven in length. It is therefore capable of holding a human figure. In the inner part a statue of St. Rosalia has been placed, and a marble inscription about this matter added. This opening formerly stood eight palms from the floor, but now recedes about fourteen, and has no access except by ladders set to it: for in leveling the ground the surrounding stones were cut away and heaps of earth removed.

G. A hut within the bowels of the mountain, sixteen palms long, and of such breadth as to hold one man. It lies to the right of the sacred cave, and in its farthest part exhibits a basin hollowed out in the very rock.

H. A basin, or stone lip of the dripping waters, whence the Virgin drew water for drink. This matter is set forth by an effigy of the holy Rosalia with a hollow cup, and also by Latin verses inscribed on marble and set up there.

I. Here was a vaulted building which contained an altar of the holy Rosalia with her image. It was afterwards pulled down in constructing the new entrance of the cave.

K. An altar dedicated to the undefiled conception of the Virgin (the Mother of God) by the same Franciscan Fathers.

Thus far the aforesaid annotations, by whose help I judge the whole cave abundantly set forth. The magnificent ornament of the several parts, and the Latin inscriptions added, the curious reader will find in Cascinus, book 3, chapter 1.

[268] Further, if to the conjectures by which the use of the parts has been probably set forth a conjecture about the ancient chapel of the cave. it may be permitted to add yet another conjecture, I shall state my suspicion about that ancient chapel which is agreed to have been in the cave of Mount Pellegrino not long after the times of St. Rosalia, and whose beginning is unknown. I strongly suspect that that chapel was there from the time of the Saint herself, and that in it the sacred Sacrifice of the Mass was not rarely celebrated for her, and the most sacred Sacraments of the Church administered to her. For that saying of Christ, John 6, verse 54, frightens me too much — Unless ye shall eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his Blood, ye shall not have life in you — for me easily to believe that St. Rosalia wished to be without them, especially since this is asserted without any testimony of the ancients. Let these things about the cave of Mount Pellegrino suffice, that we may likewise visit the Saint's earlier dwelling.

§ XXVI. The old inscription of St. Rosalia found in the cave of Quisquina: various miracles reported from sworn testimonies.

[ ] Where the cave of Quisquina is situated: The finding of St. Rosalia's body gave occasion for seeking and searching out in the same year her first cave, situated on the mountain of Quisquina. Of it I have already treated from Salernus in §11, when I related that St. Rosalia betook herself thither. Of the inscription also found there discussion has been made in §2. But I noted that I would here give a more accurate description of the whole place, when I should relate in what manner some men penetrated into the cave itself and uncovered there the aforesaid inscription. The mountain and wood of Quisquina is about forty miles distant from Palermo, and is part of the widely extending mountains which by the ancient Greeks were called Nebrodes, as Cascinus judges in book 2, chapter 2. But he confesses that by others that mountain is extended less far and is made the same with that mountain which is called Madonia by the Sicilians. But whatever be the truth about the greater or lesser extent of Nebrodes, he testifies that between two mountains rising to almost equal height — of which the one, situated to the west, is named the mountain of the Roses, the other, to the east, Mount Camerata — there are found two lesser ridges, which from their obscurity were commonly called Coschina, and by a slight change Quisquina, at least in part. From these Vincentius Auria in the Life of St. Rosalia briefly describes the situation of the cave of Quisquina thus: The cave of Quisquina is situated forty miles distant from Palermo toward the South, between two ridges which hang from the mountain of the Roses to the West and from Mount Camerata to the East. It is two miles distant from the town of San Stefano (in whose territory it is), four from Bivona. Both towns are to the west of the cave, but to the east is the river commonly called Platani, and the town of Cammarata, five or six miles distant. And these places belong to the diocese of Agrigento.

[270] These things about the outward situation of the cave being premised, I briefly subjoin in what manner it was found. Two builders of Palermo, Simon Tropiano and Franciscus Bongiorno, in what manner it was penetrated: were in the town of San Stefano to build there the convent of St. Dominic, when

the report was being spread abroad about the finding of the body of St. Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino. These men, touched with a desire of seeing the cave of Quisquina, whose place was not unknown to the inhabitants of San Stefano, set out thither with certain others in order to survey the cave. But, if we believe Cascinus relating the matter on page 168, on the first occasion they were able only to open a difficult way through the wood and to mark the place where they found the remains of an ancient altar, that they might afterwards carry on what they had begun. They came to the place again with nearly twenty companions on the feast of St. Bartholomew, that is, the twenty-fourth day of August, when they found a tiny hole. But it was not so large as to give a man entrance to the cave; nor were suitable tools at hand by which they could widen that hole. For which cause they returned home again, that on the following day, which was a Sunday, they might come back to the same place with their tools. And so, returning on the twenty-fifth of August, with about forty men accompanying, they so widened that narrow hole with iron tools that at last they were able to penetrate into the cave.

[271] sworn testimonies about things pertaining to the cave, These things Cascinus relates a little more fully, with whom in these matters the sworn testimonies agree well enough which were taken down in the year 1642 in the town of San Stefano and communicated to me, with this title prefixed: Witnesses received and examined by the spiritual curia of the land of San Stefano, and by mandate of the reverend vicar of the said curia, at the petition and instance of the fiscal procurator of the said land, and with the presence and intervention of the said reverend vicar, upon the verification of the most ancient cave, or grotto called di santa Rosalia, standing on the mountain of the wood in the territory of this land and in the fief of Castagna, near the mountain called della Quisquina, and of the miracles had in the said cave through the intercession of Saint Rosalia. Mancusi in the History, part 1, page 102, asserts that these witnesses, who were twelve, were examined because the genuineness of the cave of Quisquina had been called in doubt by certain envious men before the Congregation of the sacred Rota. And I have in my hands the accounts of all the witnesses, written in the Italian tongue; but they are too long for me to care to translate them hither entire. Wherefore, since in most points they say the same things with the words changed, though some from time to time add certain things passed over by others, I shall excerpt only those things which shall seem to conduce to a fuller knowledge of the cave, or to the correcting of Cascinus' errors.

[272] from which various things are made clear about the opened entrance of the cave, First, the witnesses agree with Cascinus in asserting that the entrance of the cave was widened by the two men of Palermo above named, whom most call masons, and they testify that they were engaged there in building the monastery of St. Dominic. But they do not explain how often those masons, to whom they join others also, came to the place; and various witnesses hint that the entrance of the cave was not always so narrow, but had been gradually blocked up by falling stones. Secondly, Cascinus says on page 167 that the knowledge of the cave of Quisquina had so fallen away at that time that almost nothing remained but the name alone. But the witnesses with a wonderful agreement assert that the veneration of St. Rosalia had flourished from time immemorial at the said cave, where an altar had been built, so that every year in Easter week a train of suppliants went in procession to the place, and the sacred sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated at an altar set up before the entrance of the cave. That this was always done so by himself the first witness asserts on oath, with hand upon his breast after the priestly manner. And he was the magnificent and reverend lord Nicolaus Perrello, doctor of sacred theology and archpriest of the land of San Stefano, already for about nineteen years, as he himself again asserts, so that he was archpriest, and had led the train of suppliants with all the clergy, the Fathers Preachers and the Carmelites accompanying, to the cave of St. Rosalia before its finding. Nevertheless I find it asserted by no witness that anyone ever entered the cave itself.

[273] Thirdly, the witnesses agree that the inscription of St. Rosalia was found in this manner by the aforesaid masons of Palermo, about the finding of the inscription with many others present. When they had entered, on the left side they found in the rock the sign of the cross carved. And since the cave within had contracted a crust from the damp, being roused by the finding of the cross they began to wipe away that crust in the neighborhood of the cross; and thus, the crust being rubbed off — which the witnesses assert was most ancient — the letters carved in the rocks began to appear, and in that way they gradually found the inscription which was given in §2, I, Rosalia, etc. The witnesses add, first, that the inscription could not have been recently carved, because it was covered by so thick and ancient a crust. Secondly, they note that the word HOC was carved in flint or pyrite, which they judge could not have been done by human industry or by natural art. The archpriest also asserts that he had never had any knowledge of the said inscription. The second witness, Franciscus la Barbera, a priest of about sixty years of age, adds that the feast of St. Rosalia had been celebrated with a great concourse of people at the altar set before the entrance of the cave, on the fourth day of September, already before the finding of the body, from time immemorial, and besides the supplication which was held at Easter time. In these things also many of the following agree. He adds also certain benefits reported or to be reported in their place, and various things about the images of St. Rosalia kept there, which I pass over.

[274] But the third witness, Franciscus Pollara, likewise a priest of sixty years, and its antiquity, repeats both feasts of the Saint, the concourse of the people, the benefits in general, and the other things already said. He moreover adds that by the aid of the light with which they entered the cave the cross was seen, and then the inscription after the crust had been rubbed off; and that the letters of the inscription were at once somehow copied with black charcoal by those masons, who did not know how to read: which the other witnesses following also affirm. Another fact I shall presently give, when the sixth witness is treated of. The fourth witness, Petrus Ficarrotta, a priest of fifty-five years, confirms most of what has already been said; and adds that he was once asked by a noble man in the city of Sciacca whether he knew the cave of St. Rosalia. And when he said yes, that noble replied that he had information that in that cave near the entrance there was a great treasure. Likewise a certain physician of Agrigento had said to him that he had information that in the said cave there was a great treasure. Likewise the eighth witness, to be mentioned below, asserted that it had been said to him at Sciacca by a certain priest that there was a treasure in the cave of Quisquina in a certain inscription and in a cross joined to it, as Mancusi also relates on page 103. The fifth witness, Joannes Gerardi, agrees in almost everything else, and relates, with two or three others, that the town of San Stefano was preserved from the pestilence by the help of St. Rosalia, as was set forth in num. 181.

[275] about the benefits obtained The sixth witness was Sigismundus de Gerardo, a notary of seventy-four years, who agrees with the other witnesses in most things, but adds a very singular fact, which I shall subjoin almost in the very words of the writing. Sigismundus affirms that after the finding of the inscription he came with his household to the cave out of devotion and piety toward St. Rosalia, just as many others flocked thither; and that there was with him another household in which was a woman possessed, by name Sigismunda Spinelli. And when there was present with this witness and the other household Fr. Joannes Baptista di Lingua Grossa, a much-to-be-venerated father of holy life, of the Order of St. Dominic, who was then vicar of the convent of St. Dominic of this town (San Stefano), and who went with the said witness to the aforesaid place to offer the sacred Sacrifice of the Mass, the said father began to exorcise and to implore the help of St. Rosalia. The said Spinelli was delivered, and out of her body there went forth divers evil spirits, coming out like drops of blood, which she cast upon the ground, and which vanished in a moment. At last she threw herself on the ground as if she were dead: and, having come to herself, she bent her knees before the altar of the said holy cave, giving thanks to God our Lord that through the patronage of the glorious Saint Rosalia she had been delivered from the torments with which she was tormented by those evil spirits. She lived afterwards many years, and ended her days holily. The same about the deliverance of Sigismunda Spinelli was testified more briefly by Franciscus Pollara, priest, the third witness; and both testify in general that many sick persons were then healed in the same place, and that they were there themselves.

[276] by those visiting The seventh witness was Antoninus Maniscalco, son of Baptista Maniscalco and an inhabitant of San Stefano. He testifies in general that many benefits of healings were obtained in the cave of St. Rosalia, which he saw present. But of himself he affirms by name on oath that, while he was a little boy, he labored under a grievous hernia; and that, having heard of the benefits of St. Rosalia, he made a vow to that Saint and visited the cave of Quisquina, with Franciscus la Barbera, priest, accompanying him, that he might be delivered from the grievous torments of the hernia by the patronage of St. Rosalia. And when he had come to where he could see the cave, he put off his shoes and went barefoot to the cave. But before he had come to the place he felt himself sound and utterly delivered from all hernia, as he was sound when he testified this. Sound therefore he came to the altar of St. Rosalia, and gave her thanks for the benefit obtained, and then returned home sound. And the aforesaid Franciscus la Barbera, priest, who is the second witness, affirmed the same benefit with all its circumstances, and testified that he had seen it. The time of the benefit obtained Antoninus himself did not express; but the aforesaid la Barbera asserted that it had happened about seventeen years before his own testimony, given in the year 1642 in the month of February, so that it probably happened in the year 1625, or toward the end of the preceding year, certainly after the finding of the inscription. Further, the aforesaid priest la Barbera testified that he himself at that time, after a vow made to St. Rosalia, had been delivered from a grievous disease; and that this was the cause why he then went to the cave of St. Rosalia to celebrate Mass there.

[277] The eighth witness, Nicolaus Comparetto, a citizen of San Stefano seventy-five years of age, the cave, asserted most of the things already said by others, and those reported by name of him in num. 274, as also those presently to be said by the companion who follows. Moreover he testified that, while he was widening the entrance of the cave with others, a stone that slipped down fell upon his hip without injury, which he attributed to the patronage of St. Rosalia, whom he had invoked. The ninth witness was Franciscus Cattano, who was present at the finding of the inscription, and relates everything as it has already been set forth. But he adds one thing which he could know better than the others, namely that the workmen who widened the entrance of the cave were sent thither by mandate of the magistrates of San Stefano, who are called the jurati. And those sent were Franciscus Cattano himself and Nicolaus Comparetto, inhabitants of the same town, with the two men of Palermo before named. The tenth witness was one of the jurati of San Stefano, of about seventy-two years of age, whose name was Dominicus di Minardo.

He testifies that at the time of the finding he had been appointed a delegate on account of the pestilence then reigning in the neighborhood, and that for that cause he had sent the four workmen just mentioned, whom he names, to widen the entrance of the cave of St. Rosalia. He adds that after the finding of the inscription he was in the cave, that he copied it out and sent it to lord Joannes Ventimiglia, then governor of the land of San Stefano. The same man, like almost all the others, testifies most fully about the perpetual tradition of St. Rosalia's dwelling, about the people's devotion toward the Saint, and about many benefits by her patronage: and by name he affirms of his mother Cæcilia that she was accustomed every Wednesday to visit the cave barefoot on account of a benefit obtained through St. Rosalia. The eleventh witness, Vincentius di Giorgenti, confirms most of what has already been said, except particular facts.

[278] In the twelfth place, lastly, the jurati of the town of San Stefano testify together, and by the inhabitants of San Stefano; a brief observation about the entrance. and confirm that the inscription was found in the manner already set forth, which they attribute to a miracle on account of the most ancient and very hard crust with which the rock together with the inscription was covered. For the same cause they affirm that the inscription could not have been recent, but was most ancient. They confirm also, with almost all the aforesaid witnesses, that that cave and wood have from time immemorial been named the wood and cave of St. Rosalia (commonly il bosco e grotta di S. Rosalia). Moreover they assert that the town of San Stefano was never infected with the plague, although it frequently raged in Sicily and in the neighboring towns also. And this grace they rightly attribute to the patronage of St. Rosalia, especially if we weigh the fact related in num. 181, which has been confirmed by various of these witnesses. Finally, from these witnesses I observe that Cascinus probably errs when in book 2, chapter 8, he judges that the entrance of the cave, of whose widening we have treated, was never used by St. Rosalia, because that hole was too narrow. For almost all assert that the hole was blocked up in course of time and by falling stones, so that before it could have been larger. For which cause, since an altar was built in that place whose beginning is unknown, I rather believe that St. Rosalia entered and went out by that same part.

§ XXVII. A description of the cave, as it is divided into various parts, from Cascinus, with a plate annexed: the veneration of the same place down to these times.

[ ] The cave of Quisquina divided into ten little chambers: Cascinus, book 2, chapter 8, gives an accurate description of the cave of Quisquina, divided into various parts, together with the situation and a ground plan of the said cave represented on the same plate. The plate I insert in this place, marked out with Arabic figures and letters. These figures designate the various chambers of the whole cave; while the letters designate the doors or narrow passages by which one passes from one chamber to another. And first Cascinus observes that the cave does not extend straight toward the depth of the mountain, but immediately from the entrance turns aside to the right toward the West. Secondly he divides the whole into two principal parts, of which the first is divided into seven chambers, or rather caverns; and the second part, to which one comes by turning aside to the left through the sixth chamber, he distinguishes into three chambers, so that the whole cave contains ten chambers in all, as may be seen in the figure. These things being observed in general, we shall survey with Cascinus the several parts of the cave.

[280] its first door: A. The first is the opening which today, like a door, is level with the ground: but when it was found on the twenty-eighth (nay, the twenty-fifth) of August of the year 1624, it was like a fissure, which nevertheless did not divide the rock down to the ground, since it ended two palms from the surface of the earth; and it was so narrow that it admitted indeed some light, but would not receive a human body. So Cascinus, adding more things for his own opinion, by which he judged that St. Rosalia could neither enter nor go out by that part. But I have already observed that that door was gradually blocked up and made narrower, and that therefore that opinion of Cascinus seems less probable. But whatever be the truth about the part by which St. Rosalia formerly entered, Cascinus rightly described the door as it was found, and as it was widened, adding that now one enters the cave through that door by a descent of two steps.

[281] the first chamber, in which the inscription was found: 1. The first is the chamber which, the rock having been cut away somewhat when the ancient fissure was opened and so widened that it became a door, as has been said, is now twice as large. Its first length was five palms and a half, its breadth four: and one went down to the lower parts in such a way that a man could go back up without steps, by grasping only some rock or shoot. But now the space is twice as great, because it has been bent like an elbow. Between the two openings of the same chamber one goes down by two other steps, and so proceeds, with the rock standing on the left of some height, smooth and marked with lines, or by nature distinguished into several lines, in which was found that noble inscription, … which is of nine unequal lines, as the smoothness of the rock allowed the letters to be carved with some iron tool. The letters are two fingers high, and well hollowed and deep. But those hollows have in course of time been filled with growing stone, yet so that the matter grown in the hollows is distinguishable. So Cascinus of the first chamber. And the inscription I have given engraved on copper in two ways at §2.

[282] B. The second is the hole, or door, for passing to the second chamber, the second passage: the second and third chambers as it were one: leaving the inscription on the left. This hole is near the ground, low and narrow: and one entering it must bend himself, and must not be of fat body, since even those of moderate bulk of body can hardly get in.

2. 3. These numbers designate the second and third chambers, described together, because both form as it were one small chamber, or a modest porch, extending sixteen palms and a half: which nevertheless I divide into two parts, of which the lesser is only one pace long; and then in the greater part it widens (after the letter C, that is). The height cannot be exactly measured. But whereas the first is raised fifteen palms, the other two are more than twenty palms high: above, the two walls join and, curving, form a sharp angle, or sometimes as it were shears. And this happens throughout the whole cave, except where I shall particularly note something else.

[283] C. The third is the hole through which one climbs to the fourth chamber: the third passage: the fourth chamber, in which the little bed and there too the passage is difficult.

4. There follows the fourth chamber, which turns a little from the straight line toward the left. Here alone it is higher than in the preceding and also in the following. It is itself also narrower, two palms broad, five and a half long; and with just reason it seems to be in the cave as it were a small bedroom with its little bed, because between the ground and the roof there is there as it were a sort of platform which, raised somewhat from the floor, divides the chamber. It has almost the figure of a foot or a triangle, made of a whole stone slab in the manner of a little bed, on which the solitary Virgin seems to have slept. Further it must be observed that, although all the other rocks of the cave are like small slabs, this stone is of a size convenient for such a use, since the left side is five palms in length, the base six palms, the right side six and a half, and it ends at the head, and is one palm and a half in breadth. To this little bed one climbs from the aforesaid chamber by entering below through a small hole, which is like a hole made for cats, by grasping the bed and climbing onto it. Then, the hole being blocked up — as it can easily be blocked — the person remains enclosed above the little bed in a wonderful privacy, and can there sleep comfortably, if that can be said of one lying upon the bare stone.

[284] But what is chiefly to be wondered at: that stone does not seem to have been born there, which is believed to have been the Saint's: like the others of the same cave, but brought from elsewhere (let us say, placed there for the aforesaid use by God), well set in and slightly sloping in such a way that a person lying there has as it were a pillow on which to lay the head: and at the sides the rock rises up, closed all round and slightly open toward the chamber just mentioned, as if curtains were hung; and it meets at the top after the manner of a tent. It must moreover be noted that this part alone remains dry when in winter time it rains through the whole cave. O the kindly affection of God amid the hardships beloved by his servants! And whereas the whole cave is dark and gloomy, in this place alone there is a little light, which penetrates from above through some vent on the right side. Thus far Cascinus, with whom various of the witnesses mentioned before agree at least so far as to testify that a kind of little bed was found in the cave, where they judged St. Rosalia was accustomed to sleep, although they do not describe the place so fully and exactly. Let us return to Cascinus.

[285] the remaining chambers of the first part with their doors: D. This is a passage such as that at the letter C.

5. This chamber is like the preceding. If one passes through it to the left side, he leaves above a niche which is five palms on every side: but no one can conveniently climb into it.

E. The sixth is the door by which one passes to the sixth chamber.

6. There follows the sixth chamber, six palms broad, nine long. In two of its sides are two dark fissures which scarcely hold a man.

G. The seventh is the opening to the last chamber, which is situated on the right.

7. This part is the last and farthest, four palms in breadth, five and a half in length. It has not a lofty roof pointed after the manner of shears, but a low one and like a vault. It seems as it were a basin \*, and as it were a spring enclosed at the sides with a channel in the middle, or as it were a mouth. Why they made this wider, by breaking the stones at the sides by which it was there more confined, I am wholly ignorant, unless out of piety they wished to carry away the stones. The whole chamber is covered with a kind of white crust, arisen from the water which drips there; although I found the place dry, because I entered in the month of October, when the waters had failed…

[286] the passage to the second part: the eighth and ninth chambers: H. Finally there is the hole through which, as I have said, if one goes back, he penetrates into the second of the two chief parts of the cave, which is situated on the left. Here the ground is lower, and the place is of such horror that I drew back for horror. But, invoking the Saint, I

dragged myself in with the utmost difficulty, stretched on the ground among the rocks, sending one arm and shoulder before me and creeping like a serpent through that whole first space, extended to four palms, narrow, and so low that one cannot penetrate there except in that way. Now of the three chambers of which I said this second part consists,

8. This is the first, which is nearly eight palms long, less than three (broad, I think), two high; and it sinks beneath the left fissure, which is one of the two fissures of the sixth chamber of which it was said above.

I. This is a passage.

9. The second is a chamber of the same length, and of five palms and a half in breadth.

[287] the passage and the last chamber, greater than the rest, in which is a seat: L. This is a passage two palms wide, like a last chest, from which one enters the third chamber, which is the last citadel and holy cell of this sacred hermitage.

10. Here is the holy cell, greater than all the rest, because in going back it runs out as far as the first chamber, having on its left side the second and third (of the first part) already described. On this same side it has a mound or seat which was set there not by natural origin but by art, and indeed we believe it was wrought by those holy hands. It is fit for sitting or lying. The cell is as it were triangular, but hollow on the right side, sixteen palms long, twelve high, wide near the entrance six palms and a half, and in the middle about sixteen, and at last is contracted at the end into an almost sharp angle, near which it is three palms in breadth. Thus far Cascinus, from whose words it is clearly gathered that the last cell is represented in the figure smaller than it ought to have been, if a just proportion of all had been kept. Yet I have been unwilling to change the figure for this small defect, lest I should make it worse.

[288] And the aforesaid author concludes the description of the cave in these words: a brief observation upon the cave. This is the crag, and the utterly hidden lurking place of so harsh a dwelling, the rigid cloister of nature, made by God for shutting up there so dear a Spouse; and chosen by her, that she might dwell alone with him, for no other cause than that which, written by her own hand, is now better understood: “For the love of my Lord Jesus Christ”; and so well guarded that, with a single branch of a tree at the first mouth of the well \, or with a stone where the little bed is, or lastly with a small quantity of earth, or even with no fitting up at all, she might remain shut up in this last cavern, thus buried to the whole world, and known and alive to God alone.* So Cascinus reasons, always insisting on his own opinion, by which he judged that St. Rosalia's dwelling was known to no mortal at all. But I have shown in its place that that opinion is less probable; nor yet have I on that account wished to deny that the Saint was most solitary, and led a very austere life in this cave. For even if it were certain that a modest food for sustaining her body was brought to the Saint by a faithful person, and that the food of the soul was administered to her by a faithful priest, St. Rosalia's life would not on that account cease to seem most austere and greatly to be wondered at in its solitude and dwelling; but it could only seem the more to be imitated by those into whom divine grace should breathe a spirit equal to so great a rigor.

[289] Further, that earlier dwelling of St. Rosalia having been described, [Relics of St. Rosalia in the town of San Stefano, where also a chapel was built for her,] it is well also to add briefly in what veneration that place has been held down to our own times. The documents for what I shall here relate were most courteously communicated to our Fathers at Palermo by the most excellent lord Joseph Emmanuel Ventimiglia, prince of Belmonte and lord of Quisquina, and the same, written in the Italian tongue, were sent to us by our often-praised Castiglia. Upon their credit the later facts rest; but of the earlier Cascinus also treated, book 3, chapter 8. He testifies that in the year 1625 two particles of the relics of St. Rosalia were given by the Cardinal archbishop to Joannes de Ventimiglia, lord of San Stefano, which he had enclosed in a casket, or a half-length silver statue, and honorably transferred by the clergy to the town of San Stefano on the twenty-fifth day of September of the year 1625. The casket, there shut with a double key, was meanwhile laid up in the chief church until a chapel proper to the Saint should be built, into which those relics were afterwards brought. Nevertheless this is not that chapel which, built before the cave, we shall presently mention.

[290] In the same year 1625 there was built by the magistrate and people of San Stefano a small church, [likewise a small church erected before the mouth of the cave, to which an annual supplication is appointed:] set before the mouth of the cave in such a way that part of the altar is in the very mouth of the cave. For this cause, on Cascinus' testimony in the same place, page 373, the concourse of people greatly increased, hastening thither with great piety and barefoot, both from the town of San Stefano and from other neighboring places. The supplication also, which was held to that place already before the finding of the inscription, on the Tuesday of Easter week, then began to be performed with greater solemnity and a more numerous concourse of people, because the half-length statue, in which I have just said the Saint's relics were enclosed, was carried thither by the suppliants. So Cascinus. The monuments just mentioned add that the chief feast was there celebrated on the fourth day of September, which had likewise been done before the finding from time immemorial; then, that fairs were also established there at that time, the princes, lords of the town of San Stefano, permitting them; and finally, that a certain Roman hermit whose name was Sanctus de Sanctis was long the keeper of the chapel. In the year 1630, with the approval of the duke of Albuquerque, then viceroy of Sicily, and by the care of the prince lord of San Stefano, such revenues were assigned to the aforesaid chapel of St. Rosalia before the cave that a chaplain was appointed to celebrate Mass there every feast day.

[291] a congregation of hermits begun there in the year 1693, From these things the collector of those monuments then passes to more recent facts, which I render from Italian into Latin: In the year 1690 Franciscus Scasso, a Genoese merchant, driven by divine inspiration, left his trade and determined with three companions of the same nation to withdraw into the cave of Quisquina and to lead a solitary life. He declares this design of his to the count and prince, lord Caietanus Ventimiglia, baron and lord of Quisquina, who sees to the building of some cells near the above-said church. In the year 1693 brother Franciscus Scasso with his companions withdraws to that eremitic dwelling: and, the alms of the faithful having been collected, and a certain sum of money having been kept by him for this use, and especially a greater quantity of money having been liberally given by the aforesaid prince, lord Caietanus Ventimiglia, in the year 1698 a new church was built of ampler form, such as it is seen today; and the eremitic cells are changed into a rightly ordered monastery. At that time the number of the hermits greatly increased, men of various conditions joining themselves — merchants, soldiers, professors.

[292] which afterwards greatly increased. Yet all were laymen, and depended entirely upon the aforesaid prince, lord of the place, who saw to it that rules according to which they should order their life were prescribed to them by a Religious of the highest piety, and chose for them as spiritual director Fr. Ludovicus Conti of the Society of Jesus, dwelling in the college of Bivona, which place is near their hermitage. This institute of life they observed for a long time with great devotion: and so their hermitage in a short time became one of the most famous sanctuaries of Sicily. The count and prince, lord Joseph Emmanuel Ventimiglia, who succeeded to those lordships, and all the kinsmen of this renowned and royal family, not only promoted with their wealth the building of the church and hermitage, which are set on their own estates; but they always enriched the church further with sacred ornaments and with all necessary furnishing. Besides, they assigned revenues for a daily sacrifice of the Mass; and finally they bestow daily continual alms for the support of the hermits, who are of a great number and live in perfect observance. So concerning these hermits imitating St. Rosalia after their fashion run the observations which the most courteous and most diligent Castiglia sent us, who also greatly commends the courtesy of prince Joseph Emmanuel Ventimiglia and his piety toward St. Rosalia. But let us return from this digression to Palermo.

\ nicchia*

\* i.e. of the cave

§ XXVIII. A drawing of the cave of St. Rosalia on Mount Pellegrino and of the church which adjoins the cave, lately delineated: the most famous cult of the Saint there.

[ ] A drawing of the cave and church of St. Rosalia, I have given an accurate enough description of the cave of St. Rosalia in §25, with Cascinus' figure annexed. But the utmost piety of the people of Palermo toward this their holy Patroness does not allow me to hasten to other matters before I set before my readers' eyes a new delineation of the place and especially of the church. For the Sicilians have declared not only by letters that they desire the Acts of St. Rosalia to be illustrated with many figures, but the often-praised Castiglia has also diligently collected and courteously sent various drawings. And of these I have chosen the chief ones to be inserted into the Commentary in their places. Wherefore I here exhibit engraved the delineation of the cave and church, to which I find this title prefixed, A drawing of the cave of St. Rosalia on Mount Ercta, and of the church which adjoins the cave continuously, in exactly the same size in which it was sent.

[294] And the annotations explaining the figure I likewise transfer hither. with annotations explaining the figure: We exhibit in this figure an exact drawing of the church of Saint Rosalia on Mount Ercta, enlarged and magnificently adorned by the senate of Palermo after the finding of the sacred body, together with the cave to which it continuously adjoins, and we illustrate it with these letters.

A. The arch which divides the sacred crypt from the unroofed part of the church.

B. The depth of the sacred crypt.

C. The altar built in that place in which St. Rosalia rendered her soul to God.

F. The opening of the other crypt, the innermost dwelling of the holy Virgin.

L. The unroofed part of the church.

M. Openings for collecting the rainwaters, which then betake themselves through subterranean channels into a cistern.

N. The part of the mountain on the right side of the church.

O. A well dug out for the convenience of pilgrims.

P. The arch which divides the roofed part of the church from the unroofed.

Q. The nave of the roofed part of the church.

Thus far the annotations, written in Latin in exactly the same words. Only it may be observed in these that the letters were placed in the same way, lest the reader should think that some had been omitted, because some are wanting in the alphabetical order.

[295] Further, some annotations also follow which bear on the cult of St. Rosalia. the care of the senate of Palermo for this church: Of these, lest I be longer than is just, I transfer hither only the chief. In the year 1627 some nobles were chosen by the senate that, together with a priest of the Society of Jesus, they might in every way watch over the cult and ornaments of the sacred cave. Of this assembly of nobles, which in the Sicilian tongue they call the DEPUTATION

we call, Fr. Amatus speaks in On the Chief Church, page 247; Fr. Mancusi, Istoria di S. Rosalia, volume 1, page 306. In our own time the aforesaid nobles are seven, of whom one is a former prætor, four former senators, one a theologian of the Society of Jesus, and another from the number of the merchants. On these the aforesaid Amatus and Mancusi may be further seen, from whose words the reader will easily gather that the piety of the people of Palermo has so far from decreased that it has even taken increase: for at the beginning there were only four deputies; but now there are seven; nor have they a small sum of money for adorning the place.

[296] its precious furnishing: Beneath the chief altar of the cave, in that very place where the sacred relics were found, a most beautiful marble statue of the holy Rosalia has been set, the work of Franciscus Tudisco of Florence (Amatus, On the Chief Church, page 471), in such a posture as to represent the dying Virgin… To this statue a most noble garment of silver was consecrated by the grand master of the Order of Jerusalem \, Gregorius Caraffa of Naples, because by the benefit of the holy Rosalia the terrible burning of the plague which was devastating Malta in the year 1676 was stilled. (Amatus, On the Chief Church, page 244.) But at present the aforesaid nobles assigned to this cave are having made a garment of solid gold set with gems, whose price, together with the price of the crown of gold set upon her head on the twentieth day of April of the year 1727, and likewise of the image of Christ hanging from the cross and of the lily, both of which she holds in her hands, of solid gold, is reckoned at five thousand gold pieces. There are there also other precious ornaments of silver, which come to the sum of three thousand gold pieces.*

[297] various feasts and a frequent concourse of people: Three times a year the feast of the holy Rosalia is celebrated there not without pomp, namely on that Sunday which we call in Albis — on which day the Roman Pontiff granted a plenary indulgence of sins in the year 1652 (Auria, Rosa celeste, page 108, where he published the bull of Innocent X) — on the day before the Nones of September, and on the eighth of the Kalends of August. But every third year also, with singular celebrity and concourse of people and with the intervention of the senate of Palermo, the most sacred Eucharist is there set forth for the public adoration of all for four days continuously. And concerning the throng of people this is worth knowing, that scarcely any day passes — whether cloudy, or rainy, or most burning with a blazing sun — on which it does not see some of the citizens or of the strangers betaking themselves thither after the manner of pilgrims. Some are even said to come on foot to the cave every single day (the cave, moreover, is four miles distant from the city). This custom brother Joseph Glorioso, a Dominican lay brother from the town of Montemaggiore in Sicily, religiously kept for nearly twenty years, who, while he acted as sacristan in the monastery of St. Zita at Palermo, going every day after Vespers to the sacred cave of the holy Rosalia, never failed to return for giving the signal of Compline as his office required. Thus far Castiglia, who mentions certain other things also, to be omitted for the sake of avoiding excessive length.

[298] a delineation of the road made over Mount Pellegrino, But since it has been related how frequent are the pilgrimages made to the sacred cave of St. Rosalia; and since formerly no road lay open to it save a most difficult one over the precipices of the mountain, it will please the reader to be taught also with what zeal and at what expense the Senate of Palermo lessened the difficulties of the way. Of Mount Pellegrino, formerly called Ercta, Cascinus' work treats in the Appendix, or Digression 1, chapter 2. It will be enough to note here beforehand that the cave of St. Rosalia is situated on the northern part of the mountain, not toward Palermo but toward the sea. For this cause, since Palermo is situated toward the south, I have received the southern prospect of the mountain delineated with the roads leveled over the mountain, under this title: A southern prospect of Mount Ercta from the great college of the Society of Jesus; and I have had it engraved on copper, such as I here exhibit.

[299] And Castiglia added these annotations to the figure delineated: and annotations, The people of Palermo were accustomed, even before the body of the holy Rosalia was dug up, to go to Ercta for religion's sake. Yet no road was afforded on the mountain but a broken and headlong one: and even that path which was frequented by the citizens, and which they commonly called the STAIR (where St. Rosalia showed herself to be seen by Vincentius Bonelli, as was related in num. 227), too steep and sloping, received the steps of those passing only with vast difficulty. This extended two miles to the cave of the mountain, which looks toward the North. Now, the relics of the holy Rosalia having at last by God's benefit been found and diligently examined, the senate of Palermo, consulting the piety and convenience of the citizens, made a most level road among the broken rocks, carried round with most solid walls and supported by most firm arches: which not only footmen may traverse with the very lightest labor, but horsemen also, and those borne in a sedan chair or in a carriage drawn by horses, most easily. This road the senate began to level in the times next after the finding of the sacred body. We have as our authority Fr. Cascini, book 3, chapter 1, page 335: who also teaches that in merely breaking through and cutting away the mass of huge rocks the senate spent many thousands of gold pieces. Then in building the new road, from the year 1674, in which it was begun, to 1725, in which Amatus, On the Chief Church, page 237, reports it finished and completed on the third of the Ides of May, the same senate of Palermo spent nearly twelve thousand gold pieces.

[300] That some provision might be made for the readers, we have added these letters with annotations. by which the figure is explained. We have likewise added a scale of palms, by which whatever has been less exactly delineated in the figure set forth may be corrected.

A. The head of the road, paved with stones from the lowest roots of the mountain to the sacred cave. This first stretch of the road has a length of 245 Sicilian ells or canne, a breadth of two canne and six palms.

B. The beginning of the arches for supporting four bends of the road in the most precipitous part of the mountain. The first three arches of this road have a breadth of two canne, a height of two canne and six palms.

C. Eight other bends of the same road in the same precipitous part of the mountain.

D. The first building, with an image of the holy Rosalia, built with arched work in the form of a vault, in an easier place of the steep road. Another little building of the same form does not lie beneath the view of those looking from this side: it is set in the rocks turned away; the letter E marks it out.

F. An unroofed lookout, in which is a statue of the holy Rosalia within a little building, upon which a cross is set: which closes the paved road and terminates the southern prospect.

G. A watchtower situated on the higher summit of the mountain, which looks out even to the Æolian islands, and warns the citizens…

Between F and G, on the northern part of the mountain, after a short descent of the road, namely of 180 canne, lies the sacred cave of the holy Rosalia.

In that place of the mountain which overhangs the Tyrrhenian sea there rises an ample portico, closed by twelve arches and sixteen columns, upon whose top there sits a marble statue of the holy Rosalia, twenty-four palms in height. This statue, set up in the year 1663, ships passing by salute with repeated discharges of cannon — not even those of the Turks excepted — and with a prayer offered. See Fr. Amatus, page 237; Fr. Mancusi, volume 1, page 303; Auria, Rosa celeste, page 131. Thus far the most diligent Castiglia, to whose observations there is no need to add anything.

\* now commonly called the Order of Malta

§ XXIX. The chapel of the Saint built in the metropolitan church: in this is kept the precious chest in which is the body of the same Saint.

[ ] The chapel of St. Rosalia built in the chief church Of the chapel which was built for St. Rosalia in the chief church of Palermo, that is, in the metropolitan church, something has already been said on another occasion in §23, num. 251. More about it Cascinus relates in book 3, chapter 3; and Amatus, already often praised, page 247 and following. More briefly Auria treats of it in the Rosa cælestis, page 95, and Mancusi in the History, volume 1, page 304. A plate which exhibits the outer and the inner prospect of this chapel, together with its right side, Castiglia added delineated to the rest, with this title annexed: A scenographic drawing of the marble chapel erected by the senate in the chief church of Palermo, in which the chest of the relics of the holy Rosalia is kept. This, engraved in the same form and extent, I here represent.

[302] at the greatest expense and with wonderful elegance: Castiglia subjoins the following annotations: The sculptors of Palermo first invented the art of inserting many-colored stones into marbles, and first used it in composing the walls of this chapel. Franciscus Baronius in his work on the Majesty of Palermo, book 3, chapter 1, speaks thus of that chapel in Amatus, page 250: I say nothing of the chapel of the holy Rosalia raised from the foundations in the chief church, which, by the elegance of the work and by the beauty or the arrangement of the precious stones, is not only royal, but no second like it is acknowledged in all Sicily: I have heard from certain Italian knights, when by chance they were contemplating in admiration the front of this chapel, that all Italy cannot boast of a like work. The same man, book 1, chapter 3, if the place is rightly assigned in Amatus: The whole arch indeed is clothed with those kinds of stones which equal the price of gold and silver. There are those who affirm that the senate of Palermo would have spent less if it had built it of silver. The architecture is singular, the arrangement of the stones wonderful: for so does one cleave to another that from the beauty of the one the beauty of the other is set off: some pebbles so gleam at intervals that they seem in a wonderful manner either to animate or to illuminate the whole structure. So he; who, though he speak perhaps with some exaggeration about the expenses of the chapel, yet leaves no doubt that they were very great. Of these things the aforesaid Castiglia notes the following: Indeed from the public records of the senate of Palermo we have learned that the same senate paid thirteen thousand gold pieces, or Sicilian scudi, toward it in the year 1625: then in the year 1634, in which the chapel was finished, another sum of three thousand five hundred scudi was paid: which, if it be added to the first, brings the price of the whole chapel to 16,500 Sicilian scudi.

[303] The same man then subjoins other things in these words: That diligent care may be had of this chapel, the care of the people of Palermo for that chapel, the most excellent senate of Palermo chooses two canons as deputies from the chapter of the same church. Alfonsus Fernandez de Medrano, precentor of Palermo (the first dignity after the pontifical) and judge of the tribunal of the royal monarchy in Sicily, who, on account of the extraordinary love toward the holy Rosalia with which he burns, has with the utmost zeal wonderfully adorned the chapel with many silver candlesticks, vessels and other ornaments of this kind. The other is the canon Antoninus Mongitore of Palermo, who among other things published a compendious Life of the holy Rosalia, and wrote a work not yet published in which he relates the cult of the holy Rosalia spread through the whole world. To these he adds in a more recent hand concerning Mongitore: So great a man died at Palermo, to the greatest grief of the citizens, on the twenty-ninth

of May 1743. But presently he continues thus: Benedict XIII, Supreme Pontiff, bestowed an indulgence upon all the faithful of Christ who visit this chapel, and likewise upon those who visit the cave of the same virgin Rosalia on Mount Peregrino. Furthermore, that for every Mass celebrated in either place by any priest whatsoever, the soul for which the Mass is celebrated should be freed from the fire of purgatory, as (it stands) by the concession given at Rome on the 26th of June in the year 1728.

[304] Before the chapel there hang several silver lamps, precious gifts offered to her, which burn perpetually before the Virgin's relics: among them one skilfully wrought, sent as a gift by the city of Naples in the year 1657, on account of its deliverance from the plague, obtained in that same year by the help of our Virgin (as Auria testifies in the Rosa cælestis, page 119). Another was offered by the Jerusalemite Order of Knights, on account of the island of Malta's being freed from the plague in the year 1676. Two crystal lamps also, excellently fashioned, the archbishop of Palermo, Fr. D. Joseph Gasch, offered in the year 1722 to St. Rosalia the virgin, in token of his devotion toward the Virgin. Lastly, another of silver, of huge bulk and marvellous workmanship, was given by Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, then king of Sicily (afterwards king of Sardinia, and father of the present king of Sardinia). It weighs 399 pounds, and cost 5000 gold pieces. Most numerous is the daily concourse of the people of Palermo and of others, to venerate St. Rosalia.

[305] But with what splendour and dignity the anniversary feast day of St. various festivals of the Saint in the same place. Rosalia is celebrated in this chief church on the Ides of July, Fr. Amato relates on page 252, and Fr. Mancusi in volume 1 of his History, page 310. At that feast four thousand gold pieces are laid out every year by the senate of Palermo. That festival is the one of the finding of the relics. Castiglia adds finally: At Palermo and throughout the whole territory of the city of Palermo the fourth day of September is kept every year by precept, at the command of the most eminent Cardinal Doria. There too the same is done on the Ides of July by his edict. The first festival is celebrated with a double rite of the first class with an Octave; the other with a double rite of the second class; but both are of precept, as Amatus has it on pages 251 and 252, where more may be seen.

[306] Cascinus, book 3, chapter 2, and Amatus, page 250, treat at length of the precious chest, The precious chest, in which the Saint's body is kept, within which the sacred bones of St. Rosalia are preserved enclosed. Two parts of this chest, accurately delineated with his own annotations, Castiglia sent to us. The first, which I here exhibit, this title designates: The front face of the silver chest, in which the relics of St. Rosalia are kept. And to the title our most diligent helper appended these observations: That what is depicted on this face of the chest may be the more easily understood, we have added letters, of which we here subjoin the explanation.

A. Contains the inscription which Cascinus reports on page 338, and Amatus on page 251. And faithfully transcribed from the chest itself it runs thus:

"In the reign of Philip IV our most happy king, D. Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, duke of Albuquerque, being most gracious viceroy, to St. Rosalia the preserver of her fatherland, D. Francesco Valguarnera, prince, count of Assoro, prætor; the captains D. Pietro Palacio, Orazio Lomellino, D. Carlo del Voglia Campixiano, Andrea Vespasiani Agliata, Francesco del Colle, Simone Bonaccolti, senators, gave and dedicated this chest, finished in a work hastened and completed within five months, at the public expense, in fulfilment of a vow, in the year 1631." On the rear part of the same chest these other words are read: "Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, greatest and best, enlarger of the piety and felicity of Palermo, inscribed in the calendars of the Church the solemn days of St. Rosalia the virgin, both that on which she was born and that on which she was found on earth, in the year of the Lord 1629, in the sixth year of his pontificate. Giannettino Doria, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, archbishop of Palermo, set forth the body divinely discovered, approved, and to be venerated, in the jubilee year 1625. The senate of Palermo enclosed it in silver in 1631. D. Francesco Valguarnera, prince, prætor; the captains D. Pietro Palacio, Orazio Lomellino, D. Carlo del Voglia Campixiano, Andrea Vespasiani Agliata, Francesco del Colle, Simone Bonaccolti, fathers of the country."

[307] illustrated with various observations: B. Represents the prayer of St. Rosalia. There are inscribed the things which Cascinus reports on page 336. The words are:

She sends her prayers to God like roses in baskets: She brings back the services of angels, and the gifts of flowers.

C. The chasing on the lid of the chest represents the contemplation of the same Virgin. The words assigned in Cascinus are these:

Hidden in the cleft of Ercta she enjoys heaven more freely.

D. Likewise on the lid of the chest St. Rosalia offers a crown of prayers to the most holy Mother of God. Receive the words engraved, from Cascinus:

She brings forth a crown of praises to the Mother of God, A solemn rite of prayer for those who come after.

The silver of this chest (Fr. Cascini and Fr. Amato are the authorities, in the places cited) is 1750 pounds in weight. But the canon Antonino Mongitore, in his manuscript book On the Churches of Palermo, page 311, after most carefully consulting the public book of receipts and expenditures, testifies that he found this silver to amount to about 1300 pounds. From the same manuscript book of Antonino Mongitore we have learned that the workmanship and the silver of the aforesaid chest cost 18460 gold pieces; nor does this seem to stand far from the opinion of Fr. Giovanni Amato, who attests that the material of the whole chest and the work itself reach the sum of 20000 gold pieces. But the public registers of the senate, consulted most recently, show the sum of 21000 Sicilian scudi.

[308] it is exhibited three times a year, and now and again in public necessities, Amatus, On the Chief Church, pages 106 and 107, teaches with what apparatus the reliquary chests of the holy patrons are exhibited every year at Palermo in the metropolitan church, and on what days the chest of St. Rosalia is exhibited three times a year in the middle of the church on the eve of the festival, namely on the tenth of January on account of the earthquakes, of which hereafter; on the fourteenth of July on account of the finding to be celebrated on the following day; and on the third of September, because on the day after the chief festival of the Saint is celebrated. Moreover, when some danger of pestilence presses on, it is exhibited from time to time on other days as well. It is worth relating what was done very lately, when in the year 1743 a most grievous plague afflicted Messina: for since I did not doubt that the Sicilians in so manifest a danger had implored the aid of St. Rosalia, I asked that it might be written out for me if anything worthy of note had been done. The most obliging Castiglia collected many things, to be noted in their own place; but one bears most upon our purpose here, which, keeping his own words, I here transfer.

[309] When at Palermo, he says, word was had of the ship as was done in the year 1743 on account of the plague which last year, 1743, had put in at the port of Messina, and was carrying the contagion with its merchandise from Missolonghi, letters were at once dispatched to the senate of that city by the most excellent viceroy Bartolomeo Corsini and by the most excellent senate of Palermo, in which the necessary precautions were reckoned up concerning the burning of the ship at a greater distance from the shore; and that care should diligently be taken that nothing be brought within the city which might breathe the pestilence upon the citizens. Meanwhile the same excellent senate set forth the relics of St. Rosalia for the public veneration of the people of Palermo for nine days together, from the fifth of the Kalends of June.

[310] But when sure news was brought of the plague raging among the citizens of Messina, raging at Messina again the chest of St. Rosalia's relics was displayed to the observances and prayers of the citizens from the Ides of June to the tenth of the Kalends of August. And at the same time solemn supplications were made by every assembly of the citizens, in which almost all the religious Orders went in procession, and the clergy with the archbishop of Palermo himself, who went first, surrounded by the college of canons. Other bishops also took part, who were then staying at Palermo, all with singular modesty, a rope hanging from the neck, and crowned with thorns, some even scourging themselves with an iron chain, and very many even barefoot. In the same manner the confraternities, which are cultivated at Palermo almost past numbering, likewise entered upon the supplication, that they might entreat the help of St. Rosalia amid such straits for Sicily and their fatherland. So Castiglia: nor were the vows of the people of Palermo in vain, since it is greatly to be wondered at that the plague, which raged so violently at Messina, did not extend itself further through Sicily.

[311] the other side of the chest. Having said these things on the occasion of the chest's being exhibited because of the danger of plague, I present the other side of it in this plate, which was sent with this title: The face of the left side of the same chest. The notes added are the following:

A. Represents St. Rosalia's withdrawal into the desert. The inscription you have in Cascinus, page 336; where it is thus expressed:

The Mother of God and the little Boy, willing and favourable, Bless her purpose of the solitary life with a heavenly escort.

B. On the lid of the chest is represented St. Rosalia called by an angel from the cave of Quisquina to that of Ercta. The words inscribed are:

From the cave of Quisquina she is called forth by angels to that of Ercta.

It is to be noted here that on the silver shields which the angels bear in their hands, set at the four corners of the chest, there were not engraved the histories and verses relating to the finding of the sacred body, which the cited Cascinus reports on page 337; but only roses, as they are seen delineated here. Thus far Castiglia, who did not send the face of the other sides delineated, because from the figures given a conjecture about the whole chest is easy.

§ XXX. The honour paid to St. Rosalia, and her cult extended by the Supreme Pontiffs to the kingdom of Sicily, and to the dominions of the Roman Emperor and of the king of the Spains.

[ ] In what way the Saint's cult was begun at Rome, Not at Palermo only, nor in Sicily alone, is the veneration of St. Rosalia famous, but it in a short time increased greatly in very many provinces of Europe, as Cascinus shows at length in book 3 of his Italian work. In the same place, chapter 13, he relates in what way the veneration of the Saint was begun at Rome, and promoted by Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff. First he testifies that Cardinal Doria wrote to Urban VIII all that had been done at Palermo after the finding of St. Rosalia's relics; and that Urban not only approved and praised it all, but was also inflamed with a wonderful love of the Saint. Secondly he narrates that the first festival of St. Rosalia was celebrated at Rome in the year 1627, on the day of the finding of the body, or the fifteenth of July, through the care of Fr. Girolamo Petrucci of the Society of Jesus, who had come from Palermo to Rome. For he had brought it about that in the Roman college of the same Society, on the aforesaid feast of the finding, an oration should be delivered on the praises of St. Rosalia, and on the following Sunday an elegant poem about the same Virgin should be recited. The devotion of the people was much increased by a recovery of health suddenly obtained by one of the pupils of the college, as soon as he had invoked St. Rosalia: for he in gratitude hung a silver offering on the image of the same Saint, which was exposed in the church, and on that occasion men of the first rank also began to hasten thither, and took care that Sacrifices too should be celebrated. Cascinus adds to these things that the Sicilians also set forth St. Rosalia for public cult in the church proper to themselves.

[313] with the favour of Urban VIII, to whom a tooth of the Saint is offered: The Supreme Pontiff had heard of the celebration of the aforesaid festival, and with kindly words indicated that he wished to compose an ode or hymn in honour of St. Rosalia. But since at that same time there was living at Rome Antonio de Moncada and Aragona,

duke of Montalto and prince of Paternò, then a priest, and afterwards deceased in the Society of Jesus, and since he understood that the Pontiff gladly heard of St. Rosalia, he believed that a convenient occasion was given him of promoting the cult of the Saint, of whom he was most fond. Wherefore he offered to Urban VIII a tooth of St. Rosalia, which he had received on the occasion of the relics distributed by Cardinal Doria, adorned with gold and pearls. The Supreme Pontiff accepted the sacred pledge, and held it in such esteem that he wore that tooth upon his breast. Nay more, not content with Cardinal Doria's letters attesting the genuineness of the tooth, he wished to have the testimony of the duke himself as well, as Cascinus witnesses, who narrates all these things more at length. Further, this piety of Urban VIII toward St. Rosalia was able to furnish the occasion for the celebration of another festival. Certainly that festival was held in the same Roman college on the sixth day of April of the following year 1628, with the Pontiff's favour: for the Latin oration which the noble youth Giovanni Maria Roscioli, canon of the Lateran, delivered in praise of St. Rosalia, he wished to be printed and dedicated to himself, and he saw to it that it should not only be declaimed with magnificent apparatus, but also honoured by the presence of his most eminent nephew Antonio Barberini, and of other cardinals and princes. This Oration is extant in Cascinus, in the Appendix, page 51 and following: and it was composed by Fr. Angelo Galluccio of the Society of Jesus, as Auria testifies in the Rosa cælestis, page 15.

[314] Meanwhile the Cardinal archbishop and the senate of Palermo pressed Urban VIII, by him the name of Rosalia is added to the Roman Martyrology, the cause being promoted by the above-praised Petrucci, that the name of St. Rosalia might be inserted in the Roman Martyrology, which was being reprinted. But Urban, with however great an affection he was borne toward the holy Virgin, nevertheless referred the matter to the sacred Congregation of Rites, that it might be discussed by a rigorous examination: and he ordered the printing of the Martyrology to cease until, the necessary monuments and writings having been brought from Sicily, the examination should be completed. The examination at length being happily concluded, Urban on the 26th day of January in the year 1630 wrote thus to the senate and people of Palermo: We were unwilling that Rosalia of Palermo, written in the heavenly book of the living, crowned with the lilies of virginity, should any longer lack the triumphal testimony of the Roman Martyrology… That the beneficent patronage of your fellow-citizen has been acknowledged in the safety of that city, we rejoice not moderately, we who confess that the desires of our pontifical charity are led to their wished-for issues by the happiness of your virtues. From the sacred body, which, unknown in past ages, the light of heaven plainly seemed to have laid open at the opportune time, we desire that there should rain down upon that people a shower, though a late one, and a voluntary rain of heavenly benefits, which she is to be believed to have set apart for her fatherland and her inheritance, venerating her praises and her relics with so grateful a worship of religious observance, etc.

[315] To Cardinal Doria the same Pontiff wrote on the 16th day of March in the year 1630, and thanks are given for other relics of the Saint received: wonderfully commending his charity shown in the time of the plague, and inserting in the letter these words to our purpose: Since the most blessed virgin Rosalia declared her heavenly patronage over her fatherland of Palermo by the greatness of her benefits, she was plainly worthy that her name should triumph in the sacred calendars of the Roman Martyrology amid the applause of the Catholic Church. Further, since in the meantime the praised Cardinal archbishop had destined certain relics of the Saint for Urban, he on the 23rd day of the same month of March gave thanks by letter for the sacred pledge received, in these words: We have received the gems of paradise, more to be desired above gold and the precious stone, the relics of the most blessed virgin Rosalia, chosen out of the heavenly treasury of the church of Palermo. The heart of our pontifical charity flowered at once with the dew of sacred consolation. And further we pray that Virgin, reigning with the Almighty, that she who is piously believed lately to have driven pestilence from her native sky, may now with the arm of her power, made terrible as an army in battle array, drive discord out of Italy. And you, who have sent to us a gift most pleasing to the angels and salutary to men, we embrace with the arms of a fatherly goodwill, etc. The praised letters are had entire in Cascinus, page 390 and following.

[316] Not long after, the printing of the Roman Martyrology was completed with a twofold elogium of St. Rosalia. her twofold elogium in the Martyrology: Wherefore Petrucci sent it, with a letter dated the fourth day of April, to the senate of Palermo, as the Pontiff himself desired. And the elogium at the fourth of September, which is believed to be the day of her death, is as follows: At Palermo, the birthday of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, sprung from the royal blood of Charlemagne, who for the love of Christ fled from her father's principality and from the court, and led a heavenly life in solitude among the mountains and caves. But the finding of the body is celebrated at the fifteenth of July in these words: At Palermo, the finding of the body of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, which, discovered by divine agency under Urban the Eighth, Supreme Pontiff, in the year of jubilee freed Sicily from the plague. These elogia could not but please both the Cardinal archbishop and the senate and people of Palermo. Nevertheless, as Cascinus testifies on page 393, there were not wanting those who wished to whisper some little doubt to Cardinal Barberini concerning the place of the Saint's death, and concerning the deliverance of Sicily from the pestilence. But since those two heads are solidly proved beyond the rest, it was not difficult for the senate and the archbishop to scatter the doubt raised, by a letter sent to the most eminent Barberini. And he replied to the Cardinal archbishop that the decree of the sacred Congregation of Rites had been passed with so mature a judgment that whoever should oppose himself to it, or should undertake to discuss it less reverently, would show too much boldness. He added that nothing further was to be required, since even that decree alone, with the approval of the Pontiff, would suffice to stop the mouth of gainsayers.

[317] various relics sent to Rome: The people of Palermo, therefore, glad at the promotion of St. Rosalia's cult, wished to show themselves grateful to those by whose work they understood the undertaking to have been begun and completed. The first festival at Rome had been in the Roman college of the Society of Jesus. There were sent in the year 1630 relics of St. Rosalia to the aforesaid college, as Cascinus testifies on page 393, who himself had the care of sending them. Hence in the same year, on the fourth day of September, the festival of the Saint was again celebrated there. On the same day too the feast of the Saint was celebrated at Rome in the church of the Sicilian nation, where plenary indulgences were granted by the Pontiff for the dedication of a new altar and of an image of St. Rosalia. Relics also of the same Saint were sought through Cascinus by Giovanni Maria Roscioli, who had delivered the first oration on her praises, that he might place them, enclosed in a silver case, in the Lateran church, as again Cascinus testifies on page 396. And the senate of Palermo sent to Urban VIII an image of St. Rosalia adorned with most precious ornaments. And he, by a letter to the senate dated the third of January in the year 1632, declared that the gift had been pleasing to him. This letter Cascinus gives on page 395, from which I transfer hither some things to our purpose: We esteemed it, he says, a care worthy of Apostolic piety to enrol Rosalia, famous for her signal sanctity, in the catalogue of the blessed virgins: and we rejoice that this has fallen out pleasantly to you and to the whole city of Palermo. Thus far of the Saint's cult extended and promoted by Urban VIII.

[318] [there the Saint is painted at the command of Alexander VII as patroness against the plague:] In what ways the cult of St. Rosalia was spread abroad by Alexander VII, Vincenzo Auria relates, who flourished at that same time, in the Rosa cælestis, page 124 and following. The pestilence, which had raged in various parts of Italy, afflicted Rome also. For which cause Pope Alexander in the year 1656 had such an image of St. Rosalia struck as should represent her as patroness against the plague: for the holy Anchoress was exhibited praying on bended knees over corpses for the City; and of the two angels joined to her, one crowns the Saint with roses, the other sheathes a naked sword in its scabbard as a sign of the ceasing pestilence. An inscription too had been added, with the following prayer, in this manner: To St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, the Christian commonwealth makes supplication, that as in the year of the Lord 1625 she freed her fatherland from the plague, so in this year 1656 and perpetually she may preserve from the same Rome, the common fatherland and head of the world. Prayer. O God, who desirest not the death but the repentance of sinners, look propitiously upon us returning to thee, and by the merits of Blessed Rosalia the virgin defend us from the plague, that while we are devoted to thee, thou mayest remove from us the scourges of thy wrath. Through our Lord, etc.

[319] But when in the following year 1657 the most reverend lord Antonino Geloso, relics sent to Alexander: by him the Office extended to all Sicily: vicar-general of the vacant see of Palermo, had sent certain relics of St. Rosalia to the aforesaid Pontiff, Alexander had thanks rendered to him through the most illustrious lord Natale Rondonino, who was secretary to the Pontiff. Auria recites the whole letter on page 125. From it I transfer hither the following: The relics of St. Rosalia which you sent to our most holy Lord brought him no slight joy, since that renowned city, once involved in a pestilence equal to that in which Rome now is, nay rather in a far more bitter one, furnished a proof how great is their weight for driving away that most foul disease. The praises of the excellent gift were increased by that most excellent man, and most abounding in every virtue, the duke of Terranova, who delivered it, together with your letter, religiously and piously to his Holiness, etc. Then in the year 1666 the archbishop and senate of Palermo urged that the Office of St. Rosalia should be extended to the whole kingdom of Sicily, and they obtained this, as appears from the approbation of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, given on the 27th of November in the year 1666, and afterwards confirmed by Alexander VII. And so the Office of nine lessons, of which three are on the life of the Saint, and a particular prayer, were printed at Rome in the year 1667 and reprinted at Palermo, and prescribed for the whole kingdom of Sicily. It may be seen in Auria at the end of the Rosa cælestis*.

[320] Further, as the benefits of St. Rosalia extended themselves to very many provinces of Europe, by Innocent XI to all the dominions of the emperor Leopold, so more and more kingdoms desired by degrees to celebrate her festival with a proper Office. In the year 1689 that favour was sought and obtained by the most august and likewise most pious emperor Leopold, Innocent XI granting it, as we learn from the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which Mancusi published in his History, volume 1, page 258, under this title: Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites concerning the feast of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, with Office and Mass, in the kingdoms and provinces subject to the Cæsarean majesty of the emperor Leopold I, as of a patroness, with the assent of the most holy father Innocent XI. The decree itself is there read thus: By the pious and earnest prayers of the most august emperor Leopold, presented by his letters to our most holy Lord by the Reverend Father and Lord Emerix, auditor of the sacred Rota, it was urged that his Holiness would deign to grant the faculty that on the fourth day of September the feast of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, by whose patronage and intercession, as was added in the same letters, more benefits are daily increased to him, might be celebrated with Office and Mass under a double rite

of the greater sort, as of a patroness, lawfully and freely every year in the kingdoms and provinces subject to the Cæsarean majesty. And this instance having been referred by his Holiness to the sacred Congregation of Rites, the most eminent Fathers set over the same sacred Congregation, on account of the singular deserts of the same Cæsarean majesty toward the Apostolic See, judged that the favour sought should be granted; and so, as is set forth above, they ordered the fitting decree to be issued. On the 30th day of July 1689. A. Cardinal Cybo … Bernardino Casali, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[321] and at length by Innocent XII to the dominions of the king of Spain. The piety of Leopold was imitated by Charles II, king of the Spains, who in the year 1693 obtained from Innocent XII that the feast and Office of St. Rosalia should be extended to all the kingdoms and dominions subject to him. The decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites Mancusi published thus, on page 259: The prayers of the most excellent duke of Medina Celi, orator of the most serene Catholic king at the holy See, presented in the name of the same majesty for the extension of the Office of St. Rosalia the virgin, granted elsewhere for the kingdom of Sicily (and) for certain parts of the world, having been reported in the Sacred Congregation of Rites by the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Albani, the same sacred Congregation judged that it was to be granted that henceforth every year on the fourth day of September, on the feast of the same Saint, it might be recited in all the kingdoms and dominions subject to the aforesaid king of the Spains under a semi-double rite, and according to the rubrics of the Roman Breviary, the indults already granted under a double rite remaining firm in other respects; if it shall please our most holy Lord. On the 15th day of March 1693. Report therefore having afterwards been made to our most holy Lord by me the secretary, his Holiness assented. On the 18th day of the same month of March, in the year 1693. A. Cardinal Cybo… D. Inghirami, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Mancusi adds to these things that the Office of the Saint is recited in certain dioceses of Spain with a double rite, namely in that of Seville and that of Toledo, because the prelates of those sees had already obtained that faculty beforehand, the archbishop of Toledo in the year 1679, the archbishop of Seville in the year 1685. He testifies also that the same favour was granted by Clement XI to the diocese of Modena in Italy. The same has probably been granted afterwards to certain others also.

* Palermo

§ XXXI. The proper Mass obtained for the kingdom of Sicily, and a new Office: the petitions of the senate of Palermo before the Supreme Pontiff, that the Office be extended to the universal Church.

[ ] The proper Mass approved for both feasts of the Saint, In the year 1695 the proper Mass of St. Rosalia was approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites for the whole kingdom of Sicily, and in the same year it was printed at Rome and at Palermo with this decree: The above-written proper Mass of St. Rosalia the virgin, revised, corrected, and reported by the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Colloredo, the Congregation of sacred Rites, at the earnest prayers of the most excellent duke of Medina Celi, orator of the most serene Catholic king at the holy See, presented in the name of the same majesty, approved for the kingdom of Sicily, and graciously granted that it might be celebrated on the feast of the same Saint, the rubrics of the Roman Missal being observed in other respects. On the 18th day of June 1695. A. Cardinal Cybo … B. Inghirami, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. This Mass was granted both for the feast of the finding, wont to be celebrated on the fifteenth of July, and for the chief feast, which is kept on the fourth of September; as may be gathered from the different Gospel: for that alone is changed. On the fourth day of September the parable of the ten Virgins from Matthew chapter 25 is prescribed to be read; for the day of the Finding, from Matthew chapter 13 from verse 44: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, etc. But, as Castiglia informed me, it was very lately decreed that this latter Gospel should be read on both festivals, and at the same time something was changed also in the first Prayer.

[323] Now this Mass is so composed that the contempt of worldly things, from which a little is given. the solitary life, and virginity are chiefly commended. The Introit is this: I have despised the kingdom of the world and all the adornment of the age for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, whom I have seen, whom I have loved, in whom I have believed, whom I have cherished. I have lifted up my eyes unto the mountains, whence shall come my help, etc. This was the first Prayer: O God, who didst carry the blessed virgin Rosalia over from the royal delights of the world into the solitude of the mountains, grant propitiously that by her merits and patronage we may be carried over from the pleasures of the age into the love of heavenly things, and be mercifully freed from the scourges of thy wrath. Through, etc. The same was afterwards corrected thus: O God, who didst carry the blessed virgin Rosalia over from royal delights into the solitude of the mountains; grant propitiously that by her merits and intercession we may be raised up from the pleasures of the world into the love of heavenly things, and be mercifully freed from the scourges of thy wrath. Through, etc. This Prayer is read so printed in the new Office, of which I shall now treat: for what has been said of the Mass suffices for our purpose.

[324] A new Office of St. Rosalia the city of Palermo obtained in the year 1713, a new Office approved for the kingdom of Sicily: and the same the Congregation of sacred Rites approved in the year 1729 for the whole kingdom of Sicily; as we learn from the decree of the praised Congregation, which, after the Office printed at Palermo in the year 1730, runs thus: To the suppliant and earnest prayers presented to our most holy Lord in the name of the senate of the city of Palermo for the extension of the Office of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, to the universal Church, and these having been referred by his Holiness to the Sacred Congregation of Rites and reported, the same Sacred Congregation of Rites has graciously indulged that every year on the fourth day of September, on the feast of St. Rosalia the virgin, her own proper Office, approved under the date of the 29th of August 1713 for the city of Palermo, may and can be recited by all ecclesiastics, secular and regular, of either sex, who are bound to the Canonical Hours, in the kingdom of Sicily only. On the tenth day of December 1729. N. Cardinal Coscia, Prefect… N. M. Tedeschi, archbishop of Apamea, secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. The studious reader will easily see that more was asked by the senate of Palermo than was granted by the Congregation of sacred Rites. The cause of the refusal we can the less divine, the more widely the cult of the Saint has been lawfully propagated through the various provinces of Europe, unless perhaps the Office seemed too particular to be thought fit to be prescribed to the whole Catholic Church. Certainly the hymns, antiphons, and almost everything else are fitted to the manners and deeds of St. Rosalia, which is rarely done in Offices prescribed to the whole Church.

[325] But whatever be the cause of the refusal, the most excellent senate has not yet fallen from the hope of obtaining one day, the extension of the Office sought by a letter, that the holy Patroness of their city, celebrated over almost the whole world, may be honoured by the whole Church, whether by the Office already mentioned or by another less particular. Certainly that most savage pestilence which a few years ago so laid waste the city of Messina, and yet spared the rest of Sicily — which the people of Palermo attribute to the patronage of St. Rosalia — brought them the occasion and the spur to repeat their prayers before the Supreme Pontiff. Concerning these things Fr. Noto wrote to me thus in the year 1744: The senate of Palermo earnestly sought from Benedict XIV, Supreme Pontiff, that he would extend to the universal Church the proper Mass and Office of St. Rosalia on the fourth day of September under a double rite. The same was asked also by the chapter of the metropolitan church, and by the archbishop of Palermo, and by the assembly of twelve noblemen which we commonly call the deputation of the kingdom of Sicily. The senate also took care that certain princes of Europe should demand the same from the holy See, and asked by letter a certain member of our Society residing at Rome to go on transacting this very business at the Roman curia in the name of the senate of Palermo. He sent us also a copy of an Italian letter, which is marked as given on the 30th of October in the year 1743, and whose title, rendered into Latin, is this: A letter of the most excellent senate, directed to the feet of his Holiness, that he may make the Office of St. Rosalia common to the Catholic world. It pleases me to transfer it hither, both because it briefly comprehends much concerning the spread of St. Rosalia's cult, and that so we may modestly join our own wishes for the extension of St. Rosalia's cult. Wherefore I render the whole Letter from Italian into Latin.

[326] in which it is shown in how many places the Saint is held as patroness, Most Holy Father. To such great benefits and to the continual protection of St. Rosalia the virgin, her own citizen, Palermo would show herself ungrateful, if on her part she did not procure her greater exaltation and the extension of her cult. And if the ancient memory of the benefits received had wholly fallen away, too recent for that to be possible is the benefit of the preservation of this metropolis, her most happy fatherland, and of the remaining part of the kingdom, from the most deadly misfortune of the Messinese contagion — God willing it through the patronage of the holy Wonder-worker — confined to the territory of the aforesaid city of Messina alone, and to a few dwellings of neighbouring Calabria. He does not free this metropolis alone from the plague; but God deigns to make her manifest by prodigies in the whole world. As a Wonder-worker for benefits obtained she is celebrated by Ancona, Milan, Genoa, Nicæa , Sardinia, Cremona, Malta, Barcelona, Cologne, Vienna, Antwerp, Ypres, Prague, Græcium , Cilleia , Cracow, Thigernum , Molinæ , California in America, and even to the Turkish regions of Africa and of the East. For this cause Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Poland, Belgium and Portugal have deservedly chosen her as their Patroness, besides not a few other regions and cities which venerate her, moved both by affection and by obligation; such as Venice, Savoy, Bavaria, Lorraine, Modena, Mantua, Bologna, Seville, Toledo, Madrid, Douai, Recanati, Terni, Lucca, Florence, Forlì, Naples, Rivello, Trevico, Luceranna and Manfredonia, with other places of Europe.

[327] by what degrees her cult was promoted, And if, on account of the prodigious deliverance of Palermo from the plague which arose in the year 1624, obtained through the prayers of her blessed Citizen — who brought it about that her sacred relics were then found, having lain hidden for five centuries in the bowels of the earth of Mount Peregrino — the most holy lord Urban VIII deigned not only to insert her in the Roman Martyrology with an honourable elogium at the fourth of September, the day of her death, but also at the fifteenth of July, the day of the happy finding of her relics; it seems agreeable to reason that this very metropolis should expect from your Holiness the favour and consolation of the cult of the same Saint propagated through the whole Catholic world, by the recitation of a proper Office and the celebration of a Mass, with a double rite, on the fourth day of September, which is not yet occupied by another Office in the Roman Breviary. Thus has the cult of this most glorious Virgin of Palermo always deservedly advanced by many degrees, thanks be to the gracious concessions of the Apostolic See.

[328] In the year 1666 there was granted by Alexander VII to the city of Palermo and its diocese a particular Office of the Saint. and how widely extended, That in the year 1673 was extended by Clement X for the city

of Atrani: in the year 1679 by Innocent XI for the diocese of Toledo: then in the year 1683 for this whole kingdom of Sicily; in the year 1685 for the diocese of Seville: in the year 1689 by the same Pontiff for the whole empire, with a double rite. In the year 1693 it was widened by Innocent XII to all the kingdoms subject to the king of the Spains. In the year 1695 a new proper Mass of this Saint was approved for this very kingdom. In the year 1713 a proper Office was granted by Clement XI for this city, and for the whole diocese of Modena in Lombardy, and that afterwards, in the year 1729, was extended by Benedict XIII.

[329] Since therefore St. Rosalia is as it were a general Patroness and protectress, she seems in the highest degree to deserve that further degree, that at length she may become common to the whole Church. that her Office and Mass should be celebrated throughout the universal Church with a double rite on the aforesaid day of her blessed death. This matter, moreover, will both create the utmost gladness for this most fervent city, and will be pleasing to the whole world, which devoutly venerates the Saint. And so this senate humbly begs this most signal favour from your Holiness, and hopes to obtain it from your Fatherly piety; and prostrating itself to kiss your sacred feet, it asks your Pastoral blessing, etc. Many of the facts contained in this letter have already been related in their own places, but certain others will be related below, where we shall treat of the relics of the Saint sent to various provinces, and of the cult begun in those places.

* Nizza in Provence

* Gratz

* in Styria

* Thiers

* Moulins

* Luceranne

§ XXXII. A new festival of St. Rosalia instituted at Palermo on the occasion of an earthquake: the benefits of the same Saint in another earthquake.

[ ] Violent shakings of the earth in Sicily, In the year 1693 a new festival of St. Rosalia was instituted at Palermo, and it is celebrated every year on the 11th day of January. It is everywhere called the feast of the earthquake, because the horrible shocks by which a great part of Sicily was afflicted in the aforesaid year had furnished the occasion for that festival, since the people of Palermo believed that they had been preserved from ruin by the patronage of St. Rosalia. Fr. Domenico Stanislao Alberti in the year 1724 published a very short Italian pamphlet, in which he narrates the damage then inflicted on Sicily by the shakings of the earth, and the danger of Palermo, together with the institution of the festival mentioned. All Sicily is at this time divided into three chief provinces, which they call valleys; namely into the Nemorensian valley or that of Demona, commonly il val di Demoni, into the valley of Noto, in the Sicilian tongue il val di Noto, and into the valley of Mazara, in the same tongue il val di Mazara: in this last is situated Palermo, in the first is Messina, and in the second Syracuse. All these valleys suffered much from the shocks of the earth, which began with the utmost violence about two hours before midnight, on Friday the 9th day of January in the year 1693. And since after the first shock others, from time to time lighter, followed, men everywhere rushed out of the cities into the open fields, lest they should be crushed by the ruins of the falling buildings.

[331] by which Catania and other cities were overthrown: Nevertheless on Sunday the 11th of January most returned to the cities, that they might be present at the most holy sacrifice of the Mass, and many at the same time were confessing their sins, especially at Catania, as the praised writer notes on page XI, where it was most of all necessary. For about two hours after midday, and about forty hours after the first shock, the earth was again moved with so heavy a shock that almost the whole of Catania perished. An astonished spectator of that most wretched misfortune was Fr. Antonio Serrovira of the Order of Minors Conventual, who was journeying to Catania, and was a few Italian miles distant from it; When on a sudden, says the writer, he saw a dark cloud spreading itself above the city, which carried with it a deadly night. He saw at the same time certain flames sent out from the mouth of Mount Etna, which spread themselves over the neighbouring tract. At the same moment of time the sea began to swell and heave without measure; and the whole earth is seen to tremble with the bellowing of a horrible sound. He adds more concerning the effect of the earthquake upon birds, beasts of burden, and horses. But concerning Catania he asserts that the city no longer appeared to Fr. Antonio: nor is that wonderful, since he testifies that the whole of it fell down, except three or four buildings and the walls of the city. He writes that other cities also suffered the like, so that sixty thousand men perished under the ruins.

[332] at Palermo indeed many buildings collapsed; but no one perished under the ruins, As regards Palermo, so many buildings there also fell down that they could not be restored for thirty thousand scudi, as the same writer testifies: and indeed some of them fell in places most frequented by the people. The houses of certain persons also collapsed after their inhabitants had gone out a little before, not from fear of a shock, which they had not yet experienced, but on some other occasion; which is especially to be noted of a certain sick man, whose house collapsed after he had gone out. For which cause it was greatly to be wondered at that no man perished at Palermo, as the praised writer testifies happened, and this is plainly to be attributed to divine protection. But why the people of Palermo ascribed the benefit received to the patronage of St. Rosalia, the same writer sets forth, alleging various reasons, among which is this also, that in the church of the Saint on Mount Peregrino there was no shaking of the earth, as the chaplains of that church and other witnesses worthy of credit asserted; and that the ancient church of St. Rosalia between Ragusa and Chiaramonte stood unharmed, although both cities were most grievously afflicted. His other reasons I do not repeat, since the judgment of the archbishop of Palermo, of the governor of Sicily, and of the whole senate and people of Palermo can suffice for piously attributing that benefit to St. Rosalia, as they unanimously did.

[333] which benefit was attributed by all to St. Rosalia; The viceroy himself, the duke of Uceda, visited the church of the Saint on Mount Peregrino three times, that with the people hastening thither from every side he might give thanks for the benefit received. The archbishop Ferdinando de Bazán instituted a solemn festival, in which with his own hands he distributed the most holy Body of the Lord to the communicants, who are said to have been seventeen thousand in number: and in the evening he sang the hymn Te Deum laudamus, in the presence of the viceroy, of the royal council, of the senate of Palermo, and of almost all the nobles. And then the senate of Palermo took thought of celebrating an annual festival on the anniversary day of the earthquake, that is, the 11th of January. In the first year that feast was celebrated on the 11th day of February in this manner. Three days before, it was commanded to the people that they should give signs of public gladness on the aforesaid day of the festival. Then on the eve of the feast at vespers the archbishop began the hymn Te Deum; and while it was being sung by the musicians, the most holy Sacrament was carried about through the church in a procession of suppliants. And the blessing having been given and the hymn finished, all proceeded to the chapel of St. Rosalia, where the prætor in the name of the whole senate and people pronounced this vow.

[334] Prostrate at the feet of thy greatness, O sacred and exalted virgin and fellow-citizen Rosalia, an annual feast being instituted in thanksgiving. we, the senate and people of Palermo, piously believe, hold, and profess that by the efficacy of thy intercessions this city, thy fatherland, was divinely preserved in the calamities of the earthquakes, in which so many cities and towns of this kingdom fell down, and so great a number of peoples perished. For which cause, moved both by this and by other benefits, in sign of gratitude we again dedicate to thee the hearts of the senate and people of Palermo, most devoted to thee; and we promise, swear and vow, before the tribunal of the most holy and undivided Trinity, in the presence of the spotless Mother of God, Mary, and of all the great ones of the heavenly court, having touched the Gospels of Jesus Christ our Lord, that on every eleventh day of January, on which the earthquakes and the deliverance took place, we will for ever, to the special exaltation of thy name, celebrate a solemnity every year with the reception of the most holy Eucharist. This vow is an illustrious proof of the religious piety of the people of Palermo toward St. Rosalia, whose festival was solemnly celebrated on the following day, but in the following years on the 11th of January, with the exhibition of the chest in which her sacred body is kept, as has already been said at number 308. The festival also was extended by the archbishop to the whole diocese in that same year.

[335] In the year 1726, on the 1st day of September, another earthquake gravely afflicted the city of Palermo, Another earthquake at Palermo in the year 1726, and not without the loss of men. Nor yet did the people of Palermo believe that St. Rosalia had failed them in that sad misfortune, although they attributed the benefit not to Rosalia alone, but also to the Immaculate Virgin and to St. Joseph. The whole history of that earthquake was narrated at length by Antonino Mongitore, a learned man and most widely known by the works he has written, in a published Italian pamphlet, whose title rendered into Latin is this: Palermo admonished, penitent and grateful in the horrible earthquake of the first of September in the year 1726. I have in hand two other accounts of the same earthquake printed at Palermo in the year 1726. But since Mongitore saw those, as also a third besides, and testifies in his preface that many things were omitted by them, and since this writer is better known than the rest and more excellent in authority, this one alone will suffice for our purpose, so that we may briefly say some things as to why the people of Palermo acknowledge St. Rosalia as their benefactress here. In part 1, chapter 1, he sets forth various prodigies by which he judges a certain disaster to have been foretold to the people of Palermo. In chapter 2 he describes the shock of the earth itself. In the following chapters he narrates the damages inflicted on the buildings, which were not few; and then the men killed or injured under the ruins: and he asserts that the dead were about two hundred and fifty; the injured almost a hundred and fifty.

[336] in which various persons experienced the benefits of St. Rosalia, In part 2 of the little work he describes the various works of the penitent, and the manifold supplications by which the people of Palermo endeavoured to appease the divine wrath after the shock of the earth, lest by new shocks the damages to buildings and to men should be increased. Various persons indeed invoked various patrons; but most invoked the Immaculate Mother of God, St. Joseph, and St. Rosalia, to whose church on Mount Peregrino there was an immense concourse of the people. And in fact, after the damage inflicted by the first shocks, no new ones were added, as Mongitore testifies, although certain lighter shakings followed afterwards. Further, in his narration of the damages he intermingles three or four examples in which St. Rosalia, being invoked, seems to have preserved her clients by divine aid. So on page 20 the author believes that girls sleeping in a very large hospice, under a roof upon which a wall six palms broad had fallen headlong, were preserved by a miracle, because at the first noise they had invoked the Immaculate Queen of heaven and St. Rosalia.

[337] and of other Saints: On page 24 he relates how Antonia, wife of D. Antonio Paternò, was drawn out of the ruins of her collapsed house, and afterwards wholly healed. She had commended herself to the Most Holy Trinity, to St. Vincent Ferrer and to St. Rosalia; and it was attributed to a miracle that she had escaped alive, as Mongitore testifies.

On page 25 he sets forth the damages to the church of St. Vincent Ferrer, and testifies that in the chapel of St. Rosalia various things remained unmoved which naturally ought to have fallen; and this too was ascribed to a miracle. On page 41 he narrates that a certain woman was so placed among the ruins with two sons, the one five years old, the other at the breast, that she believed she and her sons must perish of hunger. But when with great confidence she had implored the help of the most holy Mother of God and of St. Rosalia, that she might be able to nourish her sons with sufficient milk, she in fact accomplished it, abounding in milk for three whole days, until after three days she was taken alive from the ruins with her sons. On page 47 he judges that D. Giovanni Maraffa with his whole household was divinely freed from the danger of death, after they had invoked the Virgin conceived without stain, St. Rosalia, and St. Cajetan.

[338] to what patrons the people of Palermo attributed it, In part 3, chapter 1, the same author sets forth the reasons why the people of Palermo ought to render very many thanks to the most holy Mother of God, to St. Joseph, and to St. Rosalia, because the whole city of Palermo was not utterly destroyed. The first reason he draws from the revelation of a certain nun, whom he asserts to have been of approved perfection, and to have lived at Palermo in a most observant monastery. He sets forth the vision in this manner: A few days after the earthquake she saw the divine Majesty still angry with the city of Palermo. At this vision she began fervently to beseech the Lord that he would lay aside his indignation, and not chastise the pious city again so violently. Then she understood from God that on account of enormous sins he had decreed to destroy by an earthquake all the inhabitants of whatever age and condition; and that he had been asked by St. Rosalia to defer the deserved chastisement, but that he had shown himself inflexible to her prayers. Then he was asked with new prayers by the most holy Virgin Mary and by her holy spouse Joseph. But since he still remained inflexible, it was proposed by them that he should chastise in such a way that all the inhabitants might learn that God was gravely displeased, and might resolve to amend themselves: but if these should obstinately cling to their sins, he should commit the just vengeance to execution. The Lord assented to this condition: he sent an earthquake which should create moderate damage, and bring death to a few, but terror to all. He adds that God was bent by the tears of the penitent: yet that he willed, in order that he might wholly lay aside his indignation, that various supplications should be instituted. All these things God communicated to the aforesaid nun, she to her superior, and he to the archbishop. And thus, says the author, it became known that by the prayers of the Immaculate Queen, of St. Joseph and of St. Rosalia, the arm of the divine justice was held back, that it might not inflict a full chastisement upon the city.

[339] I do not doubt that judgments concerning this vision will be various, that the city did not utterly perish, and why. since men are variously disposed. What Mongitore subjoins will not everywhere find the same credit either. He says that after the earthquake sacred exorcisms were applied to a certain possessed person, and that the demon rejoiced and boasted over the disaster of the people of Palermo, because on this occasion St. Rosalia had not been able to avert the disaster; and that she would not have deprecated even a total ruin, had not the most blessed Mother of God and St. Joseph joined their prayers with hers. To these three, he said, the people of Palermo owed their safety. To these stories, on which I do not interpose my own judgment, he adds the prodigies which had been seen to announce the disaster. He had also narrated before the benefits of not a few men preserved in the earthquake itself, who did not seem able to have escaped death in a natural way, and he could have transferred these hither for his own purpose. Finally from all these things he concludes that it was just that Palermo should show herself grateful, because she had not been utterly buried under the ruins. The various feasts piously celebrated on different days in honour of the Immaculate Virgin, of St. Joseph, and of St. Rosalia he then sets forth in chapter 2 and the following. But as a reason for rendering very many thanks to St. Rosalia, of whom alone I here treat, this alone could have sufficed, that from the very first shock she had been fervently and constantly invoked by many; and that it was evident that those first damages were not afterwards increased by new ones, as otherwise frequently happens in shakings of the earth.

§ XXXIII. The cult of the Saint, and her relics and benefits throughout the diocese of Palermo.

[ ] Relics sent to Caccamo, where the Saint was chosen as patroness: Of the ancient cult of St. Rosalia, which preceded the finding of the body, and which flourished in various provinces of Sicily, enough has been disputed in §15. And that the Office of the same Saint was extended by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff to the whole kingdom of Sicily, we saw in §30. But here I judge that we must treat briefly of the cult of St. Rosalia through the various dioceses of Sicily, which began or was promoted after the finding of the body, especially because in many places it was begun on account of relics received, and because not a few benefits were obtained in different places, which increased the piety of the people. Here I have Cascinus as my guide, more diligent than the other writers on St. Rosalia, and I shall follow him faithfully, but with all the brevity I can. In book 3, chapter 4, the author runs through the diocese of Palermo, and takes his beginning from Caccamo, where there was an ancient church of St. Rosalia. This town in the year 1625, on the 8th day of April, chose St. Rosalia as its patroness, and obtained some relics from Cardinal Doria. These relics were received there with magnificent apparatus, and were enclosed in a silver case, which exhibits a half-length body; and the case was locked with four keys.

[341] a man there unhurt in a fall, a dumb boy given speech, Not a few benefits of St. Rosalia are related in that town, of which the first is that at the reception of the relics no one was injured, although several had been in manifest danger, especially one who, having fallen from his horse and his foot sticking in the stirrup-strap, was dragged by the horse for some distance without injury. Yet a clearer and more certain miracle is that which he subjoins. The little son of Ippolita Rossa, already more than three years old, was so dumb that he had never uttered any word, not even by stammering. He with his mother was watching the festive apparatus and fires, while the aforesaid relics were being brought, and he indicated his gladness with his hands, since he could not with his mouth. The mother, seeing this, with tears commends the little boy to St. Rosalia. A little after she hears him crying out twice. Doubting, however, whether that cry might not be another's, she goes to her son and questions him; and he answers his mother rightly. The boy, being afterwards asked from whom he had obtained that favour, answered freely and steadfastly that speech had been given him by St. Rosalia, although he had heard this from no one.

[342] a dead boy given life until he should be baptized, No less wonderful is what he subjoins. Caterina Gaita was carrying a dead infant in her womb, and for three days had taken medicines by which the infant might be expelled, as at length was done. But while the mother's safety was being provided for by the physicians, the infant, not only dead but also black, was laid on a bench in another chamber. A certain woman came thither to see the infant, and moved by a feeling of compassion, invokes St. Rosalia in these words: Ah! St. Rosalia, why dost thou not console that wretched mother with baptism at least? and laying her hand upon the body, at the invocation of St. Rosalia's name, she presently saw it breathing. And so baptism was given to it as it wailed; and being carried to the church, it died again before it was brought back home.

[343] wounds healed, Giuseppe Ciaccio had for two years been most grievously wounded, both in body and in mouth, and was so full of pains that he could scarcely take food or move himself. His sister Margarita was exceedingly devoted to the new patroness St. Rosalia. Therefore through her daughter Vincenza, a girl of eleven years, she offered oil to the Saint, and the same girl, having first invoked her help before the image of St. Rosalia, brought back home from the church some oil from her lamp. With this oil Margarita anointed the wounded mouth of her brother; and gave him to drink water into which she had put something of the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb. These things being done, the sick man began first to sleep, then to eat without pain; and in six days he wholly recovered.

[344] four boys healed. An infant of ten months, whose name was Simone Sedeli, had crooked eyes, a bent body, and was so weak that he could raise neither his arms nor his head: nor could he move himself, but was altogether helpless, since his whole body was like a lung. On the 3rd day of September, on the vigil of St. Rosalia, they bound before this infant's breast a piece of cotton which had touched the relics of St. Rosalia, together with a small fragment of the stone of her tomb; and so laid the infant in the cradle. Presently the infant raised his hands, which had always been motionless, his eyes too were turned to their right position, and all his limbs received vigour. These things on the vigil. But on the festival itself, which was then celebrated for the first time with wonderful apparatus and great devotion, Cascinus testifies that three boys suffering from hernia were restored to health, adding that the relics of the Saint remained exposed for the veneration of the faithful through the whole octave.

[345] Ciminna, another town of the diocese of Palermo, Relics carried to Ciminna, where various benefits were obtained: received relics of St. Rosalia on the 3rd day of September in the year 1625, on the very vigil of the Saint; and on the following feast day they were carried, enclosed in a gilded case, with a long train of suppliants accompanying, to a new chapel built in the chief church. The festival too was continued for eight days. Cascinus testifies that signs were not lacking there; nay rather he asserts that all were healed, and among them a man of fifty, whose name was Paolino Santoro, was made whole of a grievous hernia. He testifies that three others were endangered on the occasion of the festive apparatus, and were unhurt, namely Francesco Cagnera, who fell under a horse; Nunzio Scimeca, when a heavy weight fell from on high upon his back; and Leonardo Paulici, who, while cutting stones for the chapel, was thrown headlong with the whole rock on which he was sitting onto another rock in such a way that he seemed sure to be crushed. All these were occupied in the honour of St. Rosalia; and she is believed to have preserved them unhurt.

[346] Misilmeri, situated in the same diocese, was labouring under pestilence in the month of March of the year 1625, [At Misilmeri the plague ceases for a time, while money is being gathered for the Saint,] when the inhabitants resolved to have recourse to St. Rosalia, and to have her image painted at Palermo, and to build a church to be dedicated to St. Rosalia. To this end on the 13th day of April they began to collect alms: and on that same day the pestilence ceased. The inhabitants, astonished at so sudden a favour, and glad and grateful, when after fifteen days they learned that the image of St. Rosalia was finished at Palermo, took care that it should be brought with festive apparatus by very many delegates, when a new favour befell Antonio Corso, who had been the author of imploring the help of St. Rosalia. He had come on horseback with others to venerate St. Rosalia: but while he is preparing to dismount, his horse, terrified by the noise of the discharges, rears up on its feet, and falls upon the rider whom it had thrown off, and inflicts on him so great a wound that for two hours he was like a dead man, and was either believed dead, or shortly to die.

[347] But while his companions were lamenting at that mishap, brother Leo, guardian of a certain neighbouring Convent of the blessed Mary, another benefit while the Saint's image is being carried, remembers that he has some relics of St. Rosalia, and applies them to the man as he lay. And he presently breathes again, invokes his holy Patroness, and rises up. The wound too was afterwards healed by the oil of St. Rosalia alone. When the aforesaid Antonio Corso had recovered from his fall, all the deputies pursue their journey as far as the church of the blessed Mary on Mount Gebel Ros, where the aforementioned brother Leo was guardian, and there they set down the image, that after some days they might solemnly carry it to Misilmeri. The day assigned for the solemnity was the first of May: but afterwards they wished to defer the matter until the following Sunday, that there might be more time for preparing everything. But God seems to have ordained otherwise: for the plague, which had ceased for seventeen days, showed itself again on the night before the first of May, three persons being infected. For which cause without delay the image of the Saint was carried to the town on the 1st day of May, as had first been decreed. The whole train of suppliants, women as well as men, went barefoot over the rough mountain, and thus with equal piety and apparatus the image was carried to the chief church, and left there until her own church should be finished.

[348] The festival was continued for eight days with wonderful devotion of the people; nor were the Saint's benefits wanting. A woman, whose name was Francesca Bella, had for two continuous months so suffered from a withered arm, more things obtained at the festival, side and thigh, that she could not move herself. But when she knew that the image of St. Rosalia was being carried through the street, she dragged herself along the ground to the door of her house; and piously prayed for the obtaining of health. She fell at first, deprived of her senses, for a short time. Then she rose up whole, and followed the sacred image, all wondering who had known her infirmity. In another street Giuseppa Compagno stood at her door to meet the image, carrying her infant, who always had his head bowed and his eyes closed, because he could neither raise his head nor open his eyes. There she received a fragment of the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb; and applied it to the eyes of her little son. And he, presently opening his eyes, saw, and raised his head, freed from every ill.

[349] and at last, the image having been received, the plague wholly driven away. After these things Cascinus, whose words I shall put into Latin, continues thus: But these are few graces, if we should wish to compare them with the universal grace of the complete deliverance from the plague, which was so suddenly granted that after the image was brought in no further evil followed. And certain persons whose sickness had been detected by the sign of the glands, namely Pietro Vita, Mario Damiano, and Giovanna Costantina — and she indeed had been accounted dead — were suddenly healed. Wherefore, the forty days of purgation being finished, and, for greater caution, fifteen others, in a second supplication, such as the first had been, the sacred image was carried about, and the hymn Te Deum sung, that thanks might be given to the Saint and to God himself for the complete deliverance. A third supplication was instituted on the 5th day of October, triumphal arches being erected, and greater solemnity employed; because the image was then being carried for the first time to its own church, and with it the relics of the Saint. A Mass was sung there, and after Vespers the relics were translated to the greater church: and at last the Saint was chosen Patroness, with festivity and universal applause accompanying. Thus far Cascinus.

[350] Relics sent to Termini, He passes on presently to another city of the same diocese, maritime and splendid, which in Latin is called Thermæ, and in Sicilian Termine. This city, as he notes, had already experienced the beneficent help of St. Rosalia by a manifest miracle to be related below, when it humbly asked the Cardinal archbishop of Palermo to deign to share with it something of the Saint's relics. The Cardinal assenting, one of the magistrates, D. Michelangelo Anfuso, was deputed to receive the relics, along with the rector of the college of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Giacomo Domenichi; to whom on the 7th day of June in the year 1625 the relics were given with an authentic instrument of donation. This translation was made by the sea route, and the sacred relics, enclosed in a silver case, were reverently placed by the archdeacon of Termini upon an altar which had been erected in the stern of the ship. Cascinus will furnish, to whoever desires it, the magnificent apparatus of the twelve accompanying ships and of the other matters: for I have judged that such things should for the most part be omitted, lest I be longer than is right.

[351] and there Rosalia was solemnly chosen patroness: This one thing I note along with him who was present, that the wind had been contrary and violent, so that the sea swelled, when they had to return to Termini, after the sacred relics had been given. But when these had been placed on board the ship, he testifies that the wind presently changed and the sea was calmed, so that, all who were present wondering, they were carried happily forward with a favourable wind, and not even the candles lighted before the relics were extinguished in the stern. After the relics had been brought to Termini by a happy voyage, they were placed in an elegant statue, and carried about by the suppliants with magnificent apparatus, and were laid upon the altar of the chief church, and there the Saint was chosen patroness of the city, the solemnity being continued for three days; and a new chapel began to be built for the same Saint in the church already mentioned. Moreover in the year 1629 a new church was dedicated there to the Saint, and a confraternity instituted under her name, Cardinal Doria himself celebrating the first Mass there on the feast of the finding, the 15th day of July.

[352] Cascinus testifies that two very well-attested miracles happened at Termini. a girl healed there Of the first, which preceded, I have made mention above; and I abridge it from Cascinus thus. The little daughter of Giuseppe and Elisabetta Aidone, only forty days old, began gravely to sicken with fevers, vomiting, and a horrible swelling of part of the head, the forehead, the belly, the breast, the shoulders. There was added a weakness of the legs, which she could not move; a hernia, and difficulty of breathing, so that she was believed not only incurable but dying, as the physicians confirmed on oath. They indeed gave her some medicines, but without any hope of healing. But when the miracles of St. Rosalia began to become known, the infant's mother endeavoured to obtain a particle of the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb. The particle received, she put it into water, and applied this alone as a medicine to the infant, taking care meanwhile that some sacrifices of the Mass should be celebrated in honour of the Saint, and frequently visiting her image. The little girl drank daily of the aforesaid water, and so in eight days was perfectly healed. For which cause the mother afterwards called her daughter, who had been named Paula in baptism, Rosalia, in honour of the Saint.

[353] The other Cascinus sets forth much as follows. The viceroy of Sicily was staying at Termini, that he might use the baths: and an image of St. Rosalia unharmed in a fire. when in the chamber where the noble lord Francesco Zúñiga was sleeping, a sudden and great fire arose. He had a paper image of St. Rosalia fixed to the wall, and for that cause he is believed to have escaped death. Certainly he had timely help for snatching himself from the fire, and escaped the danger. And after the flame had been extinguished, they found the bed and other furniture burnt, and the whole chamber scorched on every side; until they came to the image, which they saw not burnt, but touched by the licking flames, and only something of the border burnt. Many noble men testified to this, and believed it a miracle, and therefore this image was carefully preserved, which today, says Cascinus, is kept in the college of the Society of Jesus at Palermo with a writing about the miracle wrought. This writing Fr. Noto communicated to me, and from it I transfer a few things hither. The thing happened in the year 1626. Francesco Zúñiga was a court page of D. Antonio Pignatelli, marquis of Tavara. And the fact, related there in the same way, is thus confirmed: There is extant on this matter a letter written by Benedetto de la Costa, at that time captain of the city of Termini, to Juan Alarcón, steward of the viceroy and prefect of the king's citadel, who himself reported to us about this whole affair, and wished this same image to be kept among us for a perpetual memorial of the miracle, etc. These things Fr. Giovanni Scorso of the Society of Jesus wrote beneath the image, which is preserved even now. So much concerning the diocese of Palermo, from which with Cascinus we make our step to the neighbouring diocese of Monreale.

§ XXXIV. The cult, relics and miracles in the dioceses of Monreale and of Cefalù.

[ ] [Relics received at Monreale, and the Saint chosen as patroness, whereupon the plague ceases:] Monreale, in Sicilian Monreale, though a modest city, and distant only four miles from Palermo, was nevertheless adorned with archiepiscopal dignity as early as the twelfth century. This city, like neighbouring Palermo, was labouring under the plague in the year 1625, when it earnestly demanded and obtained relics of St. Rosalia. These were given by D. Vincenzo Domenichi, whose service Cardinal Doria much employed; and near Monreale they were received by the archbishop of the city himself, Girolamo Venero, by whom they were at once presented there for the veneration of the faithful, and St. Rosalia was chosen patroness of Monreale. Then the relics were carried into the city with a magnificent procession, in the manner in which the preceding things had likewise been performed, to the metropolitan church, a long train of suppliants accompanying, and there the hymn Te Deum was sung. These things were done on the 20th of May in the year 1625: and on the following day a solemn Mass was sung, and the election of the Patroness confirmed. A solemn supplication also was decreed for the third day of Pentecost, and another for the 4th of September. Nor, says Cascinus, was the devotion and faith of that city in vain, since within forty days the evil of the pestilence ceased.

[355] other benefits obtained there: Two graces divinely granted to particular persons, which he says are proved by many testimonies, he subjoins much in this manner. Elisabetta Lais, a Religious of the monastery of St. Castrensis, had had her hand affected with a swelling of no great size for fifteen years. But that swelling three days before the translation of St. Rosalia's relics created her so much pain that she believed the divine help must be implored, and vowed a silver hand to St. Rosalia if she should be freed from that pain. The vow being pronounced, when she had applied something of the sepulchral stone of St. Rosalia, the pain immediately withdrew, and after three hours the swelling itself also vanished. The second he narrates much as follows. Pietro Sgroi, a boy of two years, had already for sixteen months suffered from so grave a hernia that his bowels flowed out several times daily, and could not be restored to their place without great pain to him. This at length happened with so great danger that he was already livid and dying; when his mother implored the help of St. Rosalia in these words: Ah! St. Rosalia, heal me this son, or take him: for such a one I do not desire. A marvellous thing! Presently the bowels, without anyone's help, so well recovered their natural position that thereafter he always remained whole.

[356] The Saint chosen patroness at Corleone, Among the chief towns of the diocese of Monreale is Corleonis, in Cascinus Corleone, called on the maps Coriglione. It is an inland town and distant from Palermo by almost a day's journey, which had begun to labour under a grievous pestilence in the month of December of the year 1624, and afterwards various

remedies had been applied in vain, both natural ones and divine, by imploring the help of the Saints. At length the inhabitants of the aforesaid town, stirred by the example of the people of Palermo, on the 19th day of March in the year 1625 chose St. Rosalia as patroness, and decreed to erect a church for her and to demand her relics from Palermo. But after they heard that relics had been obtained at Palermo, since a church could not be built so quickly, they meanwhile erected with wonderful eagerness a chapel on the site appointed for the church, and there set down the image of the Saint. Further, the day appointed for the translation of the relics was the 16th of June, and on the preceding day the deputies of Corleone had set out for Palermo, when on the night that lay between the days Rosalia already began to show herself gracious to the people of Corleone.

[357] I shall relate the matter from Cascinus in summary. There lay that night, much afflicted, Francesca Palumbo, where a woman with three daughters was healed by the Saint's appearing: because her husband had been infected with the plague and carried to the public hospital of the infected, and she herself was shut up at home with three daughters, whom she had already found infected. She had not been able to take sleep for excess of grief, when she saw a light, or at least believed she saw one, so that she thought it was already day. Yet when she wished somehow to refresh her wearied head, and went on lying down, she hears a voice, and believes herself to be called. And hearing that it was St. Rosalia by whom she was being called, she prays for her husband and for her three daughters, and at last for herself, that she might be freed from the pain of her head. But Rosalia promises that all shall be healed, and that the city too shall be freed from the evil at the coming of her relics; and she seemed to touch Francesca herself three times. At last, as soon as the vision, which seemed to her to have lasted long, had vanished, she leaps from her bed, and, since it was already day, narrates the whole vision to her neighbours: she goes also to her daughters, and finds them all whole, yet in such a way that in the places of their bodies where they had been infected traces were left. For that cause she named the youngest, who was only six months old and had been called Nunzia, Rosalia. The health also of her husband and of the whole city followed afterwards, as shall be told.

[358] Now on the aforesaid 16th day of June the relics were delivered at Palermo to the legates of Corleone, with letters attesting their genuineness, the Saint's relics having been carried thither, and there was joined another particle of the same Saint by Fr. Vincenzo Galetti of the Society of Jesus, who had received it before. The legates from the magistracy of Corleone were Francesco di Plata and Ottavio Farzano: and the relics were carried by Marco Rizzi, acting for the archpriest of Corleone. The ceremonies observed both at Palermo and on the journey, which were magnificent, Cascinus reports. But the benefits obtained by the people of Corleone I transfer briefly hither. When the relics were being brought into the town, there were fifty in the hospital of the plague-stricken, who were so infected that they expected death rather than health. Nevertheless when the relics were being carried through the neighbouring places, at the exhortation of the Capuchins who were attending them, they moved themselves, each in the way he could, to a place from which they could see the relics as they passed, and there at the sight of them implored mercy with a loud voice, and not in vain: for they all returned to their beds on foot, and as strong as if they suffered no ill: all of them too recovered in a short time, and the first of all to go out free was the husband of Francesca Palumbo, as St. Rosalia had foretold her beforehand in the dream or vision related above.

[359] Now the relics on that day were set down outside the city in the church of the noble monastery of the virgins of St. Mary Magdalene, the pestilence ceases: and there for eight days they were reverently kept by the nuns, and honoured by the concourse of the people. But afterwards, because the apparatus which was being prepared for the solemnity was not yet finished, and because, the plague spreading no further, the Saint's favour was already being perceived, they were carried to the Capuchins, that they might remain there and meanwhile be venerated by the people, until full health should be obtained and the city cleansed. This delay was the longer because after the sick were healed forty days were appointed for the purgation, so that meanwhile not only could the splendid apparatus be prepared, but a new church of the Saint also be completed, as Cascinus hints, asserting that many gifts were offered to the Saint in the new church. And so on the 30th day of August, when the full deliverance and purgation of the whole city was established, the hymn Te Deum was sung, and on the 2nd day of September a solemn festival was published for the following day, the 3rd of September, after which certain other festivals also were celebrated with magnificent apparatus, as Cascinus narrates more fully; but far more votive gifts were offered for graces obtained by particular persons, which he says were innumerable, relating some out of many, which I transfer hither.

[360] very many other benefits Pietro Nicolosi, a young man of twenty years, was so weak and unstrung in body that he was useless for almost everything. But when the relics of St. Rosalia were passing by, he was placed by his people at the door; and the Saint being there invoked, he was presently given health and vigour of body. Andrea di Giovanni and Caterina di Nino were freed from a disease of the throat. Elena Perricone and Margarita Patella recovered the sight which they had wholly or almost wholly lost. Three women were freed from the evil of childbirth, namely Margarita Catalanotto and Vincenza Nasello, who used always to suffer miscarriage, and Caterina Mangiardo from an inability to bring forth. Three recovered from a grave injury from a fall, namely sister Perla Bracco, who from the excessive weight of her body was endangered by a fall; Giovanni Antonio Catalanotto, a boy whose arm was broken; and Matteo Rombardo, likewise a boy of about six or seven years, who had his thigh broken. More evident was the danger of Francesco lo Cascio, who was carrying for the building of St. Rosalia's church a stone of more than due weight, and on that occasion so slipped that his face was between that falling stone and another. Those who ran up believed his head crushed and the man dead: but they found him without any trace of harm, and learned that St. Rosalia had been invoked by him. Moreover three boys recovered by the Saint's patronage from a most grievous blow which seemed sure to bring death. The first is Vincenzo Romano, seven years old, struck by so heavy a weight that he fell like a dead man. Two others, Antonino and Domenico Licata, the former nine years old, the other a year old, both crushed by the blow of a millstone and accounted dead, were suddenly whole and unharmed by the invocation and the oil of St. Rosalia.

[361] obtained in the same city. He adds that many, near to death from various infirmities, were healed when vows were pronounced to St. Rosalia. Such are Paolo Butera, Filippo Mangano, and two infants of about two or three years, namely Giuseppe Bosso and Isidora Mistretta. Vincenzo Montalbano was accounted by the physicians as dying, and as such they wished to leave him on the following day. But he implored the help of St. Rosalia, and on the following day was indeed left by the physicians as one whole. Finally many who had already been infected with the plague in various parts of the body, among whom thirteen infants, recovered. These things concerning Corleone Cascinus relates, reviewing the benefits of St. Rosalia with wonderful brevity on account of their multitude; noting nevertheless at the end that the Saint showed herself especially gracious toward the age of infancy. Now with the same author we advance to the diocese of Cefalù.

[362] Cephaledis, commonly Cefalù, is a maritime city, running out somewhat into the Tyrrhenian sea, Relics carried to Cefalù: and episcopal under the archbishop of Messina. St. Rosalia had already been venerated in this diocese before the finding of the body. But when the body had been found, and the Saint's patronage against the plague made known, the people of Cefalù first procured for themselves earth taken from the Saint's cave, as an amulet against the pestilence. But afterwards they endeavoured to obtain some relics at Palermo, and this they got without difficulty. And when they had learned that relics were to be granted them, they sent an honourable embassy by the sea route to Palermo, where on the 26th day of May in the year 1625, outside the city, D. Giovanni Sanfilippo, vicar-general of the bishop of Cefalù, received the desired relics, and brought them to Cefalù placed on an altar erected in the ship. And here they were received with great joy of all and with many ceremonies, and carried about through the city by a train of suppliants, the bishop himself attending. They were first set down in a place elegantly prepared for it in the chapel of the most holy Crucifix, until the Saint's own chapel, which was being built, should be ready.

[363] But afterwards they were brought into their own chapel, and there honoured with wonderful devotion of the people which city remained free from the plague: and with votive gifts. This city remained untouched by the plague, and Cascinus testifies that this was attributed by the citizens to the patronage of St. Rosalia. Hence, he says, the people showed themselves most grateful and most devoted, having no other name in their mouth than St. Rosalia's, invoking her with great reverence in every necessity. And the Saint did not fail their prayers, although the knowledge of so many graces has not hitherto been communicated to me, except of one sudden healing from the stone, which was wrought by the oil of the lamp. The Saint's festival was celebrated on the 4th of September, and it was decreed that this should be done every year.

[364] In the diocese of Cefalù is Politium, a town not ignoble and inland, relics likewise at Polizzi and Sclafani commonly called Polizzi. Cascinus asserts that three particles of the relics of St. Rosalia were carried to that city in the year 1625, saying that the first two arrived in the month of June: that one of them was deposited in the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance; the other in the monastery of the nuns of St. Benedict, which is called the New Abbey: and that the third particle arrived in the month of August, and was deposited in the chief church of the city. He says too that the festival of the Saint began to be celebrated in the same year with great piety of the people on the 4th day of September, and that by a decree made it was to be continued every year. Sclafani in the same diocese strove to deserve the patronage of St. Rosalia: for in the year 1625 they first took care that an elegant image of the Saint should be painted for them, and before it, placed upon an altar, they willed that a lamp should burn perpetually. And in the month of December they obtained relics, and received them honourably, the inhabitants of the neighbouring places also flocking to the solemn supplication. More concerning these things Cascinus does not report, with whom we shall visit the diocese of Mazara.

§ XXXV. The cult, relics, and benefits of the Saint in the diocese of Mazara.

[ ] Relics translated to Trapani, Thus far with Cascinus we have surveyed the dioceses of Sicily situated on the Northern shore: but now we go on to the Southern part, where Mazara is, an episcopal city under the archbishop of Palermo. Yet we shall not begin from Mazara itself, but shall approach the various cities of that diocese according to the time at which relics were received by them, following Cascinus as our guide. The first in this order is Drepanum, to its inhabitants Trapani, a maritime city on the Western shore and a famous emporium. Now Trapani, as Cascinus testifies, began to labour under the plague before Palermo, and was the first of all the cities of Sicily to be infected. He writes too that it was the first to be freed from this evil by the patronage of St. Albert, the ancient patron of the city, but only for a time, so that the plague afterwards broke out again. They demanded

therefore, the people of Trapani, relics of St. Rosalia, and they obtained them. Nevertheless, lest the danger of the pestilence should be increased if they sent many to Palermo to bring them, they took care that the relics should be carried to Trapani with authentic letters without solemnity; yet not without the people's knowledge, whose concourse at their arrival was immense at Trapani. That translation was made on the 1st of May in the year 1625: and afterwards the festival of the translation was celebrated with the utmost solemnity on Sunday the 11th of the same month, and the relics were exposed for eight days to the veneration of the faithful in the church of St. Roch, and there honoured with votive gifts and wonderful devotion of the people.

[366] Further, Cascinus testifies that St. Rosalia was beneficent, and that her benefits were evident. where the pestilence was quickly taken away. For first he asserts that no house was infected with the recent pestilence from the time the relics were received: secondly, that no person in the infected houses contracted the pestilence from that time, one perhaps excepted, he says. Thirdly, he narrates a grace granted to a whole household at the passing of the relics much in this manner. Alessandro Specchi, a Roman by birth, was living at Trapani; and in his house five persons had already fallen to the pestilence. Two others were labouring under the same evil, and his little daughter was near to death. He himself and his wife, being also ill, with the rest of the household prostrate themselves on the ground at the sight of the relics, and implore mercy. Presently that house was sprinkled with holy water by a priest, and the relics, going forward on their way, truly left it cleansed: for the little daughter was healed, and the other sick; nor was there afterwards any evil there, as neither in the city, now wholly purged by the mere circuit of the relics. For which cause, the diseases ceasing, and the accustomed precautions of forty days being employed, the hymn Te Deum was sung in thanksgiving on the 26th day of July; and the aforesaid Alessandro Specchi sent an elegant silver lamp as a gift to St. Rosalia. The author adds that certain relics of St. Rosalia were afterwards received by other churches of Trapani also.

[367] Relics at Marsala: one benefit there, another there at sea: Between Trapani and Mazara is situated Marsala, likewise a maritime city, where Cascinus testifies that relics of St. Rosalia are kept in the church of the Society of Jesus, dedicated to St. Stephen, relating such a benefit as this. Brother Gabriele of Palermo, of the Order of St. Francis de Paula, had a ruptured vein of the lung, and for that cause for eight continuous days vomited so great a quantity of blood that there was no longer question of human remedies, but of extreme Unction. But he asked one of the Fathers of the Society to bring the relics of St. Rosalia for his consolation. And he put the aforesaid relics into water, and gave it to the sick man to drink. Presently the vomiting of blood ceased; and the sick man was healed, the physicians confessing that the work was above nature. On the 6th day of October in the year 1626 a Maltese ship put in at Marsala, which had been tossed by a horrible tempest. The sailors and others afterwards narrated that Giuseppe Giunta, a Messinese by birth, and one of two Brothers of the Society of Jesus who had been in the ship, had some relics of St. Rosalia, and, when the tempest raged without intermission, had cast them into the sea: and that immediately the sea was so calmed that they could reach the land.

[368] Eryx, a town neighbouring on Trapani, otherwise called Mount St. Julian, relics brought to Mount St. Julian, had been for a whole year immune from the plague reigning in Sicily, when in the month of June of the year 1625 it too was infected, the inhabitants nevertheless not believing that the evil of which many were dying was the pestilence. To this town relics of St. Rosalia were carried by the sea route for the church of the Friars Preachers, and were received with a pious supplication, yet not with great apparatus, and were deposited in the church mentioned. Presently on the same day those who were infected with the evil and had until then lain hidden began to hasten thither, and displayed such manifest signs of plague that the evil was no longer doubted, and sixty houses were declared suspect, and within a few days as many as three hundred; and three hundred died within twenty days. The evil being thus detected, when afterwards other relics too were brought for the church of the monastery of the Saviour, and others for the church of St. Peter, in which a chapel was dedicated to the Saint, they were received with far greater affection. He hints besides that another particle was carried thither, but does not indicate where it was deposited. But as regards the driving away of the pestilence, he affirms that many graces were granted to particular persons before the universal grace.

[369] Paula di Pomo was healed by drinking water into which the relics had been put. [where many were healed first, and afterwards the whole town was freed from the plague.] The dust of the sepulchral stone was the salvation of the son of Antonio Selvaggio. Others employed both, as did three sisters and one brother of Antonia Voltaggio, who also pronounced vows to St. Rosalia for them: her mother and one sister had already died before of the plague. At the beginning of the month of July two priests were healed. The first of these, labouring under a most grievous plague, vowed a silver case in which the Saint's relics might be placed. The other, Leonardo Teodoro, infected together with two of his household, took care that relics of the Saint from the monastery of St. Peter should be placed above the threshold of his house; and he obtained the desired health with his people. Caterina and Vincenza Voltaggio, mother and daughter, were infected with the plague, but the daughter more grievously, suffering with her eyes closed. When she was commending herself in mind to St. Rosalia, and wished to offer her some little gift, nothing came to hand but the ring on her finger. This she gave to her neighbour to offer, and asked him to bring water into which relics had been put. She drank it when it was brought, together with her mother, and both were healed: and the rest of the household were untouched by the evil. About the end of the same month Angela Lombardo, labouring under the plague with three sons, was suddenly healed with them by invocation alone and a vow pronounced to the Saint. Antonia Pirrone, in whose arms her husband Antonio, a physician by profession, had died of the plague, while she herself laboured under the same evil, fervently invoked St. Rosalia, and seemed to see her by night in sleep; and in the morning she found herself whole. Rosalia Piraino, labouring under the plague and pregnant, when she had come to the labours of childbirth without a midwife, implored the help of St. Rosalia, and happily brought forth her child; and both she and the child lived free from the plague. Cascinus concludes by saying that he could relate many other benefits granted to the same town, but that he omits them on account of their similarity the more willingly, the more certainly it is established by the confession of all that at length the whole town was freed from the plague.

[370] Relics carried to Mazara, where the Saint is patroness; The episcopal city of Mazara itself, from which one of the three parts of Sicily is named the Valley of Mazara, chose St. Rosalia as patroness, and obtained her relics at Palermo, that the festival of the Saint might be celebrated every year with a solemn rite. Cascinus does not report in what year that translation was made; but he testifies that the relics were obtained through Marco la Cava, bishop of Mazara, who, as Pirro testifies in volume 2, page 528, died in the year 1626, on the 4th day of August, so that the translation certainly was not made after that time. But the solemnity of the translation was most notable for its most splendid apparatus and the outstanding piety of the people of Mazara, as Cascinus has narrated at length, and he may be consulted: for I must go on to the other towns of the diocese.

[371] likewise translated to Castelvetrano, Not far from Mazara is Castellum Veteranum, in Sicilian Castel Vetrano, which experienced the calamities of the pestilence for a whole year, and was seized by the aforesaid evil at the same time as Trapani and Palermo, as Cascinus testifies. This town, having heard of the finding of St. Rosalia's body and of her powerful patronage against the plague, first took care that her image should be painted, and placed it with the image of St. Roch and of the Immaculate Virgin on the same altar erected to this end. Then it diligently sought relics of St. Rosalia, and obtained two particles of the leg and of the arm, to which a third also was added, earnestly obtained through Fr. Ippolito of Palermo, of the Order of Minims. These relics were delivered outside the city of Palermo to a good many delegates of the aforesaid town on the 13th day of June in the year 1625, and carried honourably toward Castelvetrano, where they were received with the greatest solemnity on Sunday the 22nd of June, and carried first to the church of St. Francis de Paula, where one of the three particles was deposited; where afterwards too a chapel of the Saint was erected. But the other particles were translated to the chief church, and there reverently deposited.

[372] where the plague was extinguished, On the same day the sacred relics passed before a house suspected of pestilence, where all, fallen on their knees, implored the mercy of the Saint. Further, Cascinus testifies, and confirms his testimony by that of two physicians, that not only to this suspected house, but also to the public hospital of the infected, so great a grace was granted that all the sick recovered, and that within a month and a half no sick persons remained in the aforesaid places. One of the physicians was Vincenzo di Maggio, who, he says, clearly testifies to the deliverance of the hospital of the infected and of the suspected house, and that he himself felt that he had been seized by the evil, and was suddenly healed by the water of St. Rosalia. The other was Francesco Mirabella, who gave his testimony in writing, but at greater length, and therefore it must be related in summary. He testifies first, that the most cruel disease, which had lasted for a year, was suddenly made milder at the invocation of St. Rosalia, and driven away by her. Secondly he asserts that he has sure knowledge of that matter, since he had visited more than a hundred sick persons whom from the signs he judged would die: but that he saw them whole, St. Rosalia having been invoked, and that this did not happen according to the order of nature. Thirdly, concerning his own house, he testifies that one servant had already died there, that his wife had grown faint and the nurse of his son, who was all but dying for want of milk: but that all suddenly recovered by the touch of the sepulchral stone of St. Rosalia. Fourthly he affirmed that he knew for certain that graces obtained had been concealed by many, lest they should be forced to confess that they had previously hidden their sickness.

[373] Besides this universal benefit, Cascinus narrates not a few particular ones, many things obtained by particular persons and I shall transfer them hither briefly. Antonella Palagonia began to labour under the plague on the day before the bringing in of the relics: on the following day she received the last Sacraments, and afterwards some consecrated water with the sepulchral stone of St. Rosalia was given her. On the third day, when she was to be carried to the hospital of the infected, she was found as if dead, and as dead was laid on the ground outside the house, that before her burial her infected bed might be carried out of the house. They then returned to her as one deceased, as they believed; but they not only found her alive, but even without the plague, and wholly whole. To those astonished at so sudden a change, and asking the cause, she herself answered that at that moment she had felt as it were some person drawing near to her, who, touching her head, had said to her: Rise, Antonella: thou hast obtained the grace. This thing is truly wonderful. But no less to be wondered at is what follows. On the very day of the entry of the relics Giuseppe Alessandri, returning from the supplication, his wife

weeping, because their little daughter, no more than six months old, had died a little before. She had been named Rosalia in baptism, and therefore that death fell the harder upon parents who loved St. Rosalia. The infant was already cold, and stripped of her swaddling-bands. Yet when the father remembered that he had a small particle of the relics of St. Rosalia, he sought it, and with it touches the infant's forehead and throat, forming a cross; whereupon voice, warmth and motion return. Cascinus does not state that the infant was also healed, but clearly hints it; for he asserts that a gold ring was sent by the infant's mother to St. Rosalia in thanksgiving.

[374] Cascinus testifies that on the same day the demons in the possessed feared the Saint's relics, the benefits obtained. and that Francesca Accardo, who had been possessed for three years, was afterwards freed from that torment in the church of St. Francis de Paula. On the very day of the entry too Filippa Catalano began to be better, who had for a year been vexed by a demon; and on the following day she was wholly freed. Gabriele Bassi had long laboured under a quartan fever; and his wife Giovanna had already for two years been vexed with gout of the hand. She, being pregnant, vowed that she would give the name of Rosalia if a girl were born: and by this vow both were healed on that same day. Some months earlier, namely in the month of February, exactly the same vow was pronounced by Angela Pisciotta, infected with the plague together with her husband: and both recovered within the same month. On the 15th day of March Francesco and Maria Cafallari, brother and sister, were healed of the pestilence, after a vow pronounced by their father. To these Cascinus subjoins a benefit of another kind, namely that to Raffaela Dionigi, a virgin tertiary of the Order of St. Dominic, who lay in the public hospital of the infected, but out of excessive modesty would not suffer the physician's hand, nor lay aside the hair-shirt in which she was clothed, it was commanded by St. Rosalia appearing to her that she should obey the physicians; and death was foretold her by the Saint. Thus far of what was done at Castelvetrano, where Cascinus adds at the end that relics of the Saint are kept also with the Reverend Fathers Preachers.

[375] Relics at Salemi: a healing obtained by the oil of St. Rosalia: Salem or Salemis, in Sicilian Salemi, an inland town of the same diocese, has a chapel dedicated to St. Rosalia in the church of St. Mary of Jesus, and chose the same Saint as its Patroness, and celebrates her festival every year with a solemn rite. Relics too are kept in the same church: and others are held there in the church of the Society of Jesus, sacred to St. Ignatius. To these Cascinus subjoins a benefit which was granted to a certain man from the town of Carini in the same diocese. Giuseppe Lazara was suffering from a grave wound in the throat; and the evil was believed incurable. He came to Palermo, and applied to his hurt oil from the lamp of St. Rosalia, and carried some of that oil away with him in a little flask. But the physicians also gave him various remedies, and he likewise carried away with him a little flask prepared by them. And when he was near his house, he fell on a descent, and in falling broke the medical flask. He believed therefore that St. Rosalia did not wish other medicines to be added to her oil, especially because he presently felt himself without pain, so that he could eat and drink. Thus by that oil alone he was healed.

[376] Relics at Alcamo, and the plague taken away. Alcamo in the same diocese felt the patronage of St. Rosalia. This town, as it lies midway at almost equal distance between Palermo and Trapani, so it had the pestilence of both cities in common, and fled for refuge to the same Patroness. It obtained her relics through delegates at Palermo on the 4th day of June in the year 1625, and received them with magnificent apparatus, and deposited them in the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance. Presently there before the relics the prayers of forty hours were begun, and not without fruit: for at once the pestilence began to diminish, and in one month was wholly extinguished. For this cause a solemn supplication was then repeated, and the hymn Te Deum sung in thanksgiving. But afterwards in the aforesaid church of the Minors a chapel sacred to St. Rosalia was erected, and various altars set up in the same town with the image of the same Saint.

§ XXXVI. The cult, relics and miracles in the diocese of Agrigento.

[ ] Relics carried to Bivona: Agrigentum, to its inhabitants Girgenti, is an episcopal city of Sicily under the archbishop of Palermo, and situated on the Southern shore of the island. Most ancient is the cult of the Saint in this diocese, in which is the cave of Quisquina, the first dwelling of the holy Anchoress, as also Bivona, by others named in Latin Bisbona, and the Town of St. Stephen, places already frequently mentioned. I shall not repeat here what has been said before, but shall only add certain things which were written by Cascinus, taking my beginning with him from Bivona. The people of Bivona, having heard of the finding of the body, with wonderful eagerness restored the ancient church of St. Rosalia. Then they earnestly demanded relics, using the service of Fr. Leonardo Romano of the Society of Jesus, who easily obtained them through Cascinus himself, who narrates these things; and the people of Bivona obtained indeed a twofold particle. The translation of these was made on the 22nd day of March in the year 1625: and they were received with the utmost piety, since an innumerable multitude of men went out barefoot to meet them for five miles, and by a difficult road over the mountains. A magnificent apparatus too was joined with their piety, and a most solemn supplication instituted, and thus one of the particles was carried to the church of St. John, and there deposited, until the Saint's own church should be finished.

[378] The other particle, which had been destined for the church of the Society of Jesus, the benefits obtained there; was carried about through the city with no less pomp in a train of suppliants on the 3rd and 4th of September, that is, on the vigil and the festival of St. Rosalia. Nor in that year alone did the people of Bivona venerate their Patroness with so great celebration; but every year they so celebrated the same festival that the apparatus rather grew each year than diminished, as Cascinus testifies. Further, from the manuscript documents of the college of the Society of Jesus at Bivona I learn that there is a tooth of St. Rosalia, which it obtained from Cascinus, and that it is carried about through the city in supplication every year on the festival of St. Rosalia: and that another particle of the Saint's bone is now preserved in the same college. But the pestilence left Bivona untouched, as has already been said before, and this happened at other times too not without the benefit of St. Rosalia. And so only one grace is to be commemorated here. Giovanni Battista di Francesco was labouring under a mortal infirmity, and had already been fortified with extreme Unction. Yet his physician returned to him, thinking he would be dead, when he found him perfectly healed. That same physician testified that it had been a miracle, since he had detected in him no sign of healing; but had found him suddenly healed. And the man healed declared that St. Rosalia had appeared to him, and had said: Be whole: yet have a care for the restoration of my church.

[379] Of the Town of St. Stephen, in whose territory the cave of Quisquina is situated, in the Town of St. Stephen, and at the cave of Quisquina. and of the relics of St. Rosalia translated thither, it has been said in §27. Here I add a few things about the favours which the inhabitants of the place attribute to St. Rosalia. When the plague was raging through Sicily, and through the neighbouring towns too, a certain young man had returned home infected with the plague, as had been understood from the glands. His mother, learning the matter, fled to the patronage of St. Rosalia, and laid the young man on a bed: and took care that all his garments should be burnt. On the following day the young man rose up whole without any sign of the evil: nor did the contagion cling to anyone in the Town of St. Stephen. To this belong the benefits which are read to have been obtained on the occasion of the cave of Quisquina. The Reverend Father Alberto Valentia, Prior of the Carmelites of Cammarata, was suffering from a grave and incurable difficulty of urine. But, St. Rosalia being invoked and a stone of the cave of Quisquina applied, he was suddenly healed. Others, says Cascinus, were healed by the mere vow of visiting that cave, one by passing the night there. A lame man, walking with crutches under his arms, was striving with others to visit that cave. He was healed in the middle of the road, and afterwards carrying his crutches on his shoulders, hung them up at the cave in testimony of the grace obtained.

[380] Racalmuto, likewise a town of the diocese of Agrigento, Relics at Racalmuto, and the benefits of the Saint: in Sicilian Rahalmuto, venerated St. Rosalia in ancient times, and first dedicated a church to her, as Cascinus will have it. This church, when the body had been found, the people of Racalmuto diligently restored, and obtained relics of the Saint at Palermo. The translation of these fell on the 31st day of August in the year 1625, when they were received by the inhabitants with signal piety and equal solemnity, and on the same day a possessed woman was freed in the church of the Friars Minor of the Observance, where a solemn Mass was being sung, as Cascinus testifies. The patroness Rosalia seems also to have freed the people of Racalmuto from the danger of the plague, especially because it was raging most fiercely in the neighbourhood, and because certain infected persons entered Racalmuto without communicating the evil to any, and finally because the people of Racalmuto themselves had for a good while had dealings with their infected neighbours, and yet had contracted no contagion.

[381] relics brought to Cammarata and to the town of St. John, Of Cammarata and St. John, which are towns subject to the same duke, and as it were two parts of the same town, says Cascinus, we shall treat with him together. These places were for a whole year immune from the plague; but in the year 1625, on the 28th of May, in the town of Castronovo, which they did not yet know to be infected, they contracted the evil. When the contagion became known, presently the inhabitants of both towns fled to human and divine defences. Relics were obtained at Palermo, and on the 2nd day of July were carried toward Cammarata without a throng of men; but they were honourably received, the duke himself with many going out to meet them. They were first deposited in the church of St. Cataldus outside Cammarata, and thence translated with pious apparatus to the chief church of Cammarata, until a new church should be built, to be dedicated to the Saint as patroness. The other particle was deposited with due honour in the chief church of the town of St. John.

[382] where two prodigies were wrought, Two things done, says Cascinus, presently gave the best hope, as signs of a deliverance to follow. The relics were being carried through the neighbourhood of the public hospital of those infected with the plague, and the sick had come as suppliants before the windows closed with glass, and were imploring the Saint's help, when all the glass coverings together fell down with a great noise, and yet were not broken; as if the Saint had wished to hint that she was showing her relics to those afflicted ones with no glass between. The other is this. When the duke himself was laying the first stone for the building of the Saint's church, there was being carried in a neighbouring place the litter in which those infected with plague were wont to be carried, but empty. And when at the same time the cannon were being discharged, the horses, greatly terrified, began to leap, and shattered that whole litter into fragments. These things, I say, sharpened the hope of the people.

[383] and afterwards the pestilence extinguished: Nor was the confidence vain which they had conceived concerning the help of St. Rosalia: for at once the evil began to diminish, as Cascinus testifies. Nevertheless the pestilence did not wholly cease before the following year, when on the 24th of January those who had recovered were removed from the places of the infected, and the whole purgation

was completed on the 25th of March, on the festival of the most holy Mother of God, to whose patronage also the people of Cammarata had fled. A new supplication was then instituted, with the relics of St. Rosalia, and a Mass of the most holy Virgin Mary solemnly celebrated, and at last the hymn Te Deum sung. And on the following day the supplication was repeated, and the relics of St. Rosalia translated to her own church, then finished.

[384] another twofold benefit granted to one man. To these is added a particular benefit which was granted to Fr. Angelo Permo of the Order of Carmelites. He had laboured for two years under so grave and continual a flux of blood that he often seemed near to death. At length, led by charity toward the wretched and by piety toward St. Rosalia, he resolved to end his life in the public hospital of those labouring under the plague, whom he there served constantly for three months, having invoked the help of St. Rosalia. God approved the man's charity. He always stood by the infected in health, and on the feast day of St. Rosalia, that is the 4th of September, he went out of the hospital unharmed, and freed from his old malady. The same man afterwards, being vexed by a quartan fever, took a little water into which a stone of St. Rosalia's tomb had been put; and in that way obtained health.

[385] In the same diocese is a town called Castronovo, Castronovo, freed from the plague when relics were received of which, when it was labouring under the plague, I made mention above. This town Cascinus numbers among those which were freed from the plague by the patronage of St. Rosalia. He asserts that her relics were sent thither enclosed in a silver case: and that a church of the Saint was built there also. Yet he confesses that no exact knowledge of these things is had, for want of records, but that many votive gifts are seen hanging in the church. There is a place of the same diocese which in Sicilian is le Grotte, and may be called in Latin Gruttæ, whether it be a village or a little town. To this place, which suffered much from the plague, he says the countess of Racalmuto came to the rescue by means of relics of St. Rosalia; but he confesses that he has no distinct knowledge of any benefit.

[386] Alexandria, which elsewhere I do not find on the geographical maps, as also Alexandria: Cascinus reckons in the same diocese. He testifies that St. Rosalia appeared there to a simple woman, and designated the place where a church was to be erected in her honour, foretelling that the people would then be freed from the plague by which they were afflicted. The people believed the woman, and at once built a chapel in the place designated. The first Mass was celebrated there on Sunday the 16th of February in the year 1625. The evil suddenly ceased, and no one thereafter was infected with the plague, so that already on the 21st day of the same month the hospital was empty. These things were written to Palermo by D. Giuseppe Bonaiuto, who was there prefect on account of the pestilence. Further, Cascinus testifies that that chapel of St. Rosalia was afterwards enlarged in thanksgiving, and that relics of the Saint are preserved there in the church of the Friars Minor, and venerated with great devotion of the people; and he relates also another apparition, which I transfer hither in summary.

[387] The Saint appeared to a girl of seventeen years, and admonished her to embrace the monastic life. a girl is admonished by the Saint to enter Religion. And when she answered that she would indeed do it willingly, but that her father would not believe her, the Saint replied that she would give such a sign that her father would believe her: and, the girl desiring this, she disappeared. Further, when she rose in the morning, she found her locks cut off on one side: and that sign seemed so certain that the matter was carried into execution on the following Sunday.

[388] Finally, in the same diocese Sciacca, a maritime town, at Sciacca a sick man healed in a moment, acknowledges St. Rosalia as its patroness. Cascinus testifies that a new church of St. Rosalia was built there after the deliverance of Sicily from the plague, yet does not explain whether this had prevailed at Sciacca too: but he says that the devotion of the people was at the same time wonderfully increased by the sudden healing of a sick man, who had been brought by the violence of his malady to such a pass that he could no longer move himself. To this sick man a small box was offered, which at first he refused, because he thought that it contained medicines, of which he had conceived a loathing. But when he heard that there were relics of St. Rosalia in it, he was raised to hope: and having received the case he applied it to the part of his body that pained him most, and in a single moment recovered. So sudden a healing he presently showed to his parents by raising himself and embracing them, and in thanksgiving he gave to the church of St. Rosalia, which was then being built, an elegant painting of the same Saint, and a notable sum of money for advancing the structure. And this miracle stirred the inhabitants of the town to finish the church more quickly, to institute a confraternity of the same Saint; and at last, the church being finished so far that the sacrifice of the Mass might first be offered in it, to arrange a pious train of suppliants, by which the effigy of the Saint, carried honourably about through the town, should be brought to the new church.

[389] and afterwards others: the Saint chosen patroness there, and relics brought. When that supplication was being arranged through the city, a sick man, exposed to the danger of death, while he heard that the suppliants were in places near him, pronounced a vow to the Saint, and was suddenly healed, and on the following day hung up a votive tablet. At this same time, or at another, which Cascinus does not clearly express, a boy of nine years, of whose life they despaired, prolonged his life by the Saint's water. Her earth was the salvation of one who had lost the use of his limbs. Cascinus says that he passes over many things of this kind, and he also enumerates various images of the Saint preserved in different churches of Sciacca. He testifies that she was chosen patroness there at length in the year 1630, on the first day of June: and that two particles of her relics also were carried thither, of which one is in the chief church; the other had been destined for the proper church of St. Rosalia. So much of the diocese of Agrigento, that we may pass to that of Catania.

§ XXXVII. The cult, relics and miracles in the dioceses of Catania and Syracuse.

[ ] Relics carried to Calascibetta, Catania, Aci, Catania, an episcopal city under the archbishop of Monreale, is situated toward the East on the shore of the Ionian sea. In this diocese St. Rosalia was venerated of old at Calascibetta , an inland town, where the Saint was afterwards chosen patroness, after her relics had been translated thither, which they enclosed in a silver case, as Cascinus has it. But in the episcopal city of Catania itself the Saint's relics are preserved in two churches; namely in the church of the Society of Jesus, received as a gift from Cascinus, and in the church of Our Lady, surnamed of Mercy. Both these are exposed on the 4th day of September, when the Saint's festival is celebrated; as also the image of the Saint is at the same time exposed in the collegiate church. Aci, a town not far distant from Catania, chose Rosalia as patroness on the 6th of October in the year 1625: and relics of the same Saint were carried thither by Fr. Antonio Leonardo of the Society of Jesus, to whom Cascinus had given them. And this translation being made with a most solemn rite, and with a pious and magnificent apparatus, with a supplication, and the hymn Te Deum* sung, and a solemn Mass, an oration was delivered in praise of St. Rosalia, whose relics remained deposited in the chief church.

[391] to Enna, where a benefit was granted to a sinner at his end: Enna, otherwise the Castle of St. John, commonly Castrogiovanni, also desired relics of St. Rosalia; and received two particles of them through Cascinus, the one for the greater church, the other for the church of the Society of Jesus, in which churches they were placed with much veneration. In that town a signal benefit was granted to a dying sinner, on the authority of Cascinus. Receive the matter in summary. He had been admonished to prepare himself to die well. To him, hesitating and confused, Rosalia appeared in sleep, and seemed to entreat mercy for him before the most holy Mother of God. Certainly on the following day he confessed his sins to a priest of the Society of Jesus, with the best signs of true repentance accompanying: and afterwards died with such piety that he left to all the best hope of his salvation, although he had before been of a rather loose life.

[392] The town of St. Philip received relics of St. Rosalia on the 5th day of July in the year 1625, relics and cult in the town of St. Philip, and they were deposited in the church of the Friars Minor Reformed outside the town. And on the following day an honourable and pious supplication was arranged, and the Saint was chosen patroness of the town. That solemnity was repeated on the 4th day of September; and at length in the aforesaid church a chapel was dedicated to this Saint, and a gilded statue built for her, to be carried about in supplications.

[393] A place of the territory of Catania, called by Cascinus le Plache, likewise in the place called le Plache. having heard of the finding of the body of St. Rosalia, blazed up with wonderful piety toward this Saint. And so already in the year 1624 they piously celebrated her festival with a great concourse of the neighbouring peoples. And when they were enjoying her benefits, as Cascinus gathers from the votive gifts, they took care that an elegant painting should be made at Palermo, and a statue erected to the same Saint. Her relics they afterwards obtained through Cascinus, and celebrated their translation with such piety on the first Sunday of September, probably in the year 1625, and with so great a concourse of people, that Cascinus affirms that twenty thousand men flowed together to the festival, and that a great part of them completed the difficult journey barefoot. One of the benefits which he says were granted to those neighbouring peoples he asserts to be held by them in the highest esteem. What he relates at length I shall abridge into a summary.

[394] Those peoples, on account of the nearness of Mount Etna, suffered much from a scarcity of waters, where the Saint is believed to have come to the rescue of a scarcity of water; nor did they know a way by which to remedy this evil. But in the year 1630, in the month of July, when that whole tract was violently afflicted by want of water, they resolved to flee to the patronage of Rosalia. And so on the 15th day of July, remembering that this was the day of the finding of the body, they took care that the Saint's relics should be exposed upon an altar, that a Mass might be celebrated: and prayer having been made first, and encouraging one another with confidence in the Saint, they began to dig, that before the Mass was ended they might find a vein of water. And in fact they found a spring so copious that, when well cleared, it made three streams, and channels were afterwards dug so that the water might be led off to several places. And so that water was called by those peoples the water of St. Rosalia, and her statue was placed there in memory of the thing. And Cascinus testifies that he received an account of the fact subscribed by five priests. For the rest, in this whole matter there is indeed no manifest miracle, since that vein of water could have been there and been found by digging in a natural way: for someone had heard that water had been found in the same place eighty years before. Yet piously and rightly was the benefit attributed to St. Rosalia, both because natural causes too are directed by God, and because the water was so copious that it seemed to have something of a prodigy about it, and perhaps really had.

[395] There remains in the diocese of Catania the town of Platia, commonly called Piazza, three miracles wrought at Piazza. of which Cascinus treats most briefly, whose words I shall render into Latin. To the city of Piazza, noble, wealthy and populous, something of the earth of the tomb of St. Rosalia was sent on the 4th day of September in the year 1624: and it

earth suddenly wrought three stupendous miracles; namely D. Lorenzo Terzano and another, who were dying, were healed; and to a blind man, who had lost both eyes, sight was restored. For this cause that earth was much sought after by the inhabitants of that city, as he adds: and so from the diocese of Catania he passes on to that of Syracuse, whither we too shall follow him.

[396] Relics at Ragusa, at Scicli, Syracuse, a city once most powerful, but afterwards diminished, is episcopal under the archbishop of Monreale, and situated on the shore of the Ionian sea. In its diocese various places enjoyed the cult of St. Rosalia before the body was found, but more were added afterwards. Ragusa first of all, besides the ancient veneration of the Saint in her church set outside the city, celebrates the festival of St. Rosalia with a solemn rite on the 4th day of September, and possesses her relics preserved in the chief church. Scicli, another town of the same diocese, has three particles of the relics of St. Rosalia, namely one in the parish church of St. Mary, another in the church of the Friars Minor, and a third in the church of the holy Cross of the third Order. A chapel of the Saint was erected too in the aforesaid church of St. Mary, and she was chosen patroness there on the 16th of May in the year 1626. Cascinus asserts that churches of St. Rosalia were begun in the same city: but the first remained unfinished; nor does he state whether the others were completed.

[397] at Modica, which was freed from the plague: Modica, in Sicilian Modica, when it was labouring under the plague, in the year 1626, on the 6th day of August, chose St. Rosalia as patroness, and decreed to celebrate her festival. Moreover it dedicated a chapel to her in the church of Our Lady of Graces; and at length built a modest church in fulfilment of a vow in the same year, in the month of September, near the public hospital of those labouring under the plague. Cascinus affirms that by this piety the people of Modica obtained to be freed from the plague. The same author adds that relics of St. Rosalia were sent thither by him, and that they were deposited in the church dedicated to St. Peter.

[398] relics likewise at Noto, Netum, in Sicilian called Noto, is a city in the same tract not ignoble, from which the third part of Sicily is called the valley of Noto. This city, having heard of the finding of the body, was among the first to be zealous in venerating St. Rosalia, and placed in a church her image, received and painted in fulfilment of the vow of two men who had remained free from the plague at Palermo. The people of Noto celebrate her festival too on the 4th day of September with a very solemn apparatus and great concourse, and Cascinus testifies that not a few benefits are granted them through the Saint. He himself in the year 1625 sent thither relics of the same Saint, which are there honoured by the faithful in the church of the Society of Jesus, enclosed in a half-length statue of silver.

[399] rain obtained at Lentini: Leontini, by others Leontina and Leontinum, commonly Lentini, is likewise a city of the diocese of Syracuse, where the piety of the inhabitants toward St. Rosalia began with a useful benefit. I shall set forth the matter in summary from Cascinus. In the year 1626 the beginning of summer, or rather the spring, was so dry that almost all hope of harvest was cut off. The people of Lentini fled to divine helps through their patron St. Alphius the martyr, and the other Saints of their city, with supplications appointed; but in vain. But having heard the report of the miracles of St. Rosalia, they arranged a pious supplication, in which they carried about the relics and image of this Saint together with the image of the most holy Queen of heaven, that Rosalia might entreat her patronage from Mary. So sudden was the rain that already some drops came before, at the time of the supplication; and when the procession of the suppliants was ended, it fell most abundantly through the rest of the day and the following night. Presently among the people of Lentini two chapels of St. Rosalia were built, one in the church of St. Dominic, the other in that of St. Alphius: and to these a third was afterwards added.

[400] Catalgironum is a town of the same diocese, as Cascinus names it, relics at Caltagirone, where many but elsewhere I find it named Calagironum and Calatagironum. Here the cult of St. Rosalia was stirred up by D. Nunzio Gallente, a priest, who began to build a church there in the year 1625, in the month of October, and finished it in the following year, so that the first Mass was celebrated there on the very festival of St. Rosalia, the 4th of September in the year 1626. And the Mass was celebrated by the bishop himself, and the festival was performed as of a patroness, servile works ceasing, because the Saint had already been chosen patroness of the city: her relics also had already arrived, and these were honoured with a solemn supplication. Various benefits were conferred on this city, which I shall transfer hither from Cascinus. A good man, but infirm, when he saw digging being done for laying the foundations of the new church, and had asked for what cause this was being done; when he heard that a church was to be built to St. Rosalia, he promised her a painted tablet if he should be healed: he was healed, and gave the tablet. An infant, whose name was Carlo Sciacca, was labouring under so great an evil of one eye that the physicians already gave up the sight of that eye as lost: he had besides been seized with a malignant fever. But the infant's mother fled to St. Rosalia on the same day on which the first stone had been laid for the new church: and on the morning of the following day the infant was freed from danger, and afterwards wholly recovered.

[401] Cascinus testifies that four infants besides were healed there. obtained The first's great abscess above the ear vanished in a moment. The second was freed from a dangerous swelling. The third had lost the use of one leg by a thorn, and was healed on the morning of the following day, after he had only drunk a little water into which a stone of St. Rosalia's tomb had been put. The fourth was so weak that he could not stand on his feet. Him his parents clothed in a little woollen tunic in honour of St. Rosalia, and he came out strong and firm. Two men also who were dying, namely Diego Campo, having got an image of the Saint, and another, a vow being pronounced, recovered. The water just mentioned was used with success in grave danger by Girolamo Longobardo and Francesco Guerra. Onofrio d'Adamo, labouring under dropsy for three years, was healed on three occasions by taking the same water, and the first time indeed after he had been fortified with extreme Unction. But Francesco Secasio, deprived of the use of one leg for eight years, was restored by the water and the oil together. Girolamo d'Alessandro, labouring under a disease of the joints for fourteen years, added to the use of the said water a vow of providing oil for the lamp until the new church should be finished, and so obtained health. But the use of the water alone, by the patronage of St. Rosalia, took away the pains of the joints from D. Antonio Bonanno; restored vigour to a woman deprived of the use of her limbs, and sense to a madwoman of seventy.

[402] To three others St. Rosalia, merely being invoked, showed herself beneficent in a truly wonderful manner. were the benefits. The first of them was a cobbler, Giacomo by name, who had long suffered from a hernia in one place, but had lately contracted the same evil in another place also. He asked St. Rosalia that by her help he might be freed from that new evil, which created greater pain and hindered his work. He obtained as much as he asked; he was freed from the recent hernia, the old one nevertheless remaining. Giacomo Semola, a countryman, was so grievously wounded by kicks below the navel that his bowels flowed out. And when he had been carried home dying, his wife, looking upon him, presently invoked St. Rosalia in these words: Ah, holy Rosalia, thou who hast wrought so many miracles at Palermo. Here Cascinus exclaims: O great miracle! While Rosalia is named and heard, the man opened his eyes, already closed: he who seemed dead collected himself and lived. The third, healed by invocation alone, was a young man who had been fortified with all the helps for dying rightly, and was already believed dead. Nay, the bystanders had already closed his eyes and mouth, as is wont to be done with the dead. Yet his mother, says Cascinus, turning to an image of St. Rosalia, was imploring her help for her son. Laughter arose in some of those present, because they thought these vows too late: but behold, when the sick man's sister was seized with a fainting of spirit, the voice of the dead man (as was believed) is heard, saying: Sprinkle my sister with a little water: for he was so well in a single moment that he was the first to notice that need and to demand help, so that I do not know whether he could have done as much if he had awakened out of sleep. That this man and the preceding one were healed, he had said before: but whether they also obtained full health suddenly, or recovered by degrees, he does not express; because he has touched on all these benefits only briefly, especially the earlier ones. Now we shall pass to the diocese of Messina.

* Calatascibet

§ XXXVIII. The cult, relics and benefits in the diocese of Messina and in that of Patti.

[ ] Relics brought to Imachara: Messana, to its inhabitants Messina, is a famous and archiepiscopal city on the Eastern shore of Sicily at the Mamertine strait. The diocese of Messina, nearest to Italy, Cascinus surveys in chapter XI, whom I everywhere follow in these matters, and he begins from the town most distant from Messina, because the cult of St. Rosalia flourished there of old. That town, situated in the inland part, is called in Latin Imachara or Hemichara, but is now commonly called Traina. There is there a twofold particle of the relics of St. Rosalia, one in the church of St. Sylvester of Traina, the other in the parish church of St. Nicholas, where the festival of the Saint is celebrated with a solemn rite on the 4th of September, and her image too is exposed. The latter particle of the relics was brought thither from Palermo by D. Vincenzo Vicino, a priest of Traina, who, coming from Palermo, where the pestilence was raging, was compelled to stay forty days outside the city in a separate place, and there began to labour under the plague. He therefore invoked the patron of the place, St. Sylvester of Traina, and with singular piety St. Rosalia, whose relics he had: and so obtained health.

[404] a disease of the throat taken away at Messina: Cascinus testifies that a church of St. Rosalia, and various altars and chapels, were founded at Messina, adding that not a few benefits too were granted to the people of Messina through the Saint, but that these were related by him in book 1. We shall treat of them in the appendix of miracles after the Life. Wherefore I transfer hither only one, which he narrates in this place. In the year 1625, on the 8th day of April, the wife of Giuseppe Buttone began gravely to sicken, and within a few days was brought to deadly straits, because she was choked by so great an evil of the throat that she could not open her mouth. And so she was piously preparing herself for death, and to this end had a pious image of the Saviour. And to this image there had been joined a small portion of the relics of St. Rosalia, sent to her husband from Palermo. On this occasion the husband stirred up the sick woman to conceive confidence in the Saint, since the report of her miracles was already widely spread. The sick woman therefore, having conceived confidence, since she could not speak, invoked the Saint in mind and with tears, and having piously kissed her relics applied them to her throat. Presently at that same moment she feels a new vigour, and, the evil ceasing, opens her mouth and speaks clearly, giving thanks to the holy virgin Rosalia for her healing so sudden. Further the husband, at his wife's request, wrote the whole matter to Palermo; and sent thither as a gift a silver head, and took care that a Mass should be sung there in thanksgiving.

[405] In the same diocese is the abbey of St. Philip de Fragala, relics in the abbey of St. Philip de Fragala, of the Order of St. Basil, situated not far from the town of Mirto, as Pirro teaches in his Notitia of the abbeys of Sicily, page 91. Its commendatory abbot D. Francesco lo Presti received in the year 1629 relics of St. Rosalia, given to him at Palermo. But of these relics he had said nothing to anyone. Nevertheless, when he had returned to St. Philip's, there came to him a pious and simple virgin, named Domenica Castranuci, and asked help from him for a spiritual necessity, saying that she had been sent to him by that Saint who had been in his house since the preceding evening: and this was certainly no other than St. Rosalia. So Cascinus, saying that the abbot at first stood astonished with excessive wonder: but that afterwards his piety toward St. Rosalia was increased, and that he took care with the utmost zeal that she should be held in great honour there. The same Cascinus testifies that afterwards a nephew *, or perhaps a kinsman, of the same abbot, named Filippo, was healed of an infirmity by water into which the same relics had been put.

[406] Petra or Petralia is a twofold town in Sicily, likewise at Petralia, namely Petralia Soprana and Petralia Sottana. Both are situated almost in the middle of Sicily around the mountain which was once called Nebrodes, and now by the inhabitants Madonia, and thus is very far distant from Messina: yet both belong to its diocese. Further, Cascinus testifies that relics of St. Rosalia are kept at Petralia in the greater church, an image in that of St. Anthony, and that in both places the festival is celebrated on the 4th day of September, and not without benefits. But whether he means Petralia Soprana or Sottana, he does not add.

[407] In the same diocese is the town of St. Mark, almost midway between Messina and Palermo. and in the town of St. Mark, where several were healed. To the aforesaid town too the sacred pledges of St. Rosalia were translated and piously received: nor did she suffer her beneficence to be desired there in vain. Domenica Lombardo had suffered for almost a year an incurable flux of blood; and had employed many medicines in vain. But afterwards she received water into which relics of St. Rosalia had been put: when she had drunk a little of this water with confidence, she found herself whole, nor ever afterwards felt the aforesaid evil. This had come to the knowledge of Laura Bruno, who by a daily and violent fever continued for eight months had been brought to such a pass that she thought of death rather than of life. She used the same remedy with pious confidence, and immediately obtained health. Francesco Castella was labouring under a fever of two years' standing, and having tasted the same water, so rejoiced at being suddenly healed that he went about to proclaim the Saint's benefit. The daughter of Domenica Lombardo, whom we have just seen healed, named Vita, piously drinking some of the same water, was freed from a fever.

[408] The cult and relics in the diocese of Patti: We have now surveyed all the dioceses of Sicily, except that of Patti, the smallest of all. Now Pactæ or Pacta, in Sicilian Patti, is a maritime city on the Northern shore of Sicily, and episcopal under the archbishop of Messina. In the city of Patti itself the festival of St. Rosalia is celebrated on the 4th of September. But in a village three miles distant from the city of Patti, whose name is la Gioiosa, the festival of the same Saint is performed both on the 4th of September and on the 15th of July with a solemn rite, with indulgences and a famous supplication, in which the relics of the holy Virgin are carried about, which that place has possessed since the year 1625. A chapel was founded for these relics in the greater church, in which many sacrifices of the most holy Mass are offered. An image of St. Rosalia too is honoured there in the church of the Fathers of the Oratory, dedicated to the blessed Virgin. Thus far I have wished to treat briefly, with Cascinus, of the cult, relics and miracles of St. Rosalia spread within a few years through almost the whole of Sicily, whose mind I have tried so faithfully to express that I have frequently only given his Italian words a Latin dress; and only for the sake of brevity and of a more convenient rendering have I not done so everywhere.

[409] why so much has been given concerning the cult. I wished not to pass over that swift propagation of the cult, even though we have seen the Saint's Office and feast afterwards extended by Pontifical authority to the whole of Sicily, because I believed that the swiftness of the cult's promotion bore the more upon the Saint's glory the more benefits and miracles it was joined with, and out of which it was born. Moreover that most swift propagation of the cult shows, in whatever degree, that the things written of the Saint's many benefits are not empty: for men are most of all moved to venerate the Saints by miracles and benefits. For the rest, I cannot doubt that after the times of Cascinus the cult of St. Rosalia reached more places of Sicily, as I judge also concerning her relics and benefits. But it is not necessary to investigate more of these matters: yet all the miracles which have come to my knowledge I shall collect in an appendix after the Life. But now we shall investigate how swiftly, and on what occasions, the cult of St. Rosalia was propagated to most of the other provinces of Europe.

* nipote

§ XXXIX. The cult, relics and benefits of St. Rosalia in Italy.

[ ] The cult propagated through almost all Europe: Cascinus in book 3, chapter 14, shows that the cult of St. Rosalia was propagated through almost the whole of Europe. But, since it afterwards reached far more cities, I shall so follow Cascinus here that I shall enlarge what is related by him from other writers or records, as far as can be done by diligent investigation. This account will contain at the same time whatever trustworthy matter concerning the Saint's relics and benefits has presented itself to me. Of provinces or kingdoms I shall, without other choice, follow that order which Cascinus already kept. And so with him I begin from Italy, where we have already seen in §30 that the cult of St. Rosalia was begun at Rome, and that various particles of her relics were sent thither to Urban VIII and to others, and for that reason I add nothing here about the City of Rome, but go on with Cascinus to other cities.

[411] Paula, by some called Patycos, and commonly Paola, is a town of Hither Calabria on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea. in the kingdom of Naples, relics at Paola, at Rivello, In the territory of this town Cascinus asserts, in book 1, page 21, that there was an ancient church of St. Rosalia. And afterwards some relics were carried to Paola by a certain member of the Society of Jesus, and therefore the lords of that place wished to erect a chapel of the Saint, says Cascinus in almost the same words. In Basilicata and in the diocese of Policastro is the town of Rivello, which had in its territory an ancient church of St. Rosalia. For this cause Cascinus says that he sent to Rivello relics of the same Saint, by which the devotion of the people was stirred up in the year 1627.

[412] In the Principato Ultra, within the Apennine mountain, is Trivicum, at Trevico, where the Saint is patroness; commonly Trevico, or Vico della Baronia, a modest city, but episcopal, which among the first cities of the kingdom of Naples took up the cult of St. Rosalia with great piety; and not without graces obtained, says Cascinus, although he relates none by name. Relics were carried to Trevico about the end of the year 1627. Over the church of Trevico at that time presided Girolamo Mezzani, who chose St. Rosalia as patroness of the city, and in the following year 1628, on the 24th day of April, translated her relics with a most solemn rite and with great veneration, an annual festival of this translation being instituted. And so two feasts of St. Rosalia are performed at Trevico every year, the one on the 4th of September, the other of the translation on the 24th of April.

[413] To Naples in the year 1625 relics of St. Rosalia were brought by Fr. Andrea Gonzaga of the Society of Jesus, at Naples a spell taken away, who had received them at Palermo from Cardinal Doria. But he left there only a small particle of them, given to a private person, to whom it was the means of health. There lay sick, through the sorcery of the magic art, a woman not ignoble, and daughter-in-law of the Councillor Salinas, in the month of November of the year 1625. To her as she lay the aforesaid relics were applied, and presently the sick woman rose up, now wholly whole. And in her bed signs of magical illusions were found, as Cascinus testifies, who narrates these things. Something therefore of the relics of St. Rosalia was left at Naples, but in the hand of a private person, so that the cult of the Saint was not on that occasion begun in the church of Naples, although the devotion of certain private persons could easily have been stirred up. For the rest, Fr. Andrea Gonzaga carried another part of his relics to his own country, and there an elegant chapel of the Saint was built. But Cascinus does not indicate where that was.

[414] Nevertheless when in the year 1656 the city of Naples was gravely afflicted by a most savage pestilence, and afterwards the city freed from the plague, it did not neglect the patronage of St. Rosalia, but invoked her with the other patrons, and so felt itself freed from that scourge on the 17th of August. Various testimonies of that matter Vincenzo Auria brings forward in the Rosa cælestis, page 119 and following. The patrons invoked were the most holy Virgin, the Immaculate Mother of God, St. Januarius the ancient patron, St. Francis Xavier recently chosen for that cause, and St. Rosalia as universal patroness against the plague, so far as I judge. The praised Auria recites a fragment of a letter of the viceroy of Naples, and the testimony of the physicians, in which the aforesaid patrons are enumerated, to whom the deliverance of Naples from the plague is attributed. Francesco de Magistris also, a Neapolitan writer, agrees, in his State of the memorable things of the city of Naples, where on page 142 he says: There had been painted images of the Immaculate Mother of God, of St. Januarius, of St. Francis Xavier, and of St. Rosolea, with the inscription, FOR THE CITY PRESERVED FROM THE PLAGUE. For he is treating of the festival which was instituted at Naples on account of the plague taken away.

[415] and thence an annual festival began to be celebrated there, And so at Naples on the 4th day of September the festival of St. Rosalia was celebrated with great apparatus in the church of the Most Holy Trinity of the Mount, says Auria. Then too it was decreed that this should be done every year in thanksgiving for the benefits obtained through St. Rosalia. These things having been heard, the senate of Palermo gave thanks for the glory of St. Rosalia promoted at Naples by a letter given at Palermo on the 9th of November in the year 1657, which Auria recites on pages 121 and 122. And in this letter it signifies that it had learned that various chapels had been erected at Naples, and that a church proper to the Saint was also to be built, and that she was at length to be numbered among the patrons of the city of Naples. Auria does not explain whether these things were actually carried out. But Mancusi, in his History of St. Rosalia, volume 1, page 274, asserts that she was chosen patroness at Naples, but cites no author: and he furnishes great cause for doubting whether she was chosen patroness of the city, because he names only one church in which the Saint's festival is celebrated.

[416] and relics received from Palermo. More certain therefore are the things which Auria subjoins on page 122; namely that relics of the Saint were sent from Palermo to Naples, and that these, enclosed in a silver case, were deposited in the church of St. Lucy of the Mount, where

[417] Atrani, relics having been received, likewise freed from the plague. To these Fr. Gaetano Maria Noto adds another town of the kingdom of Naples in a letter sent to me this year 1746, writing thus: In the year 1656 Atrani, a town of Apulia in the diocese of Amalfi, was most grievously afflicted by the plague. In the midst of this there arrived one of its citizens who was bringing with him relics of St. Rosalia: as soon as he exposed these to be publicly venerated, and all the citizens received St. Rosalia as their patroness, the plague was extinguished. This is related, on the testimony of a religious man, by Pietro la Placa … chancellor of the senate of Palermo, in an Italian Work which was printed at Palermo in the year 1745 under this title, I Trionsi di S. Rosalia, etc., pages 27 and 28. More of these things I do not add, since the praised little Work is not at hand to me: but I only note that Atrani too is numbered among the cities freed from pestilence by the patronage of St. Rosalia in the Letter of the senate of Palermo given at number 328.

[418] The cult and relics at Ancona, In the year 1630, on the 4th day of September, Ancona, a city of the Ecclesiastical dominion on the Adriatic sea, began to celebrate the festival of St. Rosalia with the greatest solemnity and devotion. Cascinus, relating that festival more fully, asserts that it was celebrated in honour of St. Rosalia, deliverer from the plague. These words can furnish some suspicion of Ancona's having been freed from the plague by the patronage of St. Rosalia. Nay, the often-praised Mancusi, in volume 1, page 285, writes that it was freed from the plague, alleging this very passage of Cascinus. But it had first to be examined whether Ancona laboured under the plague in that year; which I have not been able to find out. And so I would not dare to say that it was freed, but would rather suspect that the Saint was celebrated there either because Ancona was in danger of contracting the pestilence, and fled to the Saint's patronage; or because on some other occasion the piety of the people of Ancona toward St. Rosalia was stirred up. That festival was celebrated in the church of the Society of Jesus. But the author does not express whether it was decreed that it should be repeated every year. Yet it is probable that it is celebrated yearly, since he says that it was celebrated with no less but rather greater solemnity in the year 1632, after relics of St. Rosalia had been brought to Ancona. Finally he adds that the same feast was kept in a certain neighbouring castle, which is called Falconara.

[419] Lucca, a city of Etruria, but of its own right and a free republic, and at Lucca, where certain graces were obtained: embraced the cult of St. Rosalia with no less piety than Ancona just mentioned. Cascinus says that the people of Lucca believed that St. Rosalia drew her origin from their city, because the Sinibaldi family is there noble and ancient, and that therefore they embraced the Saint's cult the more fervently. I have already noted in its place that there are various opinions concerning the genealogy of St. Rosalia, although all derive her stock from Charlemagne. But here we treat only of the cult and the relics. Cascinus testifies that he gave one particle for the people of Lucca to the abbot Raffaele Olivetano: and that another too came to the same city from elsewhere: that the former is kept enclosed in a silver case, the latter in a crystal one: and that the Saint's festival is performed in several churches. For the rest, the chief promoter of the cult of St. Rosalia in the city of Lucca was D. Vincenzo Sinibaldi, on whom Cascinus writes that various benefits were conferred by the patronage of the same Saint, saying that not only his house, but he himself, and his wife and sons were helped by St. Rosalia, and that indeed when the physicians despaired; yet explaining nothing more distinctly of their diseases.

[420] Cremona, a well enough known city of the duchy of Milan, likewise the cult and relics at Cremona, began to venerate St. Rosalia and to implore her help on the occasion of the Sicilian soldiers, whose commander Pietro Valdina, marquis della Rocca, had with him relics of the Saint. Cascinus writes that Cremona at that time laboured under a pestilence, which seems to be understood of some dangerous and contagious sickness, such as are frequently wont to arise in armies. But whatever the contagion was, the author testifies that a pious image of St. Rosalia was painted at the command of the aforesaid commander of the soldiers, and that he took care that water should be consecrated by the placing of St. Rosalia's relics in it; and that by this water health was divinely restored to many, and so a great devotion of the people of Cremona arose toward St. Rosalia. And since the praised Valdina left a particle of his relics at Cremona, an altar dedicated to St. Rosalia was erected in the church of St. Vitus by the most eminent lord Pietro Campori, bishop of Cremona. A statue of the Saint besides was set up by Bernardino Resta, and it was carried to the church of St. Vitus with a solemn supplication. For these things the author praises the brief Life of St. Rosalia published in the year 1633 by Fr. Francesco Abriani of the Order of Carmelites: but whether an annual festival of the Saint was also instituted at Cremona is not clear from what is related.

[421] Forum Livii, a city of the Pontifical dominion in Romagna, and at Forlì: commonly called Forlì, demanded relics of St. Rosalia, and received a particle of a rib, sent thither through Cascinus. This particle of a rib was placed in a silver case, and a statue of the Saint erected there in an elegant chapel. From these things there flowed not only much devotion of the people, but a festival too was instituted to be celebrated every year, as Cascinus testifies, who adds nothing more to these things concerning the Saint's cult in Italy. But Mancusi, in his History of St. Rosalia, assigns many more cities of Italy which afterwards embraced the cult of the same Saint. It pleases me to follow that writer, enumerating those cities, but most briefly, and in that order in which they are added by him to the preceding.

[422] Setia, commonly Sezze, a town of the Pontifical dominion in the Roman Campagna, began in the year 1716 to venerate St. Rosalia, whose image, painted at Rome, was placed in the year 1718 in the church of the nuns of St. Clare, the cult at Sezze, Frascati, Terni, Ascoli, Ravenna: and there her festival was celebrated, as Mancusi narrates more fully in volume 1, page 275 and following. Tusculum in the same province, to the Italians Frascati, embraced the cult of St. Rosalia in the year 1717, an image of the Saint being placed in the church of the Society of Jesus, and a solemn festival celebrated there, of which the praised writer treats on page 284. Interamna, called by its inhabitants Terni, venerated St. Rosalia for a longer time. There Giovanni Giorgio Castelli, a knight of the Order of Malta, built a church to her, after he had seen Malta freed from the plague by the Saint's patronage, as shall be narrated in its place. That church has relics of the Saint; and her festival is there performed every year with a solemn rite, as Mancusi testifies on page 284, who affirms that not a few benefits too are obtained by the people. Asculum Picenum, likewise a town of the state of the Church in the March of Ancona, commonly called Ascoli, has a small bone of St. Rosalia in the church of the Society of Jesus, on the same authority, page 285. Ravenna began to venerate the Saint in the year 1718, many images being first scattered through the city, by which the piety of the citizens was kindled. An image of the same Saint was then exposed for public veneration in the church of the Society, and there a festival instituted on the 15th day of July, which is the day of the finding of the body.

[423] relics, ennobled by a miracle on the way, carried to Bologna: In the year 1717 Bologna, a most famous city of Italy under the dominion of the Supreme Pontiff, received relics of St. Rosalia. Mancusi narrates this rather more at length in volume 2, page 150 and following. These relics the most illustrious count di Rubilant had received to be carried from Palermo into Italy and to Bologna, and with them he entrusted himself to a ship bound for Naples. But after two days' sailing two Turkish ships began to pursue that ship, so that they had necessarily to turn aside from the direct route, lest the Christian ship should become a prey to the enemy. And when it had thus fled for a whole eight days, the ships of the Turks always following, the Christians saw that they were not far from the city of Tunis, and therefore could not escape by human strength. And so they turned themselves to prayers, and having brought forth the relics of St. Rosalia, they earnestly begged her that that sacred treasure, destined for the veneration of the faithful, might not be a prey to infidels. After brief prayers a most savage tempest arose, and the sky being darkened, which before was clear, the view outside the ship extended no more than ten paces: and the ship, carried off by a most violent wind …, with sails filled, was within about four hours cast into the port of Naples: which journey cannot naturally be accomplished in so short a time. That these things were related to him by the count di Rubilant himself, Bernardino Ignazio of Asti, a priest of the Order of Capuchins, asserted and confirmed by oath, whose oath Mancusi recites together with his account, here given in summary. Further, the senate of Bologna honourably received the relics brought, and deposited them in their church dedicated to St. Petronius: and Mancusi testifies that a marble chapel had begun to be erected in honour of the Saint while he was writing: and that other things also had been begun with magnificent workmanship, for placing the relics honourably and celebrating the feast on the 4th day of September.

[424] the cult in many other cities of Italy, The praised writer teaches in volume 1, page 288, that the Saint's festival is also celebrated yearly in a certain church of the duchy of Mirandola, which he does not name. And that throughout the whole diocese of Modena the same festival is kept, as I have already said at number 321 was granted to the bishop of Modena by Clement XI. The faculty of celebrating the Office of St. Rosalia throughout the whole diocese had been sought by the prelate of Modena, Lodovico Masdoni, because he believed that his health had been restored to him by the Saint's patronage. For when by many inconveniences and infirmities of his advancing age he was unfit for performing the episcopal office, and was for the most part confined to his bed, he chose the Saint as his patroness, and felt his strength restored to him so far that he could again consecrate his clergy, and visit his diocese every year, as Mancusi relates more fully in volume 2, pages 148 and 149. That St. Rosalia is venerated also at Piacenza, and in the duchy of Ferrara, and in that of Mantua, the praised writer asserts on page 289, but in a somewhat vague manner, so that it cannot be gathered from his words whether an annual festival is celebrated in those places. The same author says on page 291 that the Spanish army was freed from the danger of plague at Milan, and thence suspects that the Saint is venerated there: but he produces no authority, nor assigns any time. But that at Genoa her festival is celebrated in the church of the Clerks Regular who have devoted themselves to the ministry of the sick, and that devotion was there much increased in the years 1717 and 1718, he testifies more clearly in the same place.

[425] Mons Physcon, commonly Montefiascone, is a town of Pontifical Etruria, relics also at Montefiascone, where the cult of St. Rosalia was received in the year 1717 with great ardour. Mancusi narrates the matter at length on page 292 and following, from whom I shall briefly gather the chief heads. There in the episcopal seminary various copies of the Life of St. Rosalia were distributed, by the reading of which the piety of all there toward the Saint was kindled. There was celebrated therefore in the seminary the festival of the finding

on the 15th day of July with great apparatus; and then there was exposed for veneration an image of the Saint, found in the possession of a certain citizen, who asserted that he had had it painted because in the Sicilian sea he had been delivered from an imminent shipwreck, having invoked the help of St. Rosalia. Further, Francesco Perini, a nobleman of Palermo, when he had heard the aforesaid things, gave a particle of a finger of St. Rosalia, which he had fortified with authentic testimonies, to the church of the seminary of Montefiascone, dedicated to St. Bartholomew. The translation of these relics was made with famous solemnity and great apparatus on the 14th day of July, and the festival of the finding piously celebrated on the following day. And in this way the cult of St. Rosalia was begun at Montefiascone, piety toward the Saint being at the same time propagated to certain neighbouring towns. To these things the author subjoins that at Florence on the feast day of St. Rosalia an image of the Saint is exposed in the church of the Society of Jesus: and that at Leghorn * a chapel is dedicated to the same Saint in the church of St. Mary of Montenero, and that much people gather there on the festival of St. Rosalia. But he does not state whether the Saint is venerated in those two cities with an ecclesiastical Office.

[426] That we may put an end to this collection concerning the Saint's cult in Italy, and at Recanati, where various benefits were obtained. there remains to be mentioned a city of Picenum, or of the March of Ancona, Recinetum, commonly called Recanati, whither relics of St. Rosalia came in the year 1723. The whole matter is narrated by Mancusi in volume 2 from page 156; but a summary will suffice for me. In the year 1723, in the month of September, in the monastery of the nuns of St. Stephen at Recanati three of the nuns, namely Candida Colomba Ghinelli, Barbara Costanza Fortuna, and Rosalia Cherubina Leopardi, lay in bed vexed by a continual fever. And since not long before relics of St. Rosalia had been carried to the aforesaid monastery, the sick nuns fled to the Saint's help: and having piously invoked her, they wished their heads to be touched with the relics mentioned. Which being done, presently the fever departed, and so left them whole that it did not afterwards return. This fact the nuns themselves, suddenly healed, having first taken an oath, attested on the 21st of February in the year 1724 before the public notary Antonio Francesco Presuttino, and two witnesses of the Order of Minors of the Observance, as is more fully narrated in the notarial Act published in Mancusi, which the bishop of Recanati confirmed, attesting the credit and authority of the aforesaid notary on the 4th of March of the same year, and which the archbishop of Palermo in the same year, on the 2nd day of April, caused to be entered in the Acts, and subscribed with his own name, so that that threefold healing seems abundantly confirmed. But from the sworn account of the nuns it is not clear whether all three were healed on the same day or on different ones; but from it only this is established, that all were suddenly healed: and I should rather suspect that each was healed on different days, both because mention is made of different days, and because the day of the healing is not expressed. For the rest, those relics of St. Rosalia had been given to the nuns by the noble man Carlo Calcagni, dwelling at Messina, as is added in the testimony of the nuns. Let these things suffice concerning Italy, although I cannot doubt that the Saint's cult reached still more places of Italy.

* Livorno

§ XL. The cult, relics and benefits in France, Spain, Germany and Hungary.

[ ] Nice, a vow being pronounced, is freed from the plague Since I have resolved to tread in the footsteps of Cascinus, with him I shall pass from Italy into neighbouring France, where he writes that Nice of Provence, which by others is attributed to Italy, was freed from the plague after a vow was pronounced to St. Rosalia. He narrates the matter in this manner. Nicæa, to the French Nice, to the Italians Nizza, which is situated on the border of Italy, and is the head of the county of Nice, was labouring under a grievous pestilence, as many other cities at that time. And when the people of Nice had heard that St. Rosalia was a patroness against the pestilence; and knew that her relics were honoured in a village of the county of Nice, called Lucerame, which is distant only a few miles from Nice; and that there was there a chapel dedicated to the same Saint; they resolved to flee to her patronage: and they did it in this manner. The people of Nice vowed that they would give a silver lamp to the aforesaid chapel of St. Rosalia; and that they would erect another chapel to the same Saint in their own city, and would give it another silver lamp. Nay, they even printed that vow, and sent it to many round about. The vow being pronounced, says Cascinus, the pestilence ceased: the same may be seen in Gioffredo, Nicæa, page 52.

[428] and obtains relics of the Saint: Moreover after two years they sent a letter to Palermo, to demand some of the relics of St. Rosalia. A copy of the letter by which the people of Nice sought those relics I have before me. It was given at Nice on the 24th of June in the year 1633, and subscribed in this manner, but in Italian: The Syndics of Nice. Andrea Bonta, secretary. The vow made to St. Rosalia is asserted, and it is added that the relics are sought in order the more to stir up the devotion of the people, Because as soon as the vow had been pronounced, the said contagion suddenly ceased by a miracle truly great, and worthy of eternal memory. That this happened in the year 1631 is said earlier in the same letter. But they obtained the relics in the year 1634, as Cascinus testifies, who gave his own. Yet the inscription in Gioffredo, page 52, expresses the year 1635. But, since he says that a twofold particle was sent, the first perhaps was sent in the year 1634, the other in 1635. On the same authority, the people of Nice sent a silver lamp as a gift to St. Rosalia at Palermo; and erected for her an elegant chapel in the cathedral of Nice.

[429] At Paris from the year 1628 Anne of Austria, queen of France, had a particle of a rib of St. Rosalia, relics likewise at Paris and Béziers: who also ordered an image of the Saint to be painted. A particle of the jaw of the same Saint has been preserved since the year 1631 in the church of the professed house of the Society of Jesus, dedicated to St. Louis at Paris. Relics of St. Rosalia were also sought and obtained by Clement de Bonzi, bishop of Béziers in Languedoc, because the city of Béziers * was afflicted with the plague, as Cascinus testifies. Mancusi adds that the pestilence ceased through the relics that were brought: nor is there doubt that it ceased, but how, or how long after the relics were brought, I do not find.

[430] To these I add an annotation written by Fr. Noto, but Thiers and Moulins, having received them and made a vow, which, sent hither from Palermo, runs thus: In the year 1630 (there were freed from pestilence by the patronage of St. Rosalia) the cities of France, Thiers (in Lower Auvergne), and Moulins (the head of the province of Bourbon;) as Fr. Étienne Chamillard of the Society of Jesus writes at length in a letter to Fr. Giovanni Maria Amato: which the latter published here in print in his second Oration at the solemn review of studies, page 135. The letter assigned is in Italian, and was written in the year 1705. A summary of it will suffice for our purpose. He relates that Moulins in the year 1630 laboured gravely under the plague, and that the magistrate vowed to St. Rosalia an annual supplication, to be piously instituted in her honour on her feast day; and that the vow being pronounced and the supplication instituted, the plague ceased. The occasion of the vow is set forth thus. Certain Capuchins narrated to the magistrate of Moulins that the city of Thiers in Auvergne, whence they had come, had been freed from the plague after a vow was made to St. Rosalia, and after some relics of her had been received, given to the people of Thiers by a certain Capuchin Father. And when the rector of the college of the Society of Jesus had signified that he had relics of St. Rosalia, the vow was pronounced, and the pestilence ceased.

[431] He adds, however, that the plague revived when the vow, by which the people of Moulins had also promised that they would see to it that an image of the Saint should be painted, was not satisfied quickly enough; but that it ceased again after this part of the vow too was fulfilled. Perhaps the people of Moulins will doubt the truth of this fact, are said to have been freed from the plague. because nothing about it has been found in the archive of the city; and in the archive of the chapter only two brief memoranda were found: of which the first says that in the year 1631 the magistrate came to the chapter and asked that a supplication should be instituted according to the vow. The other has it that the magistrate came and asked of the chapter that a general supplication should be instituted, to give thanks to God for the deliverance from the plague. But in neither is mention made of St. Rosalia. And so I think that Fr. Chamillard narrated the fact from the annual letters of the college of the Society of Jesus, in which such things are wont to be noted: for he first relates the vow with the persons attached, and says that it was subscribed, Demmonet. And then for the occasion of the vow and the outcome of the matter he praises Fr. Lebel of the Society of Jesus. For the rest, the senate of Palermo in its letter to the Pontiff numbers Thiers and Moulins among the cities that enjoyed the Saint's patronage from these records, so far as I suppose. Auria in the Rosa cælestis, page 102, from the Diary of Nicolas Caussin, which is not at hand to me, produces these words at the 4th of September: St. Rosalia, sprung from the Normans, of wonderful sanctity, who as expeller of the plague in Italy, and at Moulins, is venerated with great solemnity. The words are in some measure ambiguous: for according to different punctuation a different sense arises, namely of the Saint's cult brought to Moulins, according to the punctuation given; or of the plague driven away at Moulins as well as in Italy, if a comma be placed after the word Moulins. But whatever Caussin's mind may have been, he is treating of Moulins in France, not of Mechlin in Brabant, as Auria wrongly understood him, saying that St. Rosalia is solemnly venerated at Mechlin in Brabant. For the Saint's cult was not so soon begun at Mechlin, but began there when it was permitted to all the dominions of the king of Spain.

[432] Relics sent into Spain to the king: From France I follow Cascinus into Spain, of which he briefly discourses thus: The city of Palermo, as soon as the relics of St. Rosalia had been exposed for the veneration of the faithful, sent two signal particles of them, clothed in that shining stone and enclosed in two cases which corals adorned, into Spain to king Philip IV and the queen. And these were received with a veneration worthy of monarchs so Catholic and pious. All these relics, or at least one part of them, the Catholic king afterwards gave to the royal monastery of St. Lawrence, where in the year 1722 our Pinius copied out with his own hand the testimonial of Cardinal Doria, which is preserved there with the relics. This I transfer hither: I, Giannettino Doria, Cardinal priest of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Peter in Montorio, archbishop of Palermo, testify and attest that from the relics of St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, whose body was lately found in a cave of Mount Peregrino, enclosed in stone cases by a marvellous concretion, there was taken the head of the shoulder of the same most blessed Virgin, which is sent to the sacred Catholic majesty of the king our lord Philip IV by the senate of Palermo. And that the aforesaid majesty may be in no way doubtful in rendering the cult, and that all other faithful of Christ may be able duly to venerate and religiously to honour it, in testimony of that matter I have given the present letter, sealed with my own subscription and seal. At Palermo, the 31st of August, in the eighth Indiction, in the year of the Lord 1625. Giannettino Cardinal Doria, archbishop of Palermo, etc. So the Cardinal's authentic testimonial.

[433] the Spanish army freed from contagion: A memorable fact, if all its circumstances be certain enough, was communicated to me by the just now praised

helper, Gaetano Noto, writing thus: When in this year (1652) John of Austria was besieging the city of Barcelona, the pestilential plague which was raging through the kingdoms of Spain invaded the Spanish army with great loss of soldiers: from which nevertheless it was suddenly freed, when a solemn supplication was proclaimed, in which the effigy of St. Rosalia was carried about. This narrative is had in a little book, printed in the same year 1652 at Palermo from the press of Nicolò Bua, in 80., whose title is (in Italian, which I render into Latin:) "An account of the stupendous miracle wrought by St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, in the army of our Catholic king, and of the solemnity celebrated for that cause at Madrid on the day of her festival, the 4th of September 1652, taken from a letter given at court on the 11th day of the same month by a person of the highest authority." And there these words are read (in Italian, but again to be rendered into Latin:) "The most serene lord John of Austria piously implored the help of the virgin of Palermo, St. Rosalia: and when he had caused her (that is, her painted image) to be carried about through the army in a solemn supplication with applause and devotion, that she might be honoured and venerated by all; a miracle truly stupendous! the contagion ceased immediately, all obtaining perfect health, not only from the contagious evil, but from every other infirmity too, so that after this supplication health flourished nowhere better and more perfectly than in the Catholic army." Thence, by the efforts of Fr. Giuseppe Spucces of the Society of Jesus, a Palermitan and royal preacher, and of the doctor Damiano Bertolo, procurator of the senate of Palermo before the Catholic king, the solemn feast of St. Rosalia was celebrated in the city of Madrid. This fact is narrated also by Auria in the Rosa cælestis, page 110, and by Mancusi in volume 1, page 271.

[434] The city of Barcelona itself too was exposed to the danger of infection through a certain merchant, relics in the island of Majorca. who, as death drew near, disclosed why he had every year solemnly celebrated the festival of St. Rosalia; namely, he had brought precious but infected merchandise into the city, and had sold it there: yet he had invoked St. Rosalia to avert all danger. That this really so happened Mancusi asserts on page 271. Those goods harmed neither the merchant nor those to whom he sold them. But this fact, if it be certain enough, is indeed to be wondered at; but by no means to be imitated. In the year 1683 the greater Balearic island, otherwise called Majorca, received relics of St. Rosalia, which the college of the Society of Jesus possesses in the capital of the same name, as Mancusi narrates more fully in volume 1, page 272. Thus far concerning Spain, where we have already seen in §30 that the cult of St. Rosalia was first received in certain particular dioceses and afterwards promoted throughout the whole kingdom, and through all the dominions subject to the Catholic king. For which cause nothing is to be added about the island of Sardinia, which took up the cult of St. Rosalia at the same time, because it was subject to the king of Spain, although in our century it has received another king.

[435] Of the relics of St. Rosalia carried into Germany Cascinus writes thus on page 400: Relics sent to Vienna to the emperor: Nonetheless they (the Saint's relics) were most dear to the most august emperor Ferdinand, of which he first received some fragments in an elegant case, and held them in the highest honour; and much more so (when he had received) afterwards a signal fragment from the bone of the arm, surrounded on every side with white stone. Mancusi in volume 1, page 261, teaches from letters from Vienna that the aforesaid relics were sent by Urban VIII to Ferdinand II, and that they were afterwards given by the emperor to the professed house of the Society of Jesus at Vienna. Fr. Bernard Gollez, whose that letter is, among other things wrote thus on the 14th of December in the year 1670: But the sacristan asserts that a finger of this Saint was sent in the time of the plague by Ferdinand II, then at Ratisbon, to the House (the professed house at Vienna,) and that from that time the plague has either never or very rarely infested Vienna. And that the first festival of St. Rosalia was celebrated with great splendour at Vienna in the year 1641, he teaches from the annual letters of the aforesaid professed house. Another letter of Fr. Gollez sent to Palermo affirms that St. Rosalia was chosen patroness at Vienna in great dangers of deaths and diseases. Finally, that Vienna was freed from the plague by the Saint's patronage, not only the praised Mancusi affirms, but Vincenzo Auria shows still more clearly in the Rosa cælestis, page 106.

[436] I render into Latin a few things from this contemporary writer. Vienna freed from the plague, Thence, he says, an extraordinary devotion toward the Saint arose through all Germany (namely from Cilli's deliverance from the plague, as we shall presently see), and her veneration grew through the whole empire so much the more because the same deliverance was found out in the city of Vienna in Austria, freed from the contagious evil by the Saint's patronage. Whence in memory of so great a benefit she was acclaimed patroness at Vienna, and in the college (nay rather in the professed house) of the Society of Jesus of that city a costly altar was erected to her name, and in a public place an elegant statue of her, before which every week on Saturday her litanies are most piously sung. Not yet content with these things, the people took care that an image of the Saint should be painted on the doors of their houses in thanksgiving for the miracles wrought by the Saint's patronage during all that time in which the plague lasted in that year (1649, as he hinted before). Nay more, Georg Tecler, a painter of that region, came to fulfil a vow of visiting the cave of St. Rosalia on Mount Peregrino, testifying to the truth of the fact, together with Lorenz Churelich, a German, who came to Palermo to communicate a distinct account of the fact.

[437] as also Cilli: Cilleia, or Celia, commonly Cilley, is the head of a county of the same name in the Austrian circle, and is situated on the border of Styria and Carniola on the river Saan. Concerning this city the praised Auria had premised the following: In this year 1649 the Saint's patronage obtained a stupendous miracle before the Giver of all in the empire of Germany, in the city of Celia in the diocese of Laibach, where so cruel a plague raged that wretched mortals were extinguished by that horrible evil in a great multitude, to the number of sixty thousand. Nothing availed, neither the antidotes of the physicians, nor the diligence of the magistrates, nor prayers or vows made to different Saints. In so pitiable a state the pious bishop of that city fled to the devotion and the patronage of the holy Anchoress of Palermo, Rosalia, of whom he had learned the wonders wrought against the plague in various parts of the world. And so with most sincere tears he vowed that he would build a church to be dedicated to her name and honour, if at his prayers she would turn that great scourge of God away from that city. The pious bishop could not at that time fulfil his vow, because the treasury of the city was wholly exhausted by the expenses made on occasion of the evil. But when a rich person had been freed from that disease, that person had scarcely begun to build at his own expense, when at once the plague prodigiously ceased in the city. For these things the author praises a certain account printed at Palermo in the year 1653; and he subjoins the prayer which he affirms the Germans used, conceived in these Latin words: O God, who didst will that the body of thy handmaid Rosalia, found within the mountains after so many ages, should be a sacred amulet for thy faithful against the raging pestilence; grant to thy suppliants that we who venerate her sacred relics, or rejoice in her commemoration, may also by the intervening of her merits be freed from present dangers, and from the evil of pestilence. Through Christ our Lord.

[438] relics of the Saint at Graz, where she was chosen patroness: Of Græcium, the metropolis of Styria, commonly called Gratz, Cascinus writes that the utmost devotion toward St. Rosalia arose there in the year 1633, as toward her by whose benefit the people of Graz had been freed from the plague. Mancusi in volume 1, page 262, declares the origin of this cult from a manuscript letter of Fr. Wolfgang Reusxen, who wrote various things about it to Palermo in the year 1670, on the 2nd day of December. The origin, he says, of this Blessed one's cult in our church was Fr. Alegambe, who was in the provinces with the prince of Hoggenberg, and about that time the body of blessed Rosalia was found. Namely Fr. Alegambe received relics of St. Rosalia in Sicily, and carried them to Graz, where the city or magistrate at its own expense had an elegant chest made, adorned with silver plates, in which the relics were placed, as the same letter has it, where it is added: And she was chosen as patroness by the city in the time of plague. And since the relics are deposited in the church of the Society of Jesus, the Saint's festival is there solemnly celebrated every year, which is also wont to be done whenever the plague rages, says Fr. Reusxen, adding: And we at the end of the Litanies of all the Saints (which are said daily in the colleges of the Society of Jesus) always pray the prayer of holy Rosalia. Mancusi, from the same letter, but without adducing its words, narrates that outside the city of Graz a church of St. Rosalia was erected by the Congregation of honourable citizens under the title of the Purified Virgin, whither a frequent people resorts, especially on her feast, and some votive offerings are already fixed up there. These things at last Fr. Reusxen subjoins: Now I have learned from the Father Rector that one part of the relics is also in the domestic chapel of Bl. Aloysius, and that the Saint was chosen as patroness by a solemn vow made by the whole city; and that the people of Graz have received very many benefits through the intercession of the Blessed one.

[439] Cascinus writes that relics of St. Rosalia were already in his time at Cologne too, relics likewise at Cologne and Bonn, in the church of the Society of Jesus, and that a chapel of the Saint was erected there. But in Mancusi two Fathers of the Society of Jesus living at Cologne write more of these matters. Fr. Adam Pleikner thus in the year 1670: In the time of plague the Fathers of this college had scattered very many images of her at Cologne, as of a singular patroness against the plague. Fr. Hermann Crombach, relating the same, added that those images had first touched the Saint's relics. And of their use he has it thus: Which, fixed to the doors of houses or of chambers, or carried, with often most happy success, the plague being driven from many dwellings, families, fields *. One of the benefits obtained there I shall relate in the Appendix, chapter 5. Further, there are added there other exercises of piety also, by which in the time of plague the people of Cologne implored the Saint's help. At Bonn in the electorate of Cologne there is a particle of the relics of St. Rosalia; concerning which Fr. Jacob Kritzradt wrote thus to my elders in the year 1671: At Bonn a particle of the relics of St. Rosalia, sent down to us for our comfort and protection, and exposed to public veneration, wonderfully increased piety, while the contagion was spreading through the city.

[440] Of the exceptional piety of the people of Prague toward St. Rosalia Mancusi treats on page 263. and in Hungary Fr. Gaetano Noto communicated some things to me also about other places of Bohemia and Silesia. But since the Saint is venerated as patroness throughout all the kingdoms subject to the August house of Austria, as we saw at number 320, I have wished only to mention those cities of that dominion which had already before embraced the Saint's cult, unless certain singular things should occur to be told. For which cause I shall say nothing about the kingdom of Hungary,

except that relics of St. Rosalia are kept there in at least two places. Tirnavia, a city of Upper Hungary, in this century received relics of St. Rosalia through Fr. Francesco Castiglia of Palermo, of the Society of Jesus, who was penitentiary at Rome, when the rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Tyrnau earnestly sought them, and received them through him, as Mancusi testifies on page 266; where he adds that in a certain part of the dominion of count Esterházy a church of St. Rosalia was founded, and that relics of the Saint were obtained by the aforesaid count in the year 1720. Perhaps the Hungarians afterwards obtained more relics too, who as subjects of the House of Austria venerate the Saint.

[441] The same holds of Transylvania, concerning which the praised Fr. Noto wrote to me thus this year: and Transylvania. While in past years the pestilence was raging through Transylvania and the neighbouring regions, several relics of St. Rosalia were sought for those regions and sent thither. Further, that St. Rosalia was there invoked, and that those peoples felt her help, we have learned from letters sent hither from Vienna. But he neither mentions any particular benefit, nor teaches to what cities the relics were sent. But the pestilence of which he speaks began at the time of the last Turkish war, that is in the year 1737, and raged as fiercely among the soldiers as among the inhabitants of Transylvania and Hungary, especially in the year 1738, but not long after it was allayed and at length wholly taken away.

* Béziers

* Thiers

* Moulins

perhaps ægris* (to the sick)

§ XLI. The cult, relics and benefits of St. Rosalia in Belgium and especially at Antwerp: likewise in Poland and in the island of Malta.

[ ] Relics in Belgium: Into our Belgium too various particles of the relics of St. Rosalia were brought, and her cult began there from the year 1629 at least, when at Antwerp too a brief compendium of her Life was published, represented in various images. Cascinus on page 400 testifies that Fr. Florence de Montmorency, who presided over the Flanders-Belgian province of the Society of Jesus from almost the end of the year 1623 until the year 1627, carried relics of St. Rosalia from Rome into Belgium, but he neither expresses the year nor sets forth to what city they were brought. At Ypres in Flanders the college of the Society of Jesus has for a long time venerated relics of the Saint, as Fr. Louis Verspilt, living in the same college, wrote to me, who also adds that in the church of that college a special Mass is celebrated every year in honour of the Saint, at which there gather the poor girls who are instructed in Christian doctrine in the chapel of the Holy Spirit, of which St. Rosalia is patroness.

[443] some sent to Antwerp, In the year 1629 other relics of St. Rosalia were carried to Antwerp, and there with a solemn rite deposited in the most ornate Chapel of the Sodality of youths under the title of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary, which has there always been continued by one of the Fathers of the Professed house of the Society of Jesus, and flourishes to this day in the number and piety of its sodalists. Fr. Hermann Spruyt, director of the aforesaid Sodality, demanded them; Cascinus gave them at Palermo in the year 1628 with letters patent of D. Francisco de la Riba, archdeacon of Palermo and vicar-general of Cardinal Doria, which are preserved to this day and are fortified with the seal of the most eminent Cardinal, nay even given in his name, so that they ought rather to be called the letters of the Cardinal himself, whose name is prefixed. And those relics Fr. Girolamo la Rocca, procurator of the Sicilian province, sent to the Congregation in that same year 1628, carried to Rome, and there before a notary and many witnesses delivered them to Fr. John de Tollenaere, procurator there of the Flanders-Belgian province, who, the congregation being ended, carried them to Antwerp in the year 1629, together with the aforesaid instrument of Cardinal Doria, and an instrument of delivery made at Rome by a notary, and signed on the 20th of December in the year 1628.

[444] Both instruments I have in hand, [and deposited in the chapel of the Sodality of youths of the professed house of the Society of Jesus] as also the testimony of Fr. John de Tollenaere, which is dated at Antwerp the 3rd of August in the year 1629, and conceived in these words: I the undersigned testify that I received at Rome from Fr. Girolamo Rocca, then procurator of Sicily of the Society of Jesus, the relics of St. Rosalia with the authentic instrument of the most illustrious Cardinal Doria, archbishop of Palermo, and another instrument drawn up before a notary at Rome, and that I delivered all the aforesaid into the hands of Fr. Hermann Spruyt of the same Society. And these testimonies having been seen, and the relics recognized, the most illustrious Jan Malderus, bishop of Antwerp, permitted on the 3rd day of September in the year 1629 that they should be exposed for public veneration in his diocese.

[445] Our Papebroch in the Annals of Antwerp, in manuscript with us, at the year 1629, of the first public honour paid to those relics has it briefly thus: with great solemnity: On the 8th day of September the Sodality of youths, erected some time before under the title of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, solemnly translated from the church of the professed house to its own hall the relics of St. Rosalia the virgin brought from Sicily, the director of the sodality taking care of it, and approved by the most illustrious Malderus in virtue of an instrument signed in the preceding year on the 21st day of June by D. Francisco de la Riba, … certifying that the fragment of bone set in stone (which Fr. Giordano Cascini, provincial of the Society of Jesus in Sicily, was sending to Antwerp to Fr. Hermann Spruyt) was from the relics of Rosalia, virgin of Palermo… Wherefore that Sodality from that time began to propose the same Saint for veneration to our city, as a singular patroness against the plague, and to experience the efficacy of her patronage in many ways. A little before, at the same year, he had written: In the month of August the pestilence arose anew in the city. But afterwards he writes nothing further of that pestilence, except a little in this same place, so that it is credible that the patronage of St. Rosalia profited not only particular persons, but the whole city too.

[446] Further, the Saint's festival is celebrated by the aforesaid Sodality, to which the other Sodality of youths, under the title of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, afterwards joined its devotion, an annual festival with a supplication celebrated there to this day, with great solemnity, and with a supplication instituted through the neighbouring streets of the city, every year on the first Sunday of September: but it has not always been performed in exactly the same manner and order. At this time the order is such. From morning the sacred relics are exposed in the chapel of the Sodality, which is spacious and clothed on every side with elegant marble, and adorned with most precious paintings. Besides other Sacrifices and a sacred sermon on St. Rosalia, a solemn Mass is sung there, a choir of musicians singing in concert: and all the sodalists receive the most holy body of Christ. And after midday at the third hour the relics, accompanied by the sodalists carrying wax candles, are borne to the church of the professed house situated opposite, and there Lauds are solemnly sung: which being ended, a supplication is arranged through various streets of the city, the venerable Sacrament accompanying, and so the relics of St. Rosalia are brought back by a fairly long circuit to the chapel or hall of the Sodality, and there other Lauds again are sung. At last, Lauds being finished, the relics are offered to be kissed by the sodalists and others coming up in great number, and the solemnity is closed. The bishop of Antwerp in the year 1682 granted indulgences of forty days to all who piously visit the relics of St. Rosalia on the said festival, whether in the aforesaid chapel or in the church.

[447] not without fruit perceived by the sodalists in the time of plague: How much fruit of their piety the sodalists of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gather before midday, have perceived, can be gathered from a printed letter in which the other sodalists, under the title of the Assumption, who gather in the same chapel after midday, declare their decree and their reasons for choosing St. Rosalia as patroness, and for celebrating her first festival with a very solemn rite. I render the Flemish words into Latin: By the election of this Patroness the sodalists hope to obtain the favour and happiness which almost all who implore her help attain; and which the sodalists of the Nativity have obtained, of whom, after they began to pursue the sacred bones of this holy Virgin with singular veneration, in the time of the three years' pestilence none died, nay none fell sick, although the number of those sodalists is not far short of five hundred: which benefit, as they piously believe, they obtained by the patronage of her whom before they had honoured and invoked with so many pious exercises. As to the saying that none died or was sick in the whole three years of the pestilence, I suspect it is to be understood of the pestilence alone, although the words are so set down that they seem to exclude other diseases too, and therefore the understanding of the passage is uncertain. For the rest, these sodalists under the title of the Assumption concur with the preceding in celebrating the festival of St. Rosalia, and in adorning her relics, even though otherwise, on account of their too great multitude, there are two different congregations.

[448] [an extraordinary festival performed with fruit in the college of the Society of Jesus:] Papebroch in the praised Annals, at the year 1659, speaks of the same sodalists, when he writes these things to our purpose: But the pestilence raging through the city ever since the previous year, in which the professed house had lost one and another priest, exposed in the service of the infected; and the twofold Marian sodality of youths, one after the other, had exposed its relics of St. Rosalia for public cult in the chapel of the same professed house, not without a special frequency of sacred candles and of joint prayers: this year the Fathers of the college imitated the example, in whose neighbourhood, above the other quarters of the city, the evil was raging. They therefore also exposed in their oratory the statue of that Saint to be publicly venerated, and persuaded all who dwelt round about, as well as the scholars and their parents, to give in their names under her patronage at a solemn Mass, sung for that purpose with Masses continued through the whole morning time, and with a sermon after midday. And from that day in that quarter, where before seventeen had been extinguished by the contagion and thirty stricken, no one was touched; nor anyone from the same college either; where nevertheless in the previously mentioned year two had been extinguished by the plague: but their death had been concealed, lest the Fathers should be either frightened off or hindered from helping their neighbours in the vicinity variously afflicted, not yet having been warned of the danger by public authority.

[449] other relics obtained through Bolland and given to the Saint's chapel, Two other particles of the relics of St. Rosalia our Bolland received from Rome in the year 1637, that of them he might keep one for himself, and deliver the other to four sisters who had professed virginity, distinguished by noble stock and by piety, and by many benefits most well deserving of the professed house of Antwerp, whose name was Houtappel. Those particles were sent to Bolland by Fr. Silvester Petrasancta, known by not a few published little works, they being given by the Reverend Father Francesco Piccolomini, then provincial superior of the Roman province, and afterwards general of the whole Society, who testified that he had received them in Sicily, while he was visitor of that province. Further, when Bolland had died, and three of the four sisters mentioned had also departed this life, Henschen and Papebroch, Bolland's successors, took care that both those particles, D. Anna returning hers to that end,

Houtappel, then ninety years old and blind, and the bishop of Antwerp approving, should be given to the chapel of St. Rosalia already erected before. And this chapel, spacious and elegant, is chiefly used for instructing in Christian doctrine the girls who frequent it in great multitude, as both there and in many other similar chapels is constantly wont to be done on Sundays by some member of the Society of Jesus.

[450] The festival of the translation of St. Rosalia had begun to be solemnly celebrated in the aforesaid chapel, plenary indulgences having been obtained for it, already before the relics were received. where her festival is celebrated every year. But these, given to the chapel in the year 1678, added a new splendour to the festival. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of July with a perpetual offering of Sacrifices before midday; and after midday with a panegyric oration in praise of the Saint, and with Lauds set to music. The venerable Sacrament remains exposed the whole day until evening, when, various prayers having been said first, the benediction is given. Moreover on every Sunday of the year, after the Sacrifice of the Mass has been offered, a prayer in honour of St. Rosalia is joined to the other prayers. For the rest, the devout virgins who both have the care of the chapel and instruct the girls there privately, among whom several are notable for noble stock and wealth, testify that it is an ancient tradition that none of the girls who are instructed there, nor of the sacred virgins who by private instruction usefully prepare them for the common and public instruction, has ever been seized by the contagious evil or the pestilence. Finally another particle from the skull of St. Rosalia was sent to me in the year 1744 with authentic approbation by the often-praised Castiglia, which, brought hither in the year 1745, and again approved in the episcopal curia for public exposition in our church, is to this day preserved on the altar of our Museum, enclosed in a silver case.

[451] Further, from the relics which are preserved in the chapel of the Sodality of the professed house, Meer, a village of Brabant a certain particle was given in the year 1668 to the parish church at Meer. It is a village of the diocese of Antwerp near the borders of Dutch Brabant, and distant about seven or eight hours' journey from Antwerp toward Breda, from which it is less distant. That particle of relics was demanded by the Reverend D. Joannes Gerlacus vanden Bogaert, of the Premonstratensian Order, and parish priest of the place, because he desired to promote further the cult of St. Rosalia in the village of Meer, which in that same year had been freed from pestilence by the Saint's patronage, as he narrates in the letter in which he asks for the aforesaid particle of relics. That letter was written in the Flemish tongue, and is preserved to this day. I shall render into Latin the chief heads, which I transfer hither. He says first that he had long been pressed with the utmost anxiety, Because, he says, the merciful and just Lord chastised us with a contagious disease or pestilence, which lasted about half a year in our community.

[452] Then he testifies that with great danger of his life he administered the Sacraments to the sick, freed from the plague, and he praises God because he wonderfully freed that village from that evil, attributing this chiefly to the patronage of St. Rosalia: For, he says, after on the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, falling on the 9th day of September, we carried about through our village in a long train of suppliants the painted image of St. Rosalia, which for more than a year had been honoured with great devotion in our church; we have experienced that from that day none has died or fallen sick of the pestilence. Everyone noticed this with great wonder: and from that day our community has shown itself ever more and more devoted and pious toward St. Rosalia. Finally he adds that for this cause he desires and demands a part of the relics. And that the matter was so carried out, not only did the parish priest mentioned testify with his subscribed name, but the same was testified also by his vicar, D. Paschasius Michaël van Gessel of the same Premonstratensian Order, as also by five others of the chief men of that village, whose names are read subscribed to the letter as those of witnesses.

[453] [and therefore a particle of the Antwerp relics was sent thither, and a festival of the Saint instituted.] The alleged and attested reason moved the Reverend Father François l'Hermite, superior of the professed house, to allow the relics of the Marian Sodality to be divided, the bishop of Antwerp approving, and to give a part of them to the aforesaid church of the village of Meer. The testimonial of the donation, fortified with the seal of the Reverend Father Superior, is preserved even now in the aforesaid parish, and the present pastor at Meer, likewise of the Premonstratensian Order, the Very Reverend D. Antonius Ophals, most courteously sent it to us. I subjoin the words: I the undersigned superior of the professed house of the Society of Jesus make it hereby attested that this white particle of a bone of St. Rosalia, taken from the chest of her relics which are exposed for public veneration in the Sodality of youths instituted under the title of the Virgin's Nativity in the same house, and with the consent of the officers and director of the same Sodality, has been given to the church of the village of Meer, at the request of the Very Reverend Lord pastor Joannes vanden Bogaert of the Premonstratensian Order, that it may serve the devotion of the people as an antidote against the plague in times to come. In faith of which I have written and subscribed these with my own hand, and fortified them with the seal of my office. At Antwerp, the 29th of November 1668. It was subscribed, François l'Hermite. The approbation of the bishop of Antwerp with the faculty of exposing the said relics is read lower down in the same paper, which is fortified also with the episcopal seal. It cannot be doubted that those relics were solemnly received at Meer; but the memory of that solemnity has not been preserved. But of the annual festival the above-praised pastor of that church, Antonius Ophals, writes thus: That feast is celebrated among us yearly with plenary indulgences, with a great concourse of people and a public supplication; namely on the 4th day of September itself, if it be a Sunday; but otherwise on the first Sunday after the aforesaid day.

[354] Relics carried to Cracow, The most ample kingdom of Poland received relics of St. Rosalia in the year 1630, and in the same year began to venerate her, a brief compendium of her Life being also printed, as Cascinus reports on page 400. In the praised Compendium published at Cracow these things are read toward the end: In which (year 1630) also a part of her rib, enclosed in a stony crust and joined to a part of another bone, obtained by the care of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus from the kingdom of Sicily through Giordano Cascini of the same Society (who had been present at the finding of the sacred body, and was then head of his Order as provincial in that island), was brought to Cracow in this same 1630, on the 25th day of the month of July, with public credentials: and then on the 21st day of the month of September of the same year was exposed in the church of St. Barbara, of the professed house of the Society of Jesus, to the public honours of the faithful, the ecclesiastical magistrate willing and approving, as a healthful amulet against the dangers of the impending epidemic. To these things Cascinus adds that the festival was celebrated on the 4th day of September in the aforesaid church of St. Barbara, and afterwards continued every year. Moreover he asserts that the contagious evil showed itself in certain houses of Cracow, but by the favour of St. Rosalia suddenly ceased. Mancusi in volume 1, page 267, praising two Polish authors, narrates that the aforesaid relics are not only exposed for the veneration of the faithful every year, in a precious silver case, but are also from time to time carried about in a train of suppliants in a time of public calamity. And that relics of the same Saint are preserved also in the College of Cracow, he teaches from the manuscripts of Fr. Giovanni Scorso.

[455] At Warsaw too, where the court of the kings of Poland is wont to be, and sent to Warsaw to the queen of Poland. relics of St. Rosalia are preserved, which Cascinus reports were received by the queen with the highest honour. That they are deposited there in the royal chapel, the praised Mancusi says, who on the testimony of Fr. Alexander Saivichi asserts that the festival is there celebrated with great solemnity. Nay, he affirms that she was chosen as patroness by the kingdom of Poland in the time of plague, but without a witness. Perhaps this ought to be understood of some particular church, not of the kingdom: for that writer, although he proceeds in good faith, is nevertheless from time to time deceived, while he indulges too much his love toward St. Rosalia, asserting some things from slight conjectures, or exaggerating beyond the truth, so that I would not always dare to have sure faith in his assertions, unless he assigns the sources from which he drew. Nevertheless we cannot doubt that devotion toward St. Rosalia was widely spread through Poland on account of the Life published there: but we do not know whether the festival is celebrated in several other places.

[456] When in the year 1676 the island of Malta was labouring under a grievous pestilence, Malta freed from the plague, and relics sent thither: relics of St. Rosalia were requested, and obtained with such success that the plague was immediately extinguished. Mancusi narrates this briefly in volume 1, page 410, adducing the words of Lorenzo Hasiac, a physician of Malta, from his little work on The last Maltese plague, which is not at hand to me. But this writer in Mancusi has it thus: All began to extol St. Rosalia, virgin of Palermo, the love of the whole world, and set against this plague by the rosy fragrance in which she is strong, and to celebrate her patronage together. From the same author, I suppose, Mancusi relates in Italian what I render into Latin: After the relics of St. Rosalia, obtained as a gift of the senate of Palermo by the Jerusalemite (or Maltese) knights, had been shown from a lofty place by the grand Prior of St. John (of the Order of Malta), and the Saint invoked with the prayers, tears and vows of the whole people of Malta, there followed at once, at the fragrance of this Rose, a prodigious ceasing of the evil. The same author on page 273 affirms that for this cause not only did an annual festival of the Saint begin to be celebrated in the island of Malta, but she was also chosen as special patroness of the island: and moreover that a precious cross was sent as a gift, that the Saint's statue on Mount Peregrino might be adorned with it; and a silver lamp to the chapel in which the sacred body of the Virgin rests at Palermo.

[457] Amatus, already often praised, in his Work on The Chief Church, page 244, writes thus of these things: therefore the Saint was chosen patroness by the Maltese knights. For Malta, labouring under the plague in (the year) 1676, the senate (of Palermo) granted the Rosy (that is, St. Rosalia's) bone, enclosed in a silver chest, to Gregorio Carafa, a Neapolitan, Prior of Roccella: on the 22nd of June 1676 Nicolò Cotoner, grand master (of the Order of Malta), received it, and in M (perhaps the month of) Sept., after the plague was immediately extinguished, carried it about through the city in a solemn supplication, together with other relics of the Saints, brought out from the treasury of the Order. Thereafter, the eucharistic hymn being finished, by the unanimous vote of the sacred council he chose her among the patrons of his Religion and of Valletta (the city where the supreme master of the Order resides), binding the Order to celebrate every year solemn Vespers, and a pontifical Mass on the 22nd of June at her translation. For these things he praises Pozzo in his History of the Jerusalemite Religion, volume 2, book 8, folio 448: and then subjoins: Carafa, succeeding Cotoner, in 1680, sending a great golden cross, taken from his own breast, willed that the Saint's statue should be covered with a silver garment, which the offerings of princes adorn and load.

§ XLII. Francesco Castiglia, healed by an evident miracle, promotes the Saint's cult in Portugal: the viceroy of India, likewise healed, begins the same in India.

The wonderful healing of Francesco Castiglia, After the middle of the seventeenth century the cult of St. Rosalia penetrated also into Portugal and India, chiefly by the work of Fr. Francesco Castiglia of the Society of Jesus, who had been suddenly and prodigiously healed by the Saint, while, after finishing the Society's novitiate, he was studying Logic in the college of Palermo. The matter was narrated at length in the same year 1663 in which it happened, and an account published in print with the approbation of the archbishop of Palermo. Many writers afterwards inserted the same history in their little works. Wherefore I set first a brief account of the miracle, which Johannes Nadasi of the Society of Jesus wrote in a little work entitled: A year of the memorable days of the Society of Jesus, that I may then briefly add certain things omitted by him. The praised writer on page 369, at the 10th of August, has it thus: On the tenth day of August in the year 1663, at Palermo, Francesco Castiglia of Palermo, a religious scholastic of the Society of Jesus, when he was already almost giving up the ghost, seemed to himself, before a tribunal of immense light, to be looked upon with kindly countenance by the Mother of God, our holy Father Ignatius, and our holy Father Xavier, who were present there: his guardian angel too, as it were embracing him as he lay in his little bed, and speaking to him of the most holy Eucharist piously received. St. Rosalia the virgin drew nearer to the sick man's bed from on high, and: "Francesco," she said, "thou must have died now: and I have obtained health for thee from God, if thou wilt have it: it will be to the greater glory of God. Make a vow in the manner which I shall dictate to thee." Then in Latin she led the way in these words; the sick man too pronouncing each word as he heard it from her: "I vow that I, thy servant, will in my life promote thy praise and glory in the whole world." The Saint added in Italian: "Thou shalt come on foot to my cave; and shalt be piously refreshed with holy Communion: and take heed that thou fulfil that which is to the greater glory of God." And after a little: "Now," she said, "thou art whole": and she ceased to be seen, Francesco being left so whole that he felt no trace of pain or of weakness. All these things were fully described, examined, and duly approved by the most illustrious and most reverend archbishop of Palermo Pedro Martínez, published more than once in various printings, praised in sermons, engraved in copper at Palermo and at Rome, and narrated to me piece by piece at Rome by Francesco himself. Thus far Nadasi, briefly comprehending the chief heads of the healing.

[459] Now receive from the longer narration certain circumstances. whose circumstances are set forth: Francesco Castiglia was eighteen years old, and had for two years laboured under a dangerous disease, which all call the malady of the heart. That evil had so increased from the 7th day of August until the 10th of the same month that the most holy Body of Christ our Lord was administered to him as viaticum on the night between the 9th and the 10th, and a little after he began to lack all sense: in which state extreme Unction was given him, and the ordinary prayers for the dying recited. And in the dying man's chamber were images of the most holy Virgin, of Sts. Ignatius and Francis Xavier, and relics of St. Rosalia. There were present with the sick man on that night three priests also, namely Filadelfo Vairello, minister of the college, Giovanni Scorso, and Pietro Maria Grimaldi, to whom was added Giuseppe Candone, a hearer of theology and near to the priesthood, besides the brothers who attended the sick. All these indeed vehemently desired the sick man's life, but expected nothing but death; when suddenly about the sixth hour of the night he raised himself half-upright in the bed, and with a glad face opened his eyes, and said in a clear voice, Holy Rosalia. The bystanders saw nothing but the lively and pious movements of Francesco, who spread out his arms gently in the air and closed them again. Nor did they hear any voice but his own; and the bystanders did not hear even all the things which he reported he had said, namely because he uttered them with too low a voice, or rather with an inward affection than with an articulate voice. Yet those present heard all the words of the vow related above, which he so uttered that he seemed to be distinctly repeating words uttered by another.

[460] But it is well to hear Francesco himself, whose Italian words I shall only put into Latin: the vision offered to the dying man, I had been brought, he says, to the term of death, when I seemed to be before the tribunal of God. That Majesty stood in a place lofty and so splendid that the splendour darkened me. At the right side was the most holy Virgin, conspicuous for wonderful beauty and clothed with a mantle of sky-blue colour. Near the most holy Virgin, yet in a lower place, stood the virgin St. Rosalia, my singular patroness, turned somewhat toward the throne of God, herself too most beautiful and most splendid, clothed in a garment white and picked out with roses. There were besides on the one side my holy father Ignatius in priestly habit, and on the other side the holy father Francis Xavier in the guise of a preacher. These glorious Saints all looked upon me with a glad countenance and in a most loving manner, as it were encouraging me and adjudging heaven to me: which thing greatly strengthened and consoled me. As for me, I seemed to myself to be on bended knees, and at my right side I saw standing my guardian angel in the shape of a very comely and winged youth. I saw the demon too, but in a place far off, cast down on the ground and greatly confounded. I seemed to myself to be about to be judged at once, and with humble submission I awaited at every moment the divine sentence.

[461] Then St. Rosalia the virgin drew near to me, and said to me: and the vow pronounced by him in the vision, "Francesco, thou must have died now: and I have obtained health for thee from God, if thou wilt have it: it will be to the greater glory of God." I in that case was inclined to die, on account of the certainty which I had conceived in my mind that I should go to see God in glory. Nevertheless with a certain inward reluctance I answered that that should be done which conduced to the greater glory of God. But she, coming nearer, said to me: "Make a vow in the manner which I shall dictate to thee." And I, wondering that the Saint should deign to come near to me, subjoined: "St. Rosalia to me?" But she began to dictate the formula of the vow, pronouncing each word separately little by little, and with a low voice in this manner: "I vow that I, thy servant, will in my life promote thy praise and glory in the whole world." As regards the sense which arose in my mind when I repeated those last words, it was a promise of taking care that the glory of St. Rosalia should be spread abroad in whatever part of the world I should be, even in the Indies, by desire of which I had at another time felt myself spurred, and presently, the spur being increased, I included in the vow a request to be laid before my superiors about going to those parts. The vow being pronounced, the Virgin subjoined: "Thou shalt come on foot to my cave, and shalt be piously refreshed with holy communion: and take heed that thou fulfil that which is to the greater glory of God." I felt my soul at that time melting with sweetness: and I came to embrace and kiss her holy feet, and did in fact kiss them: and I observed that they were bare, white, soft, and with an almost natural warmth.

[462] and there followed in a single moment a complete healing, After all these things I saw that she looked upon me with kindly eyes, and I took courage to say this: "Glorious Saint, no one will believe me, and therefore there will be no glory to thee from this great miracle, if thou dost not give me some sign." To this, on the same authority, the Saint answered: "To thee, while thou wast dying, Fr. Grimaldi administered extreme Unction, and they have already recited for thee the prayers for the dying; and some of the bystanders, touching thee, judged that no hope of life remained." This was her answer, and it fully satisfied me, because, as I attest by a new oath, I knew nothing of those circumstances. After this I again kissed her feet: and she, saying to me, Be now whole, ceased to be seen, leaving behind a fragrance so sweet that I cannot liken it to any earthly odour, although I perceived it for about a quarter of an hour, when I was entirely healed: and believing that it was perceived by Fr. Giovanni Scorso my confessor, I questioned him about it. Then I suddenly raised myself in the bed, saying: I am whole, no trace being left me of pain, of weakness, or of anything else which after my accustomed malady always remained over to me. I at once wrote down the fact briefly with my own hand, my said spiritual father commanding it: without anyone's help I clothed myself, and on bended knees with the bystanders gave thanks to the holy Virgin for the favour received. In the morning time in the church I went with the rest to Communion in the chapel of St. Rosalia. Then I remained on my knees without any discomfort for the space of about an hour. For the rest, in all this account it is well to observe that I was perfectly in possession of my mind, and that I reasoned and thought attentively when the Saint was speaking or I was answering, and that I knew perfectly well that of her kindness she was restoring health to me. Thus far Francesco himself, who three days later visited on foot the cave of St. Rosalia, and at once began to perform all the exercises of religion with the rest, as others relate more fully, testifying that a new fervour of spirit had been given him too: of which they probably could have said more, and doubtless would have said it, had they written after his death.

[463] Further, the Fathers of Palermo were unwilling that so great a benefit of St. Rosalia, the miracle approved by the bishop of Palermo: obtained by so evident a miracle, should lack due approbation and confirmation, but they brought the matter to the archiepiscopal curia, from which, after the witnesses were heard and the matter diligently examined, a decree came forth, whose title is this: Decree of the most illustrious and most reverend lord, D. Pedro Martínez Rubio, archbishop of Palermo, domestic prelate and assistant of our most holy lord the lord Pope Alexander VII, and of the councils of state of the Catholic Majesty, etc. And the sentence passed was such: Jesus. We say, pronounce, decree and declare that Francesco Castiglia, a cleric religious of the Society of Jesus, of whom this process treats, was miraculously delivered from his disease and restored to health, and that such health, suddenly recovered through the intercession of St. Rosalia the virgin, came about supernaturally and miraculously, and ought to be judged a true miracle, and may be published: and as a miracle we approve, declare and authorize it, by the counsel of the undersigned doctors both of sacred theology and of canon law, in every better manner.

Peter, archbishop.

Doctor of Sacred Theology and of both Laws, the cantor D. Giovanni Antonio Geloso, abbot of St. Nicholas lo Reale of the city of Mazara, vicar and visitor general.

Doctor of Sacred Theology and of both Laws, D. Simone Fimia, abbot of St. Lucy of Noto, vicar general for pious causes, royal visitor general for his Sacred Catholic Majesty of the bishoprics of Cefalù and Patti.

Doctor of Sacred Theology and of both Laws, D. Giovanni Battista Bongiorno, Apostolic protonotary, and rector of the parish church of St. Anthony.

Fr. Angelo of Polizzi, of the Order of Minors.

Fr. Pietro of St. Hippolytus, Discalced Carmelite.

Tommaso Tamburini, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Palermo.

Pietro Salerno of the Society of Jesus. Thus far of the healing of Francesco, plainly prodigious, but asserted and confirmed by such reasons and authorities that I doubt whether heretics, haters of miracles, are to be found so imprudent as to dare to call this fact into doubt or to deny it before prudent men.

[464] But what afterwards became of Francesco Castiglia, Francesco, healed, comes to Rome that he may set out for the Indies: and in what way he promoted the glory of St. Rosalia, Mancusi narrates in volume 2 of his little work, helped to it by the letters which Francesco himself wrote to his brother, D. Bartolomeo Castiglia, illustrious not only by noble stock, but also by many titles and offices. It will be enough for me to transfer hither briefly the chief heads of the account. First, very many thanks were rendered to God and to St. Rosalia, and the miracle published through all Europe, as may be seen more fully on page 12 and following. Secondly, Castiglia, having sought the faculty of setting out for India and it having been granted by Giovanni Paolo Oliva, superior general of the Society of Jesus, departed from Palermo to Naples with that intention on the 8th day of October in the year 1664; and thence to Rome. In this affair the divine providence shone forth: for the superior general, moved by the prayers of Francesco's illustrious parents, wished to defer the mission, and to that end wrote to Palermo; but that letter was brought after Francesco had departed: and the same happened again at Naples: for there too the command to stay arrived too late. And so, since the Father general attributed these things to the divine disposition, he judged that the faculty of setting out, once given, was not to be revoked, but confirmed, as in fact he ratified it at Rome.

[465] where he has the Saint painted as she had appeared: Castiglia stayed at Rome for some months, nor was occasion lacking there for promoting the glory of St. Rosalia: for since he was of illustrious stock, and had become better known by his famous healing, he was visited by persons of the first rank, to whom, candidly narrating his healing, he tried to instil devotion toward St. Rosalia. Among others the most serene duke of Bavaria commanded a certain German Father who had gone to Rome to learn the fact from Francesco's own mouth, and then report it to him. Francesco, using that occasion, sent to the most serene duke an image of St. Rosalia with prayers written on it, to whom that little gift was most pleasing. Meanwhile Castiglia laboured diligently that he might have the Saint's face, such as he had seen it, expressed with the brush: and at length he obtained it. For on the 20th of December of the same year 1664 he wrote thus from Rome to D. Giuseppe Castiglia his father: After long labours I have obtained from a most skilful painter the face of St. Rosalia, as she appeared to me, and it is most like. I hope it will be finished this morning: from this prototype I shall have another copy painted, which I shall send to thee, that thou mayest have it in memory of me. That image remained in the illustrious house of Castiglia or del Castillo, and is now with the Reverend Father Ignazio Stanislao Castiglia, who has discharged the office of provincial of the Sicilian province, and is superior of the professed house of Palermo, who has already often been praised in these Acts, and can never be praised enough for the unusual courtesy and diligence with which he has striven to gather records from every side, and both by himself and through his subordinates most courteously to send them to me, and to illustrate them diligently with annotations. And the effigy, elegantly copied from the aforesaid archetype, which he sent us, I here exhibit engraved in copper.

[466] this painting is preserved to this day: its figure is given here. Further, after the praised image these words are read written on the panel: With this face, in this garment, but far more beautiful, St. Rosalia in the year 1663, in the month of August, on the 9th day, at the seventh hour, showed herself to be seen by Francesco Del-Castillo, in the nineteenth year of his age and the fifth of the Society of Jesus, while amid lamentation he was giving up the ghost, with the Virgin Mary leading, together with Sts. Ignatius and Xavier, in the sight of the most august Triad, the demon being already terrified: and at once by her help and address he was restored to life. And when at Rosalia's bidding he had vowed that he would promote her praise and glory in the whole world, and was hastening to the Indies to fulfil his vows, he sent to his excellent father D. Giuseppe at Palermo this very effigy, almost most like to the Saint whom he had seen, painted at Rome, by a divine counsel perhaps, and obtained by chance: which the house of Del-Castillo will for ever wish to have as it were a tutelary deity. The just-praised Fr. Ignazio Stanislao Castiglia noted that the aforesaid image was painted after a certain effigy of the most blessed Virgin Mary, which Francesco Castiglia had seen by chance at Rome, and in which he had recognized the very face of Rosalia as she once appeared to him.

[467] Further, Francesco Castiglia departed from Rome into Portugal, Castiglia stirs up piety toward St. Rosalia in Portugal; and being brought to Lisbon went to the king of Portugal, who wished to hear from his own mouth the miracle wrought at Palermo, and having piously venerated the relics of St. Rosalia, kindly received also her image offered by Francesco. Nay more, he said, as Mancusi testifies on page 18: I will that from this time this wonder-working Virgin be held and acknowledged as patroness of my kingdom. Moreover the wife of the count of Castelmelhor, who was one of the chief ministers of the kingdom, and his eldest son lay sick of a dangerous disease, and, the relics of St. Rosalia being applied, in a short time obtained health, the physicians wondering, as the same author writes, saying that other benefits too were obtained through St. Rosalia in Portugal. One he relates by name much in this manner. At Scalabis (it is a town of Portugal on the Tagus, commonly called Santarém) a poor woman was tormented with dreadful pains through her whole body. Castiglia, passing that way, blessed her with the relics of St. Rosalia, and presently she was freed from all pain. From these things it is clear enough that devotion toward St. Rosalia was stirred up in Portugal by Francesco Castiglia: and that it was continued there is established from the fragment of a letter of the year 1721, which Mancusi recites on page 19: yet it does not hence become certain whether an annual festival was also celebrated there in any place, or is now celebrated.

[468] In the year 1666 Castiglia was ordained priest at Lisbon, [while he sails to India, the viceroy is healed by a vow, and Castiglia, devoting himself for him, dies:] and thence in the same year departed with other Fathers of the Society of Jesus for India, carried in a Portuguese ship. In the same ship was carried the new viceroy of India D. João Nunes, count of St. Vincent, who greatly esteemed and loved Fr. Francesco. But when they were near the Cape of Good Hope, the plague invaded the fleet and the viceroy's own ship. The viceroy himself, being touched by the pestilence, was brought to such a pass that the physicians despaired of his life. In this case there shone forth the charity of Fr. Francesco Castiglia, who with humble prayer offered to God the remainder of his own life, that the viceroy's life might be preserved longer. That this was done the viceroy himself and Fr. Grimaldi, superior of the mission and Fr. Francesco's confessor, attested by letter. The thing happened as Castiglia had asked, and in this manner. The viceroy was about to receive the most holy Sacrament as viaticum by the hands of Fr. Francesco; when the latter first admonished him to vow that he would build an elegant church of St. Rosalia at Goa and endow it with revenues for a perpetual Mass, if he should be healed by the Saint's patronage. The viceroy pronounced that vow and confirmed it by oath, with such an outcome that he was at once freed from fever, vomiting and pestilential pustules, and in a moment obtained perfect health. On the contrary Fr. Francesco Castiglia was at once seized by a deadly malady, and having given thanks to God and to St. Rosalia for his prayers being heard, with wonderful piety received the last helps of the dying, and calmly rendered his spirit to his Creator on the 27th of August in the year 1666, in the flagship, whose name was Santa Teresia. More of these things may be seen in Mancusi, volume 2, page 20 and following.

[469] the cult of St. Rosalia promoted in India by the viceroy. But the viceroy, brought afterwards to Goa by a happy voyage, presently took care that an elegant church of St. Rosalia should be built on a mountain near Goa. The first festival of the Saint there was celebrated with great apparatus on the 4th day of September, probably in the year 1667, Vespers being solemnly sung on the vigil, the 3rd of September, as Mancusi relates more fully on page 26 and following. That first festival was honoured by the conversion of ten, partly boys, partly girls, who at the time of the divine Office all together with a loud voice demanded the grace of baptism. On all the girls the name of Rosalia was imposed, which the viceroy strove to make common to many, revenues being assigned for the dowry of poor girls who should bear that name. For the rest, that viceroy strove until his death to promote the cult of St. Rosalia. To this end he established a perpetual Mass and an annual festival with sufficient income, and endowed the church both with precious furnishings and with relics of St. Rosalia received from Fr. Castiglia, so that he showed by the fact itself that he had been substituted for the praised Father to promote the Saint's glory in India.

§ XLIII. The rest concerning the cult, relics and benefits of St. Rosalia in America and Africa.

[ ] The cult of the Saint in Brazil, Into America too the cult of St. Rosalia penetrated; nor is that wonderful concerning the kingdoms and provinces of America which are under the dominion of the Catholic king, since the Saint's cult is common to all the subjects of the king of the Spains; but it is more to be wondered at concerning the other provinces of America. That the name of St. Rosalia is famous through all Brazil, which obeys the king of Portugal, Mancusi shows in volume 2, part 4, §13, alleging the words of Fr. Antonio Maria Bonucci of the Society of Jesus, who dwelt long in Brazil, and published there the Life of the same Saint in the Portuguese tongue. He testifies that the name of Rosalia is frequently given to girls in baptism, that the anchoretic garment is worn by many in her honour, that a pious congregation was erected under the title of St. Rosalia, and finally that benefits of every kind are reported by the inhabitants, which they refer as received from the patronage of the same Saint. There is added Fr. Alessandro Perier, who once governed the province of Brazil of the Society of Jesus as Provincial, and returning into Italy administered the college of Faenza as rector: for he affirms that in the metropolis of Brazil itself the Saint's festival is celebrated every year on the 4th day of September in the college of the Society of Jesus. That city, once episcopal, now archiepiscopal, is everywhere called by Latin writers Soteropolis, and is the head of the Bay of All Saints and of the whole kingdom, commonly São Salvador da Bahia de todos os Santos.

[471] in Peru, and in other kingdoms of America: That devotion toward St. Rosalia is very great in the kingdom of Peru was testified by Fr. Sebastián Morales of the Society of Jesus, sent to Rome by his province as procurator, asserting that her Life was published there too in the Spanish tongue. And since he greatly desired some particle of the relics of the same Saint, he obtained it, as Mancusi testifies, who spoke with him at Rome, through a certain Sicilian Father, promising that those relics, as soon as he had come to Lima, should be enclosed in a precious case and to public

veneration exposed. So Mancusi, who presently in §4 goes on to show the cult of St. Rosalia through the New kingdom of Granada, through New Spain and through the other provinces of America subject to the Spaniards. But since there can be no doubt concerning the Saint's cult in the dominions of the king of Spain, I shall only briefly indicate some benefits which are said to have been obtained in those most ample regions, passing over the chapels, churches, and other signs of cult, which may be found in Mancusi himself, and are probably multiplied every year. For this cause too I shall say nothing about the kingdom of Chile, although from a letter of Fr. Karl Haimbhausen, who was sent to Europe as procurator of the Chilean province of the Society of Jesus, I have learned in this very year 1746 that St. Rosalia is there held in great veneration.

[472] Emerita, or Merida, as it is commonly called, various things there is one city of New Spain in the province of Yucatan, another of the New kingdom of Granada. In this latter a contagious evil had so prevailed that it infected all the houses. It is said to have spared one house alone, whose owner had an image of St. Rosalia and was devoted to her. This account was given in writing by Fr. Saverio Joppolo, a Palermitan Jesuit, who had long laboured in America for the conversion of the infidels, and returning thence died at Palermo in the professed house. On the same authority, when for the first time the Saint's festival was celebrated at the Shrine of St. John, the image of St. Rosalia being carried about in a train of suppliants, there presently disappeared innumerable locusts, which for four or five years had afflicted the territory of the city with great damage. It is not sufficiently clear to me what that Shrine of St. John may be, since there are various ones in America; and since Mancusi writes San Gioan Girone, which expressed in that way I nowhere find. But it is enough that the fact is established. Moreover Mancusi narrates on page 41 that in New Biscay in the year 1716 a village was established to which the name of St. Rosalia was given, as also to the chief church built in it: and that the people of that village were immune from the contagious evil which was raging round about: and that no other remedy was employed against the evil than water consecrated by the relics of St. Rosalia, which they drank. Further, relics of the Saint had been carried thither by Fr. Luigi Mancusi, a Sicilian of the Society of Jesus, who is there said, on page 43, both to have gathered the inhabitants of the village and by the same relics to have stilled a dreadful storm. For all these things a letter of Fr. Francesco Sanfilippo is praised, given at Mexico in the month of November of the year 1723.

[473] Of New Galicia Mancusi relates various things on the testimony of Fr. Francesco Maria Gravina, in different provinces a missionary of the Society of Jesus in America, which I shall transfer hither in summary. There are found in the province mentioned two towns or villages in which the care of promoting the faith has been entrusted to the Augustinian Fathers. The name of one is la Barca, of the other Ocotlán. This latter place is found marked on the geographical maps not far from Guadalajara, the metropolis of New Galicia, whence it is gathered that the former too is in the same neighbourhood. And in this Ocotlán the following is narrated to have happened in the year 1706. The smallpox, a known evil chiefly of children, though it sometimes spares no age, was bringing death to many men in Ocotlán. For this cause a certain woman devoted to St. Rosalia took care that two votive Masses should be sung in her honour, and other prayers joined to them. And the second Mass having been sung on the 28th day of June, the plague wholly ceased, as the Spanish account has it, which here designates the smallpox by the name of plague, because the evil is contagious: for before it had clearly named birvelas or virvelas, that is, the smallpox. Further, the pious woman who took care that those Masses should be celebrated for the whole people, implored the Saint's help especially for one girl dying of smallpox, visiting either her image or a place sacred to her, which is not distinctly said; and happily obtained for her life and healing.

[474] benefits obtained; That Spanish writing adds that a boy, named Miguel, whom his father Tomás López de Resamano had accounted as good as dead, recovered from the smallpox in the village of la Barca, where an image of St. Rosalia had been sent to him by the same woman and the most holy sacrifice of the Mass offered: and that a woman too named Juana, labouring under fevers and smallpox, there implored the patronage of St. Rosalia, and happily recovered. Finally, that when by excessive drought the crops in those places were endangered, a votive Mass of St. Rosalia was celebrated at Ocotlán, and presently abundant rain was obtained, by which the danger was dispelled, the same Spanish writing teaches in Mancusi, pages 44 and 45. The praised author then heaps up much concerning the exceptional veneration of St. Rosalia in various provinces of New Spain, especially in that of Michoacán and in that of Mexico. But since I have resolved to collect only the Saint's benefits, because the cult common to all is established from elsewhere, it will be enough for me to render into Latin the Italian words of Fr. Francesco Sanfilippo. Here at Mexico, he says, there is great devotion (toward St. Rosalia), and the graces and miracles are innumerable. Whole families, while a certain contagious evil prevailed, were freed from the infirmity by the Saint's water; that is, by drinking water into which relics had been put.

[475] also in California, California was not yet well enough known when it already received the first seeds of the faith, and the cult of St. Rosalia. It was once believed to be a very large island of Northern America. But that error was happily detected in the year 1701 by Fr. Eusebio Francesco Kino, a German missionary of the Society of Jesus, who on a journey of three years through Northern America, after he had crossed two rivers, namely the Blue river and the Coloured river, by which California is separated from New Mexico, at last wondered to find himself in California, as is more fully related in the French little work entitled Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, in the dedicatory letter prefixed to the fifth collection of letters, and is shown in the geographical map of California inserted in the same volume. But a description of California does not belong here, but the cult of St. Rosalia happily introduced into that most vast province, as appears from the map just praised, in which, among others, a village of St. Rosalia is found marked. And the cult of this Saint there was chiefly begun to be stirred up by Fr. Francesco Maria Picolo, a Sicilian missionary of the Society of Jesus, who was among the first to begin to propagate the faith in California, as may be seen in volume 5 of the Letters just praised, from page 248, where he wrote a full account of the whole mission of California to the senate of Guadalajara. The same man wrote to Fr. Pietro Reggio, superior of the Sicilian province, that he chiefly attributed to the patronage of St. Rosalia the abundant fruits gathered in his mission.

[476] From Sicily there afterwards set out for California Fr. Ignazio Marini of the same Society, who carried thither with him relics of St. Rosalia which he had received, as Mancusi testifies on page 51. whither relics of the Saint were carried. And afterwards he wrote to his brother Fr. Francesco Marini that he had the care of three villages in the neighbouring parts of California, and that all his subjects were under the patronage of St. Rosalia, to whose favour he set down as received the fact that, when a dreadful contagion was raging in all those parts, no one of those three villages had been seized by the evil. For the rest, that when a contagious evil prevailed a few years ago in New Spain, St. Rosalia was the refuge of many, and that there was great piety toward her on account of that same evil at Puerto Príncipe, a town of the island of Cuba, commonly Porto del Principe, Fr. Giuseppe Saverio Alagna wrote from Havana in the year 1740 to Fr. Gaetano Noto, who shared the letter with me. What has been said thus far of America shows that St. Rosalia is there held in much veneration, and is greatly beneficent toward her clients: which suffices for our purpose.

[477] Not even Africa, though it numbers fewer Christians than the other parts of the world, In Africa also is wholly destitute of the cult and benefits of St. Rosalia. Of the city of Exilissa, which by the Spaniards is called Ceuta, there can be no doubt that the Saint is venerated there, since it has long been subject to the king of Spain. But it is more to be wondered at that honour is paid to the same Saint not by Christians only, but even by Mahometan Moors. Mancusi asserts in volume 2, page 53, that at Tunis there is a prodigious spring, whose name is St. Rosalia's, and that by drinking that water health is restored to the sick, not only to Christians, but to Mahometans too. For the truth of the fact he praises Fr. Francesco Raimondi, who had long been a missionary in the kingdom of Tunis, and whom he often heard relating it. And so of the well itself, restoring health to the sick by its waters, it does not seem that one can prudently doubt. But perhaps some will doubt whether the health usually obtained by those who drink should not rather be attributed to the natural power of that water than to any miracle, since in other places too healthful springs are found; and since the name of St. Rosalia alone does not suffice for believing that the infirmity is driven away by her benefit rather than by the healthfulness of the water; especially since it is unknown whence that power of healing arose in the aforesaid spring; and it is only said by conjecture that something perhaps from the Saint's tomb or relics was thrown into it. And so, that anything certain might be settled about those healings, there would be need of a diligent examination instituted on the spot.

[478] Further, in the building or prison in which the Christian slaves at Tunis are shut up by night, St. Rosalia is venerated and is beneficent. there is a chapel and altar of St. Rosalia, in which the divine offices are performed, and the Saint's festival is celebrated every year, and indeed with magnificent apparatus, to the cost of which not only Christians but Mahometans too contribute, if we believe Mancusi, who asserts that the king of Tunis himself once furnished something toward the cost of that festival, praising as witness for all these things the aforementioned Fr. Francesco Raimondi. He adds, on the testimony of Fr. Michelangelo Haghius, who was that Father's companion in the mission, that the pestilence, although it often prevails at Tunis, was never in that prison of the Christians, called St. Rosalia's: which seems truly a very great and wonderful benefit, if we attend to the multitude of slaves who inhabit that place, and who are doubtless exposed to the greater danger in a time of contagion the more narrowly they are shut in for their number. What has been said thus far of the Saint's cult through the chief parts of the world could be carried out much more widely, and increased with many things, if there were need. But from these I think it abundantly clear that it will be pleasing and welcome to the Christian world if by a common Office the cult of St. Rosalia be one day extended to the universal Church. And so I at last set an end to this Commentary, and subjoin the Life, that after it I may gather from every side both the ancient and the recent miracles and benefits which have not yet been given, for an appendix to the Life.

A SHORT LIFE

By Ottavio Gaetani, S.J.

From a manuscript volume in the library of the college of the Society of Jesus at Palermo.

Rosalia, virgin anchoress, near Palermo in Sicily. (S.)

By Ottavio Gaetani.

Rosalea the virgin is believed to have been born ^a at Palermo ^b,

and to have been one of the handmaids of queen Margaret ^c, The Saint's deeds, death, burial, cult: who was the wife of William king of Sicily, from whom, having as a gift the mountain nearest to the city of Palermo, which is named Peregrino, she withdrew thither, and passed a life removed from all fellowship in a cave: there she piously and holily died, and was buried ^d. Beside that same cave a church of St. Rosalea was built ^e, and a monastery of hermits of the family of St. Francis was joined to it. In the city of Palermo there was once a little shrine dedicated to the name of St. Rosalea, which afterwards belonged to St. Catherine, and at present to the holy Martyr Ignatius, bishop of Antioch. There has been erected an altar of St. Rosalea, on which her effigy is venerated in an ancient painting.

[2] Bivona freed from the plague by her. In the town of Bivona there is likewise a church sacred to blessed Rosalea, whose origin is assuredly not recent. But indeed in ancient times, when the plague of pestilence was laying Sicily waste, it is handed down that a woman of divine aspect (who was believed to be Rosalea the virgin) offered herself to be seen by a good man, and admonished him to found a church in that place which she pointed out, and to dedicate it to Rosalea, and that the man obeyed the heavenly warnings; and built the church, which still remains. And the place at that time was outside the walls of the town: for Bivona was of old encircled with walls, and traces of the walls remain. But the church in following times was enlarged with greater space. In the same place where the church now is, there was a huge rock clothed about with ivy: to that too there was veneration; for dust scraped from it is drunk by those who suffer from chills; and thence health returns to many. It is unknown to the townsmen in what age the church was first built and dedicated to Rosalea: but in it there is a painting of St. Rosalea made 125 years ^f ago, and a bell of cast bronze 145 years ago. At Palermo the solemn memory of St. Rosalea the virgin is kept on the day before the Nones of September.

ANNOTATIONS.

A SECOND LIFE

By Giordano Cascini, S.J.

From the printed edition of the year 1631.

Rosalia, virgin anchoress, near Palermo in Sicily. (S.)

By Giordano Cascini.

PREFACE OR DEDICATION.

[The author touches on various things preliminary to the approbation of the Saint's relics;] To the most eminent and most reverend Lord D. Giannettino Doria ^a, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, archbishop of Palermo. Giordano Cascini of the Society of Jesus. From the very beginning, when, upon the rising at Palermo of that most turbulent storm of pestilence which had brought the ship of the commonwealth, sorely tossed, into the utmost peril of shipwreck, St. Rosalia appeared as it were a Northern star ^b to relieve the sickness of men's minds and to preserve the passengers; it pleased your Eminence to command me, though of all those loved by her the least fit for advancing a work of such moment as that which was concerned with that finding, that I should nevertheless contribute my part of labour and zeal. In which truly difficult voyage ^c the labours of endurance were neither short nor moderate against the furies of the tempests, and the evil spirits who strove with all their might to cast rocks in our way, that neither the public safety nor the glory of so renowned a Patroness might go forward well and happily; but we took port at last, and cast anchors, both under the auspices and the most sure guidance of her heavenly Torch, and by the right steering of him who held the helm, Cardinal Doria; whose judgment in duly approving the sacred relics, no less pious than prudent, was afterwards honoured by the most weighty suffrage of the supreme governor, the most wise and most holy Pontiff Urban. and then he sets forth the cause and the difficulties of writing this Life.

[2] It was right therefore to hang up a votive tablet to the public Deliverer, and, that this might be paid, I was bidden by your Eminence to commit to history the order of the things done. Of which, certainly, in the making I felt a greater burden laid upon me than there had been in toiling for the approbation of those relics. For since many things had to be undertaken by me at one work, and businesses to be transacted; those things to be searched out which as yet lay hidden; her Life to be dug out from the rubbish of antiquity, in which, no less than in the hardest flint her sacred bones, the memory of past things had until these times been buried, which seemed to have flowed away together with the ages, and had to be gathered again not at Palermo only, but from almost all Sicily, some places to be surveyed with the eyes, others by letters, and abroad also, if anywhere any fragrance of this Rose breathed forth, which the more it was fragrant in the heavenly garden-plots, the more it had vanished on earth. But neither did this Virgin fail to favour these undertakings, by whose present help those images ^d were as it were brought forth from gold-mines and given to the light under the auspices of your Eminence. Which subjects indeed, the senate of Palermo so willing, partly cast of solid silver, partly skilfully chased, like gem-work emblems, have been inserted in the sides of this new and votive chest, which has been dedicated in a shrine erected with no less magnificence, and likewise votive, than the chest itself. Within that chest, if it shall so seem good to your Eminence, to lay up also, for preserving the memory to posterity, a record of the things done, which we either beheld as eye-witnesses at the finding, or as careful inquirers traced out concerning her life: all these things I have set down in a commentary, until, being freed from many occupations, it may be lawful for me to carry through a longer history ^e of these things, and to consecrate it, as I ought, to your Eminence, to whom the glory of St. Rosalia is so much at heart, with the same lowliness of mind. Farewell.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth, deeds, death, burial, and the wonderful finding of her body long hidden.

[ ] The Saint's birth and beginnings: her entry into the cave of Quisquina: St. Rosalia the Virgin was born at Palermo of her father Sinibaldus, of a most illustrious family drawn from Charlemagne through the kings of Italy and the counts of the Marsi, by no long series of ancestors. Joined by kinship to Roger ^a king of Sicily, and to his daughter Constance ^b the empress, she was also brought up in the court of the kings, where she was born. Certainly she was dear ^d above all to Margaret, who, daughter of García ^c king of Navarre, married William the son of Roger. But indeed, having trodden underfoot in contempt the splendours of honours, the comforts of riches, and the allurements of youth, breathed upon and kindled by the divine spirit, she withdrew under the guidance of angels ^f to the mountains and woods of Quisquina ^e in her own domain, distant almost forty miles from Palermo. Here, having found a most secret cave having many windings of caverns, into all of which the entrance was narrow enough and most difficult, into it, as into a bridal chamber prepared for her by her heavenly Spouse, in which, more remote and safer from the company and approach of men, she might live alone with him alone, deterred by no terrors either of the solitude, or of wild beasts, or even of demons, with a spirit and daring more than womanly, more than manly, she leapt in through a mouth narrow as a well, and making her way to the inner parts by crawling, as was needful, she dwelt there for a time, and loved that home wonderfully: which also she left attested by her own handwriting carved in the hardest flint of that well, in these words. I, ROSALIA, DAUGHTER OF SINIBALDUS, LORD OF QUISQUINA AND OF THE ROSES, FOR THE LOVE OF MY LORD JESUS CHRIST HAVE RESOLVED TO DWELL IN THIS CAVE. Which handwriting indeed, fortified as it were with seals by its very errors, which show the Girl's rude turn for Latinity, was found by divine agency at the same time ^g as the body.

[4] her passage to the cave of Mount Peregrino: her deeds Out of this cave, led again by the divine spirit and by an escort of heavenly ones ^h, she removed back to Palermo, not indeed to the court and her father's house, but by some higher counsel to the mountain near the city, which the histories of the Greeks call Ercta ⁱ, and the people of Palermo now commonly Peregrino, rough with steep rocks on every side, and offering a hard passage by three paths only, and elsewhere inaccessible, she ascended. On its lofty summit, which rises from a mid and pleasant plain, fit enough for the solitary life and for contemplation, on the side that slopes toward the North, she came upon a cave even more horrible and more secret than that of Quisquina. This was at that time hedged about with a wood, and was by nature framed not so much for keeping off the injuries of the seasons as for enduring them, beset with a perpetual dripping, dreadful with cold, mire and darkness, and inhospitable even to the beasts themselves. Into this therefore the Virgin bursts through the narrow entrance, as things then were. But in the very spacious cave, with rocks dripping everywhere from above which overhang the head, scarcely any habitable corner was offered in which she might withdraw free from the dripping. Into a very narrow hole in the eaten-away rock therefore, and most hidden, and scarcely able to hold her little body, so that it was for her rather a garment than a cell, she thrust herself: there, known to no ^k mortal save to her immortal Spouse, the most chaste Dove lay hidden; there she exercised herself with harsh food and clothing, with long prayers, continual fastings, watchings, and the other afflictions of holy ascetic women, and fought unceasingly and strenuously no more against her own body than against the most hostile spirits.

[5] in the cave, and her holy death: Of this anchoretic and altogether heavenly life she had the citizens of heaven themselves as masters, helpers, and consolers. Frequently the angels revisited and honoured her, and often the Queen of angels herself with her Son the supreme king deigned to give her their sight and pleasant converse; and moreover they adorned her with flowers, and especially with little rosy garlands ^l, that they might be a sign how much they had at heart either the virtues flowering in her virginal breast, and above all the fragrant odour of virginity, or the many services of the holy Virgin dwelling in solitude toward them, and chiefly those with which she longed to adorn the most blessed Mother and the infant Jesus, now with flowers plucked from the meadow ^m, now with angelic salutations, as with rosy praises counted out upon beads, by which she practised that rite of prayer now solemn, but in those times singular. This life most holily led was followed by a death in keeping with it, which when she understood to be at hand, tenacious of her purpose ⁿ even to the last breath, like those ancient and great anchoresses, she laid herself down alone on the bare ground, and holding the image of the Crucified in her bosom, with her expiatory beads pressed to her breast and entwined in her left hand, and her right, now failing, supporting her head, with the angels alone looking on and helping, she breathed forth her rosy soul, which flew away to the Spouse of virgins on the day before the Nones of September, which day both at Palermo and in the rest of Sicily was sacred and solemn for the keeping of her memory.

[6] In this cave, by the ministry, as it is right to believe, of the same angels ^o, she was buried, and for about four hundred and seventy years had been as a treasure hidden away, her burial: the body long hidden. The plague arisen at Palermo, and reserved by divine providence for relieving the afflicted fortunes and resources of her fatherland. For in this place, as had been handed down from the elders, sought after by others at another time [p], she was not found until the one thousand six hundred and twenty-fourth year, when it was ripe and most opportune. In the month of June of this year a deadly plague [q] invaded Palermo, imported from Libya in that ship in which Christians ransomed from the servitude of the Moors were being brought home under public safe-conduct. It began to creep more widely day by day and to vex the city in wretched fashion. There was therefore alarm at Palermo, and first, to entreat the peace of the Godhead, the saving Eucharist was exposed in almost all the churches, as is wont to be done in these evils: public prayers were proclaimed, supplications of the clergy and of the religious Orders held by turns on each day, but on the Ides of July the sacred caskets of the tutelary saints Christina [r] and Nympha were carried about the city in the manner of the elders at earliest morning, the whole clergy going before, and the bishop of the city himself, D. Giannettino Doria, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church: these the people followed, with tears and cries again and again raised to implore the divine help.

[7] And here it came about not without a divine prompting and while in the face of it the Saint is invoked in a plainly wonderful manner, that two pairs of priests, who in invoking the names of the Saints led the singing before the rest of the singers, separated one from the other by a great interval, not by agreement but by a certain inward impulse, after the names of the other virgin patronesses called upon [s] also, with wonderful agreement and eagerness of mind, the holy name of Rosalia, which had already been abolished from the litanies by disuse, and which came into the memory of the citizens only on her feast day. Nor did the invocation fall out in vain: for straightway the virgin Rosalia, being addressed, was seen to have heard the prayers of the people supplicating her: namely on the evening of that same day her sacred body, wonderfully hidden, was still more wonderfully found, and brought forth from that place with no less providence of God on the same day the body is found, than it had before been laid there.

[8] It was now almost two months [t] since certain men had spent pains and labour in digging out that place, partly at the persuasion of a woman on account of health divinely received, partly also from the desire and hope, such as is the disposition of men, of finding a treasure which was said to be hidden in that same place: but assuredly no other treasure offered itself to the seekers than that which was hidden in the field, or rather in the rock, which, grown upon the sacred bones by a certain wonderful workmanship and clinging to them, clothed them round about, and kept them in good repair in the place of a tomb. This therefore had often baffled the earlier searchers, who thought that in digging they had struck upon some hard flint which perchance lay hidden in the bowels of this mountain, and that a way could not be opened further with mattocks: and the same would also have drawn back from their undertaking these last men, already wearied with labour and despairing of the issue of the matter, had not God given them courage and hope to press it the more persistently. So at last with an iron club they first break the great flint; then they cleave into other fragments another fragment of the whole mass, not because it was of so great bulk, but because it was of greater weight in proportion to its bulk (which was itself a miracle): and when they see them empty and light, astonished with wonder at the thing, they perceive that they now hold in their hands the dearest and longed-for head of the Virgin.

[9] and it is afterwards carried to the archbishop's palace. Nor was this believed rashly, for that wonderful monument, which seemed wrought by no human art, the very place of the sacred deposit, most certain by the constant tradition of the church of Palermo and of others, the calamity lately arisen at home, to which that help was being sent as sufficiently timely, the very manner of the finding, the beauty and wholeness of the bones suddenly beheld, the sweetness of the odour perceived by many, the concourse of the people that at once followed, and the agreement of their minds, all built up credit for the truth. But that so great a matter might be determined with the prudence that was fitting, a diligent guard being set by day, on the following night what had been found was carried into the city, and laid up in the chapel of the Cardinal archbishop's house, until it should be sufficiently established concerning it according to the prescript of the sacred canons. Sicily was then governed for the king by Filiberto Emanuele, son of the duke of Savoy; and Palermo by don Francesco del Bosco, duke of Misilmeri, prince of Cattolica, prætor; D. Giovanni Agliata, baron of Solanto, D. Giuseppe del Bosco, D. Giacomo Lucchesi, baron of Camastra, D. Orazio Strozzi, D. Pietro Bongiorno, Domenico del Colle, senators. Who indeed, thinking their year no more ill-omened by the invasion of the plague than fortunate by the finding of so great a treasure, greatly desired that these relics should be held as holy by the lawful approbation of the prelate.

ANNOTATIONS.

of greater size that opinion is called into doubt, because it does not well agree with the year of death 1160, whether Cascinus himself afterwards went over to another opinion, or his corrector Salerno. But the opinion here asserted pleases me better, because the year of her death is altogether uncertain.

p Of the body frequently sought, and of the prediction that it would not be found except in a time of grave calamity, see what is said in the Commentary at number 183 and following.

q Of this pestilence it has been treated in §18.

r Of St. Christina it has been disputed among us at the 24th day of July; of St. Nympha the Roman Martyrology treats on the 10th of November, but the Sicilians on the 12th.

s This wonderful invocation of the Saint has been related more fully in the Commentary at number 198 and following.

t Namely fifty days, as has been said at number 201 in the Commentary, which may be consulted concerning the wonderful finding of the body, and its carrying to the archiepiscopal palace, §19.

CHAPTER II.

The miracles after the body was found: its approbation; Palermo freed from the plague: the Saint's cult much propagated, and relics sent to various provinces.

[ ] The miracles that followed the finding of the body: Nor did a long time pass before divine testimonies opportunely came in: for when either the flakes of the bones, or of the stone grown together with them, struck off in the breaking, or even some of the dust lying about them, or of the water dripping from the cave, began to be applied to sick bodies with a certain sure confidence, so great miracles ^a were straightway seen to flash forth that it seemed to the bishop the best and the necessary thing to do, to command by his authority that inquiry be made concerning them, and that the whole history of the finding, and of the things done above the order of nature, be entered in the public registers. In that inquiry almost three hundred witnesses were questioned and examined by grave men set in ecclesiastical dignity, and compelled by oath to confirm their words. While these things are being done, the viceroy Filiberto ^b departs from among the living, in whose place in the government of Sicily, by the same Filiberto's own suffrage, the same Cardinal Doria was designated, and at once substituted by the royal council, and entreated to take up the afflicted province. Who indeed, abundantly strong in both powers, sustained and strengthened by his counsel and labour the tottering state of Palermo and of all Sicily. The yearly magistracy also being run out, there were created as prætor D. Nicolò Placido Branciforti, prince of Leonforte, count of Raccuja; as senators D. Mariano Agliata e Spatafora, D. Lodovico Spatafora, Diego Blasco, Tommaso Cascini, D. Francesco Requesens, baron of St. James, D. Pietro Settimo. Who, over and above the cares of civil affairs in so disturbed a state of the city, applied much zeal and business, both to rooting out the pestilence and also to the approbation of the body that had been found.

[11] consultations held for the approbation of the relics: And so, for transacting this matter, after prayers by many religious men and many works of piety employed to draw forth the divine mind, theologians from almost all the Orders of Religious, and other men at once pious and grave, were called into council by the bishop: to these the human and divine testimonies were first summarily set forth: then the whole was handed to each, to be weighed at home at leisure and more fully unravelled. When these things had been sufficiently known and examined by them, a consultation was held a second and a third time ^c, in which, the matter being maturely discussed, and God consulted with prayers never intermitted, it seemed to all, the bishop himself asking their opinion, that it was sufficiently established that the truth of St. Rosalia's body having been found was attested by God with miracles. For besides innumerable signs daily and everywhere given forth, of which account can scarcely be taken, not a few were so illustrious that they filled with report and wonder not only those present, but even those far scattered through the world: many were snatched from inveterate and hopeless diseases: to others giving up the ghost and plainly given over, life was preserved: others even were raised from death already undergone, and from the very bier. But her power shone forth most of all in driving away the pestilence, whether from single persons or from whole towns, but above all in the city of Palermo, in which this too is to be ascribed to a miracle, that when the care of declaring the sacred body was interrupted, the plague grew worse; when it was resumed, it grew milder.

[12] And so, lest the safety of the city should be drawn out longer, which seemed to depend on the cult and patronage of the new Patroness alone; the relics at length approved and carried to the greatest church, the senate often asking the bishop, the people of Palermo demanding it, all the nobles striving for it, at last in the most auspicious jubilee year of human salvation one thousand six hundred and twenty-five, on the eighth of the Kalends of March, according to the rite of the sacred canons D. Giannettino Doria, Cardinal Priest, archbishop of Palermo, by his authority asserted that it was the body of St. Rosalia, and to be held holy, and under that name, credit being made by a public instrument, delivered it to the senate, and exposed it to be venerated by the people, by whom it was received with a great concourse, gladness and applause, tears also rising at the hope conceived of recovering health as soon as possible. The pomp with which it was then for the first time translated from the archbishop's private chapel to the greatest church with the cult due to sanctity was indeed notable for the circumstances and the haste of the work, yet not magnificent enough for the burning zeal of the people of Palermo and the merits of their Fellow-citizen.

[13] Another ^d, much more magnificent, was got ready in the space of almost four months, [and afterwards they were carried about through the city with a plainly magnificent pomp,] and was beheld on the fifth of the Ides of June of the same year. This seemed not so much a sacred pomp, such as is customary in great cities in carrying about sacred relics, but plainly a triumphal one, in which the most holy Virgin might triumph in her own city over its pomps and delights vanquished and laid low. A chest framed of crystal panels, and adorned and fortified at the corners with silver plates, was carried around through the whole Toledo street and the other more frequented ways of Palermo by men most choice out of the nobility, in whom, with the splendour of piety and birth, the comeliness of their persons also shone out. Clothed with precious hangings, woven with silk and gold and embroidered with the needle, were, up to the very topmost peak, both the greatest church, which is rarely seen, and the walls of the houses. With these were interspersed boughs, painted panels, and other ornaments of that kind, which both gave an appearance delightful in its variety, and also left nothing rough and unadorned. Altars were everywhere erected, furnished and set off with every splendid appointment, with chased gold and silver too, and with gems. Four arches were set up of huge mass, of greater artifice, at almost royal cost. That which was set up at the public expense in the middle square of the city, which they call the Octagon, cost more than twelve thousand gold pieces, and the rest too were costly: of which the nation of the Genoese dedicated one opposite the greatest church, the Catalans another at no small interval after it, and the Florentines the fourth near the sea within the gate which they call the Happy gate. All were graphically painted and adorned with statues, pictures, verses, and emblems out of the varied wit of the poets.

[14] which is described: The pomp was led by invited citizens from the four regions of the city, into which equal parts the city is divided, and they, marshalled in four companies, carried before them banners of pure silk woven with gold: and on each was to be seen one of the several protectresses of the city, Agatha, Christina, Nympha, and Oliva, leading by the right hand the new patroness Rosalia, taken into their fellowship: the work of the Phrygian needle was most beautiful: then the sodalities, which at Palermo are ninety-three, partly with banners of the same costliness and marked with an image of the same workmanship, to be seen in long order carried by standard-bearers hemmed in by a great following in varied and splendid array; partly with statues of the Saints gleaming with gold and to be led with a varied harmony of voices and instruments, made the whole pomp more cheerful and more pleasing. Moreover the religious Orders followed, each carrying their own stages, then for the first time skilfully built and representing St. Rosalia under a varied argument. The outlay upon the whole apparatus was a sum of a hundred thousand gold pieces. The whole city, deterred by no fear of the pestilence, poured out to keep that feast day with as glad and splendid a bearing, both of mind and of body, as it could.

[15] Palermo afterwards freed from the plague by the Saint's patronage. The hope of safety conceived in their Virgin and Patroness was a pledge of it: nor did it deceive them. It was accounted a miracle that, in the handling of the furnishings, and in so frequent an assembly of the people, which through ten days grew very great at the various festive shows; the contagion, otherwise wont to spread on such occasions, took decrease instead of increase: and, lest it should be doubtful,

to whom so great a benefit was to be ascribed, since from these days until the Ides of July the plague had gone forward variously, yet on this day of the Ides, which is the anniversary day of the finding of the body, it suddenly and wholly ceased. And when from that day the number of forty days was again entered upon, appointed by ancient observance for testing complete soundness, together with the pestilence the other kinds of diseases also vanished; and at last, ten more being run out for the purging of the city, the third day of September, which precedes the birthday of the holy Virgin, was the first on which, praises being duly paid to the Best and Greatest God and to the new Patroness, intercourse ^e was restored to Palermo with the other cities of Sicily as of old.

[16] The plague reviving at Palermo after about five months, But truly the race of mortals knows not how to use divine benefits, but often corrupts them by its own sloth. By which fault it came about that the soundness recovered at Palermo was not perpetual: for as those who have been cured by the physicians' help of some internal disease, if the care of a body still weak be neglected, take harm from any lapse, and fall back into the same sickness, so indeed that health restored to the city by heavenly help was not long preserved by our carelessness. About five months later the pestilence revived, which had already seemed plainly extinguished; whether because some infected garment, either not sufficiently examined, or hidden by men's greed, was brought out for use, as though all were safe and sound, and so for their destruction; or because those coming from abroad from other towns labouring under the same evil (for Sicily was not yet freed) were rashly received into the city; or by what other chance is uncertain. This is to be held for certain, that it did not happen without God's nod, who is wont to take from men's errors an argument for raising up his own glory and that of his own. So from the doubled evil of the city there came a doubled benefit of St. Rosalia.

[17] By her aid the plague was milder than before, and again by the Saint's benefit, as is believed, it was extinguished: nor was it seen to grow worse again, as it used to; and men suffered from it likewise for five months. But it was wholly driven away ^f from the whole city again in the year 1626, in the month of June, that is, at the recurrence of the triumph performed in the year just past, and as the day of the finding itself drew near, when Cardinal Doria was still set over Sicily, who did not rest from relieving the commonwealth until he had rendered it restored to its former soundness and purged; and when the magistracy of the city was borne by D. Francesco Agliata e Paruta, prince of Villafranca, D. Simone Parisi e Bologna, baron of Melocca, Gaspare Agliata, D. Vincenzo Landolina, D. Antonio Colnago, baron of St. Venera, D. Antonio Gascone, Don Carlo de Termini, who laboured strenuously in restoring and protecting the same. And not long after this benefit flowed more widely from the head into the whole body of Sicily. This was the confession of all, that all Sicily was in a short time freed by the benefit of St. Rosalia from the disease of the pestilence, from which peoples are scarcely ever delivered by human art and defences, and with not so very many citizens lost.

[18] Thereafter, the report of their soundness being published abroad, it is wonderful how much her name [various viceroys have testified concerning Sicily freed from the plague by the Saint.] and cult began to be propagated into all the regions of the Christian world. Which was also entered in the public registers by many edicts promulgated through all Sicily by the viceroys, one at one time and another at another, first by the same Cardinal Doria, then by the marquis of Tavara, who afterwards was set over Sicily, when at the same time the magistracy of the city was borne by D. Cesare Gaetani, marquis of Sortino, prætor; the senators D. Ottavio Corsetto, D. Luigi Silvera, Alfonso Saladino, D. Ottavio Orioles, D. Pietro Buttoneri, Francesco Ares; and then at last by the duke of Albuquerque, who at this time governs Sicily as viceroy; in which edicts, when leave was given, whether for towns already purged of the plague, or throughout the whole island, of joining in commerce, or at last also of freely transporting private goods, the deliverance of Sicily is set down as received from the common patronage of St. Rosalia.

[19] Some of the relics ^g of the body that was found were sought after, as a present amulet against evils. Relics sent to various provinces, These were sent from Palermo, and approved by public letters from the bishop of Palermo, and received by the cities with great joy and with every festive apparatus. Many chose St. Rosalia as patroness, whose catalogue it would be long to review here. Nor indeed was that good thing shared with the towns of Sicily alone, but with all peoples, and relics were imparted to almost the whole world. To Rome ^h and into other cities of Italy, to the kings of Spain, France, Poland, and finally into Germany they were sent, and consigned with the same public credit of letters, and held in great price and veneration by those who received them.

[20] But indeed Urban VIII, Supreme Pontiff, from the city that is the head of the world, and these were held in great price by Urban VIII: as from a lofty watch-tower raised a signal to the rest, by which he might both ratify the piety they had already taken up, and also kindle others with his own torch; for it is wonderful how greatly so great and pious a Pontiff was inflamed toward this Virgin, not without God's inspiration. Which relics, enclosed in a case most beautifully made of gold and silver, he first received as a gift from the duke of Montalto, and straightway pursued with the cult of adoration, and willed this to be attested to posterity by a public instrument drawn up in the Roman curia: nor only did he pay this honour, common to the other citizens of heaven and due to them; but, what was of a certain singular piety toward her, he wore the tooth (for this had been taken from the relics and given) hung about his neck upon his breast like a foreign pearl of great price.

[21] by him the Saint's memory was added to the Roman Calendars: Moreover in the year 1629, moved both by his own will inclined toward the Virgin, and by the request of the same Cardinal Doria, and of the senate of Palermo — D. Antonio de Requesens, prince of Pantelleria, prætor, Don Carlo Siracusa, D. Mariano Agliata e Spatafora, D. Pietro Giurato, D. Giuseppe Buonaiuto, D. Leone Roselli, D. Gaspare Giurato, senators — he willed her name to be entered in the Calendars of the Church, and that not without a most honourable elogium; and that not in one place only, but that her birthday should be reckoned on the day before the Nones of September, and that of the finding on the Ides of July; and another part of the relics from the arm, received afterwards from Cardinal Doria, he held in the same cult; and lastly his zeal for this Virgin, blazing in the Pontiff's breast, august though it was, could not long be contained without betraying itself, both by other signs and especially by three briefs given, two to the Cardinal archbishop, of which one contained a rendering of thanks for the gift of the relics sent, the other the news of St. Rosalia's being entered in the Calendars; the third sent to the senate of Palermo, in which he embraced the signification of that same benefit of his, and of the singular love he had conceived both toward the Virgin and toward her whole city, and his congratulation upon so great a treasure found. These briefs were sent in the year 1630, D. Mario Gambacurta, marquis of Motta, being prætor; Giovanni Roxas, D. Giuseppe Antonio Ballo e Sollima, baron of Calatafimi, Lancillotto Castelli, D. Francesco Roselli, captain, Martino de Pinedo, D. Vincenzo Gambacurta, senators.

[22] the cave of Mount Peregrino magnificently adorned. Meanwhile the city of Palermo with no less ardour pursued the magnificent works for her cult, long since destined by vow and already begun at great expense of collected and public money. For the cave of Mount Peregrino, where the Saint's body was found, was fashioned and adorned in the manner of a church. A marble altar was set up in that very place where she had lain buried and hidden. Within the altar an image was placed in the same posture and gesture in which she had lain there. Four columns of jasper stone surrounding the altar furrow a bronze roof, by which the altar is protected against the drops flowing continually from the rock, and with bronze rails both the altar and the doors of the cave themselves were fortified. The rest of the cave is roofed and adorned almost wholly ⁱ with marble tablets, on which the things done there are set forth and engraved in verse and prose, to hand down the memory to posterity and the knowledge to strangers.

[23] [likewise a costly chapel at Palermo and an elegant chest built for keeping the body.] But in the city itself these are the works: in the greatest church, where there had already been built by our forefathers two shrines facing one another and taken in by one vestibule, of which the one religiously kept the silver chests, guardians of the relics, of St. Christina, the other of St. Nympha (although this was not yet finished), the spaces of the vestibule being enlarged toward the North, a third chapel, where the new chest of St. Rosalia the new patroness might be laid up, was set in the midst of the older ones, that it might be an ornament to them too. By the same work the walls of all were covered with marble facings, and brilliantly adorned with polished emblems inlaid in mosaic of many kinds of stone ^k. At last a chest, wrought of silver with elegant workmanship, was begun in the year 1631, Don Francesco Valguarnera e Carretto, count of Assoro and prince of Valguarnera, being prætor, with the captains D. Pietro Palacio, Orazio lo Mellino, D. Carlo del Voglia Capisciano, Andrea Agliata son of Vespasiano, Francesco del Colle, Simone Bonaccolto, senators, and was finished in five months. In it the thickness of the plates is to be admired, and the varied chasing: likewise the subjects of the Virgin's life and deeds, standing out in figures partly cast, partly most beautifully made in embossed work: other figures besides, eagles holding shields, and bearers supporting the chest: St. Rosalia herself standing out at the top: all cast of solid silver: fifteen hundred pounds in weight.

ANNOTATIONS.

there have also been set forth the things which both the praised Pontiff and his successors performed for promoting the Saint's cult.

MIRACLES

By Pietro Salerno, S.J.

From the Lives of the Sicilian Saints of Ottavio Gaetani.

Rosalia, virgin anchoress, near Palermo in Sicily. (S.)

By Pietro Salerno, S.J.

CHAPTER I.

Various healings, most of them wrought after taking water consecrated by the Saint's relics or by the stone of her tomb.

[ ] Why the author relates some miracles out of many: The matter itself now seems to demand that, as we have recorded some things about the tradition where a fitting place occurred, so here some miracles ^a should be reviewed; namely that it may be plainly established to all by what weight of reasons wise men were inclined to ratify this decree concerning the cult of the relics; and also that the works of God the author of all may be thoroughly seen, who both glories most of all in his Saints, and in this wretched condition of the times willed his mercy joined with the highest power to shine forth most of all. Nor indeed is it my purpose to pursue them all, lest the history be drawn out longer than is enough: but out of all we shall relate those which are most worthy of relating, and which have been consigned to public registers, and confirmed by the confession and oath of many witnesses. And first indeed those which were done in the city, then those in the lazaretto ^b.

[2] a woman near to death from a miscarriage, Ninfa Quaranta ^c, reaching the twenty-seventh year of her age, given in marriage to Prospero Quaranta, a maker of women's shoes, brought forth prematurely: whereupon so great a force of blood began to flow beyond the manner of those who miscarry, that with her strength drained away with the blood she lay half dead in bed. The midwife, whose age, drawn out to the fifty-fifth year, had grown old in that art and experience, and men skilled in the physician's art, being at once called together, pronounce with one voice that but a few hours of life are allowed her by the law of nature; that she must be armed with the weapons of the Sacraments; and that indeed there is need of haste. When therefore about the second hour of the night, the stains of her soul being expiated by confession, the Eucharist was being carried to the sick woman, there met it, God rather than chance being the guide of his journey, D. Girolamo de Termini, who, being set over the management of the lazaretto by the senate, was betaking himself home. At once he leaps from his horse, a knight adorned no less by piety than by nobility, and accompanies the sacred Eucharist even to the dwelling of the dying woman: and after he had brought it back to the church with the same piety, then at last there came into his mind the bone of St. Rosalia which he carried about with him, delivered to him by the most reverend vicar don Francisco de Riba with this design, that it should be applied to the sick for the proving of her sanctity: he grieves from his heart that, when the opportunity had been given, he had by forgetfulness failed both the woman's health and the holy Virgin's glory.

[3] But when he observed that the same priest must return thither for the sake of extreme Unction, [having taken water which had been consecrated with the Saint's relics, she is suddenly healed:] and that an occasion was offered him of redeeming his past fault, he joined himself to him as companion. When they had come to the house, and the sacred rite duly performed ^d, he draws out from a silken bag a little fragment of that bone, and a handful of dust gathered from the same cave of Mount Peregrino, and having plunged them into water ^e, orders it to be consecrated by the priest with prayers to St. Rosalia, and to be delivered to the husband, that he might give it his wife to drink: which done, both departed. But the husband, casting away all delay, hands it to his wife, warning her that the water was sacred to St. Rosalia: that he hoped by her help to recover her health. She, raising her heavy eyes, and commending herself, her safety and her life to the Virgin, drank the draught. Nor did hope deceive him, nor her commendation deceive her: when she had rested a little, she reports to her husband that the force of the flowing blood was somewhat checked, and presently that it had wholly stopped, and that she was oppressed by no sickness. And so at almost the very hour at which the physicians had foretold she must die, she escaped wholly unharmed from the danger of imminent death. Wherefore Prospero, glad at so prosperous an outcome of the matter, rendered deserved thanks to God the Best and Greatest and to the holy virgin Rosalia; and when it grew light, he went to D. Girolamo and the priest, to announce such glad news and to show his grateful mind.

[4] Nor did the drinking of water alone stanch a flux of blood for this woman, but the very stone of St. Rosalia did so for another. [the blood of a man grievously wounded is presently stanched by the sepulchral stone of the Saint:] Giovanni Andrea Montalto, on the vigil of St. James the apostle in the year 1634 ^f, received a wound in the front of his breast, where the heart lies, being struck with a knife, by which was cut also the vein which they call the artery: and so great a quantity of blood leapt from it that, overwhelmed with it, he lay lifeless. When many medicines ^g had been applied in vain to check it, and the surgeon Giovanni Colonna, having inspected the wound, said that it could not be cured by human art, and indeed that death was drawing near to the wounded man, the stone ^h of St. Rosalia, being laid on, both stopped the fountain of blood, and roused the half-dead man, and within a few days restored him to his former soundness.

[5] Nor only did the holy Virgin bring a remedy for wounds already made; a woman healed of dropsy, but she even prevented their being made: for Maria de Martino, long ⁱ and greatly afflicted with dropsy, when the disease had confirmed its power in her, as Guglielmo Carrega, doctor of the physician's art, testifies, and when almost all the remedies that were tried had availed nothing, and, on the same authority, nothing remained save that her navel should be pierced through, wholly recovered by the water of St. Rosalia mingled with the ground stone and drunk, every other medicine being left off.

[6] But Marcello Lopes ^k, whose left eye a neighbouring swelling teeming with evil humours had almost taken over, a fever also invaded. Several physicians are gathered to take counsel about curing him: all agree that the swelling must be cut away, or burnt with the cautery: but divine remedies forestall human ones. a man healed of a grave malady of the eyes; He applies to his swelling forehead a particle of bone clinging to stone, which was had from the relics of St. Rosalia: thereupon he was seized by a moderate sleep. The physicians, returning the next day, find him free both of fever and of swelling. All swore that that health was to be attributed neither to the benefit of nature, nor to any medicine, but to the divine power alone.

[7] a swelling of the jaw driven away in a moment, By an almost similar disease Agata Galla was divinely preserved. She, when her cheek suddenly swelled up so far that it stood out like a second face, met it quickly by putting into her mouth the stone ^l of St. Rosalia, and by committing herself and her safety to her: nor indeed did the Virgin delay to succour her who invoked her: at that same point of time the swelling vanished. This was ascertained by the confession both of the woman herself and of her husband and of her maidservant: men distinguished too in the physician's art affirm on oath that that quantity of humours could not by the power of nature have been poured back within without harm to the woman herself, but that a higher cause must be sought for it.

[8] a long-standing malady of the eyes driven away: To these is added Vincenzo Ciaccio too, delivered from a graver danger in the same part of the body: for he had suffered greatly and long ^m in his eyes, so that with one of them, suffused with blood and inflamed with excessive heat, he seemed almost to have lost it: nor did he draw from them pain only, but also the greatest annoyance, because he could not look upon or bear not only the sun, but not even the lighted air: so that if ever he had to go through the city, it was necessary to protect them by pulling down the brim of his hat, or in some other way. He had followed almost all the ways by which he might hope they could be healed: but so far were the remedies from helping, that some of them even harmed. But now, having experienced the power of the heavenly medicine, when he had applied to his eyes dust wrapped in silk-wadding, and fragments of the stone wrapped in a paper, there was no more delay than is spent in pronouncing once the Lord's Prayer and the angelic Salutation, which prayers he piously used, when suddenly he felt himself free of all pain and discomfort, and discerned everything more clearly than when he had been sound.

[9] [a girl infected with the plague, when she was better after taking St. Rosalia's water,] Two girls were called back from the threshold of death; in whom, because the whole series of the things done carries wonder with it, let the reader take in good part if anything shall seem to be unravelled at too great length. The one is D. Agata Morso ⁿ, born of noble parents D. Francesco and D. Maria Morso. Toward night a fever attacks her, bringing with it pain of the head and of the groin. At first light the physician, when he had found the fever and a small swelling arisen in the groin, declares her infected with the plague: and at last orders her to be forbidden intercourse with others. Flavia Maiorana, moved by her neighbour's calamity, offers water with a bone of St. Rosalia cast into it, and duly hallowed with prayers: as soon as the girl drank this and committed her affairs to the holy Virgin's keeping, she at once feels herself relieved of the trouble of the disease, the force of the fever slacken, and the swelling almost vanish. This being ascertained, the girl's father urges D. Girolamo Grimaldi, to whose care that quarter of the city had been committed by the senate, that, knowledge being had of the lighter disease, he should not send a physician from among those who were wont to treat those seized by the plague, but one for those under suspicion. He obtains it: Girolamo Mancuso is sent; who, when he observed that the fever had abated and the swelling was almost gone, judged otherwise than the former physician had thought, and assigns her to those under suspicion. Hence, as men for the most part measure things by the outcome, D. Francesco began to commend this physician and to inveigh against the former one, because, without well examining his daughter's disease, he had thought his house should be cut off from the fellowship of the citizens. Flavia Maiorana took up these complaints, and having found an occasion, addressed the man courteously: that he wrongly blamed the physician: that thanks were rather to be given to St. Rosalia, the drinking of whose water had lessened his daughter's sickness: but the more health his daughter gained, the more he hardened in his own opinion.

[10] Assuredly the holy Virgin did not let the man's ungrateful mind go unavenged: [and therefore, the father denying that she was infected with the plague, she is brought back to extremity;] although in punishing it she tempered severity with mercy. The next day the daughter's evil increases, the swelling revives, the fever becomes deadly. The girl's condition being changed, Girolamo changes his opinion, and assigns her to the infected: he himself withdraws from her care. There come to help her Demetrio, a Greek, abundantly strong in use and practice in curing that kind of disease, and with him Pompilio Nastasi: both pronounce that it is all over with the health of her body: her soul must be helped. And so a priest, being summoned, strengthens her with the heavenly Bread and with the sacred Oil. The girl was rushing headlong to death: her power of appetite lost, she had already passed the twenty-fourth hour without food and drink: her strength fails: nature yields to the disease, and she is already drawing her last gasps: her mother, despairing of her daughter's safety, sets a waxen torch, after the Christian manner, and burning incense at her pillow: and, as a wretched woman is

the condition of those who waste away with that disease, that they are forsaken by those from whom above all they ought to expect help, she tears herself away from her daughter's presence ^o. But indeed the father, that he might leave nothing untried by which he could help his daughter while she still breathed, entreated his wife that she should enter the chamber and bring to her child an electuary made of hyacinth, the last help of life according to the physician's prescription. The mother refuses, thinking that it would profit her daughter nothing, but could greatly harm herself: yet both the father's prayers and a mother's love for her daughter prevailed; and, that she might in some way guard herself, she washed herself with vinegar, which is made, if anything is, for blunting the force of contagion: then she offers the hyacinth, or the most choice wine, in which at the beginning of the disease she had seemed to take pleasure. The girl does not even nod when asked: nay, she at once spits out a morsel of the hyacinth put into her mouth with a finger. Therefore, when she had seen a little tear slip from her eyes, which is the last trace of departing life, and her feet too deprived of warmth, she reports to her husband that their daughter is at the last, and treats with him about her burial: and he likewise with D. Girolamo Grimaldi, whose concern it was.

[11] These conversations too Flavia Maiorana caught, which was easy, and afterwards, that water being again taken, she is suddenly healed. since the houses of both, set in a narrow lane, face one another: and as soon as there was opportunity of speaking, having asked the mother about her daughter's health, when she had heard that she was all but dead, full of good hope she offers water consecrated by a bone of St. Rosalia. The mother returns with this cup to her daughter: the girl, scarcely asked whether it pleased her to take of it, nods with lowered head, and drinks. What medicine ever had such power as to have drawn her so suddenly from the mouth and jaws of death? She breathes again, lifts her eyes, and as if having tasted the sweetness of honey, or of anything sweeter than honey, refreshes herself again with the same draught, at once resumes her strength and senses, and asks for food. The father, amazed at so unlooked-for an outcome, orders food to be hastened for restoring the sick girl's strength: on these she first feeds with pleasure: a little after she is refreshed with fuller food also: she takes sleep, from which at first light she was roused sound. The physician, being summoned, after he wonders at so unusual and marvellous a change, affirms that it is above nature.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Other healings, obtained in various ways after St. Rosalia was invoked.

[ ] A little girl drowned, either divinely restored to life The other is the daughter of Lorenzo and Dorotea Averna, on whom the name of Angela was bestowed. She had gone headlong, head and feet, into the waters of a household well which was in the neighbouring house: and when she had stuck in it for a quarter of an hour ^a, with her feet upward as she had fallen, and had already ceased to make any movement, a woman, Girolama, from a window opposite catches sight of her by chance. She implores the favourable help of St. Rosalia for the girl: which the piety toward the Virgin implanted in her mind suggested first of all. But it was indeed an omen of the miracle to come, which by the divine decree was owed not to the invocation but to the relics. She then flies thither, and draws her out lifeless ^b, with her eyes whitening, her tongue thrust out, her cheeks swollen, and her little lips foaming: she comes upon the girl's father in a gathering of friends just before the doors. Alas! to what a pass has adverse fortune brought thy daughter for thee, she says, Lorenzo? O sight to be lamented not only by thee and thine, but even by the stones! I have just now brought her out of the water rather not to live than to die. Hard indeed; but what may not be undone must be softened by patience. Struck by these words, and much more by the disfigured look of his daughter, the father at once falls to weeping, to beating his breast, to assailing heaven with complaints: and despairing of her life, to think of her funeral. He sent friends also to the neighbouring monastery of the Franciscans to see to it: but he wished the matter to be hidden from the mother, lest sudden grief should snatch away her soul, who was worn out with a malignant fever, and had already been prepared for death with the sacred Viaticum. Meanwhile Francesco Cristadoro, roused by the cries and the messages, runs up from a workshop nearby, himself again and again calling out on St. Rosalia, and bids the father be of good cheer: that he hopes the daughter will be rescued from death by St. Rosalia's help: he applies to the girl's head and shoulders a fragment of stone grown together with a particle of bone, from those which had lately been found on Mount Peregrino. Wonderful to tell! Before the sight and eyes of many the girl began to rouse herself and to vomit up the water she had swallowed and her food.

[13] When hope of life returned, they call in physicians. These on the contrary say that no longer enjoyment of the light remains to her; yet they prescribe their remedies after their manner; or restored to health: her mother too healed: of which, as the mother herself testifies, none was employed. Brought therefore to hope not so much by these as by the present help of St. Rosalia, and taking courage, they report everything to the mother, who cherished her child in her bosom and in the same bed in which she herself lay. Scarcely had half an hour passed, when she calls her husband, and shows him their daughter wholly safe, smiling upon her, and playing with her in the bed. The father brings in his friend: both wonder that she has not only returned to her whole state, as if she had suffered no harm anywhere, but is more lively and more beautiful than usual. Presently a miracle was added to a miracle; the mother ^c, being brought to that place of which we spoke a little before, by the benefit of the same relics soon recovered. a dying woman healed of the plague,

[14] To these may be added another woman preserved from death that was even pressing upon her: her name is Margarita Bottegara. She, vexed with a pestilential fever, and with her leg ulcerated by two pustules, having endured fire applied to them, had come to this pass, that, forsaken by the physicians' help, with her eyes already deadened she was drawing her last breaths. Whence a certain priest, who from the middle of the road (for then the guards who came near took care that no dealings should be joined with the infected) saw her giving up the ghost, did not cease to admonish those who were in the house to strengthen her in that agony with Christian warnings. When Stefano Garofalo, endowed with the physician's art, had betaken himself thither, he gave, by those who watched the entrances, the water sacred to St. Rosalia which he had prepared for himself on the day before, to be delivered into the hands of the dying woman's mother: and when the sick woman had swallowed it, poured into her mouth by her mother herself, she settled herself to rest on the other side of the bed, and there was found after about two hours to have recovered ^d: on the next morning, being roused from her bed, she was seen in the very entrance of the house talking with others by those who on the day before had mourned her as given over.

[15] another, beginning to labour under that evil, Others did not suffer themselves to be brought to that pass; but took the evil out of the way in its very beginning. D. Ottavio Moradel, skilled in the law, when he left off his midday rest, felt himself grown hot beyond his wont: his eyes and head too weighed down, his heart burning, and, which was the greatest sign, his right knee afflicted with pain up to the groin. And so at his wife's warning he lies down in bed: but from this the pain grows heavier and heavier: they turn their mind to remedies. But the wife first of all fled to that which had lately been offered by God. She offers her husband the water of St. Rosalia to drink: and he, having drunk it, felt the burning of his heart allayed. Then when he saw his hope favoured by the Virgin, he tried other things; dipping his finger in the water he began to touch the places beset with pain: as soon as the first part was touched, the pain fled away thence, as though it could not bear the enemy against it: he pursues it as it flees, until, being driven on without a break, it was all put to flight. When therefore he found himself free

of pain, he set it down as received from St. Rosalia, and gave himself to quiet rest. Afterwards, rising without anyone's support, he sat up in the bed, who a little before could not turn on his side ^e.

[16] again another already seized, A like victory too was won over a not unlike enemy. A swelling arises in the groin of Giacinta Anfuso, maidservant ^f of D. Giuseppe Roasi, a priest of approved virtue: pain too racks her head, and stiffness and fever her whole body. He, when he learned the matter examined by the eyes and hands of the women, setting other things aside, fled first to these arms: for lately the report of St. Rosalia's miracles had begun to be spread abroad: he had heard too that on that same day a particle of the stone cut out in the cave of Mount Peregrino had come into the possession of a certain woman with whom his sister had acquaintance. When he had received this on loan from her, he vowed also that he would offer a Mass to the holy Virgin: then he administers to his maidservant, to be drunk, water consecrated by himself with that stone and with prayers. The sick woman also vows a fast; and a company of the women who were in the house, both from their own singular piety and at the priest's bidding, falling on their knees, with him leading, murmured the appointed prayers of St. Mary the Virgin: which being finished, to D. Giuseppe asking how she did, the woman answered, Somewhat better, and that the swelling seemed to have decreased. They press on therefore with prayers; and with the words with which they implored St. Rosalia's help they as it were pursue the enemy retreating from his place. During the praying Giacinta, being asked again and again, asserted that the little swelling was gradually subsiding, until in about half a quarter of an hour it was wholly dispersed.

[17] With these arms and words too another band of women drove off the enemy. likewise another, Francesca Grutta ^g, fifteen years old, when she raised her body from her bed, felt her groin ill affected: she saw too that it had swollen somewhat. The matter at first sight being of little moment and held in neglect, she betook herself to performing her household duties. But about midday, when she felt not only discomfort but pain, and observed that the swellings stood out a little more, and that she was also vehemently thirsty; she informed her kinswoman ^h, who lived in her house, of the whole matter. She, casting a fragment of St. Rosalia's stone into water, with no other rite added, gave it more than once to her niece to drink: but that which had at once brought health to others availed nothing in the matter. Who would dare to divine the divine counsels? perhaps that the more the evil was in the open, the more the miracle might shine. And so when evening drew on, she burned not only with thirst, but with pain of the head and with fever: her lips too grew black, the swellings advanced to such a size that they equalled four fingers' breadth in length and a finger in breadth: spotted too with various colours, they struck in a sharp pain. The mother comes and learns of the whole matter. What are they to do? whither turn? to the physicians' arts, or take refuge again in the holy Virgin's help? In the one there lay the danger either of removing to the lazaretto, or of the house being cut off from intercourse for almost two months: in the other they had already borne a refusal from the holy Virgin. They indeed consulted a physician before their doors somewhat after midday, but with mention of the swellings suppressed; so that his counsels might perhaps have brought more harm than help.

[18] Dismayed therefore with equal grief and fear, after a second invocation, setting these aside, the three women with one mind judge that St. Rosalia's help must again be sought, and full of good hope, prostrate in body as well as in mind before her paper image, and pouring forth a great flood of tears, strive to entreat her. But behold, in the midst of praying the sick girl herself, as though divinely moved, touched the swellings with the stone; and forthwith feels the touch of the stone healthful to her: she affirms that she is free of all pain of head and groin, and of the swellings too. The others scarcely believe her, thinking that those words proceeded from too great a desire of obtaining health. They examine therefore with eyes and hands how the matter stands: they see that everything is just as if there had never been any: which nevertheless a little before they had seen with their eyes and handled with their hands. Then indeed, filled with wonder and joy, they extol with praises the power of God the Best and Greatest, and the benefit of St. Rosalia. All these things the three women themselves related under oath.

[19] The same beneficence of the Virgin seemed to pour itself out upon one house; three in succession in one house from the plague, for being invoked four times ⁱ, four times she was present and at hand. For Domenico de Bartolo, born at Palermo, thirty-seven years old, his daughter having been carried off to the lazaretto because of the contagion, was kept at home with his wife and the rest of his household, cut off from the company of others, as happens, from almost the very beginning of the public calamity. He himself too began to be attacked with grave pain of the head and groin for a full hour and more. Pressed by it he brought himself help not human but divine: he had by him a little of that water which drips in the cave of St. Rosalia; into this he pours also dust struck off from the same place, and having drunk that cup and implored the help of the same Virgin, he was at once freed of his sickness. Four days had passed from this, when not only a like pain of the groin, but a fever too invaded his four-year-old son Girolamo: a small swelling appeared also in the groin. Therefore the remedy which had been the father's salvation was tried in the son; and not in vain: that same cup being given him to drink, and all invoking, the infant himself too stammering the name of St. Rosalia as he was taught by his mother, the fever together with the pain and the swelling, which for an hour had been increasing, wholly vanished, and thereafter the boy enjoyed excellent health.

[20] and a third freed also of a polypus: But truly the pestilent evil did not seem driven out of the house, but, being driven from one, to make for another. After an interval of six days a violent fever attacked another son, Francesco, thirteen years old: but he was helped by his excellent father with the same remedy. For although he had laboured with fever a whole night, yet at first light his former health was restored to him: nor was there left any trace, not only of fever, but of any plague. This benefit the holy Virgin willed to be confirmed by another toward the same youth, and the rest conferred upon the same house to be heaped up. A disease, which the physicians call a polypus ^k, had for a full month been holding the youth's eye ill and grievously. On that very headlong day on which the son recovered from the fever, she, relying on the holy Virgin's liberality and having experienced the power of the heavenly medicine, anointed his eyes with the same paste mingled of water and dust, as with a new eye-salve. Nor did hope fall out in vain: on the following day she received her son free of all trouble: nor thereafter did any troubles from that disease begin for the boy, nor for the others from their own, from the time they were cured by St. Rosalia's benefit.

[21] a healing sought on this condition, if they were the relics of St. Rosalia: I shall add in the last place something singular, which avails very much for creating credit for the sacred relics, if anyone still desires it after so many miracles written down and attested. Antonio Vismarra, when in the morning he had learned that his boy ^l had on the day before been tossed with fever, and pain of the head, and vomiting, and at sunset had taken to his bed, and that those evils were still strong; fearing greatly lest these symptoms, which are wont to be present in those attacked by the plague, portended this great evil to his house, wished to avert these prodigies from these dangers. He casts into water a particle of the bone of St. Rosalia which was in his keeping: then he not only prays her, but even adjures her that, if that bone were of hers, she would make it plain by relieving his boy's sickness. Which indeed someone may think was perhaps rashly attempted by him; but it was certainly permitted by God's counsel, that the truth of the relics might be the more evident. And so, when the sick boy drank the water, and gave himself and his health to the holy Virgin's patronage, at once the pain of his head is allayed, the vomiting checked, the fever abates.

[22] many others passed over. These were about the more famous miracles in the city: many others too were published abroad, which are likewise to be believed; which, that I may not be long, as I warned above, I shall pass over in silence. But this I judge is by no means to be passed over, that there are many, and perhaps even more, which have not been brought into the open. For since many, lest they should suffer loss of their property or other inconveniences, drove away the plague from themselves and their whole house by no physicians' help, but by St. Rosalia's benefit alone, whether by a vow taken to her, or by the stone applied, or by water drunk, they wrapped in silence at once the plague and the miracle, lest, if they betrayed themselves, they should incur the displeasure of the magistrate, by whom those were punished with death who, as soon as they had been seized by the plague, had not reported the matter to him: but, since benefits of this kind can scarcely be kept shut up in the breast, they shared them with a very few of their closest friends.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles wrought in the public hospital of those infected with the plague.

But now I shall set about writing those which were wrought in the lazaretto. A healing of the plague, Ninfa Gentile of Palermo, in the twenty-eighth year of her age, had been so steeped in the poison of the pestilence that she cast it out into several parts of her body. From the groin a swelling broke out: a pustule ulcerated her left foot: a greater ulcer too had foully corrupted her calf, in which the poison chiefly betrayed itself. The physicians had determined to cut away the leg altogether. And so the unhappy woman, oppressed both by fear of this torment to come and by the other pains of mind and body, passed days and nights sleepless in tears and complaints. Fr. Adriano of Palermo, of the family of the Observants of St. Francis, was bestowing labour on the healing of souls in the lazaretto. The woman, seeing him, asks him to administer to her the water of St. Rosalia: the Father complies with the sick woman's zeal and piety, and bestows not only water but also dust fetched from the same cave, that she might sprinkle her ulcer with it. A wonderful thing! This medicine alone being applied in the evening, and St. Rosalia's help implored, she so recovered that on the next day the surgeon, visiting her as usual, found nothing to heal: and within two days was wholly free of every evil ^a.

[24] another with a vision going before, Francesca de Arco, likewise born at Palermo, nineteen years old, with a burning fever and two swellings, had been brought to such a pass that, forsaken by the physicians' help, by the use of her senses, and by her strength, she was near to death ^b. Ninfa Gentile, whom we have just said was cured by St. Rosalia's benefit, sat by her; at her summons Fr. Adriano, that same one of whom we have spoken above, came quickly, to suggest Christian counsels to the dying woman, among which he urged this, that they should invoke St. Rosalia again and again; nor did he perform this service only, but also laid the relics of St. Rosalia on her head, and with great labour poured water into the mouth of her whose every strength had failed, that she might swallow it. Therefore during the rest of the night, since she had not the full use of her senses, and addressed both the holy Virgin, as she was being admonished, and Ninfa Gentile too indiscriminately, she seemed to herself to see a woman resembling a nun in dress and habit of body, and thus lovingly speaking to her: Call no more upon Ninfa Gentile: lay thyself down upon my knees, and take sleep: now thou art well, now thou art free of thy disease. Hearing these words, she really began to sleep: and awaking at first light, she knew herself well and free of fever, of the swellings, and of every evil whatsoever. Then when she sought that nun through the whole hospital, whose converse had delighted her, and had also given others the task of bringing her to her if anywhere they should come upon her (she described her in words), that she might show her a grateful mind; they could find none like her in face and habit. Whence they plainly understood that the author both of the converse and of health so suddenly acquired was none other than the holy virgin Rosalia.

[25] Curvano Curvaia had undertaken the labour and danger of helping the sick in the lazaretto in the hope of divine grace alone. a third, of a man accounted dead and laid on the bier, But after some days he took a great fruit of his charity, in that for God's sake he was worn down by the pestilence. His whole body too had almost festered with six pustules; each of which was livid and venomous, and half a small palm in size: from each half an ounce of putrid flesh was cut away. Consumed therefore by these pains, when he could be refreshed neither by sleep nor by food, and was so drawn away from his senses and reason by the bitterness of his pains that he plainly knew neither where he was, nor whether he was or was not: at last he departed from among the living, or at least was thought to have departed. For he was laid on a bier, and other corpses were heaped upon him in it. To him, on the day before he died, those who were joined to him by kinship had given the water of St. Rosalia to drink. And although that had not then turned out according to their wish, yet such was their piety and confidence toward the Virgin that they poured the same water over the dead man's body too, before it was carried to the bier. They seemed, if it is right to say so, to have done violence to the holy Virgin, that she should give him back to them alive. For when he was already being carried out, he raises his head from the coffin. All cry out that he has been raised from the dead ^c. This the outcome confirmed: for the fever being driven off, he soon recovered from his sores also: for the physician found him unharmed on the next day. He was a religious man of the family of St. Francis, which inhabits the monastery of St. Lucy situated in the suburb, who before that day had seen him dead.

[26] Nor less to be wondered at, perhaps even more, is what I shall add. likewise of another already carried out on a bier: Giovanni Domenico Liziardo, when a malignant fever had wasted him for seven days, brought him, duly cleansed with all the Sacraments, to madness before it brought him to death. You would have said that he was driven by an evil spirit, so did he rave with the heat of the fever. Not only had bonds to be cast on his hands and feet, but he had to be tied with nails fixed in the ground and with timbers, that all his limbs might be restrained. And when he tried to break even these, he so tore his side and back, dashing his body on the ground, that he was covered with his own blood. At last, the faculty of speaking and feeling being lost, he lay stretched on the bed for fourteen hours ^d dead, or most like a dead man. Those who took charge of funerals, thinking he had breathed out his soul, lay him on a bier and carry him out. They were a little way from the hospital, when he seemed to some to make a movement. These cry out, moved by the gravity of the matter. Roused by these cries Fr. Adriano goes to the bier: he orders the body to be set down: he lays on him the relics of St. Rosalia, and at length poured water hallowed by them into the sick man's throat. With the water his spirit seemed to be poured in again. So he who lay lifeless suddenly revived, and in a short time recovered full health.

[27] A certain youth, Giovanni Battista Mignuni ^e is his name, another likewise freed from the plague, received health from the holy Virgin above human powers as it were in the place of a reward for his piety toward his parents. He, then first reaching the years of manhood, chose to break off his flourishing life for the sake of those from whom he had received it. He followed them when they were led to the lazaretto on account of the contagion, that he might perform his duty to them. Nor did much time pass before he was made partaker of the contagion. And so, having through the trouble of fever and swellings turned away from food and drink for two whole days, he was already wasting away with fasting. But the water of St. Rosalia being taken, and the swellings vanishing, the fever too departed, and on the next day he was found safe. So his parents affirmed, and with others Raimondo Peres ^f.

[28] But he was not only a witness of another's miracle, but was more than once conscious of his own. He had been cast, unharmed, into the lazaretto as into a workhouse, by sentence of the judges, that at peril of his life he might act as cook. And indeed being three times attacked by the plague, and as often brought into the utmost peril of life, and duly purified with all the Sacraments, another healed three times: from the first and second sickness he escaped unharmed by beseeching St. Rosalia with prayers and drinking her healthful cup. But the third time, when, his throat being blocked by a twofold swelling, he could swallow not only no nourishment, but not even little drops of St. Rosalia's water, a paper was applied to his throat, in which was contained dust gathered from the same Virgin's cave, that they might press by siege the enemy whom they had not been able to slay as it were hand to hand; and by that siege, truly not long but very short, they drove him out.

[29] a grave malady of the throat taken away in a dying woman: But indeed in another the same enemy was stormed at close quarters. Prudenzia Bandis, brought to the lazaretto only on suspicion of contagion, a few days later in fact fell so sick with fever and a most sharp quinsy that for many days she shrank from food: and although they unlocked her palate with a peg thrust in, yet there was no power of swallowing, but rather she at once rejected whatever food, however delicate, was put into her mouth. There was added to these evils a frenzy too, which forced the wretched woman to rave ^g. Her cure therefore being despaired of by the physicians, she had lain for four hours like one dead; when the same Fr. Adriano, being called, is at hand, and succours the sick woman with a present remedy. He drips the water of St. Rosalia into her mouth. Great indeed is the power of this water, to which the enemy at once yielded, who before had withstood all the arts of the physicians and all the devices of her friends. Those who were present, Fr. Adriano himself, Giacomo Recepertus, and his wife, perceived even with their ears a noise raised in her throat as of a barrier removed which was blocking the passage, or rather of death muttering, which, having the throat ready to be crushed, was retiring against its will. By others too the same death, drawing near by other ways, was driven back.

[30] the plague healed, Maria de Carolo ^h, worn out by a pestilential fever and by a swelling standing out under the armpit, and fortified with the help of all the Sacraments, was preserved from imminent death by drinking the cup of St. Rosalia. Which she herself of herself, and those who sat by her, Fr. Adriano and Caterina Calcaterra, affirmed with the accustomed oath.

[31] a grave wound, But this same Caterina ⁱ made known another miracle also concerning herself. For when a huge stone, falling from a roof, had struck upon her head, it was itself broken in two, and it broke a wound in her, by which she, being stunned, fell as one thunderstruck. Then, her senses being recovered, she was so tormented with pain of the head and cheeks that no room was given for taking food or rest. There had been with her at that time Agata Consolincis, free however from the blow. She again and again demanded St. Rosalia's help for her companion's safety. Fr. Adriano conveniently made his way that road: who, having poured out prayers to St. Rosalia after his manner, applied the relics to her head, and gave her water also to drink. Using these alone, and no other remedies of the physicians, the woman so recovered that she at once refreshed herself with food and drink, and thereafter, employing no precaution for the wound, nor sparing herself at all in food and drink on that account, she took from it no harm.

[32] a most dangerous fever, This same woman testified another miracle concerning another Agata ^k, to whom the surname Fontana was given. For, brought by the force of a fever to the last day of her life, all hope of human remedy being cast away, by drinking only the cup of St. Rosalia, on the next day, which by the physicians' judgment ought to have been the last of her life,

she was found not only alive, but wholly unharmed; and this is established by the testimony not only of Agata, of whom we have spoken, but also of the physician, and of Fr. Adriano, and of as many as lived in that lazaretto.

[33] The same benefit was given to Virginia Valenzuni ^l, on whose hip two swellings had grown to the size of a medium-sized apple. the plague again: Vexed also with fever, she began not only to be delirious, but even so to rage that she had to be restrained with chains. She was already drawing her last breath, but by St. Rosalia's benefit the enjoyment of life was prolonged for her. The water being drunk in the evening, on the next morning she was found free of the swellings and of the fever.

[34] Nor was the power of this heavenly water contained within these bounds only, a woman twice from the plague, and at last from the vexation of a demon, so as to expel diseases from sick bodies, but it had great power also to drive out evil spirits from the possessed. A trial of both was made in one woman. Caterina Samnoata ^m, when once and again she had fallen into the plague, and had been tortured with cruel pains by the treatment of two swellings, one of which equalled the size of a quince, and the other far exceeded it; twice too by St. Rosalia's water, not drunk as by the rest, but only poured upon her sores, she so recovered that she not only made her way on foot, but even took to running, on I know not what occasion given. But having passed through these evils, she was tormented by another more troublesome and longer-lasting. For several years ⁿ seven evil spirits had exercised dominion over her; you might often have heard the woman, untaught in letters, weave Latin and Greek speeches by their working. But there was nothing troublesome in this school of letters, save when it came to blows and torments. Often for two days, or four, and sometimes for seven whole days they kept the wretched woman from food. And if they permitted her to take it, yet they often did not permit it to be kept down. Now they pressed out a quantity of blood from various parts of her body: at other times they compelled her by fear of death to rush from her bed in the dead of a snowy night. They were hostile with illusions too, if ever she went to church to be present at Mass: they snatched from her the sight of the most holy Eucharist, and even of the woman with whom she had lived for fourteen years on the most familiar terms (she is called Angela de Todaro) as she received it. There was a time when they tore her son from the wretched mother's arms and dashed him to the ground. At last they once did violence to her throat, to choke her.

[35] Vexed by these and by many other dreadful ways, which it would be superfluous to enumerate, which had long lasted, is delivered: she fled to the church of the Virgin Mother of God at Trapani as to a most strongly fortified citadel, that she might be freed from that tyranny. She often prayed also to the holy virgin and martyr Christina, patroness of this city, and yet did not obtain her prayer; often were the demons adjured with sacred verses by religious men and by others who had long and much been engaged in that office, and yet were not driven out: doubtless this palm was reserved for this Virgin. For God honours some of his Saints at some times and others at others. And so, water being signed with the relics of St. Rosalia and drunk, that band of demons was cast out, and thereafter the woman suffered no injury from them, nor was she hindered from enjoying the free sight of the holy Eucharist. This she herself asserted on oath. And the same two women confirm, Vincenza Sansuni and Angela de Todaro, of whom we made mention above.

[36] But now I shall set an end to the narration of the miracles, not to the miracles, both from zeal for pursuing truth, many others passed over. and to avoid the satiety of readers, which the likeness and abundance of many things belonging to the same matter is wont to breed. Yet I shall briefly touch on them all. Forty-six are counted who, the relics of St. Rosalia being applied, or by the drinking of the water, or by her help implored in some other way, were cured beyond the measure and powers of nature. And indeed almost all from the most grievous and deadly disease of the pestilence, as being in a place destined for curing it, and from the danger of death already at hand, into which the poison of pestilence is for the most part wont to drive: and very many by the work of father Adriano, who carried about the relics of St. Rosalia through the whole hospital, as the most present amulet against this poison, or a cup of the water as an antidote, so that he seemed to hold the health and life of all in his hand.

ANNOTATIONS.

APPENDIX

Of miracles and benefits.

Rosalia, virgin anchoress, near Palermo in Sicily. (S.)

CHAPTER I.

The remaining miracles or benefits which, besides those aforesaid, Cascinus related in book 1, chapter 12.

From Cascinus.

[ ] A forewarning to the following miracles gathered from Cascinus: A hundred benefits of St. Rosalia, wrought between the finding of the body and its approbation, and confirmed by sworn testimonies, Cascinus narrated in book 1, chapter 12, as I have already noted before. Out of these Salerno gathered his own, as they have just been given, alleging these causes for omitting the rest: But now I shall set an end to the narration of the miracles, not to the miracles, both from zeal for pursuing truth, and to avoid the satiety of readers, which the likeness and abundance of many things belonging to the same matter is wont to breed. Then he touches on forty-six miracles in a single word. But those which he passed over, perhaps rather from haste than for another cause, I have resolved briefly to gather from Cascinus. And that this may be done with greater brevity, and that certain less necessary circumstances may be more fitly cut away, I shall not render his own words into Latin, but shall faithfully set forth in my own words the facts related by him, passing over nothing from which the greater or lesser evidence of the miracles may be known; and I shall follow the order which the author himself followed, those things only being passed over which have been related from Salerno. Further, I note here beforehand with Cascinus that at the time of the finding of the body various things fell to various persons, belonging in some way to St. Rosalia, and that these were healthful to many: for when the stone in which the sacred bones were hidden was broken apart, some secretly claimed for themselves some particles of the little bones, others of the stone: and others desired some of the earth near the stone, others something of the water dripping there. The use of all these, or rather the confidence with which they used them, wonderfully availed for obtaining benefits of every kind.

[2] On the very day of the finding, that is on the 15th of July in the year 1624, a dropsical woman healed, Francesco Ricca, to whom the guardianship of the tower on Mount Peregrino had been entrusted, happily experienced the power of St. Rosalia, whom he had long loved. When he was present at the finding of the body, he had carried away with him some of the little bones, and returning home had put it into water. This water he then applied to the swollen legs of his wife Petronilla, long dropsical: and she was at once healed. The same Francesco attributed to St. Rosalia another benefit; which as less clear I pass over. This is the first in Cascinus.

[3] The second, wrought on the same day, he narrates in this manner. one labouring under the plague, Carlo Cardona, a youth of fifteen years, was found infected with the plague by fever, pain of the head, and three carbuncles. His uncle D. Francesco Burchi, having received a fragment of the sepulchral stone of St. Rosalia, consecrated water into which he put it. This water the sick youth took in the evening, and presently felt himself freed from pain; nor was any trace of the pestilence found on the following day.

[4] a woman afflicted with various evils, The third having been already related, I pass to the fourth, which happened on the 20th day of July, and is thus related. Francesca, wife of Francesco Balsamo, thirty-eight years old, was oppressed with various and grievous evils at once, namely faintings of spirit, pains of the head and stomach, heavy sweating, violent fever, palpitation of the heart, and vomiting. All these were believed to arise from a pestilential impression which she could have contracted on occasion of an infected carriage, sent to carry a dead body. But whatever be the cause of the infirmity, she took water offered by her husband, into which the often-praised stone had been put, having first said the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic salutation, and suddenly obtained full health.

[5] another with pain of the stomach, The benefit just related furnished the occasion for another, which is the fifth in Cascinus. Giovanni Domenico Costa, labouring under almost the same evil of the stomach, when he had heard of the healing of the aforesaid Francesca his neighbour, demanded the same water, and having first said the same prayers, drank it against his evil, and was at once healed.

[6] one labouring under a pestilential fever, Giuseppe Schifano, a notary, was labouring under a pestilential fever, and therefore had been separated as suspected of the plague. The force of the disease had brought him to such a pass that the physicians judged he would not survive more than five or seven hours. But when his wife had received the water of St. Rosalia, and given it to her husband to drink, he began to sleep, and in the morning was found so well by the physicians that within three days he was wholly healed. This benefit, which was obtained less suddenly than the preceding, is the eleventh in Cascinus.

[7] two others afflicted with the same evil The twelfth, which is twofold, he narrates thus: In almost the same way and by the same water were healed the sister of Salvatore Basilico, and the daughter of Vincenzo Panicola, who had been separated on account of a pestilential and deadly fever, and brought to extremity.

[8] one labouring under five wounds, The wife of Andrea Montalto had five sores in one breast: to this she applied five times a fragment of the Saint's sepulchral stone, and was whole. That is the eighteenth in Cascinus.

[9] one in a fever, There follows the nineteenth, related in this manner. D. Antonio Agliata, a youth of seventeen years, was labouring under chill, fever and pain of the head. He took a little of the water dripping in the cave of Mount Peregrino, with which had been mingled some of the earth near the tomb. He then begins to sleep, and hears in sleep that he is admonished to rise up whole, as he did.

[10] one labouring under the stone. D. Pietro Valdina, marquis della Rocca, twenty-eight years old, removed from himself in a very short time a grave pain of the side arising from the stone, after he had applied to himself the sepulchral stone: and he passed the stone itself without labour on the following morning. That is the twentieth.

[11] One who fell into a well is preserved unhurt in a wonderful manner: In the twenty-first place the author notes that various benefits happened in the house of D. Giuseppe del Bosco, senator of Palermo, who with others had been deputed on the 16th of July to Mount Peregrino, to take cognizance of the finding. The first, which happened on the same day, he had already narrated before together with the finding of the body, much in this manner. Carlo di Palermo, a boy of about twelve years, was playing with other boys in the courtyard of the aforesaid senator's house; when, in the midst of playing, stepping suddenly backwards, he unthinkingly flings himself head downward into a well which was there. But since he had heard of the body of St. Rosalia that had been found, and yet did not remember the name, in the midst of his fall he invoked the Saint in these words: O Saint, who hast now been found, help me. Presently he found himself in the well standing upright upon his feet without any hurt. To crown the benefit there was added that he at once found the rope by which wine was let down into the cold water of the well, and having laid hold of it was so nimble that without anyone's help he reached the top of the well, and came out unhurt.

[12] The second benefit is thus related in the place assigned above. the plague healed in a boy, Girolamo, son of Giuseppe Curmaci, a boy of six years of the household of the lord del Bosco, had begun to labour under a fever, and carried about on his body other signs of the plague. There was given to the boy water into which the sepulchral stone had been put; and presently he began to be better, and within an hour wholly recovered.

[13] Then D. Giuseppe himself, when on the 1st day of August he had by reason of his office been much occupied with the affairs of those labouring under the plague, likewise in a man. in the evening perceived that he was seized with weakness, chill, pain of the head, vomiting, and at last with fever and a pestilential swelling in the groin. About midnight, being without rest, he resolved to flee to the patronage of St. Rosalia: and taking a particle of the stone, to which some of the bone of St. Rosalia too was clinging, he applied it to the swollen part of his body, at the same time invoking the Saint with great affection. A little after, removing the stone, he both found the swelling driven away, and was free of fever and of all pain.

[14] Hence I pass to Cascinus's twenty-eighth, which was the first that happened in the public hospital of the infected in the month of July in the year 1624. Many Giovanni Tommaso Ferro, a youth of nineteen years, had been brought to extremity within two days by a pestilential fever. But when one of the hermits of Mount Peregrino had carried thither some relics of St. Rosalia, and had given the sick man water into which they had been put, to drink, he suddenly and entirely recovered.

[15] At the same time the infant of Margarita lo Preste, labouring under a pestilential fever and swelling, others was, the water of St. Rosalia being taken, freed within two hours of fever, swelling, and every evil.

[16] Giuseppe Ionico, a youth of fifteen years, from the plague had been brought by the plague to such a pass that he lay in the hospital despaired of and forsaken by the physicians. Fr. Adriano of the third Order of St. Francis, already often praised above in Salerno, being called to the dying man, offered him water consecrated by the Saint's relics. He who for four days had been able neither to eat nor to drink, was able to take this water, and took it so happily that he suddenly recovered.

[17] Francesco Barone, thirty years old, from fever and a pestilential swelling had already lost the use of his senses. more There was nevertheless given him the frequently praised water, and the same was sprinkled on the affected part of his body. Presently he began to sleep, and soon recovered.

[18] Nardo Montalbano, when he was labouring under a not very malignant plague, or less pronounced a vow to St. Rosalia; and then, although he had already been assigned to the hospital, he was at last left at home. But the pestilential evil returning after almost a month, he again invoked the holy Virgin, and both applied her water to the affected place and drank it: and presently he was freed of swelling and fever, and remained whole.

[19] Girolamo Scarpace, a fisherman of thirty years, labouring, was labouring under so grave a fever and such horrible swellings of the plague that the physicians did not dare to cut away the evil, lest they should kill the man. He was therefore despaired of, and prepared for death with the last Sacraments; when Brother Giovanni Maria, a Capuchin, asked the surgeon to cut away for the sick man the pestilential swelling under his armpit. He did it; and the sick man, invoking St. Rosalia, and drinking her water and applying it to the wound, presently, the fever ceasing, began to be healed, and using no other remedy, in a short time wholly recovered.

[20] or under another evil also, Girolamo Pileri, fifteen years old, was so labouring under a violent fever and a grave malady of the throat that for three days he could not take food. When nevertheless he had been able to take a little of the often-mentioned water, and had piously invoked the Saint, the prayer Salve Regina being repeated three times, he was freed of every evil.

[21] and to death Stefano Maiorana, twenty-three years old, had been brought by the pestilence to such a pass that he lacked the use of his senses, and was believed by the physicians not likely to live above two hours. To him Fr. Adriano poured in the sacred water, and found him on the following day free of fever, yet not without a pestilential swelling. The sick man therefore vowed that he would see to it that a Mass should be celebrated: and that being celebrated, he found himself wholly whole.

[22] now near, Giuseppe Casata, forty-six years old, had a pestilential swelling above his stomach, and was vomiting blood. He had already been robbed by that evil of speech and of the use of his senses for an hour, when, coming somewhat to himself, he took the water of St. Rosalia. He suddenly opened his eyes, vomited up the malignant humours, but not blood; he spoke, the fever ceased, and he recovered. This is the thirty-seventh in Cascinus.

[23] after St. Rosalia I pass to the fortieth. Angelica Starabba, twenty-six years old, was twice healed after taking the water of St. Rosalia; the first time of a malignant fever, when she had already been forsaken by the physicians; the second time of four pestilential swellings.

[24] in various Giovanna Barcasancio was so seized with fever and plague that the physicians pronounced she could not be healed except by God. In the evening she drank the water of St. Rosalia, which was also applied to the affected places: and in the morning she rose up whole.

[25] ways Girolama Licet-domine, twenty-five years old, labouring under the same evil on the same day, was healed also in the same way.

[26] was called Antonia di Cesare, likewise despaired of by the physicians, on the following day recovered from the plague, the same water being taken.

[27] in their vows, One being passed over, which was given by Salerno, there follows the forty-fifth in this manner. Diana di Stefano, twenty-seven years old, was twice healed by taking the water of St. Rosalia. The first time she had been forsaken by the physicians on account of a malignant fever and the violence of the plague, when she was healed. The second time, being again brought to the utmost danger, whether by the plague or by another evil, which is not expressed, she was suddenly healed, and on the following day rose from her bed.

[28] suddenly Filippa Cristiana of Bivona, forty years old, had been forsaken by the physicians through the violence of the pestilence and of fever, and was deprived of the use of her senses, and already near to death. But when the water of St. Rosalia was given her to drink, and sprinkled on the affected places, the fever suddenly ceased: but the pestilential pustules were opened, to which she afterwards wished to apply no remedy except the water and oil of the same Saint: and so in a short time she was healed.

[29] or after a short Angela di Teodoro, twenty-six years old, with a grave evil of the pestilence and a grave sore out of which worms were swarming, had already been forsaken by the physicians and deprived of her senses, when some of the aforesaid water was poured into her mouth and sprinkled on the sore. This being done, the use of her senses returned to her, the fever ceased; and the sore too was healed in a short time.

[30] Giovanna Rizza, thirty years old, was exposed to an evident danger of death from a swelling afflicting her right arm and from a malignant fever. time But when her husband brought her some of St. Rosalia's water, and added the sign of the cross, she at the same time calling for mercy with a single cry, the pestilential swelling vanished, and the fever, ceasing, soon left her whole.

[31] Angela Oliva, twenty-six years old, from a violent fever wholly and places of her body infected with the plague, had for five days lacked food and rest. Moreover a pestilential swelling had already been cut away from her, but another had arisen in another place. Wherefore she applied the water of St. Rosalia to both places, and by it the pain of the excised swelling ceased, and the other swelling vanished: and so in a short time she recovered. This is the fifty-fourth in Cascinus.

[32] There follows another no less wonderful, with which I shall close this chapter. recovered. Vincenza Bongiorno, a girl of fourteen years, had by a malignant fever, and pustules and pestilential swellings, lost the use of her senses, and had been despaired of by the physicians. To her holy Rosalia herself is said to have applied the water, and to have doctored her as she lay dying with her own hands, much as has been related in Salerno at number 27 of Francesca de Arco, whose healing follows in Cascinus. And Cascinus notes that from these two healings there arose in the hospital the report that the Saint was healing those infected with the plague in the hospital even with her own hands.

CHAPTER II.

A continuation of the same miracles from Cascinus, chapter 12.

[ ] Of those, Cascinus from benefit 57 begins to narrate certain things about those who had devoted themselves in the hospital to the service of those labouring under the plague. And of these, because they were continually exposed to danger, several were healed on various occasions. The first that occurs is Pietro del Monaco, who is narrated to have been healed four times; twice namely he recovered from a malignant fever which was believed pestilential; and twice likewise he was healed when he had manifest signs of the pestilence. On each occasion he recovered in a moment, after he had applied to himself the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb. Of the hospital's cook healed three times it has been treated in Salerno. For which cause I go on to the sixty-fourth.

[34] Francesco Consolino had served eight days in the hospital, who were serving when he was seized with a pestilential fever, which within a month brought him to such a pass that he was forsaken by the physicians, and a priest suggested to him pious counsels for meeting death. But when he had received from the same priest a little of the water of St. Rosalia, the evil ceased, and he returned whole to the service of the sick on the 14th of August. But on the 5th day of September the plague, now open, seized him: and from it too he was freed by drinking the water and by invoking St. Rosalia.

[35] Bartolomeo Papa had begun among the first to serve those labouring under the plague, those labouring under the plague and was seized by the same evil, which showed itself in six parts of his body. But when on the 13th day of August he had drunk some of the water of St. Rosalia, and had touched with it the affected parts of his body, on the following day he found himself whole. Then going on to serve the infected he was again oppressed by so great an evil that he both lost his speech, and

was fortified with the last helps of the dying. But the same water being taken, he recovered again, and indeed suddenly.

[36] and had contracted the evil, Giovanni Nicoletti had betaken himself to the hospital, that he might there discharge the office of clerk. He laboured first under a violent fever, and afterwards under the plague. But on both occasions the water of St. Rosalia was his salvation.

[37] some healed on repeated occasions, Giuseppe Lombardo had been sent to the hospital as one infected with the plague, but by mistake. But being at once freed from his sickness, he wished to serve the infected; and contracted the plague so violently that he received the last Sacraments. The water of St. Rosalia being also taken, he was found whole on the 12th of August, when he was believed about to die. Further, returning to the service of the sick, and the plague being again contracted, he seemed once more brought to the end of his life; but he was healed by the same remedy as before.

[38] others once, Diego Gandaneri had served those suspected of plague, and, being seized by that evil, had been carried to the public hospital. To the plague and the fever there had been added so great a vomiting of blood that he was accounted by the physicians as hopeless. But he invoked the help of St. Rosalia, having pronounced a vow of visiting her cave barefoot. After the vow he began to sleep, and thereupon to eat: and the water of St. Rosalia being afterwards drunk too, he recovered so quickly that after two days he was serving at table the same physician by whom he had been forsaken as one certain to die.

[39] after they had already been Rocco Marchese was in the hospital to write down the names of the sick and of the dead. He was there seized by plague and fever, and brought to such a pass that, being despaired of by three physicians, he received the last Sacraments, and was already giving up the ghost. But by a little of St. Rosalia's water he was restored to his senses, and, the evil ceasing, was healed without any other remedy.

[40] brought to extremity, Fr. Francesco Marino of the Society of Jesus, while he was diligently attending those infected with the plague, had contracted the contagion on the right side of his forehead, and was already deprived of his senses, the physicians despairing of his healing. But his companion Fr. Antonino di Agostino hoped he would be healed by the help of St. Rosalia. Wherefore, invoking this holy Virgin, he asked that she would deign by that grace to confirm among the Sicilians the truth of her relics, and promised that he would publish the benefit to the honour of God and of the Saint: and so he applied the sacred relics to his head, which was so swollen that neither his eyes nor the shape of a human head could be recognized. At this touch of the relics the sick man presently began to be better: nor yet even so did the physicians think he could be healed; and when they saw the evil diminish, they affirmed that the sick man would lose his right eye. Nevertheless he at last perfectly recovered, and his eye was safe, so that the benefit was entire, only a scar being left at the eyebrow in memory of the grace obtained.

[41] or at least The just-praised Fr. Antonino di Agostino afterwards experienced in himself the signs of the pestilence, namely pain of the head, an evil affection of the groin, nausea, and vomiting, and other things proper to the contagion. For this cause he was already preparing himself to meet death piously, and taking in his hand the bone of St. Rosalia which he had with him, he commended himself to her, not with the intention of obtaining a longer life, but rather of coming with the Saint to the sight of his Creator, desiring that his body should be buried with that relic. And as he uttered these things, he felt a sweet emotion of confidence; and said that he desired to be with St. Rosalia, alive or dead; but that it seemed to him unfitting if that bone of the Saint, whose body for almost five hundred years had lain hidden under the earth, should for his sake be given back to the earth: and saying these things, he reverently kissed that sacred bone, when there suddenly came upon him a copious sweat, by which the whole evil was driven out: and so he began to sleep, and in the morning rose up whole.

[42] Brother Agostino Kirieleisonne, of the Order of St. John of God, grievously instituted for the service of the sick, was serving in the hospital, where he was three times healed. He was freed of a very malignant fever on the 12th of August at the mere invocation of St. Rosalia; and after eighteen days he was healed in the same way of a great pestilential swelling. But after he had returned to the service of the sick, after fifteen days he relapsed more grievously, and was brought to extremity. Wherefore he sprinkled the place infected with the plague with water hallowed by the Saint's sepulchral stone; and the fever and every evil ceased, and he knew himself suddenly whole.

[43] Brother Alfio Marcavia of the same Order had been brought by plague and fever on the 1st of September to such a pass were labouring. that he could no longer take food, and was delirious from the violence of the evil, and was despaired of by the physicians. But after the water of St. Rosalia had been given him to drink, and the infected places touched with the Saint's relics, he began first to eat, and then to serve the other sick after his manner.

[44] Sebastiana di Noto, serving the sick women in the hospital, Women in almost the same way was so labouring under a malignant fever and a pestilential swelling of extraordinary size that she had been forsaken by the physicians, and deprived of her senses, and seemed about shortly to give up the ghost. But a little of St. Rosalia's water was put into her mouth, and applied to the pestilential swelling: and so on the following morning she was wholly healed.

[45] Girolama Gattusa, who had before been healed through St. Rosalia, were healed. as has been said at number 189, and had furnished the occasion for seeking the sacred body, when out of charity she had devoted herself to the service of the sick in the hospital, was breathed upon by the contagion, but was healed by the help of the same Saint.

[46] After relating the healings of those who, so far as is known, had wished out of charity alone to serve those labouring under the plague, Other healings Cascinus brings forward some examples by which it appears that not even those were deprived of the benefits of St. Rosalia who had been put to such service by their own fault, or served with the intention of gain alone. Girolamo Canina had been condemned to serve those infected with the plague in the hospital; there he was seized by so grave an evil of the pestilence that he was both deprived of the use of his senses and forsaken by the physicians. But having received a little of the water of St. Rosalia, he recovered within twenty-four hours, and rose up whole.

[47] Giuseppe Greco, likewise labouring there under fever and plague, of the plague was healed by the same water.

[48] Pietro Pennizza, serving there as a hireling, was brought to extremity by fever and by plague showing itself in many parts of his body, in the public and prepared for death with the most holy Sacraments. But the water of St. Rosalia was his salvation, of which he drank a little, and some was applied to the affected places. The pestilential swellings suddenly vanished, save one, which was left with a slight pain as it were for a sign; and this too was in a short time healed without any other medicine.

[49] hospital. Domenico di Messina had been carried sick to the hospital; and being healed there had begun to serve the others who were labouring. Then with greater danger he contracted the plague, and so laboured under it that he was despaired of by the physicians. But the water of St. Rosalia being given him, the fever immediately ceased, and on the following day he rose from his bed.

[50] A surgeon preserved from the plague: To these Cascinus subjoins that many too were preserved in manifest dangers of the pestilence, of whom he alleges only one as a specimen. Vincenzo Daidone, a surgeon, wished for no other help against the dangers of the pestilence than a little stone from the tomb of St. Rosalia, which he put in his mouth, and so with great courage and confidence in the Saint went to the infected. He afterwards obtained a tooth also, and with these defences was never breathed upon by the contagion, even though of the others fully thirty had died, partly physicians, partly surgeons, as Cascinus testifies.

[51] certain persons healed in confirmation of the relics: Afterwards the praised author relates some benefits which were obtained through the relics of St. Rosalia, with this protestation added, If they were truly her relics. Two of these I have already given with Salerno. But the following, which in Cascinus is the ninetieth, is thus related. D. Giuseppe Ricupri, a priest, was labouring under a swelling in his throat, to which he applied a particle of the bones mentioned. Further, he not only asked to be healed if this bone were St. Rosalia's; but dared to add that he would not believe it unless he were healed: and in a moment he came out whole.

[52] various other benefits through the relics, These relics, by which the praised priest had obtained that grace, had been lent to him by Giovanni Battista di Gregorio, who by their use had obtained various graces from God. First, he himself had once been so oppressed with pain of the heart, with vomiting, pain of the head, and signs of the pestilence, that he believed he would die. But that sacred pledge being applied above his heart, in a moment he was relieved and whole. Secondly, of his two daughters, Vittoria and Vincenza, labouring under fever with signs of the pestilence, the first suddenly recovered at the touch of the same bone and the drinking of the same water; and the other by drinking the water of St. Rosalia, and by cotton being placed on the affected part which had touched the aforesaid relics. Thirdly, Antonia, his little daughter of three years, was playing in the street, when a horse without a bridle at full gallop seemed likely so to bear down upon the little girl that she could by no means escape the danger. But her mother invoking St. Rosalia, that furious horse suddenly stood still, all wondering. More evident is the benefit which follows about the same little girl, and which happened not long after. The girl was falling from a stair of twenty steps, so that it seemed her head must be crushed. But the girl had already learned to invoke St. Rosalia, and so came out unhurt.

[53] or by the mere To these the author joins two others on account of their likeness, but which he testifies happened earlier. An infant was exposed to a horse coming on at a run, when its mother invoked St. Rosalia with such success that that horse stopped before the infant itself, although it was being pushed on by another likewise running up.

[54] invocation Francesco Daidone, the nine-year-old son of Vincenzo Daidone the surgeon praised before, was falling from a stair, not rolling down the steps, but from the side, so that from the height of the stair there was evident danger of death. But those who saw him falling implored the help of St. Rosalia, and found the boy standing on the ground and safe, slightly hurt however by an iron which had fallen from the stair upon him. Further, the child testified that he felt while falling that he was upheld by someone under the armpits, and gently set down on the ground.

Two others of the same surname Daidone, both brought by fever, of St. Rosalia by different persons vomiting, and pestilential swellings to the utmost danger of life, were healed by the mere application of St. Rosalia's sepulchral stone on the same 15th day of July, the one in the space of twenty-four hours, the other in a short time.

[55] The chapter in which he narrated all these things Cascinus concludes with another benefit, were obtained. out of which there arose some contention, which turned to the Saint's praise. Girolama di Aragona, a sick infant, the physicians had examined, and from her pestilential swellings had pronounced her infected with the plague. For this cause the whole house, in which twenty persons dwelt, was forbidden the common intercourse of men. On the following day the inhabitants of the house maintained

that they had unjustly been forbidden the intercourse of others, and therefore the chief physician of the city was sent to judge that dispute, one of the former physicians accompanying him. The infant was brought forward, and no sign of plague was found in her, the physician being astonished who on the day before had recognized in her the signs of pestilence. Hence, as the contention of the household against the physician grew, and his own astonishment, the chief physician was doubtful and at a stand, when a certain woman from the inner part of the house cried out: Say, say, for the love of God, and to the praise of the Saint, that the infant has been healed by the oil of her lamp. At which word the contention ceased, to the glory of St. Rosalia.

CHAPTER III.

Other miracles and benefits, related by Cascinus in chapter 15 in confirmation of the relics of St. Rosalia.

[ ] A sweet odour of the relics perceived by many, Cascinus in book 1, chapter 15, narrates not a few wonders and benefits by which the truth of the relics of St. Rosalia, already proved before by other reasons, is also confirmed. And since he is more diffuse in these than in the rest, I shall transfer them hither in summary, so nevertheless that I have resolved to omit no circumstances of any moment. The first sign, that is the deliverance of Sicily from the plague, because it has been abundantly related, he only touches on briefly. Then, of the sweet odour of the relics perceived by many, of which mention has already been made from time to time, he records the following. First he asserts that that sweet odour was perceived from the beginning of the finding, but only by certain persons, and never by all; and that in the long recognition of the relics he had often heard that odour praised by many; but that he always frankly confessed that it was not perceived by him. Secondly he testifies that at length, when he was breaking a stone in which some bone was set, and was thinking nothing of the odour of the relics, he was unexpectedly filled with so great a fragrance of a sweet and unknown odour that he could not explain that odour by any likeness to an earthly odour. And when he invited his companions to that odour, it was then perceived by none, although they at other times had kept saying that they perceived a sweet fragrance of odour. He testifies that the same happened to him a second time, and never afterwards.

[57] Thirdly, Erasmo Salato, one of the doctors of medicine who were employed at the recognition of the relics, which made the water too, into which they were put, fragrant. carried home with him a particle of bone to which some earth was clinging, and put it into water. This being done, that water conceived an odour as of rose-water, which was perceived by many: and for that cause that water was carefully kept. The author adds that the same happened to so many others that it would be too tedious to relate each. Fourthly, since it is established that rose-water is somewhat changed in odour and colour when pure water is poured upon it, some wished reverently to try whether the same would happen in that water which had taken so great a sweetness of odour from the relics of St. Rosalia put into it. Wherefore that experiment was made twice in the presence of many, once in the house of the lady Vincenza Lucchese, a matron of approved virtue, and again in the college of the Society of Jesus. Rose-water was taken, and pure water poured upon it: presently the colour of the rose-water was changed and its odour diminished. Likewise was brought water in which an odour had lodged from the Saint's relics put into it; and upon it in the same way pure water was poured. But the colour of this water was not changed; and its odour was so increased that it was perceived by all, not without pleasant astonishment, more than before. Fr. Francesco Sparacino, who had been given some particles of the relics, had heard these things, and wished to make a like experiment at Caltagirone in the college of the Society of Jesus. He put into a vessel a fragment of the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb, as large as a grain of millet; and poured on it abundant water. Presently that water became fragrant like rose-water. Then the vessel being emptied, a second and a third time pure water was poured upon that tiny particle, which as often took on the rosy odour, in the presence of many Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who were astonished at the miracle.

[58] A pain of the arm suddenly taken away by such water: Further, it cannot be doubted that these things gave occasion for drinking the water into which either the relics or the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb had been put, as we have already learned by many examples was done most happily against diseases of every kind. Among the first was Fr. Giuseppe Agostini of the Society of Jesus, and Cascinus's companion in the recognition of the relics. He had for thirteen months laboured under a grave pain of the right shoulder, and it had grown so much that he could with difficulty perform the divine Mysteries, and still less take rest. And so he put the sacred relics of St. Rosalia into water, and drank it, a short prayer being said first. Scarcely so much space had passed as would allow the water drunk to reach his stomach, when he feels the heaviness of his shoulder and the pain taken away as if by another's hand; and suddenly brandishing his arm and going out of his chamber, he hastened to share with the other Fathers the grace obtained.

[59] the relics wonderfully honoured by an infant, Wonderful is what follows in Cascinus, where it is related to this effect, but much more at length. Vincenzo Barbera, architect of the city of Palermo and a painter, had a particle of the relics of St. Rosalia, but kept it hidden until the dispute about the approbation should be decided. On the 15th day of February he heard that the approbation had been decreed, although it was not yet promulgated. Wonderfully glad at this news, at once on the same evening he goes with the relics to some Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who had seen other relics of the Saint, that hearing of their likeness he might make himself more secure. Returning home, he shares the matter with his wife, who exhorts him that they should venerate those relics together. And when he wished to show to all the household the paper in which he kept the relics wrapped, his infant Francesco, eighteen months old, whom his aunt on the father's or mother's side was carrying in her arm, began forcibly to unwind himself from the arm of her who carried him, and being unwound was the first to fall upon his knees, signifying with his hand too that the others should do the same; and then he pronounces readily, holy Rosalia, and repeats the same words four times with great eagerness, although before he was not wont to utter any words, save perhaps Mamma and Tata: at last he urged with so many gestures that the relics should be handed to him, that his father put them into the little infant's hands, and he first of all reverently kissed them. That these things were confirmed by the testimony of all the household, Cascinus testifies.

[60] Most like to this is what he subjoins, and which he testifies was done at almost the same time. A little girl of thirteen months was sick. likewise by another girl, who is at the same time healed. Her father had received a particle of the relics of St. Rosalia, with which he was coming to touch the infant. But the infant, having been taught nothing, on seeing her father pronounces, St. Rosalia, raising herself in the bed, and is suddenly healed.

[61] Of another kind is what Cascinus afterwards sets forth in a lengthy narration, Various benefits and which I transfer hither in a brief summary. Francesco Morillo of the Society of Jesus was returning to Palermo from a certain country house by sea, when the wind suddenly became contrary and so violent that the sea swelled beyond measure, and there was open danger of shipwreck. Their fear was increased by the dark night, and because the boat had been lost while they were trying to draw it in, that they might get out on land. Wherefore they began to implore the help of St. Rosalia, whom they had saluted with a pious prayer while sailing past Mount Peregrino, and presently the boat appeared near the ship, nor yet could it be caught at that time, because it was again cast out of sight by a violent wave. When the sailors were sad, being disappointed of this hope, and since they could not seek the boat in the darkness, at the exhortation of Francesco Morillo, who had the relics of St. Rosalia with him, they turn to repeated prayers, and not in vain. For they saw the boat near the ship, and found it unhurt in so great a tempest: and without delay, having entered the boat and laboured at the oars, they brought both the boat and the ship, which they had tied to it, happily to land near Mount Peregrino.

[62] To this benefit some others, done later, are subjoined on account of their likeness. granted to those at sea A skiff in the Sicilian sea was being attacked by an enemy ship so near [ ] that it could not even resist. Those who were carried in the skiff, when they recognized the danger, made vows to St. Rosalia, and not in vain, as far as may be gathered from the outcome. For while the steersmen of the enemy ship were labouring to turn their sails so as to seize the skiff better, they so entangled themselves that it meanwhile withdrew far off and happily reached land.

[63] Moreover that not a few benefits were granted by St. Rosalia to those at sea were granted. is gathered from the multitude of votive tablets with which the Saint's church and her cave on Mount Peregrino already long since abounded. Of these one is narrated in this manner. Four Fathers of the Society of Jesus were setting sail from the kingdom of Naples for Ethiopia: and among these was Fr. Giuseppe Pomo, to whom Cascinus had given some relics of St. Rosalia. Their ship was twice tossed and endangered by a sharp tempest; first in the gulf of Gioia , which is on the shore of Further Calabria; then near the island of Capri , not far from Naples. Yet on both occasions they escaped happily, and attributed their safety to St. Rosalia. For in the first tempest Fr. Giuseppe Pomo let down into the sea, tied to a rope, the case in which the Saint's relics were, for only a very short time, and presently calm returned to the sea: and in almost the same way the tempest was stilled the second time near Naples.

[64] A hernia The author then goes on to other benefits, of which this is the first. A certain man, whose name is not indicated, had for twenty years laboured under an incurable hernia. He, having conceived confidence in St. Rosalia, whose miracles he had heard of, wished to go on foot to Mount Peregrino; but in the middle of the way he was forced to stop, because his strength failed. And when he sat sorrowful, and excused himself not only to his companions but to St. Rosalia too, that he could not complete the journey; he felt himself encouraged to go on with the journey, and presently finding himself whole, his companions wondering, he accomplished the rest of the journey at a run: and rendering most humble thanks to the Saint, he gladly laid down on Mount Peregrino the iron truss which he had been forced to use. This was done after the first exposition of the relics of St. Rosalia on the 9th day of April.

[65] of certain persons By the same evil Brother Ludovico of St. Michael, of the reformed Order of St. Augustine, had been vexed for nine years, when on the 22nd of November he went barefoot to Mount Peregrino, as he had vowed. After he had come thither with the utmost labour, he gave thanks to St. Rosalia for the journey completed, at the same time demanding a new grace: and presently he felt himself freed from his evil.

[66] healed: D. Antonio Francione, a priest, had laboured under a like evil for fifteen years, when he wished to visit the cave of St. Rosalia, hoping to be healed there. But he returned without obtaining healing; nor yet did he despair of obtaining it: but turning to other exercises of piety, he felt the truss break with which he had always fortified himself against the evil: and his hope being hence increased, he offered the sacrifice of the Mass, and certain vows being pronounced, he found himself so free that he needed no truss.

[67] others Onofrio Buonarota had long laboured under a fistula

of long standing under the ribs, and the physicians had said that the sick man would be more grievously afflicted if it were closed up. It happened as they had said: the fistula being closed, the sick man's sides, breast, and other parts of the body were so ill affected that his life was despaired of. And since he hoped that he would be healed by the patronage of St. Rosalia, he was carried in a chair to the cave: and there began piously to invoke the Saint. A little after, being seized by sleep, he fell asleep; and afterwards awoke whole: for the fistula opened again of itself, through which the evil humours discharged themselves, and so, being refreshed and strong, he gave thanks to the Saint, and returned home whole and lively.

[68] evils of the body D. Filippo Salonia had wholly lost his sight through a grave inflammation of the head, and for five months already, the physicians' art having been employed in vain, lacked the use of his eyes. Having frequently invoked St. Rosalia, in whose help he trusted, at last he wished to be led to the cave of Mount Peregrino, and came thither on foot with the help of a guide. He prayed there a long time, and on the following day too was refreshed with holy Communion. But, his sight not being obtained, he sought his home again, committing himself wholly to the divine providence; yet not without hope of recovering his sight. And while he was on the return, going on always to pray, he cried out that, so far as he judged, he saw, and indeed saw St. Rosalia: the same happened again a little after, his guide hearing what he said, but seeing nothing. Yet it was uncertain to him whether these things had proceeded from imagination, or whether he had really seen the Saint for a moment with his bodily eyes as well. Nevertheless his hope was increased by these things, and he went on to press upon prayer along the way, until the Saint appeared to him a third time, which happened when he was reciting the prayer of her. This time he saw a greater light, and with his eyes open, so that, not bearing so great a light, he fell to the ground like one dead, and so lay for half an hour, his companion wondering, who saw nothing, and roused him in vain. He rose at last with his eyes open, and seeing all things rightly. He testified also that in that fall he had seen St. Rosalia, and far more clearly than on the two former occasions, flashing before him like lightning, and that he had heard her voice saying: Return to the cave. For which cause he at once returned without the guide's help, seeing now clearly, that he might give thanks to the Saint in the cave, where on the same day he sang the hymn Te Deum with the Hermits of the neighbouring monastery, and on the next day offered the most holy sacrifice of the Mass, all wondering and praising God, who two days before had seen him blind in that same place.

[69] Brother Placido of the most holy Sacrament, a discalced Augustinian in the convent of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, taken away. was so afflicted that he could move neither one arm nor his neck, and had wholly lost one eye and with the other saw but little. And when a pious supplication was arranged through the convent with the relics of St. Rosalia, while these were before his chamber, he threw himself on the ground imploring mercy, and presently rose from the earth perfectly healed.

* Gioia

* Capri

CHAPTER IV.

Other benefits and miracles, related by Cascinus in chapter 16.

[ ] Two women labouring under the plague Cascinus in chapter 16 undertook to narrate benefits of every kind, almost all healings from the plague being omitted, of which he asserts that he sets forth only two here, because they are more remarkable than the rest on account of the apparition attached to them. The first is of a woman who had laboured under the plague for seventeen days, and who seemed so near to death that orders had already been given that a cart should come in the morning to carry away her body for burial. The cart came at the appointed time, but the woman had come out of her bed whole: and she related that she had taken nothing but a little water, earth and stone from St. Rosalia's tomb: and that the Saint had appeared to her by night, and having made the sign of the cross over her, had in a moment restored her health.

[71] Another, likewise labouring under a grave pestilence, saw by night the form of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God, healed by Rosalia appearing: and with her another very beautiful Lady (so she named St. Rosalia, says Cascinus). She was drawing near to the sick woman. But she cried out that she should go away, or at least wash herself with vinegar, lest namely she should be breathed upon by the plague. She answered that there was no danger, and that not even the sick woman herself would die. Then with her own hands she touched five places of her body infected with the plague, and washed them: and offered the sick woman water to drink, saying that she would be so healed, as indeed happened, the Saint appearing to her again and helping her. From these things thus narrated the praised author advances to others.

[72] Giuseppe li Moli had a little daughter of four years, Anna by name, many and a son of twelve, Matteo. She was labouring under a most acute fever, and a grave pain of the teeth allowed the son no rest. The father applied to both, as medicine, the water of St. Rosalia so very often already mentioned, by which the little daughter recovered within the morning time, and the son's pain was driven away in a moment.

[73] from diseases Grazia Casale was so grievously afflicted with the stone that she believed she would die. She applied the relics of St. Rosalia to her right side; and the pain presently ceased: and a little after she voided a little stone of notable size. A like grace fell to Fr. Francesco Guidara of the Society of Jesus, who had formerly been a physician. He too was grievously tormented with the pain of the stone, when, medicines having been employed in vain, he applied to himself the relics of St. Rosalia. Within the space in which the psalm Miserere could be twice recited, the pain ceased: then after half an hour or a little more he passed a good large stone, which smaller ones followed on the next day.

[74] of various Vincenza, wife of the doctor Pompilio di Anastasio, had let a small bone down her throat so far that, the little bone sticking there, she seemed likely to be choked. Exposed to so great a danger, and mindful of St. Rosalia, she presently tried to say, St. Rosalia, help me, but could not sufficiently form the words because of the difficulty of breathing. But remembering that she had with her something of the stone of St. Rosalia's tomb, she presently brings it out, and applies it to her throat, at the same time invoking the Saint in her mind. A truly wonderful grace! as soon as that little fragment of stone touched her throat, the small bone by which she was being choked leapt out through her mouth for the space of three palms, and was found stained with blood, that the excellence of the benefit might the more clearly appear.

[75] and deadly To her daughter Ninfa, who was married to the doctor Fabrizio Scarfelotti of San Basilio, no less a grace was granted. She, by an acute fever continued for ten days and nights, had been brought to extremity, and could not confess because of continual delirium. A confessor of the Society of Jesus was present, but could not obtain even by signs so much as that he might dare to impart absolution, because she was deprived not only of speech but of sense too. For which cause those present fled to prayers, and especially to the patronage of St. Rosalia: and first poured some of the often-mentioned water into the sick woman's mouth, opened by force; and then applied to her the Saint's relics. Yet on that day they seemed to profit nothing, except that the sick woman opened her mouth and said once and again, Holy Rosalia, by which words those present were raised to hope. Through the whole following night she remained in such a state that the five physicians who attended the sick woman afterwards testified that they had thought she would not survive above one hour. Among them her own brother, who was never away, affirmed that he had easily detected ten deadly signs in his sister. But when the dawn of the following day was at hand, and it grew light, she was heard calling with a loud voice for her mother and the other members of the household, to whom she said: I am whole by the grace of St. Rosalia. Then she subjoined: Do you not hear the music? Hear, hear the angels. Her mother did not believe her whole, because she uttered those words less readily; but doubtless thought her delirious. Yet since she asked also for her confessor, he, being called, was quickly at hand, and found her speaking better and confessing rightly. Her husband, raised by these things to hope, took care that certain sacrifices of the Mass should be offered; and that his wife should be anointed with the oil of St. Rosalia's lamp. By this anointing the sick woman recovered so quickly that she took food, and was whole without any other remedy. So sudden did this healing seem to Cascinus that he asserts it was wrought as it were in a moment, especially because the infirmity was so grave that the physicians asserted she could not have been healed without a miracle. For this reason proves that she was healed by a clear and evident miracle, and recovered suddenly too; nor yet was the healing accomplished in a moment, and for that reason he said, as it were in a moment. For the rest, Ninfa after her healing narrated various things in detail concerning the habit and most beautiful form of St. Rosalia appearing to her, concerning her words, saying that those relics were hers, and concerning the music of angels she had heard, which the author has touched on briefly.

[76] Vincenza di Maggio was likewise near to death, were healed, nor did she desire a longer life. But she obeyed her confessor bidding her ask for her healing, and fled to St. Rosalia. The Saint appeared to her in the habit of a hermit, and healed the sick woman in a moment. And she was at the same time given so great a fervour of spirit that, meaning to imitate the Saint, she pronounced a vow of virginity, and sent her cut-off hair to her cave, where Cascinus testifies that many like things are hung up.

[77] An infant sixteen days old, when being sick he had for four days wholly abstained from milk, as also an infant, died, certainly as Cascinus believed and asserted. But his father, a Spaniard by nation, placed an image of St. Rosalia upon the dead infant, and prayed with such faith that the infant opened his eyes, and moved himself; and presently, being whole, began to suck his mother's milk.

[78] A little girl too in the Spaniards' quarter had fallen into a very deep well, and a girl, who were believed dead. and had long remained immersed there: for she had been sought through the whole quarter before it was known that she was drowned. When she had not been found, and someone said that the child had been seen near the well, they began to search in the well with a pole, and at last found the child drowned. The parents' grief was the greatest; but their faith no less: with such fervour did they press their prayers before St. Rosalia that they received the child alive and well.

[79] Francesca Sieri experienced various favours of St. Rosalia. The Saint reveals to a certain woman her death three days beforehand; First she had gone to Mount Peregrino, where there was so great a brawl that someone laid his hand to a musket, and by mistake directed the ball straight at Francesca's head. She had suddenly invoked St. Rosalia, and so was unhurt: for the leaden ball stuck in the veil on her head and in her hair, and was there seen by many. Secondly, being sick, she visited the Saint's body in the church of Palermo, and there, being seized by a light sleep, recovered. Having experienced these favours, she did not doubt of a third. St. Rosalia appeared to her, and admonished her to prepare herself by sacred confession and Communion for a death to be met after three days. She obeyed: she confessed her sins, and repeated holy Communion for three days together. She was admonished again on the night of the following day, and on the third night also. That admonition too she made known secretly to her confessor, and

to two other priests of great uprightness. Nor was she deceived: for she was touched with a light infirmity on Saturday; and on Monday, which was the third day, she rendered her soul to her Creator.

[80] Wonderful is what follows, and like the preceding in this, she sweetly invites another to die. that St. Rosalia foretold a happy death to her client. Antonia Mirendina, a most pious girl of seventeen years, had been brought to extremity by a long disease. And when she had lain for some time as dead, and was bewailed as dead by her mother and the others present, as if awaking from sleep she said to her mother: Mother, why do you weep? I was not dead, but was sleeping most sweetly: O what great things I have seen! And when her mother asked her to tell them to her, she long refused: but wished the Cardinal archbishop to be called, that she might relate them to him. But, her mother not daring to summon the Cardinal, it was agreed between them that her confessor should be called, who should afterwards tell everything to the Cardinal. But, the confessor not being found, her mother again urged that she should relate to her what she had seen. To whom at last the daughter said that the grace of dying had been granted her by St. Rosalia: for that the Saint wished her to be with her in the procession. That these things were three times repeated by her, not with the voice of a dying girl but with a manly and strong one, and that she charged that they should be told to the Cardinal, those present testified. Then after a quarter and a half of an hour, her body composed and her eyes closed, she sweetly expired.

[81] Some persons After these things Cascinus relates some benefits obtained by those who were labouring for the Saint's honour, when that famous procession was to be arranged and when it was arranged, in which the approved body was for the first time carried through the city. Someone, whose name is not given, was standing on a high ladder to adorn a certain wall, when a carriage passing by overturned the ladder, and so threw down the man that he seemed sure to be crushed: nevertheless he was so unhurt that he could presently resume his work. Another carriage so pressed a woman against a wall that those present believed her crushed; but they found her untouched. The horse of the marquis della Rocca was so bruised by a carriage that he himself was thrown headlong from the horse: yet both horse and rider were unhurt. To these he rightly adds that it is to be wondered at that in so great a multitude of men, horses and carriages passing through the streets as there was at that time, no mishap occurred.

[82] in grave dangers Two things done at another time he joins to these on account of their likeness. The lord Giovanni de Torres was coming up with a company of soldiers to relieve the watch before the royal palace, another company standing under arms which was leaving its post, when the horse on which he rode, suddenly terrified, so carried its master onto the lance of the centurion Noera, which he held stretched out and fixed in the ground, that he fell from his horse. The lance passed through his breastplate and his very shirt, yet his body was wholly unhurt: which he attributed to the favour of St. Rosalia, because he had suddenly invoked her.

[83] unhurt. Clearer is the miracle that follows. An upright man was riding on horseback with his wife sitting behind and with his son, whom he held in his arm. And when he was passing along the narrow road of Mount Gebel Ros beside a precipice, the horse unexpectedly so leapt that the woman fell off, and the man himself was forced to let go the child and to leap from the horse. Presently the horse stopped at the precipice, and all three were found without any hurt: for as he threw himself from the horse he had piously invoked St. Rosalia.

[84] Spells taken away, Cascinus subjoins certain benefits granted to the possessed, of which this is the first. A Spanish woman, D. María Figueroa de Torres, was believed afflicted with a magical spell. When the sacred exorcisms were employed, she was as ill as if she were about to die, because she was urged to vomit, and yet could not vomit. There was once present the lord Giovanni de Torres just mentioned, who had a particle of the bone of St. Rosalia. This particle he put into water, and ordered the woman to drink some of it. The water being drunk, she presently began to vomit up certain masses of hair. She repeated the drinking of the same water on the four following days, and always vomited up something similar, sometimes with pins joined to them, until she was perfectly healed. That these things were done before many witnesses the author affirms. He testifies too that a like grace was granted at the same time to another woman, who, having likewise taken the water of St. Rosalia, cast out by vomiting the illusions of the sorcerers, and was healed.

[85] Antonia Leonti had been possessed for sixteen years, and had said, and demons as the feast of St. Rosalia drew near, that she would die on the following Saturday. For which cause her son, having first received the most holy Sacraments, brought her, though she struggled violently, to the metropolitan church, nor yet could he draw her to the chapel in which the body of St. Rosalia is kept, at whom she uttered many insults. But at the name of that Saint four demons, as was believed, left their post, extinguishing a candle set far off, as they had foretold they would do for a sign. The fifth at last, after the iron rails were struck more violently than could be done by a woman, likewise went out, and left the woman free, who was believed to have been possessed by five evil spirits.

[86] And that on the day when the body was solemnly translated many evil spirits were expelled, driven out. and that the same benefits were continued through the whole Octave, Cascinus asserts. Of these he relates one by name, and testifies that it happened opposite the college of the Society of Jesus, himself and many Fathers being present, and before an innumerable multitude of the people. A woman greatly honoured and respectable had been vexed by evil spirits for seventeen years without remedy. She was sitting modestly opposite the altar erected before the college, and was contemplating all the adornment, until the chest of St. Rosalia should come to the beginning of that street. But when it had come thither, before anyone else there had yet seen the chest, still far off, she was suddenly seized, and by a sudden cry and a leap into the air, throwing off her mantle and tearing her hair, made known to all that the holy chest was drawing near, and that she was thereby tormented. Presently the demon fell to shrieks and insults, saying through the woman's mouth: Stand back, dog: stand back, dog, and that with such force that the woman could not be held by five men. But the evil spirit could not await the presence of the sacred relics, but, having first thrust out a tongue exceedingly thick and black, fled before their coming and left the woman wholly free. This was done on Monday the 9th of June, as that evil spirit himself had foretold on the preceding Monday.

[87] From these he goes on to certain wonderful conversions of infidels. Certain wonderful conversions A Mahometan taken captive by the Christians had long served his master diligently, and having got together a store of money had bought his own freedom. But, intercourse being cut off at Palermo on account of the pestilence, he could not depart to his own country: and having heard the miracles of St. Rosalia, he hoped that through her he would be free from the plague: and for that cause procured an image of her for himself, and every evening lighted a lamp before it. Nay, he had visited her cave too, and did other things to honour her, as if he had been a Christian, that by her patronage he might return to his country. The aforesaid services were pleasing to the Saint: for she appeared to him in sleep, and admonished him to become a Christian, saying that this was the one way by which one comes to the true country, that is to heaven. He was indeed astonished at this dream; but not converted. Further, desiring to return to his country, he was already prepared for the journey with another Turk likewise free, when he first visited the Saint's relics, that he might give thanks for her benefits, and pray for a happy journey. On the following night the Saint appeared again, and rebuking his hardness, roused him by striking his cheek. Awaking therefore and inwardly moved, he saw his chamber lit with a great light, and in it a Lady of wonderful beauty, whom he knew not how otherwise to describe than by saying: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful; much, much, much. She, saying to him again that he should make himself a Christian, or otherwise he would die, disappeared. This apparition indeed greatly moved the man; but did not so thoroughly move him, devoted as he was to his country and his sect, but that he wavered in doubt. At last a third time the holy Virgin appeared to him as he slept, foretelling certain death and hell unless he were converted, and, his cheek being lightly touched, disappeared. Awaking therefore he laid aside all doubt, and in the morning threw himself at the Cardinal's feet, demanded baptism, and after sufficient instruction piously received it, living thereafter glad and content in his vocation.

[88] of Moors A Moor born at Algiers, whose name was Xiniffa, was the slave of Gabriele Mas, and from time to time gave something to the poor in honour of St. Rosalia. The Saint appeared to him in sleep, and commanded him to become a Christian: which at first he refused. But being bidden again, he asked the name of her who appeared, and hearing the name of Rosalia who bade him, said that he wished to receive baptism. But when afterwards he paid little heed to the promise made in sleep, the Saint returned again on the following night, and pressed him more urgently to receive baptism, and, being asked by the Moor by what name he should be called in baptism, bade him choose the name of Peter, touching his right hand. Nay, she is said also to have signed him on the forehead with the sign of the cross, adding these words: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Certainly the Moor was so moved by this divine dream that after due instruction he received baptism and the name of Peter, to which he desired the name of Rosalia to be added in honour of the Saint.

[89] of infidels, To these is added a conversion like them, but accomplished later. An unbelieving slave had long served in the galleys of Sicily, whose age was now sixty years. In what way St. Rosalia came to his aid is not known: but that the Saint did come to his aid is gathered from the outcome. For after he had laboured for some days under a fever, he demanded baptism, and wished to be called Rosalino in honour of St. Rosalia. When he pressed ardently, and his disease was already grave, baptism was presently conferred on him, and the name Rosalino given. Then, scarcely two hours having passed from the first mention of baptism, he happily rendered his soul to his Creator.

[90] Animals too healed: Then Cascinus observes that in the Lives of other Saints too it is read that animals were healed by their help, and he narrates some like examples of St. Rosalia. First, certain hens which seemed about to die were once and again preserved by the earth of St. Rosalia's tomb. Secondly, one puppy that was dying, and another accounted dead, were doctored by something belonging in some way to the Saint.

[91] other prodigies. Finally he brings forward two prodigies, the one about a vine which had been cut down, and again so grew together by means of the earth of the tomb that it produced grapes in the same year. The other is about an orange tree which in a certain monastery had put forth a little branch of new flowers on the vigil of the festival of St. Rosalia, that is on the 3rd day of September. And when the Superior of the monastery had seen this little branch, she said: Would that there were many, they would serve tomorrow for weaving a crown of St. Rosalia on her festival. The Saint granted her pious desire: for on the next morning

the whole tree was full of flowers. Thus far from Cascinus, whose mind I have striven faithfully to express.

CHAPTER V.

Certain more recent benefits given in summary from the History of Mancusi, part 5.

From Mancusi.

[ ] A girl healed at Cologne, Mancusi in part 5 of his History of St. Rosalia relates various benefits of the Saint, partly ancient, partly more recent. And since I have already given the ancient ones, and have narrated some of the more recent too on occasion of her cult, I shall transfer hither only others which have not yet been recorded by me, and I shall do it with as much brevity as may be. That relics of the Saint were carried to Cologne, and that the Saint's patronage was there not unprofitably implored in the time of plague, I have narrated in the Commentary at number 439. Further, one of the benefits obtained there Mancusi relates in §7, citing the authority of Fr. Hermann Crombach in a certain manuscript collection. The matter is thus. A noble girl, Gertrude by name, sole heiress of great wealth, in the year 1636 was touched by the evil of the pestilence, and brought to such a pass that she had received the last Sacraments of the Church. Her confessor Fr. Adrian Horn, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Cologne, was with her, with relics of St. Rosalia. He urged her to pronounce some vow in honour of the Saint, whose relics he offered her to kiss. She vowed to keep perpetual virginity if she should recover; and suddenly she grew strong again with her strength entire, says the praised Crombach, adding that she was still surviving in health in the year 1670, when he was writing.

[93] The praised Mancusi in §8 relates the healing of a dying woman, a dying woman at Mazzarino, wrought in the year 1680 at Mazzarino, which is a town of Sicily in the valley of Noto. And he testifies that he has the whole fact from a writing diligently examined and confirmed by oath in the year 1711, when it was to be sent to the episcopal curia of Syracuse. Receive a summary of the benefit. Agata, wife of Pietro Maggio, a woman of honourable condition, had been brought to extremity both by the miscarriage of twin infants and by the ignorance of those who treated her, and was already dying, when Alfio Ingala visited her. He, when he had found that some sense remained to the sick woman, suggested the name of St. Rosalia, and admonished her to pronounce some vow in her honour. She obeyed, and vowed to wear a modest garment, such as is used there by those who are devoted to the Saint under a singular title. The vow being pronounced, after an hour she began to speak and to be better, attributing this to St. Rosalia: and after two or three days she rose from her bed whole. Then, being desirous of offspring, she promised that she would give her first daughter the name of Rosalia in honour of the Saint: nor long after she conceived, and in due time by a happy birth brought forth a daughter, on whom the name of Rosalia was bestowed.

[94] The same author in §9 asserts that the palace of the legate of the king of the Spains at Rome was free from the pestilence raging there, likewise another woman. and attributes this to the patronage of the Immaculate Mother of God and of St. Rosalia. Moreover he asserts in the same place that to the doctor Bartolo Maggio, when he was praying for the safety of his wife Vincenza, who was dangerously sick, the Mother of God was seen, who at the prayers of St. Rosalia was giving back life to his wife, who in fact quickly recovered: and that the married pair in thanksgiving afterwards abstained by mutual consent from the use of marriage. For both facts he praises Mongitore in a little work entitled: Palermo devoted to Mary. Such things may be held as benefits by those who rejoice that something of the kind has befallen them, and rightly show themselves grateful. But they must be reckoned among the less clear and less certain. But the things which he relates in §10 I do not care to transfer hither, because they do not seem certain enough, and are related in a somewhat different way by Tornamira in his Conjectural Idea, page 156.

[95] The conversion of certain Mancusi in § XI narrates a good long history of the conversion of a certain Mahometan slave, which I transfer hither in summary. In the year 1694 at Palermo there lay sick with dangerous pains of the stomach a slave whose name was Barca. Often asked to become a Christian, he always obstinately refused. Fr. Girolamo Natale of the Society of Jesus came with relics of St. Rosalia, and asked the sick man whether he would drink water which he should consecrate with the relics of St. Rosalia. Barca agreed, who, although a Mahometan, was devoted to the Saint. He drank the consecrated water: and being asked whether he wished to be baptized, presently consented. Being asked again, he added that he wished to be called Rosalino. Meanwhile in a short time he is healed, when he had again drunk largely of that consecrated water. But being healed he began to waver in his purpose, certain treacherous companions who were with him dissuading his conversion. And so he was again seized with his former pains of the stomach: and thus he fervently had recourse to the patronage of St. Rosalia for the health of his body, and in fact was somewhat relieved by a vomiting of black bile, so that he took sleep. To him as he slept the Saint appeared, and took away all doubt. Many things about this divine dream the author narrates: but it suffices me to say that by that dream he was wholly converted. He related that hell had been shown him, then purgatory, and at last heaven. And these things being seen, the Saint disappeared, and he awoke perfectly healed. Further, he presently wished to be instructed, and on the very feast of St. Rosalia was baptized and called Rosalino. That Rosalino afterwards lived most piously Mancusi testifies, who knew him.

[96] Moors The author subjoins in §12 that some Mahometans were converted in such a way that their conversion is ascribed to the favour of St. Rosalia. The first is said to have been sent by St. Rosalia appearing to him to Fr. Alfonso Muñoz of the Society of Jesus, that he might be instructed and baptized by him; and this in fact was done. Concerning this conversion Fr. Gaetano Noto taught me certain circumstances. The thing happened about the year 1685. That Mahometan was called Mustafa, and was about sixty years of age when he was converted. First he had served as a slave in the Sicilian galleys; and afterwards had been transferred to domestic service by one of the captains of the galleys, who among other things ordered him to light a lamp before an image of St. Rosalia. When he had long done this, he was admonished by St. Rosalia appearing in sleep to become a Christian, because he would soon die; and was sent by her to Fr. Alfonso Muñoz, dwelling in the professed house at Palermo. And when Mustafa was going to the professed house, he saw an image of the Saint near the door of the house, and said that the Saint had appeared to him in exactly the same form. He was therefore instructed and baptized, and not long after died. So Brother Pietro Mira of the Society of Jesus testified, who had been the companion of Fr. Alfonso Muñoz in instructing Mustafa, and was surviving at a very advanced age when a few years ago Fr. Noto communicated these things to me. I return to Mancusi.

[97] Another, labouring under gout, although he was an infidel, attributed to the Saint. visited the cave of St. Rosalia on Mount Peregrino, and there kissing the pavement of the altar, suddenly cried out, several being present, that he wished to be a Christian, as he in fact became. Two others had gone with their master to the cave, to survey everything out of curiosity. But their master stirred up one of them to honour the Saint too; and when he had at length set about it, he presently wished to become a Christian: then the other too, having entered, and wondering at his companion's change, presently desired the same: and both were instructed and baptized. A fifth, now an old man, had often been admonished, even by the archbishop himself, to become a Christian; but obstinately resisting, he used to answer that this had not been told him by St. Rosalia. But lying sick of a grave infirmity, he unexpectedly began to cry: Call the lord archbishop, that he may baptize me, because St. Rosalia wills that I become a Christian. The matter being heard, the most illustrious archbishop Giacomo Palafox himself hastened to the slave: and having instructed him as far as his infirmity permitted, baptizes him, the name Rosalino being given him. Nor long after that Rosalino piously died, an outstanding proof of the divine mercy. In almost the same way a sixth was converted, who likewise at the end of his life is said to have embraced the Catholic faith at a secret admonition of St. Rosalia, and a little after died. The author adds that more conversions of this kind were made; but that of the others he has no sufficiently distinct knowledge.

[98] The praised author in §13 narrates various favours granted, St. Rosalia interceding, Certain other benefits: to the pious and illustrious lady Caterina Venero, baroness of the Magazzenacci, to whom the Saint is said to have appeared from time to time in the years 1696 and 1697. Then in §14 he narrates that danger of fire was twice driven away after St. Rosalia was invoked. The first is narrated to have happened to a certain Brother of the Society of Jesus, who, to make the fields more fertile, had kindled a fire in them. But a wind arising carried the flames where he feared grave danger. Fearing therefore the losses of his imprudence, he falls upon his knees and pronounces a vow to St. Rosalia. Presently the wind changes, and carries the flames where there was no danger. This fact that brother is said to have confirmed on oath to Fr. Filippo Noto, rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Bivona. The other, related from Mongitore, is said to have happened thus. Vito Riccobono, when he saw a neighbouring fire drawing near to his vineyard and wood, had recourse to the help of the most holy Mother of God, and at the same time to St. Rosalia: and so the vineyard remained free from the flames, and only the very slightest damage is asserted to have been done in the wood.

[99] The author in §15 narrates a benefit which happened in the year 1696 near the cave of Quisquina, a horse unhurt after a fall from a precipice: where he was then present, so that he could be excellently informed of the whole matter. A horse tied to a tree-trunk, while its master was present at a sacred sermon, had got free, and wandering had come to a huge precipice. And while his master, coming out of the church, approaches the horse to lead it back; the horse rolls headlong down those rocks and falls to the bottom. All believed it dead, and indeed it lay like a dead thing. But while they draw near to survey the horse, it raises itself, and is found without any hurt. This was attributed to the favour of St. Rosalia, because those present, fearing no less for the man who wished to approach the horse standing at the precipice than for the horse itself, had invoked the Saint with a loud voice. Then in §16 the author sets forth favours granted to an illustrious and pious virgin of Palermo, Antonia Maria Sandamiani, to whom he says St. Rosalia was given by the Immaculate Virgin as mistress of the spiritual life: and to whom he affirms her death, met in the year 1698, was foretold by St. Rosalia, praising Mongitore for these things. Such facts I only touch on briefly, because they may indeed be true; but they have not those marks of certain truth on which most of the benefits and miracles recorded before from Cascinus and Salerno rest.

[100] a danger of tempest removed: More certain appears what follows. About the end of the seventeenth century Fr. Francesco Raimondi and Fr. Michelangelo Haghius were returning from Africa into Sicily, and by a happy course of their ship had been carried to the port of Leghorn. But when afterwards they were sailing past the Roman territory, a most savage tempest arose which seemed to snatch away every hope of safety. The Fathers turned to prayers, and Haghius by name implored the help of St. Rosalia, whose relics he had in his keeping, with a vow added

of visiting Mount Peregrino barefoot, if the superiors of the Society should permit. I had scarcely finished my prayers, says Haghius, when the ship, I know not how, was quit of the danger. Thence there arose a favourable wind, which, always continuing to blow prosperously, brought us safe and sound in the space of four days into Sicily. The same man afterwards thus confirmed his narration: I, Fr. Michelangelo Haghius, confirm as above, in the year 1706, in the month of September, on the 3rd day, in this residence of the Society of Jesus at Mazara, in faith whereof I have fortified all these things with the seal of the Society, being ready to fortify them with an oath.

[101] favours In the year 1700, as Mancusi subjoins from the notes of Francesco Pilosi, chaplain on Mount Peregrino, on the 14th day of July there was carried in a chair to the church of Mount Peregrino the wife of Francesco di Carlo, who for five years had been so vexed with a contraction of the sinews and with sharp pains that she could not walk. But being suddenly healed before the sacred altar, she returned home on foot without anyone's help, glad and lively.

[102] various In the year 1702, in the month of September, certain sailors came to the cave to fulfil a vow, on the pronouncing of which they had been snatched from the hands of Saracen pirates.

[103] by a certain man In the same year, on the 28th day of August, a certain person labouring under a tertian fever, after taking something of the earth of St. Rosalia's tomb, was at once freed from the fever.

[104] on Mount Peregrino In the same year, on the 1st of September, Anna Landolina, from whom apoplexy had taken away the use of her hands, prayed the Saint to restore to her the use of her hands, with which she might get herself a livelihood. She was heard, and on the 22nd of September gave thanks to St. Rosalia on Mount Peregrino.

[105] in writings In the same year, on the 28th of December, a certain little daughter at Messina, where she then was with her parents, had so fallen from a carriage that the wheel passed over her. But the girl was unhurt, having received only a certain mark on her breast, and this was attributed to the favour of St. Rosalia by her parents, who, returning to Palermo, presently betook themselves to Mount Peregrino, to show themselves grateful to the Saint.

[106] once Domenica Luisa, born at Petra * in Sicily, was fifteen years of age, but was wholly dumb. She was brought by her parents to Mount Peregrino on the 8th day of March in the year 1703, and there received some cotton which had been dipped in the oil of the lamps always burning in the church there, that she might touch her tongue with it. But she even passed it down to her stomach, and presently her tongue was loosed in the praises of St. Rosalia.

[107] Wholly wonderful is what he asserts happened in the year 1706 in Sicily near Lentini *, set down. citing the notes of the just-praised Francesco Pilosi. A certain man had been asked by his master to climb a certain steep ridge of a mountain, where there was a nest of wild pigeons. And when in climbing he laid hold with his hand of a rock not firm enough; the rock giving way, he was borne downward in a headlong fall. But having invoked St. Rosalia, he remained hanging in the air, held only by the bands of his breeches, until from the top of the mountain he was drawn back from the precipice with ropes.

[108] In the same year an infant of forty days at Mazzarino had almost his whole body full of sores, Healings so that he was wretchedly tormented and wailed. Further, on the 29th of June there was placed on the infant's head a medal marked with the effigy of St. Rosalia, and presently he was silent and rested for a quarter of an hour. On the next day there was given him the food of St. Rosalia (so they call the acorns which the holm-oaks bear near the cave of St. Rosalia on the mountain [ ] into powder, and presently the infant rested, nor long after was healed. But he was afterwards seized again by the same evil; and in the same way too was healed for good.

[109] Orsola Xacia, a little girl of two years, had always had her feet so twisted various that she could not move from her place except by crawling. Her mother, pitying the child, pronounced a vow to St. Rosalia: presently her feet and legs came to their natural state; and the mother with the child on the 10th of May in the year 1707 went to Mount Peregrino, where she not only gave thanks to the Saint, but gratefully proclaimed the miracle also with others who knew of the matter. This fact too Mancusi drew from the notes of Pilosi and wove into §20, with the following received from elsewhere.

[110] In the same year 1707, when Mancusi was preaching at Marsala, and illustrious he learned of a miracle wrought long before, which was narrated to him by the very man who had been healed in a moment by St. Rosalia appearing to him. This was an old man of more than sixty, who related that in his youth, while he was occupied in adorning a certain church, he had so fallen from a portable ladder that his arm was broken and his head grievously hurt. And so he was carried home for dead, because at first he was believed dead. But medicines being applied, he was brought to such a pass that little or no hope of life remained, when he saw St. Rosalia, to whom he was devoted, drawing near to him: who, after she had bidden the sick man hope well, laid her hand on his broken arm and on his most grievously affected head; and disappearing left him so whole that the physician on his return found no trace of the harm. That these things were related to him with the tenderest affection by the old man himself Mancusi testifies, although he found no other writing about the fact.

[111] To this he subjoins from the notes of Pilosi another, which happened in the year 1709. and wrought in a moment. The general of the Crossbearers in the month of September had recovered from a grave disease, but had wholly lost his sight through that evil. Being blind, therefore, he pronounced a sworn vow of visiting the cave of St. Rosalia, whose relics he at the same time applied to his eyes: and he suddenly recovered his sight. For this cause in the month of October he came to Mount Peregrino, as he had vowed he would do.

* Petraglia

* Lentini

CHAPTER VI.

A continuation of the more recent miracles from Mancusi.

[ ] At Mazzarino the Saint chosen patroness against the locusts, Mancusi in §21 begins to narrate various benefits granted by St. Rosalia in the county of Mazzarino, warning beforehand that they are taken from the authentic Acts which were drawn up at Mazzarino by order of the bishop of Syracuse, in whose diocese is Mazzarino, a town not ignoble, and adorned with the title of a county, of which we have already treated above at number 93. In the year 1710 a huge host of locusts, which had come upon those parts of Sicily, threatened devastation to the fields. The people of Mazzarino had a great panel painted, on which was the effigy of St. Rosalia, and erected an altar for it in the church of the Society of Jesus. Then with great apparatus in the same church, adorned to that end, they chose St. Rosalia as patroness of the city, chiefly against the locusts. The formula of that election, and of their offering of themselves made by the magistrate and the city, as also the solemnity of the whole festival, may be seen in Mancusi, who testifies that he was present, and briefly preached a sermon. He affirms too on page 124 that relics of the Saint were present at that solemnity, but does not indicate whence they had been received.

[113] [against which she is believed to have defended the fields of the people of Mazzarino:] Then he thus enumerates the favours attributed to the patronage of St. Rosalia. First he says that the very slightest damage, or none, was done to the territory of Mazzarino by the locusts, which in the neighbouring territories had left almost nothing untouched and uneaten. Secondly he says that great swarms of locusts flew away from the fields when water consecrated by the relics of St. Rosalia was sprinkled on them by private persons, and that they flew over the fields on which the same water had been sprinkled, or at least did them no harm: and that this happened also to the country house of the college of the Society of Jesus, in whose chapel the Saint's relics were on that account placed, given by Mancusi himself. Thirdly he affirms that that water was sought by very many men; and he relates some particular facts in which he attributes the harvest to a miracle. But these I pass over, because the miracles do not seem clear enough. Fourthly at last he testifies that very many gifts were offered by those who believed that their fields had been preserved by the favour of St. Rosalia against the ravages of the locusts; and that that day on which the Saint had been chosen patroness was celebrated with great solemnity in the following year also.

[114] a priest's hernia More certain seems the miracle which he narrates in §22 from the Acts sent to the bishop of Syracuse, and which is thus related. A priest of approved manners, and doctor of sacred theology, born at Piazza *, but dwelling at Mazzarino, had for a year and a half so laboured under a hernia that he could not ride on horseback, nor was able long to stand on his feet, even though he had fortified himself with the usual precautions against such an evil. He, at the solemnity of St. Rosalia just mentioned, was asked to discharge the office of deacon at the time of the procession, as he had done on the day before at Vespers. He accepts the office, drawn by his piety toward St. Rosalia, and having lighted certain candles, asks the Saint that he might be freed from his evil. Further, when the procession had lasted about two hours, he began to feel sharp pains, which, as they increased too much, he turned to the sacred relics, and asked the Saint to supply him strength for completing the ministry begun; and suddenly the pain was so taken away that he could attend the procession to the very end. The procession being ended, when he was setting down the relics with his own hand, he again commended himself to the Saint, and then heard as it were with an inward voice said to him: Be now whole. Returning home, he heard the same again, and indeed found himself whole. He therefore gave thanks to the Saint, but kept silence about his healing for forty days, meanwhile casting away all his trusses, and riding on horseback in one day to Piazza, and returning thence to Mazzarino on the same day. After forty days he published the miracle, and after two months confirmed it before witnesses by oath. Three physicians too examined the place where the evil had been, and affirmed by sworn testimony that they had found not even the least trace of a hernia.

[115] An infant was labouring under the same evil of hernia, whose mother, and an infant's healed: having heard of the healing of the praised priest, began to hope that her little son too would thus be healed. And so she leads him to the altar of St. Rosalia: and takes some of the roses which were there placed in vessels full of water. Returning home, she takes off from the affected part of the infant the medicines applied, and applies three leaves of the said roses. Then examining again the affected place, she saw that no evil remained: and being taught by repeated inspections afterwards that her little son was certainly healed, she gave thanks to God and to St. Rosalia. Moreover she set forth the whole matter to Mancusi himself, and confirmed it by oath, asking that he would write down that benefit, the name of the healed being suppressed.

[116] A certain doctor of medicine, as Mancusi narrates in §23, healings lay sick, vexed with fever and a most grievous pain of the stomach. Natural remedies having been employed in vain, he sought and obtained relics of St. Rosalia. Then, the Angelic salutation being said first, he applies the relics to his stomach with his own hands, several being present: and presently feels the pain driven away, and gives thanks to the Saint. That same evening he supped well, and on the following day, freed of his fever, rose from his bed, and went out of the house to give fuller thanks to the Saint.

[117] To these the author subjoins in general that various graces were obtained through the water of St. Rosalia at Piazza and at Mazzarino in a certain popular disease, others

which was running along the Southern shore of Sicily. Then he relates one by name from the Acts of Mazzarino already praised, in this manner. A nobleman was seized with a fourfold tertian fever, and that a malignant one. The doctor of medicine Trigona despaired of preserving the sick man's life, and therefore he was fortified with the last Sacraments of the Church. Then he seemed near to death, when he asked for the water of St. Rosalia, of which he drank after a short prayer. That water being drunk, he sweated most copiously, and on the following day, when the physicians returned, showed himself whole, rose from his bed, and gave thanks to St. Rosalia.

[118] Mancusi in §24 first narrates that a peaceful death was granted to a certain man by St. Rosalia. of different persons: Then he relates that the little son of a certain prince was despaired of by the physicians, and that, cotton of St. Rosalia being applied, the infant was on the same day snatched from danger, and not long after healed. That another was at once freed by the same cotton from a malady of the throat; and another from a grave pain of the sides. These things I have judged should be touched on briefly, because they are not all confirmed by those marks of certainty which are required in facts of this kind, that they may be held for miracles.

[119] More confirmed and plainly wonderful is what follows in §25. The lord vicar of Caltavuturo (it is a town of Sicily in the valley of Mazara on the river Himera, where the valley of Mazara is separated from the valley of Demona, and it is commonly called Caltavoturo) was journeying by night to return home, a certain man snatched from danger in a wonderful manner; when he was hedged about with such thick darkness that neither he himself nor the horse on which he rode could any longer discern anything. A savage tempest had of course increased the darkness of the night, and among the rocks and precipices of the mountains lightnings and thunders increased his dread. Set in so great a danger, he resolved to flee to his singular patroness St. Rosalia, and implored her help with fervent prayer. After his prayers he saw in the air a most beautiful and most shining rose of the size of one palm, which placed itself near the right arm of the aforesaid lord, and brought him safe and sound home; and then presently disappeared. Two things must here be added. First, that when, St. Rosalia being invoked, that rose began to appear, the vicar with his horse was near a precipice, by which he was in danger of his life. Secondly, that that shining rose was so near to him as he rode that he from time to time stretched out his hand to it: but it withdrew somewhat. At last the vicar, having returned home, was so struck with astonishment that he presently bent his knees, and rendered most humble thanks to St. Rosalia. Further, Mancusi learned that fact from Fr. Antonio de Nostris, a man of great virtue of the Order of St. Augustine, who testified in writing that it was related to him in the year 1713 by the lord vicar himself, not without the tenderest tears.

[120] another as wonderfully healed of gangrene: What follows was set forth to Mancusi by a man equally upright of the same Augustinian Order, and likewise handed down in writing. There was at Corleone (of which town it has already been treated in the Commentary at number 356) a rope-weaver, named Baldassare, whose jaw a terrible gangrene had invaded, and in the judgment of the physicians an incurable one. Since nevertheless it was judged that some hope remained if the evil were cut away with iron and fire, a day had already been appointed for so dangerous a cutting, and the sick man had received the last Sacraments to that end. He therefore earnestly commended himself to the favour of St. Rosalia on that night which preceded the appointed cutting. He felt his pain somewhat softened, so that he fell into sleep. And to him as he slept St. Rosalia appeared; who consoled the sick man with sweet words, saying that she was Rosalia whom he had invoked, and promising that he would be healed. Saying these things she touched the affected place with two fingers, and caused the whole eaten-away bone of the jaw to fall down upon his breast, where on awaking he found it. Presently he shows to his wife, called in, that black and putrid bone, and narrates the vision. Both wonder at the miracle, and render very many thanks to holy Rosalia. His jaw was wholly whole, and no trace of the evil remained; save that his cheek was somewhat hollowed where that bone had fallen out. Further, Fr. Vincenzo Simonetta, an Augustinian, says that he is an eye-witness of this fact, because he saw the man both sick and healed: and he testifies that the fact was most widely known at Corleone, and was made known to the superiors with juridical solemnity as well.

[121] a bone fixed in the throat wonderfully drawn out: Not unlike is what Mancusi subjoins on the testimony of the lord Filippo Sidoti, vicar-general of the bishop of Palermo, who narrated that it had happened to his sister. She had been abbess more than once at Palermo in the monastery of St. Vitus, and was there called Giovanna Eleonora Crocifissa. Further, she had fallen into grave danger of death from a fragment of bone which while she was eating had stuck so tenaciously in her throat that it could in no way be drawn out. And when she seemed likely to be choked, and about to breathe her last, St. Rosalia appeared to her, whom she had invoked in her mind, and having put two fingers into her throat kindly drew out the small bone, and disappeared. She narrated her vision to the whole monastery, and the healing was by all attributed to a miracle: and therefore thanks were paid to St. Rosalia.

[122] Finally in §26 Mancusi gathers some inward graces, inward graces too granted to many. which he attributes to the patronage of St. Rosalia. But, although inward graces are to be esteemed far more than outward ones, or than those relating to some temporal happiness; they are not commonly wont to have such clear marks of a prodigious grace. And since such also are those which the praised author narrates there, I judge that they should be wrapped in silence; content to note that a probable conjecture can be made about inward graces obtained by the patronage of St. Rosalia from the multitude of the outward and visible ones; and that it is not to be doubted that the Saint looked to the souls of her clients no less than to their bodies. For the rest, all things being recorded which seemed to be transferred hither from Mancusi's little work, I shall set about a last gleaning from the most recent documents.

* Piazza

CHAPTER VII.

A collection of benefits and miracles from more recent documents, partly printed, partly manuscript.

From various sources.

[ ] Whence the documents of the following benefits were received: Our most diligent and frequently praised helpers, Castiglia and Noto, zealously collected all the documents relating to St. Rosalia which are either later than Mancusi's little work, or escaped his diligence; and courteously sent them to us in the years 1737, 1744, and at last in this very year 1746, in which I write these things. Wherefore from these documents I shall relate the later benefits of the Saint, and I shall do it with that brevity with which each can be set forth without loss to the matter; and keeping also the order of time, as far as the nature of the documents will allow. First there occurs a writing preserved in the library of the college of the Society of Jesus at Palermo, whose Italian title is thus rendered into Latin: A collection of the miracles which the glorious mother, St. Rosalia, virgin and solitary, works daily on Mount Peregrino in favour of those who are devoted to her, beginning from her festival on the 4th day of September in the year 1694. The author of this writing seems to have been one of those who have the care of the sacred crypt of St. Rosalia, as is rightly noted in the margin. But he seems to have continued the care of writing them for two years only, perhaps because he did not remain longer in his office, whether taken away by death or gone elsewhere. Certainly the benefits of two years only were communicated to me, which I shall subjoin in a few words.

[124] In the year 1694, on the 4th day of September, there came to Mount Peregrino, healings to give thanks to St. Rosalia, a certain man of Palermo, who attributed his freedom to the Saint. He had been captured by the men of Tunis, and consigned to slavery. But, vows being made to St. Rosalia, he found a way by which to claim his freedom by swimming. The other is thus related. An unbelieving slave, who had come to Mount Peregrino with the Reverend D. Algaria, a parish priest, when he had kissed the statue of St. Rosalia in the middle of the cave, declared freely that he wished to become a Christian, as in fact was done. I confess that these are not evident miracles. But most evident is what follows from the same writing. One of the servants of the viceroy of Sicily, set over the buying of provisions, was seized at Messina with a deadly disease, and was already believed dead, and had been laid on a bier to be buried. The burial was put off for about half an hour on account of the care of other sick persons, when the man awoke by the patronage of St. Rosalia, who appearing to him said that he would not die of that disease. And so, all wondering, he who had been accounted dead came on the 19th day of July in the year 1695 to the church of Mount Peregrino, and there, being refreshed with the sacred banquet, gave thanks to St. Rosalia. These three were communicated to me from the same record, of which the last was written down on that same 19th day of July, doubtless on the testimony of the man healed.

[125] various There follows in order of time another account, likewise written in Italian, which has for its author the Reverend Fr. Andrea Bertolino, of the Order of Clerks regular who minister to the sick, and are called Crossbearers. This account is carefully put together, but longer than suits the brevity proposed. Wherefore I shall faithfully report each fact from it in summary. Fr. Casimiro Selvago, a priest of the praised Order, twenty-eight years of age, laboured for four months under so grave a flux of blood that he twice received the last Sacraments with the indulgences of that Order which are wont to be granted at the point of death. The care of the sick man was in the hands of the famous physician Giovanni d'Orlando, who from various signs foretold him nothing but death, and indeed not seldom, from pain of the head, fevers, and excessive flux of blood, he seemed on the very point of dying. In the month of October of the year 1715 he was lamenting so that another Religious of the same Order, performing the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius in a neighbouring chamber, ran up at once, believing he would die.

[126] from manuscripts And when he had consoled the sick man a little with words, he remembered that he had in his chamber relics of St. Rosalia, and went away to bring them. Those relics being carried to the sick man, he, full of confidence, vowed to the Saint among other things to go to Mount Peregrino, and there, a Mass being celebrated, to preach in the Saint's honour of her praises. The vow being pronounced, presently the signs of approaching death withdrew, and he began to be better. For this cause he wished to wear the said relics hung from his neck. On the same day nevertheless there afterwards appeared in the sick man such a sign that it seemed to the physician a mortal one, the sick man saying on the contrary that he was already healed by the patronage of St. Rosalia. And when the 1st day of November had come, of which the physician had augured ill from the aforesaid sign, he at last saw himself deceived, and said that this was a grace received from God, which he attributed to the venerable father Camillus de Lellis, the founder of the Order. But Fr. Casimiro answered that the servant of God Camillus had perhaps had his share; but that the palm was owed to St. Rosalia, whom he had invoked with a living faith. At last on the 3rd day of November he rose from his bed wholly healed. Further, another benefit fell to the same Father not long after: for when he had laboured for some hours under a grave pain of a tooth, he at last put the Saint's relics into his mouth, and in a moment the pain disappeared. Both benefits, with his subscribed

name, the praised Andrea Bertolino attested.

[127] The same man also relates another benefit, which he testifies was granted to a certain priest of his Order, related: and a man conspicuous for holiness of life, whom he would not name, but affirms that he was by birth of Caltagirone. He, while he was bestowing pains on his studies at Palermo, was borne with much affection toward St. Rosalia, and frequently and piously visited her cave on Mount Peregrino. After his studies, having returned to his own country, he became first melancholy, and at last frenzied. Medicines having been employed in vain, the evil lasted almost eight months, until on the 4th day of September, on the feast of St. Rosalia, someone of the praised Order visited him. He signifies to the frenzied man that that day was St. Rosalia's, to whom he had been devoted enough at Palermo. As soon as he heard St. Rosalia named, Help me, he says, St. Rosalia, help me; and be mindful of the services which I rendered thee at Palermo. And without delay, all wondering, he was restored to himself, and for that cause he was by others called the devotee of St. Rosalia.

[128] To these I shall subjoin an apparition of St. Rosalia with Jesus, Mary and other Saints, from a printed book, in the Life of a certain pious nun St. Rosalia is said concerning which Castiglia noted these things: The Life of sister Febronia Ferdinanda of Jesus, a nun who died in the monastery of St. Clare at Palermo with great repute for virtue on the 23rd day of September 1718, was written by her confessor, Fr. Gaetano of Palermo, retired lector of the Order of Minors Observant, and published in print at Palermo in the year 1733, as is read in the title attached. The title of the book, but in Italian, is A universal Mirror, etc. And from this book, which is not at hand to me, the praised Castiglia communicated the vision related in chapter 85, page 314. Receive the matter, reader, partly in summary, partly in the very words rendered into Latin. On the 15th day of July, on the feast of the finding of St. Rosalia, sister Febronia was considering the Saint's solitary life, and vehemently desired such a life for herself. She was then caught up in spirit, and saw the most holy Mother of God with the child Jesus, whom she carried in her arm: with these too were St. Rosalia, St. Francis and St. Bonaventure. Then St. Rosalia was bidden by Jesus to address Febronia concerning her state, and she is said to have spoken thus:

[129] My dearest sister, our Spouse by his infinite wisdom led thee to Religion, to have addressed her in the apparition in the words here related: and me into the desert. But I was led thither that I might save myself alone, and thou wast set in that place that thou mightest procure the salvation of others also. I could save myself in that way; but if I had been in Religion, perhaps I would not have overcome the world, the demon and the flesh, because, born of an illustrious family and brought up according to human excellence, I could easily have been enticed by the comforts agreeable to the body; nor could I have humbled myself and despised myself so much as I could have been loved and honoured and esteemed by others. But the eternal Wisdom, which sees all things, destined me for a solitary place, greatly hidden and secret, because it willed to save me; for perhaps in another way I could have lost what I now possess. But in thee, my dearest, since thou art a poor little one, borne so prodigiously by the most high Providence, and led to this state of the Religious life, pride can have no place, since thou hast many things by which to humble thyself. Moreover the eternal Wisdom led thee to this place for the profit of many souls: and so thou art destined not for thine own profit only, but for the good of others. If thou thinkest, sister, that the solitary life in the desert is more perfect; I tell thee that thy Religious state is more perfect, because there will be no lack of what thou mayest suffer in Religion, if thou live in perfect observance. Do not therefore envy me; for I assure thee that I should certainly envy thee, if I were capable of envy. O dearest sister, how much art thou bound to the most liberal right hand of our most loving God, because he has granted thee such great favours and loves. Thus far St. Rosalia, if we believe the author of the Life.

[130] but from these no argument of any weight can be drawn Someone will here ask whether from this vision an argument may not be drawn against the monastic life of St. Rosalia, and for a life wholly unknown. I answer that I have not wished to make any mention of this vision where those matters were treated, because I think that an argument of no weight is had from this account. For first it is not said whether the account of that vision was written by sister Febronia herself, or only by her confessor when he drew up the Life. Secondly it is not explained whether Febronia wrote it down at once after the vision, while the memory was fresh, or dictated it to her confessor. And so, even if the vision itself were altogether certain, of which I cannot judge, since I have not seen the Life, we do not yet know whether it has been set forth accurately enough, and whether the words of St. Rosalia have been reported exactly enough: for so long a speech could not be written down exactly long afterwards, and therefore it is to be feared that either the author of the Life or Febronia herself may have mingled her own preconceived opinions with the vision. Moreover, even if it were established that Febronia took up her pen at once after the vision to narrate it exactly; not even so would it be certain enough that her previous opinions about the state of St. Rosalia's life were not mingled with it, since she could have mingled them even at once after the vision, and explained in her own way the words heard inwardly, and for want of sufficient memory changed something.

[131] against the opinion of the Saint's monastic life. For this cause our Papebroch rightly said, in volume VI of May, page 246, where he was treating of the revelations of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, that in such things (visions or revelations) there is no help for prudently settling purely historical questions, whether they be sacred or profane; and accordingly nothing is taken from the Saints themselves when the truth of such things, apart from any regard to them, is called into controversy, to be proved or overthrown from elsewhere. These things are there proved by several examples, and the reason has already been given, namely because opinions naturally held beforehand are wont to mingle themselves with those visions, and those visions do not therefore cease to be divine and useful for the end intended. And the aim of this vision was that Febronia should be content with her Religious life, and that could be obtained even if it were not explained to her whether St. Rosalia had before her solitary life lived in a monastery. Finally in the words alleged it is nowhere even affirmed that St. Rosalia went straight from her father's house to the solitude, or that she never lived in a monastery: and all the words which are attributed to Rosalia would be true, even if she had made her step through the monastic life to the anchoretic: for what is said, But if I had been in Religion, can easily be understood, as thou art, namely that I should end my life there. These things I judged should be briefly noted, because I have observed that some have thought that some help lay hidden in that vision against the opinion of St. Rosalia's monastic life.

CHAPTER VIII.

A continuation of the same miracles or benefits.

[ ] Many Religious sailing to Africa to redeem captives, In the year 1725 St. Rosalia granted a signal benefit to not a few Religious men and priests of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, who were sailing to Africa for the redemption of captives together with certain others. The whole series of the fact was communicated to me from an account of the Very Reverend Father Marcus of St. Anthony, definitor general of the already praised Order of Mercy, who was present. At Cartagena in Spain there had entrusted themselves together to a ship whose name was Sant' Antonio*, from the Order of Mercy, Fr. Melchior García Navarro, who had discharged the office of provincial, and redeemer for the province of Castile, and Fr. Manuel Priego, royal preacher, and redeemer for the same province; and the already praised Fr. Marcus of St. Anthony for the same kingdom. As many of the same Order were there for the kingdom of Andalusia, namely Frs. Pedro Ortega, Pedro Vos-Valler, and Francisco of the Holy Spirit. To these Fathers were joined four lay Brothers of the same Order. Moreover there went on board the ship Fr. Diego Teglio of the said Order, Fr. Genesio Matteo of the Order of Preachers, Fr. Alfonso Torilla of the Order of Trinitarians, and Giuseppe Torres, a layman. All these set sail from Cartagena on the 18th day of March in the year 1725, and on Holy Thursday, that is the 29th of the same month, came in sight of the port which is called by the author Farigna, and in the Blaeu maps Farina, near Tunis, whither they were sailing.

[133] But they were hindered by a contrary wind from entering the port; [are freed from the danger of a grave tempest after a vow pronounced to the Saint:] and on the following day they were driven back toward Sardinia by a grave tempest, by which likewise on the following Saturday they were prevented from entering the port of Cagliari. For this cause on Easter Sunday the masters directed their course toward Sicily, that they might enter the port of Palermo. But at the twenty-first Italian hour, that is the third after midday, there arose a cloud so terrible that they cast away all human hope. Turning therefore to divine helps, they vowed to St. Rosalia that a solemn Mass should be celebrated, if they should escape the imminent danger and reach Palermo. Scarcely had the vow been pronounced, when that cloud was divided into two parts, and left the ship in the middle, upon which fell only a little hail. The wind indeed continued violent on that day, but without any harm to the ship. But on the next day, that is on Monday, the 2nd of April, with a favouring breeze they happily reached Palermo. Thence on the following Thursday all the Religious before mentioned betook themselves on foot to Mount Peregrino, to fulfil their vow: which they did there with wonderful piety and no small solemnity. Finally on the following 6th day of April one of them wrote down the account of the whole benefit, and confirmed it with his subscribed name, namely the aforesaid Fr. Marcus of St. Anthony, who adds these things about the piety of a certain unbelieving Moor toward St. Rosalia. When images of St. Rosalia and some of the earth of her tomb were being distributed to all, a Moor born in the kingdom of Tunis, and called Ali Almanzor, sought them no less eagerly than the Christians. And being asked the reason by Fr. Marcus, he answered that the glorious St. Rosalia was the Saint of the Moors and of the Christians. Castiglia notes that the same fact was related in a certain little work written in Spanish by Manuel Mariano Ribera, and printed at Barcelona in the year 1725, entitled: Real patronato, etc.

[134] at Havana in the island of Cuba many benefits obtained through the Saint, To these I shall subjoin certain others, gathered from various letters written from America into Sicily. These letters were written by Fr. Giuseppe Saverio Alagna of the Society of Jesus, by birth of Palermo, and then living at Havana, whence he sent them to Palermo, partly to Fr. Antonio Ignazio Mancusi

often praised, partly to Fr. Gaetano Maria Noto, who sent me from them whatever relates to our Saint. Further, in the first of these letters, given on the 5th of September in the year 1738 to Mancusi, he writes in general that the cult of St. Rosalia flourishes and greatly increases at Havana, that the Saint's name is given to many, and that many graces are reckoned as obtained by her patronage, and other like things which I do not transfer hither, both because of the Saint's cult in the Spanish dominion, to which Havana belongs, there is no doubt; and because they are related only in general. The same Father in the year 1740, on the same day of the month of September, again repeated to Fr. Noto that many benefits are obtained through St. Rosalia at Havana, and relates two of them by name, affirming that they were wrought in his own time.

[135] health there restored to a dying little girl, The first is set forth in this manner. A little girl of about two or three years had been brought to extremity by a grave disease: for the physician himself thought that on the day on which she was healed he would find her dead after midday, because she had already for some time been oppressed by lethargy, so that she had taken neither food nor drink. The girl's mother, grieving much, ran at last to the college of the Society of Jesus, and demands water consecrated to St. Rosalia. Having received this water, she returns to her little daughter, and with much effort brings it about that she drinks some of that water, saying that it is St. Rosalia's. This being taken, the little girl suddenly opens her eyes, and seeing a table spread for the healthy to eat, she too asks for food, and eats well. The mother, seeing these things, wished to apply no other remedy, and had her little daughter whole, whom after a few days she sent to the college of the Society of Jesus to the same Father Alagna, from whose letter I have reported the fact in summary.

[136] and a sound mind to one out of her wits: The other is thus related. A certain lady of the first rank had first been vexed with scruples, and then had fallen into madness, her Father grieving much, who was an excellent worshipper of St. Rosalia. He therefore promised that a festival should be celebrated with a panegyric oration on St. Rosalia; and so in a short time his daughter was healed. Fr. Alagna was present at the thanksgiving, who relates it as a benefit of St. Rosalia, not as an open miracle, as he had called the preceding. He then subjoins many things about the devotion toward St. Rosalia in another town of the same island, which is called Puerto Príncipe, and testifies that she is chiefly invoked against a certain particular evil there, which he describes. But he relates no fact by name. And of the cult of St. Rosalia at Puerto Príncipe I have already spoken in the Commentary at number 476. For this cause I pass over both those things, and the others which he subjoins about the cult of the same Saint in New Spain.

[137] another's dangerous gangrene healed. In a letter of the 22nd of February in the year 1742 given to the same Fr. Noto, Fr. Alagna relates a special benefit granted to a girl of about seven or eight years, as he guessed from her appearance. She had been brought by a long disease on various occasions to the utmost danger of death, and at last on her jaw and chin a wound had opened, in which a fully formed gangrene showed itself by its black colour. Her death, he says in Italian, was expected at every moment, and the things necessary for her burial were already being prepared, when an upright woman, devoted to St. Rosalia, visiting her, told the mother to be of good cheer, and to bid the water of St. Rosalia be brought, with a sure hope of obtaining her daughter's healing by the Saint's patronage. So it was done: and the physicians coming on the same day uncovered the wound with the utmost wonder, and saw that both the black colour and all the other signs of gangrene had disappeared. He testifies that this happened almost two months before he wrote, and since at the beginning he calls it a singular grace, he hints that the daughter was perfectly healed of her disease, although after the words given nothing further is had in the part of the letter communicated to me.

* Cartagena

CHAPTER IX.

Palermo on various occasions preserved from the danger of pestilence.

[ ] Palermo Before I set an end to the Acts of St. Rosalia, some things remain to be recorded about the city of Palermo preserved on various occasions in danger of pestilence, which I have deferred to this place; and finally certain things done in these last times. Vincenzo Auria in the often-praised Rosa cælestis, page 103, sets forth at length in what way it came about that in the year 1649 there was danger of pestilence at Palermo, and that some were said already to have died of the plague in the two hospitals of that city, Mancusi agreeing in part 1, page 409. Nevertheless that plague was stifled at its beginning, and this was attributed by the people of Palermo to the patronage of St. Rosalia, who therefore, at the command of Vincenzo Landolina prætor of the city, in thanksgiving on the day of the finding of the body, that is the 15th of July, celebrated a signal festival with great apparatus in honour of the Saint. Again in the year 1656 Palermo was endangered by the plague, which was raging in that year at Naples and in many other places of Italy, because certain infected goods had been secretly brought into Palermo by a certain Florentine merchant, as the just-praised Mancusi testifies. But the flame was extinguished before it became known; and this the senate of Palermo attributed to the favour of its holy Patroness, and in thanksgiving erected before the door of the cave of Mount Peregrino a marble statue with this inscription: To St. Rosalia, preserver of her fatherland, in the year 1656, the senate and people of Palermo.

[139] Again in the year 1691 there was alarm at Palermo, because the plague had invaded Conversano, on various occasions a city of the kingdom of Naples in the province of Bari, and recourse was had to St. Rosalia by order of the prætor of Palermo, who willed that many torches should always burn in honour of the Saint before the sacred body of St. Rosalia, and before her statue in the cave of Mount Peregrino. Greater and more evident was the danger at the beginning of this century, as I learn from a manuscript account of the Reverend Fr. Pietro Maria Tagliarini, which he wrote in Italian and confirmed with his subscribed name on the 9th day of January in the year 1744, being then rector of the house of third probation of the Society of Jesus at Palermo. He learned the fact from the very man to whom the danger threatened, but some years after it had happened, and therefore he cannot determine the year for certain. But from the thirty years which passed after the matter was heard, and some other years elapsed before, it is in some measure gathered that the thing happened before or about the year 1710. Moreover he testifies that the man to whom the danger had befallen was of upright life and a merchant of most unblemished repute, and that he doubtless took care that it should not become commonly known, so long as there was danger of stirring up ill-will against anyone. And so we cannot wonder that this benefit of St. Rosalia has hitherto been written down by no one. Receive the matter faithfully narrated.

[140] was exposed to the danger of plague D. Massimiliano Delbono had written to a merchant living at Tunis, with whom he had dealings, to send him a carpet woven of wool, such as are woven at Tunis, that he might use it in his house. Long after, that carpet is sent to Palermo enclosed in a chest, and is carried to the house of D. Massimiliano, the chest not being opened at the entrance of the city. In the evening he opens the chest to survey the carpet, his wife, sons and servants being present. But scarcely had they unfolded the carpet, when all suddenly feel themselves seized with dizziness and fever. Hence they thought that that carpet had been brought from parts infected with the plague: and indeed on the same evening they found on themselves pestilential swellings. And so Massimiliano, lest he should break the public faith, presently orders his house to be closed up, and resolves with a generous mind to make the matter known to the magistrates who have the care of public health, that they might see to it that the contagion should not creep further. Nevertheless, before he did that, he wished with all his household to implore the patronage of St. Rosalia, whose relics (if I remember rightly, he says) he had in his keeping. All therefore, prostrate on the ground, piously prayed the Saint to free them and their fatherland from that danger. These things being done, with great confidence in the Saint's protection they went to bed: and awaking in the morning, they saw that the pestilential swellings had disappeared, and that they had been divinely snatched from that deadly danger. For which cause they rendered thanks from their heart to their holy Protectress, and, the matter being made known to no one, burned the carpet together with the chest. That all these things were related to him by Massimiliano Delbono himself, the praised Father testifies.

[141] In the year 1720 the people of Palermo again attributed to the patronage of St. Rosalia that the pestilence which at that time most grievously afflicted Marseilles was not kindled at Palermo, which they affirm was exposed to the danger of that contagion. And Mancusi on page 411 alleges this reason for the danger, which, if it be certain enough, the danger was manifest. For he asserts that the infected ship by which the plague was carried to Marseilles had wished to put in at Palermo, and that, when the masters directed the ship thither, they were three times hindered by a contrary wind, until at last the ship was driven further off by a heavy storm, and therefore made for Marseilles.

[142] and especially in the year 1743, Nearer and more manifest was the danger which threatened the people of Palermo from the pestilence in the year 1743, when it raged at Messina. With what piety the Saint's patronage was then implored at Palermo, I have set forth in the Commentary at number 309, on occasion of the sacred body exposed to this end. But how manifest the danger was remains here to be explained. Our often-praised helper Fr. Noto wrote thus in Latin from Palermo to our purpose in this year 1746, on the 11th of February: Yet by no means is that to be passed over in silence which I lately learned happened at Palermo, not without the greatest advantage to the whole city. Carlo Tuca, a shipmaster of Messina, in the month of May of the year 1743 put in at Palermo from Messina, and, the pestilence at Messina not yet being sufficiently ascertained here, had free intercourse with the people of Palermo. After a few days he is seized first with a fever: then he finds upon himself a bubo, the clearest sign of pestilence. Sending for a physician, he demands and obtains to have a vein opened, feigning a pain: yet by a certain destructive shame of mind he by no means discloses the signs of the plague. Since nevertheless from that silence he greatly feared both for himself and for this whole city, he invokes St. Rosalia with tears, and binds himself by a vow of visiting her sacred cave if he should recover.

[143] A wonderful thing! When amid so many agitations of mind he had rested a little, as is proved: on awaking from sleep he perceives that the pestilential swelling had already vanished, and that he was wholly restored to health. He at once acknowledges his Preserver: he leaps from his bed, and goes to the cave of St. Rosalia, as he had promised, and then gladly returns to Messina. And he wrapped all this in silence, until, intercourse being restored to the people of Messina, he narrated the whole series of the matter, not without tears, to the most reverend father P. D. Giorgio Caiuccio, abbot of the congregation of Monte Oliveto, who reported it to me too. The same Caiuccio, who was in the contagion at Messina, proclaims that he too was preserved by St. Rosalia, to whom in gratitude he hung up a tablet as witness of the benefit received, both in the chapel of the metropolitan church and in the sanctuary of the cave of Ercta. The same man on the 17th of July of the same year wrote thus to me: At the time when the contagious plague was raging at Messina, a certain fugitive from Messina put in at Palermo, fell sick of the plague in the public hospital, and at last recovered; yet without the pestilential disease (which he disclosed to none)

passing over to those who ministered to him. One of ours, the name of that fugitive being suppressed, narrated the whole matter, which plainly confirms not a little the beneficence of St. Rosalia toward the people of Palermo.

[144] From what has been said it is sufficiently gathered that the fear of the people of Palermo at the time of that pestilence was not empty, and that from these dangers they were snatched by the patronage of St. Rosalia, but that the danger of contagion was manifest, and therefore it could piously be ascribed to the patronage of St. Rosalia that they were free from the contagion, and that thanks were deservedly paid to her whose help they had implored as suppliants. It would be tedious, and is less necessary, to transfer hither all that the people of Palermo performed in token of a grateful mind, having passed through that danger. Wherefore I shall transcribe only a few things communicated by Fr. Noto from a letter of this year, noting beforehand however that various things had already been done in the year 1744 in honour of the Immaculate Virgin and of St. Rosalia. But the following belong to the year 1745: On the 11th day of January of last year 1745 (which day is solemn at Palermo because this city was preserved by the help of St. Rosalia from the earthquake of the year 1693) an extraordinary supplication was proclaimed, in which, the Religious families, the clergy and the chapter going before, and the senate of Palermo following, the relics of St. Rosalia were carried about from the metropolitan church as far as the senate house, where lights arranged on every side, and fireworks with festive noise, increased the pomp. On the 16th day of May (on which in that same year 1745 fell the feast of the patronage of St. Joseph, patron of all Sicily), all fear of contagion being now removed, and Messina with the other neighbouring towns cleansed, all the gates of the city of Palermo were unbarred, and thereafter the watches at the gates were withdrawn. And on the following 17th day of May the most excellent senate (which its predecessor had performed on the same day in the year 1744 with great piety) betook itself to the sacred crypt of St. Rosalia, received the sacred Communion, and offered two hundred Sicilian scudi as a gift at her altar. And all the aforesaid things were done while Giuseppe Emanuele de Ventimiglia, prince of Belmonte, was prætor, who moreover at his own expense adorned the chapel of St. Rosalia in the cathedral church with bronze rails.

[145] the people of Palermo piously believed, and paid her festive thanks But Ignazio Migliaccio, prince of Malvagna, who next after him obtained the prætorship, ordered that the solemnity which was wont to be celebrated every year in the month of July for four days (and which in the years 1743 and 1744 had been intermitted to hinder a throng of the people in the dangerous time of plague) should in the year 1745 be celebrated with the greatest pomp for five days together, almost innumerable men, not only from the nearer but even from the most remote cities of Sicily, flocking in troops to Palermo. The narration of the whole solemnity was committed to the press by Pietro la Placa, chancellor of the senate of Palermo, under this title: "I Trionsi di S. Rosalia V. P. domatrice della pestilenza, etc. At Palermo, from Antonio Epiro, 1745, in 40." But the people of Palermo too, giving forth very many signs of gladness during those days, heaped up the solemnity not a little. There were seen everywhere through the streets and on the thresholds of the houses altars built, gleaming torches, festive sports of waters and of fires, and finally very many structures raised with much artifice, in which the benefit conferred on the city by St. Rosalia was set before the eyes of the citizens. Something similar the citizens of Palermo performed again in the same year on the Nones of August. For since on this day through almost every street, square, quarter and lane of the city, wherever there are images of the most blessed Virgin (and they are innumerable), festive shows are wont to be exhibited every year; in this year together with the Blessed Virgin they represented St. Rosalia also, as bringing aid to the city of Palermo in the present peril, that they might, namely, profess that they set down so great a benefit as received from the patronage of both.

CHAPTER X.

Besides the people of Palermo other Sicilians too, and the people of Messina themselves, implored the Saint's patronage at the time of the plague prevailing at Messina in the year 1743; and not in vain.

[ ] [The Saint chosen patroness at Alcamo on account of the plague prevailing at Messina; and the same done elsewhere.] Further, not the people of Palermo alone judged that at the time of the plague at Messina they must flee to the patronage of St. Rosalia; but others too did the same. Nay, I could scarcely doubt that this was done through almost all Sicily, if not everywhere by a common and public counsel, at least by the private piety of many, as I remember was done here at Antwerp too. It pleases me to bring forward as an example the city of Alcamo, which I said in the Commentary at number 376 was freed from the plague in the year 1625 after the relics of St. Rosalia were received: for the people of Alcamo in the year 1743, on the 15th day of July, pronounced a public vow of celebrating every year the festival of the finding of the body, and willed this to be entered in the Acts by the notary Giuseppe Blasi, the subscriptions of the chief magistrates being added. From these Acts, which were communicated to me, I transfer hither the preface: Whereas this city had laboured under a contagious pestilential plague, on the 9th day of July 1625 it was freed by the intercession of the most blessed Virgin Mary of the Miracles, its chief patroness, and of St. Rosalia, as is known to all, and as the letters of the most eminent Giannettino Cardinal Doria, then viceroy of this kingdom … under the date of the 23rd of September … testify. Mindful now of so great a benefit, in the present universal fear of the kingdom by reason of the same disease with which Messina is vexed, trembling and yet trusting that she may protect it by the same patronage, it has decreed to receive also that holy virgin of Palermo, Rosalia, as its patroness, and to make and celebrate for ever as a festival for itself the day of her finding, the 15th of July, under the solemn vow written below, and, that it may be known to all in every age, it has decreed to come to the present act. The formula of the vow is plainly in keeping with these things. These things were done at Alcamo. But in the other cities of Sicily too the cult of St. Rosalia was renewed, and the cities of all the rest of the island acknowledge and proclaim her as their Preserver in so great a peril of affairs, says Fr. Noto in a letter given to me on the 22nd of May in the year 1744.

[147] He then goes on to the places in which the plague raged, At Fiumedinisi and at Messina, when the plague was raging, writing thus: Nay, in Messina itself many who fled to her help experienced her either as Preserver or as Deliverer, concerning which matter we have sent some genuine documents. In the town too which they call Fiumedinisi, and which is eighteen miles distant from Messina, the inhabitants, seized by the plague, felt the help of St. Rosalia, celebrated her feast with great pomp; and set about erecting a new church as a monument of the benefit received: every citizen, ecclesiastics and the magistrate going before, carried stones for it on his own shoulders. This year he again recorded the following: In the town too nearest to Messina, which is called Flumen Dionysii, commonly Fiume-dinisi, there were not a few who found a timely remedy against the pestilential plague in an image of St. Rosalia, or in the dust of her tomb.

[148] Worthy to be recorded is the doctor Giovanni Domenico de Joanne of Palermo, not a few believed that by the patronage of St. Rosalia who administered that town in the name of the lord Calogero Colonna, duke of Cesarò and marquis of the same Fiumedinisi. He in the month of May in the year 1743, while he was staying at Messina, had an image of St. Rosalia painted, which on the 14th day of the same month, having been blessed with the accustomed rite by the most illustrious lord F. Tommaso Moncada, vicar-general of the archbishop of Messina (but now archbishop of the same city), he carried with him to the neighbouring town of Fiumedinisi, and on the following day placed it with pious veneration in the cathedral church. After a few days the contagion of Messina slips in thither, and destroys almost fifteen hundred citizens. The governor of the town, when he sees two of his servants (whom he had visited as sick, and had more than once laid his hand on their pulse) extinguished by the plague, asks the help of St. Rosalia, and with the rest of his household is preserved unharmed: which he sets down as received from St. Rosalia the more because afterwards twice daily by duty he visited all the infected; nay, he was appointed also and went to cleanse other neighbouring towns, the plague being allayed.

[149] In the documents of which mention is made just now at number 147, they were free from that evil, almost like things are related as done at Messina. Several write that they remained unharmed amid the most evident dangers, and attribute this to the patronage of St. Rosalia, whose relics they had in their keeping. First, D. Francisco Carrascón, inspector of military armour and senator of Messina, wrote at Messina in the year 1743, on the 30th of August, that relics of St. Rosalia had been given him, Which, he says, are the one antidote which I have always carried with me, and I acknowledge myself bound to God through the Saint's patronage, because in this conflict he has always preserved me undaunted and whole. The same man on the 1st of September of the same year wrote that it was incredible how great a ruin the pestilence had brought upon the people of Messina: and he asserts that he often had to go over corrupted and wonderfully stinking corpses, when he went to the senate, to the public hospital, or elsewhere by reason of his office; nor yet was he willing to fail in his duty, but performed everything with wonderful tranquillity of mind: that an antidote had indeed been offered him by a surgeon, but that the relics of St. Rosalia and a wonderful confidence in her help had been for him an antidote; and that he had wished for no other, lest he should seem to lessen that confidence. These things are set forth at greater length in the praised letter. Further, how great was the slaughter of the people of Messina can be gathered from a note of Fr. Castiglia, which runs thus: He (the scribe of the senate of Messina to the viceroy of Sicily) had written a little before (the 1st day of September of the year 743) that up to that day about twenty-six thousand men had died of the plague within the city of Messina. Fr. Girolamo Maria Polara of the Society of Jesus on the 20th of March in the year 1744 writes thus in Italian, as I render it into Latin: I have since spoken with very many persons here at Messina likewise preserved from the evil by St. Rosalia, to whom they commended themselves, as they told me. Many too were healed of the disease by her patronage.

[150] some also asserted that they were healed: Earlier in the same letter the praised Polara says that he was as it were an animated corpse, not indeed from fevers or from open signs of the pestilential evil, but from a troublesome inward restlessness; and that in that state he pronounced a vow to St. Rosalia: and that on the same night there followed so copious a sweat, continued likewise on the following night, that his inner garments had frequently to be changed. Further, he so firmly believed that he had been healed by the Saint's patronage that lower down he speaks thus: For the grace granted me, I swear and attest it as an unworthy priest, that I am alive by a miracle of the holy virgin Rosalia, and bound by a vow of coming to Palermo, and of going on foot from the foot of Mount Peregrino as far as the cave, and of having thirty Masses celebrated in the Saint's honour. Presently he adds concerning his companion Pietro Polara of the Society of Jesus: So too master Pietro, who likewise remained among the living by a miracle of St. Rosalia the virgin. Already at the beginning of the letter he had said the same of himself and of his companion, and there he adds that he had pronounced the vow already mentioned with his companion,

after Fr. Martino de Andrea, their companion, had been seized by the plague, of which he died on the 9th of July in the year 1743, they attending him. Nay, he adds that both of them had been believed infected with the plague, and already dead. Pietro Antonio Bova of the Society of Jesus, who was seized by the plague and recovered, wrote thus in Italian to a certain brother of his living at Palermo, on the 11th of April in the year 1744: Of myself I can say that, while I was stupefied with the evil, it was suggested to me that I should flee to our Saint. This I did, vowing to her a fast on bread and water, which I have already fulfilled on the 3rd day of September, namely on the Saint's vigil. nay, by many the lessening of that pestilence

[151] That the end of that pestilence too was attributed by many to the patronage of St. Rosalia, I learn from the letters already praised. Fr. Noto wrote to me thus about these things this year: Orazio Turriano, who is secretary of the Mamertine senate, published a book in the Italian tongue under this title: "Memoria istorica del contagio della città di Messina"… There on page 110 he testifies that from the 15th day of July (which is the anniversary of the finding of the body of St. Rosalia) of the year 1743 the force of the disease at Messina was lessened day by day, because its citizens had fixed up in the senate house an image of the most blessed Virgin and of St. Rosalia, and had offered daily prayers to both at Mass. The same things the author of a certain Italian book writes, whose title is: "Istoria dell'anno 1743"…: and he adds in book 3, page 262, that in the same senate house the people of Messina rendered public thanks to God for it. These things are confirmed by a letter which on the 1st day of September in the year 1743 the praised Orazio Turriano addressed to prince Bartolomeo Corsini, viceroy of Sicily: for in it exactly the same things are asserted about the pestilence being lessened from the 15th of July, and about the image of St. Rosalia placed in the senators' chapel together with the image of the most blessed Virgin, and finally about both Patronesses being invoked with daily prayers.

[152] Both this lessening of the pestilence, which is everywhere said to have begun on the 15th of July, [and its ceasing are attributed to the patronage of the Immaculate Virgin and of St. Rosalia:] and the entire ceasing, which followed not long after the chief festival of St. Rosalia, and on the very feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, as the already praised Orazio Turriano testifies, brought it about that many of the people of Messina attributed the deliverance of their city to the patronage of both. Many at first thought that no one had died of the plague in the city of Messina after the 4th day of September sacred to St. Rosalia: but Fr. Noto informed me that one afterwards became known who died on the 7th day of the same month from plague contracted before. For this cause Turriano rightly fixed the entire ceasing to the 8th day of September, on which the Nativity of the Virgin is celebrated, and on which the people of Messina believe that the Letter of the same blessed Virgin was brought to their Forefathers, as Turriano notes; but of that I do not here dispute. Of Fiumedinisi Fr. Noto writes these things too: This also is to be noted, that in that town the force of the disease seemed to decline from the 4th day of September, sacred to our Virgin, on which a most abundant rain, long desired, fell from heaven, carried away with it the pestilential filth from the streets of the town, and purged the air. Therefore all the citizens bestowed their labour on building a church to St. Rosalia, whom they adopted as their patroness, with that solemnity of which we wrote in another letter. Thus far of those things which are set down as received from St. Rosalia on occasion of the plague at Messina, in which there are indeed no manifest miracles; yet various benefits were so obtained that it may piously and prudently be believed that the Saint's patronage profited them, as indeed the people of Messina believed, who in the year 1730 had chosen the Saint as patroness with a solemn rite.

[153] the grateful piety of the people of Palermo toward their Patroness Saint. For the rest, with what grateful memory the people of Palermo still recall that benefit of St. Rosalia, as granted to their city and to the rest of Sicily, I learn from two letters of this year 1746. In the first Fr. Noto writes to me thus on the 17th of June: Preparations have already begun to be made for what is to be displayed next month for the annual celebration of St. Rosalia. And the fresh memory of the benefit received will bring it about that the sacred solemnity be celebrated with no less pomp, and perhaps even greater, than in the past year. This of the festival of the finding of the body, wont to be performed on the 15th of July. Concerning it, when it had been celebrated, he afterwards wrote thus: By the consent of all, the annual solemnity of St. Rosalia in the month of July was most magnificent, extended to five days, and increased with new tokens of gladness and pomp. This indeed is worthy of record, that the inner face of the most ample chief church, from bottom to top, was covered not now with pure silks, as is the custom, and other ornaments of that kind, but with the clearest crystals, which, reflecting almost innumerable waxen lights, exhibited to the eyes, especially at night, a most pleasant sight. And these things Ferdinando Maria Tomasi e Caro, prince of the island of Lampedusa and duke of Palma, this year again prætor, ordered to be furnished, who also as a Mæcenas of men of letters some time ago instituted in his house an academy, under the name of the Fishermen of Oreto, in which he decreed that a learned dissertation on St. Rosalia should be delivered every year. These things I have thought should be added as a coping-stone in praise of the piety of Palermo toward St. Rosalia. Would that each city might venerate its holy patrons, if they cannot with so great magnificence, at least with equal piety.