ON ST. PETRONIUS, BISHOP
OF VERONA IN ITALY
The V century, after the middle.
COLLECTION.
Petronius, bishop, at Verona in Italy (S.)
BY J. S.
Saint Petronius, bishop of Verona, the Roman Martyrology today announces in these words: The Saint's cult and a brief eulogy: At Verona, of saint Petronius, bishop and confessor. Galesinius has the same words, and Castellan repeated the same, but the latter notes in the margin that he is unknown to all the preceding calendars, which is true of the published and everywhere known Martyrologies, although otherwise there is no doubt about the legitimate cult of Petronius. Indeed Agostino Valier, bishop of Verona, in his Ancient monuments of the bishops of Verona, proves first in general, and then singly, the cult of thirty-six bishops of Verona, among whom St. Petronius is reckoned. Then, at folio 41, he celebrates him with such a eulogy as this: Petronius, bishop of Verona, was a man of admirable sanctity of life, of surpassing learning, and of a certain singular eloquence. In this Bishop's times the worship of God was wonderfully enlarged in the church of Verona: he also wrought very many miracles. He died on the eighth of the Ides of September: he was buried in the basilica of saint Stephen. All these things Ferrarius adopted in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy at the VI of September, where he added this annotation: The body was laid in the church of St. Stephen together with the body of St. Andronicus and of others, as an ancient marble tablet indicates. That the body of St. Petronius was afterward preserved in the same church the said Valier proves at folio 10 from a marble tablet, .. from an ancient tablet, from parchments, … from a marble chest, … from Francesco Corna, and from the tablet of the Saints on the VI day of September.
[2] he seems to have flourished after the middle of the V century That no Life of St. Petronius exists, or at any rate none which was accurately written, I gather from Aloysius Lipomanus, likewise bishop of Verona, who in the preface of volume 4 of the Lives of the Saints excuses himself for not having published the Lives of the Saints of Verona, and confesses that either their Lives have not been written, or are unworthy of his publishing them, although otherwise in that distinguished church, on his own testimony, the famous memory of XXXIII holy bishops is kept, and anniversary feasts with solemn Masses are observed. Therefore the deeds of this Saint are little known, nor shall I inquire further about them: but in a few words only I shall examine at about what time he seems to have flourished. If the succession of the bishops of Verona is such as is reckoned in Ughelli, volume 5 of the Italia Sacra, from which the other catalogues do not depart far, Petronius was the thirty-first bishop and the successor of St. Manius, and sat in the V century, and probably died after the middle of that century, since between St. Petronius and St. Simplicius, who flourished about the end of the same century, only one is placed in between, St. Cerbonius. Girolamo Dalla Corte in his History of Verona, part 1, book 4, page 197, writes that Petronius succeeded Manius in the IX century: but I do not doubt that he strays far from the truth: for the catalogue of the bishops of Verona in the VI, VII, VIII and IX centuries is fuller in Ughelli, and the succession of bishops in those centuries better proved, than that it should become probable that Manius and Petronius sat in the IX century, especially since there is room enough for both in the V century, in which they are everywhere placed by others.