ON ST. UGO, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
AT VOLTERRA IN TUSCANY
In the year MCLXXXIV.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Ugo, bishop and confessor, at Volterra in Tuscany (S.)
BY J. L.
§ I. The eulogy from Raphaël of Volterra; the Life to be published, and the cultus: a diploma of the emperor Frederick I injurious to the Saint is set forth.
[ ] S. Ugo, bishop of the city of Volterra, well enough known in Tuscany, began immediately after his death to grow famous by miracles, [The Saint scarcely known to the martyrologists is celebrated by Raphaël of Volterra] and to be honored with a public cultus, which even now continues: nevertheless I find his memory celebrated by no martyrologists, except by Ferrarius, who in the General Catalogue of Saints announces our Prelate briefly on this day under the name of Hugolinus — by which no other author, so far as I know, has called him — in this way: At Volterra in Tuscany, of B. Hugolinus, bishop. In the Notes he cites the Commentarii Urbani of Raphaël Maffei, who from his native place is wont to be surnamed Volaterranus, in whose Basel edition, book 5, page 52, these praises of S. Ugo are proclaimed: Moreover, after Justus (whom nevertheless Papebroch, tom. 1 of June, page 438, does not admit to have been bishop of Volterra), Ugo, a most holy prelate, adorned that chair. He, of the noble family of the Saladini of the neighboring castle of Agnano, since he was at once canon of Volterra and of Padua, being promoted on account of the modesty of his life and his knowledge of Pontifical law, endured various labors and hardships from hostile citizens on behalf of the liberty of the church and the preservation of its goods; all which things, overcoming them by patience, he reached old age without complaint. He died in the year MCCCCLXXXIII. Left unburied for X days, and venerated by the people on account of the prodigies seen to come from him, he was afterwards laid in the basilica of that city. The very grave chronological error in S. Ugo's year of death, MCCCCLXXXIII, is to be imputed to the typesetter, not to Raphaël of Volterra himself; with whom, however, I do not agree if he wrote that the Saint departed from the living in the year MCLXXXIII: for the ancient monument which will be set forth after the Preliminary Commentary, chap. 3, num. 13, and which testifies that the Saint died in the one thousand one hundred and eighty-fourth year of salvation from the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the VIII day of September, is of greater authority with me.
[2] The same praised Ferrarius also noted that the Life of our Prelate is related in the Italian work of Silvano Razzi on the Saints and Blessed of Etruria. and other writers: the life and posthumous glory Of that work, which is at hand, the first part belongs to the second, but the second part or Supplement to the first Florentine edition. In both parts I have sought the Life of the holy Bishop in vain. In the first, however, in the Acts of S. Galganus the hermit, some things concerning S. Ugo are inserted from page 229 onward; which I also read in Lombardelli and in others more recent, who have written concerning the same holy hermit. Speech of these will return in the observations upon the account of our Saint's deeds and posthumous glory, to be given below out of the very ample manuscript Commentary, in which the people of Volterra — often commended by our predecessors and set before other cities for imitation — reported through a public notary the recognition of the sacred relics which they venerate, made toward the end of the year 1647 and the beginning of the following, and other notices concerning their Saints which they judged to pertain to the plan of our Work. Nor do I here commemorate any of those things which Æmilius Feius in the manuscript Memoirs of Volterra, collected at the beginning of the XVII century, Scipio Ammirato the elder in the Series of the Bishops of Volterra, printed at Florence in the year 1637 with the Additions of Scipio Ammirato the younger, and — to be silent about the rest — Ughelli in the Italia sacra of the earlier edition, tom. 1, col. [*] 352 and following, hand down concerning the life and cultus of S. Ugo: for that part of the same manuscript Commentary which is to be published embraces those things, if you except a few which can conveniently be reported and weighed in the notes to be subjoined.
[3] to be published from an authentic Volterran manuscript. The beginning of the praised Commentary Papebroch published in tom. 1 of June, page 447. There the reader will find that the people of Volterra, stirred by the fame of our Work, decreed that the memorials of the Saints, whether citizens or newcomers, should be collected and the relics visited, and consigned to a public instrument to be sent to Antwerp to Fr. Bolland; then that in the name of the whole clergy, on the XVIII of December of the year 1646, two canons of the cathedral church, Francesco Broccardo and Alessandro Riccobaldo Bava, were chosen for that business, and in the name of the people, on the XII of June in the year 1647, Raffaele Maffei and Curzio Inghirami; that the most illustrious Niccolò Sacchetti, asked by them to preside over so pious a work, committed it to Federico Ghetto, his pro-vicar general in spirituals, that he should assist it with ordinary authority; and finally that Francesco Conti was taken on as public notary, to record in writing the recognition of the relics to be made and the other things to be done. A copy of the lengthy Commentary or instrument drawn up by that notary, which is preserved in our museum, is indeed not the autograph, yet it is authentic: for it is confirmed by the solemn subscription of the same notary, the Priors of the people of Volterra giving credence to it on the XIII day of May in the year 1648 through their chancellor Tommaso di Francesco de' Brozzi, to whose attestation, written with his own hand, the seal of the city is seen affixed in green wax.
[4] A diploma of the emperor Frederick I While I consider more attentively the several things which below in the Volterran manuscript Commentary S. Ugo is related to have done, both as archpriest and as bishop, he seems to me chiefly to be praised for the constant fortitude and zeal by which he strove to preserve and defend the rights and goods of the chapter and of the bishopric; but while I read through the diploma of the emperor Frederick I granted in the year 1185 to bishop Ildebrando, his next successor, I see myself cast into a hard necessity: either to concede that the Saint squandered the goods of his Church and was destitute of those virtues which would have held him to their right administration, or to confess that he who was the author of the diploma is a detractor. Æmilius Feius cites it; the same is produced entire by Ammirato the younger, by Ughelli, and by Orlendi in the Orbis sacer & profanus, part 2, book 3, from page 1056, inserted into the Catalogues of the bishops of Volterra where Ildebrando is treated: but the reputation of S. Ugo, which is torn to pieces in it, those authors by no means repair, since they do not indicate even by a word whether the holy Bishop is traduced as a destroyer of ecclesiastical goods justly or unjustly. Nor do I know that a refutation of that diploma has been attempted by any other. I take upon myself the defense of the Saint's abandoned cause: but before I approach the matter, I set forth the diploma itself as it stands in the cited Orlendi, omitting however its latter part together with the appended testimonies, from which it is established that the transcribed copy of the same which Orlendi published agrees with the autograph itself.
[5] Frederick, by the grace of God emperor of the Romans and ever august. is set forth, granted to Ildebrando, the successor of S. Ugo Among the various vows and works of the imperial majesty, the office of imperial excellence entrusted to us by God demands and requires that, since we owe to each of our faithful to observe what is his own, we are bound indeed to give heed to the churches and to ecclesiastical persons, whose observance [] has been committed to us, [] for their prosperity and salvation; so that, while by outward diligence we mercifully open to them the bowels of piety and the help of justice, we may be able by their suffrages and prayers to obtain eternal life, according to that saying of the Lord: Alms extinguish sin, and charity covers a multitude of sins. Wherefore let both the present age of the faithful of the empire and the posterity to come know, that we, attending to the ancient honor and the due liberty of our church of Volterra, and gladly inclining our mind to the earnest prayers of our beloved and faithful prince Hildebrandinus [] Pannocchi, bishop of the same church, whose devotion assuredly is most acceptable to us and whose honor is commended by his own merits, have judged it equitable and necessary that we should more promptly meet the insolences and damages which the aforesaid church has sustained, now from sloth, now from prodigality, and now also from the imprudence of its prelates, lest, if by long torpor they should negligently grow old, they perchance come into oblivion, and the wrong of those who plunder sacred things pass over into something like the usage of a just possession.*
[6] Having therefore taken and wisely deliberated the counsel of the princes and of the judges of our court, granted in the year 1185, all pledgings, benefices, exchanges and any other alienations whatsoever, which have at any time been made by the predecessors of the aforesaid bishop, and specially by Hugo the bishop his immediate predecessor, and by the canon [] or canons of the same church, out of the goods of the church of Volterra, we annul and by imperial authority altogether revoke as void; and we decree and strictly command that they revert freely and without any contradiction to the oft-named church and bishopric, unless it can be proved by evident reason and declared by eyewitness faith that they passed into their reasonable contract for the advantage of that church. For the increase also of our imperial diligence we give to the bishop himself full power and grant authentic authority of confidently entering upon and possessing whatsoever things have been alienated, or granted, or enfeoffed, or conferred under the name of a tenement, as well in castles as in villages and in any other things whatsoever, and of freely having their possession and use and of disposing them wholesomely according to the judgment of his own will, without injury to his own
right and that of the church of Volterra. And that this edict of our majesty may stand ratified, &c. Given at Crema in the raising up of the same, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and eighty-five, in the fifth Indiction, on the sixteenth of the Kalends of June.
[7] which indicates that he wrongfully alienated ecclesiastical goods. In the edition of Orlendi which I have used, the fifth Indiction is faultily noted for the third, which is expressed in Ammirato the younger and in Ughelli and corresponds to the other chronological notes, namely to the XVII day of May of the year 1185. By the words in the raising up of the same understand the restoration of the city of Crema: for that Crema was rebuilt in that same year 1185 by the emperor Frederick I is testified by Sicard, bishop of Cremona and a contemporary chronographer, in Muratori, tom. VII of the Scriptores rerum Italicarum, col. 603. In writing the names of S. Ugo and of his successor Ildebrando I have hitherto followed, and shall henceforth follow, the other authors, who suppress the aspirate letter with which those names begin in almost the cited diploma alone. Frederick granted that document to Ildebrando, bishop of Volterra, in order that he might meet the insolences and damages which the aforesaid church has sustained, now from sloth, now from prodigality, and now also from the imprudence of its prelates. By this accusation the emperor attacks chiefly our S. Ugo; for of the bishops of Volterra who brought damages upon their church he names him alone, and specially orders the goods alienated by him to be restored, giving Ildebrando full power of entering upon their possession. All, he says, pledgings, benefices, exchanges and any other alienations whatsoever, which have been made at any time by the predecessors of the aforesaid bishop, and specially by Hugo the bishop his immediate predecessor … out of the goods of the church of Volterra, we annul, &c. And so the emperor not only openly takes from S. Ugo the praise of having usefully administered the bishopric of Volterra, but even hints not obscurely that he afflicted that church with graver damages than the others, and that from sloth, or from prodigality, or from imprudence.
Annotationsperhaps teneamur.*
read observantia.*
In Ammirato the younger and in Ughelli, Hildebrandi.*
read canonico, or, as it is in Ughelli, canonica*, that is, the college of canons.
§ II. The aforesaid diploma is refuted.
[ ] It is proved that neither S. Ugo's sloth The diploma of Frederick I, which charges the predecessors of Ildebrando and by name S. Ugo with having wrongfully alienated or squandered the episcopal goods, casts sloth, prodigality and imprudence confusedly upon all of them in such a way that I am indeed compelled to admit that some one of those three vices is laid upon our holy Prelate, yet cannot discern which it is. I suspect, however, that the author of the diploma wished to reproach other bishops rather than our Saint with sloth and prodigality in alienating ecclesiastical property; since it is certain that he was utterly a stranger to both vices. How strenuously S. Ugo, while he was archpriest, fought for the right of the chapter of Volterra in the silver mines of Montieri against the Sienese and their bishop Raynerius, and also against his own bishop Galganus, I do not here set forth, referring the reader to his Life to be published from the Volterran manuscript, chap. 1, num. 4. Receive some of the specimens of fortitude and care which, after he had been promoted to the bishopric, he is there read from num. 5 onward to have given, whereby he busied himself to guard and defend the rights and goods of his church. Ildebrando and Suffredo, canons whose power in the city was excessive, and from whom sedition had arisen, he punished most severely, in order to preserve the right and liberty of his church. Moreover he most vigorously withstood the consuls of Volterra, who wished to withdraw themselves from episcopal obedience and obstinately persevered in retaining the right in the exaction of the tolls of the castle of Gabbreto. Then there is set forth the constancy of S. Ugo, by which amid schismatics he clung, and made the citizens of Volterra cling, to Alexander III, the lawful Pontiff, and to himself, and to the Apostolic See. Presently it is subjoined: The things said above we have seen noted in the monuments of that time in the little sack marked ✠.
[9] After a few things interposed, it proceeds thus in chap. 2: Alexander the third granted most ample privileges against those who refused to pay him the tithes and feudal revenues… nor his prodigality, From the men of San Gimignano and from the men of San Quirico he exacted by his own kindness those tolls which they had refused to pay to the bishops now deceased. The towns of Feghina and Gambassi, handed over by the men of Feghina to lords, he brought back into episcopal right and power. The knowledge of which matters the original instruments of the episcopal archive, read by me, clearly make manifest. To these I add the testimony of Raphaël of Volterra concerning the Saint: He endured various labors and hardships from hostile citizens on behalf of the liberty of the church and the preservation of its goods; all which things, overcoming them by patience, he reached old age without complaint. No more is needed for you utterly to deny that S. Ugo bore the bishopric slothfully or prodigally: both because the emperor's diploma charges the Saint with either vice only obscurely and doubtfully, and because, even if it had done so openly, one ought not to stand upon its authority, since this is sufficiently overthrown by the contemporary and certain instruments from which are drawn those deeds of the Saint which I have just related, and which prove him to have been a tenacious and strong administrator of the right and property of the church.
[10] Meanwhile I do not deny that the church of Volterra under the rule of S. Ugo suffered no light loss of its property. nor even his imprudence, I know well also that even the Saint's own fortitude and his constant zeal for preserving them could have been the cause of that loss, if prudence, the moderator of all things, did not direct those virtues. Furthermore I cannot deny that the holy Prelate is accused in the diploma of Frederick I of having brought grave damage upon his church, if not from folly or prodigality, at least from imprudence. But ought vice, or a defect of true prudence, to be understood by the imprudence which is there objected? This is now to be inquired into. Under Pope Alexander III and the emperor Frederick I a most foul schism divided the Church, and brought innumerable calamities upon Italy. The chief author and abettor of the schism — which arose in the year 1159 in the antipope Victor IV and was continued in his successors Paschal III and Callistus III down to the year 1177 — was Frederick; and how impiously and insolently he abused his power to attack the Church in her lawful Head, Alexander III, and the bishops and peoples of Italy obedient to him, the writers at hand teach; out of whom, for our purpose, it will be enough to have recalled only this: that the bishops who were defenders of the true Pontiff were, in the emperor's judgment, not only imprudent but also schismatics, because they did not reverence the pseudo-pontiff whom he falsely called the lawful Vicar of Christ; nay, even traitors, because against the imperial majesty they adhered to the hostile party of Alexander: and therefore he harassed them also in various ways, and took care that those whom he could should be thrust from their chairs, with others truly schismatic substituted in their place. Thus in Tuscany I read that Zenobius was intruded into the see of Florence, Benincasa de' Benincasi into that of Pisa, and Cunitus into that of Lucca, the lawful bishops being cast down, by the work or the authority of Frederick.
[11] which the nature of true prudence The emperor was restored to the unity of the Catholic Church in the year 1177. He then indeed ceased to be a schismatic, but not to be hostile to the Apostolic See, going on to infringe its rights, to seize its goods, or to retain those seized before; as is clear from the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius at the same year 1177 from num. 89, and at the year 1186 from num. 3, likewise from Sigonio's history De regno Italiæ, book 14 at the year 1178, and book 15 at 1184. The factions too, which had been born in the time of the long schism and confirmed to the ruin of Italy, of which one favored the Pontiff and the other the emperor, went on burning with mutual hatreds, often breaking out into wars and slaughters. But with how mindful a spirit the emperor retained what the party devoted to Alexander and to the Church had at one time done against him, most of the cities in Tuscany are to me a shining proof. Frederick, offended with them, after the council of Verona, held in the declining year 1184, in which the dissensions between himself and the Pontiff had broken out afresh, blazed into open vengeance. Having crossed over into Etruria, says the praised Sigonio at the year 1185, in the month of July, he took away from all the cities, except Pisa and Pistoia, the jurisdiction of their whole territory, because in the earlier war they had sided with the Church, and set his own legates over them there to administer justice. This I believe Sigonio drew together from chap. 82 of the Florentine History written in Italian by Ricordano Malespini, an author of the XIII century; from which I subjoin the following rendered into Latin: So insolently did the emperor deal with the cities of Tuscany, because they had not stood on his side; so that, although he had been reconciled with the Church and had returned into the favor of the said Pontiff Alexander, as I have recalled before, he did not cease to carry out his depraved will against those who had obeyed the Church. Now since Frederick granted the said diploma to Ildebrando on the XVI of the Kalends of June of the year 1185, that is, at that very time when he bore a freshly exasperated and more offended mind toward the Apostolic See, and was going to take vengeance on the cities of Tuscany which in the time of the schism had favored Pope Alexander, it is assuredly not at all wonderful if he called imprudent S. Ugo, who in the earlier years of his bishopric, that is from the year 1173 or 1174 down to 1177, set himself as a firm wall for the Church and its Head against the men of Volterra who professed the schism and the faction of Frederick, and who down to his death, that is to the year 1184, remained most devoted to the party of the Pontiff.
[12] But, you will say, it is not so much the emperor as Ildebrando, the successor of S. Ugo, who is to be reckoned to have objected the imprudence: it is objected, for he without doubt supplied the matter of the diploma which he sought and obtained from him. That I may forestall the argument which can be taken from this, I subjoin reasons why it ought by no means to seem wonderful if Ildebrando reproached our holy Prelate for an imprudence which is to be reckoned to him neither as a vice nor as a fault. In Ammirato the younger, in Ughelli and in Orlendi, cited at num. 4, there exist various diplomas, either published entire or compressed into a kind of synopsis, which Ildebrando obtained within the first five years of his bishopric, both from the emperor Frederick I and from his son Henry VI, king of the Romans, and from the Supreme Pontiffs. When I read these through and turned my mind to the lavish liberality of the emperor and of his son Henry toward Ildebrando, the following thoughts occurred to me, by which I believe I have attained the truth itself. Having undertaken the bishopric, Ildebrando applied himself not only to the care of recovering the alienated ecclesiastical goods, but also that he himself and his successors should flourish with greater wealth, exercise a wider jurisdiction, and be strong with weightier authority. But because for obtaining these things the emperor's goodwill was necessary, he therefore thought it a matter of political prudence to win that goodwill for himself, or to foster it where it had already been won. From that counsel all things came to him which he had purposed in his mind. He received full power of seizing the property of the church of Volterra alienated in any way to its own damage; he was distinguished with the title of prince of the Roman empire; he was increased with what we call the secular lordship in the city and territory of Volterra; he was endowed with the right of striking coin, so that
— to sum it up in a word — he was heaped with so many and so great benefits by Frederick and by his son Henry, that I doubt whether any bishop in Italy experienced a more lavish munificence from them toward himself. But if Ildebrando thought it prudence to have them friendly and well-disposed toward himself, so as to obtain the end he had set before him, it is assuredly no wonder if he ascribed to the imprudence of S. Ugo the damages which the church of Volterra suffered under his rule, since the cause or occasion of them all was that constant firmness by which, in the time of the schism, he stood for the true Pontiff against Frederick and his followers, and which could easily seem to Ildebrando to have exceeded the limits which prudence prescribes.
[13] According to the narrative of Sigonio, resting upon the authority of Ricordano Malespini and adduced above at num. XI, that the damages, under his bishopric Volterra is to be reckoned among those cities of Tuscany which had been opposed to the emperor before he abjured the schism in the year 1177: and therefore I would not deny that under bishop S. Ugo, who began to sit in the year 1173 or the following, the faction devoted to the lawful Pontiff was the stronger there; although in the Life of the Saint to be published, chap. 1, num. 6, the contrary rather seems to be intimated in these words: The men of Volterra, adhering to the power of the emperor Frederick, withdrew from the obedience of the true Pontiff; very many of whom, having followed the Ghibelline (See the observation on this word, to be given in its own place) party, sent legates to Pavia to the emperor, offering their zeal and favor together with troops of soldiers. Although they persevered in that counsel, … Ugo nevertheless preserved the devotion of his soul toward the true Pontiff; the things said above we have seen noted in the monuments of that time in the little sack marked ✠. If from this it cannot safely be inferred that the schismatic party of Frederick prevailed at Volterra under S. Ugo, at least this ought to be granted me, that it was then very powerful there. Now I ask, who were those hostile citizens from whom the holy Prelate, as Raphaël of Volterra testifies, endured various labors and hardships on behalf of the liberty of the Church and the preservation of its goods? Were they not those who had by legates pledged their favor and aid to Frederick, or who at least were followers of his party? To me at any rate it appears most likely that they, animated by the patronage of the emperor — who was wont to show himself grateful and indulgent toward his supporters and helpers — or upheld by his authority, proceeded to such a pitch of insolence that they harassed their own bishop S. Ugo in unworthy ways on account of the defense of the Apostolic See which he had undertaken, and sacrilegiously withdrew from him much of the right and property of the church. Since the rivalry by which some maintained the party of Alexander and others that of the emperor was the origin of almost all the internal seditions with which many cities in Italy labored in that calamitous time, I believe that those rebellious against the Pontiff were the authors of the sedition stirred up at Volterra against S. Ugo while the schism was there raging; which below in chap. 1, num. 5, is thus briefly touched upon: Ildebrando and Suffredo, canons whose power in the city was excessive, and from whom sedition had arisen, he punished most severely, in order to preserve the right and liberty of his church. There happened also in the time of the schism what next follows: Moreover he most vigorously — but perhaps in vain — withstood the consuls of Volterra, who wished to withdraw themselves from episcopal obedience and obstinately persevered in retaining the right in the exaction of the tolls of the castle of Gabbreto.
[14] inflicted upon the church of Volterra, Nor let anyone persuade himself that S. Ugo, when the emperor had been reconciled to the Church in the year 1177, could easily have recovered the rights and goods which had before been torn away from the bishopric, or could tranquilly have administered those which he still possessed: for as elsewhere in Italy, so also at Volterra the faction devoted to Frederick had at that time no less grave quarrels with the other, which had adhered and went on adhering to the Pontiff. Hear Sigonio in book 15 of the history praised above, speaking thus at the year 1184: But the Italian peoples, accustomed through the time of the war to maintain the parties of the Church and of the empire, retained the same tempers among themselves even when affairs were pacified, so that each, as it were, gaped after the other's opportunity, and each bound the peoples neighboring upon it by an oath for its own preservation and for the other's ruin. Nor indeed were the provinces alone infected with this plague, but individual cities still labored under hatreds of this kind, the families within them being at variance on that account. To these I add that the inhabitants of various cities fought among themselves with civil arms, and that the conquered were despoiled of their fortunes by the conquerors and forced into exile From this it is permitted to gather what the face of affairs was in the city of Volterra, split by contrary zeals into two parties, and how likely it is that the party which was opposed to the Pontiff and to S. Ugo, and which there had very great strength and perhaps even prevailed, just as in the time of the schism it had risen up against the holy Prelate and against the things subject to his jurisdiction, so also dared the same after the schism. Certainly the things which had been snatched away from the bishopric of Volterra under S. Ugo had not yet been restored when, upon his death, Ildebrando, most in favor with the emperor, succeeded him; at whose prayers the emperor by the diploma of the year 1185 at length met the insolences and damages brought upon the church of Volterra, lest, if by long torpor they should negligently grow old, they perchance come into oblivion, and the wrong of those who plunder sacred things pass over into something like the usage of a just possession.
[15] It can now be objected against what has been said, that not only against the will and resistance of S. Ugo, are to be imputed. but even with his willingness and knowledge, the church of Volterra bore grave damages; for this the things which follow in the diploma plainly indicate: All pledgings, benefices, exchanges and any other alienations whatsoever, which have at any time been made by the predecessors of the aforesaid bishop Ildebrando, and specially by Hugo, his immediate predecessor, … out of the goods of the church of Volterra, we annul and by imperial authority altogether revoke as void; and we decree and strictly command that they revert freely and without any contradiction to the oft-named church and bishopric. To these things I reply that the restitution of goods alienated by some contract is not absolutely commanded by the emperor; for there is added: Unless it can be proved by evident reason and declared by eyewitness faith that they passed into their reasonable contract for the advantage of that church: and moreover that the holy Prelate is not to be blamed for having pledged, exchanged, or in other ways alienated any goods without advantage or even to the damage of his church, but rather those most difficult times, most unjust especially to bishops who were champions of the Apostolic See, which drove him to make alienations of that sort, whether that he might protect his own dignity, or that he might avert graver evils, or for other lawful causes. And so one must judge concerning the holy Bishop, unless another passage of the diploma stands in the way, accusing the predecessors of Ildebrando of having been ruinous to their church now from sloth, now from prodigality, and now also from imprudence. But that you may deny that S. Ugo either slothfully permitted or prodigally did anything to its detriment, what I brought forward at the beginning of this paragraph ought to suffice. From those things which I have discussed from num. 10 it is also sufficiently understood that it is not to be admitted that the Saint departed from the rule of true prudence in the administration of the episcopal goods, although the imprudence which the emperor — or, if you prefer so, bishop Ildebrando — objects in the famous diploma is to be referred to him. The more maturely the reader shall weigh what has been said above, the more likely it will appear to him that the deeds of S. Ugo are to be measured by the judgment of neither of them, and that the imprudence objected to him is not a vice, but rather true prudence, which dictated to the holy Bishop that he must stand manfully for the Church and its lawful Head against the emperor and against the citizens of Volterra, who were for the greater or at least for a great part schismatics, and must rather permit the damages and inconveniences arising thence than fail in his own office. Æmilius Feius ascribes to him the praise of prudent fortitude; and in the Volterran manuscript, chap. 2, num. 8, he is said to have passed a pure and holy life, rare in the light of prudence, and fortified by the rampart of virtue: which God also declared after his death by various miracles, as will be seen below.
LIFE AND CULTUS
From an authentic Volterran manuscript instrument.
Ugo, bishop and confessor, at Volterra in Tuscany (S.)
From the Volterran manuscript.
CHAPTER I.
The visitation of the relics preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral church of Volterra; the silver image in which is the head of S. Ugo; the former part of his life.
[ ] Certain relics in the cathedral church's But on the XII day of December MDCXLVII, in the presence of the above-written lord pro-vicar a and of D. Ludovico de' Minucci, D. Orazio de' Maffei, and of me the undersigned notary and others in the sacristy of the greater church, coming together while they were present as one, they entreated D. Bonamico de' Bonamici, archpriest of the same church of Volterra, and D. Bartolomeo Bibboni, canon, and also D. Alessandro de' Fei, captain of the soldiers, and D. Giulio de' Maffei, all patricians of Volterra and at present the elected conservators of the sacristy, that they would show for recognition and description the more notable relics which were kept under their custody. Therefore the aforesaid conservators, being exceedingly pious and assenting to so religious a petition, ordered the priest Paolo de' Cortinovis, one of the sacristans, to open the tabernacle of the relics.
[2] [sacristy having been recognized, there is set out the silver image in which is enclosed the head of S. Ugo.] The tabernacle is in the manner of an altar, placed in the middle of the sacristy, made of walnut boards, skillfully carved with gilded figures, barred with two locks, which are opened with two nevertheless unmatching keys; of which the one is kept with lord Bartolomeo as ecclesiastical conservator, the other with D. Alessandro as lay conservator. When this had been opened with all the same conservators present, and wax torches lighted, after the sacristan had let down a silken veil of scarlet color, he set forth the head of the holy martyr Victor enclosed in silver b… Afterwards the priest Michele Leoni, the other of the sacristans, brought out from the sacred sideboard one silver image of St. Octavian… Then the sacristan set beside it a notable little chest of brass or gilded bronze, engraved with various images, in which a great part of the head of one of the Infants of the Holy Innocents was preserved… Then the silver image of St. Ugo, bishop and confessor, is set before us to be looked upon c.
[3] [His birth and character; his learning: made archpriest, he amends the rites of the church of Volterra;] He was born at Volterra of the most noble family of the Saladini d of the city. He possessed the town of Agnano e, then situated six miles from the city. This Ugo, from the earliest bloom of boyhood excelling in the light of his native talent and in the knowledge of the sciences, most upright in the conduct of his life, betook himself to the university of the studium of Padua f. In which city, both by the example of his praiseworthy conduct and by his honorable rule of living, he gave so great a specimen of sanctity that he, a guest and a newcomer, was advanced to a canonry of the cathedral of Padua: and not long after he is summoned as canon into the college of the chapter of Volterra, as Raphaël of Volterra records in the Commentarii Urbani, book V, page LII, in the copy printed at Basel g. Presently the dignity of archpriest h was conferred upon him, as is clear from an ancient instrument under the year MCLXXV i, which is preserved in the more secret episcopal archive, once seen and read by me. At which time, in the year MCLXXI k, he issued the Rites of the church of Volterra, by which he reduced to a better form the Office to be observed and retained in
the whole diocese, which I, the undersigned notary, have seen.
[4] And when the chapter of Volterra was burdened in its share of the silver mine of Montieri l, first by bishop Galgano m, [he keenly defends the rights of the chapter and confirms them with privileges obtained from the Pontiff;] afterwards by Rainero n, bishop of Siena, and when the Sienese, relying on the resources of the emperor Frederick the first, and elated by the aid and presence [p] of Rinaldo, archbishop of Cologne and chancellor of the empire o, were bringing injury and molestation upon the canons in the very silver pits; Ugo alone dared to withstand so great a violence of those who gaped after them. For he himself hastened to Montieri, and by letters made Alexander the third, the Supreme Pontiff, more fully informed of the violence brought upon his chapter, and at length betook himself to him; to whom he showed the signs of a devoted mind: and from the same Pontiff he kindly obtained privileges, not only in the said silver mines, but also in the protecting of the chapter's right (which from antiquity had fallen to it in several villages and towns), as clearly appears from the diploma of the said Supreme Pontiff, formerly in the year MCLXXI; the original of which we have found to be still in force even now among the ancient monuments of the chapter.
[5] And since he was strong in the knowledge of all the sciences and especially of canon law, created bishop, he likewise most bravely protects the episcopal rights; after the death [q] of Galgano Inghirami, bishop of Volterra, he is elected bishop of the same city in the year MCLXXIII: and just as, when he was a canon, he stood forth as a most keen defender of the rights of the chapter, so as bishop, in the guardianship of the flock entrusted to him for the space of XI years, having discharged many labors, he grew old amid hardships, as the Volterran relates in book V of the Commentaries. Ildebrando and Suffredo, canons whose power in the city was excessive, and from whom sedition had arisen, he punished most severely, in order to preserve the right and liberty of his church. Moreover he most vigorously withstood the consuls of Volterra, who wished to withdraw themselves from episcopal obedience and obstinately persevered in retaining the right in the exaction of the tolls of Gabbreto [r].
[6] At that time, when the discord arose between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines [s], [in the time of the schism he firmly adheres to the true Pontiff; he is present at the Lateran Council; he preserves the right of the chapter.] the men of Volterra, adhering to the power of the emperor Frederick, withdrew from the obedience of the true Pontiff; very many of whom, having followed the Ghibelline party, sent legates to Pavia to the emperor, offering their zeal and favor together with troops of soldiers. Although they persevered in that counsel, and almost all Tuscany [t] had entered into a league with the schismatics, Ugo nevertheless preserved the devotion of his soul toward the true Pontiff. The things said above we have seen noted in the monuments of that time in the little sack marked ✠. Not long after, hatreds having been laid aside, terms of peace were entered upon between the Supreme Pontiff and the emperor [u]. Ugo is summoned to Rome to the Lateran Council [x]; in which he showed both the acuteness of his talent and the integrity of his life. Being also asked by the Roman Pontiff himself, in the Pope's own chamber, to confer a canonry of the church of Volterra upon Ildebrandino Todini, a kinsman and intimate of the said Pontiff, he refused to do it, lest he should infringe the rights of the chapter [y]; as is established from the deposition of witnesses made in the time of bishop Pagano, in the year now CDXXX [z].
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The chapter of Volterra could have suffered injury in its share of the Montieri silver mines from the Sienese, elated by the aid and presence of the aforesaid archbishop, in the year 1163: for Muratori, tom. 4 of the Antiquitates Italicæ medii ævi, col. 573, produces a charter of the same archbishop, given for the monastery of S. Antimo at Siena on the Kalends of August, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand one hundred and sixty-three, Indiction XI, &c.
q. The Saint is asserted a little below to have borne the bishopric for the space of XI years, and afterwards at num. 8 to have died in extreme old age in the year MCLXXXIV. Whence I gather that the sentence in this place is to be punctuated so that the sense may be that he was elected bishop of Volterra in the year 1173, which Feius also determines: but Conti in Ammirato the younger, Ughelli, and the most illustrious Benedetto Falconcini, bishop of Arezzo, in Orlendi's Orbis sacer & profanus, part 2, book 3, chap. 31, page 1055, fix the beginning of his bishopric at the year 1174. In tom. 1 of Ughelli's Italia sacra, which Giulio Ambrogio Lucenti published at Rome in the year 1704, col. [ ] there occurs a certain Peter, unknown to others, inserted into the catalogue of the bishops of Volterra between S. Ugo and Galgano I, whose bishopric being briefly commemorated, it thus proceeds: Peter, from the Volterran record-office, held the principate of this church in the year MCLXXXI, in which indeed he ceased to be. Ugo de Saladinis succeeded in the year MCLXXXI. Lucenti is certainly mistaken, whether the error is to be imputed to himself or to the instrument which he followed: for the following narrative in our Volterran manuscript, drawn from ancient monuments, leaves no room for doubt that S. Ugo sat before the year 1181, nay at that time when the schism was still gravely afflicting the Church — the schism which, having arisen in the year 1159 in the antipope Victor IV, the emperor Frederick I did not cease to foster with every effort, until in the year 1176, conquered in a great battle by the Milanese, he began seriously to think of entering upon peace with Alexander III, the lawful Pontiff; to whom at length, the schism being abjured, he was reconciled in the year 1177, yet not so that he thereafter always cultivated the Apostolic See with the reverence which he owed.
r. The castle of Gabreto is mentioned in the cited Orlendi, page 1073, in the diploma of the emperor Charles IV, confirming in the year 1355 the rights and possessions of the bishop of Volterra.
s. The Italians indeed under Frederick I were split into two factions, some following the party of Pope Alexander, others that of the emperor; but these were not then called Ghibellines, nor those Guelphs. Under those names those factions began to be known only in the 13th century. Read the learned
dissertation of Muratori upon this matter, tom. 4 of the Antiquitates Italicæ, from col. 605.
t. Ricordano Malespini, cited in the Preliminary Commentary at num. XI, and other writers testify that only two cities of Tuscany, Pisa and Pistoia, adhered to the schismatic party of Frederick I, but that all the rest stood for Alexander the true Pontiff, and were therefore in the year 1185 deprived by the emperor of the jurisdiction of all their territories. How then, as is here asserted, did almost all Tuscany enter into a league with the Schismatics? That these may be reconciled with one another, it must be said that all the cities of Tuscany except Pisa and Pistoia adhered to the lawful Pontiff at least in the last years in which the emperor Frederick was a schismatic; who, offended on that account, punished them in the year 1185 as rebels and guilty of a violated league, namely of that league which, as is read in our manuscript, almost all Tuscany had entered into with the schismatics. Now I believe that this was done in the year 1163: certainly at that time all Tuscany is related to have sworn fidelity to the emperor, in the Breviarium historiæ Pisanæ in Muratori, tom. 6 of the Scriptores rerum Italicarum, col. 174. Take the words. In the same year (namely 1164 of the Pisan reckoning, which is to be adjusted with our common 163 from the 25th day of March, as will be said more fully in the observation to chapter 3 under letter c) before the Kalends of April, Rainaldo archbishop of Cologne and archchancellor of Italy came to Pisa; and the Pisans sent ambassadors Note: legates with him, so that through fear of the Pisans all Tuscany at once swore fidelity to the emperor Frederick into the hands of the same his archchancellor. To the year 1163 also are to be referred the things which in the cited Muratori, col. [ ], Otto Morena, a contemporary author, writes. The archchancellor … by his exceptional diligence wonderfully stirred all the cities and princes of the March and of Tuscany and of Romagna to love and obedience of the emperor, and to the honor of the lord Pope Victor (whom Otto Morena would have called an antipope, had he not been a schismatic) he deposed certain bishops rebellious to him, others being substituted in their place. It is obscure to which cities of Tuscany that of Volterra is to be reckoned: whether to Pisa and Pistoia, which adhered constantly to the schismatic emperor down to the year 1177; or rather to the rest, which by a praiseworthy and pious defection passed over to the party of Pope Alexander: yet it cannot be doubted that very many of the men of Volterra under the bishopric of S. Ugo, that is in the later years of the schism, persisted rebellious to the Church and faithful to her persecutor Frederick. Go to the Preliminary Commentary, num. 13.
u. In the year 1177, as has already been said.
x. The III general Council was celebrated in the year 1179, to which Pope Alexander had in the preceding year summoned the bishops of Tuscany by letters, published by Labbe in tom. 10 of the Councils, col. [ ].
y. Then the Pontiff commended Ildebrandino to Matteo Fei, Lamberto and Ildebrando, canons, who had gone with S. Ugo the bishop to Rome to the Lateran Council; as Æmilius Feius teaches. Concerning the right of electing the canons of the cathedral church of Volterra there was long a dispute between the chapter and bishop Pagano, who succeeded S. Ugo after Ildebrando not later than the year 1213. Pagano was still living in the year 1239 under Gregory IX, Supreme Pontiff from the year 1227; who pronounced that the right of electing the canons of Volterra belonged to the chapter, in book 1 of the Decretals, title 6, On Election and the power of the elected, chap. 31, which begins: Cum ecclesia Vulterana.
z. That is, in the year 1217 or 1218: for the reckoning of the 430 years must be begun from one or the other of these, since the last of them ran on the 12th of December of the year 1647, in the acts of which day the life of S. Ugo is inserted in the Volterran manuscript.
CHAPTER II.
The other part of his life; the cultus begun immediately after his death; the inspection of the head and of the wondrous liquor which formerly flowed from the Saint's tomb.
[ ] The deeds of S. Ugo for the benefit of his church: a seminary of clerics Alexander the third a granted most ample privileges against those who refused to pay him the tithes and feudal revenues, and especially against the men of San Gimignano b; against whom nevertheless he was unwilling to proceed with the rigor of justice: but without the din of lawsuits and arms he exacted d in the year MCLXXXIII from the men of San Gimignano and from the men of San Quirico c those tolls which they had refused to pay to the bishops now deceased. The towns of Feghina and Gambassi e, handed over by the men of Feghina to lords f, he brought back into episcopal right and power. The knowledge of which matters the original instruments of the episcopal archive, read by me, clearly make manifest. He instituted an ample college of clerics, who should be fed together at his expense, and should learn thoroughly the prescription of the divine law and the ecclesiastical disciplines, and should keep and attend to the service of the mother church and of the other collegiate churches. Which appears in the acts of the succeeding bishop Pagano, who disputed with the canons, and which are preserved in the chapter.
[8] The holy bishop, having returned from Bologna, when he heard that the hut of the divine Galganus g had been burned, and he founds the monastery of S. Galganus; he dies holily. straightway sought Chiusdino h to punish the incendiaries, intending to venerate in person the sanctity of the holy hermit Galganus. And when he had found him dead, in the presence of Giovanni, bishop of Massa, and of certain abbots sent thither by God i, he entombed him honorably; and there out of the revenues of the bishopric and out of his own he erected the abbey of saint Galganus k, which the Cistercian monks, summoned by Ugo from France l, possessed as their first in Etruria. Therefore, rare in the light of prudence and fortified by the rampart of virtue, he passed a pure and holy life. Who at length, having discharged many dangers, when he had reached a decrepit age, fell asleep happily in the Lord in the year MCLXXXIV m, on the VIII day of September.
[9] The concourse of the people to his body; his honorable burial; His body, to venerate which an immense multitude of people flowed together, lay ten n days unburied in the cathedral: and such were his prodigies and such the boundless piety of the folk toward their Pastor, that peoples had come together from the whole diocese to see him. He is afterwards entombed in a marble tomb, where at first the bishops Gutfredus and Rogerius o lay, with notable pomp and a solemn procession of the whole people: which is most clearly proved from the ancient lessons which the church of Volterra had been accustomed to read in the Office of the said Saint, and which are found written in the ancient Breviaries and Psalters of the said church, and which were read by me the undersigned notary in the presence of the above-written persons; from an ancient monument [p], which written on a tablet is preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral; from the Commentarii Urbani of Raphaël of Volterra: where in the copies printed at Basel in the year MDXLIV there is a notable error of the printer; for where he writes that Ugo died in the year MCCCCLXXXIV [q], one must put in the year MCLXXXIV.
[10] [The Office of the Saint; indulgences formerly granted; the recognition of the sacred head] From that time the Saint himself has always been venerated by the church of Volterra with a double Office, and even now he is venerated on the fifth of the Nones of September [r]; since his own birthday is impeded by the nativity of the most holy Virgin. Nay, by Cardinal Pandolfo Mosca, as legate a latere of the Apostolic See, in the year MCXCVII [s] an indulgence of twenty days was granted to those visiting the cathedral on the feast day of S. Ugo: and Pagano, who succeeded Ugo after Ildebrando [t], added ten other days to the aforesaid indulgence; as to all these things the original diplomas, preserved in the chapter archive and seen by me, establish the credit. His head is afterwards surrounded with a silver face by the prefects of the mount of piety of Volterra, for the greater honor of the holy Bishop [u]: which is carried about through the city in solemn festal procession on his day, the clergy going before and the magistrates following. The sacred image was taken apart from its twisted pins [x]: we beheld with great devotion of soul the venerable head, and many parts of it, to which the hairs still clung even now. The sacristan honorably carried back the holy relics, closed and sealed, to their proper place.
[11] and of the wondrous liquor which flowed from the tomb of S. Ugo. Thence he set before our eyes a vessel of gilded bronze, in the manner of a pyramid, in which another little crystal vessel is enclosed, keeping the wondrous liquor [y] which flowed from the tomb of S. Ugo in the year after his death, from the marble urn in which he had been placed with two bishops, on the solemn day of the Purification of blessed Mary. The wondrous God, that the merits of the blessed Bishop might shine forth more to all, brought it about that from the aforesaid sarcophagus a moisture like balsam gushed out: nay, it flowed forth more fragrant than the best balsam and much more precious; the anointing of which healed contracted limbs, strengthened the lame, restored light to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and cured incurable diseases. Matteo Fei, canon of the cathedral, moved by these miracles, gathered a little portion of the said liquor to the glory of God and to the memory of S. Ugo for so ineffable a benefit, which even now down to this day [z], for the space of CDLXIII years, is preserved fresh and pure. Of this the ancient tablet of the aforesaid sacristy establishes the credit: it is established from the aforecited ancient lessons and from the memorandum noted in the ancient Breviary. There flourishes also an ancient tradition that the said liquor dripped from the said stone, in which now lie the bones of saint Ugo the bishop, for a long time, until, God being indignant on account of the irreverence shown by some both to the church and to the Saint, he held himself back from such great graces, and dried up the moisture of the overflowing liquor. This having been carried back to its own place, there is shown to us the head of saint Candidus the martyr with the neck, breast and shoulders; of whom the Roman Martyrology makes mention on the fourth of the Nones of February…
ANNOTATIONS.
it is treated briefly in the Volterran manuscript; whence I transfer the following hither: In the year MCLXXXI, on the third of the Nones of December, he flew away from the lands to heaven. Saint Ugo, then bishop of Volterra, as we have said, being present performed the funeral rites for him: he took care that he should be buried in his own hut in the wilderness. And since his death and his life had been illustrated by innumerable miracles, the same saint Ugo instituted a process concerning his sanctity. Him Pope Lucius the third in the year MCLXXXV, at the prayers of the Sienese, with the bishop and the chapter of Volterra pressing the matter, and at the petitions of the Cistercian religion, enrolled in the number of the holy Confessors. Besides the ancient Office, in whose lessons, hymns, antiphons, &c., the life and miracles of S. Galganus are briefly related, I have found other transcribed Acts of the same saint from the Medicean library at Florence, shelf XX, laid aside for the 3rd of December, compiled out of older ones, if I am not mistaken, in the XIV century by someone, probably a monk, by the name of Blasius. Neither in these Acts nor in that Office do I find any of those things which the Volterran manuscript instrument commemorates concerning the former in the life of S. Ugo and in the eulogy of S. Galganus; but the things which are reported in a lengthy narrative, drawn out with many other appendages, in both Italian lives of the holy hermit, which Gregorio Lombardelli in the year 1577 and Antonio Libanori in the year 1645 published from the presses of Siena. Silvano Razzi in the work on the Saints and Blessed of Etruria from page 216, and other recent writers of the life of S. Galganus, followed Lombardelli as their guide; but what the Volterran manuscript has concerning him and S. Ugo seems to have been drawn together from Libanori. I judged it enough to have brought forward a brief account of this, after I perceived that almost all the things which Lombardelli and other more recent biographers inserted into the Acts of S. Galganus concerning our holy Prelate do not cohere with the more ancient documents which will be adduced in the following notes to the account in our manuscript. Whether S. Ugo instituted a process upon the sanctity of Galganus, who died in the year 1181 and was afterwards enrolled by Pope Lucius III in the year 1185 in the catalogue of the holy Confessors, I do not here examine; since that pertains more closely to him to whom it shall fall to illustrate the Acts and cultus of the holy hermit.
p. Namely by the ancient inscription, which I have already advised is to be reported below at num. 13.
q. In the Basel edition, which is before my eyes, it is faultily read MCCCCLXXXIII.
r. The month of September has no fifth day before the Nones. Since it is added that the birthday of S. Ugo, that is the VI of the Ides of September, is impeded by the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mother of God, it is easy to judge that the people of Volterra transferred the cultus of their holy Prelate to the following day, and that for the fifth of the Nones of September one must read the fifth of the Ides of September. Because, however, it is not certain to me from any other source that the faulty reading is thus to be corrected, it has seemed good to treat of the Saint on the VI of the Ides of September, which is his birthday.
s. He who desires to know more certainly that Pandolfo, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, discharged the office of Pontifical legate in Tuscany in the year 1197, let him go to Ammirato the younger under Ildebrando, bishop of Volterra, page 113, and in the Florentine History, book 1, page 63.
t. It is ascertained by me that Ildebrando sat at Volterra in the year 1185 and 1209, and that Pagano his successor sat in the year 1213 and 1239. If you make Ildebrando the author of the diploma refuted in the Preliminary Commentary, which he obtained in the month of May of the year 1185 from the emperor Frederick I, then he certainly thought that the episcopal rights and goods had been badly administered by S. Ugo: but he doubtless then wholly laid aside his error, when the merits of the Saint with God were manifested by frequent miracles, which, as will be seen below, were wrought at the use of the liquor which his tomb began to send forth on the 2nd of February of the year 1186. How great an opinion Ildebrando conceived of the sanctity of his Predecessor, when these had been seen or heard, can most easily be gathered from this, that in the year 1197, in which the same Ildebrando was discharging the bishopric, a day had already been consecrated to his public veneration, and an Office concerning him had begun to be recited.
u. Under what bishop of Volterra and by the liberality of what presidents of the mount of piety this was done, understand from the following narrative of Æmilius Feius: His sacred body, last found by bishop Guido Serguidi, was always preserved with singular veneration in the same tomb, above which is the altar of the chapel of Barbialla; concerning which see below at num. 12. After a few things interposed, he thus proceeds: In these times four of our citizens, Michelangelo Lottini, Cosimo Fei my father, Michaë Lisci and Alessandro Guarnacci, presidents of the mount of piety, being piously affected toward so glorious a Prelate and citizen of their city, took care that a precious and beautiful silver ornament should be made, and that his head should be enclosed in it. First of all observe here that it is asserted by Æmilius Feius that the body of S. Ugo was last found by Guindo Serguidi, who from the year 1574 † to 1598 presided over the church of Volterra; secondly, that the same Feius, who wrote at the beginning of the following century, speaks of the head of the Saint, enclosed in the silver image, as of a thing not long past. From these you will rightly deduce that bishop Guido opened the tomb of S. Ugo and separated the head from his body when found, to be set upon a silver ornament, and that this was more probably accomplished by the care and at the expense of the named presidents of the mount of piety, the same bishop Guido being not yet taken from the living.
x. Read divulsa or discussa.
y. The things which follow are taken from the old inscription, which will be given in the following chapter.
z. Namely the 12th of December of the year 1647, when the recognition of that wondrous liquor was made: which, as is subjoined, had been preserved fresh and pure down to that time for the space of CDLXIII years. From this I subtract one year; for that sacred liquor, as will be said in the annotation to the following chapter under letter e, was first seen to flow from the tomb of S. Ugo on the 2nd of February of the year 1186: from which time down to the 12th of December of the year 1647 only about 462 years elapsed.
CHAPTER III.
The chapel of S. Ugo; the ancient inscription concerning the said sacred liquor; the Body of the Saint recognized and lifted from the tomb.
[ ] In the chapel of S. Ugo the marble vault is opened, in which he Presently a the lords deputed betook themselves to the chapel of S. Ugo, called of Barbialla, erected in the same cathedral, in order to see and recognize the holy Bishop's body. There were present the most illustrious D. Dionisio Carducci, administering Volterra for the most serene grand duke of Etruria; the most illustrious D. Jacopo Guidi, then set over the people and the city; D. Pietro Tani, prefect of the works of the cathedral; and likewise the undersigned witnesses and many others; and when the hymn CONFESSOR had been recited and the torches lighted, master Ottaviano, son of Silvestro, the mason, moved away the stone which was the flat surface of that altar. Meanwhile the following memorial of an ancient tablet was read and copied out by me the undersigned notary; namely:
[13] “In the one thousand one hundred and eighty-fourth year of Salvation from the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, [and two other prelates had been laid: an inscription concerning the wondrous liquor which flowed thence after the Saint's death:] and on the VIII day of September, on the Nativity of the most glorious Virgin Mary, Ugo the bishop, of holy memory, ended his day. In the most sacred church of Volterra the most devout clergy buried him most honorably in a certain marble tomb; in which before, for one hundred and forty-six years, bishop Gunfredus b was resting, and also after him for fifty-four years a certain Rogerius c, archbishop, who most diligently governed first the church of Volterra together with the church of Pisa, and afterwards both d, was enclosed in the same tomb. But after the death of the aforesaid blessed Ugo, when the space of one year had elapsed, on the IIII of the Nones of February, namely the day of the Purification of the glorious Virgin Mary e, that same tomb was found to be pouring forth water in the manner of a liquor; to which many burdened with various sicknesses most devoutly flowed together. By the anointing of which water, those whose hands were contracted were straightway stretched out, the blind were enlightened, the deaf received hearing, and several other wonders were shown, as it pleased the Lord; many were freed from divers weaknesses or pains. And this small portion of that water the priest Matteo f, canon of the said church of Volterra, took care most diligently and most accurately, with all reverence being had, to gather up again, to the praise and glory of almighty God and of the blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints, and for the retaining of a perpetual memory of that power and grace. In which church indeed all these miracles and signs were shown.”
[14] Therefore, when the altar stone had been removed, two and a half braccia long, of the bishops of Volterra Gunfredus, whose epitaph is reported, into which above there had been inserted a consecrated slab of hard variegated marble, another stone of hard marble, of three braccia, was found, but white, which covered the tomb; from which we said above that the wondrous liquor flowed forth. This stone is as great as the altar is; on which the below-written letters are carved:
“God disposes all things, as God knows all things; in the world He directs all peoples. Whom He wills He exalts; whom He wills He lays low to the depths. These the fatherland keeps, but others otherwise: Lord Gunfredus g, appointing him to the pontificate how far from his fatherland h, not in his own country. Born at Novara, he was enthroned at Volterra. Worthy of his lineage, excellent in character; skillful in offering comforts to all his neighbors; he fostered the realm by his counsels and his words. He filled up the Church of Christ with a faithful mind, increasing all her goods by manifold labor. He gave clothing to the naked, food to the needy, help to all the wretched and to widows. Now I ask thee, brother, who shalt read this title: pray thou ever here, ‘Have mercy, Father.’
In the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ MXXXVII i, Indiction VII. Bishop G. sat XXIII years. On the eighth of the Kalends of September he died. Bishop Guido set this up.”
[15] [and the bones of Rogerius are found with the body of S. Ugo, enclosed in a wooden chest, which is lifted from the tomb.] When the stone had been raised and moved away, there was found within the urn a thick lid of walnut, and beneath it was found a little case [], which served as a covering for the inner chest, carved and transparent with crystal, one cubit long with a third part of a braccio added, and half a cubit high, with this inscription: RELICS OF S. UGO, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR. And through the crystals his bones were seen. But since the case [] was rotted on account of the contracted moisture of dampness, it was not opened; but it was borne honorably by four priests, with a fitting number of torches, into the sacristy, and there laid down, so that the aforecited lords deputed might conveniently meet this damp moisture. In the aforecited marble urn, lower down, where the said sarcophagus with the above-mentioned eulogy had been placed, there were found the bones of the venerable bishops Gunfredus, founder of the churches of SS. Justus and Clement and establisher of the abbey k erected by him in [*] of the aforesaid Saints, and also the bones of Rogerius, bishop of Volterra and archbishop of Pisa, who was most useful to the church of Volterra; to which he increased many revenues, rights, and lordships of castles within and without the territory and region of Volterra, as appears in the instruments of the episcopal archive, and who in the very buildings of the episcopal palace most kindly received in hospitality Callistus the second, Supreme Pontiff, with XII Cardinals, six bishops, with his whole cohort of courtiers and retinue l.
ANNOTATIONS.
while the neighboring Pisans begin their year from the same 25th day of March, which precedes the beginning of the common year. Read the first observation to the following chapter.
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CHAPTER IV.
The translation of the body carried out with the greatest solemnity.
[ ] It is decreed and published that the translation of the body is to be made; But most recently a, on the proposal of the lords deputed, it seemed good to the most reverend chapter and to the most illustrious community to increase their faculty and to amplify their authority, namely that they might transfer the relics of saint Ugo from the altar of the chapel to the noble deposit of a sarcophagus, which the most illustrious lord knight Attilio Incontri, Prior of Austria among the knights of the divine Stephen, has already taken care to have made at the right of the greater altar beneath the organ b. These therefore, the consent and counsel of the most illustrious lord Niccolò Sacchetti, bishop of Volterra, having first been had, determined that this translation should be made. On that account letters are sent out by the aforesaid bishop into the whole diocese, by which all the peoples were invited to keep the festival of saint Ugo. Three days before, to stir up the ardor of devotion, the noise of all the bells sounded in the city and suburbs.
[17] And when on the X day of January those same relics, laid in the same case [*], had been carried back to that same urn which is carried back to the marble urn from which it had been taken, and thence from which they had been drawn out on the IV of the Kalends of January, in the morning of the VIII day of February, in the presence of the lord pro-vicar, of the most illustrious lord Priors — the lord Baccio Ricciarelli, knight of the divine Stephen, lord Gherardo Compagni, doctor of both laws, lord Pier Francesco Marchi, lord Ottavio Minucci and lord Francesco Leonori — and of the same lords deputed and of lord Pietro Tani, prefect of the works of the cathedral, from the same altar of Barbialla c, the lid having first been raised by the masons, the bones of the same Saint are brought out, just as the memorial of the transaction is asserted to have been written down by the hand of lord Francesco Tani, chancellor of the episcopal curia.
[18] Thence they are carried to the chapel of the divine Charles, and there are moved out of the ancient chest, [it is carried to the chapel of S. Charles: where, out of the ancient case, in which two memorials concerning the Saint's bones were found,] in which two leaden plates with the following inscriptions were found; on one of which we read these things noted: “MDXL the tomb was opened, and out of three corpses found therein they laid the bones of B. Ugo in this wooden coffer: and two gold [*] rings of his are honorably kept in the sacristy with a portion of the same liquor d.” And on the other these words are carved: “In the year of Salvation MDCXXXI, on the seventh of the Kalends of November, Bernardo Inghirami being bishop of Volterra, when the city had labored under the pestilence into the fourth month, the bones of B. Ugo, transferred from the wooden into this more fitting little case, were exposed upon the greater altar, the whole people venerating them and deprecating the just anger of God.”
[19] Therefore the holy relics are laid away in a new case [*] of walnut, it is transferred into a more fitting chest, which with its sacred deposit surrounded on every side with crystals, and, left the following night in the same chapel under the custody of the aforesaid deputies, they are sealed with two keys; of which the one was handed to lord Francesco Broccardo, one of the ecclesiastical deputies, the other to lord Raffaele Maffei, one of the laymen. The next morning this inscription was placed in that chest above the holy relics: “To God, the Best and Greatest. Innocent the tenth being Supreme Pontiff, the most serene Ferdinand the second grand duke of Etruria, Niccolò Sacchetti bishop of Volterra, the body of saint Ugo, bishop of Volterra, was translated from the bosom of the altar, in which it lay distinctly with the bodies of Gunfredus and Rogerius, bishops of Volterra, with a great concourse of the people and the rejoicing of the whole city, into this more fitting place with solemn rite and pomp, on the V of the Ides of February, in the year from the Virgin's Childbearing one thousand six hundred and forty-seven e.”
[20] is translated with the greatest solemnity The little case [*] having been closed with two keys, the relics are brought out, which the confraternity brethren of the society of saint Mary Magdalen accompanied with lighted torches: they are carried onto a platform adorned with noble furnishing near the aforesaid chapel of Barbialla; and with them the notable head adorned with silver and its wondrous liquor are set forth, with countless lights kindled. The whole cathedral too shone within and without with foliage, images, silken veils, eulogies, poems and paintings in honor of the Saint. A solemn Mass was chanted in his praise with a concert of music, and after the Offertory the lord Alessandro Bava, canon, delivered a most brilliant oration on the deeds of the same holy Bishop. In the afternoon Vespers are sung together most festively with harmonious measures: which being completed, those relics are carried through the whole city in a general procession, at which were present the societies, confraternities and congregations of the city and very many which flowed together from the diocese, all the Regulars and Mendicants and monks, the clergy, all the magistrates and the general council, with an almost infinite number of torches. All the streets were fittingly adorned with tapestries, triumphal arches, columns and altars set out here and there: lightnings of gladness with a dreadful roar are discharged from bombards, cannon and mortars of war.
[21] to the notable marble monument, erected at the right of the greater altar. Thus at length with the applause of the whole city and with immense devotion of souls they are carried back into the cathedral: where by the most illustrious bishop the entire head of S. Ugo is shown, with which he imparted the episcopal blessing to the people upon bended knee. They were afterwards translated to the marble tomb of the deposit; and there, one of the two keys having been handed over to the lord archdeacon Giovanni Maffei on behalf of the most reverend chapter, and the other to the lord knight Baccio Ricciarelli, vice-provost, on behalf of the most illustrious lords Priors of the people and city of Volterra in the provost's absence, they were laid away in that very urn of carved marble, which was smeared over with cement. Requesting, &c. Done at Volterra in the residence of the most reverend chapter and canons of the church of Volterra, situated in the canonry f of the same church, in the presence of the noble men lord Francesco, son of the late D. Ascanio de' Maffei, doctor of both laws, and lord Ludovico, son of the late lord Pietro Antonio, son of another lord Ludovico de' Minucci, patricians of Volterra, called as witnesses, &c. g.
[22] [The testimonies of the notary and of the magistrate of Volterra, giving credence to him through his chancellor.] I, Francesco Conti, formerly the son of Sebastiano Agostino, citizen and public notary of Volterra, notary by ducal authority and ordinary judge, was called upon concerning the above-written instrument of the visitation and recognition of the relics and of their attestation, and concerning all and each of the things contained in it, and in witness I have subscribed myself with my own hand, and have set the accustomed sign of my notaryship in the margin, to the praise of almighty God and of the Virgin Mother of God.
In the name of God, Amen. We, the Priors of the people of the city of Volterra, to all and each to whom these presents shall come, give credence and attest that the above-written D. Francesco, son of the late Sebastiano Agostino de' Conti, who was called upon concerning the above-written instrument, was and is our citizen, a public, lawful, trustworthy and authentic notary, and such as he makes himself out to be, and that public credit has always been given, and is at present given, to his writings: in faith and testimony whereof we have ordered these present letters of attestation to be made by our undersigned chancellor, to be subscribed, and to be fortified with the impression of our accustomed seal. Given at Volterra from the palace of our accustomed residence on this thirteenth day of May in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-eight, in the first Indiction, Innocent X being Supreme Pontiff, and the most serene Ferdinand II, grand duke of Etruria, reigning. I, Tommaso di Francesco de' Brozzi of San Gimignano, doctor of both laws and at present chancellor for the S. C. S. of the city of Volterra, have written with my own hand and subscribed in faith by mandate.
ANNOTATIONS.
the Florentines, who begin the new year later than we, from the XXV day of March, and therefore call it from the Incarnation; which is to be diligently observed, as being the mark of no light difference from the other form, in our times used almost everywhere, namely from the Nativity, or, as the men of Reggio and others more correctly write, from the Circumcision, that is from the Kalends of January. But for some, and especially for the Pisans, the new year from the Incarnation anticipated by nine months our common year from the Nativity. Not only the year 1647, but also the Indiction 15 running with it, is prolonged in our Volterran manuscript beyond the beginning of the common year 1648 and of the first Indiction, down to the 25th of March. I would demonstrate this by various examples, if it seemed to me worth the trouble.
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