Sperandea

ON ST. SPERANDEA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS,

AT CINGOLI IN PICENUM.

In the year 1276 or 1277.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Sperandea, virgin and abbess, at Cingoli in Picenum (S.)

BHL Number: 7827

BY C. S.

§ I. The place and day of her immemorial cult: her memory in the more recent Martyrologies: a mutilated Life, the Hymn of the Mass, authentic miracles to be published: the modern writers who have mentioned her.

[ ] Cingulum, called by the natives Cingoli, an ancient city of Picenum in the March of Ancona, flourishing in opulence of resources and in the splendor of its inhabitants, she is honored at Cingoli with an immemorial cult sits midway on a sufficiently pleasant hill between Osimo and San Severino, Jesi and Tolentino, according to Nicolaus Coleti in the Appendix to Ughelli's Italia sacra, col. 58 and 66, where he warns that in the Supplement to the Geographical Lexicon it is wrongly called a little town, and shows that it was once adorned with a bishopric, which was afterward united to that of Osimo. This city numbers among its patrons S. Sperandea the virgin, a Religious and abbess of the Benedictine Order, in whose incorrupt body it glories, and has venerated her with an ancient and immemorial cult, divinely confirmed by many miracles, which, having been called into doubt in the seventeenth century and strenuously vindicated, came forth even more illustrious, and flourishes to this day. We shall set forth the whole series of the matter in § V, and by the same labor the Saint's legitimate and immemorial cult will be established, and therefore I here abstain from proving and deducing it.

[2] Meanwhile it will suffice to have noted that the Saint, by the common opinion of the people of Cingoli, passed to heaven on the eleventh of September; [on the first Sunday of September: but she died on the eleventh of the same month,] yet that her feast is celebrated yearly at Cingoli on the first Sunday of the same month — from what time it is uncertain — on account of a certain remarkable benefit obtained on that day by her patronage. For they say that, while the people of Cingoli were at strife with those of Jesi, and were on the very point of contending in arms, the matrons of Cingoli ran together as suppliants to S. Sperandea, and thereby it came about that on that same day, hatreds being wonderfully laid aside, the opposing parties agreed in concord, and the people of Cingoli wished that day to be perpetually sacred to their holy Protectress. And concerning that war and the peace divinely made, the Sequence, or hymn wont to be sung in the Saint's Mass, thus makes mention:

From the men of Cingoli and their neighbors Thou takest away arms, and from ruin Thou dost succor the peoples.

[3] I cannot sufficiently wonder that this Virgin, so very renowned for the glory of her miracles and for her cult, by which she is announced by several martyrologists. should be utterly unknown to the Benedictine martyrologists, since nevertheless all the authors who have written of her rightly agree concerning her Benedictine profession. Of the martyrologists, Philip Ferrari first inscribed her in the sacred Calendars: and first indeed in the Index to the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he has it thus: S. Sperandia, virgin of Cingoli, the 11th of September. Her body in the same place; but in the Catalogue itself there exists no eulogy of her, no memorial, perhaps because her Acts had not come to his knowledge. He erred, however, if he called her of Cingoli from her birthplace; for that she was of Gubbio will appear below. The same writer in the General Catalogue of the Saints, likewise at this day of September, mentions her thus: At Cingoli in Picenum, of holy Sperandia, Virgin. He then praises in his Observations the records of the church of Cingoli, and her Life published in print, and warns that her feast is wont to be celebrated at Cingoli not on this day, on which she died, but on the first Sunday of September, as we also said above.

[4] Finally in the Topography of the Roman Martyrology, at the word Cingoli, he notes: 1 September, Serandia V. Doubtless with a double error, namely in the day and in the word Virgin. Following Ferrari, Arturus in the Gynæceum sacrum, at the 11th day, says: At Cingoli in Picenum, of holy Sperandia, virgin of remarkable virtue and perfection. Castellanus alone is the one who in his universal Martyrology makes mention of the Virgin's Religious Profession, saying: At Cingoli in the March of Ancona, S. Sperandea, virgin, a Religious under the Rule of S. Benedict; and that this is rightly ascribed to her will be established from what is to be said. For the rest, the Saint's name is written by some Sperandia, by others Sperandea, and in one manuscript of ours constantly Spera in Deo: but in the chief documents, and in the hymn wont to be sung in the Mass, it is read in the second way, and therefore we have thought that this should be retained: in the third way it is found in that single manuscript, and there is no doubt that it is wrongly so.

[5] We grieve indeed that the genuine deeds of this holy Virgin have not come down to us; a Life to be published whether because they were never committed to writing, or because by some chance they perished, or lie hidden even now somewhere in darkness. Genuine, I say; for the Acts which are circulated concerning her we cannot generally hold for sincere, and besides they are mutilated, as we shall presently see. The same loss, or the negligence of the ancients, that most distinguished man Titus Franceschini,

doctor of both laws and captain of the city of Fermo in the March of Ancona, deplores together with us in the preface which he prefixed to the Italian Life published by his labor at Fermo in the year 1602; where also he suspects from report that the Acts once written perished in a fire. Moreover he asserts that no diligence was omitted by him, that from the archives of the nuns of S. Sperandea he might bring to light whatever they were able to preserve concerning her deeds, but that nothing was found by him besides a mutilated Latin Life and a certain other metrical one.

[6] Of the prose Latin Life by an anonymous author we have a double manuscript copy, it is mutilated, the one differing somewhat from the other, but each equally mutilated and sprinkled with absurdities. For, in the first place, one of them has a very short prologue in which the year of the Saint's birth is set down; the other does not. In the former she is called Sperandia, in the second Spera in Deo; but this last I think to have come from the transcriber's fancy, or from the difficult script of the manuscript which he had before his eyes. The style also appears more correct and more recent in the first; the rest agree; so that I do not doubt that this one has been somewhat polished by some more recent hand. Neither of them, but yet one similar to both, seems to have lain before Franceschini: not the first, because he expressly affirms that the time in which the Saint lived is not mentioned in the prose Latin Life, which we have said is done in our first manuscript: nor the second either, because from his copy he reports certain things which are lacking in both of ours. Yet that Franceschini's copy did not differ much from either of ours is clear from the order of matters, which as to the rest is the same in all, and equally mutilated at the end. For the rest, I shall print the second manuscript, which appears to me older, but for Spera in Deo I shall write Sperandea, and where anything worthy of note occurs in the other manuscript, I shall inform the reader among the Annotations.

[7] and of slight authority, authentic miracles: Further, each of our manuscripts sets forth at the beginning the holy Virgin's birth, and her mind inclined from her earliest years to the exercise of all the virtues, and especially to the chastisement of her tender little body. Then it recounts her secret flight from her parents, and the austere life led in a most poor cell or hut; all which things are indeed wonderful in a tender virgin, but do not exceed belief, nor lack examples. After these it turns aside to frequent visions, but absurd ones and like old wives' tales, and which seem the inventions of some ill-employed brain. Then not a few miracles wrought by her while she lived are subjoined, and finally, no mention being made of her other deeds or of her death, there follow miracles done after her death; which, since they have been taken over from authentic documents, and therefore have another author than the biographer, I have judged should be separated from the Life, and set forth in an Appendix together with others. The said Franceschini somewhat suspects that the said Life, because, as he says, it lacks a beginning and an end, was written by the Saint herself; or rather that certain pious deeds were committed to writing by her for the profit of posterity: but I should rather believe that that Life was pieced together by some unskilled compiler, and that there was heaped into it by him whatever he had received concerning the Saint in any way and from any author.

[8] [what the metrical Life is like: the hymn of the Mass and the miracles to be published:] The metrical Acts praised by Franceschini we do not have; but since he himself testifies that they are said in stanza 112 to have been composed two hundred years after the Saint's death, and moreover convicts the writer of ignorance, that is a small loss. Besides the things recounted, there exists in the same Franceschini a Sequence (or hymn) to be sung in the Mass on the feast of holy Sperandea, written in the Thomistic manner, and I have the same transmitted in manuscript to my predecessors, in which the course of her life and her miracles are recounted. Its author, whoever he was, followed the Latin Life mentioned above, and therefore that hymn is of no greater authority than it. Since, however, it sets forth her deeds sufficiently neatly, I have thought it should be published after the Life. Finally we have various miracles authentically taken down by notaries before witnesses, which we shall subjoin in the Appendix on the Miracles, in Latin from the Italian.

[9] modern writers. Among the moderns, the often-praised Titus Franceschini wrote the Saint's Life in the Italian tongue, and, dedicating it in the year 1602 to the most Eminent Cardinal Antonio Maria Gallo, published it, as we have said, from the presses of Fermo under this title: The history of the glorious life of S. Sperandia, protectress of the land of Cingoli. This writer here and there applies criticism; but often also he indulges more than is right the traditions of the nuns of the monastery of S. Sperandea, in which she lived and in which her body is preserved, as we shall more than once observe. Of her also Horatius Avicenna treats in the Monuments of Cingoli, and more fully Ludovicus Jacobilli, On the Saints of Umbria, vol. 2, at the eleventh day of this month of September.

§ II. The Saint's birthplace, Gubbio: she is wrongly believed to be the sister of S. Ubaldus; perhaps she was the sister of Bl. Sperandeus: the year of her birth and of her death: the Benedictine institute, probably taken up in the Congregation of Bl. Sperandeus.

[ ] she was born at Gubbio; Each copy of the Life relates that our holy Virgin was born at Gubbio, which is an episcopal city of the Papal dominion in the duchy of Urbino; and thus the nuns of S. Sperandea hold, with all the people of Cingoli agreeing, according to Franceschini, who nevertheless would perhaps have called it into doubt, as he says, had he not found this very thing in a certain document drawn up by Golzo in the year 1278, on the 11th day of September, that is, one or two years after the Saint's death. The people of Gubbio also agree, as we shall presently see. That her parents were noble and of the family of the Sperandei is asserted by Jacobilli, praised above, who at the same time affirms that this family had become extinct at Gubbio seventy years before the time at which he was writing: but Franceschini, for reasons to be given below, disagrees concerning the family.

[11] According to the same witness, the said nuns together with the people of Cingoli assert with the sister of S. Ubaldus that our Sperandea was the sister of S. Ubaldus, bishop of Gubbio; but he rightly rejects that opinion; not because S. Ubaldus had no sister, as he wrongly thought; but because the time in which each flourished does not allow it. For that holy bishop of Gubbio ceased to live in the year 1160, but our holy Sperandea only in the year 1276 or 1277, as he there rightly observes. Yet whence that opinion could have arisen, hear. Our Papebroch, illustrating the Acts of S. Ubaldus at the 16th day of May, p. 651, from ancient documents communicated to him by the most erudite Vincentius Armanni, recites among other things this concerning his family: To her aforesaid husband Pax, Prudentia bore two sons, Rovaldus and Ubaldus. Rovaldus begot Lord Ubaldus, bishop of Gubbio, and Sperandia, a woman likewise most pious. Again at p. 653, num. 65, he writes that in a certain document, which he calls the Diurnal, Sperandia, sister of S. Ubaldus, is called Saint.

[12] From this conformity of the two names I think it came about she is wrongly confounded by some with her. that they believed our holy Virgin to have been the sister of S. Ubaldus: whence also the said Papebroch notes that for the same reason it seems to him that the title of Saint, which is due to the other Virgin of the same name, namely ours, was by an error ascribed to Sperandia, the sister of S. Ubaldus; and indeed he even suspects that this Sperandia was joined in matrimony, and that from her was descended that boy whom the holy bishop humbly asked of Frederick Barbarossa as his little grandnephew, that is, the son of his nephew, and absolutely received, as is narrated in the Life of that same Saint, p. 634, num. 17. There are those who would have our S. Sperandea sprung on her father's side from the family of the Sperandei, and on her mother's from the Baldassini family of S. Ubaldus, and thus think that she could in a certain broad sense be called the sister of that Saint. This of course they do that they may reconcile the said opinion of the people of Cingoli with the view of the people of Gubbio, of which presently; but this is to divine without a solid foundation.

[13] It is probable that she was the sister of Bl. Sperandeus, Among the people of Gubbio a tradition is current that she was born, as we said above, of the family of the Sperandei, and was the sister of Blessed Sperandeus. Thus we learn from the petition which the people of Cingoli drew up in the seventeenth century, while the Saint's legitimate cult was called into doubt by the bishop of Osimo, for the proving of her cult, and which will be recounted in §5. For in it it is said that near Gubbio there is a certain church, above whose altar there are seen painted on the wall from time immemorial the image of the most blessed Virgin Mary in the middle, on the right those of S. Antony and Bl. Sperandeus, on the left those of S. Ubaldus and blessed Sperandea, and that below is read written: This was the dwelling of the blessed Sperandeus, Januaria and Sperandea, to this day protectress of Cingoli. Then in the same petition it is added: And the inhabitants of the said city assert … that it is publicly said that Bl. Sperandea was born at Gubbio of the family of the Sperandei and is the sister of the aforesaid Bl. Sperandeus, whose body is honored in the church of S. Peter of that city belonging to the Olivetan monks; but that the body of blessed Sperandea is preserved and honored at Cingoli, of which place she is the protectress; and that these things are public and notorious, as G. expressly attests. This letter indicates some document which, together with the petition, the people of Cingoli exhibited to the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[14] as is shown: This opinion of the people of Gubbio is more probable than that which makes the Saint the sister of Ubaldus; and nothing occurs which stands in the way of its being true, as I show in a few words. Concerning Bl. Sperandeus my predecessors, for lack of documents or of notice of his cult, made no mention; but of him Jacobilli treats in vol. 1 On the Saints of Umbria at the 15th day of January; but Januaria, of whom Jacobilli treats at the 17th of January, they placed among the Prætermissi at the 26th day of March, not being sufficiently informed of her cult: to both perhaps a place will be given in the Supplement of our Work. Meanwhile let us take from Jacobilli the things that are to our purpose. Bl. Sperandeus, a native of Gubbio, is said to have preserved his virginity by mutual consent with Januaria, whom he had taken to wife, and, when she embraced the Order of S. Augustine, to have professed the Benedictine Rule in the monastery of S. Peter at Gubbio, and afterward to have introduced a certain congregation, which was named from him, or a reform, and finally to have died about the year 1261. The same writer determines that Januaria died in the year 1293; but Secundus Lancellottus in the Olivetan History, book 2, chapter 50, from a certain manuscript binds her death to the year 1308, which will have to be inquired into in its own place. But whichever of the two shall have spoken more rightly, it is clear that the time assigned by no means stands in the way of the Saint's having been able to be the sister of Bl. Sperandeus, and to dwell in the same house at Gubbio with him.

[15] her nobility remains uncertain. Franceschini agrees with the rest concerning the Virgin's noble lineage, but on that account suspects that she was born of another family than that of the Sperandei. For he says that he was informed by his nephew count Gabriel Gabrielli, a man, as he had premised, most zealous for antiquity, that among the ancient families of the nobles the Sperandea is not mentioned; that the Saint

but that our Saint was noble is persuaded from this, that her parents sharply persecuted her on account of the humble and abject manner of life which earthly nobility and pride do not endure. But if he brings forward no other reason than this for asserting the nobility of S. Sperandea, he effects nothing; since even plebeian men of middling fortune are frequently wont to disapprove in their children a rule of living such as the Saint is said to have kept. For the rest, in each manuscript copy of the Life no mention is made of her nobility, but she is only said to have been born at Gubbio of honorable parents. Yet I should not wish to affirm with certainty that she was born of the Sperandea family, or was the sister of Sperandeus, since the affinity of the two names could have introduced that opinion.

[16] The year in which the Saint was born only one manuscript has set down in its prologue in these words: She was born about the year 1216, Almighty God, who from eternity predestined the elect, and through the ages of the times by a wonderful disposition adorns the heavens with his Spirit, in the year 1216 from the redemption of the world adorned the firmament of the Church with a most brightly shining star; for at that time was born into the light Bl. Sperandia, etc. These indeed are the words of some more recent writer; nevertheless from the year of the Saint's death and from the utmost age at which she is believed to have died, we gather that they do not stray far from the truth. For the nuns, according to Franceschini, assert that she died at the age of sixty years, and that age, he himself says, her sacred body, conspicuous for its wonderful incorruption and integrity, displays. Now we shall show that she died in the year 1276, or at the latest 1277; from which number if you subtract 60 years of life, you will arrive at the year 1216 or 1217, in which therefore she would have to be said to have been brought forth into the light, if we had for her utmost age evidence more certain than the testimonies of the nuns and the indications of a body already dead for more than three centuries when Franceschini was writing, which without doubt can deceive by several years. I prefer therefore, with Jacobilli, to refer the most happy birth of S. Sperandea to about the year 1216, with some latitude of years on either side.

[17] Of the year of her death the manuscript Life is silent, which, as we have noted, she died before the year 1278, is mutilated, and does not so much as mention her death. Franceschini in chapter 1 writes that it is bound by the author of the metrical Life, in stanza 109, to the year 1278, the 11th day of September; but he himself, rightly disagreeing with this opinion, contends that it should be fixed to the year 1276. Certainly that the Saint did not reach the year 1278 is manifestly proved from various documents, if she flew away to heaven, as is admitted by all, on the 11th day of September. For these were drawn up partly in the year 1277, partly in 1278, even before the aforesaid month, and treat of miracles obtained after the Saint's death at her burial place or coffer. These documents we shall recount below in the Appendix on the miracles, and therefore we shall here take only a few things from one and another.

[18] The first stands thus: In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1277, namely on the 11th day of September of the year 3277 the sixth Indiction, the Apostolic See being vacant. Done at Cingoli in the monastery of blessed Sperandea, on the 16th day of September. From these chronological notes it is clear that the year 1277 is rightly written; for on the 16th, or 17th (as Franceschini reads), day of this year the sixth Indiction was running, and the Apostolic See was vacant through the death of John XXI, otherwise XXII, who died in the month of May of that same year, in whose place Nicholas III was first substituted in the month of November of the same year. Further, in this document the lady Carosella asserts before witnesses that her paralytic son, having been carried to the burial place of Bl. Sperandea, obtained his soundness. And so, if the Saint died on the 11th day of September, as the author of the metrical Life admits with all the rest, she must be said to have ceased to live before the year 1278.

[19] or rather 1276, But that the Saint did not prolong her life even to this year, Franceschini shows from a similar document, drawn up in the year 1278, on the 16th day of October, in which he says it is asserted by Grana, wife of Thomasinus of Monteturris, that her daughter Bernarduccia, when she had struggled for more than ten months with a most grievous infirmity from which she had lost her speech, and Grana's son, Andrew by name, after a grievous sickness of twenty days, in the year then last past, in the month of August, a candle having been promised at the sepulchre of S. Sperandea, were granted health. Hence, I say, the said writer concludes that S. Sperandea was already dead in the month of August of the year 1277, and, since her death is bound by all to the 11th day of September, that it must be referred to the year 1276. Nor does he reason thus without cause, if the said document really stands in the manner in which he interprets it.

[20] as certain writers But each of our manuscripts bids me doubt, in which the same things indeed as to substance, but not with the same circumstances, are narrated. This document you have in the Appendix at num. 15 and following, but for the present controversy some things from it are to be recited here. The lady Gratiana, wife of Thomassinus of Monteturris, asserts … that her daughter Bernardutia in the year last past, in the month of August, fell into a grievous sickness, by which she was held for the space of two months, and was brought to such a pass that she could scarcely speak. She affirms also that Andrew her son was afflicted almost the whole of the same month with a grievous illness. Wherefore, since she had placed all her hope in God, and trusted in him exceedingly, she vehemently begged him that he would be pleased to provide for the soundness of her children, and commended herself and her children to blessed Sperandea, entreating her to intercede with God and to obtain a grace and benefit of this kind: which by God's goodness she obtained; for her children were wholly freed from the sickness by which they were held. Thus both our copies.

[21] probably But from these nothing certain can be established, unless perhaps that Sperandea had already died on the 16th day of October of the year 1278, on which the document was signed, as the added title of Blessed persuades. For first it is uncertain whether Bernarduccia was healed in the month of August, or at the end of September, or the beginning of October. The last sense the words of the document favor, in which she is said in the month of August to have fallen into a grievous sickness, by which she was held for the space of two months (not ten, as Franceschini has it). The former is favored garbled: savent for favent by what is subjoined about Andrew: for since he is said to have been afflicted with a grievous illness almost the whole of the same month, and then to have been healed, it seems according to these words that the healing of each happened in the same month, August, as had been premised, and that therefore it must be said that Bernarduccia had already been suffering for a second month, when in the month of August, her disease growing worse, she at last prodigiously recovered. But even on this supposition, it will not yet be permissible to establish with certainty that she died in the year 1276; since in the words adduced no mention is made of her death or burial, or of a gift promised or offered to her; and that mother could have commended her children to the prayers of the living Virgin, and through them have obtained their health.

[22] Since nevertheless Franceschini's document could have been more correct than ours, determine. and since Vincentius Armannus, an erudite man of Gubbio and a most sagacious investigator of the affairs of his fatherland, likewise assigns that same year 1276 as the year of her death in the manuscript catalogue of native Saints sent to Papebroch, I too embrace this opinion as the more probable. But that she reached one or other of the two, namely 1276 or 1277, is persuaded by the consent of writers, which the documents mentioned and to be recounted below confirm. For since among these there is none older than the year 1277, and since in them no miracle is read to have been done through the invocation of the Saint, already dead, before this or perhaps the preceding year, it is altogether probable that she did not die before these years; for otherwise the sepulchre of the Virgin, who while she lived had shone with miracles, would without doubt before that time have been frequented by the faithful and made illustrious by benefits.

[23] Of the Religious profession of S. Sperandea the Latin Life has nothing; She was an abbess of the Order of S. Benedict but since it is mutilated, nothing can be established from its silence. Castellanus, as we saw above, ascribes her in his universal Martyrology to the Benedictines, and the same do Franceschini and Jacobilli, who moreover assert that she was abbess of the monastery of S. Michael at Cingoli. With these agrees the testimony of Vincentius Armannus in the Catalogue praised above, drawn up in these words: S. Sperandia, foundress and abbess of the monastery of S. Michael the Archangel, of the Order of S. Benedict, at Cingoli, where she died on the 11th day of September in the year 1276, and where her body is preserved; and she is the Patroness of the place. This monastery afterward flourished under the invocation of S. Sperandea, and that it was already known by that name in the year 1277 is clear from a document of that year, to be reported at num. 2 in the Appendix.

[24] In the same the Virgin's sacred body, venerable for its wonderful integrity, in the monastery of S. Michael at Cingoli, is preserved, clothed in the Benedictine habit, and it is read in the petition of the people of Cingoli, offered to the Sacred Congregation of Rites for the vindication of her cult, that in the year 1497 it was stripped of its old garment, which the moths had eaten away, and clothed anew in a new one of black silk cloth, which is the color of the Benedictine nuns. In the Benedictine habit likewise she is shown by the ancient images mentioned in the petition just praised. The same also is the view of the people of Cingoli, who affirm her Benedictine profession as by no means doubtful. Finally the hymn of the Mass, already elsewhere cited, agrees, in which on this subject it is thus sung:

To thee holy Benedict Gave the habit, with which he himself Had first been girt.

[25] Jacobilli in her Life writes that she embraced the Benedictine institute under the Congregation of the Blessed Sperandeus and Santuccia. probably under the Congregation of Bl. Sperandeus, This Saint, he says, desirous of the salvation of her soul, and so instructed by God, after long prayers and penance performed, entered Cingoli, and there about the year 1265 built the monastery of S. Michael, of the Order of S. Benedict and of the institute and Congregation of Bl. Sperandeus and … Bl. Santuccia, and there again shut herself up, and lived in singular sanctity and repute, and on her account many virgins took the sacred habit in that same monastery, of whom she herself was created the first abbess. She enlarged the church, and adorned it greatly together with the monastery. From whatever source Jacobilli learned these things, they are altogether probable from the Acts of Bl. Santuccia, which he also seems to have read, as I proceed to show.

[26] and under Bl. Santuccia Of Bl. Sperandeus, founder of the Congregation named from him under the Rule of S. Benedict, we treated at num. 14: which Congregation Bl. Santuccia, contemporary with Sperandeus and with our Saint, greatly propagated among women, in whose Life, gathered from monuments and tradition and illustrated in our Work at the 21st day of March, we read to our purpose at num. 3 thus: Thence the name of Santuccia and the discipline of the Order began to be more widely propagated: wherefore in the year 1262 Sperandia, likewise a nun of the Order of S. Benedict, gave as a gift to Santuccia the oratory which she had erected at the Perugian gate in the place called Bulgatianum. Where she, under the name of S. Mary Magdalene, built a monastery

raised. But at the name of Sperandea Papebroch in the same place annotated the following: That she was a disciple of Santuccia is proved by the monastery erected by her under Santuccia's obedience at Cingoli in the year 1265, where she lived holily until the year 1276, the 11th of September, and died.

[27] propagatress of the congregation Papebroch therefore did not doubt that Sperandia, mentioned in the Acts of Bl. Santuccia, is the same as ours, and that she embraced the Institute of Sperandeus under Santuccia's discipline; nor did Jacobilli doubt, who relates the same things of our Saint. Nor do we doubt that our S. Sperandea delivered herself as a disciple to Santuccia; whether she had already at that time entered the Benedictine Order, as the words recounted indicate, or was leading an anchoritic life in the said oratory or cell. Hence we understand at the same time why the Saint, after handing over her oratory to Santuccia, about the year 1265, as Papebroch and Jacobilli note, founded a new convent at Cingoli, or at least removed into one already founded, and was set over it as abbess.

[28] discipline For blessed Santuccia, the zealous propagatress of the Sperandean Congregation, was erecting monasteries in several places, as is manifest to one reading her Life. She could therefore appoint this holy Disciple of hers, already instructed for nearly three years, either to preside as abbess over a convent there newly built, or to introduce into one founded of old the institutes of the new congregation. We should nevertheless dare to assert these things more certainly if in the Acts of Bl. Santuccia all the monasteries founded by her or under her auspices were recounted: but since, after some have been enumerated there, it is subjoined, There exists a catalogue of the remaining monasteries even today in the aforesaid monastery of S. Anne (in the city of Rome), we do not know whether in that catalogue the monastery of S. Michael at Cingoli, now of S. Sperandea, is recounted. Further, by what virtues the holy Abbess chiefly shone in her convent at Cingoli, I have nowhere found.

§ III. Certain deeds of the Saint, related by Franceschini, are examined.

[ ] [She is said to have been clothed with a pigskin, which she had received from Christ,] Equally obscure are the deeds of S. Sperandea before her Benedictine profession; nor have we anything else from the fragment of the Latin Life than that, being from a tender age wonderfully bent upon the chastisements of her innocent little body, and therefore most ill treated by her parents, to whom that kind of life was not approved, at Christ's bidding she withdrew from her father's house, and, setting out abroad, spent an austere life now in a certain cell, now in a cave, and did a few other things which we shall recount in the Life. Franceschini nevertheless sets forth various deeds of hers, drawn partly from his copy of the Latin Life, partly from elsewhere, which are to be examined in this paragraph. First, in chapter 2, he writes thus in Italian: The Holy Spirit early began to work wonderful effects in her; for when she had completed nine years of age, Jesus Christ kindled her to his love, and showed that she ought to be utterly stripped for love of him, and revealed the manner of doing penance. For when on a certain night she was free for prayer, she felt her hand seized, and a garment of penance delivered to her by Christ, which, casting off her own, she most gladly put on.

[30] But what that garment was, he sets forth below in these words: and girt with an iron girdle, Her habit was of pigskin, and she girt herself with an iron girdle, being clothed in nothing else besides. Of the same hair-shirt given by Christ the hymn of the Mass has:

He gave thee a garment, The clothing of a swine's skin, An iron belt girt thee.

But whence they learned these things, I do not know: for in our copy of the Life she is said from the ninth garbled: a non ætatis anno for a nono ætatis anno year of her age to have been wonderfully given to the chastisement of the body and to have used the skins of animals for a garment, and to have girt herself with an iron girdle; but of the said gift of a pigskin hair-shirt, made by Christ himself, no mention is made in it. It will be useful to have recited the very words. But she herself, says the biographer, while she meditated on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, exercised herself in abstinence and prayer and charity to the poor, and, that she might bring her body into subjection, used the skins of animals for a garment, and girt herself with an iron girdle. From these words certainly the aforesaid gift cannot be hammered out; nor is it sufficiently established whether the holy Girl used the said hair-shirt beneath her other garments, or whether besides it she wore no other garment, as Franceschini would have it: certainly the first appears more probable, and agrees better with a Girl living in her father's house and under her parents' authority. But the words of the Hymn also can conveniently be taken of a moral gift of the hair-shirt, or of the counsel given to the Virgin by Christ, or of the thought divinely put into her mind of putting on a hair-shirt of this kind. Let us proceed to other things.

[31] That Sperandea, at the warning of Christ the Lord, went out from her father's house fleeing from her father's house, and set out abroad, is handed down in the Latin Life. Of this departure Franceschini writes thus: Scarcely had she gone out from her fatherland, when on the first night she beheld a great light and an immense splendor, and, appearing naked to herself, prayed crying out with a loud voice: which indeed God so permitted, that she might learn to despise herself together with the world. And this she carried out excellently; for with hands bound and face veiled she went on from place to place and from city to city, sprinkling herself with ashes and striking herself, and refusing to bear no annoyance whatever that met her: and in this manner she traversed various places on pilgrimage — Rome, Cagli, Fabriano, Recanati, and other places of Italy, of which mention is made in the Latin History.

[32] exhorting the people to penance, It must be that Franceschini here again used another Life than the one we use; for our copies say indeed that the Saint, armed with a cross, publicly sang the divine praises in the streets; but of that unusual manner of exhorting or of pilgrimage they make no mention even in a word. The words placed at num. 6 of the Life are of this kind: Likewise, while she remained in prayer, and said, Lord, what wilt thou with me? And straightway there appeared to her a red cross, and it was said to her: What thou hast seen, show to others. And, taking the red cross, she went into the city, and sang praises to the Lord; and many boys followed her. At num. 4 also she is said to have been sent by Christ into a certain city; but it is altogether uncertain whether a mystical city is not designated there. Yet the hymn of the Mass somewhat favors him, in which is read:

Thy holy face thou didst veil, And through the world didst cry aloud: Why do you not yet repent?

It is credible that S. Sperandea labored somewhere at extirpating vices, and that these holy endeavors were clothed with those unusual circumstances through the tradition of the common people, which delights in marvels.

[33] and having set out for Jerusalem and Rome That Sperandea also made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Franceschini relates on the faith of the nuns and of the people of Cingoli, and adds that she brought many sacred relics thence to Cingoli, and that of these some, enclosed in a certain cross, were in his time preserved on the high altar; others were placed by bishop Ægidius in the year 1560 on the principal altar of the church of S. James; and others finally, enclosed in smaller cases which he himself saw, were deposited in a certain chest, which afterward, as report has it, were carried off by theft. Further, he relates on the testimony of the same nuns that, returning from this pilgrimage, she came to Rome, and there was seen by the Supreme Pontiff (whose name they do not remember), and that, because she was barefoot, as she had made that whole journey, and was much weakened, she was presented by him with buskins, which she was bidden to use until she should have strengthened her worn-out powers. And these, he says, are those buskins with which to this day the Saint has her feet shod, as is affirmed by the Sisters and by all Cingoli.

[34] [her] What is true of this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it is not permissible to determine: for although our manuscript Life mentions nothing of it, it is mutilated, nor does it please to divine what may have been said of it in the remaining part of it, if it was ever written. I could wish nevertheless that Franceschini had adduced other testimonies than those of the nuns and some tradition of the people of Cingoli I know not what. Moreover it appears to me far more probable that the said relics, if they were really deposited there by S. Sperandea, were obtained at Rome by her or by Bl. Santuccia, where the latter had erected another monastery, than that they were brought from Jerusalem by a very poor Virgin, such as he himself describes her. What is added about buskins, or footwear of whatever sort, given by the Supreme Pontiff at Rome, smacks too much of a fable to be admitted at once on the uncertain tradition of the nuns.

[35] The author of the Latin Life, chiefly celebrating the Saint's severe penance, The cave, mentions among other things fasts of forty days endured now in a certain cell, now in a cave; from which we gather that she at some time led an anchoritic life. The cell which he mentions was doubtless that oratory which we said at num. 26 was given by her to Bl. Santuccia. But the cave Avicenna in the Monuments of Cingoli, p. 235, Franceschini in the Life, and Jacobilli On the Saints of Umbria at this day, place in the territory of Cingoli; and Franceschini indeed, who had read in his copy that Sperandea celebrated a fast of this kind in a certain rock de Citona, writes this of that place: I should rather believe … that this rock de Citona is the cave which we call that of S. Sperandea, situated in the rock Roscium between the cave of holy Angelus and Montacuto.

[36] Then he describes the place in these words: This cave has a mouth one foot wide, in which the Saint is said to have dwelt, or a little more: within is seen a chamber seventeen feet long, twenty-five broad, thirteen high. Besides, there are three smaller recesses cut in the rock; of these one, which is furnished with a chimney, equals thirteen feet in height, and is cut out of the rock to a space of eight feet (in length and breadth, I suppose): another, in which she slept, hollowed out to sixteen feet, extends eight in height: a third, containing a space of fourteen feet, is eight high; and from one recess into another one passes through an opening two feet wide throughout.

[37] And it was called the Rock de Citona, because near it was a spring called Citona, is described. which to this day by a corrupt word is called the Spring Acitona, or Acitosa. Nor can it be otherwise; for near Citona in Tuscany there are no rocks or mountains, but a plain; and therefore the cave of S. Sperandea is itself the rock de Citona, so called from the aforesaid spring, which is distant from it by a single shot of a crossbow. And they say that, while there is water in that spring and it gushes outside the cave, no drop flows within it, and while it appears within the same, none likewise flows outside: which is an argument that that water is miraculous, and was born for the use of this Saint alone. Thus far the said writer, who perhaps himself surveyed the said cave: but what he relates of the spring, I fear he may have received from some popular rumor; for that word they say, which he prefixed to the narration, seems to suggest this; and therefore let these things be reported on his own credit. But not easily

will he persuade me of what he asserts in the same place, namely that our holy Virgin passed the said fast in that cave with no covering of the body whatever; for that by no means agrees with her virginal modesty.

[38] Besides, the same writer mentions from his manuscript another place near Spoleto in which the Saint fasted, Certain other things of Franceschini and finally another, of which he says this: It is written that she celebrated another forty days' fast upon the tomb of a certain dead man, where she was so vehemently tormented by serpents and many other annoyances that, fearing greatly for her body, through the whole space of that Lent she was most grievously tempted to depart. But this glorious Warrior-woman of the Lord, desirous of victory, bound herself to a certain neighboring column, and there, notwithstanding the serpents, who perhaps were demons, and the other discomforts, steadfastly persisted until she had completed the fast she had begun. If he found these things in his copy of the Life, ours pleases me better, in which that little fable is not found, and it is said much more probably: When she was fasting the Lent in a certain cell, she was tempted through fear for her body to depart thence; and that she might not be able to do so, she bound herself to a certain column. Nothing here of a sepulchre, nothing of the vexation of serpents, which savor of an old wives' tale, is mentioned.

[39] about the Saint's deeds Besides the monastery of S. Michael, which we mentioned at num. 23, the often-praised Franceschini affirms that the convent of S. Mark, likewise of the Benedictine Rule, obeyed her; adding that this was once situated in the suburb outside the Montana gate of Cingoli, and was afterward destroyed by the ministers of Malatesta of Rimini, and thence transferred into the town. He speaks also in the same place of a certain nun, Paula by name, whom he had premised to have been the Saint's inseparable companion, and of whom he hands down the following: She always, as has been said, set out (for the sake of business or of showing charity) with sister Paula; wherefore I much wonder that no mention is made of her by the author of the Life, since the nuns most highly commend this Sister Paula, and say that the bones of Sister Paula were even to our times honorably preserved in S. Mark's (monastery), enclosed in a certain case, and were but a short time ago carried off; although others would have it that those same bones were placed on the altar of the said church, and this is to be held as more probable. Thus he; but to me that sister Paula, equally as to the writer of the Latin Life, is unknown.

[40] and about miraculous Hence in chapter 5 he digresses to a miracle which is absent from the same Latin Life. She was having a certain work built in her monastery, he says, when that remarkable prodigy of the cherries occurred. For when in the month of January she had set food before some masons whose labor she was using, and the Saint, as being full of charity, had returned to them as they ate, to see whether they wished anything that was in her power, she asked them whether they needed anything besides. The masons, perhaps for the sake of a jest, answered that they lacked nothing but four cherries. Hearing which, the Saint turned to prayer, and cherries were prodigiously brought to her by an angel, while meanwhile all things were stiff with snow; and she, receiving them, carried them to the workmen, who, recognizing so illustrious a miracle, prostrated themselves at the Saint's feet and begged pardon.

[41] cherries These cherries, preserved by the nuns, were enclosed in the chest together with her most holy body, and were there even in our age, … when they were carried away thence with many other relics; and they are said to be preserved to this day in the city of Rome and at Ravenna, having been taken thither by Cardinal Benedict Accolti (bishop of Ravenna and munificent toward the monastery of S. Sperandea, as he notes in the margin). But on what authorities he asserts all these things, he adds, saying: The biographer and the writer of the metrical Life have not mentioned this miracle; but since all the elder nuns, and all Cingoli too, celebrate that miracle with one voice, and have always firmly believed it, I have recounted it here; and that the more, because I have conversed with those who both had seen, and had learned from others who had beheld the cherries in the chest; and because things most beautiful and of great weight were omitted by that writer of the Life. Of the same prodigy the Hymn of the Mass thus makes mention:

Thou, while the earth is white with snow, Givest cherries to a guilty crowd, Which does not blush to ask.

I nevertheless, as I cannot reject that account without foundation, so neither can I admit it as certain on account of the said testimonies.

[42] Besides, another miracle, equally unknown to the Latin biographer, and about a lamp is subjoined by him, which I here set forth again in Latin from his own words: The Sisters affirm, he says, that S. Sperandea had a lamp which, while she lived, always burned of its own accord and with no oil poured in, and burned for a long time after her death in her oratory, until a certain lady, imprudently drawing a little oil from it, made that glorious and divine light cease, not without the greatest grief of all the nuns. And it is said there was a certain nun who not many years ago carried it off, to hand it over to one of her kinsfolk, as M. Evangelista Fauno remembers to have heard from her mother, who said that she recollected this gift. This perhaps was that lamp which that lady held in the sixth vision, and which perhaps was given to her, etc.

[43] That I may safely give credit to this account too, I require something more certain asserted. than the testimony of the nuns. The Hymn of the Mass indeed treats of a lamp given to the Saint in this manner:

To thee, prudent virgin, There is given by the Almighty A lamp that never fails;

But everyone sees that a mystical lamp can here be understood; such, namely, as the five prudent virgins in the parable set forth by Christ the Lord in chapter 25 of Matthew are said to have had. Whence I have a strong suspicion that out of a mystical lamp of this kind, with which our prudent Virgin awaited the heavenly Bridegroom and went out to meet him, that prodigious lamp was fabricated among the said nuns. For the rest, of the vision of the offered lamp, which Franceschini here mentions, we shall treat in its own place in the Life; but the remaining things which he here mentions, and which are not read in the Life to be printed, we shall report among the Annotations.

§ IV. The cult begun immediately after her death: her body, transferred from the coffin into a chest, is found incorrupt after two centuries, and continues entire.

[ ] That immediately after her most happy death, which we have shown to have fallen in the year 1276 or next after it, She was honored immediately after her death: S. Sperandea was piously invoked and honored by the faithful, the documents concerning the miracles already elsewhere mentioned do not allow us to doubt; and that this cult was immemorial and legitimately continued we shall prove in the following paragraph together with the people of Cingoli, after we have set forth in this § some things about her virginal body. Franceschini writes that that sacred corpse, being clothed by the nuns in a linen undergarment, and a veil being placed on the head, and wrapped in a mantle, was first committed to the earth with the greatest veneration; but that, since the sepulchre grew daily illustrious with new miracles, her coffin was raised from the earth and placed on the principal altar, until a new and more becoming case should be made.

[45] appearing three times to a craftsman, she bids a chest be made for her, He thinks this was made in the year 1278, from the fact that a document written in that year on the 11th day of September mentions the Saint's chest, while the others before that time speak only of an oratory and a burial place. He praises also another document of the year 1497, in which, since her body is said to have rested about 220 years in that chest, he concludes that it must have been made about the said year. He disputes also at length about its craftsman, which things I knowingly pass over; but it will be useful to have set forth in his own words the manner in which he was brought to make it. It is held for certain, he says, that the Saint appeared to him in a dream, and said that she lay ill in that coffin; and that therefore he should make a chest, whose structure she also taught him. But the craftsman, caring little for that dream, was minded to do anything else rather than obey; wherefore she appeared to him a second time, and threatened him unless he should carry out what she had first commanded.

[46] into which her body is transferred from the coffin: And when he nevertheless in no way pressed on the work; behold, appearing a third time exceedingly terrible, she struck him so strong a blow that the marks of the hand which had struck him always clung to his cheek, and the stroke of the blow was heard by his household. Thus affected, rising in the morning, he went to the monastery and recounted the whole matter to the abbess. And thus the chest was made, such as it is beheld to this day, and the most holy body was raised from the coffin, and, being stripped of the veil and the aforesaid undergarment, was for the first time clothed. But that good craftsman who had constructed the chest, not content with that good work, ordained that his descendants should have thirty Masses celebrated yearly at the Saint's altar; which also was long done: but to this day his descendants, having fallen into a worse state of fortune, have only fifteen said yearly in the month of January by the Franciscan Fathers. Of this apparition too I have found nothing anywhere except in the Hymn of the Mass, in which it is said:

Thrice thou didst warn the master; Not obeying, thou didst strike him, That he might make the chest.

[47] her wonderful undergarment. Further, worthy of note are the things which are reported of the linen undergarment and the mantle with which the sacred body was covered when it was first buried, and of which we saw it stripped in the said elevation. For Franceschini writes that from the mantle a chasuble or priestly vestment was made, and that it remained entire while he himself was writing, although the fringes and other things sewn on for ornament had already been often worn away. More wonderful is what he testifies of the undergarment: for he says that many particles of it were once granted to various persons for making amulets or for the sake of veneration, and were wont to be granted in his own time also, and that nevertheless it was in no way diminished thereby. Something similar is said in the often-praised hymn in the words which I subjoin:

Thence the undergarment ever remains whole (Although a certain part Be taken from it).

Since therefore each author asserts it, and Franceschini, in a matter obvious to the people of Cingoli, could easily have been convicted of error or of bad faith — which be far from him — had not so unusual a prodigy been established to him, we cannot prudently doubt of it.

[48] But that we may return to the sacred body, it lay in the said case in the manner we have said The body in the year 1497 until the year 1497, in which, being surveyed by the most illustrious lord Paris, bishop of Osimo, and found entire, and cleansed from soil, and clothed in new garments, it was laid again in the same chest. Thus we learn from the petition of the people of Cingoli, praised above, in which these things are reported at num. 62 according to our division. But since in that place a certain document is cited which has not come into my hands, it will be useful to have transferred it hither from Franceschini, in Latin from the Italian. The most sacred body of S. Sperandea, he says, in the year 1497, on the 17th day of October, which is sacred to S. Luke, in the time of Pope Alexander VI, by a certain abbess, sister Sperandea, daughter of Clement*

so called, a woman of Cingoli, was clothed anew in new garments with the consent of the twenty-four nuns who at that time lived there, and by the leave and labor of the most illustrious Paris, bishop of Osimo, as the document … of Felix Marinus shows.

[49] He reports that, after the venerable and glorious body had been enclosed for about 220 years in a wooden chest, being found entire, and clothed in a new garment, it was resolved, with the consent of the aforesaid persons, that it should be inspected and cleansed, lest through age it should suffer some harm from dust or from some like cause. Therefore, more than two hundred florins having been collected for this end in one day from the alms of pious Christians, a garment of black silk was procured, and the body was raised from the chest, and, being stripped of the old garment which the moths had eaten away, was found so entire and free from all corruption by the aforesaid most illustrious bishop, who then celebrated a solemn Mass, and by all the clergy and people of Cingoli who were present, that veneration and piety, and at the same time admiration and amazement, were aroused in the minds of all. Finally the most holy body, clothed in a dark garment, was with the greatest veneration again placed and enclosed in the chest, and many afflicted with various infirmities recovered their soundness, as the said lord Felix testifies in the aforesaid document, which I have translated almost word for word as to the chief points.

[50] The admirable integrity of this incorrupt body the author of the often-cited hymn celebrates in these verses: it remains incorrupt:

Thence the sacred body remains, As it left the washing A little after its death.

By which words he indicates that it continues as incorrupt and entire as if it had been first washed after death and laid out for burial. The same incorruption Franceschini mentions, who in chapter 1 of the Life asserts that from her countenance it is gathered that she was about sixty years old when she happily died. Horatius Avicenna agrees, in the Monuments of Cingoli, published in Italian in the year 1644, p. 318, writing thus: That sacred body has been preserved untouched and unharmed for four hundred years, although nevertheless from various causes … it ought to have been reduced to ashes, and its memory abolished, as is known to all. On which account to this day it inspires in beholders as much devotion as admiration; and it is the public report that it is difficult to find relics which, given the circumstances that have occurred, surpass these. Of the same, too, Jacobilli makes mention at this day, and Nicolaus Coleti in the Appendix to Ughelli's Italia sacra, vol. 10, col. 66.

[51] an old decree But how highly the magistracy of Cingoli valued this sacred treasure even in ancient times may be gathered from a certain authentic document which was excerpted from the book of Statutes of the city of Cingoli by the public notary John Baptist de Parentibus and granted to my predecessors. For it stands thus: Of the sacred body of S. Sperandea, Rubric V. Likewise we ordain and decree that the sacred body of Sister Sperandea, and the place where the said body is laid, be guarded and defended by the Commune of Cingoli, according to the manner and tenor of the testament of that Sister Sperandea, as is fitting and becoming. And that no abominable and despised person dwell or tarry near the said place, from the road which goes to the fountain of the enclosure above, and from the Montana gate below; nor within the castle and the boroughs at the time of the fair of S. Michael, under a penalty of ten … (the sign which is placed here I cannot divine) for each such person: and let no one harbor them, under the said penalty: and let inquiry be diligently made concerning the aforesaid by the government.

[52] of the people of Cingoli concerning the honoring of it. The year in which these things were enacted is not added in our document; but Father Clement Sylvester in his manuscript Vindication of the Saint's immemorial cult binds this decree to the year 1303, writing thus: In the year 1303 the Commune of Cingoli in its statutes ordained that that sacred body should be guarded. And the title of this decree is: Of the sacred body of S. Sperandea. Rubric X. Doubtless the decree cited is the same as ours, although here Rubric X is written for V. For the rest, what they understand by the testament of Sister Sperandea is unknown to me. Franceschini too in the Prologue testifies that he long sought for it in vain; but the said decree he refers to the Pontificate of John XXII.

* perhaps the 18th

§ V. The Saint's cult called into doubt by the bishop of Osimo, and happily vindicated by the people of Cingoli.

[ ] On account of the decrees of Pope Urban VIII The cult of S. Sperandea was flourishing at Cingoli, and was happily taking increase from miracles, when in the seventeenth century, by reason of the decrees which Pope Urban VIII had issued in the years 1625 and 1634 for the removal of abuses concerning the cult of Saints and Blessed, it was brought into danger, and was prosperously vindicated by the people of Cingoli. Of the transaction we have a double copy: the one our Bolland notes that he received from Fr. Silvester Petra-sancta, by the gift of Salvator Salvatorius; and this is inscribed on the back in Italian words, To the most Eminent and most Reverend lord Cardinal Sacchetti, by the Commune of Cingoli, in the cause of S. Sperandia, in the Congregation of Rites. To the other Papebroch subscribed the following: Concerning the cult of S. Sperandia from time immemorial, by the Reverend Father Clement Sylvester, who gave it to us at Ancona. In this some things are read, but few, which I have not found in the former; whether because Father Clement Sylvester added them afterward, or because the people of Cingoli omitted them in the aforesaid petition by chance or on purpose. This lucubration of Clement will not be useless to us, because from it we shall learn the outcome of the matter. Now I subjoin the document itself, in Latin from the Italian.

[54] Since two years ago a certain man zealous for Bl. Sperandea, protectress of Cingoli, The bishop of Osimo forbids the adornment of the chest, had had an ornament of variegated marble made for the chest in which from time immemorial the body of the aforesaid Blessed one has been preserved unharmed and honored, and since he now wished to put it into execution, he asked leave of the most Eminent Cardinal of Aracoeli (Augustine Galamini, of the Order of Preachers), bishop of Osimo; who at first was hoped not to be about to refuse it, but afterward refused on account of the Bull concerning the cult of Saints (issued, namely, by Urban VIII, as we have noted). And because the Community (that is, the magistracy) of Cingoli repeated its petitions to him, his Eminence in the year 1633, on the 19th day of November, wrote back to the said Community that he could not grant it, and exhorted them to have recourse to Rome; and he transmitted letters by his vicar general, who presented them to the magistracy in most courteous words and with a signification of the holy will and devotion of his Eminence toward the said Bl. Sperandea.

[55] Many months later, namely in the month of August of the year 1634, and, doubting concerning the legitimacy of the cult, the feast of the said Saint being at hand, which is celebrated on the first Sunday of September, he sent his vicar general, who enclosed the said marbles in a wall behind the high altar, and exhorted the nuns to remove the miracles (that is, the tablets or votive offerings of the miracles) and set them aside, until it should be most justly examined what was expedient for the glory of that Saint: but since he found the nuns resisting, he accomplished nothing further. He warned the canons, however, concerning the bull of the Saints; and when he had had it recited, and the aforesaid lord vicar had forbidden nothing concerning the celebration of the feast, this was celebrated by all in the accustomed manner.

[56] But the abbess and the nuns of the aforesaid monastery of S. Sperandea, consults Rome: lest the immemorial cult of the said Saint should suffer any loss thereby, while the vicar was departing, protested before many whom they called as witnesses that neither they themselves nor any of the monastery had consented, tacitly or expressly, to any of the acts which the lord vicar had done; and he immediately afterward departed, no answer being given; nor was anything further done thereafter, but the Saint was honored with her accustomed cult. These things being so established, his Eminence, sending to the Threshold (that is, to Rome), set forth: That the men (these and what follow were inserted in Latin) of the land of Cingoli claim to preserve there the body of S. Sperandea, whose feast they celebrate, although it is not established concerning her canonization or beatification, or concerning leave of the Apostolic See for it to be celebrated, which the bishop also denied, referring them to the Apostolic See; as he also denied the faculty of adorning even the chest in which they assert the said body to be preserved; but caused the stones brought out for this purpose to be placed and enclosed behind the high altar; humbly asking that answer be made to him whether he can permit the celebration of the feast, etc.

[57] The people of Cingoli prove the cult, from an old decree of the city, On the 3rd day of February 1635 the Sacred Congregation answered by referring the resolution of this question to the Sacred Congregation of Rites. What follows is again written in the Italian tongue. And since it had pleased the Sacred Congregation to hear the parties, it is shown by the Commune of Cingoli by proof of the immemorial cult of the body of S. Sperandea. Before I produce those arguments, I wish the reader to be warned that the documents which are throughout cited here by the letters of the alphabet have not come into my hands, lest anyone seek them in vain with me. Now receive the words of the petition: In the year 1321 the Commune of Cingoli in its statutes, Rubric IV on Alms, ordained that four pounds of wax be given yearly to the Church of S. Sperandea, as to many other churches of this land, as is clear from the copy marked A.

[58] from an ancient title of Sanctity, In the year 1423 lord Peter, bishop of Osimo, in the confirmation of the abbess of the monastery of S. Sperandea, addresses her by the title of S. Sperandea. B. The year 1423 both our manuscripts mark: but I fear that an error has here crept in, since in Ughelli, vol. 1 of the Italia sacra, col. 505, among the bishops of Osimo Friar Peter Herculanus, of the Order of Minors, is said to have died in the year 1422, and Nicholas to have succeeded him in the same year, on the ninth of the Kalends of August, from a Bull of Pope Martin V recounted in the same place. Let us return to the document. In the year 1384, and successively from that time, many legacies are read to have been made to this Saint, as C. attests.

[59] from the veneration of the body, the feast day, indulgences. In the year 1482 lord Lucas, bishop of Osimo, in a certain visitation which he made, asserted that he had found the body of Bl. Sperandea honored for a long time in a chest within the church of S. Michael, already then called that of S. Sperandea, with other relics in several boxes, and, for the greater veneration of the said relics and the devotion of the faithful, granted indulgences to anyone who, having confessed his sins, should visit the church, the altar or the chapel, and the aforesaid chest in which the said body rests, on the day of S. Michael in the month of May, and of holy Sperandea in the month of September, as is more fully said in the document D.

[60] likewise from the title of Saint, from ancient images and an altar In the same year 1482 the lady Bella, daughter, betook herself into the said monastery, being about to embrace the spiritual life, and gave to it all her means, and in these documents (of the donations) she is likewise named by the title of S. Sperandea, and her body is asserted to be honored in that church: E. In a certain farmstead of the territory of Cingoli, called la Torre, a most ancient painting is seen on the wall of a house, where the image of the most blessed Virgin

is painted in the middle, but on one side the effigy of S. Sperandea, clothed in the habit and cowl of S. Benedict, and with a veil and diadem, and above her head is read written: Sta. Sperandia 1482. E. And in the year 1590 an altar was erected in honor of S. Sperandea in the parish church of the said farmstead; as from the attestation F.*

[61] made in her honor, In the city of Gubbio there is a certain church, distant one crossbow-shot from the aforesaid city, where an altar is seen in the middle, above which there are painted on the wall the effigies of the most blessed Virgin in the middle, on the right the image of S. Antony and of Bl. Sperandeus in the habit of the Olivetan monks, and on the left the effigies of S. Ubaldus and of blessed Sperandea in a monastic habit, having a diadem on her head, as the other Saints have; and below these words are written: Here was the dwelling of the blessed Sperandeus, Januaria, and Sperandea, to this day protectress of Cingoli: and the inhabitants of the said city assert that there survives no memory of the time at which that church was founded, or at which the said images were painted; but that they had received from their forefathers that these things were done from time immemorial, and that it is publicly said that Bl. Sperandea was born at Gubbio of the family of the Sperandei, and is the sister of the aforesaid Bl. Sperandeus, whose body is honored in the church of S. Peter of that city belonging to the Olivetan monks; but that the body of blessed Sperandea is preserved and honored at Cingoli, of which place she is the protectress; and that these things are public and notorious, as G. expressly attests.

[62] In the year 1497 lord Paris, bishop of Osimo, inspected the said body of Bl. Sperandea: from the elevation of the incorrupt body made illustrious by benefits; and when he had ascertained that it had then been enclosed for 220 years in a wooden chest, by the common consent of the nuns he ordained that that venerable and glorious body should be surveyed and cleansed, lest perchance through length of time it had suffered any harm. To this end it was raised from the chest, and stripped of its old garment, which had been utterly consumed by moths: and this venerable body was found entire without any injury and with its natural skin and flesh; and, being clothed anew in a garment of black silk, it was replaced in the same chest, the aforesaid lord bishop Paris, who also celebrated a solemn Mass, and all the clergy and people of Cingoli assisting. Many too who were afflicted with various infirmities obtained health there, with an increase of devotion and to the admiration of all, as is clear from the document I.

[63] In the same city, in the church of the Fathers Preachers, likewise from the cult of another image and from indulgences granted, at the altar of the Rosary, there are seen two great pictures, in one of which, on the right, is the image of S. Catherine of Siena, in the other, on the left, the effigy of some female Saint clothed in the habit of the Order of S. Benedict; which is held by all the people for an image of S. Sperandea, and as such is honored and venerated by all; as the Fathers of that convent expressly testify: H. In the year 1510 perpetual indulgences were granted by a certain congregation of fifteen Cardinals in the church of the monastery of the nuns of S. Sperandea, in which the body of the said Saint rests, whom they call illustrious for many miracles; as appears from the Bull L.

[64] In the year 1526 a picture was placed on the principal altar of the said church, likewise from another effigy, and from the church dedicated to her; in the middle of which the effigy of the most blessed Virgin is painted, on whose right is the image of Bl. Sperandea, clothed in the habit of S. Benedict, with a diadem and rays above her head, and near her is the effigy of S. Michael the archangel; and on the left the images of S. Barbara and of holy John the Baptist. And in the year 1560 lord Ægidius Falcetta, bishop of Caorle, with the consent of the Ordinary, consecrated the said church of S. Sperandea with its altars under the invocation of S. Michael the archangel and of Bl. Sperandea, as appears from M. But lest thou wonder, reader, that that church is said to have been consecrated by the bishop of Caorle, which, called by the natives Caorle, is a city of the Venetian island coast, I observe from Ughelli's Italia sacra, reprinted, vol. 2, col. 615, and vol. 5, col. [ ], that Ægidius Falzetta or Falconetta, first bishop of Caorle, then of Forlimpopoli, was by birth a man of Cingoli; and therefore it ought not to seem wonderful that the aforesaid consecration was performed by him, the bishop of Osimo permitting it.

[65] from the formula of profession, etc., of the nuns, The nuns of the monastery of S. Sperandea also assert with an oath that from time immemorial they have named their profession also to the said Saint, and that the bishops for the time being have in the act of profession recited a prayer in which mention was made of the merits of Bl. Sperandea; that the nuns daily make a commemoration of the said Saint in the Confiteor, as also at the end of mental prayer and of the divine Office, with immemorial leave of the ordinary bishops; and that she has always been honored by all the people, by prelates, bishops, Cardinals, as is expressly established from the attestation which they make, and from the most ancient professions themselves of the nuns on parchment. N.

[66] from the Office and Mass from time immemorial; Lord Sebastian Ricci of Cingoli, bishop of Città della Pieve (which, commonly called Citta della Pieve, is a city of Tuscany), of the age of 74 years, and certain Fathers of various Religious Orders, grave in age, and who dwelt long at Cingoli, an oath being interposed, asserted for true that they had always celebrated the feast of the said Sperandea with Office and Mass, and had found that usage from time immemorial, and this with the knowledge of the bishop for the time being, and that they had so received it from their forefathers by tradition, as appears from O. The provost and canons of Cingoli have not only always celebrated the feast with Office and Mass from time immemorial; but they also daily make a commemoration of that Blessed one among the holy protectors of Cingoli, and some time ago reformed that commemoration with the counsel and consent of the most Eminent present bishop, as is contained in P.

[67] from the veneration wont to be solemnly shown to the body; The chest in which this holy body is enclosed has from time immemorial been placed above the altar of her chapel, and is of wood, adorned on the outside with various cloth, of silk plush and woven with gold, and, when it is opened, within are seen several nuns painted, clothed in the same habit as the Saint, in an attitude of adoration. The said chest is opened on the day sacred to her, and when Prelates and other eminent persons come thither for the sake of devotion or of a vow to venerate the body, which is entire and palpable. And while it is opened, the magistracy is continually present (with whom is one of the keys of the chest; the other the nuns keep), torches are lighted, a signal is given with the church bell and with trumpets, and, with a very great concourse of people, and in the presence of the priest deputed for it (who ordinarily is the chaplain of the nuns), after the accustomed adoration and incensing, the antiphon of virgins is intoned and the prayer is said.*

[68] from the light kindled before it, from the common cult through that region, At the entrance of the chapel of the said Blessed one, in which many tablets of miracles and votive offerings are seen, opposite the chest three lamps hang, of which one always burns, but the others are kindled from time to time according to the solemnity of the feasts and to devotion. Forty nuns under the Rule of S. Benedict dwell in the said monastery, whose foundress was the said Blessed one, most illustrious for countless miracles, besides those which we have mentioned, and for a most immemorial veneration not only at Cingoli and in its territory, but through the whole province. To the preacher who is chosen yearly by the Commune for Lent it is enjoined in his very election by public mandate that on Wednesday in Albis he preach a sermon in the church of S. Sperandea on the praises of that Saint; and so it is observed, and always has been observed with the bishops' leave.

[69] Her feast has been celebrated from time immemorial (nor was it ever prohibited or suspended by any bishop) on the first Sunday of September, from the solemn feast of the Patroness with an Octave, on whose vigil the magistracy of Cingoli together with the people goes in the evening to offer a certain weight of wax to this Saint; and on the feast itself in the morning it goes in procession with all the clergy and the confraternities. And the clergy, both Secular and Regular, recite the Mass and Office of the said Saint from the Common of virgins with an Octave from time immemorial, with immemorial leave of the bishops of Osimo for the time being, as the document subjoined attests. And the most Eminent bishop, when he had forbidden the nuns to sing in musical modes, or to permit others to sing in their church, granted to the Commune of Cingoli that this singing should take place in the church of S. Sperandea on the feast day of this glorious holy Protectress of Cingoli from this year onward.

[70] The same, as often as he visited the monastery, saw her chapel adorned with stucco and gold, and in that stucco miracles carved in relief work. from the adornment of the church, the painted miracles, etc. Finally at his own expense he ordered iron gratings to be fitted, which open from the nuns' choir into the church, that all the nuns might most conveniently behold and venerate the sacred body; as is clear from Q. Wherefore he most humbly beseeches the Sacred Congregation to deign to declare that the Bull concerning the Cult of Saints is no hindrance.

[71] What answer the people of Cingoli afterward received from the Sacred Congregation, A favorable answer of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, the document from which we have transcribed the aforesaid does not inform us, because it comprises only the setting forth of the cause and the petition; but here the other copy opportunely comes to our aid, namely that of the reverend Father Clement Sylvester, in which the happy outcome of the cause is declared in these words: The Sacred Congregation, these truths and arguments adduced by the Commune of Cingoli having been maturely weighed, gave this rescript. After this a space for inserting the Answer appears blank in our manuscript: but that it was according to the wishes of the citizens is proved by what immediately follows there in this manner: It cannot be said with how great applause and joy so favorable a rescript was received by the Commune of Cingoli and by all.

[72] He adds that presently some deputies were chosen, whom he recounts as three in number, the joy of the people of Cingoli, and the increase of the cult. namely the Provost and two others, whose names he wrote so obscurely that I prefer to omit rather than to divine them. Then he continues: The marbles, concerning which see num. 54, were placed at the Saint's sepulchre, and that work was completed on the 9th day of December of the year 1639. Thereafter veneration for the Saint grew exceedingly; her feast was celebrated with a greater concourse of people; her images came forth printed in various manners, and the sick were more frequently healed. So much does it please God that his Saints be honored. Thus far Fr. Clement Sylvester. For the rest, from what has been said thus far it is clear that the cult of S. Sperandea is truly ancient and immemorial, and that as such it was admitted and permitted by the Sacred Congregation of Rites; which the miracles to be reported below will also confirm.

[73] In the said copy of Clement Sylvester the same things are frequently said in the same words concerning the Saint's ancient

cult, Certain other things pertaining to this. and besides these few things which I subjoin. In the year 1277 many miracles were noted down concerning this most holy body, as is read in a certain most ancient parchment manuscript, in which she is always named Bl. Sperandea, but never without the title of Blessed. In the year 1303 the Commune of Cingoli in its Statutes ordained that that sacred body should be guarded; and the title of this decree is: Of the sacred body of S. Sperandea. Rubric X: concerning which decree we treated at num. 51 and following. Moreover he says that in the territory of the fortress of Fabriano there was anciently a church under the invocation of S. Sperandea, and that, this being afterward destroyed, the title of S. Sperandea was transferred first to the altar of S. John the Baptist in the church of S. Venantius at Fabriano, and then to the high altar of the same church; as he affirms is established from a public document.

* perhaps 1490

in Italian, velluti*

MUTILATED LIFE

By an anonymous author

From a manuscript of Cingoli.

ON ST. SPERANDEA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS,

AT CINGOLI IN PICENUM.

BHL Number: 7826

By an Anonymous writer.

Blessed Sperandea ^a was born in the city of Gubbio ^b of honorable parents; born at Gubbio, from her tenderest years she chastises her body: and since the Spirit breathes where he wills, when she was nine years of age she was inflamed with a wonderful desire of serving God, and nothing else was in her mind but to follow Christ. And that she might be able to attain this, being led by the divine Spirit, earthly goods being passed by and altogether neglected, that she might acquire heavenly and eternal things, she began to do penance, and immediately fell into very many annoyances and tribulations, with which she was afflicted on account of her parent and of her kinsfolk. But she herself, while she meditated on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, exercised herself in abstinence and prayer and in charity to the poor; and, that she might bring her body into subjection, she used the skins of animals for a garment, and girt herself with an iron girdle ^c.

[2] fleeing from her father's house, she leads an austere life. And when Christ Jesus admonished her to estrange herself from her parents and from earthly things, she at once carried it out, and, despising the world and herself, setting out abroad ^d, she suffered many tribulations: and since she was always given to fasting and prayer, she was afflicted with great disturbance by demons and adversaries. And when she was fasting the Lent in a certain cell, she was tempted through fear for her body to depart thence; and that she might not be able to do so, she bound herself to a certain column ^e. Likewise when she was fasting another Lent in a certain cave ^f, at that time the Lord permitted her to suffer many tribulations, which, while she meditated on the passion of Jesus Christ, she bore with an even mind, and most gladly embraced abstinence, discipline, poverty, and all pains.

[3] refreshed by various And at that time she saw and heard an angel who commended poverty to her. A little after she saw a Woman bearing the dress of a queen, and with her an angel; by which vision she was greatly refreshed. And she saw a man of such beauty that his face was as the sun, and his height infinite. She saw also a table of virgins, and she herself desired to be among them; but they said that she could not enter without shoes. Then a certain Saint called her, and gave her his shoes, and thus she entered ^g. Also on the night of Easter, while she stood before the cross and meditated on Christ's passion, there appeared to her a certain light which her eyes could not bear. She saw also the Queen approach * with a lamp ^h of great light, who said to her: Read what is written on it. I know not how to read, answered Bl. Sperandea. Then she said: I and my Son will teach thee: and she read the writing ⁱ, which said that she should work mercy toward the poor.

[4] Likewise there was shown to her a table on which was a great abundance of food, very obscure and in the middle of that table was an altar, and behind it was the Queen of heaven, bearing her Son in her bosom ; and when she had been received at the table, she heard a voice saying to her: Thou art chosen, come to the table which has been prepared. She saw also a narrow way, full of thorns and sharp razors ^k, which, while she walked along it, cut her feet: wherefore blood flowed abundantly, and, being so wearied, she could go no further. Then she saw the Lord saying to her that she should complete the way; but when her body altogether failed, he called her and admonished her to go forward; and when she had done so, she came to a meadow full of roses and violets, and saw a certain Lord clothed in wedding garments, who restored to her the soundness of her body, and sent her into a certain city, and said to her: Few are they who walk by this way. Likewise there appeared to her the Lord Christ Jesus, and when she had said, Thou art the Lord my God, he answered: I am; what wilt thou that I do for thee? And he showed her his stigmata, and said to her: Look upon these; these I commend to thee.

[5] Likewise there were shown to her several mirrors, in one of which was Christ bound to the column, refreshed in another placed on the cross. She saw also a table of virgins with triple crowns of circles, and with garments white below and red above, and on their fingers they wore rings like brides; and those who served them were clothed in the same garments. She saw also Peter and Paul, clothed in white garments; and when she had stood before them, she received a blessing from them. Likewise while she remained in contemplation, she saw three young men, of about twenty-five years of age, and each had a cross on his forehead, and straightway they were brought into one; and it was said to her that it was the Trinity. When she was fasting Lent in a cell which she had made for herself of mats ^l, she was vehemently afflicted by the cold: for in the night so great a snow fell that it not only filled the cell, but also covered her whole body, so that she could scarcely bear it. Then there appeared to her the Lord clothed in red garments, and those who were with him were clothed in white garments, and he comforted her.

[6] Likewise the Lord appeared to her above her head, and his face and hands were white as snow, and instructed, she is said to have been. and so great was the brightness that her eyes could scarcely bear it; and when she was affected with the greatest admiration, he signed her with the sign of the Cross; and she asked the Lord to imprint a sign of this kind in her heart, and to expel from it all cockle. Likewise while she remained in prayer, and said, Lord, what wilt thou with me? and straightway there appeared to her a red cross, and it was said to her: What thou hast seen, show to others. And, taking the red cross, she went through the city, and sang praises to the Lord, and many boys followed her ^m.

[7] When the city of Recanati ⁿ was agitated with discord and dissension, she settles hatreds at Recanati, some of the nobles were killed, and their wives were unwilling to forgive the killers; and although many religious men and bishops tried to reconcile them with those men, yet they could never attain it; but, being led by the prayers and admonitions of blessed Sperandea, they changed their mind, and, all ill will and hatred being laid aside, they entered into peace with the killers and their enemies.

[8] [she obtains offspring for a barren woman; she drives away dropsy, and evils of the arm and throat.] When a certain woman was barren, relying on her sanctity, she asked her to pray God to grant her a son; and by her prayers she obtained what she greatly desired, since a little after she became with child. A certain woman, when she suffered from dropsy and was afflicted with a very great swelling of the belly, was freed by her with the sign of the most holy Cross. Another woman also, when through the gravity of her sickness she could not use her arm, she made free with the sign of the Cross. By a touch alone she also freed another who was oppressed with a grievous swelling of the throat.

[9] breasts ill affected, a girl endangered by a fall, various infirmities, To a certain woman also, who had an ulcer in her breast, and to which very many humors had flowed down, she restored her former soundness by the sign of the Cross, when the physicians were already at hand to cut the breasts. Two others also were freed in the same manner. When a certain girl had fallen from so lofty a place, all judged her to be dead; but her sister, when she had taken her up in her arms and had carried her to blessed Sperandea, she was at once freed by her. Another woman was tormented with many diseases; to whom blessed Sperandea gave a certain fillet, and bade her bind with a fillet of this kind the limbs which were affected: and when she had done so, she immediately came forth free from all pain and disease.

[10] she heals: the divine care about her: she cures various diseases; But another, while she wished to meet a physician, that she might seek from him remedies for her infirmity, met blessed Sperandea, whom she asked to sign her with the sign of the Cross; and when she had done so, she was made free [ ] from the infirmity by which she was held ^o. When she herself was returning from Rome so wearied with the journey that she could by no means go further, a certain man met her with a horse, and set her upon the horse, and affirmed that it had been commanded him in a vision to do so. The woman Blanca, when she had her mouth and whole face distorted, was freed by her with the sign of the Cross. In the same manner she freed another woman who saw nothing with one eye. At Venice she freed a certain sick man, who affirmed to men of Gubbio setting out for Venice that he had been freed by Sperandea. With the sign of the Cross also she freed a certain woman who had a contracted hand. A certain girl had many and great swellings in her throat, which she dispersed by touching them and signing them with the sign of the Cross. Another girl, whose hand was so worn out with a grievous disease and ulcer that the physicians lacked all hope of health, was freed in the same manner.

[11] a woman's avarice divinely punished, she frees a captive When she had asked alms of a woman, it was denied her; straightway the very thing which she had asked for alms, although it was whole, was straightway found spoiled by that woman who had said that she did not have the thing. A certain man of the fortress of Fabriano [p] was held captive, and was to be punished with the capital penalty; he commended himself to blessed Sperandea, and on the second night the chains fell from his feet, and he escaped free through a lofty window, and reported to blessed Sperandea that he had escaped free by her prayers.

[12] A certain man was held captive in the city of Gubbio; and when he was being led to execution, [and frees another to be punished with death, turns water into wine, heals a sick man;] he who was to behead him could by no means stretch out his hand, because that man had commended himself to the Blessed one, and had promised that, if he were free from a punishment of this kind, he would do penance: and when he had obtained it, he at once set out abroad, and freed other captives in the same city. In the fortress of Fabriano, when many were reclining at table together, it was announced to her by those who served her that they lacked wine. Learning which, blessed Sperandea said: God will provide; and when at once

she had prayed, the water *, with which the vessels were full, was turned into wine, which with its most sweet odor wonderfully refreshed those reclining at table. In the city of Gubbio Jacob, son of the lady Mary, when he was grievously oppressed with very many diseases, asked her to obtain soundness for him from God by her prayers; and she with the sign of the Cross sent him away free from every infirmity.

[13] A certain woman had given her money to keep; [an almsgiving made illustrious by a miracle; she causes a woman who had been carried off to be restored,] but she, led by piety and mercy, distributed it to the poor: and when it was demanded back by the lady, she betook herself to the place where the money had been laid, and there found the whole sum. In the fortress of Fossato [q] a certain Perugian captain [r] had carried off the wife of a certain countryman; and when he was admonished by blessed Sperandea to restore her to her husband, he would not assent to her admonitions. Then she threatened him, and said: The judgment of God in testimony of the truth comes upon thee at once. And straightway he was oppressed with a grievous infirmity, and when he called to mind the words of blessed Sperandea, he sent the woman away, and was at once freed.

[14] In the city of Perugia, when she had seen a certain rich man, she foretells death to a certain man, turns water into wine, chastises her body; she admonished him to meet a priest and confess his sins to him, and to receive the most holy Sacrament of the altar; because he would shortly die. And when he had done this, within the space of eight days he exchanged life for death. A certain woman filled a little vessel with water, which, when she herself had taken it, she turned the water into wine. When she had kept the Lent of holy Martin [s] without a tunic and with bare feet, and had a cell woven of mats, she was vehemently afflicted by cold and by demons.

[15] While she remained in contemplation, she saw a table she restores sight to robbers struck with blindness. at which were Christ, Mary the Virgin and John the Evangelist. When she was going from the city of Cagli [t] to Gubbio, she was making her way through a certain wood, and fell among robbers, who tried to seize her and to offer her violence; but all at the same time were made blind, and, terrified by so grievous and sudden a mishap, said to one another: Assuredly this woman is a friend of God: and they began vehemently to ask her to pray to God for them: which she at once began to do; for on bended knees she prayed God to restore to them the light of their eyes, which she obtained; for all received back their former power of seeing [u].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. It is a town of the Pontifical dominion in the March of Ancona.

q. It is a fortress of the Ecclesiastical dominion in the said March, near the borders of the duchy of Urbino.

r. Perugia, called by the natives Perugia, is an episcopal city and the head of the Perugian territory, in Umbria, likewise under the dominion of the supreme Pontiff.

s. This was once celebrated, and was kept after the Octave of All Saints, or from the 11th day of November, on which the death of S. Martin is commemorated, until the Nativity of Christ the Lord. Consult, if it please thee, Du Cange's Glossary.

t. Callium, commonly Cagli, is a city of the duchy of Urbino, episcopal under the archbishop of Urbino.

u. In each of our manuscripts there are presently subjoined miracles done after the Saint's death, which we shall recount in the Appendix; whence it is clear that this Life, if it was ever entire, is mutilated, as we have already noted in the Commentary.

accendere* (to kindle)

sinu*

gerens*

aqua*

ANOTHER LIFE IN RHYTHM,

Or a hymn from the Mass.

ON ST. SPERANDEA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS,

AT CINGOLI IN PICENUM.

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

Pray, O holy Sperandea, Taught by Christ at nine years old, fleeing from her father's house, That my hope may come Whither thy hope has borne itself.

Only nine years old, Thou didst see the true Jove ^a, Who taught thee holy things.

He warns thee to leave thy parents Straightway, and to the nations Already as a girl to hasten.

He gave thee a garment, The clothing of a swine's skin, An iron belt girt thee. ^b

The Lents which thou keepest Are daughters of the true Jesus; So many and so great things thou sufferest.

Thou gavest thyself to every hardship, Thou didst bind thyself to a column, Above a savage tomb.

Afflicted by demons Thou wast then Blessed, And so at other times so often.

[2] Thy holy face thou didst veil, And through the world didst cry aloud: she leads a wonderful life; Why do you not yet repent?

The long road does not affright thee; Where Christ and Mary Walked, thou walkest.

Thou with the sun dost traverse the world, And dost make it bright with virtues, Singing the praises of Jesus.

Thou dost ever pray to thy Jesus, Sounding Jesus through the coasts; All else is as dung.

Of thee can glory, As it was wont to admire, Thy fatherland Gubbio.

The men of Cingoli never cease To praise thee And to implore thy help.

They see wonderful deeds done by thee; And what voice has complained of thee, To whom thou hast not given aid?

[3] The blind sees, the deaf hears; Heaven closes nothing to thee; she heals various diseases, and many The dumb speaks through thee.

The lame leaps like a hart, And gout ^c gives place to health For him to whom thou stretchest out thy hand.

Thou dost break the stone ^d, and drivest away All fevers; the demon is unwarlike, If thou dost press him down.

What more shall I say, if all the dead Rise at thy prayer, Nor does hell resist.

The purse given to the poor Thou givest away, and afterward full Thou returnest it gladly to its mistress.

Thou makest the water divine wine, That wine may not be wine Where God is despised. ^e

Thou didst drive away the evils of the throat, When with the Cross thou didst press down The swollen ^f glands.

And Christian a hope there be healed Now the breasts also of many?

The paralytic, tottering, Those laboring with the sacred disease, Are made strong by thy prayers.

Thou dost loose the bound and imprisoned, And the devout condemned Thou takest away from the executioner.

Thou makest enemies blind, Afterward thou enlightenest the modest, When they call on thee as suppliants.

Thou dost settle Recanati, Through thee it makes a glad peace, Which the princes could not.

Thou by praying makest her a mother Of sons, who was ever Mother of none.

Thou drivest away diseases, God giving it, By thy slender life alone.

The captain who made a harlot, And she who made an unhappy husband, Feared with distorted mouth. ^g

Thou didst admonish the dying, And didst tame * the raging, Where they dishonor thee. ^h

Let the Tuscan know, let the Rhine ⁱ know, That there is no kind of disease Which thou thyself hast not crushed. ^k

Every kind of health, Of abstinence and of virtue, Is thy exercise.

Hence the men of Cingoli marvel, As does Gubbio and strangers, That thou hast done such great things.

The things which were shown to John, Thy tender years behold, And perhaps not lesser ones. ^l

Gave the habit, with which he himself Had first been girt.

Thou didst walk through the strait way, When thou didst survey heaven, Where very few enter.

To thee, prudent virgin, There is given by the Almighty A lamp that never fails. ^m

He made himself thy guardian, Thou art taught by him To read, which thou didst not know.

Thence the sacred body remains, As it left the washing A little after its death.

Thence the undergarment ever remains Whole, although a certain part Be taken from it.

[7] Thrice thou didst warn the master; [appearing, she bids a chest be made for her: she commands a field to be restored to the nuns.] Not obeying, thou didst strike him, That he might make the chest.

To Ciccolinus as he built Thou dost overthrow the work, as God did To the Babylonian giant.

When he was unwilling to restore The nuns' estate, thou didst foretell That death would take him away. ⁿ

As thou hast done, so do thou pray, Until thou entreat the Lord For thy devout peoples.

Praise be to the supreme Trinity, By whom we were created For eternal glory. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

availed, foretold that the said innkeeper's wine would presently be spoiled; and when this really happened, that the innkeeper, now repenting of the deed, obtained by his prayers to her that the wine should be restored to its former strength.

domuisti*

APPENDIX ON THE MIRACLES.

ON ST. SPERANDEA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS,

AT CINGOLI IN PICENUM.

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

§ I. Various miracles obtained in the years 1277 and 1278.

[ ] Whence the miracles are to be recounted. Among the monuments set aside for the illustration of the Acts of S. Sperandea at this day, I have found various ones concerning miracles obtained through her pious invocation; and these indeed were drawn up in authentic form before public notaries and witnesses, and copies of them were communicated to us. Some of these were written in the Latin tongue, others in Italian, others in both, according to the condition of the persons who testified to them; all which I shall, according to our custom, set forth to the reader translated into Latin. But I shall begin with the miracles which were subjoined in Latin by the same hand to the Latin Life published above, and which begin from the year of the holy Abbess's death, and were copied out from a certain codex into which those prodigies were entered, or gathered from various authentic documents, as will appear to the reader. To these the year, Indiction, month, etc., are generally set down; but we shall observe that the Indiction is often faulty. The reckoning of the years also, being somewhat disturbed, we shall restore, being about to recount each in the order in which they were done. The variation too in the arithmetical numbers, which occurs here and there in our manuscript and in that which Franceschini used, we shall note. These things being observed, let us proceed to the documents.

[2] In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1277, the sixth Indiction, A paralytic healed at her sepulchre: the Apostolic See being vacant. Done at Cingoli in the monastery of blessed Sperandea, on the 16th day of September, in the presence of Brother Philip of … Sister Margaret of Esium (Æsium, commonly Jesi, is an episcopal city of the Pontifical dominion in the March of Ancona) and several other witnesses, the lady Carosella, wife of Valens, asserted before the witnesses and before me the notary that her son was seized twice in the day and night with the disease of paralysis, and was so grievously affected by it that he seemed to lack almost all sense; and when he had been at the burial place of blessed Sperandea, and had stayed there some time, commending himself most diligently first of all to God and to blessed Sperandea, he came away free from an infirmity of this kind. I, master Matthew, notary, being asked. The chronological notes added are correct: for in the year 1277, on the 16th day of September, the sixth Indiction was running, if you begin it from the beginning of this month, and the Apostolic See was then vacant since the month of May through the death of John XXI, otherwise XX. For the 16th day of September Franceschini reads the 17th day of the same month: but each of our manuscripts agrees.

[3] In the year of the Lord 1277, on the 8th day of the month of October, a woman crippled in the legs, the Apostolic See being vacant, done at Cingoli at the monastery of S. Sperandea, in the presence of Diotajutus, son of Peter, and Compagnonus Bandellonus as witnesses, Christina, daughter of Benevenutus of Ripæ, said and asserted that by the prayers and intercession of Bl. Sperandea, and by the grace and goodness of God, she had been freed from a certain infirmity by which she was held: for her legs and knees were so badly affected that not only could she not walk , but could not even rise without great pain; which now, free from all pain, she does freely. I, Jacomellus, notary, being asked.* In the other manuscript this year is marked 1278; but wrongly; for in that year on the 8th day of October the See was no longer vacant, Nicholas III having already been raised to the chair of S. Peter from the 25th day of November of the preceding year. Franceschini also has the year 1277, but reads the 13th day of October for the 8th.

[4] In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1277, another suffering pain in all her limbs, the sixth Indiction, the Apostolic See being vacant, on the 24th day of October, done at Cingoli in the monastery of Bl. Sperandea, in the presence of master Laurence Albericulus, Grimaldus Zarronus and me the notary, Verdutia, daughter of Rainaldus Mancinellus, asserted before the aforesaid witnesses that every limb of her body was affected with a grievous pain , and that when she had betaken herself to the monastery of Bl. Sperandea, in whom she greatly trusted, she was relieved of almost all pain.* The notary's name is absent from each of our manuscripts, but in Franceschini he is called Boncompagnus. In the same, for the 24th day the 23rd day of October is written.

[5] In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, and another paralytic, cured. in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, the 8th of the month of March, the lady Flordalisa, wife of the late Antony Clotius, asserts and affirms it to be true that, when she was held by a grievous and long-lasting disease of paralysis, and so could not conveniently speak, trusting vehemently in Bl. Sperandea that she could be freed by her prayers, she betook herself to her oratory, and lay all night before her burial place: and in the morning, being roused from sleep, she came away free from a sickness of this kind, and returned home just as if she had never been held by any sickness.

[6] The falling sickness, The lady Domicilla, wife of Petrucius, son of Rainaldus Roggerus, asserts that her son was held by the falling sickness; and since she burned with a wonderful desire of freeing him, she sent him to the burial place of Bl. Sperandea; where, when he had remained for some interval of time, at last by the divine grace and by the intercession and prayers of blessed Sperandea he obtained his former health, nor was he any more seized by a disease of this kind.

[7] a trembling of the hands and a pain of the side driven away: The lady Bellaflos, wife of master Diotajutus, had a girl who suffered a trembling of the hands and a pain of the side: she led her to the body of Bl. Sperandea, and by the divine grace, and by the prayers of the Bl. Virgin Mary and the intercession of Bl. Sperandea, she was made free from every infirmity. Done at Cingoli in her oratory, in the presence of the aforesaid lady Bellaflos, Vandinus her brother, Mazuritius of Serra, and Verdutia, maidservant of Jacob, son of Nicholas. I, Benevenutus Viscolus, notary. These three miracles or benefits are reported together in one and the same document, both in each of our manuscripts and in Franceschini; who makes Domicilla not the wife but the daughter of Petrutius, son of Rainaldus Roggerus. One also of our two manuscripts differs somewhat from the other in words alone; I think because he who copied this wished to correct the solecisms; but we prefer the native text, however faulty.

[8] walking and speech restored: In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, on the 5th day of June, done at Cingoli in the monastery of S. Sperandea, in the presence of lord Ventura and chaplain of the church of S. Exuperantius, and lord Benevenus, and master Antony Albericus, notary, as witnesses, and several others; Berta, daughter of Grimaldus Adæ, when she could not walk freely, neither with a staff nor without a staff, for the space of seven years, and through that whole time also lacked speech, coming to the oratory of S. Sperandea, began before me the notary to speak and to walk freely. Moricus, notary.*

[9] a possessed woman freed: The lady Helen, wife of Vivianus, son of Antony, when she was grievously tormented and racked by two demons, being led to the burial place of Bl. Sperandea, was wholly freed, nor did she suffer any more trouble from demons of this kind, in the presence of Diotajutus, son of Antony Accarombonus, Thebaldus, son of Rainaldus, son of Peter, father of the said Helen, Antony Vivianus, Jacobutius Janus, Benevenutus Albertus, and several others; and the woman herself affirmed that she had done so and that so it had befallen her. Done at Cingoli in the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, on the day

the 7th of the month of June, in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III. I, Jacomellus, notary, being asked. She who is here called Helen is written Clara in Franceschini; the 16th day of June is marked; several more witnesses also are there enumerated; and finally the miracle itself is reported a little otherwise, namely in these words, but Italian ones: Clara, wife of Vivianus … on a certain Lord's day, the 5th of the said month (June), being seized by a demon, began to be vexed and tormented; and trusting in S. Sperandea and reposing her hope in her, she came to her place: and when she had been brought to her burial place, one of the two demons which had taken possession of her body was compelled to depart; but the other, which had clung fast, went out on Wednesday, the 8th of the said month, and she herself was freed from all vexation and possession of demons in the presence of a great concourse of the people. So he, who perhaps had fuller monuments than we.

[10] On the 18th [] day of June in the same year, the lady Jacobina, daughter of Benevenutus, son of Antony, when she had been utterly deprived of all light in one of her eyes, the sight of one eye restored: came to the monastery and burial place of Sperandea, and trusting chiefly in God and exceedingly in her intercession, recovered her former power of seeing, in the presence of lady Brigid and Sister Agatha, daughter of Matthew, as witnesses. I, Moricus, notary, being asked.*

[11] In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, the torment of the stone, on the second day of September, in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, done at Cingoli in the church of S. Sperandea, in the presence of Golzo, son of Rainaldus, Benevenutus, son of Antony, and several others; Joannutius, son of Benevenutus, son of Antony, when he was labouring grievously under the disease of the stone and the gravel, took refuge with Bl. Sperandea and commended himself to her most diligently; by whose intercession he was freed from so grievous a disease. I, Golzo, notary, being asked. It is doubtful whether the sixth Indiction is here rightly assigned: for if the men of Cingoli began it from the first day of September (as is gathered from these present documents), the seventh Indiction ought to have been set down. The same will occur in what follows, which it may suffice to have observed here once for all.

[12] In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, on the 11th day of September, and grievous in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, done at Cingoli in the oratory of S. Sperandea, in the presence of lord Bruno, son of Albertutius, master Philip, son of Albertutius, Vannius, son of lord Jacomellus, and lord Benimbene of Æsium; the lady Violante, wife of Gualterutius, said and asserted that she had been oppressed with an infirmity of this kind, and for the space of two months and more she lacked all hope of health: (read that … she lacked.) But when she had been carried to the place where the coffer was set in which the body of Bl. Sperandea was kept, and since she trusted in her exceedingly, she was freed.

[13] On the same day, the same witnesses being present, the lady Flora, wife of Jacob, infirmities said and asserted that on account of her infirmity she had been brought to that pass that [] without help she could in no wise move herself; and using the most earnest prayers that she might obtain health, and trusting exceedingly in God, she came away free from every sickness; and the aforesaid women confirmed before me the notary written below that it had so been.* The notary's name is wanting in our manuscripts. Further, from what has just been said at num. 12 about the Saint's coffer, Franceschini gathers the time at which it was made, as we have observed at num. 45 of the preliminary Commentary.

[14] In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, and eye troubles, taken away: in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, on the 12th day of the month of October, at Cingoli in the oratory of Bl. Sperandea, in the presence of Bandinus [], son of lord Jacomellus, Philip, son of Albertutius, Gentilutius, son of Benevenutus, and Nicholas Campanarius of Ripa Transona [], as witnesses; Martina of Camuranum asserted upon oath and confirmed that, when she was labouring grievously under a disease of the eyes, and so saw almost nothing, she betook herself to the burial place of Bl. Sperandea, and while she was praying there she was taken with sleep; but rising from her sleep she knew herself to be wholly free, and no otherwise than if she had never been affected with a disease of the eyes; and in the same month and on the same day, the same witnesses being present, she related and confirmed that she had so done.

[15] two others sick In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1278, the sixth Indiction, on the 16th day of the month of October, in the time of lord Pope Nicholas III, done at Cingoli under the porch of the house of the women dwelling in the place and houses where the venerable woman, Sister Sperandea, had done penance, in the presence of Vandinus, son of lord Jacomellus, and Franso, son of Amabilis; the lady Gratiana, wife of Thomassinus of Monte-Turris, asserts and affirms it to be true, that Bernardutia her daughter in the year last past, in the month of August, fell into a grievous sickness, by which she was held for the space of two months, and was brought to such a pass that she could scarcely speak.

[16] healed: She affirms also that Andrew her son was affected with a grievous sickness through almost the whole of the same month. Wherefore, when she had placed all her hope in God, and trusted in Him exceedingly, she besought Him vehemently that He would be pleased to look to the safety of her children, and commended herself and her children to blessed Sperandea, entreating her to intercede with God and to obtain a grace and benefit of this kind. Which by the goodness of God she obtained: for her children were wholly freed from the sickness by which they were held. I, Antony, notary, being asked. Far otherwise does Franceschini recite the circumstances of this twin miracle, from which he deduces that our holy Abbess was no longer among the living in the year 1277, and that therefore her blessed death is to be bound to the year 1276; concerning all which consult, if you please, the preliminary Commentary at num. 19 and following.

[17] a grievous ailment of the arm The following miracle I report in the last place, because it has no month or day assigned to it, although perhaps it ought to be set before the others of the year 1278. Another fault of greater moment is that in each of our manuscripts this instrument appears mutilated; but here Franceschini will opportunely serve our turn, from whom we shall observe some things. Meanwhile receive the instrument itself. In the year of the Lord 1278, in the time of Pope Nicholas III, in the presence of master Philip, son of Alberutius, Rainaldus, son of Thebaldus, as witnesses, and several others; Pamphilia, wife of Thomas, son of John, of Æsium, affirmed before the said witnesses and me the notary written below, that when she was offering an arm of wax — which when she had accomplished, she was straightway free from so grievous a disease; and that the benefit which she had obtained from the divine goodness by her intercession might be known to all, she showed the arm restored to its former state, never ceasing to praise God and to proclaim the sanctity of blessed Sperandea. I, Conrad, notary, being asked.

[18] the ailment cured. The kind of disease with which Pamphilia's arm was affected is, as is plain, and perhaps certain other things also, here passed over; and therefore it will be of service to subjoin the whole matter in Franceschini's own words, turned from the Italian into Latin. He therefore says that it is stated in the instrument that Pamphilia, wife of Thomas [*], son of John, of Æsium, affirmed in the oratory of S. Sperandea that not long after the Saint's death, when her arm was afflicted with a most bitter ailment, so that all the sinews of the arm were visible, having made a vow to visit her sacred body and meanwhile, until she should come, to send an arm of wax, she was suddenly freed; and that in the said oratory she showed to the aforesaid (witnesses and notary) the healed arm and the part which had been affected; that one physician had cut a sinew in it and had not been able to heal it; and that she alleged as witnesses lord Benevenutus, son of Antony Paschalis, and lord Benevenutus, son of Antony, chaplain of the church of S. Gregory. So he, citing the authentic instrument. For the rest, what we have given thus far is read, as we have noted, subjoined to the manuscript Life.

add non*

read affectum fuisse*

elsewhere the &* is wanting

* elsewhere XVIIII

ut*

elsewhere Vandino*

elsewhere Fransonis*

di Thomasso*

§ II. Miracles obtained in the seventeenth century.

[ ] Other instruments concerning the miracles. Besides those which we have reported in the preceding paragraph, I have found various instruments, authentic likewise, as we have already noted above, concerning the miracles of S. Sperandea, laid aside for this day. All these belong to the seventeenth century; whence we gather that the miracles which happened in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (for doubtless some did happen) were either not committed to writing or have perished; for otherwise the same men who transmitted those to us would have procured these also. Nay, Franceschini himself, who asserts that all the monuments of the monastery of S. Sperandea were surveyed by him, reports none besides those which we have recounted in the preceding paragraph, being content to have said: And let it now suffice to have written these miracles authenticated by instruments: whoever wishes for more, let him survey the tablets hung up in the church and stored away by the Sisters, and some hymns [] composed there by me.* Further, it is not possible to keep the order of the time at which each of the miracles was done, or the instruments drawn up, unless I were willing to mingle instruments with instruments; and therefore I shall recount them singly as they lie.

[20] I begin from the healing of John Baptist Parenti, concerning which I have the following instrument drawn up in Italian: Struck with the plague In the name of God and of the glorious S. Sperandea of Cingoli. I, John Baptist Parenti, of Staffolo (a place in the March of Ancona) dwelling at Cingoli, give full and undoubted assurance according to the truth, and testify also with an oath interposed, how that in the month of October or the beginning of November, saving the truth, of the year 1629, having my throat seized with a carbuncle (that is, a pestilential swelling), I was of necessity cauterized in the affected part and treated by lord Sylvester Sperandini, at that time surgeon in the said land of Cingoli and famous in his art; who, when after the space of some few days he perceived that it was nevertheless growing and that the ailment was hiding itself, and did not know what further ought to be done for me, said that no other remedy occurred to him, save that I should implore the divine mercy.

[21] For this cause the women of my household asked me, is healed, the Saint's veil being applied: whether it would please me that the veil of S. Sperandea should be sought for a while; and I answered: By all means. And while I was awaiting it with the utmost devotion and desire, the Father confessor of the nuns of S. Sperandea came shortly after with that veil, and covered me with it; and presently I began to sweat, and I sweated as long as that blessed veil was upon me, not without solace of my mind. Then the said Father confessor went away; but the said lord Surgeon, returning, inspected the infected part anew, and uncovered the ailment, and cauterized it again: but on the next day I was quit of all danger, and shortly wholly freed, ascribing my health to the patronage of S. Sperandea; in testimony of the truth I made the present attestation in writing, and subscribed it with my hand, on this 6th day of May 1646. The same John Baptist Parenti, by his own hand.

[22] likewise others In the same manuscript the following instrument is subjoined: In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1646, the fourteenth Indiction, on the 4th day of January, and in the second year of the Pontificate of our most holy lord Innocent, by divine Providence Pope X. The illustrious lord Raymund Caballinus of Cingoli, being present in person before us the notary and the witnesses etc., by means etc., deposed and affirmed, namely: (thus far in Latin; what follows,

is in Italian:) It is eight or ten years (I do not precisely recall the time) since, being afflicted with a grievous fever, I lay fastened to my bed in the house of the lady Berecynthia, my sister, that I might be cared for, and had now been brought to the end of my life, and the physician had pronounced that it was all over with me, when my said sister told me that, if I would permit it, she would cover me with the veil of S. Sperandea, whose body is kept entire in this land of Cingoli.

[23] lying grievously sick, And when I had answered, Yes, yes, there came shortly after the reverend lord Ludovic Chiori of Montecchio (likewise a place in the March of Ancona), then parish priest of the collegiate church of this place, who, reciting certain prayers, covered me with the veil of S. Sperandea, under which I suddenly fell asleep, and seemed to myself, with the greatest solace, to be walking in a certain flowery meadow; and on a sudden I began to be better, in such wise that in the evening of the same day the lord physician said that the disease had much abated; and so, convalescing thenceforward, I shortly received entire health through the grace of God and of holy Sperandea, by whose intercession I acknowledge it to have been obtained; and in faith whereof I have made the present attestation, with an oath interposed, etc. Then it is subjoined by the notary in Latin: Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the house of me etc., there being present the most illustrious lords Cosmas Franceschinus and Stephen, son of John, of Cingoli, as witnesses. I, Joas [] Baptist de Parentibus, notary, being asked.*

[24] and a woman in peril from a fever, The third instrument, which is subjoined to the preceding, thus begins in Latin: In the name of God, amen. On the said day. The lady Flaminia, wife of lord Francis Palmutius of Cingoli, being present in person before us the notary and the witnesses etc., with the presence of the aforesaid lord Francis her husband etc., by means etc., affirmed and deposed as follows, namely (what follows is again written in Italian): For many years past (for I do not distinctly remember the time), when I was grievously sick with a fever, and after many medicines had been brought to such extremity that the physicians pronounced that it was all over with me, and that nothing of remedy remained to me beyond the mercy of God, counsel was given me to seek the veil of S. Sperandea, protectress of this land; which was both asked for by my household and brought by the lord archpriest Gentilonus, then rural vicar and confessor of the nuns of the monastery of the said S. Sperandea.

[25] are healed by the use of the same veil. But I promised to bring a votive offering to the coffer of the same Saint, if I should be restored to health; and being covered with the said veil, I began to sweat, and suddenly felt myself better, and thenceforward convalescing, I was shortly restored to entire health through the grace of God and of the said Saint, to whom, as I had promised, I brought my vow. And consequently etc. It is subjoined in Latin: Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the house of the said lord Francis Palmutius in the street of S. Julian, next to etc., there being present lord Peter Dominic Pelliccio and Ægidius, son of the late Bernabeus Dattus, of Cingoli, as witnesses. I, Joas Baptist de Parentibus, notary, being asked.

[26] The fourth instrument of the same manuscript is of this kind: A girl afflicted with fever, consumption and scrofulous swellings, In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1646, the fourteenth Indiction, in the aforesaid Pontificate (namely in the second year of the Pontificate of Innocent X, as he had said in the former instrument), on the 4th day of January etc. Lord Bonfilius Crescionius of Cingoli, etc., by their oath, having touched etc., and the lady Pieria his wife, deposed and affirmed as follows, namely: It is now ten or twelve years (these things are written in Italian) since a certain daughter of ours, at that time in the tenth or eleventh year of her age, Angela by name, was seized with a certain slight fever which was consuming her; nor after a great space of time did the ailment degenerate into consumption, as the lord physicians judged, who also gave charge that whatever was necessary for the said Angela's food and clothing should be kept apart, lest they should infect the rest of the household; which was carried into execution with the greatest solicitude, inconvenience and caution. At the same time, the said ailment persisting and always growing worse, some scrofulous swellings appeared about the throat of the same little girl, which were beginning to suppurate, so far as it seemed to me Pieria, her mother.

[27] Wherefore, perceiving that remedies would be in vain, we determined to have recourse to the patronage of S. Sperandea, having been by vow clothed with the Saint's habit, is healed, protectress of this land, toward whom this girl was piously affected, and we vowed to clothe her with the habit of the same Saint, with which also we clothed her. And as soon as she was arrayed in that blessed habit, the disease began to decrease, and in a short time, being freed from the scrofulous swellings, the consumption and the fever, she came away sound and free, in which state she also continues to this very day, and lives in the monastery of S. Catherine, in which she has embraced the Religious life, having taken out of devotion and as a token of a grateful mind the name of the said S. Sperandea, by whose intercession the aforesaid girl and we acknowledge the said health to have been received from the blessed God; and besides, she herself wishes to be called Angela Sperandea: and that this is most true, we have given assurance by the present instrument, our oath also being interposed etc. Again the notary subjoins in Latin: They swore, having touched etc. Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the house of the said lord Bonfilius Crescionius in the street of S. Sebastian, next to etc., there being present the illustrious lord Cosmas Franceschinus, and lord Fabritius Per [] Matthew of Cingoli, as witnesses. I, Joas Baptist de Parentibus, public notary of Cingoli by Apostolic authority, of the diocese of Osimo, being asked concerning the premises for assurance, have subscribed myself, and published it, being required, in faith.*

In the place of the ✠ sign. Thus far one manuscript.

[28] Certain travellers, in a night of storm and tempest Receive the instrument which follows, drawn out in a separate copy: In the names of God and of His most glorious Mother Mary, amen. In the year of the Lord 1635, the third Indiction, our most holy lord Urban VIII, Pontiff Best and Greatest, sitting, and on the 14th day of the month of April of the said year. In the presence of me the notary and of the witnesses written below, being present in person, the illustrious lord John Dominic Bertuccius of Cingoli, of the age of forty-eight years, as he himself asserted, and as is also discerned from his aspect, who [] not by force, guile etc., but for the truth of the fact, and by his oath, having touched etc., deposed, namely: When about fifteen or sixteen years ago (this attestation again is in Italian) in the month of December, in the company of lord Accurtius Cappellettus and Luke Lucidus of Cingoli, I was journeying from Matelica (a town of the March of Ancona) to Cingoli, taking my way over the mountain of S. Vicinus, a most violent storm of snow and wind arose along the road, so that, by reason of the difficulty of the mountainous way and the inclemency of the tempest, night came rushing on while we had come to the slopes of the mountain, which are very rough.*

[29] caught among the precipices, And when now thick darkness lay upon us, and the storm and foul tempest grew ever stronger, and we had strayed from the path, we were caught among the rocks and precipices of the said mountain, through which even by day passage is impossible, and with the snows reaching up to our knees, we at last so failed in strength and were so overwhelmed by the storm and by fear of the precipices, that all three of us began to believe that we must die there forthwith; and therefore each was commending his soul to God, while silently weighing at the same time whether in this last peril the one might confess his faults to the other. While in this state I was begging of the above-named Luke Lucidus, my gossip (or friend []), that, if he should escape that peril alive, he would be pleased to hold my children and my household commended to him, he then answered in this manner: Come, brother, let us not doubt, let us but take courage; I trust in the blessed God that, through the patronage of the glorious holy Sperandea, our protectress, to whom I have commended myself, and whom I pray that you too, after the example of the others, may likewise commend yourselves to, He will lead us to a place of safety of which it never entered our thought.*

[30] the Saint being invoked, All of us therefore commending ourselves to the said Saint, that thick darkness suddenly seemed to be somewhat lessened, and a broad and level way appeared; and the said Luke added: Come, let us walk by this way until it grow light; and presently, entering upon the said way, all we three above-named, and one mare which I had brought with me, went forward with such ease that we experienced no trouble or inconvenience, until we came to a certain little fortified town of the city of S. Severinus (in the same March) called Ficano; whence, being taught the fitting road, we went on to another little town called Frontale, situated not very far from Ficano, in which town the uncle (or father's brother, in Italian Zio) of the said lord Accurtius Cappellettus was rector of the church of that same town, by whom we were received and refreshed, giving thanks to the blessed God for the benefit received through the intercession of S. Sperandea.

[31] they escape in a wonderful manner. For indeed, since we had been caught among those precipices in which no path lies open, we weighed the matter and believed that we had escaped thence miraculously, that way being laid out so broad and level (which in reality is not there, nor can be) that we and the aforesaid mare might walk along it so commodiously — which mare was blinded by the ice and the violence of the stormy tempest, and never afterwards beheld the light. After these things, having returned to Cingoli, I took care that some Masses should be said in the chapel of the said S. Sperandea, where her sacred body is even now kept, in thanksgiving. But when afterwards I had several times gone for the sake of hunting to the aforesaid town of Ficano, and had considered those rocks, precipices and the danger which on the aforesaid night I had undergone with the said lord Accurtius, I was filled with horror and amazement; and having weighed the manner in which we had escaped, I gave thanks to God, and related it also to the other hunters. Thus John Dominic Bertuccius in Italian; to which the notary subjoined in Latin: Done in the land of Cingoli in the great square, there being present the illustrious and most excellent lord Frederick Simonettus, Doctor of both Laws, and the illustrious lord Victorius Clavonius of Cingoli, as witnesses had for the aforesaid. And I, Consalvus Leoncinus of Cingoli, notary by public and Apostolic authority, being asked concerning the premises, have here subscribed myself, and published it, and set my sign and my name to it, being asked and required.

sonnetti*

perhaps Joes*

perhaps Ser*

perhaps quia*

in Italian compare*

§ III. Other miracles obtained in the same century.

[ ] The daughter of the marquis Silvester, I go on to recount the remaining miracles authentically taken down. They are written in Italian likewise, except the usual clauses of the notaries, which, as we have observed in the preceding, are in Latin. When in the year 1631 the most illustrious young lady Magdalen, daughter of the most illustrious lord marquis Frederick Silvester of Cingoli and of the most illustrious lady marchioness Catharine Malespina, of about six years of age, was labouring grievously from a certain hidden wound about the heart, and her said lord parents had striven to procure her health by the most excellent remedies and by the art of eminent physicians, yet they saw no profit made; nay, the ailment

by growing came to such a pass that the physicians despaired of the same young lady's life, and believed that it was all over with her.

[33] While therefore no remedy for her health remained to them, a vow being made by her father, the aforesaid lord marquis, her father, by divine inspiration lifting his eyes to heaven, together with the most illustrious and most reverend lord Raymund Silvester, Prior of Seti [*], his own brother, had recourse to the patronage of the glorious S. Sperandea, protectress of Cingoli, and without any delay interposed hastened to her church, and bending his knees at the coffer in which the holy body is kept incorrupt, besought with prayers the longed-for safety of his said daughter, at that time almost his only one, vowing that he would hang up in her chapel a silver lamp which at his own charges should burn perpetually in honour of the Saint. This done, and many prayers poured forth, relying on the Saint's patronage, he returned to his palace, and entering the chamber of his dear daughter, found her miraculously very much better: and in fact after a few days from thence she came away free from all ill, and by the help of God and the patronage of holy Sperandea perfectly obtained entire health.

[34] Hence, for the fulfilling of the vow, a silver lamp was hung up in the Saint's chapel, is freed from a grievous ailment; which burns daily and shall always burn at the charges of the same most illustrious lord marquis; who, standing before me the notary and the witnesses written below, attests with an oath, administered to him by me, that all these things are true, and gives assurance of it to the glory and honour of S. Sperandea, protectress of Cingoli. On this 3rd day of November 1648. Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the palace of the said most illustrious lord marquis Frederick Silvester, situated in the quarter of S. Lucy, next to the streets on every side etc., there being present M. Vincent, son of John Baptist Froppus, and M. Mannus, son of the late Michelangelo Cetoronus, of Cingoli, as witnesses to these things etc. I, Alexander de Bernardis of Cingoli, of the diocese of Osimo, public notary by Apostolic authority, and enrolled in the archive of the Lord, being asked concerning the aforesaid, wrote and published it, and fortified it with my accustomed sign, being required.

[35] on occasion of this, another miracle is reported. On occasion of this benefit conferred upon the aforesaid most illustrious Magdalen de Silvestris, it may be of service to have noted here a few things out of Horatio Avicenna concerning that illustrious family. He, in his Monuments of the city of Cingoli, page 371, relates that another miracle befell a certain Eurialus Galeranus de Silvestris, perhaps one of that Magdalen's forebears, in this manner, in Italian words: A certain very pious narrative must not be passed over by me, lest I defraud the glory of the Servants of God of its due remembrance. There has been handed down to posterity the memory of a certain miracle wrought for the above-named Eurialus (Galeranus Silvester, as he had premised): for to him, in his youthful age, when he was in peril of his life to the common sorrow and displeasure of all, on a certain morning, while he now seemed about to die, they say that S. Sperandea appeared, and said that he should keep and increase the integrity of his life and his piety toward God and the most blessed Virgin and the other holy patrons, and should fear nothing of evil; and that the same man shortly after suddenly recovered from his disease to such a degree that within a few hours he enjoyed better health than ever at any other time. Then, after some things, the same writer adds that the said family de Silvestris always piously sought the protection of the same Saint, and down to the very day on which he was writing had often happily enjoyed it. Hence perhaps our Magdalen's father learned to have recourse to her with so great confidence. These things being observed, receive another instrument.

[36] The great toe of the foot to be cut off on the morrow, The lady Spica, wife of John Revellonus of Cingoli, of the age, as she asserted, of about forty years, who by means etc., gave assurance, deposed and affirmed as follows, namely: Know that, twenty years having precisely elapsed this last past month of August, the great toe of my right foot was seized with a certain ailment, to which, after I had at that time applied many remedies, all in vain, at last lord Sperandini, surgeon of this place, said that it must be cut off, and that no other remedy remained. And when he had come in the evening to cut it off, I begged that he would put it off to the morrow. He himself consented: but I on that night earnestly commended myself to S. Sperandea, protectress of this land; and straightway it seemed to me that the ailment of the said toe had abated, and I fell asleep.

[37] healed in the night: But on the morrow morning, being about to visit the church and the body of the same S. Sperandea, I went thither on foot, and having tarried there almost till late in the day, I then returned home likewise on my own feet; and from that time, from which the toe pained me no more, but I was always sound and free from that ailment, I ascribed my health to the blessed God through the intercession of the said Saint. And to a fitting interrogation (they are the notary's words) she answered: The said ailment arose from a certain bruise; but the surgeon told me that the ailment had grown strong, and he was treating it as deadly. And having weighed the pain with which I was afflicted, I had been brought to permit the toe to be cut off; but through the grace of God and of holy Sperandea that, as I have said, was not needful. Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the house of the said lady Spica and of John Revellonus her husband, in the quarter of S. Nicholas, next to etc., there being present Bernabeus Rubinus and John Pulidorus of Cingoli, as witnesses etc., on the said day, and forthwith. No year or day appears in this copy, either because it is to be referred to some preceding instrument, or because those notes were by chance passed over. In the manuscript of Father Clement Silvester, already elsewhere cited, I have found the year 1621 and the month of August set down, by which the time at which the miracle happened seems to be expressed; and since the present instrument was drawn up, from what is said above, in the twenty-first year after the miracle was obtained, it will consequently have to be referred to the year 1642.

[38] The above-named lady Spica, being present in person before etc., a long-standing pain of the head driven away: as above etc., by means etc., affirmed: Another time, about eighteen years ago, completed from the last Christmas of our Lord, when I was labouring grievously with a pain of the head and a slight fever, and it was not permitted me, because I was with child, to try remedies, and I had now for five months together been unable to sleep, the lady Victoria Caballini urged me to have the pillow of S. Sperandea brought; but I, being zealous for that Saint, bade the pillow be sought at once; and when it had presently been brought, I laid my head upon it, and fell asleep, and the pain suddenly ceased and I came away plainly free, giving thanks to God and to blessed S. Sperandea for the benefit received. Concerning which etc. Done where, and in the presence of the witnesses, as above.

[39] In the name of God. In the year and on the day aforesaid etc. Before the above-named (or the undersigned, a blind woman for the word is doubtful and contracted) the very reverend Fathers, the rural vicar and the prior of S. Dominic, and before us etc., being present in person, the lady Camilla, wife of Sanctis Sanctutius of the village of Momodiolo, of the Commune of Cingoli, who by means etc. deposed and affirmed: Know that on the very day of S. Mary of August (that is, on the feast of the Assumption of the B. Virgin Mary, which falls on the 15th day of the month of August) of the past year 1640 the sight of one eye began to fail me; and on the day of S. Mary of September (the 8th day of this month, on which the Nativity of the same most holy Virgin is celebrated) in the same year the light of the other eye also began to fail, and I was shortly wholly blinded, so that I saw nothing at all. Which blindness of the eyes lasted three months, within which time, with a certain little daughter of mine as my guide, I went several times through Cingoli to consult a physician and a surgeon, whether any wholesome remedy could be applied to me: and the one indeed advised this, the other that; but I applied none, for the reason that this one counselled me to apply what the other dissuaded.

[40] Therefore, the said three months having elapsed in blindness, which always persisted, sight restored: on a certain day I came to the monastery of S. Sperandea, which is outside and near to the town of Cingoli, and dealt with the (portress, I suppose, since the word is doubtful) of the said monastery, who, seeming to grieve much at my ailment, summoned the mother abbess; and she, likewise grieving greatly for my case, persuaded me to commend myself earnestly to S. Sperandea, saying that she wished to touch my eyes with some relic of the same Saint; (I know not, I say, whether she said: with her veil, or with her shift) as afterwards, having gone out to seek the said relics and returned, she applied them to me before some of the nuns, who were reciting the Our Father and Hail Mary, and other prayers I know not what, etc.: but I with all humility, devotion and fervour commended myself to the said Saint, and vowed that, if I should be restored to soundness, I would offer there a pair of eyes of silver. After these things, with my said daughter as guide, I returned home. But in the evening, while my aforesaid little daughter was lighting the lamp, by the grace of God and of holy Sperandea I saw the brightness of the light, and on the following morning I likewise began to see, and always improving, I perfectly recovered my sight, which thenceforward never failed me; and I paid my vow: which may redound to the glory of God and of His Saints, etc. Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the church of S. Nicholas, next to etc., there being present John Pulidorus and Angelus, son of Ricci Joannotius, of Cingoli, as witnesses etc.

[41] an infant is freed from a trembling of the head: In the name of God, amen. On the said day etc. The lady Piera, wife of Arminius the spindle-maker of Cingoli, being present in person before the above-written, the very illustrious and very reverend lord rural vicar and the very reverend Father Prior of S. Dominic, and before us etc., by the mediation etc., affirmed and deposed as follows. I ought truly to say that about seven years ago, while on the solemnity of the Translation of the holy House of Loreto the suppliant procession was going round Cingoli, and I, carrying in my arms a little child of two years, stood by as a spectator, several discharges of muskets were made, at which that child trembled, and thereafter a certain trembling clung to it, and it always nodded with its head up and down while it slept, and its eyes were turned back. After this trembling and fault of the eyes had persisted for three months, I vowed it to S. Sperandea; and when I had brought the same twice or thrice to the coffer of the aforesaid Saint, it was healed and wholly freed both from the said trembling and from the distorted sight; and in thanksgiving I offered a wax torch to the Saint. Concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the house of me etc., situated in the quarter of S. Jerome, next to etc., M. Laurence, of Cingoli, as witnesses: (here the name of one or more witnesses is omitted.) I, John Baptist de Parentibus, notary, being asked.

[42] she appears to a man sick of a fever In the name of God, amen. In the year of the Lord 1641, the ninth Indiction, and on the 7th day of November… Master Basil Rubinus of Cingoli, of the age of about eighty years, as he asserted, being present in person before the aforesaid very illustrious and very reverend Father John Baptist … (here something has dropped out)

Prior of S. Dominic of this land, and before us the notary and witnesses etc., by the mediation etc., said, deposed and affirmed as follows, namely: When many years ago (for I do not precisely remember the time) I was labouring under a fever, and had been long afflicted with that ailment, after various medicines had been applied to no purpose, being brought almost to death, having made confession of my sins and been refreshed with the most holy Viaticum, I commended myself with the utmost fervour and devotion to S. Sperandea, protectress of Cingoli, and for that cause took care that a certain priest, called lord Eusebius Simoncellus, at that time confessor of the nuns of the said monastery of the aforesaid S. Sperandea, should be sent for with the veil of the same Saint; which confessor, when he had come, covered me with the veil or mantle of S. Sperandea, and then went away to carry back the veil, and straightway withdrew.

[43] and heals him But to me, lying with my eyes closed, yet not sleeping, S. Sperandea appeared, bending her knees and joining her hands toward an image of the B. Virgin Mary set above the door of the chamber in which I lay; and on a sudden she disappeared. But I straightway began to recover, and in a short time, through the benefit of God and of the said Saint, to whom I give perpetual thanks, I came away, as has been said, free and sound. Being asked (they are the notary's words) how he knew that the holy Sperandea had appeared to him at the said time, he answered: I knew that S. Sperandea had then appeared to me, because she who appeared to me was clothed in that habit which the nuns of S. Sperandea use, and thereafter I straightway began to be better, and was healed, as I said above etc. Then concerning which etc. Done at Cingoli in the shop of the said master Basil Rubinus, outside and near the land, in [] Cingoli in the Borough of S. Mary Major, next to etc., there being present Antony Maria, son of master Clement, and John Ambrose Pulidorus of Cingoli, as witnesses etc. I, John Baptist de Parentibus, public notary of Cingoli by Apostolic authority, of the diocese of Osimo, and deputed for the present business by the said lord rural vicar, being asked concerning the premises, subscribed myself and published it, being required, in faith.*

di Seti*

in* is superfluous

§ IV. The remaining miracles, or benefits conferred through the invocation of the same Saint, in the same century.

[ ] A boy afflicted with a fistula, The instruments which remain are written in the same manner as the former, namely in Italian, and subscribed in Latin by the notaries. The first of these, which I subjoin, was drawn up at Rome, and is of this kind: I, Margaret Maccaria Zitti, a Roman, do by the present instrument depose in truth, and by the vow made to Bl. Sperandea of Cingoli testify, how that I, while I was staying in the said place with Felix Antony Zitti, my nephew, a boy of seven years, and he was suffering a fistula in his left haunch, of the healing of which the surgeons and physicians despaired, brought him to the sepulchre of the said Blessed one, and vowed him to her, that she might obtain from God his health and deliverance from an incurable ailment of this kind: from that day the boy began to be better, and in a short time wholly recovered and was healed, as though he had never been seized with so dangerous and grievous an ailment.

[45] Wherefore I, acknowledging this so great grace of the Blessed one as an evident miracle, through the Saint's obtained from the Lord God through her holy intercession, do attest it by this instrument, and in faith of the truth have subscribed the present with my own hand, before the notary and witnesses written below, whom also I will to receive my oath concerning those things to which I have testified, to the honour and glory of God, and to the exaltation of blessed Sperandea, whom I most humbly pray that she may deign to be perpetually the patroness and protectress of me and of my household. I, Margaret Zitti, depose and affirm these things above said with my own hand. Thus far she herself in Italian; but what is subjoined are the notary's words, drawn up in Latin.

[46] invocation In the name of the Lord, amen. By the present public instrument let it be evidently open to all everywhere, and be known, that in the year from the Nativity of the same our Lord Jesus Christ 1644, the twelfth Indiction, and on the 22nd day of the month of January, and in the 21st year of the Pontificate of the most holy Father in the same Christ and our lord, lord Urban, by divine Providence Pope VIII. In the presence of me the public notary, and of the witnesses [] written below, called, had and asked for all and singular the things above said, being present and present in person, being required by me, lady Margaret Maccaria de Zittis, a Roman, known to me, of her own accord etc., and in every better manner etc., by the mediation etc., acknowledged and does acknowledge her own true hand, letters, characters and subscription in form, and said and declared and affirmed that all and singular the things contained and expressed in the present sheet were and are true etc., and so, having touched etc., she swore.*

[47] is freed. Concerning all and singular which premises it was asked of me the public notary written below, asked concerning the aforesaid, that I should draw up and deliver one or more public instrument or instruments, yet without the substance of the truth being changed, as shall be needful, and as I shall be required. Done at Rome in the Region of Arenula and at the house of the said lady Margaret, there being present … lord Peter Vallettus, son of the late John Matthew of Settia, and lord Marianus Manens, son of the late Leonard of the Abbey of S. Salvator, as witnesses called, had … and asked for all and singular. I, Dominic Scoppius, of Sabina and a citizen of Rome, present notary of the causes of the Capitoline court for this instrument, being asked concerning the premises, subscribed and published the present instrument, being required, all things etc. To these finally is added yet another instrument, by which the credit and lawful authority of Scoppius is established; but I have deemed it by no means necessary to transcribe that here also, and therefore I go on to other things.

[48] she succours a woman suffering from childbirth: The last manuscript that remains contains various miracles or benefits, copied, as I suppose, out of some Diary; but from whom it came to us does not appear, nor does it bear any title, whence I have some suspicion that some part of it may have perished for us. However that may be, receive it from the Italian in Latin: In the month of February of the year 1638 the lady Lucretia Leonardi of Verona, lying most grievously sick after childbirth, the physicians despairing of her safety, vowed to visit S. Sperandea and to carry thither a tablet: and the said lady, being freed on that condition, came to Cingoli to visit the said Saint, and gave due thanks, and hung up the aforesaid vow, or tablet. The tablet of which mention is here made was doubtless a painting, which was hung up by way of a votive offering and as a memorial of the benefit received.

[49] she drives away ailments of the legs: likewise she helps a woman in labour: In the month of June of the year 1638 Dominica Tercirola of Verona had suffered for three years together in both legs, when, being abandoned by the physicians, she had recourse to the patronage of S. Sperandea, and came away free and sound. At Verona in the month of October in the year 1638 one of the legs of Margaret Malpiera was affected with an incurable ailment, and the physicians had urged that she should suffer it to be cut off: but she made a vow to S. Sperandea, and was freed, and sent a silver votive offering to the said Saint. At Verona on the 24th day of February 1642 the lady Angela Ratis, being unable to bring forth her child, and at the point of death from the bitterness of her pains, when she had invoked S. Sperandea and commended herself to her prayers, related that she had been beheld by her at that time clothed in a black garment; and presently she brought forth a male child.

[50] Lord Luke Antony Squarcia related two miracles in the words written below: she heals a man sick of a fever; I, Luke Antony Squarcia, attest in truth, and give assurance, how that in the year 1642, when Laura, my daughter, was most grievously sick of a fever, so that she had now been brought to the last extremity without any hope of safety, of which the physicians despaired, I and the lady Cleofa, my wife, perceiving that human helps did not suffice, had recourse suddenly to the divine. And because there had come to our knowledge the infinite graces and miracles which my Lord God works continually through the merits and intercession of Bl. Sperandea of Cingoli, in the diocese of Osimo, having made a vow we commended her to the patronage of the same, through which the same little daughter of mine afterwards recovered her former health by the divine mercy; and after these things she came to venerate the sacred body of the said Blessed one, for the sake of giving due thanks.

[51] Finally in the year 1643, in the month of December, a catarrh seized me, she restores contracted limbs: and from it, since it was a kind of gout, I came away contracted and stricken from the middle of the body downwards. And when I found no remedy for my ailment, I had recourse anew to the help and intercession of Bl. Sperandea, and obtained a second grace from the Lord God; for in a single moment, as it were, I was restored to my former health, and therefore with my whole household I hastened to give due thanks to the aforesaid Bl. Sperandea, and to visit and venerate her glorious body. He who drew out our manuscript observed here the following, to give assurance: Of the two miracles above said there is extant a public instrument drawn up by lord John Baptist Casalis, notary, on the 10th day of January 1646 at Loreto. Then follows the testimony of another on the same subject, conceived in these words in Italian: And I, Mark Antony Mazzalvelli, at present confessor of the nuns of S. Sperandea, was present when the said lord Luke Antony came with his household to give thanks, and saw him weeping from tender affection.

[52] In the year 1644, in the month of November, Fabius, son of John James Rocchetta, of Cingoli, lying most grievously sick of a fever, likewise she takes away a fever from another. and his safety being now despaired of, imploring the patronage of the most blessed Virgin Mary and of holy Sperandea, enjoyed the health he desired. He had vowed that, when he should return to Cingoli, he would bring a tablet (or a picture as witness of the miracle) to the Saint: he returned, and brought the tablet, and gave the Saint her deserved thanks.

[53] There remains one benefit conferred upon John Casimir, son of Sigismund III, king of Poland, by Constance of Austria, John Casimir of Poland, at that time a Religious of the Society of Jesus, but afterwards Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and finally, after the death of his brother Vladislaus, king of Poland, and confirmed by the testimony of the same when already Cardinal. Further, our instrument, written partly again in Latin, partly in Italian, is of this kind. In the name of God, amen. This is the copy, exemplar, or transcript, of a certain assurance given by the Most Serene Cardinal and prince of Poland and Sweden concerning a certain grace received from S. Sperandea, being at Cingoli, into the hands of the very reverend Mother, lady Agnes de Simonettis, at present abbess of the venerable monastery of the same S. Sperandea, and delivered to me the notary written below to the effect of being registered in the present book.

[54] of the Society of Jesus, The tenor of which assurance is such, namely: Whereas Father John Casimir, then of the Society of Jesus, now the most serene Cardinal and prince of Poland and Sweden, was held in the month of August of the year 1645 by a long and dangerous infirmity in the villa of S. Jerome, a place of the holy House of Loreto, the veil of S. Sperandea was sent to him from Cingoli by the lady Delia Maria Silvestri; with which, when he had been covered amid various prayers to the Saint,

and had determined that, if he should be restored to health, he would come to her sacred sepulchre, there to be refreshed with the most holy Eucharist and to pay the Saint her deserved thanks, His Highness was, beyond all hope and beyond the expectation of the physicians, freed within a few days from the fever with which he had laboured for three months without any intermission at all.

[55] is freed from a fever. Wherefore, as he had promised, coming to Cingoli on the 29th day of September of the same year 1645, he heard Mass and was refreshed with the most holy Sacrament at the sepulchre of the said S. Sperandea, and was filled with solace and wonder while he beheld that sacred body (of S. Sperandea) entire, and tender, and soft. And in faith of this thing His Highness on this 24th day of October of the year 1646 subscribed the present instrument with his own hand and fortified it with his seal. J. C. P., Cardinal of Poland. The seal being omitted, in place of which the ✠. Which copy I, Alexander de Bernardis of Cingoli, of the diocese of Osimo, public notary by Apostolic authority, enrolled in the archive of the Roman court, and at present notary of the rural district of the same land of Cingoli, have drawn out and transcribed word for word from its own original, and, a collation being made, have found to agree with it. Therefore I wrote and published it, and fortified it with my accustomed sign, being required, on this 11th day of the month of January 1647.

[56] Certain things concerning the Saint's miracles These are the things which I have found laid aside for this day concerning the miracles of the holy Abbess Sperandea. The reader will perhaps wonder that none of those which happened in the centuries between the thirteenth and the seventeenth were transmitted to my Predecessors; for it is not sufficiently likely that none happened in all that space of years. I know not whether I should here accuse the iniquity of the times or the negligence and carelessness of the writers: yet if the lawful cult of the Saint had been called into doubt before the seventeenth century, I scarcely doubt that more miracles would have had to be committed to writing; for as in the thirteenth century they were diligently collected for the establishing of the Saint's cult, so, that cult having been happily vindicated, we see them more accurately written down in the seventeenth century.

[57] and her cult are observed. For the rest, we do not doubt that, besides those which we have given, others perhaps even more numerous were conferred upon various persons: for Father Henry Lindanus of the Society of Jesus, in a letter given at Loreto in the year 1649 to my Predecessors, writes that silver votive offerings for benefits received had been offered in the Saint's chapel to the number of fifteen hundred, and a huge store of tapers besides, but that tablets witnessing to benefits were to be seen without number. He adds that men run together to venerate the sacred body of the same Virgin, often by Prelates and by pilgrims almost daily, and that every week seven or eight votive Masses in her honour are celebrated here and there; all which things plainly manifest both the celebrated cult of the Saint and her beneficent mind toward the wretched.

testiumque*