ON ST. SILVINUS OR SYLVINUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT VERONA IN ITALY.
A COLLECTION
Silvinus or Sylvinus, bishop and confessor, at Verona in Italy (St.)
C. S.
His memory in the martyrologies: Of the holy bishops of Verona — whom Luigi Lipomanus, bishop of Verona, in the preface prefixed to tom. 4 of the Lives of the Saints, asserts to be honored, thirty-three of them, with anniversary feasts and solemn Masses; while Agostino Valerio, likewise prelate of the same see, in the Ancient Monuments of the holy bishops of that city, from the old Martyrology of the cathedral church and from other suitable documents, enumerates thirty-six — many we have already given in our work; and today in the Roman Martyrology there occurs St. Silvinus, in these words: At Verona, of St. Silvinus the bishop, the aforecited most illustrious Valerio being praised in the notes. Baronius had already been preceded by Galesinius, who in his Martyrology, from the same Valerio, says: At Verona, of St. Silvinus, bishop and confessor. Following these, Ferrari and Castellanus inserted the same saint, the latter into his Universal Martyrology, the former into his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy.
[2] That no Life of him exists, at least none worthy of the press, A brief eulogy of the saint: we gather from Lipomanus praised above, who for that reason abstained from narrating the deeds of him and of the other holy bishops of Verona, as he testifies in the same preface. The most illustrious Valerio, however, and those who with him gathered the mentioned Monuments, hand down a brief eulogy of St. Silvinus in these words: Silvinus, bishop of Verona, always labored greatly in delivering Christian doctrine. By his industry he brought it about that he converted to the faith of Christ a great part of the city which was estranged from Christian piety. The man of God never seemed more glad than when he was bestowing alms upon the poor; he was so given to fastings and prayers that he seemed to delight in them as in certain delights. He died on the day before the Ides of September, called by the Lord by a sudden death, and was buried in the basilica of St. Stephen. A similar eulogy may be read in Ughelli, tom. 5 of Italia sacra, col. 695, and in Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, from Valerio, who seems to have put it together from the documents praised at no. 1.
[3] Of the age in which the saint flourished, nothing certain
can be established: his date uncertain. for the catalogues of the bishops of Verona are so uncertain in that part that Onofrio Panvinio in the Antiquities of that city, book 4, chapter 7, chose rather to weave together the bare names of many prelates — among which that of St. Silvinus also occurs — from a Calendar of uncertain time and place, in alphabetical order, than to guess at their sequence and date. For who succeeded whom is unknown (he says); the times also in which each lived — except six, whom I shall set forth in their own places and centuries — and the deeds of each, are most obscure and uncertain. These matters, by reason of excessive antiquity and the fatal sloth of our forefathers, have been overwhelmed by the darkness of age. So he. But Ughelli, praised just now, wove a sequence of them all, according to which St. Silvinus would have to be referred to the fifth century; but on what foundation this rests is not clear to me, and therefore concerning the age in which the saint lived I prefer to establish nothing.
[4] He is venerated with a double Office: For the cultus of St. Silvinus and of the other holy prelates of the same see the same most illustrious Valerio brings forward various monuments and authors, of which I bring forward one or two from which the cultus may be sufficiently established. He recites a synodal constitution made in the year 1503 on the fifteenth day of February, in which it is said: We will, establish, ordain, and, strictly commanding in virtue of holy obedience, enjoin that the aforesaid most holy thirty-six bishops (among whom St. Silvinus is numbered), named below by name, and each of them on his own days written below, be celebrated devoutly, solemnly, and inviolably under a venerable double ecclesiastical Office throughout all the churches of this city and diocese of Verona, and by ecclesiastical persons of both sexes, of whatsoever grade, state, order, dignity, and condition they be, in all future times, year by year. He recites also another decree, of Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona, who flourished in the same century, by which it is enjoined upon all religious of both sexes of the same city and diocese who are bound to the canonical Hours, that they celebrate the same feasts, on the same days as the cathedral church, likewise with a double Office, henceforth every year.
[5] his body in the church of St. Peter, Of the day of his cultus and the place where the saint's body was kept in his own time, he says these things on folio 11 verso: The body of St. Sylvinus, bishop of Verona, rests in the church of St. Peter in the citadel, as from the synodal constitution at the twelfth day of September, and from the Martyrology of the Brothers of the Order of Preachers at the same day. And so, since above at no. 2 the same most illustrious writer said that the mentioned body had been buried in the basilica of St. Stephen, it must be that it was translated thence to St. Peter's; but at what time, or on what occasion, I have found handed down by no one. There is kept indeed in the aforesaid church of St. Stephen the body of St. Salvinus, likewise bishop of Verona, who has been inserted into the Roman Martyrology at the twelfth day of October, on which he is also venerated at Verona; but they hand down that he is distinct from St. Silvinus.