Mamilianus

ON ST. MAMILIANUS, BISHOP OF PALERMO,

IN A CERTAIN ISLAND OF THE ETRUSCAN SEA.

More probably the fifth century.

A HISTORICO-CRITICAL COLLECTION.

Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo, on a certain island of the Etruscan sea. (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The Saint's name in the more recent Calendars and his cult on various days: the greater part of his body at Sovana in Tuscany, some parts in other places.

[ ] Of St. Mamilianus the bishop, Ottavio Caietano and Filippo Ferrari treat on various days in their Calendars. The Saint's memory in the sacred Calendars on various days The former on the fifteenth of September has thus: At Palermo, of St. Mamilianus, bishop and martyr, at the beginning of the principate of Constantine the Great. He cites for these the records of the church of Palermo and of Sovana in Tuscany. Ferrari in the general Catalogue on the same day records this of Mamilianus: At Sovana in Tuscany, of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo. But in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he celebrates Mamilianus with a fuller elogium on the fifth of September, perhaps by a mere lapse of memory; for there too in the index the fifteenth is assigned. Among the supplements of Sollerius's Usuard the memory of Mamilianus the confessor is celebrated without the place in the Vatican codex on the thirteenth of September, as also in the Hieronymians in Florentinius, to be cited more fully in §3. On the sixteenth of June Caietano again has this about St. Mamilianus: At Sovana, a city of Tuscany, the first finding of the body of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo, as was observed by us on that day among the Passed Over. Of St. Mamilianus the Roman Martyrology makes no mention; Baronius, however, in the Annotations on it, on the tenth of November, makes mention of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo, as having died at Sovana in Tuscany and been buried there. On the same day of June Castellan inserted Mamilianus into the Martyrologium universale.

[2] Again, on the nineteenth of April Caietano treats of St. Mamilianus, are announced; and also, as it seems, on the twelfth of March at Rome; writing thus: At Sovana, a city of Tuscany, the second finding of the body of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo. Ferrari has exactly the same, as our predecessors noted among the Passed Over on that day. In the Roman Martyrology on the twelfth of March there is announced at Rome St. Mamilianus the martyr, of whom our predecessors also treated on the same day. Baronius believed that that Mamilianus was the same as St. Mamilianus, presbyter and martyr, of whom the Acts of St. Urban the Pope treat, published by us on the twenty-fifth of May. But that opinion is by no means certain: for that Mamilianus is commemorated by the more ancient writers without the place, so that the more recent seem to have announced him at Rome on account of his cult rather than

because they knew that he was crowned with martyrdom at Rome. If, however, some have believed that Mamilianus suffered at Rome on the twelfth of March, as we shall see that certain others afterwards wrote, their opinion seems to have been conceived only from uncertain conjectures. Further, at Rome in the church of Blessed Mary of Monte Celio, on the twelfth of March, St. Mamilianus is venerated as bishop and martyr, as I shall show below, when I treat of the relics of St. Mamilianus preserved there. Wherefore I do not see that it can be doubted that Maurolico, Galesini, Baronius, and most of the other more recent writers meant to designate that Mamilianus who is venerated at Rome in the said church on that very day on which he is announced.

[3] although a certain Maximilian suffered on the same day in Africa. Him Galesini and Baronius, as I said, believed to be St. Mamilianus the presbyter, the companion of St. Urban the Pope, and mentioned in his Acts. But that Mamilianus was a presbyter; whereas he who is venerated on the twelfth of March is held and venerated as a bishop, nay, is even believed to have been bishop of Palermo. Therefore I altogether judge that the more recent martyrologists are treating of St. Mamilianus the bishop, although they omitted the title of bishop, whether they did this because they had no sufficient knowledge of the Saint, or for some other cause. Mabillon in volume 4 of the Analecta, page 566, published the Acts of Maximilian, who suffered on the same twelfth day of March in the year 295 at Tebessa in Numidia, because he refused military service, which he thought unlawful for himself as a Christian; but in the Annotations he says: The name of this Maximilian I do not find in the Martyrologies. Ruinart reprinted the same Acts in the *Genuine Acts of the Martyrs*, page 300, and there judges that he is commemorated by Ado and Notker, but that Mamilianus has been substituted for Maximilian the African. Of the same opinion are Tillemont, volume 4 of the Monuments, in Maximilian; Baillet on the twelfth of March; Castellan in the Martyrologium universale; and Giorgi in the Annotations on Ado, both on the same day; nay, our Sollerius too departs little from that opinion in his Observations on Usuard. Their observation indeed appears plausible at first sight, and may be true of St. Maximilian, whom we have announced in Notker and Ado on the same day; but it does not concern Mamilianus, announced on account of his cult at Rome.

[4] As regards the various festivals, the fifteenth day of September is held for his birthday, The Saint's various festivals. because the Saint is believed to have died on that day. But on the sixteenth of June the first Finding of the body is celebrated, as also a second finding is commemorated on the nineteenth of April. Nevertheless this last finding of the body is no longer commemorated in the very recent Martyrology of Palermo, which was printed in the year 1742. Hence I gather that that festival either was never in use at Palermo, or was afterwards omitted. But in this new Martyrology another solemnity is commemorated, to be celebrated on the second Sunday of October, on account of the head — or some relics of the head — of the Saint received at Palermo in the year 1658. That Martyrology has thus: At Palermo, the translation of the head of St. Mamilianus, martyr, citizen, archbishop and principal patron of that city, which Alexander VII, Supreme Pontiff, granted to Pedro Martinez Rubio the archbishop to transfer from the Roman church of St. Mary of Monte Celio to Palermo, where in the year 1658, for the protection and adornment of the city, it was received with most magnificent pomp. In the same Martyrology two other festivals, namely the birthday on the fifteenth of September and the first Finding on the fourteenth of June, are announced in another way, as though there were two birthdays; because the author believed that there were two Mamiliani, both bishops, nay, even both citizens of Palermo, but the one a martyr, the other a confessor. But that opinion will be refuted below, and therefore I do not recite the very words of the Martyrology.

[5] As regards the relics of St. Mamilianus, the greater part of them is preserved at Sovana in Tuscany. The greater part of the body at Sovana in Tuscany: Now Sovana is indeed an episcopal city under the archbishop of Siena, but a very small one and almost deserted, situated in that part of Tuscany which formerly obeyed the republic of Siena, toward Papal Tuscany. Of the body and its finding Ottavio Caietano, in the *Animadversions on the Acts of the Sicilian Saints*, volume 1, page 120, writes thus: On my own initiative, when I was going over the coast of Siena and the diocese of Sovana on a mission for souls, an epigram cut in marble made known that the body of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo, had been found at Sovana in a church dedicated to his name: *Here lies the body of St. Mamilianus, bishop of Palermo.* Thence there arose in me a great desire of digging up the body, which report said was laid beneath the altar; and it was done by me with the permission of Metello Bichi, then bishop of Sovana, a most courteous and excellent man, who afterwards discharged the office of auditor in the court of Paul V, Supreme Pontiff. And so, the altar being opened by my own hands, the body of St. Mamilianus was found to the great joy of all; and I was permitted, with incredible gladness and an exulting mind, to handle, kiss and venerate the most sacred relics of our own Archbishop, long sought for by me. In the same city a crypt is shown, which I think to be that very one which was the dwelling, and afterwards the sepulchre, of the holy Martyrs. Thus he, concerning the relics of St. Mamilianus found at Sovana, where he believed that he died. But the place of his death will afterwards be more accurately examined by us.

[6] his head at Rome, Further, Caietano does not contend that the whole body of St. Mamilianus is preserved at Sovana, but presently records various things about several parts. First he says that the head is held at Rome in the church of Blessed Mary of Monte Celio, where at the altar there hangs a tablet which, he says, I read and transcribed. The words of the tablet he recites thus: In this altar are the bodies of SS. Mamilianus the bishop, Golbodeus, Astotius, Proculus, and Nympha, virgin and martyr. Then he recites an Antiphon and a Prayer found there concerning all those Martyrs, in this manner:

Antiphon. These are the Saints who for the love of God despised the threats of men; the holy Martyrs exult with the angels in the kingdom of heaven. O how precious is the death of the Saints, who stand before the Lord, and are not separated from one another.

℣ Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye just. ℞ And glory, all ye upright of heart.

We beseech thee, almighty God, that as thou dost continually gladden us by the commemoration of thy holy martyrs, Mamilianus the bishop, Golbodeus, Astotius and Proculus, and Nympha the virgin, so thou wouldst always defend us by their supplication. Through our Lord, etc. Then Caietano observes that not the whole body is held there, but only the head, which after the manner of our forefathers was called a body. In confirmation he attests this: I myself saw, when I was staying in the City, several bones mingled together, laid up in a vessel of glass, with the inscription of the holy martyrs Golbodeus, Proculus and Eustotius; and separately the heads of the holy Mamilianus and Nympha, enclosed in gilded wooden cases. Thus far Caietano.

[7] in the church of Blessed Mary of Monte Celio, Piazza in the Hemerologium sacrum on the twelfth of March, and Martinelli in Roma sacra, page 229, treat of the body of St. Mamilianus preserved in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio; but neither attributes to him the title of bishop, much less of bishop of Palermo. Nay, Panciroli, older than both, in his Italian Work on the Hidden Treasures of the City of Rome, page 748, treating of the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio, commonly Monticelli, asserts that in it is held the body of St. Mamilianus the martyr, translated thither from some cemetery. And he adds: Of him, however, we have nothing else than that he was crowned with martyrdom at Rome on the twelfth of March. These things would rather suggest that there is preserved in that church the body of St. Mamilianus, a Roman martyr, rather than the body or head of some Mamilianus bishop of Palermo. Besides, in the writers cited no mention is made of the other martyrs whose relics Caietano attests are preserved in the same church. Nevertheless that what Caietano says is true, both as to the title of bishop given to St. Mamilianus in that church, and as to the head alone being preserved there, is clearly shown from an instrument afterwards drawn up, and to be recited at number 9, when a part of that head was translated to Palermo. Therefore it must be said that the three writers alleged did not use so great diligence in inquiring into what pertains to St. Mamilianus and his relics preserved in the aforesaid church as Caietano used.

[8] But he, concerning the relics of St. Mamilianus, whom he judges to be bishop of Palermo, a little after subjoins the following: other relics on the islands of Giglio and Elba For indeed the head of St. Mamilianus is at Rome in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio; one of his arms on the island of Giglio, the other on the neighbouring island of Elba; but at Sovana the greatest part of the body is preserved in a church dedicated to his name. The islands here mentioned, Igilium, otherwise Ægilium, and commonly called Giglio, and Ilua, otherwise Elba, are in the Etruscan sea not very far from the mainland, and near to one another. Filippo Ferrari in the *Catalogue of the Saints of Italy*, on the fifth of September, says in his Annotations: From the records of the church of Sovana it appears that he (St. Mamilianus) died on the island of Dianium *, was buried on the neighbouring island of Ægilium, and that thence the body, an arm being left there, was translated in the pontificate of Pius II, Supreme Pontiff. I do not know how certain are those things which the writers cited hand down about the relics preserved on the islands of Giglio and Elba, so that I think the credit of the whole matter must be left with them.

[9] It is more certain that a part of the head, which at least for the greater part was preserved in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio, a part of the head which was preserved at Rome, as we saw at number 6, was in the year 1658 translated to Palermo, and there received with great gladness and with the highest honour. The delivery of these relics was made at Rome on the seventeenth day of October of the year 1657, as is clear from the Acts written by a notary, which Giuseppe Vincenzo Marascia in his little work on the two Mamiliani, page 53, recites in this manner: In the name of the Lord. Amen. By the present public instrument let it be everywhere evidently open to all, and known, that in the year from the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven, in the eleventh Indiction, on the seventeenth day of October, and in the Pontificate of the most holy Father in the same Christ, our lord the lord Alexander, by divine providence Pope the seventh, in the third year of the same, the most illustrious and most reverend lord Marcus Antonius Oddus, bishop of Hierapolis, vicegerent of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Vicar, very well known to me the notary, asserting that he had received a mandate from our most holy lord Pope Alexander the Seventh, that he should consign a part of the head of St. Mamilianus, first bishop of Palermo, which is preserved in the venerable church of Blessed Mary in Monticelli of the City, to the most illustrious and most reverend Don Pedro Martinez Rubio, of the diocese of Albarracín, archbishop of Palermo, to the greater glory of almighty God and to the veneration of the aforesaid St. Mamilianus, wishing to obey the mandates of the aforesaid Most Holy One, went together with the said most illustrious and most reverend lord archbishop, and with me the notary and the witnesses subscribed below, to the aforesaid venerable church; and having arrived there, he called the steward of the aforesaid church, to whom he made known the aforesaid order of the Most Holy One.

[10] And a short prayer having been made before the high altar, he ordered the repository to be opened by the said steward

of the relics, given in the year 1657 to the archbishop of Palermo, situated on the gospel side in the wall in a raised place, and ordered to be carried from it onto the aforesaid high altar the silver head of the said St. Mamilianus, as it was carried at once, the said repository being opened with a key, and several iron keys being broken with which the said silver head was closed, by a craftsman called there for this purpose. On which silver head, very ancient, there are cut on one side these words precisely *: "to St. Mamilianus, bishop"; on the other side other letters, namely: A. D. 1456. And after the aforesaid head had been venerated by the same most illustrious lord Vicegerent and the others above named, the same most illustrious lord Vicegerent, putting his right hand within the silver head, drew out the cranium of the head of the aforesaid St. Mamilianus, with a part of the head divided into several parts; of which a great part was replaced in the same head or silver image, together with two other small particles and one fragment; but two middling parts, of which one contains a portion of the eye and the other a portion toward the ear, and three other small particles, he consigned to the said most illustrious and most reverend lord archbishop by the order of our most holy lord the Pope, as above, he being present there, and receiving them with the greatest veneration and thanksgiving; and to him, that he might be able and have power to retain the aforesaid holy relics with him, to take them out of the City or transmit them, and to expose them to public veneration in whatsoever church, oratory or pious place, whether public or private, he granted and imparted licence and faculty in the Lord.

[11] as is clear from the Acts of the donation: And then the said silver image was closed by the said craftsman to its former form, and with the seal of the said most illustrious lord Vicegerent upon the said keys, sealed in eight places with Spanish wax, in such a manner that it can no longer be opened unless the said seals be torn and destroyed; and it was replaced in the said repository, which was at once closed with its usual key. On which repository, on the outer side and at the top of it, these ancient words are written in great letters, namely: The head of St. Mamilianus, bishop and martyr. But on the inner side other words, namely: A part of the head of St. Nympha, virgin and martyr. All which things I have here noted down for the truth's sake, not only in the aforesaid manner and form, but also in every other better manner, etc. Upon all and each of which it was asked of me, the same notary public subscribed below, that of the aforesaid I should draw up and deliver one or more public instruments, as need should be and as I shall be required. Done at Rome in the aforesaid venerable Church, in the presence, etc., of the most illustrious and most reverend lord John Francis de Zarate, auditor of the sacred Rota; of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Francis Diez de Cabrera, canon of the holy church of Compostela, of the councils of His Catholic Majesty in the supreme tribunal of the Holy Office of the general inquisition; of the most illustrious and most reverend lords Ægidius Martinez Rubio, treasurer of the holy church of Tarragona, and abbot Don Antonio Acata of Palermo, witnesses called, specially had, and asked, to the aforesaid and to each of them. M. Antonius, bishop of Hierapolis, Vicegerent, etc. I, Antoninus Franciscus Maria Simius, notary of the court of causes of the most eminent and most reverend lord Cardinal Vicar, being asked concerning the premises, have subscribed the present instrument and published it, and signed it with my accustomed sign, being required, etc. Thus far the instrument of the delivery of the relics, as it is published in Marascia.

[12] these translated to Palermo in the year 1658, not the whole head: From this, however, it is clear that two middling parts of the head, and three other small particles of it, were given to the archbishop of Palermo. Those parts do not seem, so far as can be gathered from the instrument, to have been of such bulk that all together they could constitute even a tenth part of the head. Nevertheless the writers of Palermo speak of them as if the whole head had been translated to their city. The words of the very recent Martyrology I have already given at number 4, where it is said, The Translation of the head. In the same way in the Annotations on that Martyrology that translation is treated of as if the church of Palermo had received the entire head, and it is said to have been brought to Palermo on the sixth day of October of the year 1658. Antonino Mongitore in the Life of St. Mamilianus the martyr assigns the same day to the translation, and no less liberally writes that the head was translated. I pass over others who have spoken in the same way about the relics of the head of St. Mamilianus brought to Palermo. Nor ought the learned men of Palermo to take this observation of mine amiss, since the love of truth extorts it, lest anyone afterwards should so attribute the head of St. Mamilianus to the people of Palermo as to deny that the greater part of it remained in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio. For we have too frequently found that exaggerations of this kind, which have pleased even some of the older writers, not only give occasion to many contentions and controversies, but that from them there arise also innumerable falsehoods and errors, which the love of one's country is wont to beget and foster. But enough of these things.

[13] Further, Marascia on page 16 also assigns some particles of the relics of St. Mamilianus, other particles previously brought to Palermo: and teaches that in his own time they were in the possession of Salvatore Oddo, and that in the year 1609 they had been received from the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio by Sebastiano Ugolino, a Sicilian doctor of sacred theology. This is attested by the Letters of the most eminent Cardinal Arigoni, archbishop of Benevento, given in the year 1609, which he there recites. The Letters cited do not explain of what sort those particles of St. Mamilianus are. But Salvatore Oddo himself attests in Marascia, in the same place, that in his casket there are four particles, namely a particle of a rib, another of an arm-bone, a third of the spongy bone of the knee, and lastly a particle of the cranium. I should readily believe that all those particles were enclosed in the casket. However that may be, I doubt whether they are all St. Mamilianus's, or of various Saints. Certainly in the Letters cited of Cardinal Arigoni it is said that Ugolino received relics of various Saints at Rome, and among the rest that he had from the church of St. Mary of Monticelli particles of St. Nympha, virgin and martyr, and of St. Mamilianus, bishop and martyr. Wherefore it may happen that Ugolino took care that relics of four different Saints should be enclosed in one casket, as is wont to be done. Certainly it is not very likely that four different particles of one Saint were given to him, especially since the Saint's head alone seems to have been in the said church, so that the other particles are rather to be held to be of other Saints. But that doubt is of no great moment, whether we believe that all four particles are St. Mamilianus's, or only that one which is of the cranium. I should think that certain other relics of the same Saint are at Palermo also, received probably from Sovana. Certainly among the relics of the church of the professed house of the Society of Jesus there are noted relics of St. Mamilianus, archbishop of Palermo.

[14] In Ughelli, Italia sacra, volume 3, column 435, the body of St. Mamilianus is said to have been translated with others to Pisa in the twelfth century, other notable relics preserved at Pisa. and an inscription cut in marble is recited, which has thus: In the year 1111, on the sixth of May, in the time of the lord Peter, archbishop of Pisa, the sacred bodies of SS. Mamilianus, Luster, Vendemius, Aurelius, Rusticus, Infans and Gobuldeus, martyrs, were placed in this sacred temple of St. Matthew, at the altar of the Little Ones. Afterwards, in the year of the Lord 1179, on the Ides of September, by the most reverend lord Ubaldus, archbishop of Pisa, they were translated within to the chancel, the lady Villana being abbess. In the year of the Lord 1592, on the day before the Ides of July, in the time of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Carlo Antonio Pozzo, archbishop of Pisa, they were laid up in this worthier place, the lady Neria de Torti being most worthy abbess of the said monastery. The church where these relics of St. Mamilianus and of the other Saints are commemorated is an abbey of nuns, of which Augustin Lubin writes briefly in the *Abbeys of Italy*, page 297. That they were translated thither in the said year Ughelli affirms, from the island whose name is Montecristo. That island is in the Etruscan sea, small and very mountainous, of which more afterwards. Then, however, he speaks as if they had been translated from the island of Giglio; which is an indication of a matter not sufficiently known. For the rest, of these relics of St. Mamilianus I have found no mention among the Sicilian writers. Nevertheless from what Ughelli records of his deeds from tradition, it can be gathered that he is the same as he whose relics are preserved at Sovana. Nor does it matter that in both places the body is said to be; for a body can be in two places, in that sense, namely, in which a very notable part is wont to be called a body.

* Gianuti

* perhaps "præcise"

§ II. Various Acts of insufficiently approved credit treat of St. Mamilianus, from which various things are given about the Saint: from these the more probable views about the date, dignity, deeds and death of St. Mamilianus are investigated.

[ ] A summary of what is asserted about St. Mamilianus Ottavio Caietano, in order to show that there is found a certain Sicilian Saint named Nympha, distinct from another Saint of the same name, in the year 1610 brought to light from the Palermo press the Acts of St. Nympha, virgin and martyr, found in various manuscript codices. Now in these Acts various things are related about St. Mamilianus, which I shall transfer hither only in summary, because those Acts are most openly fabulous. First, in them St. Mamilianus is asserted to be bishop of Palermo, and is said to have converted to the faith and instructed St. Nympha, daughter of the prefect Aurelian; which is said to have been done at Palermo. When Nympha's conversion became known to Aurelian the prefect, he ordered Mamilianus to be seized and brought to him. And having questioned him when he was brought, and having tried him in vain with threats, he cannot move him from the faith by torments either. Then he finds his daughter Nympha likewise steadfast in the faith, and casts her into prison. Afterwards they are said to have been thrown into a vessel of boiling oil, and thence to have come out unharmed; and presently to have been tormented in prison with hunger, also in vain, until an angel appeared to them. And by that angel's command and guidance, going out from the prison, they came to the sea, where a ship took them up to carry them to Rome, that they might visit the thresholds of the Apostles. Nevertheless, when they had come to the mount of Gilium (by this word the island of Igilium is signified, in Italian Giglio, as the men of Palermo themselves rightly explain), the Saints preferred to remain there, to lead an anchoretic life on that island.

[16] in the fabulous Acts of St. Nympha. After they had been on that island for some time, serving the Lord day and night, and while they clung continually to saving pursuits, there appeared to them an angel, saying: Be ye ready: the Lord commands you to depart from this light, that there may be rest for your labours. And having received this message, they asked that they might first be allowed to go to Rome to the thresholds of the holy Apostles; and this was granted them. And so, sailing, they came to the Pharos of the Roman port, and remained there that night. The next day, at the angel's warning, they went to a place situated near Buana *,

where in a crypt were Proculus and Eustotius, disciples of St. Mamilianus. And when these had been found there, with Nympha and Golbodeus, who is said to have been present at everything at Palermo and on the way, he went on to Rome. Thence with the same he returned to the crypt, and there not long after is said to have died and been buried. All these things are clothed with so many plainly inept and improbable fictions that those Acts deserve no credit. This can be shown more fully on the tenth or twelfth of November, when we must treat of St. Nympha, with whose name they are marked. Meanwhile Tommaso de Angelis of Messina, of the Order of Preachers, has declared his mind about them in the Historico-critical Annals of the Sicilian Church at the fourth century, §2.

[17] Very different things are related of St. Mamilianus in the Acts of St. Senzius, Different things related of St. Mamilianus in the Acts of St. Senzius, published by us on the twenty-fifth of May, which are not indeed altogether authentic or of undoubted credit, but certainly less openly fabulous than the Acts of St. Nympha. In the said Acts St. Mamilianus is called a presbyter, and is said to have been carried off with others into Africa by the Vandals in the time of Genseric king of the Vandals, who before the middle of the fifth century subdued the provinces of Africa formerly subject to the Romans, and afterwards afflicted Italy and Sicily with many incursions, the city of Rome also being taken. Of the many captives led from Italy into Africa by Genseric the Acts speak generally at number 1, and add this expressly to our purpose: Among whom the most religious men, servants of the Lord, Senzius and Mamilianus, presbyters, with three monks, Convuldus, Istochius and Infans, were carried off into Africa with their own possessions. Presently at number 2 they are said to have piously prayed to the Lord that they might be freed from that captivity, and their deliverance is related in these words: The nod of God, who does not despise those who hope in him, nor withdraw his mercy from those who love him, prepared for them a little ship, in which together they came into one place, and there blew the metabolarius wind (that is, one fit for crossing, from the Greek μεταβολὴ, a crossing), and it smooths the seas; and very quickly they came into the port of Sardinia which is called Cagliari, and Piombino.

[18] And here those Saints are said to have been excellently received. Since, however, they were unwilling to remain there, published by us on the twenty-fifth of May, and by others in a they are asserted to have been carried first to the island of Turarium, and then to the island then called Mons Jovis, now Montecristo, where St. Mamilianus died. Nevertheless he is said to have been given to burial not on that island, but on another not far distant, which the ancients called Igilium (now commonly Giglio and Lilium). There too the three monks and companions are related to have remained and to have exchanged life for death. The Acts have it that Senzius alone crossed to the mainland of Italy after the death of the others, and there died at Blera in Tuscany. Marascia on page 41 recites Acts almost agreeing with these, but a little more abridged; which he attests he received from Ludovico Jacobilli, author of the Work on the Saints of Umbria, and that the latter had them from a manuscript Lectionary of the church of Spoleto. In two things, however, those Acts differ notably from ours; for first they make Mamilianus bishop of Palermo; secondly they bring Senzius to Spoleto, and assert that he died there. That this last is not likely Henschen has already shown on the twenty-fifth of May from the Acts themselves. But how it came about that in Jacobilli's manuscript Mamilianus is called bishop of Palermo, I confess I do not know. But with that title he is not marked in the other manuscripts.

[19] In another Spoletan elogium, which Marascia recites on page 31, somewhat different manner: the same Saint, as it seems, and whose author is Don Serafino Serafini, Mamilianus is called a bishop without the place, as also happens in the elogium of St. Senzius the presbyter on the twenty-fifth of May in Ferrari, although he too cites Spoletan manuscript records. Ughelli in the Italia sacra, volume 3, column 436, reports a Life of St. Mamilianus, and neither calls him a bishop nor gives him Senzius as a companion. Nevertheless the sequence of events, though sufficiently different, seems to prove that the same Saint is commemorated by him too. It is read, he says, in a very old parchment manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Matthew at Pisa, in which the bodies of Mamilianus and his Companions are laid up, that Mamilianus, Gobuldeus, Luster, Vendemius, Rusticus and Infans, companions, were carried off into servitude from Rome to Carthage by Genseric king of the Vandals in the times of Pope Leo, after the murder of Valentinian, when he, having got possession of Rome, had branded the city with a deadly disaster, and, its wealth being heaped up and plundered, had led away innumerable prelates and men conspicuous in dignity, and Eudoxia the empress herself, and her two sons (read daughters), in the year 455. Further, that these most holy men, inspired by divine impulse, and having got the opportunity of a ship which had put in at the shores of Africa, set sail for Sardinia, and put in at the city of Cagliari, is related; where, when a little afterwards their virtue, made illustrious by miracles, had brought them great renown, in order to withdraw themselves from human glory they hid themselves in some more secret retreat, until opportunity should offer that they might make for the nearer island of Aretusa, or of Mons Jovis.

[20] is commemorated by Ughelli from the Pisan Acts. But the barbarous sailors set Mamilianus, Luster, Vendemius and Aurelius ashore in an enclosed place, once called Turraium, now Ulturaium, in which no trace of a human foot appeared, so that with herbs and roots which the birds brought them they sustained the punishment of a fasting life. But a few days after, being taken up by a ship, they put in at the island of Mons Jovis, which they called Christi. In which place they began to lead an eremitic and most austere life. Mamilianus destroyed a most monstrous dragon which had settled on the summit of the mountain, and choked it by divine power, and there built a little hut. The fame of the Servants of Christ was already spreading widely; and when a dreadful persecution was raging against the Christians, Mamilianus departed thence with his companions: he betook himself to Sardinia, to a certain mountain girt on every side with sheer and overhanging rocks; but his companions went off to the island of Iginia, where, having led a most holy life, separated from all intercourse and stain of human society, they flew away to heaven. But Mamilianus, when he had divinely foreseen his impending death, obtained from God by his prayers that he might visit the sacred places of Rome; and, inspired by the divine Godhead, he took ship, put in at the island of Iginia, where, laden with merits, released from the bonds of the body, he departed to the powers above, to gather the rewards of his labours, on the nineteenth of October, in the year of Christ about 460; and he was committed to burial beside the bodies of his companions. Thus far Ughelli from the Pisan records, which so agree in various points with the Roman and Salernitan ones that they even have some things in common with the Acts of St. Nympha, and yet in certain points depart from all of these.

[21] [The Acts cited were written long after the Saint's death and are in many things fabulous.] If anyone should now ask which of the Acts mentioned seem the better, and whether any of them seem of sufficiently certain credit, I shall not hesitate to answer that all seem tainted with various fables, as has commonly happened to the Acts of the Saints when they were written many centuries after the death of the Saints themselves from popular traditions. Further, there seems no doubt that all the Acts mentioned were written some centuries after the death of St. Mamilianus, after his body had been translated from the island in which he had been buried to various places of Italy, as also the bodies of those Saints who with him or after him had obtained burial in the same island. Namely, some Acts of St. Senzius were composed at Blera, after that Saint's relics had been translated thither; others at Spoleto, when they had been carried thither; the Acts of St. Nympha perhaps written at Rome; and at Pisa the Acts of St. Mamilianus, who not only in his own but also in the already mentioned Acts of others plays, as it were, the leading part. Nevertheless in the Acts of St. Senzius that Saint is chiefly celebrated along with Mamilianus; and Nympha chiefly in her own Acts. To say in few words what I think: each seems to have celebrated most those Saints whose relics they had received, and each seems to have narrated those things which they heard handed down among their own people about those Saints. If now we compare all those Acts with one another, the most fabulous of all will appear the Acts of St. Nympha, in which I can find very few things conformable to sound judgment. The Pisan Acts of Mamilianus too, and the Lateran and Spoletan ones of St. Senzius, do not seem free from fictitious ornaments; they have, however, fewer and less open fabrications.

[22] Further, if anyone should ask still further what at least in the said Acts seems in any way probable, Conjectures about the deeds of St. Mamilianus, I answer that it seems probable enough that St. Mamilianus was with many others carried off captive by the Vandals into Africa, since it is established that many were carried thither from Italy and Sicily in that fifth century by Genseric. Secondly, the flight from Africa, such as is asserted in the Acts, is not improbable. Nevertheless I do not hold it certain, since perhaps, being ransomed for a price, they returned to their country. Certainly Victor of Vita in the *History of the Vandal persecution*, chapter 1, number 9, where he had related that Rome was taken by Genseric and that many captives were brought thence to Carthage, subjoins this about the charity of St. Deogratias, bishop of Carthage: Straightway the man full of God and dear to him took pains to sell all the golden or silver vessels of the ministry, and to free liberty from barbarian servitude, etc. St. Mamilianus with his companions might well have been among those freed in this way. Besides, since the Vandals banished many bishops into exile, the Saint could also have been among these. Thirdly, it is altogether probable that St. Mamilianus afterwards led an eremitic or monastic life on some island of the Tyrrhenian or Etruscan sea, as the Acts have it, and that some were his companions there, and that after him many more lived as monks on the same island.

[23] Further, what that island was, we in some measure gather from Ughelli already cited, whose monastery on Montecristo who asserts that the bodies of St. Mamilianus and of the others were translated to Pisa from the island whose name is Montecristo. And then he discourses of it thus: This island, formerly called Artemisia, took the name of Montecristo from the most celebrated monastery raised on it in early times. It lies in the Tyrrhenian sea, not far from the islands of Iginium , Planosa and Ilva; which island indeed is furnished with no convenient harbour, but bristles on every side with abrupt and overhanging crags, and runs out into the sea. Today it is uncultivated, subject only to wild deer, since Ariadenus Ænobarbus the pirate bereft it of its cultivators, and, having branded the maritime parts of Tuscany and of the Roman Campagna with a foul devastation, consigned innumerable Christians to wretched servitude; then he led away in chains the monks and settlers of that island's monastery. On that island the lord of Piombino holds jurisdiction, although the Camaldolese Order claims it for itself, as having received it from the lords of the island with the amplest privileges. On the summits of that mountain the traces of a very old monastery are seen; but at what time the monastery was raised

it may have been, escapes the memory of men; but since hitherto the name of St. Mamilianus has clung to it in Montecristo, that opinion has prevailed, that the same holy Mamilianus, together with his companions, was its founder. Thus Ughelli, whose opinion about the monastery founded by St. Mamilianus, or at any rate about the monastic life begun by him on Montecristo, is sufficiently conformable to what is related of him in the Acts. But Ughelli is perhaps to be corrected as to the ancient name of that island; for that does not seem to be the island which was formerly called Artemisia; rather that Greek name seems to have belonged to the island of Dianium, now commonly called Gianuti, as is gathered from Cluverius, book 2 of Ancient Italy, page 501. He believes it most likely, from its situation, that the island now called Montecristo was called by the ancients Oglasa, and that it lies a little more toward Corsica.

[24] was formerly famous, and the head of many others. But about the celebrity of that monastery on Montecristo he subjoins the following at column 437: Moreover, when the fame of the island of Montecristo had spread far and wide, many Christians at that time, and religious men, flocked to those places which had been consecrated by most holy men, so that the monastery founded there rose to the highest celebrity, and thither many men of the most distinguished nobility of all Sardinia and Corsica came together, and adorned those sacred buildings with most ample gifts. Among the rest, the liberality of Berlingerius, king of Corsica, was outstanding, by which he enriched the monastery, and by his example many vied in bestowing their wealth. He adds that that monastery flourished wonderfully under the Rule of St. Benedict, but that in the times of Honorius III and by his authority it was joined to the Camaldolese; but that it is now deserted. Of the donation of Beringherius king of Corsica he makes mention again in volume 4, column [ ], and there asserts that it was made in the year 900, and that Lunergius, bishop of Mariana in Corsica, was present as a witness. And in the place alleged before, from the records of this monastery which survive among the Camaldolese, he recites Letters of Pope Gelasius II, given in the year 1118, on the Kalends of October, by which all things are confirmed to Henry the abbot which the monastery of blessed Mamilianus on Montecristo possessed; and many are enumerated by name in Corsica or Sardinia, in Piombino or Elba, formerly called Ilva; and among others is named the church of St. Mamilianus of Simassi in Sardinia. These things sufficiently show the celebrity of the cult of St. Mamilianus, which afterwards seems to have declined together with his most celebrated monastery. Augustinus Florentinus in the *Camaldolese History*, book 2, chapter 29, treats of the monastery of St. Mamilianus on Montecristo, and enumerates very many monasteries formerly subject to it, and among them I find four different ones marked with the name of St. Mamilianus. But he confesses that he has not found the origin of the monastery; yet he believes that from the year of human salvation 407 it was honoured with many notable donations. This indeed I should prefer to see proved rather than asserted without witnesses, since it is not likely.

[25] the place of his death and burial: the body translated and divided into parts. About the place where St. Mamilianus died, the Acts do not agree. The Acts of St. Senzius published by us, as also the Spoletan ones, have it that he died on Montecristo, but was buried on the island of Igilium, not far distant, and nearer to the Tuscan shore. But Ughelli from the Pisan Acts relates that he died on the island of Igilium or Iginium itself, and was buried there. About the translation to the mainland Ughelli speaks thus: But when God had unfolded innumerable miracles through their works (or patronage), the faithful of Christ with the highest honour carried their sacred bodies to Centumcellæ (a port of the Papal dominion well enough known, today commonly called Civitavecchia). Thence, while Paschal II sat as Pontiff, they were brought with great pomp to Pisa, and were honourably laid up by Peter the archbishop in the church of St. Matthew. Thus Ughelli about the bodies of St. Mamilianus and of the other Saints, translated from Igilium first to Centumcellæ and thence to Pisa. Nor indeed do I find anything in these things that departs from likelihood. Nevertheless I shall not believe that all the bones of those Saints, and especially of St. Mamilianus, of whom alone we treat, were carried to Pisa. Rather I believe that the bones of that Saint were divided into at least three parts, and that of these one fell to the people of Pisa, another was granted to the people of Sovana, and almost the whole head was brought to Rome. Certainly I find no necessity for believing that the relics of one Mamilianus are preserved at Pisa, and those of another at Sovana and Rome.

* others read "Bucinam"

* others read "Igilio, commonly Giglio"

* formerly Planaria

§ III. Whether it seems necessary to admit two different Mamiliani from the Acts just cited: and whether the dignity of St. Mamilianus is sufficiently established.

[ ] The first argument of Marascia, who maintains two Mamiliani, is refuted: I have already cited the Italian little work of Giuseppe Vincenzo Marascia on the two Mamiliani, archbishops and citizens of Palermo, which indeed I should prefer to pass over in silence rather than discuss, if that were permitted me in accordance with the plan of our Work. But the question of one or two Saints of the same name is so closely connected with the plan of a Work on the Saints that it is necessary for us to examine it. I shall do it, however, the more briefly, the less a long disputation seems necessary. Marascia on page 10 begins to set out his arguments in this order. First, he says, the diversity of time suggests two Mamiliani, of whom one lived under Constantine the Great with St. Nympha; but the other in the fifth century, about the year 455, was sent into exile. I answer that the Acts of St. Nympha are so full of fables that they are plainly unfit for establishing anything certain about the time in which St. Mamilianus flourished. Besides, in those Acts, as they were published by Caietano and in the second place by Marascia, the time is not expressed. In the others, which Marascia published in the first place from a Vatican codex, and which are far more inept even than the others, the time is so indicated that mention is made both of the peace restored to the Church by Constantine and of the condemned Arian heresy, so that the suspicion arises that that most inept writer had in view the beginning of the Acts of St. Senzius in our Work on the twenty-fifth of May, where also mention is made of Constantine, of Constantius and of the rise of the Arian heresy, so that one comes at once to Genseric, the Arian king of the Vandals. But whatever that biographer of St. Nympha had in view, that whole beginning is so stupid that I wonder that Marascia did not blush to bring forward the words of a most inept man, and to wish to draw an argument from them.

[27] Secondly he reasons thus. One Mamilianus has as companions Nympha, his second argument, Proculus, Eustotius and Golbodeus. To the other Mamilianus there clung Sentius the presbyter, and the monks Convuldius, Eustochius and Infans. I answer that it is only from the fabulous Acts of St. Nympha that it is had that St. Mamilianus had anything in common with St. Nympha, and therefore it is very uncertain whether St. Mamilianus ever saw St. Nympha. The author of those Acts, who lightly invented many other things without any foundation and against all likelihood, perhaps joined those two Saints because he knew that their heads were preserved at Rome in the same church. Certainly it is not even likely or probable (to pass over a great many other things) that St. Mamilianus led a monastic life together with St. Nympha in the same crypt, and that, Mamilianus being dead, Nympha remained there with his three disciples. If anyone be of sound judgment, and attentively turn his mind to these things, he will never be able to believe that a holy girl did this, or that a holy Bishop permitted her to do it. But since St. Nympha must be treated of afterwards, it can then be examined whether St. Nympha seems to have fled from Sicily or from Africa with St. Mamilianus; for that is not equally incredible.

[28] which rather tells against his own opinion: But as regards the diversity of the Companions with whom St. Mamilianus is said to have lived, I answer that he had several companions in the monastic life, or at any rate several imitators of the same institute. These indeed are commemorated with some diversity in different Acts, because the writers of the Acts commemorated chiefly those whose relics they had received. Hence the people of Blera and of Spoleto celebrated above the rest St. Senzius or Sentius, whose relics they have. The people of Pisa added to the rest Luster, Vendemius, Aurelius and Rusticus, because their bodies were brought to Pisa. Proculus is commemorated in the Acts of St. Nympha alone; and perhaps he never lived as a solitary on the island with St. Mamilianus, as has been said of St. Nympha. Or, if he was a monk there, he was commemorated only by those who received his relics. Now if we consider that in absolutely all the Acts one companion is joined to Mamilianus who everywhere seems entirely the same, although the name is written in a slightly different way in different Acts; and that another too is found in the Acts of St. Nympha, who for the same reason does not seem different from the one commemorated in the other Acts — the companions will the more easily persuade us that no other Mamilianus is praised in the Acts of St. Nympha than in all the rest. The first of them in the Acts of St. Nympha is written Goboldeus; in the Acts of St. Senzius, Convuldius; and again Gobuldeus in Ughelli from the Pisan Acts, in which, if Marascia's opinion were true, another Mamilianus would be treated of than in the Acts of St. Nympha, so that each must have had a companion Goboldeus or Gobuldeus; which is the less likely, the rarer that name is. And that the reader may understand how little a slight change of name is to be regarded, that same Saint in Caietano, from the same Acts, is written Golbodeus. The other disciple of St. Mamilianus in the Acts of St. Nympha is written Eustotius; in the Salernitan Acts of St. Senzius, Eustochius or Vistochius; in the Roman, Istochius. Who here again would not suspect that it is the same disciple of the same Mamilianus? Wherefore the Companions who in various Acts are variously attributed to St. Mamilianus so far from helping Marascia's case rather take away much of the likelihood of his opinion.

[29] as also the third: His third argument he draws from the difference of the Acts, which can in no way be reconciled with one another; and he assigns many diversities of the Acts. This argument is to be reckoned of just as much value as the Acts themselves, which we have already called fabulous in the highest degree. If Saints were to be doubled as often as we cannot reconcile what we find about them in different Acts — and in those even fabulous — we should have few Saints, or perhaps none, who would not seem to need doubling. Therefore that argument is useless, since the Acts of St. Nympha deserve no credit, and the others too are of slight credit. Nay rather, some passages sufficiently similar occur in both sets of Acts, so that it may be believed that in both the same Mamilianus is treated of. First, in both he is said to have fled by sea, a ship having been found by chance. Secondly, in both he is said to have come to a certain island of the Etruscan sea, and to have remained there with some to establish a solitary life. Thirdly, in the Acts of St. Nympha he is said to have been on the island of Igilium,

which is in those Acts called Mons Gilius, by the recent name from the vulgar Giglio. With these again agree the Pisan Acts in Ughelli, and in the others he is asserted at least to have been buried on that island. Fourthly, both in the Acts of St. Nympha and in Ughelli it is said that, when he had been forewarned of his impending death, he obtained that he might first be allowed to visit the tombs of the Apostles at Rome. Fifthly, in all the Acts the sailors, who refused to carry Mamilianus across, are said to have been compelled by a storm at last to take him and his companions on board. I pass over other like things, and only observe how improbably it is said in the Acts of St. Nympha that St. Mamilianus wished to sail from Palermo to Rome, but left the ship when they had come to the island of Igilium. For to those crossing the sea in order to make from Palermo for Rome the island of Igilium does not lie in the way; and this is farther distant from Palermo than the Roman Port itself. Therefore this very thing seems to have been unskilfully invented by that writer, because he had heard that St. Mamilianus had been on Igilium and was buried there.

[30] Marascia takes his fourth argument from the variety of the cult of St. Mamilianus, an answer to the fourth: who at Rome is venerated as a martyr, but at Sovana only as a confessor. I answer that this argument is of no moment, because the same happens with several Saints, when it appears in some way doubtful whether they are to be venerated as martyrs or as confessors. And such a doubt, whatever its kind, could have place in St. Mamilianus, who suffered exile for the faith, and perhaps also several other things, and who as an exile for the faith seems to have met his death, so that he can be venerated as a martyr, although he was not taken off by a violent death at the executioner's hand. Thus in Ughelli the Pisan inscription calls Mamilianus and his companions martyrs, although he, according to Marascia's opinion, was the second Mamilianus, whom he calls a confessor. If that author's opinion were true, the title of Martyr could be given to each Mamilianus with almost equal right, or also that of Confessor, because each would have died in exile.

[31] Marascia's fifth argument is drawn from the different translations of the relics of St. Mamilianus, the fifth is no better than the rest: and it labours under the same faults as almost all the others, in that doubtful facts are alleged as certain. He says that the body of St. Mamilianus the martyr was translated to Rome, to the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio, in the time of Urban II, in the year 1098. For this assertion on page 130 he cites Filippo Ferrari in the *Saints of Italy* on the fifth of September. But the body of St. Mamilianus whom he will have to be the second, he says was carried to Sovana in the pontificate of Pius II, in the year 1460, and the same Ferrari he cites. I answer that Ferrari's authority is not so great that we should give him firm credit when he asserts something without proof; and therefore the argument would be invalid even if Ferrari said as certain what Marascia introduces him as saying. But Marascia drags Ferrari even against his will to his own opinion. He relates that the bodies of those Saints whom he believed to have been buried with St. Nympha in the diocese of Porto were translated to the aforesaid church of Monte Celio in the year 1098. But in the Annotations he observes that from the records of the church of Sovana it is had that the body of St. Mamilianus was translated to Sovana from the island of Igilium, an arm being left there, under Pope Pius II. And when he saw that these things did not cohere with the Life of St. Nympha, he adds this observation: It seems therefore that the Life of St. Nympha, in which Mamilianus is read to have died at the Roman Port, needs expurgation. Thus rightly Ferrari, acknowledging only one Mamilianus, and plainly contrary to Marascia. Nevertheless, as to the time at which the sacred relics were translated from the island of Igilium, I should not think that firm credit is to be given to the Sovanese records cited, since that time of the translation seems too near to the finding of the body at Sovana, which is asserted to have happened in the year 1490, and from which it becomes likely that those relics were brought to Sovana earlier.

[32] The sixth argument, from the relics, Marascia's sixth argument is such as to render his opinion altogether improbable to me. He contends with wondrous effort that the whole body of St. Mamilianus is preserved at Rome in the frequently cited church of Blessed Mary of Monte Celio; and likewise that the whole, except however the greater part of the head, is held at Sovana; and thence he tries to infer that two Mamiliani must necessarily be admitted. But the greater Marascia's effort is, and the greater the diligence he applied to investigating how much of the relics of St. Mamilianus was preserved at Sovana and how much at Rome, the more manifestly it seems to me to appear that at Sovana there is a great part of the body, but that the head, either whole or almost whole, is not preserved at Sovana; and that this is preserved almost entire at Rome, and nothing besides, or at any rate not so much as to conflict with the relics preserved at Sovana — even if we believe that some part of St. Mamilianus's relics is also to be attributed to the people of Pisa, of which Marascia was ignorant. But if the other relics without the head are preserved at Sovana, and if the head without the other relics is at Rome, what prudent man would deny that this is a most likely indication by which we may judge that the relics which are held in both places are of the same Saint, as before Marascia all writers believed, by his own confession.

[33] part of which is at Sovana, part at Rome and in other places, Ottavio Caietano, who both at Sovana and at Rome saw and handled the relics of St. Mamilianus, offers a clear testimony to the unity of the body, which Marascia vainly tries to overturn by his reasonings. Caietano also confesses that the Sovanese relics together with the Roman do not make up an entire body, since he attributes one arm to Igilium and the other to Ilva, in volume 1 of the Sicilian Saints, in the Animadversions, page 121, where of the Sovanese relics he says: But at Sovana the greatest part of the body is preserved in a church dedicated to his name. And of the Roman he says: For indeed the head of St. Mamilianus is at Rome in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio. To the inscription placed there, which designates the bodies of five martyrs, he thus rightly replies: It was formerly the custom among our forefathers that the more notable part of a body or limb should be called by the same name. Whence it came about that the same body or limb is recorded by writers to be in several places. Therefore when you read that the bodies of the holy Mamilianus, Golbodeus, Proculus, Eustotius and Nympha are laid up in the church of St. Mary of Monte Celio, do not by any means persuade yourself that they are entire, but that they are the chief parts of them. Then he relates what he saw of each.

[34] makes Marascia's opinion no more probable, What Marascia opposes to these things is so frivolous and petty that it scarcely deserves an answer. He asserts first that the body of St. Mamilianus and of four other Saints is preserved at Rome beneath the high altar; and says that this is said by certain elders of the people of that parish, and that the inscription already mentioned has it so. Presently in confirmation he adduces certain particles of relics received from that church, as I related at number 13, from which, if all were St. Mamilianus's — which I have observed to be uncertain — it could only be gathered that, besides the head, certain other particles of St. Mamilianus were preserved in that church. Marascia himself on page 18 seems willing to concede to Caietano that the whole body is not at Rome, and turns at last to other reasonings as useless as those by which he strove to claim the body for the Romans. He says that he cannot but believe the bishop of Sovana, who affirms that the whole body of St. Mamilianus is at Sovana, except the cranium. That answer he received to his inquiries, and he recites it in Italian on page 65. But I answer that I too pay honour to bishops, and therefore should willingly believe if they give testimony about the entirety of some body after a due examination by skilled anatomists. But of such an examination no mention is made in the answer in Marascia; no mention is made of any anatomist being present when the shrine was opened; it is only said that in the small shrine the bones were placed in such an order that the arms were nearer the head, and the legs lower down; and thence it is inferred that there is no doubt about the entirety of the body.

[35] But if such an examination of entirety could suffice for Marascia, but rather makes it improbable: it certainly does not suffice for me, nor will it suffice for anyone who knows how difficult it is to pass judgment on the entirety of a body when the several bones have once been moved from their place. Probably no one saw the shrine opened who knew either the number of the bones of the human body, or who knew how to distinguish the bones. Wherefore the whole structure falls which rests on so frail a foundation. Equally invalid is what Marascia says about several parts of the head preserved at Sovana, and about the whole head preserved at Rome. For neither has he proved that they were notable parts of the head, or that they were parts of the head at all, which the most illustrious bishop of Sovana believed to be such. No more has he shown that the whole head is at Rome in such a way that no parts are lacking, since from the instrument given at number 10 the contrary seems truer: for there it is said that from the Roman reliquary shrine there was drawn out the cranium of the head … with a part of the head, divided into several parts. And this manner of speaking does not seem to designate a whole head. Therefore each of Marascia's antecedents is doubtful, and the whole consequence falls. I should therefore prefer to believe Caietano, who had seen the relics in both places, and who judged for the unity of the body, rather than Marascia, who wearies himself with useless reasonings.

[36] Marascia's seventh and last argument again harms his own opinion more The seventh argument proves Marascia's credulity, than it helps it. For it shows the wonderful credulity of that man in admitting all those things from which he believed he could dig out some reasoning. He says that the birthday of the first Mamilianus is celebrated on the sixteenth of June, and the birthday of the Second on the fifteenth of September. But I do not grasp with what critical judgment he could write that; for he begins his little work with an ingenuous confession in which he professes that his opinion is altogether new, since of one only (Mamilianus) all the authors who have written of the Sicilian Saints make mention, and of one only is the persuasion and tradition of the Sicilians. How then is the twofold festival the birthday of two different men, when it is known for what cause the other festival is celebrated on the sixteenth of June, namely on account of the finding of the body? He himself recites on page 59 the Sovanese inscription, by which the body is said to have been found on the sixteenth of June. He knew that the finding of the body is announced on the same day in Caietano. Why then does he wish to thrust that festival upon us as a birthday? Hear, reader, the proof drawn from the fabulous Acts of St. Nympha. According to those Acts St. Nympha died on the twelfth of November. And she had lived eleven months and four days after Proculus, Eustotius and Goboldeus. Their death therefore must be fixed on the eighth of December. Again, St. Mamilianus is said to have died six months before them. And so he died on the eighth of June, if we believe Marascia, who adds that he does not understand why the church of Palermo does not rather celebrate the birthday of St. Mamilianus on the eighth of June than on the sixteenth of the same month.

[37] and his excessive love of country, not the thing itself, But I should much less understand how

a learned man should grant so much credence to Acts of the most fabulous kind that he believes he can on their authority assign the day of St. Mamilianus's birth to heaven, were I not clearly perceiving that his whole little work labors under that same fault of excessive credulity. Indeed that new opinion of Marascia — which I marvel should have pleased some men celebrated for the praise of their learning — seems to have been born from nothing else than an over-credulous love of his native land. Hence those two Mamiliani, sought with so much labor in vain, are both established not only as bishops of Palermo but also as citizens of that same city; hence the companions of both, some of whom likewise appear to be duplicated, are claimed for that same city as its citizens. Nevertheless, after an examination sufficiently painstaking, I am compelled to profess candidly that I can establish with certainty the native country neither of St. Mamilianus, nor of St. Nympha, nor of any of the others who are joined with them in the various Acts. Moreover, even if I most fully believed that two Mamiliani must be admitted, I would not believe both to have been bishops of Palermo. For the episcopate of one is proved, if not altogether certainly, at least probably. But if two were to be admitted — whom we do not yet believe must be admitted — another doubt would arise, namely whether both were bishops, which again would seem sufficiently ambiguous, since in some places Mamilianus is not held to be a bishop; and finally it would have to be inquired whether both appeared to be bishops of Palermo.

[38] [In all the Acts praised above it is more probable that one Mamilianus is treated:] Marascia wished to settle everything more briefly, and in a single dissertation to show two distinct Mamiliani, and at the same time to hold both of them for bishops, and generously to attribute them to the church of Palermo. If anyone should now seek my judgment on these three heads, I shall declare it in a few words. The arguments brought forward by Marascia are not sufficient for us to infer with certainty, from the variety of the Acts or from the abundance of relics preserved in various places, that there are two distinct Mamiliani of whom the Acts make mention. Yet I gladly acknowledge that there is some room for doubting whether those various Acts designate only one Mamilianus or several. For nothing certain can safely be inferred from monuments so uncertain and ambiguous. Nevertheless it appears to me more probable that only one is praised in all those Acts, but that things so various were written about him because writers many centuries later did not sufficiently know the deeds of the Saint, and each composed the Acts from uncertain traditions alone, according to his own bent. The first ground of this opinion is that the relics preserved in various places do not seem to exceed the quantity of a single body, and that all seem to have been transported from some island of the Etruscan Sea, where the cult of St. Mamilianus is most ancient, as is clear from his monastery, once famous, on Monte Cristo. The second ground for believing in one rather than two Mamiliani arises from the companions everywhere reckoned along with Mamilianus, of whom two seem to be entirely the same in the different Acts. Yet I confess that these grounds are not such as to render the matter altogether certain, and therefore I propose our judgment only as the more probable one.

[39] Secondly, it seems to me altogether improbable that in the Acts praised above two Mamiliani are commemorated, both of them bishops. If I truly believed there were two, I should call one a bishop, [and it is altogether improbable that two bishops of the same name are treated in them:] the other a presbyter: for Mamilianus is called a bishop in the Acts of St. Nympha, the Sovana inscription calls him a bishop, and at Rome Mamilianus is held to be a bishop. It would therefore have to be said that he who is venerated at Rome and at Sovana is the bishop, and that the Acts of St. Nympha treat of him. On the other hand, Mamilianus is called a presbyter in the Acts of St. Senzius published by us, and at Pisa the title of martyr alone seems to be attributed to him. Of this Mamilianus the presbyter, then, the remaining Acts would treat, and his would have been the very famous monastery on Monte Cristo. Marascia could have added this argument to the rest, if he had wished only for two Mamiliani, and had not sought two bishops of Palermo. I myself would use it to prove the distinction, if the Acts were to be reckoned of such account that I should believe no error could have occurred in the Saint's title. But I find no Acts in which St. Mamilianus is treated so accurate and certain that I should judge the dignity of presbyter or of bishop to be sufficiently established from them; much less that both titles, with a twin Mamilianus, are abundantly proved from them. Yet this argument above all gives me pause, so that I do not believe with certainty that one and the same Mamilianus is everywhere treated: for just as it could have happened that different things were written about one man by different authors, so also the deeds of two men could have been confounded by error.

[40] Florentinius, in his Annotations on the Hieronymian Martyrology, for, if there were two, one of them would not have been a bishop. in which the birthday to heaven of holy Mamilianus is announced without a place on the XIII of September, disputes ambiguously whether the St. Mamilianus who is venerated at Pisa and at Sovana is the same. To this end he observes first that Mamilianus is found only in the Lucca codex, and not likewise in the other Hieronymian codices. Secondly he testifies that a chapel was also built to St. Mamilianus at Lucca in the old basilica of SS. Anthony and George, now St. Paulinus's, as he says, as is contained in the manuscript History of the finding of the body of St. Paulinus, first bishop of Lucca, in the sacristy of that basilica. Thirdly he assigns the memory of the Saint to other Lucchese calendars also, writing thus: In an old manuscript Calendar in my possession, once for the use of the most ancient basilica of St. Donatus, on this very day, the Ides of September, the memory of St. Mamilianus is kept; as also in the Hieronymian of the canons of Lucca, still older, on the I of the Ides * St. Mamilianus. Whence it has occurred to me to suspect, he says, that St. Mamilianus could have been added at the head of the list by some Lucchese cleric. Fourthly he asserts that St. Mamilianus is venerated at Pisa on the same XV day of September on which he is venerated at Sovana. From all these things Florentinius rightly suspects that the Mamilianus who is venerated at Pisa and at Sovana is the same, although at Pisa he is celebrated as a martyr and without the title of bishop, but at Sovana as a bishop and confessor. I have already noted that this same opinion seems to me the more probable.

[41] St. Mamilianus seems to have been From these things a final doubt arises: whether that St. Mamilianus of whom we are disputing, and whom we more probably believe to be a single person, is to be held for a bishop, and for a bishop of Palermo by name, or only for a presbyter, or, with this dignity also omitted, for a martyr. I answer that some Mamilianus seems to be admitted as a bishop, and indeed of Palermo: for he is venerated as a bishop at Rome and at Sovana, and various Spoletan monuments likewise agree about his episcopal dignity. But for asserting the archbishopric of Palermo for St. Mamilianus, besides the Passion of St. Nympha, which can in truth be of slight weight, we have the Sovana inscription and the tradition of that same church, which seems to have flourished from the time when the sacred relics of St. Mamilianus were carried to Sovana. The inscription, which Cajetan saw cut in marble, has already been given at num. 3. Marascia gives another, which is stamped on a leaden plate placed within the reliquary above the relics themselves. Both signify that the body of St. Mamilianus, archbishop of Palermo, or of Panhormus, rests there. This inscription added to the rest seems sufficient for us to believe that St. Mamilianus was in truth archbishop of Palermo.

[42] bishop of Palermo. But we by no means assent to Pirri, who in tom. 1 of his Notices concerning the churches of Sicily, pag. 58, insinuates that that inscription was cut in marble immediately after the death of St. Mamilianus by his companions. For if other arguments were lacking, the very title of archbishop, which he strives to vindicate, resists such an opinion. But we have no need of that argument, since it seems certain that St. Mamilianus did not die at Sovana, but that his body was translated to Sovana from elsewhere; and since Pirri alleges no reason for proving so great an antiquity for that inscription. Secondly, neither would I agree with Pirri that St. Mamilianus was a bishop toward the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, as he himself judged. For it is not likely that he was sent into exile or compelled to flee when peace had been given to the Church by Constantine the Great, as the Acts of St. Nympha have it, from which that chronology is drawn. On the contrary it is exceedingly likely that Mamilianus was compelled to flee, or sent into exile, when Genseric had occupied Sicily about the middle of the fifth century: for the Vandals banished many bishops to the islands, or compelled them to flee. He could therefore have been banished thither, or have fled, from Sicily, or even from Africa, after he had been led thither a captive. And this opinion favors the men of Palermo, because in this way we understand why the Saint could not return to his bishopric, groaning under the tyranny of the Vandals.

* i.e., on the Ides themselves.