ON ST. INNOCENTIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,
AT RIMINI IN AEMILIA.
Under Diocletian.
SYLLOGE.
The Saint's cultus lawful: the time of her martyrdom and most of the other things recorded of the Saint uncertain: is she different from the one whom the people of Vicenza venerate?
Innocentia, V. M., at Rimini in Aemilia (S.)
BY U. S.
Rimini, a city of Italy in the province of Aemilia, which today they call the Romagna, has enrolled among its other patron Saints St. Innocentia, virgin and martyr, The Saint's memory among the more recent martyrologists, who indeed is not found inscribed in the more ancient Martyrologies; but nevertheless it can be shown from various documents that her lawful cultus is by no means doubtful. In the more recent sacred Fasti her yearly memory is woven in at the present day. Constantius Felicius has it thus: Innocentia, virgin and martyr, born of noble stock, seventeen years old, when she was unwilling to sacrifice to the idols, at Diocletian's command was, after many torments, run through with the sword at Rimini, where her body rests, and her feast is celebrated and patronal. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy announces her with this eulogy: Innocentia, a virgin born of noble family at Rimini, in the savage persecution of Diocletian, being accused of the Christian faith in which she had been reared, is ordered to be seized, and, having been tried in all ways to make her renounce Christ and worship the gods, when by no means would she sacrifice to the gods, whom she asserted to be empty and false, she is consigned to prison; and when, brought forth and variously tortured, she persisted immovable in the profession of the faith, at last, by the emperor's order, being pierced through with the sword, she happily attained to the double palm of virginity and martyrdom on the sixteenth of the Kalends of October. Whose body was honourably buried by the Christians. But in the Notes to the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, he asserts that the feast of St. Innocentia is celebrated at Rimini with an Octave; which rite, if it existed, must have been afterwards changed; for the Calendar of the Saints of the church of Rimini for the year 1644 makes no mention of an Octave, and at the sixteenth of September marks Innocentia under a greater double rite.
[2] A compendium of her deeds, and various More at length does Caesar Clementinus treat of our holy Martyr in the Historical Collection of Rimini, book 2, page 128 and following, whence I transfer hither what is peculiar and not noted by Ferrarius, that the reader may have such knowledge as there is of our Saint; for we have obtained no Acts, although they were diligently sought by Henschen and Papebroch on the Roman journey. Ferrarius nevertheless asserts that he saw at Rome the Monuments of the church of Rimini, in which the Acts of Innocentia are related more fully, and the aforesaid martyrologist doubtless used them in composing his eulogy. First Clementinus says that our Martyr was accused before Diocletian on his passage through Hungary, and by his order was fetched from a country house of the mountain which takes its name from the Bull, and was found praying before an image of the Crucified with her handmaid: after a steadfast profession of the faith, both threats and promises being scorned, he asserts that she, her sides being run through by the executioner with a sword, was left half alive, and for the space of one hour undauntedly persisted in prayer, and, fortified with the saving sign of the Cross, gave up her spirit to God. Thirdly he writes that her body was received and laid away by the faithful in a marble coffin, and that her memory was kept, a parish church having been erected and dedicated in the lapse of time, with the see of the bishops, upon this opinion, that in that part of the city there had stood the house belonging to the said Saint. He relates next that she was chosen patroness of the people of Rimini, and that every year that church is visited with a solemn supplication by the senate and people of Rimini on the sixteenth day of September, consecrated by the glorious martyrdom of Innocentia, by whose intervening patronage he says innumerable benefits and heavenly favours have been obtained.
[3] Clementinus affirms besides that throughout the whole year the concourse of the people to the sacred buildings of our Saint is frequent enough, testimonies of a lawful cultus. because by the indult of the supreme Pontiffs they enjoy a participation in the indulgences of the fostering City. In the above-mentioned country house too at the mountain called from the Bull he says there was erected the parish of Mount Taurus, the most ancient of the whole diocese, which is still seen under her holy name; and report has it that our Virgin was born in that place. A notable testimony of the veneration of our Saint is that which he subjoins, namely that for a long time the bishops of Rimini were accustomed to use no other seal than the image of St. Innocentia. So many documents certainly do we here have of a lawful veneration consecrated by the long use of several centuries, that there remains no room for doubting the cultus of St. Innocentia. Raphael Adimari, On the Site of Rimini, book 1, pages 132 and 133, reckons in the third place among the parishes of Rimini the church of St. Innocentia, Which, he says, is the patroness of the city, and united to the episcopal palace; which besides he relates to be assigned to the pastoral care of the bishop himself.
[4] As undoubted as the cultus of St. Innocentia is from what has been said, The time and the circumstances of the martyrdom, so uncertain are the time and circumstances of the martyrdom, variously related by various writers, concerning which I make a very few observations. Ferrarius asserts that she was crowned with martyrdom in the savage persecution of Diocletian, and so not before the year of Christ 303, in which it is admitted that it began: but Clementinus writes that she suffered under Diocletian on his passage to Hungary, and had premised that several faithful, both foreigners and men of Rimini, were distinguished in the tenth persecution (which certainly is Diocletian's) by blood shed for Christ. But that tenth persecution is not rightly connected with Diocletian's journey from Italy into Pannonia. For from the twenty-fifth of February of the year 303, in which the persecution began, up to the first of May of the year 305, in which Diocletian laid aside the purple, he did not set out from Italy into Pannonia. But those Acts which lighted the way for the more recent writers I do not think so ancient, nor so faithful, that from them the certain time of the martyrdom could be dug out. From what has been said, therefore, it is plain that the time of the martyrdom is uncertain, which for that reason I have fixed broadly under Diocletian.
[5] Clementinus relates that Innocentia, having been accused before Diocletian, was by his command fetched from a stronghold and the Saint's condition uncertain. situate on the mountain called from the Bull, which Adimari places at the eighth milestone from the city of Rimini, and was found praying with her handmaid, about whom Ferrarius keeps deep silence, and Henschen in a letter given from Rimini to Bolland says: Of the handmaid nothing is known. Wherefore we are made certain neither of that handmaid, nor of the place or manner in which the holy Virgin was taken, since we do not know whence all those things were drawn. Nothing certain either can be determined about our Saint's birth and condition, Ferrarius asserting only this, that
she was born of a noble family; Clementinus besides calling her mistress of the country house situate at the often-named mountain, and Adimari saying after others that she was countess and lady of the said place, abounding in nobility and riches. But these things are asserted too lightly, and are not congruous with the times in which the Saint is believed to have flourished and to have been crowned with martyrdom.
[6] The place ennobled by her sacred body. That the city of Rimini has been enriched with the sacred remains of St. Innocentia can by no means be denied. Ferrarius, in the Annotation on St. Innocentia of Rimini in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, has this: The body is most becomingly preserved in the cathedral church. But he does not so determine the place in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, where I read thus: She is the patroness of the city of Rimini… The body in the same place. Papebroch, in his manuscript Roman Journey, which is preserved in our museum and is marked ✠ Ms. 146, having fully narrated the relics of Saints which he venerated in the cathedral church, sacred to St. Columba, does not so much as mention relics of Innocentia there: but when he enumerates the sacred pledges preserved in the church of St. Gaudentius, he speaks thus: But opposite it (the chest in which the body of St. Gaudentius is believed to have been laid) stood another stone chest, in which the wall, inscribed with characters not very ancient, indicated that there were relics of SS. Nereus, Achilleus and Innocentia: and below: Then in the little chapel of St. Innocentia we venerated her body, which is preserved there behind the altar in a stone chest, covered with a wooden lid. And these things which Papebroch wrote agree with what Clementinus and Adimari relate, who assert that the bones of St. Innocentia are preserved in the church erected to her name; which church, having fallen down through age, Bartholomew Cochapanus of Carpi, bishop of Rimini, rebuilt from the foundations in the year of Christ 1477, as the manuscript Catalogue of the bishops of Rimini testifies, which is kept in our Museum marked ✠ Ms. 139, from an inscription cut in stone in the wall of the old episcopal residence. On this point Ughelli's catalogue has nothing, which also makes Bartholomew the 54th, but our manuscript the 61st bishop of Rimini.
[7] It is enquired whether, besides the one of Rimini Besides this Innocentia of Rimini, Ferrarius reckons at this sixteenth day of September another of Vicenza, with her sister Euphemia, and cites in the Notes to his new Catalogue of the Saints of Italy — he alleges the ecclesiastical Monuments and the Annals of the city of Vicenza. In these records, says Ferrarius, Euphemia and Innocentia are said to have been sisters of SS. Leontius and Carpophorus, martyrs, who suffered at Aquileia under Diocletian and Maximian. Of these we have treated in our Work at the twentieth day of August. He writes that these virgins were put to martyrdom at the same time as their brothers: this, however, he asserts not to be plainly certain. This, he says, is undoubted, that their bodies, found about the year of salvation 1350 (in the general catalogue he marks the year 1358), were translated into the cathedral church of Vicenza; and when they had begun to shine with miracles at their tombs, they too began to be venerated by the church of Vicenza. But in an annotation he says that it can be doubted whether Euphemia be not the same as the martyr of the same name who suffered at Aquileia with Dorothea, Thecla, and Erasma; likewise whether Innocentia be different from her who is venerated at Rimini. As regards Euphemia, see, reader, in the Prætermissi at the present day: what is to be determined about Innocentia, I set about examining in few words.
[8] Ferrarius answers that there is no room for doubt, another Innocentia of Vicenza is to be admitted, since from the records of Rimini we have it that the body of the Innocentia of Rimini rests at Rimini; but the body of the Innocentia of Vicenza is preserved at Vicenza; yet he more timidly subjoins: Unless the bodies of those same holy Virgins be said to rest in parts in different churches, in which matter an inspection would be needed. Francis Barbarano de' Mironi, in the Ecclesiastical History of Vicenza, book 1, chapter 16, says that the bodies of SS. Euphemia and Innocentia of Vicenza lay hidden until the year 1359; but below he contends that the Innocentia of Vicenza must altogether be distinguished from her of Rimini, because the Vicentine suffered at Aquileia, but the Riminese at Rimini, and the bodies of the holy women of Vicenza are preserved at Vicenza, but the bones of the Innocentia of the same name at Rimini; and he alleges as witness both Catalogues of Ferrarius. From the time also to which Barbarano ties the martyrdom both of SS. Carpophorus and Leontius and of SS. Euphemia and Innocentia, an argument could be framed for distinguishing the two Innocentias: but since that argument must rest on a ruinous foundation, I do not touch on it more fully: the curious may see what our Pinius discussed on SS. Leontius and Carpophorus at the twentieth day of August, in the Commentarius prævius, numbers 2 and 3.
[9] For my part, to open my mind candidly, in all that Ferrarius and Barbarano adduce and the documents of the Vicentines having been weighed, for building up two Innocentias, I find nothing on which I could safely and prudently rest: meanwhile I propose the following for the consideration of the learned men of Vicenza. Pinius, in SS. Leontius and Carpophorus, tome IV of August, page 33, enquiring whether SS. Euphemia and Innocentia were sisters german of SS. Leontius and Carpophorus, says that he does not know of what mark and time the Vicentine records are, and that it is uncertain with what credit the Saints are in the said records reported to have been sisters german of SS. Leontius and Carpophorus, and subjoins: But since they are announced by Ferrarius at the sixteenth day of September, on which they are venerated among the Vicentines, that point may perhaps then be treated more fully, if sufficiently apt documents shall appear which can pave the way to further investigation. Our wish has up to now not been satisfied, nor have we obtained any documents by which this controversy could be settled: for records of Vicenza of whatever sort, adduced by Ferrarius and Barbarano, and not the authority of these men themselves — which must be reckoned of the same weight as the records alleged — are not sureties undoubted enough for us to acquiesce in the tradition of the Vicentines, especially since no mention is made of the holy Vicentine Sisters in the Acts of SS. Leontius and Carpophorus published by the bishop of Equilium.
[10] the negative opinion appears the more likely. We lack therefore ancient monuments, which would that the Vicentines might dig out and communicate to us, and show to have been composed by authors worthy of credit, and earlier than the fourteenth century: for hitherto it seems to me altogether likely that by the sacred pledges of Innocentia which are preserved at Vicenza, and which became known only in the fourteenth century and began, on Ferrarius's testimony, to be venerated, the distinction of two Innocentias is by no means proved, and I should rather believe that various churches enjoy the body of one Innocentia divided into parts. Barbarano contends that the veneration of SS. Euphemia and Innocentia among the Vicentines is far more ancient, and Ferrarius's saying, Their bodies, found in the year 1358 … began to be venerated, he so explains that it be not understood of the first beginnings of their cultus, but that only the beginnings of a greater and more celebrated veneration are to be referred to the said year. But who does not see that the plain words of Ferrarius are twisted by that exposition to a wretched sense, Barbarano himself confessing that the relics of the said Saints were hidden for so long a time that almost all memory of them perished? Would that he had at least proved, and shown by documents by no means doubtful, that some Innocentia was really venerated at Vicenza before the year 1358 or 1359, so that the difficulty already proposed might be untangled, and the distinction of the Innocentia of Vicenza from her of Rimini might be affirmed upon a solid foundation by men not given over to partisan zeal. Paul Masini, in his Bologna Surveyed, announces at the sixteenth of September St. Innocentia, virgin and martyr, venerated in the church of St. Gabriel, and asserts that her relics are preserved there: what Innocentia this is, and whether distinct from the others, is unascertained by me.