ON BL. HELENA DALL'OLIO, WIDOW,
AT BOLOGNA IN ITALY
In the year MDXX.
HISTORICO-CRITICAL SYLLOGY.
Helena dall'Olio, widow, at Bologna in Italy (B.)
BY J. S.
Concerning the cult of B. Helena of Bologna, such as it is, the most Eminent Prospero Lambertini wrote accurately The Life of Blessed Helena dall'Olio written, when he was archbishop of Bologna and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who now happily rules the universal Church as Benedict XIV. His words therefore, from the most praised Work On the Beatification of the Servants of God etc., book 2, chapter 18, as they are read in the third Roman edition, I transfer hither: In the church of the Lateran Canons of the same city of Bologna, which is under the invocation of S. John in Monte, there stands a chapel of the lords de' Bentivogli, built in honor of S. Cecilia, where is buried the body of B. Helena dall'Olio, a virgin
of Bologna. Pietro of Lucca, a Canon Regular of the Lateran Order, wrote the Life of this Virgin and her excellent deeds: for he had been the director of her conscience and her confessor, as may be gathered from the end of the cited Life drawn up by him, which nevertheless has never been published in print, but is preserved among the manuscripts of Muzio Maria Grati, a Canon of the Metropolitan of Bologna. An anonymous but contemporary writer also pursued the life of this B. Helena at greater length, and also the concourse to her funeral, and the prodigies and miracles which followed. The same things are likewise reviewed among the writers of Bolognese affairs, namely count Carlo Bentivoglio in the Compendium of the life of our Blessed one, published at Bologna in the year MDCLI; Pompeo Vizzani in the History of Bologna, book 10; Celso Faleoni, a Canon Regular, in the Historical Memoirs of the bishops of Bologna; Gaspare Bombaci in the Sacred memoirs of Bolognese men illustrious for sanctity; and Antonio Masini in Bologna Surveyed: besides that in the catalogue of the Saints and Blessed of Bologna published after the Archiepiscopal book of Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti the name of B. Helena dall'Olio is written down.
[2] and an immemorial cult, such as it is. But this blessed Helena died in the year 1520 on the XXIII day of September; from which time until the present, the Ordinaries knowing and in no way gainsaying it, a public cult has been shown to her. For not only has she commonly been called Blessed, and her image painted with rays and splendors; but also on her feast day the chest in which her body is laid up is opened, and exposed to the veneration of the people. Tokens too have always been hung up at her sepulchre for graces conferred by God through her intercession. Wherefore Pietro Aretino, an author contemporary with the Blessed one herself, on page 103, part 1, Giornata 2, of his Ragionamenti writes thus: “Ed in un anno vi si attacco piu ceri, piu vesti, piu camiciuole, e piu tavolette, che non sono intorno alla sepoltura di santa Beata Lena dall' Olio a Bologna”. Indeed the number of silver offerings so increased from time to time that in the year MDCXCV, a restoration of the chapel in which the blessed body is laid up having been made, it seemed expedient to melt them down and turn them into sacred silver furniture. No Office indeed is recited in her honor, nor is a Mass celebrated; but from the time of her death until now a feast has been and is kept on her anniversary day with a particular array and with a preceding ringing of the bell as a sign of the celebration to be held. Yet the cause of the beatification and canonization of this Blessed one has never been introduced, nor was any process ever drawn up by the Ordinaries concerning her immemorial cult, or one of a hundred years before the publishing of Urban VIII's decrees: although, since about the antiquity of this no controversy has ever been raised, and the bishops for the time being (as has been said) have known and approved the exhibiting of the aforesaid public cult, this Blessed one remains in possession of it.
[3] These things about a cult sufficient for Helena dall'Olio to be inserted into our Work with the title of Blessed Her body laid beneath the altar, and almost entire. Our Most Holy Lord Benedict accurately pursued. For the Italian words of Pietro Aretino imply that the custom of offering tapers and votive tablets at the Blessed one's sepulchre is most ancient. Further, the chapel of S. Cecilia, in which beneath the altar the Blessed one's body is laid, I approached and entered with a companion in the year 1753, in the month of April, and not only did we see the Blessed one's image adorned with rays and splendors beside the altar, and votive gifts hung up there; but the chest also being opened to us, we surveyed the body itself, partly clothed with flesh, yet not incorrupt. Masini in Bologna Surveyed, page 462, at the XXIII of September, says that the said body was laid beneath the altar in the year 1650, on the XXII day of December, which I can easily believe him affirming, since from the beginning indeed it was buried in the chapel of S. Cecilia, but not beneath the Altar. No more shall I deny that it was visited in the year 1644, on the V day of November, by the ecclesiastical superiors, as he premises. But what he adds, that it was found altogether entire, must not be so understood that no part of the flesh is believed to have been then consumed or putrefied. For the anonymous writer of the Life, whom we believe contemporary, or at least nearly so, confesses that at the first visitation of B. Helena's body, which he says was made forty-four days after the Blessed one's death, the remaining parts of the body were not free from some corruption, and contends that the breast alone was found without corruption. Wherefore Masini meant to say, I think, that the body was found in the year 1644 in that state in which we ourselves saw it, so that it can in some way be called entire, but not incorrupt.
[4] But as concerns the writers of the Life already enumerated, The Life written by Pietro of Lucca: an Apologetic writing, we have nearly all, and certainly the first and chief ones, from whom the rest drew their materials. The first is that of Pietro of Lucca, Prior of the Lateran Canons of S. John in Monte, or his Epistle to Pope Leo X On the progress and end of the life of Lady Helena, given on the XII of October of the year 1520, that is, not two whole months after the Blessed one's death. I think that this Epistle is called a Life, and that no other was written by Pietro of Lucca, both because it is a compendium of her life, and because it contains those things which others have brought forward under the name of Pietro of Lucca. We have, however, another writing also, whose outer title was of this kind, as Father Giovanni Battista Scorza, Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus at Bologna, noted: The Life of Blessed Helena, written by the Rev. Father D. Pietro of Lucca in the year MDXX. But that writing is rather an apology for the things which had already then been written about the Blessed one, or were to be written, than a narration of deeds or a History of her life. Besides, I can scarcely persuade myself that that apologetic writing is Pietro of Lucca's, since the author frequently speaks of Pietro of Lucca, and always as of another person, not seldom too with a eulogy. Nay, after the middle the author manifestly implies that this writing is not Pietro's, since he testifies that he drew the greater part of what he writes from the writings of that same reverend father D. Pietro. Wherefore I altogether judge that that apology is another's than Pietro's, and that that outer title was ascribed to the codex by someone who did not sufficiently know that writing or its author.
[5] in which the anonymous author strives to defend both the Blessed one herself, But what was the occasion of putting together that writing is abundantly gathered from the aforesaid Epistle of Pietro of Lucca. For he among other signs of B. Helena's sanctity reckons that many spoke against her even after her death, writing these things in Latin after other matters: But since the life and also the death of this Virgin has hitherto always been tossed by the tempests of persecution, so that it is incredible to say (to be silent now about her life) how great and of what kind is the number of adversaries and malignant enemies after her death, detracting with rabid bites from her fame, her sanctity, her life, and raging most savagely against her — of those, I say, to whom her life, her holiness, her heroic manners, and her illustrious deeds were most hidden — so that it may deservedly be concluded that the world has nothing in common with this Spouse of Christ; otherwise it would support, favor, defend her. Whereas on the other hand all the fathers of that Virgin herself, of most approved life and name, to whom the whole course of her life, its end, its purpose, its deeds were plain; all besides the upright citizens and chief men of the city, to whom something of her life or of her graces had been imparted, attest and favor her sanctity. Then he says that that persecution had been foretold by the Blessed one while she lived.
[6] and the writings about her deeds; And presently he asserts that it was stirred up chiefly by those whose interest it was to protect the innocence and integrity of her life, and to take up arms in her defense, as are, he says, some prelates of the church, certain Religious, and some marked with the title of the spiritual life, unable to bear in her the name of sanctity and of virginity. From these things indeed the aforesaid Pietro strives to conclude the following: All which things make me hold an unshaken belief that she was most acceptable to God and filled with his gifts. But, as I shall by no means deny B. Helena's holy manners, so I shall not admit that her sanctity is rightly inferred from the multitude of those who spoke against her after her death. Nay rather I judge that prudent men spoke against it because the disciples and friends of the Blessed one immediately after her death published many things utterly incredible, so that those who spoke against them rather disapproved the ridiculous fables which were being published about the Blessed one than the manners or deeds of B. Helena. But if any perhaps censured the Blessed one herself too with a freer criticism, this will have been done because the ineptitudes which were being published were attributed to the Blessed one herself by those who kept saying that they had them from her own mouth, as revealed to her, and manifested by her to the directors of her conscience. Certainly the things which were about B. Helena and her revelations first bandied about in words, and presently consigned to writing by Pietro of Lucca, and then more copiously in the more prolix Life, are so incredible that I cannot wonder that the more prudent people of Bologna and those more loving of truth — to whom the Romans also were added, as is plain from the more prolix Life — were offended by discourses and writings of that kind.
[7] And so the authors of such assertions judged that an apologetic writing must be sent before, but the second it cannot accomplish. The more prolix Life, before a more prolix Life, or some Work about the Blessed one's revelations, should be composed. But that Apology, written in Italian, will never suffice with prudent men to win credit for all those things which were imprudently asserted in the Lives of the Blessed one. The Apology itself rather has not a few things which will never find credit with men even moderately learned and critical, especially since many things are only boasted and boldly asserted without suitable proof, although they are such that some would scarcely find credit even on the weightiest testimonies, and others could be made credible by no testimonies of men. From that Apology, however, compared with the Lives, it seems able to be gathered that those invented assertions with which the Lives abound are not to be attributed to the sayings of B. Helena, but to the levity of those who from the Blessed one's obscure words asserted many improbable things without judgment, as I shall show below. Now after the said Apology the more prolix Life was written by an anonymous author, who nowhere implies that the Blessed one was familiarly known to him. He professes that he draws everything from the writings of those who had known B. Helena and had learned many things from her own mouth, so that perhaps he was not plainly contemporary, but nearly so, or perhaps a boy or a youth when she met her last day.
[8] In a letter of Father Giovanni Battista Scorza, Rector of the Bolognese house of the Society of Jesus, whose author perhaps was Pompeo Vizzani, not to be published. who took care that all those records should be transmitted to our Elders, given in the year 1630, on the XVI day of February, the writer of that more prolix Life is said to be lord Pompeo Vizzani, a nobleman of Bologna, grandfather of one of the magistrates
of Bologna of that time. The same therefore will have been that Pompeo Vizzani who wrote a History of Bologna in Italian, printed in the year 1602. The aforesaid Scorza subjoins concerning the authority of that Life that the Canons Regular of S. John in Monte asserted that the Life was composed from documents of their own archive, which were not all any longer to be found, perhaps, he says, because they had not been restored. Perhaps too because the author had certain documents from elsewhere, or gathered more from those he received than they contained, as some writers not seldom do, forming conjectures and liberally asserting them. Father Jacobus Quaille, S. J., who had received the said Life for our Elders, wrote hither about it in the year 1630 from Rome, where he was then staying, the following: I now have with me the Life of B. Helena of Bologna, written in Italian in folio of twenty-six quires, and therefore to be sent … in its own time. There is no reason why it should delay the Work undertaken by Your Reverence, because in the judgment of all it does not seem fit to be brought to light, at least in the manner in which it is written, and therefore perhaps it has hitherto been suppressed. These things being perceived, I wished nevertheless to read the Life itself carefully, that I might at least communicate the more probable fragments to readers in the Latin tongue, if it should seem expedient. But, the whole Life having been read through, I depart from that plan also. For although I cannot doubt that it contains some true things, yet it is most difficult to separate the true from the false, and most things must seem doubtful, since everything is stated in the same manner, even those things which are certainly false.
[9] And so I shall only briefly examine some heads of both Lives, because I see that they have been adopted by some writers whose little works are had in print. [Ridiculous assertions about her father, whom they will have to be the emperor of the Turks,] The first is about the Blessed one's birth, of which Pietro of Lucca writes thus: This Virgin was … the daughter of the great emperor of the Turks …, and on the very day on which she was born was carried over by angelic ministry, and set down in that place where her reputed parents dwelt; and their own daughter, who had been born on the same day, was carried in her cradle to Constantinople, whence that other had been taken away. The anonymous author (so I shall call him, whether he be Pompeo Vizzani or another) of the more prolix Life likewise begins from a birth of that kind, and discourses at sufficient length to show that B. Helena was really the daughter of the emperor of the Turks. But for a thing so incredible he brings forward no argument except a revelation made, as he will have it, to B. Helena. But to prove that revelation itself he brings forward various things, namely that the Blessed one said to some persons that she was not of Bologna, but a stranger; that those were not her parents who were held for her parents, but others. He names also a few to whom he says she said that she was the daughter of the emperor of the Turks, and he then repeats the same argument in the Life. But the writers of the Life will never persuade me that the Blessed one said all the things which they assert she said, since they manifestly not seldom contradict themselves.
[10] [and about several persons whom the anonymous author makes the Blessed one's kinsfolk:] Concerning her very birth the Anonymous author makes her say things manifestly false and incredible. For he says that Leonardo the Venetian, a Lateran Canon, in the year 1518 brought to B. Helena a likeness of Mahomet II, whom he certainly judged to be Helena's father, although, says the author, she had never clearly set this forth to anyone. Then he says that Leonardo urged that he might fish out something about her father; and that Helena answered that in that image she beheld as clearly the likeness and form of her father and mother as her own hand, which, he says, she was looking at. After other trifles, which I pass over, he makes her say that she was troubled with scruples because she had once said that she was five years old when she was carried over, whereas she had been carried over on the very day of her birth. But this scruple, the author narrates, was removed from her, the Lord revealing to her that at the time of the translation she had received only such understanding as a girl of five years has. Thence she then inferred, says the Anonymous author, saying: And for this cause I remember that I saw my father and mother with my own eyes, and many other things, of which I have a clear memory. Presently, Leonardo urging that she should say something about her mother, she is asserted to have answered that her mother was a Christian. But from a Christian mother the author infers that she was of the house of the Palæologi, and for this cause he will have it that Helena was a kinswoman of the marquis of Montferrat, which he asserts was also revealed to her. The author presently adds other kinsfolk of B. Helena, known from revelation, as he says. She was, namely, of the family of S. Catherine, virgin and martyr, of the family of S. Petronius, bishop of Bologna, and finally of the family of the most blessed Virgin Mary. Thus the Anonymous author.
[11] those figments by no means to be attributed to the Blessed one, The studious reader will wonder, and not undeservedly, if I should wish to refute trifles of this kind, since it is enough to have recited them. It is pleasing, however, to observe a few things from which it seems it may be gathered that those ridiculous assertions are not Helena's own, but rather the inventions of those who wished to make the Blessed one wonderful in every part. Whether they took occasion for inventing them from Helena's ambiguous sayings, or were deceived in another way, I do not dispute. If we believe the Anonymous author, someone certainly judged that Mahomet II was Helena's father, and brought his image, although she had never clearly set this forth to anyone. But if he certainly believed a thing so incredible without a clear testimony of Helena about it, what opinion can we have of that man's prudence, and how shall we not deservedly suspect that he sought and asked many things, that he might hear something by which he might confirm his own imprudent opinion? How would the Blessed one herself have deserved credit, if she had asserted that in the image of Mahomet she perceived the form of her father and mother, and that she remembered having seen her father Mahomet with her own eyes? How would it have been true, which she is asserted once to have said, that she was carried over at five years old, if she had been carried over on the very day of her birth, even though she had then received the understanding of a girl of five? For a newborn girl would not be five years old, even if she had the understanding of a girl of five. Besides, the Anonymous author at the beginning of the Life affirms that Helena until the thirty-eighth or ninth year of her age always thought that she was born of those parents by whom she was brought up at Bologna. How then did she afterward remember having seen her father Mahomet? If the Blessed one had ever said anything of the kind, it would have been the part of prudent men to unteach her. But I shall by no means doubt that they are mere figments, or the dreams of the credulous simplicity of men gathering one thing from another.
[12] Pietro of Lucca in the aforesaid Epistle furnishes ground for thinking but perhaps from her ambiguous sayings that many fables flowed from the Blessed one's words not well understood, when he writes thus: The spirit of prophecy also was excellent in her, as has been perceived from her innumerable predictions, although for the most part it has been most difficult to understand her words exactly and certainly: and so signally did this gift shine forth in her, and throughout all Italy men have felt the proof of this matter, that it cannot be denied even by the most obstinate enemy. These things he says not without exaggeration, since B. Helena does not seem to have been known in many places outside Bologna; and since in the Lives, diligently read through, I have not detected clear examples of prophetic prediction. But, that exaggeration being omitted, let us consider only that it was for the most part most difficult to understand the Blessed one's words exactly and certainly. For the intimates of B. Helena, who are called now her fathers, now her sons, and from whose assertions nearly everything related in the Lives has flowed, ought to have been more cautious than to scatter among the common people ambiguous words, whose sense they could not certainly understand, expounded by their own wit; since by this imprudence it came about that many opposed them, and said that those things were not predictions which they had attributed to B. Helena in words and writings.
[13] Hence the author of the Apology about the middle had to confess wrongly collected by the authors. that many things were said by Helena in another sense than they had been understood and set forth. For when he had asserted that nothing had failed to be fulfilled in the sense intended by God revealing it — which is most certain, the Lord's revelation itself being admitted — he subjoins: Let this be said of the sense of the words, which from time to time were understood otherwise than they had been revealed in the divine light. And presently: Whence many revelations of the Lord are conditional, and many, the condition laid down failing, have not been fulfilled as they seem to sound. Others by their own veil and obscurity are so difficult that they have not been understood by a living rational creature, as constantly appears in the holy prophets of old. Many too have been revoked by God on account of the world's unworthiness, and the hidden judgments of God: just as also from time to time, while she spoke of herself, she was believed to speak from the prophetic light. And so let it not seem wonderful if several times it seems to fall out otherwise than it had been understood, or if this be afterward heard. Excuses of this kind the Anonymous author of the more prolix Life also uses. Besides, it is clear not only from the more prolix Life, but also from the Epistle of Pietro of Lucca, that some things were immediately after the Blessed one's death bandied about and written as predicted by Helena herself, which have not yet come to pass, and in part can no longer come to pass. Now if they dared lightly to write of things future, whose falsity could afterward be detected, what credit do they deserve about things past, and those by their own strangeness plainly incredible, which they asserted with the same freedom, the people of Bologna themselves for the greatest part crying out against them at that time?
[14] Certain other incredible assertions. For this cause I shall pass over in mere silence many assertions of the biographers which pertain to the eminent excellence of B. Helena, nor shall I examine whether, after the manner usual with the blessed citizens of heaven, she saw the divine essence as often as she nearly desired, as the Anonymous author imprudently asserts and from time to time repeats. I shall not sift whether, after she came forth into the light, she was sanctified by the Lord, and afterward received the Holy Spirit, now under the form of a dove, now of fire, as Pietro of Lucca also has it. I shall not investigate at greater length whether she lived without her own heart for many years before her death, as the aforesaid Pietro again affirms, alleging five witnesses living under the same Order, who saw that, her body being opened after death, in the place of the heart there was found something else different from a heart. But the testimonies of Religious were not to be alleged here, but of physicians, of whom according to the Anonymous author five were present; and they indeed wondered that Helena's heart differed in some respects from the usual hearts; but they are not said to have asserted that it was not a heart. Finally I shall not sift the countless visions, and obscure predictions, and a good many other marvels which are read in the Lives, being content to have said briefly that everything seems wonderfully exaggerated beyond likelihood, and that therefore I prefer to omit everything rather than to weave prolix disputations which will profit readers nothing.
[15] A brief compendium of her life and deeds: Wherefore I shall give a very brief compendium of her Life. B. Helena was born at Bologna, and had as father Silverio Duglioli, a notary of Bologna, and as mother Pentesilea Boccaferri, likewise of Bologna,
whose integrity of life the Anonymous author commends. And she was born according to the Anonymous author in the year 1472, and rather in the earlier than in the later months of the year, as I gather from the age which he attributes to her. That she was adorned with much piety in her girlish years, and obeyed her mother's commands with the utmost obedience, the Anonymous author relates. He likewise narrates that a vow of virginity was pronounced by her before her marriage. But I am rather persuaded that the Girl burned indeed with a desire of preserving her virginity, and that this was firmly purposed by her for a long time; but that she was bound by a vow I can scarcely believe, since he relates many things which can with difficulty stand together with such a vow. It may be said that these must be held false: nor shall I with difficulty admit that all the things seem uncertain to me which the author narrates as done between the mother and Helena before the marriage was contracted. But at least the marriage itself is by no means doubtful, but certain: nor does the author will that she was compelled to it by her mother's violence; but he says that after some resistance Helena at last consented to it, when her mother no longer urged, but left her full liberty. And she contracted the marriage, as he says elsewhere, in the seventeenth year of her age, with Benedetto dall'Olio (in Italian dall' Oglio), who was not far from the fortieth year of his age; and with him she lived nearly thirty years, in the utmost peace and concord. After her husband's death she passed the last years of her life as a widow, and died in the year 1520, on the XXIII day of September. She was buried honorably, and with a great concourse of people, in the church of S. John in Monte, and in the chapel of S. Cecilia, which she is said to have built at her own expense.
[16] the Blessed one's virginity in marriage does not seem certain: For the rest, B. Helena at this time is everywhere called a Virgin by the writers of Bologna, because the writers of her Life assert that she preserved her virginity even with her husband, and that the spouses by mutual consent abstained from conjugal acts. I know indeed that some holy men and women are found who in marriage preserved their virginity unimpaired, and therefore I gladly acknowledge that this is by no means incredible, when it is asserted by witnesses worthy of credit. But the more attentively I consider the assertions of Pietro of Lucca about the virginity preserved in marriage by B. Helena, and all the circumstances about her manner of living and acting with her husband, which are related at length in the more prolix Life, the less do I dare to assert her virginity for certain. For this cause I have not called B. Helena a virgin, although I would not absolutely deny that she remained a virgin in marriage; but only doubt about the virginity, both on account of the credit, not sufficiently proved, of the witnesses who assert it; and on account of many other things related by those witnesses, which I should with difficulty believe Helena would have done, if she had wished to preserve virginity in marriage, and had had her husband consenting to her purpose.
[17] Wherefore I shall dispute no more about this matter, and, all the excellences being passed over the innocence of her life. by which the writers of her Life wished to make B. Helena like the most blessed Virgin Mary in many things, I only observe that the testimony of Pietro of Lucca does not conduce much to the Blessed one's praise, in which he says that he judges she was always immune from mortal sin, confirming his own opinion by these words: Of which thing I myself, who for the space of sixteen years had the spiritual care of her, and who most often heard the general confession of her whole Life, am a witness, and piously believe that it is so. Likewise several others of her fathers of approved life, who still survive, bear witness; since we have never detected in her anything of offense against God which exceeds the kind of a venial stain. If I add no more about B. Helena, I would that the studious reader might pardon me. For neither was diligence lacking to me for reading everything carefully through, nor good will for giving the whole Life too in the Latin tongue. But, all things considered, I have believed that this brevity should rather be preferred; nay, I should have preferred to abstain altogether from every examination of her deeds, if some deeds had not been asserted in published books.