ON BL. PETER ACOTANTUS, CONFESSOR,
AT VENICE
About MCLXXX.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Whence knowledge of the Blessed one was received; his immemorial cult, his Acts.
Peter Acotantus, Confessor, at Venice (B.)
BY J. P.
The memory of this Blessed one occurs from time to time among the Venetians, in Works published before this present century, Why and from what documents the Blessed one, unknown to the Calendars, but everywhere brief and not sufficiently distinct and elucidated; more rarely among foreigners, and only drawn from those; nowhere among the martyrologists or the collectors of Saints and Blessed, however modern. So that, had not here again the care and benevolence of the most excellent Flaminio Corner, a Venetian senator, come to our aid and, by supplying material, carried a torch before us, we should scarcely, or rather not at all, have been able to treat of him. That praised man first transmitted hither various manuscript notices; then his remarkable Work on the Churches of Venice Illustrated, published in print in the year 1749; whence we have learned many things which could not be found elsewhere about the Blessed one's age, birth, deeds, death, and his immemorial and uninterrupted cult. Further, the present XXIII day of the month of September is not the Blessed one's day of death; for he is handed down to have died in the month of August, and on what day is unknown.
[2] is treated on this day; Flaminio Corner, at the end of the sixteenth decade weaving a Menology of those who have veneration among the Venetians, and commemorating Peter on the XXI day of August in these words: At Venice, the memory of blessed Peter Acotantus, a Venetian patrician and confessor, subjoins the following Annotation: Blessed Peter Acotantus flew away to heaven in the month of August; but since the day of his death is unknown, we have therefore assigned his memory to the present day. Hence we gather that not even on that day of the month of August is the Blessed one celebrated with a particular feast. In the same Menology he recurs at the XXIII day of April, as follows: At Venice, the translation of B. Peter Acotantus, whose body, seven lustres having passed from his burial, being wonderfully found, was conducted to the church of holy Basil with a great concourse of people. But neither does that day seem specially destined for his cult, since otherwise that most diligent writer would without doubt have noted it. For that cause neither have we remitted his Acts to the Supplement of one or the other month: but it has seemed good to exhibit them on this day rather than another, because we had to treat of S. Constantius of Ancona, whose body together with the sacred relics of our Blessed one is honored at Venice in the same church of S. Basil, and in the same case.
[3] We take our beginning from the Blessed one's death and his cult, he died about the year 1180; the rest will be unfolded in the course of the work. The aforesaid Corner from a manuscript Italian Catalogue of the Saints, Blessed and Venerable of Venice copied out for us the following: B.P.A.N.V. (that is, Blessed Peter Acotantus, a noble Venetian) a layman, died about the year MCLXXX. Marcus Barbarus, whom the same Corner says to have flourished about the 15th century, and calls a most accurate Chronologer of the noble families of Venice, and from whose book 3 he communicated to us likewise in the Italian tongue some things about the Blessed one and his stock, has thus: He died in the month of August MCLXXXI. Corner himself, however, in the first decade, page 95, where he treats of the Blessed one of set purpose, defers his death by six years. Most holily, he says, he fell asleep in the Lord in the month of August of the year MCLXXXVII. I believe because he judged that there must be preferred to them a most ancient Sermon to be mentioned more fully below, in which these things are read: About the year of the Lord MCLXXXVII, Aureus Magister Pero reigning as doge in the city of Venice, there flourished a precious gem, B. Peter of the house of Acotanto. Afterward, some of his deeds being narrated, he is said in the year above written to have paid the debt of the flesh. I, since nothing is at hand whence I might certainly and determinately elicit the year of his death, have broadly noted it about MCLXXX.
[4] Soon after his death the Blessed one obtained the veneration of his fellow-townsmen, and especially of the poor, presently he is venerated, illustrious for miracles; whose love he had bound to himself by his liberality and most pious compassion, and that veneration divinely approved by miracles, as the author of the Sermon before named narrates, and which is to be printed below, and Flaminio Corner, whose words are these: His happy passing being made known, at once an immense concourse of the poor was made to the bier, bitterly bewailing with sincere tears the death of their common Father, by whose praises and groans the funeral was celebrated; until the body, being carried out, in the very temple of S. Basil, the obsequies being duly celebrated, was committed to the earth. Nor were miracles from above lacking to attest his heavenly glory. Since indeed the almighty Father of mercies willed openly to declare, both by the confession of the needy and by the signs of prodigies, the merits of the alms which Peter's humility had withdrawn from human eyes, that hence too it might become known that he had already obtained in heaven the eternal life promised to the merciful. Illustrious among the rest is what happened to a certain woman, who, incredulous of his sanctity, while she mocks rather than admires the fervent zeal of the people, suddenly beheld her belly in wonderful manner so swell up that it now
threatened bursting. From the grievous punishment by which she was pressed she acknowledged the fault of her unbelief, and, being dissolved in tears, while she implores God's mercy through the intercession of his Servant, she is at the same moment restored to her former soundness.
[5] in the year 1250 the body is visited and made illustrious by a new miracle; Of these things Marcus Barbarus makes no mention; but the things which the author of the Sermon and Flaminio Corner presently relate at greater length about the visitation of the sepulchre and the miracle wrought on that occasion in the year 1250, he thus comprises in a few words in Italian: MCCL his sepulchre was opened, and he himself was found wrapped in a hair-shirt, as if he had been laid in it that very day; but a certain woman, not venerating the sacred body, was infected with leprosy, but on the following day, changing her mind and touching his hair-shirt, exchanged her infirmity for health. By these and other prodigies, which after the anonymous author of the Sermon Corner records in general, the veneration of the faithful toward the Blessed one was doubtless increased more and more, and their trust in his patronage confirmed; nevertheless about fifty years afterward the sacred body was withdrawn from their sight, and hidden in a deep pit outside the church.
[6] about 1305 it is hidden; In our manuscript notices there is cited a manuscript Catalogue of the parish priests of the parochial and collegiate church of S. Basil, in which from the year 1294 to 1305 these things are noted: Jacobus Treananti, by whom the body of B. Peter Acotanto, a noble Venetian, a layman, was buried in the field. A like Catalogue, begun from the year 1143 and carried down to 1729, Corner also printed in Decade 1, page 101, and in it at the year 1305 expressed the matter thus: Jacobus Treananti, who in a certain deep pit, not without grave sorrow of the whole district, buried the body of B. Peter Acotantus. The anonymous author of the Sermon agrees; but since he too was ignorant of the cause, he added that he did not doubt that the parish priest ordered this to be done by the divine will; implying that he supposed it to have been so disposed by God, that among a people esteeming the sacred remains less than it ought, a greater veneration and honor should arise for the Blessed one from a miraculous finding.
[7] it is found in 1340 and exposed to public veneration, Whatever it be, from the lack, or rather the concealment, of the sacred body the people's zeal does not seem to have cooled; it was diligently sought and found after about 35 years, as is noted in the above-praised Catalogue of the parish priests of S. Basil, from which we have received these things also copied out: From the year MCCCXXXV to MCCCXXXIX. Petrus Pino, archpriest of S. Maria Formosa, by whom the body of B. Peter was found and laid up in the church for adoration. Nearly the same things Corner has in his own Catalogue, but he sets a successor to Petrus Pino as parish priest only in the year 1341, and probably more correctly, since, as others note, the finding happened in the year 1340. The manner of the finding the author of the Sermon calls miraculous, but he describes it so contractedly and obscurely that neither does the miracle shine forth, nor is the manner itself sufficiently explained. Let us hear therefore the most excellent Corner: Seven lustres having passed, it came about that in the year MCCCXL certain pious men, grieving at the forgetting of so great a treasure, although ignorant where it lay buried, by a divine nod digging the earth, at once rejoiced over finding it. But the joy of so great a finding being communicated, the sacred relics, by the intervention of the bishop of Castello and of the whole clergy, with a great concourse of people, were conducted to the church of S. Basil on the XXIII day of April, and by the authority of that prelate were exposed above the altar of Jesus Christ Crucified to the public veneration of the peoples, on which they remain even to these times. From these last words I conjecture that at that very time the bones of our Blessed one were placed in the reliquary of S. Constantius of Ancona, in which to this day they are venerated together with frequent veneration of the peoples, as I said above in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of that same Saint. The inscription common to both, because this too confirms the immemorial cult of B. Peter, I here transcribe from our manuscript Notices.
Traveler,
Whoever thou art that standest with reverent knee at the sacred altars,
Of holy Constantius of Ancona
and
of blessed Peter Acotantus, a noble Venetian,
here rest the bones.
Know it and adore.
[8] The continuation of the cult Corner thus proceeds to prove: But of such veneration, begun namely from the very time of the finding, which endures to this day. witnesses are the codices of that church, and all doubt is taken away by an autograph document extracted from the public records which they call the books of the Chamber of Loans, by which in the year MCDXLIII a certain religious priest assigns a yearly rent, that, according to pious usage, a discourse to the people also being had, the festive solemnity of B. Peter may be celebrated. He here subjoins the Italian text of the instrument, which agrees with what has been said, and requires that that rent be paid about the feast of the most blessed Virgin Mary assumed into heaven, about which time probably that discourse was formerly to be appointed. And that it was appointed the most noble author further proves, by bringing forward a most ancient copy of one, which is preserved to this day in the archive of S. Basil, and which I shall give below entire.
[9] After reciting the discourse, which is the same as the Sermon several times praised, The title of Blessed in the manuscripts he says it is to be lamented that most of the deeds of so great a Man have been wrapped in darkness and lost through men's carelessness; but those which he himself there brought forward he affirms to be taken from an ancient manuscript codex of the church of S. Basil, with which agree excellently very many manuscript Chronicles of the Venetian families, which in the family of the Acotanti unanimously mark with the title of Blessed Peter, celebrated for works of mercy. Of the things brought forward by him I have already exhibited some; others I have partly passed over, because nearly the same recur in the Sermon, partly reserved for the Annotations. To the chronologers cited by him in general must doubtless be added Marcus Barbarus, whom I cited at number 3, and who in the same place testifies that Peter's body is honored as that of a Blessed one in the church of S. Basil; nor is it to be doubted that like things are read in others. But since these fail us, their place will be supplied by others whose Works are at hand.
[10] Marcantonio Sabellico, a celebrated author of the 15th century, in his Work On the Site of the City of Venice, and granted to him in published books. published at Leiden in the year 1722 in tome 5, part 1, of the Thesaurus of the Antiquities and Histories of Italy, thus speaks of the church of S. Basil: The face of the temple is ancient, and illustrious for two heavenly ones, Constantius of Ancona and Peter Acotantus of Venice. Marino Sanuto, a Venetian patrician, who flourished as the same 15th century was expiring, in the Lives of the Venetian Doges drawn up in Italian, and published by Muratori in tome 22 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, adorns Peter with the title of Saint at column 437, where he reviews the relics of that same church of S. Basil, writing thus: Saint Peter … a noble Venetian. Francesco Sansovino, book 6 of Venice the Most Noble City, printed in 1581, page 87 and following, treating of the same church of S. Basil, adds these things, likewise in Italian: In that sacred place rest S. Constantinus the confessor brought from Ancona, and blessed Peter Acotantus, a noble Venetian. Like things have Fedele Onofrio in the Venetian Chronology, printed in the year 1682, page 193; Domenico Martinelli, part 1, page 377 of the Description of the City of Venice, printed there in the year 1684; Ferdinando Ughelli in both editions of the Italia sacra, in the former tome 5, column [ ]; in the latter tome 5, column [ ]; and finally the author of the Work entitled The Splendor of the Most Magnificent City of Venice, page 199 of tome 5, part 2, of the Thesaurus of the Antiquities and Histories of Italy* just praised.
[11] An image in the church of S. Christopher, Flaminio Corner in the manuscript Notices, besides Sansovino and Ughelli already cited, alleges Martinioni and Giovanni Tiepolo, who themselves also ascribe the title of Blessed to Peter, but whose Works we do not have. I do not doubt, however, that by Giovanni Tiepolo he designates that very man of whom, on occasion of B. Comitissa, a Venetian virgin, he writes in this manner in Decade 1, page CXI: Her image also (Comitissa's), painted by order of Giovanni Tiepolo, patriarch of Venice, and marked with the title of Blessed, is venerated in the church of S. Christopher, commonly called S. Maria dell'Orto, in the chapel of the Lord's Nativity, which formerly the secular canons of the Congregation of S. George in Alga served, but now monks of the Cistercian Order serve. We have treated among us of B. Comitissa in tome 3 of September, and it has been shown from Ughelli that the same Giovanni Tiepolo entered upon the Patriarchate of Venice in the year 1619 and laid it down with his life in the year 1632. And hence an argument was deduced for the legitimate cult of that same Blessed woman. For either that image was hung up a little before the publishing of the celebrated Decree of Pope Urban VIII, that is, between the year 1619 and 1625, or a little after, that is, between 1625 and 1632; if a little before, according to the Decree it would have been removed; if a little after, it would not have been hung up unless a legitimate cult had been established.
[12] exposed with the same title, confirms the legitimate cult. The same argument can have place here; for, on Corner's testimony in the manuscript Notices, in the same church of S. Christopher there is an image of Peter Acotantus likewise with the title of Blessed. It is not added indeed at what time or by whose care it was hung up; but in another place the same most noble senator speaks in such a way that it may deservedly be conjectured that it was exposed by that same patriarch Giovanni Tiepolo: the words, rendered from Italian into Latin, run thus: The icons of those three Blessed ones are joined or united in the church of S. Maria dell'Orto. From that argument certainly no light weight is added to the rest hitherto brought forward for the legitimate and immemorial cult; to which, that we may omit nothing, we join the conclusion of the often-mentioned senator, Decade 1, page 100: But the uninterrupted continuation of the cult is proved, he says, by authentic documents; for from that time in which the elevation of his body was accomplished (in the year 1340) by episcopal authority and intervention at the altar, as they call it, of the Crucifix, above the table of that altar, his cult has persevered by a continued and never interrupted succession, as is had from documents and from most ancient tradition, with the lighting of lamps and other acts of public veneration rendered by clergy and people, which is known to be able to be shown only to blessed Men.
[13] The Acts to be published here. The deeds of B. Peter, knowledge of which has come down to us, are all contained in the Sermon several times praised, formerly delivered at his yearly commemoration, which therefore it will be enough to have exhibited here, illustrated after the custom with Annotations. Of it we have a twofold copy, one printed in the Work of the most excellent Corner from a codex of the archive of S. Basil at Venice, the other manuscript, extracted on the XXV day of September 1716 from an ancient book, made of parchment leaves and written in very ancient characters, existing in the keeping of the lord parish priest of the parochial and collegiate church of S. Basil, as Giovanni Garzoni Paulini, a Venetian public notary, subscribing to it authentically, testifies. I scarcely doubt that both copies were taken from the same codex: but since here and there a difference occurs in the words, and in the one there is omitted what is expressed in the other, I suspect
that the characters are difficult to read, and so corrupted by age that the copyists had sometimes to divine from the rest of the context, and, when they could not attain the sense, to omit some things. I suspected also at first that the autograph was written in Italian and rendered into Latin by different men at different times; but, a comparison being made, this seemed less likely, because thus there would be a greater discrepancy in the order of the words and in the constructions. I shall here print Corner's printed text, and where it shall be necessary I shall supply from the manuscript.
AnnotataConstantius*
SERMON
By an anonymous author.
From the edition of the most excellent lord Flaminio Corner, a Venetian senator, Decade 1, page 97.
Peter Acotantus, Confessor, at Venice (B.)
BHL Number: 6691
By an anonymous author.
The exordium, About the year of the Lord MCLXXXVII, Aureus Magister Pero a reigning as doge in the city of Venice, there flourished a precious gem, B. Peter of the house of Acotanto b. I exhort and admonish you, Brethren in Christ, that you attentively hear with upright ears the sanctity of that most blessed Peter and the miracles which Christ our Lord wrought in him, that so by your devotion and by the devout entreaty of that Saint you may come to eternal reward. For I do not wish to afflict you with weariness, dearest brethren, by a multiplying of words, but rather to beget devotion in your hearts by a compendious and brief Sermon.
[2] For that most holy Peter Acotanto was noble by lineage, the narration but nobler by sanctity; most pious toward the poor of Christ, most pure in flesh: he wished to follow Christ both rich and poor by profound humility: of whose charity and alms I wish to tell you, dearest brethren. That holy Peter was full of riches; but, considering that Christ had emptied himself and taken the form of a servant, and had left heavenly glory and endured in this world an inestimable poverty, he despised all earthly and transitory things: he made Christ the poor his heir: he wished to appear poorer than all the poor. In the winter season, when the strongest winds arise, and by the inundation of waters the little houses of the poor and wretched, which are not on high ground, are filled with waters — and then much more, when that Saint was living, this was wont much more to happen — men could not, and still cannot, when these things happen, go out of their houses.
[3] O wonderful thing! O hear and perceive with your ears and understand my cry, of his deeds, and thy soul shall delight in fatness. For who ever heard that any rich man stripped himself and clothed others, exposed himself to winds and perils and colds, that he might deliver others? That most blessed Peter used to fill his little boat, or barque, with wood, bread, wine and oil, and sailed through so strong a wind and the inundations of waters, and carried them to those perishing of hunger and unable to go out of their houses. For was he then made so prodigal for the charity of Christ that, all his goods being distributed, he himself was compelled to beg c?
[4] his death, But Christ, unwilling that so strenuous an Athlete of his should long remain in this wretched world, but willing that he should happily possess the eternal kingdoms with his Saints, caused him in the above-written year, in the month of August, to pay * the debt of his flesh. Whose body was devoutly buried at the church of B. Basil. And in the aforesaid district the aforesaid Saint had possessions not small. To whose sepulchre the whole city runs, the poor run piously weeping, groaning, lifting their hands to heaven, and piously complaining to Christ about their dead Father, and saying: O good Jesus, who shall be our father? who our comforter? who indeed will sustain our life d?
[5] his miracles; But since frequent miracles were wrought about that Saint's tomb, gladness returns to the people and to the poor; for they sweetly weep and rejoice: I shall not omit to narrate a miracle at the death of B. Peter. A certain woman, unwilling to believe that he was a Saint, at once her belly began to swell, and when she was rebuked by the bystanders for her unbelief, she at once repented, and began to call upon the mercy of God through B. Peter; and at once she was perfectly healed. For it is no wonder, most beloved brethren, if God wrought many miracles through that Saint: for if as a poor man he followed Christ the poor, in no different manner did he as a Virgin follow Christ the Virgin.
[6] praise of his preserved virginity; He never had wife or children, and always kept his heart clean and turned his eyes away from the vanities of this world. O glorious virginity! O wonderful thing! Gold in the mire, a rose among thorns, how can these be? O Christian soul, consider what merit, what reward that Saint must obtain. For he could have transgressed and did not transgress, could do evil and did it not: for on account of the virginity which he preserved he sings the new song, which is granted to none to sing save to those hundred and forty-four thousand infants, in whose number he is. For of virgins it is written: There are other things for others, but for none such things.
[7] the incorruption of his body, and miracles from the touching of it; But about the year of the Lord MCCL certain men of the district of S. Basil, led by curiosity or, as I should better say, by divine inspiration, attempted to open the holy treasure of God, namely the body of B. Peter, and, the monument being opened, they found him wrapped in a hair-shirt, as if he had been buried on that same day, in the hair-shirt. A very great crowd therefore, all, run together and hasten to so great a spectacle: young men run together, the sick hasten for the obtaining of health, boys hasten, and old men alike. But in this hastening a certain woman, young in age, but younger in levity, seeing others devoutly touch the hair-shirt of S. Peter, [shrank from it. O wonderful thing! At once, having returned home, she was made leprous in the face; her neighbors, men and women, and all who had seen her, accuse her of having shrunk from the hair-shirt of holy Peter e:] at once that young woman blushed, and before the rising of the day, at earliest dawn, covered with a cloak, she came to the sepulchre of B. Peter, embracing it, weeping, and devoutly kissing his hair-shirt, that she might be cleansed of the leprosy by which she had been oppressed when she shrank from touching the hair-shirt, and at once — O wonder! — she received her former health by the prayers and merits of B. Peter.
[8] the finding and elevation of the same after it had been hidden for a time. About the year MCCCV a certain parish priest of the church of S. Basil, by name Jacobus Treananti, ordered to be made — by the divine will, I do not doubt — a certain deep pit, in which he caused the sepulchre of B. Peter to be buried, not without great sorrow of the whole district. O thou faithful Christian, O thou devout servant of B. Peter, listen and attend, why Christ, who knew that his precious treasure was not faithfully venerated outside the church, willed it to be hidden f, that within a short space it might miraculously be opened and be venerated within the church of S. Basil, namely within the space of thirty-five years; for God would not leave him thus buried for ever, but about the year MCCCXL certain young men of the district of S. Basil, on the XXIII day of April, on the feast of S. George, by a divine nod, not knowing where they were digging, wishing to find the holy treasure in the field * of B. Basil, and, having found it, honorably by diocesan authority, with the lord bishop and other clerics and laymen of the kindred, and chiefly with lord Bertucius Acotantus, placed it g; by whose merits and prayers may Christ the Son of God lead us to the joys of paradise. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* that is, in the cemetery
eum* is superfluous