John of Meda

ON ST. JOHN OF MEDA, PRESBYTER AND FOUNDER OF THE FIRST ORDER OF THE HUMILIATI,

AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA.

In the year 1159.

COMMENTARIUS PRÆVIUS.

John of Meda, presbyter, and founder of the first Order of the Humiliati, at Milan in Insubria. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. The Order of the Humiliati extinct among the men; the memory of the saint in the Martyrologies; a proper Office among the Humiliate nuns; his cult and body at Como; was he canonized by Alexander III?

[ ] The Order of the Humiliati, which was formerly renowned in Italy and embraced persons of either sex, The holy founder of an Order extinct among the men, now, the communities of men having been suppressed by St. Pius V, Roman Pontiff, in the year 1571, survives only among the nuns. The causes for suppressing the Order of men may be read in volume 2 of the Roman Bullarium, published at Rome in the year 1617, among the constitutions of the said St. Pius, num. 119, where there also follows constitution 120 of the same Pontiff, in which he distributes the aforesaid brethren into various dwellings and assigns them sustenance, and disposes in various ways of the possessions of the suppressed Order. The first of these is indeed noted in that place as given on the seventh of the Ides of February of the year 1570; but from the appended Indiction XIV and the sixth year of his own Pontificate it is clear that it belongs to the year of Christ 1571, to which the editor also referred it in the margin, and under which it is likewise marked in Giacomo Laderchi's continuation of Baronius's Ecclesiastical Annals, volume 24.

[2] Moreover the religious nuns, of whom Hippolyte Helyot in volume 6 of his History of Religious Orders enumerates the thirteen or fourteen monasteries which survive, but surviving among the nuns, is announced on this day, on this 26th day of September honor with a yearly Office their holy founder John, surnamed by his family name Oldratus, but more commonly called de Meda from the place of his birth, and likewise called the Presbyter from the presbyterate with which he was the first among the Humiliati to be distinguished. Several Martyrologies, especially Italian ones, commemorate him on the same day. The Milanese has it thus: At Milan, of St. John, presbyter and confessor of the Order of the Humiliati, whose body was carried to Como. On the same day it is read of him in John Baptist Carisius's Sacred Milanese Diary: St. John Oldratus, a Milanese noble, of the Order of the Humiliati. His body lies at Como in the church of St. Mary of Loreto. Relics at Milan in St. Erasmus's and in St. Catherine's in the Brera.

[3] on which he is honored, In the Sanctuary or Martyrology of Como a fuller eulogy is woven for him at the same day in these words: At Como, in the sacred church of Loreto (where his body rests), the birthday of St. John, confessor and first presbyter of the Order of the Humiliati; who, since from his adolescence he wonderfully honored the Virgin Mother of God, deserved from her, while he prayed the more ardently in solitude, to be called to Religion by a singular token of her goodwill. Enrolled in the sacred company of the Humiliati at Milan, he shortly gave notable examples of prudence, learning, and sanctity. Setting out from Milan to Como, he chose a place overgrown with many reeds, where he built a church to the most holy Mother of God, to which also a little afterward he added a monastery, in which together with others he began to establish a heavenly manner of life. Having reduced his companions' religious garments to a more seemly form, he persuaded them to embrace the Rule of St. Benedict. Gathering wonderful fruits throughout all Insubria by the preaching of the divine word, he brought forth and nourished countless sons for Christ; very many also he compelled to bid farewell to the world and its pleasures.

[4] He built many monasteries in many cities, in which, under John's auspices, all Italy looked up to men endowed with great sanctity. In an extreme dearth of grain, by which he was pressed, he received from an angel a purse filled with coins. He obtained oil divinely increased while he was dispensing it to the poor. A fiery column appeared above his head as he prayed the more earnestly. At length, worn out by unremitting labors and renowned for miracles, being seized at Milan by a grave illness, he passed over to the heavenly fatherland. His body, afterward carried to our city, obtained an honorable sepulcher in the church which he had founded, beneath the high altar. in various Martyrologies, Philip Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, likewise announcing him at Como at the aforesaid day, speaks thus: John, surnamed Meda because he was born in the village of Meda between Milan and Foro-Licinio, since he abounded in wealth and pondered that saying of the Apostle, "The whole world is set on wickedness," soon betook himself to Como; and near the city, in the place which is called Rondanarium, beside the little river Coxia, he built an oratory with many cells in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of All Saints, in which he gathered several brothers and holy women living under regular discipline, the women being separated from the men.

[5] And so the place which had before been a den of robbers began to be a bridal chamber of the continent, and a house of blasphemy came to be a house of prayer. especially the Italian ones, At Meda too he built a notable monastery of virgins. But he himself, leading a life exercised in unremitting prayers, vigils, fasts, and other pious works, and leaving not a few tokens of his sanctity, flew away to the heavenly fatherland on the 6th of the Kalends of October, and was buried in that same place. He treats of him more briefly in his Universal Catalogue of Saints, saying: At Como, of St. John of Meda, founder of the Humiliati. Nicholas Brautius, bishop of Sarsina, celebrated the same man in his Poetic Martyrology in these verses:

Who was more discerning than John of Meda? He sets apart the dwellings of the men from the weaker sex.

To the Italians is added Castellanus the Frenchman in his Universal Martyrology, where he says: At Como, Bl. John of Meda, founder of the Order of the Humiliati under the Rule of St. Benedict. But among the addenda and corrigenda, page 981 and the following, he advises that there should be added to these words: Canonized by Alexander III; and that in the margin should be set the year of his death, 1059 — nay rather 1159, as we shall show below.

[6] On account of the Rule of St. Benedict which he adopted, the Benedictine martyrologists have also enrolled him in their own sacred Calendars. and in the Benedictine ones. Arnold Wion in book 3 of his Tree of Life announces him thus: In the city of Como, the birthday of St. John of Meda, chief founder of the Order of the Humiliati, who on account of the fame of his most holy life was enrolled after his death, in the year of the Lord one thousand and fifty-nine (rather 1159), in the number of the Saints by Pope Alexander the third. Hugh Ménard in his Martyrology of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict agrees in almost the same words, but somewhat more briefly and more correctly: In the city of Como, the birthday of St. John of Meda, chief founder of the Order of the Humiliati, who was enrolled in the number of the Saints by Alexander the third. A longer eulogy of him you have in Gabriel Bucelinus, which, because it contains nothing beyond what has already been reported, I here pass over, intending below to examine both this and those; for not all the things asserted in them can be admitted or held for established. Meanwhile it is to be observed here that in all the Martyrologies cited, if you except the Milanese, the birthday of St. John of Meda is announced at Como, whither his body was carried soon after his death and where it rests today. Yet it is established that he died at Milan in the monastery of the Brera, then of the Order of the Humiliati, as we shall see in its own place.

[7] On this very day the Humiliate nuns honor him On the same day the Humiliate nuns, at least in the archdiocese of Milan, celebrate his feast every year with an Office and rite, as they call it, of the Principal class and with an Octave; and we have in our Museum their proper Breviary, approved in the year 1548 by Pope Paul III and reprinted at Milan in the year 1751. Yet the Breviary of the Humiliati was not first made in Paul's Pontificate; but since at that time copies of the older one were rather rare, Jerome Torgius, provost of the house of Blessed Mary de la Canonica near the walls of Milan and master general of the whole Order of the Humiliati, a few things being cut back, removed, and filled in, saw to it that a new one was made, of which he obtained approval from the said Pontiff — as he himself attests here in the Brief which is prefixed to that Breviary. In it accordingly, on the 26th of September, on the feast of the holy father John of Meda, presbyter, an Office is prescribed with an Octave, by the rite proper to the Order of the Humiliati, which has six earlier Lessons and proper antiphons at the Magnificat in both Vespers and at the Benedictus in Lauds.

[8] with a proper Office The rest are from the Common of a confessor not a bishop, excepting the Lessons of the third Nocturn, which are taken from the Gospel according to Matthew, Watch ye, for ye know not, etc., with the Homily of St. John Chrysostom, For what reason is the day of his own death hidden from every man? etc., which are assigned in that same place in the Common of a confessor bishop. The six earlier Lessons, which contain the saint's deeds, I do not reprint, because they are merely abridged from an older Office of nine Lessons, which I shall give below in place of a Life. In the course of the Commentary, however, and in the Annotata to the Life, where the matter shall require it, I shall cite those more recent Lessons also. The antiphon at the Magnificat

at the first Vespers is this: O happy Rondenarium, commended by the memory of so great a man, exult and rejoice with us today, while we sing sweet praises to God, devoutly celebrating the glorious solemnities of John, your most holy servant. In Lauds, at the canticle Benedictus, the antiphon is this: By the touch of your sacred blood, O blessed John the presbyter, while you were being carried dead from Milan into your homeland, a girl is recorded to have received her sight. Therefore obtain for us from the Lord that, being inwardly enlightened by him, we may seek after heavenly things alone, cleaving to your holy footsteps.

[9] and through the Octave. At the second Vespers, at the Magnificat, this antiphon is read: As once to Daniel, set in the lions' den and suffering from want of food, unlooked-for provisions were brought, so for John, God's little servant, as he went along the banks of the lake to fish for souls, provision was seasonably made by an angel hidden in the form of a man, by him who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty. Alleluia. Finally the following Prayer is prescribed: Grant us, O Lord, we beseech thee, to celebrate with eager hearts the solemnities of thy blessed confessor John, whose life, adorned with various virtues, was pleasing to thee. Through our Lord, etc. The same Office is performed on the Octave day, but only with a double rite; while through the Octave there is only a ferial Office with three Lessons taken from the Common. Thus far concerning his cult among the Humiliate nuns, at least in the archdiocese of Milan, as I noted above; for concerning the others dwelling elsewhere I have discovered nothing certain.

[10] Father Primo Luigi Tatti, a clerk regular of the Somaschan congregation, author of the Martyrology and Annals of Como, often to be cited below, in his Humility Exalted, that is, the Life of this same St. John, chapter 24, speaks in these words, but in Italian, of his twofold yearly commemoration at Como in the church of St. Mary of Loreto, of the College of his Congregation, called the Gallio, where formerly stood the monastery of Rondenarium and where his body rests even today: He is honored likewise at Como, where his body is. It now rests (the body of St. John of Meda) beneath the altar of the most blessed Virgin, where he is honored on the 26th day of September, on which he passed to heaven; and on the third feria of Pentecost, in memory of this last translation. So he, without explaining whether that twofold commemoration of the saint is wont to be kept in that place with some ecclesiastical Office, or with another festivity, or only with a concourse of the people. Of the translation which he mentions, solemnly made in the year 1645, we shall give more in its own place from the same Tatti, a contemporary writer and eyewitness.

[11] We have seen above that it is asserted by some that St. John of Meda was enrolled in the register of the Saints by Alexander III, the Roman Pontiff. Tatti writes that in the same year, The said Tatti treats of this very thing professedly, and asserts it throughout chapter 21, to which he prefixed this title: John is enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints by the supreme Pontiff Alexander III. He judged that the matter was to be treated at greater length because, as he says, since a certain anonymous writer in a Table of the church of Como, published under bishop Filippo Archinto — that is, toward the end of the sixteenth century or in the following one — had assigned him only the title of Blessed, Lazzaro Carafino, bishop of the same see, by whom the translation of the saint's body just mentioned was carried out, had also determined to inscribe only the title of Blessed upon his tomb, and would have inscribed it, had he not, being otherwise informed in time, changed his mind. And so Tatti judges that Alexander III, who had been raised to the Pontificate about twenty days before John's death and had already before had his sanctity under his eye, moved by the miracles with which his sepulcher was made illustrious day by day, and with the suppliant petitions of the Humiliati also being added, enrolled him in the number of the holy confessors.

[12] He adds that by the same Pontiff there was then assigned to his yearly cult the 26th day of September, in which he died, he was canonized by Pope Alexander III which was the day of his death, and which was then first begun to be celebrated in the church of St. Mary in Rondenarium, and thereafter in all the other churches of that Order. To prove these assertions of his he has collected many testimonies of writers, in which John of Meda is either honored with the title of Saint, or is expressly said to have been enrolled among the Saints by the said Alexander. And concerning the appellation of Saint there can indeed be no doubt, since both many writers agree upon it and in the above-mentioned Breviary of the nuns of the Order of the Humiliati, approved by Pope Paul III in the year 1548, the same is assigned to him. Hence I shall here review from Tatti only those testimonies in which his canonization is affirmed. First of all Tatti cites an anonymous author in his Life, published in Italian in print at Como in the year 1605, in which he says it is read: Moved by the fame of these (miracles), the supreme Pontiff enrolled him in the catalogue of the Saints among the confessors, consecrating to him that same day on which he passed to a better life.

[13] Benedetto Giovio, in book 2 of his History of his Country, in the chapter on the Monasteries of the city of Como, that he was canonized, writes of St. John in Latin: And he was renowned, as the History written of him has it, for miracles both while alive and after his death; wherefore he was enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints, the day being dedicated to him on which he had died, which was the sixth of the Kalends of October, one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine. Thomas Porcacchi, in book 1 of the Nobility of Como, page 24, treating of the monastery of Rondenarium, says thus in Italian words: The first who added order and splendor to this Religion (of the Humiliati) both in this and in all other places was John of Meda, who was placed in the register of the Saints in the year 1159. Feliciano Ninguarda, bishop of Como, in his manuscript Description of the churches of the city of Como and its Suburbs, on the same authority again, noted these things in Latin concerning the church of St. Mary in Rondenarium: The altars, excepting the high altar, are three; one at the right of the high altar, which contains the urn in which were kept the bones of the aforesaid John, of whose sanctity no forgetfulness shall ever take hold of the people of Como. That he has been placed in the number of the Saints, his History plainly shows.

[14] and for that opinion In all these there is no mention of a canonization made by a Pontiff; and they can conveniently be taken in such a way that John may be said to have been held for a Saint after his death by the clergy and people of Como, and as such honored with ecclesiastical cult, although no Pontifical authority intervened. Certainly nothing further can be drawn out either from his manuscript Life or from the present-day Breviary of the Humiliate nuns. But others cited by the same Tatti in that place plainly ascribe his canonization to the Roman Pontiff. Carlo Sigonio, in book 8 on the Kingdom of Italy, at the year of Christ 1046, has this concerning John: On account of the fame of his most holy life he was enrolled after his death, in the year one thousand one hundred and five (rather 1159, as the edition of Sigonio of the year 1732 has it) in the number of the Saints by Alexander the third, the Pontiff. Tatti adds the testimony of Arnold Wion, which I have already given above. He adds also Girolamo Borsieri in his Supplement to Paolo Morigia's Nobility of Milan, chapter 4, from which he recites the following in Italian: Alexander the fourth (Tatti advises that the third is to be read) after due examination had been applied, commanded that he be placed in the number of the Confessors in this very year in which he died, as is had from the Bull which is set at the end of the proper Constitutions of the Humiliati.

[15] he produces the testimonies of many, Tatti subjoins Alfonso Chacón, volume 1 of the Lives of the supreme Pontiffs, under Gregory VI, where he says: Who (John of Meda) afterward, on account of the fame of his most holy life, was enrolled after his death in the year 1059 (read 1159, as it is had in the edition of that same work of Chacón, enlarged by Oldoini, of the year 1677) by Alexander the third, supreme Pontiff, in the number of the Saints. Finally, not to be too long, that St. John of Meda was canonized by Alexander III in the same year in which he died is asserted in Tatti besides by Gregorio Bolzi, theologian of the Somaschan Congregation, in a manuscript Life of the same saint; by Gabriel Bucelinus in his Benedictine Menology; and likewise by Giovanni Pietro Puricelli in a manuscript Life. Before all others, however, he makes much of the testimony of Luca Castellini in his Treatise on the Certitude of the glory of the canonized Saints, in whose Index of canonized Saints John of Meda, founder of the Humiliati, is reckoned as canonized by Alexander the third. Before all others, I say, he makes much of it, both on account of the man's wisdom and diligence, and because he published that book at Rome and dedicated it to Pope Urban VIII, who, as is well known, issued severe decrees for removing abuses in the cult of the Saints.

[16] which make it probable, From all these things it is plain that not a few have held the opinion which makes St. John of Meda to have been canonized by Alexander III; but since writers are often wont to copy one another without further examination, this consent of writers, who all lived far removed from Alexander's age, cannot make the matter certain. Alexander's Bull alone, which Borsieri cites, would suffice to settle the controversy, if it were extant; but Tatti, who wrote in the same seventeenth century as he, candidly confesses that it was sought by him with the utmost diligence and was not found. Accordingly that Bull rests upon Borsieri's credit alone; which is rendered doubtful to me by the silence about it both of his manuscript Life and of the Breviary of the Order of the Humiliati — a silence which, since it would have done not a little to commend St. John's glory, does not seem to have been such as to be passed over through forgetfulness. Nor does Castellini's Catalogue persuade me otherwise, in which he has heaped together many things which he could scrape up, and not without errors.

[17] Concerning Alexander III, however, it is to be observed that he reserved the power of beatifying to the Roman Pontiff alone, but do not make it altogether certain, as theologians and canonists teach from his letter which is extant among the Decretals, title 45, on the Relics and Veneration of the Saints, chapter Audivimus; whence some judge that a new law was here introduced by him, others that only an old one was asserted. Worthy to be consulted is Benedict XIV, the supreme Pontiff, lately deceased to the common grief of all good men, in his celebrated work on the beatification of the Servants of God, etc., book 1, chapter 10, where he has treated this subject in his usual learned manner. But to return to our purpose: even if that letter was perhaps written some years after St. John's death, yet since the said Alexander was of the opinion which we have stated, it is sufficiently probable that the cult of John of Meda, who died at the beginning of his Pontificate, was neither begun nor continued without his authority; and this is the more probable if, as some think, the same Pontiff in the aforesaid decretal did not establish a new law but only alleged an old one.

[18] Two things nevertheless remain uncertain here. First, whether Alexander's authority really intervened in John's cause, yet they do vindicate for him the title of Saint. since the said Benedict XIV in the place cited shows that even after Alexander's decretal there were not wanting men who believed that bishops could grant the honors of beatification to the servants of God in their own diocese, and who in fact did grant them. The other is,

that if Alexander did anything in that same cause, it remains uncertain whether he extended his cult to the universal Church, which is properly to canonize, or granted it only for his Order and for some places, which is to beatify. Nor can the doubt be removed from the title of Saint, with which John is honored both by the writers we have alleged and by several others whom Tatti besides produces, and in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns; for it is established that this title was wont to be attributed also to very many others who were never canonized by the Roman Pontiff. And so I altogether ascribe to John of Meda the title of Saint, which he has held from time immemorial; but his canonization by Alexander III I cannot but hold for doubtful, until someone shall bring forward more certain evidence.

§ II. What Life is to be published; his country and illustrious birth; the earlier deeds of his life unknown; an apparition of the Virgin Mother of God asserted by some.

[ ] A Life written by an anonymous author, not a contemporary, The deeds of the saint, as we truly lament, no contemporary wrote; or, if anyone did so, they have not only not reached us, but must be said to have long since perished or lain hidden. The most ancient Life of him which we have in manuscript is divided into nine Lessons for his Office for the use of the Order of the Humiliati. We received it in the year 1685 from Signor Primo Luigi Tatti, clerk regular of the Somaschan congregation, of whom we have made mention above and whose name will recur frequently. He noted at the end that Father Massimo de' Visconti, provost of the Order of the Humiliati, by order of the most reverend Father Girolamo Torgius of Milan, provost General of the same Order, composed from these same Lessons (a very few things being changed whose sense was either faulty or obscure) the new Office of St. John, which is recited by the Humiliate nuns even now. He is that same Girolamo Torgius at whose suppliant prayers Pope Paul III approved that new Breviary and granted that it be printed, since the Order of the Humiliati itself had for a long while labored, on account of the calamity of the times and the scarcity of books, for the recitation of the divine Office composed according to the rite of that Order, of the books called Breviaries; as the said Pontiff says in the Brief which is read prefixed to that Breviary.

[20] written by a Humiliatus That Brief was given in the year of Christ 1548, and therefore the Life of which we treat must be much older than that time; but when it was first written cannot be stated. Its author, who was one of the Order of the Humiliati, sufficiently indicates that he was not contemporary with St. John, when, according to our division, in num. 1 and 2 he says: What were the first beginnings of his (St. John of Meda's) merits from his earliest years, and with what flowers of sanctity he shone in adolescence, or with what marks of virtue he exercised himself through all his youth up to the taking of the habit and the reception of holy profession, the all-too-blameworthy negligence of writers has failed to record. Only a few things which he did under the profession he had undertaken, or in the government of the Order of the Humiliati, we have come to know for ourselves also from the report of certain persons of either sex, as, with the providence of the Spirit granting it, we shall strive to set forth more clearly and more fully.

[21] we shall publish from a Como manuscript. These things indicate a writer rather far removed from the saint's age than close to it; nor does anything afterward occur which would suggest otherwise, or from which it would be permissible to determine, even by conjecture, the century in which he wrote. Nevertheless what he relates of him seems sincere and worthy of credit; nor does he use that freer style by which biographers of this kind often, while they strive to embellish too much the deeds of their heroes, rather obscure them and render them incredible. Yet one might with reason desire more of his deeds; but one will readily forgive that meagerness in a writer who preferred to transmit to posterity the few things he had heard rather than to heap together many things not sufficiently ascertained by him. Perhaps too the purpose of his writing compelled him to be briefer, if he composed this Life for the Lessons of an ecclesiastical Office; which is not certainly clear, since it could afterward have been divided into nine Lessons for the use of the Humiliati. That Life accordingly I shall print, and shall illustrate it with our usual annotations.

[22] Among more recent writers Tatti wrote the Life and the translation. It would be long to enumerate all the more recent writers who have written of him, some more fully than others. There will be occasion now and then to cite some of them; but by no means to be passed over is the already frequently cited Primo Luigi Tatti, who after the rest, led both by his own devotion toward the saint and by the prayers of the Humiliate nuns, published his Life, which he entitled Humility Exalted, in Italian at Como in the year 1677, with the authors whom he used noted. But neither did he have any Life older than that which I have said was received from him and is to be published. Moreover, since certain other things are related in Tatti's little work than in the manuscript Life, it is necessary to discuss these in the Commentary, and, so far as shall be permitted, to elucidate and supply what in that same manuscript Life is rather obscure or passed over. Opportunely too the same Tatti in chapter 22 and following, as an eyewitness himself, narrated the last inspections of the saint's body and the translation made in the years 1636 and 1645, which we shall insert into this Commentary from him. Now let us proceed to the saint's deeds.

[23] Of his parents and his birthplace the manuscript Life has this in num. 1: The saint was born in the village of Meda in the territory of Milan, This blessed man was born of a rather free stock in a certain suburb (that is, a village) where it is called Meda, of the diocese of Milan, distant ten miles from the city of Cumana (that is, Como). The Breviary of the Humiliate nuns agrees in Lesson 1, which begins thus: Meda is a village in the diocese of Milan, distant ten thousand paces from the city of Como. Thence sprang John, by surname and by dignity the Presbyter, of a noble stock. This village, which lies between Como and Milan, Ferrarius in his Geographical Lexicon says is situated twelve thousand paces from the latter city; while Tatti in chapter 1 of the Life describes it in these words in Italian, citing in the margin Emmanuele Lodi in his History of Meda: Meda, then, is a famous place of the territory of Milan, pleasant in situation, since it enjoys both hills and a plain, and therefore inhabited by many wealthy families. The healthfulness of the air and the convenience of lodging for those journeying from Como to Milan formerly attracted many nobles to procure a dwelling for themselves there. Nor did the Milanese alone set up houses for themselves in that village of their own dominion; but the men of Como also, who both acquired estates there and built elegant dwellings, whether for the sake of retiring, or now and again of refreshing the mind, or that at harvest time they might look after their revenues in person.

[24] Of his parents there is nothing to read beyond what has already been said in the Life to be published and in the aforesaid Breviary; from which he was surnamed, of the Oldrada family, but by the common opinion he is believed to have sprung from the family of the Oldradi, which formerly flourished at Milan and at Como in nobility and wealth, but, on Tatti's testimony, is now extinct at Como since the last century. Cardinal Federico Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, in his Letter to the Humiliate nuns of his diocese, prefixed to the often-mentioned Breviary, likewise calls him John Oldrato of Meda. Perhaps he had also found it so in various manuscript Chronicles of the same Order of the Humiliati, which he had premised were read through by him with the utmost diligence. From these Francesco Ballarini dissents, in part 3 of his Chronicles of Como, where he writes that he was born of a family of Meda equally most ancient and most noble in the city of Como itself, and accuses of error all who assign to him as his birthplace the village of Meda in the territory of Milan.

[25] I do not know whence Ballarini learned this; save that I strongly suspect not of Meda, and it is disputed whether he was born of the Como family that he eagerly seized upon St. John's surname of Meda as his family name, so that he might claim for his own Como that holy man whom the Milanese, as one born in their territory, reckon among their own. For although the writers of Como agree with those of Milan about his birthplace, Meda, a village of the territory of Milan, the former do not on that account cease to contend that he was of Como by country, being led by this reasoning, that he was begotten of the Oldradi of Como. Among these Tatti wishes it to be believed that our John came into the light at Meda by chance, while his parents were staying there at the time of the vintage. But since he himself acknowledges that the name of neither parent is known, and that there were Oldradi at Milan too, and that Milanese as well as men of Como had their houses in the village of Meda, why is he to be said to have been born at Meda on that occasion of parents of Como rather than of Milan? He thinks this is established by two arguments. The first he takes from the translation of his sacred body, made soon after the death which he had undergone at Milan, to Como — that is, to the monastery of Rondenarium at Como: for he judges that the Milanese would not have permitted themselves to be deprived of so precious a pledge, unless the men of Como had by good right claimed back their own countryman.

[26] or of the Milanese family, He uses the same argument in the Annotations to his Martyrology of Como, where he also makes much of it and presses it. But to me on the contrary it seems to be of no weight, or certainly of very little. Rondenarium, namely, was the first monastery which the saint had founded; there he himself, having introduced the Rule of St. Benedict, had founded the third and first Order of the Humiliati; this was his ordinary dwelling and, as it were, the head of his whole Order. Why then could not the Humiliati and the citizens of Milan easily have been induced by these reasons to allow the body of their holy Founder, now deceased, to be transferred thither for burial, as to a place belonging to him under more than one title? Indeed, if the men of Como had alleged the saint's Como origin for carrying off his body, the Milanese could with better right have set against it, for keeping it, his birth in the village of Meda in their own territory (about which Tatti agrees); especially since, having now by death been born also to heaven in their own city, he had left that sacred deposit with them.

[27] nor is it proved on either side. The second argument he drew from his proper Office, in which the antiphon at the canticle Benedictus has this: By the touch of your sacred blood, O blessed John the presbyter, while you were being carried dead from Milan into your homeland, a girl is recorded to have received her sight. It is manifest that Como is here called the saint's homeland, and that from what has been said this can be taken in no other way than that through his parents, or through one of them, he was of Como by origin. Yet the antiquity of this antiphon does not seem so great as to suffice for settling the dispute. For in our copy of the older Office, that is, in the Life to be published, it is not found; and the Breviary in which it is now read we have said above was first so reformed and approved under Pope Paul III in the year 1548. So far, therefore, it favors the men of Como only in this, that those who composed the aforesaid Breviary about the middle of the sixteenth century were of the same opinion as they. And let these things suffice concerning the country of St. John of Meda, who, if not by origin, was certainly by birth a native of the territory of Milan.

[28] Nothing is established about the saint's boyhood; nor is it sufficiently certain What Tatti relates in chapter 2, out of his own conjectures, about the holy boy's upbringing and adolescence and his notable progress in the pursuits of piety and letters, I pass over in silence; because the most ancient biographer whom we have complains, in the Life to be published, that nothing about all these things was handed down in writing, in the words which we have already recited at num. 20. He also says no word here about that admirable apparition of the most blessed Virgin Mother of God which is reported at some length in Tatti, chapter 3. He writes therefore that St. John was accustomed from his youth to withdraw frequently into a certain wood for the sake of solitude, that, set apart from the tumult of men, he might be free for God. And that when once, being kindled more vehemently than usual amid his pious prayers, he had consecrated perpetual virginity to Christ and to his most holy Mother, toward whom he was most tenderly affected, she appeared to him accompanied by many angels; and that she, having praised the vow by which he had bound himself, bade him give his name to the Order of the Humiliati, and, having cast a white garment upon his shoulders, vanished from his sight. For this so notable apparition, by which he writes that St. John was led to the Order of the Humiliati, Tatti cites Girolamo Borsieri in the Supplement to the Nobility of Milan, chapter 4; Gregorio Bolzi in the Life of the saint; and Giovanni de Vico in a metrical Life of him, from which he recites the following verses:

The Virgin bestowed a white garment upon the man John: thus chastely he lived, ever devoted to her in mind.

[29] He adds also that the memory of this same thing exists in various ancient paintings among his own people. the apparition of the Virgin Mother of God, praised by some, With these agrees Silvestro Mauruli or Maurolico in his Sacred History, or the Ocean Sea of all Religious Orders, book 3, where he writes that the aforesaid apparition is read in his Life, written by a Humiliatus father, who had taken it from an ancient parchment codex which he says was seen by him in the monastery of Rondenarium, while in the year 1582 — and thus after the Order had already been suppressed — he was living at Como. Besides he subjoins that the same apparition is exhibited in an elegant painting with the two verses which I have just recited from Tatti, set up at that saint's sepulcher. How ancient, however, those paintings are, neither he nor Tatti states. Nor can a certain argument always be drawn from panels of this kind, since sometimes they merely exhibit the pious meditations of the painters, by which some deeds of the Saints are embellished. For example, by the painting in question the painter could (for much is permitted to painters) have wished only to indicate that it came about by the singular patronage of the Virgin Mother of God that St. John turned his mind to the Order of the Humiliati. But one must judge otherwise here, if the codex seen by Maurolico at Como was truly ancient and really contained that same apparition. But what makes me doubtful is the profound silence about so illustrious a fact both in the manuscript Life to be published and in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns — a fact which before all others should have been recorded, both for the commendation of the saint and of his Order, if it had been known to the biographer or to the compilers of the Breviary and held for true.

§ III. An account of the Order of the Humiliati, into the time of whose first origin inquiry is made.

[ ] The beginnings of the Order of the Humiliati are obscure, Hippolyte Helyot, volume 6 of the History of Monastic Orders, etc., chapter 19, complains that the first epoch of the Order of the Humiliati is exceedingly obscure, some tracing it from the year of Christ 1180, others from 1190 or 1196, others finally from 1017. Nevertheless all agree that this Order, very shapeless from its outset, was in the course of time advanced to a certain third grade far more perfect than the earlier ones, in which it also persisted until, being foully deformed among the men, it was suppressed by Pope St. Pius V; but among the women, who, as they were not partakers in the crimes, so also were not in the penalty, it endures to this day. Before we determine anything in a matter so doubtful, some account of that Order according to those various grades must be premised. St. Antoninus, in part 2 of his History, title 16, chapter 23, writes thus on this subject: In the year of the Lord 1017 the Order of the Humiliati, as I have found in writings, had its first beginning; which nevertheless in the course of time was varied threefold in its manner of living, as will appear.

[31] It should be known, therefore, that when the most serene emperor Henry the third had come in the aforesaid year into the parts of Lombardy, whose three various grades having from certain reports and signs certain Lombard nobles under suspicion lest perchance they should contrive something wicked, he banished them, and especially those sprung from Milan, into Germany, or delivered them to exile. And they, setting out and seeing themselves so humbled, humbled themselves in the sight of God, making a virtue of necessity, and to their hearing he gave an understanding that had been chastened. For they began not to love earthly things immoderately, to shun vices, and to go about in a humble garment, namely of berretino (that is, ash-colored) cloth. And although they dwelt each in his own house with his wife and servants, procuring their food from the labors of their own hands, chiefly from the practice of wool-working, yet they formed certain congregations, frequently exhorting one another to the things which are of God and of the profit of the spirit; persevering in fastings, alms, and prayers, and loving one another with brotherly love. And the odor of their pious manner of life began to be spread through that region; and thence a good many were gathered to their number.

[32] from St. Antoninus But when the fame of their humiliation was learned, the lord emperor released them from their banishment and permitted those who wished to return to their own soil. Returning therefore to the parts of Lombardy, they began to live more strictly and to approach nearer to a complete religious life. Whence the men, separated from their wives by common consent, understanding that the weighing of a continent soul is not worthy, and that chastity, especially virginal or widowed, is that alone which can present our souls to God, decreed that the men should dwell apart together and the women apart, as in monasteries; and that they should press more urgently upon prayers, vigils, and abstinences; having some, though few, who served them in divine things: living under the care of one of their number, and continuing their bodily exercises, especially in wool-working and the weaving of cloth. And this was called by them the second manner of their living.

[33] are set forth, At last, when they had been multiplied in number and in merit, and especially in clerics, so that they might have the completion of a religious state, there followed the third manner of their living, yet in dignity and religious character the first. And diminishing their manual work, they applied themselves more to readings and to the divine Offices, clothed in a uniform but humble habit, namely a scapular tunic, and a cloak or cape of white color over it. They took for their norm of living a part of the Rule of blessed Benedict, not the whole; naming their superiors Provosts. And being greatly multiplied, they built for themselves many monasteries, both of brethren and of nuns, through the parts of Tuscany and Lombardy, especially at Milan. And about the year of the Lord 1200 such an Order and manner of living was approved by the Church and confirmed by Innocent the third; and afterward by his successors it was exempted from the diocesans, and fortified with many privileges, and established under the government of one principal and general provost. Thus far St. Antoninus, who then after a few words laments the falling away of this Order, as of other religious Orders, from its first fervor. Much older than he, James of Vitry, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who died before the middle of the thirteenth century, renowned for virtues and learning, wove a notable eulogy of that same Order; and since it is to be understood of the Order as already brought by St. John of Meda to the third grade, we shall give it afterward in its own place.

[34] The beginnings of this Order Now as concerns the beginning of the Order, it is certain that in St. Antoninus an error lurks either in the year of Christ or in the emperor. For in the year of Christ 1017 the empire was held by St. Henry, the first of the emperors of this name, but the second among the kings of Germany. But Henry II as emperor, and III as king of Germany, whom St. Antoninus mentions, was not crowned emperor until the year of Christ 1046. Hippolyte Helyot, cited above, cites two Latin Chronicles: one written in the year 1419 by Girolamo Torecchio, provost of the convent of the Humiliati at the Porta Nuova of Milan, the most ancient historian of that Order whom he himself was able to find after diligent search. The other he says is of the year 1493, drawn up by Marco Bosto; and both are extant in the Ambrosian library. In both of these, or at any rate in the older of them, which may have served as St. Antoninus's guide, the beginning of the said Order is, on the same testimony of Helyot, bound to the year of Christ 1017.

[35] Giovanni Pietro Puricelli also cites them both in his Monuments of the Ambrosian Basilica of Milan, in two Chronicles num. 375, asserting that the beginning of that Order is placed in them before the year of Christ 1020. He had also premised in the same place that the year 1019 is assigned by Tristano Calco, and had added this from his own opinion: Nor is it far from the truth, as I shall show most fully in another volume. But this does not seem yet to have been published. On the year 1017 Raphael Volaterranus agrees, book 21 of his Anthropology; although he too wrongly names Henry III, and does not sufficiently distinguish the various times and grades of the Order, at the word Humiliati. In the year 1017, he says, there were certain Milanese, punished with exile by the emperor Henry III, whom calamity made near to God by justice and by abstinence of life, together with their wives, living by the labor of their hands and plying the wool trade, and from it helping the poor, and for the rest of their time keeping watch in the divine praises. Returning at length from exile, they held to their former rule of life, their marriage being set aside, and having taken another garb, which they now use, being in a certain manner half-monks, with Innocent III approving. I forbear to review others who are of nearly the same opinion.

[36] Others, however, prefer to retain the emperor Henry III, or II, and by other writers and therefore place the aforesaid beginnings a little later. These hold that those Lombard nobles were carried off into Germany under Conrad II, king and emperor of Germany, and sent back into Italy by his son Henry, third of that name as king of Germany, but second as emperor. This opinion Carlo Sigonio holds, book 8 on the Kingdom of Italy, under the emperor Henry II at the year of Christ 1046, where he says this: Setting out thence to Pavia (Henry) held an assembly on the 6th of the Kalends of November, and restored the Lombard exiles whom in earlier years, on account of conspiracies entered into, Conrad had banished into Germany. The exiles thereupon, their cities being recovered, held to the humility in which they had been in exile, and touching no public or private affair, but pursuing religion alone and seeking their food with their own hands, passed their life. Their first seats were placed at Como in the place which is called Rondinetum. These monks, commonly called Humiliati, and increased by others attaching themselves to them, John of Meda of Como in the following years bound to the discipline of the blessed Benedict. With Sigonio agrees Tatti, both in the Life and

in the Annals of Como, and some others, with some difference here and there.

[37] Benedetto Giovio, in book 2 of his History of Como, which he carried down to his own times, that is, to the year 1532, are reported and who wrote of that Order more accurately than the rest, likewise holds that the captivity of the nobles occurred under the aforesaid Conrad, and speaks thus: In the Milanese war waged by the emperor Conrad I (although another Conrad preceded him, who, because he was neither lawfully elected nor confirmed, is not held in the true number of the emperors, and therefore this one is called the first, although in the Histories he is held to be the second) about the years of the Lord one thousand and thirty-three, in which Heriprand Visconti, a Milanese patrician, gave proof of outstanding valor, not a few Milanese were taken in the war and led into Germany by the emperor himself. And when they had been in exile there for some time, and no hope of returning seemed to remain because of the emperor's harsh temper, they resolved to give themselves to God and to lay aside all more refined dress. Therefore, clad in meaner tunics and cloaks, and with their heads covered by hoods dyed an ash color, they began to live humbly. When the emperor learned this, he at once called them to him and asked whether they were truly humbled, as their very clothing seemed to declare. Which word afterward gave the Order its name.

[38] before the middle of the eleventh century; And they answered: Most serene emperor, it is altogether as you see. At which word the emperor, being appeased, permitted them to return to their homeland before the year of the Lord one thousand and thirty-six, where they caused their wives and children and their whole household to take up the same habit. And that they might avoid the idleness which is hostile to good morals, they applied themselves to wool-working and to trade; and this was the first institute of that Order. Thus far Giovio, who in the same place had premised, to win credence: Because scarcely any mention is made by historians of the origin and increase of this Order, I shall subjoin what I have found recorded, drawn from most certain documents, and indeed probable. And so among all the writers whom we have produced it is agreed that the beginnings of the Order of the Humiliati are to be fixed in the eleventh century, although some of them fix them some years earlier, others later, but yet before the middle of that century; nor can it be said with certainty on whose side the truth stands.

[39] which opinion Moreover, if in an obscure matter it is permissible to use conjectures, I incline rather to that opinion which brings them nearer to the said middle of the century and ascribes the captivity of the Milanese to the emperor Conrad I, or the Salic. The reason is that it is established that he besieged the city of the Milanese, in vain indeed but sharply, and that, having destroyed their castles through the countryside, when he afterward returned into Germany he left orders for subduing them, as may be seen in Pagi in his Critica at the year of Christ 1037 and the following, in Muratori, volume 6 of the Annals of Italy at the same year, and in others. Those enmities lasted until the death of Conrad, which occurred in the year 1039, after which Heribert, archbishop of Milan, who had formerly been captured by him and had escaped, entered into favor with Henry, Conrad's son and successor, and acknowledged him king of Italy; on which matter consult the aforesaid Muratori at the year 1039. It was possible, therefore, that some Milanese nobles taken by Conrad in that war and carried off into Germany, as Giovio cited above affirms, and sent back to their own country when peace had been made between Henry and Heribert, gave a beginning to the Order of the Humiliati.

[40] is approved by us also. This surmise is in some measure favored by the fact that St. Antoninus, reported at num. 31, although he does not agree about the time and the circumstances, says that the Humiliati arose under the emperor Henry III; for him whom we call the second among the emperors of that name he himself called the third, because among the kings of Germany he was in truth the third of that name, and because he numbered Henry I, surnamed the Fowler, king of Germany, among the emperors. Nevertheless let these things be said by way of conjecture; for if the Humiliati had the house of the Brera or Brayda, where now is a notable college of our Society, from the year 1036 onward, as Puricelli in his Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica, num. 375, promised he would prove in a work not yet, so far as I know, published, then the beginnings of that Order must be drawn back some years, with the two ancient chroniclers and the others whom we have cited above. For the rest, when Sigonio at num. 36 says that the first seat of the Humiliati was placed in the year 1046 at Rondinetum or Rondenarium, he is to be understood of the third grade of the Order, and even so he strayed from the truth by nearly a whole century, as will appear from what is to be said.

[41] It remains that we examine Helyot's opinion. He, in volume 6 of the Religious Orders, chapter 19, judges Torecchio's assertion — according to which the beginnings of the said Order are to be referred to the year 1017 — to be improbable, being led by this reasoning. According to Torecchio the Humiliati received some rule from St. Bernard while he was staying at Milan, and by his counsel the men, separated from the women, adopted a community of life and of food. Helyot's arguments Now St. Bernard first came to Milan in the year 1134, and therefore that change in the Order could not have taken place before that year. But Helyot denies that it is in any way probable that they lived for 117 years without a rule, especially since Torecchio speaks, as he says, as if they had embraced that new manner of life only a few years before, when St. Bernard came to Milan. Wherefore it seemed to him more probable that that Order began in the year 1117 under Henry V, or IV as emperor, by whom he observes that some Lombard nobles, either taken in war or rebels, could have been sent into Germany, while he was attempting to claim by arms for himself the inheritance of the countess Matilda, who died in the year 1115.

[42] But that argument of Helyot's is too weak do not prove for us on that account to depart from all the older writers, who agree upon the eleventh century not yet at its middle. For first indeed it is harsh to say that Father Girolamo Torecchio, in the year 1419, in which he wrote that Chronicle, provost of the Humiliati at Milan, was so blind in the affairs of his own country and household that concerning the beginning of his own Order — which by Helyot's opinion had then stood only three centuries — he strayed by a whole century. It must also seem strange that this error, if it truly was an error, was not detected by another chronographer of the same Order, Father Marco Bosto, who wrote a similar Chronicle in the year 1493. Wherefore, when the said Torecchio wrote thus, or at least seemed to Helyot to have written thus (for I have not seen Torecchio's Chronicle), as though only a few years had intervened between the Order's beginning and the Rule received from St. Bernard in the year 1134, I prefer so to interpret him from his own earlier statements as to believe that he touched but lightly upon the first age of his Order, as still lying in its cradle, whose epoch he had premised, down to St. Bernard's arrival, so as to hasten on to its more perfect state. So, I say, I prefer to interpret his words, rather than, against his assertion and that of all the rest, to fix the beginnings of the said Order a whole century, or nearly a whole century, later without any witness.

[43] Nor do I see why it should seem in the least improbable that those same beginnings of the Order that the Humiliati lived 117 years without a Rule, if the discourse be of a Religious rule and of a community of life and of food. For the Humiliati of that time were not so much an Order as a certain pious society, whose members, despising the pomps of the world and clothed in a humble garment of ash color, led a modest life each in his own house with his wife and household, intent partly on pious works and prayers, partly on wool-working, from the profit of which they might relieve the want of the poor. It is probable, however, that they prescribed for themselves certain fixed laws, common to all, to be observed, and that they were wont also to hold sacred assemblies in which they stirred one another up to mutual charity and to the exercise of the virtues, as St. Antoninus writes above at num. 31, and as certain confraternities of seculars are wont to do even today throughout Catholic Europe. Why then could not a society of this kind have persevered for 117 years without any other Rule? Certainly something similar happened in this city of Antwerp in the case of the Bogards, of whom Helyot himself in volume 7, chapter 33, speaks thus in French:

[44] are to be traced from the growing twelfth century Already from the year 1228 they had dwelt in this city (Antwerp) and had chosen St. Begga for their patroness, whence the name Beghards clung to them. From their first origin they were occupied with the weaving of cloth, each of them living privately and by the work of his own hands, and without any Rule, bound to one another by the bonds of charity alone. But after Pope Nicholas IV in the year 1289 had confirmed the Rule of the third Order of St. Francis, they embraced it in the following year… In the year 1425 they began to lead a common life together, and having adopted the habit and institutes of the Tertiaries of Liège, they made profession in the year 1467. Thus far Helyot, who seems to have drawn these things from Charles Scribani's Origins of Antwerp, chapter 11, where the same may be read. Moreover these same Bogards, having laid aside weaving, were initiated into sacred Orders after the manner of other Religious, and to this day continue at Antwerp with credit. You see here the society of the Bogards from its origin so like the Humiliati that I strongly suspect that the Bogards of Antwerp borrowed their first norm of living from the Italian Humiliati. But now I do not perceive why the Bogards, by Helyot's own opinion, could have passed 62 years without any Rule, and 197 years under the third Rule of St. Francis without any common convent and in their own private houses, and yet the Humiliati could not have persevered 117 years in their earlier state without another Rule and without a common convent.

[45] Maurolico is corrected. I know indeed that the Reverend Charles Diercxsens, licentiate in sacred Theology and pastor of the Hospital of Antwerp, in his Antwerp with Christ being born and growing, lately published here, part 7, page 905, among the addenda at the year 1296, observes that the Bogards had by then some convent at Antwerp; but this cannot weaken our argument against Helyot, who, as we have said, held otherwise along with Charles Scribani. The said Diercxsens likewise admits that the said Bogards had inhabited Antwerp already from the year 1228, that is, for 62 years, in the manner we have described above, before they adopted any Rule. For the rest, it need not detain us that Silvestro Maurolico in his Ocean Sea of all Religious Orders, book 3, traced the origin of the Humiliati from the year 1180; for since he himself in that same place fixed the death of St. John of Meda in the year 1159, it is manifest that he erred and confounded some reformation of the Order with its origin — which perhaps also befell others who placed the beginnings of that Order in the twelfth century as it drew to its close. I judge from what has been said that these are to be fixed before the middle of the eleventh century; but a doubt remains whether to that same

beginning of that century, or nearer to its middle, they are to be brought. Of the second and third Order I shall treat in the following §.

§ IV. The beginnings of the second Order of the Humiliati; the Third instituted by St. John; all three approved by the Roman Pontiffs.

[ ] The second Order of the Humiliati begun, Benedetto Giovio, cited at num. 37 and following, writes this of the second Order of the Humiliati, or grade of the Order: But as time went on, having dismissed their wives and being established apart in a single house, they began to cultivate chastity; and, the former habit being changed, they took up the stole which is called the Honest, and a mantle pierced below the shoulders, and a head-covering of white color. Thence the Second institute of this Order drew its origin, whence too the houses of women in that Order had their beginning. Nevertheless they wrought wool apart and carried on trade, applying themselves in their own way to divine supplications and readings. But as yet none of them had been initiated into sacred orders, but the several houses had their own priests to perform the divine service. Nor did they then receive from the supreme Pontiff a confirmation of a Rule or of an Order. The author of this Second Order of the Humiliati is believed to have been St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, who, while he was staying at Milan in the year 1134 or 1135, is related to have prescribed a certain Rule for them at their request.

[47] To St. Bernard is added a certain Guido, a Milanese Capitaneus, a Rule having been received from St. Bernard. who is said to have helped him with his labor and his wealth in founding the monastery of the Porta Orientale, and is honored by some with the title of Blessed. Puricelli in his Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica, num. 375, writes that in the Chronicle of the Humiliati, which we said above was written in the year 1419, chapter 39, in which the Saints and Blessed of that Order are enumerated, it is read thus of this Guido: Blessed Guido of the house of the Porta Orientale at Milan, who was the founder of this Religion. From the Missal of the Humiliati also, published in print at Milan in the year 1504, he adds: Blessed Guido of Milan, who was the founder of this Religion. Arnold Wion also mentions him among the Saints and Blessed of the said Order, book 1 of the Tree of Life, chapter 6, where he says: Blessed Guido of Milan, founder of the Order, before it was made subject to the Rule of the blessed Benedict. No one, however, assigns the day of his cult or the cult itself, nor do I find any mention made of him in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, reprinted at Milan in the year 1751. Moreover, what St. Bernard did for the Humiliati in this matter may be read in our work at the 20th day of August in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of that holy abbot, §20. Meanwhile it will be useful to have noted here that their Order, thus instructed by St. Bernard, is in that place called by some the Third, whereas it should only be called the Second; on which matter the discussion will recur below.

[48] St. Antoninus, in the words given at num. 33, makes the Third succeed the second Order already mentioned. St. John, causing his own to be initiated into sacred orders, Benedetto Giovio agrees, having thus continued his History: And the first ordained a presbyter of the Order was John from the village which is called Meda, in the Milanese territory, whence he had his surname; who, when he had seen the wonderful increase of the Order, thought about having the brethren ordained, and, if it could be done, increased. Coming therefore to Como, he founded a church and certain cells in a place overgrown with reeds, whence it had the name Arundinetum, which is now corruptly called Rundinarium; where not long after he gathered not a few brethren and gave them the tonsure. Thence arose the third institute, which is called the First Order on account of the dignity of the tonsure, although later in time. Under it he also established houses of holy women. And this is the habit of the brethren, the second having also been rejected, which we see today: an inner tunic, a stole worn over it, a solid cloak and a hood, of whitish color.

[49] instituted the third Order, which afterward, like the other two, At that time they began to abstain from working wool; nevertheless they applied themselves, as before, to trade in cloths, whence they procured no small wealth for the Order itself. But after the divine praises the brethren also tilled their gardens; the holy women gave their labor to the distaff and the needle. Moreover John the Presbyter, notable for spiritual doctrine and eloquence, was the first of that Order to give sacred sermons, to whom therefore peoples flocked from almost all Italy; who, partly persuaded by him, put on the habit of that Religion, partly contributed of their substance for founding the houses of his Order, which John the Presbyter himself built in various places in Italy. After these things, a few words being inserted about that saint's deeds and about his death, which occurred on the sixth of the Kalends of October in the year 1159 at Milan, he goes on to relate the rest that pertains to that Order. After his death, he says, Provosts were established in each house of the Humiliati, who before were called Prelates, and earlier still Ministers.

[50] is approved by the Pontiffs: its superiors The Rules pertaining to the brethren of the Second and Third institute were confirmed by Innocent III, supreme Pontiff, in the year of the Lord 1201, when James of Rondenarium and Lanfranc of Vico Boldone, Provosts, had set out for Rome; and Gregory IX likewise approved them six and twenty years later. But the same Pontiff also published a separate Rule, which is called that of the Third Order, confirmed also by the aforesaid Gregory IX. And these are the first clothed brethren, living in a habit of ash color. For some time four Provosts of monasteries presided over the whole Order, the first of whom was of Rondenarium. But about the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and forty-four, by the common consent of the whole Order, Beltram, Provost of the house of St. Lucy of Brescia, was created general Master of it, with the approval of Innocent IV, supreme Pontiff; which custom of appointing a general Master of that whole Order continues to the present day. In the times of the republic of Como the Regular brethren, and especially those of this Order, had the care of weights and of those offices by which the frauds of craftsmen might be restrained: the goods which creditors took from debtors were entrusted to the Brethren of Rondenarium; monies which could not be safely paid out were deposited with them.

[51] and monasteries among the men of Como. Besides these three notable monasteries of the Humiliati at Como which we have mentioned (about which he had premised this): three houses of the Brethren of the Order of the Humiliati exist near that city (of Como) — of Rondenarium, of Vico, and the one which was formerly called of Zeno, now transferred to the hospital of St. Martin near Zezio — certain others still exist in the territory of Como. But there were formerly many more; which, however, I find to have been not monasteries but houses without churches, and indeed of the first institute, which is the third Order (that is, the last in dignity, but the first in time). These were afterward extinguished, and their revenues transferred to the monasteries of those in sacred orders, which alone remained, and which are shortly to perish utterly, since, the Brethren being neglected, they are now commended to secular clerics. Thus far Benedetto Giovio, who was alive in the year 1532, in which he closed his History of Como, and who, concerning the origin and progress of the Humiliati, confesses that he found recorded what had been drawn from most certain documents, and who seems to me to have treated of it best of all; nor did he vainly foresee the extinction of that Order, since it followed in that same sixteenth century as it drew toward its close, under Pope St. Pius V.

[52] But now let us illustrate all the aforesaid in our usual manner. That St. John of Meda was the author of the chief Order of the Humiliati, It is established that St. John was the author of this Order, which from its time is called the Third, and from its dignity the First, is also expressly asserted by Federico Borromeo, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and archbishop of Milan, in his Letter to the Humiliate nuns of the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene at Milan, which is read prefixed to their Breviary. Those nuns had wished to give up the Breviary proper to their Order; which the said archbishop, forbidding through this letter, says thus in Italian words to our purpose: After diligently reading the various manuscript Chronicles of the Order; after consulting also its various Breviaries, likewise for a long time in manuscript, and besides many other copies of them published in print at various times, we have learned for certain that it (the Breviary of the Humiliati) has continued down to our own times already from many years before the year of the Lord 1200; and indeed in such a way that it is deservedly believed to have been introduced by St. John (Oldrato of) Meda, called by excellence the Presbyter, because he was the first priest of the Order, just as he was also the author of its Third and chief branch; which Saint died in the year 1159, and flourished about the year 1119.

[53] The same we likewise have from that same Breviary, in which on the 21st day of March St. Benedict, the Benedictine Rule having been introduced into it; but it is very doubtful and on the 26th of September St. John of Meda, are both celebrated with a principal Office with an Octave as Fathers of the Order — namely because St. John of Meda, in founding the new Order of the Humiliati, introduced into it the Rule of St. Benedict. In what year John began this work I have read as handed down by no one, nor could I learn it from the Life or from other documents. Nevertheless it seems to me altogether probable that it was begun after the Rule of whatever sort was given by St. Bernard to the Milanese, that is, after the year of Christ 1134 or 1135; since St. John's congregation is wont, by reason of time and succession, to be called from what has been said the Third Order of the Humiliati. Nor is it sufficiently established whether the saint made profession in their second Order before he began the third; or whether, being already then a presbyter, bidding farewell to the world, he withdrew to the place Rondenarium, and, having built there an oratory and cells, began to instruct the Humiliati of either sex who came to him in the Benedictine Rule, adapted to their institute.

[54] The former Tatti holds in the Life, chapters 4 and 5, and perhaps others whom he followed; whether he had earlier belonged to the Order of the Humiliati, and he says that he made profession at Milan in the monastery of the Brera, after passing the customary novitiate in the exercise of the virtues which he recounts from conjecture. Then in chapter 6 he writes that on account of the holiness of his life and the gifts of his intellect he was, by the command of his superiors, initiated into sacred Orders and the priesthood, the first of all among the Humiliati. Finally in chapters 7 and 8 he affirms that by the order of those same superiors he gave sacred sermons to the people, first at Milan and then at Como, with the greatest fruit for souls, and that on that occasion the monastery of Rondenarium near that latter city was begun by him. These things would be probable and easily to be admitted, if both the manuscript Life and the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns did not rather suggest the contrary. For the author of the Life indeed, at num. 1 and following, having complained that the saint's earlier deeds up to the taking of the habit and the reception of holy profession were handed down in writing by no one, and having stated beforehand that he would therefore relate only the few things which he did under the profession he had undertaken (that is, before profession) or in the government of the Order of the Humiliati — having said this beforehand, I say, he presently subjoins his withdrawal to Rondenarium, saying: Therefore the aforesaid John, of good disposition, preferring to take the example of Christ and to follow the cross rather than to be nourished in worldly delights, etc.

[55] or whether, withdrawing from the world to Rondenarium, The cited Breviary has plainly the same things, and sometimes in the same words, from which I have excerpted the following. Meda is a village in the diocese of Milan, distant ten thousand paces from the city of Como. Thence sprang John of a noble stock, by surname and by dignity the Presbyter, who, preferring to take up the Cross of Jesus Christ and to follow him rather than to be entangled in worldly delights, piously determined to leave his native soil and his own fields and house, and for the love of that same Christ our Lord to seek out for himself some place more fit for living well and holily. Having therefore left his paternal home, the holy man came, with God's grace for his guide, to a certain suburb of the said city of Como, Rondenarium by name, beside the river Coxia, which flows down into the neighboring lake Larius of Cisalpine Gaul; and staying there for some time, and drawn by the convenience of the place, at the inspiration of divine grace he soon set about building. And so first of all he raised in that place an oratory under the title of the holy Mother of God Mary, toward whom he was always exceedingly devout, and of All Saints; and then he added a few little cells, where he gathered Brothers and Sisters to serve God perpetually in humility.

[56] [he began the Third, which is more in conformity with the Life to be published and with the Breviary.] Who that has read these things would suspect, even slightly, St. John's novitiate at the Brera in Milan, his profession, and the rest which we have reported above from Tatti? Yet the Life to be published agrees entirely with the Breviary; and so it must be said that those assertions of Tatti's lay wholly hidden from the author of each. And this Life Tatti himself acknowledges to be the most ancient of all that are extant, and he often follows it; but for the aforesaid things he cites only two more recent writers, namely Girolamo Borsieri in the Supplement to the Nobility of Milan, and Gregorio Bolzi in his Life, whose authority cannot be compared with the Life to be published and the Breviary. It must indeed be admitted that many of the saint's deeds are probably omitted both in the one and in the other, which seems to be imputed partly to the scarcity of documents, partly to the pursuit of brevity. But if the author of either had passed over for brevity's sake the things of which we now treat, at least he would not have written what is plainly opposed to them; while if the same were omitted there through a lack of documents, I do not know from what sources those later writers learned things which were plainly unknown to a far more ancient biographer and to the corrector of the Breviary.

[57] The same Order To me, therefore, it is much more probable that St. John, having been initiated into the priesthood, lived in the world in his own right, when, divinely inspired, he withdrew to Rondenarium and began to gather the Humiliati there. Yet perhaps he was one of those presbyters who ministered divine things to the Humiliati, or even was enrolled among those who followed the first institute of the Humiliati in their own private houses — both of which, however, are also plainly uncertain. That the Benedictine Rule, adapted to the Order of the Humiliati, was prescribed to his own by St. John, is agreed among all, who also agree that it was not approved by Innocent III until long after that saint's death. It will be useful here to hear Cardinal Federico Borromeo in his often-cited letter or Brief, given for the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, in which he observes that that Rule was somewhat altered by the said Innocent and was afterward confirmed by other supreme Pontiffs, and mentions other things, which I subjoin in his own words rendered into Latin.

[58] After the words given at num. 52 he proceeds thus: Besides, it is established that in the Rule proper to the Order, of which we have seen a manuscript copy and a very ancient one, that same rite (the divine Office proper to the Humiliati) approved and confirmed by various supreme Pontiffs. is expressly prescribed under the name of the Office of the Canons, by which name the Humiliati were also called in it. Hence it follows that it was already anciently approved in the same manner as the Rule, which without doubt was approved by Apostolic Briefs of various supreme Pontiffs. It was first approved by Innocent III in the year 1201, who also then somewhat altered it; but as regards the Office he wished nothing changed in it — nay rather, he wished that it should be used also by the Brothers of the second branch, as it had already been in use before among the Brothers of the third branch from the time when this branch was born of the above-mentioned St. John. It was then confirmed by Honorius III in the years 1219 and 1226; after him by Gregory IX in the year 1227, and Innocent IV in the year 1246, Nicholas IV in the year 1288, and various other Pontiffs who followed, as is established from the aforesaid Chronicles; besides which, in the library which St. Charles, our predecessor and kinsman, gave to the chapter of our metropolitan church, there exist, collected and well written out, copies of those same Privileges and Apostolic Briefs and of many others of the Order. Thus far Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whom on account of the abundance of documents which he cites, diligently examined, I judge to be preferred to the rest.

[59] Moreover from the words reported we learn besides that not all the congregations of the Humiliati submitted themselves to the institutes of St. John of Meda, Not all the Humiliati, or at least not at once; since, on Borromeo's testimony, Innocent III wished that the Brothers of the second branch, or Order, should also use the same Breviary as the Third Order — who consequently must be said to have used different laws at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Giovio too, cited at num. 50, makes mention of three Rules approved by the same Innocent and by Gregory IX. Hence too we gather the meaning of a certain paper manuscript codex of the Library of the metropolitan chapter of Milan, in which, on Puricelli's testimony, are contained the privileges of the Order of the Humiliati, and where the following may be read: It is to be noted that in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1135 St. Bernard came to Milan, and there was renowned for many miracles, and built a monastery. From whom certain magnates and noble citizens of Milan, made drunk with the divine Spirit, took up a form of living in a religious habit, dwelling with their own families.

[60] St. Bernard was therefore the first founder of this Order. while St. John was living, Whence the Brothers of this third Order are today in some places called Brothers of St. Bernard. And the Brothers of this Order remained thus by themselves in a religious habit for 54 years, before a Rule was granted them by the Roman Church. But in the year 1199, on the penultimate day of May, a Rule was given them by the Lord Pope Innocent the third. Wherefore it is to be known that the Brothers of this third Order were the founders of the first and second Order of the Humiliati. From what has been said above, I say, these words, rather obscurely written, are to be briefly explained thus. The Milanese Humiliati, who by their first institute dwelt each in his own private house, having received a Rule from St. Bernard, began to live together after the manner of religious and to lead a common life; whence also afterward, when they had already passed over to the Third Order, they were in some places called Brothers of St. Bernard. And they held to that manner of living prescribed by St. Bernard until they took up the Rule which St. John of Meda had introduced among his own and which Innocent III, having slightly altered it, had approved.

[61] passed over to the Third Order, Hence those Brothers who, having adopted this Rule, were called of the Third Order, are said to have been the founders of the first and second Order of the Humiliati, because that society had, in the course of time, ascended from the first to the second and finally to the third grade of the Humiliati. These things can also be confirmed from Giovio, who in book 2 of the History of Como expressly asserts that the house of the Humiliati of the Brera at Milan was of the second Order only, when St. John ended his life in it while away from home. He died, he says, at Milan in the house of the Brothers which is called of the Brera, still then of the second Institute. For the rest, the said Puricelli observes that those same Milanese Humiliati were also called Brothers de Convenio. But enough of these things now; let us return to the saint.

§ V. An account of the monastery of Rondenarium founded by the saint; the propagation of the Order through him, and its notable deserts toward the Church of God, and at length its extinction; the death, translation, and burial of the saint.

[ ] The monastery of Rondenarium founded by the saint, We said above at num. 55, from the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, that the place where the saint founded his first monastery was called Rondenarium, and was situated near the city of Como, at the river or torrent Coxia, commonly Cosia, which falls into the neighboring lake Larius, on which the city itself lies. Of the etymology of the place Giovio says this: Rondenarium is a corrupt word, for which I conjecture that Arundinetum is more rightly said, namely because it is believed to have been formerly filled with reeds. The same etymology Tatti admits in the Life, chapter 8, where, however, he says that the same place was called both now and formerly Rondinetum, citing the Records of the foundation of the abbey of St. Abundius, made by Alberic, bishop of Como. These same he himself exhibits in the Register of documents after the second decade of the Annals of Como, at the year of Christ 1010; but there it is called not Rondinetum but Rondanarium, in these words: the fourth mill at Rondanarium. He subjoins in the same place, at the year 1013, another privilege of St. Henry, king and afterward emperor, in which, confirming the possessions of the said abbey, he likewise mentions the fourth mill at Rundanarium. Tatti must therefore be said to have been mistaken in the Life. In the Life to be published also the same place is called Rondanarium, not Rondenarium — whether through the copyist's fault I do not know.

[63] held the primacy in the Order, From the documents mentioned Tatti doubtless conjectured that St. John obtained the place of Rondenarium from the abbot of St. Abundius, as he affirms in the same chapter 8; which is indeed probable, but not certain, since the place of Rondenarium, even if it belonged wholly to the said abbey, might in the meantime, a whole century having gone by, have come into the hands of others. I also readily grant to Tatti that what is read of that same place, so near to the city of Como, in the Life to be published at num. 3, is too much exaggerated and not true — namely that, before it was inhabited by St. John, it was a den of robbers, a couch of the incontinent, a house of the unbelieving. Moreover the monastery founded here by the saint, among the rest which were afterward erected throughout Italy, deservedly held the primacy, on the biographer's testimony, and was honored as the mother of the others. It is pleasant here to hear again Giovio, who, as we have said, wrote while the Order was still standing. The church of this house or monastery, he says, whose title is of St. Mary and All Saints, is the chief in the whole Order; for it was the first founded, when the Brothers themselves first began to be initiated into sacred orders. And moreover the Provost of that house therefore has a double vote in the election of the general Master who presides over the whole Order.

[64] To finish the rest that pertains to the same monastery: it afterward passed to the clerks regular of the Somaschan congregation. after the Order of the Humiliati was suppressed by St. Pius V, it passed at length in the year 1589 to the Clerks Regular of the Somaschan Congregation; but the church, because it threatened ruin, was before the middle of the seventeenth century converted into a school of letters under the direction of those same Clerks. Both facts we have from Tatti, a clerk of that Congregation and of the college of Como which is called the Gallio, who

professes that he wrote the often-mentioned Life of St. John because his own community possessed both the said monastery and that saint's body up to that time. Of the sacred body we shall say more below, after we have illustrated the rest of his deeds. His Order, so happily begun, the holy Founder enlarged both at home, by the several disciples whom the sanctity of his life had drawn, and abroad by various monasteries also, which the faithful, kindled by his sermons, founded in many places. This at any rate is asserted in the Life to be published and in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, from which take the following.

[65] He too, leading a common life with those (whom he had gathered in the monastery of Rondenarium), The saint kindles many to virtue, lived so holily and laudably that the fragrance of his life and manners not only spread at once to those round about, but was diffused far and wide, and could not be hidden, according to the Lord's saying, A city set upon a mountain. Moreover this most blessed John of ours was always intent upon works of mercy, and especially bore a compassionate heart toward the poor; and giving himself unremittingly to prayers and fasts and preachings, he drew the minds of the people, whom, as they ran together to him from every side, he received with such affability of speech, with such grace and gentleness, and moreover so kindled them with a wondrous ardor of divine love, that many, having heard him, were converted to the Lord with the whole intent of their mind, and, vehemently moved by desire of the heavenly kingdom, utterly despised the world and the pomps of the age. Whereby it came about that, to the praise of God, very many monasteries, both of religious men and of nuns, were founded here and there throughout all Insubria, and through almost all Italy, with him as their author; so much so that the white religion of the Humiliati, which at that time through John's merits took wondrous increase, confesses that it owes itself wholly to him alone, both now and forever, after the Lord God, from whom is every best gift and every perfect boon — owes it in the greatest and most unspeakable measure.

[66] Of the monasteries founded by the saint himself Tatti in chapter 9 of the Life enumerates some of the city and territory of Como, and founds many monasteries, which he affirms are reckoned in an anonymous manuscript Chronicle of that Order preserved by him; but since, on his own testimony, two other monasteries are also there ascribed to the same saint which Tatti shows were never of the Humiliati, I prefer to pass them over in silence rather than to obtrude them lightly. Pietro Paolo Bosca in the Milanese Martyrology, in the Annotations to our St. John on this day of September, also denies that he was the author of the monastery of the nuns of Meda, as Philip Ferrarius, reported by us at num. 5, had asserted, and which he himself attributes to SS. Haymo and Veremundus, of whom he treated in the same Martyrology at the 13th of February. With Bosca agrees the Life of those holy brothers given in our work at the said day of February, where they are said to have died toward the end of the eighth century, and thus long before the times of our St. John and of the Humiliati. I also pass over what Tatti in chapter 14 of the Life relates of Ezzelino, father of the Ezzelino afterward notorious for impiety and cruelty, as kindled to piety by St. John and enrolled among the Humiliati; I do not know how probably.

[67] especially in Lombardy, whose members But I cannot omit the illustrious testimony concerning the Humiliati of James of Vitry, first bishop of Acre, then of Tusculum, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, that from it the reader may understand what was their discipline as instituted by St. John, and to what useful and lofty work in the Church of God he raised them from their humble weaving. The said Cardinal, therefore, who died before the middle of the thirteenth century, writes this in his Western History, chapter 28, of the Humiliati of his time: There are certain congregations in Italy, and especially in the parts of Lombardy, of men and women living according to a rule, whom they call Humiliati; because in the poverty and roughness of their habit, and in the composure of their outward bearing and the gravity of their manners, and in all their words and works, they show a great example of humility. They live in common, for the most part from the labor of their own hands. For they have not many revenues or possessions, nor is it lawful for any of them to possess anything as his own.

[68] long afterward also, by the holiness of their life and by sacred sermons All the canonical Hours by day and by night, laymen as well as clerics, they do not omit; for nearly all are lettered. But those who do not know how to say the canonical Hours are released by a due compensation, saying the Lord's Prayer a set number of times. And there are convents of this religion in nearly all the cities in those parts, many of whose members do not eat flesh except in grave sickness, nor use shirts or linens or feathers. And giving themselves unremittingly to readings and prayers and the labors of their hands, they zealously drive from themselves sloth and the torpor of idleness. And the women converts of this religion are so separated from the men, and dwell apart with all caution and diligence, that neither in church nor in any other place can they speak with or see one another, save rarely. Even when they come together for the preaching of the divine word, they are for the most part separated from one another by an interposed wall. And their Brothers, both clerics and lettered laymen, have authority from the supreme Pontiff, who confirmed their Rule and canonical institutes, of preaching not only in their own Congregation, but in the squares and cities and in secular churches — the consent, however, being sought of the prelates who preside over those places.

[69] kindled the faithful to virtue, From which it came about that they converted many nobles and powerful citizens, matrons too and virgins, to the Lord by their preaching; some of whom, utterly renouncing the world, passed over to their religion; while others, remaining bodily in the world, though they remained with sons and wives, humbled and drawn away from the world's businesses, continuing in a religious habit and in sobriety of food and in works of mercy, use this world, according to the Apostle's counsel, as though not using it. But priests too and clerics, renouncing the deceitful delights of this world, having taken up the Regular habit of poverty, are associated with the aforesaid Humiliati. For at the end of their preaching, while the hearts of the hearers are still fervent with the power of the divine word and more inclined to contempt of the world and to the service of their Creator, they are wont to ask of the bystanders whether there are any who, divinely inspired, wish to pass over to their religion. And since many in that inebriation and fervor of spirit pass over to them, in a short time they were greatly multiplied, procuring many convents of their Brothers and Sisters in various cities.

[70] And they have become so formidable to the heretics whom they call Patrini, and confuted the heretics, or brought them back to the faith; and so powerfully and openly, by uncovering their frauds, do they prudently convince the impious and unbelieving from the divine Scriptures and publicly confound them, that they now do not dare to appear before them; and many of them, recognizing their error and returning to the faith of Christ, have been joined to those Brothers, and so those who had been masters of error have been made disciples of truth. And these, more keenly taking all the little foxes known to them, and meeting the errors known to them, cut off Goliath's neck with his own sword after the manner of David, and like the valiant woman Judith strike off the head of Holofernes; and the enemy falls into the pit which he made. Thus that Cardinal, before the middle of the thirteenth century, as I said, speaks of the Humiliati of his time in truly honorable terms; of which it will be useful to have observed a few things. First it is clear from them that St. John of Meda, while by his new institution he brought the clerical state into that Order, yet wished the old custom of procuring food by the labor of the hands to be preserved. It is clear secondly that even after that saint's death the first Order of the Humiliati continued, namely of those who in a modest and religious habit in their own private houses, with wife, children, and household, professed for themselves a pious and singular kind of life.

[71] Of the heretics whom the said Cardinal calls Patrini, but now that Order is extinct among the men. and who are also called by others Patarenes, Cathars, new Manichæans, and by other names, and were divided into various sects, our Papebroch may be consulted at the 29th day of April, §1 of the Commentarius prævius to the Life of St. Peter Martyr of the Order of Preachers, who also strenuously opposed them and was put to martyrdom by them. For the rest, if the Humiliati had always persisted in the labor of their hands, so well joined with the clerical state by their holy Founder, doubtless it would not have been necessary to suppress their Order; since St. Pius V in the Bull of its suppression alleges as the cause of their obstinacy in evil this, that they had become too much accustomed to idleness and sloth. This Bull was published by Laerzio Cherubini, volume 2 of the Roman Bullarium, among the constitutions of that holy Pontiff, num. 119; and there follows in the same place another, by which he disposed, by his Apostolic authority, of their provostships and other possessions which are enumerated in it. Moreover I judged that this Order should be treated of somewhat more fully, both because it is generally less known, and because it flourished only in Italy, and also because it has now been extinct for nearly two centuries.

[72] The rest of the saint's deeds, which are but few and known, do not need commentary, The saint died at Milan in the year 1159, or can be sufficiently illustrated in the Annotations. That he met his death away from home, while he was staying at Milan for the sake of preaching, in the house of the venerable brethren of the Brera — that is, of the Humiliati — the author of the Life to be published writes at num. 12. On the same testimony, his body, soon after his death, was carried from Milan to Como, and there in the oratory or church of Rondenarium on the sixth of the Kalends of October … in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine was laid to rest. On the place and the year of his death Giovio agrees, in the History of Como, book 2, where he observes that the convent of the Brera was at that time only of the second institute of the Humiliati. For he writes thus: He died at Milan in the house of the Brothers which is called of the Brera, still then of the second institute, whose body was carried back to Como with solemn pomp… He had died on the sixth day of the Kalends of October, one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine.

[73] on the 26th day of September, The same year of his death is assigned to him by Cardinal Federico Borromeo in his often-mentioned letter prefixed to the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns; but in the Breviary itself only this is read: The man of God at length rested in peace at Milan on the sixth of the Kalends of October. So has the edition published at Milan in the year 1751; for in the other Office of the same saint, together with the Proper of St. Baudolinus, printed likewise at Milan in the year 1637 from the Breviary of the Humiliati, the place of death, or the word at Milan, is omitted. Yet the agreement of writers with the Life to be published on the same place and year of his death does not permit us to doubt of either. Against the day, however, the said Life to be published raises a doubt,

because the 26th day of September, which by the rest of the writers is held for the day of his death, is in it assigned to his deposition or burial made in his own church of Rondenarium. Take the words: The priests and clerics and other faithful who were carrying the holy relics (that is, his body from Milan to Como) performed worthy obsequies for him [], and honorably laid him to rest in the oratory of his own canonry on the sixth of the Kalends of October … in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine.*

[74] or at least on this day he was buried at Como, According to these things the saint must certainly be said to have died a day or two earlier. For all agree generally with the manuscript Life that the men of Como, on hearing of St. John's death, hastened to Milan to claim back his body and carry it to Como. But Como is distant from Milan at least twenty-five thousand paces. By what reasoning then shall we believe that on one and the same day on which the saint died, the news of his death was carried to Como, the men of Como arrived at Milan, and his body was translated by them honorably to Como and there, after solemn obsequies, laid to rest? Assuredly it is incredible that all these things happened on one and the same day; and it must altogether be said that either the day of burial in the manuscript Life, or the day of death in the others, is wrongly assigned. But on which side the truth stands I cannot determine, since for the one there is greater antiquity, for the other the consent of more writers.

[75] and was afterward laid there in a marble tomb. Tatti in chapter 20 of the Life relates from an ancient Breviary of the Humiliati, as he says, certain circumstances of the burial, of which the manuscript Life and the present-day Breviary of the nuns make no mention. He writes thus, but in Italian words: The obsequies being finished, John's body was laid in a place set apart, until the Humiliati of Rondenarium had made for him a chest of white marble, in which they laid it in the following year (that is, of Christ 1160) on the 15th day of July, as is read in the ancient Breviary of that Order. At this deposition the body, eight months and nineteen days after its burial, was found incorrupt. The chest was placed beneath the chief altar of the church toward the choir, and on its lid was carved an image of St. John equal to his own stature, as may be seen even today beneath the altar of the holy house of Loreto (that is, of the chapel made in its likeness at Como), to which, as will be said below, his ancient sepulcher has now been transferred. Whatever be the case concerning the alleged finding of the sacred body incorrupt, which I cannot confirm from elsewhere, certainly there is some error either in the month of July, or in the time reckoned from his burial to the said finding; since from the 26th day of September to the 15th of July there had elapsed altogether nine months with nineteen days.

\ i.e. ipsi*, for him.

§ VI. The violation of the church of Rondenarium by the overflowing Coxia; the finding of the sacred body, its recognitions, and, after some relics had been separated from it, its translation to a new church.

[76] [The church of Rondenarium, filled with filth by the overflowing Coxia in the year 1607] In the seventeenth century St. John's body was inspected and translated to another church, through the care of the reverend fathers the Clerks Regular of the Somaschan Congregation, by whom, as we have said, after the suppression of the Order of the Humiliati among the men, the monastery of Rondenarium with the church in which it rested had been possessed already from the year 1589. Of this translation the often-cited Primo Luigi Tatti was an eyewitness, whose words therefore I prefer to render from Italian into Latin rather than to set forth in my own phrase. In chapter 22 he premises a horrible inundation of the river Coxia, which, as often at other times, being swollen by rains falling from the surrounding mountains and hills, goes out of its bed, and with a truly memorable destruction afflicted the men of Como in the year 1607, and so at length gave occasion for translating the body. There exists, he says, in the first courtyard of his college, cut in marble, where the waters had risen three ells and five inches, the following record:

Beyond the memory of all in our age [ ] the Coxia burst forth with sudden violence, and filled this house with water and mud [ ] up to the red mark noted with a pointer, [ ] in the year of the Lord 1607, [ ] on the 14th day of October.

[77] By that same inundation the church, which he says was situated in a low place, was foully damaged; and, to use his words, beneath the high altar stood the chest in which St. John's body had been laid, raised one ell from the ground. The water flowed up not only to the chest, but nine inches higher than it, and covered the very table of the altar. Whether the lid had already then been loosened from the rest of the tomb by the gnawing of time, or whether the water, the lime being then softened, made a way for itself, it penetrated into the sepulcher and mingled the quantity of silt it had brought with the precious ashes of the saint. No one had noticed it, because all the inmates of the college were busy escaping so fierce an enemy as held them fast; but afterward, at the finding (of the body), the reckless invasion of the torrent lay open, since the water still covered a great part of the principal bones. In chapter 23 the said writer goes on to recount the damage inflicted, especially on the church, which he says was so filled with silt, stones, and other filth that great expenses would have had to be made for clearing these out and carrying them elsewhere — expenses which besides were judged useless, because the church itself threatened ruin.

[78] Much time having meanwhile passed, at length in the year 1635 a chapel began to be built in the manner of the holy house of Loreto in the garden of that college, and in the same year it was brought so far that sacred rites could be performed in it. in the year 1635 it is destined for other uses; beneath whose altar Since therefore provision had thus been made for the fathers of the college for the performance of divine service, it was decreed that the old church should be converted into schools for the studious youth; and on that occasion St. John's body was removed thence and translated to the above-mentioned chapel, in the manner which we shall now relate in Tatti's own words. There stood also the altar of which we made mention a little before, but altogether abandoned, because no Mass was celebrated at it. Beneath it, toward the choir, was seen a marble chest having a carved image which represented our saint in his natural stature with the habit of the Humiliati. Some thought that his body, when the Order was suppressed by Bl. Pius V, had already been translated elsewhere; others on the contrary firmly believed that it rested in that chest. The sepulchral tomb could not be moved or opened except by breaking the wall which held it fixed beneath the altar.

[79] the saint's body is found in the year 1636 in a tomb covered with water, It was necessary therefore that the great stone slab which covered the whole altar should be raised, and that the wall should be broken which separated the rest of the church from the choir and secured the above-mentioned sepulcher on either side. The most illustrious Lazzaro Carafino (bishop of Como) wished to know what was true (concerning the sacred body), and therefore ordered the altar to be pulled down and the chest to be removed and opened; which was also carefully carried into execution. The wall was thrown down, the chest freed from every hindrance, and in the presence of the bishop and of some members of his household and of others from outside — among whom were Giovanni Maria Tridi and Nicolò Fontana, both citizens of Como, and Tiburzio Michorio of Todi, an intimate of the said bishop, specially summoned for this — the lid of the tomb was raised, not without great labor, and in it were found all the bones of St. John, rightly disposed, since they had not been in the least turned over or disturbed by the water that had flowed into it. And this water, although it had then stood there unmoved for twenty-eight years, six months, and ten days (namely from the 14th day of October of the year 1607 to the 23rd of April of the year 1636), was not only not fetid, but limpid and good, as though then first drawn from a spring.

[80] But the bones, which after so great a space of time ought to have been corrupted and putrefied, were, when they were handled, as we shall presently say, solid, no otherwise than if they had always lain in a dry place remote from all moisture. Nor had the water harmed John's body otherwise than that the silt brought in by it had been mingled with the saint's ashes and had settled with them to the bottom of the chest. There was no one present who doubted of those relics; but all alike, together with the bishop, venerated them, holding it for certain that these were none other than those of our saint, anciently laid in the church of Rondinetum (or Rondenarium). So altogether was persuaded not only by the universal tradition, according to which they were reported to rest there, but also by his image carved on the lid. This too made them the more secure besides, that they had found them beneath an altar — a strong argument indeed that they should without any doubt be held authentic. This finding took place on the 23rd day of April, which was a Tuesday, in the year 1636.

[81] and meanwhile is laid elsewhere: by the use of that water diseases are healed. And so the most illustrious Carafino, having beheld the precious body in the midst of the water, commanded Lelio Frauezzi, his train-bearer, and Father Gregorio Bolzi, at that time vice-provost of the college, to draw out the said bones and to cleanse them from that fine silt which we commonly call litta (in the tongue of Como). This command both carried out diligently and most dutifully; and then, at the order of the same bishop, they laid them in a chest covered with leather, which after this, by his order, was locked and sealed and at length handed over to the father provost, Signor Pietro Francesco Moia (afterward bishop of Telese). Many asked for the water as relics, among whom it was for the most part distributed in various flasks; and when it had been piously drunk by them, we have seen renewed in our own age the graces and benefits which the saint formerly bestowed at his sepulcher. There follows in the same place chapter 24, whose title is this: The solemn translation and reposition of the body of St. John beneath the altar of the holy house of Loreto — namely of that which, built in imitation of the true house of Loreto by the Clerks Regular of the Somaschan congregation at Como, we have mentioned above.

[82] The precious deposit of the body of St. John (Tatti continues, In the year 1645 those same sacred bones, inspected by the bishop, citing the Acts of his college at the year 1645) was kept privately in the chamber of the father vice-provost, to whose custody it had been committed by Father Pietro Francesco Moia, for nine years and one month, but without that veneration which such a treasure deservedly demanded. Many had often desired that their ancient cult should be restored to these sacred relics, when at length it pleased the Lord God to hear their prayers and to grant the just desires of those devoted to the saint. The most illustrious Carafino was a man of a most religious spirit in promoting with all his strength the glory and honor of the Saints of this his diocese. God therefore, who willed that the sacred homage merited by his outstanding virtues should be renewed to John, opened the eyes of his mind and kindled his breast, that he might bring back the memory of his Servant, obscured as it were by an eclipse, from the shadows of forgetfulness into the light of the sun. He therefore, a plan

which he had conceived concerning the transferring of his relics to the sacred chapel of Blessed Mary of Loreto, communicated with the gentlemen administrators of the college.

[83] These were the most excellent lord duke Francesco Gallio, are laid in a cypress casket, and this, Signor Alessandro Lucino, canon of the cathedral church, Signor Alessandro Olgiati, doctor of the college and decurion of the city, and the aforesaid Father Gregorio Bolzi, provost of the said college. But since St. John's body even then, as was said above, lay in a locked chest, and this was not worthy for preserving so precious a jewel, the bishop ordered a large cypress chest to be made and to be lined within with red silken cloth. When this had been done, he appointed a day on which the sacred bones should again be examined, and he himself with his own hands took them out of the chest one by one and, in the presence of the administrators mentioned above (if you except the most excellent duke, then absent), transferred them with great reverence into the prepared chest. This examination took place in the year 1645, on the 24th day of May, on the vigil of the Lord's Ascension, with the incredible joy of all, and especially of the college, whose bronze bells gave forth festal peals most solemnly to the whole city so long as that sacred function lasted, for the performing of which the sacristy was chosen.

[84] Of some relics separated on the same occasion from the rest of the body some relics being taken out of it and given as gifts, Tatti here inserts the following. There continue, he says, to this day in their religious observance various monasteries of Humiliate virgins, both in the diocese of Como and in the archdiocese of Milan. These, having in past years heard of the finding of St. John's body, had vehemently desired some relics of it for the enriching of their churches. All of them employed powerful patrons that on the occasion of the translation they might obtain their hope; but for just causes not all were heard. Only three monasteries obtained what they desired: namely St. Catherine of the Brera in the city of Milan, St. Ursula of Como, and St. Catherine of Lugano, to whose nuns three ribs were given. A fourth (rib) also was taken out at repeated entreaties and as a favor to duke Francesco (Gallio, mentioned above).

[85] to be given as gifts, is enclosed in another of lead, The remainder of the body — apart from a small bone which, with the bishop's kind permission, was divided among the administrators and other persons who were present at that solemnity, and a fragment of the spine, which, formerly kept in the possession of the said father provost, is now honored enclosed with other relics in a certain reliquary — the remainder, I say, of the body was laid in the cypress chest, and this in another of lead, whose lid exhibits this inscription carved upon it:

The bones of St. John of Meda, First Presbyter and Reformer of the Order of the Humiliati, and Founder of this former Monastery, replaced by Lazzaro Carafino, Bishop of Como, on the Eighth of the Ides of June, in the Year 1645.

The examination and reposition of the sacred relics having been made, their translation was decreed for the coming feast of Pentecost. Tatti here subjoins that all effort was at once given, so far as the shortness of the time allowed, that notable preparations should be made; and that when that solemnity had been publicly proclaimed in a sermon in the cathedral church by the bishop's order, a great multitude of people, not only citizens but also from the neighboring boroughs and the surrounding places, flocked to it.

[86] it is placed in the old marble tomb That sacred pledge had been placed (the words are again Tatti's) in a lofty position on the altar of the most blessed Virgin for three continuous feast days of Pentecost, during which time it was visited with great piety by nobles and commoners, who could not be torn away from the sacred building as from a new paradise, where they enjoyed the blessed company of the saint. It had been decreed that St. John's body should be solemnly carried about with a procession of suppliants before it was replaced in its old tomb, in which we shall say it was laid; but for just causes this was not done. Yet a huge and costly display supplied for this ceremony, which alone could be found wanting in that solemnity. On the evening of the third feria of Pentecost, after the customary blessing had been given, the most illustrious Carafino came to bring the festivity to an end. Having adored the relics, with the fathers Signor Giovanni Emiliano Cossali and Signor Primo Luigi Tatti (the author of this little work) assisting, clothed in surplice and stole, he blessed the people with the aforesaid chest; and then laid it in St. John's old tomb, which he caused to be fastened with lead at its four corners, that it might not hereafter be opened by anyone.

[87] beneath the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the new church. In this way a few years ago the glorious memory of John was renewed at Como among our citizens, who, while visiting the holy house of Loreto and bending their knees to venerate the Queen of angels, cannot but at the same time and by the same act pay the tribute of their homage to the saint, so favorable to them; since he lived, and is now in heaven, the singular protector of the city; for surely after his death there is not wanting to him that insatiable charity which he so often displayed in various misfortunes while he dwelt with us in this mortal life. He now rests beneath the Virgin's altar, where he is honored on the 26th day of September, on which he passed to heaven; and on the third feria of Pentecost, in memory of this last translation, whose indelible record stands carved for posterity on the front of the chest in these precious words:

The bones of St. John of Meda, first presbyter and reformer of the Order of the Humiliati, and founder of this former monastery of Rondinarium, drawn out of this very sepulcher a few years ago, when, the older church having been profaned, the altar was pulled down behind which they rested, Lazzaro Carafino, bishop of Como, restored to their own marble and placed more honorably beneath this chest, on the 8th of the Ides of June in the year 1645.

Thus far Tatti concerning the translation of the sacred body; now receive the Life, written in a very faulty style.

VITA

By an anonymous author, a Humiliatus.

From a Como manuscript.

John of Meda, presbyter, and founder of the first Order of the Humiliati, at Milan in Insubria. (S.)

BHL Number: 4413

From a Ms.

The saint, of whom few things have been written, born at Meda, About to write the Life and acts of the most blessed John the presbyter, I implore God's grace, that from on high the fire of the Holy Spirit may be sent into my bones, that my heart may grow warm and the meditation of my heart may burn, so that according to the measure of my littleness I may be able to commit to writing the memorable deeds and praiseworthy miracles of this our Father, and to kindle the breasts of all to emulate him, so that, being followers of virtue in the present, we may be partakers of glory in the time to come. This blessed man was born of a rather free stock in a certain suburb where it is called Meda ^a, of the diocese of Milan, distant ten miles from the city of Como ^b. Therefore the time is at hand that I should turn my pen to setting down on pages the deeds of the said Presbyter — the first beginnings of whose merits from his earliest years, and with what flowers of sanctity he shone in adolescence, or with what marks of virtue he exercised himself through all virtue up to the taking of the habit and the reception of holy profession, the all-too-blameworthy negligence of writers has failed to record ^c.

[2] Only a few things which he did under the profession he had undertaken, or in the government of the Order of the Humiliati, a monastery having been built near Como, we have come to know for ourselves also from the report of certain persons of either sex, as, with the providence of the Spirit granting it, we shall strive to set forth more clearly and more fully. Therefore the aforesaid John, of good disposition, preferring to take the example of Christ and to follow the cross rather than to be nourished in worldly delights, attending to that saying, "The whole world is set in wickedness," came, with God's grace for his guide, to the city of Como, close by the walls of that city, beside the river Coxia ^d, and to a certain place by the name of Rondanarium; and there in honor of the most blessed Mary ever Virgin and of All Saints he raised an oratory; he also built very small cells, and then with pious charity and most kindly discretion gathered no small companies both of brothers and of nuns, living under regular profession ^e.

[3] he instituted the third Order of the Humiliati, O Rondanarium, once barren and mournful, now fruitful and firm! Once overgrown with brambles and willows, but now made fertile with fruit-bearing trees, and lovely with most abundant vineyards! Rejoice and be glad in the boundless jubilation of your heart: thanks must unceasingly be rendered to the Lord, who by such and so great a Patron has exalted you with magnificent knowledge, that you may enjoy his patronage to the full. You were once a den of robbers, a couch of the incontinent, a house of the unbelieving ^f; now you are a house of prayers, a bridal chamber of the continent, a palace of guests who serve the true Host. And so the said John lived on a poor man's fare; yet he was always generous in alms, diligent in vigils, devout in prayer, outstanding in doctrine, ready in the word of God, most holy in his manner of life, perfect in charity. Never did the enemy of the human race find in him anything either to deceive by fraud or to darken by dissimulation.

[4] and by the holiness of his life and the preaching of the divine word He showed the sincerity of his mind in all things by the serenity of his countenance; he declared the tenderness of his most merciful heart in the gentleness of his speech, so that whoever heard him, made drunk with the dew of compunction, became [*] fruitful in yielding the buds of piety: indeed, not only those near at hand of either sex, but also those far remote, through almost all Italy, he had drawn by the bountiful efficacy of his preaching, as fame spread it abroad; so that, as bees to a hive filled with honey, so swarms of peoples flowed together to him, of whom not a few, having obtained his consolation, fled the shipwreck of this stormy world and gained a station in the safest harbor. Others, edified by his instruction, returned to their own places; and those who had been worn down by any trouble, refreshed by the honeyed sight of him, enjoyed great exultation.

[5] he wins many for God and erects monasteries. The said place, by the name of Rondanarium, which the venerable Priest built to the praise of God and of his Mother the Virgin Mary and for the convenience of that congregation of all the brothers and companions desiring to serve the King of glory unto the end, becomes also the chief seat in the Order of the Humiliati, in which from that time until now the disciples of Christ, both of men and of women, in no small numbers are gathered, to possess at length g the eternal walls. For here many, catching the fragrance of his most sweet repute — how fervently he sweated at the work of preaching; how effective he was in the winning of souls; how zealous in gathering companies of Religious, how diligent for the honor of God and of the old Order of the Humiliati in building dwellings of Religion. And so almost all the cities and many villages of Italy are adorned with the residence of Religious; who, renouncing this world, persevering in fasts and alms, in prayers and labors, serve the divine worship.

[6] He instructs his own holily; in a dearth of grain What more? For it is long to set forth in words. But that I may not bring weariness upon my hearers by too great prolixity, I shall strive, unworthy though I am, to discourse briefly of him — of how great an adornment of good works, which are chief and precious, and of how great a prerogative of heavenly reward he obtained ^h — and to pass over what breeds weariness. The aforesaid canonry ⁱ was then filled with the ministry of many venerable brothers and sisters; and the more they were celebrated with honor among the throngs of the people, the more, kindled with desire, they sought after heavenly rather than earthly riches.

Indeed, since they were not heaped up with much temporal wealth, taking no care for transitory things, they strove rather with all zeal to pursue [*] a celibate life. At a certain time, when there was a barrenness of the fruits of the earth, it happened that the man of God came to his little granary for the benefit of the sheep committed to him; and when he saw that grain ^k was failing for the need of his community, and that he was without money wherewith to buy it, he determined to go toward the parts of Milan, to ask of his kinsmen and friends victuals on loan for his needy flock.

[7] And when he had walked not very far, some eight stades, money is divinely given him: behold, a certain man, unknown to him, came to meet him and asked where he was going. But the saint, not knowing who he was or why he questioned him, refused to tell him the reason for his journey. But because he pressed him strongly, he obtained everything from the Presbyter ^l. When he had learned it, the man who had met him bestowed upon him so much money that he was able to procure most abundant provisions for his community; whence we believe that he was an angel of God ^m. And immediately he was taken from his eyes. Returning rejoicing to the brethren, he began to announce to them what had happened on the way; and they began to praise together the Lord, the bestower of all good things, who granted so great a grace to his own that by the fullness of it their want was put to flight. And thenceforth, by God's abundance intervening, they had continually enjoyed a most plentiful sustenance up to this time.

[8] A certain poor widow, hearing of the most blessed man's sanctity and generosity, for a poor woman's sake he procures oil prodigiously. came to him one day at a swift pace; with great insistence she poured out prayers that he would relieve her want with a little of the liquid of oil, hoping that she would obtain from him all that she asked. Then the man of God, granting the widow's prayers, at once called his cellarer ⁿ, telling him to dispense oil to the widow in full measure. When this was ordered, the brother answered him, saying: Lord father, there is no oil in the house wherewith the poor woman may be helped; for yesterday I emptied the oil jar for guests who came in. Then the holy Father, smiling, said to him: Go in faith; for the jar which you left empty you will now find filled with the liquid of oil. Without doubt the brother, giving credence to the holy Father's words, went at once; and as the Presbyter had said, so he found [*]; and running for joy to the doors of the canonry, he relieved the needy widow's hunger with the richness of the oil ^o.

[9] The most blessed Priest strove with great exertion Sailing with his own on the lake of Como, to draw those subject to the devil's dominion out from the yoke of servitude, and to place them under the most loving yoke of God. At another time, when for the sake of winning souls for God he was going about the bishopric of Como, sailing by the lake [p], it happened that he, together with three of his brethren, came to a certain place by the name of Lalium [q], in which many Germans [r] had arrived, whose tongue he did not know at all. And the aforesaid place is eight miles distant from the city of Como. Moreover, being unable to find lodging because of the multitude of strangers, the man of God said: Dearest brothers, let us hasten to another place where it is called Netium [s]; perhaps the Lord will grant us the grace of lodging, since evening draws on. Hearing this, the brothers, assenting to the Presbyter's judgment, prepared the boat as occasion required.

[10] As they were sailing, behold, an angel of God, fashioned in the likeness of a man, he is called to the shore by an angel and is refreshed with food: laden with bread and wine and other provisions, standing on the shore, began to call the sailing Servant of God with his Brothers by hand and with a loud voice. For hearing the voice of one calling, the sailors turned back and came to the shore. Going out from the stern they found the said angel, adorned [*] with foods, not knowing who he was. And a rug [t] being spread out, upon it they set bread and wine and provisions, and tasted of that abundance [u]. The heavenly banquet being finished, the bearer of the food rose, and calling the saint aside spoke with him. And when the conversation was over, the angel of God vanished from his eyes. Seeing this, the Brothers were astounded and held their peace; and entering the boat they completed their journey prosperously.

[11] in prayer he is lit up by a column of fire: On a certain night the Servant of God rose, as was his custom, to offer prayer to the Lord; and a certain intimate of his and friend of God, in the depth of that same night, rose as was his wont to perform the necessities of the body. Looking up, he saw a column of burning fire rising from the place called Gerbetum, which the Priest had acquired, in which he was praying. Strengthened by this vision, in the very dress in which he had come from his bed, he came at a most swift pace to the place in which the Servant of God was praying, and found him performing his customary prayers, and the aforesaid fiery column standing above him. And when the happy Presbyter [x] saw him, filled with wonder, the man of God said: Friend, why, and for what cause, have you come here in the midst of such darkness? He answered him, saying: Struck by the light of the vision of the column I have come here, that I might learn by experience what it was that I had seen. Then the man of God charged him that, while he lived in this world, he should reveal this famous vision to no one; and having received a blessing from the Servant of God, he hastened to his own house, strengthened in the praises of God.

[12] He dies at Milan, and while he is being carried thence to Como, The often-mentioned John, kindled with the zeal of charity, urged on with keen fervor that he might complete the work of preaching which he had begun, and came to the city of Milan into a certain house of the venerable brethren where it is called at the Brera [y]; and there he stayed several days. And as the hour of his departure drew near, being seized with a certain pain and inward infirmity, he began to be gravely ill. With the Brothers only standing about him, preparing his soul with the heavenly Viaticum, he flew away from this world to the starry seats. Learning of his death, not only his subjects but also the citizens of Como, God-fearing men in no small number, came in festal manner [*] to the body which lay lifeless. And drawing near, they took the venerable pledge, laid it upon their shoulders, and carried it back to their own place [z].

[13] by the blood flowing from his mouth he gives light to a blind girl: And when they had hastened to within about three stades of the city of Como, there was a great concourse from the city, of men, women, and little children, coming forth to meet them with hymns and praises; among whom was a certain noble matron who had a daughter darkened with a dimness of the eyes; who, drawing near in faith, lifted the girl high in her arms, urging the girl to touch the bier on which the holy members were being carried. And she, touching it with her daughter, anointed her daughter's eyes with the blood which was issuing from his mouth on account of the inward corruption; and immediately her eyes were adorned with the light of sight [aa]. She returned rejoicing at her daughter's deliverance by the Confessor's merits; and the priests present and the clerics and the other faithful who were carrying the holy relics performed worthy obsequies for him [*], and honorably laid him to rest in the oratory of his own canonry on the sixth of the Kalends of October, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine [bb], where continually inestimable prodigies and benefits of healings without number are bestowed [cc].

[14] buried in his own monastery he is renowned for miracles. Finally, if any have been afflicted with any kind whatsoever of infirmity and come before his sarcophagus in faith, they will be made partakers of soundness and return rejoicing to their own homes — these things being obtained by the merits of the most loving Priest with the most powerful Restorer and author of all good, our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, there abides one Godhead, equal power and incomprehensible majesty, through the infinite ages of ages. Amen. The Life of the holy presbyter John of Rondenarium being ended, may the Lord lead us into his most holy kingdom. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

p. Namely by the lake Larius, on which Como lies.

q. The village of Lalium, situated on the aforesaid lake Larius, is also mentioned by Benedetto Giovio in the History of Como. Perhaps this is the village which in the Blaeu geographical Tables is called Lellio, and which is met on the left, about the eighth mile, by those sailing through that same place from the city of Como — which distance, namely, is that at which Lalium is said just below to be removed from it.

r. That is, Germans.

s. I suspect that it is the village which in the aforesaid Blaeu tables is written Nesso, and is placed on the other shore of the lake from that on which Lellio is, and a little farther from Como.

t. That is, gausape, a rug.

u. Of this refreshment an antiphon is sung at the canticle Magnificat in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, which we gave in the Commentarius prævius at num. 9.

x. From this passage probably Tatti, or others whom he followed, said that that Brother who found the saint thus illumined was a presbyter named Felix; but from the whole context it is manifest that the words felix Presbyter are to be referred to the saint himself, surnamed by excellence, as we have already said, the Presbyter, and that the word felix here is an adjective, not a proper name. Moreover, although in the often-mentioned Breviary of the Humiliate nuns no express mention is made of this prodigy, an engraved image prefixed to it shows that same saint fixed in contemplation and behind him a column blazing vehemently.

y. This monastery, after the suppression of the Order of the Humiliati, at the instance of St. Charles Borromeo, was given to the Society of Jesus in the year 1572, on the testimony of Francesco Sacchini in the History of that Society, part 3, book 8, num. 187. There exists there to this day a magnificent college, also called of the Brera.

z. From this passage Tatti thinks it is proved that St. John sprang from a family of Como. See what has been said in our Commentarius prævius at num. 25 and following.

aa. Of this miracle there is an antiphon at the canticle Benedictus in the Breviary of the Humiliate nuns, which you have in the Commentarius prævius at num. 8. On this occasion Tatti relates that a certain ailment of his own eyes was quickly removed when he had visited that saint's body in the chapel of Loreto near Como and had recited some daily prayers in his honor.

bb. Of the year of his death there seems no room for doubt; but whether the 26th day of September, on which he is here said to have been buried, was also the day of his death, as is commonly believed, consult the Commentarius prævius at num. 73 and the following.

cc. That the sacred body was in the seventeenth century raised from its old marble tomb, and that both the tomb and the body were translated to a new church or chapel, see in the Commentarius prævius, §6.

\ efficiebatur*

\ i.e. actitare*

\ rather reperit*

\ perhaps peroneratum*

\ perhaps festinius*

\ i.e. ipsi*