ON ST. SILVINUS, BISHOP OF BRESCIA,
IN LOMBARDY
Before the middle of the fifth century.
COMMENTARY.
His memory in the Fasti; the findings and Translations of his relics; his cult.
Silvinus, bishop of Brescia, in Lombardy. (S.)
BY J. P.
The most eminent Baronius, following Galesini, who was the first to enter this and not a few other Bishops of Brescia in the published Fasti of the Church, His name in the Roman and other Martyrologies; announces St. Silvinus today in the Roman Martyrology thus: At Brescia, of St. Silvinus the bishop. Ferrari at the same day, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, hands down the following about him: Silvinus, or as others write, Sylvinus, the twelfth bishop of Brescia, the fourth after St. Philastrius, administered the church of Brescia between St. Theophilus his predecessor and Gaudiosus his successor, about the year of Salvation 410, with such praise of sanctity that, when he had flown to the heavenly ones on the IV Kalends of October, he was reckoned among the Saints, and obtained from the church of Brescia the honours that are due to the Saints. Whose body, laid up in the shrine of St. Peter in Oliveto, rests there even to these times. Thus he, citing the Tables and records of Brescia. Braut, the bishop, also sings of St. Silvinus in his poetic Martyrology; but it has not seemed worth the pains to transfer his verses hither, which are suitable to all rulers of souls.
[2] Fayno, lastly, celebrates him in the Brescian Martyrology in these words: his deeds quite unknown; the time in which he flourished, On the fourth of the Kalends of October. At Brescia, of St. Silvinus the bishop, in the church of St. Peter of Oliveto, who, shining with pastoral solicitude, earned for himself an eternal name among the Saints. In the Annotations he appeals to all the Tables and Catalogues of the bishops of his own church, to the Martyrologies just cited and the Brescian manuscript, and to a long train of writers, whose names and Works he recounts. About the Catalogues cited I have indicated my mind in this very volume at the XXVI day of September, in the Commentary on St. Vigilius the bishop, num. 3; and as regards the writers, what was said in the same place at num. 4 may here be held as inserted. Accordingly, if anyone among them mentions anything about St. Silvinus while he was among the living, beyond the bare names of himself and of his predecessors and successors, whence it might at least be permitted to conjecture about what time he flourished, we judge that all of it has proceeded from conjectures. Hence I should not venture to except even that which Fayno hands down about the beginning and end of his episcopate, saying: Having entered upon the bishopric as an old man in the year 445, and being called to heaven after about two years, he there intercedes for us. Since I nowhere find this confirmed by fit testimony, and Ferrari, who likewise used the Brescian Tables and records, says that the Saint sat about the year 410. And so, the rest being passed over, I have marked him, without determining a year, before the middle of the fifth century; because Rampert, in the ninth century bishop of Brescia, and the most ancient of all the writers I know, recounts the Saint in this order in his History of the translation of St. Philastrius: Theophilus and Sylvinus and Gaudiosus, Optatianus and Vigilius. For Optatianus, according to what was said at num. 5 of the Commentary on St. Vigilius, flourished about the middle of the fifth century. I go on to what I find handed down about his relics and their cult and translations.
[3] His relics found near Serle, His sacred bones, from time immemorial, as the common tradition of the Brescians has it, were kept, at least in great part, in the church of St. Peter in Monte Ursino, where formerly stood a monastery of Cassinese monks near Serle, a parish of the diocese of Brescia. But when the said monastery, in the fifteenth century, the Cassinese being extinct there, passed into the right of the canons of the congregation of St. George in Alga, now likewise extinct, who then held in the city of Brescia the church of St. Peter in Oliveto, those same sacred bones were brought hither in the year 1508. Fayno describes the matter thus in his Annotations at the XXX day of April, on which the translation was performed: The bones of this Saint (but not all of them), lying from ages unremembered in an unknown place in the church called St. Peter's in Monte Ursino, which stands above the village of Serle, and which the Cassinese monks once served with their offices, being found by a revelation of the Saint himself, the Azure Canons of St. Peter of Oliveto, to whom that place had been assigned (the Cassinese being extinct), in the year 1508, by night, wholly without the knowledge of the inhabitants of Serle, lest, because of their devotion towards this Saint, who defends them from the calamities of the air, some tumult should arise — the assent of the city being obtained — carried the chest of the holy relics, set upon a mule (an unworthy bearer indeed of so great a treasure), by byways to the parish church of the village of St. Euphemia near the city, in the early morning of Low Sunday, which in that year fell on the XXX of April; the mule being at once made hairless by divine power, and dying a little after. Then, a solemn procession being ordered with bishop Paolo Zane, they brought those same sacred bones on the following day, which was the first of May, into the same church of St. Peter of Oliveto, to the altar of St. Mary Magdalen.*
[4] With Fayno, both in almost all the rest and especially in the revelation made by the Saint before the finding of the sacred bones, Giovanni Francesco Florentini agrees in his manuscript Catalogue of the bishops of Brescia; were translated to Brescia in the year 1508: he also asserts that the beast was made hairless, but makes no mention of its dying a little after. Elia Capriolo, a jurist of Brescia, who in those very times composed the Annals of his own country — for he died in the year 1519 — makes mention neither of the revelation nor of the beast, being content to have reported the translation thus, book 14: But while these things are being done, the relics of St. Salvinius , our bishop, which before had long lain hidden in the little shrine of St. Peter on Monte Ursino, were translated on the first day of May with honourable pomp into the church of St. Peter in Oliveto, by the industry and care of Girolamo Cavalli, our fellow-citizen and the most diligent superior of that church. And that the consent of the city went before, as Fayno intimates above, that the translation might be made, is established from the instrument which we have among our collections about the Saints of Brescia, transcribed there from the book which they call of the Provisions of the city, and conceived in these words: In the special council of the city of Brescia, the XXXI of March 1508. At the request of the venerable Lord Prior of the monastery of St. Peter of Oliveto, of the Congregation of Canons Regular of St. George in Alga of Venice, be it provided that citizens, to be elected for this, shall take care that the translation of St. Sylvinus, bishop of Brescia, whose relics have hitherto remained buried in the church of St. Peter on the Mount above Serle, be made with all diligence and veneration on the day of the Octave of the Easter of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the church of St. Peter in Oliveto: and it was begun (perhaps the word election has here been omitted), no one dissenting. And a diligent scrutiny being made for the election of three citizens, there were elected the Lord Stefano de Ugonibus, doctor and knight; the Lord Ludovico Nassino, doctor; the Lord Giovanni Antonio de Monte, doctor.*
[5] The said translation Fayno announces thus in the Brescian Martyrology at the XXX day of April: At Brescia, the translation of St. Silvinus the bishop from the sacred shrine on Monte Ursino to the church of St. Peter in Oliveto, effected not without heavenly prodigies. And in the Annotations he adds The memory of the translation is honoured with a double Office; that the Office of the translation is celebrated in the said church of St. Peter in Oliveto with double rite on the Monday after Low Sunday. There stands too, or at least there stood, in the same church an altar consecrated to our Saint; as Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, bishop of Città Nuova, bids us believe in his Annals of the Secular Canons of St. George in Alga, published in the year 1642. At page 198, treating of the church of St. Peter in Oliveto, It is famous, he says, for the monuments of the holy bishops of Brescia, Paulinus, Cyprian, Paul, Silvinus, Evasius, Deodatus, whose bodies are laid up here. The altar of St. Paulinus, elegantly built under the organ, has this distich, etc. On the other side an inscription testifies that the sacred relics were formerly kept at the altar of St. Silvinus. He subjoins the inscription, carved in the year 1533, but not pertaining hither. About thirty-five years after the translation both of St. Silvinus and of the Saints just named, the tombs or reliquaries were opened, and some parts taken thence, to be enclosed in more precious chests.
[6] an inspection of them was made in the year 1542, The History of what was done, transcribed about a hundred and eighty years since from a certain manuscript of the same monastery, and sent hither by Fayno, we gave indeed in tom. III of April, in St. Paul, bishop of Brescia, page 619; nevertheless, since it is not very prolix, it has not seemed good to send the reader thither; and so it runs thus: In the year of the Lord fifteen hundred and forty-two, on the day before the Nones of August, for the future memory of the matter. At Brescia, in the church of St. Peter in Oliveto, the Reverend Father Lord Leone de Bugattis of Brescia, rector general of the Congregation of St. George in Alga, being present, by the command of the said reverend father, there were opened the sarcophagi of the holy bishops Evasius the martyr, Cyprian, Paul and Deusdedit, whose bodies are laid up in the high altar; and the tomb of St. Silvinus the bishop, who lies in the altar of St. Mary Magdalen in the chapel called St. Paulinus's: and from those sacred bodies there were raised the relics written below of the Saints above written: namely the entire head of St. Paul with all its teeth, and the heads of SS. Deusdedit and Silvinus were in several pieces *.
[7] Which heads of the said Saints were carried back in procession into the sacristy of the said church, and there laid up, and a part enclosed in a precious shrine; until such time as there should be made the caskets or precious tabernacles in which the said relics shall be enclosed with due honour. At which venerable translation there were present the priests written below: namely first the Reverend Father Lord de Bugattis, rector general; the Reverend Father Lord Pacificus of Brescia, Prior of the monastery; Lord Magnus of Brescia, Lord Timothy de Homis, Lord Hadrian of Brescia, Lord Cyprian Maurus of Gaudino, Lord Lucas of Golione, Lord Giovanni Pietro of Cignano, Lord Chrysanthus of Provaglio, Lord Evangelista of Calvagese, Lord Thaddeus of Brescia, Lord Maximian of Brescia, Lord Albert of Dello, with several lay persons of both sexes; of all which an instrument stands, drawn up by that excellent man Lord Francis the notary, called il Gambara, on the day and year above written. The same translation Fayno also briefly commemorates in his Annotations at the XXX of April, and he shows that what was indicated in the instrument recited as to be done was done, adding: His head (St. Silvinus's) was laid up in a precious bust, built for the purpose, for the greater veneration.
[8] The same author, in his Annotations at the XXVIII day of September, says that a part of St. Silvinus's relics was afterwards carried back to Monte Ursino near Serle, whence they had first been taken, a part too was given back to the people of Serle, wholly without the knowledge of the inhabitants, lest, as he had signified before, a tumult should be stirred up among them, who were borne with great devotion towards the Saint, and had found him their Patron in the storms of the air: but he assigns no time, being content to have noted this: Of which holy bishop's protection this marvel is reported, that the territory of Serle, while the sacred bones were there, neither lightning nor hoar-frost nor hail ever harmed: where afterwards for this protection one bone was carried back and enclosed in the altar of St. Bartholomew. Giovanni Francesco Florentini, treating the same matter in his manuscript Catalogue of the bishops, says: But the chapel of St. Peter on the Mount, being widowed of the sacred pledge, was wont almost every year, and by a new example, to be struck by lightning, and the neighbouring little fields and vineyards to be smitten by hoar-frost and crushed by hail, until a particle of that same body was carried back thither; which they enclosed in the altar of St. Bartholomew. How great a protection is in the remains of the heavenly ones!
[9] That that particle of the relics was carried back thither before the year 1557 among whom, as their Patron in the storms of the air, is urged by Fr. Obizio the Capuchin, who is often cited by Fayno, and from whose Italian manuscript Work on the Nobility of Brescia some fragments are in my hands. For in these he signifies that in the church of Monte Ursino, on the feast of St. Bartholomew the apostle, in the said year 1557, he offered the holy Mysteries at the altar
in which the relics of St. Silvinus had been laid up: and the rest, briefly narrated by Fayno and Florentini, he declares a little more fully and completely. He says that through the whole space of time which passed between the first laying up of St. Silvinus's relics in that sacred shrine and their translation to the city of Brescia, that region was never touched by thunder or lightning or hoar-frost or any other intemperance of the sky, nor in any part affected with loss. But as soon as they were translated to Brescia, he says it can scarcely be told how great misfortunes it suffered from storms and other adversities of the air; to such a degree that a terrible thunderbolt fell upon the very chapel in which the sacred remains had before reposed: at length, a part of the sacred body being carried back thither, it was obtained of the divine mercy that to those fields, if not wholly, he says, at least in part, their former happiness was restored.
[10] Further, the cause why none of the writers alleged determined the time he is held in great veneration. at which that part was carried back to Monte Ursino was, I suppose, no other than that the inhabitants of Serle, content to have obtained it, did not then take care to have an instrument drawn up, as is the custom and as prudence teaches for duly proving the genuineness of relics. This I conjecture from the Italian manuscript account of Don Faustino Ricini, in the preceding century parish priest of Serle. I shall give his words, when I have first set down some other things about the cult gathered thence. The said parish priest asserts, then, that there stands in the sacristy of the parish church of Serle a tablet in which are noted the feast days there wont to be celebrated by vow, and that among these is noted the day of St. Silvinus the bishop, the XXVIII of September, and that of St. Cyprian, likewise bishop of Brescia; then he recites in Italian the following words of that tablet: Let Mass be celebrated at the altar of the most holy Rosary (where before stood the altar of those holy bishops — this, likely, is the parish priest's own note) on the day of St. Cyprian, bishop of Brescia, the XXI of April, and on the day of St. Silvinus the bishop, the XXVIII of September; and on such a day, the most sacred relics of those Saints being carried round, let a solemn supplication be made (according to the mandate of the most illustrious bishop of Brescia). But presently he subjoins that the most illustrious Vincenzo Giustiniani (he occupied the see of Brescia from the year 1633 to 1645, on Ughelli's testimony), when in his visitation he had found no instrument concerning the said relics, suppressed the supplication; that nevertheless the feast day is observed after the accustomed manner. Of St. Cyprian it was briefly treated among us in tom. 2 of April, page 849.
[11] Other relics of the same After what has been narrated about our Saint's relics, which are honoured at Brescia in the church of St. Peter in Oliveto and at Serle or on Monte Ursino, Fayno and Florentini pass on to the sacred remains of the same found about the year 1529 in a church near Brescia, now ruined: It is to be noted, are the words of Fayno at the XXX day of April, concerning the body of St. Silvinus, that another part of it was found in the year 1529, on the XI day of January, outside the city in the ruined church of St. Apollonius of the Friars Minor of the Observance, who now live at St. Joseph's, under the altar of St. Andrew, in a stone chest thus inscribed: Saint Silvinus, bishop. Which, with the relics of St. Rusticianus the bishop and of other Saints, likewise found there, they translated privately on the XIII day of the same January by the bishop's mandate (that in the other churches in which the bodies of these Saints were honoured the honour might not be lessened), to be placed in the church of St. Joseph within the altar of St. Andrew, which was to be erected. Almost the same he repeats at the XXVIII day of September; and Florentini in his manuscript Catalogue adds a few things for a more distinct knowledge of the finding; but these I do not transfer hither, since the instrument itself is at hand, from which they were most likely taken.
[12] found near Brescia Of the instrument, whose transcript in our collections is noted as received from the archive of the Friars Minor at St. Joseph's in Brescia, the author was Fr. Pietro of Valcamonica, a Religious of the same convent and, in the matter which he narrates, the chief agent after his superior. The former part of it, with Latin words mixed in here and there, is composed in Italian; the latter in Latin. The former, because by reason of its style, its characters and its contractions of words it hardly admits of a strict translation, I reduce to a compendium. After the formulas wont to be prefixed to Acts of this kind, these things are handed down: In the year 1529, on the XI day of January, which fell on a Monday, five religious of the said monastery were working at St. Apollonius's — the old monastery, that is, outside the city — that, the rubble being removed, they might make the ground fit to bear fruits; and in that place where the altar of St. Andrew had formerly stood, lifting the stones of the pavement, they came upon three tombs or stone chests: of which, when they had opened the first, they found a few relics without an inscription or tablet indicating a name; but when the lid of the second chest, which occupied the middle place, was removed, relics were seen so disposed that it seemed to be the upper half of a body, and at its side was set a white tablet of stone or marble with this inscription: St. Silvinus, bishop.
[13] in the year 1529, Wherefore, the monument being covered again, they went on to St. Joseph's and announced the finding to the father Guardian, Giovanni Battista de Urceis: who, having first taken counsel with the other fathers, on the next following day, the XII of January, in the morning, went thither in the company of Fr. Pietro of Valcamonica, the author of the instrument, and found the matter truly to stand as it had been reported by the brethren. The consultation was repeated, and by force of a chapter it was determined that the bishop should be informed of it, and that from him should be sought both leave to translate the relics of St. Silvinus and his judgment about the manner in which the translation should be made. This charge was committed to our same author and to Fr. Gratiadenus, who, coming on the next day, the XIII of January, to the most illustrious Paolo Zane of Brescia, were bidden by him to go with their Guardian to the Reverend Lord Durandi, the archdeacon, and in his company to return to the place, to examine the matter afresh, and to open the third monument also. They obeyed the will of the bishop, and in the presence of the said archdeacon and of his two companions, the one a priest, the other a clerk, inspected the relics of St. Silvinus and the tablet. Then the stone of the third monument was lifted, and in it were found other relics with a leaden tablet and this inscription: S. R.sticianus, bishop, was translated hither in the year of the Lord 1158. Of St. Rusticianus, bishop of Brescia, whom the Brescians here understand, our Predecessors treated at the V day of January, but very sparingly; and no mention was made of this finding or of certain other matters pertaining to his cult, being then, that is, destitute of those documents from which they might learn: this defect may be removed, by the help of our collections, in the Supplement of the Work, and what our author here observes upon the inscription given may be indicated.
[14] After these things the same author says that the monuments were closed again, and translated into the city, and that all, taking the tablets with them, returned to the bishop: but the rest he expresses in Latin — not, however, without barbarisms, which I leave to the studious reader to correct, and with frequent contractions of words, which, because our types do not admit them, I am compelled to write out. Which (bishop), hearing the narration of what had been done, and reverently taking the tablets themselves in his hands and kissing them, when the Guardian pressed him about their translation and the manner of it, going on, sent us back to the Reverend Lord bishop of Famagusta, who was staying at Brescia, along with the aforesaid Reverend Lord archdeacon, and charged us to proceed according to his counsel. Whence, when we were set before him, and the foregoing had been narrated, and the letters of the tablets read, his most reverend lordship, considering that a report was current in the city that the relics of St. Rusticianus were in the church of St. Zeno (which may be true, namely from the middle of the body downwards) and the relics of St. Silvinus in the church of St. Afra or of St. Peter in Oliveto (which likewise may be true from the middle of the Saint's body downwards), said that in this matter one must proceed more slowly: and for the present, lest the holy relics should be stolen away by some, since they were now laid open; and lest they should be defiled by coming rain, he decreed that they should be translated to the place and sacristy of SS. Joseph, Apollonius and Roch within Brescia, and there be diligently and reverently kept in their several little chests with their tablets, until the time should come for placing them in some chapel of the said church, to be dedicated to the honour of St. Andrew, as before they were in their own chapel; and that in the said caskets should be placed letters on some durable material, which should make mention of this second translation, as the others did of the first, and of the time of this translation of these Bishops of Brescia, or (here, points being added, it is indicated that something has been omitted) it should be diligently uncovered by the Fathers of the house of St. Joseph.
[15] And so the said relics, with leave to translate them without any procession, were committed to the keeping of the said father Guardian of SS. Joseph and Apollonius and Roch within the city, they were laid up to be kept and placed as aforesaid. Which father Guardian, on that same Wednesday, the XIII of January 1529, at evening, sent brother Augustine of Orzinuovi, a priest, and brother Felix of Brescia, a lay brother, to the place in which they had remained when found, for their translation. Which brothers Augustine and Felix, having carried with them two little wooden chests, placed those relics in them, and carried them with them to the house of the church of St. Joseph, in which they now are and are kept; until an altar be made under which they are to be placed, according to the determination as above. And on the following day, that is Thursday, the XIV of January 1529, I, Fr. Pietro, by the mandate of the venerable fathers, the Guardian and the discreets, and by the counsel of that excellent doctor of laws Thaddeus of Mantua, announced all the foregoing to the magnificent lords deputies of Brescia and to the chancellor of the magnificent community of Brescia. Thus far the said author; why he suggests with some doubt and in a disjunctive phrase that other relics of St. Silvinus are honoured in the church of St. Afra or of St. Peter in Oliveto, I for my part do not know: certainly about relics of his in the church of St. Afra there is deep silence among others; but that they are kept at St. Peter's in Oliveto is the common tradition, as we have seen above.
[16] in a new altar of the church of the Franciscan fathers. For the rest, the sacred bones remained in the sacristy of the convent of St. Joseph until the year 1532, when they were laid up in the new altar of St. Andrew, consecrated by the said bishop of Famagusta, Mattia Ugoni, as Florentini hands down in his manuscript Catalogue, and Fayno in the following words in his Annotations at the XXVIII day of September: The bones then of those same holy Bishops were, in the year 1532, placed by the same Friars, with the due records, in the altar which is then the seventh on the left as one enters that same new church, dedicated to St. Andrew. Of the same Francesco Gonzaga also treats, part 2 of the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, where, describing the convent of St. Joseph at Brescia, he says: Under the seventh
altar of this sacred building, met with on the left by those entering the door, which is sacred to the apostle Andrew, the bodies of SS. Silvinus, the XII bishop of Brescia, and Rustitianus, the XXII bishop of the same city of Brescia, are laid up; beside which lie two tablets expressing their proper names. These sacred pledges, when they had been buried in the church of St. Apollonius, were translated to this place, by the mandate of Leo X, the supreme Pontiff, lest, that church being demolished, they should be exposed to profanation. But the said author is to be understood in a convenient sense, first when, after a usage common enough, he calls two parts of bodies bodies; secondly when he says that their translation was made by the mandate of Leo X; for that Pontiff ceased to live in the year 1521, and the relics of the Saints were found only in the year 1529, on the XI day of January, and translated into the city on the XIII day of the same month. By the mandate* there is most likely designated that general one by which the said Pontiff, as Gonzaga had intimated in the same place, about the year 1517 decreed that whatever from the old monastery could be of use for building and adorning the new house and church should be carried into the city.
Annotationssupply ecclesiam*.
read Silvini*.
elsewhere inventa* is added.
read conterere*.
elsewhere Zenonis*.
read dedicanda*.
read exprimentes*.