Felix of Meda

ON BL. FELIX OF MEDA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS OF THE ORDER OF ST. CLARE,

AT PESARO IN THE DUCHY OF URBINO

IN THE YEAR MCCCCXLIV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Felix of Meda, virgin and abbess of the Order of St. Clare, at Pesaro in the duchy of Urbino. (B.)

BY J. P.

§ I. Her memory in the sacred Calendars, elogia, an Italian Life, a Latin Compendium, and the use of these.

Bl. Felix, of whom some things were given in advance on the 8th of September, At the VIII day of September, in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of Bl. Seraphina of Feltre, or, as others write, Seraphina Colonna, widow, abbess of the Order of St. Clare at Pesaro, many things were set forth and elucidated which would otherwise demand a place here, in particular almost all those which pertained to the posthumous glory of Bl. Felix, of whom we must now treat. For most of these, as we pointed out in the same place, were so common to both Blessed women that,

when we wrote of the one, we were compelled by a kind of necessity to treat at the same time of the other. Wherefore what was there collected and set out at length about the immemorial cult of both, about the public and solemn expositions of their sacred bodies, about the veneration of the faithful persevering down to our times, and about the benefits obtained at the invocation of both, we shall here mention indeed, but contracted very succinctly into a compendium, after we have first premised some things touching Bl. Felix separately.

[2] Her memory is celebrated by almost all the same martyrologists and historians she is announced today in various Calendars. whom we adduced for illustrating the deeds of Bl. Seraphina in the three first §§ of the said preliminary Commentary. Arthur in the Franciscan Martyrology at the XXX day of September in these words: At Pesaro in Picenum, of blessed Felix of Meda, virgin and abbess, distinguished by the spirit of prophecy and by the glory of miracles. Repeating the same in his Gynæceum, he adds the Poor Clare, namely because in that Work he exhibits women distinguished for holiness not only of the Order of St. Francis but of all Orders and states. Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Martyrology: At Pesaro, the deposition of blessed Felix of the Order of Minors, who founded the monastery of Corpus Christi. There is added Pietro Paolo Bosca in the Milanese Martyrology, but for a cause to be indicated afterwards, on the XXIX day of September: At Pesaro, the birthday of blessed Felix of Meda, a citizen of Milan, who founded there a monastery of Poor Clares, and is still honoured by the faithful, to be venerated with her body incorrupt.

[3] Other writers give her elogia, With a more lengthy elogium she is adorned by Fortunatus Hueber in the Franciscan Menology, and commonly by other authors of the Seraphic Order: Francesco Gonzaga, part 2 On the Origin, and Pietro of Tossignano, book 1 of the History of the Seraphic Religion; Marcos of Lisbon, part 3 of the Chronicles, book 2, chapter 21, and Valerio of Venice in the Work on the life of St. Clare and the blessed nuns of her institute, book 2, chapter 15: Wadding likewise in the Annals, and in the Epitome of these, Harold: finally Arthur in his Observations at this day in the Martyrology and the Gynæceum, where he gives a list of most of the writers who have commended the Blessed one's deeds in writing. Among the authors already named, Marcos of Lisbon, whom Valerio of Venice seems commonly to have followed, marks in the margin the sources from which he drew his own material: a Legend, a Speculum, and Marianus. These are three works, if I mistake not, never published in print. Marianus of Florence, who is here designated, and about whom there will be talk again afterwards, left manuscript Chronicles of the Franciscan Order; the author of the Speculum Minorum the Lisbon writer calls Jacobus Oddo; but at what time he wrote neither he notes nor Wadding in the Bibliotheca. Where the Legend now lies hid, in what manner it was written, or how Marcos of Lisbon used both it and the other two Works, we cannot declare.

[4] That they are ancient, nay probably the most ancient of all the monuments from ancient manuscripts: which exist about the deeds of Bl. Felix, may be gathered from the date of Marianus, who is cited only in the third place, and who is read to have died about the year 1523, about the eightieth after the Blessed one's death. Hence to the Lucubration of the Lisbon writer, who himself yields in antiquity to none of the authors who have committed anything about the Blessed one to the press, the greatest authority belongs, other things being equal. Other things being equal, I say, because Wadding too had the Speculum Minorum, as we learn from the index of his manuscripts which is prefixed to volume 1 of the Annals; he likewise cites Marianus where he treats of Bl. Felix, and besides a manuscript Legend, whose author was writing in the thirtieth year after her death, and so in 1474. But this Legend he cites only for the proof of two benefits which were obtained between the Blessed one's death and the year just mentioned. Elsewhere he neither mentions the Legend, nor distinguishes what he took particularly from Marianus, what from the Speculum, or what from other authors; for among his authors he also places Marcos of Lisbon, Gonzaga, and Gallucci, who alone among the published authors remains to be mentioned here.

[5] The Reverend Father Agostino Gallucci of Mondolfo, once Apostolic commissary general of the Picentine province of the Observant Minors, and visitor of the provinces of Bavaria and the Tyrol, and a Life written in Italian published in the Italian tongue in the year 1637 a book divided into three parts, of which the first contains the deeds of our Blessed one, the second those of Bl. Seraphina named before, the third the posthumous glory of both Blessed women. The first part, which chiefly belongs here, comprises not only those deeds of the Blessed one which Marcos of Lisbon and the other authors printed before Wadding have, but also others which are lacking in them. Some of these Wadding too has, and at the year 1478, number 48, he says generally: Agostino Gallucci … has accurately written the Lives of both (BB. Felix and Seraphina): whence, as we pointed out also in Bl. Seraphina, it is permissible to gather that Gallucci, even if he does not disclose what documents he used, yet had the same which Wadding afterwards employed, namely the manuscript Legend, the Speculum, and the Chronicle of Marianus, and from these received some deeds of the Blessed one omitted by others, whose intention was not to compose so rich a History laboriously collected from every quarter.

[6] I say some deeds of the Blessed one, lest you think I am persuaded we shall use in the Commentary that everything which Gallucci relates and others do not have is drawn from the said documents. Far from it. He certainly mixed into his narration many things which I judge the mere offspring of his own wit, and helps excerpted from the Works of ascetical writers for the instruction of nuns: such as lengthy exhortations, frequent reasonings about the nature and excellence of the virtues and the foulness of the opposite vices, arguments and opinions of philosophers, sayings of the Fathers, texts and examples of sacred Scripture, and other ornaments of that kind, rather oratorical than historical. Such things were also found in the Italian Life of Bl. Seraphina, as I said in the preliminary Commentary there, and for that very reason I judged it not worth while to reprint it rendered into Latin. The same I judge here too. And so I shall only run through the fifteen first chapters of the Life of Bl. Felix, and, neglecting what is superfluous, shall inform the reader what each chiefly contains about her deeds.

[7] By the same work I shall add the assertions of other authors bearing on the matter, and shall append to it a Latin Compendium of the Life. especially of Gonzaga and Marcos of Lisbon, in such a way indeed that, if anyone should wish to gather them, he may find their accounts almost word for word entire in this Commentary. Yet, that he may have some coherent series of the deeds, I shall subjoin to the same Commentary a Latin Compendium of the Life, illustrated with due Annotations, which the abbess of the nuns of Corpus Christi at Pesaro in the century last past took care to have communicated to our Predecessors in manuscript, as I said more fully in volume III of September in the preliminary Commentary to a similar Compendium of the Life of Bl. Seraphina. Finally the last place will be occupied by the miracles or benefits which followed Bl. Felix's death, which I shall translate into Latin from Gallucci's chapter 16 of part 1, and shall likewise elucidate with necessary Annotations.

§ II. The Blessed one's native place, according to some Milan, according to others Meda, a place of that territory; neither opinion certain.

The Blessed one, who has been variously named, The title of Blessed is universally ascribed to her by all the authors hitherto cited: Wadding, whom Harold, the maker of his epitome, followed, writes her name Felix or Felixina, testifying that he found it in both ways in the Register of the Order; William of Casale, minister general of the Order of Minors and of St. Clare, superscribes a letter sent to the Blessed one: To sister Felicia, devoted to Christ God: the rest, whom I have seen, call her Felix; which name, as the more common, we too shall retain here. The authors differ more in the surname. Some surname her of Milan or de Milano; others de Meda: and thence has arisen the question about the place of her birth. Ferrari, ascribing no surname in his announcement, yet says absolutely: Her country was Milan. This opinion Wadding, although he acknowledges that the Blessed one was surnamed de Meda, defends in the Annals at the year 1439, and the same was adopted by Harold in the epitome, and by Pietro Paolo Bosca in the Martyrology. We shall give the arguments after we have declared the opposite opinion.

[9] others contend that she was born at Meda, The author of the Latin Compendium of the Life prefixes to it this title: The Life of Bl. Felix of Meda, commonly called of Milan, of the Order of St. Clare, compendiously described, and begins thus: At Meda, of both parents renowned for nobility, was born Bl. Felix. The same title, except the last words, Gallucci prefixes to the Italian Life, and presently in chapter 1 approaches the question in almost these words, translated into Latin: Whatever the Chronicles and those outside the Chronicles who have written about the blessed sister Felix have hitherto said, that she was born at Milan — unless by Milan they meant the duchy of Milan, or the places of its jurisdiction at that time — they have fallen into error, not by their own will but through inadvertence; since the truth is against it, and it is made manifest from the Obedience (a letter or letters patent) of Father Brother William of Casale, at that time minister general of the whole Franciscan Order. He presently produces entire the letter as witness of his assertion, but whose whole force is contained in the superscription, which I transfer hither: To sister Felicia de Meda, devoted to Christ God, professed nun of the monastery of St. Ursula of the city of Milan, of the Order of St. Clare. Brother Guglielmo of Casale, etc. The same Gallucci begins chapter 2 in this manner: The blessed sister Felix was therefore of Meda, a place of the state and province of Milan in the jurisdiction and diocese of Novara. That she was born at Meda Father Benignus Fremaut also holds in the Lives of the Saints and Blessed of the Order of St. Francis, composed in Flemish, volume 9, page 79. But it is to be noted that Fremaut used both Wadding and Gallucci, and therefore judged the latter's reason more solid than the arguments of the former, which are now to be heard.

[10] At the cited year, number 29, Wadding speaks thus: There was taken (to Pesaro) … others, at Milan: from the same monastery of St. Ursula (of Milan) blessed Felix or Felixina de Meda — she is marked with both names in the Register of the Order which is in my keeping — that she might instruct in regular discipline the young girls who came. That she had her country at the town of Meda in the diocese of Novara the most recent writer Agostino Gallucci asserts, and that thence she obtained her surname: but the rest of the older and weightier writers affirm that she was born at Milan: nor was it then customary for nuns, as for monks, to be surnamed from their country, so that an argument for the soil of their birth could be drawn from it. And in the Register of the Order, under the prefecture of William the minister general, where Felix's transfer from the monastery of Milan to that of Pesaro is reported, she is entered as Felix de Meda of Milan. Sprung therefore of a noble Milanese family, deprived in tender age of the comfort of her parents, etc. In Wadding's steps Harold trod, and contracted his argument thus: There was taken sister Felixina or Felix of Meda, so called not by the surname of her country but of her family; for she was born of noble parents at Milan. But supported by the suffrage of these two and of Marcos of Lisbon, Pietro Paolo Bosca announced Felix as a citizen of Milan.

[11] You have, studious reader, the weight of the reasons of both contending parties, the first opinion is not so certain as Gallucci will have it; but if you weigh them in an even balance, neither, I think, will you find such that you may pass a certain judgment for one opinion against the other. That she was born at Meda the author of the Latin Compendium baldly affirms, and thence it is permissible to gather that the nuns of St. Clare at Pesaro thought so too, at whose command or request he excerpted and arranged about the year 1661 from older writers the chief deeds of the Blessed one, transmitted to us with the seal, attestation and subscription of the abbess. But since at the end of his Lucubration he alleges no manuscript instrument of the monastery, and among the authors whom he names only Gallucci contends that she was born at Meda, it is also permissible to suspect that this was persuaded both to him and to the nuns from Gallucci, or rather from the instrument which Gallucci brings forward. But this alone (for he indicates no other testimony) does not seem to me so urgent that I should with the same Gallucci undoubtingly affirm that all have strayed from the truth who said that her country was Milan, unless by Milan they understood the duchy of Milan or some place of its dominion. For those words — To sister Felicia de Meda, professed nun … of the monastery of St. Ursula of the city of Milan — do not so evidently declare the matter that de Meda must necessarily be referred to the place of her birth and cannot be referred to her family or race: especially if ancient writers affirm that she was born at Milan, as Wadding contends, whose arguments let us now likewise weigh.

[12] Of the writers who affirm that she was born at Milan the said author names none in particular, nor do Wadding's yet among them must without doubt be reckoned those whom he placed a little higher in the margin: Marianus, Marcos, and Gonzaga. The first, if I am not mistaken, is Marianus of Florence, whose Chronicles are mentioned before volume 1 of the Annals in the index of the manuscript codices which Wadding used. Of the same Wadding also treats in the Writers of the Order of Minors, saying: Marianus of Florence, of the Regular Observance of the province of Tuscany, wholly intent on collecting, especially within the borders of Italy, the monuments of his Order, carried down a History from the beginnings of the Religion to his own times, in a rude style indeed, but with faithful narration. The title of the work is: A Little Bundle of the Chronicles of the Order of Minors. He divided the Work into five books. The autograph is in my keeping, and was of great help in writing the Annals. Marianus is related to have died in the year 1523, so that he is later than Bl. Felix by not a whole century, and earlier than Gonzaga and Marcos of Lisbon by about half a century. But whether he has anything about the country of Bl. Felix is unascertained by us; nay, if he has anything, we suspect that it is not more convincing than what the rest have, since Wadding did not judge it worth while to bring it forward. Francesco Gonzaga writes in such a way that you may indeed conjecture that he believed the Blessed one's country was Milan, and yet you cannot certainly conclude it from his words: Sister Felix, he says, when she had been left bereaved at Milan of both her dear and noble parents, … put on the habit of the Poor Clares in the sacred monastery of St. Ursula at Milan. For Gallucci with his followers will reply that Felix, born at Meda, was afterwards brought by her parents to Milan, and remained there after their death.

[13] testimonies He will give a like answer to Marcos of Lisbon and to those whom Wadding does not there name, to Tossignano and Valerio. Marcos calls her the blessed sister Felix de Milan, in Spanish, namely, which language he used in the third part; and adds that she drew her blood from the chief nobles de Milan, that is, of Milan. Tossignano gives this beginning to his elogium of Bl. Felix: Blessed Felix of Milan, in name and in fact Felix (happy), purposing to serve God at Milan, etc. Valerio this: The blessed sister Felix of Milan (in Italian da Milano), born of a noble family. Gallucci will therefore confess that she sprang from Milanese, that is, from the chief nobles of the duchy of Milan, nay even, if you please, from the nobles of the city of Milan, but who, when the Blessed one was brought into the light, were either living at Meda or staying there for a time for the sake of recreating their minds, as we shall see afterwards was frequently done by the Milanese. But that she was more commonly surnamed of Milan he will say was either for that very cause, or because at Milan she embraced the religious life and professed it for several years. Let him be heard in chapter 3, where he reports the Blessed one's coming to the nuns of St. Clare at Milan: Here it comes into my mind that, although Bl. Felix's native soil was Meda, it ought not on that account to be denied that she was also of Milan, where by the religious life she was reborn to God and lived for XL continuous years. Others I have not found who support Wadding more strongly, or who affirm so clearly that no exception can be taken, that Felix was born in the very city of Milan.

[14] and arguments, What Wadding adds, that no argument can be drawn for her native soil from the addition of de Meda to the Blessed one's name, because it was not then customary for nuns, as for monks, to be surnamed from their country, tells against him rather than for him. For that this was certainly usual in some monasteries of the Poor Clares, and in particular in that of Pesaro, where Bl. Felix ended her life, I am bidden to believe by the instrument which Gallucci appended to the Life of Bl. Seraphina, and which I used to prove her illustrious birth in §4 of the Commentary preliminary to her Life. It was drawn up by a public notary by imperial authority in the presence of lawful witnesses and of the nuns duly assembled with the abbess in the year 1470, that is, about 26 years from the death of Felix. But what is here to be noted before the rest: among all the names of the nuns which are listed in a long series after the abbess, the vicaress and Bl. Seraphina, some indeed are reported with the addition of a father's or a family's surname, such as this of the vicaress: Sister Margaret, daughter of John of Milan, vicaress: yet there is none, so far as I judge, which is not distinguished by the name of a city or place, and many which are distinguished only so. Of these I copy the chief. Next after Bl. Seraphina follows: Sister Frances of Fano; then here and there: Sister Eugenia of Novara; sister Joanna of Novara; sister Victoria of Milan; sister Dorothy of Montesicardo in the county of Pesaro; sister Benedicta of Città di Castello; sister Bethilia of Città di Castello; sister Mattea of Perugia; sister Eufragia of Fano; sister Isabetta of Macerata.

[15] That this was not unusual in the other convents of the nuns of St. Francis, which are here discussed, Wadding himself betrays, since, whenever talk of nuns occurs, he distinguishes them by almost no other surname than that of a city or place. Examples are not to be sought far off: at the very year in which he treats this matter, 1439, as he calls the Frances of Fano just cited Frances of Fano at number 34, so at number 54, mentioning three who were called out from the monastery of Mantua and directed to the new one at Padua, he names the second Isabella of Modena, the third Lucy of Trent. At the year 1440, number 19: There died, he says, blessed Margaret of Foligno … To Foligno had come blessed Angelina of Corbara. At number 23, among the several who at that time flourished at Foligno, he lists only six in particular, and expresses their names thus: Clare of Foligno; Agnes from the town of Pescara; Gabriela of Perugia; Lucida of Rome; Mary of Massa; Joanna of Foligno. But why shall we think this was done by him, unless because he found them not otherwise distinguished in the other writers whom he used? Indeed the names of the six last religious women in Jacobilli, whom besides the manuscript legends Wadding cites, in the work on the Saints of Foligno, are set forth in Italian in no other way: Chiara da Foligno, Agnese dalla Pescara, etc. Wherefore, since so many examples offer themselves as it were of their own accord, it seems to me more likely that in that age it was very usual for nuns too to be surnamed from their native soil alone; nor do I think that Gallucci's argument thence drawn for the Blessed one's country is to be despised, since in the letters destined to her by the minister general of the Order he read her not otherwise distinguished.

[16] There is added that Wadding, to confirm his own opinion show the second to be more certain. and to refute Gallucci, has recourse to that very same argument, when he says: In the Register of the Order … she is entered as Felix de Meda of Milan. For what force will the entry contain, unless he will have it that by the surname of Milan her native soil is designated, by de Meda her race or family? This, however, in my judgment, was a most valid argument against Gallucci's opinion. But it would be much more valid if any account could be brought of some most noble family which in that century flourished at Milan and was surnamed de Meda: for so the way of escape would be more closed to Gallucci's supporters. Otherwise they will answer that Felix was surnamed from Meda her country as long as she lived at Milan in the monastery, as is gathered from the letter of the minister general: but that afterwards of Milan began to be added, because she was transferred to Pesaro from the Milanese monastery where she had professed the Rule of St. Clare and had lived forty years. They will add that hence too the writers cited by Wadding could have been led into error, who called Felix de Milan, da Milano or of Milan, and that this would be the less to be wondered at, since those same writers all erred also, as Wadding confesses, in the name and office of the Superior of the Order of St. Francis at whose command Felix passed from Milan to Pesaro.

[17] She can be called of Milan, even if she was born at Meda, However that be, neither opinion, as I hinted above, do I find supported by weight grave enough for me to dare to pronounce for one or the other. This is certain, and contrary to neither, that whether she was born at Milan or at Meda, she can not unfitly be called of Milan, since she beheld the first light in the dominion of Milan. Some account of Meda Gallucci gave above: but I fear it is not accurate enough, when he asserts that it is a place of the dominion indeed of Milan, yet of the diocese of Novara. Nowhere indeed in that region do I find, nor do I think there can be found, a place of that name different from that which is almost midway between Milan and Como, and from which St. John of Meda, the founder of the chief Order of the Humiliati, obtained his surname. But that is a district or village not only of the dominion but also of the diocese of Milan, as is affirmed both by the other authors cited at number 23 of the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. John of Meda in volume VII of September at the XXVI day, and by one who is not to be believed to have erred in this, Pietro Paolo Bosca, the Milanese martyrologist, saying: That it (the village of Meda) is contained in the territory and diocese of Milan all know: therefore if Bl. Felix was born at Meda, as Gallucci contends, she was also born in the diocese of Milan.

[18] which is a place of the Milanese territory. For the rest, that what I have said here at number 13 about noble families frequently dwelling or staying for a time at Meda may receive light, a fuller

description of it, given from Primo Luigi Tatti in the Commentary on St. John of Meda, I transfer hither. Meda then is a famous place of the territory of Milan, pleasant in situation, since it enjoys both hills and plain, and therefore inhabited by many wealthy families. The healthiness of the air and the convenience of lodging for those going from Como to Milan formerly attracted many nobles to procure themselves a dwelling there. Nor did the Milanese alone set up houses for themselves in that village of their own dominion; but the men of Como too, who both acquired estates there and built elegant houses, whether for the sake of retiring and sometimes recreating their minds, or that at harvest time they might attend in person to their revenues.

§ III. The Blessed one's illustrious birth; her pious adolescence; her taking up of the monastic life; her religious virtues, election to the dignity of abbess, fruitful government.

She was born of a noble family about the year 1378: That Bl. Felix had parents illustrious in family we saw in the preceding § from the words of writers both ancient and more recent, of whom, however, none either expressed their names or designated the family except Wadding and Harold, who thought that the surname de Meda was not given her from her birthplace alone but handed down from her stock, yet without any testimony or indication of a stock or family of this name then existing at Milan. None likewise expressly set down the year of her birth; although it can easily be deduced from their other reckonings: for almost all affirm that she died in the year 1444, in the sixty-sixth year of her age, as not a few add, so that she must have been born about 1378. But of her deeds in childhood and youth down to the death of her parents the older writers likewise teach us nothing; the author of the Latin Compendium of the Life a few things, but received, I think, from no other source than Gallucci.

[20] Gallucci therefore says that the Blessed one, sprung at Meda from noble, rich and pious parents, by piety and prudence lovable to all, was from her very infancy fitted for all the virtues; that she lived under her parents' care with such observance that, as her age increased, she could be foreseen in her a mistress of regular discipline; that by her courtesy and modesty she won for herself the love and esteem of all; that she advanced so far in human and divine letters that, while not yet of mature age, grave persons and lettered men had recourse to her, to receive both lessons about heavenly things and counsel in the business that came their way. Hence it came about, the same Gallucci adds, that her parents, perceiving the Girl's mind inclined to piety and the grace of the divine light present in her, rejoiced exceedingly, both piously and zealously seconded her wishes, favoured her in everything, and not only gave her full liberty for the exercise of the virtues, but even left the care of governing the household to her prudence. Which office, as long as they lived, she diligently and happily fulfilled, and when they were dead she continued it, though she had then entered on her youthful age: although she had a full brother a little younger in age, and a uterine sister, that is, one born of a different father, more advanced in years. So, in almost the same terms but in a fuller style, the said author in chapter 2 of the Italian Life, who for the last assertion appeals to Gonzaga as witness. Yet he does not so clearly set forth the difference of age between the Blessed one and her brother and sister. His words are these: Sister Felix, when she had been left bereaved at Milan of both her dear and noble parents, persuaded her uterine sister and a certain full brother of hers that, their common goods being distributed to pious places and to the poor, they should be willing to enter religion. Marcos of Lisbon and Valerio simply say that in tender age she was left an orphan with her brother and sister.

[21] The deeds of the Blessed one from her parents' death down to the monastic life Gonzaga and others have comprised in few words. And Gonzaga indeed, to the words just given, adds only the following: He (her brother) therefore being made a Franciscan, they (Felix and her sister) put on the habit of the Poor Clares in the sacred monastery of St. Ursula at Milan. after her parents' death, at Milan with her brother and sister Marcos of Lisbon, having reported the parents' death, says: Soon, in tender age, she was chosen by the Holy Spirit as his bride: she was endowed with a heart so manly and a mind so prudent that, aspiring to heavenly things, she began to despise earthly ones and to give herself up to her divine Spouse; and she induced her brother and sister to do the same. And being alike kindled and conspiring in divine love, all their means being bestowed on the poor and on the monastery, the brother became a monk among the Minors of the Observance, and the sisters nuns of St. Clare of the stricter Observance in the monastery of St. Ursula at Milan. So almost word for word the said author in Spanish, and without notable difference Valerio in Italian. But Gallucci with a fuller pen expanded these things in chapter 3. I set forth the chief parts lightly touched upon. The brother and sister listened to Felix when she gave directions and revered her as a mother. But she busied herself that she might bear to heaven those whom their mother had borne to the world. She laid the foundations of her purpose little by little in familiar conversations. She would bring in talk about the two Orders of St. Clare and St. Francis, then flourishing throughout the Christian world, about the praises of each, about the concourse of men to them, and about the fruit of souls flowing thence.

[22] she embraces the monastic life So, with the help of the Holy Spirit, she brought it about that both, being now instructed about the shortness of life and about the vanity, troubles and dangers of the world, firmly resolved to embrace the purpose which she had fixed for herself, and to follow wherever she should lead. Yet she judged that there must be no haste, and that the execution should be deferred for a time, lest they should afterwards repent of a matter not sufficiently maturely considered. And so for some months she confirmed them in their purpose by pious instructions, treated of the disposal of their goods, and deliberated about the place suitable to each one's vocation. At length she chose for herself and her sister the monastery of the Poor Clares of St. Ursula at Milan; her brother passed to the Minors of the regular Observance. Their goods were divided into three parts; one part fell to the poor; the second to the convent of the Franciscans in which the brother happily persevered and died holily; the third to the monastery of St. Ursula, which, because it was then pressed by great want, the Blessed one had preferred to the rest, and in which her sister after four years passed over to a better life.

[23] about the year 1400: her religious virtues Wadding notes Felix's entry with her brother and sister into the religious life about the year 1400, and rightly indeed, considering the reckoning of the rest of her deeds to be made afterwards from the writers, according to which it could have been added that the Blessed one then counted about the twenty-second year of her age. Our authors go on to describe the Blessed one's life in the Milanese monastery down to her passage to that of Pesaro, but some more richly and fully than others. Most briefly Gonzaga: In which (the monastery of St. Ursula) the blessed sister Felix strenuously acted for XXV continuous years as a simple nun and for XV others as abbess. But her sister survived only four years. Tossignano: In the monastery of St. Ursula she led a hard life, she macerated her body with assiduous fastings, she wore a hair-shirt on her bare flesh, she suffered also many illusions and temptations from the devil, whom she used to drive off with these words: O God, come to my aid. She lived as Superior of that monastery fifteen years with the greatest reputation of sanctity. Somewhat more fully Marcos of Lisbon and Valerio of Venice. In the religious life (so the first-named in Spanish) she applied herself to the exercises and mortifications of body and spirit with such fervour and love towards God that she carried the other nuns away into astonishment and admiration. She always went barefoot: she kept a continual fast, she frequently afflicted her flesh with the harshest scourgings; she watched much, she was assiduous in fervent prayers, and under a poor and mean habit she unceasingly wore a most rough hair-shirt; she led a life in a continual martyrdom of the spirit.

[24] She did the commands of her superiors with the utmost obedience and the profoundest lowliness of mind; and her struggles with the demon performing most diligently and cheerfully the lowest and humblest offices of the monastery, she held herself so abjectly and contemptibly that to human eyes she seemed altogether unskilled and inept, although she was endowed with remarkable prudence and wisdom. But since she enjoyed the grace of many and fervent prayers and tears, the demon, consumed with envy, persecuted her in many ways; sometimes with terrible visions, at other times stirring up fear and terror with the cries of fierce and horrible animals, to distract her from prayer. But when the enemy had tried these things in vain and had not been able to bring disturbance, he would rush upon the steadfast Bride of Christ with great force, and beat her so grievously that in the morning she was often found by the nuns bruised and swollen with blows. On one occasion, at the voice of the Handmaid of Christ crying out and saying, O God, come to my aid, the nuns ran up and put the demon to flight with holy water, over which the Handmaid of Christ never failed to triumph. While therefore she shone with so many virtues, the abbess being taken from among the living, she herself was elected abbess of the convent, which office she undertook unwillingly and compelled by a precept of obedience from her superiors, and administered with such humility and with such examples of the religious institute and of the virtues, that her fame spread through all the provinces of Italy, and whoever could enjoy the spiritual counsels of the Handmaid of Christ reckoned himself happy.

[25] Gallucci in his manner extends most widely, through five chapters in all, are described by various authors; the things which we have brought forward from the said writers in this and the preceding number. But if you separate Gallucci's frequent by-matters from the rest, few things will remain which in substance or in the matter itself have not already been sufficiently exhibited. Few, I say, and therefore I touch only on these here. In chapter 4, which is the first of the five mentioned, he discourses at length in praise of obedience, and commends our Virgin especially from that virtue, as one who, having been accustomed in her father's house to preside over and command all, had scarcely entered the monastery when she most profoundly subjected herself to all. Hence, he adds, there arose for her a savage struggle with the demon. For he would set before Felix's eyes the comforts of the world she had left and the troubles of the institute she had undertaken; sometimes he would flatter her by casting up an opinion of her own virtue, at other times he would turn elsewhere, to turn her from her purpose; but with vain effort. The Virgin on the contrary embraced the virtues most opposed to the vices to which he was enticing her. Gallucci then enumerates the chief ones: patience, gentleness, alacrity of spirit, willingness to suffer, the consideration of our frailty and of the vileness of our nature, and finally the afflictings of body and spirit, which Gallucci declares in almost the same words as Marcos of Lisbon above. Yet he adds that such was the roughness of the hair-shirt which Felix wore that the sisters, moved by the feeling of compassion, begged her to lay it aside now and then, or at least to change it according to the diversity of the seasons: but that she, with countenance and face composed to gladness, replied that by it she was relieved, not at all tortured; that in summer her heat was thereby tempered, in winter her cold mitigated, and in the other parts of the year help came according to the nature of the seasons: and so by laying it aside or changing it she would harm herself more than help herself. The Blessed one's answer, as taken from older sources, Wadding expresses thus in a different type: Pardon me, sisters, luxurious

a thing is the hair-shirt; in summer it cools, in winter it warms.

[26] she is set over the younger nuns; In chapter 5 Gallucci dwells much on celebrating humility, the foundation of a more perfect life, and on extolling the goods and fruits that accompany it. At length turning to the Blessed one, he says that she was raised by the prerogatives of that virtue in a manner above the human condition, and that it is no wonder if she omitted no diligence for the observance of her vows, the advancement of the virtues and the increase of merits. In the sixth chapter he commemorates the Blessed one's struggles with the tempter; in the seventh her assiduity in prayers and contemplations, and the knowledge of future things divinely received thence, of which we shall treat with Gonzaga below. Besides this, which I have not read in others, Gallucci says that she, since she had obtained from nature a clearness of voice, and from God a piety so understanding of heavenly things, was first made mistress of the choir, and soon also mistress of the younger nuns and novices, and fulfilled those offices with such example and such observance of regular discipline that the younger nuns and novices bore the appearance of angels, the singing in choir seemed to be an angelic harmony, and the monastery itself a heavenly dwelling.

[27] she is elected abbess in the year 1425 by common consent In the eighth chapter Gallucci treats of the Blessed one's prelacy and of her industry and excellence in governing the monastery and directing the sisters. He says that by the unanimous consent and applause of the nuns she was elected abbess, and that, when out of her modesty and humility she resisted, she was compelled by a precept of obedience to undertake the office, in the year of the Lord 1425, in the 47th of her age, the 25th of her religious life: and how worthy she was of it is gathered both from what has been said before and from the testimony of the minister general in the letter to her cited several times. And indeed from that letter is gathered not only what she was when she was raised to the prelacy, but it is also clearly plain what she showed herself to be throughout the whole space of fifteen years in which she is related to have presided over the Milanese monastery. Wherefore I here bring forward part of the letter drawn up in the year 1439: Since I have been informed by the testimonies of many trustworthy persons about your praiseworthy life, your honourableness, zeal, prudence, vigilance, zealousness in governing the monastery, untiringness in carrying out spiritual things, efficacy in exhortations, diligence in provisions, moderation in corrections, temperateness in precepts, excellence in compassion, strictness in silence, maturity in speech, discretion in counselling, and in all things opportune for a perfect government, and about several other virtues with which the Most High has manifoldly adorned you, by the duty of my office, etc.

[28] and with great fruit to all. More is not required for the present purpose. In the following §, where the discussion will be set up about Bl. Felix's passage from the Milanese to the Pesaro monastery, the said letter will again be of use, and on that occasion the reader will be warned of the difference between the edition of it prepared by Gallucci and the other by Wadding in the Annals. For the rest, to commend her manner of governing, Gallucci adduces the same words of the letter, but also expounds them from time to time in a richer phrase. Thus where he touches on the blessed Abbess's prudence in counsels and efficacy in exhortations, he signifies that fruit was perceived from it not only in that monastery, but also in other religious communities, into which day by day a greater and greater correction of manners was brought, and in the whole city of Milan, in which some were in a manner compelled by the wonderful force of her words to abstain from sins and turn to penance, others to bid farewell to the world and embrace the religious life. Finally, on Gallucci's authority, the report of this outstanding Directress was spread through Italy with such praise of virtue and merits that many treated with her by letters, many betook themselves thither from the desire of knowing her, many longed for her as a Mistress of regular discipline in their own towns or cities, and not a few sought her. Yet over all these there prevailed the illustrious lady Battista of Montefeltro, of whom presently.

§ IV. The Blessed one's summons to the government of the new monastery of Pesaro, her journey and arrival.

Battista of Montefeltro, the most pious lady of Pesaro, While she presided over the Milanese monastery in the manner now set forth, a most illustrious woman, Battista of Montefeltro, was erecting a new one for the nuns of St. Clare at Pesaro, the sister of Guidantonio of Montefeltro or Feretrano and count of Urbino, of whom, as the father of Bl. Seraphina of Montefeltro, we said more at the VIII day of September. Others have called her Battista Malatesta, because, namely, she had as husband Galeazzo Malatesta, lord of Pesaro, whom Marcos of Lisbon, to be cited below, less accurately named Galeazzo Sforza. Pesaro indeed obeyed the Sforzas in the same century, but after Galeazzo Malatesta sold its lordship to Francesco Sforza, who transferred it to Alessandro Sforza his brother, afterwards the husband of Bl. Seraphina. A notable elogium of Battista was left by Jacopo of Bergamo in his work On Famous Women, chapter 152, which Wadding too inserted into his Annals at the year 1437, and which Gallucci in chapter 9 of the Life of Bl. Felix set forth for the most part in Italian. Battista is praised both for those endowments of body and mind by which women so adorned excel the rest — beauty, talent, uprightness and honourableness of manners, prudence and beneficence towards all — and for those very things which raise men to a higher degree of esteem: learning, erudition, eloquence, justice and clemency: but above all for her piety, her example, her humility and holiness of life, in which, after her husband's death, having taken the habit of St. Clare and being thenceforth called Jerome, she shone at Foligno in another monastery founded by her. Hueber announces her in the Franciscan Menology, and Arthur with the title of Blessed in the Martyrology of that Order and in the Sacred Gynæceum at the XII day of December, at which day it can be inquired whether she likewise demands a place in our Work.

[30] This most choice matron therefore asked for and obtained Bl. Felix as Governess for the newly erected monastery of the Poor Clares at Pesaro. asks for Bl. Felix as abbess for her new monastery, Let us again hear on this matter the older writers of the Order. Gonzaga, cited in the preceding §, continues thus: And when the most illustrious Battista Malatesta and her daughter Elisabeth were erecting at Pesaro a monastery of St. Clare (of which at present we treat), and desired it furnished with pious sisters, they obtained this blessed Felix from the vicar general of our Order. And the pious Sister, about to obey his precept, betook herself to Pesaro, and acted as the first Abbess of this place for a whole four years. A little differently Tossignano: Meanwhile the lady Battista of the Malatesta, having obtained from blessed Bernardino of Siena, the vicar general, the faculty of building the monastery of Corpus Christi at Pesaro under the Rule of St. Clare, wrote to Felix that she should betake herself to Pesaro together with seven other nuns, namely Margaret, Eugenia, Elizabeth, Ursolina, Bartholomea, Jacobina and Carlina, with whom two others entered the monastery when built, Frances of Fano and Magdalen Tizzoni of Pesaro. Thus they in Latin, and thus in Spanish Marcos of Lisbon: By St. Bernardino, who was then vicar general of the Ultramontane Observants, she was sent with seven nuns to found a monastery of St. Clare in the city of Pesaro, not without much grief and feeling on the part of the nuns of St. Ursula, who were left bereaved of so holy a Mother and Superior. At Pesaro she was received with great delight by the lady Battista Malatesta, wife of Galeazzo Sforza, lord of the city, and by her most pious daughter the lady Elizabeth, who had the care of building the monastery. But on the very afternoon of her arrival two noble virgins, Frances of Fano and Magdalen de Fizone, refused to return to their fathers' houses; but at once joined themselves as disciples and companions of the Bride of Christ for ever.

[31] who by letters from the minister general of the Order There is no need to report the words of more authors, since these have either borrowed their material from those three, or, where they differ, have followed Wadding or Gallucci as their leaders. But not without reason does Gallucci differ from Francesco Gonzaga, who writes that the Blessed one, about to obey the precept of the vicar general, betook herself to Pesaro, and Wadding besides from Marcos of Lisbon, who likewise relates that she was sent to Pesaro by St. Bernardino, who was then vicar general, as though no other's precept had intervened in this business. St. Bernardino of Siena was indeed at that time vicar general of all and singular the houses and convents of Italy … established under the sacred name of the Observants, elected to that office by William of Casale, minister general of the whole Order, and confirmed in it by Eugenius IV, supreme Pontiff, in the year 1438, as was set forth at the XX day of May in the preliminary Commentary to his Life, and is established from the letters of both in Wadding at the said year 1438. Hence it is altogether likely that Battista, lady of Pesaro, in order to obtain Felix as Governess for her new monastery, used the good offices, nay interposed the authority, of St. Bernardino. Nor is it foreign to likelihood that, as Tossignano relates, Battista wrote to Felix that she should betake herself to Pesaro together with seven nuns: but the letters which Gallucci and Wadding produce, and which perhaps others had not seen, do not allow us to doubt that the authority and precept of the minister general of the whole Order himself intervened.

[32] by letters, The difference between the two editions of the letters is, as I hinted above, not infrequent. Wadding testifies that his were taken from the original; Gallucci does not signify whence he received them; and therefore we prefer and shall follow the former's edition. Yet since it often happens that differences of this kind proceed from nothing else than the carelessness of copyists, sometimes omitting some things, sometimes adding or changing others, we shall mark Gallucci's chief variant readings in the margin, except that part which we quoted from the same Gallucci at number 27, and which we here leave to the reader to compare with Wadding's letters.

To sister Felicia de Meda, devoted to Christ God, professed nun of the monastery of St. Ursula of the city of Milan, of the Order of St. Clare, Brother William of Casale, master of sacred theology and minister general and servant of the Order of Minors and of St. Clare, greeting and peace in Jesus Christ, the Spouse of virgins. Since the magnificent Lady [] Battista of the Malatesta of Pesaro [] has built one monastery of the Order of St. Clare near that same city of Pesaro in the province of the March, with Apostolic authority granted her for this, and desires to found that monastery and to provide [] it with sisters of the same Order living regularly and observantly; desiring to meet her devotion and wishing to meet her prayers, as I am bound by the duty [] enjoined upon me, for the increase of that Order of St. Clare committed [] to me, because among the other monasteries of that Order [] the monastery of St. Ursula established at Milan has always been of most praiseworthy fame and life, and those appointed from it to this monastery to be founded at Pesaro I desire to assign as sisters of religious and outstanding honourableness of life. The last words are missing in Gallucci, and only to provide at Pesaro is read.

[33] Therefore, about your praiseworthy life, honourableness, full of the heralding of her praises, zeal, prudence, vigilance, zealousness in the monastery, attentiveness in exhortation, diligence in admonition, moderation in reproof, temperateness in precepts, excellence in compassion, discretion in silence, maturity in speech

and counsel in all things opportune for a perfect government, and about very many other things with which the Most High has manifoldly adorned you, since I have been informed by the testimonies of many trustworthy persons, by the Apostolic authority which I exercise in this part, and nonetheless by the concordant counsel and assent of very many fathers and masters and other prelates of the brethren of our Order, I institute you abbess and mother of the said monastery and sisters, and by these presents declare you instituted, committing to you the full administration of that monastery and of its goods, both in spiritual and in temporal things: commanding by the tenor of these letters the sisters beloved in Christ, and also the household and servants [] and the lay sisters and servants [] of the same monastery, by salutary obedience and under the penalty of contumacious disobedience, which after three canonical admonitions those who resist shall incur, that they be bound firmly and without contradiction to obey you, as their lawful Abbess and spiritual Mother, in all things which shall pertain [*] to the office of abbess, throughout the whole time of your abbacy.

[34] Up then, take up devoutly by the same obedience and under the same penalties the burden imposed on you, she is ordered to set out for Pesaro. and show yourself [] diligently, humbly and prudently in the office committed to you: [] so that that monastery may through your hands [*] receive reformation and quiet; and when the time shall be given, you may deserve to be presented with a lighted lamp to the heavenly homeland before the sight of our Lord Jesus Christ. Farewell in the same Jesus Christ, and pray for me. Given at Florence on the XXIV day of July MCCCCXXXIX. From these letters we conjecture that the work had been carried so far by the lady Battista, when Bl. Felix was summoned to Pesaro, that it already had the form of a monastery. But from others which Wadding cites we understand that it was inhabited also by at least some nuns, and that another abbess had first been destined for it. Wadding's words run thus at the year 1439, number 29: A notable monastery of Poor Clares having been begun in the city of Pesaro by the noble woman Battista of the Malatesta, wife of Galeazzo Sforza (nay, Malatesta; see the beginning of this §), there was summoned in this year on the XXVI of February N., abbess of the monastery of St. Clare of Lodi, to whom was joined the venerable sister (so the letters patent of the minister general have it) Ambrosia, and another unnamed, from the monastery of St. Ursula of Milan, that they might happily make a beginning. Then on the XXIV day of July there was taken, perhaps on account of the death of the aforesaid abbess or some other impediment, from the same monastery of St. Ursula, blessed Felix or Felixina de Meda.

[35] Gallucci's observation on those letters and Gonzaga's testimony Gallucci in chapter 13 of the Italian Life, having considered some words of the letter to Bl. Felix together with Gonzaga's testimony, conjectures further. But Gonzaga must be heard first: There formerly adjoined one another within the walls of the city of Pesaro two monasteries of Poor Clares, the one sacred to the Lord's Body, the other dedicated to Bl. Clare. But the latter obeyed the Conventual Franciscans, while the former was subject to the Observants of the same Order. And since the manners of the two sets of sisters differed greatly among themselves, and all joined together could grow up more happily, this choice was given them by the senate, that either they should be joined to the Observant nuns of the adjoining monastery, or, yielding the place, should return to their own homes. But when they chose the second condition, the aforesaid convent of St. Clare was by Apostolic authority annexed by the aforesaid senate of Pesaro to the monastery of the Lord's Body, and whatever was contained in it, and belonged to it whether in immovables or movables, passed into the right of the other; and together with the increase of goods and of the house grew also the religion and holiness of the sisters. Gallucci therefore conjectures that Bl. Felix was summoned to Pesaro only when the union of the two convents was made: and this, he says, seems to be suggested by these words of the minister general to the Blessed one: That that monastery may through your hands receive the desired reformation and quiet.

[36] is weighed, The conjecture is at first sight quite likely: indeed to receive reformation and quiet commonly denotes another norm of living and some preceding disturbances: nevertheless, if Gonzaga's words be taken in a strict sense, from that union of the convents no disturbances could have been stirred up among the nuns of Corpus Christi, nor could any necessity of reformation arise. For Gonzaga not obscurely asserts that the nuns of the other monastery, formerly subject to the Conventual Franciscans, chose the second condition, that is, returned to their own homes, or went back to their parents or kinsfolk: so that from his words it cannot be deduced that even one joined herself to the nuns of Corpus Christi, which was the other condition, or first part of the choice given them, and which, if it had been accepted, could have been an occasion of disturbances among women previously accustomed to different laws and method of living. But, you say, to what then did the minister general look when he exhorted the Blessed one to bring reformation and quiet into the monastery of Corpus Christi at Pesaro? To me indeed it appears that by reformation he meant nothing else than that the Blessed one should instruct and govern the nuns of Pesaro according to the rules of the Reformation already introduced into other monasteries of the Poor Clares, that is, according to the rules of the stricter Observance which she herself had for so long and so laudably professed in the Milanese monastery. But when the minister general exhorted her to procure quiet for the monastery of Pesaro, I judge that he looked not to disturbances which had arisen in the monastery among the nuns, but to those which were being stirred up against the monastery itself by outsiders who by no means favoured its progress, among whom, as will be said afterwards, was Galeazzo himself, the lord of Pesaro. He exhorted Felix, I say, to try by her prudence to obtain from these peace and quiet for the monastery and the nuns. Further, the Blessed one was then counting about the 62nd year of her age, the 40th of her religious life, the 15th of her prelacy in the Milanese monastery.

[37] It cannot rightly be doubted that the Milanese nuns, The same Gallucci describes at length the disturbances of the citizens of Milan, on receiving the news of the coming departure of their most loving Mother, were exceedingly stricken, and, as Marcos of Lisbon expressly testifies, were affected at her very departure with a vast feeling of grief. But Gallucci spends again two quite long chapters in setting these things forth. According to him that news stirred up commotions not only in the monastery but also in the city of Milan, so great indeed that, had not the authority of the supreme Pontiff been present (for Gallucci thinks that the minister general in this case was fortified with a special mandate or faculty of the supreme Pontiff, and to that end alleges this text of the letters: By the Apostolic authority which I exercise in this part) — had not, I say, the authority of the Pontiff and of Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan, been present, the inhabitants of the city, in no way regarding the precepts of the Superiors of the Order, would have hindered by any means whatever the removal from them of so great a Treasure. But things being so settled, nothing remained but complaints, laments and tears. When such things were done by outsiders, what shall we think was done by those of the household?

[38] As the same Gallucci writes, to their complaints, laments and tears the sisters, prostrate on the ground, added humble prayers, and the grief of the nuns at the Blessed one's departure, entreaties, and every kind of sign of extreme grief; but these were so many arrows piercing the heart of the pious Superior, who was so moved that either she stood speechless, or, if she wished to speak, repeated nothing but this word: Obedience, obedience. In the following chapter, which is the eleventh of the Italian Life, the author reports the Blessed one's lengthy address, by which she bade farewell to the assembled sisters and exhorted them both to constancy and progress in the other virtues, and especially to charity and peace: finally, kneeling on the ground, she asked pardon for her faults and defects, not without weeping, and earnestly begged prayers with the Lord God for their remission. In chapter 12 he describes Felix's departure from the monastery; the running together of men of every age, sex and condition to see and honour her; the effort which each made to penetrate nearer to her, to kiss her hand, to touch her garment, to commend himself to her prayers, to give a last farewell; and on the other hand the Blessed one's effort to free herself from the pressing crowd, until at last, praying as a suppliant and commanding by the love of God, she obtained leave to depart.

[39] With seven companions therefore, whose names Tossignano gave above, and her journey and arrival at Pesaro. she went from Milan to Pesaro. But although she counted sixty-two years and, as Gallucci continues, by the lady Battista's care a carriage was prepared for her with everything necessary for the convenience of the road, she preferred to enter upon the long journey on foot and without any provision of things, and to trust in the providence of God alone. So she traversed Lombardy and Romagna, everywhere received cheerfully and sumptuously, not without an ingenuous shame on her part. Nor was that plan of travelling slowly without fruit. Hence there was offered an occasion of helping and consoling many, and of gaining many for God. For besides others who were either converted by her example and exhortation to penance for their sins, or moved to embrace the religious life, a little after she had as followers and disciples at Pesaro in the new monastery of Corpus Christi Violante of Manfredi of Forlì and Eustachia of Andrew of Rimini. Both those religious women were surviving among the living in the year 1470, 26 years from the death of Bl. Felix, as we learn from the letters which we cited at number 14 and to which they thus subscribe: Sister Violante, daughter of lord Manfredi of Forlì. Sister Eustachia, daughter of master Andrew of Rimini. But let us finish Bl. Felix's journey and Gallucci's chapter 12 in few words. The lady Battista, having received news that the Blessed one had arrived at the place called Cattolica, ten miles distant from the city of Pesaro, sent ahead several matrons of the city to meet her, and then herself with her daughter Elisabeth and a numerous company of illustrious women, going forward one mile outside the city, received her on her arrival honourably and most courteously. But since the Blessed one could not be persuaded to use a carriage, she too with her company, going on foot, brought her into the city, the inhabitants running up in a vast multitude and wondering at and praising Felix's gravity, modesty and the venerable appearance of her countenance.

in Gallucci D.* is absent

ibid. Pisauri domina*

ibid. fœcundare*

ibid. officio*

ibid. commissi*

ibid. adds ex quo*

ibid. servitoribus*

ibid. servientibus*

ibid. spectantibus ad abbatissæ officium*

ibid. &*

ibid. adds temetipsam*

ibid. adds optatam*

§ V. Disturbances stirred up against the Blessed one at Pesaro and quieted by a miracle: benefits obtained for that city by her prayers.

The disturbances which were stirred up at Pesaro against the Blessed one, At Pesaro no less than at Milan Bl. Felix bound to herself the minds of many, and, as Gallucci begins to narrate in chapter 13, here too by her exhortations and rebukes she brought back the erring into the way, converted sinners to penance, and was a consolation and a help to all, whether men or women, without distinction of state or condition, who begged her counsel. Nevertheless things did not flow so peacefully for her but that at the very beginning disturbances,

and those grave ones, intervened. She had indeed as her strong supporters Battista, lady of Pesaro, and her daughter Elisabeth, but she found Galeazzo, the husband of that same Battista, opposed to her, and, as Wadding adds, many citizens contradicting, if not openly, at least secretly, the building or the progress of the monastery. These things Gonzaga passed over in silence, Tossignano hinted somewhat obscurely, but about Galeazzo Marcos of Lisbon declared openly, saying: In the building of the monastery the Handmaid of God suffered the gravest annoyances, which the demon stirred up by his malice and craft, taking away from Galeazzo the will to build (or rather to complete) the monastery. The reason which moved Galeazzo's mind Gallucci fetches solely from the expenses which were to be made, namely for pious causes, to which he was not so inclined as his wife and daughter.

[41] and of which the cause But since the older writers are silent, and Gallucci does not show that that reason rests on any other foundation than his own conjectures, nothing forbids us to propose to the reader another, likewise formed from a likely conjecture. The foundation is supplied by Gonzaga, cited in the preceding §, when he commemorates the union of the Pesaro monastery of St. Clare, which formerly obeyed the Conventual Franciscans, with the neighbouring monastery of Corpus Christi, which was subject to the Observants of the same Order. But Gallucci suspects that that union was made at the beginnings of the monastery of Corpus Christi, nor have I found anyone who thought otherwise, nay not even any mention of the old monastery of St. Clare after the year 1439. This opinion therefore standing, the manner in which Gonzaga relates that the union was made could have been the root of many difficulties and the occasion of several complaints, by which Galeazzo may have been led to favour less, or to oppose, the progress of the new monastery. For, as Gonzaga testifies, a choice was given to the nuns of the former monastery, which was to be extinguished, either to pass over to the monastery of Corpus Christi, and thereby to embrace the stricter Observance, or, yielding the place, to return to their own homes. All chose the second part of the choice; they therefore returned to their parents or kinsfolk. I should not think this happened without very many of these taking it most ill, murmuring, and complaining to Galeazzo that by such a reformation, that is, by the introduction of the stricter Observance, which those nuns neither were bound nor wished to profess, a new burden fell upon families; that their daughters, nieces and sisters were being sent back to them without dowry (for, on the same testimony, all the goods of the former monastery had been annexed to the second); that the local women were being thrust out and foreigners taken in, and that to these was being transferred whatever the piety and liberality of the citizens of Pesaro had formerly bestowed on the monastery.

[42] These or such arguments were specious enough we here set forth as more likely, for Galeazzo to think that he must desist from a work so happily begun and almost brought to completion, and send Bl. Felix back with her companions. Indeed that her removal from Pesaro was attempted and decreed by the Superiors of the Order is expressly noted in the Register of the Order, whose text we give from Wadding: Sister Felixina de Meda of Milan, at the instance and request of the magnificent lord Guidantonio, count of Urbino, has been removed and absolved from the abbacy of the monastery of Pesaro, and has been instituted abbess of the monastery of St. Clare of Urbino, and leave has been granted her to take with her the companions whom she brought from Milan, and in this matter the minister of the province of the March has been made commissary, and the nuns willing to live with her in the regular Observance are to remain, but those who are unwilling are to be transferred with their dowries to other monasteries. Given at Siena on the VII of November in the year MCCCCXXXIX. The said Wadding, although he does not inquire what cause moved Galeazzo, yet thinks that it was so decreed at the time when he was opposing the monastery of Corpus Christi.

[43] I entirely agree with Wadding. I think, I say, that the cause of passing this decree was none other than the disturbances stirred up against the Blessed one at Pesaro. For between the XXIV day of July of the year 1439, on which, being at Milan, she was ordered to set out for Pesaro, and the VII of November of the same year, on which she is said to have been removed and absolved from the abbacy of Pesaro, the space of time is too narrow for me to believe that the discipline of the stricter Observance of St. Clare was there so perfectly formed that Felix could be removed thence and destined for Urbino, to accomplish the same thing there. Yet suppose it so happened. What impelled the governors of the Order of St. Francis to add the faculty of taking with her the companions whom she had brought from Milan, nay to add the condition that the nuns who were unwilling to live with her or to accompany her to Urbino should be transferred with their dowries to other monasteries? I, adhering to the conjecture already begun and confirmed by the tenor of the decree, conceive this whole business thus. Galeazzo, overcome by the prayers and complaints of the inhabitants, especially of those to whom their daughters or kinswomen had returned home from the old monastery, wished everything to be brought back to its former state, and therefore dealt with the governors of the Order of St. Francis and with others whom it concerned, that the Blessed one, with her Milanese companions and the rest who had come from elsewhere, foreigners and professing the stricter observance, should be sent away from Pesaro. To his will those same governors judged that they must yield, though not without grief.

[44] a miracle quieted, Meanwhile Guidantonio, count of Urbino, being informed of these things by his sister the lady Battista, Galeazzo's wife, and at the same time taught of the holiness of Bl. Felix's life, her prudence and wisdom, sought from the said governors that she should be abbess of his monastery of St. Clare at Urbino, and with her such nuns as should wish to accompany her; the opportune petition pleased them: and so the decree was framed, by which alone satisfaction would be given both to Galeazzo's will and to Guidantonio's desire; but it lacked effect. For before it was carried into execution, Elizabeth, the daughter of Galeazzo and Battista, fell into a mortal illness, for which Bl. Felix by her prayers to God miraculously obtained health, and so rendered her father more favourable to herself. Of the miracle all, both ancient and more recent, have made mention. Briefly Gonzaga: She once obtained health for the aforesaid most illustrious Elisabeth from the Most High by her prayers. And thus Tossignano: Galeazzo Sforza (nay, Malatesta), lord of Pesaro, having seen the miracle of the recovery of the health of his daughter Elizabeth through the prayers and merits of the holy virgins (Felix and her companions), began to pursue them with more ardent love and to hold them in the greatest veneration.

[45] obtained by the Blessed one's prayers, when her dismissal thence But Marcos of Lisbon, after relating that by the craft of the demon it came about that Galeazzo opposed Bl. Felix, continues thus in Spanish: But the merciful Lord favoured and succoured his faithful Handmaid; for when Galeazzo's daughter was sick unto death and abandoned by the physicians, by the prayers of the holy sister Felix she recovered entire health by so great a miracle that on the next day, which was the feast of the holy father Francis, she rose well and betook herself to the church. By which miracle all the inhabitants of the city were carried away into admiration and esteem of her virtue, and especially Galeazzo, who presently supplied whatever was necessary for the building of the monastery and the maintenance of the nuns. So great a benefit indeed, obtained through Bl. Felix's prayers with God and acknowledged as such by Galeazzo, was a sufficient incitement for him to pursue her and her companions with a more ardent love than before, which Tossignano relates, or for one who had been an adversary before to become then a friend and benefactor, which Marcos of Lisbon signifies. But while he and the more recent writers who followed him set forth the miraculous healing with more circumstances than others, they have made the series of events more difficult for us to understand.

[46] had already been decreed; For, as I have already hinted, I am altogether persuaded, first, that the said decree about Bl. Felix being dismissed from Pesaro with her companions was never carried into execution. The reason is that, as Gonzaga writes and the more recent writers commonly confess, Felix presided as abbess over the monastery of Pesaro for four years, and there, as all assert, died, in the year — as all except Tossignano alone have noted — one thousand four hundred and forty-four. Secondly, I am persuaded that for no other cause than the miracle was the execution of the decree omitted, so that the miraculous healing happened about the same time at which either the decree was passed or its execution was being most urgently pressed. Meanwhile Marcos of Lisbon says the miracle happened on the day before the feast of the holy father Francis, that is, on the night between the vigil and the feast itself, that is, between the third and the fourth day of October. In what year? If we shall say in one thousand four hundred and thirty-nine, it must consequently be said that the decree was passed a whole month after the miraculous healing and the reconciling of Galeazzo's mind to the sacred virgins, since the decree is marked as given on the VII of November in the year MCCCCXXXIX, and therefore that the governors of the Order were so long ignorant of so great a change made at Pesaro; and this is most difficult to believe. If we say the miracle happened in the year one thousand four hundred and forty, it will follow that the execution of the decree was put off about eleven months, and we shall not easily attain the cause of so great a delay. Hence I suspect either that the miracle happened in the year 1439 after the VII of November, or that the decree was passed before the IV of October, and that an error was made either by him who inserted the decree in the Register, or by Marcos of Lisbon, who, reading perhaps that Elizabeth, at the point of death the day before, betook herself well on the next day to the church of St. Francis, where some festival was being kept, interpreted it of the solemn festival of St. Francis. These things being settled in one way or the other, the rest is easily conceived.

[47] The governors of the Order, being informed of the miracle and of the change of Galeazzo's will, and a greater veneration for her arose thence. would have rescinded the decree without difficulty; nor would Guidantonio have shown himself difficult in acquiescing in the desire of his sister and brother-in-law, since he had only asked that the Blessed one and her companions be sent to him at Urbino when it was settled that they should be dismissed from Pesaro. Finally either Galeazzo satisfied the complaints of certain people of Pesaro in another way, or they themselves, moved by the evidence of the miracle, desisted from the suit they had intended, began to venerate as a friend of God Felix whom they had before persecuted, and judged that she must be kept as a patroness of the city. And such indeed the people of Pesaro found her more than once even while she yet survived among the living.

[48] Marcos of Lisbon, having just related the miracle, adds: other benefits which, while still living, Our Lord wrought many other wonderful works through his blessed handmaid sister Felix, and one was exceedingly notable; that before the Handmaid of Christ came thither, the city of Pesaro was afflicted with plague almost every year, and after she had come, it was by her merits free from that deadly pestilence for the fourteen years in which she lived there; but after her death, when the pestilence returned, those who had recourse to the merits of the blessed Bride of Christ were at once healed. It is established that Felix was summoned from Milan to Pesaro only in the year 1439 and died here in 1444: whence it is manifest that in the cited text, by the fault either of the author or of the copyist or of the typesetter, fourteen was put for four. The same benefit Gallucci relates in chapter 13 of the Italian Life, and I do not know whether intending to correct Marcos of Lisbon, or relying on the testimonies of older writers, he asserts that the city was free from plague for as long a time as Bl. Felix lived at Pesaro, and after her death for fourteen continuous years.

[49] Gallucci had in the same place set forth another benefit which the same inhabitants attributed to the Blessed one's prayers, she obtained for Pesaro, saying: It happened about that time

that (the city), when it had been unexpectedly attacked and its citadel occupied by enemy forces, was defended by no other arms than those of the Blessed one, to whom the whole city had had recourse. The miracle was recognized when the attackers, seized with a sudden fear of a relieving force about to arrive, withdrew of their own accord, not without confusion and terror. The said author indicates that this, like the preceding benefit, was obtained not long after Galeazzo with the inhabitants had begun to favour the new monastery; but he does not mark the year. It is certain, however, that Pesaro, while the Blessed one lived, was exposed to various plots and dangers. For, to pass over others, we have here as witness Giovanni Simonetta, the historian of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, and from the year 1444 until 1466 his companion in his famous exploits. Before the rest Galeazzo had as his enemy Sigismondo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, who had said that he would never rest unless Pesaro were brought into his power; the words are those of the said Simonetta reporting the deeds of the year 1443 in Muratori, volume 21 of the Writers of Italy, column 343, where a little after he adds that an army was led up against Pesaro, that it might be tried from there whether perhaps some citizens, who were said to favour Sigismondo's cause in the city, might stir up some commotions; but that, the hope of gaining Pesaro by treachery being taken away, the forces were led elsewhere. At that time (so the same continues, column 344) Galeazzo Malatesta was lord of the people of Pesaro, who, fearing Sigismondo's plots, followed the Braccian party.

[50] which afterwards passed into the lordship of the Sforzas. He takes up the same matter again at the year 1444, column 363, saying: After this, since Galeazzo Malatesta possessed, as has been shown, by hereditary right Pesaro and Fossombrone, Sigismondo his kinsman, with a certain incredible desire of gaining Pesaro, plotted against him day and night with every kind of guile. Wherefore it came about that Galeazzo, desiring at length to be freed from such perpetual anxiety and annoyance, because he feared lest, being heavy with age and lacking male children, he should be betrayed by his own peoples, at the exhortation of Federico (of Montefeltro, then duke of Urbino), at last sold Pesaro to Francesco (Sforza), receiving twenty thousand gold pieces as the price; on this condition indeed, that the rule of that city should be handed over to Alessandro (Sforza, Francesco's brother), whom lately by Federico's work Constance had married, the granddaughter of Galeazzo himself, born of his daughter Elisabeth, whom he had given in marriage to Gentile of Camerino. But Fossombrone Federico bought for thirteen thousand gold pieces … in this manner both Alessandro obtained Pesaro and Federico Fossombrone, cities certainly noble both in situation and in antiquity, which the family of the Malatesta had possessed for many years. I have copied the whole text, that on that occasion some things may be elucidated and proved which I have asserted here and there without testimonies, especially those by which I corrected Marcos of Lisbon and others who surname Galeazzo not, as they ought, Malatesta, but Sforza.

§ VI. Her last illness; death; burial; the finding of her body unharmed; the translations of it and of the body of Bl. Seraphina of Montefeltro and their exposition for public veneration.

She lived only four years at Pesaro; According to the letters of the minister general of the Order of St. Francis mentioned several times, Bl. Felix was summoned in the month of July of the year 1439 from Milan to Pesaro, and here, according to Gonzaga, Marcos of Lisbon and all the more recent writers, she died in the month of September of the year 1444; whence it is clear that it is wrongly indicated in Marcos of Lisbon, as we have already observed, that she lived at Pesaro fourteen years, and that we must stand by the testimony of Gonzaga saying that she ceased to live four years after her arrival. But of her deeds after peace was restored to the monastery the two named authors committed to writing very little, and that only in general terms; Tossignano nothing, save that she died famous for miracles. The last clause of her Life in Gonzaga is this: She foretold by the prophetic spirit very many things still to come, which nevertheless most certainly afterwards happened; and at length, four years having elapsed, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MCCCCXLIV she rendered her soul to heaven, and was famous for very many miracles. But in Marcos of Lisbon these things in Spanish: Finally, the monastery being built, and the Lord willing to bring her into his glory, she fell into sickness, and after she had been fortified with the Sacraments of the Church, with vast fervour of mind she made an address to the nuns, commending the observance of the institute and exhorting them to a constant piety in reciting the divine offices. She gave besides several lessons by which they might take precaution and fortify themselves against the temptations of invisible enemies, and, bidding farewell to her daughters, she passed to her Spouse, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[52] Gallucci in chapter 13 of the Italian Life also says in general of the Blessed one dwelling at Pesaro seized with sickness, she announced her death to the sisters, that she fulfilled the office imposed on her with such care and diligence that in a very short time the building was completed, filled with nuns, and made a peculiar model of regular observance. In chapter 14 he pursues with much praise her method of governing and the progress of the nuns under her discipline, so indeed that each of them was fit to be set over others as mistress. But, as the same Gallucci relates, while things were thus established, it pleased the divine goodness to withdraw her from the calamities of this world and to make her a partaker of heavenly joys. In the year of Christ 1444 therefore, in the 66th of her age, on the XV day of the month of September, the octave of the Nativity of the most blessed Virgin Mary, after she had been refreshed with the sacred Banquet with the rest of the sisters, she fell into sickness. And this, which she knew would be her last, she received with great alacrity and delight of heart, and gave no sign of pain amid the gravest annoyances of the sickness. Hence the nuns, foreseeing no danger, believed that she would shortly be freed from this sickness as from others under which she had before laboured both at Milan and at Pesaro. But neither did she herself, in order to spare their mourning and tears, indicate anything until the third day before her death, on which she foretold it to them, and, calling them all together, exhorted them in a pious address to the love and fear of God, to mutual charity, to good example towards their neighbour, to frequent prayer and Communion, to assiduity in the divine Offices and monastic exercises, and finally to prayers for her own soul as she was dying.

[53] After this Gallucci graphically describes the nuns' grief and laments, and by the prophetic spirit foretold other things, and sets forth at sufficient length the reasons which the Blessed one brought forward for consolation; finally in chapter 15 he says that the illness lasted fifteen days, that meanwhile she confessed rather often, was twice refreshed with the heavenly Banquet, and, fortified with the sacred Oil and full of merits, passed over to eternal blessedness on the XXX day of September, on the very feast of St. Jerome, doctor of the Church, whom she had always particularly honoured. We have seen above from Gonzaga's testimony that she was endowed with the spirit of prophecy and foretold many things which afterwards came to pass: which Gallucci too, citing the same author, commemorates in two places, in chapter 7, where he declares the chief deeds of the Blessed one while living at Milan, and in chapter 13, where he pursues the course of her life while staying at Pesaro. The same heavenly gift other more recent writers likewise commend in her; among these Wadding adduces one particular and noteworthy example which I have not read in the older writers. At the year 1444, number 59, having premised this: She was famous for the spirit of prophecy and penetrated the secrets of hearts, many things being laid open which the sisters had thought in their minds — he adds a little after: Weeping and grieving (the sisters) for the loss of so great a Mother (the dying Felix), she gently consoled them, saying that there remained women most worthy of the prelacy, addressing them one by one and in their order, who afterwards became abbesses. First she named Eugenia of Milan, who next succeeded in the office.

[54] which truly happened. This is that same Eugenia whom Tossignano listed in the second place among the Blessed one's companions setting out from Milan to Pesaro. Of the same Eugenia Wadding resumes the discourse at number 61, and signifies that her election was not without a prodigy, saying: One month having elapsed after Felix's death, blessed John Capistran came to Pesaro, and, the votes of the nuns being collected, sister Eugenia was elected abbess, … whom all the sisters had seen on the preceding day, as she entered the dining-hall, shining with sunbeams going forth from her face. Then, having alleged the letters of the said Bl. John Capistran, from which it may be clear with how great virtues Eugenia was adorned, he weaves a notable elogium for the sisters, first for Frances of Fano, then for Magdalen de Tison, or as it is otherwise written de Fison, whom, according to what was said before, Bl. Felix on her arrival at Pesaro obtained as her first disciples. Those elogia may be read in the said Wadding: Arthur too may be consulted in the Franciscan Martyrology and the Sacred Gynæceum, where he ascribes to each of them the title of Blessed, announcing Frances on the XXX of January, Magdalen on the XXV of June, and Eugenia on the XX of December, who on account of the remarkable virtues by which she strove to imitate her mistress Bl. Felix was named Eugenia-Felix, on the same Arthur's testimony.

[55] She died in the year 1444 on the 30th day of September: That Bl. Felix died in the year 1444 is the common assertion of all except Tossignano alone, who, unless perhaps it be an error of the pen or of the press, fixed her death to the following year. Gonzaga with the same Tossignano omitted the day and month; both Marcos of Lisbon expressed, as follows: In the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and forty-four, on the last day of the month of September, the blessed sister Felix of Milan, abbess of the monastery of Corpus Christi at Pesaro, a city of the March of Ancona, passed from the present exile to the heavens. Wadding says she died on the night preceding the birthday of St. Jerome; Harold, on the feast of the dedication of St. Michael; Pietro Paolo Bosca in the Milanese Martyrology, on the third of the Kalends of October, that is, the XXIX day of September. But all the rest whom I have seen, both historians and martyrologists, noted the XXX day, to whom we too accede, chiefly because Wadding's words, which Harold and Bosca probably interpreted at their own discretion, can be accommodated to this our opinion, by saying that Bl. Felix died after midnight, that is, in that part of the night which belonged to the XXX day, or to the feast of St. Jerome. The same Wadding with Gallucci and others relates that the Blessed one then counted the sixty-sixth year of her age, according to whose testimony we began the chronology of her life and said she was born about the year 1378, and thence deduced that she was made a Nun in the twenty-second year of her age, namely about the year 1400, because, as Gonzaga, Gallucci and others testify, she lived forty years at Milan in the monastery of St. Ursula, that is, twenty-five as a nun in subjection and fifteen as Abbess; whence she was summoned to Pesaro by the oft-mentioned letters at the end of July of the year 1439, between which and the month of September 1444 there is found a full four years, the remainder of her life.

[56] Of the Blessed one's first burial Gonzaga and Tossignano observe nothing; her body honourably buried Marcos of Lisbon says only that the body was entombed with solemn rite; Wadding adds that on the day after her death, by the procurement of Battista of Montefeltro, lady of Pesaro, the whole clergy and the religious Orders came to celebrate the obsequies solemnly, and that the body, enclosed in a wooden coffin, was reverently buried. Gallucci adds other things also: for he says that the lady Battista and her daughter Elisabeth, when the grief had abated which had at first come upon them as upon the nuns and all the citizens at the Blessed one's death, gave orders that at their own expense a most

honourable funeral should be celebrated, that the whole clergy and the religious Orders came thither with a most crowded concourse of people, who did not cease to venerate the sacred body. But since the place of common burial was not yet built, for the two days which were spent in making a chest lined with pitch for preservation, the body was left above ground, and gave no sign of blackness or corruption, but on the contrary always appeared whiter and breathed out a most sweet odour.

[57] Further, it lay in that first sarcophagus only three years: three years later it was found whole, After three years it was found, the coffin having rotted, itself uncorrupted (so Marcos of Lisbon in Spanish), and, translated into another chest, it stands in the choir of the nuns so whole and unharmed that it appears alive rather than dead. The nuns draw it out of the chest and, setting it upright on its feet and leaning it only against the wall, expose it at the grating; and so beheld by the people, the body seems animated. Of this first translation, which alone Marcos of Lisbon knew, or at least taught his readers, Gonzaga too makes mention in these words: Wherefore (namely on account of the miracles for which Bl. Felix was famous), being taken up out of the common sarcophagus, she was laid in a certain most seemly chest; in which, standing wholly entire and uncorrupted, she remained for several days in the sacristy. A little more distinctly Gallucci sets forth the translation, and alleges no other cause for it than that the construction of the place destined for the common burial of all the nuns was then completed. For then, the nuns wishing to lay Bl. Felix in that place, it was found by a greater prodigy, he says, that the first coffin was so decayed that it fell to pieces at a touch, but the body itself whole, unharmed and fragrant, in which state it remains until now.

[58] Hence the nuns, judging that it was pleasing to the divine will and laid in another place: the same afterwards with the body of Bl. Seraphina that this should be made plain to others also, and be preserved for the sake of those who piously honoured the Blessed one, and whose number was even then greatly increasing, changed their intention, enclosed her in another wooden chest, and laid her in the church, where she remained in great veneration of the people also, until she was translated a second time together with the body of Bl. Seraphina of Montefeltro. She had died in the same monastery of Pesaro in the year 1478, and after some years, being likewise found whole, had been carried to the same part of the church in which Bl. Felix lay, and which Gonzaga calls the Sacristy, and thereafter her body, like that of Bl. Felix, had been wont to be shown at fixed times through the lattice to the devout people. The second translation, common namely to both Blessed women, Gonzaga commemorates thus in the elogium of Bl. Seraphina: Her body, and at the same time that of the blessed sister Felix, the most illustrious Guidobaldo and his lawful wife Vittoria Farnese, the most pious dukes of Urbino, took care to have translated from the sacristy to two marble mausolea in the form of an arch, skilfully built on either side of the choir and completed at their own expense.

[59] placed in marble chests at the side of the choir, Gallucci in part 3 of his Italian Work, which comprises the posthumous glory common to both Blessed women, reports the same things in chapter 5, and on that occasion, as I said in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of Bl. Seraphina, number 26, greatly praises both the said princes Guidobaldo and Vittoria, and the most Eminent lord Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, and the whole families both of him and of them, for their outstanding and constant veneration and piety towards the Blessed women, the tokens of which he asserts to be the votive gifts and various ornaments with which they adorned the said mausolea. For these Gallucci cites a Chronicle, I know not which, yet does not determine the year in which those mausolea were built, or the bodies of the Blessed women placed in them. But in the same Commentary on the Acts of Bl. Seraphina, number 27, from other writers it seemed to me more likely that it happened not before the middle of the 16th century. For the said Guidobaldo della Rovere, duke of Urbino, about the year 1547 married Vittoria Farnese, niece of Pope Paul III, and yielded to fate in the year 1578, as Sansovino testifies, a contemporary author, in his work on the Origins of the illustrious families of Italy, folio 220 verso. For the rest, those marble mausolea were so arranged that the sacred bodies could be drawn out of them and shown to the people; and that this custom was kept almost down to the very time at which he was writing Gallucci affirms. Almost, he says, because it had been interrupted for 18 years, when in the year 1628 it was resumed with a more solemn rite.

[60] they were shown to the people, as had been the custom before, in the year 1628 Of the showing made in the said year, and of the preparations preceding it, he gives a description in Italian in the said chapter 5 of part 3, and the same, as having been drawn up about that time and being very suitable for proving a lawful and immemorial cult, I exhibited in Latin in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of Bl. Seraphina from number 6 to 10: where let the curious reader see it. It will suffice here to have given a brief compendium of it. In the year 1628 therefore Maura Giordani, abbess of the monastery, asked Marcus Atticus, minister of the Franciscan fathers in the March of Ancona, that a public exposition of the bodies of BB. Felix and Seraphina might be made; he assented on condition that the decree of Pope Urban VIII published in the year 1625 should be strictly observed. The most illustrious Malatesta Baglioni, bishop of Pesaro, being likewise asked, after mature examination willingly granted the faculty and promised that he would be present at the celebration. The second day of August was appointed, on which there came to the church of the monastery, festively decorated, the said most illustrious bishop with many canons and priests, the governors of the city, a vast number of nobles, and an innumerable multitude of people. There came too the most illustrious lord Lorenzo Campeggi, first bishop of Cesena, then of Senigallia, whom, as at that time governor of Urbino and its dominions, no small crowd of his courtiers and citizens accompanied. The bodies of both Blessed women, clothed in silken garments and adorned with rays and a diadem, were exposed at the grating upon a raised platform amid burning tapers and most sweet singing, and each according to his piety venerated them, and the most illustrious bishop of Pesaro celebrated Mass.

[61] and in 1630 with solemn state About two years after, namely in the year 1630, there followed another exposition of the bodies no less solemn. The occasion was given by the various calamities of war, plague, famine and earthquakes, by which the chief cities and provinces of Italy were pressed, as Gallucci reports in chapter 6, where, after he had mentioned other exercises of piety of the people of Pesaro to appease God, prayers and public supplications, he describes the rest that pertains hither so distinctly and accurately that, if he was not present himself, he may at least be thought to have learned them from another who was present at each thing. Of these things too I informed the reader in the Commentary on the Acts of Bl. Seraphina, §2. But since there I translated into Latin the Italian narration of the said author, here I shall again run through only its chief heads in passing. So many calamities pressing, the inhabitants of the city of Pesaro, through their chancellor, urged both the nuns and the abbess and the vicar general of the bishop (for the bishop was absent) that the bodies of BB. Felix and Seraphina should be exposed for public veneration. They obtained their wish.

[62] At the command of the said vicar general and of the magistrate of the city, and with the magistrate, clergy and religious Orders assisting: all the rectors of the churches of the whole diocese and territory of Pesaro were admonished to invite and rouse their people to the solemn exposition, to be made on the feast day of SS. Peter and Paul and on the following, which was a Sunday; for one would not have sufficed for the concourse of peoples, which the whole course of the narration indicates to have been immense. There came besides, on the appointed days, the governors of the city with the nobility, the vicar general and the whole clergy, who in the manner of suppliants in an ordered procession recited litanies and psalms with a mournful sound, and as suppliants venerated the bodies, raised and adorned in almost the same manner as had been done in the year 1628. The religious Orders did the same, and the Dominican fathers in particular are said to have been present on both days after vespers with the company of the confraternity of the holy Rosary, and the Franciscans with the congregation of the third Order.

[63] Finally the sight of the sacred bodies affected all with such sweetness and with such a feeling of piety, at length so placed that they can be beheld at any time. and the matter was carried through with such approval of all, that the governors of the city and the officers of health devised a way of enjoying that sight more easily and more frequently. It was determined therefore to construct on either side of the high altar windows fitted with iron gratings, through which, the wooden shutters being raised, the bodies might be beheld both by the nuns in the choir and by the pious faithful in the church: and this, after various consultations of theologians instituted at the bishop's command, was carried into execution. There were besides set before each reliquary lamps, which, so long as the pestilence should go on raging, should burn at the common expense of the city. These things, but much more fully, are in Gallucci in Italian, chapter 6 and the two following, and among us for the most part in Latin in the Commentary on Bl. Seraphina, §2.

§ VII. The immemorial cult of BB. Felix and Seraphina, and that of the latter in particular lately approved by the Roman See and increased by the grant of an Office; miracles common to both.

The veneration of princes and prelates towards the Blessed women. Gallucci, having reported the things which we have brought forward in the preceding §, so far as seemed necessary, discourses at greater length in chapter 9 about the veneration and piety towards BB. Felix and Seraphina, especially of illustrious persons, which matter we too treated in Bl. Seraphina, §3, where, in the very words of Gallucci translated into Latin, we listed some of those persons and set forth what examples of this veneration and piety they particularly gave. Among these we said were the most serene Claudia de' Medici, archduchess of Austria, princess of Urbino and lady of Pesaro; her own brother Cosimo II, grand duke of Tuscany; the most Eminent Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church Sacchetti and Colonna; the most illustrious lords Cenci and Mattei, the former then bishop of Jesi, the latter vice-legate of the most Eminent Cardinal Barberini. That others eminent in dignity could have been added Gallucci testifies, but they were passed over in silence for brevity's sake. Then he recalls to memory the aforenamed dukes of Urbino, Guidobaldo della Rovere and Vittoria Farnese, who out of a feeling of devotion chose burial for themselves and their daughters in the monastery of Corpus Christi; finally he concludes that such is the veneration and piety of the men of Pesaro of every state and condition towards them, that by an antonomastic expression they have been wont to be called simply the Blessed women of Pesaro.

[65] The immemorial cult of both Let it now be permitted to gather briefly into one the things which we have brought forward here and there, both here and in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of Bl. Seraphina, as suitable for demonstrating that the cult of Bl. Felix is ancient, uninterrupted and lawful, and such as could be continued without infringing the decree of Urban VIII, supreme Pontiff. That it began from her very death is urged by the miracles or benefits which were divinely wrought at her intercession while she was still living and at her invocation when not long dead: it is urged by the unwonted whiteness and most sweet odour of her body left above ground for two days, drawing a most crowded multitude of the people to veneration: likewise by the finding of that same body after three years with a like odour

and entire. The perseverance of the cult is proved by the exposition of the body at fixed times for the veneration of the people, confirmed by the benefits to be mentioned hereafter: by the translation of it with the body of Bl. Seraphina into marble mausolea on either side of the choir, and by the continuation of the said exposition and of the benefits which we gave in the Commentary on Bl. Seraphina, received at the common invocation of both.

[66] is gathered from what has been said here and in the Commentary Finally, that the cult was lawful, and such as could be retained after the decree of Urban, we are bidden to judge by the solemn showing of the sacred bodies made in the year 1628, with bishops approving and assisting; by the other like showing of the year 1630, and by the construction of the two windows which followed and the placing of lamps before the reliquaries, which was approved by the sentence passed by the vicar general and by many theologians assembled several times, and reported by us in Latin from Gallucci in the Commentary on Bl. Seraphina, number 18, in these words: They resolved by common consent that the desire of the city should be satisfied, and that the said windows should be built with lamps, through which those venerable bodies might be seen, honoured, venerated and their intercession implored publicly and privately, in this and in every other case in times to come, according to the ancient custom of past times, and that with all the magnificence of lights, apparatus and similar ornaments which might befit blessed bodies, except altars, Mass, the divine Office and other things of that kind which may not be paid to them without special leave of the holy Apostolic See.

[67] on Bl. Seraphina: whose cult I shall not repeat here what I observed in the Commentary on Bl. Seraphina upon that judgment of the Vicar general and the theologians, especially upon these words: according to the ancient custom of past times, … except altars, Mass, the divine Office, by which an immemorial cult is openly asserted, and care is taken that without the special leave of the Apostolic See BB. Felix and Seraphina be not honoured with any other rite than that with which they had hitherto been lawfully honoured. But I cannot but transfer hither the decree given by the sacred Congregation of Rites in the cause of Bl. Seraphina in the year 1754, as wonderfully confirming, not to say making certain, our observation. It was communicated to us by the Very Reverend Father Hermann Janssens, of the Order of the Friars Minor Recollect, jubilate lecturer of sacred theology and ex-provincial of the province of Lower Germany, and runs thus:

Decree of Pesaro.

Of the Canonization

of Bl. Seraphina Sforza, the Apostolic See lately approved professed nun in the monastery of the Lord's Body at Pesaro of the Order of St. Clare.

Whereas by the ordinary sacred Congregation of Rites on the XV day of July MDCCLII, on the report of the most Eminent and most Reverend Lord Cardinal Colonna di Sciarra, the ponens, the commission for the Introduction of the Cause of blessed Seraphina Sforza was admitted, and afterwards signed by our most Holy Lord Benedict XIV, according to the tenor of the aforesaid Commission, at the instance of the postulator there was proposed by the same most Eminent ponens, and discussed in the sacred Congregation appointed, the doubt written below: Whether the sentence passed by the most Reverend bishop of Pesaro upon the public cult shown from immemorial time to the aforesaid Blessed one, or upon the case excepted from the decrees of Pope Urban VIII of happy memory, is to be confirmed in this case and to this effect, etc. And that same sacred Congregation, having heard the Reverend Father Lord Louis de Valentibus, Promoter of the Faith, who set forth his opinion by word and in writing, judged that answer should be made: In the affirmative: if it shall seem good to our most Holy Lord. On the XIII day of July MDCCLIV.

And a report of the aforesaid having then been made by me, the secretary, to the same our most holy Lord, his Holiness graciously assented. On the XVII day of the same month and year MDCCLIV.

D. F. Cardinal Tamburini, Prefect.

In place of the ✠ seal.

M. Marefoschi, secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites.

[69] These things indeed for Seraphina alone, who is here surnamed Sforza, and granted an Office of her to the diocese of Pesaro, namely from Alessandro Sforza, once her husband, lord of Pesaro, and who has been called by us of Montefeltro from her father's stock, by others also Colonna from her mother's family. These things, I say, concern Seraphina alone; but how apt they are for establishing, for our plan, the immemorial cult of Bl. Felix, everyone sees. Further, our third volume of September, in which Bl. Seraphina was treated, had already been published since the year 1750, and therefore that decree, about four years later, was laid aside, either to be reported among the Appendices of the said month of September, or to be exhibited when a fitting occasion should be given, than which indeed, in my judgment, none more fitting could be given than while treating of Bl. Felix, with whom for so long she had a common cult. Hence we join to it another decree, by which a new splendour was added in the following year to the cult and glory on earth of the same Bl. Seraphina.

On the feast of Bl. Seraphina Sforza, professed nun of the monastery of the Lord's Body at Pesaro, of the Order of St. Clare.

Prayer. O God, who through Bl. Seraphina, etc.

Of Pesaro.

Humble prayers having been presented to the sacred Congregation of Rites by duke Filippo Sforza Cesarini, that it would deign to grant the Office and Mass from the common of neither virgins nor martyrs, with the above-said proper Prayer of Bl. Seraphina Sforza, professed nun of the monastery of the Lord's Body at Pesaro of the Order of St. Clare, to the city and diocese of Pesaro, and also to the whole Order of Minors of St. Francis, and moreover to the churches and oratories which are of the right of patronage of the aforesaid duke, under the rite of a lesser double:

[70] and to the whole Order of St. Francis, The sacred Congregation, on the report of the most Eminent and most Reverend lord Cardinal Colonna di Sciarra, the ponens, having first heard the Reverend Father Lord Benedict Veterani, Promoter of the Faith, graciously answered: Grant made, as to the city only, under the rite of a lesser double; but as regards the diocese of Pesaro and also the Order of Minors and the proper oratories and the chief churches of the petitioner's fiefs, under the rite of a semidouble only, on the first unimpeded day, to be designated by the ordinary of the places, if it shall please our most holy Lord. On the XXIX day of November MDCCLV.

And a report of the aforesaid having then been made by me, the secretary, to the same our most holy Lord, his Holiness graciously assented. On the X day of December MDCCLV.

D. F. Tamburini, Prefect.

M. Marefoschi, secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites.

I attest the agreement word for word with the authentic copy, this XXII of June MDCCLVI. F. H. Janssens, of the Order of the Friars Minor Recollect, sworn Apostolic notary. Finally in the year 1759 proper lessons of the second Nocturn were offered to the sacred Congregation of Rites and, with the assent of our most holy Lord Clement XIII, who happily presides over the universal Church of Christ, were approved and permitted to be recited. We subjoin the printed copy with the annexed Decree, communicated to us by the same Very Reverend Father Hermann Janssens:

Prayer. O God, who through blessed Seraphina hast granted us an outstanding example of patience: grant to thy suppliants that we may both be instructed by her examples and be delivered by her patronage from all adversities. Through our Lord, etc.

In the II Nocturn. Lesson IV. Seraphina, born at Urbino of the highest family, her father being Guidantonio, count of Urbino and of Montefeltro, her mother Catherine Colonna, from her earliest age gave no obscure proofs of future sanctity. As a girl, having lost her parents, brought up piously and liberally in the house of the Colonna, she plainly showed that even in the very splendour of a family the solid foundations of excellent virtue can be laid. For by her contempt of vain glory and of fleeting things, by the sweetness of her manners, by her illustrious continence, by her love of solitude and her assiduity in prayer, she was an example and a wonder to others. Afterwards, at the exhortation of those to whose faith and care she had committed herself, being married to Alessandro Sforza, lord of Pesaro and grand constable of the kingdom of Sicily, she excellently sustained the office and dignity of a Mother of a family; and, her husband being absent, she so ruled for some time that region subject to her that all celebrated her providence, equity and justice, and looked up to the innocence and integrity of her manners.

[72] Lesson V. Although renowned for so many endowments of mind, she yet fell into her husband's displeasure; and, being assailed with grave injuries, which she bore most patiently, at length with her husband's consent proper to the second Nocturn, she betook herself to the Pesaro monastery of the Franciscan virgins of Corpus Christi; where she so pursued the most chastened institution of life which she had entered upon, that by her pious and homely intercourse the sisters were kindled to the pursuit of piety. With her husband's consent she bound her faith to God by solemn vows, and, unmoved in her holy purpose, cultivated every kind of virtue. She kept the Rules of the institute, even those which were held least; she bore all adversities constantly and patiently, poured out prayers to God continually, was always present at the divine Offices; she cultivated poverty; she undertook all abject duties; finally she never spared herself, as if she burned with the utmost hatred against herself.

[73] Lesson VI. Elected Abbess by the votes of all the sisters, which are here recited it can scarcely be told with what prudence, charity and evenness, with what ardour for guarding discipline, and finally with what applause of all she held the dignity and abundantly fulfilled the parts of the government entrusted to her. When she had lived eighteen years in the sacred monastery in such a way that nothing seemed wanting to her for consummate virtue, being seized with her last illness and fortified with the Sacraments of the Church, on the sixth of the Ides of September in the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight she passed to heaven. And this seemed in a manner to have happened by the disposition of the divine counsel, that she who had given herself wholly to the patronage of the blessed Virgin Mary, being led forth from the narrow bounds of the body on the birthday of that same Mother of God, might most auspiciously rise in heaven. Her very body, which for three days remained unburied because of the citizens flocking to fulfil their piety, is honoured at Pesaro with singular veneration. Which cult indeed, already carried down from immemorial time to our age, Benedict XIV, supreme Pontiff, duly approved.

[74] Decree of Pesaro. An Office and Mass with a proper prayer in honour of blessed Seraphina Sforza having been granted by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on the XXIX day of November of the year MDCCLV, with the annexed decree. upon new humble prayers now presented to the Sacred Congregation by duke Filippo Sforza Cesarini, postulator of the Cause, for the approbation of proper lessons of the second Nocturn; the Sacred Congregation, on the report of the most Eminent and most Reverend lord Cardinal Colonna di Sciarra, the ponens, having also heard in writing and by word the Reverend Father Lord Benedict Veterani, Promoter of the Faith, graciously approved the above-written lessons, accurately revised, and moreover granted that every year in memory of the same Blessed one those same lessons may and can be recited by those to whom by Apostolic indult the Office of that Blessed one from the Common has been granted, if it shall seem good to our most holy Lord. On the XXVI day of August MDCCLVIII.

And a report of the aforesaid having then been made by me, the undersigned secretary, to our most holy Lord Pope Clement XIII, his Holiness graciously assented. On the 2nd day of September MDCCLVIII.

D. F. Cardinal Tamburini, Prefect.

Place of the ✠ seal.

M. Marefoschi, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

The Office recited, as the said Very Reverend Father Hermann Janssens testifies, is placed in the Directory of the Order of Minors for the whole Order at the IX of September, to which

day in the Roman Directory of the Order for the year 1758 there is also the following Elogium to be chanted in the Martyrology: At Pesaro: of blessed Seraphina, Widow, of the Order of St. Clare, illustrious for the renown of her blood, for her virtues, and especially for her wonderful patience in adversities, and for miracles: who on the day before this day flew away to heaven, and whose incorrupt body is there honoured with pious cult in the monastery which she had most holily ruled. Whoever shall have considered the favour granted by the Apostolic See to the petitioners in the cause of Bl. Seraphina, and shall at the same time have compared the things which we have brought forward both here and in volume III of September about the deeds in life of BB. Felix and Seraphina, about their miracles or benefits, common and particular, and about the cult shown them before the said decrees, will not need to be told that the way is open for seeking a like favour for Bl. Felix, whom, like Bl. Seraphina, the people of Pesaro call by antonomasia their Blessed one, and whom besides the nuns of the Lord's Body acknowledge as their first Abbess and in that sense their Foundress.

[75] Miracles common to both The miracles or benefits of which we spoke just now, common to both Blessed women, that is, wrought at the common invocation of both, Gallucci asserts in chapter 1 of part 3 to be many, and declares six in particular, which we gave translated into Latin in volume III of September from page 323. The first happened between the years 1516 and 1522, when both Blessed women were seen with St. Terentius the martyr walking about the walls by night and guarding the city of Pesaro against enemies. The second in the year 1550, in which, being invoked by a woman almost brought to her last end by the straits of childbirth, they appeared and promised her offspring and health, as within a few days came to pass. The third in 1587, and it was their apparition to a noble man, formerly devoted to them, but then driven to despair by the trouble of an infirmity curable by no remedy: and they consoled him and called him back to trust in God, and ordered that the tribulations or hardships hanging over two nuns should be made known to them. The noble man recovered, and the nuns shortly after bore patiently the tribulations divinely foretold.

[76] are reported in compendium. The fourth and fifth in 1598, in which one man, crushed by a loaded wagon and in the judgment of all dead, on the help of the Blessed women being implored, escaped unhurt; another, labouring under a grievous headache, was suddenly healed. The sixth Gallucci testifies was wrought upon himself. In the year 1615 he had been seized with a fever, and had been afflicted by it for about two years with such failing of strength that he was believed to have fallen into consumption; he came to Pesaro, commended himself to the intercession of the Blessed women, and a little after obtained entire health. To the six accounts just contracted into a compendium we joined in the Appendix to the Acts of Bl. Seraphina two which Gallucci had expanded much more amply. The first, which occupied the whole of the second and third chapters, contains the flight and deliverance of a noble man of Pesaro from captivity among the Moors, with BB. Felix and Seraphina patronizing and appearing to him; the second, which Gallucci had inserted into his sixth chapter, the wonderful healing of the nuns' confessor when grievously wounded. These things about the common miracles, as I said; but the particular miracles and benefits ascribed to Bl. Felix alone I shall subjoin, translated from the Italian into Latin, to the Compendium of the Life.

COMPENDIUM OF THE LIFE

By an anonymous author

Transmitted to us from the monastery of Corpus Christi of the Poor Clares of Pesaro.

Felix de Meda, virgin and abbess of the Order of St. Clare, at Pesaro in the duchy of Urbino. (B.)

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

The Blessed one's birth; At Meda ^a, of both parents renowned for nobility, was born Bl. Felix ^b; and scarcely born and still lisping, she gave no obscure signs of sanctity. In her still tender years she showed herself noble, not so much by family as by manners. Hence, as her parents noted in her a shining sanctity, so they were moved to admiration. Bereaved of both parents when already of marriageable age, together with her full brother and her uterine sister, having voluntarily stripped herself of all her goods, as being distributed for the relief of the poor, and he having taken the Franciscan habit, Felix with her sister was clothed in the habit of the Poor Clares in the monastery of St. Ursula of the Order of St. Clare ^c.

[2] Four years having elapsed, her sister being called to the heavenly ones, Felix took up a stricter norm of living, her religious life; and dedicated herself wholly to God. How far she advanced in the perfection of life, the harshnesses, austerities, abstinences, fastings and vigils with which she afflicted her own body openly proved. She shone in humility, was renowned for obedience; renowned too for the fame of her sanctity. The mean exercises of the monastery she performed with a most joyful spirit, as though she were performing royal ones. Illustrious for such advancement, she was harassed by various temptations, diabolical spectres and illusions, over all which she always made herself superior, either by prayer, to which she was always given, or by holy water, or by those sacred words: "O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me."

[3] After XXV years of religion she is elected (though resisting) abbess of her monastery ^d: her government of the Milanese monastery in which office she so shone that her radiance spread through all Italy. She shone with wonderful prudence and example in governing; and made that same monastery wonderfully illustrious for XV years by her excellent laws and examples. Moved by all these things, the most illustrious Battista Malatesta ^e and her daughter Elisabeth ^f most urgently asked this Virgin from the most holy man Bernardino of Siena ^g, then commissary general on this side of the mountains, that she might give a rule and a norm of living to the monastery which they were building in honour of Corpus Christi; nay, that she might also preside over it.

[4] Obeying a precept of obedience ^h, she betook herself on foot to Pesaro, and of the monastery of Pesaro; her death; and there for four years most holily presided over the newly built monastery: in which place, while still living, she once obtained health from the Lord for the most illustrious Elisabeth ⁱ, and foretold by the prophetic spirit very many things still to come, which nevertheless most certainly afterwards happened. The four years being completed, she fell into sickness, and on the XXX day of September of the year MCCCCXLIV, and in the LXVI year of her age, passed to her Spouse, to be crowned by him for ever.

[5] After her death she flashed with many miracles; for the city of Pesaro was several times freed from plague by the intercession of this most holy Virgin ^k. her miracles. A certain young woman of Pesaro named Paula, abandoned by the physicians on account of a certain incurable disease in her throat, received health by the merits of Bl. Felix. The son of a certain physician, having his hands and arms drawn up and as it were withered, being led to the Virgin's tomb by his father, to whom the Virgin appeared, was suddenly healed. There are several others which are related at large by Father Gallucci in the Life of Bl. Felix written in Italian, chapter XVI ^l. Moreover all these things have been related ^m by Marcos of Lisbon, part 3 of the Chronicles of the Minors, book 2, chapter 21; Gonzaga, part 2, in the aforesaid monastery, which is the XIII of the province of the March; and others in Arthur in his Martyrology at the XXX day of September. Her body, taken up and laid in a marble chest, was placed on the left of the high altar, and there, incorrupt, is venerated by the faithful people ⁿ.

ANNOTATIONS.

MIRACLES

Taken from the Italian book of Father Agostino Gallucci and rendered into Latin.

Felix de Meda, virgin and abbess of the Order of St. Clare, at Pesaro in the duchy of Urbino. (B.)

BY GALLUCCI.

By the Blessed one's merits Pesaro It has already been said of Bl. Felix that while surviving among the living she by her prayers delivered the lady Elisabeth from a deadly disease ^a, and the city of Pesaro not only from enemies but also from the corruption of the air for XIV years ^b. Let us now say that after that time had elapsed, the contagion returning again to Pesaro, and the intercession of Bl. Felix being again implored, it obtained the favour of immunity not once but twice. Nay, when a third contagion came on, universal and so pestilent (perhaps on account of their own offences) that within the space of two days a very great number of the infected died; when the magistrate made a vow to take care that on the day of her Bl. Felix's death a Mass should be sung in her church, and to order that in that year the same day should be kept as a feast, she so suddenly obtained the favour that it could thence be perceived how acceptable she was with God and how kindly towards that people: and both the people and the same magistrate, fulfilling whatever had been promised, rendered infinite thanks to the Lord and to their Saviouress for so notable a favour.

[2] Not many years after, a like intemperance of the air returning, is several times freed from contagious pestilence; so that many died who could be healed by no human medicines, it was determined to have recourse to heavenly ones. The lord standard-bearer ^c and the rest of the magistrate betook themselves to the monastery of Corpus Christi, and while the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist was exposed there and the prayers of forty hours were being held, they prayed the Lord that through the merits of Bl. Felix he would deign to grant them safety. The other noble men and citizens, both ecclesiastical and secular, did the same with all the rest of the people, and they obtained their wish ^d.

[3] One of the nuns whom Bl. Felix had as companions from Milan to Pesaro, a nun with a grievous pain in the shoulder suffering now for several years an excessive pain in her shoulder, and finding no remedy for mitigating, much less removing it, one morning while she was assisting at the sacrifice of the Mass and was tortured more than ever before, began to think that health would be restored to her if only she touched that sacred body. When presently

after the sacrifice of the Mass she had communicated with the abbess, who likewise was one of the same companions, she obtained that leave from her and from the Blessed one entire health; so indeed that for the XX years during which she survived she never felt any pain: whence both they and all the nuns together gave infinite thanks to the divine Majesty and to Bl. Felix.

[4] A young woman of Pesaro named Paula, wife of master Jacopo Benciviene, and a woman labouring under a deadly disease of the throat, afflicted with a disease of the throat so grave that the physicians judged it mortal, commended herself with her whole heart to the Blessed one, and promising that on the feast of the most holy Body of Christ, to be celebrated not long after, she would bring her a waxen head and a candle, deserved to be heard, and most promptly fulfilled her vow.

[5] A physician of Sant' Elpidio, hired at a yearly salary by the city of Pesaro, a boy crippled in the arms had a little son for many years now crippled in the arms and as it were withered. Finding no remedy for the said evil, he has recourse to the religious women of the monastery of Corpus Christi, beseeching them to deign to give him opportunity of seeing the body of Bl. Felix: he obtained it: and kindled with the greatest piety towards her, he deserved to behold her appearing to him and bringing him much consolation with a promise of health to be obtained for his little son. The next morning he led his boy to venerate the sacred body; and the boy, fallen on his knees there, suddenly began to move his arms, and within a few days, the same act of piety being continued, came out entirely free ^e.

[6] and a nun with a foot very badly affected, are healed; A nun of the same convent, having a foot so badly affected that it had to be amputated, took refuge in the intercession of this Blessed one, and when she had applied a little of her dust to the sore, was wholly healed. Several other nuns, troubled with continual headache, were freed by the same intercession, and ever remained in devotion to her.

[7] others afflicted with other evils A citizen of Pesaro, called Antonio son of master Bernardino ^f, was suffering from pleurisy with manifest danger of death; piously commending himself to the Blessed one and promising by vow a painted likeness of himself, he obtained the health he desired.

[8] and brought to their last extremity At Pesaro Margaret, wife of Ventura Vasaro ^g, being with child and suffering a miscarriage before the time of bearing, fell into such a symptom that she was held for dead by the physicians. Therefore her husband took refuge with blessed Felix, and vowing that, if she were healed, he would bring a waxen image equalling her height, deserved to obtain the benefit, and fulfilled his vow.

[9] recover health. Brother Peter of Modena, guardian of the Observants of Pesaro ^h, was so sick with pleurisy that the physicians despaired of his life ⁱ; hearing which, the abbess presently ordered all the nuns to assemble and enjoined them to commend that father's health to blessed Felix: and when they did this with great alacrity, in the morning news was brought that the aforesaid guardian was so much better that he was out of danger.

[10] A young girl of Pesaro was for a long time at the point of death, so that it was not known whether she was alive or dead. The girl's grandmother, piously affected towards the Blessed one, presently sent the sisters two blessed candles, praying that they would light them at the sacred body at the time when they recited the morning Office, and would pour out prayers for the sick girl; and while they were doing this, the dying girl began to speak, and, to the wonder of all, was shortly healed.

[11] A woman is snatched from shipwreck When Agatha of Pisa, an inhabitant of Pesaro, was sailing on the sea, there came on so horrible a tempest that all who were in the ship believed they would be drowned. In such a state the woman remembered Bl. Felix, and, committing herself with great affection of mind to her patronage, vowed that she would offer a torch of white wax to her body if she were carried back to Pesaro. Immediately the sky was clear and the sea calm, and all escaped, giving thanks to God and to their Patroness.

[12] and from the danger of death by a fall. At another time the same woman, having gone up on a floor high indeed but so weak that it gave way beneath her, fell headlong with so violent a fall that she was believed dead by all; but at that very moment of time, invoking Bl. Felix from her heart, she presently rose unhurt and whole: and in testimony of a grateful mind she ordered the likeness of her Deliverer to be painted, which she offered to the nuns, and which to this day is seen in their church ^k.

[13] A certain sister of the monastery, snatching up a pot full of boiling water, other benefits by accident poured it all over her hand: whence, afflicted with intolerable torment, invoking the Blessed one in her heart and touching her with her hand, she remained free and unhurt.

[14] In the year of the Lord MDXX, while the sisters were praying in the church, the Poor Clares of Pesaro ascribe a thunderbolt fell from heaven upon the wall with such a crash that all believed themselves doomed to death. Nevertheless with most fervent affection they kept invoking the Blessed one, and the thunderbolt, breaking through the wall, went out without harm to anything.

[15] to her. The sacristan of the monastery, wishing to learn the manner of striking the new fire, when Holy Saturday came, began to strike the tinder-box over a box in which there was much nitre powder; and it caught fire with such violence that the other nuns, perceiving the noise and seeing the smoke, thought that the sacristy was burning: and nothing else followed: since the sacristan, invoking Bl. Felix in her heart, remained free from the fire which had blackened her whole face, and the sacristy immune from all harm ^l.

ANNOTATIONS.

recovered from their diseases through her merits, and two possessed persons were freed.