CONCERNING SAINT CECHARDUS, BISHOP OF LUNI AND MARTYR AT CARRARA IN TUSCANY.
BEFORE THE 10TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Concerning the place, time & occasion of the Martyrdom, & the present cult of the holy body.
Cechardus, Bishop of Luni Martyr at Carrara in Tuscany (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The farthest tract of Etruria toward Liguria ends in the Lunense territory, commonly called la Lunigiana; to which the name was given by a city once most ample, & on account of the capacity of its port most opportune for merchandise, In the Lunense, but now utterly destroyed, so much so that scarcely slight traces remain, which would persuade that there had been a habitation of men there, so unhealthful is the air there; yet the title of the Lunense Bishopric remained, beyond the times of Nicholas V; who about the middle of the 15th century (as Ughelli writes, vol. 1 col. 923) united the Lunense church with the Sarzanense in perpetuity, instituted under the year 1204 by Innocent III, now in the diocese of Sarzana, with the denomination of both Churches. Yet the older denomination was not long-lasting, since with the relics of old Luni vanishing more & more, that too quickly ceased. Sarzana is distant from the sea-shore about three thousand paces, & at the same or a little greater distance is situated Massa; toward the borders of the Grand Duchy, at 12 thousand paces, withdrawing from Sarzana, the Principal Seat of the most noble family of the Cybo: but midway between both on the road, but a little farther than both of those from the shore, is placed Carrara, now also distinguished by the title of Principality, & united with the Massano.
[2] This Leander Alberti, after Volaterranus, compares with Carrea, a Cisalpine town of Liguria in Pliny, Carrara situated, but he does not persuade: for Carrara, farther removed from the Alps, is enclosed in Tuscany. The same Leander makes it even less likely, that the name is so ancient, that its etymology must be sought from the old language of the Etruscans, in which Luna is said to have been called Cariara, which is feigned as gratuitously, as it is certain that no knowledge of that language survives in books. Therefore, as the name is more recent, so I think the etymology to be: & just as at Florence la Carraya is called of a certain bridge, through which most frequent Carts (Carri) cross the Arno, in Latin we would call it Carraria; so also there from the same cause I judge the town to be called, because the chief means of livelihood for the inhabitants consists in providing carts, for the transport of marbles, of which the greatest abundance is dug out in the mountains situated at 4 & 5 thousand paces above Carrara, & which thence are carried through the Laventina valley to the sea, to be put on ships about to distribute through all Europe those most white stones, which we call Carrara marbles, & esteem above alabaster.
[3] In that town the chief church, distinguished by the Priorial title, is of S. Andrew; where in a marble chest S. Cechardus is honored, on this day S. Cechardus Bishop & Martyr is venerated with this inscription: Here lies the body of B. Cechardus, Bishop of Luni, who suffered Martyrdom in the year 600. So Ughelli, in the Bishops of Luni & Sarzana, vol. 1 of Sacred Italy col. 894; adding, that kindled with zeal for the faith, when he had reproved the manners of depraved men by word & example, seized by the savage men, he was beaten so long with clubs until he gave up his spirit… But in that place, where he suffered Martyrdom, there stands a spring in a little shrine, whose water is reported to benefit those laboring with fever & pain of the head up to the present day. It is called the Spring of S. Cechardus: & his memory is celebrated 16 June in that same church. Thus far Ughelli, with words transcribed from the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy of Philip Ferrari, alleging the Lessons & Offices of the Church of Luni, as well as the Catalogue of the Saints of Luni of Hippolytus Landinelli, of which we have seen nothing as yet. The same in the general Catalogue of those who are lacking in the Roman Martyrology again mentions Cechardus: but he notes the body to be at Massa, the town nearest in the territory of the Carrarians, not sufficiently mindful of what he wrote elsewhere. Perhaps there are some relics there: Antonius Pauli Masini in his "Bologna surveyed" asserts that there are also some of Seardus at Bologna among the Canons Regular of S. John on the mountain.
[4] I received under the year 1675, through our P. Peter Possinus, then living at Rome, translated into a new chest, about the year 1600 fuller information about that Saint, sent from Sarzana: in which it is said, that the translation was made on the same day on which he is now venerated, from the old into that new chest, about the end of the preceding century or the beginning of the following; & so in the time of John Baptist Salvagi, from the year 1590 to 1631 Bishop of Sarzana; who found all the bones whole, but the head wrapped apart in a most fine veil, nor in any part notably injured: & when out of his devotion he wished to extract a tooth from the upper jaw, blood began thereupon to flow; & therefore the Bishop desisted from his undertaking, & left the tooth in its place, which even now is seen bloody: not without the miracle of the tooth dripping blood. upon which miracle Francis Berettari played with this Epigram of this kind.
Cechardus had not yet sated the weapons of the tyrant, Nor was impiety itself sufficiently drowned in gore: And so that he might empty it the more, & render his work of love more gratefully before God; Nature marveling, after ten ages, through his dry bones he wills even a wave of blood to flow.
[5] There are named by Ughelli up to Severus, who in the year 680 under Pope Agatho was present at a Roman synod, ten Bishops of Luni; of whom, he does not seem to have suffered in the year 600: besides this Cechardus, five altogether are venerated as Saints: Habet Deus, Terentius, Venantius, Basilius, Salarius, all alike as the others with Latin or Greek names. After those they come with Lombard names, the whole nation certainly more than fifty years Catholic: Lentechorius, Theudolasius, Gualcharius, Odelbertus, Anselmus, Adelbertus, Gotofredus etc. Hence deservedly suspect to me is the conjecture, which refers the Martyrdom of S. Cechardus (which name is certainly Lombard) to the year 600. As if about that time Luni was occupied by the Lombards, with a promiscuous slaughter of Clergy & people, which involved even the Bishop of the place; which is not unlike the truth (for the city, powerful by their forces & near to the sea & to the aids to be received thence, could have resisted up to that time) but that the Bishop then slaughtered was Cechardus can by no means seem probable to me: rather I would say this of S. Salarius, who before the aforementioned Severus is named the fourth, of whom there stands in the area of the port of Luni between Eryx & the camp of S. Terentius a church with a village, in which place he is believed to have suffered Martyrdom, & his solemnity is held on 22 October.
[6] The information sent to us indicates another disaster of the city, perpetrated by Hastingus Duke of the Danes or Normans, nor is this he whom Hastingus the Norman is said to have killed, after the Gauls had been ravaged with impunity, aspiring to Rome; those barbarians using a sacrilegious pretense as if their Duke were extremely sick, he sought peace from those prepared to sustain war, & at the same time baptism; both of which being obtained, he feigned himself even dead; whom as such, to celebrate his obsequies by Christian rite, a numerous procession of Pagans brought into the city; & in the church itself, while the Bishop was performing the sacred rites, & the rest suspecting nothing less, he brought out arms hidden for this; & so made the city of his power, & having despoiled it burned it with fire; the Bishop Cechardus having escaped to the Carrarian mountains, who there led an almost eremitical life for some time, & from the alpine & rude common folk, impatient of his admonitions, suffered death by his head being cut off. The trick devised by that Hastingus in the destruction of the people of Luni, & its success, Dudo, Dean of S. Quentin, describes at length, in book 1 On the Customs & deeds of the Normans, to Adalbero the Bishop, occupying the city by an impious pretense, the Bishop & Count being deceived written about the end of the 10th century; & after many things, the solemnities of the Masses, he says, being decently completed, & the Pagans gradually gathered, the Bishop ordered the body to be carried to burial. The Pagans with a great clamor sought the bier, & said alternately, that he was not to be buried. The Christians therefore stood astonished at their answers. Then Hastingus leapt up from the bier, & drew his shining sword from the scabbard. The deadly man assailed the Bishop, holding a book in his hand: he slays the Bishop, the Count also being laid low, & the Clergy standing in the church unarmed… The fighting citizens are laid low throughout the walls of the city… meanwhile the People who were over the ships arrive, the gates lying open by force: joining themselves to those fighting … they cruelly slay all, whomever they find more robust.
[7] He who described the deeds of the Normans from the year 837, up to 96, an uncertain Author, names various Kings of the Normans; in the year 891: who from time to time arranged the expeditions of their men in person, no particular Dukes; whom however it must be that they often had, when the Kings remained at home; no Dukes, I say, does that Author name before Rollo, at whose beginnings he ends. Regino Abbot of Prüm in his Chronicle, having embraced the 9th & 10th century, ascribes the first naval expedition of the Normans into Gaul to the year 853, the second, of which Hastingus was Duke, to the year 867: & again he mentions the same, when carrying on affairs with the Bretons in Armorica, in the year 74. William Monk of Jumièges, who carried the History of the Normans up to the year 1137, for this seems to have been Gualcherius: book 10 chap. 10 narrates, how Hastingus, given by Lothroc King of Denmark as tutor to his son Bier, & sent on expedition from the year 851 for thirty continuous following years, infested the Gauls; but at last extending himself to farther counsels, deliberated to obtain Rome by a clandestine incursion (certainly in the year 891, when the new Duke Rollo had burst into Gaul, equipped with another fleet & another army) but driven by a storm, he landed at Luni & did there what Dudo narrates. This being supposed, him, who is then said to have been beheaded in the church, the Bishop, I would say to have been Gualcherius; for about the same time that man must have held the Church of Luni, since of him it is read, that he received a most ample privilege for his church from Charles the Fat the emperor: this man reigned from the year 881 to 888.
[8] These & other privileges of preceding Kings & Emperors King Berengar of Italy renewed & confirmed, but the successor of this man before Odelbertus & in the year 895: at Pavia on the 9th of the Kalends of June, in the 12th year of his reign & thus in the year of Christ 895, in the 13th Indiction, not indeed (as it was badly written in cipher by Ughelli) in the year 890, Indiction 3: which neither agree among themselves, nor with the years of Berengar, expressed in Latin numerals, & therefore more certain by the transcriber. But Berengar renewed the aforesaid Privileges, just as Odelbertus asked of him, Bishop of the holy Church of Luni, who survived up to the year 941 & beyond; whence, & from the fact that it is probable, that he asked such a favor at the beginning of his Episcopate, I conjecture that he was made Bishop, killed near the Carrarian quarries. in that same year 895 or the preceding. But the space between this year & the year of the Bishop Gualcherius killed by Hastingus, I would think can be given to S. Cechardus: who soon after the departure of the Normans being elected, was occupied for three or four years in repairing the burned church & Episcopate: & while for the sake of caring for marbles to that end he was engaged in the Carrarian quarries, he was killed there; just as at Mechelen S. Rumold; either for the sake of the money with which he was believed to be furnished; or for zeal of justice, in urging the observance of divine or ecclesiastical laws more ardently, than the rustic barbarism could bear. However it be, I would altogether believe that the death of Cechardus did not happen before the 10th century of Christ (for after Odelbertus a fairly constant succession of the Bishops of Luni is held) nor even before the 10th century, on account of the reasons already indicated.
[9] After the Translation of the body into the new chest, there was built around it of most pure marble a chapel, His marble chapel, & cult, in the very place in which the first chest had stood, on the side of the church to those entering on the right or the horn of the Gospel; in which the feast of the Saint is most solemnly renewed every year, & very many votive offerings hung up are seen. S. Cechardus is also held Patron of the town; & recourse is had to him in necessities, both public & private, not without success of the greatest & continual graces. as Patron of Carrara. Finally there appeared in the year 1673 a heroic Poem, whose title is Luna, or Piety defrauded, a work of the aforementioned Francis Berettari; where S. Cechardus sustains the chief person of the Theater. So the information sent to us. The Poem indicated there I have not seen, whether it appeared in part 1 of the Poems, Berettari's Poems about him. which has not yet come to my hands: but there has come part 2 of those same Poems, dedicated to our most friendly Antonio Magliabechi in the year 1693, where it closes the second book with another Poem equally heroic on the festive solemnity of D. Cechardus Bishop & Martyr of Luni, whose title is Divine prayers.