ON ST. AUXANUS, BISHOP OF MILAN IN INSUBRIA, AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA.
In the year DLXVIII.
SYLLOGE.
His cult; his illustrious family; his eulogy; his date; the translation of his body.
Auxanus, bishop of Milan in Insubria (St.)
BY J. P.
The Roman Martyrology thus announces this Bishop on today's day: He is found in the Roman Martyrology, and is proved from elsewhere At Milan, the deposition of St. Auxanus the bishop. The same Saint is praised also by Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, adorning him with the following eulogy, taken, as he affirms, from the Breviary and the Tablets and the Acts of the church of Milan: Auxanus of Milan, born of the noble family of the Crivelli, was, on account of his signal piety and innocence of life, substituted by John III, supreme Pontiff, for Vitalis, bishop of Milan, who had succeeded St. Datius. And he so discharged with all zeal the parts of the office committed to him, that he greatly increased the evangelical discipline. He suffered many hardships (because at that time Alboin, king of the Lombards, besieged, took, and plundered Milan); and when he had governed the church of Milan most holily for the two years that he lived, and had proved his sanctity by miracles, he flew, leaving his body here, into the heavens on the 3rd of the Nones of September in the year of salvation DLXIX, John III being still Pontiff, and was buried in the church of St. Stephen ad Rotam.
[2] his cult: This eulogy furnishes me occasion to inquire into various matters, when I shall first have premised to them some other things concerning the public veneration of this holy Bishop. In the catalogue of Saints before the Missal, printed at Milan in the year 1522 according to the institution of the most holy … Ambrose, etc., there is written on this day the memory of St. Auxanus, archbishop of Milan. Among the proper Offices, or the proper and common lessons, printed in the year 1642 for the Saints of the church of Milan, there is placed the Office of St. Auxanus, bishop and confessor, double (in St. Stephen's), and a proper fourth lesson is subjoined. In John Francis Besozzo, in his Pontifical History of Milan, at the year 566, he is written buried in the collegiate church of St. Stephen, where with great devotion his relics are honored by the faithful. From these the public cult of this holy Bishop is sufficiently established. Concerning his illustrious family I subjoin the following.
[3] Paul Morigia, in the Italian book which he published On the Nobility of Milan, book 1, ch. 9, calls the family of the Crivelli, he is written to have been born of the illustrious Crivelli family: from which St. Auxanus is said to have drawn his origin, most illustrious and ancient. Besides this Bishop, he records that from this illustrious tree several others distinguished for holiness of life came forth, namely Bl. Alexander the hermit, an intimate of St. Ambrose, protector of the Milanese: to whom he subjoins several Crivelli, Religious of various Orders, whom he honors with the title of blessed. Then, comprising in a few words the many ornaments of this family, it has always, he says, flourished most nobly in numbers, in riches, in ranks, in dignities, and in every kind of profession of the virtues; and it has had bishops, cardinals, and supreme Pontiffs, besides men famous in war. In the sixteenth century flourished Alexander Crivelli, cardinal, whose eulogy may be read in Ciacconius, in the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, vol. 3, col. 967 and following. Him there preceded Lambert, or Humbert, or Hubert, or Obert Crivelli, who, having previously been bishop of Milan and cardinal priest of St. Lawrence in Damaso, was raised to the government of the Apostolic See in the year 1185, and was called Urban III, as is narrated in Francis Pagi's Breviary of the Roman Pontiffs, vol. 3, p. 127 and following, where the deeds done by him are related; concerning which see also Ciacconius, vol. 1, from col. 1123.
[4] In the eulogy of our Saint which I gave above from Ferrari, the Saint's eulogy, and likewise in the proper lesson just now indicated, the same holy Bishop is said to have presided over his church for two years: concerning which matter Ferrari says thus in his Annotation: Onuphrius Panvinius in his Fasti assigns three years of bishopric to Auxanus; but he confounds his times with those of his successor Honoratus. Baronius in the Annals at the year of the Lord DLXX notes that Alboin took Milan and the other cities of Insubria, of Liguria, and of the Venetias, Honoratus, bishop of Milan, having set out for Genoa in flight. From which it appears that Milan was besieged under Auxanus, but taken under Honoratus. Ughelli dissents from Ferrari, in vol. 4 of the reprinted Italia sacra, cols. 57 and 58, in these words, assigning three years to his bishopric: He was created bishop of the Milanese in the year DLXV, and for three years bore this burden, at the time when Alboin, king of the Lombards, came into Italy and occupied Cisalpine Gaul, which was DLXVII *.
[5] But in the chronological Table of the bishops of Milan, the time of his see which is found before vol. VII of May among us, there is placed as thirtieth in order the bishop St. Auxanius, in the year DLXVI, the span of his bishopric 2 years, the year of his death DLXVIII, and the day the 3rd of September. There may also be consulted in the same place the Exegesis on the same bishops, p. LXV, where St. Honoratus, who is there placed as our Saint's next successor, is also treated of. Altogether singular, and not to be followed, is Galvaneus de la Flamma in his Chronicle of Milan, or Manipulus Florum, when among the Writers of Italian Affairs published at Milan he writes these things in vol. XI, ch. 60, col. 577: Ausanus, holy archbishop of Milan, the twenty-second, is ordained in the year of the Lord DXCIV. And he sat for VIII years.
[6] and of his death: Moreover, to the placing of the year of his death at 568, Paul Warnefrid the Deacon contributes not a little, who flourished in the eighth century, in his Deeds of the Lombards, book 2, ch. 25, where these things are narrated concerning Honoratus: Alboin, therefore, entering Liguria, at the beginning of the third Indiction, on the third of the Nones of September, in the times of Honoratus the archbishop, entered Milan. Thereafter he took all the cities of Liguria except those which are set upon the seacoast. But Honoratus the archbishop, deserting Milan, fled to the city of Genoa. These things agree with the year 569, in which indeed the 2nd Indiction was running; but the third had then been begun from the month of September, after the manner of the Easterns; and thus I explain Paul the Deacon. From what has been said, therefore, it follows, first, that St. Auxanus did not die in the year 569, but in the year 568. It follows, secondly, that Milan was not besieged under Auxanus, against Ferrari cited above; but that, if a siege took place, since it does not seem to have lasted long, it is to be referred to the time of Honoratus. If a siege, I say, took place: for the authors vary in narrating the entry of the Lombards into the city of Milan and the circumstances of Honoratus' flight, as you will find related at greater length on the 8th day of February in St. Honoratus, in vol. 2 of that month, p. 164, from n. 3. It follows, thirdly, that to St. Auxanus there do not belong those many hardships which Ferrari attributed to him under Alboin in his eulogy, which was given above.
[7] the translation of his body. As regards the burial of his body, Puricelli writes that it was removed from its former place and translated with solemn rite, and more becomingly placed, in his Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica of Milan, etc., volume one, under number 475, from p. 862; where he adduces from the basilica of St. Stephen an inscription on the side wall of the choir chapel, on the left as one enters, engraved upon a marble tablet in these words: The bodies of the holy Martinian, Auxanus, and Mansuetus, archbishops of Milan; of Protasius the martyr, and of Martian the hermit: formerly buried under the old choir of this church, and removed thence on account of the new structure of the temple, and carefully recognized from ancient monuments, paintings, and traditions, Federico, Cardinal and archbishop of Milan, after their most celebrated translation in the seventh provincial synod, most numerously attended, celebrated by him, together with the bodies of the holy Arsatius, archbishop of Milan, Marinus the martyr, and Leo the hermit, which had long since been laid in that chest by Bl. Charles, Cardinal and archbishop of Milan, being enclosed with them, placed more becomingly under this altar on the day before the Kalends of June, one thousand six hundred and nine. It is worth observing, however, that difficulties have been proposed by us against the Milanese bishopric of St. Arsatius, as may be seen in the aforesaid Exegesis from p. LXI, where his most fabulous Life is discussed. He may be treated of on the 12th day of November, on which it was there said that he is venerated at Munich in Bavaria.
Annotata