Guala

ON BL. GUALA, BISHOP OF BRESCIA AND CONFESSOR OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS, IN THE ASTINO ABBEY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHER NEAR BERGAMO IN ITALY.

In the year MCCXLIV.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Gualla, bishop of Brescia, of the Order of Preachers, at Bergamo in Italy (Bl.)

BY J. L.

§ I. Account of the place; the confused announcements of more recent writers; the public veneration examined.

[ ] Not far from the city of Bergamo, toward the summer sunset, there is seen a pleasant valley, [The Blessed one, who died a holy death in the Astino monastery of the Holy Sepulcher,] which Antonius Michaël, in the little essay entitled A Description of the Territory and City of Bergamo, of the year MDXVI, supposes to have been called Astina by the inhabitants from the famous monastery which the monks of Vallombrosa, having first come thither from the town of Asti, inhabited. Marchesius, to be cited below, writes that it is two miles distant from Bergamo. Martinus Antonius Guerrinus, in the Synopsis of the Church of Bergamo, reprinted in the year 1734, p. 62, records these things concerning it: In this time of the utmost agitation, that is, about the year 1110, as appears from what goes before, the Father of all consolation raised up the hope of the good by the coming of Bertarius of Brescia, one of the disciples of saint John Gualbert, the router of the Simoniacs and the founder of the Congregation of the monks of Vallombrosa; who in the suburbs of Bergamo laid the foundations of a monastery of his Order, to the great profit of souls and of the church of Bergamo. From it very many monks were advanced to the episcopal government were called. The name of the monastery, taken from the dedication of its church, was called OF THE HOLY SEPULCHER; but its site VALLIS ASTINI from the first monks, who under Bertarius, the first abbot, are believed to have set out from the city of Asti. Blessed Guala, taken from the Order of Preachers to the bishopric of Brescia, having laid down that government, withdrew into the abbey of the Holy Sepulcher at Astino, of which we have spoken, that in it he might more freely be at leisure for the pursuits of heavenly things; in which he there died in the year 1244 with so great a reputation of sanctity, that he was endowed not only with the title of Saint and Blessed, but also, as will presently be seen, with a public cult.

[2] After the middle of the twelfth century, under the emperor Frederick I, there flourished another Guala, bishop of Bergamo, who rendered excellent service to Pope Alexander III and to the universal Church. [The monastic Martyrologists and Ferrarius confuse him wonderfully with his namesake:] Among the writers who committed his virtues and deeds to writing, several affirm that he was translated from the Astino monastery of the Congregation of Vallombrosa to the see of Bergamo. The announcements by which Wion, Dorganius, Menardus, and Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints record Guala on this day are so confused that one may doubt whether they are to be understood of our bishop of Brescia, or rather of the bishop of Bergamo. Wion uses these words: In the territory of Bergamo, in the monastery of saint Sepulcher of Astino, of the Order of Vallombrosa, of saint Guala, formerly bishop of Bergamo, and afterward a humble monk of that monastery and confessor. Dorganius is briefer: Of St. Guala, formerly bishop and afterward a humble monk. Menardus almost agrees with Wion: In the territory of Bergamo, in the monastery of saint Sepulcher of Astino, of saint Guala, bishop of Bergamo, of the Order of Vallombrosa. Ferrarius has it thus: At Bergamo, of Bl. Guala, bishop, and afterward a monk of Astino of the Order of Vallombrosa. Which Guala do these Martyrologists celebrate? The bishop of Bergamo? But nowhere is it read that he laid down his sacred office, that he returned to the monastery of Astino, and that he died or was buried there. Is it our Blessed one? But he was bishop of Brescia, not of Bergamo: nor does it seem easily to be admitted that he, of whose entrance into the Order of St. Dominic it is certainly established, after laying down the bishopric of Brescia took up the habit of the Vallombrosan monks in the abbey of Astino, deserting the institute of religious life which he had first embraced. See what will be said below at the end of the last paragraph.

[3] Although, if the bare words be attended to which I have reported from the aforesaid Martyrologists, it cannot be discerned which Guala they commemorate; yet from elsewhere it is sufficiently plain that they are treating of our Bishop of Brescia. yet it is not to be doubted that they meant to announce our Guala. In the first place Ferrarius announces him: for in his Notes he refers the reader to the Annals of Brescia of Elias Capreolus, who, he says, in book VI treats of Bl. Gualla, bishop of Brescia, of the Order of Preachers. To these he had premised that he had taken his announcement from the Monastic Martyrology, that is, from Wion, who named the Martyrology which he published Monastic Benedictine. Just as Ferrarius transferred Guala into his General Catalogue of the Saints, so also Dorganius into his Calendar and Menardus into his Martyrology of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, from the same Wion. They believed, that is to say, that he had professed the rule of St. Benedict in the monastery of Astino under the institute of the Congregation of Vallombrosa. But that no other than our Blessed one is recorded by Wion his added annotation sufficiently shows, although error and confusion make it very obscure. The Tables, he says, of Vallombrosa treat of the same man on this day. Now two have been transmitted to me; the first in the year MDXCI, the second in the year MDXCIII. In these he is said to have been by nation a Bergamasque, of the family of Romi, a disciple of St. Dominic, bishop of Brescia; and afterward bishop of Bergamo: which having resigned, he sought a monastery. But in the former it is noted that he was a disciple of St. Dominic, bishop of Brescia, and after him, on account of his outstanding sanctity, ascended the see of Brescia; which, when he had held it for XIV years, he resigned, and having entered the monastery of S. Salvator (rather of S. Sepulcher), full of sanctity he died MCCXLIV, being buried there beside the altar of S. Martin. The place of burial, the year of death, the duration of the episcopate, and the other things which are set forth in the annotation so agree with our Blessed one that they cannot be attributed to his other namesake. The error by which he is called bishop of Bergamo I do not stop over; nor the other, which makes him a disciple of St. Dominic, bishop of Brescia. Our Blessed one indeed had a Saint of that name for his master; but that man was the founder of the Order of Preachers. The unskilled compilers of the tables, which Wion, sent to him, followed blindly, substituted for him St. Dominic the bishop of Brescia, who sat at the beginning of the seventh century, and is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the XX day of December. Another St. Dominic than he I do not find in the Catalogues of the bishops of Brescia.

[4] The reader now sees sufficiently, as I judge, that he whom Wion, Dorganius, and Menardus adorn with the title of Saint is not to be distinguished from our Guala. He is marked by some with the title of Saint, by many with that of Blessed: Venantius Simius gives him the same in his Catalogue of the Illustrious Men of the Congregation of Vallombrosa, p. 123. The praised Ferrarius calls him Blessed only, as does Capreolus also, whom he cites in his Notes. To these add Bartholomew de Peregrinis (whom hereafter I shall call Peregrinus), in part 2 of the Vineyard of Bergamo, chap. 33; Eudoxius Loccatellus in the Lives of the Saints and Blessed &c. of the Vallombrosan Order, book 2 chap. 30; John Francis Florentinius in the Chronological Index of the Bishops of Brescia; John Michael Pio, book 1 On the Progeny of St. Dominic in Italy, chap. 25 and elsewhere; Marius Mutius in the Sacred History of Bergamo, second edition, p. 223; Cælestinus of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, in the Quadripartite History of Bergamo, part 2 book 21 p. 378; Marchesius in his Diary, and Charles of St. Vincent in the Dominican Year at the III day of September; Ughelli in Italia sacra, new edition, vol. 4 col. 547, and Guerrinus, praised above num. 1, p. 69.

[5] indications of a public veneration in the church of the monastery of Astino Of the writers already reviewed, Loccatellus, Florentinius, Pio, Mutius, Marchesius, Charles of St. Vincent, and Ughelli treat of the public veneration of the Blessed one. Their testimonies concerning the cult which he obtained in the church of the abbey of Astino I shall bring forward in the first place. Loccatellus, older than the rest, in the aforesaid work, which saw the light at Florence in the year 1585, has for our purpose the following, which I have turned from the Italian tongue into Latin: He was buried in the church of that same monastery of Astino before the altar of S. Martin, in the presence of the clergy and people of Bergamo. Afterward, about the year of the Lord MDXLV, when the church was being restored, the body of the Blessed one was placed within that same altar of S. Martin, where it is kept with veneration even to this present day. Of the body translated from the first place of deposition into the altar Florentinius also makes mention, who asserts that this was done in the year MDXLV; Ughelli adds, with a great concourse of the pious. Mutius and Pio report this inscription placed by the bones when they were elevated: Blessed Gualla, bishop, whose bones rest in this altar. Marchesius and Charles of St. Vincent testify that this inscription was cut upon the marble receptacle which contains the sacred relics. The same Marchesius writes that there is to be seen upon the altar of S. Martin a painted image of Guala, which represents him with rays encircling his head and with the title of Blessed. This is also read in Pio, whose words I shall presently recite.

[6] and elsewhere; Not only in the church of Astino, but also in other places our Blessed one seems to have been honored with a public cult, indications of which Pio and Marchesius set forth. I shall transcribe the words of both, rendered from Italian into Latin. Those of the former are these: In which year, as has been said, namely 1244, he died a holy death, being commonly reckoned among the Blessed of the Order of Preachers. Whence he is still seen depicted IN MANY PLACES with rays encircling his head and with the title of Blessed; and in particular in the image of the altar of S. Martin, within which he now rests. At Brescia among the Dominican Fathers Bl. Guala obtained also the honor of rays, which our Conrad Janninck himself saw there in an old painting formed about his head in the year 1686. What he noted concerning that painting in his Roman-Belgian Itinerary will be opportunely brought forward below at num. 9. Now hear Marchesius: His pontifical vestments, with some candlesticks of encaustic work, which he left to our convent of S. Stephen at Bergamo, destroyed in the year 1561 together with the cathedral of S. Alexander, are preserved to this day in the new convent of S. Bartholomew together with other relics: and it has pleased the Lord to work many marvels through these, as the bishop of Monopoli affirms, especially in delivering the possessed. The author, by the bishop of Monopoli, whom he cites without indicating the place, understands, unless I am mistaken, John Lopez, who in the year 1598 was made bishop of Monopoli in Apulia by Clement VIII. He is praised in Echard among the writers of the Order of Preachers, vol. 2 p. 474.

[7] from which, however, I cannot prove that it The things alleged in the two numbers immediately preceding abundantly prove the public veneration of Guala. It remains that it be considered whether he is not to be reckoned among those whose further cult was forbidden by the decree of Pope Urban VIII, published in the year 1634. In our Bishop's case an instance excepted from that decree cannot be established, unless it be shown that he was publicly venerated from time immemorial, that is, for a hundred full years before that same decree. Now the reason for doubting concerning his public cult from time immemorial is, first, that the authors enumerated above at num. 4, by whom he is marked with the title of Saint or Blessed, are all later than the year 1534, with the sole exception of Capreolus. The others, older than the said year, abstain from every sacred title, as do also very many who wrote after it. Of these it has seemed good to name two of the Order of St. Dominic, Antoninus of Siena and Seraphinus Razzi. The latter published in the year 1605 the Lives of the Saints and Blessed, the former in the year 1585 the Chronicle of his Order. Each prefixed to his Work a Catalogue of Saints and Blessed. Antoninus numbers about two hundred of both sexes, Seraphinus nearly three hundred. But our Guala nowhere appears. It seems therefore that they had not read in the older writers the appellation of Blessed attributed to him.

[8] Secondly, his body, which had been laid in the church of Astino before the altar of S. Martin, [is a hundred years older than the decree of Urban VIII, published in the year 1634:] was not translated into that altar before the year 1545. But that inscription, Blessed Gualla, bishop, whose bones rest in this altar, cannot be older than the said year, because before it the sacred bones were not in the altar of S. Martin. Therefore from the elevation of the body and the aforesaid inscription it cannot be deduced that the cult of Guala was begun a hundred full years before the decree of Urban VIII, which nevertheless are required to constitute an instance excepted by that Pope. Thirdly, it is uncertain to me whether the image on the altar of S. Martin exhibiting Guala with rays and the title of Blessed, of which Pio and Marchesius made mention, has the requisite antiquity. Hence it cannot take away my doubt. Fourthly, neither can the many marvels … especially in delivering the possessed, which Marchesius relates that God worked through the Blessed one among the Dominican Fathers of Bergamo, remove it: for those do not necessarily presuppose a public veneration. Besides, so far as is gathered from Marchesius's narrative, they were wrought in the convent of S. Bartholomew at Bergamo, which I certainly know to be not older than the year 1571.

[9] The difficulties proposed seem to me indeed so weighty [the painting seen by Janninck, exhibiting the Blessed one with rays, is older than that,] that I should not have dared to except Guala from the number of those whose cult is forbidden by Urban VIII, had I not found, in the Roman-Belgian Itinerary of Conrad Janninck, among other things which he himself saw at Brescia in the year 1686 among the Dominican Fathers, these things noted: In the same place, in the very bell-tower, where formerly was a chapel of the old church, dedicated to S. Paul the Apostle, who is still seen painted there, there was also painted on the other side beneath the vault the vision of Father Brother Guala, as this inscription signifies: A ladder reaching to heaven is revealed to the Brother, by which the father [] passing over was borne aloft. With the zeal of tongue and hand he raised up this ladder, which the Virgin Mother with her Son bore on high. The aforesaid inscription is read on the one side; on the other is seen Bl. Guala with bent knees, hands joined, clad in the Dominican habit, and, what is chief, resplendent with rays about his head. In the middle, moreover, sits Dominic himself with his face turned to the people: but behind his back ladders rising up are stretched into the height, the topmost parts of them being held on this side by God the Father, on that by the Son or Christ. The painting will be of CC or CCC years.*

[10] Since the rays shining about the head of Bl. Guala are to be taken for a sign of public veneration, and since they were seen by Janninck in the year 1686 in a painting, which suffices for us to believe that his cult was begun from time immemorial. made more than a hundred years before the decree of Urban VIII; it remains that those same rays are a sign of a public veneration exhibited to the Blessed one from time immemorial before that same decree. And that it was continued is sufficiently proved from the placing of the sacred body within the altar of S. Martin and from the other indications of cult which I have set forth above. Further, that vision which the image seen by Janninck exhibits will be narrated below from num. 18 out of Constantine of Orvieto. He and other writers most worthy of credit, who will be praised in the same place, testify that in the vision divinely offered to Bl. Guala the tops of the ladders reaching even to heaven were held on the one side by the Son of God, on the other by His Mother, and not by God the Father, as is in Janninck's account: and if this is conformable to the painting, the painter did not rightly represent the Blessed one's vision. Mention of the inscription set forth in capital letters will return at num. 19.

S. Dominicus patriarcha* (Saint Dominic the patriarch)

§ II. His birth; his entrance into religion; his rule over the convent of Brescia; his vision of the blessed death of St. Dominic; and other things which pertain to the life he led before his episcopate.

[ ] [The Blessed one's native place; his name is variously written by various writers, as also that of the family from which he is believed to have been born.] It is the common consent of those who have written these two centuries past, that Bergamo fell to our Blessed one as his native place. Yet by some, says Marchesius, he has been believed a man of Brescia, perhaps because of the affection with which he followed that city, and the long time for which he dwelt in it. Among these was Leander Albertus, book 3 On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Preachers, fol. 114 verso, writing thus: Gualla of Brescia, bishop of that same city, &c. His name is variously uttered by various writers. He is named Wala by Theodoric of Apolda, a contemporary writer, in the Life of St. Dominic, published in vol. 1 of August p. 602; Walla by Rolandinus, his contemporary, in Muratori vol. 8 of the Writers of Italy col. 198; Gualo in the Chronicle of Richard of S. Germano, also a contemporary, in the same Muratori vol. 7 col. 1019; Gualla in certain instruments drawn up while the Blessed one was alive, which will afterward be brought forward. I, as I have done hitherto, so also hereafter shall call him Guala; because many of his contemporaries wrote thus, namely Bl. Jordan, Bartholomew of Trent, Constantine of Orvieto, to be cited below at num. 18, and Vincent of Beauvais, book 30 of the Speculum chap. 114. To these add the instrument of the year 1235, which Muratori produces in vol. 4 of the Antiquities of Italy col. 331. In John Antony Guarnerius, in the Commentaries of the Saints of Bergamo p. 128 verso, the Blessed one is surnamed Rumonius; in the cited Guerrinus, de Romnonibus. Peregrinus and Florentinius say that he was begotten of the noble family of the Romi, which by Simius is called Romi or Roma, but by Ughelli Romara. The Italian writers Pio, Mutius, and Cælestinus say that he was born of the noble stock dei Romononi, for which in Marchesius stands Romanoni. Authors older by 200 years are silent about the Blessed one's nobility: that he sprang from the family of Romi is nevertheless testified by the Vallombrosan Tables, drawn up in the fifteenth century, as I suspect, which Wion above at num. 3 produces.

[12] Of Bl. Guala's life, before he gave his name to the religious family founded by St. Dominic, [At Bergamo in the year 1219 he probably received the religious habit from the hands of St. Dominic.] nothing certain can be brought forward. That in his native place, that is, at Bergamo, he put on the religious garb from the hands of the holy patriarch, modern writers commonly assert. I do not see why anyone should with reason deny it, if St. Dominic really was at Bergamo before he came to Bologna in the year 1219 from his journey through Spain and Gaul; for after his coming into that city he did not go to Bergamo, unless perhaps in the year 1220 after the first general Chapter of the Order, celebrated at the feast of Pentecost: but Guala had already taken the religious habit before that same year 1220, as will appear from the following number. Echard, in vol. 1 of the Library of the Order of Preachers, between pages 86 and 87, gives an accurate chronological table of the Acts of St. Dominic, according to which Cuper of pious memory arranged his Commentary on the same Saint at the IV of August from §7 onward. In that table at the year 1219 it is noted that the holy patriarch, about to return from Spain into Italy, made his journey through France and Burgundy, and having crossed the Alps came to Bergamo, before he arrived at Bologna. In the Notes to the Life of St. Dominic, written by Bl. Jordan, p. 19 col. 2, Bergamo, he says, after his return into Italy, he approached first; and one may easily believe that then a place convenient for erecting a monastery was offered to him by the citizens of that city. Since besides Echard I have found not a few others who write that he stayed at Bergamo, at least for a short time, in the year 1219, and since I perceive that nothing effectual can be opposed to this opinion, I am compelled to confess that they probably do not err who relate that Bl. Guala was clothed with the sacred habit at Bergamo by the hands of St. Dominic himself. This must have been done not later than the month of August of that same year 1219: for it is certain that the holy founder was at Bologna on the Calends of the next month of September. See Cuper's Commentary, num. 672.

[13] After St. Dominic, having finished his Spanish journey, [Bl. Diana consecrated herself to God at Bologna by a vow of virginity, our Blessed one being present,] had come to Bologna in the year 1219, he received, with Guala among others present, the vow of virginity by which Bl. Diana bound herself to God and to religion in that same city. There were present, says Thomas Malvenda in the Annals of the Order of Preachers at the year 1223 p. 425 and following, present at that sacred ceremony in which the virgin Diana had consecrated her virginity to God in the hands of St. Dominic by a vow pronounced, and at the same time had devoted herself to religion, Bl. Reginald, Br. Gualla of Brescia, Br. Radulphus of Faenza, and several matrons of Bologna. Those three Fathers were notable pillars of the primitive Order: and so that vow must have been made in the year of the Lord MCCXIX, for not before that was St. Dominic at Bologna, nor did Bl. Reginald live beyond that year. Malvenda denies that Reginald, who died at Paris, lived beyond the year 1219, on the ground that, says Echard in vol. 1 of the Library p. 90 col. 2, Theodoric of Apolda, in book III of the Life of St. Dominic chap. X, asserts that Reginald died toward the end of that year. But since Theodoric received this from the Parisians, among whom the end of the year was the end of the following Lent, it is established, as was noted above, that he died a little before Lent of the year MCCXIX by the old style, MCCXX by the new. But although Reginald prolonged his life beyond the year 1219 begun from the Calends of January, yet with all it is certain that he departed from Bologna to Paris within that same year: whence it remains that Malvenda rightly attached to it the vow of Diana. Of this blessed virgin it has been treated in our Work at the X of June.

[14] who seems to have made his novitiate of the religious life in the same city. Pio, book 1 On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Preachers, chap. 20, has these things concerning the Blessed one in Italian: He received the habit from St. Dominic in his native place, where he remained for some time to complete the building of the convent. Then he was sent by the Saint to Brescia, where he was made Prior &c. If Pio means that the Blessed one dwelt at Bergamo from the time he received the habit up to the priorship of Brescia, conferred upon him in the year 1220 or 1221, as will be seen at num. 17, how did he assist Bl. Diana when she vowed her virginity at Bologna in the year 1219? Was he summoned to Bologna by the holy Patriarch that he might be present at that ceremony, and, it being finished, return to his native place? But I prefer to suspect that he, after he had been admitted into the Order, by the command of the holy founder set out at once for Bologna, that there he might more fully learn the institute of the religious life which he had embraced. It could indeed have happened that the Blessed one, after the vow pronounced to God by the aforesaid virgin, was sent to Bergamo, and there remained to complete the building of the convent, until he should be set over the monastery of Brescia: but no argument is at hand to me by which I might persuade the reader to believe that it really so happened. And so I pass on to other matters.

[15] [The holy patriarch is related to have set Guala over the new convent of Brescia in the year 1220:] Saint Dominic in the year 1220, which was the last but one of his life, after the first general assembly of his Order held at the feast of Pentecost, went out to various cities of Italy for the sake of preaching and of propagating religion. Cuper in his Commentary on the holy patriarch, §38 num. 717, reckons Brescia among them, producing as a witness Jacobus Malvecius, published by Muratori among the writers of Italian affairs, vol. 14, and there in his Chronicle of Brescia, which he began to compose in the year 1412, distinction 7 chap. 94, recording these things: In those days the most blessed Dominic, of the Order of Friars Preachers father and founder, traversing the places of Lombardy, entered this city. Here, having his lodging by the basilica of the Blood of saints Faustinus and Jovita, he there appointed certain religious men to serve Christ the Lord under the yoke of his most holy rule. That he set Bl. Guala over them Malvecius indeed does not add; but writers later than he, who have made mention of the holy patriarch's journey to Brescia, commonly affirm it. Capreolus, who wrote at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in his History of Brescia at the year 1220 narrates the following, in Pio, book 2 On the Progeny of St. Dominic in Italy: But indeed our Lord and God Jesus Christ … by His clemency and mercy disposed that the most blessed Dominic, the first of the Order of Preachers … should come to Brescia at that time, should remain there for some while in the basilica of saints Faustinus and Jovita, where even now his table is extant, and should there appoint Bl. Gualla of Brescia as Prior and certain other religious under his rule. Florentinius, in the Chronological Index of the Bishops of Brescia, in the eulogy of Albertus, whose successor Guala was in the bishopric, subjoins these things: In these days St. Dominic landed at Brescia, and having stayed for some days in the monastery of SS. Faustinus and Jovita at the Blood, now S. Afra, granted to him by the city, setting out thence, set Bl. Guala over it. I read the like in Ughelli in Italia sacra, Venetian edition, vol. 4 col. 546, and in others. The matter having been maturely discussed, I have found that it is not to be doubted that the beginnings of the convent of Brescia are to be referred to the year 1220, in which St. Dominic obtained from the city a place for erecting it near the basilica of SS. Faustinus and Jovita, Martyrs: but that the holy Patriarch then set our Guala over it may not be believed as a thing indubitable, because the Blessed one was not improbably in the year 1221 still a member of the convent of Bologna, as will appear from the numbers immediately following.

[16] After Malvenda had narrated concerning Bl. Diana what I have transcribed from him at num. 13, [but since in the following year, before 30 May, he entrusted to the Blessed one the care of building the monastery at Bologna,] a few things being interposed he thus continues: But Diana, in whose breast there burned an immense desire of professing openly and publicly what she had performed privately and before a few, treated with St. Dominic about constructing a certain monastery of nuns, which, in view of her father's wealth, seemed to her easy to do. The holy Patriarch approves the pious counsel, and commits the building of the new monastery to four of the more eminent men of the convent of Bologna. These were Br. Paul the Hungarian, Br. Gualla, who afterward was bishop of Brescia, Br. Ventura of Verona, Prior of the convent of Bologna, and Br. Radulphus of Faenza, procurator of the same monastery. And this seems to have happened in the year of the Lord MCCXXI; for in that year we have abundantly shown in its own place that Br. Paul the Hungarian gave his name to religion and was sent into Hungary, namely at the year 1221 p. 335: where the testimony of Theodoric of Apolda asserting the same about Paul the Hungarian is adduced. The building of the monastery to be erected by Bl. Diana seems to have been committed to Bl. Guala and the others before the second general chapter of the Order, which began to be celebrated on the XXX of May of that same year: for when it was finished, Paul the Hungarian at once departed into Hungary, as may be gathered from what Echard has at p. 21. But, you will say, Br. Ventura is called by Malvenda Prior of the convent of Bologna: yet he was not appointed Prior before the second general assembly, as Echard observes at p. 45 col. 2 in the Notes to the report of the testimonies concerning the life, death, and miracles of St. Dominic: therefore before the second assembly of the Order the care of building the monastery was not committed to Paul, Guala, Ventura, and Radulphus. Echard's observation is pleasing: but I deny that Ventura was then Prior of Bologna. Malvenda took his whole narrative concerning Bl. Diana from the Spanish of Ferdinand del Castillo, book 2 chap. 25, and the Italian of Seraphinus Razzi, p. 411: of which he himself also forewarns the reader: but in neither writer are these words read, Prior of the convent of Bologna, which Malvenda added of his own.

[17] In Castillo and Razzi likewise there is not found it is permissible to suppose that he also dwelt there at that time: that those four named fathers were among the more eminent of the convent of Bologna. Malvenda added this to his narrative from conjecture, which those will disapprove who with Capreolus and others judge that Bl. Guala presided over the monastery of Brescia from the year 1220. These will contend that the building of the monastery was committed to the Blessed one because his authority, prudence in giving counsel, and dexterity in transacting business, though he was absent from Bologna, could contribute not a little to advancing it: which qualities also being perceived, the supreme Pontiff a few years later made him bishop of Brescia and legate of the Apostolic See. So are they compelled to reason who hold that St. Dominic in the year 1220 laid upon Bl. Guala the government of the convent of Brescia, and in the following year the province of erecting the monastery for nuns at Bologna: for it is certain that in the month of August of the year 1223 he was still presiding over the convent of his Order at Brescia. If this opinion pleases anyone, so far as I am concerned he may follow it. But neither shall I gainsay those who prefer to believe that the Blessed one was appointed Prior of Brescia at the same time at which, according to the praised Echard, the priorship of Bologna was conferred on Ventura; namely in the second general chapter of the Order, celebrated on the XXX of May and the six following days of the year 1221, in which among other things it was decreed that the heads of convents should thenceforth be called Priors, as may be seen in Cuper's Commentary, num. 788. This last opinion will perhaps please more than the former; and not undeservedly: for from the fact that St. Dominic in the year 1221, before the celebration of the second chapter, committed to Bl. Guala the care of building the monastery at Bologna, it is the more natural to judge that the Blessed one really dwelt at that time in the same city.

[18] [when on 6 August of the year 1221 he was Prior at Brescia, a marvelous vision concerning the blessed death of St. Dominic] On the VI day of August in the year 1221, two months having elapsed from the second chapter of the Order, there died the most holy patriarch Dominic. His passage from mortal life to immortal was revealed to Bl. Guala, then prior of the convent of Brescia, in a certain marvelous vision, which Bl. Jordan, Bartholomew of Trent, and Theodoric of Apolda in the Acts of St. Dominic, and very many other writers have made most famous by their writings. Bl. Jordan's account may be read in vol. 1 of August p. 555 num. 70, Bartholomew's at p. 561 num. 14, Theodoric's at p. 602 num. 240 and following. Constantine Medices, called of Orvieto from his bishopric, in the Life of the holy founder, in Echard p. 36 col. 1, thus describes the vision of the blessed Prior, to whom he was a contemporary: But on the same day and the same hour on which the blessed father departed from the body, Br. Guala of the same Order, then Prior at Brescia, but afterward bishop of that same city, when he had reclined a little in the place of the bell-tower of the Brethren at Brescia, slumbered with a certain light sweetness of sleep; and he saw by divine revelation as it were a certain opening in heaven, through which two shining ladders were let down to the earth. The top of the one ladder Christ the Lord held with His hand, but the top of the other ladder the Virgin Mother, and along both angels descending and ascending ran to and fro. And behold, in the midst of the ladders at the bottom a seat was set, and one sitting upon the seat, and he who sat was like a Brother having his face veiled with a hood, in the manner in which it is the custom in the Order to bury dead Brethren. But the ladders were drawn up little by little on the one side by Christ the Lord, and on the other by His Mother, until, the angels singing, he who had been placed on the seat came even to the top. And the ladders being received into heaven, and the seat together with him that sat on it, that opening of heaven was closed, and the vision disappeared.

[19] [was offered to him, which was afterward inserted into the Office of the holy Patriarch.] Therefore that same Brother, roused from sleep, although he was still weak from a preceding infirmity, straightway took the road to Bologna, where he knew the blessed father had been sick; and on coming he found that it had been the same day and the same hour on which both that heavenly vision appeared to him, and the man of God Dominic, passing from the world, entered the glory of heaven: for the fuller certainty of which he presently published a vision of this kind before all. Bartholomew of Trent adds: This very thing I have heard the bishop of Brescia — our Guala, I suppose — devoutly reading before all at Bologna on the feast of Dominic in the new Lesson; this, since by the grace of God and his own he was most familiar with me, I have understood him often to attest before many. By the new Lesson, of which Bartholomew makes mention, I think we must understand the new Office which began to be recited of St. Dominic as soon as he was reckoned in the number of the Saints in the year 1234 by Gregory IX. Constantine of Orvieto composed it, as Bernard Gui attests in Echard p. 154 col. 1. In the Lauds of that Office the third and fourth antiphons are the words of the Inscription reported above at num. 9 from Janninck, which comprehends in summary the vision of Bl. Guala. Here may be read Pio, Marchesius, and Charles of St. Vincent, cited at num. 4. Further, Bartholomew could have heard the blessed Bishop of Brescia reading those antiphons at the feast of St. Dominic at Bologna in the year 1235 or in the following years, when he, perhaps discharging a legation for the supreme Pontiff, had to pass that way. How happily, and with how great praise of prudence, he discharged that office in various and weighty affairs, will have to be told in §3 and following.

[20] He was still acting as Prior at Brescia in the month of August of the year 1223: [In the year 1223 he was present at Brescia at the translation of SS. Faustinus and Jovita.] for he was then present there at the translation of the holy martyrs Faustinus and Jovita, as is established from an ancient instrument which Bernardinus Faynus published in the Martyrology of Brescia at the VII day of April. In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and twenty-three, in the eleventh Indiction, on the eighth day entering upon August, the ark of the holy martyrs Faustinus and Jovita was opened, and was laid again in that place with the bodies of the same martyrs and of blessed Faustinus the confessor, in the presence of the archdeacon and the archpriest together with his clergy of Brescia, and of Brother Jordan, Master of the Order of Preachers, and of Brother Gualla, Prior of the same place, with his Brethren: and this was done with a solemn procession. The rest may be read in Faynus.

[21] Of the Blessed one's exceptional charity, which he exercised in the necessities of the poor, of widows, and of orphans with great commendation of himself and of his Order, His charity toward the poor, the widows, and the orphans of the city. Guarnerius relates these things in the Commentaries of the Saints of Bergamo, published in the year 1584, p. 128 verso: Gualla was afterward distinguished in the same Order, and was held worthy to be set over the monastery which Dominic had established at Brescia, and to be adorned with the office of Prior, which means president. In that office not only was he loved and honored by those over whom he presided; but he was also pleasing and acceptable to the citizens of Brescia, for the reason that he had undertaken the patronage of the needy in the greatest difficulty of the grain supply, and had come to the aid of widows and orphaned children in impending dangers even at the risk of his own life, and seemed to look to nothing else but the public good. The year in which he succoured the poor in the greatest straitness of the grain supply was 1223 of Christ; at which year Malvecius makes mention of it in the Chronicle of Brescia, distinction 7 chapter 98: At this season also the people of Brescia suffered a great scarcity of wheat and of other grains. Malvecius by the general word frumentum seems to have understood wheat; but to have wished to set forth the other kinds of grain by the barbarous name blada. [Sent to Rome by Bl. Jordan, that some nuns might be brought thence to Bologna, he obtained his request.]

[22] In that same year 1223 there was completed at Bologna the building of the monastery which Bl. Diana, as was narrated above at num. 16 from Malvenda, had determined to erect for nuns of the Order of St. Dominic. Into that new Monastery, to which the name of S. Agnes was given, the blessed foundress with the remaining sisters, says the same Malvenda at p. 472, who were then only four, was translated in this year MCCXXIII during the Octaves of the Ascension of the Lord.. In this same year, on the day of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, they received the sacred habit of the religion of St. Dominic from the hand of Bl. Jordan, Master of the Order. But a little after, two other illustrious matrons of Ferrara were admitted into the same society. Moreover, that the new monastery might be more exactly imbued with all regular discipline, Bl. Jordan sent to Rome Brother Gualla and Br. Radulphus, that from that most religious seed-plot of all sanctity, the monastery of the Sisters of S. Xystus, founded by the holy Father Dominic, four nuns of the more eminent sort might, by permission of Pope Honorius, be brought to Bologna to the new monastery of S. Agnes, who should more fully teach those novice Sisters every rite of the Order. Therefore by the agency of Ugolino, Cardinal bishop of Ostia, … it was obtained from the Pontiff that four Sisters of notable sanctity should be sent from the monastery of S. Xystus to Bologna to the monastery of S. Agnes. Whether Bl. Guala presided over the religious family of his Order in that same city up to his bishopric of Brescia, to which he was raised before the end of the year 1228, as will be said in the following paragraph, is unknown to me. Some deny this, and they are contradicted by the Rev. Father Antoninus Bremond, Master of Sacred Theology, in vol. 1 of the Bullarium of the Order of Preachers, in the Appendix of bishops under Pope Gregory IX, p. 113: Br. Gualla of Bergamo, from Prior of the monastery of Brescia bishop of Brescia, under the archbishop of Milan. Florentinius favors Bremond: Bl. Guala of Bergamo … a disciple of St. Dominic, passed from the monastery over which he had been set by his master to the rule of the church of Brescia, the city most constantly demanding it because of his singular sanctity.

§ III. Inquiry into the time when he began to be bishop: he is sent as legate by the Pope to the Lombards and to the emperor; he composes a peace between the people of Padua and those of Treviso.

[ ] He was made bishop of Brescia The people of Brescia, bereft of their pastor, chose for their bishop Guala, who had deserved well of the city and was adorned with the singular gifts of grace and of nature by which he had turned their eyes upon himself. Guarnerius reports the fact thus: Bishop Albertus being dead, the people of Brescia, a council being convoked, judged that provision must be made both for Gualla's dignity and for the city's advantage. For that cause they with all entreaties begged of Gregory IX, supreme Pontiff, that the bishopric should be committed to Gualla, whose great care the safety of the city had been. This was not only obtained, but a short space of time being interposed, since the glory of more recent merits commended him, he was chosen Apostolic legate, and to him Cisalpine Gaul was decreed as his province. Guarnerius is mistaken when he says that the Blessed one was promoted to the mitre of Brescia on the death of bishop Albertus: for he succeeded him while he was living, but translated to the patriarchate of Antioch, as will be shown in the following number. In what year Bl. Guala ascended the see of Brescia, which Albertus had left vacant, Guarnerius does not determine: and others differ in defining it. Capreolus says the Blessed one was designated bishop in the year 1230. Ughelli and Echard, in the Notes to the Life of St. Dominic written by Bl. Jordan, p. 23 col. 1, fix the beginning of his bishopric at the year 1229, which Bremond also, cited in the preceding number, notes in the margin. Bernardinus Faynus, in Catalogue 1 of the Heaven of Brescia p. 35, affirms that he was made bishop in the year 1225. Peregrinus, Loccatellus, and Florentinius agree: for they say that he laid down the government of his church in the year 1239, after he had held it for 14 years. Why I dissent from these writers, understand from what follows.

[24] In the times in which the Blessed one flourished, Antioch was under the power of the Christians. [not in the year 1225, as some assert, nor in the year 1229 or after, as others will have it;] Its see, the Latin patriarch Raynerius having departed this life, was vacant in the year 1226: at which year Odoricus Raynaldus in the Ecclesiastical Annals num. 59, from the 356th epistle of book 10 of Pope Honorius III, reports these things: When Honorius had learned that the church of Antioch was bereaved of the patriarch Raynerius, he commanded the canons of Antioch to designate a patriarch within the space of a month running from the receipt of the letters. Hence it follows that not before the year 1226 did Raynerius have a successor in the patriarchate of Antioch: and that this was Albertus, bishop of Brescia, the immediate predecessor of Bl. Guala, our Peter Bosch shows against Onuphrius Panvinius in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Antioch, num. 672. To the arguments which he uses I add the testimony of Alberic, a contemporary author, writing thus in his Chronicle at the year 1233: After Peter, patriarch of Antioch, there was a certain patriarch Renerus (Raynerius) of Tuscany; and after him in these days Albertus, formerly bishop of Brescia, held the see. Now if Albertus was made patriarch of Antioch from being bishop of Brescia no sooner than the year 1226, how could Bl. Guala have sat at Brescia in the preceding year? Faynus therefore, who affirms this, errs; nor can that be true which Peregrinus, Loccatellus, and Florentinius write, namely that our blessed Bishop resigned his sacred office in the year 1239, after he had borne it for 14 years. With Capreolus, Ughelli, Echard, and Bremond, who defer the beginning of his bishopric beyond the year 1228, I likewise cannot agree: for Rolandinus, a writer of that same time and therefore of fit authority, in the narrative which will be transcribed from him at num. 31, plainly indicates that he was already bishop of Brescia before the end of the year 1228.

[25] Since Honorius III commanded the canons of Antioch, by letters given in the year 1226, [but in the year 1228 or 1227, in which he discharged the office of Apostolic legate.] that, upon their receipt, they should within a month name a new patriarch in the place of Raynerius, it is credible that Albertus, bishop of Brescia, who succeeded Raynerius, left his church widowed in that same year 1226 or at the beginning of the next. Although therefore Bl. Guala could have been set over its administration before the XXII of July of the year 1227; yet that this was not done earlier will appear below from num. 29: where Gregory IX, in letters given to Frederick II on the aforesaid day and year, calls the Blessed one Brother Gualo of the Order of Preachers, no mention of his bishopric being added. It remains from what has been said that its beginning must be placed within the time which was later than the XXII day of July of the year 1227, and which preceded the end of the year 1228. And this is my opinion: the chief objection that can be brought against it I shall try to weaken at num. 32. Some say that the Blessed one was made by Gregory, who succeeded Honorius, dead on the XVIII of March of the year 1227, on the day after, legate of the Apostolic See through Lombardy and bishop of Brescia at the same time: but from the following numbers it will be plain that before his bishopric he discharged the office of Apostolic legate. If credit be given to Marchesius and Charles of St. Vincent, Bl. Guala refused, so far as he could, to accept the mitre offered him, nor would he bow his head to it save at the command of the supreme Pontiff Gregory. But I greatly fear that those writers report a mere conjecture, drawn from this alone, that the Blessed one afterward renounced his bishopric. The memory of almost all the things which he did as bishop has perished: but many of the things which he did as legate of the Apostolic See still survive from oblivion. In the year 1227 he discharged a twofold legation for Gregory IX, the one to the Lombards, the other to the emperor Frederick II. Of the business which had to be treated by him in the first legation the Pontifical letters treat that are to be produced below at num. 27. That the reader may understand them, it will help to know beforehand what I subjoin.

[26] [The cities of Lombardy &c., which had conspired against Frederick II, are brought to terms of concord] Carolus Sigonius, book 17 On the Kingdom of Italy, writes at the year 1226 that the legates of various cities of Lombardy, of the Romagna, and of the March came together on the IV of the Nones of March in the temple of S. Zeno at Mosio, a town of the territory of Mantua, and against Frederick II, from whose arms they feared for their liberty, renewed the ancient league for defending it. Pope Honorius III, who was wholly bent on this care, that the arms of the Christians should be turned against the infidels in the Holy Land, brought the emperor and the confederated cities to concord. Raynaldus, in his continuation of the Annals of Baronius at the year 1226, from num. 26, gives an epistle of Honorius, sent to the rectors of the said league on the Nones of January of the year 1227, in which are reported the terms which the same Pontiff, at once author and arbiter of that concord, had appointed for either party. Upon the league, that is, upon the confederated cities, among others this term was laid, that they should furnish 400 equipped soldiers to Frederick when he should set out for the Holy Land, to be maintained at their own pay for two years. At the end of the epistle Honorius commands the rectors of the league that they should transmit to him the terms of the reconciliation made, to be directed to the emperor, to which the seals of themselves, of the marquis of Montferrat, and of the several cities should be affixed. And when they had put off doing this, the Pontiff sharply upbraided them and reminded them of their duty by another epistle, a fragment of which Raynaldus sets forth at the year 1227 num. 6. In the same place, at num. 19, concerning Gregory IX, who succeeded Honorius on the XIX of March of that same year, he narrates these things to our purpose: That he might remove all impediments to the preparing of the sacred expedition, he fixed his labor and industry upon establishing and confirming the peace to which the emperor Frederick and the Lombards had been brought by the zeal and diligence of his predecessor Honorius… But although .. the terms of concord had been dictated by Honorius, to whom as supreme arbiter of the controversy the matter had been submitted; yet no slight fear was absent [], lest the evil should break out afresh. Wherefore Gregory bent himself with the utmost zeal to confirming it: and so, when the confederated Lombards had transmitted defective letters concerning the admitted terms of concord, in which, namely, the marquis of Montferrat and some cities had not affixed their seals, the Pontiff retained them in his own hands; and he admonished the Lombards to send others, in which the seals of all the cities should be affixed, lest Frederick should think that there lay beneath it some fraud, and be held back from the purpose of the expedition he had undertaken: but that he himself, from the emperor had received letters complete in every point, the tenor of which he had inserted into his diploma, and which he would transmit to them when he should receive new ones from themselves. He exhorts them also that they should as soon as possible make ready troops equipped and worthy of the emperor … The Apostolic letters being received, the Lombards, counsel being hastened, sent the terms of peace fortified and confirmed by the affixing of all their seals, as their epistle declares. In the margin here is cited Reg. Greg. ep. 125*.

[27] Of the legate whom Gregory sent to the Lombards to establish the concord between them and the emperor, Raynaldus makes no mention; [they are induced by Bl. Guala to have them confirmed with the seals, as the epistle of Gregory IX makes evident,] but that he was our Bl. Guala, and that by his agency it was brought about that they transmitted the terms of that concord signed with the seals of all, is deduced from the Pontifical letters published by Bremond in vol. 1 of the Bullarium p. 26 from the archives of the Order, book A fol. CCLXXIV. Receive them. Gregory, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son Brother Gualla of the Order of Preachers, greeting and Apostolic benediction. We have received the letters which you directed to the Apostolic See, and, their contents being noted, we have diligently written to the rectors of the league of the Lombards, according as we have known to be expedient; as the inspection of our letters will be able to inform you. We therefore admonish your approved solicitude, and by these Apostolic writings command you, that you incessantly urge those rectors to cause the letters to be directed to the imperial highness to be written again by a public hand, and, as we now command, and as was commanded from the beginning, to be fortified by the appending of the seals of themselves and of the noble man the marquis of Montferrat and of the several cities of that league, and that they proceed, all delay ceasing, to make among themselves the division of the soldiers to be sent in aid of the Holy Land. And when they shall have accomplished these things, that you return to our presence, that the whole course of the business may be more fully made known to us by you. For caution, moreover, we send them the form of those letters enclosed under our bull. Given at the Lateran on the XVI of the Calends of April, in the first year of our Pontificate. The day on which Gregory's letters are here noted to have been given belongs to the year 1228: for he was substituted for Honorius not earlier than the XIV of the Calends of April of the year 1227. But did Gregory then write on the XVI of the Calends of April of the year 1228 the letters just now reported to our Blessed one? That this is utterly alien from the truth will now be shown.

[28] In the summer of the year 1227 a huge multitude of crusaders had flowed together into Apulia from Germany, England, which is shown to have been written to him in the year 1227: and other regions, meaning to cross the sea with Frederick, as was hoped, in aid of the Holy Land. But this was not then done, through the fault of the emperor, who compelled the Christian army, ready for the crossing, to remain in a place very unhealthy as the summer heats came on, where a great part of it was carried off by a pestilential plague. Which things Gregory having understood, on the XXIX day of September of that same year he pronounced that Frederick, the author of so great an evil, had fallen under the sentence of excommunication, which his predecessor Honorius had formerly passed, and which the emperor himself had taken upon himself, should he not undertake the promised sacred expedition at the time appointed, which had now elapsed. In the year 1228 on the Lord's Supper, which then coincided with the X of the Calends of April, Gregory solemnly promulgated the sentence of anathema against Frederick, the obstinate betrayer of the Christian cause and guilty of other crimes. There may be seen the things which Raynaldus narrates at the year 1227 from num. 29, and at the following from num. 1. It is clear from what has been said how little credible it is that the Pontiff by letters given on the XVI of the Calends of April of the year 1228 commanded Bl. Guala to induce the Lombards to furnish crusading soldiers as soon as possible to Frederick, who already from the preceding year had dissolved the army of the Christians by wicked arts, and on that account had been cut off from the communion of the faithful. To me indeed these things leave no doubt that Gregory sent those letters to his Legate when Frederick had not yet baffled his expectation and that of the Christian world. But since from Raynaldus's narrative above at num. 26 it is clear that among Gregory's first cares after being raised to the Pontificate was this, that the concord between the Lombards and the emperor should be confirmed, lest the latter should be able to pretend any excuse for deferring or breaking off the holy war; hence I further deduce that the Pontiff wrote those same letters, by which he enjoined the Blessed one to urge the Lombards to transmit the terms of concord fortified with the seals of all, before he removed in the month of June of the year 1227 from the Lateran palace to Anagni, and consequently that it is not the place in which, but only the day on which they are read in Bremond to have been given, that is faulty.

[29] He is sent by the Pontiff as legate with letters to the emperor. Raynaldus immediately subjoins these things to the words reported at num. 26: With these the Pontiff urged the Lombards, that they should throw no impediments in the way of the sacred expedition; and in turn he endeavored to rouse Frederick, who was not bent on preparing war against the enemies of the Christian name, but was pouring himself out upon delights. To him he sent Gualo, a religious man of the family of the Preachers, that he might set forth the Pontifical counsels: and by elegant and most weighty letters he exhorted him to free himself from the bonds of bodily pleasures, and to transfer his love to the delights of the mind; then to discharge nobly the parts of a Christian emperor; and he admonished him to imprint deep in his breast the dignity of the empire, the majesty of the scepter, and the august mysteries of the other insignia, that by the thought of them he might kindle himself to protect his peoples, to exercise justice, and to follow after the virtues, so that, when he should lay down his earthly crown, he might deserve to be encircled with the eternal and immortal one. There follow the Apostolic letters to Frederick, which end thus: The bearer of these presents, Brother Gualo of the Order of Preachers, we have thought fit to send, to whom, as to ourselves, may you be willing to give undoubted credit concerning those things which on our part he shall think fit to propose. In Bremond, who at p. 21 published the same letters from the archives of the Order, book A fol. CCLXXXIII, instead of Gualonem is read Guallam; and it is added at the end: Given at Anagni on the XI of the Calends of August, in the first year of our Pontificate, of Christ 1227. At that time Frederick was staying in Apulia, as is drawn out from the Chronicle of Richard of S. Germano. Of the Blessed one being sent with the Pontifical letters to the emperor, mention is made also by Bzovius and Spondanus in their Ecclesiastical Annals, each at the year 1227 num. 3: but they faultily name him William.

[30] The war which had blazed up between the people of Padua and those of Treviso, In the year 1228 the enmities that had arisen between the people of Padua and those of Treviso, which seemed likely to break out to the ruin of both parties, were extinguished with Bl. Guala as reconciler and arbiter. It is helpful to hear Sigonius on these matters in book 17 On the Kingdom of Italy at the year 1229. In those same days Ezzelino, wishing to make an attempt on Treviso, took care to have himself enrolled a citizen by the people of Treviso; and presently he led that people to plunder the fields of the bishop of Feltre and Belluno. Which when the people of Padua learned, to whom the defense of those fields belonged; thinking that so great a loss was not to be borne by them, on the Calends of May they went forth to avenge themselves on the people of Treviso with the carroccio (that is, the chief standard of the army, which, set upon a car, was drawn by oxen): and presently, their territory having been foully ravaged up to the walls of the city, and no enemy having been found, they betook themselves home. At length, by the interposition of Brother Gualla, bishop of Brescia, Pontifical legate, and of the rectors of Lombardy, the damages on both sides being made good, they withdrew from arms. Rolandinus, published by Muratori among the writers of Italian affairs, vol. 8, in book 2 On the Deeds in the March of Treviso, from chap. 17, accurately describes the history of that war. The things which I have transferred hither from Sigonius up to At length, by Brother Guala &c., are a summary of those matters which Rolandinus reports in chap. 17: at the end of which not only the day and month, but also the year is assigned in which the people of Padua led out their forces against those of Treviso. This army moved, says that ancient writer, when it first went out from Padua [] in the year of the Lord MCCXXVIII on the first day of the month of May. In chap. 18 he narrates that the people of Treviso, in order to avenge the damages inflicted on them by their enemies, on a certain night came to attack certain villages about the borders of the Paduan district; but that they were put to flight by the Paduans. Then he thus continues: When the Paduans had returned again, it was confirmed and decreed at Padua to invade the lands of their enemies twice in the year, and to lay waste utterly their possessions and goods.*

[31] But Brother Walla, who had been of the Order of Friars Preachers, and now in the year 1228 he extinguishes: the fruit that followed from the peace: was bishop of Brescia, and legate of the Apostolic See, as was said, so pressed the matter, and the rectors [who] were sent to Padua from the cities of Lombardy, that the lands of Feltre and Belluno, with all those things which were shown to belong to the bishop, were restored entire to the bishop himself and to the Paduans, although the people of Treviso said they were aggrieved. In chap. 19 he thus records the rich fruits which followed from the peace made by Bl. Guala: Now for about the space of one year the cities of the March of Treviso so rested in peace, that from about the end of the year of the Lord MCCXXIX and about the beginning of the next there was no plundering of lands, no incursion of enemies or assault, save the aforesaid army; but there was abundance of all good things, so great joy and gladness among the peoples, that it was believed by many that in some fashion [] there should be no seditions in the March, no wars []. Peregrinus, Loccatellus, and Sigonius fix the peace between the Paduans and the people of Treviso, brought about by the Blessed one, at the year 1229: but Rolandinus, whom I have ascertained to have begun his years from the month of January, is against them; for from his words with which he opens chapter 19, Now for about one &c., it follows that Bl. Guala acted as peacemaker toward the end of the year 1228. He was at that time, as the same author testifies, bishop of Brescia. Therefore the beginning of his bishopric is not to be deferred to the year 1229 or 1230.

[32] Although Gregory's epistle, given on the IX of October in the year 1229, we think the Blessed one was bishop at that time. which I shall bring forward in the following §, is inscribed to his beloved son Brother Gualla of the Order of Preachers, and these words indicate that the Blessed one was then not yet bishop, yet I am not to be charged with rashness for assenting rather to Rolandinus. Above I have shown that the Pontifical letters which I published from Bremond could not have been given at the time at which they are noted to have been given. Hence I have judged that no firmer credit is to be given to the other letters, as they stand inscribed to the Blessed one in Bremond, than to the testimony of Rolandinus. He was, says Muratori in his Preface, by his native place a Paduan, born, as he himself is witness in his Prologue, in the year of the Lord MCC.. He practiced the notary's .. art in his native place… His father also, acting as notary at Padua, had noted down many things concerning matters done in the March of Treviso in his own age. And handing over these fragments of history to his son Rolandinus, then XXIII years old, that is in the year MCCXXII, he bade him note down whatever should thereafter happen. From these things it is sufficiently understood how much account is to be made of the authority of Rolandinus, who expressly testifies that Bl. Guala was bishop when toward the end of the year 1228 he reconciled the Paduans with the people of Treviso. The same I have preferred to believe, first because Albertus had left the see of Brescia vacant in the year 1227 or perhaps even in the year 1226, as was shown at num. 24: it is therefore more probable that the Blessed one succeeded him before the end of the year 1228 than after the IX of October of the year 1229. Secondly, because thus it can be understood how he held the bishopric for 14 years, and, having laid it down, lived in the abbey of Astino before the autumn of the year 1242, and died in the year 1244. The first and the third a constant tradition asserts, the second I judge can be proved from ancient monuments. See num. 47. Those things cannot be reconciled with one another if Bl. Guala began to sit after the IX of October of the year 1229.

read aderat*

Padua*

quod amodo*, as I think.

* that is, wars

§ IV. A second legation to the Lombards: the people of Bologna by his agency make a truce with those of Modena; he induces the emperor to make satisfaction to the Church: other deeds of the blessed Bishop.

[ ] [The Pontiff urges the Lombards to bring the help they had promised against Frederick:] The emperor Frederick, stricken with a solemn anathema and not yet reconciled to the Church, had in the summer of the year 1228 sailed into Syria with a few troops, and in his absence, through his captains, with the greater part of the army left behind in Sicily, had made war upon the Vicar of Christ. He, profiting nothing by the ecclesiastical censures passed against the invaders of his dominion, took up arms, that he might repel force by force. The Pontifical army fought prosperously against the enemies of the Church, until in the month of May of the year 1229 Frederick came from the Holy Land into Apulia, the affairs of the Christians there having been disturbed rather than set in order. Since the Pontiff was not strong enough in forces to be able to resist Frederick, he shortly lost the cities and castles which he had occupied, and feared grievous evils to himself and to the Church from the wicked counsels and arms of the emperor. Wherefore (I use the words of Raynaldus at the year 1229 num. 32) that he might free the wavering little ship of Peter, shaken by the various swelling storms, from the imminent peril; having most diligently written letters to many, mingling entreaties with commands, he exhorted them to bring help and to shake off the common danger, and first of all the confederated cities of Lombardy, … that they should transmit to him soldiers furnished with all things, whereby he might be able to break Frederick's attempts, lest, the majesty of the Church being crushed, the danger should redound upon themselves. The Lombards were slack in sending the aids: wherefore Gregory, in repeated letters to the archbishop of Milan and to Gualo his confidant, most gravely complained that the Milanese had so put off bringing succour, that meanwhile Frederick, his forces increased, had raged the more insolently against the Church &c. A little below Raynaldus gives the Apostolic letters drawn up to the Blessed one, their inscription and some other things about the middle being omitted. I shall give them here entire, as the praised Bremond published them from the archives of the Order, book A fol. CCCII, p. 30.

[34] Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, letters sent to Bl. Guala on this matter, to his beloved son Brother Gualla of the Order of Friars Preachers, greeting and Apostolic benediction. Would that the Lombards had never offered themselves to our service, would that we had never hoped for any help from them; since we could well enough have provided for the honor of the Church otherwise, save that, unwilling to withdraw from them our helping right hand, we acquiesced in their supplications and provisions []. But while we were usefully pleading their cause in foreign borders, while we were curbing the onset of the enemy greedily aspiring to their destruction; behold, the Lombards have so put off the promised help — to say nothing of how those served whom they had appointed to the service of the Church — that the enemy, his forces gathered, grows strong, unless his attempts be swiftly met with a strong and mighty hand, just as [] a fire which is not withstood easily spreads into an unconquerable conflagration []. Lest therefore the said Lombards should seem to put under their armpits the hands which they ought to have set to brave deeds, to the everlasting reproach of their own confusion, nor be able to unfold them when they will, if now, while they are able, they have ceased to will []; we ask your discretion and earnestly admonish it, commanding by these Apostolic writings, that you stir up in every way you can those whom you shall see to be expedient, and busy yourself to induce them most instantly, enjoining upon them the remission of their sins, that, manfully pursuing their own interest, they succour us without any delay with as great an army of warriors as they can. And if we shall yet have that at an opportune time, we hope in the Lord that the enemy shall not prevail, but shall fail: otherwise you may safely protest to them that they will be able to impute it to themselves, not to us, if, the deserters being deserted, we shall take care to provide for the honor of the Church otherwise, with the Lord's help. Given at Perugia on the VII of the Ides of October, in the third year of our Pontificate.

[35] With what success Bl. Guala labored for the Pontiff's cause among the Lombards Raynaldus does not record: with whose cooperation they renew the league against the emperor. but from the narrative of Sigonius cited at num. 30 I understand that on the 2nd day of the following month of December they restored the league which in the year 1226 they had entered into against Frederick the emperor. Tristanus Calchus, book 13 of the History of his Country, that is, of Milan, at the year 1229 likewise testifies that the said league was renewed in the month of December; and he adds that the Milanese sent to the Pontiff an auxiliary band of soldiers: whose example I judge that the other cities of the Lombard league followed. I transfer hither the words of both writers. On the IV of the Nones of December, says Sigonius, the moderators, prætors, and legates of the confederated cities came together at Milan; and in the presence of Henry the archbishop, of Gaufredus the Cardinal legate Apostolic, and of Brother Gualla, they reported concerning the league of which we have treated above at num. 26. The opinions of all having been spoken, by the greatest consent of all they resolved that the league should be renewed on the same conditions on which it had been struck at S. Zeno in former years; and to that the moderators, legates, and prætors of the several cities swore. The Paduans, however, and the Veronese, although present, are not reported to have sworn. Tristanus has these things: Afterward through December the same cities of the Lombard league … sent their prætors with some citizens to Milan, where, with the assent of Henry the archbishop and legate, of Varalla the Spaniard, bishop of Brescia and Apostolic legate of the brotherhood of the Preachers, they confirmed the league formerly entered into in the village of S. Zeno of Mosio []. In the same year there set out from Milan into Apulia against Frederick Cæsar Ubertus Buxerius and Panmilius Alberius with a hundred men renowned in warfare.* The Blessed one's name, corrupted into Varalla, seemed Spanish to Tristanus, whence he also thought him to be a Spaniard, who was born in Italy.

[36] Dominican writers clothe with false circumstances Bremond, in vol. 1 of the Bullarium, in the Appendix subjoined to the bulls of Pope Honorius III, p. 17, says, Br. Gualla of Bergamo … was legate of Honorius in the year MCCXXVI; and by his agency the people of Bologna made a truce of ten years with those of Modena. The authority is Cavalerius, vol. 1 p. VIII of the Preface, and p. XIV. Credit is with the best right to be given to him chiefly for this, that he was a man of wondrous sagacity and erudition, an untiring investigator both of the domestic histories of the Order of Friars Preachers and of his fellow citizens of Bergamo, and of foreign ones, and applied his zeal with prosperous success to searching out ancient monuments in those regions — Father Cavalerius, most eminent in known virtue and proven fidelity. That a truce of ten years was made between the people of Bologna and those of Modena by the Blessed one in the year MCCXXVI, Pio, Marchesius, and Charles of St. Vincent also assert, citing Prelormitanus, an author of the later sixteenth century, of whom Echard treats in vol. 1 of the Library of the Order of Preachers p. 76. That Bremond ought to have abstained from the immoderate praises with which he extols his Cavalerius, and that the latter, with the other Dominican writers just now named, fell into errors, will be made plain from what follows.

[37] the history of the truce made between the people of Bologna and those of Modena: Sigonius, often praised, at the year 1229, having narrated the bloody war of the people of Bologna with those of Modena, writes that Pope Gregory commissioned Nicolas, bishop of Reggio, to bring the disagreeing cities to concord so far as he could. In proof of which he produces Gregory's letters to Nicolas, given at Perugia on the III of the Ides of October, in the III year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1229. A little below he brings forward the words by which the bishop of Reggio on the XI of the Calends of January of that same year proclaimed the truce of war, to which both cities had consented. I Nicolas, bishop of Reggio, delegated by the command of the Lord Gregory the Pontiff to compose a peace or a long truce between the people of Bologna and those of Modena, having received from the prætors and councils of either city solemn oaths concerning the truces to be kept between them and the captives to be restored, according to the formula of the compromise I say, enjoin, decide, and judge that from this present day up to the next Calends of January, and from the next Calends of January up to eight completed years, they keep truces between themselves. There follow the terms which Nicolas by Pontifical authority enjoined upon both parties, to be kept under pain of excommunication during the time of the truce. To these is subjoined: Done above the threshold of the church of S. Ægidius at Modena, in the presence of Brother Gualla, legate of the Pontiff in Lombardy, of Raymond, abbot of Nonantola, &c.

[38] [yet I believe it to be true that they were brought by the Blessed one's agency to make the truce.] It is clear from what has been alleged that Nicolas, bishop of Reggio, was sent as legate by the Pontiff to the people of Bologna and of Modena, and that these made between themselves a truce not of ten years, as the writers mentioned above affirm, but only of eight years and some days; not in the year MCCXXVI, as those same writers write, but toward the end of the year 1229. Meanwhile I judge that this must be granted to them, that by the intervening authority, industry, and counsels of Bl. Guala it was chiefly brought about that the discordant cities obeyed bishop Nicolas, and that he discharged his legation happily: for this can be confirmed also from other writers who have made mention of the war of the people of Bologna and of Modena. Hieronymus Rubeus, book 6 of the Histories of Ravenna at the year 1230, says, A fierce battle was joined by them, many being slain on both sides: at last by the agency of the bishop of Reggio and of Guala, a priest of the Dominican Order, a man most excellent in eloquence and piety, truces of nine years … were made. Muratori in vol. 18 of the Writers of Italy, after col. 234, published the Miscellaneous History of Bologna, its author being chiefly Brother Bartholomew della Pugliola, who, he says in the Preface, flourished in the year 1394. In that History at the year 1229 these things are found in Italian: On the X day of December the bishop of Reggio and a certain Brother, whose name was Guala, made truces between the people of Bologna and those of Modena and the allies of either party, for nine years: and all the captives were released, and went to their own cities. The authors whose words I have here given err in some circumstances, which the reader will easily correct from num. 36.

[39] In the year 1230 Frederick II was reconciled to the Pontiff and to the Church. In the year 1230 Frederick II, by Bl. Guala The whole course of the affair Raynaldus describes at length at that year: but he makes no mention, not even by a word, of Bl. Guala, who nevertheless in the pacification of the emperor with the Pontiff won the greatest praise. The witness is Richard in his Chronicle, who flourished not only in the town of Campania Felix called S. Germano, that is, in the very place where the peace was treated of, but also at the same time. Receive his words from the edition of Muratori, vol. 7 of the Writers on Italian Affairs col. 1019. On the last day but one of May the emperor, coming to Capua to them, namely to John, bishop of Sabina, and to Thomas, Cardinal priest of the title of S. Sabina, legates of the Apostolic See, when he would not accept the form of the concord, because the Church wished to retain S. Agatha and Gaeta, the Cardinals, withdrawing from Capua, betake themselves to Suessa; where, speaking with the people of Gaeta, .. when they had not been able to bend them to the emperor's wishes, they returned to S. Germano: where, when the form of the concord had long been treated of, and it could not, the author of discord working, be brought to completion; it was necessary that the Master of the House of the Teutons should again labor with the lord Pope together with the bishop of Reggio of Lombardy, who had come in earnest to the emperor for the reforming of peace between him and the Church. And when they returned without effect, they consequently go back to the Pope; and then with them a certain Brother Gualo of the Order of Preachers is sent, the form of the concord having been accepted: and the Pope himself, going out of the city [], came to Grottaferrata.*

[40] But the emperor had already come from Capua to S. Germano; being induced, he solemnly swears that he will make satisfaction to the Church. where the said Br. Gualo at a late hour addressed him, and at his word the emperor consented to make satisfaction to the Church: on account of which, in token of gladness, at S. Germano the bells were rung through all the churches; and the same Br. Gualo returned in haste to the Pope, whom he found at Anagni. Therefore on Tuesday, nine days standing of July (that is, the XXIII of July. See Du Cange's Glossary under the word mensis) on the feast of S. Apollinaris the aforesaid bishop of Sabina and the Cardinal of S. Sabina, in the greater church of S. Germano, in the presence of the patriarch of Aquileia, of the archbishop of Salzburg, of the bishops of Regensburg and of Reggio, of the dukes of Carinthia and Moravia &c., publicly receive an oath from the emperor concerning making satisfaction to the holy Roman Church for those things for which he had been excommunicated. The things which were done before Bl. Guala's peacemaking legation to Frederick, and after the latter's solemn oath by which he promised that he would make satisfaction to the Church, if the reader desires to know them, let him consult the praised Raynaldus's Annals and the Chronicle of Richard; who at col. [ ] in Muratori's edition makes mention of the Blessed one a second time. On Wednesday, says he, eight days standing of July, that is, on the day after the said oath was taken by Frederick, on the Vigil of saint James, Brother Gualo, returning from the lord Pope to S. Germano, by Apostolic authority ordered the divine Offices to be restored by the Cardinals in S. Germano and in the whole land of the monastery, which had been interdicted by the bishop of Albano in the preceding year, that is, 1229. Read what our chronologist writes at this year in the same Muratori, col. [ ].

[41] [The Pontiff in the year 1231 commands him and other bishops to bring back the Lombards to concord with the emperor.] After Gregory had made peace with Frederick and had restored him to the communion of the Church, he turned his zeal to this, that the quarrels which stood between the confederated cities of Lombardy and the emperor should be laid aside. For which cause the Pontiff informed their prefects that Frederick, against whom in the preceding year they had renewed the league, as was said at num. 34, had remitted to them every offense; and he also transmitted to them, inserted in his letters, the form of the oath by which the emperor had bound himself to the pardon of injuries. Consult Raynaldus at the year 1230 num. 14. At the following year, num. 2 at the end, he writes that the Pontiff exhorted the emperor not to show any molestation to the Lombards. But even as, he says at num. 3, he commended the Insubrians to Frederick, that he should refrain from injuring them, so he most gravely admonished them to render their due offices to Frederick, and ordered them to be bound by oath by the bishop of Vercelli and the bishop of Brescia according to the formula drawn up of the peace entered into with the emperor. To the same Bishops also and to the bishop-elect of Mantua he gave the province that, since Frederick was demanding to hold an assembly with his son and the princes of Germany, they should persuade the Lombards not to bar the Germans from entry into Italy… The Pontiff finally sent Apostolic letters to the prefects of Insubria, that, a council being held, they should hear the things proposed by the Bishops, and should answer them according to their wisdom. These are drawn together from epistles 2, 76, and 138 of book 5 of Gregory, which Raynaldus cites in the margin. The efforts of our bishop of Brescia and of the other bishops in bringing over the prefects of the confederated cities to the Pontiff's will were vain: for in ancient documents I read that in that same year 1231 they confirmed at Bologna the league against Frederick by a new oath.

[42] [His memory in ancient instruments: he is said to have reconciled the Guelphs with the Ghibellines at Brescia.] In the month of May of the year 1233 there took place the honorific elevation of the body of St. Dominic, of which it has been treated in vol. 1 of August from p. 524. Our blessed Bishop was present at it with the archbishop of Ravenna and three other bishops, as Constantine of Orvieto attests in the Life of the holy patriarch, in Echard vol. 1 of the Library p. 37 col. 2. Muratori in vol. 4 of the Italian Antiquities, col. [ ], published an instrument of the peace composed between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines by Br. John of Vicenza of the Order of Preachers in the month of August of the year 1233 in the territory of Verona, in the presence of the witnesses the lords Jacobus of Verona, Brother Gualla of Brescia, Guidottus of Mantua .. bishops &c. In the month of November in the year 1235 the league of the people of Ferrara with the league of Lombardy was renewed in the chamber of the hall of the lord Guala, bishop of Brescia; as is found in the charter which is extant in Muratori in the same vol. 4 of the Antiquities col. 331. In the same place at col. 389 another instrument is brought forward, from which it is established that the people of Modena on the XI of February in the year 1236, before nine Cardinals and Brother Gualla, bishop of Brescia, asked of Gregory IX, then staying at Viterbo, that he would declare the people of Bologna struck with anathema, because they had broken the truce, concerning which see num. 35 and following. Ughelli says of our blessed Bishop, At Brescia he wrote those covenants of peace between the Guelphs, that is, those attached to the Pontiff, and the Ghibellines, who favored the emperor, by which they seemed to be soothed, so that thereafter they refrained from the destruction of their country, which hitherto the revived obstinacy of the parties had threatened it with. Florentinius has it briefly thus: In the city he reconciled the Guelphs with the Ghibellines. Among the older writers I find nothing concerning that pacification. Of the origin and progress in Italy of the factions which were formerly designated by the name of Guelphs and Ghibellines, Muratori, just now praised, discourses learnedly and elegantly, as is his wont, from col. 605.

in Raynaldus's edition, promissionibus*

ibid. quia*

ibid. inextinguibile*

ibid. desierint*

read Mosii*

urbe*

§ V. The laying down of the bishopric; his life and death in the monastery of Astino: did he there take up the habit of the monks of the Order of Vallombrosa?

[ ] [He lays down the bishopric in the year 1241 or 1242: Panvinius is refuted, and those who have followed him.] Wlon on this day, in his notes to the announcement of Bl. Guala from the Vallombrosan Tables, transmitted to him in the year 1591, writes that he presided over the church of Brescia for XIV years. The same is affirmed by the sixteenth-century writers Peregrinus, Guarnerius, Loccatellus, and by almost all who are later than they. Above at num. 25 we said that the blessed Bishop began to sit before the end of the year 1228 and after the XXII of July of the year 1227. Add the 14 years of his rule, and you will come to the year 1241 or 1242, in one or other of which he laid down the bishopric. Let no one here object the Chronicle of Onuphrius Panvinius, in which it is asserted that Helias Robertus was in the year 1239 made patriarch of Antioch from being bishop of Brescia. I convict that author of a manifest error thus. To the see of Antioch, which was vacant on the death of the patriarch Raynerius in the year 1226, was translated Albertus, bishop of Brescia, the immediate predecessor of Bl. Guala. See num. 24. But in the book On the Deeds of God through the Franks p. 1195, of the Bull published by Pope Innocent IV in the council of Lyons in the year 1245, Albertus, patriarch of Antioch, is read subscribed in express words: therefore Helias Robertus was not raised from the see of Brescia to that of Antioch in the year 1239, since Albertus still held it in the year 1245. This patriarch died a little after the celebration of the council of Lyons in that same year 1245 or in the following, as our Peter Bosch shows in the Chronological History of the Patriarchs of Antioch num. 673. Not a few moderns have adopted Panvinius's error, some of whom Bremond cites in vol. 1 of the Bullarium p. 112 and 114; where among the men of his Order illustrious in ecclesiastical dignity under Gregory IX he reckons Helias Robertus, and lays down that he was bishop of Brescia in the year 1239, and patriarch of Antioch in the year 1240. If he was promoted to this dignity, it did not happen sooner than about the year 1246, as is clear from what has been said. Nay, it is permissible to doubt whether he ever was patriarch of Antioch, since, says the praised Bosch, the moderns affirm it not on the authority of the ancients, but only on their own, following Panvinius. It is also uncertain whether he is to be numbered among the bishops of Brescia. Florentinius indeed inserted him in their Catalogue after Bl. Guala, but on the faith of Panvinius, adding that the monuments of Brescia make no mention of him. Whence also Ughelli in vol. 4 of Italia sacra, old edition, granted him no place in the series of the bishops of Brescia, for the arranging of which he says at p. 726 that he used the Catalogue of Florentinius.

[44] [He withdraws into the monastery of Astino, where what he did is reported from Guarnerius] Concerning the laying down of the bishopric, his withdrawal into the monastery of the Holy Sepulcher at Astino, and the life he led there, Guarnerius relates the following: The office of his legation being completed, whether it was that a weariness of business, or a longing for contemplation and for his native country had seized Gualla, he laid down the bishopric, which he had ruled most holily for XIV years, and returned to Bergamo. By the people of Bergamo he was received with as great honor as they judged to be owed to his virtue and merits. He, having most affectionately greeted his fellow countrymen, desirous of some retreat and refuge where he might spend what remained of his life in the contemplation of divine things, withdrew into the monastery of the Vale of Astina. There, far from the company of men, with the monks he passed his old age in perpetual pursuit of heavenly things; and he was the promoter of enlarging the dwelling where the monks lived. In weightier matters also the people of Bergamo used to summon him from the monastery. Wherefore, as they had known that he had been present at the translation of SS. Faustinus and Jovita at Brescia (see above at num. 20): so when they had determined to widen the church of S. Stephen of the convent of the Order of Preachers and to make it most magnificent, they employed Gualla to lay the first stone of the foundations. When as an old man he had died, he was laid in the church of that monastery (of Astino) before the altar of S. Martin.

[45] and from Peregrinus, The other things which the more recent writers record that Bl. Guala did after laying down his pastoral office I believe to have been taken from Peregrinus, who is older than the rest; whose narrative therefore I prefer to transcribe, although it is vitiated by many chronological errors. After, he says in part 2 of the Vineyard of Bergamo chap. 33, the vineyard of Brescia entrusted to him he had governed for XIV years by word and example, in the year of the Lord MCCXXXIX he renounced it, and returned to his own country: where in the abbey of S. Sepulcher of Astino a dwelling was given him by the reverend Lord Alexander, abbot of this place: in which abbey the reverend Bishop himself wrought many good works; for he dedicated a chapel to the honor of S. Nicholas, bishop and confessor, which, as Loccatellus adds, he had built in a place separate from the church of the abbey, and consecrated one altar in it: for he was the father of the poor, of widows, of the sick, and of pilgrims… This most worthy lord Priest also, while he was suffragan of the reverend lord Albertus de Tertio, bishop of Bergamo, in the year of the Lord MCCXXXVI consecrated the altar of S. Mary the Virgin in the cathedral church of S. Alexander; and in MCCXLIV on the XXIV day of May he was present at the translation of the body of S. Dominic, celebrated at Bologna: and in the same year on the XI day of August, by the authority of the aforesaid most reverend bishop-elect, and at the instance of the reverend Brother Pinamons Peregrinus de Brembate, first Prior of the monastery of S. Stephen and a disciple of S. Dominic, in the presence of the clergy and people of Bergamo, he was buried. These things from the Annals and Calendars of that abbey, and from its history, written in book IV chapter VII of the Antiquities and Deeds of the Saints of Bergamo.

[46] In the following chapter Peregrinus, in his eulogy of Alexander, abbot of Astino, has these things: whose chronological errors are corrected. He did many good works in the abbey and in his church, and first a silver cross; which he caused to be consecrated by the aforesaid blessed Gualla, residing there, on the Non. of the Calends of February of the year MCCXXXVIII. He caused also a palace to be made, in which the same blessed Gualla resided, and he did many other memorable things. Peregrinus wanders shamefully in designating the times at which each thing happened. He says that Bl. Guala, having laid down the bishopric of Brescia, did not return to his own country, that is, to Bergamo, before the year 1239, and at the same time asserts that he resided in the abbey of Astino near Bergamo in the year 1238, nay that already from the year 1236 he was suffragan of Albertus de Tertio, bishop of Bergamo, and that he then consecrated in the cathedral church of that same city an altar to the Virgin Mother of God. Peregrinus plainly contradicts himself, and commits as many errors as he determines years. For he did not lay down his pastoral office in the year 1239, but, as was said above, in 1241 or 1242. To one or other of these years or to those next following are to be deferred whatever things I have transcribed from Peregrinus: if, however, you except the translation of S. Dominic, at which the Blessed one was present not in the year 1244, as that writer again falsely asserts, but in 1233. Go to vol. 1 of August p. 524 and following.

[47] Of Albertus, bishop of Bergamo, of whom the same Peregrinus makes mention, His services to the church of Bergamo under the bishops Albertus and Henry. I read these things in Ughelli, vol. 4 of Italia sacra, Venetian edition, from col. 474: Albertus, of the family of Terzi, a noble of Bergamo, was chosen bishop in the year MCCXLII. For almost eight years as bishop-elect he administered this see, which in the year MCCL, willingly and gladly, not yet consecrated, he freely resigned into the hands of Innocent IV. This is found in the Vatican Register, ep. CCCLXX, of the translation of his successor Aloysius. If Albertus was not consecrated, he did not exercise the functions which are of the episcopal Order. Hence what Peregrinus writes receives no little probability, namely that Bl. Guala was the suffragan of Albertus, not indeed in this sense, that he bore that office; but that he dedicated an altar to the most holy Virgin Mary in the cathedral, and performed other things which are wont to be performed by suffragans, but cannot be performed by unconsecrated bishops. The predecessor of Albertus was Henry Sessa, concerning whom in the praised Work of Ughelli these words of Guerrinus are produced: Various monuments of him remain in the capitular Acts: in whose time Bl. Gualla de Romnonibus, a citizen of Bergamo and bishop of Brescia, contributed much to the spiritual government, since he was of the first disciples of S. Dominic, and, having left the church of Brescia, in a good old age made illustrious the Vallombrosan monastery of Astino, to which he betook himself. Ughelli, treating of Atto II and his successor Henry Sessa, appends those chronological notes from which it follows that Henry presided over the church of Bergamo from about the middle of the month of April of the year 1241 up to the beginning of September of the following year. That against our opinion, which lays down that Bl. Guala in the year 1241 or 1242 resigned the bishopric of Brescia, nothing can be inferred from Guerrinus's words, is plain to one who considers it.

[48] The year, day, and place of his death. All agree among themselves that the Blessed one passed to a happier life in the year 1244. Most place the day of his death on the III of September, for which month Florentinius, Ughelli, and Simius note December. Leander Albertus, book 3 On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Preachers p. 114 verso, writes that Bl. Guala was born to the world and to heaven at Brescia. One or the other Bernard Gui asserts, who died in the later fourteenth century, in Malvenda in the Annals of his Order p. 373: Br. Guala, bishop of Brescia, dies at Brescia: concerning which Br. Guala there is special mention in the Deeds of Bl. Dominic. He lies in a certain monastery of Vallombrosa which is called Asti, near Bergamo. If a punctuation be set before the word episcopus, Bl. Guala will be understood as born at Brescia; if after it, as having died in the same city. That he sprang from Bergamo almost all the more recent writers assert: against whom I have opposed nothing above at num. XI, 1 because the people of Brescia themselves confess it; 2 because Bernard Gui speaks doubtfully; 3 because, although he may have wished to signify that the Blessed one was born at Brescia, yet it would not on that account be indubitable: for Bernard could have understood otherwise those older than himself who called him of Brescia from his bishopric, and judged that by that surname his native country was indicated. Since with all it is certain that Bl. Guala, having left the city and bishopric of Brescia, spent the last years of his life in the Vallombrosan abbey of Astino, and was buried in its church before the altar of S. Martin; it is far more credible that the said abbey was the place of his death.

[49] There are those who say that he took up the habit of the Order of Vallombrosa; More ambiguous is the question what kind of religious life he led in the monastery of Astino. The Martyrologists, whose words I reported at num. 2, relate that from a bishop he there became a humble Vallombrosan monk. He lived, says Loccatellus, a writer of that Order, like the other monks who were living there, leading with them the monastic life and observing the same discipline; and that he might conform himself to them in every respect, he took up the habit of our Order. Simius, likewise a Vallombrosan monk by profession, thus praises him for his strict keeping of the monastic discipline: When he had most holily governed the church of Brescia for fourteen years, he abdicated the pastoral office, becoming a humble monk of saint Sepulcher of Astino; and there he led entirely the same life as the other cenobites of that sacred monastery, never suffering himself to have any privilege either from the choir, or from the common table, or from the fasts, vigils, and prayers prescribed in the rule, which he fulfilled most perfectly according to its every jot: a kind of life in an illustrious Man of advanced age, and already established in the episcopal dignity, of rare example indeed and of such merit that it was above the merit of all the other fathers who there flourished in sanctity.

[50] with whom we must not agree until they prove it from trustworthy documents. Since Bl. Guala before his bishopric had professed the religious life in the Order of St. Dominic, it ought not to be believed that he afterward took on the habit of the Vallombrosan Order, unless it be proved by fitting authority. But this those do not do who affirm it. Simius indeed notes in the margin the archives of S. Sepulcher of Astino: but are trustworthy documents about the Blessed one preserved there? Wion above at num. 3 writes that two sets of tables were transmitted to him thence, the one in the year 1591, the other in the year 1593. In the former, he says, it is noted that he was a disciple of S. Dominic, bishop of Brescia, who flourished about the year 600: for no other Dominic sat at Brescia before Bl. Guala. The other tables have the same parachronism, and besides make the Blessed one bishop of Bergamo. By this error Wion corrupted his announcement: the other Simius adopted; for the eulogy with which he adorns the Blessed one he thus begins: S. Guala, likewise a citizen of Bergamo, of the family of Romi, or Roma, first a disciple of saint Dominic, bishop of Brescia &c. If from other instruments of the monastery of Astino it cannot be shown that the habit of the monks of the Order of Vallombrosa was taken up by the Blessed one, the Dominican Fathers will not give credit to their tradition. If better monuments are extant there, let them be produced. Meanwhile it is permitted me to favor the Order of Preachers, and to believe that Bl. Guala persevered in it to the end of his life; even though, freed from episcopal cares, he chose a dwelling in an abbey of the Congregation of Vallombrosa, that there he might more freely be at leisure for the pursuits of heavenly things.