ON ST. MARTINIAN, BISHOP OF COMO IN ITALY, AT COMO IN ITALY.
In the year DCXXVIII.
The place, the cult, and a few other things gathered concerning the Saint.
Martinian, bishop of Como in Italy (St.)
BY J. P.
Como is an ancient city of Italy which, being increased in inhabitants, began to be called Novocomum. This bishop For in Strabo, book 5, p. 203 of the Paris edition, which is noted as printed in the year 1620, these things are written: Comum was at first a middling town: but Pompeius Strabo, father of the Great, restored it after it had been afflicted by the Rhaetians dwelling above it. Then C. Scipio added three thousand colonists: to whom the divine Caesar in turn added 1ⅠƆCC, of whom 1ⅠƆC were the noblest of the Greeks. To these he both gave the right of citizenship, and among the colonists entered their names, who however, being Greeks, did not set their dwellings there, but left their name to that colony, so that all the townsmen should be called Novocomenses. Moreover that city is situated on the lake formerly called Larius, but now the lake of Como, commonly Lago di Como, and is distant from Milan 25 thousand paces to the north, toward Chur, according to the measurement of Francesco Orlendi, part 2, book 2, ch. 9, p. 248 of the Orbis sacer et profanus, where he afterward gathered various other things about this city. Among its other bishops St. Martinian deserves an honorable place, who made illustrious by his virtues and merits the see committed to him; concerning which I could wish that more documents of antiquity were found transmitted to posterity. First, Aloysius de Tattis in his Martyrology of Como writes these things on this day: At Como, in the church of St. Abundius, the birthday of St. Martinian, bishop of Como and confessor, who, in the time of the Lombards being taken to the government of this church, made it illustrious by the admirable integrity of his life, and, heaped with merits, flew away to heaven unto eternal rewards. Castellan also wove him into his universal Martyrology as a Saint, following Ughelli, vol. 5 of the Italia sacra, among the bishops of Como, among whom he assigns him the sixteenth place in order.
[2] Of him, says Tattus in his notes on the said Martyrology, of whom many authors have made mention, there treat on this day the peculiar Offices of the church of Como, together with Paolo Giovio, History of his country, book 2; Feliciano Ninguarda in his Description of the churches of the city, where he speaks of the basilica of St. Abundius; Filippo Archinto in the Catalogue of his predecessors; Lazzaro Carafino in the Diptychs of the bishops of Como, and in the Catalogue of the Saints and Blessed whose bodies rest in the city and diocese; Francesco Ballarino, Chronicle, parts 2 and 3; Quintilio Lucino Passalacqua in his first historical letter; Roberto Rusca, book 1 of the History of his own lineage; Lelio Fravezzi in his Perpetual Diary of Como; Ferdinando Ughelli, vol. 5 of the Italia sacra, in the series of the bishops of Como, n. 16, and Filippo Ferrari in his New topography to the Roman Martyrology. We too have inserted something about Martinian in our Annals of Como, book 9, from n. 3 to 14.
[3] Then Tattus thus confirms the cult of this holy Bishop: He was buried in the aforesaid basilica of St. Abundius beneath the outer choir chapel, where he received a common tomb with the bodies of the other holy bishops from his death. he is said to be venerated as a Saint in the church of Como. The particular Acts of St. Martinian have perished: yet the fame of his sanctity has from time immemorial procured for him in our church the accustomed honors of the citizens of heaven. Ferrari, just now cited, treating of Como, sets down two catalogues of the bishops of that city: one indeed comprising those of whom he says that an Office is recited in the church of Como; the other of those of whom, although, as he adds, they are held among the Saints, it recites no Office. And in this second catalogue Martinian is placed: whose Acts, since they have perished, on Tattus' testimony, I shall try to hunt out from elsewhere some things which are related about him.
[4] Other things, Behold for you this brief summary about him from Ughelli: St. Martinian, a fellow-citizen of Adelbert and his disciple, was substituted for his master in the year DCXV. He administered the church entrusted to him for 13 years, and died in the year DCXXVIII, on the 3rd day of the month of September, and was buried near his teacher. This Saint we gave on the 3rd day of June, p. 309, where I find nothing by which today's Saint could be illustrated according to his merits. The fabulous Acts of Adelbert are there rejected. If we believe Ughelli, he was a fellow-citizen of his predecessor St. Rubianus; but Rubianus, as the same Ughelli relates, was from the city of Licia or Siscia in upper Pannonia on the river Calopius, now called Croatia, touching the borders of Dalmatia. Ballarino, mentioned above, in part 2, p. 102, and part 3, p. 179, relates that the same Siscia was his native place; which accordingly, from what has been said, would also have given birth to St. Martinian, as is reported. St. Rubianus Tattus inscribes in his Martyrology on the 16th of December.
[5] The things which about him But the same author, in book 9 of the Annals of Como, decade 1, n. 3, contradicts these things, indicating that both the birthplace of St. Martinian and the year of the beginning of his bishopric are alike uncertain to him, and that he has not ascertained upon what foundation those rest who report him as sprung from Siscia. Then he judges that they are also without doubt mistaken in designating the first year of his bishopric: for since the year 615, to which they defer Adelbert's death, cannot be assigned to him unless Boniface IV, who had died in the year 614, were then alive, he affirms that it must not be asserted either that St. Martinian succeeded Adelbert in the bishopric in the year 615, unless the see was long vacant between the one and the other; and to affirm that is to divine. He adds that he more probably believes that Adelbert departed this life in the first years in which Boniface began to feed St. Peter's flock; and thence he writes that he can with the same congruity reckon that in the same year in which Adelbert died, or in the next year, Martinian was substituted for him. You have Tattus' reasoning, which I shall now for a while examine.
[6] are related; St. Boniface IV, Pope, was raised to Peter's chair in the year 607, according to Baronius; and died, by the same author, in 614. But Pagi in his Critica Baroniana at the year 614, n. 2, ascribes the beginning of his Pontificate to the year 608, and his death to the year 615, which is also marked among us at the 25th day of May, p. 75, where we have treated of that holy Pontiff. On this occasion I recall to memory the things which we long ago said in St. Boniface in the place cited above: for there, besides other fabulous things attached to him and rejected by us, it is narrated that Boniface IV set out from Rome to Como in order to pay the last rites to the deceased Adelbert. But we said that this fiction is to be rejected, because the said Pontiff had died a whole year before this bishop. But this is according to Baronius' reckoning: for according to ours both would have died in the same year, and the Pope scarcely one month earlier, as is there written.
[7] These things being thus laid down, I do not see why another year should be sought for the beginning of St. Martinian's bishopric, are uncertain. than 615, in which his predecessor St. Adelbert also is said to have died, in the volume indicated before. But although it is not sufficiently established whether St. Martinian was then made bishop, since we know very few things about him, it has nevertheless seemed good to us to leave him attached to the said year, with which Ughelli marked him, and to assign his death with him to the year 628, or rather not to change what was then assigned by him. Ballarino sets down the same, and so does Tattus in his Annals, decade 1, at that year, with the addition of intorno, that is, about. He in the same place says that the Saint was buried in the basilica of the Apostles, now St. Abundius', where he affirms that he was found in the year 1587 together with other holy bishops, his predecessors and successors; and he indicates that there with them he was honored in his own time beneath the vault of the choir; although, as he observes, no particular knowledge could be had either of him or of the others, for this reason, that no sacred chest expressed the name of the Saint who was enclosed in it. To these I append the following eulogy.
[8] The eulogy. Ballarino at p. 104 praises St. Martinian summarily for his episcopal virtues, writing that he was a most dear friend of Jesus Christ, greatly solicitous for the salvation of the flock dear to him, which he preserved in obedience to the supreme Pontiff, in perseverance in true divine worship and in the Catholic religion, and that he was singular also in rebuking vices and in rewarding the cultivators of holy virtues. Tattus in his notes proclaims these things about him in particular: At the time when Martinian presided over our church, great commotions arose in the royal house of the Lombards, some championing Adalwald, son of Agilulf and of Theodelinda, the lawful heir of the scepter; others favoring Arioald, Adalwald's brother-in-law, who had seized with outstretched arms the kingdom offered to him by certain nobles. Together with the chief men of the kingdom, the princes of the churches and the bishops mingled themselves in these disturbances: to quiet which the authority of Honorius, the Roman Pontiff, availed nothing. For the holy bishops of Insubria defended with all their might Arioald, exalted by unanimous vote, although he was defiled with the Arian heresy. But to this unlawful election our Martinian never assented, who always adhered to Honorius and to Adalwald, together with Catharisinus, bishop of Piacenza, and certain others, upholders of the Catholic faith, of equity, and of the true king. These things Tattus drew into a summary, which he had related at greater length in his Annals of Como, written in Italian and designated above. Baronius may be consulted at the year 616 on the death of Agilulf; and on these disturbances at the year 626.