11
There were two other fellows[11] who were more profane still, and who said one to the other, ‘They make such a fuss about Padre Filippo and his miracles, I warrant it’s all nonsense. Let’s watch till he passes, and one of us pretend to be dead and see if he finds it out.’
So said so done. ‘What is your companion lying on the ground for?’ said St. Philip as he passed. ‘He’s dead! Father,’ replied the other. ‘Dead, is he?’ said Padre Filippo; ‘then you must go for a bier for him.’ He had no sooner passed on than the man burst out laughing, expecting his companion to join his mirth. But his companion didn’t move. ‘Why don’t you get up?’ he said, and gave him a kick; but he made no sign. When he bent down to look at him he found he was really dead; and he had to go for the bier.
[Cancellieri has collected some curious incidents (‘Morcato,’ p. 210–12, Appendix N. xxii.) concerning an attempt which was made by Princess Anne Colonna to obtain from Urban VIII. the authority to remove a part of the Saint’s body to her chapel at Naples. The Fathers of the Oratory and the people were greatly averse to dividing it, as it was very well preserved in its entirety. By a fatality, which the people readily believed to be providential, Monsig. Moraldo, who was charged to bring the matter under the Pope’s notice, forgot it every time he was in attendance on the Pope, though it was the most important thing he had to say. At last he put the Bull concerning it out on his desk that he might be sure to remember it, though otherwise he would have kept it concealed, for it bore the endorsement, ‘Per levare (to remove) parte del corpo di S. Filippo Neri.’ While he was talking about it to one of the papal secretaries standing near the window, a priest, who had come about other matters, was shown in, and thus happened to pass by the side of the table when the endorsement of the Bull caught his eye. With all a Roman’s desire to preserve the body to Rome intact, he immediately gave notice at the Oratory, and two courageous young fathers took upon themselves to hide the body. When the prelates, therefore, came shortly after to claim the fulfilment of the Bull, the Rector opened the shrine in good faith, but the body was not there, and the report ran among the vulgar that it had been miraculously removed. Subsequently the Rector gave them the heart, and drew a tooth of the Saint, which was a verbal compliance with the terms of the Bull, being certainly ‘a part of the body.’ Some years after, the body was restored to its shrine, and in 1743 Prince Chigi provided it with velvets and brocades to the value of 1,000 scudi.]
[1] ‘Grascia e annòna’ are two old words meaning all kinds of meat and vegetable (including grain) food. It was the title of one department of the local administration. There was a great dearth in Rome in the year 1590–1, mentioned in the histories of the times. It is probable the people would ascribe to the head of the department the fault of the calamity. [↑]
[2] These people generally call the popes by their family names. This ‘Papa Medici’ would be Pius IV., who reigned from 1559 to 1566. [↑]
[3] ‘Brutte anime,’ ‘ugly souls.’ [↑]
[4] All legends have doubtless some foundation in fact; but unfortunately for the detail of this one, the arms up in the façade of the said Churches, ‘Dei Miracoli’ and ‘di Monte Santo’—are the arms of a Cardinal Gastaldi or Castaldi, who rebuilt them about a hundred years later than St. Philip’s time. Alexander VII. having rebuilt the Flaminian Gate, or Porta del Popolo, the insignificance of these two churches became more noticeable than before; but he did not survive to carry out his intention of rebuilding them. This was subsequently performed by Cardinal Gastaldi.—Maroni, xii. 147, xxviii. 185; Panciroli, 169; Melchiorri, 254 and 420. [↑]
[5] ‘Impicciare,’ ‘entangle myself with,’ ‘interfere with’—a very favourite Romanism. [↑]
[6] ‘Impicciare,’ again here. [↑]
[7] ‘Campagnola,’ a peasant of the Campagna near Rome. [↑]
[8] A rubbio is between four and five acres. [↑]
[9] St. Philip lived and taught for thirty-three years at the Church of S. Girolamo della Carità, not very far from the vegetable market in Campo de’ Fiori, all the streets about containing shops much frequented by the country people when they come up to Rome with their vegetables. [↑]
[10] ‘Scocciare,’ to persevere to weariness; to din. [↑]
[11] ‘Vassalli,’ in the older dictionaries ‘vassallo’ is only defined as a vassal; but in modern Roman parlance it means a scamp, a vagabond. [↑]
THE PARDON OF ASISI.[1]
St. Felix,[2] St. Vincent,[3] and St. Philip went together once upon a time to the Pardon of Asisi.
As they were three great saints, the Pope sent for them as soon as they came back, saying he had a question to ask them. It was Innocent IX. or X., I am not sure which; but I know it was an Innocent.[4] He took them one by one, separately, and began with St. Felix.
‘Were there a great many people at the Pardon?’ said the Pope.
‘Oh yes, an immense number,’ answered simple St. Felix; ‘I had not thought the whole world contained such a number.’
‘Then a vast number of sins must have been remitted that day?’ said the Pope.
St. Felix only sighed in reply.
‘Why do you sigh?’ asked the Pope.
St. Felix hesitated to reply, but the Pope bade him tell him what was in his mind.
‘There were but few who gained the indulgence in all that multitude,’ replied the Saint; ‘for among them all were few who came with the contrition required.’
‘How many were there who did receive it?’ again asked the Pope.
Once more St. Felix hesitated till the Pope ordered him to speak.
‘There were only four,’ he then said.
‘Only four!’ exclaimed the Pope. ‘And who were they?’
St. Felix showed even more reluctance to answer this question than the others; but the Pope made it a matter of obedience, and then he said,
‘The four were Father Philip, Father Vincent, one old man, and one other.’[5]
The Pope next called for Father Vincent, and went through nearly the same dialogue with him, and his list was
‘Father Philip, Father Felix, one old man, and one other.’
Then the Pope sent for St. Philip, and held the same discourse with him, and his list was
‘Father Vincent, Father Felix, one old man, and one other.’
And the Pope saw that their testimony agreed together, and that each out of humility had abstained from naming that he was one of the four.
But when the people heard the story, they all began demanding that the three fathers should be canonized.
[Concerning St. Philip’s devotion to the Portiuncula, Cancellieri, ‘Mercato,’ § xxi. note 7, records that he never missed attending it every August at the little Church of S. Salvatore, in Onda, near Ponte Sisto, now a hospice for infirm priests (he gives a curious inscription in note * * *), then in the hands of the Franciscans for many years, while he lived in the neighbouring Palazzo Caccia.]
[1] ‘Il Perdon di Asisi.’ The indulgences attached to visiting the Church of S. Maria degli Angeli near Asisi (otherwise called the Porziuncula), received this name on occasion of its consecration on the 1st and 2nd August, 1225. The visit on the anniversary became one of the most popular of Italian pilgrimages. [↑]
[2] San Felice di Cantaliccio, 1513–87, is a very popular saint among the Romans, for one reason because he was born of poor parentage. Though of low origin, and only a lay brother in his convent, he was frequently consulted by important people on account of his piety and prudence. St. Charles Borromeo took great note of his advice. He was a contemporary of St. Philip. [↑]
[3] St. Vincent Ferrer, who is so popular a saint among the Romans, so continually coupled with St. Philip and his acts, and always spoken of as if he had all his life been an inhabitant of Rome, lived just two centuries earlier (1351–1419) than the ‘Apostle of Rome.’ Though he went about preaching and reforming all over Europe, and even in England and Ireland at the invitation of Henry IV., he was yet never in Rome at all, though much at Avignon under the so-called Benedict XIII., his countryman, with whom he used all his influence to make him put an end to the schism. [↑]
[4] Innocent IX., who reigned 1590–1, took a great deal of notice of St. Philip. It is curious the narrator should have been so far out concerning St. Vincent and so correct about this. [↑]
[5] ‘Un vecchietto e un’altro.’ [↑]