The entire Boerio-episode (pp. 146c-147c), is wanting in all the MSS. It is, however, most plainly authentic. I believe both the episode and a further passage concerning Boerio to have been furnished by Boerio’s son, a Secular Priest, who died a septuagenarian in 1561; his monument still exists in the Church of the Santa Annunciata, at Sturla, near Genoa. See the Biografia Medica Ligure, by Dottore G. B. Pescetto, Genova, 1846, Vol. I, p. 104.—There are some suspicious symptoms connected with that first consultation of Physicians: Boerio’s interviews read as though they had not been quite recently preceded by such an activity—and it is possible that we have here an account produced by a retrogressive doubling of the undoubtedly authentic consultation of the 10th of September, to be described presently. Still, there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the account itself. I have, then, allowed both consultations to stand.
[192] Vita, p. 72a.
[193] Copies of these six entries in the Manuale Cartularii of the Hospital exist attached to the MS. Vita in the Biblioteca della Missione Urbana.
[194] From the copy of the original Codicil in the Archivio di Stato, made for me by Dre. Ferretto. The Inventory exists attached to the MS. Vita just mentioned.
[195] Vita, p. 148b. It is remarkable that, since January 10, this is the first date given by the Vita; that a series of dated days then extends onwards to August 28 (pp. 148a-152a); that then a gap occurs, filled in with a general but authentic account (pp. 152b-153c), evidently by another hand, the same writer who gave us the (also dateless) account from mid-January to mid-May (pp. 141b-145b); and that the dated chronicle is finally carried on from September 2 to the end, September 15 (pp. 153c-161a). If I am right as to the oneness of authorship as regards these two undated parts, then they are either not by Vernazza; or if they are, then Vernazza must have been about Catherine till September 2.
Now the Vita, p. 120b, tells us how Marabotto on one occasion left her “for three days,” at a time when she was already suffering much from “accidenti.” It is evident, that this absence fits in admirably with the gap already mentioned. Hence these dateless accounts can hardly be by Marabotto; and indeed their whole tone and point of view are unlike his. They might be by Carenzio: we shall see how strikingly objective and precise are the oldest constituents of the report as to the last three days of her life, during which, or at least at the end of which, Marabotto was as certainly absent as was Vernazza. There is, however, I think, some difference of tone between this latter report, and those dateless passages; whereas those passages are strikingly similar, in form and tone, to the oldest constituents of the Trattato, which are undoubtedly the literary work of Vernazza.
The probabilities then are, that these dateless accounts are by Vernazza; and that he left Genoa on September 1 or 2.
[196] Vita, p. 148c. “Disse molte belle parole al santo Sacramento [e ai circonstanti, con tanto fervore e pietà,] che ognuno ne piangeva per divozione.” I have omitted the bracketed words, as a disfiguring gloss.
[197] Vita, p. 149b. I have neglected the numerous glosses to this account, and have read “several” instead of “seven” days, since she was again in great distress on August 22, or 23 at latest (Ibid. p. 149c).
[198] Ibid. p. 149c. I have here omitted an evidently later insertion and transition between that highly localized paralysis and the death-like sickness of the whole of her; and have made the latter come on after the former, for how otherwise could any one know about that paralysis?