At Piperno, anciently Privernum, you quit Circe, for Virgil’s Camilla, a lady of a very different character, whose native city this is[4].
Near to Piperno, an abbey, called Fossa Nuova, is situated on the ruins of the little town of Forum Appii, the same of which mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles, and by Horace, in his account of his journey to Brundusium.
——Inde Forum Appi
Differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis.
The abbey of Fossa Nuova is said to have made a very valuable acquisition of late, no less than the head of St. Thomas Aquinas. We are told, in the memoirs of that Saint, that he was taken ill as he passed this way, and was carried to this convent, where he died. His body was afterward required by the king of France, and ordered to be carried to Thoulouse; but before the remains of this holy person were removed from the convent, one of the monks, unwilling to allow the whole of such a precious deposite to be carried away, determined to retain the most valuable part, and actually cut off the saint’s head, substituting another in its stead, which was carried to Thoulouse, very nicely stitched to the body of the saint. The monk, who was guilty of this pious fraud, hid the true head in the wall of the convent, and died without revealing the secret to any mortal. From that time the supposititious head remained unsuspected at Thoulouse; but as impostures are generally detected sooner or later, the venerable brethren of Fossa Nuova (this happened much about the time that the Cock-lane ghost made such a noise in London) were disturbed with strange knockings and scratchings at a particular part of the wall.—On this noise being frequently repeated, without any visible agent, and the people of the neighbourhood having been often assembled to hear it, the monks at length agreed to pull down part of the wall at the place where the scratching and knocking were always heard. This was no sooner done, than the true head of St. Thomas Aquinas was found as fresh as the day it was cut off;—on the vessel in which it was contained was the following inscription:
Caput divi Thomæ Aquinatis.
And near it a paper, containing a faithful narrative of the whole transaction, signed by the monk who did the deed.
Some people, not making a proper allowance for the difference between a saint’s head and their own, say, this cannot possibly be the head of Thomas Aquinas, which must have putrified some centuries ago; they say, the paper is written in a character by much too modern; they say, the monks contrived the whole affair, to give an importance to their convent; they say—but what signifies what they say? In this age of incredulity, some people will say any thing. We next came to Terracina, and here I must finish my letter; in my next I shall carry you to Naples.
[3] Hunc animum, hanc virtutem vestram, ultra periculis objicere, nimis grande vitæ meæ pretium puto. An ego tantum Romanæ pubis, tot egregios exercitus, sterni rursus et republicâ eripi patiar? Este superstites, nec diu moremur; ego incolumitatem vestram, vos constantiam meam. De nemine queror, nam incusare deos vel homines, ejus est, qui vivere velit. Tacit. Hist. lib. ii.