Henry the Hermit
Acta Sanctorum, June 30
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/june/day-30/henry-the-hermit.html
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CONCERNING BL. HENRY THE HERMIT,
AT VERONA IN ITALY.

IN THE YEAR 1350.

[Commentary]

Henry, Hermit, at Verona in Italy (B.)

D. P.

Of the holy Bishops of Verona
the ancient monuments, and of other
Saints, whose bodies, and
of some whose Churches are held at Verona,
by Raphael Bagatta,
Archpriest of the church of the holy
Apostles, [From the monuments of Verona collected by Bagatta and Peretto,] and Baptist Peretto, Rectors
of the church of St. Teuteria, collected, therefore often by us
are ascribed to Augustine Valerio Bishop of Verona,
in erudition no less than in piety famous, because he
(as to the reader they premise, and even the very book's
title speaks) of most of the by them indicated Saints
the histories, in a rude formerly style written, into a more elegant
form he reduced; [and ascribed to Augustine Valerio the Bishop,] which thus polished constitute
the second part of the book, by the aforesaid at Venice
in the year 1576 to be printed cared for: and these follows, as
a third part, the Index of the Holy Relics, which in
the same city's churches are found. These to premise
it pleased for the notice of the book, whence almost all is drawn the notice
of the above-titled Saint: [there is had notice of this Blessed] that what is its own to each be attributed,
nor longer to Augustine the Bishop be imputed
what is not his. No part certainly he had
in Henry, whose neither a Life any he found, none
also he polished: but in the former, which I said, part,
by the aforesaid Archpriest and Rector thus we read
written.

[2] Bl. Br. Henry of Bolzano the Hermit's body
reposes at Verona, [and of [his] relics and cult,] in the church of St. John in
the Font, which on the last day of June 1407, in the place
of St. Felix on the Mountain, while the foundations were being dug,
in a certain small monument, with a garment of
chains great iron, and a small scourge was found:
and (as from the stone of the same monument)
he died in the year 1350; from an ancient manuscript Chronicle,
from Francis Corna, and from the table of Saints in
the beginning. We also from the Rector of the said church,
on the 17th day of February 1574, received
that there is held in the Inventory of the said church a little case
with the Relics of Bl. Henry: which he himself in the trunk
of the altar of the blessed Virgin deposited, near the place,
where in the wall first they had been stored in the said
church. In the case, where are the said Relics, are kept
also an iron scourge, and a hair-shirt of iron
chains, with which Bl. Henry was clothed.

[3] He had died at Treviso, about 60 thousand paces from
the city of Verona, [but confused with the cult of another of the same name.] in the year 1315, on the 10th day of June; and buried,
with similar shone miracles, of the same name a Hermit
another, of Boceno or Bauzano, in German Botzen,
in Tyrol born: whose place's name to the Italians is Bolzano;
little or nothing different from a Veronese territory's village,
called Bolcano in the maps, otherwise, and perhaps more correctly,
Bolziano, on the very confine of the Vicenza diocese 10 miles
from the city; could have augmented the occasions of confounding each
into one person; persuading it also of the Germans
toward their fellow-citizen the piety, whom each city
to itself allured, the Tyrolean Henry to itself
arrogating, of whom some Life in hands was,
none of the Bolziano Henry. Of this confusion witnesses
are the Veronese Priests aforenamed, while the begun
about their Henry narration thus they pursue:
"On the same day, men most worthy of credit to us narrated,
a great of Germans concourse in those upper [former]
times to that same church
to have been: who a great number of Masses, to
the memory of Bl. Henry, out of devotion and vow to be celebrated
caused, large there offering alms. [An image among the Saints.]
On the aforesaid altar is an altarpiece ancient, on
which on one part is St. Antony, on the left St.
Peter Martyr, in the middle the Bl. Virgin Mary; at
whose feet is an image with knee bent of one man, with garment
Eremitic clothed, with a hat to his arm hung:
which indeed image is said to be of Bl. Henry."

[4] [The Translation from the Church of St. Felix to St. John.] Now as the translation concerns of the body into the church
of St. John, namely the Baptist, the Cathedral nearest,
and from the Font there for the whole city baptismal
surnamed "in the Font"; made was that from the Church
of St. Felix on the Mountain: about which church thus write the same
Priests. "St. Felix Bishop of Verona died
on the fourteenth before the Kalends of August … and from the name
of him today at Verona is extant a temple on the highest
hill: from it also the name received the citadel, in which
the temple is placed." About this citadel writes of the History
of Verona the Author Hieronymus della Corte, book 13, [after that one in the year 1393 destroyed]
at the year 1393 p. 220, that John Galeazzo
Visconti, to whose Dominion Verona then was subject,
solicitous how he might restrain those, whom in the city
he knew to favor the adversaries and exiles; decreed
to his security to provide, [for the cause of fortifying the citadel,] by building across
the river a castle, and by restoring the other of St. Peter,
by age now almost collapsed; because the prior
Lords had used almost only that, which of St. Martin
the Water-bearer name bore; and most excellent from everywhere
craftsmen and material being summoned, on the summit
of the mountain ordered the beginning of the structure to be given, around
the most ancient church of St. Felix the Bishop, who
there the greater part of his life in prayers
and fasts most severely had spent: stuck however
the zeal of the better structure to be completed, by the opportunity
which afforded the more quickly restored Rocca
of St. Peter, as being of a numerous garrison capable. When but in the year 1400 into the Venetians' Dominion of their own accord
had yielded the Veronese; [once there built.] by the same advisers was hastened
the citadel of St. Felix: about which, and about the other of St. Peter, it helps
to read Josse Hondius, in his description of Italy,
p. 335 thus speaking: On the highest slope there are
two citadels most noble, of St. Peter, and of St. Felix: of which
the former on the Adige almost rests, by Can Scaliger
raised (to the Emperor Berengarius it some attribute),
the latter on a more eminent place and as if on the brow of the valley sitting,
upon us the walls looks down, and far and wide
into the around-Po fields and almost all Cisalpine
Gaul spreads its prospect.

[5] [There he lived and died, Henry,] From the convenience which there had once St. Felix
of exercising himself solitarily, is given occasion of suspecting, a similar
there life to have led St. Henry, of whom we treat,
and therefore there also to have been buried; and similar
something seems also to have suspected Ferrari, writing
his general Catalogue of the Saints, who in the Roman Martyrology
are not. For after in his prior published Saints
of Italy Catalogue, on this day he had treated, as
of one only St. Henry the Hermit of Boceno
at Treviso and Verona… from a Life printed in the year
of the Lord 1600: in the other later, from the same Life
on the day June 10 he wrote; "At Treviso in Venetia, of Bl. Henry
Confessor"; and on the day 30th, "At Verona of Bl. Henry
the Hermit": and in the Notes, when he had indicated the diversity
of each cult, as to the day and year of death
and the place of burial, thus he concludes. "It is fitting therefore
the Body of him from Treviso to Verona secretly to have been conveyed,
and that deceived about the time were the Veronese:
since the Trevisans, with whom he lived and died,
in this matter to be deceived, less probable is. Unless one
two of this name Hermits to have been should say, of whom
one at Treviso, the other at Verona died; where
this one is venerated with the rite of a semidouble, as appears in the tables
of that Church."

[6] Our Janning, when in the year 1686, on August 10
the Veronese churches more curiously he went around, [whose body under the altar in the year 1686 inspected P. Janning.] about to report into
Belgium what there of the Saints more notable he had seen; led
to the church of St. John in the Font, saw there
under the altar, which to the major altar is at the horn of the Gospel,
a most beautiful of red marble shrine, thus inscribed; "Of St.
Henry the Hermit the body," of which to inspect the opportunity
when liberally made the Parish-priest, the altar's ornaments being removed,
he discovered that the cover could be moved. It therefore
as much as was needful being lifted, he saw of human bones
a heap, and upon it placed a skull whole,
with a chained hair-shirt and iron circles. He exulted at
the sight of these the Parish-priest, by the unhoped-for spectacle gladdened:
for he confessed that about that holy body nothing before
he had known himself. Instead of the ancient picture of the altarpiece, which Bagatta
describes; today over the altar is seen a panel, the Mother of God
the Virgin sublime representing, to whom on the left
St. John the Baptist, on the right stands St. Dominic; in the middle
indeed kneeling Henry, with his iron clothed
hair-shirt, but without rays; which on the old altarpiece found
Bagatta. He was said to have been by profession an Augustinian:
which as I received it, so I report it, and I wish it could be proved in
the silence of the very Veronese writers, whatever
in their age was reported collecting. Nor indeed sufficiently
agrees such an assertion, with the Augustinian Hermits'
life, which in the 14th century it is established to have been
cenobitic, not indeed solitary, such as by Henry
to have been led persuade all things above related.
