August 22 sees the commemoration of Saint Andrew of Ireland, also known as Andrew the Scot or Andrew, Archdeacon of San Martino a Mensola. The name of Saint Andrew is inextricably linked with that of his spiritual master, Donatus, with whom he travelled to Italy and with Brigid, his faithful sister in the flesh. I have been very interested in this trio since first learning about them, Bishop Donatus was responsible for spreading devotion to Saint Brigid of Kildare in Italy and indeed modern scholars believe that Saint Andrew’s sister Brigid is in reality a manifestation of the cult of the Irish patroness in the Fiesole area. I have read a number of accounts of Saint Andrew but the most enjoyable is that of Margaret Stokes in her 1892 book, Six Months in the Appenines: Or A Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges of the Irish Saints in Italy.  We begin with her account of how Saint Andrew came to accompany his master Donatus into exile for the sake of Christ:

” It was while the dismayed city of Fiesole was in this condition that the men of God, Donatus and Andrew, had turned thither in their wanderings through Tuscany, and, like other travellers, wearied with the great height they had climbed, and tired with their journey, they entered the hospice as the night closed in. Now it happened that at the moment of their arrival the abbey of Fiesole was filled with a great crowd of people in deep distress because they had been deprived of a pastor’s care. With one voice they implored that He who brought Israel up out of Egypt might protect them with His right hand, and might deign to preserve their church by some angelic visitation. While the people thus prayed aloud, Christ worked a new miracle for them, and brought Donatus and his friend Andrew to the church door.

“As they ascended the steep hill from the river’s side, the bells of the city on the instant rang forth, and the lamps burst miraculously into light of themselves. The people of Fiesole, amazed at this miracle, ran hither and thither through the city in all directions and in great confusion, asking in terror what might this portent mean. Impelled by their trust in God, they hurried down the hill to the abbey; men, women, and children of all ages, knelt there in tremblings and sobs and tears, and piously raising their hands to heaven, made prayer to God that He would deign to show them the meaning of this miracle.

Suddenly a silence fell upon the multitude, and a voice proclaimed, ‘Receive the stranger who approaches, Donatus of Scotia; take him for your shepherd.’ When the voice of the Lord had ceased, the people, not knowing what to do, remained in prayer. Then behold the men of God, Donatus and Andrew, having just entered the city, went to the abbey where the congregation were at prayer, and believing it to be a feast day, marvelled to see the dismayed people praying in alarm and suspense. Advancing slowly, they stood in silence awaiting the result.

“Then a certain poor man standing by, and happening to see the strangers, inquired of them whence they came and whither they were bound, and by what name they were called. Donatus, with his usual simplicity, answered humbly, ‘We are both men of Scotia. He is named Andrew, I Donatus. We came on pilgrimage to Rome.’ And the poor man, remembering the divine voice he had just heard, straightway cried aloud, ‘Citizens, the man is here of whom the Lord has spoken.’…

Donatus and Andrew at Fiesole.

Andrew, the faithful disciple who had followed Donatus from Ireland, remained at his
side till death, serving him in humility and goodness. Such was his wisdom that he was loved by the people of Fiesole no less than by his master. Donatus desired to promote him to the office of archdeacon, so as to raise his rank in the people’s eyes. Henceforth Andrew followed the footsteps of the first deacon, and is said to have resembled Stephen and Laurence in his habits of life.

It happened that one day the two friends were walking together round the foot of the hill of Fiesole, when they came to the banks of the little river Mensola, which flows at the foot of a certain height crowned by a church dedicated to St. Martin. Ascending the hill, they found the ancient sanctuary in ruins, and on inquiring the cause of this desolation from the people in the neighbourhood, they learned that it had been laid waste in former days by the barbarous soldiers of Totila.

Donatus, as he stood in his sadness among the broken walls and bewailed the destruction of the temple, wept, and then in silent prayer the bishop entreated of God to send and restore his church, and the deacon Andrew, standing by, seeing the tears of his most holy father, inquired the cause of his sorrow; the bishop lifting up his voice to heaven, cried aloud, “Behold how Thy sanctuaries are laid low, and Thy high places are made desolate, and Thy temple has become the den of robbers and of wicked men, who show tyranny against Thy house before the eyes of all men.” Andrew hearing these words, and filled with the zeal of charity, humbly offered to the bishop his earnest service for the restoration of the temple, and then, fixing his eyes on the ground, awaited his pleasure and commands. Donatus praised the devotion of the holy man, whose offer corresponded with his own thought. He made the sign of the cross, with hands stretched over him, and blessing him in God’s name, said that henceforth he was free to devote himself to this pious work, and that when he had restored the monastery, he might therein dedicate the days of his life to the Lord, along with such of the brethren as he might choose. Andrew, though the work seemed arduous and difficult for a poor and needy man, thus strengthened by the holy bishop, began to clear the sacred place of brambles and of thorns, to search for the ancient foundations and dig out the stones of the old walls, hidden under the ruins. He also prepared new stones and cement and other things necessary for the building, with sedulous care. He sought alms from the pious and faithful persons in the neighbourhood around; he hired builders, with whom he laboured himself after the manner of a reasonable bee, continually fulfilling these labours in the restoration of the church so far as his little body, attenuated by fasting, would allow.

In a short time the basilica was not only restored but enlarged; moreover, the man of God bought lands sufficient for his small company of monks with such sums as he could save by a holy parsimony, and earn through his own labours and that of his brethren. During these labours they lived on a most scanty subsistence, rejecting all superfluous things that might soften and enervate the rigour of their penitence, and after the completion of their work he distributed the surplus among the poor, not allowing these offerings to be hidden in chests, even to the amount of one jot; for the man of God thought avarice the greatest sin.

Having thus established his monastery near that of his master Donatus, he led a holy life in this place until he attained a good old age, expecting with a tranquil mind the gradual approach of his latter end. Were I to relate all the miracles which God deigned to grant to the prayers of this holy man, my work would expand beyond the limits usual in sacred writings. But here, in S. Martino a Mensola, did St. Andrew draw around him a number of devoted men who, invested with the sacred religious garb, led a life of austerity and purity; nor can the pen record the glorious deeds of his old age, how he cast out demons, gave sight to the blind, health to the fevered, and strength to the infirm, so that they might live to render thanks to their Creator.

Death of St. Andrew in San Martino

Andrew survived his master but a short time. When the Lord revealed to him that his last days were approaching, and he lay upon his sick-bed wasted by fever, he collected or assembled his monks around him, exhorting them to good works and faithful obedience to their monastic rule. Then turning his mind to heavenly things, the memory of his childhood came back to him, and he thought of his sister Brigid, whom he had left behind in Ireland, from whom he had been parted for upwards of forty years, and whom he greatly longed to see before he died. Just at this time Brigid was seated at home in a retired place in Ireland, at her frugal meal of salad and small fishes. Then the Lord, mercifully willing to comfort Andrew, and grant his earnest prayer that he might once more behold his sister’s face, sent an angel to her chamber, who bore her to the bedside of her brother at Fiesole.

The monks who stood around his bed in tears were amazed and dumb at her appearance. Brigid, trembling and awestruck, thought the crowd before her in their strange costumes and the aged dying man upon the bed to be but a vision. Andrew lifted his eyes, and when they rested on the aged woman standing at the foot of his couch, he understood it all. He spoke to her in tender tones, and said, ” Brigid, my beloved sister, long have I in my heart wished to see thee before I die, but all my hope was fading out as death approached and I remembered the great distance between us. But the fount of eternal love has granted to me, a sinner, this great favour that thou seest now. Fear not, for it is in very deed and truth Andrew of Ireland, thy brother, whom thou now seest before thee. Now thou shalt behold him but a little while, him who, thou thoughtest, had long emigrated from this world. I trusted that God for thy merits would grant my dying prayer ; I always hoped that here to this place, where I, far from my country, a feeble soldier, have passed my days, thou wouldest at some time come, a solitary and a penitent, to fill up the measure of the shortcomings in my soldiership by thy virtues. Behold herein the mercy of God. Fear not, but pray for me with all the fervour of thy soul. Behold the hour is at hand and my summons has come. Lay down thy soul’s amazement, and know that what thou now seest is true.”

Then Brigid, awaking as it were from sleep, wept for joy and fervour and grief; kissing her brother’s hand she held it tightly, but could not speak, so choked was she by sobs and sighs. She folded her brother in the chaste embrace of her most modest arms, and crying out in prayer she bathed him in her tears. Then wearied out in this hour of sorrow, she was first silent, and afterwards, kneeling to the ground, she thus broke forth in prayer : —

“All powerful God, who alone doest marvels, whom the powers of Heaven serve, whom the elements obey, on whom all creatures justly wait, I give Thee thanks with praise and blessing, since Thou hast vouchsafed to Thine handmaiden to lead her to the presence of her brother. All honour and glory be unto Thee.” Then turning to the dying man, she said, ” O most holy brother, long years ago the best guide of my youth and the director and guardian of that life which by thy holy persuasion I have dedicated to the Lord, now I both rejoice and mourn at the same moment. For when I see thy weakness I pity thee in my affection, and yet I grieve and mourn that thou shouldest go so soon from this miserable world wherein thou leavest me unconsoled. But when I see with what great striving thou hast resisted the temptations of this life, and hast defeated the evil one, and in thy good deeds art justified before the Lord, I exult and rejoice. For the rest I do but say, Whatsoever days remain for me after thou hast gone I am resolved to dedicate to thy just will, following in thy footsteps so far as the weakness of my sinful frame allows. I will tarry patiently in this place whither the angel of the Lord has borne me so long as God wills, but praying of thee, dearest brother, to entreat of Him that He may grant a man’s strength to aid my woman’s frailty. And now, oh, my brother ! be strong in the Lord, and show in death that strength in the cross which thou didst bear in life.”

When she had thus spoken, Andrew, the man of God, strengthened by his sister’s words, raised himself on his knees from the harsh hairy couch on which he lay, and having clasped his hands on high so far as his failing strength allowed, he bade farewell to his sister and to his brethren, and raising his eyes to heaven he prayed, “Receive into Thy bosom, O Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour, the spirit of Thy servant Andrew.” Then having covered his eyes he straightway died.

And the brethren, who with his sister were praying around him expecting the hour of his departure, suddenly beheld a splendour of light descend upon the man of God from heaven, which from its excessive brilliancy was more than their eyes could endure, and the whole house was filled with a fragrant odour, and when this great light had returned to the heaven whence it came, and they could look upon the holy corpse again, they saw him laid upon the bed as if in sleep, his arms folded like a cross upon his breast. The monks then, according to their usual custom, reverently carried the body thence, and laid it on a bier opposite the altar, until such time as they could duly celebrate the funeral.

Meanwhile, all the people of Fiesole, male and female, young and old, as if summoned by a heavenly trumpet, left the city and hastened in crowds to the monastery of St Martin on the Mensola. Moreover, crowds assembled from the regions round about, to the place where the body lay, and they kissed his hands and feet in their reverence and devotion, carrying away with them as relics whatever little fragments of the holy man’s garments they could secure.

Margaret Stokes, Six Months in the Apennines: Or a Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges of the Irish Saints in Italy, (London, 1892), 230-252.

 

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The month of August opens with the feast day of an enigmatic Irish hermit, known only as ‘Pellegrino’ (pilgrim) who pursued the eremitical life in Italy. Fra Anselmo Tommasini has summarized his story (and what a story!) as follows:

Pellegrino, ‘Pilgrim’ was born in Scotia, the son of a king named Romanus, who had already been converted to Christianity; in the full vigour of youth, he renounced his right of succession to the throne, distributed his substance to the poor, and set off incognito for Palestine; after making the round of the holy places, he remained for forty years in the desert where Our Lord kept his long fast, and then betook himself to preach at the court of the Sultan. There he was scourged, loaded with chains, and thrown into prison; miraculously set free, he suffered ordeal by fire and emerged unscathed. A prompting from Heaven then directed his course towards Italy; he was thrown into the sea by a ruffianly crew during a storm, but with great presence of mind converted his cloak into a raft, his stick into a mast, his wallet into a sail and seven days later floated into Ascona. He then visited the tombs of the Apostles in Rome and St. Nicholas in Bari, and the shrine of St Michael in the Gargano. Another heavenly prompting then came to him and, under the guidance of a star, he went up into the wildest district of the Apennines and settled in a wood which he afterwards called Romanesca.

After twelve years of terrifying ordeals he succeeded in clearing the wood of evil spirits and retired to live in a cave on a diet of herbs and dew with only the wild beasts of the neighbourhood for company. After living this life for a number of years ‘Pilgrim’ quitted his cavern to discover in a place called ‘Thermae salonis’ a stately age-old tree with a hollow trunk. He clambered in and made his home there for the next seven years. Finally at the age of ninety-seven years, nine months and twenty-three days he departed this life.

A certain Peter, who lived with his wife Adelgrada in a village in the neighbouring country of Frignano, had a revelation of the death of the holy anchorite. Husband and wife, with the assistance of an angel, climbed the mountain together, came upon the body, learned the history of the saint from a parchment held fast in his hand, and gave the saint an honourable burial. The news of the precious discovery spread on both sides of the Apennines and Tuscans and Lombards together climbed the hill to possess themselves of the remains. A riot would have broken out had not the bishops present suggested that the body should be placed upon a cart, the cart yoked to a pair of wild oxen, one Tuscan the other Lombard, and the oxen allowed to go as their fancy dictated. The suggestion was greeted with applause and forthwith carried into effect. The oxen departed so quietly as to give the impression that they were tame and came to a halt on the border between Tuscany and Lombardy, more precisely at ‘Thermae Salonis’. The building of a basilica in honour of the saint was forthwith taken in hand, and the canonisation and translation took place simultaneously with the dedication of the basilica on 1st August, 643. God immediately began to perform countless miracles through ‘Pilgrim’s’ intercession, and such was the affluence of the faithful that a hospice had to be erected for their accommodation near the church. The first persons to render assistance to those who undertook the pious journey were Peter and Adelgrada. The feast has been fixed ever since on 1st August.

Fra Anselmo Tommasini, O.F.M., Irish Saints in Italy , translated J.F. Scanlan, (London, 1937), 346-7.

Well, I said it was a good story, didn’t I? Perhaps too good a story? Fra Anselmo says that the only manuscript source is a 15th-century codex, although the earliest certain record of San Pellegrino and his church is dated 1110. I noted certain stock hagiographical devices which I’ve seen before, the fight between rival districts for the saint’s body having to be settled by oxen, for example, occurs in a number of Irish saints’ lives including that of Saint Patrick. The pious couple who have a vision of the saint’s solitary death and go to provide for the proper burial of the remains is another. I was struck too by the obvious scriptural allusions to the forty year fast in the desert and the use of the sacred numbers seven for the sea journey and twelve in the battle with the demons of the woods. There was a glaring anachronism in the supposed visit to the tomb of Saint Nicholas at Bari; since the relics of Saint Nicholas were not taken to Italy until the year 1087 it is hard to see how an Irish pilgrim could have visited them centuries earlier. Saint Nicholas is only a part of the eastern flavour to Pellegrino’s tale, I love the image of an Irishman going to preach at the court of the Sultan but since the story places Pellegrino’s death sometime before 643, which itself is just about a decade after the death of Islam’s founder, the timescale seems a little tight. It’s not totally outrageous though to link an Irish traveller with the Holy Land, Saint Adamnán published the account of a Gaulish monk’s visit in the late seventh century in his treatise De locis sanctis (On the Holy Places). The interest in pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles in Rome is certainly plausible plus there was a distinct devotion to the Archangel Michael in Ireland too. I do wonder, therefore, if under all the layers of later medieval embroidery, there is a real Irish peregrinus in there, one whose native name may have caused the Italians to throw up their hands in despair when they tried to pronounce it and so they just remembered him as ‘pilgrim’. His extreme ascetic life certainly fits the bill, as does his wandering impulse. As it stands though, the legend summarized by Fra Anselmo seems to bear out the rule that any piece of hagiography tells us more about the times in which it was written than it does about the times of its subject.

The legend records that God quickly began to work miracles through the intercession of the holy pilgrim and in a charming piece written by an English Catholic priest blogger here, Father Nicholas Schofield records a modern miracle of his own. He was returning with friends from a visit to the mountain-top shrine of San Pellegrino. The drive was a rather frightening one and it was only when they reached the foot of the mountain that the party discovered that the brakes of the car had failed. Had this happened earlier, they would have been in real danger and as a thanksgiving to San Pellegrino, Father Schofield made available an account of the saint’s life on his blog. The account, based on various Italian guidebooks the priest bought at the shrine, is essentially the same as the story above, but do check it out as the post is illustrated with photographs and takes the story further than I have done here.

I think I shall enjoy a glass of San Pellegrino mineral water today and toast the holy pilgrim, being an Irish ascetic living on herbs and dew he wouldn’t approve of anything stronger!

 

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