n the 20 of March, 2016, the 5th cente- nary of the death of Blessed Baptist OSpagnoli, known as the Mantuan, began. To celebrate the event, a pilgrimage was made, that went from the Chapel of the Incoronata in the Cathedral of Mantua to the Carmelite shrine in San Felice del Benaco, carrying the mortal remains, (that for us are important relics). The choice of the place was not a matter of chance: Blessed Baptist in fact stayed in that house, proclaiming in his verse the beauty of the surrounding nature that offers a magnificent view of the Lago di Garda.

The body, which has undergone a natural process of mummification, speaks to us, of him and of his way of life; a robust physique, 1 metre 67, tall, he used to practice various forms of physical mortifi- cation, as was the widespread custom at that time. His teeth were almost perfect, no fractures, no bone tumour... but of BLESSED course these facts do not gives much of LI the great man that GNO was the Mantuan, BAPTIST SPA both for the world of humanists and for the ecclesial world of his time. by Dr. Giovanna Brizi Who was Baptist Spagnoli?

We might share the view of the English poet William Shakespeare, “Ah good Mantuan, those who do not know you do not love you!”

Baptist was born in Mantua - hence the name the “Mantuan” - on the 17th of April 1447 to the nobleman, Pietro Modover, of Spanish origin - hence the name “Spagnoli” - and Costanza Maggi from Brescia. The noble family, deeply Christian, educated him not only in the highest culture of the time, but also, and most of all, in the faith, passing on to him the values that in the future would deter- mine his decisions.

In Mantua, the young Baptist, was entrusted to two tutors of very high standing: Gregorio Tifernate and Giorgio Merula. They taught him Greek and Latin, and the best of humanist culture. Later on, in Padua, at the school of Paolo Bagelardi, he studied philosophy. The student environment that he found there was very different from the cotton wool environment of his home and he wrote to Pietro, that he had found himself among the companions of the devil and that he lived with them badly…”.

CITOC | P. 24 The age, the promiscuity, the Carmelite spirituality, nor any in Bologna, to complete his easing of the rigid control of his desire to be separated. studies in philosophy and family, certainly led to a certain theology at the university that Baptist, in a letter to his father, relaxation in his behaviour: this were required for ordination to defined the as the is not any different to what may the priesthood. “chosen soldiers of the Great be found among adolescents of Mother of God.” This definition His ability to speak, and his the present day. gives us a hint of the reasons for human gifts, were noticed and After this short period of his choice: a love for the appreciated very soon by his straying, Baptist developed the Mary, Mother, sister and teacher. superiors, who in 1466 invited desire to consecrate himself to It is enough to remember that him to give the official address God. He had just reached sixteen the name of the Carmelite Order at the Chapter in Brescia, years of age when he entered the is the Order of the Brothers of convoked for the renewal of the Carmelite novitiate in Ferrara, Our Lady of Mount Carmel to offices of the Mantuan Congre- as an aspirant choral friar (i.e. understand his life plan. In this gation. young man’s choice there was destined for priesthood). The In 1469 he obtained his very likely the influence of the house in Ferrara belonged to the bachelor degree in theology, fact that the Order, even with all so-called Mantuan Congregation and in 1475 he became a Master its austerity, was still very much of the Carmelite Order, that was of Theology. In the meantime he part of the Renaissance and very begun by a group of Carmelite had received minor and major open to the culture of the time. friars from the north of Italy orders leading to his ordination who had decided to take on a Baptist found himself at home to priesthood in 1471: he was more rigorous life, more directed in the new way of life and to twenty-four years old and fully towards the spiritual life; they show the joy of being a Carmelite prepared to work zealously in made a promise to observe he wrote in Latin the dialogue De the vineyard of the Lord. strictly the vow of poverty, vita beata, showing his desire for In 1471 he had become the and to be attentive to prayer, solitude, the will to remain in the Prior in Parma, then professor meditation and personal sancti- presence of God, to love him and and rector of the faculty in fication. In relation to the Order faithfully keep the Rule. Bologna, from 1479 to 1481, their status was one of semi- At the end of the canonical prior of the house in Mantua and independence. They had their year, Bro. Baptist professed then, went higher still, until he own Vicar General, yet there the three vows of obedience, was elected five times as Vicar was no hostility or competition chastity and poverty. He was General of the Mantuan Congre- between the two expressions of sent straightaway to the house gation (between 1483 and 1513) and finally Prior General of the whole Carmelite Order in 1513. His involvement in the universal Church was just as intense: he joined in all the work of reform of the Church; as Prior General of the Carmelite Order he took part in the 5th Lateran Council, called by Julius II; he was a peace enjoy between Frances I, the king of France and Massimiliano Sforza, the Duke of Milan, through the appointment by Pope Leo X, but his efforts may not have had the desired effect. This humble friar had an uncommon genius for literature: in addition to all he did for the Order and for the Church, he

CITOC | P. 25 had a very considerable literary where one of the characters the latter who told many of his output in Latin. recites a verse from one of his stories in that place, (he even eclogues. quoted Spagnoli in one of his That was how Baptist became less reverent tales). famous both for his art and for Most certainly the prose and his holiness of life. He was the the poetry of the Mantuan were In order to get a proper grasp author of over fifty thousand capable of satisfying the tastes of the historical and cultural verses on the most varied of his contemporaries, bringing context in which the Mantuan of topics (wars, the impor- together a Christian content lived, we have to remember tant figures of his time, , and a classical form: not to that that was the century of the , the Virgin Mary) and was mention his command of the Renaissance, marked by the enormously appreciated by his Latin language, they said of him flourishing of letters and the fine contemporaries, so much so, that that he knew Latin as well as if arts, science, culture and civil of his work, Bucolica seu adoles- he had be born in the time of life. The Greek and Latin classics centia in decem aeglogas divisa, the Emperor Augustus. Baptist were known and read with there are some one hundred and Spagnoli had numerous friends new eyes, more attentive and fifty editions, of which over one among the humanists of his aware. The Popes of the period hundred were produced in the time: Giovanni Pico della Miran- (Innocent VIII, Julius II, Leo X) 16th century. On the basis of dola (1463-1494), Pomponio even though they might not have this text different generations Leto (1428-1498), Gioviano had a reputation for virtue, they of students, including English Pontano (1429-1503), Filippo were certainly great patrons and German students, learned Beroaldo il vecchio (1453-1505), and the Mantuan, while praising Latin. Moreover, his, De calami- the goldsmith and sculptor Gian them for this, never failed to tatibus temporum was reprinted Marco Cavalli (who produced a pray and exhort the hierarchy of some thirty times between 1489 bust of Spagnoli, which is kept the to return to and 1510. Some consider it to in the Berlin museum today) and the life of grace. be better than Ovid, but most the great painter and engraver On account of the positions of all, people honour him as Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). he took, he enjoyed some of the Christian Virgil (bearing in Princess Isabella d’Este (1474- the fate of being thought of as mind that Virgil also was born in 1539) in the Gonzaga castle a precursor to Martin Luther Mantua): That is the way Sabba- hosted the “Accademia de Santo (1483-1546), especially on dino degli Arienti and Erasmus of Pietro”, (St. Peter’s Academy), account of the eclogue, De Rotterdam, the great humanist in which our Carmelite, Baptist moribus curiae romanae, in and reformer, spoke of him. In Spagnoli, took part, and when which he vigorously condemned Shakespeare too, in the comedy they were in Mantua, Baldas- the vices and the corruption of Love’s Labour’s Lost there is a sarre Castiglione and Matteo the curia and of the people in reference to the old Mantuan, Bandello would also be there, his time. The speech he gave in the Vatican Basilica (1489) in the presence of Pope Innocent VIII and the cardinals, was just as hard-hitting, Certainly, Luther, as he said when he wrote to him, as a child read first the eclogues of Spagnoli, and only afterwards Ovid and Virgil. Indeed, in 1571, the Protestants in Nuremburg printed an anthology of sayings taken from the works of Baptist of Mantua. Martin Luther and Baptist Spagnoli both saw the moral and spiritual decay of the clergy and the people, but responded each in his own way: Spagnoli condemned the sin, following the way of the Gospel, by continuing to love the Church, even in its sin. Luther preferred to take another route.

CITOC | P. 26 declared him officially Blessed Baptist Spagnoli. In 1886, the bishop of Mantua, Giuseppe Sarto (who later became pope and under the name of Pius X) asked the Pope, and was granted, that the Office of the Mass of this Blessed be extended to the whole of his diocese, defining Spagnoli as “a heavenly Patron, invoked by Mantuans, who were very devoted to him. On his return to Mantua, after altar dedicated to Our Lady of a period spent in Rome, in the Mount Carmel. Today, five hundred years since winter of 1516 Baptist fell ill. his death, we can confirm that In 1610 Francesco Gonzaga, He accepted his illness with a his body is entire and incorrupt, bishop of Mantua, gave a list cheerful spirit, but on the 20th of but does not give off a pleasant of the bodies of the saints that March he died, “with a universal perfume. It rests in a beautiful were the object of public venera- reputation for holiness”. In death tomb, topped by a marble bust tion, present in his diocese: “In the Mantuan returned to be, for of him, in Our Lady’s chapel: as the Carmelite house in Mantua the faithful who had known and one who sang her praises, he people venerate the body of the appreciated him, the Carmelite could not have desired anything Blessed friar, Baptist of Mantua, father, good, humble and holy: better. who was the Prior General of the chronicles of that time tell us: his Order, very learned and of a To all who turn to him he With a reputation for holiness, he most holy life.” continues to bring down graces, left this earthly prison and went from God and Mary, whom he to heaven... A great number of And again, in 1649, the bishop, knew as the dispenser of all people were present when he Masseo Vitali testified to the graces. While his body was in the was laid to rest, who consid- effective intercession of Blessed Shrine of San Felice del Benaco, ering him to be a saint, loved Baptist, (to which we should add many pilgrims and visitors him as a father... in the Chapel that of his illustrious confrere, stopped to pray at the urn. One of the Blessed Virgin, in a place Bartolomeo Fanti), in obtaining woman, a mother whose son prepared for that, to which many the “eris serenitate” for the city was suffering from glaucoma, people came to visit his remains, of Mantua, after a period of very and had almost entirely lost his as we can see from the many bad weather. sight, attracted by the unusual tributes that they left.” Many other miraculous events presence in the shrine (of a Some years after his death, were reported as time went on, mummy of the 16th century) Baptist Spagnoli was already principally the integrity and went up to the saint’s urn and being called Blessed, even incorruptibility of his body, certi- stroked it three times praying for beyond the boundaries of the city fied by numerous documents. a cure for her son. Even though the young man did not regain his of Mantua: the first attestation As early as the year 1616, a sight, the woman’s life changed: came from Giovanni Chizzolo, century after his death, it was more than 15 years had gone by in a work of his that was edited reported that his body was since she last entered a church, in Bologna in 1586; then came “entire and beautiful, as if he as she was a Jehovah’s Witness. that of the Spaniard, Filippo di was dead for only a short time”. Some days later she went to S. Giacomo in 1593, and yet Then again in 1662, they said confession… another in 1619, in a work in that his body is entire and gives French edited in Paris. off a pleasant perfume. In 1779, God, through his saints, will From Pietro Lucio Belga, a two hundred and sixty three always find the way to talk to his Carmelite, author of the Biblio- years after his death, the body children, especially the ones that theca Carmelitana edited in was still entire and in-corrupt, are far away and more in need of the year 1593, we know that giving rise to great veneration feeling the warm embrace of the Spagnoli’s body was transferred among the people. love of God. to a very noble burial place On account of the uninter- Let us remember Blessed on the wishes of the people of rupted veneration, Pope Leo Baptist Spagnoli, poet, and saint, Mantua, and exposed for public XIII, he also a Latinist and poet, and we will never be disap- veneration at the side of the on the 17th of December, 1885, pointed.

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