1. Character of St. Jerome
Jerome had a character that instinctively led him to seek and make friends. The first biography is actually written by a friend who repeatedly emphasizes this characteristic by affirming that Jerome did not lack friendships, either because he was very attentive in keeping them or ready to do favors and because by nature he was affectionate and benevolent in promoting them. Moreover he was naturally cheerful, generous, strong-minded, intelligent and capable of pleasant dialogue with the nobles of his social class, although his ability to love was much greater than his intellectual gifts.
With his conversion to a life of fervor and holiness Jerome sought the company of those who could help him either with their counsel or example or prayer. He ardently desired the reform of the Church and bound to persons, lay people, bishops and priests for whom he had a great respect, almost a veneration, many of whom were inspired by the spirituality of the Compagnia del Divino Amore, which was spreading and which had its point of reference in the Ospedale degli Incurabili founded in Venice in 1522 on the initiative of St. CajetanThiene.
The first biographer feels the need to enumerate some of them, letting it be understood that the list would be very long: the people with whom he had familiar relations, that is, friendly and lasting contacts, were the Reverend Archbishop of Chieti Msr. Gian Pietro Carafa, the future Pope Paul IV, the Lippomano brothers, that is Andrea prior of the Trinity in Venice and Pietro bishop of Bergamo, Msr.Gian Matteo Giberti, first pontifical datary and architect of the foreign policy of Pope Clement VII and then bishop of Verona and many others of lesser esteem and political and religious importance.
Some of these friendships flourished between 1525 and 1526 – here we try to point out some of them -, others after the arrival of the Theatines in Venice in 1527.
2. The Italian political situation in 1525
The scarcity of documents that directly concern the activity of Jerome Miani both for 1525 and for 1526 leads us to verify the Venetian environment of those years, following the chronicler of the Venetian Republic Marin Sanudo, to also understand the political climate that our saint breathed. He, in this period was living an intense moment of spiritual and ascetic life, having given up,just in this short time, to participate in the Major Council and in political life, to attend in correcting his own defects and carrying out works of good and charity.
Terrible, lacerating events were in the air and worried the government of the Venetian Republic. King Francis I of France had come to Italy with a very strong army. On October 26, 1524 he had taken Milan back. Pope Clement VII had politically came close to him, but the imperials of Charles V had reorganized and fortified in Pavia under the command of Antonio di Leyva and had fielded new forces commanded by the Marquis of Pescara, the Italian Francesco d’Avalos, the most intelligent and tactical of the imperial generals, by the Duke of Bourbon, rebellious feudal lord of the King of France and his enemy, by the Viceroy of Naples Carlo di Lannoy, while a notorious unit of eleven thousand lansquenets was under the orders of Georg Von Frundsbeg, gravitating towards the Lutheran Reform, bold and aggressive commander.
All converged towards Pavia, besieged by Francis I and at dawn on February 24 they attacked the French army which, after a favorable start, was completely defeated and King Francis himself was taken prisoner by the Spanish soldiers commanded by the viceroy of Naples.
The news of the defeat of the French army and the imprisonment of the king, who had come to Italy with the plan to reconquer the kingdom of Naples, aroused an enormous impression in Venice. Such a thing had never happened in living memory: the most Christian King of France, the nation considered to be the most powerful in Europe, leader of the most combative army, was taken prisoner on the battlefield and had lost everything except his life and honor.
3. Domenico Sauli, Marco and Pietro Contarini
The chronicler Marin Sanudo practically dedicates volume XXXVIII of his diaries to transcribing all the report of the battle that reached the Venetian diplomacy. A sense of uncertainty reigned in the Venetian state, which had lansquenets on its borders. They did not want to leave the duchy if they were not handsomely paid and in fact held the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza as a hostage; it was evident that Venice and its dominion were surrounded to the east by the Turks and to the north and west by the imperial forces of Charles V. But dissatisfaction also reigned in the other states of Italy, fearful of the excessive power of Charles V; the dream to be free from foreigners was reborn. The minister of the Duke of Milan, Jerome Morone, in agreement with pontifical diplomacy, attempted to plot a conspiracy against Charles V. Domenico Sauli, finance minister of Duke Francesco, was commissioned by Pope Clement VII and by the datary Gian Matteo Giberti in charge of contact the Italian Fernando D’Avalos, count of Pescara, the main architect of the victory of Pavia, head of the imperial militias in Italy, who believed that he had not been sufficiently recognized and valued: he was proposed to take charge of the military forces contrary to Charles V. The Pope promised him the investiture of the Kingdom of Naples as a reward. The marquis, winner of Pavia, seemed interested in the proposal, but in reality he played a double game and balancing the risks and the advantages, in the end he preferred not to betray the emperor and revealed the conspiracy to him. Morone was arrested. However, Duke Francesco, besieged in his castle, managed with the help of the Venetians to maintain some strongholds and wrote to the emperor who wanted to deprive him of the status of being extraneous to these ploys.
Domenico Sauli, friend of the bishop Giberti, powerful datary of Pope Clement VII and life of the anti-imperial policy, when the plots of the conspiracy arouse, had to take refuge in Venice where he remained exile for about two years from October 1525 to October 1527. Here Sauli continued to support the politics of Francesco Sforza, to make friends with Venetian noblemen, choosing, as he himself says, people of singular virtue, including Marco Contarini, identified by some scholars with good motivations as the author of the first anonymous biography of Jerome, and his brothers Pietro, engaged in charitable work at the Ospedale degli Incurabili and Paolo, newly marriedtoVienna, niece of Doge Andrea Gritti, who had organized a fairytale wedding for her on January 24,1525. In Venice, Sauli maintained contact with foreign ambassadors, in particular with Bishop Ludovico of Canossa, who looked after the political interests of France.
Among Sauli’s and Contarini degli Scrigni’s friends there was certainly Jerome Miani. In fact, many clues show just Sauli as the Milanese Miani’s friend. In 1533, unheard, he invited the saint to his home and then intervened with Duke Francesco, to whose service he had returned, to find accommodation for the orphans. However, Sauli was living an intense Christian spirituality and was bound to the Compagnia del Divino Amore. Precisely in Milan on February 15, 1534 he will become father of Alessandro, who will be the future Superior general of the Barnabites, then bishop. He will be proclaimed as a saint by the Church.
4. Paolo Giustiniani
Another person known by Jerome Emiliani is the monk Paolo Giustiniani. On May 7, 1525 the Camaldolese general chapter, celebrated in Ravenna, in the monastery of Classe, pronounced and decreed the absolute independence of the company of St. Romuald of Monte Corona from the congregation of Camaldoli, canceling the previous union of 1523, declaring the new institutes a separate entity, free, exempt and autonomous.
Paolo Giustiniani came to Venice in mid-May 1525 and remained there until the end of June. He was bound to Contarinis through marriages: his brother Antonio had in fact married a sister of Pietro and Paolo Contarini. He was therefore their brother-in-law and he hoped, with the help of his family, to be able to find in Venice, in particular with the help of Marco and Pietro, a stable base for his Congregation. Unfortunately, due to a series of conflicts between convents, his attempt was unsuccessful.
However, it is almost certainly in this period, between mid-May and the end of June 1525, or in January or February 1526, when Giustiniani returned to Venice, that the episode narrated in the life of the Anonymous is set. It took place in San Marco square in the presence of many witnesses, including Paolo Giustiniani who divulged the episode. It proves the ascetic work that Jerome was carrying out on his impulsive character, inclined to anger. Miani was negotiating an economic deal in favor of his grandchildren and was insulted by his interlocutor, who angrily threatened to rip his beard out. Jerome replied with self-control and extreme meekness. Those present were amazed at the virtue of Jerome and said that if the fact had happened some time before, he would have reacted with extreme violence, psychologically tearing the opponent to pieces with his anger.
5. Ludovico of Canossa
Bound to Domenico Sauli, to the pontifical datary Gian Matteo Giberti and to Marco Contarini there was also Ludovico of Canossa, ambassador of France to the Venetian Republic and bishop of Bayeux.
Those who have completed high school will remember the work of the Cortegiano, written by Baldassar Castiglione, who ended up embracing an ecclesiastical career by becoming a bishop and diplomat in the service of the popes. It is set in Urbino in the first decade of the sixteenth century. Well, Ludovico of Canossa, still a layman, is the protagonist of the first book. He is already a person of the highest cultural level who designates the characteristics of the courtier: nobility, grace and modesty, that is, a studied ease in his own behavior, the exercise of weapons, knowledge of letters, arts and music, of Italian language that is spoken in the courts, of writing according to the parameters of sixteenth-century classicism in a ductile, fluid, flowing prose. Canossa also pursued an ecclesiastical career and was engaged by various sovereigns especially in diplomatic relations between the various states, Italian and foreign, in this period he was ambassador of France to the Venetian Republic. When he died on January 30, 1532, he left 2,000 ducats to the orphans of the Ospedale della Misericordia in Verona . In the same year, a few months later, Jerome Miani will pass here on his journey to Bergamo and the first Servants of the poor will be called to work here from 1540.
6. Marcantonio Flaminio
In friendly relations with Domenico Sauli and Paolo Giustiniani was also the scholar Marcantonio Flaminio. During the journey from Rome to Serravalle, the current Vittorio Veneto, which took place in the winter between 1525 and 1526, he also stopped in Venice where he met Paolo Giustiniani, who had returned for a short period to the lagoon city, but was in those days feverish and distracted by other problems. Giustiniani wrote a letter to Flaminio on March 24, 1526 from his hermitage of the Grotte del Massaccio, a true treatise on happiness, recalling their Venetian encounter, apologizing for not having been able to write to him earlier because he was ill and busy with other urgent commitments.
Marcantonio Flaminio will be in Sauli’s house in Milan, when Jerome will go there with his orphans in 1533. He will write to Msr. Carafa to inform him of Jerome’s arrival in enthusiastic terms, stating that he was well regarded by the duke and universally by the whole city of Milan, and expressing the duke’s desire that Jerome remained there more time, postponing the departure for Bergamo. Evidently he had known Jerome and his charitable activity for some time.
7. Andrea and Pietro Lippomano
Andrea Lippomano, prior of the Trinity, is considered by biographers to be among the first and closest friends of the saint: indeed it was believed that was he who had written the first biography that has reached us anonymous. Jerome began to refer to Andrea from the beginning of his conversion: the Trinity monastery was a center of spirituality and an island of peace and welcome. Jerome will continue to refer to and ask him for hospitality in his Venetian stay in 1535. Here he will write two of the letters that have reached us.
The friendship with Andrea Lippomano also extends to a relationship of esteem and collaboration with his brother Pietro, appointed very young as bishop of Bergamo, where Jerome will arrive in 1532: even the bishop, in a circular letter to the diocese of Bergamo in 1533, proves to know Jerome’s family history and is enthusiastic about his charitable activity.
8. Political situation in 1526
For 1525 we have only a few dry documents about Jerome, that is some notarial acts that testify to the purchases of land which took place the first in Fanzolo in the province of Treviso on June 21, 1525, the second in Castelfranco Veneto on November 2, 1525, again in favor of the grandchildren. For 1526 we have no direct documentation signed by our Saint.
The political situation was always very uncertain and the Venetians ended up joining on May 22, 1526, urged by Giberti, Sauli, and the French ambassador Canossa, to the Holy League stipulated in Cognac in France between King Francis I, who had returned from the spanish captivity, Pope Clement VII, the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza, the Medici lordship of Florence. But the allies proved to be uncertain and suspicious of each other, while Charles V, who wanted to punish the political choice of Pope Clement VII, invited a large group of lansquenets to Italy. They were led by Georg Von Frundsberg, who had fought in Pavia, because they joined with the other imperial militias and decidedly aimed at Rome; the Tyrolean commander was nevertheless struck by a heart attack in Ferrara and had to return to Germany. At the end of November the lansquenets also passed into the territory of the Venetian Republic on the coast of Lake Garda, and were controlled with difficulty by the soldiers of the Republic, with some losses.
The command of the imperial army, rather undisciplined, which was gradually increasing in number for deserters and adventurers, also attracted by the possibility of looting, was taken over by Charles of Bourbon who entered Rome on May 6, 1527, but died struck by an arquebus shot on May 7, during the siege of Castel Sant’Angelo. Rome suffered horrible looting and harassment by the lansquenets and the imperial soldiers for seven months.
9. Omobono degli Asperti, the Papal Legate, the Bishop of Millepotomense
Jerome was active in Venice during this period. It is appropriate mentioning two episodes which testify to his ability to establish relationships and the high respect that he enjoyed not only among lay friends but also in the ecclesiastical environment.
In 1526 a twenty-two year old young man came from Cremona to Venice, Omobono degli Asperti. He had left the religious life, but still wanted to become a priest, above all to help his father and family. He became a priest, but in his enthusiastic and confused desire to reform the Church he subsequently showed Lutheran tendencies and was tried as a heretic in Verona in 1550. In the trial deposition, transcribed here in the parts that interest us, he mentions that year 1526, when he arrived in the lagoon city: “In Venice I happened upon the magnificent Messer Jerome Miani, a man very active in doing good and a Catholic. I stayed with him for a certain period of time. One day I told him that it was my desire to become a priest, and he asked me if this desire was in order to serve God or to earn. I freely replied that I was doing it to earn and to support my father who was poor. He replied by telling me that this was not a legitimate reason, that I could look for another way than that to help my father and that those who became priests had to do it first of all to serve God. I continued to spur him with my desire to become a priest, one day he took me to the Most Reverend Legate (probably he was already Jerome Aleandro, future cardinal) and made me obtain the dispensation to be ordained by any bishop, at any time and despite the lack of age, because I had only twenty-two and had just entered twenty-three. He also introduced me to a bishop, who told me that he wanted to see the testimonial letters of my Ordinary of Cremona which attested that I was a cleric and what my condition was. Therefore I returned to Cremona and through friends I obtained these letters from the Ordinary of Cremona and with those letters I returned to Venice and received the various sacred orders up to the priesthood from Bishop Millepotomense (Dionigi Zanettini, known as Grechetto). I remained a secular priest for a time and served in various places. Then I regretted of being out of my religious family and resolved to return there.
Some observations on this interesting story that brings out the figure of Jerome, even if only for a glimpse. The expression “I happened upon…” means not only that I was his guest, but that I also worked as an employee or collaborated with Jerome. How? It can be hypothesized that Jerome had already started his workshop or pious work in favor of poor derelict orphans in the district of San Basilio, a work dear to Jerome’s heart who still remembers it in his will of 1531, reserving for it all debt and credit. The date of foundation of this workshop, in the absence of reliable data, for the biographers of the saint oscillates between 1524 and 1528. Jerome has gained the trust of the young Omobono, who sincerely confides in him his desire to be a priest and his reasons. Jerome listens to him, tries to purify his too earthly intention. The young man continues to spur Jerome: he knows with certainty that he has the possibility of opening the way to the priesthood for him. And in fact Jerome is conquered by the tenacity of this young man. He takes him in person before the Papal Legate, the highest religious authority who represented the Pope in the Venetian Republic, and immediately obtains a dispensation from all impediments for the young man. Then he takes him to the Bishop for ordination. These are interventions that not just anyone can do, but only those who have an extraordinary influence or is bound to people who have authority by a friendship deemed unconditional and safe.
11. The death of his brother Marco
In 1526, almost certainly in the month of December, another brother of Jerome, Marco, died. The opening of his long and detailed testament, written in 1522, when Jerome had not yet devoted himself to a Christian life of great fervor, took place on December 10, 1526. It is however significant to indicate the attention he had for his family members and the influence he exercised over them as well. Here, paraphrasing, what Jerome’s brother Marco says: “I leave to Jerome, my dear brother, whom I have always considered as a son, as he knows, the money necessary to make him a gold ring, well chiseled in the various parts, with the M (Miani) engraved on the bands and the Miani coat of arms in the middle. I recommend to him my children and the children of our brother Luca and I order Angelo (eldest son of his first marriage, now 25 years old) to consider him not only uncle but father and I also remind Jerome to pray for my soul”.
A deep affection binds the two brothers. Marco is five years older than Jerome, he helped him in the war especially during and after his imprisonment. He wants Jerome, with his signature ring, to be the official representative of the Miani family. He knows of the love he has shown towards the children of his brother Luca of whom Jerome is the tutor and also recommends his young children, born from his second marriage, and orders his son Angelo, now an adult, to consider Jerome as a father. He understands that Jerome has an extraordinary goodness, a true fatherly heart, a great capacity for affection and tenderness towards the little ones, especially if they are orphans.
Jerome’s circle of friends will expand further in the following years with the arrival in Venice of the group of Theatines led by San Gaetano, and with the new initiatives for the orphans gathered and educated in various places by our saint. We must rightly consider him inserted in the cultural climate of the Renaissance and of Catholic renewal, which he achieved with attention to the dignity of the least and to the reform of the Church through educational and charitable works.
Fr. Giuseppe Oddone crs