Jacobus de Voragine

Jacobus de Voragine, (His first name in Latin is Jacobus, Iacobus or Iacopus, while in Italian it is Jacopo, Iacopo or Giacomo, which in English is "James".) In Latin his surname is de Voragine or de Varagine, in Italian da Varagine or da Varazze. The surname is a family name, meaning "of Varazze". The spelling Voragine is a variant of Varagine and does not derive from vorago (abyss), as sometimes claimed.

Biography Jacobus was born either in Varazze or in Genoa, where a family originally from Varazze and bearing that name is attested at the time. Besides preaching with success in many parts of Italy, he also taught in the schools of his own fraternity. He was provincial of Lombardy from 1267 till 1286, when he was removed at the meeting of the order in Paris. He also represented his own province at the councils of Lucca (1288) and Ferrara (1290). On the last occasion he was one of the four delegates charged with signifying Pope Nicholas IV's desire for the deposition of Munio de Zamora – who had been master of the Dominican order from 1285 and was eventually deprived of his office by a papal bull dated 12 April 1291. A story, mentioned by Échard as unworthy of credit, makes Pope Boniface VIII, on the first day of Lent, cast the ashes in the archbishop's eyes instead of on his head, with the words, "Remember that thou art a Ghibelline, and with thy fellow Ghibellines wilt return to naught." Jacobus de Voragine left a list of his own works. Speaking of himself in his Chronicon januense, he says: "While he was in his order, and after he had been made archbishop, he wrote many works. For he compiled the legends of the saints (Legenda sanctorum) in one volume, adding many things from the Historia tripartita et scholastica, and from the chronicles of many writers." adds several other works, such as a defence of the Dominicans, printed at Venice in 1504, and a Summa virtutum et vitiorum Guillelmi Peraldi, a Dominican who died in 1271. Jacobus is also said by Sixtus of Siena (Biblioth. Sacra, lib. ix) to have translated the Old and New Testaments into his own tongue. "But," adds the historian of the Dominican order Jacques Échard, "if he did so, the version lies so closely hid that there is no recollection of it," and it may be added that it is highly improbable that the man who compiled the Golden Legend ever conceived the necessity of having the Scriptures in the vernacular. is a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval Catholic Church. The preface divides the ecclesiastical year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the world's history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five sections: (a) from Advent to Christmas (cc. 1–5); (b) from Christmas to Septuagesima (6–30); (c) from Septuagesima to Easter (31–53); (d) from Easter Day to the octave of Pentecost (54–76); (e) from the octave of Pentecost to Advent (77–180). The saints' lives are full of fanciful legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of 13th century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with reference to the Dominicans. The penultimate chapter (181), "De Sancto Pelagio Papa", contains a universal history from the point of view of Lombardy, or Historia Lombardica (History of Lombardy"), from the middle of the 6th century. It is divided into twelve parts. The first four deal with the mythical history of the city from the time of its founder, Janus, called the first king of Italy, and its enlarger, a second Janus, "citizen of Troy", till its conversion to Christianity "about twenty-five years after the passion of Christ". The fifth part professes to treat of the beginning, growth and perfection of the city; but of the first period the writer candidly confesses he knows nothing except by hearsay. The second period includes the Genoese crusading exploits in the East, and extends to their victory over the Pisans (c. 1130), while the third reaches down to the author's days as archbishop. The sixth part deals with the constitution of the city, the seventh and eighth with the duties of rulers and citizens, the ninth with those of domestic life. The tenth gives the ecclesiastical history of Genoa from the time of its first known bishop, Saint Valentine, "whom we believe to have lived about 530 A.D.", until 1133, when the city was raised to archiepiscopal rank. The eleventh contains the lives of all the bishops in order, and includes the chief events during their episcopates; the twelfth deals in the same way with the archbishops, not forgetting the writer himself. This view was later shared by others such as Bernardino of Siena, and, most recently, by one of the noted mariologists of the 20th century, Gabriel Roschini.

Editions

Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea G. P. Maggioni (ed.), Firenze, 1998. Ryan, William G., ed. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Volume 1 and volume 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993.