THE DOCUMENT OF 1617

THE “SANCTI CONRADI LEGATE” 

OF 9 AUGUST 1617 DRAWN UP 

IN THE CURIA IN PIACENZA

by Umberto Battini
historian of S. Corrado 

image of the year 1917 of Calendasco, the square with the church

 

This text was published in the Author's 2024 book "THE DOCUMENTS OF WORSHIP IN SAN CORRADO" and is reserved property
if you copy something cite the source

Among the archive documents, the original copy of the Legato Sancti Conradi is also preserved.
A copy is preserved in an original ink, in the State Archives of Piacenza in the Notarial Fund.
The important document was published in full, both in photographic format, and in the Latin transcription and Italian translation in the book “S. Corrado Confalonieri - I Documenti Inediti Piacentini” published in 2006 by Umberto Battini.
That book also contains a historical critique of the notarial document, of crucial importance for the history of the Holy Hermit.

The Legate written in the Curia is approved and decreed by the Bishop of Piacenza who publicly approves it. The notarial deed states that the Confalonieri family had been feudal lords of Calendasco for centuries. 
It is written down in black and white that after an investigation into the public life of Saint Corrado, it has been concluded that the Saint was physically born in the town of Calendasco.
It is written that for all these very reasons, the Saint elected Patron Saint was to be most venerated in that country.
As we have seen from the documentation, in fact the local cult in Calendasco was very strong.

 

By tradition, San Corrado was said “of Piacenza” because, in distant Noto, the capital city was taken into consideration. 
In that distant Middle Ages, who in the Sicilian land of Noto could have known of a small town called Calendasco, a fiefdom of the Santo family who lived among them? 
And we must not forget a historical event that is also crucial to the events in Corradi: the murder of Pope Paul III's son in Piacenza, Pier Luigi Farnese, by the conspirator Giovan Luigi Confalonieri, a feudal lord living in Calendasco: it was September 10, 1547. 
From that moment the cult towards St. Corrado suffered a strong “stop” to its spread in Piacenza and in particular in the town of the Confalonieri: Calendasco.

After the saint's death in 1351, given his distance from his homeland, it became more convenient to define him according to the case “of Piacenza” or “Piacentino” in a general sense.
In a predictable manner, after the 1617 curia deed that testifies to his birth in the village, as the documents recorded clearly show, Piacenza's cult was concentrated only on Calendasco.

The two monuments: the 13th-century castle, the Confalonieri fiefdom, and the convent hospital for pilgrims, the Saint's first retreat after the fire, encouraged the Noble Patron to bring prestige to the local church, founded in the 8th century.
From 1617, a chapel with an altar for Holy Mass was built in the church, it was completely decorated, and the large painting that still stands there in plain sight to devotees was placed.

 

This was followed by frescoes of the Life of the Hermit, the request for relics directly from Noto, and then the obtaining from the arm preserved in Piacenza, the Relic of the Left Thumb Finger.

 

In the church there is also the imperious statue for processions, and then the gift of the other painting from 1700, with the saint kneeling in the cave in front of the Holy Virgin. 
Also important is the 1971 fresco in the apse, where the majestic Saint Corrado stands among the saints next to the crucified Christ; a fresco painted by the Piacenza painter Luciano Ricchetti. 

 

by Umberto Battini
historian of S. Corrado 

This text was published in the Author's 2024 book "THE DOCUMENTS OF WORSHIP IN SAN CORRADO" and is reserved property
if you copy something cite the source

 

 

 

LIBRO DEL 2024

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NELLA ANTICA DEVOZIONE DEL BORGO

DI CALENDASCO A SAN CORRADO 

Prezioso e ricco di documentazione importante 

ACCESSI A QUESTO BLOG

GRAZIE AI LETTORI DI QUESTO BLOG

superati ampiamente i 200MILA accessi 

alcuni articoli storici, sono ora leggibili in più lingue, principalmente nella lingua Inglese, per maggior diffusione

 

buona estate a tutti ! 

 

THE LETTERS OF 1610

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
THE LETTERS OF 1610

Saint Corrado Confalonieri
and the historical link between Piacenza and Noto

The three fact-finding letters sent by the Jurors of Noto in 1610
 
 
by Umberto Battini
     historian of S. Corrado 

 

particular of the signature

Since the distant Middle Ages of the 14th century, an uninterrupted line has run between the lands of Piacenza and Sicily: the noble soldier S. Corrado Confalonieri stops his clothes and pomp and, donning a gray tunic, sets out for holiness in the land that loved him most in life and death, the Ingenious Noto. 

But the relationships between the native land and the land of adoption, regarding the history and human and then spiritual valorization of the Holy Hermit, have developed over the centuries in relation to the unfolding events that led from Noto to the elevation of this virtuous man of faith to the altars.

In fact, based on current historical evidence, we must place the real rediscovery of this illustrious saint from Piacenza in the early 1600s, when, at the hands of the Elders of the city of Noto, the city of Piacenza was notified by sending three letters that arrived on 28 April 1611, one addressed to the person of the Duke Farnese, one to the Bishop and another letter to the Elders who had the government of the city, in the letter expressly asked for archival research on Saint Conrad. 

Even the Netini Elders themselves point out in these letters some historical data already in their possession, such as the fact that he had been married to a noblewoman from Lodi named Eufrosina who later became a Poor Clare nun and that he had been feudal lord of the Piacenza castle of Calendasco.

But it is this last statement made by the Netini Jurors that takes on a very important value for Corradian historiography. In fact, the Confalonieri family was feudal lords of Calendasco for several centuries, exercising dominion over this rich land attached to the Po River, northwest of Piacenza, from the mighty manor.  

image with AI created by UB

And that the Confalonieri family was among the preeminent of the city, while maintaining this feudal prerogative from the village, is evidenced by the fact that one of the four conspirators who killed Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, son of Pope Paul III, in 1547 was Giovanluigi Confalonieri himself, a feudal lord living in Calendasco, as shown by the documents of the Farnese confiscation concluded in 1586.

These events certainly did not help to ensure that the deeds of the Holy Hermit, beloved in Noto but also now throughout Sicily and the south, spread throughout his homeland, precisely because a distant great-grandson of his participated in this terrible event which all the major historians and politicians of that time dealt with. 

Proof of this is that only sixty years later and after the confiscation was concluded, with the expulsion of the offender forced to move to Milan, the Piacenza saint was finally made official and promoted in Piacenza too, we are precisely at the beginning of the 17th century.

Umberto Battini
historian of S. Corrado Confalonieri
 

THE TEXT ABOVE IS A SUMMARY OF A MORE SUBSTANTIAL WORK  

 

  

DAS GROSSE SCHLOSS VON CALENDASCO

IM SONNENLICHT
DAS IMPOSANTE HERRENHAUS AUS ROTEM STEIN

von Umberto Battini
Historiker von S. Corrado und Popularisierer

 

Feudalschloss Confalonieri, jetzt im Besitz der Gemeinde Calendasco (Piacenza)

Seit dem Mittelalter glänzt es neben der Kirche von Calendasco, die eine ältere Gründung hat, wie auch das älteste ist das Bistumsrecetto, später ebenfalls ein Feudalschloss der Confalonieri aus Piacenza sowie das Schloss.

Hier bewohnten die Adelsfamilie der Confalonieri, Militi vescovili, eine sehr wichtige Familie für den Teil der mittelalterlichen Kirche von Piacenza.
Im Schloss wurde 1290 ein Heiliger geboren: Corrado Confalonieri.

 

Die drei Denkmäler des Dorfes sind: das Schloss aus dem 13. Jahrhundert, dann der Eingang zur bischöflichen Gründung im 11. Jahrhundert, dann die Kirche, von der langobardische Dokumente aufbewahrt werden, die die Pfarrer jener Zeit zitieren. Und ein besonderes Denkmal, heute Privathaus, ist das mittelalterliche Krankenhaus Romitorio, das im Jahr 1315 unter den Franziskanern aufnahm, San Corrado Confalonieri.
Im Romitorio Pilgerkrankenhaus, auf der "strata romea", heute bekannt als Via Francigena, ist noch der Teil der Stiftung Longobarda sichtbar.
 

von Umberto Battini
Historiker von S. Corrado und Popularisierer 

 

 

 

LOOKING AT THE PICTURE OF SAN CORRADO

LOOKING AT THE PICTURE
OF SAN CORRADO IN CHURCH
IN CALENDASCO

by Umberto Battini
     historian of S. Corrado and popularizer

 

San Corrado 16th century painting

Sacred art, and any painting, expresses its own language, which must speak to the beholder.

This also happens with the painting from the early 17th century which is in the church in Calendasco di Piacenza: S. Corrado Confalonieri, a convert and thoughtful about his sins.

The right foot, resting naked on the raw, bare earth: here I was born, physically!
The left foot, resting naked on a bare stone, symbolizes the hermit cave of Noto!
And then the other symbols.
A very beautiful painting, to the eye and to the heart. 

Talk about the Patron. 

 

The Skull represents meditation on death, frustra, called "penance" to punish past sins, the holy rosary, the book of the Gospel. 

 

 

SOME RELEVANT QUESTIONS ON CALENDASCO CASTLE

SOME RELEVANT QUESTIONS
ON CALENDASCO CASTLE

There are sometimes very "curious" data circulating

Calendasco Castle photo UB

It is legitimate to ask "historical" questions about Calendasco Castle (not to be confused with the recetto).
In fact, there are truly "extensive" data circulating that some can even believe in good faith.
But is that really the case?

Question 1

Has the castle ever had 4 towers? Let's say clearly: no!
Yet this extremely false figure is circulating. 
The castrum as you see it has always had only one tower, cylindrical, next to the drawbridge.
But in some books, the data circulates, and some even today, with extreme ignorance, support it. To come to see is to believe: one tower only.

 

Question 2

Did it belong to other feudal lords before the Confalonieri?
First of all came the episcopal reception! Then the castle: have you seen the castle notarial deeds of anyone other than the Confalonieri?  
Some tips led us to check. A long time ago already.
Some misunderstanding of reading ancient notarial papers about the fact.  
It's not raining on the Confalonieri. Not even on the time of the birth of Saint Conrad (1290).
But this is not the place to give data, cards, of the fact!
Do not forget the Legate of 1617, notary of the Curia. 

Question 3

Some wrote that it was "destroyed at the base" by the Ghibellines of Piacenza in the 14th century.
Someone repeats it, so "copy and paste" to this day!  
But does this seem like a true historical fact to you? In your opinion was it really razed to the ground and destroyed? 
Here too we are not putting the answer now, but on the other hand in black and white in due course.
In the meantime, let's answer the "fact" of whether this happened or not, your intelligence.
 

Question 4

Did the Farnese have a hard hand with the Confalonieri of Calendasco? (Not from other places as we know). So also about the cult of San Corrado in Piacenza?
And this is because of Confalonieri, feudal lord and inhabitant and resident of Calendasco, who killed the son of Pope Paul III, Pierluigi Farnese, with others in the city of Piacenza in 1547? 
Unfortunately, the cult was stopped in Piacenza and its territory, until the expulsion, 40 years after the event, of the feudal Confalonieri of Calendasco. Paper in hand, from the originals. 

A historical answer exists. To every question. Just look for her! Sometimes you can't achieve the intent, then you have to use "historical intelligence" by connecting data and dates.

For concreteness, we will then provide data from each book, author, page, and year of publication where the many incorrect data are cited.

Umberto Battini
historical popularizer 

 

 

THE VIA FRANCIGENA ANCIENT ROAD

THE VIA FRANCIGENA ANCIENT ROAD
HISTORICAL AND MEDIEVAL

In Piacenza pilgrims were indicated as "Romei" also in notarial papers

 by Umberto Battini
      historical popularizer

historical monuments on the Francigena in Calendasco (Piacenza)

In the meantime, we must say "thank you" to the Lombards. For better or worse, we owe the classic layout of the route to them too.
At least in the also "famous" stretch of the Cisa Pass, with Berceto.
 
And so much will influence the Christian pilgrimage: also the ways, forms and places of medieval communal living.
You arrive in Emilia from Corte Sant'Andrea, on the Po in Lombardy, and disembark at Soprarivo di Calendasco.

And right in the village of Calendasco the surprises: a church and a castle built on a hill, there on the immense plain, and not far away an ancient medieval hospital. Hermitage and hospital for pilgrims, which is of Lombard foundation.
Which will also be the first place of "new life" of San Corrado Confalonieri since 1315, son of the local feudal lord. And he became the secular patron saint of the small village. 
In fact, upon his "conversion" after a tragic event, he retired to the small hospital run by lay Franciscan theriziar friars.
Even today, a small but important Lombard part of this ancient building, now privately owned, is visible.

The Via Francigena crosses this municipal territory, which slowly leads to the city: Piacenza is truly now "at the gates" from here.
And the daily leg can end.

Umberto Battini
historical popularizer
 
if you copy cite the source

 

 

THE HERMITAGE BETWEEN PENITENTS AND SANCTITY

THE HERMITAGE BETWEEN PENITENTS AND SANCTITY
BETWEEN LOMBARDS AND FRANCISCANISM
 

Here is a brief historical "trace" 

of the medieval hospital of Calendasco

 

by Umberto Battini
historian and popularizer 

a part of the medieval hospital hermitage

 

Along the axis of the Po, just 8 km from the city of Piacenza to the north-west, is the small Po Valley village of Calendasco (Kalendasco in Lombard maps).

Today, for over 25 years now, this place has been home to the Francigen port par excellence: the one indicated by Sigerico, who shipped from here to Corte Sant'Andrea. In ancient maps from 1153 up to 1184 and beyond the Francigena appears mentioned: in capite burgi calendaschi the strata romea.

In the small village, which over the centuries has become a purely agricultural place, four important monuments are preserved for us to see: the small hermitage-hospitio, the 13th-century castle, the oldest ricetto from the 11th century and, of course, the church of which there are Lombard maps from the 8th century.

This time we present readers with a brief history of the hermitage because it was from here that the conversion of Saint Corrado Confalonieri began, who was a tertiary penitent, later a pilgrim and hermit of the Third Order of Saint Francis.

 

In the oldest part of the Franciscan hospital convent we preserve the Lombard part with a terracotta jacket well.
In 1200 it was governed by a small community of tertiaries or penitents, those born to St. Francesco and then well regularized with the bull of 1289 "Supra Montem".
 
In 1280 the Fr. ruled the place. Aristides who some document gives for Blessed.
It was he who in 1290 went to Montefalco to build the convent of what became S. Clare of Montefalco! 
Once that construction site was completed, he returned to Calendasco (this story is even attested by an ancient historian from Montefalche) and the local inhabitants should be proud of this, but unfortunately they don't even show any knowledge of who this father Aristide was.
 
But the same S. Corrado Confalonieri, born in 1290 in the castle of the town of which the family was feudal lords for over two centuries, is a historic part of the small convent-hospital.
 
In fact, after the fire it caused in 1315 it was precisely from Fr. Aristide was welcomed here and lived there for about ten years, then leaving as a pilgrim to Jerusalem and then stopping to live as a hermit in a naked cave in the mountains of the Noto Valley in Sicily!
But that is another story that I will propose to you in due course.
 
The hermitage-hospitio of Calendasco had a beautiful size, if we consider that the chapter house is overall of considerable size.
The small original annexed church stands along the road axis. 

A 16th-century map preserved in the State Archives in Parma shows the town with its church, castle, and convent-hospitio, which also features an appreciable bell tower.

 

Just under the portico you can see the many small doors that led to the various rooms of the guesthouse, while the convent part has a beautiful terracotta staircase, which goes up two floors and with the same characteristics you may have noticed in the small Umbrian Franciscan hermitages.
We have documents from various centuries of the building that was used in the 17th century as a place where the population gathered after a pulsed bell.
 
Many notarial deeds of the town are drawn up right here, because the place also had a moral character, and therefore the notary rogata "in hospitio dicti loci calendaschi" sometimes "subtus portichii" altre voltre "in camera superiora". 
Historians of the Third Order Regular of S, too. 

 

Francis of the General Curia of Rome, over the centuries they have written about this place which they say is one of the most important, recalling that in 1280 a Chapter of Penitents (fratres de penitentia nuncupati) was held in Piacenza.
In 1300 this place was called “of the gorgolare” because about 100 metres away there was a mill (demolished a few years ago) whose waters of the Calendasco grinding stream made a sharp bend right in front of the convent and therefore created that perennial noise of the waters called gurgle.

 

In recent years the hermitage-hospital has been expertly restored in every part by the owner – as devoted as I am! Of San Corrado! – and under the large entrance portico we were able to hold the first two (of five) national studies conferences in honor of S. Corrado, pride of Calendasco! 
In fact, we boast, historical data in hand, not only of having given him his physical birth in the castle, but also his “spiritual” birth in the hermitage of the penitents.
Not of little importance is the famous Legate Sancti Conradi of 9 August 1617, written by the Chancellor and Curial Notary in the Bishop's Palace of Piacenza. 
 
In short, here is a historical summary of our illustrious monument, now privately owned, which is guarded with love and, I may add, also with “veneration”. 

 

by Umberto Battini
historian and popularizer 

 

intellectual property of the Author's texts

 

L’ASSASSIN FEUDATAIRE

L’ASSASSIN FEUDATAIRE

L’ASSASSINAT DU FILS DU PAPE PAUL III 

À PLAISANCE EN 1547

UMBERTO BATTINI
DIVULGATEUR HISTORIQUE

          LE CHÂTEAU DU FIEF DE CALENDASCO

 

J’y vais. Je la tuerai. Et je reviendrai.
Giovanluigi Confalonieri. Feudataire.
1547 jour 10 septembre. De Calendasco à Piacenza sont environ 5 miles.
La route qui part du bourg passe par la Trebbia à la Malpaga et débouche dans la « voie de campagne » des frères.
Un peu plus loin se trouve la zone S. Eufemia, ici le Confalonieri avec ses frères a palais.

C’est ce qu’exige 'par la loi' le nouveau duc, fils du pape, duc avec beaucoup trop d’idées pour un fief à l’ancienne, lié à la terre, à la campagne.
Dans la ville, d’autres amis nobles l’attendent, chacun avec ses propres ambitions de pouvoir. 

À Giovanluigi, il suffit de conserver la vie sauvage rurale, c’est ainsi qu’elle apparaît face aux autres conspirateurs.

Pour des nobles, entrer dans le palais n’est pas difficile, au contraire.
Les autres qui conspirent avec lui ont de plus grandes ambitions.
Les quatre quittent leur petite suite et sont reçus par le Pierluigi leur Duc.
Commencent les stilettate. 

Quelques instants et le fils du Pape est mort.
Ce qui se passe : l’histoire de la région de Piacenza et celle de l’époque italienne racontent et détaillent bien cet épisode insensé. Chacun le lit selon son propre compte.

Épilogue : trente-neuf ans plus tard, Giovanluigi Confalonieri (il a déjà un aïeul saint en Sicile, à Noto, dont les agiographes ont écrit) doit vendre « par obligation » ses biens de Calendasco.

Une confiscation plus politique que légale, en effet il lui suffit d’émigrer à Milan trente-neuf ans après le meurtre, avec son troupeau important, et là devenir immanent Capitaine de Justice.
Justice est faite !
Plusieurs fois au cours de ces décennies, les Farnèse se sont vengés en lui envoyant des tirs d’assaut, il y est toujours parvenu ! Dans son fief de Calendasco, en fin de compte on ne vit pas mal.

Il y a un saint au paradis, même sans le savoir.
Et puis tout le monde ne peut pas devenir saint. Le monde a continué à tourner. Et il tourne encore.

UMBERTO BATTINI
DIVULGATEUR HISTORIQUE 

 

propriété intellectuelle des textes de l’Auteur 

 

 

CONDENACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA DE SAN CORRADO

Damnatio memoriae 

San Corrado sufrió incluso dos

Incluso con tan solo pronunciarla, en latín, se entiende que esta breve frase no promete nada bueno

 

DE UMBERTO BATTINI
      HISTORIADOR DE SAN CORRADO Y DIVULGADOR

 

particular del cuadro en Calendasco, con la captura de los inocentes

 

Incluso al pronunciarla, en latín, se entiende que esta breve frase no promete nada bueno: damnatio memoriae, la condenación de la memoria, es decir, la eliminación de toda huella que afecte a una persona, como si nunca hubiera existido. 

Nos lo explica bien el diccionario Treccani de donde se deriva este hecho y de qué trata. El noble piacentino Corrado dei Confalonieri, que desde hace siglos es venerado como santo, ha tenido dos de ellos, un récord invicto entre los santos de ámbito local aquí en Piacenza.

La primera condenación perpetua, que después tendrá consecuencias históricas sobre su propia vida pública y luego de convertido como penitente entre los franciscanos, la obtiene hacia el año 1315. 

Estamos en plena Edad Media, cuando la tierra de Piacenza se había convertido en dominio milanés y sometido al duro gobierno de Galeazzo Visconti, un ghibellino temible y enemigo jurado de los güelfos y papalinos.

Pero a darle la damnatio será su misma familia de pertenencia: los Confalonieri, guelfos y milicios del obispo local, que estaban al frente de las tropas como capitanes y portadores del confalone de la iglesia con privilegios y exenciones considerables. Una familia muy prolífica, dividida entre la ciudad de Piacenza y los dos valles, el del Val Chero y el otro del Val Tidone. 

Destaca entre la documentación medieval el feudo de Calendasco y su mansión, que los confalonieri habitaron durante unos tres siglos y que daba al más anciano el título de capitán del castillo, como bien muestran las cartas.

No era raro que un noble caído en desgracia fuera expulsado de la familia, los libros históricos están llenos de ellos, e incluso a San Corrado tocó esta humillante calamidad: debido al incendio que causó durante una partida de caza en los alrededores del feudo de Calendasco, donde nació en 1290.
 

Para encontrar la caza entre las brezales y el matorral hace que se enciendan pequeños fuegos que, sin embargo, dada la estación cálida en poco tiempo van a carbonizar campos de trigo, bosques y algunas pequeñas granjas agrícolas incluyendo los establos con animales. Un daño económico enorme, estamos en 1315.

Los sgherri enviados por el Visconti capturan a un campesino y lo llevan a la ciudad para que sea condenado a la horca y así Corrado, tomado del remordimiento, corre a Piacenza y hace pública una reparación: el hecho de ser un noble le salva la vida, pero debe reparar todo el daño.

Toca a sus familiares recoger la suma y liquidar a Corrado, que así puede cumplir con esta multa, pero se encuentra pobre de todo, denigrado, abandonado y borrado de la memoria de los Confalonieri. Se hace penitente terciario franciscano en el pequeño hospicio, poco alejado del pueblo, donde después de unos diez años partirá para Sicilia, llegando a Noto, donde vivió como eremita en santidad mientras su consorte se convertía en monja entre las clarisas de Piacenza.

La segunda damnatio, aún más feroz, es provista a la memoria de Corrado cuando ya es santo para la Iglesia, pero todavía su culto debe ser difundido fuera de Sicilia. La cancelación de su memoria entre los santos piacentinos durará hasta principios del 1600 y será querida por los Farnesio y también por el papa Paolo III Farnese.

particular del castillo de Calendasco, aquí nace San Corrado en 1290

He aquí cómo esta mannaia se vuelve sobre el culto de San Corrado: en 1547 los cuatro conspiradores de Piacenza, es decir, los nobles Pallavicino, Landi, Anguissola y Confalonieri matan en Piacenza al duque Pierluigi Farnese, hijo del papa Pablo III. Por los actos de la confiscación farnesiana que luego se abatió sobre estas casas, sabemos que Giovanluigi Confalonieri, conspirador, había partido por el hecho de la sangre del castillo de Calendasco donde vivía como feudatario y milita episcopal.

Los Farnese desde ese 10 de septiembre de 1547, fecha de la matanza, tardarán casi cuarenta años en llegar a la venganza contra el Confalonieri de Calendasco que, finalmente para ellos, en 1590 se marcha con su familia y va exiliado a Milán. 

Donde sin embargo Giovanluigi es recibido con grandes honores, pero esta es otra historia.

Obviamente los Farnese no permitieron que el culto de San Corrado, orgullo de la casa Confalonieri, fuera difundido en el Piacentino: habrá que esperar las cartas escritas por Noto en 1610 por los Jurados Netinos para tener informaciones más precisas sobre el santo. 

Una carta al duque Farnesio (que se lava las manos), una a los jurados de Piacenza (que harán una pequeña pero minuciosa y fructífera investigación) y una al obispo que hará conocer el nacimiento del santo de Calendasco.

Con el traslado de la rama de los Confalonieri de Calendasco y Val Tidone a Milán, los Confalonieri restantes de la otra rama de descendencia, que mantendrán excelentes relaciones con los Farnese, nunca pondrán su boca en esta cuestión.
 

Sin embargo, gracias al Confalonieri más anciano, Luigi, se logra romper la damnatio farnesiana y se construye en 1613 una capilla al Santo con frescos en la catedral de Piacenza, como culto devocional. 

Mientras a Calendasco y se cuida bien, solo allí, se concederá el Patronato y desde 1617 con el Legado Sancti Conradi se erigirá una capilla dedicada. 

 

El acto redactado en la curia episcopal de la ciudad es aprobado y firmado por el obispo mons. Claudio Rangoni, que también hace escribir por el notario que "después de una cuidadosa investigación sobre la vida como laico de San Corrado se ha llegado a la conclusión de que en el mismo lugar de Calendasco el santo obtuvo su origen terrenal y que desde años siempre allí los habitantes le tributaban un culto especial".

En pocas palabras podemos deducir que en Calendasco, feudo de Confalonieri durante unos trescientos años, algunos años antes de estos hechos del 1600, se conocía la santidad alcanzada de Corrado nacido en el castillo en 1290, reapareció dignamente de las nieblas de las dos dannaciones de la memoria y que resuenan en el cuadro del siglo XVII de la iglesia y en el escudo de armas Confalonieri que a centenares todavía permanece pintado sobre la casona del salón superior del castillo.

San Corrado vivió como ermitaño en una cueva en el Valle de los Tres Pizzoni en aquel de Noto y allí murió el 19 de febrero de 1351. Su mayor milagro es la aparición "de la nada en la cueva de roca" de pequeños panales calientes que regalaba a los visitantes atónitos. 

Su recuerdo está vivo, obviamente, en Calendasco donde es patrón desde hace más de cuatro siglos y donde se veneran dos reliquias insignes donadas incluso por los obispos de Noto en 1907 y 1927.

DE UMBERTO BATTINI
      HISTORIADOR DE SAN CORRADO Y DIVULGADOR

 

este texto también apareció en el diario ILPIACENZA.IT del 19 de febrero de 2022

 

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DAMNATION OF THE MEMORY OF ST. CONRAD

Damnatio memoriae, 

Saint Conrad even suffered two

Even just pronouncing it, in Latin, you can understand that this short sentence does not promise anything good

 

BY UMBERTO BATTINI
      HISTORIAN OF S. CORRADO AND POPULARIZER

 

detail of the 16th century painting in Calendasco, with S. Corrado and the burning and capture of the innocent

Even just pronouncing it, in Latin, you can understand that this short sentence does not promise anything good: damnatio memoriae, damnation of memory, that is, the erasure of every trace that concerns a person, as if he had never existed. 

The Treccani dictionary explains well where this fact comes from and what it concerns. The Piacenza nobleman Corrado dei Confalonieri, who has been venerated as a saint for centuries, has had two, an unbeaten record among local saints here in Piacenza.

He obtained his first perpetual damnation, which would later have historical implications on his own public life and then, as a convert as a penitent among the Franciscans, around the year 1315. We are in the middle of the Middle Ages when the Piacenza area had become a Milanese dominion and subjected to the harsh government of Galeazzo Visconti, a fearsome Ghibelline and sworn enemy of the Guelphs and papal troops.

However, the one who gave him damnatio was his own family: the Confalonieri, Guelphs and soldiers of the local bishop, who were at the head of the troops as captains and bearers of the confalone of the church with notable privileges and exemptions. A very prolific family, divided between the city of Piacenza and the two valleys, that of Val Chero and the other of Val Tidone. 

Among the medieval documentation, the fiefdom of Calendasco and its manor stands out, which the Confalonieri inhabited for about three centuries and which gave the eldest the title of captain of the castle, as the documents clearly show.

It was not uncommon for a disgraced nobleman to be struck down by his family; historical books are full of them, and San Corrado also suffered this humiliating affront: due to the fire he caused during a hunting trip near the fiefdom of Calendasco, where he was born in 1290.
 

To flush out game among the brambles and bushland, he sets small fires, which, however, given the hot season, quickly char wheat fields, woods, and a few small farmhouses, including stables with animals. A huge economic damage, it's 1315.

The henchmen sent by Visconti capture a farmer and take him to the city to be sentenced to the gallows, so Corrado, overcome by remorse, runs to Piacenza and makes public amends: the fact that he is a nobleman saves his life, but he must compensate for all the damage.

It's up to his family to raise the sum and liquidate Corrado, who can then live up to this fine, but finds himself poor in everything, denigrated, abandoned, and erased from the memory of the Confalonieri. 

He became a Franciscan tertiary penitent in the small hospice, not far from the village, where after about ten years he left for Sicily, arriving in Noto, where he lived as a hermit in holiness while his wife became a nun among the Poor Clares of Piacenza.

The second damnatio, even more ferocious, was procured in memory of Conrad when he was now a saint for the Church, but his cult still had to be spread outside Sicily. The erasure of his memory among the saints of Piacenza lasted until the early 1600s and was desired by the Farnese family and also by Pope Paul III Farnese.

view of the Confalonieri castle of Calendasco, San Corrado was born here in 1290

This is how this axe backfired on the cult of Saint Corrado: in 1547 the four conspirators of Piacenza, namely the nobles Pallavicino, Landi, Anguissola and Confalonieri, killed Duke Pierluigi Farnese, son of Pope Paul III, in Piacenza. 

From the documents of the Farnese confiscation that later fell on these families, we know that Giovanluigi Confalonieri, a conspirator, had left the castle of Calendasco due to bloodshed, where he lived as a feudal lord and bishop's soldier.

From that September 10, 1547, the date of the killing, it took the Farnese family almost forty years to achieve revenge against the Confalonieri of Calendasco who, finally for them, left with his family in 1590 and went into exile in Milan. Where, however, Giovanluigi is welcomed with great honors, but that's another story.

Obviously, the Farnese family did not allow the cult of San Corrado, the pride of the Confalonieri family, to be spread in the Piacenza area: we would have to wait for the letters written by Noto in 1610 by the Noto Jurors to obtain more precise information about the saint. A letter to the Duke Farnese (who washes his hands), one to the Jurors of Piacenza (who will conduct a small but thorough and fruitful investigation), and one to the Bishop who will make known the birth of the saint of Calendasco.

With the transfer of the branch of the Confalonieri of Calendasco and Val Tidone to Milan, the remaining Confalonieri of the other branch of descent, who maintained excellent relations with the Farnese family, never put their minds to this matter.
 

Thanks, however, to the eldest Confalonieri, Luigi, it was possible to make inroads into Farnese damnatio and in 1613 a chapel to the Saint was built with frescoes in the cathedral of Piacenza, as a devotional cult. 

While in Calendasco and mind you, only there, the Patronage will be granted and from 1617 a dedicated chapel will be erected with the Legate Sancti Conradi. 

The act drawn up in the episcopal curia in the city is approved and signed by Bishop Msgr. Claudio Rangoni, who also has the notary write that “after careful investigation into the lay life of San Corrado, we have reached the conclusion that in the same place of Calendasco the saint drew his earthly origins and that for years now the inhabitants had always paid him a special cult there”.

In short, we can deduce that in Calendasco, a Confalonieri fiefdom for about three hundred years, a few years before these events of the 17th century, we knew of the achieved sanctity of Corrado, born in the castle in 1290, who reappeared worthily from the mists of the two damnations of memory and who echo in the seventeenth-century painting of the church and in the Confalonieri coat of arms, which still remains painted hundreds of times on the coffered ceiling of the upper hall of the manor.

Saint Corrado lived as a hermit in a cave in the Valle dei Tre Pizzoni in Noto and died there on February 19, 1351. His greatest miracle is the appearance “out of nowhere in the rock cave” of small warm loaves that he gave to astonished visitors. 

His memory is obviously alive in Calendasco where he has been patron for over four centuries and where two illustrious relics donated by the bishops of Noto in 1907 and 1927 are venerated. 

 

BY UMBERTO BATTINI
     HISTORIAN OF S. CORRADO AND POPULARIZER

 

This historical text also appeared in the newspaper ILPIACENZA.IT on February 19, 2022

 

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intellectual property of the Author's texts 

 

HISTORICAL DATA OF THE CHURCH OF CALENDASCO

HISTORICAL DATA 

OF THE CHURCH OF CALENDASCO

FOUNDED BY THE LOMBARDS

 

by Umberto Battini

      historian and popularizer

 

the current church rebuilt in 1734

BRIEF EXPOSITION OF HISTORICAL DATA 

I will say of the church: the parish church of Santa Maria. 

E’ the parchments of the Lombard Diplomatic Code say it was of Lombard foundation. There are some writings in Calendasco and Trevozzo but also in Pavia and also in Milan in Santambross’ and they recall the priest of the time living in Kalendasco. Notaries of 769, 784, 804, 892 etc etc. 

The grandest renovation was carried out in 1734. Then in 1970-71 there was that of Don Federico Peratici for the correct adaptation to Vatican II (I will have more to recall on this matter in due course).

The church before 1734 was “almost square” – fere square says a map of time!
With trusses and wooden floor: not surprising! 

The church is written to be built on a hill and therefore well protected from the humid and unhealthy floods of the Po. It was therefore an elevated place just enough to keep your feet dry, paro paro is still the same today. 

 

the church of Calendasco, external south side

There is also (well hidden but there is) an ancient Romanesque window, between two walls – one fake and one original, it is a remnant with a moustache, a stone document worth gold, a silent witness screaming (like Legato Sancti Conradi!).
Lombard churches often have a square plan, an architecture in use in identical years among the Byzantines who were masters as far as Modena. 

We know the name of two of our old Lombard priests: and here appears Stabelfredus and Orso who above the count were also powerful, with immovable properties in places well beyond the Piacenza land. They officiated in Kalendasco with tithe rights over the local rural poor. 

Tenth to the priest, so much for a change. At the end of the day, they always allowed you a plate of soup in the xenodochium, almost at all hours, you just had to knock. Knock knock knock.

Umberto Battini

historian and popularizer

 

 

 

THE COAT OF ARMS OF THE CONFALONIERS

THE STORY BEFORE YOUR EYES
WOODEN CASSERONE
THE COAT OF ARMS OF THE CONFALONIERS
IN CALENDASCO CASTLE

by Umberto Battini
     scholar of S. Corrado and historical popularizer

 

In the upper hall of Calendasco Castle, the wooden ceiling box, entirely painted with the coat of arms of the Confalonieri family, was miraculously saved.
Wooden ceiling from the 14th century as well as the castle.
It is the living testimony that they lived here with pride, having the rooms where I lived decorated daily. 

Attached to the hall there is also a large room, also coffered in the same way, which is the chamber of the birth of San Corrado dei Confalonieri in 1290! And of course, with the same decorative coats of arms.

In my studies and research in the State Archives of Piacenza I have documented part of the history of the castle and the Confalonieri very well, and this can be read in my volume "S. Corrado Confalonieri - The Unpublished Piacenza Documents" of 2006.

 

Today the research has gone on and on a long way, also regarding the Confalonieri family of the branch that physically lived in Calendasco, inside the castle and I will explain them in a future book of mine which I have been working diligently on for some time.

This coat of arms ceiling is also an energetic proof of the active and very noble presence of the Confalonieri here in this castle of Calendasco: they were beloved feudal lords.
In some ways outside the confines of that Middle Ages which makes us believe that the feudal lords were all desposed or exploitative, and in the next volume this fact will also be discussed.

A unique fact is that of the Confalonieri in Calendasco, who nowhere else in the Piacenza area where the family's residents lived can we find profound traces of their residence as ancestral feudal lords.

A defensive castle but at the same time permanently inhabited by the Confalonieri, even if this may seem strange to us today due to the fact that this castle, now bare, is spartan and massive, but instead the facts and documents of the time speak differently.
 
Umberto Battini
scholar of San Corrado and historical popularizer

 

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ESCUDO DE LOS CONFALONIERI A CALENDASCO

LA HISTORIA BAJO LOS OJOS
CASSONATO DE MADERA
EL ESCUDO DE LOS CONFALONIERI
DE CALENDASCO

de Umberto Battini

      estudioso de S. Corrado y divulgador histórico 

  

En el salón superior del castillo de Calendasco, se ha salvado milagrosamente la casona de madera del techo que está toda pintada con el escudo de armas de la casa de los Confalonieri.

Techo de madera del siglo XIV, así como el castillo.
Es el testimonio vivo, que aquí habitaron con orgullo, decorando los ambientes donde vivía diariamente. 

Junto al salón hay también una gran sala, también casona de la misma manera, que es la habitación del nacimiento de San Corrado dei Confalonieri en 1290! Y por supuesto, con los mismos escudos decorativos.

En mis estudios e investigaciones en el Archivo de Estado de Piacenza documenté muy bien parte de la historia del castillo y de los Confalonieri, y esto es legible en mi volumen "S. Corrado Confalonieri - I Documenti Inediti Piacentini" de 2006. 

castillo del siglo XIII de Calendasco que fue feudo de Confalonieri

Hoy las búsquedas han avanzado y mucho, incluso sobre la casa de los Confalonieri del ramo que ha habitado físicamente en Calendasco, dentro del castillo y los expondré en un próximo libro en el que estoy trabajando intensamente desde hace tiempo.

Este techo arqueado, es también una prueba enérgica de la presencia activa y muy noble de los Confalonieri aquí en este castillo de Calendasco: fueron feudatarios muy amados.
En cierto modo fuera de los esquemas de aquella edad media que nos hace creer que los feudatarios son todos desplazados o explotadores, y en el próximo volumen también se tratará este hecho.

Un hecho único es el de los Confalonieri en Calendasco que en ningún otro lugar del territorio piacentino donde habitaban residentes de la casa, podemos encontrar huellas profundas de su habitar como feudatarios avariados.

Un castillo defensivo pero al mismo tiempo habitado de forma estable por los Confalonieri, aunque esto nos puede parecer extraño hoy en día por el hecho de que este castillo, ahora desnudo, es espartano y masivo, pero los hechos y documentos de la época hablan diferente.
 
Umberto Battini 

estudioso de San Corrado y divulgador histórico

 

THE GURGULARE HERMITAGE

THE GURGULARE HERMITAGE 
HISTORIC PLACE OF CALENDASCO

detail of the entrance to the Romitorio medieval hospital "del Gorgolare" now private property

BY UMBERTO BATTINI
       POPULAR HISTORIAN

This text is part of a more substantial study, which appeared in newspaper articles in Piacenza and was published in books by the same Author

An interesting local historical question, but one that made headlines in volumes published in Rome and elsewhere a few centuries ago, concerns the hospital known as “of the gorgolare”, now incorporated into the small village of Calendasco.

We have done a careful search and it turns out that it was a place known both “geographically” and “topographically” as early as ’600 by well-known historians.
The first to deal with it in 1568 was the historian of Noto Girolamo Pugliese, in one of his study books dedicated to the patron saint of that Sicilian city, who holds his holy body.
In the village on the Po River in Calendasco, until a few years ago, although abandoned, there was still a mill on the Confaloniero stream, which had been completely intubated for several decades. 

 

Practically behind the current town hall built a century ago on the lawn annexed to the mill, as evidenced for example by the Napoleonic land registry.
The ancient place, still called “molino Baffoni” in 1800, which was its owner, had a water channel that turned at an angle right near the ancient medieval hospital. 
From this unmistakable sound of the waters, which broke in this curve, the particular and local name of “hospitio del gorgolare”, produced precisely by the gurgling of the waters.

Among the historians who mention the place, therefore also dear to San Corrado for its conversion, is an important volume published in 1935 in Macerata, written by the historian Raniero Luconi in which we read that “at the beginning of the fourteenth century there existed in Piacenza, in a place called Gorgolare, a community of hermits under the obedience of Friar Aristide” the superior of the small convent hospital for pilgrims in the village.

Also in a volume of the “Acta selecta” Franciscans published in Rome in 1944 “the hermitage of the Gorgolare is mentioned where S. Corrado Confalonieri took the habit at the hands of Brother Aristide”.

Another citation comes from the historian Raffaele Pazzelli who in the volume printed in Rome in 1958 by the General Curia of the Franciscan Tower cites verbatim, censoring all the tertiary places in Italy: “the third place whose memory has been handed down to us is the hermitage convent of Calendasco near Piacenza” located right next to the mill canal.

 

 BY UMBERTO BATTINI
        POPULAR HISTORIAN

 

This text is part of a more substantial study, which appeared in newspaper articles in Piacenza and was published in books by the same Author 

 

SHORT LIFE OF ST. CONRAD

SHORT LIFE OF ST. CONRAD
THE NOBLE FEUDAL LORD OF CALENDASCO

Calendasco Castle, owned by the Confalonieri family and now owned by the Municipality

 

BY UMBERTO BATTINI
HISTORIAN OF S. CORRADO AND POPULARIZER

This is a short life of the Holy Hermit Corrado Confalonieri, told succinctly.
He was born in 1290 in the castle of Calendasco, near the city of Piacenza, a place on the Po River.
His was a feudal family, living in the village castle, of the Guelph party and "soldiers" of the Bishop of Piacenza.
To hunt game, Corrado set fire to a forest in those places. The Lord of Piacenza, in that Middle Ages, was Galeazzo Visconti, a Milanese and Ghibelline.

A poor farmer is blamed for the fire. Corrado doesn't let that innocent man be brought to death. He admits guilt before Galeazzo Visconti and is ordered to pay damages. 

The Confalonieri family of Calendasco gives Corrado his share of the inheritance, with this money he pays the debt.
He becomes very poor, and with his wife they make a decision: she becomes nun Clarissa in Piacenza, he a tertiary penitent.

Saint Corrado retires among the Franciscan tertiaries to the small hermitage and hospital for pilgrims that was right in Calendasco.

16th-century painting in the church in Calendasco

 

He was welcomed in 1315, the year of the events, by Brother Aristide.

Around 1323 he left as a pilgrim for Assisi, Rome and then went to the Holy Land. On his return he stopped on the island of Malta, where however he was miserably hunted.

It disembarks at Messina, Sicily and heads towards the south-eastern part. He arrives in Noto, where he is welcomed into the pilgrims' hospital known as "di San Martino".

After a certain period he moved to the Valle dei Tre Pizzoni in Noto, where he lived inside a cave living as a hermit.

He will perform miracles while alive: he heals a very serious hernious child, then makes "Angels' Bread" appear, angelic bread inside the cave he gives to visitors.
This miracle also takes place before the Bishop of Syracuse, who was then also bishop of the City of Noto.

He died in the cave on February 19, 1351.
By popular fury he is made a Saint.
Over time, the church will also confirm this.
For centuries his body has been preserved in a silver Ark, which is kept inside the Cathedral of Noto, Sicily.

Calendasco has had him as the patron saint of the village for over four hundred years.

 

Ark contains the body of St. Corrado, preserved in Noto in Sicily

He was born physically in the village of Calendasco in 1290, and spiritually in 1315, retiring to the hospital of the Franciscan tertiaries.
In Noto he lived from 1343 to 1351 in Santità. In the city of Noto he is honored and venerated with 4 solemn processions during the year.
Saint Corrado Confalonieri, a Franciscan penitent hermit, layman and nobleman, who followed in Christ's footsteps on earth, in hiding and humility of life.

 

by Umberto Battini
historian of San Corrado and popularizer