Table Of ContentSAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA
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SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA
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To
Father Jerome Hesse
(or—is it Assisi?)
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Anthony
Saint
Padua
of
HIS LIFE AND MIRACLES
by
Mabel Farnum
Preface by
Fr. Raphael M. Huber, O. F. M. Cony.
Associate Professor of Church History
Catholic University of America
DIDIER
New York
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Nihil Obstat:
John M. A, Fearns, S. T. D.
Censor Ubrorum
Imprimatur:
Francis Cardinal Spellman
tjt
Archbishop of New York
January 8, 1948
COPYRIGHT, 1948, BY
DIDIER, Publishers
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission of the Publishers
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
In reconstructing the life of St. Anthony of Padua,
conspicuous use was made of two monumental works:
Antonio di Padova, by Most Reverend Vittorino Fac-
chinetti, O.F.M., of Abschadi, Egypt; and A Docu-
mented History of the Franciscan Order, 1182-1517, by
The Very Reverend Raphael M. Huber, O.F.M., Con-
ventual, Associate Professor of History at the Catholic
University of America. The Enter St. Anthony by The
Reverend Isidore O'Brien, O.F.M., was consulted.
Gratitude is expressed for Fr. Raphael Huber's dis-
tinguished service in reading the manuscript and sug-
gesting certain revisions and additions. Also, I wish to
thank the friars of New Mexico, who guided the author
over the old Franciscan trails of the Rio Grande, and in-
troduced her to the missionary life that St. Anthony of
Padua so gloriously illustrated: Father Jerome Hesse,
O.F.M., Rector, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Gallup; Fr.
Robert Kalt, O.F.M., St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe;
and Fr. Pax R. Schicker, O.F.M., Secretary to Bishop
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Espelage, of Gallup. To The Reverend John Forest,
New
O.F.M., Director, St. Anthony's Guild, Paterson,
Jersey, I extend gratitude for his interest in this work
and for supplying books for research; as well as to the
Reverend Daniel Taglino, St. Rita's Church, Haver-
J.
hill, Massachusetts, for similar assistance; to Fray An-
gelico Chavez, O.F.M., St. Francis Cathedral, Santa F£,
New Mexico, bard of the Franciscan Order, for suggest-
ing the particular form of the dedication of this book.
Certain incidents generally included in the biographies
of St. Anthony of Padua are not presented in these
pages, since the best modern authorities do not accept
them. Among them is the supposed controversy between
St. Anthony and Brother Elias Bombarone, of which no
record appears in the thirteenth-century biographies of
the saint, but which crept into his bibliography at a later
period. The author followed the best possible guidance
in this matter.
N. B. Tradition maintains that St. Anthony was a de-
scendant of Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader in the first
crusade. Since no other form of the surname was avail-
able than the Italian, the full Italian title for Anthony
has been carried through the book up to the point where
he entered the Order of Friars Minor.
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PREFACE
Devotion to St. Anthony of Padua, a love ot nis per-
sonality, and the bibliography in his honor have so in-
creased from century to century that fifty years ago Pope
Leo XIII could style him "not only the saint of Padua,
but the saint of the whole world." Like his great spiritual
father, St. Francis of Assisi, whose livery he assumed and
whose rule he professed, he has become "everybody's
saint." No wonder, then, that literature concerning his
life, sanctity, activities, miracles, and learning has been
in constant demand by his ardent admirers throughout
the world. The recent elevation of St. Anthony to the
rank of a Doctor of the Church Universal by our present
gloriously reigning Pope Pius XII, in virtue of the Decree
of January 16, 1946, has given fresh impetus to renewed
studies, biographies, and the publication of source ma-
terial concerning his life.
In the life of every public hero, saint or soldier, artist
or statesman, inventor or scholar, many legendary epi-
sodes have intertwined themselves with the branches of
truth and fact pertaining to his biography. St. Anthony
was no exception. The simple story of his life, as recorded
by thirteenth-century biographers, has been augmented
by folklore, deliberate interpolations to suit party affilia-
tion and ambitions, and imaginary occurrences with ab-
solutely no regard for time or place, so that only the
objective critic, after long research, can eventually sep-
arate the grain from the chaff.
7
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PREFACE
Dramatic biography, as differentiated from pure fic-
tion, however, is based upon historical fact, upon living
personages and real places, although it does allow itself
a restrained freedom in secondary matters, such as the
elaboration of detail, the description of local color, de-
lineation of character, the course of conversation, and the
concatenation of events or reaction to circumstances or
occurrences. Such a dramatic biography is the present
life of St. Anthony of Padua, as presented by the author,
Mabel Farnum, of Boston, Massachusetts.
Miss Farnum is no stranger to the American reading
public. As a steady contributor to leading Catholic period-
icals and author of such works as The Wool Merchant of
Segovia—The Life of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez; Street of
the Half-Moon—The Life of St. Peter Clover; The Sacred
Scimitar—The Life of St. John de Brito; A Carrack Sailed
Away; the Voyage of Master Francis Xavier, and The
Seven Golden Cities—The Story of Fray Marcos of Nizza
and Coronado's expedition, she has endeared herself to
her many readers. Even while awaiting the publication of
her latest study, American Saint, a biography of Mother
Cabrini for young people, she has immersed herself, at
the suggestion of Dr. Cardozo, of the Catholic University,
in a research study on the life and biographies of St.
Anthony of Padua, her latest venture. With a deep sense
of fidelity to fact, she has striven to reconstruct the places
and spots in which the saint worked; to bring to life the
people with whom he conversed; and to describe the scenes
of his activities as though she had been an actual spec-
tator. From a preview, I feel that she has lived up to her
reputation for accuracy as portrayed in her other literary
productions; and I feel that this work will, therefore, merit
the same public acclaim, especially among those of her
readers who do not understand Italian, Spanish, Por-
tuguese or French, and who, accordingly, do not have
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Description:Against the fading blue of the sky, bright villas nestled along the Alfonso I, King of Portugal, and his wife, Mafalda of. Savoy, had founded it in 1145, fifty years before the the deluded followers of the Prophet Mahomet—Morocco,.
