James of the Marches

Infobox Saint
name=Saint James of the Marches
birth_date=1391
death_date=death date|1476|11|28|mf=y
feast_day=28 November
venerated_in=Roman Catholicism


imagesize=200px
caption="Saint James of the Marches" by Francisco Zurbarán
birth_place=Monteprandone, Marche of Ancona, Italy
death_place=
titles=
beatified_date=1624
beatified_place=
beatified_by=Urban VIII
canonized_date=1726
canonized_place=
canonized_by=Benedict XIII
attributes=Depicted holding in his right hand a chalice, out of which a snake is escaping
patronage=Patron of the city of Naples, Italy
major_shrine=Franciscan church of St. Maria la Nuova
suppressed_date=
issues=
prayer=
prayer_attrib=

Saint James of the Marches (1391 – November 28, 1476) ( _it. Giacomo della Marca, _es. San Jacobo de la Marca) [Also known as Dominic Gangala, Jacopo Gangala, James della Marca, James Gangala.] was an Italian Franciscan Friar Minor, preacher and writer. [CathEncy|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/St._James_of_the_Marches|title=St. James of the Marches]

Biography

He was born of a poor family named Gangala, at Monteprandone, Marche of Ancona, Italy, 1394. He began his studies at Offida under the guidance of his uncle, a priest, who soon afterwards put him to school at Ascoli. At the University of Perugia he took the degree of Doctor in Civil Law. After a short stay at Florence as tutor in a noble family, and as judge of sorcerers, James was received into the Franciscan Order of the Friars Minor, in the chapel of the Portiuncula, Assisi, on July 26, 1416. Having finished his novitiate at the hermitage of the Carceri, near Assisi, he studied theology at Fiesole, near Florence, under St. Bernardine of Siena.

On June 13, 1420, be was ordained a priest and soon began to preach in Tuscany, in the Marches, and in Umbria; for half a century he carried on his spiritual labours, remarkable for the miracles he performed and the numerous conversions he wrought. From 1427 James preached penance, combated heretics, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. In the last-mentioned country he was also commissary of the Friars Minor.

At the time of the Council of Basle he promoted the union of the moderate Hussites with the Church, and that of the Greek Orthodox at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Against the Ottomans, he preached several crusades, and at the death of St. John Capistran, in 1456, James was sent to Hungary as his successor.

In Italy he fought the Fraticelli, instituted several montes pietatis (literally, "mountains of piety": nonprofit credit organizations that lent money at very low rates on pawned objects), and preached in all the greater cities; Milan offered him the bishopric in 1460, which he declined. St. James belonged to the Observant branch of the Friars Minor, then rapidly spreading and exciting much envy. How much he suffered on this account is shown in a letter written by him to St. John Capistran, published by Nic. Dal-Gal, O.F.M., in "Archivum Franciscanum Historicum", I (1908), 94-97. Under Callistus III, in 1455, he was appointed an arbiter on the questions at issue between Conventuals and Observants. His decision was published February 2, 1456, in a papal Bull, which pleased neither part. A few years later, on Easter Monday 1462, St. James, preaching at Brescia, uttered the opinion of some theologians that the Precious Blood shed during the Passion was not united with the Divinity of Christ during the three days of His burial. The Dominican James of Brescia, inquisitor, immediately cited him to his tribunal. James refused to appear, and after some troubles appealed to the Holy See. The question was discussed at Rome during Christmas 1462 (not 1463, as some have it), before Pope Pius II and the cardinals, but no decision was given. James spent the last three years of his life at Naples, and died there on November 28, 1476.

Writings

The works of St. James of the Marches have not yet been collected. His library and autographs are preserved in part at the Municipio of Monteprandone (see Crivellucci, "I codici della libreria raccolta da S. Giacomo della Marca nel convento di S. Maria delle Grazie presso Monteprandone", Leghorn, 1889).

He wrote "Dialogus contra Fraticellos" printed in Baluze-Mansi, "Miscellanea", II, Lucca, 1761, 595-610 (cf. Ehrle in "Archiv für Litt. u. Kirchengeschichte", IV, Freiburg im Br., 1888, 107-10). His numerous sermons are not edited. For some of them, and for his treatise on the "Miracles of the Name of Jesus", see Candido Mariotti, O.F.M., "Nome di Gesù ed i Francescani", Fano, 1909, 125-34. On his notebook, or "Itinerarium", See Luigi Tasso, O.F.M., in "Miscellanea Francescana", I (1886), 125-26: "Regula confitendi peccata" was several times edited in Latin and Italian during the fifteenth century. "De Sanguine Christi effuse" and some other treatises remained in manuscript.

Veneration

James was buried in Naples in the Franciscan church of St. Maria la Nuova, where his body is still to be seen. He was beatified by Pope Urban VIII in 1624, and canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. Naples, Italy venerates him as one of its patron saints. His liturgical feast is on 28 November. He is generally represented holding in his right hand a chalice, out of which a snake is escaping – an allusion to some endeavours of heretics to poison him or, less likely, to the controversy about the Precious Blood.

References

*it icon [http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/35550 San Giacomo della Marca]