by Fr. Michele Colagiovanni, cpps
I called Merlini a “supreme confrere” because Gaspare del Bufalo himself – who won him over to the missionary vocation when he was already a secular priest – used to say of him, playing on the surname derived from a bird: “The Blackbird flies high!” In this way he judged the Spolentine to be the best acquisition of all those he had obtained so far. When he expressed himself that way about Don Giovanni Merlini, Gaspar contradicted the ornithological treatises, according to which the blackbird flies low. It feeds rather on what it finds on the ground. So it flutters, rattling the ground of the undergrowth. Yet in sentencing in that way, del Bufalo was not content with words. He added gestures. He would lift his gaze aloft, as one who wants to probe the depths of heaven, to the point of forcing the fold of his neck backward, as if he were following the disciple’s ascension at that moment. It exaggerated, therefore, the scientific blunder; but at the same time it confirmed the opinion that the young man from Spoleto was the true champion of his small army.
To dispel any doubts he would sometimes add, “It’s not enough for him to come after us anymore, he’s overtaking us!” And he would drop his arms as one who feels he cannot climb so high. The experience of my personal history and the study preceding the not a few biographies (not only of saints) that I have written and published, have convinced me that in shaping the personality of individuals, what he observes around him has a strong incidence, starting from the moment he opens his eyes. The Merlini house was more than decent and improving as the area was being renovated. In every respect, it satisfied those who lived there and those who passed through. Umbria was enjoying a good reputation, and Spoleto was among the cities that helped to keep the whole region’s stock high, even in the religious field. The proximity of Assisi made it all be very distinguished, and it seemed that religiosity was in the air.
Giovanni Merlini nacque a Spoleto il 28 agosto 1795, accolto con festa grande dal suo babbo, Luigi e da sua madre, Antonia Claudia Arcangeli, al suo terzo parto. La gioia fu straordinaria, perché l’ansia del genitore era nota a tutta la città. Luigi voleva l’erede e bramava che si facesse onore per fama e quattrini, in modo da nobilitare il casato. I Merlini avevano risalito la penisola parecchi anni innanzi, varcando lo stretto di Messina, con soste più o meno lunghe durante la peregrinazione interminabile verso il nord. A sentir Luigi, erano stati nobili, con tanto di blasone. Suo padre, però, capostipite del ceppo spoletano, proveniva da Roma, nel senso che vi aveva sostato alquanto e sposato Caterina Marzi di Viterbo. Aveva avuto più figli, dei quali si conoscono Andrea, nato nel 1761, Luigi, nato nel 1763 e Giovanni senior nel 1766. A Spoleto era avvenuta la sosta ritenuta definitiva. Spoleto era un passaggio obbligato e aveva il suo fascino, come in genere l’Umbria. Palazzi e strade decorose, chiese belle e una cattedrale magnifica che faceva da fondale a una piazza in pendenza come la platea delle sale da spettacolo, per impedire che gli spettatori delle file anteriori impedissero la vista della scena a quelli delle poltrone posteriori. Naturalmente nella piazza non c’erano poltrone e file, ma proprio per questo sembrava reclamarle, così deserta.
Giovanni Merlini was born in Spoleto on August 28, 1795, welcomed with great celebration by his father, Luigi, and his mother, Antonia Claudia Arcangeli, in her third birth. The joy was extraordinary, for the parent’s anxiety was known throughout the city. Luigi wanted the heir and yearned for him to be honored by fame and fortune, so as to ennoble the lineage. The Merlini had sailed up the peninsula several years earlier, crossing the Strait of Messina, with more or less long stops during the interminable peregrination to the north. To hear Luigi tell it, they had been nobles, complete with blazon. His father, however, the progenitor of the Spoleto strain, had come from Rome, in the sense that he had stopped there quite a bit and married Caterina Marzi of Viterbo. He had had several sons, of whom we know Andrea, born in 1761, Luigi, born in 1763, and Giovanni senior in 1766. In Spoleto had taken place the stop considered definitive. Spoleto was an obligatory passage and had its own charm, as Umbria generally did. Decent palaces and streets, beautiful churches, and a magnificent cathedral that served as a backdrop to a square sloping down like the stalls of the performance halls, to prevent spectators in the front rows from blocking the view of the scene for those in the back seats. Of course, there were no seats or rows in the square, but that is precisely why it seemed to claim them, so deserted.
It is likely that the new Merlini immigrants knew how to make a much sought-after product in Spoleto: sweets. Luigi must have been knowledgeable of refined recipes and Mrs. Antonia Claudia Arcangeli a very scrupulous executor, very careful with the doses so that the flavors would be the same and not different. In a short time business prospered and the house consequently enlarged and embellished with novelties. Louis and Antonia were both very religious; however, the man’s faith impressed more, because that level was rare in males. Heroic episodes were told about him in the devotional field. Like the time they rushed to the church to tell him that a fire had broken out in the house, spreading from the oven: the lung of family welfare. He had just taken communion Louis and was on his way back from the balustrade to his shul for thanksgiving. Instead of running for home, as anyone would have done-certainly without incurring popular blame-he knelt at the first vacant pew, stood somewhat in recollection with his head resting on his hands clinging to the pew sill, and then, with a brisk pace, went to verify the incident. Only outside the church did he begin to run. The fire had already been put out and the damage could not be said to be excessive. Luigi’s pause no one forgot.
Giovanni’s father was the prior of the Confraternity of the Holy Cross and honored the role, regaining magnified credit for it. With all his limitations he was a true Christian and exemplary Catholic. The scent of baking and confection making was the atmosphere that always reigned in the Merlini home. It spread throughout the house and remained there twenty-four hours a day, even conquering the homes of neighbors. It seemed the smell of the supernatural, the result of meticulous adherence to recipes that were traditions fixed on the cards, like the religious ones of commandments and novenas. The observance of the doses was of a rigor over which no compromise was allowed. The proportions were the result of centuries of experience, refined from generation to generation. Every stage of processing and cooking contributed to the excellence of the result. Giovanni, one day, surprised his father by asking if he could set up a chapel in the house. After an initial moment of bewilderment Luigi reflected that the domestic chapel was in many noble palaces. It constituted a sign of distinction and belonging: attachment to the values of the Papal State. He agreed and Giovanni proved adept at transforming an insignificant room into a devout place of prayer. Everyone who saw it judged that he would have been a good architect if he had taken that path. However, the day the hypothetical architect confided to his father that he wanted to become a priest, Louis seemed to become someone else. He opposed a refusal that not even the worst priest-eater would have formulated so averse. – Are you out of your mind? Giovanni took a dark and inexplicable path; not because he did not know the reason, but for the opposite reason: his father’s ambition to become noble! He wondered, “What could be more noble than to become a saint, to imitate Jesus, to continue his mission, all dedicated to others?” The solution that flashed through his mind was to pray. He asked the Lord that Father and Mother would have another son. And it happened. He was named Peter. For a few months Father held firm in his opposition to John’s plan. When he was persuaded that Peter was growing robust he began to give up and finally gave his consent.
Even as a boy, Giovanni yearned for perfection, and there is no doubt that this was reflected in the entire family and in the city in which he was born. Meticulous order was not seen, by him, as a limitation of personal freedom, but removal of the snags caused by the unforeseen mess. It is nice when in a house you look for objects and could pick them up with your eyes closed by stretching out a hand. The neatness of the city was but the homogeneous extension of the domestic dwelling; the entire population was, for him – and should be for no one – nothing but the extension of his own family. John never waived his social, or rather, communal involvement. In his scholastic career one episode remained famous that was passed down and parallels the one that has remained famous, of his father, when he did not flee home after receiving the Eucharist and the news that everything was on fire at home.
He managed to reason that first he had to say something to the guest he had just welcomed. One day Giovanni was at a seminary class (which he attended as an outsider) during the teacher’s momentary absence, a brawl had broken out. Books were flying like bullets from one desk to another. One volume instead of hitting the human target went on to shatter a window pane. Upon returning, the teacher wanted to know who had caused the damage. Everyone fell silent, until one – brazenly – pointing his arm and forefinger at Giovanni Merlini said, – He did it! Of the others a few nodded in agreement, while the majority remained puzzled and even bewildered by the utterly unfounded accusation. – Did you do it? – the teacher asked incredulously. And since the alleged perpetrator was silent, the teacher reinforced the question: – Merlini, was it really you? – Some say it was me… – answered John, without flinching, in the tone of one who is willing to admit that the accuser was not entirely wrong. What had he done so that the paraphernalia would not happen, in the absence of the teacher? This is what he meant, and from that day on he redoubled his efforts to know how to seize opportunities for good. By working hard on himself, Don Giovanni Merlini reached such a high degree of perfection that some (such as his successor in the general direction, Fr. Enrico Rizzoli) argued that there have hardly been or can be people of such a high degree of union with God as our supreme.
“Nel Segno del Sangue” May/June Issue, 2019