Saint of the Day – 24 March – Saint Bernulf (9th/10th Century) Bishop and Martyr of Mondovi, Piedmont, Italy. We have no certainty about the life of our Saint today but tradition believes that he was the said Bishop and also that he had received the Crown of Martyrdom. Also known as – Bernolfo.
Sources relating to the life of St Bernulf, the Bishop of the Piedmontese Diocese of Mondovì, are very scarce.
In 1514, during the Consecration of the Cathedral’s High Altar, Bishop Lorenzo Fieschi recounts placing there the Relics of St Donatus, to whom the Cathedral was dedicated and also of St Bernulf, the martyr.
The tradition declares Bernulf the Bishop of the City, killed during one of the many Saracen raids which occurred in south-western Piedmont during the 9th and 10th Centuries. The cult dedicated to St Bernulf was centered at a Chapel erected in the locality of Priola, near the Casina Saracina, not far from Mondovì. This Chapel erected on the presumed site of Bernolfo’s Martyrdom, contained a painting, perhaps from the 13th Century, depicting his death by flaying and a wooden Statue in Bishop’s Vestments was also venerated there.
The Chapel which a noble family from Mondovì had built in his honour no longer exists but a silver Reliquary believed to contain his head is still venerated in the Cathedral.
Based on this scant information, it is not easy to reconstruct Bernulf’s true biography, nor to establish, with greater precision, the time and circumstances of his Martyrdom.
AnaStpaul 