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Voragine (Giacono da Varoggio, known in French as Jacque de)
Italian Legiographer, born around 1230 at Voraggio, near
Savone, died July 14, 1298 at Genoa. Having entered the
Dominican Order in 1254, he impressed everyone by his piety as
well as his knowledge, and was in demand to preach the
Scriptures in various convents of his order. The purety of his
oratory and his knowledge, increased his reputation, and after
having held the position of prior for a while, he was elected,
in 1267, "provincial" for the whole of Lombardy
(one of the largest ecclesiastical provinces of his order), which
he administered for no less than 18 years. In 1288 he
was pronoted to "définisteur" and Emperor Henry IV entrusted
him with the mission to lift the interdiction to which Genoans
were subject for having helped the Sicilians who had revolted
against the King of Naples, and he participated in the
Council of Lucca (1288), and that of Fernare (1290).
Promoted in 1292 to the archbishop of Genoa, he held
there a synod in which important points of discipline
were settled. A loving, compassionate man, pe proved
to be entirely devoted to the Holy Sea, and as anxious to
bring peace to the church as he was to pacify his
own diocase. It is therefore an error to claim, as some
winters do that Boniface VIII's virdent quip on Ash
Wednesday: "Memento quid gibellines es et cum gibellinis
tris in pulverem revertenis" (Remember thou art ghibelline
and that with thy ghibellines thou wilt recert to dust)
was meant for him. These words may have been apocryphal,
but at any rate they could have been addressed only to
Voragine's successor at Genoa, Spinola, a ghibelline
prelate, whose disagreements with the Holy Sea are a
matter of record. Voragine, on the other hand, was able to
bring about peace between the "guelfes" + the ghibellines
in 1295. However, it was short lived and Voragine had
to intervene one day, at the risks of his own life,