Saints Antonio Primaldo and Companions

L'Osservatore Romano's biography for the canonization sets their death in the long struggle between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. ² After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the siege of Belgrade in 1456, it says, Sultan Mehmed II tried and failed to take the island of Rhodes, and then turned to the southeastern coast of Italy, across the sea from Albania, which he already held. ²³ Zenit's report of the canonization dates the failure at Rhodes to 1479. ³

Otranto was the nearest Italian port to the eastern shore of the Adriatic, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, an ancient Greek colony and once more important than Brindisi. ⁵ In 1480 it had about 6,000 inhabitants and no defenders: the Aragonese troops were away fighting in Tuscany. ²³ Zenit says the Ottoman fleet that arrived under Gedik Ahmed Pasha numbered some 150 ships and more than 15,000 men, and that the siege lasted fifteen days. ³

As soon as the siege began, the people were called on to surrender, renounce Christ and become Muslims. ²³ They refused. The city was bombarded and fell on August 12. ²³ L'Osservatore Romano says the invaders sacked it and killed the archbishop, Stefano Pendinelli, with the canons, the religious and the faithful in the cathedral. ²

The sources differ on how the archbishop died. Zenit says the soldiers broke down the cathedral door while he was saying Mass and giving Communion to the people who had taken refuge there, and quartered him on the spot. ³ The Catholic Encyclopedia, in 1911, says that 12,000 men are said to have perished in the sack, among them "Bishop Stephen Pendinelli, who was sawn to death." ⁵

The next day, L'Osservatore Romano says, Gedik Ahmed Pasha had all the surviving men, about 800 of them, brought to the Turkish camp and ordered to abjure their faith. ²³ Antonio Pezzulla, known as Primaldo, answered for them. ² He said that they "held Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, their Lord and true God, and they preferred to die a thousand times rather than deny him and become Turks." ²

The sources do not agree on who he was. L'Osservatore Romano calls him "a humble shoemaker"; Zenit, a humble cloth shearer; the Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, an elderly weaver who urged the others to persevere in Christ. ²³⁶ Zenit says his is the only name recorded among the fishermen, artisans, shepherds and farmers who died with him. ³

The pasha ordered them killed. ² Zenit says they were led out with ropes around their necks and their hands tied behind their backs, young men, grown men and old men, to the hill of Minerva outside the city, and that they comforted one another on the way. ³ They were beheaded. ¹⁶ L'Osservatore Romano says that their heads were cut off or their bodies mutilated. ²

Zenit's report repeats the story told of the martyrdom at Otranto: that Primaldo was beheaded first, and that his body rose and stood until the killing was over, and that one of the executioners, whom it names Berlabei, was so struck that he threw down his scimitar, declared himself a Christian and was impaled. ³ It also says the bodies, when they were found, were incorrupt. ³ None of the other sources tells these things, and the page reports them as Zenit tells them. ¹²⁶

For a year or more the bodies lay unburied where they had been killed, until they were found by the troops sent to free Otranto. ² In June 1481 they were buried in a nearby church at the spring of Minerva, and on October 13 of the following year, by L'Osservatore Romano's account, they were moved into the cathedral. ²³ Early in the 1500s a chapel was built inside the cathedral for the relics, and pilgrims have come to it ever since. ²³ The encyclopedia notes that "the valley of the martyrs" still recalled the slaughter in its day. ⁵

The people of Otranto, Zenit says, took them for martyrs at once. ³ On December 14, 1771, a decree confirmed the devotion paid to them from time immemorial. ³ In 1988 the archbishop of Otranto named a historical commission; the diocesan inquiry ran from 1991 to 1993 and was declared valid by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on May 27, 1994. ³ On July 6, 2007, Benedict XVI approved the decree recognizing that Antonio Primaldo and his companions were killed for their fidelity to Christ. ³

The miracle accepted for the canonization, Zenit says, was the cure from cancer of Sister Francesca Levote, a Poor Clare. ³ Benedict XVI set the date of the canonization at the consistory of February 11, 2013, the day he announced that he would resign. ³

John Paul II went to Otranto on October 5, 1980, five hundred years after their death. ⁴ "Five hundred years ago here, at Otranto," he said, in words translated here, "800 disciples of Christ gave such a witness, accepting death for the name of Christ." ⁴ From Otranto he looked across the sea to Albania, then under a long persecution, and asked prayers for the persecuted and for those who persecuted them. ⁴

Pope Francis canonized them on May 12, 2013, with Laura Montoya and María Guadalupe García Zavala, in the first canonization of his pontificate. ¹³ "About 800 people, who had survived the siege and invasion of Otranto, were beheaded in the environs of that city," he said. "They refused to deny their faith and died professing the Risen Christ." ¹ He asked the Church to pray for "all the Christians who still suffer violence today," and to ask God to give them the courage "to respond to evil with goodness." ¹

The Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, heads their entry with the title of saints but still calls Antonio Primaldo blessed, a text older than the canonization. ¹⁶

No source used for this page names them the patrons of anything. ¹²³ Their relics are kept and venerated in the cathedral of Otranto, and the Church of Otranto keeps their memorial every year. ²³

Saint Antonio Primaldo and his companions are remembered on August 14. ²³ L'Osservatore Romano says the Church in Otranto "solemnly celebrates their memorial on August 14 each year," and the Roman Martyrology enters the roughly 800 martyrs of Otranto on that day. ²⁶ None of the sources used here gives the exact day of the beheadings. ¹²³

They were not soldiers, priests or nobles. Zenit calls them fishermen, artisans, shepherds and farmers, and the one man whose name survives worked with his hands. ²³

They were given one choice and made it together, and one of them spoke for the rest. ² Francis asked where they found the strength, and answered: "In the faith itself, which enables us to see beyond the limits of our human sight." ¹

Two popes who spoke of them turned at once to Christians being persecuted in their own day. John Paul II asked prayers for the persecuted and for those who persecuted them; Francis asked for the courage to answer evil with good. ¹⁴ The martyrs of Otranto are remembered in a city that still keeps their bones. ²³