Somascan Jubilee Year: 500 Years of Freedom

September 27th, 1511: Jerome Miani (or Emiliani), a Venetian nobleman, reported early in the morning at the gates of Treviso, the “mainland Venice”, within the territory of the same Republic. The city was besieged by the troops of the Cambrai League, a military alliance including various European powers that had been irked by reiterated expressions of Venetian pride.

A military officer, Miani had been entrusted with the task of defending an important outpost on the River Piave, the castle of Quero, which is still in existence today. On the previous August 27th, aided by the desertion of several defenders of the castle, the army of their enemies had prevailed. The Regent of the castle was taken a prisoner. His life had been spared, perhaps with the hope of exacting a ransom or effecting an exchange of high-ranking prisoners. In chains, Miani was obliged to follow the movements of the army of his enemies. No sign of his liberation was in sight.

Defeated, betrayed, forsaken. He was just twenty-five years old: too early to see his youthful dreams of glory and success being shattered on the rocks of the hard realities on the ground. The desperation of imprisonment polluted his soul. There was no future. Moreover, he had been brought up in the Catholic Faith like all siblings of Venetian nobility, but he had long before relegated it to formal and social purposes, fully taken up, as he was, by the web of his plans of glory and by the cheerful company of friends with whom he was was weaving it.

Faith. In the total darkness of those days, that humble discarded flame was the only one that still kept burning. The dazzling lights of the promises of the world, which earlier commanded his whole attention, had exhausted their oil.

The young Jerome clang to that light with all his strength. He did remember the Great Madonna of Treviso, so dear to all Venetians. That night he made a vow. The Blessed Virgin helped him to break free and run away, and escorted him to the gates of Treviso. He laid his fetters at her Shrine, and gave testimony of his liberation at the hands of his Heavenly Mother.