About the holy man Brother Eusebius of Ancona, priest and preacher

Brother Eusebius was born in the city of Ancona to noble parents. As a child he applied himself to learning and became a good grammarian. He was always adorned with good ways, nurtured with great tenderness in his paternal home since they were noble. However when he came to the age of about seventeen, at the age when the young usually to take up a purpose for their lives the well-bred youth decided to leave the world and to serve God in the Franciscan Order where he stayed for about twenty years. He continuously dedicated himself to the sciences in which he made great progress, especially in scholastic doctrine. When the Fathers saw his learning and good breeding, they made him a preacher. However he delighted more in the spirit than in preaching, practising holy fasts and prayers.

He was one of those Fathers who brought about the Reform of the Order. When it pleased the Lord God however that the Capuchin Reform came, he burned with an immense fervour to follow in the footsteps of Father Saint Francis in the true observance of the Rule. He and Father John of Fano and other Fathers left from the friary at Cingoli and they came to the Congregation of Capuchins. Father Louis of Fossombrone received them in Rome in the friary of Saint Eufemia. Not long after Father Louis sent him as Vicar to the Province of Saint Francis. He was the first Vicar that Province had. He governed it for three years with great maturity. That Province grew well in the number of Friaries and Friars and good ordinances under the governance of this venerable Father.

He was always very austere towards his body. While he was young he always went barefoot most of the time. He never wore anything but a simple habit nine palms wide. However on journeys he wore a mantle which only just covered his arms. He dressed this way most of the year. However when it became very cold he added some old patches to his habit. He never ate more than once a day, and then very little, and just as I heard from some reliable Friars, when he was in the Marches, most days he didn’t eat at all. On the vigils he ate only bread and water. Because of his physical feebleness, when became worn out by all his efforts, he decided to eat whatever the others ate, though hardly ever more than once a day. For a long time we wore harsh sackcloth. Everyone regard him as not the least among the austere. He was a man of great prayer, persevering in it sometime for three or four hours. He was very zealous about the observance of the rule and so enthusiastic about holy poverty that when he went on visitation he could not endure that there be anything superfluous in the friaries, even among the smallest things that the Friars used. He did not want the fruit of any sort from the garden stored, except when it was necessary to obtain seeds. However he wanted the overripe onions and garlic to be left in the garden to germinate again. He said that any long-term storage is against the purity of the Rule. Although he was learned he preached in the best cities with great approval, preaching positively and usefully more with example than with doctrine.

After serving our Lord God with great fervour in the Order for about fifty five years, and having returned to the Marches, the Lord God gave him what he desired, just as he said to me many times. “I desire to die on a journey in some cave or in a barn or in the poorest friary of the Congregation, without anyone serving me in my infirmity.” So it was. He arrived in a little place in the Marches that was still being built. It was very poor and uncomfortable and the servant of God fell gravely ill. He bore that infirmity very joyfully with all the discomfort of the poverty of that friary.

He predicted some things. However because I am not so well informed about them, I am not writing them down.

With good preparation he received all the most holy sacraments. He gave many good things to the Friars remember. He asked forgiveness of all the Friars, both present and absent. Thus concluded with this life, well armed and well disposed, he passed over to a better life.

I do not know the name of the place where he died, nor where his body was buried.

During his life he did many miracles. However I will pass over them because I do not have full details. I will put down only one. When he was preaching in the city of Orvieto with great acceptance there was a woman. Although she had had many children, she nonetheless did not have a single drop of milk in her breasts. The devout woman thought to herself that if she could have some thing belonging to the holy man God would grant her, through his merits, the grace of having milk. One morning when the holy man was climbing the pulpit, she drew near and took some hairs from his habit and put them in her bosom. It was amazing. Immediately she had such an abundance of milk that wet all that part of the blouse next to her breasts. From then on she always had an abundance of milk.

Old Brother Angelus of Coldesciopoli told me about this. He was his companion and heard this from the woman.

To the praise and glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His Most Fair Mother and of Father Saint Francis. Amen.