Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/191

 SOUTHWORTH

165

SOZOMEN

over Death", also in prose, exhibits the same charac- teristics; but this artificiality of structure is not so marked in the "Short Rule of Good Life", the "Let- ter to His Father", the "Humble Supphcation to Her Majesty", the "Epistle of Comfort" and the "Hun- dred Meditations". Southwell's longest poem, "St. Peter's Complaint" (132 six-hne stanzas), is imitated, though not closely, from the Italian "Lagi-ime di S. Pietro" of Luigi Tansillo. This with some other smaller pieces was first printed, with license, in 1595, the year of his death. Another volume of short poems appeared later in the same year under the title of "Majonise". The early editions of these are scarce, and some of them conmiand high prices. A poem called "A Foun^fold Meditation", which was printed as Southwell's in IGOti, is not his, but was WTitten by his friend the Earl of Arundel (see "The Month", Jan., 1896). Perhaps no higher testimony can be found of the esteem in which Southwell's verse was held by his contemporaries than the fact that, while it is probable that South well had read Shakespeare, it is practically certain that Shakespeare had read South- well and imitated him (Camb. Hist. Ent;. I. it . I\'. l'-".'l. Lee in DM. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Foley, Jfir. - / ', /,

Pro<sincc.l:TKYl.OK, Robert SoiUhivcll. Poclan,! y: - I m-,

1910); Thurston in The Month (Feb.-Marcli. 1 -, in I ^ "i; June. 1900; Sept., 1905); Nol.4N in Amrricai, (_,/.--.. kj,..i . lire. (1882), 426; Eg.\.n in Catholic WorU. XVII, 40: XXXll. 121; Catholic Record Society Publications, vol. V (London, 1908); Child in Cambridge History of English Literature, IV (Cambridge, 1909), 127-40; Pollen, Father Robert Southwell and the Babington Plot in The Month (London, March, 1912), 302-05. The best edition of Southwell's poems still remains that of Gbos.^rt in the Fuller Worthies Library (London, 1872).

Herbert Thurston.

Southworth, JoHX, Vener.^ble, English martyr, b. in Lancashire, 1.592, mart\Ted at Tyburn, 28 June, 1654. A member of a junior branch of the South- worths of Samlesbury Hall, Blackburn, he was or- dained priest at the English College, Douai, and was sent on the mission, 13 October, 1619. He was arrested and condemned to death in Lanctushire in 1627, and imprisoned first in Lancaster Castle, and afterwards in the Clink, London, whence he and fifteen other priests were, on 11 .\pril, 1630, delivered to the French. .\mbassa(lor for transportation abroad. In 1636 he had been released from the tiatehouse, West- minster, and w;us living at Clerkenwell, but frequently visited the plague-stricken dwellings of Westminster to convert the dying. In 1637 he seems to have taken up his abode in ^^'est minster, where he was arrested, 28 November, and again sent to the Gatehouse. Thence he Wiis ivgain transferred to the Clink and in 1640 was brought before the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical, who sent him back there 24 June. On 16 July he wa.s again liberated, but by 2 December he was iigain in the Gatehouse. After his final apprehension he w.<i,s tried at the Old Bailey, and as he insisted on pleading "guilty" to being a priest, he was reluctantly condemned by the Recorder of London, Serjeant Steel. He was allowed to make a long .speech at the gallows, and his remains were per- mitted to pass into the pos.session of the Duke of Norfolk's family, who had them sent to the Engli.sh College at Douai. The wonderful recovery in 1656 of Francis Howard, .seventh son of Henry Frederick, Earl of .\rundel, w:»s attributed to these relics, which were secreted during the French Revolu- tion, and the present location of which is now unknown.

Challoneb, Memoirsof Missionary Priests. II, no, 190; Bruce, Calendar Slate Papers DomeMic 1639-31 (London. 1860). 2.3,'); Calendar, etc., 10.17 (Txjndon, ISfiS), 572; Hamilton, Calendar etc., IIS.'.O (London, ISXO), :i41, 482: Calendar, etc., W4O-I (Lon- don, 1882). 291. .John R. Waintiwrioht.

Sovana and Pitigliano, Diocese of (Suanensis ET PiTtLiANENSis). — The two towns, Sovana and Pitigliano, are situated in the Province of Grosseto, Central Italy. Sovana was an ancient Etruscan city,

and preserved a certain importance till the end of the thirteenth century, having been from the days of Charlemagne the capital of the counts of Aldo- brandeschi, lords of Southern Tuscany. In 1240 the city withstood a siege by Frederick II, Later it passed under the sway of the Orsini, who transferred their residence to Pitigliano, a more salubrious local- ity, mentioned for the first time in lOSl. In 1401 it fell into the power of the Rejjublic of Siena. In 1434 Count Gentile Orsini having been killed at Sovana, the people of Pitigliano put the towTi to fire and sword, and brought about its complete decay, so that in 1833 it contained only 64 inhabitants. The territory of this diocese includes the celebrated Vallombrosan Abbey of Monte Calvello, which was transferred in 1496 to within the city limits. St. Gregory VII was born at Sovana. Its first known bishop is Mauritius (680); other bishojjs were: Raineri (963), who re-introduced common life among the canons; Pier Nicolo BlandinelU (13S0), who had the doors of the cathedral made; Apollonio Massaini (1439), under whom the relics of S. Mamiliano, Bishop of Palermo, were translated from the Island of Giglio; Alfonso Petrucci (1498), son of the Tyrant of Siena, later a cardinal, condenmed to death by Leo X in 1537; his succe,s,sor, Lattanzio Petrucci, was accused of high treason and forced to flee, but he was acquitted by Adrian VI; Carv.ajal Simoncelli (1535) ruled the diocese for sixty-one years; Francesco Pio Santi (1776) resisted the innovations of Leopold and the Synod of Pistoia. For a long time the bishops of Sovana have resided at Pitigliano. In 1844 that city was made an episcopal see and united trgtie ■principaUter to that of Sovana. The diocese is suffragan of Siena, and contains 47 parishes, with 90 secular and S regular priests; 2 Franciscan convents, 4 convents of nuns, and 38,500 inhabitants. C.4PPELLKTTI, Le Chiese d' Italia (Venice, 1857).

v. Benicni.

Sozomen, S.\laminius Hermias, one of the famous historians of the early Church, b. at Bethelia, a small town near Gaza in Palestine, in the hi.st quarter of the fourth century; d. probably in 447 or 448. What the epithet Salaminius means cannot be determined. The supposition that it had some connexion with Salamis in Cj-prus has no foundation. On the authority of Sozomen himself ("Hist. eccl.",',V, xv) we learn that his grandfather became a Christian through witnessing a miracle wrought by St. Hilarion. Through many years of persecution the family re- mained faithful, and Sozomen thus enjoyed the ad- vantage of being trained in a Christian household. His early education was directed by the monks in hia native place. It is impossible to iiscertain what curriculum he followed in these monastic schools, but his writings give clear evi(h'nce of the tlioroughness with which he was grounded in Greek studies. A reference to Berjlos has led to the mist:ik('ii sui)posi- tion that he pursued leg;d studii's in the f:uii(ius law school of that place. Wherever his jirofessioiial train- ing was acquired, he settled in C(mst:intiii<)plc, prob- ably about the beginning of the fifth century, to com- mence his career as a lawj-er. While thus eng.oged he conceived the project of writing a history of the Church. .K prcliminan,' study containing a summary of the history of Christianity from the .Ascension to 323 has been lost. He purposed to continue the history of Eusebius, and to deal with the period between 323 and 439. The period :i(tu:dly covered in his work ends at 425. Sozomen dc(lic:ite(l bis work (Ilistoria ecclesiiLsf ica) to Theodosius the '^'ounger. It is divided into nine b<3oks, distributed according to the reigns of the emperors. Books I :md II embrace the reign of Constantine (.32.'i-37); III :iiid 1\' the reigns of his sons (337-61); book.s V and VI the reigns of Julian, Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valcns (361-75);