HE is said to have been son to a king of Ulster in Ireland, at least he
is looked upon as of Irish extraction. Travelling into Italy, to improve
himself in ecclesiastical learning and virtue, he made such progress
that, upon the death of Geminian, bishop of Lucca, he was chosen bishop
of that extensive diocese, the eleventh from St. Paulinus, founder of
that church, said to have been a disciple of St. Peter. St. Gregory the
Great assures us, that he miraculously checked an impetuous flood of the
river Auser, now called the Serchio, when it threatened to drown great
part of the city. St. Fridian died in 578, and was buried in a place
where the church now stands, which bears his name. Pope Alexander II.
sent for some regular canons from this church to establish that order in
the churches of St. John Lateran, and of the cross of Jerusalem, at
Rome, but, in 1507, the congregation of St. Frigdian was united to that
of St. John Lateran.[1] See St. Gregory the Great, l. 3, Dial. c. 9,
Bede, Notker, Raban, Usuard, and the Roman Martyrology, on the 18th of
March. Also Innocent III. c. 34, de Testibus et Attestationibus. In
Decreto Gregoriano. Rursus id c. 8, de Testibus cogendis. Ib. iterum, de
Verborum Significatione. See also Dempster (of the family of the barons
of Muresk, a Scotchman, public professor, first in several towns in
Flanders, afterwards at Pisa, and lastly, at Bononia, where he died in
1625) in his Etruria Regalis, t. 2, l. 5, c. 6, p. 299, which work was
printed with many cuts, in two volume, folio, at Florence, in 1723, at
the expense of Thomas Coke, late earl of Leicester, then on his travels.
And principally, see the Ecclesiastical History of Lucca, printed in
that city, in 1736, and again in 1741, in 12mo.
Footnotes:
1. See F. Hebb{oi}, t. 2, p. 50.
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