Miracle

St. Columban, guarding his own crypt

O glorioso nostro Patrono, San Colombano, luce di santità ed esempio di fortezza, che per divina provvidenza venisti a noi dall'Irlanda per essere nostro modello di perfezione e rendere con la fondazione del Monastero la nostra terra culla di santi e centro di irradiazione della grande opera di riforma cristiana, accogli le nostre confidenti preghiere ed ottienici da Dio che, a tuo esempio, santificando la nostra vita col lavoro, con la preghiera e con la penitenza, possiamo meritare la divina misericordia, progredire ogni giorno nell'amore di Dio e del prossimo ed essere un giorno partecipi con te dell'eterna felicità.
                        —Pietro Zuccarino

I found this prayer to San Colombano (St. Columban in English) in the basilica of Bobbio, a small town halfway between Genoa and Piacenza. Now, I'm hardly an expert when it comes to saints and the miracles ascribed to them, but this name rang a bell. The words 'venisti a noi dall'Irlanda' gave it away. I faintly recalled having written a paper on the notion of pilgrimage in a couple of Old English and Old Irish poems. The name of Columban had popped up a lot in the secondary literature.

St. Columban, I remembered, was one of the major chappies when it came to spreading the Word across the continent. Born in the sixth century in Meath, Ireland, Columban was so strikingly handsome that the Irish lassies went soggy at the merest sight of him. Legend has it that, after a good deal of fooling around, he got so fed up with this life of depravity that he told his latest love goodbye and vowed to dedicate the rest of his days to the works of the Lord. So off he went, taking a few masterclasses here and there, and embracing a lifestyle of modesty and abstinence. Soon, he became a teacher himself and set out to found a string of monasteries across the Frankish kingdoms, performing a number of rather curious miracles along the way, including the taming and subsequent yoking of a bear and escaping unscathed from a pack of peckish wolves.

Bobbio's Ponte Gobbo has eleven spans, all of different height

However, Columban pulled the biggest stunt towards the end of his life. Having finally settled down in Bobbio, which soon became the religious stronghold of the region, he thought the town could do with a bridge spanning the river Trebbia. Instead of hiring an engineer and a team of construction workers, he made a pact with the devil. Old Nick agreed to build the bridge in a single night provided that Columban gave him the soul of the first passerby. But when the bridge was finished, the saint, apparently more of a cat person, sent a dog.

Very nice, I thought, having crossed that oddly shaped bridge on my way to the basilica. Then I learnt that there are dozens of these devil's bridges scattered across Europe, each of them oddly shaped and each of them with a similar story. After the initial disappointment I counted my blessings. There I was, alone in a breathtaking basilica, admiring intricate frescoes and the marble sarcophagus of a saint—all of this in a charming town that must be teeming with tourists in July and August. Not much of an epiphany, perhaps, let alone a miracle. But for a brief moment I felt tempted to kneel down and say a little Italian prayer.