From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 160-161.
The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina
Volume I.
DONUS I.
A.D. 676-678.
DONUS, a Roman, son of Mauritius, was made Pope at the time when Grimoaldus, King of the Lombards, drawing a bow high to shoot at a pigeon, and thereby straining his nerves and veins, though it were nine days after he had been let blood in the arm, yet thereupon it fell a-bleeding afresh, and could not be stanched till he died. There were in this king several excellent endowments both of body and mind. He was a person of great wisdom and prudence in all affairs, and added several thing very useful to Rhotaris’s edict, which afterwards received the form of a law. He was of a middle stature, strong constitution, had a bald head and long beard, and was every way fitted for action. He was buried at Pavia in the church of St Ambrose, which he had built at his own charge. Pertheris, son of King Aribertus, who, as we have said, had been deprived of his right by Grimoaldus, passing now during his exile out of France into Britain, was prompted by a voice which he knew not from whence it came, that Grimoaldus being dead, he should seek to recover his paternal inheritance. Encouraged by this voice, though the author of it were uncertain, he returned into Italy, and within three months after Grimoaldus’s death became repossessed of his father’s kingdom without any opposition. About the same time died Dagobert, the French king, a subtle and crafty prince, and who was equally fitted for counsel and action; whose soul, when it had been carried by devils almost as far as the island of Lipara, is reported to have been delivered out of their clutches by Dennis and Maurice, the martyrs, and Martin the Confessor, saints for whom, as his patrons, he had all his lifetime a great veneration, and had been very liberal in beautifying and enriching their churches. Now, Pope Donus, consulting the honour of the Church, paved the porch of St Peter’s, called Paradise, with marble, which he took, as I suppose, from the pyramid over against Castle St Angelo. Moreover, he repaired and dedicated in the Via Ostiensis the church of the Apostles, and in the Via Appia that of St Euphemia. He also appointed the several degrees of honour and distance to be yielded to the several orders of the clergy. And discovering in the Boethian monastery a company of 161 Syrian monks, who were of the Nestorian heresy, them he censured and dispersed into divers other monasteries, assigning their own to Roman monks. By his eminent learning and piety, and through the submission of Theodorus, Bishop of Ravenna, he reduced to obedience to the apostolic see the Church of Ravenna, which had for a considerable time separated itself from that of Rome, and upon that account had got the name of Allocephalis. Some tell us that in his time, Projectus, a bishop, underwent the torment, and acquired the glory of martyrdom for the cause of Christianity; and that Mezelindis, a woman of incomparable chastity, being solicited by her lover Ardenius, and upon her not yielding to his desires, put to divers torments by him, yet prayed so fervently even for her persecutor, whom God, for this crime, had struck with blindness, that upon her prayers his sight was restored to him. Our Donus having been in the chair two years, ten days, died, and was buried in St Peter’s, April the 10th. The see was then vacant two months, sixteen days.
Previous Pope: 79. Adeodatus I. 80. Donus I. Next Pope: 81. Agatho I.