Ponte dell’ Angelo

(Venice) == The Angel’s Bridge. ( A solan do , 1889.) Boverio, in his Annals , 1552, n. 69, relates this legend of Our Lady. It is recorded at length in The Glories of Mary , by St. Alphonsus Liguori (p. 192), a curious work which contains a great number of such stories, which have for their moral the efficacy of prayers to Our Lady as a protection from the devil. On one of the large canals at Venice is a house with the figure of an angel guarding it from harm. Once upon a time (says Father Boverio in his Annals ) this house belonged to a lawyer, who was a cruel oppre or of all who sought his advice; never was such an extortionate rascal, though a devout one. On one occasion, after a particularly lucrative week, he determined to ask some holy man to dinner, as he could not get the memory of a widow whom he had wronged out of his mind; so he invited the chief of the Capucins to disinfect his house by his holy presence. The monk duly presented himself, and was informed that a most admirable helpmate in the house was an ape, who worked for him indefatigably. The host leaves his guest for awhile, that he may go below to see how the dinner progre es. No sooner had the lawyer left the room than the monk, by the instinct which saints po e for detecting the devil under every disguise, adjures the ape to come out of his hiding-place and show himself in propriâ personâ . Satan stands forth, and explains that he is there to convey to hell the lawyer who plagued the widows and orphans by his exactions. The monk asks how it came to pa that he had so long delayed God’s commi ion by acting as servant where he should have been a minister of justice. The devil explains that the lawyer had placed himself under the Virgin’s protection by the prayers which he never intermitted; thus the man is armed in mail, and cannot be lugged off to hell while saying, “Save me, Madonna!” If he should discontinue that prayer, Satan would pounce on him at once. He waits, therefore, hoping to catch him napping. The holy man adjures him to vanish. The fiend says he cannot leave the house without doing some damage to prove that his errand had been fulfilled. The saint bade him make his exit through the wall, and leave a gap in the stone for every one to see, which, having duly been done, the monk goes downstairs to dinner with a good appetite. The host asks what has become of the ape, whose a istance he requires, and is terrified to see his guest wringing blood from the table napkin. It is explained that the miracle is performed to show him how he has wrung blood from his clients, and the host is bidden to go down on his knees and swear to make restitution. The man consents, and absolution following, he is forthwith taken upstairs to see the hole in the wall left by the devil exorcised by his saintship. The lawyer fears that Satan may use the aperture of exit for an entry to his dwelling at a future time, when the Capucin bids him erect the figure of an angel and place it by the aperture, which holy sign will frighten the fiend away. And this is why the house by the bridge has the angel on the escutcheon, and why the bridge itself is called the Angel’s Bridge, though Mr. Browning thinks the Devil’s Bridge would have been as good a name for it.