ALBERTO, bishop of VERCELLI and patriarch of JERUSALEM, saint. — He was the first legislator of the Carmelite Order.
The obituary of the church of Vercelli, a first-rate source for his biography, says that he was a native «de castro Gualterii, Parmensis diocesiis, nobili prosapia ortus». The Castrum Gualterii of the twelfth century may today indicate either the present-day Gualterii in the diocese of Guastalla, or Gualtiolo in the parish of Campagine, diocese of Reggio Emilia; at that time both belonged to the diocese of Parma (cf. Rationes decimarum Italiae nei sec. XIII e XIV. Armilia [Studi e Testi, 60], Città del Vaticano 1933, pp. 363, 382). A.’s membership in the Avogadro family cannot be critically maintained; on the other hand, the hypothesis that he descended from the house of the counts of Sabbioneta is not without some probability.
A. was born around 1149; after completing his studies, he took the habit of the Canons Regular of S. Croce in Mortara (province of Pavia), where he was elected prior around 1180. A few years later he was called to the episcopal see of Bobbio (1184), but the following year he was transferred to that of Vercelli, which he governed zealously and firmly for twenty years, also distinguishing himself through political ability and acumen: he was in fact a mediator between the papacy and the empire and between communes and cities in conflict; to his work were owed, for example, the peace concluded at Vercelli between Milan and Pavia on 12 January 1194 and the agreement reached in 1199 between Parma and Piacenza.
In 1191 he held the diocesan synod, whose decrees continued to be observed in part until modern times (cf. F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia. Il Piemonte, Torino 1899, p. 486).
When Cardinal Legate Goffredo (Soffredus) renounced the patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre, with the support of King Amalric II of Lusignan, elected A. in his place; in a letter dated 17 February 1205 (Potthast, n. 2418), Innocent III urged him to accept the appointment, conferring the pallium on him and appointing him his legate for Palestine. A. reached Palestine in 1206, but could not enter Jerusalem, since it was in Muslim hands; he established his residence in S. Giovanni d'Acri (Accone), where he displayed prodigious apostolic activity. Between 1207 and 1209 he gave the hermits of Mount Carmel their first rule, addressing it in the form of a letter to their prior, St. Brocardus; the rule was approved in 1226 by Honorius III (cf. Bullarium Romanum, ed. Torino 1858, III, pp. 415-17). For this reason the Carmelites regarded and venerated him as their first legislator.
On 14 September 1214, while taking part in a procession in S. Giovanni d'Acri, he was treacherously attacked with knife blows by a certain man whom the Vercelli obituary describes as a native of Caluso (diocese of Ivrea), master of the hospital of S. Spirito, whom A. had been obliged to remove from office because of his evil life. «Et sic gloriosus pater», concludes the obituary cited above, «per martirii palmam ex hac vita migravit».
The documents relating to the cult rendered to A. date mainly from the beginning of the seventeenth century: in fact, his feast appears on 8 April, with the designation of pontifical confessor, in the proper of the Discalced Carmelites, approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on 20 June 1609; the same decree also authorized the insertion of his eulogy in the Martyrology of the Order. At present the Discalced Carmelites have transferred his feast to 25 September, and those of the Observance to the 16th of the same month. 8 April commemorated the day on which the rule was delivered. The Lateran Canons Regular admitted him into their Proprium as early as 1666, with the designation of pontifical confessor, on 8 April. More recently, the office of St. A. was also granted to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (26 September) and to the diocese of Vercelli (8 April).
A. Pietro Frutaz-Ambrogio di Santa Teresa