ALBERT, Bishop of Vercelli and Patriarch of Jerusalem. - He was the first legislator of the Order of Carmelites.
The necrology of the church of Vercelli, a source of the first rank for his biography, says that he came originally «de castro Gualterii, Parmensis diocesis, nobili prosapia ortus». The Castrum Gualterii of the 12th century may today indicate either the present Gualterii in the diocese of Guastalla, or Gualtiolo in the parish of Campagine, diocese of Reggio Emilia, both of which at that time belonged to the diocese of Parma (cf. Rationes decimarum Italiae nei sec. XIII e XIV. Aemilia [Studi e Testi, 60], Città del Vaticano 1933, pp. 363, 382). The belonging of A. to the Avogadro family cannot be critically maintained; on the other hand, the hypothesis of his descent from the house of the counts of Sabbioneta is not without some probability.
A. was born around 1149; having completed his studies, he took the habit of the Canons Regular of St. Cross in Mortara (prov. of Pavia), where around 1180 he was elected prior. 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 with zeal and firmness for twenty years, distinguishing himself also for political ability and acumen: he was in fact a mediator between the papacy and the empire and between communes and cities in discord; to his work are due, for example, the peace concluded at Vercelli between Milan and Pavia on 12 Jan. 1194 and the concord reached in 1199 between Parma and Piacenza.
In 1191 he held the diocesan synod, whose decrees continued in part to be observed down to modern times (cf. F. Savio, Gli antichi vescovi d'Italia. Il Piemonte, Turin 1899, p. 486).
When the cardinal legate Goffredo (Soffredus) had renounced the patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre, with the favor of King Amalric II of Lusignan, elected A. in his place; Innocent III, by letter of 17 Feb. 1205 (Potthast, n. 2418), begged him to accept this appointment, conferring on him the pallium and naming him his legate for Palestine. A. reached Palestine in 1206, but could not enter Jerusalem, since it was in the possession of the Muslims; he established his residence in St. John of Acre (Acre), where he displayed a 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. Brocard, a rule approved in 1226 by Honorius III (cf. Bullarium Romanum, ed. Turin 1858, III, pp. 415-17). For this reason the Carmelites considered and venerated him as their first legislator.
On 14 Sept. 1214, while he was taking part in a procession in St. John of Acre, he was treacherously attacked with knife blows by a certain man, whom the Vercelli necrology says was a native of Caluso (diocese of Ivrea), master of the hospital of St. Spirit, whom A. had had to depose from office because of his wicked life. «Et sic gloriosus pater», concludes the aforementioned necrology, «per martirii palmam ex hac vita migravit».
The documents relating to the cult paid to A. go back mainly to the early years of the 17th century: in fact his feast appears on 8 Apr., with the qualification of confessor pontiff, in the proper of the Discalced Carmelites, approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on 20 June 1609; the same decree also authorizes the inscription of his eulogy in the Martyrology of the Order. At present the Discalced Carmelites have transferred his feast to 25 Sept., and those of the Observance to the 16th of the same month. The 8th of Apr. commemorated the day of the handing over of the rules. The Canons Regular Lateranenses admitted him into their Proprium as early as 1666 with the qualification of confessor pontiff on 8 Apr. Recently the office of St. A. was also granted to the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem (26 Sept.) and to the diocese of Vercelli (8 Apr.).
Bibliography11 works
A. Pietro Frutaz-Ambrogio di Santa Teresa