San Folco Scotti

Saint Folco, or Fulco, is buried in Pavia, a bishop like Alessandro Sauli, but three hundred and fifty years younger than him. And he is buried not in one of the churches of the first Romanesque period, glory and characteristic of the capital of the Lombards, but in the Renaissance Cathedral, designed by Bramante, architect of the Church of the Grazie, in Milan, and by Amadeo, architect of the Certosa di Pavia.

Compared to the other three saints we have mentioned, Augustine, Boethius and Alessandro Sauli, the life and figure of San Folco or Fulco is not very well known, and may seem uninteresting. He was from Piacenza, and a significant detail about him is given by his surname, that of Scotti.

The Scotti, who spread throughout Italy from Piacenza, were a family of Scori, that is, Scottish. At that time, not the inhabitants of Scotland were called Scots, but those of Ireland. From the green Christian island, evangelised, as will be remembered, in the 5th century by Saint Patrick, dozens of saints and religious people descended into Europe during centuries of political difficulties and moral miseries, as if for a transfusion of fresh, living blood. . And following the Saints, especially when the Northern Islands were invaded by the Danes, came merchants, soldiers, entire families, like the Scotti family from Piacenza, from which, around 1165, San Folco was born.

At twenty he entered the canons regular of Saint Euphemia, and since he was a young man of lively talent, he was sent to complete his theology studies in Paris, the intellectual capital of Christian Europe. Having returned to Piacenza, at the age of 30 he was prior of Sant'Eufemia, then canon, then archpriest of the cathedral. Finally he was elected Bishop of Piacenza. Six years later, the Pavia office remains vacant. And San Folco Scotti is consecrated Bishop of this city too.

Piacenza and Pavia were not only divided by the river, but also by terrible hostility. Rivalries between neighboring cities are well known and still picturesquely alive in Italian tradition. It would be enough to remember, still in the Po Valley, the proverbial one between Modena and Bologna. But the rivalry between Piacenza and Pavia, before being picturesque and traditional, was for a long time atrocious and bloody.

San Folco, from Piacenza and Bishop of Pavia, was the great peacemaker of the two cities. First of all internal peace, among citizens divided by political factions. Peace then between the two cities, no longer Christian only in name.

In the course of his peacemaking work, San Fulco died in 1229. Nothing else is known about his episcopate. But what is known, and above all his work as an affectionate father, is enough to justify the fame and cult that the descendant of the Irish earned in Lombardy, rich in wisdom and sanctity.

ROMAN MARTYROLOGY. In Pavia, Saint Folco Scotti, bishop, man of peace, full of zeal and charity.