Saint Maximus of Pavia

Very little is known about Saint Maximus, bishop of Pavia, and the most honest thing is to start there. None of his works, writings or stories have come down to us. What remains are the years in which he led his Church: he was already bishop before 501, and he died between the end of 513 and 515. That “between” deserves a word, because it’s a small masterpiece of the historian’s craft. Historians don’t have the date of his death, but they know two things: that in November 513 Ennodius was not yet bishop of Pavia, and that in August 515 he certainly was. Somewhere in that window, Maximus passed away. His death is worked out from the shadow he left: from the fact that someone else took his place. His name stands between two bishops everyone remembers. Before him came Epiphanius, the man who, in the days when the Western Empire was collapsing, negotiated with kings and emperors and brought calm back to the city. After him came Ennodius, a man of letters, author of letters and poems that are still studied. In between, for a dozen years or so, there was him: the one who opened the cathedral every day, baptized, buried, and held a community together in an age when holding it together was everything. No one wrote down what he did. Someone, though, took the trouble to write that he was there. Pavia hasn’t forgotten him: in the diocesan calendar his memorial falls today, and it is celebrated in the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore. The day before belongs to Crispinus I, the bishop two places back. A city that remembers its bishops in a row, one per day, is a city with a long memory. If your name is Massimo or Massima, today is your name day, and it’s a name that has never gone out of style: short, solid, and it wears well at any age. There are lives of which all that remains is the place they held and the time they held it. That’s not little: it means that someone, back then, counted on you.