SAN PIERO-MARTIRE. 207 est lies in its terms, which show that up to this time there was no organized Inquisition there. We hear nothing further of his ac- tivity, even after the death of Frederic, in 1250, until, in 1256, the long-delayed crusade was undertaken against Ezzelin da Eomano. By hi& fiery eloquence he raised in Bologna a considerable force of crusaders, at whose head he marched against the tyrant of the Trevisan, but, disgusted with the quarrels of the leaders, he re- turned to Bologna before the final catastrophe, and he is supposed to have perished, in 1265, in the crusade against Manfred, when there was a contingent of ten thousand Bolognese in the army of ('harles of Anjou." Yet the most noteworthy in all respects of the dauntless zealots who fought the seemingly desperate battle against heresy was Piero da Yerona, better known as St. Peter Martyr. Born at Yerona in 1203 or 1206, of a heretic family, his legend relates that he was divinely led to recognize their errors. When a schoolboy of only seven years of age his uncle chanced to ask him what he learned, and he repeated the orthodox creed. His uncle there- upon told him he must not say that God created the heaven and the earth, for he was not the creator of the visible universe ; but the child, filled with the Holy Ghost, overcame his elder in argu- ment, who thereupon urged the parents to remove him from school, but the father, who hoped to see him become a leader of the sect, allowed him to complete his education. His orthodox zeal grew with his growth, and in 1221 he entered the Dominican Order. His confessor testified that he never committed a mortal sm, and the bull of his canonization bears emphatic evidence to his humility, his meek obedience, his sweet benignity, his exhaust- less compassion, his unfailing patience, his wonderful charity, his passionate supplications to God for martyrdom, and the innumera- ble miracles which illustrated his life.f Before the Dominicans were armed with the power of perse- cution Piero earnestly devoted himself to the original function of the Order, that of controverting heresy, and preaching against heretics. In this the success of the young apostle was marvel- lously aided by his thaumaturgic development. At Eavenna,
- Ripoll I. 174-5.— Barbarano de' Mironi, op. cit. II. 94-6.
t Jac. de Voragine Legenda Aurea s. v.— Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 94.
