Italy, described Columbanus as a giant Irish Saint. Bobbio, a natural cross-road of the most important communications path-ways during the Middle Ages, became with Columbanus the capital of monastic culture and the centre, for many centuries, of religious, philosophical, scientific, artistic & social life.
Petrarch, at the beginning of Renaissance, and Muratori found in Bobbio Capitular Archive150 Latin manuscripts, written before the 7th century, among which Cicero’ s De Re Publica, works by Virgil and Frontone, the Biblical Codex K, only to name a few. The majority of these codex can now be admired in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, in the Royal Library in Turin, in Naples and Vienna. The codex of these illuminators and their style of writing were the treasure of these libraries. Many classics would have been lost if not were for the patient work of these monks in their land and abroad.
Poggio Bracciolini, the prince of Florentine humanism, discovered many completely new orations by Cicero, Argonautica by Flaccus, Silvae by Statious and an entire Quintilian in the libraries of the monasteries of Cluny and St. Gall.
If Columbanus was the great European monk, Cathaldus was the most commemorated and venerated Irish Saint in Italy and other parts of Europe, though we haven’ t historical documents about him. Towns, villages, churches, hospitals, monasteries, ports, have been named after him.
The Cathedral of Taranto, where, according to the tradition, he is buried, is dedicated to him. Mosaics of the Saint can be admired in the Basilica of the Nativity, Betlem, in the Palatine Chapel of Palermo, in the Cathedral of Monreale( 12th century). In the County of Caltanissetta there is S. Cataldo town, and he is also the Patron of various cities, as Taranto, Gangi and many others.
The contribution given by the Irish monks to the various countries of Europe was incalculable. They brought perennial values and Christian hope in a decadent world. The Irish clergy enjoyed great prestige everywhere throughout Europe, Arthur Kingsley Porter wrote. And the Bishop Milner: They were the luminaries of the western world and to them we owe the Bible, the Fathers and the Classics. Card. Henry Newman stated: Their monasteries became the storehouse of the past and the birthplace of the future. This is a lot for a small country like Ireland.
To build the EU upon solid basis, it is not enough to appeal only to a mere economical and commercial union or to economical interests, which, if sometimes unite, other times divide. It is necessary instead to aim at authentic values, based upon the universal moral law, written in the heart of every human being and,