by Nutius, which might contain a comparatively slight accretion of
myths. The next life is of 1722, and the author made use of the
facts collected for Joseph's beatification. There is another life
by Pastrovicchi, in 1753. He was canonised in that year, when all
the facts were remote by about a century.

Joseph's parents were pauperes sed honesti; his father was a
carpenter, his mother a woman of almost virulent virtue, who kept
her son in great order. From the age of eight he was subject to
cataleptic or epileptic fits and convulsions. After his novitiate
he suffered from severe attacks of melancholia. His 'miracles'
attracting attention, he was brought before the Inquisition at
Naples, as an impostor. He was sent to an obscure and remote
monastery, and thence to Assisi, where he was harshly treated, and
fell into Bunyan's Slough of Despond, having much conflict with
Apollyon.

He was next called to Rome, where cardinals testify that, on hearing
sacred names, he would give a yell, and fall into ecstasy.
Returning to Assisi he was held in high honour, and converted a
Hanoverian Prince. He healed many sick people, and, having fallen
into a river, came out quite dry. He could scarcely read, but was
inspired with wonderful theological acuteness. He always yelled
before falling into an ecstasy, afterwards, he was so much under the
dominion of anaesthesia that hot coals, if applied to his body,
produced no effect. Then he soared in air, now higher, now lower (a
cardinal vouches for six inches), and in aere pendulus haerebat,
like the gentleman's butler at Lord Orrery's.

Seventy separate flights, in-doors and out of doors, are recorded.