San Valerio Protomartyr of Africa, in Albiate

In the 1660s( c.1670 ) to Monsignor Carlo Francesco Airoldi, Bishop of Edessa and papal nuncio (i.e. ambassador) to some of the major potentates of the time (including the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Republic of Venice) [2] the entire body of Valerius and several relics of other martyrs were donated by the Holy See as a sign of distinction for his work and rank.

Franco Perego explains the historical event very well: ‘…Marcellino Airoldi (1610-1665), was a well-known Lombard financier-banker. Already in 1628, “versato nelli negozi di cambi” (versed in foreign exchange trading), he had registered with the “mercanti di strada” (street merchants) and in 1647 he acquired the fief of Lecco, taking the title of Count in 1649. His credit relations with Spanish exponents are also attested on Ligurian soil. One wonders if the seller of the villa was the renowned scholar-collector Marco Cremosano (1611-1704), coadjutor of the Milanese Notary Chamber of Commerce and author of a voluminous heraldic work, the so-called Stemmario Cremosano (1673), kept in the State Archives of the Lombard capital, in which the coat-of-arms of the Municipality of Albiate is also recorded. The contractual deed of purchase was drawn up by one of Milan’s most renowned notaries, Giovanni Battista Aliprandi ‘active between 1618 and 1655’.

The enterprising Marcellino, son of Giovanni Battista and Drusiana Invitti, husband of Maria Diano, widow of Antonio de Lara, was the parent of Cesare and Carlo Francesco, who played an important role in the events of the villa. In fact, it was Cesare, invested in 1649 with the office of General Treasurer of the State of Milan (an office held by the Airoldi family ‘for four generations’), who in 1667 promoted the building of the adjacent Oratory, originally dedicated to the Immaculate Madonna. And his brother, the prelate Carlo Francesco, worked to place the body of San Valerio the martyr, from the Roman catacombs, in that church. The relic was given to him by the pope for merits acquired together with the other relics, a sign of his high regard. Hence the name, still widespread, of Villa San Valerio…’.

It was the time when the Roman catacombs had only just been discovered, and the relics of the martyrs buried there, which were the object of particular devotion, were so sought after that the tombs were desecrated in order to steal them, so much so that the popes imposed excommunication on all those who took possession of the martyrs’ remains without authorisation.

The pontiffs themselves, however, could make gifts of relics to meritorious prelates of the Curia, or to nuncios, or to laymen who had particularly distinguished themselves in the service of the Holy See. The greater the size of the relic, the greater the importance of the gift and, consequently, of the donee [3].

In order to worthily welcome the homage made to him personally and to his family, Airoldi had the oratory dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin Mary restored and enlarged, annexed to the family property in Albiate (now in the province of Monza), located opposite the entrance to the residential Villa San Valerio, and had it named after San Valerio.

Below: the Airoldi coat of arms