High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Blessed Jacobus de Varagine or Voragine (Italian: Giacomo da Varazze, Jacopo da Varazze (c. 1230 – July 13 or July 16, 1298) was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular religious works of the Middle Ages.