medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. September) is the feast day of:
Festus the deacon and Desiderius the lector (d. ca. 305). According to
the usual story (which for these two is really all we have), today's
less well known saints of the Regno were leading members of the church
of Benevento who together with their bishop Januarius travelled to
Pozzuoli during the Great Persecution and who were martyred along with
him near the Solfatara in the Phlegraean Fields. Januarius and various
companions including F. and D. appear in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian
Martyrology for today. By the ninth century their collective feast had
been regularized as falling on 19. September (so Ado and Usuard) but in
Naples, where 19. September is J.'s big day, the companions had feasts
of their own, either singly or in groups according to the towns they
are said to have come from. And in this festal economy F. and D.
continued to be celebrated today (so the Marble Calendar of Naples) as
they also are in the new (2001) RM.
Like the other companions, F. and D. appear in the mural portraits of
the Neapolitan catacombs. D. has a very nice one in the catacombs of
San Gennaro, where he is the left-hand figure in a panel whose other
figure represents St. Acutius of Pozzuoli. There's an awful view of it
here:
http://www.sansossio.it/
and an excellent one at plate IX (facing p. 128) in Umberto M. Fasola,
_Le catacombe di S. Gennaro a Capodimonte_ (Roma: Editalia, 1975).
This being the seventeenth centenary of the martyrdom of Januarius et
soc., it's especially unfortunate that better visuals of the companions
seem still not to be available on the Web.
Naples' eighth-century bishop Stephen II is credited with having
founded that city's monastery of F. and D. (a community of Benedictine
nuns) on the height now known as the Monterone, overlooking the coastal
strip below. The monastery, first documented from 916, came to be
known popularly simply as that of St. Festus. In the sixteenth century
period it was joined with the adjacent male foundation of Sts.
Marcellinus and Peter and both were given a splendid baroque makeover.
Though SS. Marcellino e Festo is still around (it belongs to the
university), there's nothing medieval to show from it.
You would think that F. and D.'s presumed relics would have lain in the
monastery church. But they seem to have still been lying in the
catacombs when, early in the ninth century, prince Sico of Benevento
made his raid on the outskirts of Naples that netted him the body of
Januarius. Benevento soon claimed (in a Translation account, BHL 4140)
to have the bodies of its other native sons, F. and D., as well.
Though they are said to now repose at monastery of Montevergine near
Mercogliano (AV), also in Campania, F. and D. are still honored at
Benevento, probably more so here than anywhere else on earth.
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|