medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear All,
The 'saints of the day' notice of St. Aquilinus of Milan that I accidentally sent earlier today was an incomplete version still awaiting revision. Herewith the one I had intended to send:
Today (24. January 2010) is this year also the feast day of:
Aquilinus of Milan (d. ca. 1015?). A. has been venerated in the Ambrosian City since the 1450s. Until recently he was celebrated on 29. January. He now has a movable feast that falls on the Sunday immediately preceding that date. A. appears not to have any surviving late antique or medieval acta. Our earliest account of him is in an Ambrosian breviary compiled in 1582 by the Borromeo family priest Pietro Galesino (also the biographer of Sixtus V).
The _Acta Sanctorum_ prints a Latin Vita of A. published in 1634 on the basis of an Italian-language one of 1606. This brief document -- devoid of specific dates and of other fairly unambiguous temporal references -- makes A. a native of Würzburg who became a canon and subsequently provost of the cathedral chapter at Köln and who to avoid election as that city's bishop then fled to Paris, which latter by his prayer and toil he then freed from a pestilence.
To avoid being elected bishop of Paris A. then fled to Milan, where he became a canon of San Lorenzo, upheld Catholic orthodoxy against heretics whom the Vita calls Arians, and was murdered by some of these in the church of Sant'Ambrogio. He was buried in San Lorenzo, where he is famous for his miracles. Thus far this Vita.
Reliance on the Vita's designation of A.'s opponents as Arians led early modern hagiographers to date him variously from the late fifth and early sixth centuries to the late eighth and early ninth. Vestiges of these datings will still be found in recent, non-scholarly accounts of him. The scholarly preference now is rather to identify A. with the somewhat similarly named Wezelin, the provost of the cathedral chapter of Köln whom Rupert of Deutz in his _Vita sancti Heriberti_ presents briefly as yielding to Heribert election as that city's bishop. As Heribert became archbishop of Köln in 999, A.'s activity in Milan will have taken place early in the eleventh century.
Why A. is said to have died in about the year 1015 is not clear to me. Another way of putting this has him martyred shortly before 1018. The latter year is that of the consecration of a famous Milanese archbishop, Aribert of Antimiano/Intimiano; perhaps there's something in the historiography of his episcopate that makes pre-Patarene ecclesiastical violence in Milan unthinkable during those years.
Milan's centrally planned, originally fourth-century church of San Lorenzo Maggiore has been through several fires as well as a major reconstruction in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Nonetheless, much of its early architecture and some vestiges of its early mosaic decor remain. Here's an exterior view with the octagonal structure now called the cappella di Sant'Aquilino visible on the left:
http://tinyurl.com/ysh73r
This chapel, once a separate building, was previously dedicated to one of the several saints named Genesius. In this view it's the brick structure at left:
http://tinyurl.com/yef8dc2
Another exterior view (warning: can be slow to load):
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37408083
The plan shown here indicates the chapel's relationship to the remainder of San Lorenzo:
http://ciaomilano.it/e/slorenzo.asp#
A clearer plan of the chapel itself is here:
http://www.montessorionline.it/LavMed001/MilRomana/Aquilino.htm
The entrance to the chapel (at left; the molding is composed of pieces from what seems to have been an ancient doorway):
http://tinyurl.com/yjvxok2
Closer views of that molding:
http://tinyurl.com/y9d9wje
http://tinyurl.com/yag7bjy
http://tinyurl.com/y8vbmtr
An interior view showing some of the surviving mosaics:
http://tinyurl.com/ddqy6
A detail of the mosaics showing a beardless Christ:
http://homepage3.nifty.com/kenkitagawa2/Milano-Lorenzo-mosaic.jpg
The composition to which that belongs:
http://tinyurl.com/ycs2s5
A.'s altar surmounted by a seventeenth-century silver and crystal casket containing his supposedly incorrupt remains:
http://tinyurl.com/ycp56ks
http://tinyurl.com/bpf25u
The so-called Sarcophagus of Saint Antoninus.:
http://tinyurl.com/y8tfmpt
A fourteenth-century tombstone used as its lid:
http://tinyurl.com/yb7o4d5
http://tinyurl.com/yba3z4z
An English-language account of the whole is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2jnoey
For a more detailed discussion see Gillian Mackie, _Early Christian Chapels in the West: Decoration, Function, and Patronage_ (University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 156-63).
Some views of the interior of San Lorenzo proper:
http://tinyurl.com/93agl
http://www4.worldisround.com/photos/2/389/382.jpg
The church's medieval fresco depicting saint Helen:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37703372
A. is the patron of the city's porters (in Italian, _facchini_), who in medieval and early modern times worked chiefly in the vicinity of the nearby Porta Ticinese.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
**********************************************************************
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
|