medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. August) is the feast day of:
Bartholomew of Simeri (d. 1130). Today's less well known saint from the
Regno was one of the leading figures of Italo-Greek monasticism during
the formative years of Norman rule in what until recently had been the
East Roman theme of Calabria. B., whose baptismal name was Basil, was
born ca. 1160 at the then Semeri, part of today's Simeri Crichi (CZ).
Leaving his family early, he became a monk under the name of
Bartholomew. After a while B. retreated to the fastnesses of the
Calabrian Appennines, where he lived as a solitary for several years
before founding, at the beginning of the twelfth century, a monastery
adjacent to an already existing oratory in the vicinity of today's
Rossano (CS). Dedicated to the Theotokos and usually called the Nea
Hodegetria of Rossano, this became one of the leading Greek monasteries
of southern Italy; in honor of its founding father it came also to be
known as the Patirion or, simply, the Patir.
The Patirion enjoyed the patronage of the admiral Christodulus, the
highest ranking Greek official at the court of the regent Adelaide and,
once he had come of age, of her son Roger II. At B.'s request, in 1105
Paschal II put the monastery under direct papal authority (thus removing
it from the control of Greek bishop of Rossano). Various leading Latins
are said to have made grants to it. According to the anonymous author
of B.'s Bios (BHG 235), B. also maintained ties with the Roman Empire of
the East, visiting the emperor Alexius I in Constantinople and receiving
from him gifts for his monastery. Accused around 1125 of heresy by two
Benedictines at the court's mainland capital of Mileto, he was tried and
was eventually vindicated. Two years before his death B. was asked by
Roger to found a new monastery (Holy Savior on Lingua Phari) at Messina,
which he did -- but not in person, sending instead his disciple, the
future St. Luke of Messina.
B. was laid to rest at the Patirion; his cult was immediate. An early
witness to it is his encomium (BHG 236) pronounced there a few years
later by the gifted homilist Philagathus "of Cerami". B.'s memory was
celebrated at the Patirion, at Messina's Holy Savior (it is to the
latter's famous early thirteenth-century menologion that we owe the
preservation of his Bios), and at all their dependencies. By the
mid-thirteenth century B. was being celebrated at the also Calabrian
monastery of St. Bartholomew (the apostle) of Trigona. This monastery,
which in time came to be viewed as one of B.'s foundations, was
abandoned after the great earthquake of 1783; somehow connected with it
(probably by being in its former territory), and claiming to have B.'s
relics, is the little church of San Bartolo outside of Sant'Eufemia
d'Aspromonte (RC). After a long decline, the Patirion itself was closed
in 1806 when the kingdom's monasteries were secularized. Its church
continues in operation today.
B.'s Bios, followed by an Italian translation, may be read at Gaia
Zaccagni, ed., "Il _Bios_ di san Bartolomeo da Simeri (_BHG_ 235),"
_Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici_, n.s. 33 (1996), 193-274.
Philagathus' encomium is in Giuseppe Rossi Taibbi, ed., _Filagato da
Cerami: Omelie per i Vangeli domenicali e le feste di tutto l'anno_
(Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, 1969),
pp. 232-38. Recent contributions of note include Mario Re, "Sul viaggio
di Bartolomeo da Simeri a Costantinopoli," _Rivista di Studi Bizantini e
Neoellenici_, n.s. 34 (1997), 71-76, and Stefano Caruso, "Il santo, il
re, la curia, l'impero. Sul processo per eresia contro Bartolomeo da
Simeri (XI-XII sec.)," _Bizantinistica. Rivista di Studi Bizantini e
Slavi_, 2a ser., vol. 1 (1999), 305-49. For an account of how B.'s name
came to be attached to the monastery of San Bartolomeo di Trigona (at
today's Monte Triangolo in the Aspromonte), see Vera von Falkenhausen,
"S. Bartolomeo di Trigona: storia di un monastero greco nella Calabria
normanno-sveva," _Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici_, n.s. 36
(1999), 93-109, esp. pp. 107-09.
B.'s monastery church, now called Santa Maria del Patir (or Santa Maria
Nuova Odigitria), sits in a wooded area on the edge of the Sila
overlooking the Plain of Sibari. It underwent a couple of rebuildings
in the later Middle Ages, when it acquired its present "gothic" facade
(possibly also the pointed arches in the nave), and in the early modern
period, when it lost a cupola over the presbytery. Further damage led
to a nineteenth-century restoration. An Italian-language account of the
building will be found in the opening paragraphs here:
http://www.sbvibonese.vv.it/sezionet/pag280_t.aspx
Various views are here:
MULTIPLE:
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Calabria/Patire.html
EXTERIOR:
http://it.geocities.com/carfoit/patirion1.jpg
http://snipurl.com/h22e
http://snipurl.com/h22g
http://snipurl.com/h22a
http://snipurl.com/h22c
http://www.liquiritia.it/immagini/photogallery/clip_image003_big.jpg
INTERIOR:
http://tinyurl.com/cfcle
http://www.pianetacalabria.com/dicola/Fototeca/abbazie/patirion.htm
http://tinyurl.com/98k6v
Mosaic floor (incompletely preserved; mid-12th cent.), details:
centaur:
http://tinyurl.com/d8b9y
lion:
http://tinyurl.com/d4mu5
tauroleon (sometimes called a leocorn):
http://www.pianetacalabria.com/dicola/Fototeca/arte/opera4.htm
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
|