medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. July) is also the feast day of:
Lidanus of Sezze (d. 1118). Today's less well known saint from the Regno
is best known for activity outside the territory of the former
kingdom. But he was born in today's Civita d'Antino (AQ) in Abruzzo, where
he is honored today as a local boy who made good, and he is associated in
his tripartite Life and Miracles (BHL 4919-21) with the great Benedictine
abbey of Monte Cassino, now in Lazio but medievally in Regno
territory. The bearer of an unusual name (accented on the first syllable
since at least the fifteenth century and thought by some to be a version of
Lygdamus), he founded from Monte Cassino a monastery on land he had just
inherited near Sezze (ancient Setia) in southern Lazio. Sezze is located
in the Monti Lepini at the former eastern edge of the Pontine Marshes; L.'s
monastery, dedicated to St. Cecilia (said to have been his mother's name),
included marshy territory. Dionysius, the author of the Life proper, tells
us that L. was greatly annoyed by the constant confused noise of the area's
numerous little frogs and that, smiting the marsh with his staff, he
admonished them to be silent and to cease disturbing a man of God. Which,
not surprisingly, they did: the miracle was that they stayed silent and,
according to D., not a peep has been heard out of them since.
L. lived here for seventy-two years (if we assume that the young Lidanus of
the Life was eighteen when he founded the monastery, that gives him a life
span of four score years and ten) and was buried in the monastery
church. His remains were later translated to Sezze proper and interred in
its cathedral, where they remain today. L.'s cult was confirmed by Leo
X. One of Sezze's patron saints, he lives on in the names of many of his
present-day _concittadini_.
The ecclesiastical politics underlying the translation of L.'s remains and
the writing of his Life have been studied by Maria Teresa Caciorgna in two
articles: "Tra citta' e campagna: il culto di San Lidano a Sezze," in Sofia
Boesch Gajano and Lucia Sebastiani, eds., _Culto dei santi: istituzioni e
classi sociali in eta' preindustriale_ (L'Aquila: Japadre, 1984), pp.
200-26, and "San Lidano: da monaco a patrono" in her _Marittima
medievale: territori, societa', poteri_ (Roma: Il calamo, 1996), pp.
295-318. Vincenzo Venditti reproduces in black and white a
fourteenth-century portrait of L. in his entry "Lidano, abate, santo," in
the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 8 (1967), cols. 41-43.
Some photographs of Sezze are here.
http://www.sezzeweb.it/fotoPaese.asp
The cathedral (fourth from the left in the top row) was reoriented during a
modern reconstruction; one enters through what had been the rear apse.
The arch in the second row is named after L. (whose monastery was sited at
a place called "Ad tres arcus" ["At the Three Arches"]).
A shot of Civita' d'Antino, set against its mountain backdrop, is here:
http://www.abruzzocitta.it/comuni/fotoaquila/civitadantino.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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