medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. September) is the feast day of:
Januarius, venerated especially at Naples (d. 305, supposedly).
Neapolitan veneration of today's well known saint of the Regno is at
least as old as the fifth century. A letter of ca. 432 narrating the death
of St. Paulinus of Nola has two saints appear to him on his deathbed:
Martin and J., the latter described as a martyr bishop who illumines the
church of Naples. Here's J. in a fifth-century wall painting in what are
now that city's Catacombs of San Gennaro:
http://www.aissca.it/aissca/immagini/SanGenn1ImageMosaic2.jpg
Detail:
http://www.aissca.it/aissca/immagini/SanGenn1particolare.jpg
Here he is again in a sixth-century wall painting from the same
catacombs:
http://www.aissca.it/aissca/immagini/SanGenn2ImageParticolare.jpg
A J. not further identified geographically is listed for today in the
early sixth-century Calendar of Carthage as well as in numerous
liturgical sources from the seventh century onward, including the early
ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian
Martyrology has an entry under this day for a Neapolitan J. as follows:
_et Neapoli sanctorum Ianuari et Angi._ ('and at Naples, of saints
Januarius and Angi.'). Who or what 'Angi.' may have denoted is
unknown. By the time of J.'s Acta Bononiensia (BHL 4132, now dated to
before the eighth century) this J. was identified with the J. of Benevento
listed for 7. September in the (ps.-)HM along with Sts. Festus, Acutius,
and Desiderius, all of whom are among his companions in martyrdom in
the legend that makes him a bishop of Benevento put to death at the
Solfatara in the Phlegraean Fields near Pozzuoli during the Great
Persecution. By this time, too, a martyr's church had been erected at what
in the legend is said to have been their place of execution. An altar
thought to have come from that church is preserved in its modern successor,
the Chiesa di San Gennaro alla Solfatara at today's Pozzuoli (NA).
In the historical martyrologies from Bede onward and, in somewhat greater
detail, in a translation account (BHL 4116) whose earliest witness is of the
ninth century, the remains of various of J.'s companions are said to have
been removed at some unspecified time to their home towns while those
of J. are said to have been brought by Neapolitans to Naples. According to
the also ninth-century early portion of Naples' episcopal chronicle, this
translation of J. to Naples was the work of that city's bishop St. John I
(d. 432), who had J. laid to rest in the extramural catacombs since known
as those of St. Januarius. Herewith a view of the upper level of those
catacombs:
http://www.fi.cnr.it/r&f/n13/images/2NEW.jpg
In the early ninth century a Lombard raid on Naples under prince Sico
(d. 832) resulted in the translation to Benevento of the Januarian relics
that had been in the catacomb church now known as San Gennaro extra
moenia. Thus "repatriated" to the city of his legendary episcopacy, J.
spent the early Middle Ages at Benevento and most of the later Middle
Ages at the also Campanian abbey of Montevergine near today's
Mercogliano (AV), whither he is said to been translated in 1154 at the
behest of king William I. In 1480 remains identified through an inscription
on the clay vessel containing them as those of J. and of his Beneventan
companions Festus and Desiderius were discovered at Montevergine
under the main altar of the abbey church. Those said to be J.'s were
translated in 1497 to Naples, where they were deposited in a splendid
chapel built for them in the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. By this point,
though, the church of Naples was in possession other relics of J. that
supposedly had remained in the city all along: a portion of skull housed in
a head reliquary of silver from the early fourteenth century and two tiny
glass ampules containing a brownish-red substance that many believe to be
some of J.'s blood preserved from the scene of his martyrdom and whose
famous liquefaction (now usually occurring today and again in early May)
is first recorded from 1389 in a chronicle entry for 17. August.
A view of the head reliquary (the base is from 1609):
http://www.interviu.it/turismo/decumani/duomo17.jpg
In formal attire:
http://www.interviu.it/turismo/decumani/duomo16.jpg
With decorations:
http://utenti.lycos.it/salcon75/images/san_gennaro_1.jpg
An Italian-language page on this specimen of French goldsmith's work:
http://tinyurl.com/yp8z82
A few views of the processional display reliquary for the ampules
(the central portion dates from the fourteenth century):
http://tinyurl.com/7ltl8
http://tinyurl.com/3awxls
http://tinyurl.com/27j6za
And a view of the ampules themselves:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/29200/29200J.JPG
Note that in that view the housing for the ampules has been set into a
different base. These views should provide some idea of the housing's
size and thus of that of the ampules as well:
http://tinyurl.com/2xqrhm
http://tinyurl.com/2f5wau
A scientifically informed English-language critique of the marvel of J.'s
supposed blood:
http://www.cicap.org/new/articolo.php?id=101014
The bones (really, bone fragments) translated from Montevergine in 1497
are displayed in the container shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/ysn3sb
http://www.adrart.it/marchese/St-6m1.jpg
In 1322 Lello da Orvieto executed this mosaic (with J. at left and St. Restituta
at right) for the Cappella di Santa Maria del Principio in the Santa Restituta
portion of Naples' cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/2wtuu3
http://tinyurl.com/yvzv76
http://tinyurl.com/kg2b6
Pozzuoli's church of San Gennaro alla Solfatara possesses a striking, early
fourteenth-century marble bust of J. with a base depicting in inlay the two
ampules of J.'s supposed blood. There's a discussion of it, with a good color
photograph (Opere, 2), in Elio de Rosa, ed., _San Gennaro tra Fede, Arte e Mito.
Napoli, Santa Maria di Donnaregina Nuova, Dicembre '97 - Aprile '98_ (Pozzuoli:
EdR, 1997), at pp. 98-99. Here's a view:
http://www.cyber-net.net/santuario/image/foto1.jpg
As this J. (there are of course others) is sometimes thought of as essentially a
regional saint, it may be useful to close with these views of his
eleventh-to-thirteenth-century church in Capannori, outside of Lucca (the early
medieval capital of Tuscany):
http://luccapro.cribecu.sns.it/ENG/pie/pie_s0019/index.asp
http://www.comune.capannori.lu.it/infoturismo/asmpievi7.html
The latter page has an English-language version:
http://www.comune.capannori.lu.it/turismo/pievi/SGennaro_en.html
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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