medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. January) is also the feast day of:
Exuperantius of Cingoli (5th cent., supposedly; cult attested from 13th century onward). A late 12th- or early 13th-century Vita, preserved in two manuscripts formerly at Cingoli (Marche) but now in the Archivio di Stato of Macerata, makes E. a monk from Africa who sailed to Italy, arrived at Numana (near Ancona), and made his way to Rome, where he was consecrated bishop by pope Paschasius and put in charge of the diocese of Cingoli, succeeding the latter's deceased bishop Theodosius and dying of natural cuses some fifteen years later. He was succeeded by his faithful disciple Formarius and is credited with having cured a paralytic.
Although Cingoli was certainly an episcopal see in the mid-6th century, bishops Theodosius, Exuperantius, and Formarius are no better attested than is pope Paschasius. Exuperantius is one of a group of Umbrian martyrs (Savinus, Exuperantius, and Marcellus), whose cult had spread in Gregory the Great's time to various places in central Italy including what is now the Marche. By 1139 monks of Fonte Avellana were operating a church outside Cingoli dedicated to Exuperantius and in 1218 they erected another inside the city dedicated to E. and to Nicholas and containing relics of both saints. Probably by this time the late 12th- or early 13th-century copper placque identifying E.'s relics was already in existence; found in 1628 during an examination of the relics, it identifies E. as bishop and confessor and is clearly connected with the fabulous Vita noted above.
That Vita, which combines elements from the late antique Passio of Nazarius and Celsus (BHL 6039) with encounters with martyrs venerated in Osimo and other nearby towns, is pretty clearly an effort to affirm Cingoli's early diocesan status (not regained until 1250). Its origin is probably to be sought in Cingoli's rivalry with Osimo in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, when Cingoli was attempting to free itself of the latter's political and ecclesiastical control.
See:
Giuseppe Fabiani, "Essuperanzio, vescovo di Cingoli," in _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 5 (1964), cols. 98-100.
Giuseppe Avarucci, "Una lamella iscritta, problemi ed ipotesi intorno al culto di S. Esuperanzio a Cingoli," in _Cingoli dalle origini al sec. XVI. Contributi e richerche. Atti del XIX Convegno di studi maceratesi, Cingoli 15-16 ottobre 1983_ (Macerata: Centro di studi storici maceratesi, 1986; = _Studi maceratesi_ 19), pp. 187-216.
Serafino Prete, "La 'Vita S. Exuperantii'. Annotazioni storico-critiche," ibid., pp. 177-85.
Best,
John Dillon
PS: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:54:20 -0800 Phyllis wrote:
>Suranus (d. c. 580) Gregory the Great tells that Suranus was abbot of Sora
>(Umbria).
The well-known Sora is in southern Lazio. Was there another in Umbria?
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