medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. February) is also the feast day of:
Antoninus of Sorrento (d. ca. 830) Abbot Antoninus, patron of Sorrento
(Campania) has a 9th- or 10th-century Life that is one of the few surviving
monuments of the early medieval duchy of Sorrento. According to this
account, A. was a monk who was forced to abandon his monastery during a
period of Lombard raids and who attached himself to the holy Catellus,
bishop of Stabiae (today's Castellammare di Stabia. In time Catellus
(Castellammare di Stabia's patron saint, celebrated on 19 January) turned
over his diocese to A. and took up a hermit's existence on a mountain that
when the Life was written was named after Michael the Archangel (it still
is: this is Monte S. Angelo in the Monti Lattari, overlooking
Sorrento). A. joined him not long thereafter and together the two of them,
inspired by the appearance of St. Michael in a vision vouchsafed to both
hermits, established here an oratory dedicated to the Archangel which,
according to the Life (whose local boosterism is one of its charms) in time
became a successful pilgrimage destination. Catellus, charged with having
abandoned his diocese, had to leave the hermitage and go to Rome to defend
himself; it was some while before he was able to return. In the interim A.
moved on to Sorrento and entered a monastery near it dedicated to St.
Agnellus, of which he later became abbot and where he manifested exemplary
kindness and zeal for work. Upon his death he was claimed both by the
monks and by the citizens of Sorrento proper and, so as not to be buried
either outside or inside the city, was interred within the city wall. His
post-mortem miracles (protecting Sorrento from both a Muslim raid and an
attack by the Lombards; curing the demonically possessed daughter of the
duke) quickly confirmed his patronal status. His two best known miracles,
though, are assigned to his lifetime: planting at the monastery a vine
whose grapes produced exceptionally fine wine and rescuing at sea a boy who
had been swallowed by a whale (the first of these is in the Life; the
second is not and probably comes from one of his sixteenth-century Lives).
See the _Acta Sanctorum_, Feb. tom. II., pp. 784-96 in Carnandet's editio
novissima (the Life is at pp. 787-95) and Agostino Amore, "Antonino, abbate
di Sorrento, santo," _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 2 (1962), cols.
87-88. An older view placing Antoninus and Catellus in the late 6th
century (and making A.'s original monastery that of Montecassino) is
contradicted by the chronology given in the Life but still crops up in
local treatments of both saints (Catellus' cult was approved on 13
September 1729; A.'s is of such long standing that it has required no
formal approval).
A map of the western end of the Sorrentine Peninsula, showing most of the
locations mentioned above, is here:
http://www.positanonline.it/sentieri/mappa1.html
And here are the three peaks of this Monte Sant'Angelo (in the large
photograph Sorrento can be seen at the lower right):
http://www.giovis.com/sangelo3p.htm
A.'s present tomb is here:
http://www.sorrentoweb.com/uk/basilica/
(Note the reference to the two cetacean ribs; an offering related to the
miracle?)
Best,
John Dillon
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