medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 07:24 PM 3/26/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Today (27. March) is the feast day of:
>
>Albert of Trent (d. 1181) Albert was bishop of Trent. The fact that
>he was killed in the wars between Frederick Barbarossa and the
>Lombards led to his veneration as a martyr.
Our one detailed source for A.'s death, the thirteenth-century hagiographer
Bartholomew of Trent, places it on 12. Kal. Oct. (21 Sept., if my reckoning
is correct) in the year 1172. That year is accepted in recent historical
writing; for discussion and bibliography, see Gian Maria Varanini, "Appunti
sulle istituzioni comunali di Trento fra XII e XIII secolo," in Lia de
Finis, ed., _Storia del Trentino_ (Trento: Associazione culturale "Antonio
Rosmini"; Editrice Temi, 1996), 99-126, n. 28 on p. 121. Prior to the late
1970s the generally accepted date was 8 September 1177, though that was
admitted to be controversial; cf., e.g., A. Cetto, "Adalpreto," _DBI_, vol.
1 [1960], pp. 227-28.
The Latin form of A.'s name in Bartholomew is Adelpretus; as bishop of
Trent he is Adelpretus or Adalpretus II. He was assassinated by a local
noble with whom he had been at odds and with whose family the
prince-bishops of Trent remained in conflict until 1273. His veneration as
a martyr seems to have begun almost immediately. From at least the
sixteenth century onward he was celebrated liturgically on 27 March. But
it perhaps overstating matters to say that today "is" his feast day. A.'s
sanctity had been championed in the eighteenth century by the local
Franciscan scholar and controversialist Benedetto Bonelli (also a big
supporter of the historical accuracy of the martyrdom of Simon of Trent, on
whom see Phyllis' notice for 24 March) against the cautions of the
Bollandist-influenced ecclesiastical historian Girolamo Tartarotti. In the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bonelli (and thus also
Adelpretus) might thus have been in bad enough odor with the authorities in
Rome, but it also happened that Bonelli's _Prodromus ad opera omnia S.
Bonaventuri_ (1767) had at this time achieved fresh notoriety through the
new Quaracchi edition of Bonaventure (1882-1902) for its defense as
authentically Bonaventuran many texts now considered spurious. With such
friends, who needs enemies? When in 1913 the diocese of Trent submitted
for papal approval its new liturgical calendar, A.'s feast was tacitly
omitted. Never canonized, A. appears now not even to have local cult status.
Bartholomew's Passio and Miracula of A. is now available in Emore Paoli's
modern critical edition: Bartolomeo da Trento, _Liber epilogorum in gesta
sanctorum_ (Florence: SISMEL; Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2001). The text is at
pp. 379-85; there's important contextual matter in the Introduzione at pp.
xxvi-vii.
Best,
John Dillon
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