medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (9. March) was also the feast day of VitaIis of Castronuovo (d.
893). A wandering Italo-Greek ascete, Vitalis was born at Castronuovo in
western Sicily, entered religion at the famous monastery of Saint Philip of
Agira at Agira near Enna, travelled after five years to Rome on pilgrimage,
stopped off in Calabria for two years of eremitical solitude on his way
back, and then returned to Agira or its environs where he spent the next
twelve years in a monastery near that of St. Philip. The ongoing Muslim
conquest of Sicily then caused him to return to Calabria, where he spent
time in the mountainous border region of the Mercurion, passed thence into
the also mountainous region of Latinianon in Basilicata (both regions were
at this time fairly well bestrewn with Greek monastic communities and
hermitages and included among their residents such well known fathers as
saints Fantinus the Younger and Nilus of Rossano), and pushed on into
Basilicata's also increasingly Greek-settled Agri valley, founding
monasteries as he went (that of Sant'Angelo on mount Raparo in today's
community of San Chirico Raparo, whose remains are shown here:
www.bper.it/gruppobper/incontri/pdf_65/pdf/12_65.pdf/ ,
is noted for its frescos). After spending time at the monastery of Saints
Elias and Anastasius at Carbone (later one of the Norman-Swabian kingdom's
great royal monasteries and one of the few that is extensively documented,
thanks to its surviving cartulary), he retreated to a cave near Armento,
where he was visited by saint Luke of Demenna. Later he traveled to Bari
and was received there by the Katepan; returning to Basilicata, he founded
another monastery, got captured by Muslim raiders, maltreated, and
released. V.'s last foundation was a monastery above Rapolla on mount
Vulture; having chosen and instructed his successor, he died here at a very
advanced age. After several translations his remains (and those of Luke of
Demenna) wound up in the cathedral of Tricarico. He is the patron saint of
both Castronuovo (MZ) and Armento (PZ).
Readers of the Life of Nilus of Rossano will notice certain points of
similarity here (which is not to say that one Life depends in any way upon
the other). V.'s Greek Life (probably late ninth- or early 10th-century)
is lost; we have only a Latin translation, originally executed in 1194. In
Carnandet's editio novissima of the _Acta Sanctorum_ it is at Martii tom.
II, pp. 26-35.
A touristic site with interesting slide shows of some of the places
mentioned above (better viewed in IE than in Netscape) and with drop-down
menus for comuni and for other localities is here:
http://www.basilicata.cc/lucania/
Not to miss the Annunciation and Original Sin reliefs on Rapolla's
thirteenth-century cathedral:
http://www.basilicata.cc/lucania/rapolla/09chM1/page2.htm
http://www.basilicata.cc/lucania/rapolla/09chM1/page3.htm
http://www.basilicata.cc/lucania/rapolla/09chM1/page4.htm
http://www.basilicata.cc/lucania/rapolla/09chM1/page5.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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