medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
As Elizabeth McLachlan has obliquely indicated, the standard spelling of
"Cupertino" today is "Copertino". Despite the frequent toponomastic
conservatism of popular hagiographic literature in English, one can even
find instances of Joe's being referred to as "Joseph of Copertino".
Visible medieval remains are hard to come by in Copertino (LE), not far
from Lecce on Italy's Salentine peninsula. Though the town's principal
church was built in phases from the late eleventh century through the
early thirteenth, it now sports a sixteenth-century facade and belltower
while its medieval interior surfaces are effectively masked in an
effusion of late baroque. Joe would have known the former, not the
latter. An Italian-language account of this monument, with an exterior
photograph, is here:
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/elenco_monumenti2.php?categoria=Monumento&id=78&i=1#foto
and a 360-degree virtual tour of the interior is here:
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/visite/chiesa_matrice.php
Similarly, Copertino's medieval castle, named after the Angevins but
said to have been begun in the Norman-Swabian period, was redesigned and
largely rebuilt in the sixteenth century. Its appearance today is
probably not vastly different from what Joe would have seen.
Italian-language discussions of it are here:
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/elenco_monumenti2.php?categoria=Monumento&id=76&i=1#foto
and, with many more photographs, here:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Castelli/Puglia/lecce/copertino.htm
A 360-degree virtual tour from outside the front of the building is here:
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/visite/castello.php
A few kilometers southeast of Copertino, though, is the masseria (walled
farm) "Monaci" with its early fourteenth-century rock-hewn Crypt of St.
Michael the Archangel. An Italian-language discussion of this
structure, which features a nave and two altars, is here (no pictures,
alas):
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/elenco_monumenti2.php?categoria=Monumento&i=3
In the early fourteenth century this part of the Salentine peninsula was
still majority Greek-speaking and the decor here was executed in in
byzantinizing style by local Greek artists. The only photo I could find
is unfortunately still not very revealing:
http://www.salentonline.it:591/Archiviofotografico/foto/images/066_jpg.jpg
Not too far from here, BTW, are the ruins of the abbey of San Nicola at
Casole, a center of Italo-Greek learned culture in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. A shot of what's left of the abbey's main gate is
here:
http://web.tiscali.it/porta-doriente/casole.jpg
Photographs of various details (and also of a detail from the mosaic
floor of Otranto's cathedral, designed by a monk from this abbey) are here:
http://cliomg.clio.it/sc/lsm/contributi/casole/casole_arte.html
And an Italian-language discussion of the abbey's literary connections
and of its library is here:
http://www.cronologia.it/storia/tabello/tabe1621.htm
All of which has gotten us rather far away from Joe. So here's a
360-degree virtual tour of the stable in which he is said to have been
born (a photo of his baroque sanctuary is on the right):
http://www.comune.copertino.le.it/cittaterritorio/visite/stalletta.php
And here's a discussion of Joe in an anti-gravity context, complete with
a depiction of his "amazing feat" (not to be confused with Beryl of
Sussex's "stupendous feet"):
http://antigravitypower.tripod.com/StJoseph/
Best,
John Dillon
PS: I had thought that Phyllis' selection of Joe would have elicited, if
not anti-gravity, at least some learned levity (but cf. perhaps Beryl of
Sussex, above). Or perhaps some anecdotes from lives of medieval saints
credited with feats of levitation. Flights of fancy, anyone?
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