medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. October) is also the feast day of:
Saturnus (Saturninus) of Cagliari (d. before ca. 517, perh. 303 or
304). Among the numerous saints Saturninus whose names are recorded in
martyrologies or whose cults are associated with specific locales is S.
of Cagliari, first attested in the mid-6th-century _Vita Fulgentii_
often ascribed to Ferrandus the disciple and companion of St. Fulgentius
of Ruspe. Here we are told that when in about 517 Fulgentius,
Ferrandus, and others were in exile on Sardinia they built a monastery
outside of Cagliari near the church of the holy martyr Saturninus (whose
date and place of martyrdom are unspecified), "Saturninus" being the
reading of the standard but hardly new edition of the _Vita Fulgentii_.
Some ecclesiastical historians of Sardinia suspect that when this text
is critically re-edited the name may prove instead to be Saturnus,
seemingly the majority form in medieval Sardinian sources (though not in
S.'s Passio discussed below).
During the early Middle Ages southern Sardinia was an outpost of the
"Byzantine commonwealth" and its church was Greek-rite. Latinization of
the area began in earnest in the 11th century. One of its chief movers
was the Victorine congregation of Marseille, which took over important
cult sites and other properties in the judicate of Cagliari including,
in 1089, the church of San Saturno, shown here after early expansion by
the Victorines and after several more recent restorations but still
famous for its paleochristian (4th-5th cents.) core and its 6th-century
cupola above the central _martyrium_:
http://guidasardegna.tiscali.it/visit/church/ca/cagliari/basilica_san_saturno.html
Other photographs are here:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/cacagliari_3.htm
http://www.hellosardinia.com/ita/Cagliari/chi_sansaturno.htm
http://www.discoveritalia.it/luoghi/virtualTour.asp?IstatCod=20092009000&lingua=it
Pier Giorgio Spanu, _Martyria Sardiniae. I santuari dei martiri sardi_
(Oristano: S'Alvure, 2000), discusses both cult and church at pp. 51-60
(with plans and photographs).
Faced with the need to provide narrative accounts for the area's poorly
documented saints, some of whom were or soon became the focus of major
pilgrimages, the Latin church in Sardinia created from the later 11th to
perhaps the mid-13th centuries a series of Passions and Legends partly
calqued on hagiographies of their homonyms elsewhere but ascribing all
or almost all of the martyrdoms to the Diocletianic persecution and
localizing these on the island. Two of the most impressive are the
Legend of Saturnus of Cagliari (BHL 7490) and the Passio of Antiochus of
the Sulcis (BHL 566d); these, almost certainly the work of the
Victorines, have usually been thought to borrow extensively from other
Lives. In the case of Saturnus, the chief creditors are said to be
Saturninus of Toulouse and Sergius of Caesarea in Cappadocia. But the
_Legenda sancti Saturni_ is independent of these in many respects.
Similarity of name (as well as partial similarity of their
hagiographies) underlies the collocation of S.'s feast at the end of
October along with those of Saturninus of Toulouse and his homonym of
Rome. As the locale of this saint's martyrdom really is unknown, we may
join medieval and early modern Sardinians (who erected churches to him
in various parts of the island) in thinking him one of their own,
Saturnus in Latin and Saturru or Sadurru in local vernaculars.
The _Legenda sancti Saturni_ and the incompletely preserved hexameter
narrative _Christe, patris verbum_ (BHL 7491b) were published by
Bacchisio Raimondo Motzo in his "S. Saturno di Cagliari", _Archivio
storico sardo_ 16 (1926), 3-32; repr. in his _Studi sui Bizantini in
Sardegna e sull'agiografia sarda_ (Cagliari: Deputazione di Storia
Patria per la Sardegna, 1987), pp. 157-86. For scholarly syntheses of
the onomastic and other issues, see Raimondo Turtas, _Storia della
Chiesa in Sardegna dalle origini al Duemila_ (Roma, 1999), pp. 41-42,
and Spanu, op. cit., pp. 51-53. Very recently Antonio Piras has edited
the _Passio sancti Saturnini_ (BHL 7491) from four manuscripts and one
printed text, none earlier than the late twelfth century (Romae: Herder,
2002). In Piras' view, this Passio dates to the period between the end
of the sixth century and the end of the eighth and is the source of
similar material in other texts, including the _Passio_ of Sergius of
Cappadocia (BHL 7598). A rather later date is perhaps suggested by the
edited Passio's linking of the recently celebrated Gavinus of Torres
with two other saints (Protus and Januarius of the same city) seemingly
not otherwise associated with him (G.) before the eleventh century.
Piras, op. cit., also re-edits other texts in S.'s dossier, including
the _Legenda sancti Saturni_ and the surviving portion of poem _Christe,
patris verbum_; his opinion of the latter is rather low.
Best,
John Dillon
(updating and correcting a posting from a year ago)
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