medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (11. September) is the feast day of:
Sperandia of Cingoli (d. 1276 or 1277). The penitent and visionary
Sperandia was born at Gubbio in Umbria in about the year 1216.
According to her _Vita antiqua_ (BHL 7825), she was divinely inspired at
the age of nine to adopt a penitential lifestyle. This decision did not
go over well with her father and with other members of her family.
After enduring many tribulations at their hands (for how long we are not
told), S. exchanged her penitent's rags for a pig's hide and a belt of
iron and, again acting on divine guidance, left home for good.
S. spent the bulk of her life as a wandering ascetic in towns of Umbria
and the Marche, tormented by demons and gaining a reputation as a holy
woman and thaumaturge. She seems to have made a journey to Rome;
again according to the _Vita antiqua_, her lifetime fame extended as far
north as Venice. In about 1265 she settled down at a mountain grotto
outside of Cingoli (MC), founding here a community attested to by a
donation of 1276 and by subsequent documents witnessing miracle accounts
or bearing on relations between Cingoli and what had become her convent.
Though the _Vita antiqua_ suggests rather strongly a life of Franciscan
spirituality, tradition makes S. a Benedictine abbess. Local veneration
seems to have been both strong and immediate. In 1633 her cult was
confirmed for the dioceses of Gubbio, Osimo, and Sanseverino (Marche).
Also commemorated by the Benedictines and in other orders, S. has never
been recorded in the Roman Martyrology.
The Bollandists who edited the _Acta Sanctorum_ chose to call S.
"Sperandea". In languages other than Italian she is often still so
called, though this form seems contrary to the evidence of her _Vita
antiqua_ (which calls her "Spera in Deo"), of its late fifteenth-century
revision ("Sperandia"), of the latter's Italian-language revision
("Sperandina"), and of late medieval usage in both Gubbio and Cingoli
("Sperandia", "Spera in Deo", "Sperandeus", etc.). Together with its
dubiously attested early bishop Exuperantius (24. January), S. is a
patron saint of Cingoli, "Balcony of the Marche".
The _Vita antiqua_ and two of its descendants have been edited by Marco
Paggiosi in his _Santa Sperandia. Testo e fortuna dell'"antica Vita
Latina"_ (Ancona: Edizioni di Studia Picena, 2001). Karl Mühlek, s.v.
"SPERANDEA, Heilige, Benediktinerin und Äbtissin", in the Bautz
_Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon_
(http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/sperandea.shtml/), characterizes this as a
collection of notes and original accounts "wohl von der Heiligen
selbst". I don't know what is intended by "von" here; whereas the
saint herself was probably the author's informant, she seems rather
unlikely to have been the author of this bare-bones, third-person
narration drawn up in quasi-notarial style.
A useful collection of articles on S.'s biography, on her contemporary
contexts, and on her cult is Giuseppe Avarucci, ed., _Santita' femminile
nel Duecento: Sperandia patrona di Cingoli. Atti del convegno di studi
(Cingoli, 23-24 ottobre 1999)_ (Ancona: Edizioni di Studia Picena, 2001;
409 pp. and many photographs and plates).
A recent interior view of Sperandia's grotto is here:
http://www.volipindarici.it/viaggi/vivicitta/it_mar/cingoli1/index.htm
And a rather romantic exterior view of it from the nineteenth century is
here:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/estacchi/sper1.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|