medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (16. September) was also the feast day of:
Romulus of Abellinum (d. early 6th cent.), venerated at Atripalda
(AV). Abellinum was the Roman predecessor of today's Campanian
provincial capital of Avellino, which kept the name when it changed
location in the early Middle Ages. Outside late antique Abellinum was
a necropolis, some of whose Christian burials were honored in a
hypogeum called "the martyrs' grotto" (_specus martyrum_; the
veneration of saints at this locale is first attested to from the year
357). A fourth-century basilican church was built on the site and
around this there grew the settlement that became medieval and modern
Atripalda (first attested to in 1086). Located in the grotto, now
incorporated in the crypt under Atripalda's church of St. Hippolystus
(S. Ippolisto), are the graves of Sabinus, bishop of Abellinum, and of
his associate, the deacon Romulus, who outlived him. We know nothing
about either other than what their late antique funerary inscriptions
tell us: these allow a rough dating of both men by noting that Sabinus
followed a bishop Timotheus (documented as being still in office in
499). Both inscriptions (Sabinus: _CIL_ X. 1194; Romulus: _ibid._, X.
1195) include verse epitaphs in elegiac distichs.
Atripalda's twelfth-century Chiesa di Sant'Ippolisto was massively
rebuilt in Renaissance neoclassical style during the years 1585 and
following. During this time Sabinus' remains were relocated to under
the main altar; in 1612 they were given a solemn recognition and then
translated back to the crypt. The latter was radically altered in
1629, at which time most of its medieval decor (about which we know
something from an early thirteenth-century description) was lost. The
collapse of the crypt's vaulting a few years later may have been an
unrecognized comment from on high on the merits of this
stylistic "renovation". For an Italian-language discussion of this
monument and its history, showing the crypt is it now is, see:
http://www.ecosert.it/content.asp?id=2&area=cartine&indice=0&punto=16
Some medieval frescoing and sculptural fragments survive in the crypt.
The latter's most recent restoration is the subject of Giuseppe Mollo,
_Specus Martyrum. Arte e Restauri_ (Viterbo: BetaGamma, 1998), whose
cover is shown here:
http://www.betagamma.it/collane/cmc/descrizioni/31cmc.htm
and for which WorldCat (record no. 50763678) gives only two North
American locations.
Bits of medieval sculpture also survive elsewhere in the church. Two
column fragments can be seen in the chapel shown here (the Cappella del
Tesoro):
http://www.irpiniaonline.net/media/galleriafotografica/provincia/foto/ip
polisto.jpg
TinyURL for thuis: http://tinyurl.com/daocr
Sabinus' funerary inscription gives his _dies natalis_ (9. February).
But we have no such information for Romulus, who is now commemorated on
the anniversary of the translation of 1612 (which latter, to judge from
Giovanni Mongelli's entry s.v. "Sabino, vescovo di Avellino, e Romolo,
diacono, santi" in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 11 [1968], cols.
558-60, was that of Sabinus alone, Romulus having apparently remained
in the crypt during the intervening years).
Best,
John Dillon
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