medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (18. September) was the feast day of:
Eustorgius I, bp. of Milan (d. ca. 350). According to the testimony of
Athanasius the Great, E. was a vigorous opponent of Arianism. His cult
seems to have begun very shortly after his death; Ambrose already
speaks of him as a confessor. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology
gives today as the date of his laying to rest. E.'s Vita (BHL 2776,
2777; many versions) is no earlier than the eleventh century, probably
of the twelfth, and quite unreliable. A late sixth- or early
seventh-century funerary inscription in verse (_CIL_, vol. 5.2, p. 621,
no. 9; from Fontana's sylloge in lieu of the lost original) relates a
miracle of his, indicating that by this time E. was already quite
legendary: his sepulchre was originally constructed for an emperor whose
oxen could not move it but he (E.) was able to draw where he wished with
the aid of two small heifers.
E.'s major monument is Milan's church of Sant'Eustorgio. Parts of the
present building overlie the remains of a late antique basilican church,
presumably the predecessor church of the same dedication cited in the
_Versum de Mediolano civitate_ (_MGH Poetae_, I, pp. 24-26), an early
eighth-century poem in praise of the city of Milan. Seen here in an
aerial view:
http://tinyurl.com/9x8jz
, Sant'Eustorgio's central structure gets older as one moves from front
to back. Today's facade is a nineteenth-century essay in Lombard
Romanesque, the present nave (a replacement for the one badly damaged in
Friedrich Barbarossa's sack of 1162) was begun in the 1190s but is
mostly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the apse is of
the eleventh century. The belltower is from the end of the thirteenth
century. An illustrated English-language overview is here:
http://www.discountmilano.com/tour/Secoli/SantEustorgio/
Some exterior views, followed by three of the interior:
Facade:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/images/seustor.jpg
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/eustorgio02_800.jpg
Corner view:
http://www.milano24ore.de/Bilder/Mailand/Kirchen/158_5870.jpg
Lateral view:
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/eustorgio01_800.jpg
Apse and belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/bopxq
Rear view:
http://tinyurl.com/8mo4s
Page of details (mostly facade and belltower):
http://tinyurl.com/a4l9a
Nave:
http://tinyurl.com/bas5x
Aisle:
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/eustorgiocripta_800.jpg
Remains of the late antique church beneath the apse:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/images/sottocoro.jpg
A sixteenth-century plan of the church (thus including its Renaissance
chapels) is here:
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/blh9s
And a plan with clickable links is reachable from this page by clicking
on "IL MUSEO" at left and by then scrolling down in the frame that will
open up:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/firstparrocchia.htm
Item no. 15 on this plan is a third-century CE Roman sarcophagus.
Presumably, this is E.'s sepulchre referred to in his early medieval
funerary inscription mentioned above. The fourth column on the right
hand side of the nave bears a relief of E. and his heifers moving the
sarcophagus (apparently with both angelic and human assistance); two
excellent photographs of this will be found in Hans Hofmann, _Die
Heiligen Drei Könige_ (Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid, 1975; Rheinisches
Archiv, no. 94), pp. 380-81. Views of the sarcophagus are here:
http://tinyurl.com/7uujw
http://tinyurl.com/akrch
The eighteenth-century inscription visible in the second of these views
reads, SEPULCRUM TRIUM MAGORUM ('Tomb of the Three Magi'). In 1158
these three are said to have been found at Milan in a church outside the
walls (as Sant'Eustorgio was) and, as is well known, in 1164 (when Milan
was largely a very recent ruin) Friedrich Barbarossa had their relics
transported from Sant'Eustorgio to Köln, where they are today. Evidence
that they were venerated in Milan before 1158 is either dubious or
nonexistent and this in turn has led Hofmann (op. cit., pp. 73-95; the
basic study of this matter) to conclude that Eustorgius' _Vita_, which
ascribes to E. the translation of these three from Constantinople to
Milan and whose oldest known witness is dated to the end of the twelfth
century, was concocted in or shortly after 1158 in order to document the
presence in Milan of these newly discovered relics.
In the early fourteenth century some Milanese claimed that the Three
Magi were still in Sant'Eustorgio. Epiphany celebrations took place in
and in front of the church (for the festival of 1336, see the account in
Richard Trexler, _The Journey of the Magi_ [Princeton University Press,
1997], pp. 88-89) and in 1347 a confraternity of the Three Magi/Kings
erected the altar shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/a8xnd
A more impressive and only slightly earlier (1335-39) sculptural
monument in Sant'Eustorgio is the tomb of Peter Martyr (d. 1252) created
by Giovanni di Balduccio and now located in the church's Portinari Chapel:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/images/arcaportinari.jpg
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/images/Arca%20di%20S.%20Pietro.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/bclkm
A Thais page with expandable views of details from this monument:
http://www.thais.it/scultura/giovbald.htm
Another view of Temperance (one of the tomb's caryatids):
http://tinyurl.com/9glgo
Best,
John Dillon
PS: Views of the church's new altar and of its fifteenth-century marble
altarpiece rising up behind it:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/images/nuovoaltare.jpg
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/images/altare.jpg
PPS: Welcome back, Phyllis!
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