medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (1. October) was the feast day of, among others: Mirian III
(d. 361) and his queen, Nana (4th century), the first Christian rulers
of Georgia; Remigius of Reims (Rheims; d. ca. 533), who baptized
Clovis, king of the Franks; Romanus the Melode (d. ca. 560), famous for
his kontakia and other hymns; Bavo of Gent (Ghent; d. 659), the city
whose "gothic" cathedral, dedicated to him, houses a celebrated
altarpiece by Jan van Eyck; and the blessed Angelo of Sansepolcro (d.
1306), Augustinian Hermit and thaumaturge.
Yesterday, though, was until the revision of 1969 also the day of
remembrance in the Roman Martyrology of Severus of Orvieto, priest and
confessor (d. 303 or shortly thereafter, supposedly). S. entered the
RM in the late sixteenth century when cardinal Baronio listed him for
the Kalends of October on the basis of unspecified ancient monuments of
the church of Orvieto. Not finding documentation that might seem more
compelling, subsequent scholars of repute (e.g., Lanzoni, Delehaye,
Agostino Amore) have supposed that Baronio was here referring to one or
more of the texts in the complex BHL 7683-7685, sometimes referred to
as the Passion of this Severus. These purvey a story (dated by Lanzoni
to somewhere from the sixth to the eleventh century) that draws so much
on those of Severus of Antrodoco and Severus of Ravenna and that has so
little to offer that is unique (other than his Orvietan place of
sepulture) that it defies credibility. The usual guess is that they or
their parent were written to document the S. to whom the Orvietan abbey
of saints Severus and Martirius was dedicated, but who these dedicatees
were thought to have been at the time of that dedication is unknown.
It is not even clear that S. was celebrated medievally on 1. October;
Baronio may have picked this date as a counterpoint to that of Severus
of Antrodoco on 1. February.
The aforementioned Orvietan abbey, on the other hand, is rather better
documented. Whereas its foundation is sometimes said to go back to the
eighth century, in the form in which it exists today it really begins
in the late eleventh century, when it was a project of the famous
Matilda, countess of Tuscany (1046-1115). A wealthy institution in the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, it was Benedictine until
1221, Premonstratensian from 1226 to 1423, and Olivetan for a while
after that, though it never really rebounded from the military
destruction it suffered in the early fifteenth century. Its present
owners have restored parts of it and now run it as an hotel. Some
distance views of the abbey are here:
http://www.maserati-alfieri.co.uk/enthusiast39/bci-orvieto-055a.jpg
http://www.labadiahotel.it/la_badia1_bassa.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/a9tn7
Some detail views (black and white, from the Courtauld) follow. The
abbey's eleventh-century church was reoriented in the fourteenth
century; the first of these views shows its absidiole above a
thirteenth-century pronaos on the building's west side:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/cb14e699.html
Exterior view, porch and monastic building (13th cent.):
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/210372f1.html
Porch (13th cent.):
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/7cd4dd14.html
Ruin (13th cent.):
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/8cd00f72.html
Tower (here said to be 13th-cent.; usually said to have been begun in
the eleventh):
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/4b0803ba.html
The building that later served as the abbey's church, and that is
adorned within with later medieval frescoes, was initially the
refectory. Two views of it may be seen on this page from the hotel:
http://www.labadiahotel.it/hotel%20ing.htm
In 1282 St. Thomas Cantilupe, bp. of Hereford, died near Orvieto; his
body was taken to this abbey, where most of his flesh was interred
while his heart and bones were preserved for transport back to England:
http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/tcantilupe.html
Among the fourteenth-century frescoes is the earliest known depiction
of St. Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensians:
http://www.snc.edu/knightlife/archive/spring2000/fresco.html
Returning for a moment to the architecture, the abbey's belltower may
seem familiar to those who have been in the medieval upper city of
Orvieto. There's a very similar one of the same vintage next to S.
Andrea (thanks to a restoration in 1926, this looks much healthier than
the one at the abbey in the countryside down below):
http://tinyurl.com/cu5vw
http://www.italianstay.com/pictures_of_Italy/images/sandrea.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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