medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, December 12, 2005, at 7:13 pm, Phyllis wrote:
> Today (13. December) is the feast day of:
> Lucy (Lucia) (d. c. 304)
Like Agatha up the road in Catania, Lucy was venerated in Syracuse not
only in late antiquity but right through the city's period of Muslim
rule (878-1088). In late 1039 and early 1040, towards the end of his
ephemeral reconquest of eastern Sicily, the East Roman general George
Maniakes had the relics of both saints transported to Constantinople.
In the early twelfth century French knights from Norman-ruled Sicily
returned Agatha to Catania (less a breast that got left en route at
Gallipoli [LE] but is now in the church of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria
at Galatina [LE]). But Lucy, or at least what Maniakes had been told
was Lucy (she is also said to have been translated to the duchy of
Benevento in the eighth century and to have wound up at Metz in the
tenth***), remained in Constantinople until the Frankish conquest of
1204, during whose aftermath the Venetian contingent had her shipped to
Venice. Today she reposes in Venice's San Geremia:
http://www.basilicasantalucia.it/le_reliquie_di_santa_lucia.htm
The archdiocese of Syracuse had her on loan from Venice for the period
15. to 22. December 2004. A photograph gallery of this temporary
translation is here:
http://tinyurl.com/baehp
Syracuse's basilica of Santa Lucia alla Badia is a twelfth-century
church replacing a Byzantine predecessor said to have gone back to the
sixth century. Shown here,
http://www.ibmsnet.it/siracusa/chlucia.gif
it is a three-aisled, three-apsed basilica that underwent substantial
reconstruction in the seventeenth century (including the addition of
the portico so prominent in the photograph). The apses and the three
lower floors of the belltower are holdovers from its Norman-period form.
A side view shows in the foreground the octagonal, seventeenth century
baptistery known as the Chapel of St. Lucy:
http://www.skm-italia.it/img/Sepolcro_Santa_Lucia.gif
or
http://tinyurl.com/bn6qb
This is built over what was traditionally thought to have been the site
of L.'s ancient tomb and displays what is said to have been her loculus:
http://tinyurl.com/d88rl
And now for something completely different: the originally twelfth-
century church of Santa Lucia at Sos del Rey Católico (Zaragoza):
http://www.arquivoltas.com/5-Zaragoza/990499-SosStaLucia.htm
apse view:
http://www.aragonromanico.com/cincovillas/sos7a.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
*** It would be remiss not to observe that, according to Sigebert of
Gembloux' Life of bishop Dietrich of Metz, the remains alleged to have
been L.'s that that worthy had translated to his own diocese in 970 had
been reposing at Corfinium, i.e. today's Corfinio (AQ), now better
known for its veneration of the recently commemorated saint Pelinus
(see "saints of the day", 5. December).
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