medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (5. December) is also the feast day of:
Pelinus (d. 4th cent., supposedly). Today's less well known saint from
the Regno is said in his probably 11th-century Vita (BHL 6620;
variously described as a Vita, as a Passio, and as a Vita et Passio) to
have been a Greek-speaking monk from Dyrrachium (today's Durres in
Albania; in Italian, Durazzo) who together with his Syrian companions
Gorgonius and Sebastius and his disciple Cyprius, crossed the Adriatic
in flight from Julianic persecution and arrived at Brundisium (today's
Brindisi). Here he is said to have been welcomed by bishop Aproculus,
who made him archdeacon of the cathedral and whom he succeeded as bishop
some years later, the now elderly Aproculus having accompanied P. to
Rome to insure his consecration by pope Liberius. P. then returned to
Brundisium and took up his office. When ordered by civil authorities to
sacrifice at the temple of Jupiter he had only to set foot on the lintel
and an earthquake brought down the whole structure (not injuring P.,
apparently). At Julian's command the evil tribune Maximus had P. and
his companions arrested and brought to Rome where they were paraded
prior to being executed. P. was handed over to the judge Cornicularius w
ho brought him to Corfinium, the city of the Paeligni, and there had him
killed on a 5. December variously estimated as being either in 361
or 362. Gorgonius and Sebastius were executed on the following day but
Cyprius was spared on account of his youth. Returning to Brundisium he
succeeded P. as its bishop.
Apart from Julian (reigned 361-63) and Liberius, none of these people
is otherwise attested, not even the saintly Aproculus. Indeed,
although Pelinus and Cyprius now figure in Brindisi's _series
episcoporum_, their names are strikingly absent from the indices of the
_Codice diplomatico Brindisino_; other medieval evidence for P.'s
having had a cult there is apparently also lacking. The archdiocesan
view in Brindisi-Ostuni is that these events really transpired in the
reign of Constans II (641-68) and that P.'s Vita -- which survives in an
eleventh- or very early twelfth-century passionary/legendary (Vat. lat.
1197) seemingly of south central Italian origin*** -- is based on a
seventh-century account by a contemporary of these events. See its
account reachable from
http://www.brindisiweb.com/arcidiocesi/santi1.htm
, where it is also implied that P. continues to be celebrated there on
5. December (he is absent from the December listings of the online
Italian version of the new Roman Martyrology).
To twentieth-century Bollandists, on the other hand, as well as to the
great historian of the early dioceses of Italy, Francesco Lanzoni, the
story of Pelinus et al. is a fiction from beginning to end, created in
the diocese of Valva in the eleventh century in connection with P.'s
cult at Corfinium (medievally, Castrum de Pentoma, later [until 1928]
Pentima), where his cult is said to have been attested since the ninth
century. A concatenation of suspicious elements, it is devoid of any
verifiable early connection with Brindisi and may even (depending on its
real date) have been written in connection with abbot-bishop
Transmundus' erection, starting in 1075, of the cathedral complex of St.
Pelinus at today's Corfinio (AQ). It would certainly have been an
extraordinary coincidence for a bishop of far-away Brundisium to have
borne this unusual name so suggestive of that of the people inhabiting
the area of P.'s known cult, the P(a)eligni.
Consecrated in 1124 as one of the cathedrals of Valva (the other is San
Panfilo at Sulmona) and still a co-cathedral of the modern diocese of
Sulmona-Valva, San Pelino with its adjacent mausoleum of pope saint
Alexander is a major architectural monument in the Paelignian basin.
An English-language account is here:
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2001_11/0111_a.htm
One in French is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ayyre
And a more detailed and better illustrated one in Italian is here:
http://tinyurl.com/d6qyk
The diocesan account is also worth reading (though its dates for the ms.
of the Vita are way off). Go here:
http://www.diocesisulmona-valva.it/
and click on the view of the Concattedrale di S. Pelino.
The carving around the front entrance is certainly noteworthy:
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2001_11/images/valva3.jpg
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/7vnjz
Two views of the rear of the mausoleum and of adjacent parts of the
cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/74hts
http://tinyurl.com/dofdk
Rear views of the cathedral, showing thirteenth-century construction:
http://tinyurl.com/dx2gm
http://tinyurl.com/a2lg4
Rear apse details:
http://tinyurl.com/8pb72
http://tinyurl.com/dq9jz
Further exterior details are here:
http://tinyurl.com/e47m6
This relief of the Madonna with Child, found during restoration of the
cathedral, may have moved around a bit. It is said to be affixed either
to the wall of the left apse or to the backside of the adjacent belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/9wo6r
The interior of the cathedral offers an impressive ambo from the period
1168-1188:
http://tinyurl.com/7r54n
The "gothic" portal of Sulmona's cathedral (the latter also a project of
abbot-bishop Transmundus) bears statuary niches housing images of
Panfilo (its dedicatee) and of Pelino:
http://tinyurl.com/9v3y9
For more architectural views and descriptions from the same region, see:
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/indice.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
*** For the date and probable origin of this manuscript, which seems to
have belonged to the chapter library of San Pelino, see now Pasquale
Orsini, "Cultura grafica tra l’XI e il XIII secolo a Sulmona," in Ezio
Mattiocco, ed., _Scripta et scripturae. Contributi per la storia di
Sulmona_ (Lanciano: Editrice itinerari, 2002), pp. 143-178, or the
online version here:
http://www.let.unicas.it/links/didattica/palma/testi/orsini1.htm
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