medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (15. January) was also the feast day of:
Ephysius of Cagliari (d. ca. 303, supposedly). E., whose name is also
spelled 'Ephysus', 'Ephisius', 'E(u)visius', and 'Efisius' and who in
Italian is 'Efisio', is a Sardinian martyr of uncertain date. He is
first attested to in the late eleventh century, when the Latin monks
from the continental mainland were taking over what had previously been
the island's very provincial Byzantine church. This attestation takes
two forms: a Latin-language Passio that exists in several versions and a
church at today's Nora (CA) built over a hypogeum containing a loculus
traditionally said to have been his.
The earliest surviving version of E.'s Passio is in a twelfth-century
codex (Vat. lat. 6453); the text itself, which is either of the late
eleventh or very early twelfth century, was published in _Analecta
Bollandia_ 3 (1884), pp. 362-77. It and its offshoots are famously an
adaptation of the Greek second Bios of Procopius, possibly through a
lost Latin translation composed on the Italian mainland (generally
supposed to have been south Italian in origin, though why it might not
instead have been Roman escapes me). In it E. is a soldier from
Jerusalem whom Diocletian places at the head of his army and sends to
Italy to harrass the Christians. There a voice from heaven shows him a
cross, promises him through its power victory over all his enemies, and
proclaims that he will become a martyr. The now Christian E. proceeds
to Gaeta, has a goldsmith make him a cross adorned with gold and silver,
and then, displaying this as a visible sign and standard (_signum_),
defeats in battle a host of Saracens anachronistically present in
Diocletian's Italy. In what is clearly a doublet of this scene for a
Sardinian audience, E. then proceeds to Arborea (one of the Sardinian
judicates) and with the aid of a heaven-sent messenger dressed as an
imperial eunuch and bearing a special weapon (a two-pointed _romphea_
with a cross above) wins a victory over local barbarians who are
probably to be identified with the Sardinian _barbaricini_ known to us
and to E.'s hagiographer from a mention in the correspondence of Gregory
the Great. These feats accomplished, E. goes on to Cagliari, where he
is arrested as a Christian, incarcerated, tried, and finally taken to
Nora and there decapitated.
E.'s church at Nora is first attested in 1089, when it appears in a list
of properties given by the judge of Cagliari to the Victorines of
Marseille (a later report says that the Victorines found it empty; this
is the basis for the widely accepted view that in the year 1088 E.'s
relics were translated to Pisa, whose special devotion to E. is attested
as early as 1126). The church, erected in what had been a late antique
cemetery, is an eleventh-century "romanesque" structure that has since
been greatly modified. In the later Middle Ages it was one of
Sardinia's major pilgrimage destinations. An exterior view of it is
here (could those be pilgrims in the foreground?):
http://www.paladix.cz/gallery.php?ido=16916
And there is a good discussion of it, with photographs and plans, in
Pier Giorgio Spanu, Martyria Sardiniae. _I santuari dei martiri sardi_
(Oristano: S'Alvure, 2000), 61-81.
Other medieval or possibly medieval dedications to E. are reported from
the judicate of Cagliari: a church at Quartucciu (CA) given to the
Victorines of Marseille in 1119 (still in their possession in 1218) and
the church of undated origin in Cagliari's Stampace quarter built over a
subterranean chamber probably used in Roman times as a jail and now
exhibited as E.'s prison. An Italian-language account of the latter is
here:
http://tinyurl.com/cgnvy
And views of it (including one of the column to which E. is supposed to
have been bound) are here:
http://www.fotodisardegna.it/cagliari/carcere/carcere.htm
E.'s cult received a major boost in the early seventeenth century during
Cagliari's great promotion of its _corpi santi_. E. is also credited
with having brought an end to a plague that ravaged Cagliari from 1652
to 1656; since then he has been Cagliari's patron saint. In 1793 he was
credited with having defeated an attempted French invasion and so became
the patron saint of all Sardinia.
In Pisa, E.'s major monument are the remains of the Camposanto frescoes
depicting scenes from his Passio painted by Spinello Aretino in 1391-92.
The best known of these is an interpretation of the celestial
messenger's showing E. the _romphea_; here the cross has moved from that
weapon (in the label for this view ineptly called a flag) to the angel's
vestment:
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=27064
The small reproduction here shows more of the composition, with the
scene with the angel on the left and a battle on the right:
http://www2.alfea.it/RESOURCES/DOC/cca-001/CCA001_18.jpg
Another panel from these frescoes was in the news in 2003, as restorers
announced the successful use of a bacterium to remove glue that had
covered it since it was removed from the wall of the Camposanto in the
1950s:
http://tinyurl.com/fh1n
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s886276.htm
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|