medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (29. January) is also the feast day of:
Aquilinus (d. ca. 1015?). A saint of this name is known to have been
venerated at Milan since the 1450s. He appears not to have any
surviving late antique or medieval acta; our earliest account of him is
in an Ambrosian breviary compiled in 1582 by the Borromeo family priest
Pietro Galesino (also the biographer of Sixtus V). The _Acta
Sanctorum_ prints a Latin Vita published in 1634 on the basis of an
Italian-language one of 1606. This brief document -- devoid of
specific dates and of other fairly unambiguous temporal references --
makes A. a native of Würzburg who became a canon and subsequently
provost of the cathedral chapter at Köln and who to avoid election as
that city's bishop then fled to Paris, which latter by his prayer and
toil he then freed from a pestilence. To avoid being elected bishop of
Paris he then, we are told, fled to Milan, where he became a canon of
San Lorenzo, upheld Catholic orthodoxy against heretics whom the Vita
styles as Arians, and was murdered by some of these in the church of
Sant'Ambrogio. He was buried in San Lorenzo, where (still
according to this seventeenth-century Vita) he is famous for his
miracles.
Reliance on the Vita's designation of A.'s opponents as Arians led early
modern hagiographers to date him variously from the late fifth and early
sixth centuries to the late eighth and early ninth. Vestiges of these
datings will still be found in recent, non-scholarly accounts of him.
The scholarly preference now is rather to identify A. with the somewhat
similarly named Wezelin, the provost of the cathedral chapter of Köln
whom Rupert of Deutz in his _Vita sancti Heriberti_ presents briefly as
yielding to Heribert election as that city's bishop. As Heribert became
archbishop of Köln in 999, A.'s activity in Milan will have taken place
early in the eleventh century. Why he is said to have died in about the
year 1015 is not clear to me; another way of putting this has him
martyred shortly before 1018. The latter year is that of the
consecration of a famous Milanese archbishop, Aribert of
Antimiano/Intimiano; perhaps there's something in the historiography of
his episcopate that makes pre-Patarene ecclesiastical violence in Milan
unthinkable during those years.
Milan's centrally planned, originally fourth-century church of San
Lorenzo Maggiore has been through several fires as well as a major
reconstruction in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Nonetheless, much of its early architecture and some vestiges of its
early mosaic decor remain. Here are a couple of exterior views, with
the structure now called the Cappella di Sant'Aquilino visible on the
left:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37408076
http://www.atolloweb.com/img/S-Lorenzo-abside.JPG
This was originally a separate building and was previously dedicated to
saint Genesius. Here's an exterior view:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37408083
The plan shown here indicates the Cappella's relationship to the
remainder of San Lorenzo (present main entrance at top):
http://ciaomilano.it/e/slorenzo.asp#
A clearer plan of the Cappella itself is here:
http://www.montessorionline.it/LavMed001/MilRomana/Aquilino.htm
An interior view, showing some of the surviving mosaics, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ddqy6
And a detail, showing a beardless Christ, is here:
http://homepage3.nifty.com/kenkitagawa2/Milano-Lorenzo-mosaic.jpg
This view shows A.'s seventeenth-century silver and crystal casket,
containing his supposedly incorrupt remains:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37703355
The portal decoration is a piece of ancient spolia.
An English-language account of the whole is here:
http://www.hellomilano.it/content/sights/lorenzo.htm
Some views of the interior of San Lorenzo proper are here:
http://tinyurl.com/93agl
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37703350
And here's a medieval fresco depicting saint Helen:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37703372
On the opposite side of San Lorenzo from those initial exterior views
is a monumental early modern facade and across a piazza from that is
the late antique Colonnade of San Lorenzo, designed as a portal for the
entire complex and utilizing second- or third-century CE columns from
what is assumed to have been a nearby building. An Italian-language
account of this structure is here:
http://www.milanoin.it/monumenti/colonne_mon.htm#
Views (street side):
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/colonne-1.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37458433
Views (piazza side):
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/sanlorenzo02_800.jpg
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/sanlorenzo03_800.jpg
http://www.milanoin.it/images/monumenti/sanlorenzo_800.jpg
That statue is of the emperor Constantine I; it's a modern copy of the
marble one now in the narthex of Rome's San Giovanni in Laterano.
Best,
John Dillon
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