medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (12. February) is also the feast day of:
Gemulus (early 11th cent.?), cephalophore. By decree of the Sacred
Congregation of the Rites in 1960, today is G.'s feast day but only so
at Ganna, a locality of today's Valganna (VA), and Bosto, a section of
Varese (VA), both in Lombardy.
According to his legend, G. (also Gemmulus, Hiemulus; in Italian,
Gemolo, Gemmolo, Hiemolo) accompanied his uncle, a bishop from across
the Alps, on a journey to Rome. One night, bandits stole the bishop's
palfrey. G. and an unnamed companion pursued the bandits and were
captured by them. When G. was asked by one of his captors whether he
would give up his life for Christ, he answered that he would do so
willingly. The bandit then decapitated G., who put his head back on
his neck, mounted a horse, and rode back to to his uncle's party, where
he would allow no one other than his uncle to help him dismount. The
uncle/bishop buried G. right there and asked local shepherds to look
after him. Miracles occurred overnight and before departing the bishop
erected a church over the grave.
That, in essence, is the foundation legend of the monastery at Ganna,
which occupied a site on a road between several Alpine passes and Milan
and which shortly before November 1095 had come to exist around a
church dedicated to G. In or about 1154 Ganna became a priory of the
Cistercian abbey of Fruttuaria; in 1477 it was made commendatory and in
1566 its monastic function ceased altogether. Its present church dates
from 1100-1125 and the adjacent belltower is said to be from 1175.
Parts of its now pentagonal cloister are late medieval. A few views,
etc. follow:
http://www.ilvaresotto.it/inglese/Citta/GannaAbbazia.htm
http://www.provincia.va.it/preziosita/ukvarese/temi/abbazie/gemolo.htm
http://www.iogirovagando.net/laveddasca_vgpag4.htm
G.'s unnamed companion was later declared to have been named Himerius
(Italian: Imerio), to have been mortally wounded in the same encounter
with the bandits, and to have been laid to rest in a sarcophagus at a
church dedicated to St. Michael near Varese. In 1417 he began to be
celebrated at Bosto, where his originally eleventh-century church of
Sant'Imerio possesses the carved sarcophagus shown here (carvings said
to be of the late thirteenth century):
http://www.varesegallery.com/chiese/simerio.htm
In 1960 the Sacred Congregation of the Rites granted him a feast (at
Bosco and Ganna only) on 4. February.
For two versions of G.'s legend, see Achille Ratti (later, Pius
XI), "Bolla arcivescovile milanese a Moncalieri ed una leggenda inedita
di S. Gemolo di Ganna", _Archivio Storico Lombardo_, ser. III, vol. 15
[Anno XXVIII] (1901), 5-36.
Best,
John Dillon
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