medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (15. February) is also the feast day of:
Severus of Interocrium (or of Antrodoco; 4th or 5th cent.?). Today's
less well known saint of the Regno, a priest of the church of Mary the
Mother of God at Interocrium (also Interocrea; today's Antrodoco [RI] in
Lazio), is the subject of Gregory the Great, _Dialogues_ 1. 12. 1-3.
According to Gregory, S. (whom we are led to believe lived rather well
before Greg's own time) was pruning his vines when a dying sinner's
messengers arrived and asked him to hasten to confess the man before he
died. Preferring instead to finish the job at hand (which was near
completion), S. sent the messengers on ahead, saying that he would
follow shortly. He did, but when he caught up with the messengers they
informed him that the man was now already dead. The anguished S. rushed
to the man's bedside, sobbing and blaming himself for allowing him to
die unconfessed. Whereupon the man returned to life and informed S.
that he had been on his way to Hell when the Lord ordered his return
because Severus was crying. S. then helped him make his confession and
perform penance for seven days, after which the man then died in peace.
Gregory's story of S. is recast in the legend of Severus of Orvieto (BHL
7683-7685) but it is not clear whether S. himself was venerated as a
saint in the Middle Ages. Baronius entered him in the RM for this date,
claiming (incorrectly) that he had already appeared in the Martyrology
of Ado. Tourist literature sometimes says that the church of Santa
Maria extra moenia outside of Antrodoco was originally dedicated to S.,
only receiving its present dedication in 1051. As the latter is an
originally eleventh- or twelfth-century church whose predecessors on or
near the site (if any) are not known, such claims of a previous
dedication should be treated with scepticism.
Exterior views of this church are here:
http://tinyurl.com/aaohq
http://www.provinciarieti.it/foto/antrodoco_s_maria_extramoenia.jpg
That fourteenth-century portal was added in a 1950 restoration; its
provenance is unknown. An earlier portal from this church was
transferred to Antrodoco's Santa Maria Assunta when the latter was being
rebuilt after the earthquake of 1703.
A relief on the church's exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/cjlzl
An illustrated, Italian-language account, also showing the adjacent
hexagonal baptistery of San Giovanni Battista (said to be originally
ninth-cent., with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century frescoes), is here:
http://tinyurl.com/by4fs
Other views of the baptistery and of the interior of the church are here:
http://www.caiantrodoco.it/foto/cartoline/santa%20maria.jpg
http://www.provinciarieti.it/foto/antrodoco_interno_s_maria.jpg
And here's a color close-up of the Marriage of Catherine of Alexandria
seen on the right in the previous view:
http://www.microlanitalia.com/exe/turismoimg.htm?t=4&k1=6&k2=1
Best,
John Dillon
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