medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (26. May) is the feast day of:
Pardus (7th cent., perhaps). Today's less well known saint from the
Regno, the patron of Larino (CB) in Molise, is the subject of a brief
_Vita et Translatio_ written by one Radoin, deacon of Larino, probably
in the tenth or early eleventh century, and edited in the _Acta
Sanctorum_ under today's date (BHL 6465). Two other early modern
editions deriving from the same textual source, the _sanctorale_ of the
chapter library at Bovino (FG) in Apulia, show a text so editorially
altered that they received their own BHL number (6464). This text was
already mutilated when the three editions in question were made;
however, the missing portion (the bulk of the conclusion) has since
been recovered from extensive notes on the Bovino manuscript made in
1534 by the humanist scholar G. P. Ferretti and surviving among his
autograph manuscripts in the Vatican.
Radoin can be dated by his reference to the Hungarian sack of Larino in
947 and by his Beneventan Lombard outlook, which seems to indicate
composition prior to the eleventh-century Norman conquest of the rump
principality of Benevento (less the city itself, which opted for papal
rule instead). According to him, P. was a Greek bishop from the
Peloponnese who, evicted by heretics from his diocese, retired to Rome,
declined on account of age and ill health to return when his repentant
flock asked him to, and instead received papal permission to settle in
Apulia. Traveling thither with a great company of admirers, he chose to
live in Lucera and spent his last few years there as a hermit. Whereas
Radoin _could_ be following local tradition in dating P.'s death to a
time not long before Constans II's destruction of Lucera (in 663), it is
equally possible that that time was chosen as a prelude to the
complicated tangle of translations between Lucera, Lesina, and Larino
which he next narrates. In this tale of local rivalries, the people of
Lesina (settled from Lucera) appropriate the relics of Larino's martyrs
Firmian and Primian (15. and 16. May; Primian is the patron saint of Lesin
a [FG]) and the people of Larino then discover P.'s relics in ruined
Lucera and take them in compensation. Radoin's biographical details of
P. seem ideally suited to that context: he is a saint of ecclesiastical
dignity, suitably foreign (as so many early medieval south Italian
patron saints were alleged to be), residing in Lucera but never bishop
_of_ Lucera and so on no account to be handed over to the rival Lesinesi.
Larino's cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and to P.
A co-cathedral of today's diocese of Termoli-Larino, it is an
architectural monument of at least regional distinction. See:
http://www.pagus.it/progetto/comuni/larino/cattedrale/
http://tinyurl.com/dhgph
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/html/luoghi/chiese/cattedrale.htm
http://www.globalgeografia.com/album/italia/molise/larino.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/78rmo
In the index here, that last is at "cattedrale1.jpg":
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/
Detail (main portal):
http://www.pagus.it/progetto/comuni/larino/cattedrale/img/descriz3.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/axusk
In the index here, that last is at "cattedrale2.jpg":
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/
Detail (tympanum):
http://tinyurl.com/pfax4
Note the Y-shaped cross.
Other detail views are available at:
http://tinyurl.com/pmc6l
and at this directory:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/
Going to the directory here:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/immagini/vecchie01/
and clicking on:
"larino09.jpg"
note the statue in the niche over the rose window. This is said to be
a representation of P.
The building was severely damaged by an earthquake on 4. November 2002
(an aftershock of the southern Molise/Capitanata earthquake of 31.
October of that year). For Radoin's _Vita et Translatio_ see now F.
Dolbeau, "Le legendier de la cathedrale de Bovino," _Analecta
Bollandiana_ 96 (1978), 125-52, esp. pp. 126-29, 132, 144-45.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
**********************************************************************
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
|