medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (13. June) is also the feast day of:
Cetheus, also known as Peregrinus (d. ca. 600, supposedly). According
to his Passio (BHL 1730 in different versions; the text in the _Acta
Sanctorum_ is a composite), C. was bishop of Amiternum in what is now
Abruzzo during the Lombard takeover. He defended a Lombard accused of
having attempted to betray the town to the Romans, was judged
complicitous by another Lombard who had seized power, and was executed
by being drowned in the river Pescara. His body, the stone with which
he had been drowned still tied to his neck, washed up at what in the
texts would appear to be Zadar, across the Adriatic in Croatia, but
which is more likely to have been Aternum, the Roman-period predecessor
of today's city of Pescara (PE) at the mouth of the homonymous river.
Here the local bishop recognized from C.'s angelic countenance that he
was a martyr, instuted a cult in his honor, and -- since C.'s real name
was unknown --, called him Peregrinus ('Foreigner').
C. (in Italian, Cetteo) is Pescara's patron saint. Its
twentienth-century cathedral (consecrated in 1933) is dedicated to him
and in 1977 relics of C. were translated here from Chieti (CH), the
capital of the province to which the southern part of Pescara once
belonged.
In or prior to 1263 the Passio's central story was attached to the cult
of a St. Peregrinus said to have come from Syria. This P. was the
dedicatee of an oratory at his reputed resting place on the grounds of
the Benedictine abbey of Bominaco (formerly Momenaco) not far from
L'Aquila (AQ) in the interior of Abruzzo and, perhaps not coincidentally
for the present contents of the Passio, not far from where Roman-period
Amiternum had been. In that year its abbot, Theodinus, rebuilt the
oratory and presumably commissioned the first of the series of later
thirteenth-century frescoes for which it is now famous; these include
scenes from C.'s/P.'s Passio. The abbey itself was destroyed in the
early fifteenth century. Its principal remains are the oratory of San
Pellegrino and the church of Santa Maria Assunta. A brief sketch in
English is here (the last two views are of the oratory):
http://abruzzo2000.com/abruzzo/laquila/bominaco.htm
The Abruzzo-Romanico site has a good page, with expandable views, on
these two buildings:
http://tinyurl.com/l3lmr
Four pages of expandable views of details from the oratory, mostly of
the recent restored frescoes, are here:
http://tinyurl.com/hsvms
And a good Italian-language account of the oratory and its frescoes,
along with a few non-expandable architectural views, is here:
http://www.comune.caporciano.aq.it/notiziestoriche/sanpellegrino.htm
Another Italian-language account, with different emphases, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/lxfce
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, much 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
|