medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (1. September) is the feast day of:
1. Priscus of Capua (?). Today's first less well known saint of the
Regno, P. is recorded for the today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian
Martyrology, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and in various other sources
from late antiquity through the Carolingian period. A saint of this
name was depicted in the late fifth- or early sixth-century portrait
mosaics of Campanian saints that once adorned the church thought to have
been dedicated to our P. at what is now San Prisco (CE), between Capua
and Caserta. Ado, followed by Usuard, makes him one of Christ's
disciples. Local tradition (neither unanimous nor particularly
credible) makes him a companion of St. Peter and the first bishop of
Capua. P.'s perhaps tenth-century Cassinese Vita (BHL 6927) makes him a
bishop expelled from Africa during a pro-Arian persecution of the later
fourth century. According to this account, P. settled at Capua,
destroyed the temple of Diana on the site of the later Sant'Angelo in
Formis, and was martyred for his pains.
The even more legendary eleventh- or twelfth-century _Passio sancti
Castrensis_ (BHL 1644) includes P. among the dozen bishops who fled
Vandal persecution in Africa and settled down in various parts of
Campania. Until its latest revision (2001), the RM distinguished the P.
of the (ps.-)HM from the P. of this group, entering both under today's
date (another of these twelve, St. Adiutor, had in ninth-century Naples
been celebrated on this day along with P.). Real proof of P.'s
episcopal dignity is lacking. Domenico Ambrasi, s.v. "Prisco di Capua,
santo, martire", in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 10 (1968), cols.
1114-16, suggests that he may have been a soldier or an imperial
functionary of some sort. Delehaye's view (_Comm. perpet. in Mart.
Hieron._, ad loc.) was that the church at today's San Prisco had been
dedicated to Priscus of Nocera (16. September) and that the (ps.-)HM's
entry for our P. was an error deriving from a false assumption about the
church's dedicatee.
The aforementioned church had become ruinous when it was massively
rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Now known as the Chiesa arcipretale
di San Prisco, it has a facade and belltower said to have been designed
under the direction of the distinguished architect Luigi Vanvitelli (d.
1173). An exterior view is here:
http://utenti.quipo.it/casertaoltrelareggia/Schede/2000_2001/Scheda_84.htm
and an illustrated page on its late antique Cappella di Santa Matrona (a
survivor, with noteworthy mosaics, from the old church) is here:
http://www.sanprisco.net/archeologia/sacello/sacello.htm
2. Constantius of Aquinum (d. during the years 561-73). Today's second
less well known saint of the Regno (or the third if Adiutor is still
celebrated somewhere today; at Cava de' Tirreni he's celebrated on 15.
May), was a bishop of today's Aquino (FR) in southern Lazio, the
birthplace of the Roman satirist Juvenal and later the seat of the
county into whose comital family St. Thomas Aquinas was born. C. is
mentioned twice by Gregory the Great (_Dial._ 2. 16; 3. 8): in the
second of these passages he is said to have foretold that he would have
but two successors in his see, a prophecy soon effectuated -- according
to Greg -- by a Lombard sack followed by pestilence. His legendary Vita
(ca. 1125) by the Cassinese scholar and forger Peter the Deacon is lost.
C. is Aquino's patron saint and a co-dedicatee of its present Basilica
Cattedrale San Tommaso [d'Aquino] e San Costanzo, completed in 1959 (the
medieval cathedral replaced in the eighteenth century had been dedicated
to St. Peter; its immediate successor, destroyed in 1944, was dedicated
to C. alone).
In the absence of any available view of a medieval building or building
part dedicated to C., herewith two views of Aquino's twelfth-century
church of Santa Maria della Libera:
http://www.nuovipanorami.it/italia/lazio/aquino.html
Best,
John Dillon
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