medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (25. September) is the feast day of:
Aurelia and Neomisia (Neomasia), virgins (9th century, perhaps).
According to their Passion and Translation to Anagni (BHL 817m), today's
less well known former saints of the Regno were sisters from somewhere
in Asia Minor who made a pilgrimage first to the holy places in
Palestine and then to major shrines in the West. Traveling south from
Rome on the Via Latina, they were captured by Muslims who had besieged
Capua and were beaten with rods to within an inch of their lives. A
providential thunderstorm allowing them to escape, they made their way
to what seems to have been today's Macerata (CE) in Campania. Here they
settled down and died in peace on 25. September of some unknown year.
Venerated by inhabitants of the area, A. and N. were interred in a local
oratory. During the papacy of Leo IX (1049-54) they were translated to
the cathedral of Anagni (FR) in southern Lazio, where they have been
ever since.
A. & N.'s Passion and Translation, an obviously legendary document from
which the Bollandists elected to print in the _Acta Sanctorum_ only
brief extracts. It survives in a single early fourteenth-century
manuscript (BAV, Chigianus C. VIII. 235) and forms the basis for these
saints' Office at Anagni. Though there _was_ a destructive Muslim
assault on (Old) Capua (today's Santa Maria Capua Vetere) in 841, the
Bollandists (BHL Suppl. 2 [1986], p. 106) hesitantly date A. and N. to
"saec. XI (?)". The eleventh century certainly seems to be the time
when their cult first comes to light in our surviving records. When
Anagni's present cathedral was first built in the late eleventh and very
early twelfth centuries, A. and N.'s relics were placed alongside those
of St. Secundina under an altar dedicated to her in the crypt of St.
Magnus (the cathedral's dedicatee). In this not very good view of a
fresco in that crypt, they are shown flanking the cathedral's builder,
bishop Peter of Salerno (d. 1105; St. Peter of Anagni or de Principibus):
http://www.sestoacuto.it/biblio/cavallini/img/opere/anagni1.jpg
An Italian-language introduction to the Cattedrale di San Magno, with
exterior views, is here:
http://www.comune.anagni.fr.it/a-cath.html
Many more views (incl. a couple of the statue of Boniface VIII) are here:
http://www.photoroma.com/archivio.php?City=a&Search=*&Page=1
continued on p. 2 with shots of the belltower and of the redesigned
"Gothic" nave:
http://www.photoroma.com/archivio.php?City=a&Page=2&Search=*
Further views are here (expandable .jpgs):
http://www.menteantica.it/frmanagni.htm
The crypt itself is a major monument, thanks to its extensively
preserved medieval frescoes. The cosmatesque pavement, too, is not too
shabby.
Various views of these frescoes are here:
http://web.tiscali.it/albertopulcini/cripta/pag_arca.html
and here, also including a marble throne in the upper church, (the three
little .jpgs at right are expandable):
http://www.sapere.it/tca/MainApp?srvc=vr&url=/1/306_1
and here:
http://news2000.libero.it/fotogallery/fg1250/pg1.html
http://www.santamelania.it/arte_fede/anagni/apoc_anagn.htm
http://www.30giorni.it/it/articolo.asp?id=206
http://www.teologia.it/cn18.html
Plus these older black-and-whites from the Courtauld Institute of Art
(where, shades of Dan Quayle, the singular of "frescoes" is "frescoe"):
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/search/results.html?ixsid=ayBsNjAGRWW&qs=Anagni
These frescoes, executed in stages during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, are the subject of at least three recent scholarly books:
Gioacchino Giammaria, ed., _Un universo di simboli. Gli affreschi della
cripta nella cattedrale di Anagni_ (Roma: Viella, 2001). See:
http://www.viella.it/Edizioni/LibriViellaArte/LibriViellaArte_01.htm
Cappelletti, Lorenzo, _Gli affreschi della cripta anagnina. Iconologia_,
Miscellanea historiae pontificiae; v. 65 (Roma: Editrice Pontificia
Universita' Gregoriana, 2002). See (at bottom):
http://www.itabc.cnr.it/f_progetti_bianchi.htm
also:
http://www.tuttonet.com/ibs/libri_articolo.asp/isbn_8876529101
Alessandro Bianchi, ed., _Il restauro della Cripta di Anagni_ (Roma:
Istituto Centrale per il Restauro -- Artemide Edizioni, 2003; already
out of print at the publisher's). See:
http://www.icr.beniculturali.it/Pubblicazioni/pubblicazioni6.htm
Returning to A. and N., there are good black-and-white photographs of
four depictions of them in these frescoes in Vincenzo Fenicchia's entry
"Aurelia e Neomisia, vergini, sante" in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_,
vol. 2, cols. 601-06. A. and N.'s listing for today in the RM seems to
have been eliminated in the latter's most recent revision (2001).
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
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