medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (8. December) is the feast day of:
Eutychian(us), pope (d. 283?). According to the not always accurate fourth-century Liberian Catalogue, E. succeeded pope St. Felix I and was bishop of Rome from 275 until 283, dying on 7. December. The _Depositio Episcoporum_ of 354 (actually earlier: 354 is the date of an associated text) says he was laid to rest on 8. December in the cemetery of Callistus, a datum repeated by the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. E.'s sepulchral inscription in Greek is still there, in the Crypt of the Popes: EYTICHIANOS + EPIS (Delehaye, at p. 639 of his ed. of HM, reports another cross at the end, not visible to me in the photograph printed in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 5, cols. 317-18). The very similar sepulchral inscription of pope St. Fabian(us) from the same part of this catacomb is reproduced on this page:
http://www.catacombe.roma.it/it/cripta.html
The _Liber Pontificalis_ adds that E. was a Tuscan and that he or his father came from Luna (today's Luni [SP] in southern Liguria). The factuality of this report is called into question by the LP's equally unconfirmed but considerably less plausible assertions that with his own hands E. buried three hundred and forty-two martyrs at different places and that he himself received the crown of martyrdom. Ado and Usuard, in their listings for today, omit E.'s reported Tuscan origin but repeat these other details.
Here's a black-and-white view of E.'s full-length portrait in the frescoes of the popes (1480-81) in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican:
http://www.tuttipapi.it/TombeMausoleiRitratti/47-Eutichiano.jpg
In the seventeenth century E.'s relics wound up in the thirteenth- to fifteenth-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta at Sarzana (SP), not all that far from Luni. Herewith a few views of that building:
http://www.rivieratoscana.com/im/ct/liguria/sarzan4.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/goeurope/1/7/V/V/light_sarzana.jpg
http://www.sarzana.com/territorio/monumenti/13.html
http://tinyurl.com/y7frgm
The cathedral of Sarzana is also home to an important painted crucifix from the year 1138:
http://tinyurl.com/uhj3j
http://tinyurl.com/y8mvfb
Best,
John Dillon
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