medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (18. February) is the feast day of:
1) Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople (d. 806). T. belonged to a prominent family of Constantinople. His father had been city prefect and he himself is attested as imperial protoasecretis in 780. He was not in Holy Orders when in December 784 he was elected patriarch. The empress Irene's chief instrument in the restoration of the icons, F. secured pope Hadrian I's acceptance of his uncanonical elevation and proceeded to manage the Second Council of Niceaa (787), at which iconoclasm was condemned.
For the remainder of his pontificate T. attempted to avoid domination both by rigorists at the Stoudion monastery and by the emperor Constantine VI, whose bigamous second marriage T. declined to solemnize but nonetheless managed to countenance. His Bios by his secretary Ignatius (BHG 1698) makes him out to have been holy and much put upon. Personally ascetic, he was venerated as a saint after his death.
Medieval images certainly of this T. seem not to exist on the free Web. So, for context, here's a portrait of the empress Irene (deposed, 802):
http://tinyurl.com/2yp5hm
and a solidus with portraits of Constantine VI (deposed, 797) and Irene:
http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/gandinga/id/c6/c6003.jpg
and a plan and a series of views of the remains of the originally fifth-century church of St. John the Forerunner in the Stoudion are at no. 15 here:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/html/Byzantine/index.htm
2) John of Fiesole (Blessed; d. 1455). J., whose name in the world was a Tuscan equivalent of Guy son of Peter, was born at today's Vicchio (FI) in the Mugello. He entered the Dominican order at Fiesole while yet a boy and completed his novitiate at Cortona. In his early twenties G. (as he then was) made his monastic profession at Florence, taking the name John. Trained as a painter, he worked at Fiesole, Florence, and Rome. Despite papal patronage he is said to have been personally very humble. J. died at the Dominican convent in Rome and was buried there in his order's church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. He is known popularly as Fra Angelico or, after his beatification in 1982, as Beato Angelico.
Here are two views of J.'s sepulchral monument in Santa Maria sopra Minerva:
http://tinyurl.com/358tut
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/41575/41575E.JPG
Best,
John Dillon
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