medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (22. May) is the feast day of:
1) Castus of Calvi (d. 66, supposedly). Today's less well known saint of the Regno is the legendary martyred protobishop of today's Calvi Risorta (CE) in northern Campania, the successor to ancient Cales and medievally called simply Calvi. He and his homonym of Sinuessa (CE) and of Sessa Aurunca (CE) in the same Campanian province, a fellow martyr celebrated locally on this day (but entered in the RM for 1. July as the C. of Sts. Castus and Secundinus), are probably in origin the same saint whose cults differentiated in the early or central Middle Ages. A widely held scholarly view is that C. is the third-century African martyr of the this name whose cult spread early to Campania and there generated new identities for C. at different locales. In addition to the places already mentioned, a C. has been venerated at Benevento, Capua, Gaeta, and Sora at the very least.
Our C. (he of Calvi) has a legendary Passio (BHL 1649) linking him with a fellow martyr Cassius (also thought to be a transplant from Africa but said to have been the protobishop of Sinuessa). Surviving in the form of lections for their feast at Capua, this is thought to be derived from the now lost Passio of these saints said (by the not entirely reliable Peter the Deacon) to have been written by the young Gregory of Terracina while he was still a monk at Montecassino. That would put his text on C. and C. towards the end of the eleventh century and make it closely contemporary with the initial building Calvi's originally late eleventh-century cathedral of San Casto. An Italian-language fact sheet on that structure is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2v64e9
Recent views of Calvi's cathedral:
http://www.cattedrale-calvirisorta.com/cop.jpg
http://www.campaniatour.it/immagini/ml/images/WlTQ_g.jpg
http://www.campaniatour.it/immagini/ml/images/qWiq_g.jpg
http://www.campaniatour.it/immagini/ml/images/BWtI_g.jpg
Early twentieth-century views:
http://www.cattedrale-calvirisorta.com/comera.htm
Capitals in the crypt:
http://www.cattedrale-calvirisorta.com/imgCript.htm
C. and Cassius are said to have passed unscathed through various torments prior to their decapitation. In this twelfth-century mosaic depicting them in the cathedral of Monreale (PA) in Sicily they are shown as overcoming their exposure to wild beasts (in this case, two very placid lions):
http://tinyurl.com/ytgg9y
Monreale's cathedral was designed for William II as a sort of national shrine. It may have had relics alleged to be those of C. and C., just as it does of the also Campanian St. Castrensis, who was venerated medievally in the same towns as were C. and C. (even today he's the patron saint of, inter alia, Sessa Aurunca). Please try to keep Cassius, Castus, and Castrensis straight; likewise Sora, Sinuessa, and Sessa. There may be a quiz.
The sixteenth-century historian of the archdiocese of Capua, Michele Monaco, reports having seen at Sora an altar to C. and C. (where both were celebrated today) with the two saints depicted as bishops on the arch above it. Monaco also briefly recounts a legend whereby enemies preparing to attack Sora were dissuaded by a dream vision of the two saints holding up torches atop a mountain and displaying a huge army arrayed in the form of a cross.
2) Julia of Corsica (d. 5th cent., supposedly). Last year's account of Corsica's principal patron, also venerated at the Italian ports of Livorno and Noli and, in a very major way, at Brescia in Lombardy, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2bksra
The links still work.
3) Humility of Faenza (d. 1310). Last year's account of this mystic, thaumaturge, and abbess at Faenza and at Florence is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2bksra
Julia Bolton Holloway's excellent illustrated website on on H. is here:
http://www.umilta.net/umilta.html
Best,
John Dillon
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