medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (9. August) is the feast day of:
Falco of Palena (Bl.; d. early 11th cent., supposedly). Today's less
well known holy person of the Regno is said both in the new edition
(2001) of the Roman Martyrology and in the latter's revision of 2004
to have been a hermit who died at Palena in Calabria. But there
does not seem to be a Palena in Calabria and the Palena where F.
has been venerated since at least the fourteenth century is located
in Abruzzo's Chieti province.
F. belongs to a cult of Sette Santi Fratelli ('Seven Holy Little Brothers')
whose individual members are venerated in different Abruzzese towns.
Brief Italian-language accounts of them are here:
http://www.casoli.info/casoli/prata/prata02.htm
They are local holy men -- traditionally viewed as hermits -- whose cult
(confirmed in 1893) was promoted by Franciscans of Abruzzo who
honored them as their predecessors in this region.
According to the _Croniche ed antichità di Calabria_ of Fra Girolamo
Marafioti (Padova, 1601), who drew on accounts furnished by
correspondents in Benevento, F. and his colleagues in the cult were
Greek-rite monks from Calabria who moved to today's Abruzzo as a
community under a hegumen called Hilarion (one of the 'Seven', who in
some accounts are as many as nine) and who after the latter's death in
the pontificate of Eugenius IV (1431-47) split up and became hermits in
separate locations along the great chain of central Appennine peaks now
known as the Maiella. But at least some were venerated earlier than this.
Twentieth-century scholars resolved the difficulty by positing that Marafioti
had confused Eugenius IV with the earlier Sergius IV (1009-1012) and by
then hypothesizing that F. and his colleagues had come from Greek-rite
monasteries in Calabria that had been abandoned in later tenth century in
consequence of Islamic raids. Were there any early documentation for the
belief that F. et al. were Greeks from the south, this view would be more
plausible.
The chances are excellent that these are local saints whom subsequent
community memory first adapted to the paradigm of hermits of the Maiella
(of whom there were in fact a great many) and later further adapted to a
version of the well-known paradigm of 'the saint who has come to us from
afar'. F.'s original cult locus appears to have been a now vanished
settlement near Palena called Sant'Egidio. A church dedicated to
Sant'Egidio and to San Falco is said to have existed there at least as early
as 1358. In 1383 F.'s putative remains were translated to Palena's church
of Sant'Antonino, which later came to be known as that of Sant'Antonino e
San Falco. Its successors have been known as as San Falco and, most
recently, as San Falco e Sant'Antonino (according to the Diocese of
Sulmona-Valva, the parish is that of Sant'Antonino Martire). Some of F.'s
relics are now preserved in the bust shown here:
http://digilander.iol.it/palena/proc02.jpg
http://digilander.iol.it/palena/proc05.jpg
More relics, including clothing F. is said to have worn (the apparel of an
earlier cult statue?) are here:
http://www.casoli.info/casoli/prata/reliquie_s_falco.jpg
http://www.casoli.info/casoli/prata/tunica_s_falco.jpg
F. was until relatively recently also celebrated liturgically on 13. January,
his traditional _dies natalis_. Did today's feast originally commemorate his
translation in 1383?
In addition to a partly subterranean rural dwelling known as St. Falco's
House, the township of Palena (which extends well beyond its inhabited
nucleus) is also the home of the Romitorio (i.e. Hermitage) della Madonna
dell'Altare. This commemorates a better known saint of the Regno, Peter
of the Morrone (pope St. Celestine V), whose very first hermitage is said to
have been located at this spot. Views of the locale and of the modern
structures:
http://web.tiscalinet.it/palena/M_altarefull.jpg
A brief, Italian-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/nlue5
A view of Palena in winter, with the church of San Falco e Sant'Antonino at
left center:
http://web.tiscalinet.it/palenasito/i.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, revised)
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