medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. August) is the feast day of:
The martyrs of Otranto (Bl.; d. 1480).
In late July 1480 the little port city of Otranto on the Salentine
peninsula (the heel of Italy's boot) was besieged by a Turkish invasion
force that had crossed the Adriatic from Valona in today's Albania.
Only lightly garrisoned and poorly provisioned for a siege (an expected
invasion in the vicinity of Brindisi had drawn northward most of the
Kingdom of Sicily's defense forces in the region), the city held out
behind its walls for about two weeks before being taken on 11. August.
Most of Otranto's civic and religious leadership perished either in the
final assault or during the sack that followed.
Three days later, the captors took the bulk of the city's surviving
adult males (perhaps 600 in all; unreliable accounts from long afterward
put the number at about 900 and make it include virtually the entire
population regardless of sex or age) to a hill outside of town and there
executed all of them, supposedly by decapitation, one by one, all day
long. A few wealthy people had been allowed to convert to Islam and
were therefore spared. The remainder, said to have been martyred for
their faith (though whether they were really offered a choice remains an
open question), are today's less well known holy persons of the Regno.
A cult of the martyrs sprang up as soon as circumstances permitted.
When in the following year the city was recaptured by forces of the
kingdom and its allies (chiefly anti-Islamic confrontation states from
Portugal to Hungary), bones of the victims were collected on the order
of the victorious commander, the duke of Calabria and future king
Alfonso II. These were brought to the capital, Naples; other bones
were tended reverently by the population of Otranto, who clearly had
not all perished. Alfonso ordered a huge reliquary in the form of a
transparent glass cylinder to be made at Crown expense for the
bones that been brought back to Naples; this is visible today in
Naples' church of Santa Caterina a Formiello, designed for Alfonso as a
memorial to his triumph. After several years of failed attempts to get
a subvention from the Crown, the citizens of Otranto had a virtually
identical reliquary made for them at their expense and installed it in
their cathedral, where it can be seen today in exactly the same
position within the building as that occupied by Alfonso's reliquary in
Naples.
Civic authorities at Otranto proclaimed the martyrs patrons of their
city as early as 1539. But, despite promotion of their cause by several
bishops, it was not until 1771 that they (the martyrs, not the civic
authorities) were officially beatified.
A few views, etc. of Otranto's late eleventh-century cathedral:
Italian-language site, multi-page, text and image:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/Lecce/Otranto.htm
Facade views (facade restored after 1481):
http://www.salentoviaggi.com/vedutacatotrantoimg.htm
http://www.fotomulazzani.com/Italia/Puglie/Otranto/155_16.jpg
Interior, showing mosaic floor:
http://www.comprensivotranto.it/secondario/fotocattedrale.htm
http://tinyurl.com/npzyx
The floor as seen from above:
http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep5/ep5-scala.htm
http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep5/mosaic2.jpg
Details:
http://www.comprensivotranto.it/otranto/mosaico_2.htm
Detail (REX ARTVRVS):
http://www.salentoviaggi.com/mosicdepl.jpg
The ceiling (not medieval; appealing nonetheless):
http://tinyurl.com/fa9gh
Barely visible at the end of the right aisle here is a chapel
containing the city's late fifteenth-century reliquary of the victims:
http://images.world66.com/in/te/rn/interno_della_catt_galleryfull
But the big collection is in the eighteenth-century Cappella dei
Martiri at the end of the left aisle:
http://tinyurl.com/3brxzr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cangurio/48647565/
http://tinyurl.com/2rtwgc
Views, plan, etc. of the crypt:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/Lecce/otrant11.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/zm9vj
http://www.enec.it/Cripte/Otranto/Costruzione.htm
Fresco of the BVM in the crypt (main apse), spared by the Turks in
1480/81:
http://www.enec.it/Cripte/Otranto/Madre.jpg
Also in Otranto is the ninth-/tenth-century Greek church of San Pietro,
a small jewel with extensive frescoing:
http://www.comprensivotranto.it/otranto/san_pietro.htm
http://www.otranto.biz/foto-otranto/images/otranto-sanpietro.jpg
http://www.otranto.biz/foto-otranto/images/otranto-sanpietro-2.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/hlcwh
http://tinyurl.com/yon92r
http://tinyurl.com/2gxm95
http://tinyurl.com/2f4gd4
http://www.grikamilume.com/panorama/lavanda.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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