medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Todays best known saint is the church father Hieronymus, but nobody
in this group needs any information about him. I often wondered, what
happened, when he met saint Augustine in heaven - they did not
understand each other very well, as their letters demonstrate.
yours
Karl, Vienna
Am 30. Sep.2007 um 18:00 Uhr schrieb John Dillon:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
> Today (30. September) is the feast day of:
>
> Amatus of Nusco (d. 1093). Less is known about today's less well
> known
> saint from the Regno than was true when the Bollandists first
> published
> Augusti tomus VI. of the _Acta Sanctorum_ and proclaimed 31. August
> 1193
> as the _dies natalis_ of this first bishop of the Campanian town of
> Nusco (AV),
> the "balcony of Irpinia" (so called because of its elevated
> position on the
> watershed between the valleys of the Ofanto and the Calore). This
> is because
> the Bollandists' guide in this matter, Felice Renda's sixteenth-
> century Vita of A.,
> has since been shown to be a piece of fiction falsely claiming him for
> Montevergine (of which Renda was at the time prior) and making him a
> disciple of the latter's founder, St. William of Vercelli. A.'s
> will of September 1093,
> which has survived in the cathedral archives of Nusco and which was
> also long a
> subject of controversy, was proven authentic in 1881 by the
> distinguished
> Neapolitan archivist Bartolomeo Capasso. Here's a view of it:
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/pagina556%20.jpg
> Archdiocesan records at Salerno show that Nusco was one of the
> latter's
> suffragan dioceses created during the time of archbishop Alfanus
> I. The
> ordinary assumption is that A. was consecrated by this famous
> Campanian
> churchman.
>
> Both Renda's Vita and its fifteenth-century predecessor by
> Francesco de
> Ponte (BHL 359) are now considered largely legendary, though how
> legendary remains a matter of dispute. Errico Cuozzo's relatively
> recent attempt to identify A. with the historian Amatus of
> Montecassino
> has not generally been accepted but his article remains valuable as a
> useful summary of the pertinent documentation and hagiographic
> traditions: "Amato di Montecassino e Amato di Nusco: una stessa
> persona?", _Benedictina_ 26 (1979), 323-48. Three Sapphic hymns from
> A.'s Office at Nusco have survived and are certainly medieval but have
> been little studied. Nusco's cathedral of Santo Stefano, now a
> co-cathedral of the diocese of Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi - Conza -
> Nusco
> - Bisaccia, has been largely rebuilt in early modern times. A.'s
> remains are preserved in the crypt (perhaps thirteenth-century but
> redecorated much later):
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/pagina29.htm
> Here's a view of A.'s effigy reliquary from an older engraving:
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/Immagine%20S.Amato%209.jpg
> Also in the crypt are these recently uncovered fourteenth- or
> fifteenth-century Nativity scenes in fresco:
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/Affreschi%20Cattedrale.htm
>
> Some exterior views of the cathedral:
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/5/56/Nusco_centro_storico.jpg
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/pagina6.htm
> Another view is here; the statue represents A. and was erected in 1893
> during the octocentenary of his death:
> http://www.personalfoto.it/Fotocattedralenusco.htm
> Here's a better shot of him during a commemoration of the Allied
> bombing of Nusco in 1943:
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/pict00030.jpg
> And here he is more recently and without onlookers:
> http://www.mionusco.it/it/1005.jpg
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
> (last year's post lightly revised)
>
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