medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. November) is the feast day of:
1) John of Trogir (Ivan Ursini, Giovanni Orsini; d. 1111?).
According to the his early thirteenth-century Vita (BHL 4441), J., a member of the prominent Roman family of the Orsini, was born at Rome in 1032. Sent to Dalmatia to help consolidate the work of a papal legation under Alexander II, he was in 1064 consecrated bishop of Trogir (in Italian, Traù) in today's Croatia. In addition to leading a life of exemplary holiness, J. guided his church through a period of liturgical and administrative reform and his city through a period of political peril. He is credited with arranging Trogir's peaceful capitulation to king Coloman of Hungary in 1105, a piece of _Realpolitik_ that was followed by a charter of liberties for which the people of his city remained very grateful.
Lifetime miracles were followed by numerous post-mortem ones and in 1162 (traditionally, 1171) there was a formal invention of J.'s remains, followed by the first of his two translations within Trogir's cathedral of Sv. Lovre (St. Lawrence). A canonization process began in 1192. The earliest version of J.'s Office at Trogir dates from the twelfth or thirteenth century. In 1438 a papal indulgence was granted in connection with the observance of his _dies natalis_ (14. November). Although J. continues to be called 'Blessed' in recent scholarship, both his entry in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_ (vol. 6; 1965) and his listing for today in the latest version of the RM (2001) style him 'Saint'.
For J.'s political activity and a critical examination of his Vita, see Ludwig Steindorff, "Die Vita beati Iohannis Traguriensis als Quelle zur Geschichte der dalmatinischen Stadt Trogir im 12. Jahrhundert", _Südost-Forschungen_ 47 (1988), 17-36. J.'s Office is edited from the version of 1434 (with variants from earlier and later versions) by Antonio Lovato, "L'ufficio ritmico del beato Giovanni Orsini vescovo di Trogir/Traù (1064-1111)", in Stanislav Tuksar, ed., Srednjovjekovne glazbene kulture Jadrana. Medieval Cultures of the Adriatic Region_ (Zagreb: Hrvatsko Musikolo¨ko Dru¨tvo / Croatian Musicological Society, 2000), pp. 85-123.
Herewith some views of Trogir's originally thirteenth-century cathedral of Sv. Lovre.
Exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/ujndr
http://tinyurl.com/ycxq54
http://press.croatia.hr/datoteke/2141.jpg
West portal (1240; by a magister Raduanus):
http://press.croatia.hr/datoteke/2138.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/y7r2nk
http://tinyurl.com/u8hqv
http://tinyurl.com/u8hqv
http://www.kelt.com/hippo/travels/croatia/images/trogir4.jpg
http://www.kelt.com/hippo/travels/croatia/images/trogir2.jpg
http://www.kelt.com/hippo/travels/croatia/images/trogir3.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yy7rpj
http://www.reise-photografie.de/trogir/trogir-09.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yxu7wa
Belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/tnaxz
http://tinyurl.com/tgx9q
http://press.croatia.hr/datoteke/2135.jpg
Interior:
http://www.dalmacija.net/trogir/photo7.htm
http://www.reise-photografie.de/trogir/trogir-10.jpg
J. is also Trogir's civic patron. Here he is in a fifteenth-century statue atop the seventeenth-century North Town Gate:
http://tinyurl.com/ycshzs
2) John of Tufara (Blessed; d. 1170). Today's less well known holy person of the Regno was born at Tufara (CB) in Molise. He is said to have studied at Paris as a young man and then to have spent at least fifty years of monastic and eremitical life (mostly the latter) before founding in the 1150s the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria di Gualdo Mazzoca in today's Foiano (BN) in northeastern Campania, where his memory was preserved and his feast day was observed on this date (his _dies natalis_). Whereas several thirteenth-century attempts to have J. canonized were unsuccessful, his cult survives at Foiano, at Tufara, and at San Bartolomeo in Galdo (BN).
Here's a view of Tufara's originally twelfth-century church of Santi Pietro e Paolo, where J. is said to have served as sacristan:
http://www.giubileo.molise.it/itinerari/santi/04-beato-05.htm
And here is a view of (who could doubt it?) the very house at Tufara in which J. was born, later converted into an oratory:
http://www.giubileo.molise.it/itinerari/santi/04-beato-03.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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