medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (1. November) is the feast day of:
Caesarius of Terracina (??). Today's less well known saint of the Regno -- the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Vasto (CH) in Abruzzo has what are said to be his relics -- is an alleged early martyr whose cult seems to have radiated from Rome, the site of multiple early medieval dedications to him. In several Passiones (BHL 1511-1514b) as well as in identical entries in the martyrologies of Ado and of Usuard, C. is said to have been a deacon from Africa who arrived at Terracina in southern Lazio in the time of a Claudius who seems to have been the one we now call Nero. These accounts go on to say that C. preached publicly against idolatry and that for this he was arrested, tortured, and -- along with a priest named Julian -- put in a sack and thrown into the sea.
Whereas C. appears without accompaniment in numerous church dedications and calendar entries (including that in the Marble Calendar of Naples), Julian got added billing in Ado, Usuard, and -- until its revision of 2001 -- the RM.
For an overview of C.'s various medieval dedications in Rome, see the pertinent entries on this page from Hülsen's _Chiese medievali di Roma_:
http://tinyurl.com/yhjwjo
The most important of these are: 1) a church in the Lateran palace, already in existence in the late sixth century; 2) a monastery, also called that of St. Stephen and St. Caesarius, that was predecessor of the Benedictine monastery of St. Paul adjacent to the basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura; and 3) the originally ninth-century church of San Cesareo in Palatio (a.k.a. San Cesario de Graecis), erected in the imperial palace complex on the Palatine. This last church was originally Greek-speaking and has connected with it legendary translation account in Greek and in Latin whereby Galla Placidia, the daughter of Valentinian III, was cured of a disease at Terracina by C.'s relics and then had them brought to Rome and installed in an oratory that became C.'s church on the Palatine.
C. is the patron saint of Terracina (LT), whose cathedral of Santi Pietro e Cesareo is now a co-cathedral of the diocese of Latina-Terracina-Sezze-Priverno. Dedicated in 1074, this building occupies an ancient temple base in the former capitolium. It was reworked in the twelfth century and very largely rebuilt in the eighteenth. The belltower is originally of the thirteenth century but has been much altered over time.
Front view:
http://www.laziosud.net/litorale/costa/piazza1.JPG
North side:
http://www.terracinese.com/images/pict0052_3.jpg
http://www.terracinese.com/images/pict0064.jpg
The portico, whose columns, capitals, and ornamental cornice are spolia, is of the earlier thirteenth century. It has a noteworthy mosaic frieze:
http://tinyurl.com/25wvap
http://tinyurl.com/2hmlcv
http://tinyurl.com/264gpk
The interior has a thirteenth-century cosmatesque pavement:
http://www.paesionline.it/foto_italia/CC659_terracina.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2bt5ga
http://www.rositour.it/RomaLazio/Terracina/07d_Mosaico.jpg
C. is also the patron saint of San Cesario sul Panaro (MO) in Emilia, where his cult is attested from 1112 in a charter of Matilda of Tuscany, and of San Cesario di Lecce (LE) in Apulia (the Roman-period Castrum Caesaris; a dedication to C. first attested from 1180 in a comital charter of Tancred of Lecce). A page of vews of his originally twelfth-century church at San Cesario sul Panaro is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ylvjpf
Another view of that church:
http://tinyurl.com/ykdho5
In the absence of a surviving medieval dedication to C. in San Cesario di Lecce, here's a view of its church of San Giovanni Evangelista (1320-21; rebuilt, nineteenth century):
http://www.comunesancesariodilecce.it/ChiesaSanGiovanni.htm
Returning to C., here's an Italian-language account of his originally twelfth-century church at Nave (BR) in Lombardy (rebuilt in 1233 and again in the fifteenth century):
http://www.valletrompia.it/or4/or?uid=esy.main.index&oid=22217
Views:
http://www.valletrompia.it/esy/images/23008.jpeg
http://www.comune.nave.bs.it/tour/Images/jpgallery_7.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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