medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (24. January) is the feast day of:
1) Babylas (d. 250 or 251). B. was bishop of Antioch on the Orontes (today's Antakya in southwestern Turkey). Said to have died of mistreatment in prison during the Decian persecution, he was venerated as a martyr. The Syriac Martyrology of 412 and the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology list him for today and give him as companions in martyrdom three children. B. et socc. have legendary Passiones in conflicting versions and in several languages (BHG 205ff.; BHO 126ff.; BHL 889ff.). Aldhelm includes a section on them in his early eighth-century verse _De virginitate_. In the Mozarabic Rite they were celebrated on 25. January. Here's their Mozarabic hymn:
http://tinyurl.com/339lxf
According to St. John Chrysostom, B. was translated shortly after his death to a martyrion in the Antiochian suburb of Daphne, home to a renowned temple of Apollo. The emperor Julian, consulting the latter's oracle and receiving no answer, concluded that the area had been polluted by B.'s presence and had the latter's remains returned to their original burial site. Shortly thereafter the great temple was destroyed by fire. Here's a fifteenth-century miniature illustrating these events as well as the martyrdom of St. Theodosius (Paris, BNF, Ms. Français 51, fol. 141v; Vincent of Beauvais, _Speculum Historiale_ in the translation of Jean de Vignay):
http://tinyurl.com/2et8ed
An English-language translation of one of Chrysostom's sermons on this matter is here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1906.htm
In 381 Bishop Meletius of Antioch built a martyrium honoring B. at today's Kaoussie near Antioch, to which he had B.'s remains translated. In default of a view, here's a ground plan:
http://tinyurl.com/35e43j
B.'s much rebuilt church of San Babila in Milan is first attested from the late eleventh century. Herewith a few views:
http://tinyurl.com/34jpdg
http://www.sff.net/people/sanders/it6.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/36936415
At Milan B. is celebrated with a Memorial (moved to 23. January to accommodate St. Francis de Sales today).
Two pages with views of the thirteenth-century church of San Babil at Puente de la Reina in Navarra:
http://tinyurl.com/26x86q
http://tinyurl.com/2g5qal
Here are B. and the three children as depicted in the early fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1320) of the nave of the monastery church at Gracanica in Serbia's Kosovo province:
http://tinyurl.com/3x5txb
The same scene as represented in the slightly later (ca. 1340) frescoes in the church of the Visoki Decani Monastery at Metohija in Serbia's Kosovo province:
http://tinyurl.com/3249nq
Another representation of B. from the latter church:
http://tinyurl.com/3c2z3t
Scenes from B.'s Passio occur on the late fifteenth-century retable from Quintanilla del Olmo (Zamora) now in the cathedral of León:
http://tinyurl.com/2fnqxh
2) Felician of Foligno (d. ca. 250, supposedly). F. (also Felicianus of Forum Flaminii) is the legendary protobishop of the Umbrian city of Foligno (PG). According to his Passio (in Lanzoni's view, late sixth- or seventh-century), he was born at Forum Flaminii, now the Foligno suburb of San Giovanni Profiamma (PG), and from there exercised from the time of pope St. Victor I (189-99) onward the only archiepiscopal authority that then existed in Italy in north of Rome. F. is said to have preached widely in Umbria, to have consecrated the first bishop of Terni (PG), and as a very old man to have died a martyr at Foligno during the Decian persecution.
Foligno's frequently reworked cathedral of San Feliciano is built over that part of an early Christian cemetery where, it is claimed, F. was buried. This structure has two facades: an earlier "primary" one facing the piazza Duomo and a later "secondary" one on the left transept, facing the piazza della Repubblica. Here's a distance view, showing both facades and the palaces between them:
http://www.bellaumbria.net/Foligno/piazza-foligno.jpg
An aerial view:
http://www.hotelilcastello.it/images/foligno2.jpg
Primary facade (piazza Duomo; earlier twelfth-century):
http://www.italiaincampagna.it/Umbria/GRATO/foligno/piazza2.htm
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/45082
Secondary facade (piazza della Repubblica; 1201, with fourteenth-century modifications; restored, 1904):
http://tinyurl.com/2nxbjs
F. seems to have had two transalpine translations: one in 965 to Minden an der Weser and one in 969 to Metz, the latter as part of the well known collecting activity of bishop Theoderich I. A bit from F.'s remains at Metz was returned to Foligno in 1673. Presumably, the F. of today's Felicianus-Kirche in Weyhe (Landkr. Diepholz), Niedersachsen, whose thirteenth-century tower now fronts a nineteenth-century neo-gothic nave:
http://www.evlka.de/extern/syke/kk/kgweyhebildgr.htm
, is today's F. whose cult had traveled down the Weser from Minden.
Here's a portrait of F. in glass from 1488 now at Assisi in the Museo-Tesoro del Sacro convento della cattedrale di Foligno:
http://tinyurl.com/24c2m6
3) Exuperantius of Cingoli (d. 5th cent., supposedly). A late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Vita (BHL 2808) makes E. a monk from Africa who sailed to Italy, arrived at Numana (near Ancona), and made his way to Rome, where he was consecrated bishop by pope Paschasius and put in charge of the diocese of Cingoli (today's self-proclaimed Balcony of the Marche), succeeding the latter's deceased bishop Theodosius, encountering various martyrs venerated at Osimo and other nearby towns, and dying of natural causes some fifteen years later. He was succeeded by his faithful disciple Formarius and is credited with having cured a paralytic.
Bishops Theodosius, Exuperantius, and Formarius are no better attested than is pope Paschasius. Exuperantius is one of a group of Umbrian martyrs (Savinus, Exuperantius, and Marcellus), whose cult had spread in Gregory the Great's time to various places in central Italy including what is now the Marche. By 1139 monks of Fonte Avellana were operating a church outside Cingoli dedicated to E. alone and in 1218 they erected another inside the city dedicated to E. and to Nicholas and containing relics of both saints. Probably by this time the late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century copper plaque identifying E.'s relics was already in existence. Found in 1628 during an examination of the relics, it identifies E. as bishop and confessor and is clearly to be associated with the fabulous Vita noted above.
Some views of the thirteenth-century collegiate church of Sant'Esuperanzio at Cingoli (MC). Two illustrated, Italian-language guides to this church are here:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio.htm
http://medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Marche/Cingoli.html
That's E. between the two angels in the lunette.
Interior views (note the huge ogival arches in this single-aisled church):
http://tinyurl.com/3dzhsy
The frescoes along the side once adorned Renaissance chapels. Here's an early sixteenth-century one with E. on the left:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio5.htm
And here's a fifteenth-century fresco of the Holy Face of the Sudarium:
http://antiqui.it/doc/monumenti/chiese/sesuperanzio6.htm
A page, partly in Italian and partly in English, on the apses and their decor:
http://spazioinwind.libero.it/iconografia/Agnelloabside.htm
Sant'Esuperanzio has two medieval crucifixes:
http://www.guanciarossa.it/leviedellafede/crocefisso_cingoli.htm
http://www.cadnet.org/giubileo/cingoli.htm
A drawing of E. as he appears on the late twelfth-/early thirteenth-century copper gilt one is here:
http://antiqui.it/doc/personaggi/sesuperanzio.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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