medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. January) is the feast day of:
1) Potitus (d. 2d cent. ?). This less well known saint of the Regno first comes to light in the ninth century, when his feast is listed on the Marble Calendar of Naples as falling on 13. January (which is also where he was in the Roman Martyrology until its revision of 2001) and when the early portion of the chronicle of Naples' bishops ascribes to bishop St. Severus the foundation of that city's monastery dedicated to P.
Also from the ninth century, it is thought, is the earliest version of the _Passio sancti Potiti_ (BHL 6908). In this text P. is the Christian child of a pagan father in the city of Sardica (variant: Serdica), presumably the Sardica/Serdica in Dacia now known as Sofia, Bulgaria. While successfully converting his father he is taken off by a cloud and set down in Epirus, where an angel tells him that the devil is on his way to tempt him. In the ensuing confrontation P. remains firm, whereupon the devil announces that he will afflict the emperor Antoninus' only daughter and that both this emperor and governor Gelasius will hurt P. unto death. P. then goes off to a city called Valeria, where he cures a woman of leprosy, comes to the emperor's attention, and -- being a Christian -- is brought to him in chains by Gelasius.
In short order P. cures the emperor's daughter of diabolic possession, refuses in colloquy with the emperor to abandon Christ, overturns idols in the emperor's presence, is thrown in jail (where he is visited by an angel), and is sentenced to several modes of torment and execution, none of which manages either to kill him or to prevent him, tongueless though he now is, from baptizing the emperor's daughter. Finally he is led off to a place in Apulia (whose location is indicated in the _Passio_ by toponyms that have stimulated much inquiry) and on the Kalends of January, at the age of thirteen, is there decapitated. His spirit is seen in the form of a dove and his body is buried three days later. Thus far his Passio.
That P.'s cult was widespread in Campania in the central and later Middle Ages is evident both from toponyms -- e.g. today's San Potito Sannitico (CE), San Potito Ultra (AV), and San Potito the locality in Roccapiemonte (SA) -- and from calendars and liturgies from Naples, Capua, and Benevento. The church of San Potito at Lauro (AV) had a predecessor of the same dedication in 1038. In the eleventh century P.'s veneration had also reached Marsican territory, where the locality San Potito in today's Ovindoli (AQ) in Abruzzo is attested from 1074. By 1118 a church dedicated to P. existed at today's Ascoli Satriano (FG) in northern Apulia.
At some time in or shortly after the eleventh century P.'s cult reached Sardinia, where the Sardica of the _Passio_ was given a new interpretation and P., treated as a local martyr, was venerated with St. Ephysius (15. January) at the latter's major sanctuary at Nora in the judicate of Cagliari. Perhaps in the late eleventh century and certainly in 1316 relics of both saints were translated to Pisa, where they were housed in the cathedral. In 1391/92 Spinello Aretino painted on the south wall of the camposanto in the cathedral precinct scenes from their _passiones_ and from their translation to Pisa; those depicting P. were on the lower register and have survived only in older drawings made of them. In 1886 some powder from P.'s putative relics in Pisa was returned to the archdiocese of Cagliari along with a part of those of St. Ephysius; these now reside in Cagliari's baroque church of Sant'Efisio.
In 1433 or 1434 the young Leon Battista Alberti wrote a _Vita sancti Potiti_ (BHL 6912d) as part of an assignment from Eugenius IV's chancellor to improve the accuracy and style of lives of various martyrs. In her recent _Possible Lives: Authors and Saints in Renaissance Italy_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 67-70, Alison Frazier provides an account of Alberti's procedures vis-a-vis the information he says he found pertaining to P. and to others of this name.
P. is the patron saint of Ascoli Satriano (which claims to possess one of his arms) and, in Basilicata, of Tricarico (MT). The latter's liturgical celebration of P. today is said to underlie the RM's recent change in his day of commemoration. A discovery of P.'s remains is in legend connected with both locales. Relics said to be those of P. are also preserved in that hall of saints venerated medievally in Campania, the Cripta San Guglielmo at Montevergine.
2) Felix of Nola (?). Our information concerning the life of today's less well known saint of the Regno comes from the writings of that later fourth-/early fifth-century Burdigalan retiree in Campania, Pontius Meropius Paulinus (a.k.a. St. Paulinus of Nola). As governor of Campania, P. had taken part in local veneration of this saint in 381. In 394 he left government service and was ordained priest at Barcelona; in the following year he and his wife Therasia returned to their estates in Campania, where they established a monastery at today's Cimitile on the outskirts of Nola and, as Catherine Conybeare puts it (_Paulinus Noster. Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola_ [Oxford University Press, 2001], p. 5), "more or less reinvent[ed] the cult of Saint Felix."
P.'s promotion of F. included erecting a small basilica over his tomb at Cimitile and his annual writing and public reading of a poem in F.'s honor on the latter's _dies natalis_. We have fourteen of these _Natalicia_ from P.'s pen. They tell us that F., the son of a wealthy Syrian immigrant, became a priest at Nola, suffered during a persecution when he was acting the place of the bishop of Nola, survived, declined election to that post after the incumbent's death, and spent his final years in poverty and toil. Guesses vary as to whether the persecution were that of Decius or of Diocletian. Because of his suffering, F. was considered a martyr. Gregory of Tours ends his _In gloria martyrum_ with a consideration of him.
In Campania F. is the patron saint of Cimitile, of nearby Pomigliano d'Arco (NA), of Rocca San Felice (AV), and of San Felice a Cancello (CE). His cult spread elsewhere via a church in Rome "in Pincis" (on the Pincian) said to have been ruinous when it was rebuilt by pope Hadrian I (772-795), e.g. to today's Borgo San Felice in Castelnuovo Berardenga (SI) in Tuscany, where it is first documented with certainty from the late tenth century for a church already dedicated to a Felix before 714. But F.'s major cult center was always at Cimitile, an important late antique and early medieval pilgrimage destination.
Views of the ancient parts of this site's Basilica di San Felice in Pincis showing some of the surrounding structure as well:
http://www.napoligold.com/coast/napolisud/soggetto/de24067.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/vkvao
http://www.fondazionepremiocimitile.it/img/02.jpg
A view of F.'s tomb (plus two other views of San Felice):
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/panorami/cimitile.html
Apse and belltower (Paulinus is traditionally credited with having introduced the use of church bells):
http://www.fondazionepremiocimitile.it/img/05.jpg
Better view (old postcard) of the belltower:
http://www.fondazionepremiocimitile.it/img/basilica1.jpg
Here's a page from the St Albans Psalter (Hildesheim, Dombibliothek, MS St. Godehard 1; written between 1120 and 1145) showing today as the feast of St. Felix in Pincis:
http://tinyurl.com/24he8m
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's posts revised)
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