medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (25. March 2008) is Tuesday within the Octave of Easter. Ordinarily, 25. March is the feast day of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary (also The Annunciation of the Lord Jesus). This year, thanks to the unusually early Easter, in the Roman Catholic Church, in the Church of England, and doubtless in others that reserve Easter week for the celebration of the Resurrection the feast of the Annunciation has been postponed to 31. March. Eastern-rite churches always celebrate the Annunciation on 25. March, either today (if they follow the Gregorian calendar) or on Gregorian 7. April (if they follow the Julian calendar). Herewith a few visuals pertaining to this feast, starting with some dedications to the Virgin Annunciate:
The later twelfth-/thirteenth-century chiesa dell'Annunziata dei Catalani at Messina:
English-language accounts:
http://tinyurl.com/35ybsk
http://tinyurl.com/2o99yn
Page of views:
http://www.torrese.it/Chiesa%20dei%20Catalani.htm
Single views:
http://tinyurl.com/3xrp67
http://www.torrese.it/images/galleria/Catalani1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/3xkfff
The twelfth-/fifteenth-century cattedrale della Santissima Annunziata at Todi:
Illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/32tdg5
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/3djnun
Single views:
http://art_lab.tripod.com/Todi/TodiAlto.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2uvsva
http://art_lab.tripod.com/Todi/TodiDuomo.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/34htc3
http://www.xelioslabs.com/mzattera/Umbria2005/Todi.jpg
And a few paintings:
Eleventh-century Annunciation mosaic at the monastery of Daphni, near Athens:
http://tinyurl.com/yv9wcq
Twelfth-century Annunciation icons at St. Catherine's, Sinai:
http://touregypt.net/featurestories/catherines2-13.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2xg48h
Mosaic by Pietro Cavallini (1291) in Rome's Santa Maria in Trastevere:
http://tinyurl.com/2at5wm
Early fourteenth-century icon in the church of Sv. Kliment, Ochrid, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Lepota.jpg
The late fourteenth-century Annunciation fresco ascribed to Pietro di Miniato da Firenze (1366-1440 ca.) in Florence's Santa Maria Novella:
http://www.smn.it/images/ch021.jpg
Detail, fourteenth-century Annunciation in Florence's chiesa della Santissima Annunziata:
http://tinyurl.com/35mg4t
A couple of Antonello da Messina's Virgins Annunciate:
http://tinyurl.com/2sdozf
http://tinyurl.com/2t9ueg
Today (25. March) is also ordinarily the feast day of:
1) The Good Thief (d. ca. 30). To omit this Gospel figure (Luke 23:39-43), medievally also familiar from the Gospel of Nicodemus (where he accompanies Christ in the Harrowing of Hell), would be a dismal thing to do. Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome appears to have at least two fragments of his cross, the one hanging to the left of the relics of the True Cross here:
http://www.christorchaos.com/images/Picture306.jpg
and this separately displayed relic:
http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/PHOTO-Rome-Crx-8.jpg
And here's a representation of him from the Last Judgment in the fourteenth century frescoes in the Visoki Dečani monastery in, depending on your view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's Kosovo province:
http://tinyurl.com/ywfatd
2) Quirinus "of Rome", venerated at Tegernsee (d. 249 or 269, supposedly). Q. was the patron saint of the great abbey of Tegernsee in Oberbayern (founded, 8th cent.; secularized, 1803). According to this house's totally unverifiable tradition, Q.'s remains were brought there from Rome at the time of the abbey's foundation. Q. has two Passiones. A late ninth-century one (BHL 7029) copies the Passio s. Marii (BHL 815) to make him a martyr of Rome beheaded under an emperor Claudius (presumbably Claudius Gothicus) and buried in the cemetery of Pontianus. Its late twelfth- or thirteenth-century successor (BHL 7032) makes Q. the murdered son of the supposedly Christian emperor Philip the Arab and so provides the abbey with an imperial cachet. In between come the _Quirinalia_ of Metellus of Tegernsee (BHL 7031; ca. 1160), a collection of Latin poems in Q.'s honor based on ancient models.
3) Nicodemus of Mammola (d. ca. 1010). Today's less well known saint of the Regno (N. of Kellárana, of Cellerana, etc.) was a Greek-speaking Calabrian who founded a monastic community that recorded his memory in a late eleventh-century Bios (BHG 2305) preserved in the famous early fourteenth-century menologium of Santissimo Salvatore at Messina, codex Messanensis graecus 30 and 29. According to this account, N. was born at a place in the Saline near today's Gioa Tauro (RC); his pious parents saw to his Christian education. N. entered religion at the lavra of St. Fantinus the Younger in the Mercurion, where for some years he lived as an ascete and perfected himself in obedience, humility, and charity.
Muslim raids, presumably the ones that led to the breakup of Fantinus' community, caused N. to retreat to an elevated location in the wilderness at a place called Kellárana (this has been located in areas as far apart as the Cilento in what is now southern Campania and the Locride in extreme southern Calabria). There he lived in extreme simplicity, erected an oratory to St. Michael the Archangel, attracted disciples whom he trained, and performed numerous miracles affecting people of different social rank and from various places in Calabria. After his death his miracles continued.
In 1501 N.'s community moved from Kellárana to a dependency at today's Mammola (RC), where N.'s relics were deposited in the local church. A succession of pilgrimage churches at Mammola has led to today's very popular sanctuary. Remains of a monastery in the hills above Mammola are thought by some to be those of N.'s originally tenth-century establishment.
Best,
John Dillon
(The Annunciation, the Good Thief, and Quirinus lightly revised from last year's post)
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