medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Wednesday, May 14, 2008, at 11:50 pm, I wrote:
> Today (15. May) is the feast day of:
>
> 1) Eutychius of Ferentum (d. before ca. 590; perh. 303). We first
> hear of E. (also Euticius, Eutitius; in Italian, Eutizio) in the
> _Dialogues_ of St. Gregory the Great, who tells us (3. 38) that he was
> a martyr with a church and that in it he appeared by his tomb to
> bishop Redemptus of the _Ferentina civitas_ and predicted to him the
> coming end of the world. Whereas now that Redemptus is venerated as
> St. Redemptus of Ferentino in southern Lazio (7. April),
er, 8. April
the
> prevailing scholarly belief is that he was actually bishop of Ferentum
> (also Ferentinum) near Viterbo in northern Lazio. At today's nearby
> Soriano nel Cimino (VT) in the _frazione_ of Sant'Eutizio a succession
> of churches dedicated to E. has been built over catacombs that were in
> use in the fourth century and in which was built in the fifth century
> a shrine over a tomb believed to be that of E. A plan of the catacomb
> named for E. is here:
> http://tinyurl.com/4npzx2
Not a plan but a section (obviously).
Moving along, today (15. May) was in at least the later Middle Ages and the early modern period the feast day at Benevento of Liberator, a saint of the Regno who has left no known Acta and whose cult now appears to be in permanent abeyance. L. was said to have been a martyr and was sometimes also thought to have been a bishop. (Do I detect expressions of surprise? I thought not.) Widely venerated in the Beneventan cultural area and beyond, he has left his name in toponyms from Frosinone province in southern Lazio to Cava de' Tirreni near Salerno. Some not totally bereft of Greek identify him with the St. Eleutherius of 18. April.
L.'s principal monument is his monastery church of San Liberatore a Maiella (also "alla Maiella") at Serramonacesca (PE) in Abruzzo, in its present form a later eleventh- to thirteenth-century structure restored from 1967 to 1971 and once serving a monastery that for much of its active existence was a major dependency of Montecassino. A brief, illustrated, English-language account is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Liberatore_a_Maiella
and the somewhat more coherent Italian-language page (same three views) from which that was taken is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Liberatore_a_Maiella
Here's the church's page at Italia nell'Arte Medievale:
http://tinyurl.com/466fbu
More views here (incl. two good ones of the reconstructed ambo):
http://tinyurl.com/4xnuhu
Best again,
John Dillon
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