medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. December) is the feast day of:
1) Nicholas of Myra (d. 4th cent.). Phyllis Jestice's excellent introduction of 2005 to this well known thaumaturge and saint of the Regno is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yecj938
Herewith a few views, etc., starting with N.'s eleventh-century church at Myra (now Demre in Turkey):
http://www.aysen.net/sonresims/demre.jpg
http://www.fethiyeyachting.com/st.nicholasdemrechurch.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ygjsae
http://tinyurl.com/ygrakyn
http://www.livius.org/a/turkey/myra/myra_s_nicholas01.JPG
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3075/3198031197_187f03d888_b.jpg
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/stnic/images/bari-2.jpg
Mosaic floor panels:
http://www.fethiyeyachting.com/st.nicholasmosaic.jpg
http://www.fethiyeyachting.com/st.nicholasmosaics.jpg
N.'s former tomb:
http://tinyurl.com/ykv7rnl
Next, an illustrated, Italian-language account (more views at bottom) of the tenth- through thirteenth-century rupestrian chiesa di San Nicola at Casalrotto, a locality of Mottola (TA) in Apulia:
http://tinyurl.com/5g8wqw
A differently illustrated account begins about 4/5 of the way down this page:
http://www.terredelmediterraneo.org/itinerari/mottola.htm
Some other rupestrian dedications to N.:
San Nicola all'Ofra, outside of Matera (MT) in Basilicata:
http://www.ilvicinato.com/data/ofra-1.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/somebodysavedme/1114395/sizes/o/
San Nicola dell'Annunziata at Matera:
http://www.lacittadelluomo.it/pagina_sez03_04a.htm
San Nicola dei Greci at Matera:
http://tinyurl.com/6apxrj
Next, the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, begun in 1089 and consecrated in 1197.
Exterior:
http://www.athenaeum.ch/voyages/puglia/Bari_DSCN0076.jpg
http://www.arturocovitti.it/SNicola.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6dvtau
Interior:
http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660487
http://tinyurl.com/69y48r
http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660478
http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660480
http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660484
Crypt:
http://www.pbase.com/querido/image/50660486
http://tinyurl.com/5fzkys
Virtual tour:
http://www.basilicasannicola.it/home/tour.php?lingua_id=1
Medieval reliquaries in the Treasury:
http://tinyurl.com/65frv3
http://tinyurl.com/5nefn7
N. crowning Roger II:
http://tinyurl.com/69b58g
Various views with English-language legends:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=462
Next, two views of the originally eleventh-century church of San Nicola at Castiglione di Sicilia (ME) in Sicily:
http://tinyurl.com/yhd7sdj
http://tinyurl.com/y6pr2r
Next, the originally early twelfth-century (ca. 1114) ex-monastic church of San Nicola (Nicoḷ) di Trullas, near today's Semestene (SS) in Sardinia:
http://www.immaginidellasardegna.it/chiese/galleria6/pages/12San_Nicola.html
http://www.immaginidellasardegna.it/chiese/galleria6/pages/13san_nicola.html
http://www.ignaziogrecu.com/images/foto/Romanico_sardo/trullas2.jpg
http://web.tiscali.it/romanico/c173.htm
At Ottana (NU), in the former Sardinian judicate of Torres (or Logudoro; dissolved in 1259), is another noteworthy dedication to N. The cathedral of a diocese suppressed in 1501, this is an originally twelfth-century structure replacing an earlier church on the same site and consecrated to N. and to the BVM in 1160. Severely damaged by an earthquake, it was rebuilt towards the end of the century. The facade and the front end of the south side are from the building's earlier phase. An illustrated, Italian-language account of this church is here:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/nuottana.htm
and some expandable views are here (second set in this gallery):
http://www.immaginidellasardegna.it/chiese/galleria4/
At Villaputzu (CA), in the former Sardinian judicate of Cagliari, is the originally late twelfth-century church of San Nicola di Quirra (Quirra is the name of the locality). Considerably less attractive than either San Nicola di Trullas or San Nicola di Ottana, this building is notable chiefly for its being Sardinia's only "romanesque" church in brick. An illustrated, Italian-language account of it is here:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/cavillaputzu.htm
and some further views (left-click expandable) are here:
http://web.tiscali.it/romanico/c65.htm
Next, some views of surviving medieval elements of the originally late twelfth- (perhaps) or thirteenth-century church of San Nicola at Pisa (rebuilt in the seventeenth century):
http://www.stilepisano.it/immagini21/index3.htm
Some medieval decor in this church:
http://tinyurl.com/3xpaa5
Next, an illustrated, Italian-language page on the recently restored, originally twelfth-/thirteenth-century chiesa di San Nicola at Capalbio (GR) in southern Tuscany, reworked in the fifteenth and and the eighteenth century and still preserving considerable frescoing from the fifteenth century:
http://tinyurl.com/ygr822a
Next, the originally early thirteenth-century Sint-Nikolaaskerk at Gent/Ghent/Gand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas%27_Church,_Ghent
http://tinyurl.com/64smtu
http://www.trabel.com/gent/images/gent08-15.jpg
N. as depicted (ca. 1300) in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos (painting attributed to Manuel Panselinos):
http://tinyurl.com/yf582hz
The fourteenth-century (1300-1340; later modifications) cathedral of San Nicoḷ at Nicosia (EN) in Sicily has a belltower whose base is a reworked Norman military structure (a number of churches on the island have similar belltowers) showing an ogive seemingly of Sicilian Arabic inspiration, while the part of the tower immediately above it is a "gothic" addition from sometime during the period 1393-1455:
http://tinyurl.com/3eyez3
In the background, one can see the main portal of this much rebuilt church. An illustrated, Italian language discussion of this portal is here:
http://tinyurl.com/8rabl
Most noteworthy about this church (an Italian national monument since 1940) are the recently restored paintings, dated to the middle of the fifteenth century, that cover the interior of its wooden roof. Some detail views follow:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-37-39-6532.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-37-10-9227.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-36-51-3256.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-36-25-4871.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-36-10-2819.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-35-55-6291.jpg
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/458/458-01-35-20-7018.jpg
An Italian-language site on this roof is here:
http://www.cormorano.net/nicosia/tettoligneo/index.html
Click on "Le Immagini" for a series of isolated views of (mostly) single details, many of which are not among the ones reproduced above.
The mostly early fifteenth-century Niguliste kirik in Tallinn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas%27_Church,_Tallinn
http://tinyurl.com/5kmww8
Scenes from N.'s Life executed in 1502 by Dionisy and sons in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) Monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast will be found on these pages:
http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1195/
http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1214/?frag
http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/1278/?frag
2) Asella (d. ca. 405). We know about the Roman virgin A. from three letters of St. Jerome (_Epp._ 24, 45, 65). Before her birth a premonitory vision informed her father of her holiness. At about the age of twelve A. retired to a small cell that she left only to visit the tombs of the martyrs. She received ecstatic visions. Jerome considered A. a model of chastity and self-renunciation. She may well be the beautiful virgin A. said by Palladius (_Historia Lausiaca, cap. 41) to have grown old in a monastery. Her putative relics are preserved in Rome's basilica dei Santi Bonifacio e Alessio on the Aventine and in Cremona's chiesa di Sant'Abbondio. Here's a black-and-white view of A.'s effigy reliquary in the latter church:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/90496/90496.JPG
3) Obitius of Niardo (d. ca. 1204). O. (in Italian, Obizio or Obizzo) was a successful soldier from Niardo in today's Brescia province of Lombardy. During the exceptionally bloody battle of Rudiano ('Malamorti'; 7. July 1191) between the Brescians and their Milanese allies on one side and the Cremonese and their Bergamasque allies on the other, he was taking part in the massacre of the latter when a temporary bridge on which they had been retreating gave way and caused them and their pursuers to fall into the river Oglio. O. narrowly escaped drowning. A subsequent vision of Hell caused him to give up the profession of arms and to become a penitent.
In 1197, having either abandoned his family or won them over to the loss of income and standing his decision had entailed, O. entered the great Benedictine monastery of San Salvatore / Santa Giulia at Brescia as an oblate, where he died on this day early in the thirteenth century. O. was buried in the monastery. In the fifteenth century, apparently in consequence of a miraculous eruption of liquid at his grave, relics said to be his were translated to the main altar of the monastery's basilica of San Salvatore where they remained until 1798, the year following the monastery's suppression. They were then translated to the parish church of San Maurizio at Niardo, in whose modern successor they remain today.
In the 1520s the painter Romanino executed a series of frescoes in and on a chapel in the base of the belltower of Brescia's San Salvatore depicting scenes of O.'s life. A brief, illustrated, English-language account of that church is here (the chapel is at left after the two columns):
http://www.bresciamusei.com/pages/page_site.aspx?zone_id=123
Some interior views are here:
http://tinyurl.com/3cdrr3
Another view:
http://tinyurl.com/yhtm7xm
In 1900 O.'s cult was confirmed with the designation of Saint. Here's a view of O.'s relics during a recent annual display at Niardo:
http://tinyurl.com/2zdaaw
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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