medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. April) is the feast day of:
1) Eutychius of Constantinople (d. 582). We know about E. chiefly from his Bios by his student, the priest Eustratius (BHG 657 [the form printed in the _Patrologia Graeca_] and 657b [with Miracles]). A Phrygian from a well-placed military family, he was educated at Constantinople, became a monk, and rose at Amasea in Pontus to be supervisor of all its monks. In 552 E. succeeded St. Menas as patriarch of Constantinople and in 553 he presided at the fifth ecumenical council (II Constantinople). Doctrinal disagreements and his connections to Belisarius, of whom his father had been a trusted lieutenant, led to a falling out with his former backer the emperor Justinian I. The latter had S. deposed and exiled internally (but only back to Amasea). Justin II, who succeeded to the purple late in 565, restored him.
In this earlier fourteenth-century (betw. 1335-1350) of the Fifth Ecumenical Council in the church of the Pantocrator at the Visoki Deèani monastery near Peæ in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's Kosovo province, E. is at the emperor's immediate right:
http://tinyurl.com/yc2cos8
In this early sixteenth-century (1502) fresco of the same council, by Dionisy and sons in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast, E. is probably again the figure at the emperor's immediate right:
http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/124/349/index.shtml
2) Prudentius of Troyes (d. 681). We know about the theologian and bishop P. from his own surviving writings, from two Vitae (BHL 6981b and 6981), from references to him by contemporaries, and from various documentary appearances. A native of northern Spain, he was chaplain to Louis the Pious before being elevated to the see of Troyes in 844. In 849/850 his criticisms of Gottschalk of Orbais on predestination were too mild to please Hincmar of Reims and St. Rabanus Maurus. In the developing controversy he wrote a point-by-point response to Johannes Scotus Eriugena's _De praedestinatione_ of 851 and is reported to have subscribed the anti-Gottschalkian articles of the synod of Quierzy in 853.
Today is P.'s _dies natalis_. Some of his relics stayed at Troyes but others wound up at the monastery of Saint-Savin sur Gartempe in Poitou, where he is said to be figured in a twelfth-century mural painting in the crypt.
3) Notker Balbulus (Bl.; d. 912). N. was a monk of St. Gall where he is recorded as librarian (briefly) and as master of guests (over a period of several years). A prolific writer, he was both the author of -- inter alia -- a martyrology and a three-book metrical Vita of St. Gall (BHL 3255t) and the probable author of the _Gesta Caroli Magni_. N.'s _Liber Hymnorum_ is an early collection of sequences; many of these are of his own composition. The entertaining Ekkehard IV (d. after 1056) offers anecdotes of him in his _Casus sancti Galli_. N. has an early thirteenth-century Vita (BHL 6251; ca. 1214) arising out of an unsuccessful canonization campaign. He was beatified in 1512 with a cult authorized for his monastery. In the following year his cult was extended to the diocese of Konstanz. Here's a portrait (ca. 1070; St. Gallen) of N. as author:
http://www.abcsvatych.com/images/n/notker.jpg
4) Peter Martyr (d. 1252). The Dominican P. (also Peter of Verona) was an effective preacher and a tireless inquisitor in northern Italy. He was ambushed and murdered by enemies who lodged a harvesting blade of some form in his skull. His cult was virtually immediate; canonization came swiftly in 1253. A recent book on P.'s life and cult is Donald Prudlo, _The Martyred Inquisitor_ (Ashgate, 2008).
P.'s tomb is in Milan's church of Sant'Eustorgio. Created in 1335-39 by Giovanni di Balduccio, it has moved around a bit but now is housed in the church's Cappella Portinari:
http://tinyurl.com/44689y
http://tinyurl.com/bclkm
A Thais page with expandable detail views of this monument:
http://www.thais.it/scultura/giovbald.htm
Detail (martyrdom of P. and a companion):
http://tinyurl.com/3pu7zd
http://tinyurl.com/4yadu6
A view of Temperantia (one of the tomb's caryatids):
http://tinyurl.com/9glgo
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/ceebjb
Many detail views of the monument are here (this page also has views of a cycle of frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa dealing with P.'s miracles):
http://tinyurl.com/4jt5cr
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this monument is here (but its host is still off-line):
http://tinyurl.com/ydb29qb
The recently uncovered fresco of P. in the cathedral of Cremona is thought to have been painted not long after the saint's canonization:
http://www.vascellocr.it/art1.htm
Two views of a thirteenth-century miniature depicting P.'s martyrdom, in a psalter now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (MS M.72 fol. 140r):
http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/icaimages/7/m72.140r.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yd236uw
P.'s martyrdom as depicted in the late thirteenth-century (ca. 1285-1290) Livre d'images de Madame Marie (Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 93r):
http://tinyurl.com/ylfo3wn
In this fresco (ca. 1290; attributed to Giotto) on the soffit of the entrance arch of the upper church of the basilica do San Francesco at Assisi, P. is the saint at left (the other is St. Dominic of Caleruega):
http://tinyurl.com/cfmc9b
At least four of these pairs of saints on the soffit were damaged in the collapse of 1997. The pair immediately above this one (Sts. Victorinus and Rufinus of Assisi) was one of those. Expandable views of V. and R. undergoing restoration are here:
http://tinyurl.com/cann49
For more color, two views of Sts. Francis and Clare from the same soffit:
http://tinyurl.com/yeqgysy
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/francis/ABS-francis-m.jpg
Some views of P. in the Thornham Parva retable (ca. 1335; almost certainly from Thetford priory in Norfolk):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/528584471/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/cggqqh
The retable as a whole (P. at far right):
http://www.suite101.com/view_image.cfm/244975
In Beato Angelico's St. Peter Martyr Altarpiece (ca. 1428) P. is second from right in the major figures and above his full-length portrait is a scene depicting his martyrdom. An expandable view of this work (now in the Museo nazionale di San Marco in Florence) is here:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/a/angelico/12/index.html
Beato Angelico is thought to have painted this miniature of P.'s martyrdom at about the same time as he executed his St. Peter Martyr Altarpiece:
http://tinyurl.com/cux7yv
For all the miniatures in this gradual, go to:
http://tinyurl.com/ddnoog
P. is at far right in Beato Angelico's Bosco ai Frati Altarpiece (after 1450), also in the San Marco:
http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/it/immagine.php?id=534
P.'s martyrdom as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (ca. 1480-1490) copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 244, fol. 135v):
http://tinyurl.com/yh6tja5
An expandable view of P. as represented (1490s) by Pedro Berruguete, from a dismembered retable formerly at Santo Tomás de Ávila (this panel now in the Prado; clicking on the image once it's been expanded once will increase both image's size and its clarity):
http://tinyurl.com/ykb5pbe
Another portrait of P. (ca. 1494) by the same artist, also in the Prado:
http://tinyurl.com/yh6v74l
Another view of that portrait, accompanied by English-language text:
http://tinyurl.com/3t3wwt
And here's an expandable view of an almost exactly contemporary depiction of P. (at left, obviously) in a panel from Carlo Crivelli's altarpiece for the church of San Domenico at Camerino (MC) in the Marche now at the Brera in Milan:
http://tinyurl.com/m4ury
Verona's largest "gothic" church is the formerly Dominican pile popularly known as Sant'Anastasia after the dedication of a predecessor on this site. Begun in the late thirteenth century, it has been dedicated to P. since 1307. Completed (except for the facade) in the fifteenth century, it was restored in 1878-81. A detailed, Italian-language account of it (and of the adjacent San Giorgetto) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/7r63z
Some exterior views (incl. the fifteenth-century belltower):
http://tinyurl.com/b6fxt
http://www.froehlich.priv.at/galerie/verona04/original/stf316.html
http://tinyurl.com/y9mb4eq
Front views, with San Giorgetto at left:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:Santanastasiaverona.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ybn6o7f
Main portal (showing polychrome marbles):
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3SLzk_D0VRwdvGFc55sRUA
Main portal, sculptural details and faded frescoing:
http://www.verona.com/it/immagini-verona/4262/
http://www.verona.com/it/immagini-verona/4261/
The portal was once adorned with fifteenth-century reliefs of scenes from P.'s life; two of these remain:
http://www.aboutromania.com/verona9.html
http://www.verona.com/it/immagini-verona/4258/
http://www.verona.com/it/immagini-verona/4259/
And here's a restored P. on the trumeau:
http://www.verona.com/it/immagini-verona/4263/
Some expandable interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/m9q8b
http://tinyurl.com/nd8s4
http://tinyurl.com/rfa2m
http://tinyurl.com/mjr8x
Best,
John Dillon
(Notker Balbulus and Peter Martyr revised from last year's post)
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