medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (9. July) is the feast day of:
1) Eusanius (d. ca. 304, supposedly). Today's less well known saint of the Regno, E. has been venerated in interior portions of Abruzzo and in Lazio's adjacent Rieti province since at least 840, when the emperor Lothar confirmed the abbey of Farfa in its possession of an abbey dedicated to him. The abbey in question was almost certainly the same as the one later attested at today's Sant'Eusanio Forconese (AQ) in Abruzzo, whose chiesa di Sant'Eusanio has been the center of his cult since at least the later Middle Ages and still keeps his putative remains (rediscovered in its crypt in 1748). Who E. really was and when he lived are unknown. He has a late and wholly legendary Passio in two versions (BHL 2733, 2734) that is based on the also legendary Vita of Justin, Florentius, Felix, and Justa (the Abruzzesi "saints of Siponto"; BHL 4586).
These _Acta suspecta_ (as BHL 2734 is called in the _Acta Sanctorum_) present E. as a priest of Siponto in northern Apulia who becomes an hermit on Monte Gargano, operates miracles, and undertakes, with of course more miracles, a pilgrimage to Rome that takes him through various places in Abruzzo and eastern Lazio. Returning from Rome, he settles down at Aveia (the ancient Roman chief town of the Vestini, not far from today's L'Aquila) where he evangelizes the locals, is arrested under Maximian, is jailed and tortured, is released after devils do away with his persecutor, and resumes his evangelizing for another year and a half until his death on this day in an unspecified year.
The exact location of Aveia is controversial; a leading contender is a site near today's Fossa (AQ). In BHL 2734 E. is buried in a nuns' convent church of the BVM and no connection is made between that church and the one in today's Sant'Eusanio Forconese. Tithe records from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries reveal dedications to E. in several dioceses of Abruzzo. In addition to Sant'Eusanio Forconese E. is the eponym, in at least its modern name form, of the also Abruzzese Sant'Eusanio del Sangro (CH), where he continues to be celebrated today. At Sant'Eusanio Forconese E. is celebrated on the Sunday of a three-day civic festival occurring on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday including or close to today. E. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
Herewith three single views, and a page of views, of the originally late twelfth-century chiesa di Sant'Eusanio at Sant'Eusanio Forconese (AQ) with its facade from 1463:
http://tinyurl.com/242b75t
http://tinyurl.com/nf76dy
http://www.trekkinginabruzzo.it/img_sentieri/aquila-i-04.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/kvvhka
Those views were all made prior to the terrible earthquake of 6. April 2009 in the Aquilano and to its aftershocks. This page of views of the damage in Sant'Eusanio Forconese has several of the damage sustained by this particular church:
http://tinyurl.com/lt6gdc
Some further post-earthquake views:
http://tinyurl.com/n4orqp
http://tinyurl.com/nlnxge
At today's Fossa (AQ) the ancient necropolis that was excavated in the 1990s seems to have gone out of use in the first century BCE and the Roman-period ruins at another site in the vicinity identified as Aveia in the late eighteenth century are unimpressive. But the town's originally thirteenth-century chiesa di Santa Maria ad Cryptas, famous for its thirteenth- to fifteenth-century frescoes, is certainly worth a look. A multi-page, illustrated, Italian-language site on it starts here:
http://www.santamariaadcryptas.com/
Two pages of expandable views of the frescoes (left click only) start here:
http://tinyurl.com/26k7qo7
A few single views of the interior:
http://tinyurl.com/25d9plh
http://tinyurl.com/2dumo3u
The church was badly damaged by the earthquake of 6. April 2009. The second photo here shows several cracks and there is another along the left side of the facade. There was damage to the frescoes as well. The building is now closed to the public.
2) Dominic Serra (Bl.; d. 1348). D., whose family name is also given as Serrano, was born in Montepellier where he entered the Order of Our Lady of Mercy (the Mercedarians). A professor of canon law at Montpellier and perhaps also at Toulouse, he became master general of his order in 1345. In late May of 1348 he was created cardinal priest of S. Maria in Trastevere. He died on 9. June of the same year, a victim of the Black Death. D. has yet to grace the pages of the RM. The Mercedarians commemorate him today.
3) Giovanna Scopelli (Bl.; d. 1491). The young G., a native of Reggio in Emilia, wished to be a Carmelite. When her parents disallowed this she adopted a religious life at home. After their death she founded a community of Carmelite women in 1480 that in 1485 moved into Reggio's former church and convent of the Umiliati and that operated as a priory, with G. at its head, of the order's Mantuan Congregation. Intensely devoted to the BVM, she lived very ascetically. After her death miracles, including at least one lifetime one, were attributed to her. G.'s cult was approved papally in 1771.
4) Adrian Fortescue (Bl.; d. 1539). Sir Adrian Fortescue was a member of the Oxfordshire gentry and an occasional courtier who was made knight of the Bath in 1503. He was present at such major pageants as the funeral of Henry VII and the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Arrested for treason in February 1539 and, for reasons unspecified, included in the act of attainder of that year, A. was duly beheaded on Tower Hill. His missal and book of hours show that he had conformed to Henry VII's creation of a national church, with the king rather than the pope at its head. In the seventeenth century the Knights of Malta, believing that A. had been one of them (as another who was executed with him actually was), initiated his veneration as a martyr for the Catholic cause. A. was beatified in 1895. The nature of his offence remains a mystery.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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