medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (10. August) is the feast of:

Lawrence of Rome (d. 258?). L. is a martyr of the Via Tiburtina. He is entered under this day in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354 and is generally held to have been a Roman cleric (usually, a deacon) and a victim of the same persecution in which pope St. Sixtus II met his end. Genuine acta concerning him, if they ever existed, were already unavailable to Sts. Augustine of Hippo and Maximus of Turin.

Whereas L.'s legendary acta found their fullest expression in the _Passio sancti Polychronii_ (BHL 4753; earliest version, late fifth-century?), their basic elements were known to St. Ambrose of Milan and to Prudentius as well to the aforementioned Augustine and Maximus. The part about being tortured on a grill is inconsistent with other information about executions during the Valerianic persecution and for that reason is generally viewed as invention; much of the remainder (e.g. the prophetic encounter with Sixtus II just before his martyrdom and the sale of the church's treasure and the distribution of the profits to the poor) has seemed to some to be at least partly the product of imaginative elaboration.

After Peter and Paul, L. had the most important cult of any Roman martyr. An early _memoria_ at his burial location was followed by a basilica erected by the emperor Constantine before the hill containing L.'s grave and by another erected by pope Pelagius II cut into the hill and in part directly over the grave. The site is now occupied by today's San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (a.k.a. San Lorenzo in Verano). Some views, etc. follow.

History and guide (Italian-language):
http://www.santamelania.it/approf/luogiub/lugcap7.htm#_Toc514781613
Brief history of the church (English-language):
http://web.tiscali.it/romaonlineguide/Pages/eng/rcristiana/sCH2y5.htm
The Sacred Destinations main page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/2fmunm8

Exterior view:
http://tinyurl.com/6mwp3e
Exterior view plus details:
http://members.tripod.com/romeartlover/Vasi46sl.html#Today
An exterior view of the basilica shortly after the bombing in 1943:
http://www.gospark.it/img/articles/19203.JPG

Exterior and interior views (multiple):
http://tinyurl.com/6fsahq
http://tinyurl.com/238x5au

Interior views:
http://fujiso.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hrm2hp/prm507.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/bjm7n
Interior and cloister (Marjorie Greene's views):
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/96
Arch mosaic; L. second from left, after Pelagius II:
http://tinyurl.com/2fonpxy
Detail view (Pelagius and L.):
http://tinyurl.com/273mell
L. as depicted in an eighth- or ninth-century fresco in the Pelagian portion of the church:
http://www.30giorni.it/foto/1145606357618.jpg
The stone on which L.'s body was laid after its removal from the grill is in this church:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Saint_Lawrence_stone.jpg
Whereas the grill itself (and who could doubt this?) is preserved in part in this reliquary Rome's San Lorenzo in Lucina:
http://tinyurl.com/68g6q8
Rome's San Lorenzo in Panisperna was built over a putative place of L.'s martyrdom. Does anyone have views to share either of its crypt or of the oven under its porch believed by some to be that in/on which L. suffered?

The collegiate church of the BVM at Amaseno (FR) in southern Lazio, a twelfth-century structure with later additions <http://www.amasenoonline.com/smaria.htm>, has a blood relic of L. that is said to liquefy every year on this day:
http://www.nemesi.net/reliq1.jpg
An Italian-language account with a rather different photograph of the
relic is here:
http://www.amasenoonline.com/reliquia.htm

That page also has views of, and an excerpt from, the church's foundation document of 1177 (or from a later copy?), whose listing of its relics includes one of L.'s fat. As there are no reports of the liquefaction prior to the seventeenth century (also the date of the present reliquary), the suspicion has been voiced that the present relic may be an early modern substitution. See the following scientific account by Luigi Garlasecchi, the leading investigator today of such blood relics:
http://www.cicap.org/en_artic/at101015.htm
Another proposed explanation (by Marcello Guidotti; Italian-language) is here:
http://www.nemesi.net/reliquie.htm
For those who can't get enough, there's a whole gallery of photographs of the relic here:
http://www.amasenoonline.com/foto/reliquia/index.html

A later twelfth-century (ca. 1175) arm reliquary of L. in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin:
http://www.wga.hu/art/zzdeco/1gold/12c/16g_1100.jpg

Some visual representations of L. outside of Rome:

a) L. as depicted in the mosaics of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna (earlier fifth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/kbven
http://www.pbase.com/jboard/image/48845668
Detail (sans grill):
http://tinyurl.com/g9u75

b) L. (at left) as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century altar area mosaics of Saint Sophia in Kyiv/Kiev:
http://tinyurl.com/2a2fcc5

c) L.'s martyrdom (ca. 1194-1230), south porch, left portal, left pillar, cathedral of Notre-Dame, Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/5qtnns

d) L. (fourth from left; ca. 1194-1230), south porch, left portal, left jambs, cathedral of Notre-Dame, Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/5pkpj8

e) L.'s martyrdom as portrayed (ca. 1215-1220) on the lintel of the cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Genoa:
http://tinyurl.com/2ej8gvw
http://tinyurl.com/28p5zbl

f) The earlier thirteenth-century St. Lawrence window in the cathedral of Saint-Étienne in Bourges:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/08_pages/08_key.htm

g) L.'s martyrdom as depicted in an illuminated initial (ca. 1250-1260) in a gradual for the Use of the abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontevrault (Limoges, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 167r):
http://tinyurl.com/5zhczw

h) L.'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. 77v):
http://tinyurl.com/28xj6tq

i) An expandable view of L.'s martyrdom as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 97v):
http://tinyurl.com/242yaof

j) Expandable views of many other depictions of L. in manuscript illuminations of the thirteenth through early sixteenth centuries are here:
http://tinyurl.com/69ld4h

k) L. before Decius and L.'s martyrdom as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1326-1350) collection of French-language saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 98r):
http://tinyurl.com/22vqup6

l) Sts. Stephen and L. as depicted on the fourteenth-century rood screen, Church of St Andrew, Hempstead (Norfolk):
http://tinyurl.com/6akr7x

m) L. (at left) as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century tracery panel in the south window, St Mary's Church, North Tuddenham (Norfolk):
http://tinyurl.com/2cpo58e

n) L. as depicted in an earlier- to mid-fifteenth-century window in the Church of St Michael, Doddiscombsleigh (Devon; photo by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3638966857/

o) Sts. Stephen and L. as portrayed in an earlier fifteenth-century terracotta relief (betw. 1428 and 1435) in the old sacristy of Florence's basilica di San Lorenzo:
http://tinyurl.com/25e5ef3

p) Expandable views of Beato Angelico's frescoed scenes (1447-50) from the acta of St. Stephen protomartyr and of L. on three walls of the Cappella Niccolina in the papal palace at the Vatican are here:
http://tinyurl.com/5nky9c
http://tinyurl.com/5tnz5m
http://tinyurl.com/6gxu2g
Views of the chapel as a whole:
http://tinyurl.com/5bb6ar

q) L. as depicted in the vault paintings of saints (mid-fifteenth-century) in Överselö kyrka, Överselö (Södermanlands län):
http://tinyurl.com/5b7x3c

r) L.'s martyrdom and other scenes from his Passio as depicted in a later fifteenth-century (1463) copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 31r):
http://tinyurl.com/2c6wgmx

s) L. (at left, with St. Apollonia) as depicted on the late fifteenth-century rood screen in St Catherine's, Ludham (Norfolk):
http://tinyurl.com/6evvd7

t) L. as depicted in the early sixteenth-century (ca. 1500-1520) paintings in the choir of Hald Kirke in Gjerlev (Århus amt) in Midtjylland:
http://tinyurl.com/29xwt3f
 
u) L. (just right of center) in the Mauritius-Laurentius-Altar (1515) in the Münster St. Marien und Jakobus, Heilsbronn (Lkr. Ansbach), Bavaria:
http://tinyurl.com/266ywhq


Some dedications to L. outside Rome:

a) The originally very late fourth-/early fifth-century basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore in Milan, rebuilt in the eleventh century and again in the later sixteenth. Herewith a couple of illustrated, English-language pages on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/2c8nswh
http://tinyurl.com/2b97j55
A multi-page, illustrated, Italian-language site:
http://tinyurl.com/264xpqr
Ground plan:
http://ciaomilano.it/e/sights/slorenzo.asp
Some views of late antique and medieval portions:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37408076
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37408083
http://tinyurl.com/2dt829r
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/39702/photo13.html
http://tinyurl.com/yjvxok2

b) The originally late tenth- or eleventh-century iglesia de San Lorenzo in Segovia:
http://www.arte-romanico.com/autonomias/san%20lorenzo.html
http://www.arte-romanico.com/autonomias/san%20lorenzo2.html
http://www.arte-romanico.com/autonomias/san%20lorenzo3.html

c) The originally very late tenth- or early eleventh-century Sint-Laurentiuskerk in Ename, Oudenaarde (Oost-Vlaanderen), modified in the twelfth century and later:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erfgoed/147471907/
http://tinyurl.com/2vpwk2a
http://users.telenet.be/dekenaat.oudenaarde/Ename-kerk.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/erfgoed/147474449/
http://tinyurl.com/3ynw2uv
http://tinyurl.com/27ywbdo

d) The originally very late tenth- or earlier eleventh-century St Laurence's Church in Bradford-on-Avon (Wilts):
http://tinyurl.com/372owh5
http://tinyurl.com/6s7wno
http://tinyurl.com/38hcvlu
http://tinyurl.com/38f6xfb

e) The originally eleventh-century (ex-)crkva Sv. Lovre in Zadar (Italian: Zara):
http://www.izaberi.hr/slike/zna/0000274/2.jpg
http://www.izaberi.hr/slike/zna/0000274/1.jpg
More recent views (access to the church is through a cafe):
http://tinyurl.com/2d43t7x
http://tinyurl.com/26eo7en

f) The originally late eleventh-century rotonda di San Lorenzo in Mantua:
http://tinyurl.com/2bcy9up
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotonda_di_San_Lorenzo

g) The mostly earlier twelfth-century chiesa di San Lorenzo in Verona (VN) in the Veneto:
http://tinyurl.com/2f9ujb4

h) The originally very late eleventh- and earlier twelfth-century cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Genoa, rebuilt in part in the fourteenth-century:
http://tinyurl.com/2akkbm5
http://tinyurl.com/2f68j9v
http://tinyurl.com/27bkvwj
http://digilander.libero.it/fotogian/sanlorenzo.html

i) The originally earlier twelfth-century (tower, ca. 1200; expanded, later fifteenth-century; portions recently restored) St Lawrence Church in Warkworth (Northumberland):
Illustrated, English-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/23wosq7
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/244b7o6
http://tinyurl.com/2bkfhk5
http://tinyurl.com/2epruz6
http://tinyurl.com/25xb65t
http://tinyurl.com/279yogv
http://tinyurl.com/2chmkxh
http://www.mikr79.net/stlawrence/albums_general.html

j) The originally twelfth-century église Saint-Laurent at Auzon (Haute-Loire):
French-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/28wc5kb
Views:
http://tinyurl.com/268yeed
http://tinyurl.com/3x6skgh
http://tinyurl.com/28ewlxd
http://tinyurl.com/3y2r6qp
http://tinyurl.com/275pcgn
http://tinyurl.com/28atmmt
http://tinyurl.com/37sff6g
http://tinyurl.com/2dc6x8h
http://tinyurl.com/3xonlkv

k) The originally mid-twelfth-century pieve di San Lorenzo at Montiglio Monferrato (AT) in Piedmont, Pieve di San Lorenzo (rebuilt, eighteenth and twentieth centuries,
notable "romanesque" sculpture):
http://www.mondimedievali.net/edifici/Piemonte/SanLorenzo.htm
http://tinyurl.com/28fru8w
http://castellalfero.interfree.it/chiese/lorenzo.htm
http://castellalfero.interfree.it/chiese/lorenzo2.htm

l) The originally later twelfth-century chiesa di San Lorenzo at Bonorva (SS) in Sardinia, restored in the early 1980s:
http://tinyurl.com/ndel4e
http://tinyurl.com/mk33zn
http://tinyurl.com/23w5r6f

m) The originally twelfth- and thirteenth-century iglesia de San Lorenzo in Sahagún (León):
http://www.arteguias.com/romanico_sahagun.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2dpqbwd
http://tinyurl.com/2cp6jz8

n) The originally thirteenth-century katedrala Sv. Lovre in Trogir (Italian: Traù) in coastal southern Croatia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trogir_Cathedral
Other exterior views:
http://villa-masha.com/trogir/11.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ycxq54
http://flickr.com/photos/kpmst7/2680857803/sizes/l/
West portal (1240; by a magister Raduanus):
http://tinyurl.com/28ydltg
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/58dmpa
http://www.dalmacija.net/trogir/photo7.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6rxkjb
http://www.reise-photografie.de/trogir/trogir-10.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/kpmst7/2681715246/sizes/l/

o) The originally later thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century basilica di San Lorenzo Maggiore in Naples:
http://www.alfonsomartone.itb.it/uantco.jpg
http://www.difiorefotografi.it/public/sanlorenzo.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/gb7fz
http://tinyurl.com/36ufzsm
http://tinyurl.com/3xox3uu
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/ef537787.html
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/988d6605.html

p) The originally thirteenth-/fifteenth-century Lorenzkirche in Salzwedel (Sachsen-Anhalt):
http://www.altmark-pur.eu/html/salzwedel-lorenzkirche.html
http://tinyurl.com/28jcau9
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/4720/display/690980
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/4720/display/690977
http://www.sieffert-immobilien.de/SAW_0070.jpg
http://www.strasse-der-romanik.net/stationen/station11.htm
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/mypics/4720/display/235780

q) The originally mid-fourteenth- to earlier sixteenth-century Lorenzkirche in Nürnberg, rebuilt after its destruction in World War II:
Exterior:
http://www.virtusens.de/walther/lorenz.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/33j7xl5
http://tinyurl.com/34va3gn
http://tinyurl.com/3aczwc3
http://tinyurl.com/38y6tcv
Interior:
http://www.thais.it/architettura/Gotica/HR/330.htm
http://tinyurl.com/37h2zjo
http://tinyurl.com/2um4ja3
After the bombing in 1945 (second church from left along skyline; the first is the Sebalduskirche):
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/Occ-GY/images/p35.jpg

r) The originally mid-fourteenth- to mid-sixteenth-century (1345-1557) cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Perugia:
http://www.thais.it/itinerari/orlandi/hi_res/10a2004.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2euvl4k
http://tinyurl.com/emaxl
http://tinyurl.com/k6mxj
http://tinyurl.com/jle76
http://tinyurl.com/24e84us
http://tinyurl.com/2626xjn
http://tinyurl.com/22qw5e9

s) The mostly fifteenth-century collégiale Saint-Laurent at Salon-de-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), a rebuilding of a fourteenth-century predecessor that had collapsed:
http://tinyurl.com/2a8pa2y
http://www.web-provence.com/villes/salon-13.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Salon_Saint_Laurent.jpg
Nostradamus is buried here:
http://tinyurl.com/23h2yo9

t) The mostly fifteenth-century basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence:
http://tinyurl.com/6mg9jb

u) The mostly later fifteenth-/early sixteenth-century Laurin kirkko at Lohja in southern Finland:
http://tinyurl.com/2dnebde
http://tinyurl.com/2wjgrn3
http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/jarnef/comenius/church.htm
http://tinyurl.com/32tlh5d
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Helvetlohja.jpg

Best,
John Dillon
(an older post revised and enlarged)

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