medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (7. December) is the feast day of:

1)  Savinus of Spoleto (d. ca. 304, supposedly).  S. (the name is a late antique spelling of Sabinus and is often normalized to the latter form) is a saint of the Via Flaminia whose cult had spread widely in central Italy by the later Middle Ages.  His veneration is first recorded from Spoleto, where a basilica housing his remains is mentioned in the sixth century by Procopius and by pope St. Gregory the Great and in the eighth century by Paul the Deacon.  Gregory also mentions dedications to an S. in the vicinity of Fermo and in the diocese of Ascoli Piceno, both in the more southerly portion of today's Marche; the former evolved into a Benedictine house of the same name (home in the thirteenth century to Bl. Adam of Fermo).  The undoubted later presence of our S.'s cult in the central Marche has reinforced the assumption that these two early dedications were also to him and not to some other saint bearing this rather common name.

By the early ninth century S. had received a legendary Passio (BHL 7451-7455; an earlier sixth-century origin has been hypothesized) that makes him a bishop of an unspecified town who is arrested at Assisi along with the deacons Exuperantius and Marcellus (or Marcellinus).  When these three refuse to sacrifice to the gods of the Roman state the local magistrate Venustianus has S.'s hands cut off and has the deacons tortured to death.  A miraculous cure attributed to S.'s severed hands causes V. to convert along with his family.  The emperor Maximian sends to Assisi his minion the tribune Lucius, who has V. and the latter's family put to death and S. transported to Spoleto, where he is whipped severely and then executed on this day.

St. Ado of Vienne, followed by Usuard and by the RM until 2001, entered S. and his companions under 30. December.  The revised RM of 2001 dispenses with the companions and commemorates S. today (also his feast day in the archdiocese of Spoleto - Norcia).

Inventions and translations of relics of S. are reported from the late tenth century onward to many places, perhaps most notably a translation in 956 to Ivrea (TO) in Piedmont, where S. is still co-patron (celebrated on 7. July); an Inventio in 1266 in Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (where S. -- labelled SABINVS -- is the final saint in the sixth-century procession of male martyrs in the mosaics of the nave); and, perhaps in the early fourteenth century and certainly by 1367, a translation to Fusignano (RA) in the diocese of Faenza but not far from Ravenna.  Here's a view of S.'s depiction in mosaic (second from left) in Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://image04.webshots.com/4/5/48/52/54454852PkKRCa_fs.jpg
Another view (with truer colors):
http://tinyurl.com/35nuovn

From Faenza itself we have a late medieval revised Passio of S. that makes him a native of Sulmona (and thus a putative saint of the Regno) who before his arrest at Assisi and death and burial at Spoleto is an hermit near Fusignano and whose body is later translated back to Fusignano at the behest of an angel.  S.'s feast day in the diocese of Faenza is 6. December.

Today's chiesa di San Savino at Fusignano (a successor to its later medieval one) houses a fifth- or sixth-century sarcophagus that once contained S.'s putative remains:
http://tinyurl.com/ycbvbez
At some time from 1438 to 1441 those relics were translated from Fusignano to Faenza, whose originally later fifteenth-century cathedral houses them in a tomb sculpted during the years 1468-1471 (_aliter_, 1474-1476) by Benedetto da Maiano.  A page of views of this tomb (the Arca di San Savino; the views of individual reliefs are better than those of the monument as a whole):
http://tinyurl.com/ycbzfds
There are better views in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 11, cols. 707-08 and 711-12.


2)  Urban of Teano (d. later 4th cent., supposedly).  Today's less well known saint of the Regno is one of a group of at least semi-legendary early bishops of today's Teano (CE) in northern Campania, where he is said to have followed bishops St. Paris (5. August) and St. Amasius (23. January).  According to Paris' Vita (BHL 6466), U. was Amasius' deacon and became the third bishop.  According to one of Amasius' rather untrustworthy Vitae (BHL 355), U. would have been Paris' immediate successor but declined then out of humility.  He is said to have been laid to rest in the lower part of the city.

Along with Paris, Amasius, and other local saints, U. was figured on the fourteenth-century funerary monument from which panels showing them were in the seventeenth century used to replace the fire-damaged parapet of the cosmatesque ambo in Teano's cattedrale di San Clemente:
http://www.prolocoteano.it/Monumenti/Ambone.htm


3)  Ambrose of Milan (d. 397).  Not to be confused with the Blessed Ambrose of Milan (Franciscan; d. 1525), this A. is a Saint and a Doctor of the Church.  A member of the imperial aristocracy, he was governor of Milan when he was elected bishop of that city in 374.  A. became an extraordinarily influential preacher, theologian, and ecclesiastical administrator.  Along with St. Augustine of Hippo (whom he baptized) and St. Jerome he is one of the great western Christian churchmen of the fourth century.

A.'s _dies natalis_ is 4. April (his feast day in the ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard) but today, the anniversary of his consecration as bishop, was his feast day in some places since at least the ninth century, though what it represented was not always perfectly understood (the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples describes it as the day of A.'s laying to rest).  Today was A.'s principal feast day in the late medieval breviary of the Roman curia and has remained so in the RM.

Herewith a few views, etc. of the Milanese basilica named for A. (originally late fourth- or very early fifth-century; rebuilt in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries).

The basilica's home page:
http://santambrogio-basilica.it/basilica.htm

Exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/yhvx89x
http://p.vtourist.com/1036652-Travel_Picture-Milan.jpg
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Italy/photo72649.htm
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/fd173/
http://www.thais.it/architettura/romanica/schede/scm_00059_uk.htm

Exterior details:
http://static.flickr.com/38/124723971_4b637d20dd.jpg?v=0
http://static.flickr.com/49/124723969_90e61bc9eb.jpg?v=0
http://tinyurl.com/y2h4yv
http://static.flickr.com/52/126885840_bf41565cc9.jpg
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on the exterior (but the site, alas, is still off-line):
http://tinyurl.com/yzcg4d

Interior views:
http://www.storiadellarte.com/periodi/romanico/archromanica/milano.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3amnqy
http://tinyurl.com/y8ygyt
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/fd170/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/fd171/
http://tinyurl.com/y7urnx
http://tinyurl.com/yde7uxy
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on the interior (but the site, alas, is still off-line):
http://tinyurl.com/yffsnxg

Here's A. in the crypt, dressed in white and lying between the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius (whose bodies he discovered) :
http://tinyurl.com/r5otc
http://static.flickr.com/52/124723968_aff97d80b8.jpg

Some images of A.:

In Milan:

a)  His restored fifth-century mosaic portrait in the basilica di Sant'Ambrogio's sacello di San Vittore:
http://tinyurl.com/2875f6x
Detail view (A.):
http://www.30giorni.it/foto/1139562387438.jpg

b)  A. as portrayed in a relief on the west front of Sant'Ambrogio:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/e34c6692.html

c)   Bees swarming around the infant A. (the source for this symbolic miracle is Paulinus of Milan's closely posthumous Vita of A.) in a panel of the earlier ninth-century (ca. 835) altar frontal in Milan's basilica di Sant'Ambrogio:
http://tinyurl.com/y9glfv5

d)  A. (at left) as portrayed in a twelfth-century relief on Milan's Porta Romana:
http://tinyurl.com/y8upj5

e)  A. flanked by Sts. Gervasius and Protasius (fourteenth-century) on Milan's Pusterla di Sant'Ambrogio (another gate):
http://www.chieracostui.com/costui/lettini/docs/edscheda.asp?ID=122

Elsewhere:

f)  A. as depicted in an eleventh-century copy of his _De bono mortis_ from Fécamp (Paris: BnF, ms. Latin 2639, fol. 31v):
http://tinyurl.com/y9rm62v

g)  A. as depicted in an eleventh-century manuscript of writings of Church Fathers (Avranches, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 72, f. 182v):
http://tinyurl.com/yedzgpb

h)  A. as depicted in a twelfth-century copy of his _Hexaemeron_ (Charleville-Mézières, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 212, t. III, fols. 1-88v, fol. 1r):
http://tinyurl.com/ykvxshy

i)  A. as depicted in two late twelfth-century panels (ca. 1180) in a mostly early thirteenth-century composite window in the cathedral of St.-Étienne in Le Mans (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
St. Paul in a vision tells the sleeping A. where to find the bodies of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2209088732/
and
A. (nimbed) and a brother bishop unearth the bodies of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4714852210/

j)  An expandable view of A. (at right) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 47r):
http://tinyurl.com/34dccs3

k)  A. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1312-1321) in one of the little domes of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/ydtx5b7

l)  A. (upper roundel) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/ygxkvuw

m)  A. (at left; at right, St. Patapius) as depicted in a December calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yaswkw7

n)  A. as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century glass window panel (ca. 1340-1350) from Kärnten, now in The Cloisters collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/2dc4h7k

o)  Bees swarming around the infant A. as depicted by Richard de Montbaston or Jeanne de Montbaston in an earlier fourteenth-century (1348) copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in the version of Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 98r):
http://tinyurl.com/ygb8up7

p)  A. as portrayed in a statuette on Augustine's later fourteenth-century tomb in Pavia's basilica di San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro:
http://tinyurl.com/24nqhle

q)  A. preaching (Augustine among the listeners) and A. at Augustine's baptism as portrayed in high relief on Augustine's later fourteenth-century tomb in Pavia's basilica di San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro:
http://tinyurl.com/2cft8mj
http://tinyurl.com/37xxotc

r)  A. as portrayed by Pietro di Puccio in lower right-hand corner mosaic (1388; restored) on the facade of the cathedral of Orvieto (TR) in Umbria (image greatly expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/34rurfy

s)  A. in his study, in an early fifteenth-century panel by Lorenzo Ghiberti on the north doors of the baptistery in Florence:
http://tinyurl.com/yz6jvxn

t)  Jerome and A. (at right; at left, St. Jerome) as depicted with donors on the late fifteenth-century rood screen in the Church of St Thomas, Foxley (Norfolk):
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/foxley/images/dscf9613.jpg

u)  A. (at left; at right, St. Augustine) in a panel painting by Giovanni Masone (Genoa, 1491), now in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/y5gftm

v)  A. as portrayed in relief on the pulpit (ca. 1500) of the église Saint-Georges at Haguenau (Bas-Rhin):
http://tinyurl.com/yhyacqv

w)  A. in his study as portrayed in a wooden statue (ca. 1500) from Palencia, now in The Cloisters collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/25whxpq

x)  Various images:
http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/ambrose.html
http://tinyurl.com/ykfkwcu

 
4)  John the Silent (d. 559).  We know about J. (also J. the Silentiary, though he's not known to have held such an office, and J. the Hesychast) from his Bios by his disciple Cyril of Scythopolis (BHG 897, 898).  Born at Nicopolis in Amenia into a family in imperial service, he was orphaned early in life and while still young founded a monastery there.  Elected bishop of nearby Colonia against his will, J. continued to live ascetically.  In the tenth year of his episcopate his sister's husband became governor of Armenia and began to insert himself in ecclesiastical affairs. When appeals to higher authority were unavailing, J. left his diocese for Jerusalem, where he served elderly poor in a hospital.  Prompted by a nocturnal vision of a star in the form of a cross and by a voice telling him to follow it, he then entered the Great Lavra and lived there under the guidance of St. Sabas of Jerusalem.

Sabas, impressed by J.'s humility and devotion, wished to ordain him priest.  When J. revealed his true ecclesiastical rank to the patriarch of Jerusalem, the latter required him to live in silence.  As did Sabas, once he had learned J.'s secret.  After four years of solitude in his cell J. became a desert hermit but returned at Sabas' bidding after about another nine years.  In time it was revealed to all that J. was a bishop.  He spent the remainder of his very long life at the Great Lavra, mostly in silence but also offering instruction to those who sought him out.

A distance view of the Great Lavra (now Mar Saba) in the gorge of the Kidron:
http://tinyurl.com/6x56up
An illustrated, English-language account of this monastery:
http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/Marsaba.html


5)  Fara (d. ca. 645).  What little is known about F. (also Burgundofara; in French and English also Fare) comes from Jonas of Bobbio's contemporary _Vita sancti Columbani abbatis discipulorumque eius libri duo_ (BHL 1898).  A member of the Frankish nobility and a protégée of St. Eustasius of Luxeuil, she had been dedicated to God by that abbey's St. Columbanus.  Her father arranged a marriage for her nonetheless.  In response, F. came down with a severe fever; she also injured her eyes through much weeping.  When her father finally agreed to let her remain a virgin she was healed.  He founded for F. a double monastery at a place called Evoriacum.  She was its first abbess and was venerated there after her death (today is her _dies natalis_).  The abbey's town came to be named for F.; it is now Faremoutiers (Seine-et-Marne).

Expandable views of the originally twelfth- to fifteenth-century église Sainte-Fare at Achères-la-Forêt (Seine-et-Marne) and of some of its furnishings are here:
http://fr.topic-topos.com/eglise-sainte-fare-acheres-la-foret

Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)

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