medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Thursday, August 11, 2011, at 12:10 am, I wrote:
> 3) Rufinus of Assisi (?)...
<SNIP>
> R.'s two chief architectural monuments are his cathedral at Assisi and
> the church at Trasacco (AQ) in Abruzzo whose dedication he shares with
> Caesidius.
> Exterior views of the chiesa dei Santi Cesidio e Rufino at Trasacco,
> first recorded from 1096 and variously augmented and modified over the
> centuries:
> http://www.immagini2.terremarsicane.it/ing2trasacco/im63.htm
> Main (Men's) portal (fifteenth-century ?):
> http://flickr.com/photos/53366513@N00/2214555519/
> Details:
> http://tinyurl.com/c8e4c
> http://tinyurl.com/9nhs5
> Women's portal:
> http://www.immagini2.terremarsicane.it/ing2trasacco/im64.htm
> http://tinyurl.com/e2k2c
According to the account here <http://www.terremarsicane.it/node/3214>, the Men's Portal was created in the sixteenth century and the Women's Portal was created in the thirteenth century.
> 4) Digna of Todi (?). D. is a local saint of Todi in Umbria...
<SNIP>
> D.'s
> cult was once widespread in Umbria. One visible remainder of that is
> the thirteenth-century apse of a church dedicated to her (Santa Degna)
> at today's Montignano di Massa Martana (PG).
Some of the perimeter wall remains as well:
http://tinyurl.com/3slpuld
Here's a view directly into the apse:
http://tinyurl.com/4xvvs69
> 8) Rusticula (d. 632 or 633)...
> [According to her Vita,] Her birth name was Marcia and Rusticola
> was her baptismal name.
I seem to have lapsed into Italian. Her baptismal name was Rusticula.
11. August is also the feast day of:
Alexander the Charcoal-Burner (d. 4th cent.). A. (also A. of Comana) is known solely from St. Gregory of Nyssa's panegyric on St. Gregory the Thaumaturge. According to this account, Gregory had been asked by people of Comana in Pontus to guide them in their ecclesiastical organization. When it came to selecting a priest, various people of high station and good speaking ability were proposed. Gregory, though, suggested that a fitter candidate might be found among persons of humbler station whose outward appearance was less prepossessing. Whereupon irritated Comanans proposed the name of A., a local charcoal burner.
Gregory called A. to him, ordered that this poorly clad and soot-covered person be given a bath, and dressed him in his own clothes. In a subsequent interview Gregory discovered that A.'s wretched appearance was a matter of conscious choice: A. was a philosopher (seemingly a person of Christian philosophical training rather than a pagan philosopher; there's no indication that A. had to be baptized) who had rejected wealth and chosen his humble trade as a matter of ascesis. Others testified to A.'s priestly way of life. A. was then made priest. Though his manner of speech was not stylish, this intelligent person proved himself a true orator. Thus far Gregory of Nyssa.
There is no evidence of A.'s having enjoyed a cult anywhere either in late antiquity or in the Middle Ages. In the late sixteenth century Cardinal Baronio entered him under today in the RM with a fulsome laterculus that calls A. a bishop and says that he later achieved martyrdom by fire. Though textual support for both assertions is apparently lacking, that has prevented neither their repetition by subsequent editors of the RM (including those responsible for the revision of 2001) nor their adoption by modern hagiographers of Orthodox persuasion. Orthodox churches commemorate A. on 12. August.
Best again,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|