medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. August) is the feast day of:
1) Sixtus II and companions; also Agapitus and Felicissimus (d. 258). S. (more correctly Xystus) succeeded pope St. Stephen I as bishop of Rome late in August 257. During his brief pontificate he continued to uphold the Roman position of accepting the validity of baptisms performed by heretics or schismatics but managed to do this less confrontationally than had his predecessor (that at least, was the view in the church of Carthage after S.'s death and that of St. Cyprian; we lack contemporary opinion from the churches of Asia Minor). On 7. August 258 (using the day of the month given by the mid-fourth-century list of the bishops of Rome preserved by the Chronographer of 354), while S. was addressing the faithful at a service in one of the church's cemeteries (variously thought to be either that of Callistus or that of Praetextatus), he and a number of his deacons were seized by Roman authorities enforcing the emperor Valerian's persecution.
In accordance with an imperial edict, S. and four of the deacons were executed on the spot; their bodies were laid to rest in the cemetery of Callistus, with S. being placed in the papal crypt. S. later received a verse epitaph from pope St. Damasus I providing readers with particulars of his arrest and execution (_Epigrammata Damasiana_, ed. Ferrua, no. 17; the _comites Xysti_ are recorded in no. 16, a general elogium for the saints of the crypt).
A. and F. were Roman deacons apprehended at the same time as S. and his companions and executed on the same day. Their place of burial and veneration was the cemetery of Praetextatus. They too received a verse epitaph from Damasus (_Epigrammata Damasiana_, ed. Ferrua, no. 25).
In the sixth century S.'s relics were translated to a church dedicated to him on the Via Appia (first recorded as such in 595, it replaced an earlier _titulus_ in the same vicinity). Frequently rebuilt, it and the monastery it serves are now known as San Sisto all'Appia (a.k.a. San Sisto Vecchio). This illustrated, Italian-language page has views of its medieval belltower and apse, survivors from an early thirteenth-century rebuilding under Innocent III:
http://tinyurl.com/3azb5z9
The early sixth-century Calendar of Carthage enters S. under 6. August. The early medieval (pseudo-) Hieronymian Martyrology enters S., F., A., and others including Lawrence of Rome and Hippolytus of Rome in a general commemoration on 7. August whose form of entry is very similar to that in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354. That is also the _dies natalis_ of S., F., and A. as given in their early medieval Passio BHL 7801ff. From the Carolingian period through the general Roman Calendar of 1962 Latin-rite churches celebrated S., F., and A. on 6. August. See, e.g., the August page of the liturgical calendar in the earlier twelfth-century St Albans Psalter (Hildesheim, Dombibliothek, MS St. Godehard 1):
http://tinyurl.com/63yb4d
Greek and other Orthodox churches have tended rather to include Sixtus (and sometimes others) in their commemoration of St. Lawrence on 10. August.
In the later sixth-century procession of male martyrs in Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, S. is the second figure after St. Martin of Tours (to whom this church was re-dedicated in 561):
http://k43.pbase.com/v3/34/375734/1/48852045.Img003938v2.jpg
An expandable view of the martyrdom of S., F., and A. as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 96r):
http://tinyurl.com/3lfgs3v
S., F., and A. about to be executed as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (ca. 1326-1350) collection of French-language saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 96v):
http://tinyurl.com/35t6rhj
Expandable views of three late medieval illuminations of S., F., and A., plus one of S. alone, are here:
http://tinyurl.com/66pqgn
According to the foundation legend of the diocese of Auxerre, S. sent its protobishop the Roman priest Peregrinus there to evangelize among its pagan inhabitants. Here's S. in audience with St. Peregrinus of Auxerre and companions and, in the upper register, consecrating P. bishop 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 50, fol. 377v):
http://tinyurl.com/y9jlvmx
Curiously, the BnF identifies the pope in this illumination as (the early second-century) Sixtus I.
S. before Decius and Valerian as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (ca. 1480-1490) copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in the version by Jean de Vignay (Paris: BnF, ms. Français 245, fol. 31v):
http://tinyurl.com/2vxx82v
2) Afra of Augsburg (d. ca. 304, supposedly). One of Augsburg's principal patron saints, A. (also Affra, Aphra) has been venerated there since at least 565, when Venantius Fortunatus visited her tomb. She has a legendary Passio in multiple versions (BHL 107b-f; originally of the seventh or eighth century) that makes her a prostitute who was converted to Christianity but was martyred by decapitation before she could be baptized. A competing early ninth-century _Conversio et Passio_ (BHL 108, 109) makes her a courtesan of higher status and has her baptized along with her mother Hilaria and the latter's slaves (who also figure in the Passio and who were celebrated too when this was a feast of A. _et socc._) before they are all martyred by being burned alive.
The oldest witness of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology enters A. under today, as does also in his verse martyrology the earlier ninth-century Wandalbert of Prüm. The mid- and later ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne, Usuard of Saint-Germain, and St. Rabanus Maurus all enter her rather under 5. August. So did the Roman Martyrology prior to its revision of 2001, at which time A.'s commemoration was moved to today in accordance with the "new" RM's frequent practice of using the earliest recorded festal date.
A.'s putative relics are in Augsburg's Basilika St. Ulrich und Afra, an originally late fifteenth-century (with baroque overlay) former monastery church, whose Sacred Destinations page is here:
http://tinyurl.com/nska94
An illustrated, German-language page with expandable interior and exterior views:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilika_St._Ulrich_und_Afra
A.'s late antique sarcophagus in the lower church:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Augsburg_Afra_11.jpg
A. with fellow prostitutes in a scene from the _Conversio_ and A. and companions beings martyred 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. 91r):
http://tinyurl.com/32kcucr
A. (at right; at left, St. Ulrich), as depicted in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1480) in Augsburg's Basilika St. Ulrich und Afra:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Ulrich_von_Augsburg5.jpg
A.'s martyrdom as depicted in a late fifteenth-century antiphoner (1490), from the abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra at Augsburg, attributed to Conrad Wagner, the abbey's illuminator:
http://tinyurl.com/3blc58p
A. (at right; at left St. Ulrich) as depicted in a late fifteenth-century (ca. 1490-1500) hand-colored woodcut offered for sale this past March at Sotheby's London:
http://tinyurl.com/3mmgdy8
http://tinyurl.com/3wq9546
A.'s martyrdom as as depicted in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's _Nuremberg Chronicle_ (1493) at fol. CXXVr:
http://tinyurl.com/3wgkjed
A. (at center, between her fellow Augsburger saints Ulrich and Simpert) in a later fifteenth-or sixteenth-century panel painting now in the Diözesanmuseum Rottenburg in Rottenburg am Neckar:
http://tinyurl.com/442xvhr
Detail (A.):
http://kirchensite.de/index.php?myELEMENT=71079
A.'s martyrdom as depicted by the Master of Meßkirch in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (between 1536 and 1540), from a dismantled altarpiece, now in the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall:
http://tinyurl.com/3vbmajl
3) Donatus of Arezzo (d. 4th cent. ?). An early bishop of Arezzo, D. is recorded under today in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian martyrology as a confessor. His quite legendary Passio (BHL 2289) makes him a martyr under the emperor Julian (in accounts of western saints, a good indicator of fiction). This text or another like it appears to have been known to pope St. Gregory the Great; it was certainly used by St. Peter Damian for his writings on D. (Sermo 38; Hymni 119, 120). The ninth-century historical martyrologies provide notices also deriving from the Passio. D. is one of the saints of the Gelasian Sacramentary and of the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples; in the latter, though, his martyrdom is commemorated on 8. August along with the Cyriac of that day. He is Arezzo's patron saint.
Arezzo's late thirteenth- / early sixteenth-century cathedral of San Donato is situated at the city's highest point. Its belltower is a twentieth-century addition. Exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/2vt7hlv
http://www.saimicadove.it/open2b/var/cm/article/5655c.jpg
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/3apzbf3
An illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duomo_di_Arezzo
D. (at left; at right, pope St. Gregory X, who reposes in this church) in the early fourteenth-century sculptures (ca. 1330) of the tympanum of the portal on the cathedral's right flank:
http://tinyurl.com/3zkdvyv
http://tinyurl.com/3uk9zbq
Inside, another portrayal of D.:
http://tinyurl.com/fd8pw
D.'s fourteenth-century shrine (1369-75) rises above the main altar:
http://tinyurl.com/fysls
http://tinyurl.com/44acufa
Detail views:
http://tinyurl.com/zwqgy
D. as depicted (at lower left) in Pietro Lorenzetti's earlier fourteenth-century Tarlati polyptych (1320) in Arezzo's chiesa di Santa Maria della Pieve:
http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lorenzet/pietro/2/06pieve.jpg
D.'s fourteenth-century reliquary bust (1346) in the same church (photo by Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/Donatus.jpg
Elsewhere, an expandable view of D.'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. 96v):
http://tinyurl.com/453rxlp
D. with the pestiferous dragon he was reputed to have killed, as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1335) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-languiage vetsion by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fol. 338r):
http://tinyurl.com/3zhkbyf
D.'s cult became widespread in later medieval Tuscany. Here's Andrea del Verrocchio's and Lorenzo di Credi's Madonna with John the Baptist and D. (1475-83) in the Donato de' Medici chapel of the cathedral of Pistoia:
http://www.wga.hu/art/v/verocchi/painting/mad_john.jpg
Across the Alps, D. is the co-titular (with St. John the Evangelist) of the thirteenth-/fifteenth-century ex-cathedral of Meißen in Saxony. Two aerial views:
http://www.burgenperlen.de/images/albrechtsburg_luft.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/9300166.jpg
The west front collapsed after a lightning strike in 1413. This is how it looked at the beginning of the twentieth century:
http://tinyurl.com/2anvcfq
And this is how it looks now after Neo-Gothic construction begun in 1904:
http://tinyurl.com/2fk4ugx
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/965ax2
http://tinyurl.com/yaadwkk
http://tinyurl.com/2jnyc4
http://tinyurl.com/2cgk5hf
http://tinyurl.com/yhhpat7
The four thirteenth-century statues (after 1267) seen dimly in the last two views are of the founders of the diocese, Otto I and the empress Adelheid (St. Adelaide), and of the cathedral's titulars, shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/22lgqh3
The protuberance emerging from the west front, seen better here:
http://tinyurl.com/yu64z2
http://tinyurl.com/2fpn9dx
, is the Fürstenkapelle erected starting in 1425. Here's an expandable view of the entrance from the Fürstenkapelle into the nave, incorporating the formerly exterior thirteenth-century west portal:
http://tinyurl.com/2b7qa5
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's post revised)
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