medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. October) is the feast day of:
1) Marcellus of Capua (?). This less well known saint of the Regno is the survivor of a group of martyrs entered under 6. October in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology where they are varyingly attributed either to Apulia or to Capua (Marcellus, Castus, Aemilius, Saturninus). St. Ado of Vienne, Usuard, and Notker attributed them all to Capua. Modern scholarship has found in the variants of the (ps.-)HM enough attribution of M. alone to Capua (sometimes at today's date) to justify the conclusion that he is a genuine saint of that city whose name was attracted into a larger and problematic grouping of saints from Apulia. In the "new" RM of 2001 he replaced Marcellus and Apuleius, dubiously said in the Passio of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus (BHL 6058) to have been adherents of Simon Magus converted to Christianity by St. Peter and later martyred.
Capua's originally mid-ninth-century chiesa di San Marcello Maggiore, though entirely rebuilt in the nineteenth century, preserves portions of a portal with twelfth-century carvings and incorporating as its lintel (or architrave, _sensu italiano_) an earlier inscription from the the tomb of one of Lombard Capua's leading families. Some views:
http://tinyurl.com/5yk9f7
http://tinyurl.com/4eet9j
http://tinyurl.com/3mz3ml
http://tinyurl.com/3p2wvs
The images of the soldiers on the left jamb suggests that in the twelfth century the M. of this church may have been construed as Marcellus of Tingis (Marcellus the Centurion; 30. Oct.). The parishes of San Marcello in today's diocese of Capua have churches dedicated to that M.
2) Justina of Padua (d. 304, supposedly). Nothing is known about the historical J. A saint of this name has been venerated as a martyr in northeastern Italy and especially at Padua since at least the very late fifth century or very early sixth century, when the praetorian prefect Opilio founded in the latter city a basilica dedicated to her that lasted until 1117 and that from perhaps the eighth century onward was the church (since several times rebuilt) of what later became a major Benedictine monastery. Herewith a reduced, gray-shade view of the inscription recording Opilio's foundation, now mounted at the entrance to the reconstructed late antique cappella di San Prosdocimo in Padua's basilica di Santa Giustina:
http://tinyurl.com/3ypvlhf
In the sixth century St. Venantius Fortunatus speaks of J.'s tomb in this church (whose walls were painted with scenes from the Acta of St. Martin of Tours). Across the Adriatic in the Istrian town of Poreč in today's Croatia she is figured in the earlier sixth-century mosaic portraits of the triumphal arch of the Basilica Eufrasiana:
http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/u/un-.jpg
http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/u/un-.gif
Later in the same century J. appears in the (now greatly restored) procession of female martyrs in Ravenna's Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. In this photograph by Genevra Kornbluth she's second from left:
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/ApNNorth5.jpg
J.'s cult is attested epigraphically from Rimini in the sixth or seventh century. It is not entirely clear whether she is also the J. who in this general period entered the Ambrosian Canon of the Mass and to whom was dedicated an oratory at Como in 617.
The late eighth- or very early ninth-century Sacramentary of Salzburg, whose texts are of Venetian origin, preserves part of a Mass for J. celebrated on 8. October. What is thought to be the oldest surviving form of J.'s legendary Passio (BHL 4571) is usually ascribed to the eleventh century. This makes her a wealthy virgin and a native of Padua who is arrested while there hastening to the aid of Christians caught up in the persecution of Maximian, who in a colloquy with that worthy refuses to sacrifice to the idols, and who is executed forthwith on 5. October by a sword thrust through her flank. Versions from the twelfth century onward add details and assign J.'s _dies natalis_ to today.
Donatello executed a statue of J. in the later 1440s for the high altar of Padua's Basilica del Santo (i.e. Anthony of Padua). In this distance view it is the second figure from left (first in the upper register):
http://tinyurl.com/45jskp
Detail (J.'s head):
http://www.basilicadelsanto.org/gfx/visita/sgiustina_bronzi.jpg
There's an excellent full-length photograph of this statue at p. 123 of Andrea Nante, ed., _Santa Giustina e il primo Cristianesimo a Padova_ (Padova: Museo Diocesano di Padova, 2004).
J. is depicted at lower right in Andrea Mantegna's St. Luke Polyptych (1453-54), formerly in Padua's Santa Giustina and now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan:
http://tinyurl.com/2ko9t9
Detail (J.):
http://tinyurl.com/4skdjh
3) Sergius and Bacchus (d. ca. 305, supposedly). According to their highly problematic older Greek Passion (BHG 1624), S. and B. were imperial bodyguards who refused to accompany their emperor when he entered a temple of Zeus (probably somewhere in western Syria, most likely at Antioch on the Orontes) in order to make sacrifice. In punishment they were stripped of their military garb and insignia, paraded through the streets in women's clothing, and then taken elsewhere and tortured. B. died first; after lasting for several more days, S. was taken to Resafa (Resaphe, Rusafa, Rasafa, etc.) in the Euphrates valley and executed. Witnesses buried him at his place of execution, where later a martyrium was erected in his honor.
Opinions on the underlying historicity of this account vary from outright acceptance (John Boswell, _Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe_ [New York: Villard Books, 1994], pp. 146-53) to cautious, modified acceptance (Elizabeth Key Fowden, _The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius Between Rome and Iran_ [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999], ch. 1) to outright rejection as fiction (Hippolyte Delehaye, Agostino Amore, David Woods); this last position is fairly well summed up by Woods in the section devoted to these saints in his _Military Martyrs_ website:
http://www.ucc.ie/milmart/Sergius.html
But there is no doubt that from at least the fifth century onward S. and B. enjoyed a major cult based initially in eastern Syria, where in the early Byzantine period Resafa was renamed Sergioupolis. By the middle of the sixth century their veneration was widespread in eastern Christendom and by then also beginning its diffusion in the West. In this regard, S. (who in the aforementioned Passio not only outlasts B. but also outranks him) often had primacy of place and sometimes seemingly the sole dedication. The originally fourth-century monastery of Mar Sarkis (St. Sergius) at Ma'lula (Maalula), Syria is a case in point; a western example would be the abbey of Saint-Serge et Saint-Bach at Angers, already in existence in the early eighth century and originally dedicated to Sts. Sergius and Medard.
Some portrayals:
a) S. as depicted on a sixth- or seventh-century ampulla in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (photography courtesy of Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/WAMAmpulla.jpg
b) S. as depicted in an earlier seventh-century fresco in the church of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki:
http://tinyurl.com/23st4on
and at right here:
http://tinyurl.com/3v68fqu
c) S. and B. as depicted in a seventh(?)-century icon, probably of Constantinopolitan origin, that once belonged to St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai and that now is in the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Arts in Kyiv / Kiev:
http://tinyurl.com/4hr6w3
http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=1&id=1928
d) S. and B. as depicted in earlier eleventh-century frescoes (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
S.:
http://tinyurl.com/yaxz73j
B.:
http://tinyurl.com/yeorf36
The frescoes _in situ_:
http://tinyurl.com/23rbzxk
e) S. and B. as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics of the Nea Moni on Chios:
S.:
http://tinyurl.com/23xgyxr
B.:
http://tinyurl.com/28ttj6k
f) B. as depicted in a late eleventh-century mosaic in the katholikon of the Daphni monastery, Chaidari (Athens prefecture):
http://tinyurl.com/36awjdu
g) S. and B. as portrayed on the cover of a later twelfth-century (1179) sarcophagus in Verona's Museo civico di Castelvecchio:
http://tinyurl.com/432655
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahgeek/3647830242/#/
http://tinyurl.com/3xtm4up
http://tinyurl.com/32a3x3s
Other views of this sarcophagus are here:
http://tinyurl.com/3y3bblv
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahgeek/3647837884/in/photostream/
h) S. as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco (either ca. 1263-1270 or slightly later) in the nave of the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/25yjzgn
http://tinyurl.com/24zxfgt
i) A later thirteenth-century "Crusader" icon (ca. 1260) of S., showing a female donor, in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai:
http://tinyurl.com/3jrj5lp
j) A late thirteenth-century "Crusader" icon (1280s) of S. and B. in St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai (in 2000 this piece was on loan for an exhibition in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; some popularly oriented websites ascribe it to the latter institution):
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/mar/ser2801.jpg
k) A late thirteenth- or very early fourteenth-century icon of S. and B., probably from Wadi Natrun and now in the Coptic Museum in Cairo:
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/mar/ser0305.jpg
l) S. and B. as depicted in October calendar portraits in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/y97tmln
m) B. as depicted in another earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/28lm498
http://tinyurl.com/29eot7l
n) S. and B. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by the court painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychius in the church of St. George in Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/43jp7zh
o) S. (at left) and B. as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1314 and ca. 1320) by the court painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychius in the church of St. Nikita at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/3cvrdyk
S. (another view):
http://tinyurl.com/3c9upo4
B. (another view):
http://tinyurl.com/3tge5x8
Detail for necklace (S., image reversed):
http://tinyurl.com/3mdyllq
p) B.'s damaged earlier fourteenth-century mosaic portrait (betw. 1315 and 1321) in the parecclesion of Constantinople's Chora Church (Kariye Camii), now a secular museum in Istanbul:
http://tinyurl.com/25up6t
The corresponding portrait of S. has been very largely defaced.
q) The martyrdom of S. and B. as depicted in a October calendar scene in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in 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/ya22bd9
r) S. and B. as depicted with Sts. Marcellus and Apuleius (on whom see no. 1, above) behind them in a late fifteenth-century Roman Breviary (Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 69, fol. 585v):
http://tinyurl.com/4en2py
s) S. and B. as depicted in early sixteenth-century frescoes (1502) by Dionisy and sons in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast:
http://www.dionisy.com/img/139/frag_lg.jpg
t) S. and B. as depicted in earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1545-1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k. a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
S.:
http://tinyurl.com/3hyctdc
B.:
http://tinyurl.com/3ucad6d
4) Mark, pope (d. 336). M. was bishop of Rome from 18. January 336 to 7. October of the same year. He is credited with establishing the practice whereby the the bishop of Ostia consecrates the newly elected bishop of Rome. He is the probable founder of the titular church seemingly once named for him but now Rome's basilica di San Marco Evangelista in Campidoglio. M. was laid to rest in the cemetery of Balbina, where he had erected a basilica that lasted into the seventeenth century. His putative relics are in the aforementioned San Marco in Campidoglio (though the abbey of the Most Holy Savior at Abbadia San Salvatore in southern Tuscany claims to possess his head). Herewith an English-language account of that church:
http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Marco
Facade and belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/3vtzzm
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/3uzq84
Apse mosaic (black-and-white):
http://tinyurl.com/rewpb
For color views of the apse mosaic, see this album at Marjorie Greene's medrelart site on Shutterfly:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/64
M. as portrayed by a later fourteenth-century reliquary bust (1381), attributed to the Sienese sculptor Agnolo Romanelli, in the Museo di arte sacra dell'abbazia del Santissimo Salvatore at Abbadia San Salvatore (SI):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenninrome/4749634255/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenninrome/4750276286/
M. as depicted in an early fifteenth-century breviary (ca. 1414) for the Use of Paris (Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 363r):
http://tinyurl.com/3ls4hsz
M. as depicted in a later fifteenth-century fresco (betw. ca. 1465 and ca. 1470) by Melozzo da Forlì in Rome's basilica di San Marco Evangelista in Campidoglio:
http://tinyurl.com/3fwk3mo
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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