medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith links to last year's "Saints of the day" for 31. December. This was in two parts, viz.
1) Sylvester I, pope:
http://tinyurl.com/6umx86g
2) Columba of Sens; Donata, Paulina, Rogata, Dominanda, Serotina, Saturnina, and Hilaria (the Septem Virgines); Zoticus of Constantinople; Melania the Younger; and Marius of Avenches:
http://tinyurl.com/7gu63tt
Further to pope St. Sylvester I:
With regard to last year's set of depictions, a better view of Sylvester as depicted in a probably later twelfth-century mosaic in the cathedral of Cefalù is here (third from left in the bottom register):
http://tinyurl.com/c77orbx
Also with regard to last year's set of depictions, the thirteenth-century menaion from Cyprus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1561) should have been identified as a _January_ menaion (in Greek and other eastern-rite churches Sylvester is commemorated on 2. January). Here's a somewhat larger version of that image:
http://i27.servimg.com/u/f27/09/04/27/32/saint_10.jpg
A black-and-white view of Sylvester (at left, followed pope St. Clement I and by Christ) as depicted in an eighth-century fresco in Rome's chiesa di Santa Maria Antiqua:
http://fe.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/foto/40000/6000/5694.jpg1
A smaller image, in color:
http://tinyurl.com/7edt2ov
Sylvester as depicted in the late thirteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1295) by the painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Climent Novi) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/3svyxgc
Sylvester (at left; at right, St. Methodius of Constantinople) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by the painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/4ydynf2
Sylvester (at left; at right, St. Aelian) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the prothesis of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/85y4knr
Sylvester as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1445 or 1446) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/6o9lcwg
Views of the originally eighth(?)-century but much rebuilt église Saint-Sylvestre-et-Sainte-Colombe at Colombiers (Hérault) will be found in last year's account of Columba of Sens (no. 1 at <http://tinyurl.com/7gu63tt>).
An illustrated, French-language account of the originally twelfth-century église / chapelle Saint-Sylvestre at Puéchabon (Hérault) and some other views of this structure (only the last is of the interior):
http://tinyurl.com/6rp2py2
http://tinyurl.com/6wcz8dv
http://tinyurl.com/6vldz9m
http://tinyurl.com/6qyvv2n
http://tinyurl.com/83p668x
http://carlig.typepad.fr/viadomitia/2007/08/saint-sylvestre.html
http://tinyurl.com/6wef5ks
Further to Marius of Avenches:
This Marius is also known as Marius of Lausanne, as he is credited with thither transferring the diocesan seat from Avenches.
31. December is also the feast day of:
Barbatianus (d. earlier 5th cent., supposedly). According to his very legendary originally eighth- or tenth-century Vita (two versions: BHL 972 and 972b), Barbatianus was a priest from Antioch who at the beginning of the fifth century became an hermit at Rome's cemetery of Callistus. In addition to practicing a life of prayer and penitence he operated miracles on behalf of members of the imperial court. The empress Galla Placidia brought him to Ravenna, where he enabled her miraculous acquisition of relics of St. John the Evangelist which latter she then used to sanctify a church that she had built in the Evangelist's honor in fulfilment of vow (i.e. Ravenna's basilica di San Giovanni Evangelista). When Barbatianus died the empress and bishop St. Peter Chrysologus saw to it that he was buried in his church of St. John. This edifice later came to be called that of Sts. John and Barbatianus.
Thus far the Vita. Late antique evidence for Barbatianus and/or his cult appears not to exist. But from at least the time of the Vita's creation onward he has been one of Ravenna's canonical early saints. Relics believed to be his repose in Ravenna's cathedral in a probably mid-fifth-century sarcophagus into which they are said to have been translated in 1658:
http://tinyurl.com/6vz6oel
http://tinyurl.com/72yovpu
One of the very few survivors of the earlier twelfth-century apse decoration of Ravenna's basilica Ursiana (the city's medieval cathedral, ruinous when it was pulled down in the eighteenth century) is this mosaic portrait, now in the Museo arcivescovile, traditionally identified as depicting Barbatianus:
http://tinyurl.com/7r9t367
An Italian-language account of this mosaic's restorations from 1743 onward:
http://tinyurl.com/8xspskb
Best,
John Dillon
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