medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to an earlier (2010) 'Saints of the day' for 3. September (including St. Vitalian 'of Capua'; St. Mansuetus of Toul; St. Gregory I, pope [Gregory the Great]; St. Remaclus):
http://tinyurl.com/8fry9o5
Further to Mansuetus of Toul:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the two links to views of his early sixteenth-century funerary monument in the Musée de Toul no longer function. Use these instead:
http://tinyurl.com/9bxksj2
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toul_Mus%C3%A9e_Saint_Mansuy_02.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toul_Mus%C3%A9e_Saint_Mansuy.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toul_Mus%C3%A9e_Saint_Mansuy_detail.jpg
Further to Gregory I, pope:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link to the page with two views of the late antique marble chair in Rome's San Gregorio Magno al Celio no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/c5djbgd
Another view (not showing the carving on the sides):
http://www.gliscritti.it/gallery3/index.php/album_076/San-Gregorio-al-Celio-194
In the same notice, the first link bearing on the originally twelfth-century chiesa di San Gregorio Magno at Ascoli Piceno (and on the temple into which it was built) no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://ascolipiceno.bloog.it/ascoli-piceno-la-chiesa-di-san-gregorio.html
A revised set of views of the originally later twelfth-century église Saint-Grégoire at Tesson (Charente-Maritime):
Exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/2ob5nd
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eglise_de_Tesson2.jpg
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Eglise_saint_gr%C3%A9goire_de_tesson.JPG
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3374106270/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3373294805/lightbox/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eglise_de_Tesson.jpg
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/3568958.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3373287421/lightbox/
Interior:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3374110516/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3374111294/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3373292895/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drsara/3373292201/lightbox/
Gregory (center) as depicted on twelfth- or thirteenth-century reliquary in the Museum of Ecclesiastical Art in Zadar:
http://oziz.ffos.hr/omeka/archive/fullsize/relikvijar-glave-sv-grgura_1de38c697e.jpg
Description of this object:
http://oziz.ffos.hr/omeka/items/show/59
Gregory (at left; at right, St. Gregory of Agrigento) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/7slxsk4
A better view of the restored, late fourteenth-century mosaic (1388) of the Doctors of the Church surrounding the rose window on the facade of Orvieto's cathedral (Gregory at upper left):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Orvieto_Duomo_4.JPG
Gregory as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1545 and 1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/7trxl5p
Early Vitae of Gregory offer a miracle account in which Gregory is said to have, while saying Mass, placed a consecrated Host on the altar, whereupon the Host bled (later versions: changed into a bleeding finger), thus proving the fact of transubstantiation to a sceptic who had thought otherwise as she had baked that very host. In the late Middle Ages the reported miracle became one of Gregory's having a vision of the Man of Sorrows at the altar. Herewith a few instances of visual representations of what is known as the Mass of Gregory the Great:
a) in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1440), ascribed either to Robert Campin or to a follower and now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels:
http://www.aiwaz.net/panopticon/mass-of-saint-gregory/gi1934c163
http://www.artliste.com/robert-campin/messe-saint-gregoire-1610.html
b) in a mid-fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1550) in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/O0000188.html
c) in a later fifteenth-century wooden sculpture (ca. 1480) now in the Bode-Museum in Berlin:
http://tinyurl.com/bvw5wuc
d) in a late fifteenth-century illumination (ca. 1480-1490) in the Prayer Book of Charles the Bold (Los Angeles, Getty Museum and Library, Ms. 37):
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=1954
e) on the closed wings of Hieronymus Bosch's Epiphany Altarpiece (ca. 1495) in Madrid's Museo del Prado:
http://tinyurl.com/cqhdkej
http://tinyurl.com/btnaaas
f) in a panel painting of Spanish origin from ca. 1500 in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/salim/2756248353/in/photostream/lightbox/
Further to Remaclus:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link to a view of the pilgrim's badge depicting him _may_ now lead to a reported attack site (or not: since a recent upgrade my security software has become hypersensitive). To be careful, use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/cajtsmy
Today (3. September) is also the feast day of:
Basilissa of Nicomedia (d. early 4th cent., supposedly):
All our information about this saint is late and of a legendary character: a synaxary notice (BHG 2058) first attested from the late tenth or very early eleventh century and seemingly based upon a now lost Passio; an undated set of liturgical texts for her feast (BHG 2058b), and a fourteenth-century Bios by Nicephorus Gregoras (BHG 2059). This tradition ascribes to her a death under Diocletian, whose persecution began in Nicomedia in 299 but which seems to have been limited then to soldiers and to members of the imperial household. For ordinary civilians this persecution began only in February 303, with the first of several anti-Christian edicts prescribing loss of legal standing and the application of torture in the case of those who refused to offer sacrifice to the gods of the state.
According to the synaxary notice, the nine-year-old B. was beaten and then was stripped and thrashed with rods and had her ankles pierced. After that she was suspended head-first above a smoky and sulphurous fire, was then thrown into the fire, and after that was exposed to two lions who did not harm her. Her emergence unscathed from these torments is said to have effected the conversion of the persecuting magistrate, who died peacefully shortly thereafter. Still according to this account, B. (who was now free) left the city and, being thirsty, prayed successfully for a spring to arise. Having slaked her thirst, she then stood on a rock, prayed, and passed out of this life. B. was buried at that place; her spring gushes daily and effects marvelous cures for the faithful. Thus far her synaxary notice, except that in at least one witness it is added that B.'s feast is celebrated annually in Constantinople at the monastery of the Theotokos at Blachernae.
In addition to her cult at Constantinople B. was also especially venerated at a church outside of Nicomedia (today's İzmit in Turkey), where certainly by Nicephoras Gregoras' time there was also a fountain of holy water (the term used for this, "hagiasma", is also attested for a more famous fountain in the monastery at Blachernae) corresponding to the miraculous spring of her synaxary notice.
A somewhat murky, gray-tone image of B. as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613):
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=1544
The detail view here enlarges to give a clearer (cleaned-up?) impression of B.'s face:
http://www.mospat.ru/calendar/svyat1/sep03-vasilissa.html
Best,
John Dillon
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