medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to an earlier (2010) 'Saints of the day' for 1. December (including St. Ansanus; St. Florentia of Poitiers; St. Leontius of Fréjus; St. Eligius):
http://tinyurl.com/d297lho
A revised notice of Ansanus:
1) Ansanus (d. 303 or 304, supposedly). Ansanus (Amsanus, Ampsanus, Anisanus; in Italian: Ansano, Sano) is the traditional evangelist of Siena and one of its patron saints. According to his legendary early Passio (BHL 515; thought to be of the seventh century), he was the son of a pagan Roman senator who belonged to the prominent family of the Anicii. Without his parents' knowledge, let alone their consent, he was educated in the Christian faith by an angelically inspired Roman priest who baptized him at the age of twelve. When his also Christian godmother then cured a blind person, both she and Ansanus were imprisoned (in a much later version, this happened at the urging of Ansanus' father). The godmother was tortured to death but Ansanus managed to escape to Siena, where he he preached, baptized, and performed healing miracles.
When the Great Persecution broke out Ansanus was now nineteen. Arrested at Siena, he miraculously survived an attempted execution by boiling in oil and other substances. His persecutors then executed him by decapitation on the road between Siena and Arezzo. Thus far the Passio. By ca. 550 there was a church dedicated to Ansanus at his reputed site of execution and burial at Dofana in today's Castelnuovo Berardenga (SI), His cult is documented from shortly afterward in other places in what are now southern Tuscany and northern Lazio. In 867 Ansanus had a church on the Piazza del Campo in Siena and in 1107 his putative relics were translated from Dofana to the cathedral of Siena. Ansanus' second Passio (BHL 516; a revision and expansion of its predecessor) is also from the twelfth century.
In its revision of 2001 Ansanus ceased to grace the pages of the RM. The archdiocese of Siena celebrates him today with a Solemnity.
Some portrayals of Ansanus:
In Duccio di Buoninsegna's recently restored great window from 1287-88 for Siena's cathedral (now in the Museo dell'Opera della Metropolitana), Ansanus -- labeled as 'Santo Sano' -- is the second of the patron saints flanking the central panel (the order here is Bartholomew, Ansanus, Crescentius, Savinus). In the same artist's great Maestà for the same cathedral (betw. 1308 and 1311), A. is the first (the order here is Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, Victor).
Duccio's window:
http://tinyurl.com/cu7ahhw
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27925258@N06/4718162519/lightbox/
Detail view (Ansanus; at left):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mymuk/23728657/lightbox/
The central panel of Duccio's Maestà del Duomo di Siena:
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/duccio/maesta/maest_01.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/c4zapox
Detail view (Ansanus; bottom register at left):
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/duccio/maesta/maest_04.jpg
In Simone Martini's Maestà (1315) in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico the order of the four patron saints is the same (Ansanus, Savinus, Crescentius, Victor) and they are again in the front row. Here's an expandable view:
http://tinyurl.com/28k4sw
Detail view (Ansanus):
http://tinyurl.com/2347ne
A panel painting of Ansanus from ca. 1326, also by Simone Martini and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/ckctwnt
Ansanus is again at the left in this Annunciation by Simone Martini and Filippo di Memmo (Lippo Memmi) from 1333, executed for the saint's chapel in Siena's cathedral and now in the Uffizi in Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/simone/6annunci/ann_2st.jpg
A later fourteenth-century polychromed wooden statue of Ansanus from Siena in that city's collection of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena:
http://www.mps.it/La+Banca/Arte/Opere+d+arte/XIV+secolo/Sant+Ansano.htm
Jacopo della Quercia's earlier fifteenth-century terracotta statue of Ansanus (betw. 1406 and 1423) for the hospital dedicated to him in Lucca and now in that city's Museo nazionale di Villa Guinigi:
http://tinyurl.com/bmpyjfx
http://tinyurl.com/c8oganw
http://tinyurl.com/dxwftme
As one might expect of a saint whose name was routinely shortened to a form meaning 'Healthy' (_Sano_), Ansanus was venerated as a healer. The hospital in Lucca is first attested from 1105.
Paolo Uccello's predella panel of St. John (at left) and Ansanus from the Quarate altarpiece (1435-40) now in the Museo arcivescovile in Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/u/uccello/6various/2quarat4.jpg
Ansanus (at right) as depicted by Giovanni di Paolo on a wing of his St. Ansanus triptych (ca. 1436) now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena:
http://www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/immagine/00010/6386OP576AU10820.jpg
Ansanus baptizing as depicted in a predella panel from the 1440s by Giovanni di Paolo now in the Christian Museum at Esztergom:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giovanni/paolo/ansanus.jpg
The same artist's depiction of Ansanus' martyrdom, now in the Bargello in Florence, is from the same altarpiece:
http://tinyurl.com/cwp92wd
Ansanus as depicted by Pietro di Sano in an illuminated initial in a later fifteenth-century anthem book (_corale_) in the possession of the cathedral of Siena:
http://tinyurl.com/cby688f
http://www.arcidiocesi.siena.it/uploads/news/id644/ans.jpg
Some dedications to Ansanus:
In 1143 a church in Spoleto that had been built over the remains of an ancient temple and adjacent space in what had been the city's Roman-period forum was dedicated to A. and to St. Isaac of Spoleto. Its crypt (now called that of Saint Isaac), whose floor consists of paving stones from the forum, seems to be of eleventh-century origin. It survived when the original church was reworked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and replaced by the present chiesa di Sant'Ansano at the end of the eighteenth century.
A view of this chiesa di Sant'Ansano's cripta di Sant'Isacco:
http://tinyurl.com/lbgcx
A different view will be found on this page, which also lists the subjects (insofar as these are identifiable) of the recently restored late eleventh- and/or early twelfth-century frescoes which adorn the crypt:
http://www.conventosantansano.it/cripta_di_sisacco.htm
More views:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spoleto#Sant.27Ansano
An illustrated, Italian-language account (the view is expandable) of the originally twelfth-century pieve di Santi Ansano e Tommaso (heavily restored in the nineteenth century) at Castelvecchio in Pescia (PT) this illustrated, followed by other views of this church:
http://www.toscanissima.com/pescia/castelvecchiopieve.php
Exterior views:
http://tinyurl.com/cfvnmbb
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudokmosor/6772693703/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35427361@N08/7416120608/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35427361@N08/8142580608/lightbox/http://www.flickr.com/photos/28916404@N05/3300351485/lightbox/
Interior views:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudokmosor/6772696497/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudokmosor/6772694355/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudokmosor/6772695609/lightbox/
Further to Eligius:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link (at the end of the second paragraph) to a view of a boss in the St. Laurentius-Kirche in Bremm (Lkr. Cochem-Zell) no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/d7n2b4y
In the same notice, in 'Some late medieval depictions of E. in English parish churches' the first item is an alabaster relief, not a depiction. The link to a view of it no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/6008478649/lightbox/
In the same notice, the sixth and ninth links to views of the late thirteenth-century chiesa di Sant'Eligio Maggiore in Naples take one to what are now reported attack pages.
Best,
John Dillon
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