medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The Chair of St. Peter the Apostle. This feast is first mentioned in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354: _natale Petri de Cathedra_ (_natale_ here is simply "feast" and _de_ of course signifies "concerning"; for another potential meaning, not intended here, compare St. Isidore of Seville, _Etymologiae_, 8. 11. 71: _[Athenam] dicunt de capite Iovis esse natam_). In the late fifth century St. Perpetuus of Tours called it _Natalis S. Petri episcopatus_. When the Cathedra Petri came to be celebrated on 18. January, the two feass were differentiated by calling that one the feast of of the Chair of Peter at Rome and today's feast that of the Chair of Peter _at Antioch_ (commemorating the commencement of Peter's supposed episcopate in that city). Both feasts are already present in the early eighth-century Calendar of St. Willibrord. With the suppression in 1960 of the 18. January feast the specification "of Antioch" was dropped from the title of the feast kept on 22. February.
Jacopo da Varazze's thirteenth-century _Legenda Aurea_ narrates (cap. 44) a tale of Peter's arrest and imprisonment in Antioch by a governor named Theophilus, his release on condition that he raise the governor's son from the dead (Paul had suggested this to the governor), his praying at the son's tomb followed by the son's miraculous resurrection after fourteen years of death, the immediate conversion of the governor and of everyone else in Antioch, and the building by the Antiocheans of a splendid church with an elevated throne onto which Peter was raised so that all could see and hear him.
Some medieval depictions of Peter enthroned:
a) Peter enthroned as depicted in the dedication illumination of the earlier eleventh-century miscellany ms. (ca. 1025) Aelfwine's Prayerbook (London, BL, Cotton MS Titus D XXVI, fol. 19v):
http://tinyurl.com/qhqojx6
b) Peter enthroned as depicted (forming an initial majuscule "i") in an earlier twelfth-century homiliary of northern French origin (Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 528, fol. 141r):
http://tinyurl.com/m69hdkv
c) Peter enthroned as depicted in a late twelfth-century mosaic in the south apse of the basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale:
http://tinyurl.com/qc29mwf
https://www.flickr.com/photos/16459025@N03/9457310901
d) Peter enthroned and scenes from his legend as depicted by the St. Peter Master (perh. Guido da Siena or Guido di Graziano) in a probably late thirteenth-century panel painting (1280s?) in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena:
http://tinyurl.com/pzwo478
Genevra Kornbluth has a page devoted to this object:
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/SienaPeter.html
e) Peter enthroned as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 34v; image greatly expandable):
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000961A.jpg
f) Peter enthroned as depicted in an early fourteenth-century panel painting (1307; attributed to the Santa Cecilia Master) in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence:
http://tinyurl.com/pc35dyr
g) Peter enthroned as depicted in a panel of Giotto's Stefaneschi Triptych (ca. 1330) in the Pinacoteca Vaticana:
http://tinyurl.com/p7fn385
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/z_panel/4stefane/21stefan.jpg
h) Peter enthroned as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348) of the _Legenda aurea_, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 70r):
http://tinyurl.com/ycq826u
i) Peter enthroned as depicted in a fourteenth-century copy of Guiard des Moulins' _Bible historiale_ (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 152, fol. 499r):
http://tinyurl.com/yebnaqw
j) Peter enthroned as portrayed in a fourteenth-century statue in the crypt of the chiesa di Santo Stefano in Verona:
http://tinyurl.com/m69hdkv
k) The resurrection of Theophilus' son and Peter enthroned in Antioch as depicted by Jacopo di Cione in panels from a dismembered later fourteenth-century altarpiece (ca. 1370) in the Pinacoteca Vaticana:
http://tinyurl.com/pl9r9yq
http://tinyurl.com/pfvsqwp
l) Peter enthroned as portrayed in a later fourteenth-century limestone statue (ca. 1375-1400) of northern French origin, now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (grayscale view):
http://art.thewalters.org/detail/38844
m) Peter enthroned (upper register; lower register: Peter released from prison by an angel) as depicted by Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni in a later fourteenth-century antiphoner (ca. 1380) in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (ms. W.153):
http://tinyurl.com/kr8jm3j
n) Peter enthroned as depicted in an early fifteenth-century copy (1419) of the _Elsässische Legenda aurea_ (Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, fol. 364v):
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg144/0752
o) The resurrection of Theophilus' son and Peter enthroned in Antioch as depicted by Masaccio (mostly; parts were completed by his student Filippino Lippi) in an earlier fifteenth-century fresco (commissioned, 1423) in the Brancacci chapel of Florence's chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine:
http://www.sonofman.org/img/fir061.jpg
http://www.sonofman.org/img/fir047.jpg
p) Peter enthroned (at center, betw. cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and an angel) as portrayed in the cardinal's later fifteenth-century wall tomb (after 1464) in Rome's chiesa di San Pietro in Vincoli:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hen-magonza/4644800542/
q) Peter enthroned as portrayed in a late fifteenth-century limestone statue in the église Saint-Pierre in Duvy (Oise):
http://tinyurl.com/kfhv4r4
r) Peter enthroned as portrayed in an earlier sixteenth-century oak statuette (ca. 1520) of probable Netherlandic origin, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35409814@N00/8496425477
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from an older post lightly revised and some links added)
On 02/22/15, Matt Heintzelman wrote:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/604882972899463/photos/a.624764970911263.1073741830.604882972899463/783022618418830/?type=1&theater
>
>
>
> "Early martyrologies indicate that two liturgical feasts were celebrated in Rome, centuries before the time of Charles the Bald, in honour of earlier chairs associated with Saint Peter, one of which was kept in the baptismal chapel of Saint Peter's Basilica, the other at the catacomb of Priscilla." (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chair_of_Saint_Peter)
>
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion
|