medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In the Roman Calendar and in the Ambrosian Calendar 7. December is the feast day of Ambrose of Milan (d. 397). Not to be confused with the Blessed Ambrose of Milan (Franciscan; d. 1525), this Ambrose is a Saint and a Doctor of the Church. A member of the imperial aristocracy, he was governor of Milan when he was elected bishop of that city in 374. Ambrose became an extraordinarily influential preacher, theologian, and ecclesiastical administrator. Along with St. Augustine of Hippo (whom he baptized) and St. Jerome he is one of the great western Christian churchmen of the fourth century.
Ambrose's _dies natalis_ is 4. April (the day under which he is entered in the ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard of Saint-Germain) but today, the anniversary of his consecration as bishop, was his feast day in some places since at least the ninth century, though what it represented was not always perfectly understood (the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples describes it as the day of Ambrose's laying to rest). In the medieval Greek church today was Ambrose's feast day in both the tenth-century Metaphrastic Menologion and the originally tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople, as it also is now in some but not all Byzantine-Rite churches. Today was also Ambrose's principal feast day in the late medieval breviary of the Roman curia and from there the commemoration was continued in the later sixteenth-century Tridentine Calendar and in the late sixteenth-century Roman Martyrology that was built around it.
Skeletal remains believed to be those of St. Ambrose lie between those of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius in the cripta di Sant'Ambrogio in Milan's basilica di Sant'Ambrogio (the martyrs in red, Ambrose in white):
http://tinyurl.com/q9mut3e
http://tinyurl.com/jpf8ntg
Herewith some period-pertinent images of St. Ambrose of Milan:
a) as depicted in a restored fifth-century mosaic portrait in the basilica di Sant'Ambrogio's sacello di San Vittore:
http://www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/immagine/00007/3858OP6466.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2875f6x
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, p. 227):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0249
http://tinyurl.com/jk25pgg
c) as portrayed in relief in three panels on the rear side of the earlier to mid-ninth-century Golden Altar ("Pala d'Oro"; betw. 824 and 859, restored in 1966) in Milan's basilica di Sant'Ambrogio:
1) the miracle of the bees:
http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/54/79/43/20140626/ob_218efe_image1.jpg
2) journeying on horseback from Liguria to Emilia:
http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/54/79/43/20140626/ob_13819b_image5.jpg
3) blessing the altar's maker, Magister Wolvinus (or Vuolvinus):
http://www.geometriefluide.com/foto/PIC2301O.jpg
d) as depicted lower register) in an eleventh-century copy of his _De bono mortis_ from Fécamp (Paris: BnF, ms. Latin 2639, fol. 31v):
http://tinyurl.com/y9rm62v
e) as depicted in an eleventh-century manuscript of writings of Church Fathers (Avranches, Bibliothèque d'Avranches, ms. 72, f. 182v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht4/IRHT_074884-p.jpg
f) as depicted in a twelfth-century copy of his _Hexaemeron_ (Charleville-Mézières, Médiathèque Voyelles, ms. 212, t. III, fols. 1-88v, fol. 1r):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_096061-p.jpg
g) as portrayed (at left) in a twelfth-century relief on Milan's Porta Romana:
http://tinyurl.com/y8upj5
h) as portrayed in a relief on the earlier twelfth-century west front of Milan's basilica di Sant'Ambrogio:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/e34c6692.html
i) as depicted in the mid- or slightly later twelfth-century mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/o3xxgqw
j) as depicted in one of four panels of a full-page illumination in the late twelfth-century so-called Bible of Saint Bertin (ca. 1190-1200; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 5, fol. fol. 38v, sc. 1A):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f5%3A038v_min_a1
k) as depicted (at right, flanking a Crucifixion scene; at left, St. Hermagoras of Aquileia) in a thirteenth-century fresco in the cappella di Sant'Ambrogio in Aquileia's formerly patriarchal basilica di Santa Maria Assunta:
http://tinyurl.com/jgrm7wa
l) as depicted as depicted in a panel of a mid-thirteenth-century glass window (ca. 1245-1250; w. 207) in Strasbourg's cathédrale Notre-Dame:
http://www.therosewindow.com/pilot/Strasbourg/w207-d1-whole.htm
m) as portrayed in relief on a later thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century grosso of eight denari issued by the first Ambrosian Republic (i.e. communal Milan; 1250-1310):
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=323&lot=197
n) as depicted (at right, barring the emperor Theodosius from the cathedral of Milan) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 47r):
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000866A.jpg
o) as portrayed (flanked by Sts. Gervasius and Protasius) in a fourteenth-century statue on Milan's Pusterla di Sant'Ambrogio:
http://tinyurl.com/gkrttdy
A closer view:
http://tinyurl.com/zslrowh
p) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1312-1321) in one of the little domes of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/ydtx5b7
q) as depicted (at right, barring the emperor Theodosius from the cathedral of Milan) in volume 1 of the earlier fourteenth-century Belleville Breviary (ca. 1323-1326; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 10483, fol. 169r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8451634m/f339.item.r=.langFR.zoom
r) as depicted (upper roundel) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at 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/ygxkvuw
s) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Patapius) in a December calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of 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/yaswkw7
t) as depicted (right margin, second from bottom) in a mid-fourteenth-century copy of the Klosterneuburger Evangelienwerk (1340; Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. Gen. 8, fol. 264r):
http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/sbs/0008/264r
u) as depicted in a mid-fourteenth-century glass window panel (ca. 1340-1350) from Kärnten, now in The Cloisters collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/2dc4h7k
v) as depicted (the miracle of the bees) in a mid-fourteenth-century copy, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 98r):
http://tinyurl.com/ygb8up7
w) as depicted by Vitale da Bologna in a mid-fourteenth-century panel painting (betw. 1350 and 1353) in the Pinacoteca of the Musei Civici in Pesaro:
http://tinyurl.com/ckjfd2c
x) as portrayed in a statuette and in two panels on St. Augustine's later fourteenth-century tomb in Pavia's basilica di San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro:
1) statuette (second from left; photograph by Genevra Kornbluth):
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/images/Pavia_249.jpg
Detail (bust):
http://tinyurl.com/24nqhle
2) panel (upper register at right, preaching; Augustine among the listeners):
http://tinyurl.com/2cft8mj
3) panel (at left, officiating at at Augustine's vesting):
http://tinyurl.com/37xxotc
Views of these objects in stronger light will be found at Genevra Kornbluth's Archive page on the Arca di Sant'Agostino:
http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/Arca.html
y) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Augustine) in the Litanies section of a later fourteenth-century miscellany of mostly French-language devotional texts (betw. 1351 and 1400; Paris, BnF, Français 400 [Colbert 1432], fol. 34r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105258207/f69.item.r=.zoom
z) as depicted (at right, barring the emperor Theodosius from the cathedral of Milan) in a later fourteenth-century copy of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1370-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 15943, fol. 58r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449689s/f123.highres
aa) as depicted (at far left) by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini in one of four late fourteenth-century panel paintings of the Doctors of the Church (ca. 1380) used for the altarpiece in the cappella maggiore of Florence's basilica della Santa Croce:
http://bobandnellasworld.com/Italy%202009/Florence/SantaCroce/r10_0445f.jpg
bb) as portrayed (in the lower right-hand corner) by Pietro di Puccio in his late fourteenth-century mosaic (1388; heavily restored) on the facade of Orvieto's basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta:
http://tinyurl.com/ne9ye7y
cc) as depicted (reading) in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 105r):
http://tinyurl.com/jyzv9yo
dd) as depicted (left margin) in the numerous pen-and-ink illustrations in the margins of an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Chronicon a mundi creatione ad annum 1220_, an abbreviation and continuation of the _Pantheon_ of Godfrey of Viterbo (ca. 1400-1415; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4935, fol. 45v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8455934w/f100.image.zoom
ee) as portrayed in relief (in his study) by Lorenzo Ghiberti in in his earlier fifteenth-century gilded bronze plaques (completed, 1424) for the north door of the baptistery of Florence, now preserved there in the Museo dell'Opera del duomo:
http://tinyurl.com/yz6jvxn
ff) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Augustine of Hippo) as depicted by Filippo Lippi in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1440) in the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin:
http://tinyurl.com/o2nmqco
gg) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Mark; at center, St. Jerome) by Antonio Vivarini in a panel of his mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece of St. Jerome for Santo Stefano in Venice (1441), now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna:
http://tinyurl.com/hor9alr
hh) as portrayed in relief on a mid-fifteenth-century grosso agontano issued by the second Ambrosian Republic (1447-1450):
http://tinyurl.com/7ploamh
ii) as depicted (at right in the illumination in the left-hand column, baptizing St. Augustine) in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of Giovanni Colonna's _Mare historiarum_ (betw. 1447 and 1455; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4915, fol. 277v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000905v/f624.item.zoom
jj) as depicted by Giovanni di Paolo in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1465-1470) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/458970
kk) as depicted (third from left, preaching to children) by Maïtre François in the first volume of a later fifteenth-century copy of St. Augustine's _City of God_ in its French-language translation by Raoul de Presles (ca. 1475; Den Haag, Museum Meermanno, ms. 10 A 11, fol. 13r, min2):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_mmw_10a11%3A013r_min_2
ll) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Jerome) on the late fifteenth-century rood screen in the Church of St Thomas in Foxley (Norfolk):
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/foxley/images/dscf9613.jpg
mm) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Augustine) by Michael Pacher in a predella panel of his later fifteenth-century St. Wolfgang altarpiece (center completed, 1479; wings completed, 1481) in the Wallfahrtskirche St. Wolfgang in Wolfgangsee (Land Salzburg):
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7018074.JPG
nn) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Augustine) by Giovanni Masone in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (Genoa, 1491) in the Musée Jacquemart-André's site in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/y5gftm
oo) as depicted (left margin at top) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century _Weltchronik_ (_Nuremberg Chronicle_; 1493) at fol. CXXXIIIIv:
http://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/left_page/38%20%28Folio%20CXXXIIIIv%29.pdf
pp) as depicted (second from left) by Carlo Bracceso in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1495) in the Galleria Franchetti, Ca' d'Oro in Venice:
http://tinyurl.com/jbacf6s
qq) as portrayed (in his study) in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century wooden statue (ca. 1500) from Palencia in The Cloisters collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/25whxpq
rr) as depicted (on horseback, wielding a flail and riding over soldiers; at left, St. Protasius; at right, St. Gervasius) by Antonio da Tradate (attrib.) in an early sixteenth-century fresco (1510) in the chiesa di Sant'Ambrogio vecchio (now chiesa di San Carlo) in Negrentino (Canton Ticino):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/renzodionigi/5154266113/
Detail view (Ambrose):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/renzodionigi/5154278535/
Best,
John Dillon
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