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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On Friday, August 19, 2005, at 10:46 pm, I wrote, apropos of the former monastery church of Santa Maria del Patir near Rossano: > Mosaic floor (incompletely preserved; mid-12th cent.), details: > centaur and leocorn (horned lion): > http://tinyurl.com/ay8my > centaur: > http://tinyurl.com/d8b9y > lion: > http://tinyurl.com/d4mu5 > leocorn: > http://www.pianetacalabria.com/dicola/Fototeca/arte/opera4.htm Here 'leocorn' was my translation of the Italian 'liocorne' used by an ordinarily reliable (but popularly oriented, so no footnotes) website to identify the image of the beast with two horns and a mane. Because that term is also sometimes used to designate a unicorn, and because its French cognate 'licorne' regularly has that meaning, I was unhappy about this but went along _faute de mieux_. Diana Wright's recent recommendation (in another thread, "Cybele and BVM") of Helen Saradu-Mendelovici's "Christian Attitudes toward Pagan Monuments in Late Antiquity and their Legacy in Later Byzantine Centuries," _Dumbarton Oaks Papers_ 44 (1990), 47-61, has provided a better term for the animal depicted in this image: "tauroleon" (i.e., part bull, part lion). That fits this two-horned, cloven-hoofed, maned beast http://www.pianetacalabria.com/dicola/Fototeca/arte/opera4.htm rather well. The _locus classicus_ for the tauroleon appears to be in the Earlier Life of St. Alypius the Stylite. Saradu-Mendelovici, p. 55, n. 91, cites it from the edition in Hippolyte Delehaye's _Les saints stylites_ (Bruxelles, 1923; Subsidia Hagiographica, no. 14), p. 154, lines 8-16. Henry Maguire, "The Profane Aesthetic in Byzantine Art and Literature_," _Dumbarton Oaks Papers_ 53 (1999), 189-205, esp. pp. 191-92, has a summary that may be read online at: http://www.doaks.org/DOP53/DP53ch10.pdf Among later versions of the Alypius/tauroleon story noted by Saradu-Mendelovici, loc. cit., n. 92, is "a similar treatment ... by Theophanes Kerameus (12th century), in a homily on Pancratius, bishop of Tauromenium (PG 132, col. 1001B-C)." 'Theophanes Kerameus' is a now passé way of referring to the homilist Philagathus "of Cerami" (quotes around that last part because it is not entirely certain that's what 'Kerameus' signifies here), the same Philagathus whose encomium of the monastery's founder, Bartholomew of Simeri, was pronounced in this very church about 20 years before the mosaic floor was put in and whose encomium of Pancras of Taormina will probably have been read at the Patirion every year in connection with that saint's feast. Best again, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join 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: leave 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/lists/medieval-religion.html