medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (18. September) is the feast day of:
Eustorgius I, bp. of Milan (d. ca. 350). According to the testimony of
Athanasius the Great, E. was a vigorous opponent of Arianism. His cult
seems to have begun very shortly after his death; Ambrose already
speaks of him as a confessor. The (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology
gives today as the date of his laying to rest. E.'s Vita (BHL 2776,
2777; many versions) is no earlier than the eleventh century, probably
of the twelfth, and quite unreliable. A late sixth- or early
seventh-century funerary inscription in verse (_CIL_, vol. 5.2, p. 621,
no. 9; from Fontana's sylloge in lieu of the lost original) relates a
miracle of his, indicating that by this time E. was already quite legendary:
though his sepulchre was originally constructed for an emperor whose
oxen could not move it, the saint was able to draw where he wished with
the aid of two small heifers.
E.'s major monument is Milan's church of Sant'Eustorgio. Parts of the
present building overlie the remains of a late antique basilican church,
presumably the predecessor church of the same dedication cited in the
_Versum de Mediolano civitate_ (MGH, Poetae, I, pp. 24-26), an early
eighth-century poem in praise of the city of Milan. Seen here in an
aerial view:
http://tinyurl.com/9x8jz
, Sant'Eustorgio's central structure gets older as one moves from front
to back. Today's facade is a nineteenth-century essay in Lombard
Romanesque, the present nave (a replacement for the one badly damaged in
Friedrich Barbarossa's sack of 1162) was begun in the 1190s but is
mostly of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the apse is of
the eleventh century. The belltower is from the end of the thirteenth
century. An illustrated English-language overview is here:
http://www.discountmilano.com/tour/Secoli/SantEustorgio/
And a very nice panoramic tour is accessible here:
http://milano.arounder.com/
(click on the next-to-lowest green dot).
Facade:
http://tinyurl.com/2t67f3
http://www.santeustorgio.it/images/seustor.jpg
Corner views:
http://www.milano24ore.de/Bilder/Mailand/Kirchen/158_5870.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/36970254
Side views:
http://tinyurl.com/lpgpg
http://tinyurl.com/2pqwfq
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/36970256
http://tinyurl.com/2nraww
Apse and belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/zbwzf
http://tinyurl.com/38qxg9
Rear views (showing the Cappella Portinari):
http://tinyurl.com/8mo4s
http://www.santeustorgio.it/foto/images/basilicadaigiardini.jpg
Nave:
http://tinyurl.com/33gsa2
Nave and right aisle from behind the new altar:
http://www.pbase.com/ugpini/image/37628710
Left aisle:
http://tinyurl.com/2mqjm3
Thirteenth-century fresco (Madonna and Child):
http://tinyurl.com/2h6jf3
South transept:
http://tinyurl.com/377vew
Tomb of Stefano Visconti (d. 1327), lord of Milan:
http://www.chiesadimilano.it/or/ADMI/esy/objects/images/415370.jpg
The fifteenth-century marble altarpiece behind the new altar:
http://tinyurl.com/ytwty2
More fourteenth- and fifteenth-century decor here:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/sito/03/index.htm
Remains of the late antique church beneath the apse:
http://tinyurl.com/yuwn8w
http://www.santeustorgio.it/foto/images/sottocoroNew.jpg
A sixteenth-century plan of the church (thus including its Renaissance
chapels) is here:
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/blh9s
A modern plan:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/sito/Pianta.htm
Located in the south transept is a third-century CE Roman sarcophagus.
Presumably, this is E.'s sepulchre referred to in his early medieval
funerary inscription mentioned above. The fourth column on the right
hand side of the nave bears a relief of E. and his heifers moving the
sarcophagus (apparently with both angelic and human assistance); two
excellent photographs of this will be found in Hans Hofmann, _Die
Heiligen Drei Könige_ (Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid, 1975; Rheinisches
Archiv, no. 94), pp. 380-81. Views of the sarcophagus are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2ctndf
http://tinyurl.com/7uujw
Here's a better view of the sainted bishop on the wall next to the
sarcophagus:
http://tinyurl.com/2q9nhh
There's no proof that he's meant to be E. but the location is
suggestive.
An eighteenth-century inscription on the sarcophagus reads: SEPVLCRVM
TRIVM MAGORVM ('Tomb of the Three Magi'):
http://tinyurl.com/akrch
In 1158 these three were said to have been found at Milan in a church
outside the walls (as Sant'Eustorgio then was) and, as is well known, in
1164 (when Milan was largely a very recent ruin) Friedrich Barbarossa had
their relics transported from Sant'Eustorgio to Köln, where they are today.
Evidence that they were venerated in Milan before 1158 is either dubious
or nonexistent and this in turn has led Hofmann (op. cit., pp. 73-95; the
basic study of this matter) to conclude that Eustorgius' _Vita_, which
ascribes to E. the translation of these three from Constantinople to Milan
and whose oldest known witness is dated to the end of the twelfth century,
was concocted in or shortly after 1158 in order to document the presence
in Milan of these newly discovered relics.
In the early fourteenth century some Milanese claimed that the Three
Magi were still in Sant'Eustorgio. Epiphany celebrations took place in
and in front of the church (for the festival of 1336, see the account in
Richard Trexler, _The Journey of the Magi_ [Princeton University Press,
1997], pp. 88-89). In 1347 a confraternity of the Three Magi/Kings
erected the altar shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/a8xnd
A more impressive and only slightly earlier (1335-39) sculptural monument
in Sant'Eustorgio is the tomb of St. Peter Martyr (d. 1252) created by
Giovanni di Balduccio and now located in the church's Cappella Portinari:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/images/arcaportinari.jpg
A Thais page with expandable views of details from this monument:
http://www.thais.it/scultura/giovbald.htm
Another view of Temperance (one of the tomb's caryatids):
http://tinyurl.com/9glgo
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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