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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (27. March 2008) is Thursday within the Octave of Easter. Ordinarily, 27. March is the feast day of: 1) Augusta of Serravalle (?). The cult of this poorly documented saint is attested since 1234 at Serravalle, one of the municipalities in the Trevisan Alps that after Italian unification in the nineteenth century were joined together in what is now Vittorio Veneto (TV). On this day in 1450 her relics were discovered during the rebuilding of Serravalle's little church dedicated to her. Our sole detailed source for A.'s life and passion (for she is said to be a martyr) is her early modern Acta penned by Minuccio Minucci (1551-1604), a native of Serravalle who became secretary to Clement VIII and finally archbishop of Zadar (Zara; 1596-1604). This legendary account makes her the daughter of a pagan Germanic chieftain ruling from a palace on a height in the vicinity of Serravalle; when he discovers that she has converted to Christianity, she refuses to apostasize and he has her decapitated. Some years later, A.'s body is found on that very height and, Serravalle now being Christian, a church is erected there in her honor. At the time of the Acta's telling that early structure has left no visible remains. Minuccio's aition provides a cachet of antiquity for the saint of the historically attested church that was rebuilt in the early 1450s and that occupies a site near the top of a hill at Serravalle above the east bank of the Meschio. A.'s church, consecrated on 12. April 1452 and restructured in the 1630s, preserves a fifteenth-century portion (now a chapel) housing an altar containing her tomb and supporting a fifteenth-century altarpiece with sculptures attributed to Giovanni Antonio da Marcador: http://tinyurl.com/2c2p5h Here's a not very good view of A.'s fifteenth-century tomb (attributed to the same artist): http://tinyurl.com/2ac57w and an only slightly better one of her representation on it: http://tinyurl.com/2u6eet Figure 4 here (near the bottom of the page) has clearer views of other sculptures on the tomb: http://www.tragol.it/flaminio/flaminio-13/75-80.htm Figures 12 through 16 here (again near the bottom of the page) show details of this chapel's fifteenth-century frescoing (attributed to Giovanni Antonio da Meschio): http://www.tragol.it/Flaminio/flaminio-5/39-62.htm Exterior views of the church: http://tinyurl.com/ysb5uk http://tinyurl.com/38mclt More views of the Santuario di Santa Augusta are here: http://tinyurl.com/2x6lp9 The pathway leading up to the Santuario is number 5 on this map: http://tinyurl.com/3dvhs3 Here's a distance view of that pathway with its seven seventeenth-century chapels: http://tinyurl.com/2pvfly A.'s cult was confirmed in 1754. At Serravalle her feast is observed on 22. August (her traditional _dies natalis_). 2) Rupert (d. ca. 717). R. (also Ruprecht) was a Frankish noble whom duke Theodo of Bavaria, who was related to him by marriage, had brought into his lands as a bishop by 696. According to at least one of his early Vitae (BHL 7393), R. had previously been bishop of Worms. Where he established his see is not altogether clear. Traditionally considered the first bishop of Salzburg, he seems at to have founded a couple of small monasteries and at least one church in the general area. Both the year and the place of his death are unknown; the leading candidate for the latter is Worms. In the later eighth century bishop St. Virgil brought R.'s putative remains to Salzburg for the erection there of his new cathedral. The day of that translation, 24. September, is the date of R.'s feast in the dioceses of Salzburg, Freising, and Munich. Today is his accepted _dies natalis_ and his feast day in the General Roman Calendar. R. is the patron saint of Salzburg, whose cathedral is dedicated to him. His cult is widespread in Bavaria and in those parts of Austria and Italy that once belonged to the diocese of Salzburg. The artifacts shown on this page (a bishop's staff and a flask for journeys) are traditionally said to have been R.'s: http://tinyurl.com/2vqpvh As is also this cross: http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/coursepack/rood/images/rupert.html http://www.schlossbergschule.de/Comenius2/salzburg5.jpg Here's an illustrated page on Vienna's medieval church dedicated to R.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruprechtskirche Note that this was once the seat of the city's salt bureau. As bishop of Salzburg, R. became a patron saint of salt merchants. In his iconography he is often shown with a small keg or bucket for salt. Here's an example (shown twice) from ca. 1500: http://www.kirchen.net/pfarren/aurach/Kapellen.htm An illustrated, German-language page on R.'s cathedral church in Salzburg is here: http://www.ruprechtskirche.at/guided_tour/de-tour.htm And here's a view of its wooden statue of R. from around 1370: http://www.ruprechtskirche.at/fragmente121a1.htm 3) Panacea (Bl.; d. ca. 1383). P. (Panaxia, Panasia, etc.) is poorly documented. Her cult centers on two towns in the diocese of Novara in Piedmont, Quarona and Ghemme, both in today's Vercelli province. According to legend (whose only surviving medieval witnesses are a few frescoes in churches in the area), P.'s father came from Quarona, where she spent her brief life, and her mother, who died when R. was three, came from Ghemme. The father remarried. When P. was fifteen her stepmother, who hated her and abused her, found her alone at prayer in the countryside near their home (P. is variously said to have been out gathering wood or tending sheep) and beat her to death with objects that have been variously described but which usually include a wooden shaft of some sort as shown in this late fifteenth-century detached fresco said to have originally been in a chapel dedicated to P. at Quarona: http://www.quaronasesia.it/SANGIOVANNI/sgiov07.jpg Prodigies are said to have accompanied P.'s death and her subsequent burial at Ghemme, where a church was erected over her gravesite. Her cult is attested from the fifteenth century onward. The church now housing that fresco is the much rebuilt San Giovanni al Monte just outside of Quarona: http://tinyurl.com/2k4xmk It contains a number of fresco fragments from the thirteenth century through the sixteenth. An illustrated, Italian-language guide starts here (follow the arrows at lower right): http://www.quaronasesia.it/SANGIOVANNI/san_giovanni_1.htm Best, John Dillon (Rupert and Panacea lightly revised from last year's post) ********************************************************************** 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