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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (3. July) is the feast day of: 1) Thomas the Apostle (d. 1st cent.). Today's well known saint of the Regno is also a rather well traveled one. According to Origen (so Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ 3. 1), T. evangelized Parthia. According to the _Acts of Thomas_ (seemingly Syrian in origin) and to the late antique tradition of the church of Edessa, T. was the apostle of India and was martyred there. Gregory of Tours, who had at least one Syrian informant, knew this version of events. Fourth-century Christians believed that T. evangelized Edessa in Syria (today's Sanliurfa in Turkey). For an English-language version of the pilgrim Egeria's account of her visit to his major cult site there, see: http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm (paras. <30> through <32>) And in 1258, so the story goes, the commander of a Venetian flotilla operating in the Aegean on behalf of Manfred, king of Sicily, found T.'s relics on Chios, whither they had been brought from Edessa by Christians fleeing the Muslim capture and sack of that city. (As the Crusader county of Edessa had reverted to Muslim rule in 1144, the refugee monk who was the Venetian commander's informant must have been extraordinarily aged at the time.) On 6. September of the same year, the commander's ship landed in the Regno at the port of Ortona in today's Chieti province of Abruzzo, where T.'s remains were solemnly deposited in the local cathedral. They have been there ever since, less the piece of an elbow that was "returned" in 1953 to Cranganore (now Kodungallur) in India. Ortona's originally thirteenth-century cathedral (now a co-cathedral of the archdiocese of Lanciano - Ortona) is dedicated to T. It underwent major rebuilding in the Early Modern period. During the battle of Ortona in 1943 (20.-27. December, thus including T.'s own Big Day as it was then fixed -- 21. December) it sustained major damage: http://www.junobeach.org/e/2/img/PA-136308-pic-e.htm Here's a view of the cathedral in its current state: http://tinyurl.com/5chxu2 And here's a view of the reconstructed main portal: http://tinyurl.com/58aojx T.'s current resting place: http://www.jmanjackal.net/photos/2004/pil05.jpg A few other visuals associated in one way or another with T.'s veneration in the Middle Ages. a) At Silos (Burgos), Castilla y León, the later eleventh-century Doubting (or, as it's called in Spanish, the Duda) of St. Thomas in the eleventh-/twelfth-century monastery cloister of San Domingo: http://tinyurl.com/y6f4zo http://tinyurl.com/3eh9e9 b) At Rome, the newly formed Trinitarians rebuilt in 1209 the ancient church of San Tommaso in Formis, sited on an out-of-the way piece of land next to an aqueduct. Next to this they built a hospital. From the street one can see remnants of the hospital's ornamental portal: http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi52f5.jpg http://tinyurl.com/lpb3d The restored early thirteenth-century mosaic above the entrance: http://tinyurl.com/ol5f8 , showing an enthroned Christ between two slaves, one white and one black, is signed by Jacopo Cosmati the elder and by Cosma Cosmati, early members of the famed family of mosaicists and stoneworkers. c) At Pistoia (PT) in Tuscany, the historiated pulpit (ca. 1250) by Guido da Como in the church of San Bartolomeo in Pantano: http://tinyurl.com/mphzn has a panel depicting the Doubting (or, as it's called in Italian, the Incredulità) of St. Thomas: http://tinyurl.com/padru d) At Ascoli Piceno (AP) in the Marche, the originally eleventh-century church of San Tommaso Apostolo as rebuilt in the thirteenth century and restored in the twentieth: http://tinyurl.com/67xwxl http://tinyurl.com/5ty26n e) At Castello-di-Rostino (Haute-Corse; in Corsican, Castellu di Rustinu) in Corsica, the eleventh-century church of Saint-Thomas de Pastoreccia (San Tumasgiu di Pastureccia): http://www.enkiri.com/europe/france/corse/st_thomas021.html http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/005CorsicaValleGoloSTommaso.jpg received some noteworthy late fifteenth-century (ca. 1485) frescoing: http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/006CorsicaValleGoloSTommaso.jpg http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/007CorsicaValleGoloSTommaso.jpg http://www.aroots.org/notebook/IMG/jpg/doc-55.jpg 2) Heliodorus of Altino (d. ca. 405). We know about H. chiefly through the writings of St. Jerome. Seemingly a former army officer, he was one of a group of studious Christians in Aquileia (including St. Chromatius and the translator Rufinus) whom Jerome met when he was staying there in the early 370s. Having accompanied Jerome to Syria and Palestine and there getting a taste of the ascetic life, he returned to the upper Adriatic to engage in pastoral work and to look after a niece and nephew who were dependent upon him. H. participated in the anti-Arian council of Aquileia as bishop of Altinum, today's Altino (VE) in the Veneto. Jerome's Letter 60, addressed to him, is an elaborate funerary oration in consolation for the loss of his nephew Nepotianus. H. and Chromatius supported Jerome's work of Bible translating and are thanked in prefatory letters addressed to them jointly. According to Venetian tradition, enshrined e.g. in not the awfully believable Acta of St. Liberal of Altino (BHL 4905, etc.) H. retired to an island in the lagoon. In the later Middle Ages it was believed that he had brought from Jerusalem various relics belonging to the diocese of Altino, including an arm of St. James whose hand later wound up in the possession of the German emperors. After the Lombard invasion, the seat of the diocese of Altino in exile was on Torcello, once the most populous of Venice's islands. A sarcophagus said to hold H.'s relics is still displayed in Torcello's former cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta; he himself is depicted, in the act of blessing, in the thirteenth-century apse mosaic above the main altar: http://www.araldodeluca.com/DATA/POSITIVI/preview/998.jpg http://digilander.libero.it/ortodossia/eliodoro.jpg Distance view: http://tinyurl.com/46a8w6 3) Leo II, pope (d. 683). L. succeeded his fellow Sicilian, pope St. Agatho, and was in office for slightly less than a year. During his brief pontificate he confirmed the acts of the Third Council of Constantinople. L. dedicated to St. Stephen the diaconal church in Rome's Greek quarter into which pope St. Zachary in the following century placed a relic of St. George and which in time became San Giorgio in Velabro. He also renovated the church of Santa Bibiana on the Esquiline and brought there from the catacombs of Generosa the relics of the martyrs Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrice. A view of the much rebuilt San Giorgio in Velabro showing its twelfth- or thirteenth-century belltower and the portico as restored following the bombing of 1993: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SanGiorgio.jpg Santa Bibiana was rebuilt by Bernini in the early seventeenth century. The columns in the nave are said to have come from the fifth-century church. Some are visible here: http://tinyurl.com/24bde9 Marjorie Greene provides a clearer view of the base of the last column on the left in the second of her Santa Bibiana photographs here: http://tinyurl.com/2m52bd The principal church of Assoro (EN) in Sicily is dedicated to L. A late fourteenth-century reconstruction of a building perhaps dating to 1186 (when the priory to which it once belonged was founded), it underwent a series of rebuildings from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. A page of views is here: http://www.comunediassoro.it/pages/leone.htm Exterior views (belltower, south porch): http://sicilyweb.com/foto/198/198-06-07-51-8899.jpg http://www.ciclopiclub4x4.it/974n.JPG http://www.sicilysicily.it/arte/gruppo_1/images/Assoro_gradinata.JPG http://www.foto-sicilia.it/go-foto.cfm?id=18699 http://www.siciliaoggi.it/images/Enna/Assoro/viewer.asp?start=6 Though the interior is chiefly baroque: http://www.apt-enna.com/immagini/Assoro.jpg http://sicilyweb.com/foto/198/198-05-37-58-4769.jpg http://sicilyweb.com/foto/198/198-05-43-21-5058.jpg , the presbytery is fourteenth-century (with later appointments): http://sicilyweb.com/foto/198/198-05-41-25-7218.jpg A page of views of the church's restored fifteenth-century painted crucifix: http://www.comunediassoro.it/pages/gagini.htm Best, John Dillon (Thomas the Apostle and Leo II revised from older posts) ********************************************************************** 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