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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (6. August) is the feast day of: 1) The Transfiguration of Christ, also celebrated as the feast of the Holy Savior. This celebration is perhaps as old as the fourth century, is present in the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples, and is said to have become widespread in the Latin West in the twelfth. In 1457, in commemoration of the arrival at Rome, on this day in the previous year, of news of the important Hungarian victory over the Turks before Belgrade, Callistus III mandated the feast for all churches of the Roman observance. A page of expandable views of the apse mosaics (shortly before 550) in Sant'Apollinare in Classe, with the Transfiguration in its upper portion: http://tinyurl.com/65hg95 Views (some from slides) of the apse mosaic (ca. 550-65) of the Basilica of the Transformation, St. Catherine's monastery, Sinai: http://tinyurl.com/6mhv68 http://www.arthistory.upenn.edu/smr04/101910/Slide9.30.jpg http://www.udel.edu/ArtHistory/nees/209/images/8-06.jpg http://tinyurl.com/57y86v http://www.geographia.com/egypt/sinai/monart05.jpg The Transfiguration, in the Passion of Christ window (ca. 1145-55), cathedral of Notre-Dame, Chartres: http://tinyurl.com/6x2lxt Two twelfth-century Transfigurations on iconostasis beams at St. Catherine's monastery, Sinai: http://touregypt.net/featurestories/catherines2-15.htm http://tinyurl.com/6norkm The Transfiguration (1311) as depicted by Duccio di Buoninsegna, predella panel from his Maestà for the cathedral of Siena, now in the National Gallery, London: http://tinyurl.com/65ue5u The Transfiguration (1405) as depicted by Andrei Rublev, Moscow, Cathedral of the Annunciation: http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/rutran.jpg The Transfiguration (ca. 1441) as depicted by Beato Angelico, Florence, Museo Nazionale di San Marco, Cell Six: http://tinyurl.com/5bxedf For many more images and discussion of their theological contexts, see Andreas Andreopoulos, _Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology And Iconography_ (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2005). There's a Google Books preview here: http://tinyurl.com/6xfozr 2) Justus and Pastor (d. ca. 304, supposedly). According to bishop Ildefonsus of Toledo, writing in the seventh century, his predecessor Asturius was moved by divine illumination in about 391 to discover martyrs' graves at Complutum (now Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid). In 392 St. Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia, then in Spain, buried their recently deceased infant son Celsus next to the tomb of martyrs at Complutum. Though in neither instance are we given either the number of the martyrs or their names, the lack of known suitable alternatives has led their identification with the Complutensian martyrs J. and P., of whom we hear by name in Prudentius, _Peristephanon_ 4. 41-44, a passage that if written by Prudentius is to be dated to the years ca. 392-405 and if a later interpolation (as Christian Gnilka has proposed) is almost certainly still to be dated to the fifth century. Seventh-century inscriptions from other places in Spain attest to presence of relics of J. and P. and thus to the diffusion of their cult. In the seventh or eighth century J. and P. received a brief, legendary Passio that makes them not only brothers (possibly inferred from _Peristephanon_ 4. 41, which does not require such a reading) but also schoolboys and has them martyred during the Great Persecution (BHL 4595). Closely related to this text and of about the same date is the Mozarabic hymn from their Office (_Analecta Hymnica_ 27. 210). In the ninth century there was a monastery dedicated to them at Fraga near Córdoba. Relics thought to be those of J. and P. traveled widely in Spain and in Aquitaine. In the central and later Middle Ages many churches were dedicated to them. Here are some illustrated, Spanish-language pages on the perhaps originally tenth or eleventh-century rupestrian Iglesia de los Santos Justo y Pastor at Olleros de Pisuerga (Palencia): http://www.arquivoltas.com/8-palencia/02-Olleros00.htm http://www.celtiberia.net/verlugar.asp?id=707 Here's an illustrated, Spanish-language page on the originally twelfth-/thirteenth-century Iglesia de los Santos Justo y Pastor at Segovia: http://www.arte-romanico.com/autonomias/sanjustor.htm Here's an illustrated, Spanish-language page on the originally fourteenth-century (1342-60) Iglesia de los Santos Justo y Pastor at Barcelona: http://tinyurl.com/5hjylr In 1499 there was an Inventio of J.'s and P.'s supposedly authentic remains at Huesca, where they were then placed in the originally twelfth-century monastery church of San Pedro (much rebuilt and now San Pedro el Viejo). Herewith some views, etc.: http://tinyurl.com/6ftrm3 http://tinyurl.com/5qvd5m NB: Slightly more than half of the capitals in the cloister are nineteenth-century recreations. In 1598 a portion of the aforementioned relics in Huesca were transferred to Alcalá de Henares, where they repose in the crypt of that city's early sixteenth-century Catedral de los Santos Niños Justo y Pastor. Herewith some views, etc. of this late Gothic church: http://tinyurl.com/6n9goc http://flickr.com/photos/38674169@N00/2651322892 Good views here, starting about halfway down the page: http://tinyurl.com/5e9em6 Views of the crypt: http://tinyurl.com/5ezls4 http://www.flickr.com/photos/_melian/334533709/ 3) Hormisdas, pope (d. 523). H., who hailed from Frosinone in Lazio, had been married before he began his career as a senior churchman. He was a close collaborator of pope St. Symmachus, whom he succeeded. H. put an end both to the Laurentian schism in Rome and, with the support of the emperor Justin I, to the Acacian schism between Rome and the east. The 'Formula of Hormisdas' re-establishing Chalcedonian orthodoxy affirmed Rome's status as the preserver of undefiled apostolic tradition; the patriarch of Constantinople who signed it added a gloss implying the parity of these two sees. Dionysius Exiguus' second edition of his collection of church canons was made at H.'s direction. H.'s letters are an important source for the history of the papacy in the sixth century. H. was buried in Old St. Peter's; his epitaph (in six elegiac distichs) was written by his son, the future pope St. Silverius. The PL text of H.'s decree affirming that of pope St. Gelasius I on canonical and non-canonical scripture is here: http://tinyurl.com/hpqh8 The transenna sections on either side of the central aperture in the chancel screen at Rome's Basilica of San Clemente are thought to date from H.'s time: http://www.classicalmosaics.com/images/sanclem1.jpg http://www.emmauscollege.nl/images/tekenen/clement2.jpg http://tinyurl.com/j849l The largely twelfth-century church of San Pietro Apostolo at Albano Laziale (RM) in Lazio utilizes a hall from an ancient Roman baths complex and is considered a rebuilding of the basilica that, according to the _Liber Pontificalis_, H. erected there: http://www.comune.albanolaziale.roma.it/Guida/tour20.htm http://tinyurl.com/f54u7 4) Octavian of Savona (Bl.; d. 1133). O., it is said, appears to have been born of a noble family at in 1160 at today's Quingey (Doubs), now in the Franche-Comté but then the county of Burgundy, to have begun to study theology and law at a young age at Bologna (whose university's beginnings date from the very end of the eleventh century), and to have had to leave early because his father had died. The authority for all of this is dubious, as is also the claim, rejected by recent ecclesiastical historians, that he was a brother of pope Callistus II. O. was educated in the church at the then fully Benedictine monastery of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia and was ordained priest. In 1106 he represented the bishop of Pavia at a council at Guastalla that had been called by Paschal II. In perhaps 1123 he was made bishop of Savona, where he distinguished himself through intense pastoral activity and by acts of charity. O.'s cult was confirmed in 1783. Beate Schilling, _Guido von Vienne - Papst Calixt II_ (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1998; Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Bd. 45), p. 32, n. 80, refers to him as a Saint, seemingly in error. A relatively recent study is Silvia Bottaro and Ferdinando Molteni, _Il beato Ottaviano di Savona. Storia, culto e iconografia di un vescovo medioevale_ (Savona: Marco Sabatelli, 1996). Best, John Dillon (Hormisdas 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