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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (11. August) is the feast day of: 1) Tiburtius of Rome (?). T. is a fairly shadowy saint of the cemetery _Ad duas lauros_ on the Via Labicana, where a martyr's church in his honor is recorded in the seventh-century guidebooks for pilgrims to Rome. Assuming that these are actually two distinct people, either he or his homonym of the group Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus (14. April; brought together in the Passio of St. Cecilia) may be the subject of pope St. Damasus I's uninformative epitaph preserved textually in the _Epigrammata Damasiana_ (ed. Ferrua, no. 31). T.'s feast today is recorded in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the so-called Calendar of St. Willibrord, where it is treated, probably erroneously, as that of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus ([ps.-]HM) or of T., V., and Cecilia (Calendar of Willibrord), in the martyrology of St. Ado of Vienne, where the feast is that of T. and of his companions (Chromatius et al.) from the legendary Passio of St. Sebastian of Rome (BHL 7543), and in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries and the martyrology of Usuard, in all of which latter the feast is for T. alone. According to the aforementioned Passio, T., said to have been the son of the prefect Chromatius, whom he converted and baptized, was martyred in the pontificate of pope St. Gaius (d. 296). A connection with Gaius occurs in the legend of St. Susanna of Rome, also celebrated today (see next). Herewith a page of views of the the originally twelfth- or thirteenth-century chiesa dei santi Tiburzio e Susanna at Gargonza di Monte San Savino (AR) in Tuscany, recorded from 1304 as dedicated to T. alone (joint dedications to T. and S. appear to begin only in the Early Modern period) and restored in 1928: http://www.ipernity.com/doc/geo8/421550 2) Susanna of Rome (?). S. is the saint of Rome's church of Santa Susanna, first recorded in 595 as the _titulus sanctae Susannae_ but already existing in 499 as the _titulus Gaii_. She has a legendary Passio (BHL 7937) explaining the transition in nomenclature by making her the niece of pope St. Gaius and a cousin of the emperor Diocletian under whom she and her father St. Gabinus are said to have been martyred. S.'s present resting place in the crypt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsax/147964549/ Marjorie Greene's views of Rome's chiesa di Santa Susanna are here: http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/activityfeed/407 Some views of the originally twelfth-century église Sainte-Suzanne at Sainte-Suzanne (Ariège), modified in the early sixteenth-century: http://tinyurl.com/2cnjuy3 http://isaisons.free.fr/Sainte%20Suzanne%20%20eglise.jpg http://tinyurl.com/2auqtj6 http://isaisons.free.fr/Sainte%20Suzanne%20eglise%20int2.jpg http://tinyurl.com/2efsbpr Views, etc. of the originally mid-fifteenth-century église Sainte-Suzanne in Sainte-Suzanne-sur-Vire (Manche): http://ste-suzanne-sur-vire.pagesperso-orange.fr/tourisme.htm http://sainte-suzanne-sur-vire.sitbook.com/Eglise.htm http://tinyurl.com/n6e28a 3) Rufinus of Assisi (?). A congeries of related texts makes R. a bishop of Amasea in Pontus who together with his son Caesidius migrated to central Italy, where they consecrated a church in what later became the diocese of the Marsi (today's diocese of Avezzano). Leaving Caesidius in charge there (where he met his own martyrdom, celebrated on 31. August), R. proceeded northward to Umbria, where he evangelized Assisi, suffered martyrdom, and lives on as the city's legendary protobishop. For a detailed study of the hagiographic traditions, see Francesco Scorza Barcellona, "Rufino e Cesidio, santi della Marsica," in Gennaro Luongo, ed., _La Terra dei Marsi: cristianesimo, cultura, istituzioni. Atti del Convegno di Avezzano 24-26 settembre 1998_ (Roma: Viella, 2002), pp. 265-85. R.'s two chief architectural monuments are his cathedral at Assisi and the church at Trasacco (AQ) whose dedication he shares with Caesidius. On the latter, herewith the Italia nell'Arte Medievale page and another set (three pages) of detail views: http://tinyurl.com/ypk3tx http://tinyurl.com/k8843 This church was covered in some detail in last year's account of Caesidius; almost all of the links there still work: http://tinyurl.com/35yfp54 Herewith some views, etc. of the cattedrale di San Rufino at Assisi (begun, 1135-40; interior drastically renovated, 1571): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisi_Cathedral http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattedrale_di_San_Rufino http://www.terrainvisibile.it/assisi/doc/ita/cruf.htm The Sacred Destinations pages on this church: http://tinyurl.com/2ah3wus http://tinyurl.com/2bnjdnv The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church: http://tinyurl.com/25r59y9 Exterior: Facade and belltower: http://tinyurl.com/7aslg http://www.umbria.org/assisi/assisi/SRufino.htm Facade (details and Italian-language interpretation): http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep6/ep6-papi.htm West portal (for detail views, go back to the Italia nell'Arte Medievale page and the Sacred Destinations photo gallery page): http://tinyurl.com/28dk6qf The customary interpretation of the figures in the lunette is that these represent the Madonna and Child, Christ Enthroned, and R. On this page, though, <http://www.umilta.net/pilgrim.html> one can read a rather different interpretation (The Woman Clothed With the Sun, God Enthroned, St. John writing his Apocalypse). Interior: Plan: http://tinyurl.com/67kfqs Overview and thumbnails: http://www.umbria.org/assisi/assisi/SRufinointr.htm http://tinyurl.com/24p97te Niccolò Alunno's (Niccolò di Liberatore's) San Rufino polyptych of 1462 in the Museo diocesano: http://www.terrainvisibile.it/assisi/foto/tritt.jpg R. as depicted thereon: http://tinyurl.com/29dg8td The crypt, with a third-century Roman sarcophagus said to have contained R.'s remains: http://tinyurl.com/28ebc65 4) Digna of Todi (?). D. is a local saint of Todi in Umbria whose putative remains were translated in 1301 along with those of St. Romana (23. February) to that city's newly constructed church of St. Fortunatus, begun in 1292. Her connection with Romana (dubiously said to have been a virgin hermit of the early fourth century) has led to the supposition that she too was a virgin hermit of late antiquity. Todi's statutes of 1335 made D.'s feast day a public holiday. D.'s cult was once widespread in Umbria. One visible remainder of that is the thirteenth-century apse of a church dedicated to her (Santa Degna) at today's Montignano di Massa Martana (PG). Still venerated in Todi, D. was dropped from the RM in its revision of 2001. Herewith some views of Todi's Tempio di San Fortunato: http://www.todi.net/fortunato.htm http://tinyurl.com/2ffkq75 http://tinyurl.com/kl6uj http://tinyurl.com/25gykqk http://tinyurl.com/onxkt http://www.thais.it/architettura/Gotica/HR/345.htm http://www.thais.it/architettura/Gotica/HR/346.htm 5) Cassian of Benevento (d. 4th cent., supposedly). This less well known saint of the Regno is the traditional fourth bishop of Benevento. He is said to have been buried in that city's eighth-century monastic church of Santa Sofia. In the twelfth century one of Santa Sofia's dependencies was a now vanished parish church dedicated to C. Elsewhere in Campania C. is the probable eponym of an also now vanished monastery at today's San Cassiano di San Potito Sannitico (CE). Though today is C.'s day of commemoration in the RM, his traditional _dies natalis_ and feast day is tomorrow, 12. August. The proximity of that date to the feast of the better known St. Cassian of Imola (13. August) has led some to suppose that today's C. is really the latter re-imagined locally as an early bishop. The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on Benevento's Santa Sofia (completed, 762): http://tinyurl.com/62p3n3 6) Taurinus of Évreux (d. 5th or early 6th cent.?). Our documentation for this legendary protobishop of Évreux appears to begin in the ninth century with his entry under today in the martyrology of Usuard. Preserved in manuscripts of tenth century and later are an Inventio (BHL 7992, etc.) and a Vita (BHL 7990). The Inventio, which shows no awareness of details in the Vita, was dated by Duchesne to the reign of Charles the Bald (823-877); it recounts 1) the miraculous discovery of T.'s remains in the time of a king Chlotar (often presumed to have been the second of this name) and of an otherwise unknown bishop Viator, 2) the exhumation of those remains under Viator's successor Landulfus and the latter's erection of a basilica to house them, 3) numerous subsequent miracles, and 4) the translation of the remains at some later time to a place in Auvergne called Laudosum (sometimes identified as today's Lezeux [Puy-de-Dôme]), where they continued to work miracles. The seemingly ninth-century Vita (implausibly dated by Claude Boillon to the fourth or early fifth century) presents T. as a Greek-descended Christian living in Rome whom pope St. Clement I sends to Gaul as a missionary companion of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and who there becomes bishop of Évreux, performs miracles, overcomes the hostility of local officials who had persecuted him, and converts many, including the Vita's supposed author Deodatus (whom T. elevates to the priesthood), before dying as a confessor on some unspecified day. T. is entered under this day in the later ninth-century martyrology of Usuard as a bishop of Évreux. By about the middle of the eleventh century T. was the titular of a monastery at Évreux that had become a dependency of the abbey of Fécamp. His cult spread widely in France, though the historicity of some of the translations by which this is said to have taken place is open to question. His church at Évreux preserves an originally mid-thirteenth-century reliquary châsse for T. that was extensively re-worked in an earlier nineteenth-century restoration. Herewith some expandable views of this object: http://tinyurl.com/38fsfnu An illustrated, French-language account of, and some other views of, the originally twelfth- to fifteenth-century église Saint-Taurin at Évreux (Eure): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89glise_Saint-Taurin http://tinyurl.com/2c5tjh6 http://tinyurl.com/mkuh3v http://tinyurl.com/2eah6ho http://photoenligne2.free.fr/Eure/Evreux/D5981.jpg http://www.flickr.com/photos/francoiskun/2892294816/sizes/l/ http://photoenligne2.free.fr/Eure/Evreux/D5975.jpg http://tinyurl.com/3az29sk http://tinyurl.com/27hctf8 The fifteenth-century windows in the choir depict scenes from T.'s life and miracles: http://tinyurl.com/26f74tr http://tinyurl.com/2d5n98u http://tinyurl.com/28wuvjx 7) Equitius of Valeria (d. by 571). Our meager information about this less well known saint of the Regno comes from pope St. Gregory the Great's _Dialogues_ (1. 4). A contemporary of St. Benedict of Nursia and Montecassino, he was active as a founder and supervisor of monasteries in the Roman province of Valeria (parts of today's Lazio and Abruzzo) and was himself abbot at a place that seems to have been near ancient Amiternum. One may read about his exorcisms and miracles here: http://tinyurl.com/2sgutt According to Gregory, E. was buried at an oratory of St. Lawrence. A monastery dedicated to L. at today's Marruci di Pizzoli (AQ), not far from the remains of Amiternum, was in existence by the ninth century; E.'s putative remains were venerated in in the crypt of its church, now Pizzoli's much rebuilt chiesa di San Lorenzo. Some views of the church and of its Cripta Equiziana: http://tinyurl.com/27w7h5 http://www.marruci.it/7.htm15.jpg http://www.marruci.it/3.htm5.jpg http://www.marruci.it/3.htm7.jpg http://www.marruci.it/3.htm6.jpg http://www.marruci.it/3.htm8.jpg Quarters of the nearby city of L'Aquila were settled from outlying towns in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century and had churches dedicated to those towns' patron saints, including Marruci's St. Lawrence. Over time these churches reclaimed from the towns of origin what were now also these quarters' patron saints. E.'s turn came in 1461, when his relics were "discovered" at San Lorenzo in Marruci and translated to the homonymous church in L'Aquila. In the eighteenth century these were removed to their present location, L'Aquila's chiesa di Santa Margherita della Forcella. Herewith a view of E.'s present resting place in that church's chapel dedicated to him: http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/91219/91219.JPG At L'Aquila, where he is one of the city's patron saints, and at Marruci di Pizzoli E. has been celebrated on 12. August since at least the fifteenth century. Today is his day of commemoration in the new RM (2001, rev. 2004) 8) Clare of Assisi (d. 1253). This early disciple of St. Francis of Assisi and founder of the order that after her death became known as the (Poor) Clares needs no introduction to this list. Herewith the Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on the chiesa di Santa Chiara at Assisi (built between 1257 and 1265; C. was canonized in 1255): http://tinyurl.com/2r6hcf An illustrated, English-language page (images expandable) on this church and on its late thirteenth-century panel painting of C.: http://www.terrainvisibile.it/assisi/doc/ing/cchiara.htm C.'s portrait (ca. 1312-1320) by Simone Martini in the lower basilica of St. Francis at Assisi: http://tinyurl.com/59qjhq An aerial view of (right of center), and the Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on, Naples' earlier fourteenth-century chiesa di Santa Chiara: http://tinyurl.com/2uqtys6 http://tinyurl.com/34mroy9 Best, John Dillon (an older post revised and with the addition of Taurinus of Évreux) ********************************************************************** 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