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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Today (25. September) is also the feast day of: 1) Firmus and Rusticus (d. ca. 304, supposedly). F. and R. are martyrs of uncertain origin. They appear in the perhaps early seventh-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under this date as martyrs in the East (_in Oriente_). Their legendary Passio (BHL 3020, etc.), which has been thought to go back to the sixth century, makes F. a resident of Bergamo and R. a relative of his and has them both martyred at Verona under Maximian. Though this Passio apparently derives much of its detail from one or more Passiones of African saints and though there were African martyrs named Firmus and Rusticus (but not known to have had a joint cult), it is not clear that this F. and this R. were originally African. Though from the early Middle Ages onward their cult has been chiefly Veronese, it is also attested from many other places in northeastern and north central Italy. The very late eighth-century _Versus de Verona_ pays special attention to F. and R. in its census of the saints whose churches protect that city and informs us of the discovery and translation of their previously hidden relics during the time of Desiderius and Adelchis (third quarter of the eighth century) to a church that had already been dedicated to them. This church, which stood near the Adige in the southern part of the early medieval city, is thought to have been been a predecessor on the same site of today's chiesa di San Fermo Maggiore, an originally eleventh- and twelfth-century church brought to completion in its upper part by Franciscans in the mid-fourteenth century. Herewith two illustrated brief accounts of this monument, one in English and the other in Italian: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/6267a/ http://www.chieseverona.it/SanFermo.aspx The same church's page at Italia nell'Arte Medievale: http://tinyurl.com/2wuc4m An illustrated, Italian-language page on the originally twelfth-century church of Santi Fermo e Rustico in Bedesco in the _frazione_ of Grignano in Brembate (BG) in Lombardy: http://tinyurl.com/5efh8b Other views: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grignano Since at least the twelfth century F. and R. have been venerated at Caravaggio (BG) in Lombardy, of which town they have long been the principal patrons. Herewith two illustrated, Italian-language accounts of the later medieval parish church dedicated to them there: http://tinyurl.com/yqyyva http://tinyurl.com/58uuo5 The facade was given a cleaning in 1990. Herewith a closer view of its upper portions: http://tinyurl.com/27ppgmw An aerial view of this church: http://tinyurl.com/2a858p7 Since at least the fourteenth century, F. and R. have been the patrons of Berzo San Fermo (BG) in Lombardy, whose originally fourteenth-century parish church of San Fermo was expanded in the seventeenth century and now sports a neoclassical facade. Further south in the former Lombard kingdom, F. and R. have been the patrons of Carpaneto Piacentino (PC) in Emilia since at least the later Middle Ages. Carpaneto Piacentino's originally fifteenth-century parish church of San Fermo (since greatly rebuilt) houses below its main altar relics said to be those of F.: http://www.parrocchiacarpaneto.com/storia/pag_foto/17_2.htm http://www.parrocchiacarpaneto.com/storia/pag_foto/17_3.htm Formerly commemorated under 9. August in the RM, F. and R. ceased to grace its pages in 2001. They are celebrated today in the diocese of Verona and in Caravaggio. 2) Paphnutius of Denderah (d. 307, supposedly). The Egyptian martyr P. (in English also Paphnute; in Coptic, Babnudah) has a legendary Passio that is attested in Greek as early as the fifth or sixth century (BHG 1419) and that exists as well in Coptic (BHO 840) and in Syriac (BHO 839 and at least one other text). This is an epic tale that presents P. as a solitary who, accompanied by his personal angel, turns himself in at Denderah to Arrianus the prosecuting governor of the Thebaid (A. is documented there in 307), has him undergo many tortures (some lethal but he survives nonetheless), and gives him many companions before he is finally crucified on a palm tree on 15. April (20. Barmudah) of an unspecified year. P.'s feast on 20. Barmudah, still his feast day in the Coptic Orthodox Church, is recorded in the Coptic synaxary of Alexandria attributed to the thirteenth-century Michael, bishop of Atrib and Malig. In a readily comprehensible if not entirely accurate calendrical conversion, P. (characterized as a monk) is entered under 20. April in the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples. The Palestinian-Georgian calendar preserved in the tenth-century codex Sinaiticus 34, has entries for P. both under 20. April and under today; Byzantine synaxaries commemorate him only under today. This was also P.'s day of commemoration in the RM from Baronio's time until the revision of 2001, when he ceased to grace the RM's pages. Many Orthodox churches celebrate P. today. P. as depicted (at upper left) in a September calendar assemblage in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) of the nave of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo: http://tinyurl.com/2e2xr6e Best, John Dillon (Firmus and Rusticus revised from an older 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