medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (22. July) is the feast day of:
Walter (Gualtero, Gualtiero) of Lodi (d. ca. 1225). According
to the Life by his cousin BonGiovanni, W.'s childless parents vowed that
if they were blessed with a son they would dedicate him to the service
of God. After W. was born the parents fulfilled this vow by raising him
in a way suitable for a future religious life and by seeing to it that
he became a Hospitaller at the age of fifteen. W. then served in
various hospitals in Lombardy. In 1206 the city fathers of his native
Lodi granted him land for the construction of what would become its
Ospitale della Misericordia. During the remainder of his not overly
long life (he is thought to have died at about the age of forty), W.
oversaw the growth of this institution and founded other hospitals in
Lombardy which he administered as dependencies. He was noted for
miracles in his lifetime; after his death his burial place in the church
of the Misericordia (destroyed in 1856) became the locus of a cult.
In the fifteenth century W. underwent a translation to the high altar of
Lodi's cathedral. After his relics had been relocated several times
within that building, what remained of them were laid to rest in 1960 in
the nineteenth-century church of San Gualtero near the site of the
former Misericordia.
Lodi's cathedral of San Bassiano uses this marble sarcophagus as its
main altar:
http://tinyurl.com/f4mmm
From the left, the figures represent St. Peter, St. Bassian (19.
January; Lodi's primary patron), and perhaps W.
A page of views of the cathedral is here:
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Lombardia/DuomodiLodi.html
For BonGiovanni's Life of W., see Alessandro Caretta, "Una nuova
edizione della 'Vita' di s. Gualtiero da Lodi," _Archivio storico
lodigiano_ 108 (1989), 101-40.
Best,
John Dillon
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