medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 08:05 PM 6/7/2004 -0700, Phyllis wrote:
>Today (8. June) is the feast day of:
>
>Severinus of Septempeda (d. 540) Severinus and his brother St.
>Victorinus were nobles who gave their inheritance to the poor and
>became hermits near Livorno. Pope Vigilius forced S. to become
>bishop of Septempeda in 540 (Septempeda is now called Sanseverino
>after S). Victorinus, who apparently became bishop of Camerino, is
>also commemorated today.
There is no proof of a sixth-century date for this particular pair of
saints named Severinus and Victorinus (not to be confused with the S. and
V. who appear among the names assigned the Quattuor Coronati). Our source
for them is a brief Vita (BHL 7659-7660) that is said to show knowledge of
Gregory the Great (and thus would be late sixth-century at the very
earliest) and whose content is reflected in the ninth-century Martyrology
of Ado. This Vita gives not the slightest chronological information about
the two saints. That S. was alive in 540 and that he died shortly before
Septempeda's destruction by either Goths or Lombards was the view of the
influential early modern church historian Ughelli (who in the absence of
better documentation relied here on local ecclesiastical tradition); that
the pope of the Vita was Vigilius is a further inference based upon
Ughelli. This tissue of suppositions was shown for what it is by Lanzoni
in his _Le diocesi d'Italia_ (Faenza, 1927), vol. 1, pp. 392-93, a classic
and still useful work of scholarship that certainly should have been known
to the revisers of the Ramsgate Abbey _Book of Saints_, whose entry for S.
and V. is very much like Phyllis' and whose intent to let the reader know
when information given is "uncertain or debatable" (5th ed., p. ix) seems
often not to have been carried forward to execution. Lanzoni's own dating
of S. to the fourth century has a certain plausibility but also is by no
means certain.
Ancient Septempeda was replaced by today's San Severino Marche (MC), called
"San Severino" after the saint and "Marche" to distinguish it from San
Severinos elsewhere in Italy, e.g., San Severino Lucano (PZ) and Mercato
Sanseverino (SA), both of which honor Severinus the apostle of
Noricum. Early martyrological confusion of the latter Severinus with the
saint of Septempeda caused the Bollandists to print S. and V.'s Vita with
those of the saints of 8. January.
Not in the Ramsgate Abbey _Book of Saints_, though, is the curious detail
of S. and V.'s having become hermits near Livorno. Phyllis, do you know
where this comes from? The Vita places their hermitage on a mountain "quem
dicunt Prolacem"; this is usually identified with modern Pioraco (MC) in
the same Picentine vicinity as the other places mentioned in the
Vita. Victorinus is the patron of Pioraco, whose spectacular mountain
setting can be seen here:
http://www.marchecitta.it/comuni/pioraco.html
One of the three mountains surrounding Pioraco is Monte Gualdo, where one
can view a cave in which Victorinus is said to have dwelt as a
hermit. Click on
http://www.comsanseverino.sinp.net/turismo/culturale1.asp#pioraco
Bianca Maria Margarucci Italiani has a very informative article (esp. on
S.'s cult and on folklore pertaining to him), "Severino, vescovo di
Septempeda, santo," in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 11 (1968), cols.
972-79.
Best,
John Dillon
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