medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (26. May) is also the feast day of:
Pardus (7th cent., perhaps). Today's less well known saint from the Regno,
the patron of Larino (CB) in Molise, is the subject of a brief _Vita et
Translatio_ written by one Radoin, deacon of Larino, probably in the tenth
or early eleventh century, and edited in the _Acta Sanctorum_ under today's
date (BHL 6465). Two other early modern editions deriving from the same
textual source, the _sanctorale_ of the chapter library at Bovino (FG) in
Apulia, show a text so editorially altered that they received their own BHL
number (6464). This text was already mutilated when the three editions in
question were made; however, the missing portion (the bulk of the
conclusion) has since been recovered from extensive notes on the Bovino
manuscript made in 1534 by the humanist scholar G. P. Ferretti and
surviving among his autograph manuscripts in the Vatican.
Radoin can be dated by his reference to the Hungarian sack of Larino in 947
and by his Beneventan Lombard outlook, which seems to indicate composition
prior to the eleventh-century Norman conquest of the duchy of
Benevento. According to him, Pardus was a Greek bishop from the
Peloponnese who, evicted by heretics from his diocese, retired to Rome,
declined on account of age and ill health to return when his repentant
flock asked him to, and instead received papal permission to settle in
Apulia. Traveling thither with a great company of admirers, he chose to
live in Lucera and spent his last few years there as a hermit. As Radoin's
historical knowledge is not bad, he could be right in dating Pardus' death
to a time not long before Constans II's destruction of Lucera (in
663). But the events that follow are part of the complicated tangle of
translations between Lucera, Lesina, and Larino in which the people of
Lesina (settled from Lucera) appropriate the relics of Larino's martyrs
Firmian and Primian (15 and 16 May; Primian is the patron saint of Lesina
[FG]) and the people of Larino then discover Pardus' relics in ruined
Lucera and take them in compensation. [All clear? There may be a quiz on
this!] In view of that history, Radoin's biographical details of Pardus
seem ideally suited: a saint of ecclesiastical dignity, suitably foreign
(just like Constantius of Capri and Canio of Atella and many other
episcopal patron saints over in Campania), residing in Lucera but never
bishop _of_ Lucera and so on no account to be handed over to the rival
Lesinesi. Chances are excellent that he's completely fictional.
But of course Larino's cathedral is named after him (it's dedicated to
Our Lady of the Assumption and to St. Pardus). A co-cathedral of
today's diocese of Termoli-Larino, this is an architectural monument of
at least regional distinction. See:
http://www.pagus.it/progetto/comuni/larino/cattedrale/
http://www.pagus.it/progetto/comuni/larino/cattedrale/frame/dx/descriz.htm
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/dhgph
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/html/luoghi/chiese/cattedrale.htm
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/cattedrale1.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/78rmo
http://domino.comune.larino.cb.it/comuni/larino.nsf/0/f1a70926e2da8db7c12569
ab0044e289?OpenDocument
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/da7yp
Detail (main portal):
http://www.pagus.it/progetto/comuni/larino/cattedrale/img/descriz3.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/b9dvo
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/cattedrale2.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/axusk
Detail (tympanum):
http://domino.comune.larino.cb.it/comuni/larino.nsf/0/f1a70926e2da8db7c12569ab0044e289/foto_1/0.7C?OpenElement&FieldElemFormat=gif
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/9kxwr
The Y-shaped cross is said to be typical of the thirteenth century. Is
that so, or is some modification required?
The belltower, completed in 1523, rises above an arch (from 1451):
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/_XOOM/larinoweb/foto/luoghi/chiese/duomo/sanpardo.gif
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/bdwdj
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/immagini/vecchie01/larino09.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/drs3h
Less impressive, though, than the similar arrangement at Trani:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/tran01.jpg
Returning for a moment to this view, note the statue in the niche over
the rose window:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/larinoweb/foto/immagini/vecchie01/larino09.jpg
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/drs3h
This is said to be a representation of Pardus.
The building was severely damaged in the earthquake on 4. November 2002
by an aftershock of the southern Molise/Capitanata earthquake of 31.
October of that year.
For Radoin's _Vita et Translatio_ see now F. Dolbeau, "Le legendier de la
cathedrale de Bovino," _Analecta Bollandiana_ 96 (1978), 125-52, esp. pp.
126-29, 132, 144-45.
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, lightly revised)
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