medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (23. September) was also the feast day of:
Sossus (Sossius, Sosius; d. 305, supposedly). Today's less well known
saint from the Regno is the early Christian martyr of Misenum (now
Miseno [NA]). S. had a cult of his own that preceded his attraction
into the Januarius legend as one of J.'s companions. But we know very
little about it. He is mentioned by the fifth-century exile in
Campania, Quodvultdeus of Carthage, was depicted in the now lost cupola
mosaics of the late fifth- or very early sixth-century church of St.
Priscus at (Old) Capua, appears in a non-Januarian sixth-century fresco
in the catacombs of St. Gaudiosus at Naples, and is the subject of a
verse epigram erected by pope saint Symmachus (498-514) in his chapel
of St. Andrew next to old St. Peter's on the Vatican. The latter,
whose text is available together with an Italian translation about
halfway down the page here:
http://www.tuttofrattamaggiore.it/chiese/chiesa_sansosio.htm
, calls S. a _minister_ (commonly interpreted here as 'deacon', as
that's how S. appears in the Januarius legend) who attempted to save
his bishop's life and who suffered martyrdom along with him. In the
late-sixth or seventh-century _Acta Bononiensia_ of saint Januarius
(BHL 4132) and in subsequent versions of this account, S. was a deacon
of Misenum who was already in prison when J. becamse involved the
tribunals that led to his own martyrdom, along with that of S. and
others, at the Solfatara (outside of Pozzuoli).
At some unknown time (but probably fairly early) S.'s remains were
transported, it is thought, from their resting place at the Solfatara
to a church at Misenum where they were venerated. Evidence for this is
comparatively late and also suspect: John the Deacon's account (BHL
4135) of S.'s early tenth-century translation to Naples, in which the
church at Misenum is said to have been a ruin and S.'s tomb to have been
recognized only through its still bearing a few letters of his name. In
any event, the remains said to have been those of S. from Misenum were
deposited in a newly built Benedictine monastery on the Monterone in
Naples that had recently acquired the remains of Severinus of Noricum
and that shortly became known as the monastery of saints Severinus and
Sossius (in the earliest sources, S.'s name appears as 'Sossus' but by
this time the form with palatalizing 'i' was already standard).
In 1806 the monastery was secularized and in 1807 the remains or
putative remains of Severinus and Sossius were formally translated to
nearby Fratta (now Frattamaggiore [NA]), where they remain today in the
thirteenth-century church of San Sossio, shown here with its baroque
facade and sixteenth-century belltower:
http://www.frattamaggiore.org/Foto_fratta_oggi/S.%20Sosio.jpg
This building, an Italian national monument said to go back in part to
the ninth century, was gutted by fire in 1945 and has been restored in
the interior to a "romanesque" look. Italian-language accounts of the
church are here:
http://www.frattamaggiore.org/sansossio.htm
http://www.tuttofrattamaggiore.it/chiese/chiesa_sansosio.htm
S. is said to be among the saints depicted in a twelfth-century
portrait cycle at the church of St. Agnellus (S. Aniello) at Quindici
(AV). See the Italian-language discussion here:
http://www.agendaonline.it/avellino/articoli/chiesaquindici.htm
Here he is as depicted in the fifteenth-century Polyptych of Saints
Severinus and Sossius (whose central figure is Severinus) now in Naples'
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte:
http://www.prolocofratta.it/sansossio/images/sossio.jpg
And here he is in the mosaic installed in 1955 in his church at
Frattamaggiore (expandable .jpg):
http://www.frattamaggiore.org/Foto_fratta_oggi/mosaico-sansossio.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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