medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. April) is also the feast day of:
Liberal of Altino (d. ca. 400, supposedly). A saint both of Venice and
of the adjacent _terraferma_, L. has some not awfully believable Acta
(e.g., BHL 4905) that make him a disciple of Altino's late fourth- /
early fifth-century bishop Heliodorus who when the latter retired to an
island in the lagoon stayed behind to bring Christianity to pagans and
Catholicism to Arians. In time L. too retired to an island in the
lagoon, where he lived briefly as a hermit before dying on 27. April of
an unrecorded year. Although in the fourteenth century it was claimed
that his remains had been brought to Torcello, where he has an altar in
the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, all in Treviso know that the
remains of their patron San Liberale were brought here along with those
of other early saints by refugees from Altino fleeing either the Huns in
452 or Lombards in the later sixth or early seventh century.
Treviso's cathedral of St. Peter (or of Sts. Peter and Paul) is mostly
early modern. But it is built over an eleventh-century crypt,
expandable views of which are provided on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/pgnsm
None of the frescoing here is earlier than the thirteenth century. L.'s
remains are said to reside in a fifteenth-century tomb in the apse.
Presumably, it's somewhere in this view, behind the later gaudiness:
http://tinyurl.com/zrw23
L. is also the patron saint of Castelfranco (VE), a Trevisan foundation.
Its cathedral, dedicated to L., houses an altarpiece by Giorgione from
1505 (ca.) depictng the BVM between L. and Francis of Assisi. The image
shown here is expandable:
http://www.wga.hu/html/g/giorgion/religion/madon_fr.html
The depiction of L. as a young knight is traditional in Trevisan
representations of him as patron of their commune.
Best,
John Dillon
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