medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Friday, April 28, 2006, at 2:47 am, John Briggs wrote:
> Phyllis G. Jestice wrote:
> >
> > Today (28. April) is the feast day of:
>
> Vitalis [presumably martyred in 1969]
Martyred in 1969 but present today in the MR with a _laterculus_ whose
language evokes one of the grounds for papal approval of a cult. In
1969 the line seems to have been that today's V. (the V. of Ravenna) was
really the V. of 4. November (V. of Bologna; sometimes celebrated
jointly with Agricola of the same city on 27. November), outfitted with
new and spurious Acta after he had been translated first to Milan and
thence to Ravenna. V. of Ravenna was then excised altogether from the
Roman Calendar and in places where his cult was too strongly rooted in
tradition to be simply done away with (e.g., Fuorigrotta in Naples) he
was replaced by V. of Bologna and is now celebrated liturgically on 4.
November.
He is back, though, in the online Italian-language version of the RM,
where under today one reads:
"A Ravenna, in Emilia, la commemorazione di san Vitale; secondo la
tradizione, in questo stesso giorno, gli sarebbe stata dedicata una
celeberrima basilica in città. E’ venerato, da tempo immemorabile, con i
santi martiri Valeria, Gervasio, Protasio e Ursicino, uccisi per
l’incrollabile professione di fede."
So he now seems to have a recognized _cultus ab immemorabili tempore_.
As the website of the archdiocese of Ravenna-Cervia:
http://www.diocesi-ravenna.org/
appears to have been hijacked, it's a bit difficult to tell how this is
playing out there. The homepage of Ravenna's parish of San Vitale is
silent (discreetly? suspiciously?) about the saint to whom its famous
sixth-century basilica (_sensu ecclesiastico_) is dedicated:
http://www.racine.ra.it/parsanvitale/index.htm
A very nice, illustrated, Swedish-language site on that basilica is here:
http://www.formonline.se/kyrkor/Ravenna/SanVitale/
This has links at bottom to subpages on particular details (mostly mosaic).
Other, expandable views are here:
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/San_Vitale.html
Some expandable architectural views, including a plan and sections, will
be found here:
http://intranet.arc.miami.edu/rjohn/ARC%20267/Byzantine_2002.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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