medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Sunday, April 2, 2006, at 5:56 pm, Phyllis wrote:
> Today (3. April) is the feast day of:
> Gandulf (blessed) (d. 1260) Gandulf was a native of Binasco (near
> Milan). He became a Franciscan at a young age, and a very ascetic
> Franciscan too. He was sent to preach in Sicily, winning great
> praise for eloquence, which inspired him to become a hermit in a
> less
> accessible part of the island. He still went out to preach among
> the
> locals occasionally.
G. died at today's Polizzi Generosa (PA). Only a few days before (31.
March 1260), he had preached his final sermon in Polizzi's principal
church of Santa Maria Assunta. Though that building's early
architectural history is unknown, it is quite likely that the closed up
entry visible to the left of the present late Renaissance portal was
already there when he was. See:
http://members.fortunecity.it/lemadonie/Dscf0726.jpg
According to an account from Polizzi's parish of Santa Maria Assunta
http://tinyurl.com/z3t2w
, G. was buried here in bare earth. A cult sprang up almost
immediately; in 1320 his remains underwent a formal elevation and were
reinterred in a more honorable location. Jasmine flowers sprang up
spontaneously both at his former gravesite and in the wine with which
his bones had been cleansed (i.e., where it had been discarded?). The
citizens of Polizzi asked the bishop of Cefalu' to declare G. their
town's patron and to grant them two new liturgical feasts, one on the
anniversary of his death and the other on that of the elevation of his
remains (the source for all this seems to be G.'s beatification process
of 1632, which recorded the existence of both feasts).
In 1482 G.'s remains were laid in a marble tomb said to be the work
of the distinguished sculptor Domenico Gagini. The upper portion of
this remains in the church's Cappella di San Gandolfo (he's called 'San'
by tradition):
http://tinyurl.com/nvgjr
, whereas G. himself is in the same chapel in a silver sarcophagus
constructed in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries:
http://www.polizzigenerosa.it/italiano/arte/chiese/chiesamadre/urna.htm
Polizzi's Santa Maria Assunta also houses this fifteenth-century
triptych usually ascribed to a follower of Rogier van der Weyden known
as the Master of the Embroidered Foliage (or of the Leafy Embroidery)
but recently attributed to Rogier himself:
http://tinyurl.com/o5t4m
For the recent re-attribution see:
http://www.madonienews.it/stampa.php?id_pagina=581
Polizzi's church of Sant'Antonio Abate is said to have been a former mosque:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/pasqua2002/polizzigenerosa/21.jpg
But proof of that is lacking. The building's use as a Christian church
dates from 1361.
Polizzi's rebuilt church of San Nicolo' de Franchis was originally
erected in 1167:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/pasqua2002/polizzigenerosa/10.jpg
Also originally medieval is this seemingly restored entrance to
Polizzi's Torre Di Leo, a fortification remnant acquired by the Di Leo
family of Messina in 1240:
http://sicilyweb.com/foto/pasqua2002/polizzigenerosa/2.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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