medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (21. May) is the feast day of:
Restituta of Corsica (d. 217/18, supposedly). A saint of this name has
been venerated at Calenzana (also Calinzana; Haute-Corse) and elsewhere
on Corsica since at least the fifteenth century and seemingly a lot
earlier than that, as excavations beneath the altar in her chapel at
Calenzana in 1951 revealed a late antique or early medieval martyrium
with a fresco depicting the martyrdom of a female saint; also
discovered here was an ancient sarcophagus containing twelve human
femurs, two of which were determined medically to have belonged to a
woman. These remains coincide remarkably with a Passio (BHL 6466e;
preserved in the main portion of Vaticanus latinus 6933, dated to the
twelfth century) wherein R. and five male colleagues fled from
persecution in north Africa to Calvi in northern Corsica and were
executed in the following year by a newly arrived prefect during the
reign of the emperor Macrinus. According to this text, R. was martyred
on 21. May at Calvi itself and three of her companions, Paragorius,
Parthaeus, and Parthenopaeus, were martyred in Ulmia, the adjacent
medieval parish that included Calenzana. (P., P., and P., saints of 7.
September, seem also to have been venerated at La Marana in northern
Corsica and were certainly so honored at Noli in Liguria, where their
poorly documented cult is reported to have employed a now lost antiphon
saying that they had been martyred on Corsica.)
The sarcophagus at Calenzana
http://tinyurl.com/737pu
seems to lack any ancient inscription (none is recorded for it in
Raimondo Zucca's fairly thorough "Appendice epigrafica" to his _La
Corsica romana_ [Oristano: S'Alvure, 1996], pp. 209-301). When it was
placed in the space under the altar at Calenzana is not known. The
chapel itself is a sixteenth-century structure replacing what is said
to have been an eleventh- or early twelfth-century one located in what
had been an ancient Roman cemetery. A reasonable guess would be that
documentation (the Passio) for a saint called Restituta venerated at
this site was created in connection with the new church, but whether
the number of companions was arrived at to fit already existing relics
or whether the number and sex of the relics was made to conform with
the Passio is also not known and perhaps not knowable. Certainly the
Passio itself is a systematizing document: in addition to its inclusion
of saints venerated elsewhere there is also the matter of R.'s _dies
natalis_, which conveniently falls just one day before that of the much
better known and earlier documented Julia of Corsica.
This English-language page, whose text reflects more recent accounts of
R. at variance with her medieval Passio, offers a view of the relics as
displayed in a chest at the chapel at Calenzana; also shown is what is
said to be a thirteenth-century fresco (location not specified) of R.
and her companions with the citadel of Calvi:
http://www.calinzana.corsica-isula.com/st%20restitude.htm
R.'s name in French is variously given as Restitude (the local form),
Restitute, or Ristituta, the latter being also the customary form in
Corsican. In 1984 the Congregation for Divine Worship declared her the
heavenly patron of Calenzana and of all the surrounding region
(the Balagne). For those wishing to try their hand at a probably
unfamiliar Romance tongue, a brief and very readable account of R. in
Corsican will be found here (scroll down to "21.V."):
http://www.adecec.net/adecec-net/SANTI/MAGHJU.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, greatly revised)
PS: For those who can bear to look at a post-medieval structure,
herewith some views of R.'s rather ordinary chapel at Calenzana,
located in an olive grove and with some picturesque scenery behind it:
http://www.calenzana.com/images/restitude.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/kzvcl
http://www.corsica-imagebank.com/stock/vignette/000696.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/eaexx
http://tinyurl.com/lxhr5
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