medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. July) is the feast day of:
Dominica (d. ca. 303, supposedly). Dominica (in Italian, Domenica) is
the local martyr of Tropea (VV) on the northern shore of Calabria's
Capo Vaticano. She has both a Latin Life and a Greek one. The Latin
Life (a brief set of breviary readings from Tropea of uncertain date;
first attested to in the work of the 16th-century Messinese
hagiographer Francesco Maurolico) makes D. a Campanian by birth and is
silent about the place of her martyrdom. According to this document
angels conducted her soul to heaven and brought her body miraculously
to Tropea. The undated but seemingly rather late Greek Life is silent
about D.'s place of birth or residence (though it does give her parents
Greek names, Dorotheus and Cyriaca, the latter being the Greek
equivalent of Dominica) and says nothing about her place of martyrdom
but notes, curiously, that the official who had her put to death was
of Campanian origin. Maurolico placed her martyrdom in Campania;
Baronio and Ughelli followed suit.
Both lives present D. as a young woman who is denounced as a Christian,
while her parents either remain free and encourage her to make the
required cult sacrifice (Greek Life) or else are sent into exile (Latin
Life). D. declines to do this, is brought before Diocletian,
infuriates him by persisting in her refusal of idolatry, is sentenced
to death, survives various execution attempts, and is finally
decapitated. The story's similarity to that of Cyriaca of Nicomedia,
together with the similarity of these saints' names, has led
many to suspect that this is a latinized version of a cult of a Greek
saint named Cyriaca for which C. of Nicomedia's acta have been adapted
and to which a particular localization in southern Italy has been added.
Tropea, whose paleochristian necropolis was discovered near its twelfth-
century cathedral early in the twentieth century, was a Roman coastal
fortress (Belisarius was there in 535, towards the start of the
Justinianic reconquest of Italy) until the ninth century, when it fell
for a while into Muslim hands (Nicephorus Phocas regained it for the
empire in 890), and again until the eleventh century, when it became
part of Roger I's domains during the Norman-led conquest of Byzantine
Calabria. As a Byzantine garrison town it will have had an at least
partly Greek-speaking population during the early Middle Ages. The
cathedral, much rebuilt after after various earthquakes, was restored
to a "Norman" appearance in the 1920s.
An Italian-language webpage (with photographs) on the cathedral is here:
http://www.gazzettinotropea.com/guidaturisticaduomo.htm
Compare the exterior view on that page with this one, said to be of the
church as it was in the fifteenth century:
http://tinyurl.com/j6hhe
The "Mondes Normands" site has four enlargeable views of the
cathedral's exterior here (on a page curiously labled "Abruzzes"):
http://tinyurl.com/8kph6
Other exterior views:
http://www.zerodelta.net/immagini/calabria087.jpg
http://www.zerodelta.net/immagini/calabria086.jpg
http://www.zerodelta.net/immagini/calabria085.jpg
Three views of parts of cathedral's interior:
http://tinyurl.com/kax47
http://www.globopix.net/img_bank/28/C13193-IT16VV011_580px.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/zkcl2
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post, visuals revised)
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|