medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (10. August) is the feast of:
Lawrence, deacon of Rome (358, supposedly). L. is a martyr of the Via
Tiburtina, recorded for this day in the _Depositio Martyrum_ of 354.
Genuine acta concerning him, if they ever existed, were already
unavailable to Augustine and to Maximus of Turin. Whereas his legendary
acta found their fullest expression in the _Passio Polycronii_ (BHL
4753; earliest version, late fifth-cent.?), their basic elements were
known to Ambrose and Prudentius as well as to the aforementioned
Augustine and Maximus. The part about being tortured on a grill is
inconsistent with other information about executions during the
Valerianic persecution and for that reason is generally viewed as
invention; much of the remainder (e.g. the prophetic encounter with
Sixtus II just before his martyrdom and the sale of the church's
treasure and the distribution of the profits to the poor) seems at least
partly the product of imaginative elaboration.
After Peter and Paul, L. had the most important cult of any Roman
martyr. An early _memoria_ at his burial location was followed by
basilicas erected above ground by the emperor Constantine and below
ground by pope Pelagius II. The site is now occupied by today's San
Lorenzo fuori le Mura (a.k.a. San Lorenzo in Verano). Some views, etc.
follow.
History and guide (Italian-langage):
http://www.santamelania.it/approf/luogiub/lugcap7.htm#_Toc514781613
Brief history of the church (English-language):
http://web.tiscali.it/romaonlineguide/Pages/eng/rcristiana/sCH2y5.htm
Exterior views:
http://www.mmdtkw.org/GARecrSP02.html
http://tinyurl.com/a6kmo
An exterior view of the basilica shortly after the bombing in 1943:
http://www.gospark.it/img/articles/19203.JPG
Exterior and interior views (multiple):
http://www.italycyberguide.com/Geography/cities/rome2000/F41.htm
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/popolo/midjpg/alphabetical/index15.html
Exterior view plus details:
http://members.tripod.com/romeartlover/Vasi46sl.html#Today
Interior views:
http://fujiso.hp.infoseek.co.jp/hrm2hp/prm507.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/bjm7n
http://www.romecity.it/sanlorenzofuorilemura06s.jpg
Interior view (arch mosaic):
http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ulj/mosaic07.jpg
The stone on which L.'s body was laid after its removal from the grill
is in this church:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Saint_Lawrence_stone.jpg
Whereas the grill itself (and who could doubt this?) is in Rome's San
Lorenzo in Lucina:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:San_lorenzo%27s_grill.jpg
***
L. is prominently featured in the mosaics of the Mausoleum of Galla
Placidia at Ravenna (earlier fifth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/kbven
http://www.pbase.com/jboard/image/48845668
detail (sans grill):
http://tinyurl.com/g9u75
***
The collegiate church of the BVM at Amaseno (FR) in southern Lazio, a
twelfth-century structure with later additions
http://www.amasenoonline.com/smaria.htm
, has a blood relic of L. that is said to liquefy every year on this
day:
http://www.nemesi.net/reliq1.jpg
An Italian-language account with a rather different photograph of the
relic is here:
http://www.amasenoonline.com/reliquia.htm
That page also has views of, and an excerpt from, the church's
foundation document of 1177 (or from a later copy?), whose listing of
its relics includes one of L.'s fat. As there are no reports of the
liquefaction prior to the seventeenth century (also the date of the
present reliquary), the suspicion has been voiced that the present relic
may be an early modern substitution. See the following scientific
account by Luigi Garlasecchi, the leading investigator today of such
blood relics:
http://www.cicap.org/en_artic/at101015.htm
Another proposed explanation (by Marcello Guidotti; Italian-language)
is here:
http://www.nemesi.net/reliquie.htm
For those who can't get enough, there's a whole gallery of photographs
of the relic here:
http://www.amasenoonline.com/indexrelic.htm
Best,
John Dillon
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