medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. August) is the feast day of:
Rufus of Capua (?). Today's less well-known saint of the Regno is
entered for this date in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology as
follows: _in Capua natale Rufi_ (some witnesses have _in Campania_
instead). Early liturgical sources from the Gelasian Sacramentary
onward list him for today; as is their wont, he appears in these and in
many calendars without geographic specification, as he also did in the
now lost mosaics of the late 5th-/early 6th-century church of St.
Priscus at today's San Prisco (CE) in Campania, an extramural survivor
from Old Capua. The historical martyrologies from Bede onward identify
him with increasing amounts of detail as the patrician Rufus whose
daughter is said by Agnellus of Ravenna to have been cured by St.
Apollinaris of that city. In this tradition, which dates him to the
Neronian persecution, R. is regularly said to have suffered martyrdom at
Capua.
An alternative tradition, present in all but the first of the Capuan
calendars published by Michele Monaco in his _Sanctuarium Capuanum_ of
1630 and reflected as well in the thirteenth-century legendary of
Bovino, makes R. a bishop of Capua who suffered under Diocletian and/or
Maximian and gives him a companion in martyrdom, Carponius (sometimes
referred to as Carpophorus). One version of their acta (BHL 7378) may
be read in the _Acta Sanctorum_. Prior to its latest revision (2001)
the RM distinguished this pair from the earlier R. in two separate
listings for 27. August.
Capua's church of SS. Rufo e Carponio (as it is now called) is said to
be documented as already existing in 1053. Later in the eleventh
century it passed to the Benedictines of Montecassino, who made
modifications and added the present belltower. In 1641 reliquary
niches were carved into the interior of its main apse; worked over some
more in the eighteenth century, the building has recently been restored
in a way that permits more of its medieval fabric to be seen. The
columns of its nave are spolia. Two brief Italian-language descriptions
with a few thumbnail views are here:
http://www.capuaonline.it/storiadicapua/srufoecarponio/
http://www.comunedicapua.it/cdc/monumenti/srufoecarponio/
I have been unable to find on the Web any views of either its
12th-century pavement in _opus sectile_ or of its surviving frescoes
dated to the same century.
Two views of the originally late eleventh- or early twelfth-century
church of San Rufo at Piedimonte di Casolla (CE) in Campania, first
documented from 1113:
http://www.terra-nostra-caserta.it/territ43.jpg
http://www.terra-nostra-caserta.it/territ42.jpg
R. is the patron saint of the town of San Rufo (SA) in southern
Campania's Vallo di Diano, thought to be a thirteenth-century foundation.
Best,
John Dillon
PS: In the Roman Calendar today is also the feast day of St. Monica (d.
387), the mother of tomorrow's St. Augustine of Hippo. Formerly she was
celebrated on 4. May. You knew that she had died at Ostia, but did you
know that she also spent most of the Middle Ages there, residing in the
church of Santa Aurea? See:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/dict/south/saurea.htm
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