medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. November) is the feast day of:
Atto of Tordino (d. 11th cent.). According to his now lost Vita (said to have been medieval in origin), today's less well known saint of the Regno was a monk of Montecassino sent from there to Abruzzo in or shortly after 1004 to establish as its first abbot a monastery at the newly endowed church of San Nicoḷ in the Tordino valley near Teramo. The monastery, which prospered rapidly, was formally that of San Nicoḷ di Tordino but came in time to be known also as that of A., who was remembered for his efforts in improving the spiritual and material well-being of the local populace and whose tomb became a pilgrimage destination. By the end of the twelfth century the monastery, now enormously wealthy, was a major landholder in the region. A modern scholarly survey refers to its "vasto patrocinio". The parish church of Sant'Attone in the locality of the same name in today's very industrial San Nicoḷ di Tordino (TE) occupies part of the original site.
When the monastery was closed in 1477 the cathedral chapter of Teramo adopted A. as its own patron (the diocesan patron is of course St. Berard of Teramo), a distinction that he retains today. An Italian-language account of Teramo's originally twelfth-century cattedrale di San Berardo is here:
http://www.diocesiteramoatri.it/arte/cattedrale.asp
A view of the cathedral's main portal (originally of 1332) in the form it assumed in the fifteenth century:
http://tinyurl.com/ca4t6
None of the figures in the niches is of A.
Best,
John Dillon
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