medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (22. February) is the feast day of:
1) The Chair of St. Peter the Apostle. This feast is first mentioned in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 354: _natale Petri de Cathedra_. In the late fifth century Perpetuus of Tours calls it _Natalis S. Petri episcopatus_. When the Cathedra Petri came to be celebrated on 18. January, the two feasts were differentiated by calling that one the feast of of the Chair of Peter at Rome and today's feast that of the Chair of Peter _at Antioch_ (commemorating the commencement of P.'s episcopate in that city). Both feasts are already present in the early eighth-century Calendar of St. Willibrord. With the suppression in 1960 of the 18. January feast the specification "of Antioch" was dropped from today's celebration.
Here's an expandable view of of P. enthroned from Giotto's Stefaneschi Triptych (ca. 1330):
http://tinyurl.com/27lg2o
Just outside of Antioch (an historically Syrian city now Antakya in southernmost Turkey) one may visit a cave church where P. is reputed to have preached. A set of views of this Cave Church of St. Peter (also the Grotto of St. Peter; Turkish Sen Piyer Kilisesi), whose facade is modern, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2tn7cz
A little topographic context:
http://www.pbase.com/andrys/image/37687202
2) Papias of Hierapolis (d. prob. earlier 2d cent.). The apostolic father P., bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, was the author in five books of a Gospel or Sayings commentary, the _Logion kyriakon exegesis_, preserved fragmentarily in quotations by others. He is said by St, Irenaeus of Lyon to have been an auditor of John and a companion of Polycarp. The latter is clearly the martyr bishop of Smyrna and the former is identified by Eusebius and by Jerome as being, in P.'s case, John the Presbyter. Ado, who entered P. in his martyrology under today's date, understood this John to be St. John the Evangelist. For the remainder of the Middle Ages P. was in the Latin West considered in a direct recipient of apostolic teaching.
Hierapolis in Phrygia overlooked the hot springs of what is now Pamukkale in southwestern Turkey's Denizli Province. The reputed site of the martyrdom of the apostle Philip, it had had a large Jewish community from the late second century BCE onward. In P.'s day it was still being rebuilt after a major earthquake in the first century CE and most of the ruins one now sees at this UNESCO World Heritage Site are probably or certainly later than our saint. But this late first-century CE municipal gate, dated by an inscription to the reign of Domitian (81-96), will have been familiar to him:
http://tinyurl.com/3cslxr
Here's an English-language history of the place, with links toward the bottom to sub-pages on specific places of interest:
http://www.turizm.net/cities/hierapolis/
3) Maximianus of Ravenna (d. 556). M. was born at Pola in Istria, today's Pula in Croatia. In 546, at the behest of the emperor Justinian, he was made bishop of Ravenna. According to Agnellus of Ravenna, this appointment was so unpopular within the city (which had wished to name a bishop of its own choosing) that M. was compelled initially to reside outside it as a guest of the Arian bishop of the Goths. M. is sometimes said to have been the first bishop in the west to employ the title of archbishop. He is known for the churches he built or restored, both in Ravenna and in Pula.
One of M.'s churches in Ravenna is San Vitale, where he he is portrayed in a mosaic perhaps more familiar for its portrait of his imperial sponsor:
http://tinyurl.com/3x3vhz
M. in close-up:
http://www.initaly.com/regions/byzant/pix/testmass.jpg
Those images come from a four-page site on San Vitale:
http://tinyurl.com/2vbjpg
A discussion of the latter's mosaics occurs on this page:
http://www.initaly.com/regions/byzant/byzant4.htm
Another of M.'s churches is the much rebuilt St. Mary Formosa at Pula. There's an English-language account of it here (the image of the plan is expandable):
http://www.mdc.hr/pula/eng/spomenici/spomenici07.htm
One of the treasures of the archdiocese of Ravenna-Cervia is this mid-sixth-century episcopal chair (ivory over wood) known as the Throne of Maximianus:
http://tinyurl.com/286h9u
http://tinyurl.com/yqt5oj
M.'s remains, along with those of the fifth-century bishop St. Exuperantius, are said to repose in this sarcophagus in Ravenna's cathedral:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Maximianus_von_Ravenna2.jpg
4) Margaret of Cortona (d. 1297) . The Franciscan tertiary and visionary M. founded at today's Cortona (AR) in Tuscany a community of religious women that survived her and that promoted her cause by means of the _Legenda de vita et miraculis beatae Margaritae de Cortona_ (BHL 5314). The latter is a work of multiple authorship including a lengthy record of M.'s visions as recounted to and written down by her confessor G., now generally identified as the Franciscan friar Giunta Bevegnati, as well as matter from a later confessor and from various locals offering miracle accounts. M.'s cult was confirmed for Cortona in 1515. She was canonized in 1728.
Here's an expandable view of a late thirteenth-century panel painting of M. and of scenes from her Legend:
http://tinyurl.com/26t62r
And here's M. in an expandable view of part of a fourteenth-century panel painting now attributed to a follower of Margarito(ne) of Arezzo and showing scenes from her Legend (painting in the Museo Diocesano di Cortona):
http://www.beatoalano.it/Genesi/IMAGE027.JPG
Best,
John Dillon
(Chair of Peter. Maximianus of Ravenna, and Margaret of Cortona lightly revised from last year's post)
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