medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. March 2008) is the Octave of Easter (also Whitsunday and, in the church of Rome, the Feast of Divine Mercy). Ordinarily, 30. March is the feast day of:
1) Secundus of Asti (d. 119, supposedly). S. has long been the principal patron saint of Asti (AT) in today's Piedmont. According to his legendary Passio (BHL 7562, -63, -64), he was a Roman officer of high station who at Asti learned the rudiments of faith from the also legendary Calocerus (Calogero), a north Italian saint venerated especially at Brescia, and who received baptism at Tortona from its saint Marcianus, who according to the same legend was martyred under Hadrian. S., who while hastening to be at M.'s side had with angelic assistance miraculously crossed the Po in his horse-drawn conveyance, dared to bury M. For this crime he was arrested and taken to Asti, where he was tortured, decapitated, and buried by angels before an admiring crowd of pagans.
S.'s cult at Asti is recorded from the ninth century onward. His principal dedication there is the originally ninth-/tenth-century chiesa collegiata di San Secondo next to the Municipio. Rebuilt from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth, it is an essentially "gothic" structure but the upper part of the facade is Renaissance and the main portal is of the early eighteenth century. Two illustrated, Italian-language accounts (with expandable views) are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2sefzz
http://tinyurl.com/36jrua
Another dedication to S. is the originally late eleventh- or early twelfth-century pieve di San Secondo at nearby Cortazzone (AT). Various views, etc. are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2tcfkh
http://tinyurl.com/yvb2zw
(that last has two pages; for the second, click on 'la scheda' in the menu at the top)
http://tinyurl.com/yukc7p
http://www.ncc1701a.polito.it/trekking/culto/scheda.asp?id=16
(click on camera icon for slide show)
http://tinyurl.com/2etgx2
http://tinyurl.com/28fv43
http://tinyurl.com/2z6tqe
http://tinyurl.com/yrzcpc
2) John Climacus (d. early 7th cent.). According to his biographer Daniel, J. was a monk of Sinai who after nineteen years of communal life spent the next forty as a hermit on Mt. Sinai, after which time he was elected abbot of his monastery. He is famous for his ascetic treatise, _The Ladder of Divine Ascent_ or _The Ladder of Paradise_, from whose title and controlling image his appellation Climacus is derived ('klimax' is Greek for 'ladder'). Herewith some icons illustrating J.'s concept:
St. Catherine monastery, Sinai (twelfth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/23rx3y
Pantokrator monastery, Mt. Athos (sixteenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/3364ye
The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (sixteenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/2tawnv
3) Zosimus, bp. of Syracuse (d. ca. 662). Z. is a Greek saint of Sicily; his Bios is preserved only in a medieval Latin translation (BHL 9026) whose most accessible text is a version from the thirteenth-century _sanctorale_ of the chapter library of Bovino (FG) in Apulia, polished up and published by Ottavio Gaetani SJ in his _Vitae sanctorum siculorum_ and reprinted thence in the _Acta Sanctorum_. Z. is said to have entered Syracuse's monastery of St. Lucy at the age of seven and in time to have become its abbot. After a lengthy abbacy he was named bishop of Syracuse at some time in the 640s and served in that post for thirteen years. Z.'s Vita credits him with acts of charity to the poor, with a special devotion to the BVM, and with an aversion to Jews.
Z. is also credited with restoring Syracuse's ancient temple of Athena/Minerva and with making that structure the city's new cathedral. This illustrated, Italian-language account has views of the ancient columns with Doric capitals embedded in the fabric of the present building:
http://tinyurl.com/25vbg
That building houses a fifteenth-century painting of Z. that local sources (but not the Grove) attribute to the highly talented Antonello da Messina. Mediocre reproductions of it will be found in this Italian-language account of Z.:
http://www.siracusaweb.com/siracusa_article20.html
and (slightly larger) on the Santi Beati site at:
http://tinyurl.com/fnlpx
For more on the Vita, see Mario Re, "La Vita di s. Zosimo vescovo di Siracusa: qualche osservazione", _Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici_ 37 (2000) 29-42.
4) Joachim of Fiore (Bl.; d. 1201/02). Today's holy person from the Regno is well known to many medievalists at least. Here's a brief, English-language account of him by Marjorie Reeves:
http://tinyurl.com/yowpsh
Some expandable views of the abbazia Florense at today's San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) in Calabria:
http://tinyurl.com/3ycd4u
A view of the remains of J.'s first monastery at Fiore, the "Jure Vetere":
http://www.centrostudigioachimiti.it/images/figuravita6.jpg
Some expandable views of illuminations of J.'s _Liber figurarum_:
http://tinyurl.com/39ele2
Best,
John Dillon
(Secundus of Asti, John Climacus, and Zosimus of Syracuse lightly revised from last year's post)
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