medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (25. May) is the feast day of:
1) Canio of Atella (d. 4th cent.?). Today's less well known saint of the Regno is entered under this date in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology as follows: _Atellae in Campania Canionis_ ("At Atella in Campania, Canio"). His inclusion among the saints of the now lost fifth- or early sixth-century mosaics of the basilica of San Prisco outside of (old) Capua at today's San Prisco (CE) confirms his late antique veneration in Campania. But we have no Acta for him prior to the tenth century, when the Neapolitan hagiographer Peter the Subdeacon produced his _Passio sancti Canionis episcopi et martyris_ (BHL 1541d). According to Peter, C. was an African bishop imprisoned at Carthage under Maximian and Diocletian (so ca. 290 CE), liberated by an angel, and miraculously transported to Atella, where he evangelized the locals and in time was martyred.
C. recurs in the even more legendary _Passio sancti Castrensis_ (BHL 1645; eleventh- or twelfth-century), where he is one of twelve African bishops said to have been exiled under the Vandals and to have found found refuge in Campania.
In the latter half of the eleventh century Peter's account (or one very similar to it) formed the basis of a new version of the _Passio sancti Canionis_ accompanying the translation of C.'s remains from now-decayed Atella to Acerenza in Basilicata (BHL 1541). Recently taken from the East Romans, Acerenza was at this time ruled by members of the Norman family that had established itself at Aversa, the Campanian fortress town that replaced nearby Atella. In 1080 the bishop of Acerenza, who was now styled archbishop and who had metropolitan authority over a considerable part of the newly Norman domains in Puglia and in Basilicata, conducted a solemn _inventio_ of Canio's remains as part of the opening phase of his construction of Acerenza's new cathedral, dedicated to Mary of the Assumption and to C.
Acerenza is now the primary locus of C.'s cult. Atella is no more (though some of its Roman remains are still visible) and most of it lies under today's Sant'Arpino (CE), whose patron saint, Elpidio, another of the twelve bishops of the _Passio sancti Castrensis_, is traditionally celebrated there on 24. May though his actual _dies natalis_ is 1. September. C. does get his due at Sant'Arpino in civic festivals in July and September as well as at tomorrow's Sagra del Casatiello, when locals prepare the world's largest (as certified by the Guinness Book of Records, no less) casatiello, a rich pastry often served at Easter. This celebration takes place next to the local church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which latter incorporates a late antique structure (possibly an oratory) now known as the Romitorio San Canione ("St. Canio's Hermitage"). C. is also the patron saint of Calitri (AV) in southeastern Campania.
Here's a view of the Romitorio San Canione at Sant'Arpino (possibly C.'s resting place prior to his translation to Acerenza):
http://tinyurl.com/4jjyyc
An Italian-language history and overview (with photographs) of Acerenza's cathedral is here:
http://www.acerenza.com/cattedrale/cattedrale1.html
http://www.acerenza.com/cattedrale/catint1.html
http://www.acerenza.com/cattedrale/catint2.html
More and better photographs of the same structure are here:
http://www.basilicata.cc/chiese/acerenza1/index.htm
These are enlargeable and captioned; for "la chiesa" keep clicking on "continua" or on "avanti" to view all the photo sets; C.'s remains are of course in "la cripta".
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale site has a set of views of Acerenza's cathedral that's especially good for exterior details and for the ambulatory:
http://tinyurl.com/gpg5o
Notice the ancient spolia (inscriptions and sculptural bits) set into the wall of the cathedral along with arms of donor families of the sixteenth century. Another spolium is this bust of Julian the Apostate, now in the cathedral museum:
http://www.acerenza.com/cattedrale/giuliano.gif
This is said to have been placed over the peak of the facade (where the cross is now) and to have been understood medievally as an image of C.
2) Zenobius of Florence (d. earlier 5th cent.) According to Paulinus of Milan, Z. (in Florentine, Zanobi) accompanied St. Ambrose of Milan on a trip from that city to Florence. At that time Z. was not yet bishop of Florence; he had become so by ca. 422 (when Paulinus composed his Vita of St. A.). Lawrence of Amalfi, whose early eleventh-century Vita of Z. (BHL 9014) is our earliest narrative account of him, draws on Florentine tradition to make Z. a Tuscan who served pope St. Damasus I in Rome and in Constantinople and whom D. then elevated to the see of Florence, his (Z.'s) native city. Z. was said to have been buried in Florence's church of San Lorenzo and to have been translated in the ninnth century to Santa Reparata, which then became the city's cathedral.
Santa Reparata was pulled down in 1375. Z. now reposes in its successor, Florence's present cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Here are two views of his tomb, sculpted between 1432 and 1442 by Lorenzo Ghiberti:
http://tinyurl.com/35njhv
http://tinyurl.com/2qwwcq
Some thirteenth- through fifteenth-century depictions of Z.:
Maestro del Bigallo, panel from an altar frontal (ca. 1220-1230) depicting scenes from Z.'s life, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo):
http://tinyurl.com/2dys7f
Maestro del polittico Medici, John the Baptist between Sts. Z. and Reparata, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo:
http://tinyurl.com/2xuznp
Bernardo Daddi (attrib.), BVM betw. Sts. Catherine of Alexandria and Z. (ca. 1335), Museo dell'Opera del Duomo:
http://tinyurl.com/2d5gjb
Andrea di Cione (Andrea Orcagna; d. 1358), Z. with his deacons Sts. Eugenius and Crescentius, Santa Maria del Fiore:
http://tinyurl.com/28qkfr
Jacopo di Cione, St. Z. (between 1380 and 1400), Museo dell'Opera del Duomo:
http://www.insecula.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000083079.html
Z.'s window in Santa Maria del Fiore (ca. 1430; restored, nineteenth and twentieth centuries):
http://tinyurl.com/2qx54t
fact sheet on this:
http://tinyurl.com/2m5dl3
Beato Angelico, Sts. Z. and Dominic flanking the BVM (ca. 1437-46), Museo Nazionale di San Marco:
http://tinyurl.com/36hv8y
And here's Z. in the cathedral's central portal:
http://tinyurl.com/3b64bv
3) Aldhelm (d. 709). The first important English scholar of enduring reputation, the West Saxon A. was a monk and later abbot of Malmesbury. A had been a student of Sts. Theodore of Tarsus/Canterbury and of St. Hadrian of Nisida. Of his many writings, his hagiographic _De virginitate_ is occasionally cited, in one or both of its versions (prose, verse), even in these notices. In 706 he became bishop of Sherborne. According to William of Malmesbury, A. was buried in the abbey's church of St. Michael. His veneration at Malmesbury as a saint is attested as early as the tenth century.
Here's a view of the Norman chapel dedicated to A. on St Aldhelm's Head in Dorset:
http://tinyurl.com/58h6kx
In the early twelfth century it was believed that A. had founded St Laurence's church at Bradford on Avon (Wilts). The present structure is more recent than that but still pre-Conquest. Two illustrated pages on it begin here:
http://tinyurl.com/6s7wno
4) Bede the Venerable (d. 735). The author of the first of the historical martyrologies and of the _Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum_, B. is well known to the learned on this list. Shortly after his death at Jarrow (in today's Tyne and Wear) he was regarded as a saint; Alcuin attributes a miraculous cure to his relics. Dante puts him next to St. Isidore of Seville in Paradise. B. was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1899. A brief, informative account of him is here (caution: not everyone accepts that B. spent most of his life at Jarrow):
http://home.mchsi.com/~numenor/medstud/life.htm
See also the rather longer introduction to B. by a contributor to this list, George H. Brown: _ Bede, the Venerable_ (Boston: Twayne, 1987).
The opening of Bede's _Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum_ in two eighth-century witnesses:
http://www.thurrock-community.org.uk/historysoc/cedd.html
http://tinyurl.com/463hl5
Bones from B.'s grave at Jarrow have since the eleventh century been in Durham Cathedral. The latter's chapter has mounted on its website of the cathedral a photograph said to be of Bede's tomb (not his medieval resting place) but in which the really prominent items are instead articles of ecclesiastical furniture:
http://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/introduction/gallery/bede
Another view courtesy of the Dean and Chapter:
http://tinyurl.com/4hk2jq
The Dean and Chapter do have at least one photograph in which the tomb itself is the focus of the composition:
http://tinyurl.com/4fqveu
And here's an early twentieth-century view:
http://tinyurl.com/6jhfgf
5) Gregory VII, pope (d. 1085). Today's well known saint of the Regno (he died in exile at Salerno and reposes there in the cathedral that he consecrated), G. too hardly needs an introduction. He was canonized in 1606.
Here in reproduction is a fourteenth-century depiction of Henry IV's meeting with G. and marchioness Matilda of Tuscany at Canossa in Giovanni Villani's _Nuova Cronica_ (Cittą del Vaticano, BAV, ms. Chigi L.VIII.296):
http://tinyurl.com/4d3b5k
Here's a reproduction of the illustration in the Jena ms. of Otto of Freising's _Chronica_ (Jena, ThULB, Hs. Bos. q. 6) showing Henry IV with his antipope Clement III, G.'s expulsion from Rome, his subsequent excommunication of Henry and his clerics, and finally his death:
http://www.mittelalter.uni-tuebingen.de/files/images/gregor.jpg
A clearer reproduction of the excommunication scene:
http://tinyurl.com/53nyxo
G.'s sarcophagus at Salerno:
http://tinyurl.com/5tmftk
Here's G. now, in a modern effigy reliquary:
http://tinyurl.com/4jzjfd
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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