medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
And we owe that glorious basilica at Classe to the smarts of Vladimir
Peniakoff, although there is much mythology about the event:
*http://tinyurl.com/6rdd3c*
> The Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe (Classe is a fraction of
> Ravenna, now about three miles from the present city) owes its
> survival from Allied shelling to the intervention of ''Popski''
> (Vladimir Peniakoff), the celebrated World War II commander. His
> ''private army'' of 22 men was an independent demolition squad. In his
> book ''Popski's Private Army,'' he tells how he prevailed on his
> gunners to postpone an attack on Sant'Apollinare in Classe for 24
> hours while he sent a party to visit the bell tower where Germans were
> believed to be posted. The rumor proved untrue and the church was
> saved. He is commemorated by a grateful plaque in the porch. This
> basilica now enjoys the support of the Rotary Club.
http://www.veniceinperil.org/news/news.asp?Id=127
>
> As the 8th Army was approaching Ravenna in November that year it was
> strongly rumoured that a German artillery observation post and snipers
> had been sited in the campanile of the 6th-century basilica San
> Apollinare in Classe, one of the Byzantine masterpieces dating from
> the period of the brief reconquest of Italy under the emperor Justinian.
>
> To eliminate this threat, it was proposed to shell the belltower.
> Appalled at this prospect, Peniakoff volunteered to try to slip
> through enemy lines and see whether or not it was true. He succeeded
> in doing this under cover of darkness, and found that the only living
> beings in the basilica were refugees. He got back safely to make his
> report and the fire order was cancelled.
>
> A tablet in the right-hand porch of the basilica commemorates this act
> of salvation;
DW
SQ
John Dillon wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Today (20. July) is the feast day of:
>
> 1) Apollinaris of Ravenna (?). A. is the semi-legendary protobishop of Ravenna. We first hear of him in the earlier fifth century in a sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus (no. 128) where he is said to have been Ravenna's first bishop, to have been its only martyr, and to have been buried among the faithful of that city. In the early sixth century A.'s cult had reached Rome, where pope St. Symmachus erected an altar to him in his chapel of St. Andrew. A legendary Vita (BHL 623) of sixth- or seventh-century origin makes A. an Antiochene sent by St. Peter himself to evangelize Ravenna. The ninth-century Florus of Lyon and St. Ado of Vienne have fairly lengthy abstracts of this Vita in their martyrologies, reflecting the then general importance of A.'s cult (which had benefited from Ravenna's position as the Byzantine capital in the West). Medievally, A. was celebrated on 23. July.
>
> A.'s major monument is Ravenna's early sixth-century basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe:
> http://tinyurl.com/2me8ft
> http://tinyurl.com/2lz2js
> http://tinyurl.com/3c2v9y
> http://tinyurl.com/38ejdy
> A detail view of A. in the apse mosaic:
> http://tinyurl.com/35gus8
>
>
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