medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (18. March) is the feast day of:
1) Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386). The theologian C. became bishop of Jerusalem in about 349 and was soon in conflict with his metropolitan, Acacius of Caesarea, who twice managed to get him deposed for about a year. In 367 his general support of Nicene orthodoxy caused him to be ejected by the Arian emperor Valens (d. 378). Though he again returned to his see, this time his exile lasted longer. C. was present at the First Council of Constantinople (381), where he accepted the term _homoousios_ ("consubstantial") as defining the relationship of the Son to the Father. In his surviving _Catechetical Lectures_, which are much earlier (recently re-dated from 348-50 to 351), C. avoids this word. These doctrinal addresses to catechumens in the period before Easter were probably heard by many others as well. The _Itinerarium Egeriae_ contains an admiring account of such instruction at Jerusalem in the early 380s.
An English-language translation of C.'s _Catechetical Lectures_ is here:
http://tinyurl.com/2759ae
For their re-dating to 351, see Alexis Doval, "The Date of Cyril of Jerusalem's Catecheses", _Journal of Theological Stidies_ 48 (1997), 129-32
In the late thirteenth century someone eager to give St. Jerome a respectable number of miracles produced fictitious correspondence purportedly written by J.'s disciple St. Eusebius of Cremona, by St. Augustine of Hippo, and by C. (PL, vol. 22, cols. 239-326) that provided just such wonders. A passage in one of these letters (pseudo-Eusebius, _De morte Hieronymi ad Damasum_, cap. 53) underlies the identification of the right-hand scene in this predella panel by Sano di Pietro from his Gesuati Polyptych of 1444, now in the Louvre, as [the spirit of] St. Jerome appearing to C. in a vision:
http://tinyurl.com/2ea5yf
That identification is given so frequently in Web-based reproductions of this panel painting, including one in the French government's own database Joconde (search for SANO di Pietro)
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/joconde_fr
that I suspect its source to be none other than the Musée du Louvre.
Still, in Cyril's vision C. is said to have been at prayer in his cell. One may rather think that the bishop in this panel is not Cyril but instead Augustine, whose first experience of the just-deceased Jerome, though auditory and not visual, occurred when A. was in his cell engaged in writing a letter to J. (pseudo-Augustine, Ad Cyrillum Ierosolymitanum episcopum, de magnificentiis beati Hieronymi_, passage at PL 22, col. 284). That seems to be the activity shown here. Moreover, the bishop, the bishop's garb, and the writing desk with its impedimenta are identical in this scene and in another from the same predella where the bishop is clearly Augustine. Helen I. Roberts, "St. Augustine in "St. Jerome's Study": Carpaccio's Painting and Its Legendary Source", _The Art Bulletin_ 41 (1959), 283-297, at p. 289 refers to the present panel as "the death of Jerome and his first visit to Augustine."
2) Frigidian of Lucca (d. ca. 588). F. is one of the saints of Gregory the Great's _Dialogues_. According to G. (_Dial_. 3. 9), F. was a bishop of Lucca (probably quite close to Gregory in time, though opinions differ on this), a city then menaced by frequent flooding from the river Ausarit (also Ausur or Auser; anciently in two branches, one of which is today's Serchio). F. solved the problem by taking up a small rake and then commanding the river, now miraculously compliant, to follow a new course that he traced with the agricultural implement that has since become his defining iconographic attribute. It is quite likely that F.'s name was orginally Frigidianus, though Frigianus (i.e., "Phrygian") is another possibility. Early spellings of his name vary considerably. After many centuries the form Fridianus won out. Today he he is known all over Tuscany, where his cult is widespread, as San Frediano.
Early medieval uncertainty over F.'s place of origin included a belief that he might have been Irish. Already present in the second version (ninth- or tenth-century) of his Vita, this had hardened to a certainty in the twelfth or thirteenth century, when an already expanded Vita was again enlarged to include material deriving from that of the Irish saint Findian. For consideration of this and many other matters pertaining to F. and his cult see Gabriele Zaccagnini, ed., _Vita Sancti Fridiani. Contributi di storia e di agiografia lucchese medioevale_ (Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi, 1989). Today is F.'s traditional _dies natalis_. Probably to avoid a major feast in Lent, the diocese of Lucca has long celebrated F. primarily on 18. November (a commemoration of the Inventio of his relics). Until its revision of 2001, that is also where F. was in the RM.
A co-patron of Lucca, F. now reposes in the mostly twelfth-century church named after him (apparently not the first on this site), the restored golden mosaic (thirteenth-century) of whose facade is justly famous:
http://www.knowital.com/html/lucca_-_church_of_san_frediano.html
http://tinyurl.com/yodvxa
A distance view of Lucca's Basilica di San Frediano:
http://tinyurl.com/yughql
Facade view:
http://tinyurl.com/2fw8pt
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/yq9yy9
Baptismal font (twelfth-century; first image is expandable):
http://www.thais.it/scultura/sch00513.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2unecu
http://tinyurl.com/2gn8bj
Sculptures (1419-22) by Jacopo della Quercia in the Cappella Trenta:
http://tinyurl.com/2rw927
Jacopo's tomb slab for Lorenzo Trenta:
http://tinyurl.com/2tg4q2
A view of F.'s originally eleventh-century church in Pisa:
http://tinyurl.com/2zu76g
3) Edward the Martyr (d. 978). The older son of the Anglo-Saxon king Edgar the Peaceable, E. (Eadweard) succeeded to the throne in 975 at about the age of twelve. He was assassinated while on a visit to his half-brother and successor Æthelred at Corfe Castle in Dorset. The archbishop of Canterbury, St. Dunstan, proclaimed his sanctity. On 13. February 979 E.'s body (later said to have been incorrupt) was formally translated to Shaftesbury Abbey, where on 20. June 1001 it was ceremoniously enshrined. In 1008 a law of king Æthelred mandated today as E.'s feast day for the entire kingdom.
The town of Shaftesbury came to be known as Edwardstowe (a designation it lost during the Reformation). In the late eleventh century E. received a Vita (Passio) et Miracula (BHL 2418). Bones pronounced by their discoverer to be those of E. are said to have been found in 1931 in the remains of Shaftesbury Abbey. These are now preserved at St. Edward the Martyr Orthodox Church in Brookwood, Surrey (near Guildford). More universally accepted relics of E. are the coins shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/djr7z6
4) Anselm of Lucca (d. 1086). Sometimes called Anselm the Younger to distinguish him from his uncle of the same name who became pope Alexander II (both were bishops of Lucca), A. was a supporter of Gregory VII in the investiture controversy. Designated for his office by his uncle, A. accepted appointment from Gregory in 1073 but contrary to G.'s wishes also accepted investiture from Henry IV. Shortly thereafter he resigned to become a Cluniac monk at the abbey of St. Benedict at Polirone near Mantua. Ordered back to Lucca by Gregory, he continued to live as a monk and attempted to impose a similar lifestyle on his canons, who would have none of it. These sided with Henry and in 1081 they got A. expelled from Lucca.
A. sought refuge with his political ally, Matilda of Tuscany, and spent the rest of his life in papal service. Unsuccessful with human canons, he turned his attention to those of the legal variety and produced an important, pro-reform collection of the latter. Also surviving from his pen are five prayers he wrote for Matilda. A. died at Mantua and was promptly recognized as its patron saint. Though he had arranged to be buried at the abbey at Polirone, on Matilda's command his remains were instead conveyed to Mantua's cathedral, where they are today:
http://www.a-mantova.com/chiese/SAnselmo.html
Lucca's cathedral of St. Martin was begun by uncle Anselm I in 1063. Much of the present structure dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries:
http://tinyurl.com/cxsaqe
http://www.gsoto.easynet.co.uk/pisa37.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ytrllc
http://tinyurl.com/d9bjzk
But the apse at least seems to be of the later eleventh century:
http://www.vallegaia.it/max/lucca.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yqxr7z
Aerial view of the cathedral:
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/16739/view/?service=0
Interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/cbk6er
http://tinyurl.com/dgoglx
http://tinyurl.com/d7f4d6
Some further views of the later medieval exterior and views of its reliefs:
http://tinyurl.com/2t29kh
http://tinyurl.com/qnjtn
More views of the cathedral are at this album on Marjorie Greene's MedievalReligion site:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/319
During the Gonzaga lordship at Mantua there was extensive Renaissance rebuilding of St. Benedict of Polirone, located in today's former abbey town of San Benedetto Po (MN) in Lombardy. But the abbey's oratorio di Santa Maria has a partially preserved and recently restored mid-twelfth-century (1151) mosaic floor shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/p7pm9
Detail thereof:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fgazzoli/sbenedettopo/mosaico.htm
That's from an illustrated, Italian-language site on the abbey and on its church, now the basilica abbaziale di San Benedetto Po:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/fgazzoli/sbenedettopo/sbenedettopo.htm
A little of the late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century exterior of Mantua's cathedral of St. Peter is still visible between more recent construction:
http://www.bananiele.it/lombardia/mantova02.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2l8yea
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised)
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