medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. April) is the feast day of:
1) Marcellinus of Carthage (d. 413). Flavius Marcellinus was a high-ranking imperial official sent in 411 to Africa, where his older brother Apringius was governor, to settle the Donatist controversy. M. became good friends with St. Augustine, who dedicated to him Books 1-3 of _The City of God_. Jim O'Donnell has an overview of the friendship and its documents here:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/151intro.html
M. and his brother treated the Donatists with considerable severity. Some of the latter took their revenge by persuading a Roman general sent to put down a rebellion that the brothers had been among the rebel's supporters. For that M. and his brother were arrested, tried, and -- notwithstanding an appeal on their behalf from Augustine -- convicted and swiftly executed. M. is considered a martyr.
2) Celestine I, pope (d. 432). C. is said to have been a native of the Roman Campagna. A deacon of the Roman church, he is addressed with great respect in a letter from St. Augustine of 418. In 422 he succeeded pope St. Boniface I. At Rome C. suppressed the remaining Novatianists, taking away their churches and forcing them to meet in private homes. He restored the basilica that became Santa Maria in Trastevere (this had suffered damage in Alaric's sack in 410). During his pontificate the basilica that replaced the original _titulus Sabinae_ was built on the Aventine; we know it now as Santa Sabina. Here are some views:
http://tinyurl.com/23e6yq
http://tinyurl.com/2cusxc
http://tinyurl.com/38gm2y
http://tinyurl.com/3y6vay
http://tinyurl.com/3xtx7d
And here's an illustrated, English-language page on its much restored, originally fifth-century wooden door:
http://www.rome101.com/Christian/Sabina/
A multi-page, illustrated, English-language introduction to Santa Sabina is here:
http://tinyurl.com/cxzo5m
Elsewhere, C. was unsuccessful in getting the church of Africa to recognize his primacy. In 429 he sent St. Germanus of Auxerre to Britain in a campaign to suppress Pelagianism. G. was accompanied on this journey by the deacon Palladius, the first recorded Christian missionary to Ireland. C. used an appeal from St. Cyril of Alexandria to condemn Nestorius in 430 and, through emissaries, successfully pursued this course in the following year at the First Council of Ephesus.
3) Notker Balbulus (Bl.; d. 912). N. was a monk of St. Gall where he is recorded as librarian (briefly) and as master of guests (over a period of several years). A prolific writer, he the author of -- inter alia -- a martyrology and a three-book metrical Vita of St. Gall (BHL 3255t) and the probable author of the _Gesta Caroli Magni_. N.'s _Liber Hymnorum_ is an early collection of sequences; many of these are of his own composition. The entertaining Ekkehard IV (d. after 1056) offers anecdotes of him in his _Casus s. Galli_. N. has a Vita (BHL 6251; ca. 1214) arising out of an unsuccessful canonization campaign. He was beatified in 1512 with a cult authorized for his monastery. In the following year his cult was extended to the Diocese of Konstanz. Here's a portrait (ca. 1070; St. Gallen) of N. as author:
http://www.abcsvatych.com/images/n/notker.jpg
4) Peter Martyr (d. 1252). The Dominican P. (also Peter of Verona) was an effective preacher and a tireless inquisitor in northern Italy. He was ambushed and murdered by enemies who lodged a harvesting blade of some form in his skull. His cult was virtually immediate; canonization came swiftly in 1253. A recent book on P.'s life and cult is Donald Prudlo, _The Martyred Inquisitor_ (Ashgate, 2008).
P.'s tomb is in Milan's church of Sant'Eustorgio. Created in 1335-39 by Giovanni di Balduccio, it has moved around a bit but now is housed in the church's Cappella Portinari:
http://tinyurl.com/44689y
http://tinyurl.com/bclkm
A Thais page with expandable views of details from this monument:
http://www.thais.it/scultura/giovbald.htm
Detail (martyrdom of P. and a companion):
http://tinyurl.com/3pu7zd
http://tinyurl.com/4yadu6
A view of Temperantia (one of the tomb's caryatids):
http://tinyurl.com/9glgo
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/ceebjb
Many detail views of the monument are here (this page also has views of a cycle of frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa dealing with P.'s miracles):
http://tinyurl.com/4jt5cr
The recently uncovered fresco of P. in the cathedral of Cremona is thought to have been painted not long after the saint's canonization:
http://www.vascellocr.it/art1.htm
Two views of a thirteenth-century miniature depicting P.'s martyrdom, in a psalter now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (MS M.72 fol. 140r):
http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/icaimages/7/m72.140r.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/czr22k
In this fresco (ca. 1290; attributed to Giotto) on the soffit of the entrance arch of the upper church of the basilica do San Francesco at Assisi, P. is the saint at left (the other is St. Dominic of Caleruega):
http://tinyurl.com/cfmc9b
At least four of these pairs of saints on the soffit were damaged in the collapse of 1997. The pair immediately above this one (Sts. Victorinus and Rufinus of Assisi) was one of those. Expandable views of V. and R. undergoing restoration are here:
http://tinyurl.com/cann49
For more color, two views of Sts. Francis and Clare from the same soffit:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/francis/ABS-francis-m.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/djtbw9
Some views of P. in the Thornham Parva retable (ca. 1335; almost certainly from Thetford priory in Norfolk):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/528584471/sizes/l/
http://tinyurl.com/cggqqh
The retable as a whole (P. at far right):
http://www.suite101.com/view_image.cfm/244975
In Beato Angelico's St. Peter Martyr Altarpiece (ca. 1428) P. is second from right in the major figures and above his full-length portrait is a scene depicting his martyrdom. An expandable view of this work (now in the Museo nazionale di San Marco in Florence) is here:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/a/angelico/12/index.html
Beato Angelico is thought to have painted this miniature of P.'s martyrdom at about the same time as he executed his St. Peter Martyr Altarpiece:
http://tinyurl.com/cux7yv
For all the miniatures in this gradual, go to:
http://tinyurl.com/ddnoog
P. is at far right in Beato Angelico's Bosco ai Frati Altarpiece (after 1450), also in the San Marco:
http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/it/immagine.php?id=534
Here's an expandable view of P. as represented (1490s) by Pedro Berruguete, from a dismembered retable formerly at Santo Tomás de Ávila (this panel now in the Prado):
http://tinyurl.com/5cj52l
Another portrait of P. (ca. 1494) by the same artist, also in the Prado:
http://www.manyanet-alcobendas.org/cuadro15.jpg
Another view of that portrait, accompanied by English-language text:
http://tinyurl.com/3t3wwt
And here's an expandable view of an almost exactly contemporary depiction of P. (at left, obviously) in a panel from Carlo Crivelli's altarpiece for the church of San Domenico at Camerino (MC) in the Marche now at the Brera in Milan:
http://tinyurl.com/m4ury
Verona's largest "gothic" church is the formerly Dominican pile popularly known as Sant'Anastasia after the dedication of a predecessor on this site. Begun in the late thirteenth century, it has been dedicated to P. since 1307. Completed (except for the facade) in the fifteenth century, it was restored in 1878-81. A detailed, Italian-language account of it (and of the adjacent San Giorgetto) is here:
http://tinyurl.com/7r63z
An English-language account with expandable views (mostly details):
http://www.verona.com/index.cfm?Page=Guida§ion=luoghi&id=984
Some exterior views (incl. the fifteenth-century belltower):
http://tinyurl.com/b6fxt
http://www.froehlich.priv.at/galerie/verona04/original/stf316.html
http://www.shakespeareinitaly.it/IMGP0109.JPG
Front views, with San Giorgetto at left:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:Santanastasiaverona.jpg
http://www.shakespeareinitaly.it/IMGP0098.JPG
Main portal (showing polychrome marbles):
http://www.mestieriarte.it/images/images_1/marmo/opere/verona.jpg
Main portal, sculptural details and faded frescoing:
http://www.verona.com/Data/Photos/20010620/DSC00027.JPG
http://www.verona.com/Data/Photos/20010620/DSC00026.JPG
The portal was once adorned with fifteenth-century reliefs of scenes from P.'s life; two of these remain:
http://www.aboutromania.com/verona9.html
http://www.verona.com/Data/Photos/20010620/DSC00023.JPG
http://www.verona.com/Data/Photos/20010620/DSC00024.JPG
And here's a restored P. on the trumeau:
http://www.verona.com/index.cfm?page=immagini_dettaglio&id_immagine=248
Some expandable interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/m9q8b
http://tinyurl.com/nd8s4
http://tinyurl.com/rfa2m
http://tinyurl.com/mjr8x
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post variously revised)
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