medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (22. June) is also the feast day of:
1) Julian, venerated at Rimini (d. 250 or early 251, supposedly). J. (also J. of Istria) is a local saint of Rimini whose cult is first attested from 1152 and which from the outset was linked with the extraurban, seaside monastery of St. Peter and Paul, already named in an imperial charter of 1164 as that of St. Peter and of Julian the Martyr (from at least 1204 onward the monastery, which gave its name to today's _Borgo San Giuliano_ so beloved of Fellini, is called that of J. alone). His earliest Passio (BHL 4538; the later ones are abbreviations of it) makes him a young man of Istria who during the Decian persecution is by drowning at Flavias in Cilicia and who washes up on the island of Proconnesus (now Marmara, the largest island in today's Sea of Marmara) and is there buried.
J.'s Miracula (BHL 4539) pick up the story from there: on Proconnesus J.'s miracle-working remains are entombed in a large marble sepulchre on a seacliff. In time the locals cease to seek divine assistance from it and in the reign of Otto I as emperor (962-730) the sepulchre slides into the sea and by God's will is miraculously transported to Rimini, where after it cannot be brought into the cathedral it is taken to the aforesaid monastery. The monks build a chapel to house it next to their church. Time passes and many miracles ensue (BHL 4539 is much longer than any of J.'s Passiones).
Thus far the hagiography. Apart from J.'s Istrian origin and from the story of the tomb, the Passio is evidently based on one of Julian of Anazarbus (J. of Cilicia; 16. March). Whether J. was originally a saint of Istria is unknown. The tomb is real enough: its present home is in Rimini's Museo della Cittą. Here's a view:
http://tinyurl.com/2l8coc
Another view (badly pinked) is here, along with one of skeletal remains said to be J.'s and with a view of the central panel of Bitino da Faenza's early fifteenth-century altarpiece (1408 or 1409) of J. preserved in Rimini's chiesa di San Giuliano martire (a sixteenth-century re-working of the monastery church):
http://tinyurl.com/38r3w6
Two further panels from that altarpice:
http://www.edicolaweb.net/am06f46g.htm
From at least 1225 onward J. was Rimini's official protector. Here he is on a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century coin from Rimini:
http://www.deamoneta.com/cataloghi/artemideaste/081011/608
J. has yet to grace the pages of the RM. Today is his feast day in Rimini (as it was medievally, when a major fair ended on this day).
2) Eusebius of Samosata (d. 380). We know about E. from the correspondence of Sts. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa as well as from the _Philotheos historia_ of Theodoret. Bishop of Samosata (today's much smaller Samsat in Turkey's Adiyman province) and an anti-Arian defender of Nicene orthodoxy, he was instrumental in St. Basil's being nominated bishop of Caesarea. In 374 the emperor Valens had him exiled to Thrace. In 378, after the death of Valens at Adrianople, E. returned to his diocese in upper Syria. Said to have been struck fatally on the head by a tile thrown by a woman of Arian persuasion, E. is considered a martyr. His hagiographic dossier includes a late antique Life in Syriac, a Bios (BHG 2133) whose surviving witness is of the eleventh century, and a seemingly tenth- or eleventh-century Martyrion (BHG 3135).
3) Innocent V (Bl.; d. 1276). The Savoyard Peter of Tarentaise was elected pope on 21. January 1276 and took the name Innocent. The first Dominican pope, he was a theologian by training who had taught at Paris and collaborated with Sts. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. His commentary on the Lombard's _Sentences_ exemplifies the thirteenth-century transition from Augustinian to Aristotelian modes of thought. Today is his _dies natalis_.
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from last year's post with the addition of Julian, venerated at Rimini)
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