medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. November) is the feast day of:
Leonard of Noblac (d. 6th cent., supposedly). L. is first heard from in the early years of the eleventh century. A little before 1028, St. Fulbert of Chartres received through an intermediary a request from the bishop of Limoges to write a Vita of L.; very shortly after that, Adémar of Chabannes (not yet notorious for his historical falsifications) wrote in his _Historiae_ that in 1017 L., a confessor in the Limousin, had become popular for his miracles. By a little after 1030, L. had a legendary Vita (BHL 4862; not by Fulbert) that made him a Frankish noble who was both a close friend of Clovis and a disciple of St. Remigius. Clovis was said to have given L. the power, which he used liberally, to obtain from him the release of prisoners. This trait made L. a natural recourse for ordinary people who had fallen afoul of the justice of local lords; before the century was out, it would also make him popular with pilgrims and with Crusaders.
L.'s reported obtaining of an easy childbirth for Clovis' queen led to another stream of requests for his intercession, originally at the abbey he was said to have founded at Noblac in the Limousin (today's Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat [Haute-Vienne]) and later at many other cult sites.
The abbey at Noblac was on one of the pilgrim routes across France toward Compostella and benefited mightily from this. An Italian-language account is here:
http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/libro/cap_15.htm
And a brief French-language one, with expandable views, is here:
http://architecture.relig.free.fr/noblat.htm
A model of the abbey church:
http://tinyurl.com/yz25nv
Other views:
http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/vedo-citta.htm
http://tinyurl.com/66jd6h
http://tinyurl.com/5rzwzv
http://tinyurl.com/65gk5f
L.'s tomb:
http://tinyurl.com/66sokf
Medievally, L.'s cult in Italy extended (as it still does) from the Dolomites to the Ionian and across the Strait of Messina to Sicily. Perhaps L.'s best known monument here is the former monastery of San Leonardo di Lama Volara outside of Manfredonia (FG) in northern Apulia. From the early twelfth century until 1250 this was a house of canons regular. In 1261 it was given to the Teutonic Knights. An Italian-language account is here:
http://www.gargano.it/visitare/manfred2.php
An illustrated website is here:
http://www.garganonline.net/s.Leo0.html
Various views:
http://www.manfredoniaeventi.it/sanleonardo/solstizio/index_2.htm
http://www.manfredoniaeventi.it/sanleonardo/solstizio/index.htm
http://www.thais.it/architettura/romanica/schede/sc_00155_uk.htm
An important recent congress volume: Hubert Houben, ed., _San Leonardo di Siponto. Cella monastica, canonica, domus Theutonicorum_ (Galatina: Congedo, 2006; 395 pp.).
Herewith views, etc. of some other medieval dedications to L. in today's Italy:
a) The originally late twelfth-century doorway of the church of San Leonardo al Frigido near Massa (MC) in Tuscany (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York):
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/eust/hob_62.189.htm
http://lirty.typepad.com/photos/ny_part_2/dsc05238_2.html
Medievally, this was the church of a pilgrim hospital. An Italian-language account:
http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/notizie/toscana/massa.htm
b) Not dissimilar in general appearance is the originally early twelfth-century church of San Leonardo in Treponzio (since rebuilt), near Capannori (LU) in Tuscany. This too once had an adjacent hospital:
http://www.luccaterre.it/scheda.php?id=2797〈=en
c) The originally thirteenth-/fourteenth-century church of the hermitage of San Leonardo al Lago at Monteriggioni (SI) in Tuscany is famous for its fourteenth-century frescoes by Lippo Vanni (ca. 1360). An illustrated, Italian-language page on the history of the hermitage is here:
http://tinyurl.com/6zzm6t
Multiple views of the church:
http://tinyurl.com/5vy6bd
http://tinyurl.com/yqquly
And one good view of the exterior:
http://tinyurl.com/2ecajg
An expandable view of one of Lippo Vanni's frescoes at San Leonardo al Lago, "The Betrothal of the Virgin", is here:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vanni_l/index.html
d) Other medieval dedications to L. in Tuscany are shown here, sometimes with active links to sites devoted to a particular one:
http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/toscana.htm
e) The originally thirteenth-century church of San Leonardo at Campobasso (CB) in Molise:
http://tinyurl.com/ymdoxk
http://tinyurl.com/yla8dr
http://www.chiesainrete.it/arciconfraternita/campobasso1.htm
f) The originally thirteenth-century church of San Leonardo at Castelmauro (CB) in Molise:
http://tinyurl.com/ykw48tm
http://tinyurl.com/ug8rv
g) The originally twelfth- or thirteenth-century basilica di San Leonardo at Siete Fuentes, a locality of Santulussurgiu (OR) in Sardinia.
Illustrated, brief Italian-language accounts:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/orsantulussurgiu.htm
http://web.tiscalinet.it/d1ego/santuluss/turismo.htm#SanLeonardo
A more detailed, illustrated, Italian-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/ybdz5jh
h) The originally fifteenth-century church of San Leonardo at Serramanna (MD) in Sardinia.
Italian-language accounts:
http://web.tiscali.it/sanleonardo/chiesa/la_chiesa.htm
http://web.tiscali.it/sanleonardo/chiesa/cenni_storici.htm
Exterior views (NB: The facade was rebuilt in the twentieth century):
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/caserramanna.htm
http://web.tiscali.it/sanleonardo/foto/foto_varie_serramanna/chiesa.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/y27pgt
http://web.tiscali.it/sanleonardo/foto/foto_varie_serramanna/chiesa2.jpg
Some views here (all expandable) show Catalan Gothic aspects of the nave:
http://web.tiscali.it/sanleonardo/chiesa/foto_della_chiesa.htm
i) The early fifteenth-century church of San Leonardo (replacing one of the twelfth) at Chieri (TO) in Piedmont:
http://tinyurl.com/5ms5v8
http://www.chieri.info/contents/chiesa-sanleonardo-chieri.php
Some pictorial or sculptural representations of L.:
a) Mosaic (later twelfth- or early thirteenth-century) in the Cappella Palatina at Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/2xc8x3
b) In glass, as a mitred abbot (thirteenth-century), in the Pfarrkirche hl. Michael at St Michael im Lungau (Land Salzburg) in Austria:
http://www.burgenseite.com/faschen/st_michael_faces_6.jpg
c) Manuscript illumination (earlier fourteenth-century; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 188v):
http://tinyurl.com/yentmo3
d) Manuscript illumination (ca. 1348; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 278v):
http://tinyurl.com/yj6v6to
e) Various:
http://tinyurl.com/29zr5s
A larger view of bottom one on that last page (a window in the Theobaldskapelle of the Leonhardskirche in Basel):
http://www.leonhardskirche.ch/bildleonhard.html
f) Statue on the Leonhardikirche in Bad Sankt Leonhard im Lavanttal (Land Kärnten) in Austria:
http://tinyurl.com/23swl3
g) Statue (ca. 1500) in the Augustiner-Museum at Rattenberg (Land Tirol) in Austria:
http://www.augustinermuseum.at/sammlung_leonhard.htm
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from older posts lightly revised)
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