medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (20. May) is the feast day of:
1) Aurea of Ostia (d. ca. 269, supposedly). A. (sometimes Aura; in Greek, Chryse) is a martyr of Ostia recorded for today -- and, as a martyr of Portus, on 22. August -- in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. She has at least three Latin Passiones (BHL 808-09, 811-12, 813) and a very similar one in Greek, all legendary. A Latin-language translation of the Greek version and an English-language translation of that Latin text are here:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/~atexts/demagis.htm
Prior to its revision of 2001, A. was commemorated in the RM on 24. August. A. was Ostia's patron saint until 21. February 2004, when by act of the Holy See she was replaced by St. Augustine of Hippo.
A.'s present church at Ostia Antica (RM) in Lazio is a late fifteenth-century replacement for a late antique church that had been renovated several times in the early Middle Ages. Here's a view:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/img/aurea_2.jpg
Found at different times near the church, and presumed to have once been in its predecessor, were fragmentarily preserved ancient funerary inscriptions for St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo (M. spent the Middle Ages here, next to A.'s tomb), and for a person named Chryse. Whether the latter were A.'s original epitaph or else re-used from the grave of someone else is unknown. The original is in the castle at Ostia Antica; there's a copy in the church. Here's a view:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/img/aurea_3.jpg
Also found near the church was a small marble column with the inscription S. AVR ('sancta Aurea', presumably). It's now inside, near the altar.
Ostia is the oldest of Rome's suburbicarian dioceses; this church is its cathedral. By very long-standing tradition the see of Ostia is held by the dean of the College of Cardinals.
2) Baudel (d. prob. 3d or early 4th cent.). B. (also Baudile, Baudille, Badel, Bauzély, etc.; in Latin, Baudelius, Baudilius, etc.) is a martyr of today's Nîmes (Gard) in Languedoc and that city's patron saint. Entered for this day in the earliest surviving version of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, he has two legendary Vitae, one from Nîmes (BHL 1043-44) and a somewhat later one from Orléans (BHL 1044d-f). Neither tells us anything credible about the historical B. The tradition at Nîmes was that B. had been buried at the site of his execution and that the monastery dedicated to him (destroyed in 1563) was built over his grave. The tradition in Orléans was that B. had been a cleric of that city before engaging in the missionary work that led to his martyrdom and that his remains had been translated back to Orléans in the fifth century.
B.'s cult was widely disseminated medievally in southern and in central France. He was venerated in northern Iberia as well, not only in Catalunya but also in what became Castilla y León. At Burgos the readings for his feast were derived from his Vita of Orléans. A major witness to his cult is the ermita de San Baudelio de Berlanga in today's Caltojar (Soria), usually said to be of the early eleventh century with twelfth- and early thirteenth-century frescoes. An English-language account of this monument is here:
http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.tcl?site_id=9247
Click on the image at top right for three pages of expandable images or go here:
http://tinyurl.com/25mvvy
Other expandable images are at:
http://www.arrakis.es/~jalp/baudelio.htm
http://tinyurl.com/26qehr
The frescoes were sold to an art dealer in 1922, were dismounted in 1926, and in 1927 were shipped to a private collection in the United States, whence some of them wound up in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These were exchanged with the Spanish government for the apse of the church of San Martín at Fuentidueña (Segovia) but two of the frescoes remain at the Metropolitan on permanent loan from the Prado. Descriptions and expandable views of those two are here:
http://tinyurl.com/34lvyw
http://tinyurl.com/32tj9u
Back in France, herewith some views of the originally twelfth-century église Saint-Baudel at Saint-Bouize (Cher):
http://sancerre.cg18.fr/saint-bouize/fiches/eglise/page.html
and one of its now mutilated fifteenth-century statue of B.:
http://tinyurl.com/22cecz
and three expandable ones of the originally fourteenth-century église Saint-Baudille at Parigny-la-Rose (Nièvre):
http://tinyurl.com/4xnyeu
3) Lucifer of Cagliari (d. ca. 371). We know about the anti-Arian bishop and exile L. chiefly from his own writings and from a brief notice (cap. 95) in St. Jerome's _De viris illustribus_. According to the latter, L. was already bishop of Cagliari when in 354 pope Liberius sent him as an envoy to the Arian-inclined emperor Constantius II. That mission lead to the following year's synod of Milan in which the emperor presented those participating with a choice: either condemn the anti-Arian St. Athanasius of Alexandria or go into exile. Along with Sts. Dionysius of Milan and Eusebius of Vercelli, L. chose the latter course and was relegated first to Commagene, then to Palestine, and finally to upper Egypt. L.'s genuine surviving works, all of which are anti-Arian polemics, date from this period. He was enabled to return by the emperor Julian's general pardon of 361 and died about a decade later in the reign of Valentinian I.
We have no evidence of L.'s having received a cult prior to the early modern period. He entered the RM in its revision of 2001. Remains declared in 1623 to be those of L. repose in this altar in Cagliari's cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/268cvxd
4) Austregisilus of Bourges (d. 624). According to his Vitae (BHL 839, 840; not later than the eleventh century), A. (in French, Austregisile, Aoustrille, Outrille) was a former courtier under king Guntram who succeeded St. Apollinaris of Bourges as that city's bishop in about 612, who ruled for some dozen years, and who was succeeded by his deacon St. Sulpitius (S. II, the Pious; 17. January). He is recorded as a participant in the synod of Paris of 614.
A page of views of the originally eleventh-century église collégiale Saint-Austrégésile at Saint-Outrille-en-Graçay (Cher):
http://tinyurl.com/2vlqu5l
5) Theodore of Pavia (d. 755?). Co-patron of his city, along with Sts. Augustine of Hippo and Syrus of Pavia, T. was an eighth-century bishop of uncertain date who by the eleventh century had become legendary as a protector of Pavia. According to the famously imaginative _Chronicle of Novalesa_, Charlemagne's siege of the Lombard capital in 773-74 could only succeed once T. had died. Though the dating of Pavia's eighth-century bishops is troublesome, it seems likely that our T. had gone to his eternal reward well before this. He was buried in Pavia's church of St. Agnes, later renamed in his honor. This, after a rebuilding in the twelfth century, is a monument of Lombard "romanesque". The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on it is here:
http://tinyurl.com/ej7zc
Other views (expandable) of the early sixteenth-century fresco cycles in this church (incl. one of T.) are here:
http://tinyurl.com/yedhkm7
More views of the exterior are here:
http://www.visual-italy.it/EN/lombardia/pavia/san-teodoro/
Here's another view of the siren capital in the crypt:
http://www.ingiroperilmondo.it/images/steodoro_pv_1.jpg
Also inside is an early fifteenth-century polychrome marble statue of T., holding an image of his city:
http://tinyurl.com/2ww87ov
And here's T. in a late fifteenth-century panel painting by Vincenzo Foppa now in Milan's Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco:
http://tinyurl.com/qtcz7s
6) Bernardino of Siena (d. 1444). The Franciscan B. was an enormously popular preacher and a very effective organizer of his order's Observant branch, of which he was vicar general from 1438 to 1442. Like his student, St. James of the March, he is a central Italian who, having died in the mostly mainland kingdom of Sicily, immediately became a saint of the Regno. In B.'s case, his passing occurred at the Franciscan convent at L'Aquila (AQ) in Abruzzo. According to his friend, the Abruzzese St. John of Capestrano, his death put an end (however briefly) to strife between opposing factions in L'Aquila. Today is B.'s _dies natalis_.
B. was canonized in 1450. In 1454 work began on today's much rebuilt basilica di San Bernardino in L'Aquila, into which the saint's remains were formally translated in 1472. They now repose there in this early sixteenth-century (1517) tomb:
http://tinyurl.com/qdbqqz
http://www.jemolo.com/alta/imgae0029.jpg
As one can see from those views, B.'s tomb is situated in the sanctuary. The apse behind it is reported to have been severely damaged in the great earthquake of 6. April 2009 and the tomb may now be situated elsewhere as a precaution. Also severely damaged was the church's belltower.
BEFORE:
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/68173/view/?service=1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d_cherubini/3445446326/
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/pic/5139/
AFTER:
http://tinyurl.com/p5vvp3
http://tinyurl.com/olw6do
http://tinyurl.com/oz6unj
L'Aquila's basilica di San Bernardino has an early sixteenth-century facade by Nicolò Filotesio (a.k.a. Cola dell'Amatrice):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53366513@N00/2479298294/sizes/l/
Portal lunette:
http://www.pbase.com/giolat/image/72000797
The facade apparently was damaged only slightly. A page of post-earthquake views of this church:
http://tinyurl.com/3agbcf5
The Franciscans appear to have sent copies of B.'s death mask throughout at least their Italian provinces in order to achieve a uniform pictorial representation of him. The result is that B. is often recognizable in art as the friar with the deathly visage, as in this portrait by Benozzo Gozzoli:
http://wf-f.org/StBernardine.html
or in Pinturicchio's painting of B. in glory:
http://tinyurl.com/36dgg6
http://tinyurl.com/346z9k
or in these portraits by Vincenzo Foppa:
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?45888+0+0
http://www.lacabalesta.it/testi/santi/bernardino_siena.html
or in this one by Mantegna:
http://tinyurl.com/5f2wtl
or in this late fifteenth-century fresco from the church of San Michele Arcangelo at Eggi (PG) in Umbria:
http://www.amicidieggi.it/gfx/monumenti_03.jpg
But this Piedmontese example (ca. 1486-91) by G. M. Spanzotti in the church of San Bernardino at Ivrea shows that in Italy B. could be shown as more vivacious (or has the fresco merely been so restored?):
http://tinyurl.com/3y9heg
Some of these portraits prominently feature an IHS monogram. In his preaching B. fostered devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus and would hold up a placard visibly bearing this monogram. At the sermon's conclusion he would have it passed among the audience for veneration (usually in the form of osculation). B. also organized bonfires of the vanities (a form of renunciation now firmly associated with the name of Savonarola). Here's a view of the corresponding section of Agostino di Duccio's relief (ca. 1459) on Perugia's oratorio di San Bernardino da Siena:
http://tinyurl.com/25qelo
A view of the facade:
http://tinyurl.com/4gryz6
More views (many of sculptural details):
http://tinyurl.com/22wgf7u
Should those views be too "Renaissance" for one's taste, here's an antidote in the form of this church's altar:
http://tinyurl.com/4w46py
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post lightly revised and with the additions of Lucifer of Cagliari and Austregisilus of Bourges)
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