medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (19. December) is the feast day of:
1) Anastasius I, pope (d. 401). A native of Rome, A. succeeded pope St. Siricius in late November 399. His brief pontificate is remembered chiefly for his actions in the Origenist controversy, in which he 1) convened a synod that condemned Origen's positions that had already been condemned in Alexandria and 2) wrote to St. Simplicianus of Milan in an attempt to obtain the north Italian bishops' co-operation in this regard, the Latin translation of Origen's _Perì Archōn_ having been written by the north Italian Rufinus of Aquileia, but 3) took no action against Rufinus himself. A. also declined to authorize the church of Carthage to accept Donatist clergy into its ranks.
2) Gregory of Auxerre (d. ca. 530-540). G. is the traditional twelfth bishop of Auxerre. He is said to have been bishop for thirteen years and to have been aged eighty-five at his death.
3) Berardus of Teramo (d. 1123). Today's less well known saint of the Regno is said to have belonged to the family of the counts of Pagliara, a territory in the vicinity of the Gran Sasso. After entering monastic life at Montecassino B. became abbot of the not yet Cistercian monastery of San Giovanni in Venere near Chieti in today's Abruzzo. Supposedly against his will, late in 1115 B. was elected bishop of Teramo (TE; also in Abruzzo). His Vita (BHL 1175), attributed to an early thirteenth-century successor, credits him with great piety, charity, and simplicity of spirit; perhaps not surprisingly, given its probable authorship, it also lauds B.'s administrative ability and reforming zeal. B. has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
Teramo's late antique to mid-twelfth-century cathedral (therefore B.'s cathedral church) was destroyed by fire at the end of 1155 or the beginning of 1156. Known today as the church of Sant'Anna and outfitted with a very plain modern facade, it has few remains above ground but is functional beneath. Three views follow:
http://www.contidimonteverdebasso.it/ChiesaSantAnna.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/bs3d6
http://tinyurl.com/23yavf9
Its successor, begun in 1158, is dedicated to Our Lady of the Annunciation and to B. His relics are retained there. Increasingly brief Italian-language accounts of this building, which was restored in the early 1930s, are here (several also illustrated):
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duomo_di_Teramo
http://www.diocesiteramoatri.it/arte/cattedrale.asp
http://www.concapeligna.it/Comuni/TERAMO/davedere/da_vedere.htm
(The view there is of Sant'Antonio.)
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2002_05/a_it.htm
http://www.cesn.it/patrimonio%5Farchitet/abruzzo/teramo.htm
An English-language account:
http://tinyurl.com/28el4mw
B.'s church is in two main parts, one from the twelfth century and the other, attached to the former at a slight angle, from the thirteenth. Here's a plan:
http://tinyurl.com/3wbyvh
There are two facades, both of which are composites evidencing different periods of construction.
A view of the older facade (on Piazza Martiri della Libertà):
http://tinyurl.com/3pon8c
A view showing the newer facade (on Piazza Orsini):
http://tinyurl.com/3v3jng
The figure in the niche on the viewer's right represents B.:
http://flickr.com/photos/ligmas/2764181758/sizes/l/
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this building is here (but the site, alas, is still off-line):
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Abruzzo/Teramo.html
Five pages of views are here, interior as well as exterior, showing sculptural details, wall painting, and works of art (the latter including a very important earlier fifteenth-century altar frontal in silver by Nicola da Guardiagrele and a noteworthy altarpiece from slightly earlier in the same century by Jacobello da Fiore):
http://tinyurl.com/3aj7jj
The altar frontal ('paliotto'):
http://duomoteramo.comunite.it/pag/arte/ant.htm
http://tinyurl.com/ybn7jmv
An Italian-language account of the frontal:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antependium_di_Teramo
Another, with expandable views at the bottom:
http://tinyurl.com/4mzm3q
A noteworthy exhibition catalogue on the frontal's creator: Guido Sante, ed., _Nicola da Guardiagrele. Orafo tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Le opere. I restauri_ (Todi: Tau, c2008; xxv, 638 pp.).
The cathedral's interior emerged in September 2007 from an extensive campaign of restoration that had gone on for about three years. Herewith a relatively recent view from before the work started:
http://tinyurl.com/ydjbjh2
Views from the period of restoration:
http://www.lucafalconi.it/?p=293
The restorer's presentation of the completed work (with other views):
http://tinyurl.com/25rpg2
Finally, some views of the abbey church of San Giovanni in Venere at Fossacesia (CH):
http://www.abruzzovacanze.net/vr.php/it/95
http://www.abruzzoverdeblu.it/?id=28
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page (but the site, alas, is still off-line):
http://www.medioevo.org/artemedievale/Pages/Abruzzo/Fossacesia.html
An English-language account of the abbey is here:
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2000_12/200012_a.htm
4) William of Fenoglio (Bl.; d. before 1224). W. (in Italian, Guillermo di Fenoglio) has a cult that originated at the former charterhouse of Casotto in today's Garessio (CN) in Piedmont. The latter had his reputedly incorrupt remains and received donations in his name, the earliest known being dated 2. February 1224. According to tradition he was a local hermit, not in Holy Orders, who became an early member of the community of Casotto at a time before it became Carthusian (this house's early history is very poorly documented). Modern historians of the order hesitantly place W.'s death in the period 1200-1205.
According to a legend that already existed in some form in the fifteenth century, when attacked by bandits W. removed a leg from his mule, used it to drive off the miscreants, and then replaced the leg. W.'s depiction by Giovanni Mazzucco in his recently restored late fifteenth-century fresco cycle (1491) of the life of the BVM in the Santuario della Madonna dell'Assunta (a. k. a. Santuario del Brichetto) at Morozza (CN) in Piedmont shows him holding the leg:
http://tinyurl.com/2dgp7jl
Detail views of this fresco and a view of others in this cycle are here:
http://www.leone-sas.com/santuario_del_brichetto.html
TAN: Too recent for this list but too good to pass up is this earlier seventeenth-century depiction of W. by Daniele Crespi in his portraits of Carthusian worthies (1629) in Milan's chiesa della Certosa di Garegnano:
http://www.leone-sas.com/santuario_del_brichetto.html
Portraits such as this have led to W.'s being referred to as the "santo del prosciutto".
W.'s cult was confirmed, at the level of Beatus, in 1860.
5) Urban V, pope (Bl.; d. 1370). The nobly born Guillaume de Grimoard was a well educated Benedictine who had made his profession at Saint-Victor in Marseille and who had been abbot first of Saint-Germain at Auxerre and then of Saint-Victor as well papal legate in Italy intermittently during the ten years prior to his election as pope in 1362, succeeding Innocent VI. U. cut the rate of tithes in half, supported students through bursaries and the foundation of colleges, and sponsored many building projects, especially in Rome, to which he returned in 1367. Many of the Eternal City's churches were in great disrepair and the basilica of St. John in the Lateran had to be largely rebuilt after succumbing to a fire in 1360.
The move to Rome was motivated both by a desire on U.'s part to effect a reunion with the Greek church and by his perception that Rome, rather than Avignon, was a better stage from which to promote the crusade against the Turks that he had proclaimed in 1363. The latter was not a success and the Greek policy resulted in the personal conversion, in Rome, of the emperor John V but not in any greater Eastern adherence to Latin Christianity. Disappointing many Italians and also St. Birgitta of Sweden, U. returned to Avignon in 1370 and died within a few months of his return. He was buried in Avignon and was moved two years later to the abbey church of Saint-Victor in Marseille. U. was beatified in 1870.
A seal from U.'s pontificate:
http://tinyurl.com/yendt2x
A _bolognino_ (coin of the papal state) issued by U.:
http://tinyurl.com/4mff7x
A gold florin issued by U.:
http://tinyurl.com/53jd6h
The ciborium in St. John Lateran, sculpted by Giovanni di Stefano and erected in 1370:
http://flickr.com/photos/annoysius/2937878704/sizes/l/
http://flickr.com/photos/annoysius/2937030761/sizes/l/
U.'s _gisant_ from Avignon, now in the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/479dp5
U. as depicted in a panel painting of ca. 1375 by Simone dei Crocifissi (Simone de Filippo), now in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Bologna:
http://tinyurl.com/3zvy82
U. going by ship toward Rome as depicted _in margine_ in a later fourteenth-century historical miscellany (Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 1348, fol. 96v):
http://tinyurl.com/298vzx3
Mis-en-page:
http://tinyurl.com/28n7awl
A French-language page on the fortified collégiale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption at Bédouès (Lozère), built by B. as a burial church for his family, _seigneurs_ of nearby Grizac:
http://www.mescevennes.com/visiter/bedoues.php
Other views:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/7096655.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/12610758.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2217176.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yejlaxh
http://tinyurl.com/yfetbko
http://cdn.fotocommunity.com/photos/16500930.jpg
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y0uOqfyIVWwFFtpEVbsEAQ
http://tinyurl.com/ya5qtml
A brief video on U. and on this church:
http://www.youtube.com/user/images48#p/u/1/mE4hRs11SJ4
A brief video on the church's recently restored chapelle Saint-Saturnin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GkX2VQF0H8
U. was born at Grizac. There's an expandable distance view of the place on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/ycrctu3
A view of Grizac's restored, originally thirteenth-century _château_:
http://tinyurl.com/yeox2re
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised and with the addition of Bl. William of Fenoglio)
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