medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Herewith a link to an earlier 'Saints of the day' for 23. January (including Sts. Emerentiana; Severianus and Aquila; Clement of Ancyra / Ankara and Agathangelus; Amasius of Teano; Ildefonsus; and Maimbodus of Domnipetra):
http://tinyurl.com/72w7lfw
Further to Emerentiana:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link to the two detail views of the church of Santa Emerenziana in Tuenno (TN) in Trentino - Alto Adige no longer functions. Use this instead:
http://tinyurl.com/7ql7uh8
Further to Amasius of Teano:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link to the two views of the ambo with fourteenth-century portraits of Amasius and other saints of Teano no longer functions. Use these instead:
http://tinyurl.com/7loq5na
http://tinyurl.com/763snd4
http://tinyurl.com/7ctxz5d
Further to Ildefonsus:
In that earlier post's notice of this saint, the link to the brief videos of Ildefonsus' reliquary chest on a visit to Toledo in 2007 now leads to a menu including other videos as well. Scroll to down to find the ones tagged RELIQUIAS DE SAN ILDEFONSO EN TOLEDO 24-6-07.
Here's a view of the same reliquary chest in Zamora just prior to Ildefonsus' temporary translation to Toledo in 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/7zwsee3
23. January is also, in some churches, the feast day of:
Messalina (d. ca. 250, supposedly). Our only testimony, such as it is, to the historical existence of Messalina (in the _AA.SS._ she's Messallina with two 'l's), a local saint of the Umbrian city of Foligno, comes from the highly legendary Passio of tomorrow's St. Felicianus of Foligno. According to this seemingly early medieval account (BHL 2846; no witness older than the ninth century), she was a young woman who had been educated in the faith by Felicianus, her bishop; when he was arrested during the Decian persecution she visited him in prison. For that she was injured in some way and given a beating (presumably a severe one) by way of punishment (_iniuriata et caesa poenaliter_). On this flimsy basis Messalina has long been treated as a martyr, though of course she may be no more than a fictional human symbol of the church of Foligno in relation to the latter's sainted protobishop and though, granting for the sake of argument that she really did exist in the flesh, the suffering that she is said to have experienced would be a mild form of martyrdom indeed.
Messalina's cult at Foligno has been primarily early modern and modern, its two high water marks being the invention in 1599 of her putative remains in a niche in the oldest part of Foligno's much rebuilt cathedral and pope Leo XIII's very early twentieth-century donation of the mosaic of Christ enthroned between Felicianus and Messalina that now adorns the principal facade of Foligno's cathedral (with the Holy Father himself portrayed in a donor pose):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Foligno006.jpg
Evidence for a medieval cult of Messalina is not abundant. She appears in Pierangelo di Angelo di Bucciolino's earlier fifteenth-century verse _Legenda di San Feliciano_ but not as a martyr. It seems generally accepted that the female figure at upper right holding a martyr's palm in this earlier fifteenth-century painting by Ottaviano Nelli in Foligno's Palazzo Trinci is meant to be Messalina (the male figure below seems to be another Folignese holy person, Bl. Pietro Crisci):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/PalazzoTrinci010.jpg
Finally, Ludovico Iacobilli's earlier seventeenth-century account of Messalina's Inventio of 1599 says that the niche (which he calls a chapel) bore an inscription in ancient lettering (_a lettere antiche_) saying that St. Messalina's body lay below; in this context ancient lettering is almost certainly to be understood as Gothic characters. If so, and accepting the factuality of the reported inscription (it has been variously described), that would bring us back to the earlier sixteenth century at the very latest.
Messalina has yet to grace the pages of the RM. Her name is not to be found on the website of the Diocese of Foligno.
Best,
John Dillon
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