medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Mustiola has been venerated at ancient Clusium and medieval and modern Chiusi in southern Tuscany since late antiquity, when she had a martyrial basilica near the catacomb cemetery that is still named for her. A late antique verse epitaph for her that survived in fragments copied by early modern writers -- a piece bearing the first line is now set into a wall in Chiusi's concattedrale di San Secondiano -- asserts that she was of distinguished parentage. Her feast on this day is recorded in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian martyrology.
Mustiola has a legendary Passio in several versions (BHL 4455, 4455a, 4456) that makes her a devoutly Christian matron and a cousin of the emperor Claudius (i.e. Claudius II Gothicus, r. 268-270). During a persecution in the reign of Aurelian (270-275) she succors the imprisoned deacon Irenaeus, observes his execution, reproaches the presiding magistrate, and in turn is beaten to death with weighted clubs. Some form of this account was known to Usuard of Saint-Germain, who in the later ninth century used it for his martyrology entry under 3. July for Irenaeus and Mustiola. A later, more romance-like Passio (BHL 4456c) presents Mustiola as a virgin who spurns the magistrate's advances. 3. July is still the feast day in Chiusi of Sts. Irenaeus and Mustiola. Since its revision of 2001 the Roman Martyrology has commemorated Mustiola alone, under today's date (23. November).
Mustiola's church at Chiusi was rebuilt in the earlier eighth century. Her cult spread to other towns in northern central Italy, mostly in Tuscany but also at Perugia and, in the Marche, at Pesaro, whose statutes of 1327 decree an annual celebration in her honor in gratitude for a military victory credited to her. The early 1470s brought a rediscovery at Chiusi of what were said to be her long-vanished relics. In 1474 Sixtus IV approved Mustiola's cult and her newly found remains were accorded a formal recognition. In 1784, when Mustiola's decayed church was being finally abandoned, those relics were brought into Chiusi's cathedral, where they found a home beneath the main altar. They are now preserved in an effigy reliquary whose face, shaped according to photographs and measurements of the skull taken during a recognition in 2002, is said -- and who could doubt this? -- to reproduce, with probably 90% accuracy, her features as these were seen by her contemporaries. Herewith two views:
http://tinyurl.com/ohzbhke
http://tinyurl.com/qajsupf
Some views of Chiusi's catacombe di Santa Mustiola, rediscovered in 1634:
http://tinyurl.com/nnemhj
http://tinyurl.com/38oe7vc
http://lnx.prolocochiusi.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/santa-mustiola-2.jpg
From perhaps 989, when it is said to have been received as a gift, until its translation by theft to Perugia in 1473, a great relic, the white chalcedony Santo Anello ("Holy Ring") said to have been Mary's wedding ring, was kept in Chiusi's church dedicated to Mustiola. Two views of this object in its present state in Perugia's cattedrale di San Lorenzo:
http://tinyurl.com/p7ocnp5
http://tinyurl.com/oadcczw
Mustiola (at far left), holding the _Santo Anello_, as depicted by Bartolomeo Caporali and Sante di Apollonio del Celandro in a later fifteenth-century altarpiece originally placed in her church in Chiusi (the Trittico della Giustizia; "Triptych of Justice"; 1475-1476) and now on display in the Galleria nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia:
http://www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/immagine/00015/9921OP260AU15768.jpg
Detail view (Mustiola; grayscale):
http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/foto/80000/49600/49446.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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