medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Romanus (d. 250 or 251, supposedly) is a martyr of the Via Tiburtina, where his grave is first recorded with certainty in the seventh-century lists of resting places of saints in the immediate vicinity of Rome. Its location near that of tomorrow's St. Lawrence facilitated the view, reflected in the not entirely reliable _Liber Pontificalis_ and in the synthesizing and highly unreliable _Passio sancti Polychronii_, that he was that saint's companion in martyrdom (the latter, though ascribed in the Passio to the Decian persecution, is thought to have occurred in the Valerianic persecution of 258). In the _Liber Pontificalis_ Romanus is one of several named ecclesiastics said to have been arrested with Lawrence. That part of the aforementioned Passio that deals with Romanus (at least three versions: BHL 7309d-f) makes him instead a soldier who is assigned to guard the captive Lawrence, converts to Christianity, is baptized by Lawrence, proclaims his faith before Decius, and is promptly executed. In the ninth century St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard of Saint-Germain entered Romanus under this day (9. August) in their martyrologies in his persona as a soldier. Today is his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Romanus of Rome:
a) as portrayed in relief (as a knight on horseback) by Master Nicholaus (attrib.) and workshop in an earlier twelfth-century sculpture (1143) on the tympanum of the main portal of the ex-chiesa di San Romano in Ferrara:
http://tinyurl.com/5s67bd
b) as twice depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century St. Lawrence window (bay 8) in the cathédrale Saint-Étienne in Bourges:
1) baptism by St. Lawrence (panel 15):
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/08_pages/Bourges_Bay_08_panel_15.htm
2) martyrdom before Decius (panel 16):
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/08_pages/Bourges_Bay_08_panel_16.htm
c) as thrice depicted in panels of the later thirteenth-century frescoes of the portico of the basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome:
1) baptism by St. Lawrence:
http://tinyurl.com/3d3lkur
2) condemnation by Decius; martyrdom:
http://tinyurl.com/3nnmshy
d) as depicted in the earlier fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (ca. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 269v):
http://tinyurl.com/2eatgd6
e) as depicted (baptism by St. Lawrence) in a later fifteenth-century Roman breviary of French origin (after 1482; Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque du patrimoine, ms. 69, fol. 504v):
http://tinyurl.com/2c7spjt
f) as depicted (right margin at bottom) in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century _Weltchronik_ (_Nuremberg Chronicle_; 1493) at fol. CXXIv:
https://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/left_page/25%20(Folio%20CXXIv).pdf
Best,
John Dillon
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