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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Dear Pat, Since your obligation is only to write a short piece, the Valentines of Terni and of Rome will probably give you more than enough to work with. But since you asked for information on "any of these saints", here's a slightly corrected version of my post from last year on Valentine of Terracina, venerated at San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore (all of that is the town's name; it's in Abruzzo's Pescara province): Today (16. March) is also the feast day of: Valentine and Damian of Terracina, martyrs (4th cent., supposedly). Today's lesser known saints from the Regno are a bishop of Terracina (LT), Valentine, and his adoptive son, Damian, whom he educated from boyhood and elevated to the diaconate. Unknown to early martyrologies or to other early ecclesiastical history, they are documented by a fabulous and in places entertaining account of their lives, martyrdom, invention, and translation to today's San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore (PE). These Acta (or this Passio, as it is sometimes called; BHL 8467) are known from a mid-sixteenth-century office from the latter town that is said to have been transcribed from "Lombard characters" (i.e., Beneventan). Whereas Beneventan was used quite late in several parts of the Regno, internal evidence suggests that these Acta were originally written in the twelfth century, as they align the town with its new Norman lords (to the first of whom the translation is ascribed) rather than with its former owner, the great Benedictine abbey of San Clemente a Casauria. They draw upon the originally fifth-century legend of Constantine's persecution of Pope Sylvester I, ascribe the martyrdom of V. and D. to persecution under Julian the Apostate (for western martyrs, this is usually an evidence of fiction), locate their execution at Civitas Zappina (mentioned in John Berard's chronicle of San Clemente a Casauria, this is thought to have been an early medieval successor to Roman-period Ceio, a bath and market town in the vicinity), and place their inventio in the "time of the Lombards" when all Italy was finally Christian. When at this time their bodies were discovered --- along with an inscription proclaiming them those of the holy martyrs Valentine and Damian -- the fact that these were indeed the remains of saints was confirmed by the sudden resurrection of a dead man whose corpse had just been brought to the burial church where V. and D. were found. The eighteenth-century church of saints Valentine and Damian dominates the skyline of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. It is attributed to the distinguished Neapolitan architect Luigi Vanvitelli (but the present facade is an early twentieth-century post-earthquake reconstruction). Photographs of it (and one of a medieval church in the vicinity) are available at this English-language website: http://roccalett.tripod.com/SanValentino.htm Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html