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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Sigismund was executed in 523 at Orleans and his body together with those of his family was thrown down a well at Columelle. Later their remains were reinterred at Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, which last year celebrated its 1500-anniversary. In connection with this new archaeological excavations have revealed fascinating information of this saintly-royal centre of massive Early Medieval importance. Here is a link to a presentation of some of these new finds http://www.medievalhistories.com/archaeological-excavations-saint-maurice/ <http://www.medievalhistories.com/archaeological-excavations-saint-maurice/> Best, Karen Schousboe _____________________________ WWW.MEDIEVALHISTORIES.COM Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER > On 01 May 2016, at 08:06, John Dillon <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > What little is known about Sigismund of Burgundy (d. 523 or 524) comes chiefly from St. Gregory of Tours' _Historia Francorum_ (3. 5-6) and from the saint's Passio (BHL 7717) by a monk of the abbey of St. Maurice at Acaunus (today's Saint-Maurice-en-Valais or Saint-Maurice-d'Agaune in Switzerland's canton Valais). He was the son and successor of Gundobad (a.k.a. Gundibald), king of the Burgundians. Gundobad was Arian but Sigismund was persuaded by St. Avitus of Vienne to convert to the Catholic faith. In 515 Sigismund founded or re-founded at Acaunus the aformentioned abbey; in the following year he became king. In 522, persuaded by his second wife (by whom he had two sons) that Sigeric, one of his sons by his first marriage, was plotting to overthrow him, Sigismund had Sigeric murdered. Becoming remorseful, he entered the abbey at Acaunus as a penitent. In the following year he emerged to face a Frankish invasion and was defeated in battle by sons of Clovis. Sigismund abdicated and, along with his wife and children, was soon murdered by the victors. > > Testifying to the veneration of his miracle-working relics at Acaunus, Gregory of Tours viewed the penitent confessor Sigismund as a martyr (_In gloria martyrum_, 74). In 1354 the emperor Charles IV translated some of Sigismund's relics to Prague. Venerated in imperial circles, Sigismund was the name saint of Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary from 1387, king of the Germans from 1411, king of Bohemia from 1419, king of the Lombards (i.e. king of Italy) from 1431, as well as emperor from 1433 until his death in 1437. On a distinctly lower order of magnitude, he was also the name saint of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (d. 1468), lord of Rimini and the endower of that city's church of St. Francis usually known as the Tempio Malatestiano. A further translation of relics to Freising in the fourteenth century led to Sigismund's becoming a co-patron of that diocese by 1359. Today is Sigismund's day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology; tomorrow (2. May) is his feast day in the archdiocese of Munich-Freising. > > > Some period-pertinent images of St. Sigismund of Burgundy: > > a) as depicted (upper register at right; with a donor) in a fourteenth-century votive fresco in the north aisle of Verona's basilica di San Zeno Maggiore: > http://tinyurl.com/j3oce8d > > b) as depicted (perh.; it's not clear how secure this identification is) by Theodoric of Prague in his later fourteenth-century panel paintings (1357- ca. 1364) in the chapel of the Holy Cross at Karlštejn Castle, Karlštejn, Czech Republic (grayscale images): > http://tinyurl.com/gurngyc > Detail view: > http://www.ekoklub.cz/Theodorik/img00012.jpg > > c) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Catherine of Alexandria) by Lorenzo Veneziano in a later fourteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1368; from a dismembered altarpiece) sold at Sotheby's on 29. January 2015: > http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/so-moretti-n09306/lot.116.html > At higher resolution (Sigismund): > http://tinyurl.com/j7lzy8j > > d) as portrayed (perh. with the features of Casimir III of Poland) in a later fourteenth-century silver gilt reliquary bust (ca. 1370; the diadem, which is over a century earlier, was added only in 1601) in the treasury of the cathedral of Płock: > http://tinyurl.com/zopclz7 > > e) as portrayed (at right; at left, St. Vitus; at center, St. Wenceslas) by a Prague School artist on the later fourteenth-century Mühlhausen altarpiece (completed, 1385) in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: > http://tinyurl.com/zpsjxmd > The altarpiece as a whole: > http://www.staatsgalerie.de/malereiundplastik_e/altdeu_rundg.php?id=2 > > f) as depicted (lower register, fourth from left) in an early fifteenth-century glass window (ca. 1414; from the Andreaskapelle -- dedicated to Sts. Wenceslas, Andrew, and Sigismund -- in the cathedral of Bamberg) in the Diözesanmuseum Bamberg: > http://tinyurl.com/nbdgnjo > > g) as depicted in an early fifteenth-century votive fresco (1415) in the kostol sv. Františka Serafínskeho in Poniky, Slovakia: > http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7013393.JPG > > h) as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century fresco (betw. 1417 and 1437) in the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Konstanz (an imperial city until 1458): > http://tinyurl.com/24nmxb2 > > i) as portrayed by Jakob Kaschauer in a statue from his mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece (1443) for Freising cathedral now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich: > http://tinyurl.com/34archn > > j) as depicted by the court workshop of Frederick III in the mid-fifteenth-century Prayer Book of Frederick III (1447-1448; Vienna, ÖNB, cod. 1767, fol. 268r): > http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7007404.JPG > > k) as depicted by the Master of the Polling Panels in a panel of a mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece (ca. 1450-1460) in the Diözesanmuseum Freising: > http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006404.JPG > > l) as depicted (at left; at center, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta; at right, a greyhound) by Piero della Francesca in a mid-fifteenth-century fresco (ca. 1451) in the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini: > http://tinyurl.com/jkcgto5 > Detail views (Sigismund) > http://tinyurl.com/2d6asdo > http://tinyurl.com/2eelvyd > > m) as depicted (at right, flanking the BVM and Christ Child; at left, St. Corbinian) by Neroccio de' Landi in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1470-1475) in the National Gallery of Art in Washington: > http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.41627.html > > n) as depicted (at left, watching as his family is murdered) in a panel of a late fifteenth-century winged altarpiece (ca. 1480-1490) in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck: > http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7003115.JPG > > o) as depicted (at right, praying to Christ; at left, Gundobad, praying to an idol) by Hans Wartinger in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (1498) in the Diözesanmuseum Freising: > http://www.genealogie-93-generationen.eu/bilder/XXXIV-XCII_45.jpg > > Best, > John Dillon > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion