Verses by Pope Damasus, commemorating the construction of the basilica in Rome dedicated to *Laurence/Laurentius (deacon and martyr of Rome, S00037), later known as S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Written in Latin in Rome, 366-384.
Evidence ID
E07210
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
Literary - Poems
Major author/Major anonymous work
Damasan and pseudo-Damasan poems
Damasus of Rome, Epigrammata 58
Haec Damasus tibi, Christe deus, nova tecta dicavi
Laurenti saeptus martyris auxilio.
‘This new building I, Damasus, have dedicated to you, God Christ,
sheltered by the support of the martyr Laurence.’
Text and translation: Trout 2015, 189.
Cult Places
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - Popes
Cult Related ObjectsInscription
Source
The poems of DamasusThe surviving corpus of poetry by Damasus, pope from 366 to 384, comprises about sixty poems. Almost all are in honour of saints and martyrs, and were originally displayed at the tombs of martyrs in the cemeteries and catacombs that surrounded the city of Rome. They were inscribed on large marble plaques with distinctive lettering ('Philocalian script') by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus (see Trout 2015, 47-52). The inscriptions were an important part of the programme of monumentalisation of the sites of saintly cult initiated by Damasus (see Trout 2015, 42-47).
The poems of Damasus are the first substantial corpus of texts devoted specifically to the cult of saints. They are of great importance for the history of saints' cult at Rome because, aside from what their content tells us, they can be dated so securely. If a martyr is the subject of a poem in the Damasan collection, this shows that their cult was established and formally recognised at Rome no later than the early 380s; the only comparable, but much briefer, material is that in the Chronography of 354 (E01052). By contrast, the surviving Roman saints' lives are of very uncertain date and almost certainly all later than Damasus' poems (which they sometimes used as a source: Lapidge 2018, 637-8).
Survival of the poems
Only a handful of Damasus' inscriptions survive intact; others partially survive in fragments, but the majority survive only through manuscript transmission, primarily via syllogae – collections of inscriptions from the martyr shrines and churches of Rome which were transcribed by pilgrims and then circulated in manuscript. The earliest of these seem to have been compiled in the 7th century, at the same time as the earliest pilgrim itineraries, and they were organised on the same basis, according to the location of inscriptions on the routes followed by pilgrims around the city. Unlike the itineraries, no sylloge survives in its original form: the extant syllogae were all compiled from earlier manuscript collections (whose traces are sometimes evident in the structure of the syllogae). The syllogae were edited by De Rossi in vol. 2.1 of the first edition of ICUR (1888), which remains the only modern edition of the syllogae as such (as opposed to the individual poems). On the syllogae containing Damasus’ poems, see Trout 2015, 63-65; Lapidge 2018, 638.
The most important syllogae for the transmission of Damasus' poems are the following:
The Sylloge Laureshamensis. A manuscript produced at the monastery of Lorsch in the 9th/10th century (Vatican, Pal. Lat. 833; digitised: digi.vatlib.it/view/bav_pal_lat_833). De Rossi (1888) believed that it contained material from four earlier collections, of which the one that he denoted Laureshamensis IV, dating from the 7th century, contained most of the Damasan material.
The Sylloge Centulensis. Produced in the monastery of St. Riquier in the 9th/10th century, held for most of its existence in Corbie, and now in the Russian National Library at St. Petersburg (Codex Petropolitanus F XIV 1).
The Sylloge Turonensis. Produced at Tours in the 7th century, but surviving only in two manuscripts from the 11th/12th century (Klosterneuburg Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 723; Göttweig Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 64 (78), digitised: manuscripta.at/diglit/AT2000-64).
The Sylloge Virdunensis. Produced at Verdun in the 10th century (Bibliothèque de Verdun, ms. 45, digitised: www1.arkhenum.fr/bm_verdun_ms/_app/index.php?type_recherche=cote&choix_secondaire=Ms. 45).
The Sylloge Einsidelnensis. Produced at the monastery of Einsiedeln in the 9th century (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 326, digitised: www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/sbe/0326).
It is certain that most poems in the corpus are by Damasus, either because they survive, wholly or partly, in their inscribed form or because Damasus refers to himself in the text (which he does frequently). In other cases his authorship has been assigned to poems on stylistic grounds. Since Damasus' style is quite distinctive (see Trout 2015, 16-26), this can usually be done reasonably securely, but there are instances where there is disagreement among editors as to whether poems are genuinely by Damasus.
Discussion
The verses form a single elegiac couplet. It is preserved only in the Sylloge Virdunensis, where it is headed Ad ecclesiam sancti Laurentii in Damaso, quae alio nomine appellatur in prasino, isti versiculi sunt scripti in illo throno ('at the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, also known as in Prasino, these short verses are written in the thronus'). According to Ferrua thronus indicates the apse area (Trout 2015, 189).The verses evidently commemorate the foundation of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, the only intramural church known to have been built by Damasus. The church was in the Campus Martius, near the Theatre of Pompey: it is described in the Liber Pontificalis as iuxta theatrum, 'next to the theatre' (see E01273). The heading in the Sylloge Virdunensis says that the church was also known as in Prasino, literally 'in green', which seemingly relates to the Green circus faction: the church was built on part of the site of their stables (Trout 2015, 189). The church built by Damasus was demolished in the 15th century to make way for the Palazzo della Cancelleria, of which the present church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso forms part. The architecture and layout of the original church were clarified by excavations which took place from 1988 to 1993: see the summary in Trout 2015, 189, with further bibliography.
On Damasus' reference to being 'sheltered' (saeptus) by Laurence, see Blair-Dixon 2002, who relates it to the conflicts over his election as pope.
Bibliography
Editions and translation:Trout, D., Damasus of Rome: The Epigraphic Poetry: Introduction, Texts, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), no. 58, 188-190.
Ferrua, A., Epigramata damasiana (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1942), no. 58.
Ihm, M., Damasi epigrammata (Anthologiae Latinae Supplementa 1, Leipzig: Teubner, 1895), no. 55.
Further reading:
Blair-Dixon, K., "Damasus and the Fiction of Unity: The Urban Shrines of Saint Laurence," in: F. Guidobaldi and A.G. Guidobaldi (eds.), Ecclesiae urbis: Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sulle Chiese di Roma (IV-X secolo), Roma, 4-10 settembre 2000 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 2002), 331-352.
Krautheimer, R., and Pentiricci, M., "S. Laurentii in Damaso," in: E.M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, vol. 3 (Rome: Quasar, 1996), 179-182.
Record Created By
David Lambert, Katarzyna Wojtalik
Date of Entry
22/08/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain |
|---|
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