Venantius Fortunatus, at the end of his verse Life of St Martin (4.672-4), sends the personified book on a pilgrimage, from Poitiers to the poet's home city of Ravenna, venerating various saints along the way; its ninth such stop is to be at the grave of Iustina (virgin and martyr of Padua, S02321) in Padua (northern Italy), where there is a wall figuring the deeds of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050). Written in Latin in Poitiers (north-west Gaul), 573/576.
Evidence ID
E08490
Type of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Lives
Major author/Major anonymous work
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Life of Martin 4.672-4:
Si Patauina tibi pateat uia, pergis ad urbem:
huc sacra Iustinae, rogo, lambe sepulchra beatae,
cuius habet paries Martini gesta figuris.
'If the road to Padua lies open to you, go to that city: here please kiss the holy grave of the blessed Iustina, a wall of which displays the deeds of Martin in images.'
Text: Kay 2020; Quesnel 2002 (19961).
Translation: L. Livorsi.
Non Liturgical ActivityPilgrimage
Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines
Source
Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern Italy, near Treviso, and educated at Ravenna. In the early 560s he crossed the Alps into Merovingian Gaul, where he spent the rest of his life, making his living primarily through writing Latin poetry for the aristocracy of northern Gaul, both secular and ecclesiastical. His first datable commission in Gaul is a poem to celebrate the wedding in 566 of the Austrasian royal couple, Sigibert and Brunhild. His principal patrons were *Radegund (S00182) and Agnes, the royal founder and the first abbess of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, as well as Gregory, the historian and bishop of Tours, Leontius, bishop of Bordeaux, and Felix, bishop of Nantes, but he also wrote poems for several kings and for many other members of the aristocracy. In addition to occasional poems for his patrons, Fortunatus wrote this four-book epic poem about Martin of Tours, and several works of prose and verse hagiography. The latter part of his life was spent in Poitiers, and in the 590s he became bishop of the city; he is presumed to have died early in the 7th century. For Fortunatus' life, see Brennan 1985; George 1992, 18-34; Reydellet 1994-2004, vol. 1, vii-xxviii; Di Brazzano 2001, 15-38; Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 801-22, 'Fortunatus'.Fortunatus' Life of Martin - the circumstances of its composition and its date:
Fortunatus composed his Vita Sancti Martini (VSM) at the behest of Radegund and Agnes, as he makes clear in the verse preface in elegiac couplets addressed to these aristocratic nuns:
Sic ego de modicis minimus, venerabilis Agnes
cum Radegunde sacra, quas colo sorte pia,
tendere pollicitum quia cogor ad ardua gressum,
imperiis tantis viribus impar agor.
'Thus I, the smallest of the small, O venerable Agnes and holy Radegund, whom I respectfully revere, because I am obliged to forge a path to the heights as I promised, am driven on by your weighty command, unsuited by my capabilities though I am.'
(Ven. Fort., Mart. praef. II 27–30. Translation: Kay 2020, 45, lightly modified)
In addition, one manuscript (Vat. Pal. Lat. 845 = N) transmits a prose letter to Gregory of Tours usually regarded as a dedication letter (although this idea is challenged by Kay 2020, 2-4). Hence, the terminus post quem must fall around Gregory’s accession to the episcopal see of Tours in September 573 (whether in early 573 on in late 573, depending on how one interprets the letter itself). A definite terminus ante quem is provided by the death of Germanus, bishop of Paris, in April 576, who is referred to as still alive in VSM 4.637.
Beside Radegund and Agnes’ concrete request to turn Sulpicius Severus’ VSM and Dialogues into epic poetry (roughly one century after Paulinus of Périgueux had done the same - see E06355), Fortunatus presents a more personal reason for devoting this ambitious poem to Martin. In the concluding envoi, Fortunatus addresses the personified book and invites it to go on a pilgrimage to several martyrial sites on a route from Tours to his native Ravenna. The book’s travels culminate in Martin’s chapel in the Ravennate church of *Iohannes and Paulus (eunuch brothers, martyred under the emperor Julian, S00384) [Chiesa dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo] (see E08483). Here, years earlier, Fortunatus had touched his ailing eyes with the oil in a lamp burning before an image of Martin painted on the wall, and his sight was restored (VSM 4.686-701). In addition, the concluding sections of books 2, 3 and 4 are punctuated with Fortunatus’ prayers for Martin to intercede on behalf of his sins (2.468-490, 3.520-528, 4.594-620). Thus, Fortunatus’ VSM constitutes a poetic devotional offering.
Manuscript transmission:
For a thorough discussion of the manuscript transmission of Fortunatus’ VSM and the establishment of the text, see Leo 1881, xxii-xxiii; Quesnel 2002, lxxv-lxxxiii; and Kay 2020, 23-37: despite including new manuscripts each, their stemmata do not differ substantially. I confine myself to pointing out that the manuscripts fall roughly into two categories: 1) anthologies of texts centred on Martin of Tours, alongside Sulpicius Severus, Paulinus of Périguex, Gregory of Tours, and the epigraphic sylloge of Tours, 2) miscellaneous anthologies, alongside Fortunatus’ Carmina and other late antique Christian poetry, the most extravagant being arguably P (Petropolitanus F XIV 1), which has a remarkably different arrangement from any other manuscript. Thus, the different text arrangement of the manuscripts reflects varying interests in the subject matter. In addition, there is evidence of lost manuscripts, such as the Treverensis upon which Christoph Brower based his 1607 edition of Fortunatus, which included not only the VSM, but also the prose letter to Gregory of Tours that is currently transmitted by just one other manuscript.
Discussion
For an overview entry on Fortunatus' Life of Martin, with a discussion of its character and full bibliography, see E08349.The images of Martin's deeds (in paint, or perhaps mosaic), in the church of Iustina at Padua, are one of several indications of his success as a saint in Italy - the only Gallic saint to be widely revered in the peninsula.
Bibliography
Editions:Di Brazzano, S. (ed.), Venanzio Fortunato. Opere/1 (Roma: Città Nuova, 2001).
Leo, F., Venanti Honorii Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri italici opera poetica, (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 4.1: Berlin, 1881).
Quesnel, S., Venance Fortunat, Œuvres IV. La Vie de Saint Martin, (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1996; 2nd edition 2002). [With French translation]
Translations:
Fels, W., Venantius Fortunatus: Vita Sancti Martini - Das Leben des Heiligen Martin (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, Mittellateinische Bibliothek 2, 2020).
Mazzoccato, G., Venanzio Fortunato: Vita di San Martino (Treviso: Piazza, 2005).
Palermo, G. (1995), Venanzio Fortunato: Vita di San Martino di Tours (Rome: Città Nuova, Collana di testi patristici 57, 1995).
Reydellet, M., Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994-2004).
Further reading:
Brennan, B., "The Career of Venantius Fortunatus," Traditio 41 (1985), 49-78.
George, J., Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris 2013).
Roberts, M., The Humblest Sparrow: The Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009).
Roberts, M., "Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours: Poetry and Patronage," in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 35-59.
Rosada, Guido, "Il “viaggio” di Venanzio Fortunato ad Turones: il tratto di Ravenna ai Breonum loca e la strada per submontana castella," in T. Ragusa and B. Termite (eds.), Venanzio Fortunato tra Italia e Francia. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi. Valdobbiadene, 17 maggio 1990-Treviso, 18-19 maggio 1990 (Treviso: Provincia di Treviso, 1993), 25-57.
Rosada, G., "Venanzio Fortunato e le vie della devozione," in Venanzio Fortunato e il suo tempo (Treviso: Fondazione Cassamarca, 2003), 331-362.
Record Created By
Lorenzo Livorsi
Date of Entry
09/08/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S02321 | Iustina, virgin and martyr of Padua | Iustina | Certain |
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