Jacobus de Voragine

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Not to be confused with Jacobus de Boragine, a glossator.
Blessed Jacobus de Voragine
13 July

Jacobus de Voragine

archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular religious works of the Middle Ages.[3]

Biography

Jacobus was born either in

Munio de Zamora – who had been master of the Dominican order from 1285 and was eventually deprived of his office by a papal bull dated 12 April 1291.[3]

In 1288 Nicholas empowered him to absolve the people of Genoa for their offence in aiding the Sicilians against

Ghibellines.[6] A story, mentioned by Échard as unworthy of credit, makes Pope Boniface VIII, on the first day of Lent, cast the ashes in the archbishop's eyes instead of on his head, with the words, "Remember that thou art a Ghibelline, and with thy fellow Ghibellines wilt return to naught."[3]

He died in 1298 or 1299, and was buried in the Dominican church at Genoa.

Pius VII in 1816.[6]

Works

Legenda aurea (1499)
Excerpt from the manuscript "Heiliglevens in het Middelnederlands". A fifteenth century copy from the second part of the Legenda Aurea.[7]

Jacobus de Voragine left a list of his own works. Speaking of himself in his Chronicon januense, he says: "While he was in his order, and after he had been made archbishop, he wrote many works. For he compiled the legends of the saints (Legenda sanctorum) in one volume, adding many things from the Historia tripartita et scholastica, and from the chronicles of many writers."[3]

The other writings he claims are two anonymous volumes of Sermons concerning all the Saints whose yearly feasts the church celebrates. Of these volumes, he adds, one is very diffuse, but the other short and concise. Then follow Sermones de omnibus evangeliis dominicalibus for every Sunday in the year; Sermones de omnibus evangeliis, i.e., a book of discourses on all the

Virgin Mary. In the same work the archbishop claims to have written his Chronicon januense in the second year of his episcopate (1293), but it extends to 1296 or 1297.[3]

Title page of the 1497 edition of the Sermones de sanctis showing the author as a preacher, National Library of Poland.

To Jacobus' own list his biographer Giovanni Monleone[8] adds several other works, such as a defence of the Dominicans, printed at Venice in 1504, and a Summa virtutum et vitiorum Guillelmi Peraldi, a Dominican who died in 1271. Jacobus is also said by Sixtus of Siena (Biblioth. Sacra, lib. ix) to have translated the Old and New Testaments into his own tongue. "But," adds the historian of the Dominican order Jacques Échard, "if he did so, the version lies so closely hid that there is no recollection of it," and it may be added that it is highly improbable that the man who compiled the Golden Legend ever conceived the necessity of having the Scriptures in the vernacular.[3]

The Golden Legend

Main article: Golden Legend

The Golden Legend, one of the most popular religious works of the

octave of Pentecost (54–76); (e) from the octave of Pentecost to Advent (77–180). The saints' lives are full of fanciful legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of 13th century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with reference to the Dominicans. The penultimate chapter (181), "De Sancto Pelagio Papa", contains a universal history from the point of view of Lombardy, or Historia Lombardica (History of Lombardy"), from the middle of the 6th century.[6] The last (182) is a somewhat allegorical disquisition on the dedication of churches, "De dedicatione ecclesiae".[3]

The Golden Legend was translated into

Latin edition is assigned to about 1469; and a dated one was published at Lyon in 1473. Many other Latin editions were printed before the end of the century. A French translation by Master John Bataillier is dated 1476; Jean de Vigny's appeared at Paris, 1488; an Italian one by Nic. Manerbi (?Venice, 1475); a Czech one at Pilsen, 1475–1479, and at Prague, 1495; Caxton's English versions, 1483, 1487, and 1493; and a German one in 1489.[3]
Overall, during the first five decades of printing in Europe, editions of the Legenda Aurea appeared at a rate of about two per year.

Sermones and Mariale

Almost as popular as the Legenda Aurea were Jacobus' collected sermons, also termed Aurei. Several 15th-century editions of the Sermons are also known; while his Mariale was printed at Venice in 1497 and at Paris in 1503.[3]

Chronicon januense

Jacobus' other chief work is his Chronicon januense, a history of Genoa.

citizens, the ninth with those of domestic life. The tenth gives the ecclesiastical history of Genoa from the time of its first known bishop, Saint Valentine, "whom we believe to have lived about 530 A.D.", until 1133, when the city was raised to archiepiscopal rank. The eleventh contains the lives of all the bishops in order, and includes the chief events during their episcopates; the twelfth deals in the same way with the archbishops, not forgetting the writer himself.[3]

Marian views

Jacobus is relevant to mariology in light of his numerous Marian sermons, Sermones de sanctis per circulum anni feliciter and his Laudes Beatae Mariae Virginis. He describes the miracles of Mary and explains specific local customs and usages on Marian feast days. Since most of these usages do not exist anymore, Jacobus de Varagine serves as a valuable source for the study of medieval Marian customs. Theologically Jacobus is one of the first of several Christian writers, who view Mary as mediatrix or mediator between God and humanity. In his view of the mystical body of Christ, she is the neck through which all graces flow from Christ to his body.[11] This view was later shared by others such as Bernardino of Siena, and, most recently, by one of the noted mariologists of the 20th century, Gabriel Roschini.

Editions

  • Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea G. P. Maggioni (ed.), Firenze, 1998.
  • Ryan, William G., ed. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints. Volume 1 and volume 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993.
  • Pieter van Os (September 1, 1490). Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive Lombardica historia (in Latin and German). Vol. II. Archived from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved March 23, 2019 – via archive.org.

Notes

  1. ^ His first name in Latin is Jacobus, Iacobus or Iacopus, while in Italian it is Jacopo, Iacopo or Giacomo, which in English is "James". In Latin his surname is de Voragine or de Varagine, in Italian da Varagine or da Varazze.[1][2] The surname is a family name, meaning "of Varazze". The spelling Voragine is a variant of Varagine and does not derive from vorago (abyss), as sometimes claimed.[2]

References

  1. ^ Steven A. Epstein (2016), The Talents of Jacopo da Varagine: A Genoese Mind in Medieval Europe, Cornell University Press, p. 1 n1.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-8-81200032-6
    .
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jacobus de Voragine". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 121.
  4. toponym Varagine is Lombard; the site appears in the Tabula Peutingeriana
    as Ad Navalia.
  5. ^ Stace 1998:, "Introduction" p. x.
  6. ^ a b c Ott, Michael. "Blessed Jacopo de Voragine." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 17 July 2016
  7. ^ "Heiligenlevens in het Middelnederlands[manuscript]". lib.ugent.be. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
  8. ^ Monleone, Iacopo de Varagine e la sua Cronaca di Genova dalle origini al MCCXCVII (Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo) 1941.
  9. ^ Émile Mâle, L'art religieuse du XIIIe siècle en France (1898) devotes a full chapter to Legenda Aurea, which he avowed was his principal guide for the iconography of saints.
  10. ISBN 9780271032252
    .
  11. ^ Bäumer, Marienlexikon Eos St. Ottilien, 1992 489

Further reading

External links

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