The veneration of St. Benedict in medieval Rome: Parish architecture, monumental imagery, and local devotion (Italy)

This dissertation examines the phenomenon of monumental expression of local devotion to the cult of St. Benedict in medieval Rome between the late tenth and early fourteenth century. Church dedication and figurative imagery are the most inescapably public forms of expression of the veneration of a saint. The monuments of this study were selected not because they allowed the tracing of stylistic filiations from a "mother monument," but because of their relation to a single and singular cult figure. Traditionally, the churches and images associated with St. Benedict are assumed to have been constructed by monastic patrons for a monastic audience. These sites in Rome prove to have been parish structures and monumental images to have been directed especially to local, non-monastic audiences.; Study of S. Benedetto in Piscinula---preserving the "cella of St. Benedict"---demonstrates how seventeenth-century historical narratives first situated these churches within a monastic purview. Examination of its fabric sheds light on the character of parish architecture in Rome, including use of spolia. The study of liturgical sources traces the development of local celebration of Benedict's cult and highlights the role of church dedication in this process. Study of the form and context of the figurative imagery found in the churches of Sta. Maria Antiqua, S. Crisogono, Sta. Maria in Pallara, and S. Ermete suggests that images of Benedict celebrate the "Roman moment" in his vita, a commemoration of his embrace of religious life while a student in Rome. Analysis of S. Benedetto in Thermis in the Roman complex of the abbey of Farfa, S. Benedetto in Clausura, and S. Benedetto de Arenula---medieval parish churches dedicated to Benedict that are no longer extant---establishes these churches as manifestations of the urban expansion experienced in Rome in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Finally, comparative consideration of the presentation of Benedict in Pietro Cavallini's Last Judgment in Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere and in the cycle from S. Agnese fuori le mura suggests a shift in the saint's persona from local intercessor to universal abbot, a shift that nevertheless perpetuates a veneration grounded in the city's local hagiographic tradition.