Veneration of Saints and the Nature of Donorship in Naples. A Research into the Late Antique Church of St. Gennaro and its Catacombs, Considering its Development in the Early Middle Ages

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dieter Korol
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: from 2010 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 188498826

In the prosecution of the interdisciplinary project analysing the veneration of Saints and the historical background of donations in the late antique city of Naples, our studies on the tradition and development of the religious cult of St. Gennaro are to be finalized. At the end of our previous research the so far assumed dominance of this saint in the religious life in 5th and 6th-century Naples has been disproved beyond doubt. It is therefore now necessary to determine his position within the autochthonous hierarchy of the Saints anew. This is especially advisable regarding several indications pointing out that the veneration of Saints at that time was not limited to St. Gennaro by far. In order to find out when, and respectively why, the cult of St. Gennaro became a mass phenomenon finally resulting in the patronage of Naples, the development of this cult from the 7th century on has to be carefully studied. When doing so, studies also have to focus on the question if the cult was still linked to the local episcopacy, on the various facets of episcopal donorship, and how these two issues influenced the sacral topography of the town. Finally, investigations have to be made on the role of the episcopal cult personified by St. Agrippino (possibly a competing Saint to St. Gennaro), traces of which can already be found in the late antique catacomb. With reference to numerous sources of the archaeological, epigraphical, numismatical and literary kind many of which have not yet been published, we intend to find answers to the above-mentioned questions in order to get a clear and complex impression of the veneration of Saints and the nature of donorship in 5th-10th-century Naples.Thus, there will be numerous new and fruitful aspects for the history of arts of the city of Naples during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages as well as for the ecclesiastical history of this period. However, the results will not only be of local/regional importance, but at the same time they will be paradigmatic for the general history of arts and religion of the period concerned. Thus, for example, the poorly published early medieval catacomb paintings of Naples are an enormous enrichment to our (due to lack of monuments thusly dated) rather fragmentary knowledge of the development of painting in the Eastern and Western World.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr. Tomas Lehmann