All Saints’ Day, June 10th: we celebrate San Massimo, patron saint of L’Aquila

San Massimo, patron saint of L’Aquila, for the “All Saints Days” column of 10 June.

June 10th is remembered San Massimo, patron saint of L’Aquila.

In 1629 Vincenzo Mastareo, a priest of the Society of Jesus, wrote a Life of Saint Maximus, collecting what is present in the Roman Martyrology, in the revision of Cesare Baronio, some liturgical documents of the cathedral of L’Aquila and what has been handed down by local tradition. According to the author, Maximus was born around 225 AD Hail, formerly a Vestine city and then a Roman municipality. Ordained deacon, he dedicated himself to the assistance and evangelization of his fellow citizens with such fervor that he aroused the wrath of the prefect sent by the emperor Decius to repress the spread of the new religion. The young Levite was imprisoned and, subjected to interrogation, refused to renounce his faith; impressed by his strength of mind, the judge went so far as to offer him his daughter Caesarea in marriage if he agreed to recant. Upon the young man’s insistent refusal, the persecutor subjected him to extremely cruel torments which culminated in him being sentenced to capital punishment. Saint Maximus was taken to a hill in the city of Aveia, called the Circle – identified by others as the Tower of the Temple or the top of the Castle of Ocre – and made to fall from that height, dying instantly. It was October 20, 253. Again from the Mastareo we learn that his body was recovered at night by some devotees who buried him in his hometown. Upon the destruction of Aveia, around the 5th – 6th century, his remains were transferred to Civitas Sancti Massimiin a place where such soon began to occur wonders and miracles to induce Otto I, on 10 June 956, to visit the precious relics and bring part of them to Rome. We also read that the emperor was accompanied by Pope John XIV and Bishop Caesus. The latter, visited in a dream by the archangel Michael, reported to the emperor and the pontiff that God would grant the translation of part of the holy body, provided that the pontiff placed a bishop in charge of the church of Forcona – later appointed in the person of Caesus himself – and that the emperor had granted her extensive privileges. There Life of Saint Maximus it then continues with the transfer of the relics to L’Aquila in the cathedral dedicated to him, together with San Giorgio, and with the movement of the episcopal seat in 1256 from Forcona to the newly founded city, under the pontificate of Pope Alexander IV. After the earthquake that devastated the city in 1703, traces of the relics of San Massimo were lost, although tradition has it that they are still under the cathedral. In reality, an archaeological excavation conducted in 2019 at the crypt of the L’Aquila Cathedral during the restorations following the 2009 earthquake, it brought to light a sarcophagus with remains of three bishops. According to studies conducted on the finds, one body dates back to the late Roman Empire and it has been hypothesized that it could be that of San Massimo; the second body would have been attributed to bishop Anton Ludovico Antinori.

The cult

There are two versions of the legend of Saint Maximusconnected to the double veneration for the Saint in Abruzzo, to L’Aquila and Penne. Alongside the above-mentioned L’Aquila tradition, which sees the feast of the Saint on 10 June, the day in which his relics were venerated by Otto I, we recall the one explored in depth by Giovanni De Caesaris, based in turn on the historical memoirs of Giovanni Nicola Salconio of Quills. According to this story, Saint Maximus, after suffering torture in prison, was drowned in the Aterno river with a boulder tied around his neck. His body was found near the islet of Pescara, that is, the site where the abbey of San Clemente a Casauria was built, and was moved to the chapel of San Comizio, near the river, in the territory of Castiglione a Casauria. Subsequently, perhaps to prevent the relics from being profaned, they were reassembled in the Cathedral of Penne, already dedicated to the Madonna Queen of Angels, and then to San Massimo; already in the 15th century Catena di Penne Codex the festival in honor of him is mentioned.
Returning to L’Aquila, San Massimo is its patron: the co-patrons are San Pietro Celestino, San Bernardino da Siena and Sant’Equizio abbot. The four Saints are depicted in the city’s Banner, commissioned in its current version to Giovanni Paolo Cardone, a pupil of Pompeo Cesura. The majestic painting – approximately 14 square meters – was created in 1579 and replaced a previous version, painted in the second half of the 16th century by Aert Mytens for the Basilica of San Bernardino, then brought as a gift to the Vatican on the occasion of the Jubilee of 1575. The Banner remained in the church until 1865, from where it passed to the Civic Art Gallery, and then to the National Museum of Abruzzo. The work, on red silk, represents the four patron saints who offer the city of L’Aquila to the risen Christ, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. At the center of the image stands the city, reworked on Girolamo Pico Fonticulano’s Map of the Eagle dated to 1575, and which provides a realistic vision of what L’Aquila was in the 16th century, according to a perspective taken from the south-west, probably from Monte Luco di Roio. You can see the city walls well and you can clearly recognize the Spanish Fort, the Basilica of San Bernardino and the other main churches. It is symbolically supported by the four patron saints, while above two putti hold a pyx; above, in the centre, Christ holds the Cross; on its sides the Virgin Mary and an angel are kneeling, behind which appears a column, a probable reference to the Church of Rome. In addition to the Bernardinian trigrams and two city coats of arms that frame the composition, the banners depict Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John of Capestrano and two local bishops. at the bottom left, under the figure of San Massimo, we can read the author’s signature «Cardonus Aquil[anus] P[inxit]».
In the cover image, detail of the painting by Giulio Cesare Bedeschini, depicting Saint Maximus. The work, dated before 1613, is part of the four canvases depicting the patron saints of L’Aquila – San Massimo d’Aveia, San Pietro Celestino, San Bernardino da Siena and Sant’Equizio abate – created for the church of Santa Maria Paganicafrom where they were then moved following the earthquake of 1703.