Saintly Stories

The Christmas when I was ten, some colleagues of my father's (in retrospect, probably quite religious Catholic ladies) gave me a lovely book called Lives of Saints, with a fancy leather cover and illustrations resembling the illuminations in a Book of Hours, protected by vellum bound into the book. I read many, though not all, of the stories of these saints: their lives provide some good dramatic stories, such as that of St. Bernadette, to whom the vision of the Virgin Mary appeared at Lourdes, or St. Simeon Stylites, a Syrian ascetic who spent 37 years living on a small platform at the top of a pillar, or St. Francis, who gave up a life of riotous living to care for the poor and give sermons to the birds. St. Augustine similarly gave up a life of riotous living before turning to his own influential writings. One doesn't have to be particularly devout, or even a believer at all, to take pleasure in many of the stories of these saints. A lot of them are fascinating and delightful in one way or another. And Episcopalians have saints too.

When we spend time in museums and churches in European cities, especially in Italy, we frequently find representations of saints local to those cities, whose fame has perhaps not spread to America, or whose names we may know but not the details of their stories. I find some of these sufficiently intriguing to do a little research. Last week, it was St. Benedict who intrigued me. This week, now that we've arrived in Siena for a few days, it's St. Catherine of Siena, who will get a separate post.

"St. Benedict Drinks (sic) Poisoned Wine." Niccolò di Pietro. 1415-20.

When at the Uffizi I came upon the first instance of a painting showing St. Benedict with two other men in monastic attire, and a third man one offering him a glass of wine--and it's not clear whether Benedict's gesture is of refusal or of blessing--I noticed it and wondered a little. But when I saw the same subject again a little further on, I had to find out what was going on.

St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480-547), founded the Benedictine order of monks, and was thus the father of western monasticism. The Rule that he established for the order became the foundation for all other monastic orders.

Benedict was of good family and attended Roman schools, but later "he became shocked by the licentiousness of Rome and went off to live in a cave for three years, provided with food by monks from a nearby monastery." He subsequently became abbot of one of these monasteries. "His reforming zeal was resisted, however, and an attempt was made to poison him."(Source: Encyclopedia Brittanica) This is the incident depicted in the paintings that I noticed.

"St. Benedict Blesses the Poisoned Wine." Bartolomeo di Giovanni. 1485-90.

Two of the monks gave Benedict a glass of poisoned wine to drink (the first painting, as noted, also includes that elegantly dressed layman--I have no idea who he was). Benedict was nobody's fool, however, so he accepted the wine and then blessed it. Whereupon the glass miraculously shattered.

After this narrow escape he returned to his cave; "but again disciples flocked to him, and he founded twelve monasteries, each with twelve monks, with himself in general control of all of them."

"St. Benedict Mends the Broken Sieve." Niccolò di Petro. 1415-1420.

The same Niccolò di Pietro panel as the first one with the wine also depicts an earlier miracle that happened when Benedict was a little boy. His nurse borrowed somebody's sieve, or colander, which was made of terra cotta. It accidentally broke, and to save his nurse for getting into trouble, Benedict caused the terra cotta sieve to become whole again, indicating to one and all the sanctity and power of this child.