Andreas Agnellus of
Ravenna
Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the ca ...
(c. 794/799 – after 846) was a historian of the bishops in his city.
The date of his death is not recorded, although his history mentions the death of archbishop George of Ravenna in 846; Oswald Holder-Egger cites a papyrus charter dated to either 854 or 869 that contains the name of a priest named Andreas of the Church of Ravenna, but there is no evidence to connect him with Andreas Agnellus.
Life and writings
Though called Abbot, first of
St. Mary of Blachernae, and, later, of St. Bartholomew, Andreas appears to have remained a
secular priest
In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. A secular priest (sometimes known as a diocesan priest) is a priest who commits themselves to a certain geogr ...
, being probably only titular abbot of each abbey. He is best known as the author of the ''Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis'' (LPR), an account of the occupants of his native church, compiled on the model of the ''
Liber Pontificalis'', a compilation of the lives of the
Pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
s of Rome. The work survives in two manuscripts: one in the Biblioteca Estense in
Modena, written in 1413; the other is in the
Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...
, written in the mid-16th century and breaks off in the middle of the life of Archbishop Peter II. Copies of Agnellus's lives of two saintly bishops of Ravenna, Severus and
Peter Chrysologus
Peter Chrysologus ( el, Ἅγιος Πέτρος ὁ Χρυσολόγος, ''Petros Chrysologos'', "Peter the Golden-worded"; c. 380 – c. 450) was Bishop of Ravenna from about 433 until his death. He is known as the “Doctor of Homilies” for ...
, exist in independent traditions, copied into collections of saints' lives.
The ''
editio princeps'' of the LPR was published in Modena by
Benedetto Bacchini
Benedetto Bacchini or Bernardino Bacchini (31 August 1651 – 1 September 1721) was an Italian monk and man of letters.
Biography
Bacchini was born on 31 August 1651, at Borgo San Donnino, in the Duchy of Parma. He studied at the Jesuit institut ...
in 1708; a complete English translation of the LPR by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis was published in 2004. The LPR begins with
Saint Apollinaris and ends with Georgius, the forty-eighth archbishop (died 846). Though the work contains "unreliable material" according to the article on Agnellus in the ''
Catholic Encyclopedia
The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...
'', Thomas Shahan (the author of the article) states that the LPR is "a unique and rich source of information concerning the buildings, inscriptions, manners, and religious customs of Ravenna in the ninth century". Deliyannis notes that "two themes recur throughout the LPR: an anxiety for the rights of the clergy in the face of oppression by bishops, and a firm preference for the
autocephaly of Ravenna, with a particular dislike of control of
he archbishopric ofRavenna by the Roman pope". The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' further comments that "in his efforts to be erudite he often falls into unpardonable errors. The diction is barbarous, and the text is faulty and corrupt".
References
Bibliography
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Attribution
*
Further reading
*.
*
* (Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts).
* (Fontes Christiani, 21/1 and 2).
*
External links
Link with online text
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agnellus, Andreas
Writers from Ravenna
9th-century births
9th-century deaths
9th-century Italian historians
9th-century Latin writers
Writers from the Carolingian Empire