THE BOOK OF PONTIFFS OF THE CHURCH OF RAVENNA       Thomas F. X. Noble University ofNotre Dame   Paul Dutton Simon Fraser University Geoffrey Koziol University ofCalifornia, Berkeley Carol Lansing University ofCalifornia at Santa Barbara Barbara H. Rosenwein Loyola University ofChicago Agnellus of Ravenna THE BOOK OF PONTIFFS OF THE CHURCH OF RAVENNA Translated with an introduction and notes by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis The Catholic University ofAmerica Press Washington, D.C. To my father Copyright © The Catholic University ofAmerica Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States ofAmerica The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials,  .-. ∞ Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Agnellus, ofRavenna, Abbot, th cent. m[Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis. English] mThe book ofpontiffs ofthe church ofRavenna / Agnellus of Ravenna ; translated with an introduction and notes by Deborah MauskopfDeliyannis.— st ed. mmmp.mcm.m—m(Medieval texts in translation) mIncludes bibliographical references and indexes. ---(pbk. : alk. paper) m.Bishops—Italy—Ravenna—Biography.m.Catholic Church. Archdiocese ofRavenna (Italy)—Biography.mI. Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf, –mII. Title.mIII. Series. . .’’—dc  CONTENTS Preface / vii Acknowledgments / ix List of Abbreviations / xi Maps / xii Introduction/  Background /  Structure and Genre /  Written Sources /  Oral Sources and Orality /  Art and Architecture in the LPR/  Note on Editions and This Translation /  The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna/  Prefatory Verses/  z Prologue/  z Apollinaris/  z Aderitus/  z Eleucadius/  z Marcian/  z Calocerus/  z Proculus/  z Probus I/  z Datus/  z Liberius I/  z Agapitus/  z Marcellinus/  z Severus/  z Liberius II/  z Probus II/  z Florentius/  z Liberius III/  z Ursus/  z Peter I/  z Neon/  z Exuperantius/  z John I/  z Peter II/  z Aurelian/  z Ecclesius/  z Ursicinus/  z Victor/  z Maximian/  z Agnellus/  z Peter III the Elder/  z John II the Roman/  z  vi Marinian/  z John III/  z John IV/  z Bonus/  z Maurus/  z Reparatus/  z Theodore/  z Damian/  z Felix/  z John V/  z Sergius/  z Leo/  z John VI/  z Gratiosus/  z Martin/  z George/  z Table of the Bishops of Ravenna /  Glossary of Artistic and Architectural Terminology /  Bibliography /  General Index /  Topographical Index of Ravenna and Classe/  PREFACE Since the sixteenth century, Agnellus of Ravenna’s Book of Pon- tiffs of the Church of Ravenna (Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, or LPR) has been mined by historians and art historians for facts. Though Agnellus is alternately praised for his openness and criticized for his inaccuracy, what he says has generally been taken at face value, after cross-checking against other historical texts and surviving monuments. His reliance on hearsay and his use of invented dia- logue have been seen as interfering with the facts, yet these prac- tices were rooted in the literary traditions of his models and sources. He employs a variety of narrative and descriptive styles ff derived from several di erent literary genres, and thus only when the origin and context of each passage has been identified can his “information”be understood.   Agnellus’s text was written in the s and s to demonstrate two strongly held opinions. One of these was the apostolicity and independence of the Ravennate archbishopric; the other was the moral decline of recent bishops, and their erosion of clerical ff rights. These views a ected Agnellus’s presentation of individual bishops, which often depend solely on the bishop’s treatment of the clergy or his stance toward Rome: the lives of good bishops are filled with miracles, while bad bishops are unrelievedly bad. Agnel- lus’s vehemence stemmed from his experiences as a member of the clergy in Ravenna at a time when the city had lost much of its for- mer political importance. Agnellus’s motives for writing also strongly influenced the structure of the work. He modeled the LPR on the Liber pontificalis (LP) of Rome to emphasize the equal importance of Ravenna to vii  viii Rome; categories of information from the Roman LPare routinely provided by Agnellus, and descriptive language also imitates that of the Roman prototype. However, the LPRalso contains two oth- er types of text: hagiography and exegesis. In using, and in some cases borrowing, material belonging to these three genres, Agnellus also uses the language, style, and literary conventions proper to each. Agnellus is often criticized for his seemingly haphazard use of information from his sources; many of these can be identified and range from other literary texts to documents to inscriptions and images from Ravenna. His text is at times personal, at times annal- istic, erudite and colloquial, factual and miraculous, well docu- mented and full of uncredited borrowing. Although the LPRseems to be a random hodgepodge of information, this is actually the re- ffi sult of Agnellus’s di culty in knowing how to assign information to the life of a particular bishop. The LPR has always been particularly important to art histori- ans because of the wealth of information it contains about the art and architecture of Ravenna. And yet descriptions of monuments are themselves literary conventions, and are often found within one or other of the generic types of narrative already mentioned. The ff functions performed by monuments in each context a ect the way they are described; even the words used to refer to and describe ff these monuments are a ected by these conventions, and yet they are also influenced by Agnellus’s firsthand experiences. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the LPRis its success- ff ful integration of features taken from widely di erent literary gen- res and sources. The formulaic entries of information characteris- tic of gesta episcoporum, the narrative unit of the scene, used for miracles as well as for historical events, and the rhetorical ques- tions and direct exhortations taken from exegetical and sermonic forms are all intermingled to produce some type of text for every bishop of Ravenna. It is a work unlike any other known from the early Middle Ages. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I was first introduced to Agnellus in Cecil L. Striker’s Ravenna seminar at the University of Pennsylvania. Lee encouraged me to work on the text for my doctoral dissertation, and both he and James O’Donnell have been extremely generous with their time and advice, both while I was writing the dissertation and especially af- ter my graduation while I was preparing this volume for publica- tion. During the time that I have been working on the LPR,there has been a surge of scholarly interest in Agnellus, and the “Agnellus group” has been extraordinarily collegial. I am deeply indebted ff to Ruggiero Benericetti, Thomas Brown, Ann Mo att, Claudia Nauerth, and Joaquin Martínez Pizarro, who have all been most generous with their advice, their comments on my work, and their own publications and materials. Thomas Noble has gone well beyond his duties as series editor for Catholic University of America Press in answering many ques- tions, and I am very grateful for his enthusiasm for this project. David McGonagle and Susan Needham of the press have been helpful throughout the process of publication, and John Osborne’s comments as reader were much appreciated. ff I would like to thank several others who have o ered various types of assistance, advice, and support during the past several ff years. These include Ra aella Farioli Campanati, Florin Curta, William Diebold, Diana Greenway, Thomas Head, Renata Holod, Rand Johnson, Michael Lapidge, Traugott Lawler, Eric Owen, Franca Pierpaoli, Leah Shopkow, Paul E. Szarmach, Susan Tegt- meyer, Giordana Trovabene, and Augusto Vasina. ix