ALFANO (Alphanus), archbishop of SALERNO. — Theologian, philosopher, physician, and poet. Born at Salerno of a most noble family between 1015 and 1020, he died on 9 October 1085. He lived during the golden age of his homeland, witnessing the greatness to which Gualmaro V raised that principality. When a palace conspiracy, in which his own brothers were implicated (cf. Chron. Casin., III, 7), put that Lombard prince to death in a bloodbath (3 June 1052), he mourned his tragic end as the loss of the « pater patriae » and « d'ogni decoro della vita » (cf. the elegy ad Guidonem: PL 147, 1257).
He was directed toward the priesthood and studied at the celebrated local medical school, becoming one of its greatest glories. « Medicus et clericus », he formed a friendship at Salerno with Desiderius, whom he treated for exhaustion and stomach weakness; attracted by him to the monastic ideal, he entered with him the monastery of S. Sofia at Benevento (1054). He then moved to Montecassino (1056), where, together with Desiderius and Federico di Lorena, likewise learned men and writers, he contributed to the abbey’s renown. The collaboration of the three friends, however, was brief: Federico (1057) became Pope Stefano X (IX), and Desiderius (the future Pope Vittore III) succeeded him as abbot; meanwhile A., urged by Gisulfo II, prince of Salerno, returned to his native city to govern the Benedictine monastery and, in 1058, the archdiocese. He was consecrated by his august friend, Stefano X.
His episcopate marked a period of splendor for the Church of Salerno. He reorganized the Chapter, enriching it with numerous privileges obtained from the Pope and the prince. In 1059 he took part in the councils of Rome, Melfi, and Benevento. At these solemn assemblies he formed a friendship with Ildebrando, the future Gregorio VII, whose plans for ecclesiastical reform he shared, and he supported his efforts in the struggle for the freedom of the Church (cf. the poem Ad Hildebrandum).
He took part in the great events of his turbulent age. In 1062 he accompanied his prince Gisulfo II, who, pretending to be making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, went to Constantinople to negotiate with the Byzantine emperor against the advancing Normans. A. continued on to Palestine with the bishop of Palestrina. Returning to Constantinople, he was left there by Gisulfo, to his great dismay, as a hostage. Having escaped, he took refuge with Roberto il Guiscardo. Reconciled with Gisulfo, he returned to Salerno. He again participated in the councils of Melfi (1067), Salerno (1068), and the very important council held in Rome in 1074 under the new Pope Gregorio VII.
When the Pope was compelled to ally himself with the Normans, and they besieged Salerno (1076), the archbishop had to leave the city. He was able to return in December of that same year, when, following the extinction of the Lombard principality, it became the capital of Roberto il Guiscardo’s dominion. With Roberto’s assistance he raised the monumental basilica in honor of s. Matteo Apostolo, whose relics he had shortly before rediscovered. The basilica was later consecrated by the exiled pontiff Gregorio VII, whom A. welcomed and comforted. Both died in 1085: Gregorio on 25 May, A. in October; both lie in the same cathedral.
A. was succeeded by Alfano II (1086), who was apparently his relative.
WORKS (some in PL 147, 1213–82). — A., as the Cassinese chronicler attests (Chron., III, 35), was « vir in Scripturis sanctis eruditissimus et notitia ecclesiasticorum dogmatum ad plenum instructus »; he possessed « medicinae artis scientiam non parvam » and « miram cantandi peritiam » (ibid., III, 7). In all these fields he left writings, most of which have unfortunately been lost.
1. Theology and hagiography
There survive the Vita et passio s. Christiane, one passage of which (PL 147, 1275 B) also reveals A.’s thorough legal training; and a Sermon on the calling of the apostle s. Matteo.His treatise De unione Verbi Dei et hominis, of which a copy was formerly preserved at Montecassino, has been lost. A Vita s. Sabinae likewise appears to have disappeared.
2. Medicine
We possess his translation from the Greek of the treatise by Nemesio of Emesa On the nature of man (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου: PG 40, 503–818; partly among the works of s. Gregorio Nisseno, De anima: PG 45, 187–222). To it he added a Prologus in which he gives Nemesio’s work the title Premonon physicon, « hoc est Stipes naturalium »: a philosophical and physiological treatise whose medical doctrine was analyzed by R. Creutz. This elegant version by A. — one of several that the treatise received in the Middle Ages — is absent from Migne; edited in 1887 by Holzinger, it appeared in a new critical edition in 1917 among the « Teubner » classics of Leipzig, prepared by Carlo Burkhard.Pietro Capparoni has restored the Tractatus de pulsibus on the basis of ms. 1024 of the Bibl. de l’Arsenal in Paris (identified in 1930 by Ernesto Wickersheimer) and ms. lat. 1143 of the Vatican (Rome 1936, with commentary and facsimile of the codices). A precious document of the early Salernitan school, the little work — probably intact and more than a mere scholastic epitome — is a compendium « sui polsi » based on Galen’s sphygmic writings; it exerted considerable influence on Egidio di Corbeil.
A. also wrote a work on clinical medicine and therapeutics, De quattuor humoribus corporis humani: an extensive treatise, consisting of at least seven parts, of which cod. 73 of the Bibl. Laurenziana in Florence preserves a highly important fragment (known to S. Renzi, Coll. Salernitana, II, Napoli 1854, p. 411 sg., and republished by R. Creutz in Stud. u. Mitt. z. Gesch. des Bened. Ordens, 47 [1929], pp. 420–22), while ms. F 86 (13th–14th cent.) of the Bibl. Vallicelliana in Rome provides a kind of summary, discovered by P. Capparoni and published by him with commentary and facsimile (Rome 1928). This summary, made by students at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century, shows that, more than two centuries after A.’s death, his writings were still being used as textbooks.
Capparoni believes that the De unione corporis et animae, considered lost, is in fact none other than the corresponding chapter of his translation of Nemesio.
We are therefore now informed about A.’s medical profile, as one of the principal pre-Constantinian masters of the School, and about his scientific activity, carried out within the tradition of classical Greco-Latin learning, thanks to which Salerno could call itself Civitas Hippocratica.
3. Yet A. owes his greatest fame to poetry. Pietro Diacono states (Chron. Casin., III, 35) that he composed a librum hymnorum et versuum: verses written entirely in classical meters, a notable feature in a period when rhythmic verse predominated everywhere.
His poems, most of which are contained in MSS 47 and 280 of Montecassino, may be divided into two groups: those on sacred or edifying subjects (the Virgin, the holy Innocents, the heroism of the Martyrs), and those of a personal or occasional character (epitaphs, letters, dedications, etc.). Particularly worthy of mention are the long ode, in dactylic trimeters, to Montecassino; the Sapphics in honor of s. Matteo and s. Mauro; the hymn to s. Sabina, in alternating glyconic and Asclepiad verses, with a graceful description of paradise, an eternal spring; the poem in hexameters in honor of the XII brothers of Benevento, described as a novel in verse; and the ode to Ildebrando, in glyconic rhythm, in which the greatness of Rome, mistress of the world, is celebrated (cf. Pietro Diacono, De viris ill. casin., 19).
A. is « one of the few literary figures of the Middle Ages » (Prampolini). As poet and scholar, pastor and statesman, he is one of the most representative figures of the 11th century. His beneficent and penitential life earned him, although without a cult, the title of saint.