HYACINTH, Saint. - Dominican, of a noble Polish family, perhaps the Odrowaz, b. at Gross-Stein in Silesia toward the end of the 12th century, d. at Kraków on 15 August 1257. While still young he was made a canon of the cathedral of Kraków by Bishop Ivo. Having completed his scholarly formation in a studium generale (at Bologna?), he returned to Kraków, where he was a valuable aid to the bishop in the governance of the diocese. The bishop himself in 1218 chose him as a companion and counselor on a journey to Rome, to the papal court.

Here H. met St. Dominic, who received him into the Order together with two other companions, Ceslaus and Herman, also of the retinue of Bishop Ivo. In 1219 he was sent with his companions to Poland by St. Dominic himself and founded, along the journey, a convent at Friesach in Carinthia. A second convent was founded by H. at Kraków in the parish of the Most Holy Trinity, where he resided until 1222; and a third he founded in 1223 at Kiev, after an apostolic excursion among the Vandals of Masovia. In 1226, having founded a new convent at Danzig, he returned to Kraków. He was the initiator of the Dominican missions of Ruthenia. He was canonized by Clement VIII in 1594. Feast on 17 August.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Augusti, III, Paris-Rome 1867, pp. 309-79; L. Cwildinski, De vita et miraculis s. Iacchonis (Hyacinthi) Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, auctore Stanislao lectore Cracoviensi eiusdem ordinis, in Monumenta Poloniae historica, IV, Lviv 1884, pp. 818-903; D. Bertolotti, Vita di s. G., 2 vols., Monza 1903; B. Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts, Habelschwerdt 1924, pp. 196-225; R. J. Loenertz, Les origines de l'ancienne historiographie dominicaine en Pologne, II, Abraham Bzowski, in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 19 (1949), pp. 49-94.

Ulderico Vicentini

ICONOGRAPHY

From the time of his canonization (1594) onward, there are some iconographic depictions of the Saint, such as his legend painted by Francesco Vanni in the church of St. Dominic in Siena, the altarpiece by Anteveduto Gramatica in the Polish church of St. Stanislaus in Rome with the Savior among three Polish saints, the frescoes by Federico Zuccari in the church of St. Sabina in Rome, where he is also depicted in an altarpiece by Lavinia Fontana. The painting with St. J. in the church of St. Mary of the Scala in Rome seems instead to be an eighteenth-century copy of a lost painting by Anteveduto Gramatica, made for the said church in 1602. St. J. is represented as a Dominican of middle age; sometimes standing on a cloak in the middle of a river; this depiction alludes to his miracle of the crossing of the Vistula.

Bibliography

BIBL.: M. Nowodvorski, Jacek, in Encyklopedia Kościelna, VIII, p. 354 (with bibl.)

Witold Wehr

@incollection{ec6_giacinto_santo, author = {Vicentini, Ulderico and Wehr, Witold}, title = {Giacinto, santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {307--308}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/giacinto-santo} }

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Hyacinth, Saint

ICONOGRAPHY

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