MINERVA. – An ancient divinity belonging to the cult of various Italic peoples. Minerva, in fact, before her development at Rome, was venerated from ancient times especially among the Etruscans, who dedicated several sanctuaries to her (Etruscan excavations near Bologna) dating back to the 6th century B.C. and dedicated at the same time to Tinia (Iuppiter), Uni (Iuno) and Menerva (Minerva: an evident imitation of the Greek triad Zeus-Hera-Athena). However, especially from iconography, where Minerva is already clearly inspired by the Greek Athena, most scholars admit that she was not originally Etruscan, but that the Etruscans adopted her, most likely, from the Italic Falisci, among whom she appears mentioned on archaic inscriptions.
At Rome the cult of Minerva does not appear in the most ancient religion (lack of a flamen for her, absence of festivals in the "Numan" calendar); this cult, which according to Varro would have been introduced from Sabine territory (Lingua Lat., 73), was almost certainly taken from the Etruscans even in regal times. In fact, in similarity to the Etruscan triad – mentioned above – in the old Capitolium on the Quirinal there was a sacellum of Iovis Iunonis Minervae, dating to a period before the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus erected on the Capitol (Varro, op. cit., V, 158). But above all in this latter temple, erected in 509 B.C., the same triad is found venerated with which the official entry of Minerva into Roman religion was consecrated.
A third sanctuary of Minerva, perhaps also of regal age, was that on the Aventine, whose day of dedication coincided with the Quinquatria festival (v. March 19; originally sacred to Mars), which later became, in popular cult, also festivals of Minerva.
Another very important temple was that erected to Minerva Capta, at the foot of the Caelian, after the Romans in 241 B.C., having destroyed Falerii, imported the cult of the Faliscan Minerva to Rome (Ovid, Fasti, 3, 843 ff.).
The primitive cult of Minerva in Roman religion, still free from the Greek influence of Athena Polias, had a distinctly peaceful and, so to speak, social character. She was in fact considered the inventor of the arts and crafts, and in her honor, during the five days of the Quinquatria in March (March 19-23), called the artificum dies, and in the corresponding days in June, the various guilds of artisans recognized by the State (especially those of the histriones and the tignicines) gathered in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine, where they celebrated the goddess. Teachers also took part in this festival (to whom the pupils offered the mineral or minerale munus on that day), as well as the guilds of physicians, who venerated the goddess in the temple of Minerva Medica on the Esquiline.
But the peaceful aspect gradually became contaminated with the poliad and warrior aspect of Athena. Thus, later Minerva became part of the warrior triad Mars Minerva Lua, quibus spolia hostium dicare ius fasque est (Livy, 45, 33, 2), and various temples dedicated to her (such as that erected by Pompey, another by Augustus, and especially the two by Domitian) now reflect almost entirely (as indeed does the iconography of Minerva) the characteristics of Greek Athena.
There was also in Italy a Palladium, considered to be that of Troy, which was kept as one of the most effective pledges of divine protection. According to tradition, it had been received by Nautes (ancestor of the gens Nautia) from the hands of Diomedes himself, and was kept in the temple of Vesta with the most sacred objects of the cult.
MINGANA, ALFONSO. – Chaldean scholar, born in Iraq on Dec. 23, 1881 (?) and died in England on Dec. 5, 1937.
He was the son of the priest Paolo and was given the baptismal name Hormizda. He studied at the Syro-Chaldean Seminary of St. John in Mosul from 1893 to 1902, the year in which he was ordained priest with the name of Alfonso. He then became professor of Syro-Chaldean language and literature at the same Seminary (1902-10), and during that time published a Syriac grammar (Mosul 1905) and Narsai homiliae et carmina (2 vols., ibid. 1905). In 1907-1908 he published in Leipzig: Soure syriaques, I: Meilha Zeha. Histoire du couvent de Sabria. Bar-Penkey. The first Arbela (v.), whose historical value was overestimated. In 1910 M. had serious disputes with his patriarch and subsequently left the Catholic Church, taking refuge with a Protestant minister in Mardin who facilitated his journey to England. There he remained until his death. In 6 volumes of the Woodbrooke Studies (Cambridge 1927-33) M. published some interesting Syriac writings, including the version of the Catechetical Homilies of Theodore of Mopsuestia and some writings of Bar Salibi.