Saint Ursula, Martyr

SAINT URSULA, Martyr. - She is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on Oct. 21 together with other unnamed virgins, as martyrs of Cologne. The notice derives from an erroneous interpretation of texts, the origin of a fanciful legend.

An ancient inscription of the cathedral of Cologne, datable between the 4th and 5th centuries, relates that a certain senator Crematius, following visions, restored a church dedicated to some virgins. These were unknown to St. Gregory of Tours, who nonetheless mentions the famous basilica of the so-called "Golden Saints" of Cologne, and to the 7th-century redaction of the Hieronymian Martyrology. From a discourse of the second half of the 8th century, the first source that speaks of them, it is inferred that up to that time the notices about the Saints were few and contradictory. The author in fact explicitly states that nothing was known except that they were martyrs; as to their origin, some said they had come from the East, others that they came from Britain; their number too was uncertain, as were their lives, and not all would have been virgins, but only the majority; and it is even more noteworthy that at the head of the company there does not appear O., but a Pinnosa, daughter of a king of Britain. Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the legend takes a step forward: in the lists of the litanies of the saints, the name of some of these virgins appears here and there, still however fluctuating in the Order, until in the 10th century eleven names are recorded with O. at their head. The change from Pinnosa to O. may derive from a very ancient inscription, rediscovered in 1893, which stood in the church dedicated to the virgins, in which mention is made of an 8-year-old girl named O.; in the absence of anything else recourse was had to that name, and O. became the first of the company of eleven thousand companions. Such an exorbitant number may have derived from the Roman numeral XI, read as eleven thousand according to medieval style, or also from a tradition that made O. the eleventh daughter of her family, whence the second name undecimilla (cf. Quintilla, Octavilla, etc.), erroneously interpreted. Toward the end of the 10th century a Passio was also written, according to which O. was the daughter of a king of Britain: beautiful and good, she had been educated as a Christian. Asked in marriage by the son of a pagan tyrant, fearing for her faith, she asked for three years' time to reflect. During this time she exercised herself in virtue and in games with eleven thousand girls of the country, until one day they all suddenly fled. They landed at Tyle and proceeded to Cologne. Returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, by way of Basel, they found Cologne besieged by the Huns. Attacked by the barbarians they were all slaughtered, except O. who, spared for her beauty and her rank, was asked in marriage by the barbarian king. Upon her refusal she too was killed. A terrible vision put the besiegers to flight, and the inhabitants of Cologne were able to bury all those bodies; Crematius then built the church. Stripped of every legendary superstructure, the story of O., therefore, is reduced to the existence of a church dedicated in Cologne, and to some virgins of whom nothing precise is known.

Agostino Amore

ICONOGRAPHY

The legend of St. Ursula, which flourished in Cologne, inspired numerous works of art, both with the figure of the saint, mostly accompanied by some companions, and with the depiction in several scenes of her romantic story. The former variously represent the young princess with the arrow, the instrument of her martyrdom, or with the crusader's banner, or with her cloak opened to protect the faithful. Worth mentioning are the triptych by Stephan Lochner (c. 1440) with the Glorification of Sts. Ursula and Gereon, patrons of Cologne (Cologne, Cathedral), and among the Italian paintings the one attributed to Niccolò di Pietro (Metropolitan Museum, New York), the one by Antonio Vivarini (Seminary, Brescia), another by a Pisan artist of the 14th century (Museum, Pisa), the painting by Moretto (Castello Museum, Milan), the altarpiece by Tintoretto (St. Lazarus of the Mendicants, Venice). The cycles in several episodes follow the different versions of the legend, sometimes also being enriched by the artists' personal imagination. The earliest illustrations appear to be those engraved on two bronze cups for liturgical use, of Rhenish art (11th-12th centuries), preserved one in a private collection, the other in the Museum of Aix-la-Chapelle; also important are the engravings illustrating the text of the "legend" of Jacopo da Varagine or that of the various "Sacred Representations" (Bibl. Marciana, Venice). However, the examples of greatest interest are found above all in painting.

Of the principal cycles, three are due to the Cologne school between the second half of the 15th century and the early years of the 16th: the 15 panels (now in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Cologne), the 30 paintings by J. and G. van Scheuwen, dated 1456 (church of St. Ursula, Cologne), and the 18 small panels (including The Dream) by an anonymous artist known as the "Master of the Legend of St. Ursula" (Wallraf-Richartz Museum and other museums and collections). In Belgium there is the reliquary of St. Odilia at Kerniel, painted c. 1292 with stories connected to our legend; in Bruges two works of great importance: eight panels painted by a local master of the 15th century (convent of the Soeurs Noires) and the celebrated reliquary chest (Hôpital St-Jean), with the admirable panels painted by H. Memling around 1489. But the legend had already spread in the Veneto by the 14th century: thus, besides an antependium attributed to Maestro Paolo (formerly Queiroy collection, Paris) and the frescoes of modest value in the little church of Vigo di Cadore, two great painters treated this theme, following the version of the Golden Legend and transferring it with imaginative flair into their own surroundings: Tommaso da Modena, around the middle of the 14th century, in the frescoes of the church of St. Margaret in Treviso (now in the Museum of the city); Vittore Carpaccio, in the last decade of the 15th century, in the nine large canvases painted for the school of St. Ursula in Venice (now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia). Reflections of our legend are also found in Spain, in works by Catalan masters of the 15th century: e.g., a Retablo (St. Lawrence, Lerida), a panel with several painted compartments (parish church of Cardona); and in a painting by a Valencian painter (J. Rexach, c. 1450) now in the Museum of Barcelona. Nor are there lacking objects inspired by the legend, e.g.: two German reliefs of the 16th century in colored wood with Ursula and the pilgrims crowded in the ship (Stuttgart, Altertümersammlung), a small silver ship, called the ship of St. Ursula (Reims, Cathedral). In Norway, a wooden triptych with various bas-reliefs of the second half of the 15th century, formerly in the church of Slagen, now at the University of Oslo. - See plate XXIV.

Sandra Moschini Marconi