STEFANO il MELODE. - He lived from the beginning of the fourth decade to approximately the end of the eleventh century. A native of southern Italy, perhaps Calabrian, he was apparently a monk of the monastery of Grottaferrata, the famous cenobium of S. Nilo.
He must be distinguished from other namesakes of the Greek East—the Agiopolita, the Sabaita, and the Studita—as well as from another, not yet identified but certainly Eastern. The hymns attributable to him on the basis of manuscript tradition, style, and geographical references number ten: two canons and eight syntoma; all, with the exception of two, are acrostic, and some may perhaps have been interpolated at a later period. They are dedicated to s. Gregorio Magno, s. Nicola di Bari, s. Eustachio, ss. Cosma e Damiano, s. Gregorio d'Agrigento, s. Giovanni Crisostomo, s. Agata, ss. Quaranta Martiri, s. Stefano, and the Virgin (in the pre-vigil of the Purification).
S. often draws inspiration from hagiographical sources, but does not neglect oral traditions. As for his art, it must be said that, although he does not depart from the formalism of the Eastern hymnographic tradition, he sometimes knows how to vary his compositions through dialogue (for example, in the canon for s. Nicola, perhaps his finest hymn) or through the evocation of miracles, and he is not lacking in sincere accents of piety; more monotonous and less original are the syntoma, in which an excessively rigid metrical scheme prevented the poet from adequately developing his thought.