ZENOBIUS (Zanobi), Saint. - Bishop of Florence, between the end of the 4th century and the first decades of the 5th century. Patron of the city; feast on 25 May.

Z. was still living when the deacon Paulinus wrote in 422 the Vita s. Ambrosi (chap. 50: PL 14,47), in which the Saint is expressly mentioned. It does not appear that he already occupied the Florentine see in 393, the year in which St. Ambrose consecrated in Florence the suburban church of S. Lorenzo. Buried in S. Lorenzo, St. Z. was transferred in the 9th century to the urban church of S. Reparata, today S. Maria del Fiore, where he now rests in the artistic bronze urn, the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti (1432-42). Of the lives of St. Z. no account need be taken, since they are not earlier than the 11th century; the first (BHL, 9014) was written by Archbishop Lorenzo of Amalfi (d. 1049), while he was in exile at Florence; the second (ibid., 9015), attributed to the pseudo Simplician, bishop of Milan, was compiled between the 11th and 14th centuries. Uncertain is the date of the erection of the column of St. Z. in Piazza S. Giovanni, in memory of the elm which, struck by the Saint's bier during the translation, is said to have blossomed in the depths of winter (26 Jan.), as Archbishop Lorenzo relates ("arbor quaedam", chap. 13); the present column, on whose shaft is a branch of elm in bronze, dates back to 1384.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Mai, VI, Venice 1741, pp. 515-35; Martyr. Romanum, p. 207; Lanzoni, pp. 570-80; B. Quilici, La Chiesa di Firenze nell'alto medioevo, in Studi in mem. di A. V. Crocini, Florence 1938, pp. 16-17, 19, 28 and passim; G. Anichini, S. Ambrogio e la Chiesa di Firenze, in Ambrosiana..., Milan 1942, pp. 339-47; W. Holtzmann, Laurentius v. Amalfi, ein Lehrer Hildebrands, in G. B. Borino, Studi Gregoriani, I, Rome 1947, pp. 206-36 (analysis of the hagiographic works, among them the Vitae Zenobi); G. Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan painting, Florence 1952, cols. 1035-44 (for the iconography).

A. Pietro Frutaz

@incollection{ec12_zenobio_zanobi_santo, author = {Frutaz, Amato Pietro}, title = {Zenobio (Zanobi), santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1791--1792}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/zenobio-zanobi-santo} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Zenobius (Zanobi), Saint

About this entry