Christian virgin-martyr
Olivia of Palermo
(
Italian
:
Oliva di Palermo
,
Sicilian
:
Uliva di Palermu
),
Palermo
, 448 ?
Tunis
, 10 June 463,
[3]
[4]
while according to another tradition she is supposed to have lived in the late 9th century AD in the Muslim
Emirate of Sicily
[5]
[6]
is a Christian virgin-martyr who was venerated as a local patron saint of Palermo, Sicily, since the
Middle Ages
, as well as in the Sicilian towns of
Monte San Giuliano
,
Termini Imerese
,
Alcamo
,
[7]
Pettineo
and
Cefalu
.
Her feast day is on 10 June,
[1]
[2]
and in art she is shown as a young woman surrounded of olive branches, holding a cross in her right hand.
[note 1]
Hagiographic sources
[
edit
]
Olivia seems to have been
sanctified
by popular tradition alone as a pious local saint since her name was not recorded historically in any mainstream Latin or Greek
martyrology
or
Hagiology
of the church.
[3]
[8]
The oldest textual sources of her
Life
include a
Gallo-siculo
Breviary
of the twelfth century, which records her memory and is still preserved in Palermo,
[3]
as well as a document in
vulgar Sicilian
of the fourteenth century found in
Termini Imerese
, and a
Life
contained in a lectionary of the fifteenth century.
[4]
[note 2]
A venerable icon of Olivia also exists,
[note 3]
perhaps of the twelfth century, which depicts Saint Olivia with saints
Elias
,
Venera
and
Rosalia
.
[4]
There are also references to a church being dedicated to her in Palermo since AD 1310 on the supposed site of her burial.
[3]
[4]
Today, this is the
Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola
(
Church of Saint
Francis of Paola
).
In addition, numerous Lives of this Saint were published in Sicily, both in prose and in verse, and the form of sacred representation until the end of the eighteenth century, reflecting the fair vitality of her cult. She is recorded in the Sicilian martyrology of
Ottavio Gaetani
,
[note 4]
as well as in the Palmerian martyrology of
Antonio Mongitore
in 1742.
[3]
A Breviary from
Cefalu
also contains a detailed entry on her
Life
(
Breviary Cefaludes
).
[3]
The
Bollandists
published in 1885 the
Acts
of Saint Olivia, which they took from the
lectionary
of the church in
Palermo
.
[9]
Moreover, Sicily's well-known writer of the 17th century, the poet
Petru Fudduni
(born Pietro Fullone) wrote a poem in 114
octaves
about her. At the same time, a dramatic opera of Gioacchino Bona Fardella, a tragedy in three acts, was also famous in its day.
[4]
[note 5]
Hagiographic life
[
edit
]
According to the hagiographic legend, Olivia was the beautiful daughter of a
noble
Sicilian
family, born either around 448 or in the 9th century AD.
[4]
Local hagiographers state that she was born in the
Loggia district of Palermo
.
[5]
From her early years she devoted herself to the Lord, declining honours and riches and giving charity to the poor. In one version, in 454 AD
Genseric
, king of the
Vandals
, conquered Sicily and occupied Palermo, started martyring many Christians. When she was thirteen, Olivia comforted the prisoners and urged the Christians to remain steadfast in their faith. The Vandals were impressed by the strength of her spirit, seeing that nothing could prevail against her faith. So in deference to her noble house, they sent her to
Tunis
, where the governor would attempt to overcome her constancy. In the other version, she was enslaved in 906 and sent to Tunis under the orders of the Emir of Sicily, then under Saracen rule.
In Tunis, Olivia worked miracles and began to convert the pagans or Muslim Saracens. The governor, therefore, ordered that she be relegated to a lonely place as a
hermitess
, where there were wild animals, hoping that the beasts would devour her or that she would die of hunger. However, the wild animals lived peacefully around her. One day some men from Tunis who were hunting found her, and impressed by her beauty, tried to abuse her, but Olivia converted them too with the word of the Lord, and they were baptized. After miraculously curing many of the sick and suffering in the region, Olivia converted many pagans or Muslims to the Christian faith. When the governor heard about these things, he had her arrested and imprisoned in the city in an attempt to make her apostatize. She was scourged and was stripped and submerged into a cauldron of boiling oil, but these tortures did not cause her any harm, nor did they make her renounce her faith. Finally, she was beheaded on 10 June of the year 463 or sometime in the 10th century, and her soul "flew to the sky in the form of a dove" (Italian:
"sotto forma di colomba volo al cielo"
).
[3]
[4]
[note 6]
Veneration
[
edit
]
Patronage of Palermo
[
edit
]
At the end of 1500, her cult was spread by the
Franciscans
, who sought her body.
[3]
On 5 June 1606, the people and Senate of Palermo elected Saint Olivia as
Patroness
of the city, together with
Saint Agatha
,
Saint Christina
and
Saint Nympha
.
[3]
These four were chosen for each of the four major parts of the city. Their commemoration was entered in the Palermian Calendar by Cardinal Giannettino Doria in 1611.
[3]
Their veneration waned following the discovery in 1624 of the (alleged) relics of
Saint Rosalia
, who had appeared to rescue the city from the plague. After that, Saint Rosalia began to be venerated as a patroness of the city as well.
[4]
In 1940, a parish was dedicated to Saint Olivia in the city.
[3]
She was commemorated by the Church in Palermo until 1980 as an obligatory memorial. However, in 1981, her feast was deleted from the local liturgical calendar.
[3]
In Tunis, the Roman Catholic
Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul
and Saint Olivia are also dedicated to her.
[3]
[10]
It was begun in 1893, replacing the oldest Christian monument in the city ? a chapel built by Father
Jean Le Vacher
in 1650 ? and was opened on
Christmas Day
1897.
Saint Olivia and Islam in Tunisia
[
edit
]
The
Great Mosque of Al-Zaytuna
("Mosque of Olive") is the oldest in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, and covers an area of 5,000 square metres (1.2 acres) with nine entrances.
[11]
The exact date of the mosque's foundation varies according to different historical sources. Modern historians have been divided over whether it should be attributed to
Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab
in the early 8th century or to
Hasan ibn al-Nu'man
at the end of the 7th century.
[12]
Most scholars support the second scenario
[12]
[13]
and attribute the foundation to Ibn al-Nu'man in 698 CE.
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
One legend states that it was called "Mosque of Olive" because it was built on an ancient place of worship where there was an
olive
.
[
citation needed
]
Another account, transmitted by the 17th century Tunisian historian
Ibn Abi Dinar
,
[15]
reports the presence of a
Byzantine
Christian church dedicated to Santa Olivia at that location.
[12]
[15]
Archeological investigations and restoration works in 1969?1970 have shown that the mosque was built over an existing Byzantine-era building with columns, covering a cemetery.
[12]
This may have been a Christian basilica, which provides support for the legend reported by Ibn Abi Dinar.
[15]
A more recent scholarly interpretation by Muhammad al-Badji Ibn Mami, also endorsed by Sihem Lamine, suggests that the previous structures may have been part of a Byzantine fortification.
[12]
[16]
Olivia is particularly venerated in Tunisia because it is superstitiously thought that if the site and its memory are profaned, then misfortune will happen; this includes a belief that when her
relics
are recovered, Islam will end.
[18]
This ancillary legend related to the discovery of the saint's relics is widespread in Sicily, however it is connected to other Saints as well.
[4]
In 1402 king
Martin I of Sicily
requested the return of Saint Olivia's relics from the Berber Caliph of
Ifriqiya
Abu Faris Abd al-Aziz II
, who refused him.
[3]
Historicity
[
edit
]
The main criticism of the life of Olivia is that the elements of her legend do not have a personal nature in and of themselves, but they all derive, with slight modifications, from old themes or
archetypes
that were dear to the medieval imagination, such as that of the
'sacred heroine'
or the
'persecuted maiden'
.
[19]
The Italian teacher and writer
Giuseppe Agnello
carefully undertook to sift the hagiographic tradition from the literary one and did not see anything more than a random
homonymous
saint of Palermo
conflated
with the heroine of the mystery play dedicated to her, which was studied extensively by
Alessandro d'Ancona
[20]
and
Alexander Veselovsky
(who in turn cited
Ferdinand Wolf
[21]
).
[19]
Nevertheless, Paul Collura
[note 7]
defends Olivia's historicity, writing that "the core of our ancient legends has a substrate that should not be underestimated, and since the
Arab domination in Sicily
(827?1092) made a clean sweep of all the written documents, sacred and profane, the memory of several Saints has been handed down only on the thread of memory."
[3]
Furthermore, it has been accurately pointed out that the Roman Catholic Church has remained somewhat aloof from
Southern Italian
saint cults.
[22]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
The cross is extremely faded, but it is still visible on the 13th-century icon of Olivia. Any Saints who were murdered for confessing the Faith are shown with crosses in iconography.
- ^
The first reference to Saint Olivia which is made by a non-Sicilian writer is that of a Bishop of
Kabylie
(Italian: vescovo cabillunense) in
Topographia Martyrologii
(Venezia 1450, p. 128): Agnello, 1955, p. 109.
[4]
- ^
The icon was formerly kept at the Civic Hospital of Palermo, but is currently located at the Diocesan Museum of Palermo.
- ^
After he died in AD 1620 his manuscript of the Lives of Sicilian saints was edited by Fr. Peter Salerno SJ.
- ^
Other examples of the expression of her cult include:
- V. Auria,
Leggendario delle Sante Vergini,
Palermo 1661;
- B. Faso,
Le cinque Vergini prudenti palermitane assieme ai Racconti delle loro sacre traslazioni,
Palermo 1662;
- G. Spucces,
Vita di S. Oliva vergine e martire palermitana cavata dai mss. antichi della S. Chiesa cattedrale di Palermo,
Palermo 1670;
- Agnello, 1955, pp. 109?110, who refers to an Italian composition on the subject, being a tragedy of Lorenzo De Marini that was given in Rome in the early eighteenth century:
- L. De Marini,
S. Oliva,
Roma 1726.
[4]
- ^
One the Sicilian Breviaries has this entry for Saint Olivia:
- (in Italian)
"A Tunisi il martirio di S. Oliva vergine e martire, cittadina palermitana e patrona principale, la quale, nata da nobile famiglia, ancora fanciulla, nella persecuzione vandalica per la fede di Cristo cacciata in esilio, a Tunisi attrasse molti alla fede cattolica; superati poi l'eculeo, le unghie di ferro e il fuoco, divinamente liberata dall'olio incandescente, troncato alla fine il capo, le fu data la corona del martirio, la cui anima, tutti ammirando, sotto forma di colomba volo al cielo l'anno 463 ".
[3]
- ^
Paolo Collura
(1914-1997) was a Sicilian palaeographer, diplomat, historian and director of the Diocesan Museum of Palermo.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
June 10
.
Orthodox England: Latin Saints of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome. Retrieved: 2 February 2015.
- ^
a
b
The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia of Western Europe and the Americas (ROCOR).
St. Hilarion Calendar of Saints for the year of our Lord 2004.
St. Hilarion Press (Austin, TX). p. 43.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
(in Italian)
Sant' Oliva di Palermo Vergine e martire
.
SANTI, BEATI E TESTIMONI. 10 giugno. Retrieved: February 2, 2015.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
(in Italian)
Daniele Ronco (2001).
Il Maggio di Santa Oliva: Origine Della Forma, Sviluppo Della Tradizione
.
ETS, Pisa University, IT. 325 pages. pp. 18?19.
- ^
a
b
(in Italian)
Carlo Di Franco.
LA PATRONA DIMENTICATA: S.OLIVA
.
PalermoWeb.com.
- ^
Bl. Olivia
. Catholic Online.
- ^
T. PAPA.
La chiesa di S. Oliva in Alcamo.
Trapani 1964.
- ^
(in Italian)
Daniele Ronco (2001).
Il Maggio di Santa Oliva: Origine Della Forma, Sviluppo Della Tradizione
.
ETS, Pisa University, IT. 325 pages. pp. 17.
- ^
Analecta Bollandiana
, IV, 1885, pp. 5?9.
- ^
Stefania Falasca.
A meeting with Bishop Maroun Lahham: A Palestinian in Tunis
.
10/11 ? 2009. 30Giorni (International monthly magazine directed by
Giulio Andreotti
from 1993 to 2012). Retrieved February 8, 2015.
- ^
Achour, M.A. (1991). "Djami al Zaytuna, al-ma lamu wa fidjaluhu (The Zaytuna Mosque, the monument and the men)". Tunis.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Chater, Khalifa (2002). "Zayt?na". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.).
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
. Vol. XI. Brill. pp. 488?490.
ISBN
9789004161214
.
- ^
"Al-Zaytuna Mosque through History"
. Al-Zaytuna Mosque. Archived from
the original
on 27 January 2010
. Retrieved
6 February
2009
.
- ^
"Jemaa Ezzitouna"
. Municipality of Tunis. Archived from
the original
on 26 May 2009
. Retrieved
6 February
2009
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Ben Mami, Mohamed Beji.
"Great Mosque of Zaytuna"
.
Discover Islamic Art - Museum With No Frontiers
. Retrieved
31 October
2022
.
- ^
a
b
Lamine, Sihem (2018). "The Zaytuna: The Mosque of a Rebellious City". In Anderson, Glaire D.; Fenwick, Corisande; Rosser-Owen, Mariam (eds.).
The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa
. Brill. pp. 269?293.
ISBN
978-90-04-35566-8
.
- ^
Binous, Jamila; Baklouti, Naceur; Ben Tanfous, Aziza; Bouteraa, Kadri; Rammah, Mourad; Zouari, Ali (2002).
Ifriqiya: Thirteen Centuries of Art and Architecture in Tunisia
(2nd ed.). Museum With No Frontiers, MWNF.
ISBN
9783902782199
.
- ^
(in Italian)
S. ROMANO. "Una santa palermitana venerata dai maomettani a Tunisi".
Archivio storico siciliano
, XXVI (1901), pp. 11?21.
- ^
a
b
(in Italian)
Daniele Ronco (2001).
Il Maggio di Santa Oliva: Origine Della Forma, Sviluppo Della Tradizione
.
ETS, Pisa University, IT. 325 pages. pp. 19.
- ^
Alessandro D'Ancona.
La rappresentazione di Santa Uliva, riprodotta sulle antiche stampe.
Pisa 1863, pp. XI-XII.
- ^
F. WOLF.
Ueber die beiden wiederaufgefundenen niederlandischen Volksbucher.
Wien 1857.
- Citato in: A. WESSELOFSKY.
La favola della fanciulla perseguitata.
p. XI.
- ^
Mia Di Tota. "SAINT CULTS AND POLITICAL ALIGNMENTS IN SOUTHERN ITALY."
Dialectical Anthropology
, Vol. 5, No. 4 (MAY 1981), pp. 317?329. p. 317.
Sources
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- (in Italian)
Giuseppe Agnello.
La S. Oliva di Palermo nella leggenda popolare e nella tradizione letteraria.
In: Archivio storico siciliano, n.s., VII (1955), p. 109.
- (in Italian)
Giuseppe Agnello.
La S. Oliva di Palermo nella storia e nelle vicende del culto.
In: Archivio storico siciliano, n.s., VIII (1956), pp. 151?193.
- (in Italian)
Giuseppe Agnello.
"Tradizioni agiografiche e alterazioni leggendarie."
In: Saggi Li Gotti [37], I, 24?35.
- (in Italian)
Igor Gelarda.
Persecuzioni religiose dei Vandali in Sicilia.
In: Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte, Bd. 59, H. 2 (2010), pp. 239?251.
- (in French)
Halkin, Francois.
"La passion grecque des saintes Libye, Eutropie et Leonis martyres a Nisibe".
In: Analecta Bollandiana. Paris [u.a.]: Soc. des Bollandistes, Bd. 76 (1958), S. 293?316.
- Matthew Bunson and Margaret Bunson.
Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints.
Second Edition. Our Sunday Visitor, 2014. p. 626.
ISBN
978-1612787169
External links
[
edit
]