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 COSENZA

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COSMAS

Cosenza, ARCuniofF.SK. of (Ci-sentina"). immedi- atrly subject to the Holy See ('ospnza is a city in the province of Calabria, Southern Italy, at the con- fluence of the Crati and the Busento. It was known to the ancients as Conseiitia, and was the capital of Bruttium. It was conquered (338 b. c.) by Alexan- der of Epirus, uncle of Alexander the Great. Later it adhered to King Pyrrhus, when he invaded Italy. Between 278-176 b. c. both Lucania and Bruttium acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. Alaric be- sieged the city (a. d. 410), but died there the same year and was buried in the bed of the Busento at its confluence with the Crati. In 002 Cosenza was pil- laged by the Saracens, who were later expelled by the Normans but regained possession of the city in 1004. In 1130 Cosenza became the capital of Calabria Citeriore, now Cosenza, and thenceforth shared the vicissitudes of the Kingdom of Naples. Among its famous citizens may be mentioneil the savant Gian Vincenzo Gravina, co-founder with Queen Christina of Sweden of the Roman Academy of the Arcadia in lf).")6 (see Academies, Roman). The city suffered much from earthquakes, especially in 1184, 16.58, and 1783. The Gospel was first preached in Cosenza by missionaries from Reggio; its earliest known bishop is Palumbus, a correspondent (599) of St. Gregory the Great. Cosenza was raised to the dignity of an archbishopric about 1050. Among the best known Archbishops of Cosenza have been: Ruffo, who perished in the earthquake of 1184; the Cistercian Martino (1285), a prolific but uncritical writer; Pirro Caracciolo (1452), the friend of St. Francis of Paula; Bartolommeo Fleury, who died at Rome (1495) in Cist le Sant' Angelo, where he had been imprisoned for forgery of pontifical documents; Taddeo, later Cardinal, Gaddi (1535), who obtained from Paul IV the jirivilege by which the cathedral canons of Cosenza wear the choir habit of the Vatican basilica; and Ciiusepi>e Maria Sanfelice (1650), frequently charged by the Holy See with diplomatic missions. The dioce.se has a population of 1,')9,,")U, with 109 parishes, 264 churches and chapels. 200 secular and 16 regular priests, 2 religious houses of men and 5 of women.

t'APPELLETTi, Le Chiese d'llalia (Venice. 1844). XXI, 285; Spiriti, Memorie degli scriUori Cosentini (Naples, 1750); Ann. «■<■/. (Rome, 1907), 429.

U. Benigni.

Cosgrove, Henry, second Bishop of Davenport, Iowa, U. S. A., b. 19 December, 1834, at Williams- port, Pennsylvania; d. at Davenport, 23 December, 1906. He was the first native of the United States appointed to a see west of the Mississippi. In 1845 he emigrated to Iowa with his parents from Pennsyl- vania. He was ordained priest 27 August, 1857, and became pastor of St. Marguerite's church, Daven- port, in 1861. After the death of Bishop McMullen of Davenport he was administrator of the see, for which he was consecrated 20 July, 1884.

Uecsh. Biog. Encycoflhe Cath. Hu-rarchyol U. S. (Milwau- kee, 1H9.S); The. Mnsmgrr (New York, Jan.. 1907).

THOMA.S F. Meehan.

Cosin (the name is ako written Costn), Edmund, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, England. Tlie dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He was bom in Bedfordshire and entered King's Hall, Cambridge, a.s a Bible clerk, receiving the degrees of B.A. eariy in 1.535, M.A. in 1.541, and B.D. in 1,547. He held the living of Grendon, Northamptonshire, which was in the gift of King's Hall, from 21 Septem- ber, 1538, to November, 1541, and. successively, fel- lowships of lung's Hall, St. Catharine's Hall, and of Trinity College. Early in Queen Mary's reign he was elected Master of St. Catharine's, which brought him as gifts from the Cro\^^l the Norfolk rectories of St. Edmund, North LjTin (1533), Fakenham (1555), and

the Norfolk vicarages of Caistor Holy Trinity, and of Oxburgh (1554). He was presented to the rectory of Tliorplantl by Trinity College in the following year. He was also chaplain to Bishop Bonner of London and assistant to Michael Dunning, the Chancellor of the Dioce.se of Norwich. In 1558 he was elected Vice- Chanccllor of Cambridge but being a Catholic he re- fused to conform to the Elizabethan heresies, and hence in 1560 was forced to resign all his jireferments and went in 1564 to live in retirement in Caius ( 'ollege, Cambridge. Four years later, sunmioned to answer before the Lords of the Council to a charge of non- conformity, he went into exile rather than foreswear his faith. He was living on the Continent in 1576 but no further definite records of his career are avail- able.

Lee in Diet. Nat. Biog., XII, s. v.; Strtpe, Memorials, III, i, SO; Blomefield, Norfolk.

Thomas F. Meehan.

Cosmas (called Hagiopolites or Cosmas of Jeru- salem), a hymn-writer of the Greek Church in the eighth century, was the foster-brother of St. John of Damascus. The teacher of the two boys was an el- derly Silician, also named Cosmas, who had been freed from slavery by St. John's father. St. John and Cos- mas went from Damascus to Jerusalem, where both became monks in the monastery of St. Sabas near that city. Cosmas, however, left the monastery in 743, when he was appointed Bishop of Maiimia, the port of ancient Gaza on the southern coast of Phcenicia. The Greek Church observes his feast on 14 October. As a learned prose-author Cosmas wrote comments on the poems of Gregory of Nazianzus; as a poet he is re- garded by the Greek Church with great admiration. It considers Cosmas and St. John of Damascus the best representatives of the later Greek classical hym- nology, the most characteristic examples of which are the artistic liturgical chants known as "Canons". The hjnnns of Cosmas were originally intended to add to the interest of the services at Jerusalem, but through the influence of Constantinoijle their use be- came imiversal in the Orthodox Greek Church. It is not certain, however, that all the hJ^nns ascribed to Cosmas in the Greek liturgical books were really his compositions, especially as his teacher of the same name was also a hj-mn-writer. Collections of hymns, varying in number, are attributed to Cosmas, and may be found in Migne, P. G., XCVIII, 459-524, and in Christ- Paranikas, "Anthologia gra!ca carminum christianorum " (Leipzig, 1871), 161-204. For the above-mentioned notes or scholia on the poems of Gregory of Nazianzus see Mai, "Spicilegium Roma- num","ll, Pt. II, 1-375, and Migne, P. G., XXXVIII, 339-679.

Krumbacher, Gesch. der bysanlinischcn Literalur (2d ed., Munich, 1896), 674 sqq.

Anton Baumstark.

Cosmas and Damian, Saints, earlj' Christian phy- sicians and martyrs uhnse feast is celebrated on 27 ,'>ep- tember. They were tw ins, born in Arabia, and prac- tised the art of healing in the .seaport /J^gea, now Ayash (.\jass), on the Gulf of Iskanderun in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and attained a great rejjulation. They accepted no pay for their services and were, therefore, called d.vip-r\ipoi. "tlie silverless". In this way they brought many to the Christian F'aith. When the Dio- cletian persecution began, the Prefect Lysias had Cosmas and Damian arrested, and ordered them to re- cant. They remained constant imder torture, in a miraculous manner suffered no injury from water, fire, air, nor on the cross, and were finally beheaded with the sword. Their three brothers, Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius died as martjTS with them. The execution took place 27 September, probably in the year 287. At a later date a number of fables grew up about them, connected in part with their relics.