Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/550

 542 MONASTERIUM NIRIDANUM October Pliny commends its asparagus. 1 It has been by a mistaken identification supposed to be the island which Constantine the Great is said to have granted to the church of Naples, and local writers assure us that Nisida belonged to the archbishop down to the sixteenth century. 2 But Bede speaks not only of a monastery in which Hadrian dwelt but also of a convent of nuns in the neighbourhood. 3 Neither of these houses is certainly attested, and the evidence which has been drawn from the Lives of two saints in all probability has no relation to Nisida. The Life of St. Patricia, a lady of Constantinople who lived in the middle of the seventh century under Constans II, has come down to us in two forms, and the age of neither has been ascer- tained. 4 One is said to be a translation from the Greek preserved in an imperfect Latin text ; 5 the other was written by Leo, priest of the church of SS. Nicander and Marcian at Naples. 6 The manuscripts of both are of modern date. The ' Greek ' Life relates that the saint when on a voyage was carried ad Neapolitanas oras, and as her death was approaching was taken 1 to a certain little island ' where the Body of our Lord was and is honoured, so that the place has taken from the church the name of Salvator. 7 The virgins who are mentioned appear to have been her attendants and do not necessarily imply the existence of a religious house. Leo in his Life speaks oi the monastery of the Saviour and mentions the fratres but not the virgins. 8 All this st6ry is extremely unsatisfactory. If there be any truth in it, it must refer, as we shall see and as the Bollandists long ago noted, not to Nisida but to the island of Megaris, afterwards made into a fortress by the Normans and now known as the Castello delP Ovo, which has become a part of the city of Naples. The second saint to whom I have alluded is Athanasius, archbishop of Naples, who lived in the ninth century. Of him also there are two biographies. The earlier one, by John the Deacon, forms a continuation of the Lives of the archbishops of Naples, which are contained in a fine uncial manuscript of about a. D. 800 in the Vatican Library (cod. 5007) ; John's part being 1 Hist. Nat. xix. 8, § 146. 2 Bart. Chioccarelli, Antistitum Neapol. Eccl. Catal., p. 322, Naples [1643] ; A. S. Mazochius, Dissert, hist, de Catkedr. Eccl. Neapol. variis Vicious, pp. 5, 216 Naples, 1751. 3 ' De vicino virginum monasterio ' : Hist. Eccl. iv. 1. 4 Acta Sanctorum, Aug. v. 201 B ,• see the Life by Leo, § 3, ibid. p. 216 a. Older writers, as Chioccarelli, pp. 36 f., placed the saint in the fourth century. 5 Act. SS., Aug. v. 210-15 ; cf. p. 200 c, d. 6 Ibid. pp. 215-19 ; cf. p. 200 d. 7 ' Fertur itaque in parvam quamdam insulam in qua venerabile corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi Salvatoris colebatur et colitur, sumens ipse locus denominationem ab ecclesia, Salvator nomine proprio appellatur : ' § 7, p. 212 d, e. 8 § 7, p. 216 E.