Venantius Fortunatus composes a poem in celebration of the construction of the church of St. Andrew, built by a Vitalis, the bishop of Ravenna (most probably a laudatory nickname for Bishop Maximian).
Versus de templo domni Andreae quod aedificavit Vitalis episcopus Ravennaa
Quisquis ad haec sancti concurris limina templi,
si venias supplex, hic prece sumis opem.
Quam sacer antistisb Vitalis condidit arcem,
culmine quae celso est tempore ducta brevi.
Fundavit, struxit, dotavit, deinde dicavit,
et meruit templi solvere vota sui.
Quo veneranda pii requiescunt viscera Petri,
qui meruit solus clave ligare polos.
Paulus apostolica simul hac retinetur in aula,
seductor quondam qui modo doctor ovat.
Hanc sacer Andreas propriam sibi vindicat arcem,
et cum fratre pio participata regit.
Haec sua tecta replet Laurentius igne sereno,
cui pia flamma dedit luce perennic diem:
Vitali domus ista placet, qui vivus harenis,
defossus meruit perdere mortis iter.
Sunt loca Martini qui texit veste tonantem:
ne magis algeret, se spoliare dedit.
Ecce Vigili arx est quem rustica turba peremit,
unde mori voluit, mors magis ipsa fugit.
Incolit haec pariter Marturius atque Sisennus,
quos genus atque fides et tenet una salus.
Sanctus Alexander felixque Cicilia pollent,
quos mentesd omnes una corona manet.
Haec bonus antestise Vitale urguente Iohannes
condidit egregio viscera sancta loco.
Omniumf felix, aeternum in lumen iture,
cuius vita suo proficit ista Deo!
a) sic B: pro Ravennatis seu Ravennae seu Ravennas; Ravennensis ed. Leo. b) sic B: pro antistes. c) sic B: pro perenne. d) sic B: meritis ed. Leo. e) sic B: pro antistes. f) sic B: pro O nimium, sicut ed. Leo.
Michael Roberts, Poems: Venantius Fortunatus, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 46 (Cambridge, MA 2017), pp. 15-17.
Another poem by Venantius Fortunatus dedicated to the deeds of the mysterious bishop Vitalis of Ravenna, see the discussion on the identification of this Vitalis here. In summary, he is most probably either the same person as Bishop Maximian of Ravenna or Bishop Vitalis of Altino.
The poem depicts Bishop Vitalis as the man behind the construction of the church of St. Andrew, from grounds up. The church of St. Andrew in Ravenna, however, was not built but only renovated by Maximian and this is one of the counterarguments against the "Ravennate thesis" (marked as n. 1 here).
The bonus antistes Iohannes mentioned in the poem cannot be properly identified. According to the "Istrian thesis" of the provenance of bishop Vitalis (marked as n. 4 here), this John would be the bishop of Cissa, the mysterious bishopric of Istria, who built, together with Vitalis, the church of St. Andrew in Betiga; needless to say, this interpretation is extremely conjectural.
The image of the manuscript is taken from the official web pages of Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
The editor has subsequently marked the manuscript with a red line simply to denote the part that is hereby edited.
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