From This Ancient Monastery Comes, I Fancy, The Achiropita Image.
Montorio Will Tell You All About It; He Learnt Its History In June 1712
From The Local Archbishop, Who Had Extracted His Information Out Of The
Episcopal Archives.
Concerning another of these wonder-working
idols - that of S. M. del Patirion - you may read in the ponderous tomes
of Ughelli.
Whether the celebrated Purple Codex of Rossano ever formed part of the
library of Patirion has not yet been determined. This wonderful
parchment - now preserved at Rossano - is mentioned for the first time by
Cesare Malpica, who wrote some interesting things about the Albanian and
Greek colonies in Calabria, but it was only discovered, in the right
sense of that word, in March 1879 by Gebhardt and Harnack. They
illustrated it in their Evangeliorum Codex Graecus. Haseloff also
described it in 1898 (Codex Purpureus Rossanensis), and pointed out
that its iconographical value consists in the fact that it is the only
Greek Testament MS. containing pictures of the life of Christ before the
eighth-ninth century. These pictures are indeed marvellous - more
marvellous than beautiful, like so many Byzantine productions; their
value is such that the parchment has now been declared a "national
monument." It is sternly guarded, and if it is moved out of Rossano - as
happened lately when it was exhibited at Grottaferrata - it travels in
the company of armed carbineers.
Still pursued by the flock of women, I took to examining the floor of
this church, which contains tesselated marble pavements depicting
centaurs, unicorns, lions, stags, and other beasts.
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