Abstract
Abstract The Catholic concept of “sanctity” can be thought of as a “cultural unit” (Eco) composed of a wide variety of “grounds” (Peirce) or distinctive features. The figures of individual saints, i.e., tokens of sanctity, are characterized by a particular set of grounds, organized and represented in texts of different genres. This paper presents a semiotic study of texts seeking to offer an encompassing view of “sanctity” by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. The analysis focuses on a seminal liturgical text, the Martyrologium Romanun (1584–2004), and the first official encyclopedia of saints, the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (1961–2013), as well as a sample of digital texts and media such as websites and mobile apps. While the first text offers a dogmatic perspective on sanctity and saintly figures and the second offers a historical and culturological one, websites succeed in reconciling the two paradigms into a single syncretic form of interactive fruition in which the more up-to-date encyclopedic model subsumes the traditional calendar one and, in the case of apps, adds a glocal dimension, enhancing situated cognition. The analysis shows that the introduction of the encyclopedic genre and subsequent proliferation of digital repertoires is connected to a shift in the Catholic “episteme” (Foucault) of sanctity and a growing tendency to consider saints as not (only) religious characters and objects of cult, but (also) as historical individuals and components of a culture and, consequently, as suitable objects of critical discourse.
Highlights
The Catholic concept of “sanctity” can be thought of as a “cultural unit” (Eco) composed of a wide variety of “grounds” (Peirce) or distinctive features
The analysis focuses on a seminal liturgical text, the Martyrologium Romanun (1584–2004), and the first official encyclopedia of saints, the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (1961–2013), as well as a sample of digital texts and media such as websites and mobile apps
The analysis shows that the introduction of the encyclopedic genre and subsequent proliferation of digital repertoires is connected to a shift in the Catholic “episteme” (Foucault) of sanctity and a growing tendency to consider saints as not religious characters and objects of cult, but () as historical individuals and components of a culture and, as suitable objects of critical discourse
Summary
Christians have perfected systems for organizing knowledge about the names and lives of the saints in order to preserve their memory and regulate the cults dedicated to them. Local communities soon produced both their first hagiographic narratives (vitae, legendae, passiones, historiae, miracula) and non-narrative texts such as their own lists of saints to be worshipped (e.g., Depositio Martyrum and Depositio Episcoporum; a list of martyrs and Popes worshipped in Rome, respectively, compiled around 354) and calendars. In these texts they usually indicated the day the saint died – his or her dies natalis, when the saint was “born” to heavenly life – and, should be remembered and celebrated. We trace the chronological development of the different genres; the first section is devoted to the analysis of the MR, the second to the BS, and the third to websites and apps while the conclusion develops a semiotic reflection on the epistemological elaboration of sanctity in the texts under consideration
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