Veneration
His body may been buried by Bishop Florentius of Pesaro outside of the city, close to Caprile, which ancient documents call the Valle di S. Terenzio. Another tradition states that his body was buried by a local woman named Theodosia. His relics were then translated to the basilica of San Decenzio (now the Chiesa del Cimitero centrale) before being translated in the sixth century to the new cathedral at Pesaro by Bishop Felix of Pesaro.
The relics, placed inititally in a crypt, were transferred by Giovanni Benedetti in 1447 to a large altar in which the relics were placed in a wooden urn, on which the aforementioned painter Bellinzoni depicted Terence. The urn is now found at the Museo Civico, in Palazzo Toschi-Mosca, and the relics themselves were translated to a new urn in a new cathedral chapel inaugurated in 1909, where the following inscription can be found: .
As a soldier saint, Terence is considered to have appeared twice in times of crisis, the second vision occurring on 9 June 1793, in the times of the Cisalpine Republic, when Pesaro was besieged by French troops: a horseman appeared on the walls of the city, accompanied by a woman dispensing munitions. The vision terrified the French so much that they abandoned their siege. In gratitude, Terence was officially proclaimed patron of the city on 20 March 1802.
Terenzio's most famous figuration in art is his minor appearance—as a young soldier saint—in a predella panel of Giovanni Bellini's "Pesaro Altarpiece", The Coronation of the Virgin (ca. 1475–80); in it Terenzio, as the city's patron, holds a model representing the Nuova Rocca, or Fortezza Costanzo, the citadel of Pesaro newly rebuilt by Costanzo Sforza.
Read more about this topic: Terence Of Pesaro
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)