Andreas Agnellus of

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

(/799 – after 846) was a historian of the bishops in his city. The date of his death is not recorded, although his history mentions the death of archbishop George of Ravenna in 846; Oswald Holder-Egger cites a papyrus charter dated to either 854 or 869 that contains the name of a priest named Andreas of the Church of Ravenna, but there is no evidence to connect him with Andreas Agnellus.

Life and writings

Though called Abbot, first of St. Mary of Blachernae, and, later, of St. Bartholomew, Andreas appears to have remained a secular priest, being probably only titular abbot of each abbey. He is best known as the author of the ''Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis'' (LPR), an account of the occupants of his native church, compiled on the model of the ''

Liber Pontificalis The ''Liber Pontificalis'' (Latin for 'pontifical book' or ''Book of the Popes'') is a book of biography, biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the ''Liber Pontificalis'' stopped with Pope Adr ...

'', a compilation of the lives of the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

s of Rome. The work survives in two manuscripts: one in the Biblioteca Estense in

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

, written in 1413; the other is in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

, written in the mid-16th century and breaks off in the middle of the life of Archbishop Peter II. Copies of Agnellus's lives of two saintly bishops of Ravenna, Severus and Peter Chrysologus, exist in independent traditions, copied into collections of saints' lives. The ''

editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

'' of the LPR was published in Modena by Benedetto Bacchini in 1708; a complete English translation of the LPR by Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis was published in 2004. The LPR begins with Saint Apollinaris and ends with Georgius, the forty-eighth archbishop (died 846). Though the work contains "unreliable material" according to the article on Agnellus in the ''

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

'', Thomas Shahan (the author of the article) states that the LPR is "a unique and rich source of information concerning the buildings, inscriptions, manners, and religious customs of Ravenna in the ninth century". Deliyannis notes that "two themes recur throughout the LPR: an anxiety for the rights of the clergy in the face of oppression by bishops, and a firm preference for the

autocephaly Autocephaly (; ) is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The status has been compared with t ...

of Ravenna, with a particular dislike of control of he archbishopric ofRavenna by the Roman pope". The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' further comments that "in his efforts to be erudite he often falls into unpardonable errors. The diction is barbarous, and the text is faulty and corrupt".

References

Bibliography

* Attribution *

External links

''Liber Pontificalis'', Holder-Egger ed. at LacusCurtius, with notes
* ttp://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/30_10_0805-0846-_Agnellus_(Andreas)_Ravennatensis.html Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes {{DEFAULTSORT:Agnellus, Andreas Writers from Ravenna 9th-century births 9th-century deaths 9th-century Italian historians 9th-century writers in Latin Writers from the Carolingian Empire

Life and writings

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links