ROSSANO
203
ROSSI
COLGAN, Acta SS.; O'Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, 14
August; Olden in Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy (Jan.,
1884); Hbaly, Irelarid's Ancient Schools and Scholars (5th ed.,
Dublin, 1902).
John Healy.
Rossano, Archdiocese of (Rossanensis), in Calabria, province of Cosenza, Southern Italy. The city i>< situntcil nr\ ;in pminfiice not f;ir from tho Gulf
Illustration to St. Mark'.s Gospel
From the Rossano Codex,
the oldest known pictorial copy of a Gospel
of Taranto. It was the ancient Ro.scianum, a Roman colony, and was ravaged by Totile. The Saracens failed to conquer it. In 982 Otto II captured it tem- porarily from the Byzantines, who had made it the capital of their po.ssessions in Southern Italy. It pre- served its Greek character long after its conquest by the Normans. In the cathedral there is an ancient image of the "Madonna acheropita" (i. e. the " Ma- donna not made by hands"). Rossano was the birth- place of John Vil, the antipope John VII (Phil- agathus), St. \ilus, — founder of the Abbey of Grotta- ferrata, and St. Bartholomew, another abbot of that monaster}^ The first known bishop of this see is Valerianus, Bishop of the "Ecclesia Rosana" in the Roman Council of 680. Cappelletti, however, names a certain Saturninus as first bishop. In the tenth cen- tury, or perhaps earlier, the Greek Rite was intro- duced at Rossano, and continued until the sixteenth century, although two attempts were made to intro- duce the Latin Rite — once in 1092, and again by Bishop Matteo de' Saraceni in 1460. Priests of the Latin Rite, however, were often appointed bishops. The Greek Rite was maintained especially by the seven Basilian monasteries in the diocese, the most famous of which was S. Maria in Patiro. In 1571 the Greek Rite was abandoned in the cathedral, and half a century afterwards throughout the city. It is still observed in a few villages inhabited by Albanians. Noteworthy bishops were: Vincenzo Pimpinella (1525), nuncio in Germany; Giovanni Battista Cas- tagna (1553), afterwards Urban VII; Lucio Sanse- verino, founder of the seminary; Pier Antonio Spinelli (1628) and Jacopo Carafa (1646), both of
whom restored and embellished the cathedral. The
archdiocese is without suffragans. It includes the
ancient Diocese of Turio (Thurii), a city which arose
after the destruction of Sybaris; five of its bishops are
known, the first being Giovanni (501) and the last
Guglielmo (1170). Rossano has 39 parishes, 70,000
Catholics, 140 secular priests, 4 houses of nuns, and
3 schools for girls. For the famous "puri)le Codex
Rossanensis", discovered in 1879 in the cathedral
sac-risty, see Batiffol (below). This Greek parch-
ment manuscript of St. Matthew (to xvi, 14) and
St. Mark is the oldest pictorial Gospel known, and
is accorded by scholars various dates from the end
i)f the fifth to the eighth or ninth century; it is jn-ob-
alil\- of Alexandrine origin (ed. Gebhardt and Harnack,
1880; A. Munoz, Rome, 1907).
Cappelletti, Le Chiese d' Italia, XXI; De Rosis, Cenno storico delta cittd di Rossano (Naples, 1839) ; Rende, Cronistoria del Munastero di S. Maria in Patiro (Naples, 1747); Batiffol, L'abbaye de Rossano (Paris, 1891); Gay, Les diocises de Calabre a I'epoque byzantine (M&con, 1900). For the Codex Rossanen- sis, as above, see Kraus. Gesch. christl. Kunst (Freiburg, 1S96-7); KoNDAKOFF, Hist, de I'art byzantin, I (Pads, 1886), 114 sqq.
U. Benigni.
Rosselli, CosiMO (Lorenzo di Filippo), Itahan fres(o i)ainter, b. at Florence, 1439; d. there in 1.507. The master-works of this skilful artist are the four panels in the Sistine Chapel which he painted for Sixtus IV as a part of the decoration in that building. Va.sari tells us that they ijleased the pope more than the similar jianels l)y Ghirlandajo, Signorelli, Perug- ino, and Botticelli by rea.son of the glory of blue and gold which distinguished them, but is not existent now. The i)anels are skilfully comi)osed, marked by clever (Iraughtstnansliij), and harmonious in their colour scheme, but vastly inferior to the other panels in the same chapel. One is, therefore, more easily able to understand Va- sari's comment upon them, be- cause there must have been some reason to account for Rosselli being given so many panels. His re])u- tation rests more .securely on his close friendship with Benozzo Gozzoli and on the fact that amongst his pupils were Fra liartolommeo and Piero di Cosimo. Amongst his other works are three frescoes at Berlin, a very important one from Fiesole in the National Gallery, a fine ex-
CosiMO Rosselli
Portrait of himself introduced into
his Preaching of Christ,
Sistine Chapel
ample in Paris, and several at Florence, including one
in the Academy, and others in various churches.
Bktan, Diet, of Painters and Enqrarers, V (London, 1904), s. v.
George Charle.s Williamson.
Rossi, Bernardo de (de Rubeis, Giovanni Fran- cesco Bernardo Maria), theologian and historian; b. at Cividale del FriuH, 8 Jan., 1687; d. at Venice, 2 Feb., 1775. He made his religious profession with the Dominicans at Conegliano, 1704, after which he studied at Florence and Venice. He taught at Venice for fifteen years, and was twice general vicar of his province. In 1722 he was theologian to a Venetian embas.sy to Louis XV and remained in Paris five months. He resigned his chair in 1730 and de-
