The Imprisonment and Freeing of Adeodato

St. Michael Altarpiece, Church of St. Nicholas, Burgos, Spain

A guidebook provided by the church identifies this segment of the altarpiece as the imprisonment and freeing of "St. Adeodato." There is no "St. Adeodato" in any of my sources, but an abbot listed in Watkins and in Delaney under the name "Deusdedit of Montecassino" is said to have been imprisoned for refusing to assign any of the monastery's funds for the poor to Prince Sicard of Benevento. His feast day is October 9; he died in 836. Apparently none of the other Deusdedits and Deusdatuses in my sources was ever in prison, but the identification remains problematic, because the young man with the big chalice in this image certainly does not look like an abbot. Perhaps the saint is the one standing on the right in each panel.

• Home Page
• This Picture

Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.