DOMINIC OF SORA, ST.

Abbot; b. Foligno, Italy, 951; d. Sora, Campania, Italy, Jan. 22, 1031. As a child he was educated in the monastery of San Silvestro at Foligno, and later he was ordained there. He lived both as a hermit and as a cenobite: he was a monk at Pietra Dèmone, and then a hermit on a nearby mountain. He founded the monastery of San Salvatore at Scandriglia in 986, then retired to Mount Pizzi and built two other monasteries. Dominic sought solitude at Prato Cardoso, and at the request of the Counts of Valva, he founded San Pietro del Lago and San Pietro di Avellana, both of which shortly afterward passed under the jurisdiction of monte cassino. Dominic transferred his activity to the area of the lower Lazio and there built monasteries at Trisulti and at sora, where he became abbot. A famous wonderworker and devoted to the monastic ideal, he combated energetically the vices of clergy and people. He is buried at Sora, and canonical recognition of his relics was granted in 1951.

Feast: Jan. 22.

Bibliography: Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis (Brussels 1898–1901), 1:2241–46. Chronica monasterii casinensis 2.59, Monumenta Germaniae Scriptores (Berlin 1825–), 7:667–668. l. jacobilli, Vita di S. Domenico da Foligno (Foligno 1645). l. tosti, Della vita di S. Domenico abate (Sora 1877). a. lentini, "La Vita S. Dominici di Alberico Cassinese," Benedictina 5 (1951) 57–77; "S. D. S. e Montecassino: Su tre inni di S. D. abate," ibid., 185–199. a. m.. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige, 4 v. (Metten 1933–38) 1:114–117; 4:13. j. m. howe, Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons (Philadelphia 1997).

[a. lentini]