Gregorio Magno come fonte per l’agiografia umbra: la Passio sancti Herculani (BHL 3822-3824) tra Passionari e Omeliari

as Manlio Simonetti observed some years ago, Gregory the Great at the beginning of his pontificate made a first attempt of hagiographical narrative by composing the thirteen pieces of the Homiliae XL in Evangelia: it is the core of the future hagiographical collection expanded with the Dialogi. in fact, on the first and third chapters of this work, Gregory turns into a literary dimension (and so, into a new form of hagiographical monumentaliza- tion) a group of italic saints (including bishops, monks, hermits) celebrated at the time only through publica fama. this is the case of Herculanus, bishop of perugia and defensor civitatis, whose Passio, strengthened by a powerful Gregorian imprinting, results as a stratification of different versions, performed in order to suit different aims and circumstances. in all of its very plastic forms the Passio sancti Herculani episcopi reaches its real original stage in a newly conceived connection with the core of signa et mirabilia.