L'apporto delle fonti martiniane alla storiografia della spiritualità cristiana aquileiese, incunabolo riscoperto del monachesimo occidentale fra i secoli III e V - Prispevek martinovih virov k zgodovinopisju oglejske krščanske duhovnosti, ponovno odkriti kot inkunabula zahodnega meništva med 3. in 5. stoletjem

Saint Martin of Savaria, the Bishop of Tours; testimony of the beginnings of the Occidental monasticism in the metropolis of Aquileia. A lot of research has been done on St. Martin, an important historical personality and extremely popular saint in Europe. Perhaps so much so that it takes away the courage to search for new perspec- tives that would modernise his portrait. Notwithstanding, I have ac- cepted the challenge and I am convinced the so-called Aquileian panorama bears fruit of the so far undiscovered view of this man. Insufficient attention is paid to Martin's birth in Pannonia, a region, which had a natural reference point for its Christian spirituality in Aquileia. When BishopTheodore planned and laid the astonishing mosaic carpet in the cathedral of Aquileia, Martin's childhood and early youth took piace in Sabaria (Szombathely), the piace where martyr Quirinus from Sisak had been burried. There, a wish sprang inside him very early on to follow Christ's call and he soon sensed a longing for a consecrated life in the Church, for an adventure of one of the free forms of monastic life. In a humble, painful, yet stubborn search of the sequela Christi personal cali, Martin ascended to a reachable ideai of living according to the gospel; he became a pioneer of western monasticism and a perfect saint bishop. Along with a better and better understanding of a character which is so well known it seems there is nothing more to add, one can clearly identify in the sources related to St. Martin traits of genuine testimonies of spirituality that flourished intensely in the Christian Aquileia of the 3rd and 4th century on the sound basis of church tradition. One cannot ignore the fact that this 'man full of God' formed as a person in the early years of his life in places, which fell under the missionary influence of Aq- uileia, and that he wanted to return to his homeland in his mature years. It was his homeland that gave birth to his cali to monastic life and Martin left his birthplace determined to put it into practice. There is no doubt that he - as other exiled 'Aquileian people' (Jerome, Rufinus, Venantius Fortunatus) - in certain aspects also remained the son of his homeland in far away places.