1921 MONASTERIUM NIRIDANUM 541 statements about the time at which the school first flourished are too vague to support any definite conclusion ; very likely it was not older than the fifteenth century. The early history of the church of Nardo is very obscure. It is said that there were Greek bishops, whose succession was interrupted, and that in the middle of the eighth century the church was occupied by Basilian monks who were expelled from Constantinople by the iconoclastic emperor, Constantine V. The only authority cited is a bull of Paul I preserved in the original in the archives of the see, dated on 4 September in the Fifteenth Indict ion, that is in 761. 1 An original bull of that date would be a unique discovery, and until it is produced I must decline to accept it. On the other hand, there is an antecedent probability that a monastery would be founded at a place of some consideration like Nardo, and if monks there were we need not doubt that they belonged to the eastern rite. It is said that in 1090 Urban II substituted Benedictine monks for them, but no precise reference is given for the statement. 2 In any case no evidence has been brought forward which would authorize us in carrying back the monastery at Nardo into the seventh century. 2. Leaving therefore Nardo out of account, I turn to a suggestion which has been favoured by many writers that the monasterium Niridanum was at Nisida, the ' little island • in the Bay of Naples, nearly over against Pozzuoli. This identification presumes that the information on which Bede relied was written in an insular handwriting, in which s and r are easily confounded ; so that Nisidanum was read Niridanum. The itacism in the first syllable is too familiar to call for comment, and the name has for centuries been spelled Nisida or Nisita. A change of accent has shortened the i in the second syllable. Nesis is known in classical times ; Cicero wrote one of his letters upon it, 3 and fortuna, postquam a Graecis prouincia ad Latinos transmigrauit, celebeirima Neriti hoc toto regno fuere literarum studia. Hanc urbem Sanseuerinorum familia armis et Uteris illustrauit. Temporibus patris mei ab omnibus huius regni prouinciis ad accipiendum ingenii cultum Neritum confluebat. Omnis, si qua est in toto terrarum angulo disciplina, a Nerito ortum habuit. Hie literas didicere ilia duo nostri seculi lumina, Robertus Lupiensis et Franciscus Neritinus : alter ecclesiasticorum declama- torum, omnium qui fuerunt, quique futuri sunt praestantissimus, alter Patauin^ Academie. pater. Hie et ego prima literarum fundamenta hausi.' Antonii Galatei Liciensis [of Lecce] Liber de Situ Iapygiae (Basle, 1558)> pp. 122 f. 1 See N. Coleti's addition to Ughelli, Italia sacra, i. 1039 (ed. Venice, 1717). Pietro Pompilio Rodota dates the Greek immigration from 741 : DeW Origine, Progresso e Stato presente del Rito Greco in Italia, i. 388-96 (Rome, 1758). He supposes that the school mentioned by Galateus arose subsequently to the time of Paul I, and that the monks supplied the citizens of Nardb with an accademia delle greche discipline. All this seems to be purely conjectural. 8 See G. Cappelletti, Le Chiese d' Italia, xxi. 463-9 (Venice, 1870). 3 Ad Atticum Epist. xvi. 1.
