The Oratory of the Forty Martyrs in the Roman Forum

The original day for the feast of the Forty Martyrs, who were killed at Sebaste in Armenia under the Roman Emperor Licinius, around 320 AD, is March 9th. They were a group of soldiers of the Twelfth Legion who refused to renounce the Faith, and after various tortures, were condemned to die a particularly horrible death, stripped naked and left to freeze on the ice of a frozen lake. Their feast is still kept on this day, and with great solemnity, in the East, but in the West, they were moved forward to the 10th after the canonization of St Frances of Rome, who died on the same day in 1440.

A 10-century ivory relief icon of the Forty Martyrs, made in Constantinople, now in the Bodemuseum in Berlin. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the sixth century, Italy was wracked by a series of devastating wars fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic kings for control of the peninsula. A series of new churches dedicated to Greek soldier Saints was then constructed in Rome, which was the focus of much of the fighting, on sites associated with the city’s political history, a way of presenting the Byzantine Emperor and his armies as both the liberators of the city and the preservers of its history and tradition. St George in Velabro, from which one could see the site on the Palatine Hill where Romulus founded Rome, is followed by St Theodore, barely an eighth of a mile away. An oratory dedicated to the Forty Martyrs was then made out of a building of the early 2nd century, less than a tenth of a mile from St Theodore. From there, it was a short walk across the Forum to the ancient senate house known as the Curia Julia (originally built by Julius Caesar, but reconstructed after a fire by Diocletian in the 280s), transformed into a church dedicated to St Adrian. Right next to it was built another small oratory, now demolished, dedicated to Ss Sergius and Bacchus; its bell-tower was perched on top of one of the Forum’s most prominent landmarks, the Arch of Septimius Severus.

In 847, a massive landslide off the Palatine, caused by an earthquake, buried the Oratory of the Forty Martyrs, along with the nearby church of Santa Maria Antiqua, and both structures were abandoned and forgotten about. The Oratory was not rediscovered until 1901 during an excavation campaign in the Forum, which lies well within the Tiber’s flood plain, and was deeply buried. A fair amount of fresco work remains within the building; although none of it is in particularly good condition, there is enough to get a sense of what it originally would have looked like.

The martyrdom of the Forty, depicted in the apse, which was added to the original structure to transform it into an oratory. On the right is seen a defector leaving their company, whose place was taken by one of their guards.

The Forty Martyrs glorified in heaven.

The remains of a band of decoration to the left of the apse.

Remains of the decorations to the right of the apse.

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Roman Sacrament Altars 2024

One of the contributors to our station churches series this year, Fr Joseph Koczera, SJ, has kindly shared with his photographs of a few of the altars of repose in Roman churches; not a large number, because he spent most of the evening of Holy Thursday at the church of the Pontifical Russian College, for the Matins of the Twelve Gospels, one of the longest and most beautiful ceremonies in the Byzantine Rite.

Here we see the church of the Russicum, as it usually called, on one of the first days of Holy Week.

An icon of the Man of Sorrows is set up in the middle of the church, of the type known as the Bridegroom, from the opening words of the troparion of Matins: Behold the Bridegroom cometh in the midst of the night, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is he whom He shall find heedless. Take care, therefore, oh my soul, lest thou be borne down with sleep, lest thou be given up to death, and be shut out of the kingdom; but rouse thyself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou O God. Through the Mother of God, have mercy on us!

On the evening of Holy Thursday, this large cross is set in the middle of the church, and a Gospel book placed in front of it. At the Matins of Good Friday, which is very often anticipated to this evening, Twelve Gospel accounts of the Passion are added to the usual order of the service.

Although churches of the Byzantine Rite do not make an altar of the repose, the church remains open until midnight, as do the Roman Rite churches.

Santa Maria Maggiore is right down the street.

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St Frances of Rome

March 9th is the feast of St Frances of Rome, who died on this day in the year 1440. She was born into a wealthy and noble Roman family in 1384, and felt called to the religious life at a very young age, but yielding to her parents’ wishes, agreed to be married to a young nobleman named Lorenzo Ponziano when she was only thirteen. Taking up residence in her in-laws’ palazzo, she soon discovered a kindred spirit in her sister-in-law Vannozza. The two young wives became close friends, and began to live a kind of common religious life, insofar as this was compatible with their station, eschewing the rich dress typical of women of their class, dedicating themselves to the poor, and tending the sick in the great hospital of Rome, Santo Spirito in Sassia in the Borgo, near St Peter’s. Unlike many other devout women in similar positions, they had their husbands’ complete support in this way of life, despite the reservations of their mother-in-law.

The Virgin and Child with Saints Benedict and Frances of Rome, 1468, by Antonio di Benedetto Aquilo degli Aquili (ca. 1430 – ca. 1510), commonly known as Antoniazzo Romano. St Benedict is shown in the white habit of the Olivetan monks, to which the congregation founded by St Frances was affiliated; Frances herself is shown with an angel, for reasons which are explained below. ~ This fresco is one part of a large cycle which shows many of the major events of Frances’ life, in a room of the oldest part of the religious house which she founded. The building is only open to the public each year on her feast day, and the following Sundays of March, and photography is strictly forbidden, which is why very few pictures of the cycle are available on the internet. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The first of Frances’ three children, a boy named Battista, was born in 1400, when she was 16; two others would follow, a boy named Evangelista, and a girl named Agnes. (None of these names were unusual at the time, but it is interesting that her children should be named for the two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist, who share the title of the cathedral of Rome, and the most prominent among the great Roman female martyrs.) The following year, upon her mother-in-law’s death, her father-in-law made her the head of the household, a position which would normally have fallen to Vannozza as the wife of the older brother. His choice was fully vindicated not only by her excellent administration, but also by the great charity with which she treated all her charges, both family and servants; but in the midst of all her duties, she was always first and foremost an exemplary and devoted wife.

St Frances heals a mortally wounded young man. (Part of the fresco cycle described above.)

Although the household she had married into was peaceful and prosperous, Italy in the early 15th century was not, wracked by civil wars, and the famines and plagues that often resulted from the constant unrest. Rome suffered in particular from the disturbances brought about by the Great Schism of the West, which drew the popes out of the city for long stretches of time, with bad effects on its governance. When the plague came to the city, Frances and Vannozza emptied the supplies of the house to assist them, then sold off their jewels and fancy clothes, and finally went begging on behalf of the poor, earning the sharp disdain of some among the nobility for whom social position held greater importance than Christian duty.

The Ponziano family had always been leading supporters of the legitimate line of popes, the successors of Urban VI. In 1408, the city was taken by mercenaries in the pay of Ladislaus, the king of Naples, a supporter of the antipopes, and in an ensuing disturbance, Lorenzo was stabbed, although not fatally, while his older brother Paluzzo, Vannozza’s husband, was taken prisoner. Ladislaus’ troops withdrew, but returned two years later, and Lorenzo was forced to flee the city, leaving his family behind. His palazzo and countryside possessions were ransacked, and many of the peasants on his land murdered; Battista was taken captive, but soon managed to escape and reach his father. Frances and her two younger children, and Vannozza, whose husband was still a prisoner, were now reduced to living in just a small part of the house that remained habitable, but still found ways and means to care for those even worse off than themselves.

A sculpted medallion of St Frances with her angel on the outside of the Tor de’ Specchi monastery in Rome; image from Wikimedia Commons by Deb Nystrom, CC BY 2.0.

Three years later, Evangelista died during another outbreak of plague. After a year, he appeared in a vision to his mother as she was praying, accompanied by an angel, to tell her that Agnes would soon die as well. However, Frances was to receive a special consolation for this, which has given rise to the traditional manner of depicting her in art. The angel was to remain with her as her guardian, and be constantly visible to her alone. Agnes did indeed pass away soon thereafter, and from the moment of her death, the angel was always with St Frances; it would disappear only when she had committed a sin, and return as soon as she confessed it.

In 1414, there began the Council of Constance, which would put an end to the Great Schism. Lorenzo was able to return to Rome and regain his property, and Frances returned to her duties as the head of the house. However, the city remained very unsettled, much of it in ruins, and with many poor and dispossessed persons in need of care. Frances devoted herself to the needy as before; a very considerable number of miracles, diligently recorded in the acts of her canonization process, are attributed to her from this period of her life, including more than sixty miraculous healings.

The Tor de’ Specchi monastery complex.

On the feast of the Assumption in 1425, she officially founded a religious community for women, according to a plan that she had long been forming. Much like the women called “beguines” in the Low Countries, the members did not take vows, although they were affiliated to the Benedictines, but simply lived in common and served the poor. They were originally known as the Oblates of Mary, but the name was later changed to the Oblates of Tor de’ Specchi (tower of the mirrors), from the name of the building which they took as their residence. (This derives from a late medieval legend that on top of a tall tower nearby, which no longer exists, the ancient Romans had a room full of magic mirrors which they used to spy on their provinces and make sure that no one was plotting to rebel against them.)

Frances spent as much time with this community as her familial duties permitted, and after Lorenzo’s death in 1436, entered it herself. She had always refused to be called the foundress, but as soon as she took up permanent residence within the house, the superior resigned in her favor. Less than four years later, Frances died while visiting her son at the family home, having lived the last years of her life in the greatest austerity. (The breviary notes that her confessor had to order her to moderate her mortifications.) Her body was taken to Santa Maria Nuova, the Roman church of the Olivetan Benedictines, where her congregation of oblates had a burial chapel. This church is now generally known as Santa Francesca Romana, since her relics have been exposed for veneration in its crypt since at least the time of her canonization in 1608.

The confessio of the basilica of Santa Francesca Romana, built between 1638 and 1649 on a design by the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Saint’s relics are immediately behind this in the crypt, which can be seen through the grills to either side. Bernini’s original sculptures of St Frances and the angel were destroyed during the Napoleonic occupation of Rome, in 1798; the replacements seen here were made by Giosuè Meli in 1866. (This image and the one below from Wikimedia Commons by Kent Wang, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

The chief patron Saints of Rome are, of course, the Apostles Peter and Paul, together with St Lawrence, but Frances has long been honored as a secondary patron, together with St Philip Neri. With the coming of the motor age, the custom emerged that the Romans, who fully deserve their reputation as terrible drivers, would bring their cars to her church to be blessed. The joke has often been repeated that she was chosen for this role because she had great power over demons, and the Romans all drive like they are possessed.

From the archives of the Italian film company Istituto Luce: “The traditional blessing of vehicles on the day of the patron, Saint Frances of Rome, has gathered together before the Colosseum more than 700 private cars, flanked by buses of the governorate (of Rome), tourist buses, automobiles of the police service, and military vehicles. The blessing was imparted by His Eminence Cardinal (Enrico) Sibilia, titular of the basilica of St Frances of Rome.” (In point of fact, the cardinalitial title of the church has always been officially under its old name, Sancta Maria Nova; it is currently held by Péter Cardinal Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary.)

The Feast of St Aloysius Gonzaga in Rome

Each year on June 21st, the Jesuit church of St Ignatius in Rome opens the rooms where St Aloysius Gonzaga lived and studied while he was at the Roman College up to the public. (These rooms can be visited throughout the year, and priests can say Mass in them, but an appointment must be made first.) The church of St Ignatius was the first to be named for the Jesuit founder, and begun shortly after his canonization in 1622; the project was financed by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew to one of the College’s more prominent alumni, Pope Gregory XV. Although he reigned for only two years and five months, Pope Gregory had the honor of canonizing, at a single ceremony, Ss Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Theresa of Avila, Philip Neri, and Isidore of Madrid, generally known as Isidore the Farmer. (The Romans joked at the time that the Pope had canonized four Spaniards and a Saint.) The church was not intended to receive the relics of its titular Saint, which still repose in the Order’s mother church, the Gesù, but rather to serve as the chapel for the 2,000 students enrolled in the Roman College by the beginning of the 17th century. Of the sixteen Popes who reigned from the accession of Gregory XV in 1622 to the suppression of the Society in 1773, half were alumni of the College.

St Aloysius died on June 21, 1591 at the age of 23, after receiving the Last Rites from his spiritual director, St Robert Bellarmine. He had come to the Roman College to begin his studies for the priesthood after completing the novitiate at the church of St Andrew on the Quirinal Hill. With the permission of his superiors, he was allowed to attend to those who had already recovered from the plague in one of the Roman hospitals, but wound up contracting it himself, and although he did not die immediately, was fatally weakened. Among the still-extant rooms of the Roman College which he knew were a common room with a chapel next to it, the very chapel in which he made his first vows in the Order after the novitiate, on November 25, 1587. Over time, the rooms have been decorated, and two more chapels built; collectively, the three are known as the “Cappellette (Little Chapels) di San Luigi.” His relics were formerly kept in one of them, but now repose in the magnificent Lancellotti chapel in the south transept of St Ignatius. Another of the cappellette formerly housed the relics of another youthful Jesuit saint, John Berchmans (1599-1621), but he has also been moved into the main church, opposite St Aloysius in the north transept.

The altar of the Lancellotti Chapel, which contains the relics of St Aloysius; in the reredos, St Aloysius in Glory, by Pierre le Gros.

The altar of St John Berchmans, in the transept directly opposite; he was a Jesuit seminarian from Flanders, and like Aloysius, was seen by his superiors as one of the most promising seminarians in the order, but died in Rome when he was only 22, before he could be ordained. He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1888.

In 1923, the relics of St Robert Bellarmine were placed in this altar, which is dedicated to St Joachim, immediately next to St Aloysius’.

The courtyard of the Roman College, seen from the roof of the church of St Ignatius. The rooms of St Aloysius and the cappellette are within the lighter-colored part of the building in the upper right of this photograph. With the fall of the Papal State in 1870, the Roman College was seized from the Jesuits by the Italian government and transformed into a public high school.

The Jesuit Fr Angelo Secchi, one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century, and the discoverer of astronomic spectroscopy, worked in and ran this observatory tower during his long and illustrious career; craters on both the Moon and Mars are named after him.

The entrance to the Saint’s room, now transformed into a chapel. (Kudos to the celebrant for ignoring the table.)

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Interesting Saints on May 25th: Rome, Florence and Milan

For most of the Roman Rite’s history, since at least the later 8th century, May 25th has been the feast of St Urban I, who was Pope from 222 to 230. As with many sainted bishops of the early centuries, very little is known about him. His election and his death are mentioned in passing by Eusebius of Caesarea in book six of his Ecclesiastical History; it is by no means certain that he actually died as a martyr, though he is titled so in the liturgical books. The Martyrology confuses him with a martyr named Urban and states that he was buried on the via Nomentana, which runs out of Rome to the north-east. In point of fact, he was buried in a crypt shared by several other Popes in the catacomb of Callixtus on the Via Appia, which runs to the south-east; his burial inscription was discovered when the catacomb was explored in the 19th century.

St Urban I Converts St Valerian; 1505-6, attributed to Giovanni Maria Chiodarolo and Cesare Tamaroccio. This is the second of ten panels depicting the legend of St Cecilia in an oratory dedicated to her in Bologna. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Breviary states that he converted a great many persons, among them, St Valerian, the betrothed of St Cecilia, and his brother Tibertius. In Cecilia’s Passion, St Urban plays a prominent role, and just as many of the legendary details about him come from these acts, so too, their popularity accounts for the perpetuation of devotion to him outside of Rome. On their wedding night, Cecilia reveals to Valerian that she has consecrated herself to God, and states that she is protected by an angel; Valerian wishes to see the angel, but she tells him this is impossible unless he gets baptized. She therefore sends him to find Pope Urban, who is hiding out in the catacombs; once he is baptized, returns, and sees the angel, he expresses no other wish than that his brother should also be saved, and so he sends Tiburtius off to Pope Urban as well. Eventually, all four of them are martyred.

The next panel in the series: Pope Urban Baptizes Valerian. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

On May 25th, 1607, St Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi died at the age of 41, after a quarter of a century as a member of the Carmelite monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in her native Florence. Her life was one of very great sufferings, both physical and spiritual, and voluntary mortifications, accompanied, as such things so often are, by the most extraordinary graces, including many healings, visions and prophecies. (She predicted to the archbishop of Florence, Alessandro de’ Medici, that he would become Pope, but only very briefly; he reigned as Leo XI for 27 days in April of 1605.) Her incorrupt body is now in the church of a monastery named for her, located about three miles north of Florence.

St Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi Having a Vision of the Risen Christ and the Virgin Mary, by the Spanish painter Pedro de Moya (1601-74). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. 

Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi also has the distinction of being the first Saint to be canonized under the procedures definitively established by the seventh (and thus far last) namesake of Pope Urban. (See Mary Maddalena de’ Pazzi: The Making of a Counter-Reformation Saint, by Clare Copeland, Oxford, 2006). Her canonization was done jointly with that of St Peter of Alcantara, the confessor of St Theresa of Avila, by Pope Clement X in 1669, and her feast set on her day of death, with Urban I reduced to a commemoration.

As an interesting aside, her family name, which means “of the crazies”, is traditionally said to come from an ancestor who participated in the First Crusade, Pazzo di Ranieri, and was the first man over the walls of Jerusalem during the great siege of 1099. There is a charming story that he brought flintstones which he had taken from the Holy Sepulcher back to Florence, and for many years, these were used to make the new fire for the Easter vigil at the cathedral.

The coat of arms of the Pazzi family, made in terracotta (whence the protective net over it) by Luca della Robbia, and mounted on the inside of the cupola of the family’s chapel at the Franciscan basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence, 1442-3. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

In 1728, Pope Benedict XIII decided to add Pope St Gregory VII to the general calendar, placing him on the anniversary of his death, which took place on May 25th, 1085; St Mary Magdalene was therefore moved forward to May 27th. However, in 1900, Pope Leo XIII declared St Bede the Venerable, who died on May 26th, 735, to be a Doctor of the Church, and added him to the general calendar. Since his death date was already occupied by St Philip Neri, Bede was placed on the 27th, and Mary Magdalene moved again, to the 29th. (In the post-Conciliar Rite, Gregory VII, Bede and Mary Magdalene are all on May 25th as optional memorials, and Pope Urban has been abolished.)

As we live through the death spasms of the post-Conciliar revolution, there are many eras of the Church’s history to which we can look back for encouragement, and one of these is the one that gave us St Gregory VII. In the 10th century (the first to produce not a single sainted or blessed Pope), and the first half of the 11th, the Church had been thoroughly compromised by simony and lay control of ecclesiastical offices, with all the evils that attend them: moral corruption, financial corruption, and a placid indifference to the things of God. But it is truly often darkest before the dawn, and the beginning of the 10th century also saw the foundation of the abbey of Cluny, the spearhead of reforms that would see these vices thoroughly repudiated by the end of the 11th century, and largely extirpated over the course of the 12th.

Gregory VII was not the first Pope of this great reform movement, which captured the papacy, so to speak, in 1049, in the person of St Leo IX. But as the breviary lessons for his feast rightly note, he was one of the most important counselors and lieutenants of the reforming Popes, and it is fitting that the movement which he and they represented is sometimes called “the Gregorian reform” after him. On the death of Alexander II in 1073, he was elected by acclamation, which has happened only six other times in the Church’s history. (By a curious coincidence, four of the Popes thus elected were named Gregory, including the Great.) Having been driven by force from his see for his resistance to the importunities of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, he died at Salerno in 1085, saying, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity (Ps. 44, 8); therefore, I die in exile.” His body still rests there, in the cathedral which also has the relics of its titular Saint, the Apostle Matthew, and which he consecrated the year before his death.

The relics of Pope St Gregory VII, in his chapel within the cathedral of St Matthew in Salerno. The words of Psalm 44 quoted above are written along the bottom edge of the casket. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by NicFer, CC BY-SA 3.0)

A full view of the chapel. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Adert, CC BY-SA 4.0) 

Of course, the motto “Ecclesia semper reformanda – the Church is always in need of reform” exists for a reason. At the time of his canonization in 1728, lay control of the Church had resurfaced in various ways, more subtle than those which he and his contemporaries fought against, and particularly in France. Pope Benedict XIII added his feast to the general calendar partly in protest against these encroachments, which were greatly exacerbated by the controversies over the teachings of Cornelius Jansen and his supporters.

This gave rise to one of the most curious episodes in the history of the Church’s liturgy. The statement that Pope Gregory remained fearless in the face of “the wicked attempts of the emperor Henry”, who is later described as “iniquus – unjust”, was taken by the civil parliament of France as “an impeachment of the liberties (sic) of the Gallican church and the King’s Majesty.” (Batiffol, History of the Roman Breviary, p. 258 footnote). The parliament therefore ordered the suppression of the feast throughout France, and forbade the publication of the breviary supplement that contained it. The feast of St Gregory was not adopted in France until the 19th century, when “the liberties of the Gallican church” had been swept away, along with the would-be autarchic state that invented them. (Similar controversies arose in the kingdom of Naples, the Low Countries, and the Austrian empire under one of its very worst rulers, Joseph II.)

As a Florentine, St Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi would have kept the day of her eventual death not as the feast of St Urban I, but of one of her city’s principal patrons (alongside St John the Baptist), the bishop St Zenobius. He is said to have been a friend of St Ambrose, and among the miracles attributed to him is the raising from the dead of a group of children who were run over by a cart while playing near the cathedral. He had the good fortune to be bishop of a city that would later be ground zero of the Renaissance, and is thus immortalized in countless artworks, but it must be admitted that there is no contemporary source that mentions him, and the earliest written account of his life dates from 700 years after his death.

Episodes of the Life of St Zenobius, 1500-5 ca. by Sandro Botticelli. From left to right: he rejects the marriage arranged for him by his parents; his baptism; the baptism of his mother; his consecration as bishop of Florence by Pope St Damasus I. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

Further north in Italy, the Ambrosian church today celebrates one of its early bishops, St Dionysius, whose career is much better documented. In 355, four years after he succeeded to the see of Milan, the Emperor Constantius, who kept his capital there, called a synod to condemn St Athanasius for his defense of Nicene orthodoxy. It is highly significant that it was held in the palace, and not in a church.

An aspect of the Arian crisis which is often overlooked is that many bishops in the West understood little to nothing about the controversy, and little to nothing of what was said about it by others, whether in Greek (which most of them did not speak) or Latin. (St Hilary of Poitiers, an ardent champion of Nicene orthodoxy, famously stated that he had been a bishop for 20 years before he had even heard of the Council of Nicaea.) It was easy enough to misrepresent St Athanasius’ teaching to them, and convince them to condemn him as a dangerous heretic, and Dionysius was such a one. However, when Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia, arrived at the synod, he was able to explain to Dionysius why Athanasius was correct, and Constantius the real heretic. Having thus been persuaded, and withdrawn his condemnation, he refused to yield to all further attempts of the Emperor to threaten or convince him. Both bishops were banished from Italy, as was another defender of orthodoxy and Athanasius, St Eusebius of Vercelli. St Dionysius ended his days in exile in Cappadocia, dying about 5 years later. The Arian bishop who replaced him, Auxentius, was succeeded in 374 by St Ambrose (elected, like Gregory VII, by popular acclamation), who would later receive Dionysius’ relics back to Milan, sent by St Basil the Great.

The relics of St Dionysius, in the cathedral of Milan. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by A ntv, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Ambrosian Missal has this preface for his feast, which celebrates his confession of faith.

Truly it is worthy… Almighty God, and not to keep silent the confession of Thy holy priest Dionysius, who could not be moved from the righteousness of his stance by the wickedness of the heretics, or the allures of this world, but in challenge to both, as one who proclaimed the truth, he did not depart from the steadfastness of Thy Faith. And therefore, we pay him the service of due honor, since in his solemn feast, o Lord, we proclaim the might of Thee, by whose grace he was such.

The Oratory of the Forty Martyrs in the Roman Forum

The original day for the feast of the Forty Martyrs, who were killed at Sebaste in Armenia under the Roman Emperor Licinius, around 320 AD, is March 9th. They were a group of soldiers of the Twelfth Legion who refused to renounce the Faith, and after various tortures, were condemned to die a particularly horrible death, stripped naked and left to freeze on the ice of a frozen lake. Their feast is still kept on this day, and with great solemnity, in the East, but in the West, they were moved forward to the 10th after the canonization of St Frances of Rome, who died on the same day in 1440.

A 10-century ivory relief icon of the Forty Martyrs, made in Constantinople, now in the Bodemuseum in Berlin. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the sixth century, Italy was wracked by a series of devastating wars fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic kings for control of the peninsula. A series of new churches dedicated to Greek soldier Saints was then constructed in Rome, which was the focus of much of the fighting, on sites associated with the city’s political history, a way of presenting the Byzantine Emperor and his armies as both the liberators of the city and the preservers of its history and tradition. St George in Velabro, from which one could see the site on the Palatine Hill where Romulus founded Rome, is followed by St Theodore, barely an eighth of a mile away. An oratory dedicated to the Forty Martyrs was then made out of a building of the early 2nd century, less than a tenth of a mile from St Theodore. From there, it was a short walk across the Forum to the ancient senate house known as the Curia Julia (originally built by Julius Caesar, but reconstructed after a fire by Diocletian in the 280s), transformed into a church dedicated to St Adrian. Right next to it was built another small oratory, now demolished, dedicated to Ss Sergius and Bacchus; its bell-tower was perched on top of one of the Forum’s most prominent landmarks, the Arch of Septimius Severus.

In 847, a massive landslide off the Palatine, caused by an earthquake, buried the Oratory of the Forty Martyrs, along with the nearby church of Santa Maria Antiqua, and both structures were abandoned and forgotten about. The Oratory was not rediscovered until 1901 during an excavation campaign in the Forum, which lies well within the Tiber’s flood plain, and was deeply buried. A fair amount of fresco work remains within the building; although none of it is in particularly good condition, there is enough to get a sense of what it originally would have looked like.

The martyrdom of the Forty, depicted in the apse, which was added to the original structure to transform it into an oratory. On the right is seen a defector leaving their company, whose place was taken by one of their guards.

The Forty Martyrs glorified in heaven.

The remains of a band of decoration to the left of the apse.

Remains of the decorations to the right of the apse.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Feast of St. Leo the Great at the Vatican

I am traveling today, and will be attending a conference until the middle of next week, so I won’t have much time for writing for the next few days. Given yesterday’s appalling news from Rome, I thought it might be encouraging to remember some happier times for the See of Peter; this post was originally made in 2010. Sed multa renascentur quae jam cecidere!

On the calendar of the Ordinary Form of Roman Rite, November 10 is the feast of Pope St Leo I, who died on this day in the year 461; his reign of slightly more than 21 years is the tenth longest in the history of the Papacy, and certainly one of the most important. His relics are in one of the altars of the Basilica of St. Peter, which faithfully maintains the tradition of decorating the various side altars on the feasts of the Saints to whom they are dedicated.

Over the altar stands this extraordinary relief sculpture of Pope Leo putting Attila the Hun to flight, one of the last works of Alessandro Algardi, a great rival of Bernini.

The altar itself is decorated with a beautiful frontal on the feast day; the altar rail is decorated with flowers, and candles are kept burning on it all day.

Immediately to the left of the altar of Pope Leo stands the altar of the Madonna of the Column, a votive image painted on one of the columns of the Constantinian Basilica of St Peter. In the process of tearing down the ancient church and rebuilding, the section of the column with the fresco of the Virgin and Child was saved, and later mounted within this altar. The relics of the Sainted Popes Leo II (682-83), Leo III (795-816) and Leo IV (874-855) are housed within the altar, which is also dedicated to them.

Their relics are inside an ancient sarcophagus which was found within the ruins of the old basilica during the rebuilding process. This sarcophagus can be partially seen through the metal grill in the permanent altar frontal added in the later part of the 18th century.

In the floor immediately in front of St Leo I lies the tomb of Pope Leo XII, who reigned from 1823 to 1829. The inscription reads, “I, Leo XII, commending myself as a humble suppliant and follower of Leo the Great, my heavenly patron, have chosen the place of my burial here, close to his sacred remains, the least heir of so great a name.”

The Grave of St Peter and the Ancient Vatican Basilica

Here are a couple of interesting things I recently stumbled across about the grave of St Peter and the basilica originally built over it by the Emperor Constantine in 320s. The first video gives a detailed explanation of each archeological phase of the site, from the original burial to the time of the first church’s construction. The site was rediscovered by excavations that began after the death of Pope Pius XI in February of 1939, when his tomb was being installed in the Vatican grottos. Workman accidentally broke through the floor, revealing open spaces underneath it whose existence was until that point unknown.

The second video is a “sketch” made with a modern architect’s model-drawing program, which shows how the ancient basilica would have been built step-by-step. (A lot of time is devoted to the large courtyard in front of the basilica.)

This video, which I have shared before, gives a good sense of the interior, although not of the decorations.

Abp Sample Celebrates Candlemas with the FSSP in Rome

This past Sunday, on the feast of the Purification, the Fraternity of St Peter’s Roman parish, Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, welcomed His Excellency Alexander Sample, Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, for the celebration of a Solemn Pontifical Mass. Our thanks to the parish for sharing these photos with us.

After he has been received at the door of the church, the bishop traditionally goes to pray at the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, before going to the sacristy to vest.

Our favorite Roman pilgrim Agnese, wearing the habit of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Trinity.

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Solemn Mass Wednesday at the Angelicum in Rome

The Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome, commonly known as the Angelicum, will hold a solemn Mass on Wednesday, the feast of Pope St Damasus I, starting at 12:30 pm, in the church of Ss Sixtus and Dominic, which is next to the university and administered by the Dominican Fathers. As a reminder, there are also four low Masses celebrated in the church every week, Monday and Wednesday in the Dominican Rite, Tuesday and Thursday in the Roman Rite, with confessions also available during Mass times. (This schedule is contingent on the schedules of the celebrating clergy, and may change with the next semester.)

Upcoming Solemn Masses in Rome

The Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome, commonly known as the Angelicum, will hold two solemn Mass within the next few days: tomorrow, the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, in the Roman Rite, and Monday, the feast of St Catherine of Alexandria, in the Dominican Rite. (St Catherine is traditionally honored as the Patron Saint of philosophers and theologians, and was therefore held in particular veneration by the scholarly Dominican Order, which kept her feast with an octave until 1923.) Both Masses will be celebrated in the church of Ss Sixtus and Dominic, which is next to the university and administered by the Dominican Fathers, and begin at 12:30 pm.

In addition, this semester, the two regular weekly Masses in the traditional Rite have now been upped to four, Monday through Thursday at 12:30 pm, alternating between the Dominican and Roman Rites, with confessions also available during Mass times. (This schedule is contingent on the schedules of the celebrating clergy, and may change with the next semester.)