BACCANO (Ad Baccanas, ad Vacanas). - Name of a post station at the twenty-first mile of the Via Cassia, where near the ascent called clivus Parralis, Annius Fuscus, father of Pescennius Niger, the rival of Septimius Severus, owned a villa.

In the Acta SS. Septembris, VI, Antwerp 1695, pp. 230-235, under 21 September, the Passio of a St. Alexander, bishop, is reported, unknown to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, a passio devoid of historical value, in which, however, the existence at B. of a sepulchral basilica is noted, in which this Alexander, bishop and martyr, would have been laid, and in which the inscription placed on his tomb is also reported. G. Morin proposed to identify this Alexander with the one commemorated on 22 October by the Constantinopolitan Synaxaria (Note d'agiografie toscane in Revue bénédictine, 24 [1907], pp. 112-17); more plausible is the hypothesis of Lanzoni (pp. 529-30), who supposes him to have been bishop of Forum Clodii. The memory of a veneration of St. Alexander at B. is confirmed down to the 11th century by the bull of Leo IX of the year 1053, in which, among the properties of the Vatican basilica, mention is made of a massa Clodiana cum lacu Baccanas... et ecclesia S. Alexandri quae est in Baccanis. Also at B., in 1874, sepulchral remains were found, along with two square pillars of white marble 0.75 m. high, with three smooth faces and the fourth containing a vine shoot engraved between two monograms. G. B. De Rossi identified them as altar bases and obtained them for the Christian Museum of the Lateran.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: G. B. De Rossi, B. (Baccanas) sulla via Cassia-Scopera del cimitero di S. Alessandro vescovo e martire con parte del suo antico altare, in Bull. arch. crist., 2nd series, 6 (1875), pp. 142-152; 3rd series, 6 (1888), p. 112; G. Tomassetti, La campagna romana, antica, medievale e moderna, III, Rome 1913, p. 106; H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des Martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 320.

Enrico Josi

@incollection{ec2_baccano_ad_baccanas_ad_vacanas, author = {Josi, Enrico}, title = {Baccano (Ad Baccanas, ad vacanas)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {645--646}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/baccano-ad-baccanas-ad-vacanas} }

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Baccano (ad Baccanas, ad Vacanas)

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