BARBAZIANO. – A Milanese monk of the time of s. Ambrogio. He left the monastery founded by the Saint in Milan to take refuge in Vercelli, from where he disseminated the heterodox doctrines of Gioviniano against virginity and fasting. S. Ambrogio, rightly fearing that such propaganda might cause the virgins of Vercelli to become disaffected with their vows and the ascetics with their penances, hastened to write to the faithful of that church a letter (LXIII, 20–21) in which he inveighs vehemently against B. He repeatedly calls him a disciple of Epicurus, the apologist of pleasure, whom the philosophers rightly expelled from their society. It is not known what became of him.
BIBL.: P. De Labriolle, in Storia della Chiesa by A. Fliche–V. Martin, III, Italian translation by A. P. Frutaz, Turin (1940), p. 372. Ireneo Daniele