Bettona

BETTONA. - Ancient episcopal city of Umbria, in the province of Perugia. It is the Umbrian-Etruscan Vettona. A famous legend of Umbrian hagiography, written after the middle of the 7th century and before the 9th, probably by a monk, the Passio s. Proculi (BHL 6955), names a certain Scipiodotus, bishop of B., who is said to have been ordained by the Prince of the Apostles during a vision, and to have suffered martyrdom under Julian or Diocletian. Another legend that refers exclusively to B., the Passio s. Crispoliti (BHG 1800), identifies Scipiodotus with Crispolitus, whom St. Peter is said to have ordained while he was still alive. Consequently Crispolitus would be one of the 72 disciples of the Lord who came from Galilee, except that the medieval hagiographer, completely ignorant of chronology, commits the anachronism of having the supposed bishop of the 1st century die under Maximian Herculius, that is, at the beginning of the 4th century.

Local historians, basing themselves on the fictional data of the Passio, assign the Christianization of B. to the 1st century. A. Harnack, starting from the dates of the martyrs, places it before 325. This conclusion is, however, contested by F. Lanzoni, because it is founded on the Passio s. Crispoliti, which among the Umbrian Passions is one of the least reliable.

At the Roman Synod of 465 the acts are also subscribed by a Gaudentius episcopus Vecconensis, which, with greater probability, must be read as Vettonensis (of B.).

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