BIBIANA (VIBIANA), Saint and Martyr. — The *Passio* recounts that the Roman virgin B., together with her mother Dafrosa and her sister Demetria, was scourged to death under Julian the Apostate. This *Passio*, however, is a 6th-century legend, probably intended to explain the presence of the three bodies discovered beneath her basilica. Only the notice in the *Liber Pontificalis* seems reliable, according to which Pope Simplicius (468–73) had this basilica built over the tomb of the holy martyr; repeatedly restored thereafter, it was rebuilt by Bernini in 1626. It preserves the fine statue of the Martyr, also carved by the same artist. Her feast is celebrated on December 2.
BIBL.: *Liber Pontificalis*, ed. L. Duchesne, I, Paris 1886, pp. 249–50; B. Mombrilius, *Sanctarium*, I, 2nd ed., ibid. 1910, p. 489; P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, *Note agiografiche*, fasc. IV (*Studi e testi*, 24), Rome 1912, p. 18, no. 1, and fasc. V (*Studi e testi*, 27), ibid. 1915, p. 56; E. Donckel, in *Römische Quartalschrift*, 43 (1935), pp. 23–33; id., in *Rivista d’Archeologia Cristiana*, 14 (1937), pp. 125–35; H. Delehaye, *Étude sur le légendier romain*, Brussels 1936, pp. 134–43; R. Krautheimer, *Corpus Basilicarum christianarum Romae*, fasc. II, Vatican City 1939, p. 94.
BIBL.: K. Künstle, *Ikonographie der Heiligen*, Freiburg im Br. 1926, p. 135.