CECILIA, saint. — Roman martyr, venerated on 22 November. She has her eulogy in acts composed in the 5th–6th centuries, which present numerous elements constituting, taken as a whole, a true crux for hagiographers. She appears there as a young woman of noble family, betrothed to the noble Valerian. On her wedding day, while the music resounded, she sang in her heart the hymn of purity (from this detail C. has been accorded the distinction of being the protectress of musicians). On the first night of the marriage C. declares to her husband that an angel watches over her virginity. Her husband wishes to see the angel, and she urges him to receive Baptism and for this purpose sends him to the third milestone of the Via Appia, to Bishop Urbanus. Following a heavenly apparition, Valerian is baptized. He returns to C. in a white garment; she is accompanied by the angel, who holds two crowns: one of roses is given to C.; the other, of lilies, is given to Valerian. At this point the story of the saints Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus (a group venerated on 14 April) becomes intermingled with it, since the martyr Tiburtius appears as Valerian’s brother. Later, the prefect of Rome, Turcius Almachius, first sacrifices the men and then has the woman arrested. She is condemned to be suffocated in the calidarium of the overheated bath in her own house. But since the means of martyrdom had not caused her death, she is beheaded in the same place. Pope Urbanus is said to have had her body buried among those of his fellow bishops, and the house of her martyrdom is said to have been consecrated as a basilica in her name (cf. BHL, 1495; B. Mombritius, Sanctuarium, ed. Solesmense, pp. 332–41; Martyr. Romanum, p. 539; H. Delehaye, Etudes sur le légendier Romain, Bruxelles 1936, pp. 73–96, 194–220; V. also the same author’s commentary on the Martyr. Hieronymianum, pp. 612–13).
The following positive facts may be noted: Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus are martyrs of the cemetery of Praetextatus. An Urbanus was also venerated at Praetextatus (Itinerarium salisburgense; Lib. Pont.). But an inscription with OYPBANOE E... and the mention in the list of Pope Sixtus III point to a namesake in the cemetery of Callistus. This must have been a bishop from elsewhere; moreover, the palaeography of the inscription does not take us back to a very ancient period. These connections between C. and persons associated with the cemetery of Praetextatus may have led some scholars to believe that she too was venerated at Praetextatus. In reality, she belongs to the cemetery of Callistus, and the Inter collegas suos episcopos in the Passio alludes to the proximity of the papal crypt. Indeed, the crypt of S. C. is in absolute proximity to that of the Popes.
The spacious crypt contains epigraphic memorials dating from the end of the 3rd century (for example, the inscription of a Septimius Fronto Praetextatus Licinianus), as well as paintings from the 5th century and later. Among the oldest are those of the skylight (an image of the Saint—now almost vanished—and three figures: Polycamus, Sebastian and Quirinus; of these, the first is an unknown saint, while the last may be the bishop of Siscia in Pannonia, whose relics were transferred to Catacumbas in the 5th century). Another figure of St C., on one of the walls,
belongs to the 9th century. It seems that from this crypt Pope Paschal I removed the martyr’s body (April 821) in order to transfer it beneath the altar of the basilica to be discussed below. However, the writer of the Lib. Pont. (II, p. 56) is confused and speaks of the cemetery of Praetextatus. It is strange that a martyr so celebrated is not mentioned in the oldest calendar of the Roman Church (4th century), and that not a word is found about her in the writings of Damasus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Prudentius.
But it is certain that the image of St C. is found in the 6th century in the mosaics of Ravenna (the archiepiscopal chapel; S. Apollinare
Nuovo), and the Lib. Pont., in the life of Pope Vigilius (535–55), speaks of the envoy sent from Constantinople, Artemius, who went to arrest the Pontiff: in ecclesia sanctae Caeciliae kol. dec. erat enim dies natalis eius. In the time of Gregory the Great (590–604), a certain John collected the oil that burned before the Saint’s tomb in the cemetery on the Via Appia. Moreover, among the signatories of the Roman Synod of 499 there was already the title of C.
The Hieronymian Martyrology speaks of St C. in notices that lend themselves to discussion. The notice of 22 November betrays the use of the late Passio. The problem is therefore this: there is no doubt that the cult of St C. was already widely established in the 6th century and that it may be traced back to the 5th. But until the first decades of the 5th century
there is no trace of II. The legend has a gentilician character. The basilica in Trastevere, moreover, was erected over an important Roman house, a veritable palace, which contains some very ancient parts, including a small lararium. The remains of private baths may have provided the inspiration for the legend concerning the manner of her death.
There is one fact that must be taken into account. The cemetery of Callistus lies in an area belonging to the ancient family of the Caecilii. Thus, as has been proposed, a Christian woman named C. may have obtained a privileged tomb in the 3rd century, in a crypt near that of the pontiffs. On the other hand, as has been suggested, there must have been in Trastevere a house of the Valerii, where the tradition of kinship with the Caecilii was preserved.
The memory of the distinguished Christian woman of the Via Appia, probably a woman of saintly conduct (but not a martyr), may have promoted the erection of an important basilica, given rise to veneration of the tomb on the Via Appia, and stimulated the legend-writers, perhaps encouraged also by some family tradition. In the basilica in Trastevere, at the time of Clement VIII (in 1599), the body deposited there by Paschal I was found, intact, it is said, with the head turned toward the ground; yet it is known that Paschal I had placed the head in a small reliquary, and later it was found among the relics of the basilica of the Four Crowned Saints.
The basilica of S. C. has not yet been properly investigated in its most ancient parts and can be identified only from the reconstruction undertaken by Paschal I. It is also known that this Pope commissioned the important apse mosaic there. Later it received various embellishments. For the late Middle Ages, mention must be made of the ciborium sculpted by Arnolfo (1283) and the frescoes on the entrance wall (the Last Judgment) painted by Cavallini. The diffusion of the cult of St C. in medieval Rome was extensive, as is attested by the various churches erected in her honor.
Among the oldest images, mention should be made of that in the mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna (570), in a procession of virgins, and that of S. Maria Antiqua in Rome (8th century). In a 13th-century fresco in Rome, in the church dedicated to her, the Saint is depicted appearing to Pasquale I. Famous above all is Raffaello’s s. C. in the picture gallery of Bologna, with the musical attributes; the Saint has also been portrayed playing an instrument (Rubens) or accompanied by musical Angels (Ant. Van Dyck). One of the best-known representations of the Saint is the sculpture by S. Maderno in her Roman church, inspired by the enthusiasm surrounding the examination of her tomb, carried out by Cardinal Sfondrati under Clement VIII (1599). — Vedi Tav. LXXII. Fabia Borroni