CORONATI, QUATTRO, saints.—Venerated on 8 November. The names in the Gregorian Sacramentary (five, not four) are: Claudio, Nicostrato, Sinfroniano (or Sinforiano), Castorio, Simplicio. The account of the martyrdom (BHL, 1836–37) was not written in Rome; the persons were not Romans but Pannonians, and they were not martyred in Rome. In the narrative there is no trace of the type of Diocletian as a fierce persecutor thirsting for Christian blood, as he appears in other late and fanciful hagiographical accounts. Instead, it is the historical Diocletian, a great builder but weak in character, who yields to pressures and insinuations. The bishop of Antioch, Cirillo, is also a historical figure. Thus the author of the legend knew at least the milieu (H. Delehaye, Etude sur le légendier romain, Bruxelles 1935, pp. 64–73).
There is, moreover, a Roman reference that cannot be overlooked: the very ancient text of the Depositio martyrum contains the entry: VI idus nov. Clementis, Semproniani, Clavi
(fot. Aimari)
CORONATI, QUATTRO, saints—Detail of the interior of the church of the SS. Q. C. (12th century)—Rome.
(per Claudi), Nicostati in comitatum (the name of Simplicio is absent). And in comitatum, which Delchaye believed to be the title of an imperial residence unrelated to Rome, is instead the name of a Roman locality, since the Depositio speaks only of places in Rome, and when places outside it are concerned, this is expressly stated. The designation fits well with the area of the Labicana, which was crown property and where imperial troops were stationed; there was also an imperial mausoleum there (the mausoleum of S. Elena). The catacomb of the SS. Marcellino and Pietro, in which the group named in the Depositio was venerated, is located there.
The Pannonian martyrs, therefore, who were marble workers by profession, seem to have had nothing to do with the four Romans, who were presumably soldiers. In turn, this Roman group was, in the Middle Ages, confused with a group of soldiers from Albano (Secondo, Carpoforo, Vittorino, and Severiano).
The basilica of the SS. Q. C., erected on the Caelian, must have brought together the cults of the Roman and Pannonian martyrs; but the relics of the latter must have arrived first. The compiler of the Hieronymian Martyrology mentions the SS. Q. C. only in connection with the Basilica (the text dates from the 7th century). This building must have replaced a very ancient titulus (Aemilianiae). In 595 the titulus of the SS. Q. C. is mentioned; the Basilica was destroyed by the Norman invasion of 1085 and rebuilt by Pasquale II (1116) on a smaller scale. The remains of the earlier structure, which had been rebuilt by Leone IV (847–55), can still be recognized. The crypt is the work of this pope. In the 12th century a monastery was attached to II. The cloister dates from the first decades of the 13th century. The chapel of S. Silvestro also contains 13th-century paintings (with the legend of s. Silvestro and Costantino).