Vito, Modesto and Crescenza, Saints, Martyrs

VITO, MODESTO AND CRESCENZA, Saints, Martyrs. - Commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 15 June, they appear to be victims of the Diocletianic persecution; V. already appears in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary, while M. and C. were added to him in the Roman Missal (Milan 1474).

The various recensions of the Passio (BHL, 8711-12; V. n. in Sicily; 8713-14; V. n. in Lucania; 8715-16 [translations: 8717-23]) do not deserve credence; instead, the first topographical indication of the Hieronymianum, "in Lucania," which must come from a local calendar, is to be taken into consideration. From the 5th century onward churches and monasteries were dedicated to St. V. in Rome, Sicily and Sardinia, and his cult had an extraordinary development in the Middle Ages, especially among the Germans and the Slavs, above all because of his thaumaturgic power against the nervous disease called St. V.'s dance, and against hydrophobia. For this reason he was numbered among the Holy Helpers (v.). The relics of St. V. were first transported to the Parisian monastery of St-Denis (2nd half of the 8th century), then to that of Corvey in Saxony (836); the head of St. V. was brought from Pavia to Prague in 1355 by the emperor Charles IV. St. V. is represented immersed in the boiling cauldron in which he is said to have been tortured, or holding a small one in his hand with a dog on a leash.

Kunst, II, Freiburg im Br. 1926, pp. 583-88; J. Braun, Tracht u. Attribute der Hl. in der deutsch. Kunst, Stuttgart 1943, coll. 728-38.

A. Pietro Frutaz