Emerentiana, Saint, Martyr

EMERENTIANA, Saint, Martyr. - The martyrdom of E. is briefly described at the beginning of the appendix added to the legendary Passio of St. Agnes (v.). The saint, presented as the foster-sister of St. Agnes and a catechumen, is said to have been stoned near the tomb of the martyr on the very day of her funeral and buried "in confinio agelli beatissime virginis Agnetis" (Acta SS. Ianuarii, II, Antwerp 1643, p. 353, and the brief notice at p. 458; Jubaru, p. 362).

The topographical detail of the burial is accurate, since E., a victim of a persecution of the 3rd and 4th centuries, was interred in the above-ground area of the nearby Coemeterium Maius, where there stood a small basilica visited by pilgrims of the 7th century

(cf. the Notitia ecclesiarum, the De locis sanctorum Martyrum, and the Notitia portarum: ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Il codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 78, 115, 145), restored by Hadrian I (772-95: Lib. Pont., I, p. 511). During the course of the 9th century the remains of E. were brought to the basilica of St. Agnes, where they still rest beneath the high altar, in the artistic silver shrine of Paul V (1615). The site of her original tomb has not yet been identified, despite Armellini's attempt to recognize it in an underground crypt, which contradicts the precise data of the Itineraries mentioned above. E. is probably depicted in a painting that adorns the front wall of an arcosolium of the Coemeterium Maius. Two dates commemorate her anniversary: January 23, suggested by the Passio, recorded in the additions to the "pleniores" codices of the Hieronymian Martyrology, in the Martyrology of Bede, in the Gelasian Sacramentary of the 8th century (cf. P. Puniet, Le Sacramentaire romain de Gellone, Rome [1938], pp. 20-21), whence it passed into the Missal and the Roman Martyrology; and September 16, attested by the inscription found by De Rossi near the Ponte Rotto and by the Hieronymian Martyrology.