FELICITA, saint, martyr. — She is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 23 November as buried in the cemetery of Massimo on the Via Salaria nuova. Pope Bonifacius I (418–22) had a basilica built over her tomb, which also served as his burial place. S. Gregorio Magno preached a homily in this basilica on F.’s dies natalis. The martyr’s tomb is also mentioned in all the itineraries of seventh-century pilgrims.
Between the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth, a highly legendary Passio was composed, according to which F., during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, was accused by pagan priests and brought, together with her seven sons, before the tribunal of the prefect of Rome. He tried to persuade them to sacrifice, but they rejected every proposal; indeed, F. exhorted her sons to remain steadfast in the faith. They were then entrusted to different judges, who put them all to death in different ways. They were buried in different cemeteries of Rome; F., together with her son Silanus, in that of Massimo. The entire account is evidently modeled on the episode of the seven Maccabean brothers (II Mach. 7, 1–51), without any historical truth. The names of F.’s seven sons are in fact found in the Depositio martyrum on 10 July, but without any mention of kinship among them or with F.; this relationship was invented by the hagiographer. Nor is the painting discovered by De Rossi in 1883, depicting F. with her supposed seven sons, an obstacle, since it derives from the Passio, on which all the other later hagiographical documents likewise depend.
For F.’s cemetery, V. MASSIMO.
FELICITA, saint, martyr: V. PERPETUA e FELICITA, sante, martiri.