SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL, martyrs. – The information concerning them is intricate, obscure and controversial. They are commemorated in the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum* on 26 June; the ancient Sacramentaries contain several Masses in their honour; they are mentioned in the 7th-century Itineraries, and by the mid-6th century their names had been inserted into the Canon of the Mass.
There exists a *Passio* of a rather legendary character, composed between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century, of which there are three substantially identical recensions, though divergent in their conclusions. In the oldest version it is narrated that J. and P. were two brothers who were officers in the army of Constantine the Great and were in charge of his daughter Constantia. After accompanying the general Gallicanus on an expedition to the East, they returned to Rome, and at the death of Constantia they received a share of her goods as a gift. When Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, they were summoned by the Emperor himself to account for their faith, and since they refused to obey they were executed and secretly buried in their own house on the Caelian Hill by the *campidocor* Terentianus. With the accession of the Emperor Jovian, some possessed persons revealed their burial place; Terentianus was converted and wrote their *Passio*. In another recension, however, it is stated that Jovian entrusted the senator Byzantius with the task of seeking out the bodies of the martyrs and building a basilica in their honour. Finally, in a
SAINT GIOVANNI LEONARDI – Portrait, detail from an anonymous 17th-century painting – Rome, church of S. Girolamo della Carità.
He then received other assignments: the visitation and reform of the Benedictine Congregation of Montevergine (1596), the reform of the Vallumbrosan Order (1601), and the visitation of the Servite convent of Monte Senario near Florence. He was also entrusted with the visitation of the Piarist Schools, which for some years were aggregated to the Congregation of G. L.; St Joseph Calasanz bore noble witness to the virtue of his friend.
Together with the Spanish prelate Giovanni Battista Vives, he took an interest in the foundation of a missionary college in Rome. Having been elected superior of his institute, the Saint celebrated its first General Chapter in Rome in 1604, where some years earlier he had opened a house near Piazza Montanara, beside the church (now demolished) of S. Maria in Portico; he also presided over the second Chapter in 1608.
He was canonised by Pius XI at Easter 1938. His feast is kept on 10 October.