MARCELLO, saint, martyr. - The information concerning him is intricate and controversial.
In the Martyrologium Hieronymianum he is commemorated together with others on 27 August as a martyr of Tomi; it seems, however, that this is a corruption of Thmuis. The Passio, probably written in the fifth century, is a version of the lost Greek original and has little historical value, since it has combined two certainly distinct groups of martyrs. According to this account, M., together with his wife, two
sons, and four other persons, was accused before the prefect Culciano; exposed to wild beasts and then to fire, they were finally beheaded, and their bodies buried near Ossirino.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Augusti, VI, Parigi 1868, pp. 12-15; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Della Passio ss. Marcelli tribuni..., in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 11 (1905), pp. 237-67; id., Intorno alla Passio ss. M. tribuni et Petri militis, in Note ogiografiche, fasc. VIII (Studi e testi, 65), Città del Vaticano 1935, pp. 307-32; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 471; Martyr. Romanum, p. 363.