MELANIA GIUNIORE, saint. — Niece of the following, born in 383 to her son Publicola and Albina, of the gens Ceionia. Following the example of her grandmother and of other girls of the aristocracy, she wished to devote herself to the ascetic life; but she encountered opposition from her parents and at fourteen married Valerius Pinianus.
They had a daughter and a son, who died at an early age. M. too fell gravely ill, whereupon she induced
the Saints and the monasteries of Egypt, M. withdrew to the Mount of Olives, where she built a monastery for ninety virgins, whom she herself trained in the ascetic life. After the deaths of Albina and Pinianus, she had a second monastery built for men near the sanctuary of the Ascension. M. died on 31 December 439, the day on which she is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. The monk Gerontius governed the monasteries founded by her and wrote her Vita, preserved in various Greek and Latin recensions (BHG, 1241–42; BHL, 5885).