ORSO, Saint. — In the Roman Martyrology three saints of this name are recorded:
Orso, Saint — S. O. archdeacon of Ravenna, musician (6th century) — Ravenna, church of S. Apollinare in Classe.
1) St ORSO, companion of St VICTOR, martyrs of Solothurn (Switzerland), numbered among the martyrs of the so-called Theban Legion. Feast: 30 Oct. (BHL, 8584-85; H. Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du moyen âge, Paris 1908, pp. 280-82; Martyrologium Romanum, p. 426).
2) St ORSO, bishop of Ravenna (d. between 424 and 429), builder and consecrator of the Cathedral, the Anastasis, later called the Basilica Ursiana. Feast: 13 Apr. (BHL, 8455; Lanzoni, p. 749; C. Ricci, Guida di Ravenna, Bologna [1923], pp. 37-45; Martyrologium Romanum, p. 137).
3) St ORSO, bishop of Auxerre between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century. Feast: 30 July (L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l’ancienne Gaule, II, Paris 1910, p. 445; Martyrologium Romanum, p. 314).
Among other saints of this name, St ORSO of Aosta deserves mention. He is greatly venerated in the regions of the western Alps as the protector of the countryside: he is invoked against the dangers of floods, to obtain rain, against fever and livestock diseases, etc. Little is known of his life, apart from a few edifying episodes which form the substance of the brief Vita sancti Ursii, preserved in two almost identical versions: the first in manuscripts of the 9th-10th centuries and following, unpublished (BHL, Suppl. p. 301; M. Coens, in Anal. Bolland., 52 [1934], p. 259; the undersigned has prepared an edition); the second in manuscripts of the 11th century and following, published (BHL, 8453, interpolated; Anno, L’Insigne Collégiale d’Aoste, Ivrea 1929, pp. 9-23 un-interpolated). St ORSO appears in this account as an archdeacon officiating in the church of S. Pietro extra moenia (a cemetery church which later became the collegiate church of SS. Peter and Orso) at the time of the unworthy bishop of Aosta PLOCEANUS, not otherwise known from other sources, who is said to have lived in the 6th century. The Irish origin of St ORSO of Aosta does not seem to be attested before the Liber anniversariorum... (1554) of the Chapter of the cathedral of Aosta (ed. A. Gal, in Mon. Historiae Patriae. Scriptores, III, Turin 1848, p. 618); indeed the manuscript liturgical books of the Valle d’Aosta and the same Breviarium ad usum almae Augustae Ecclesiae... Turin 1532, fols. CCXIV-XV, make no mention of II. St ORSO has also been erroneously identified as bishop and martyr of Aosta, being confused with the martyr Orso who appears in the legendary Passio Theonesti of Altino (cf. BHL, 8110-14; Lanzoni, pp. 907-909, 1052-53, 1056). Feast: 10 Feb.