PRIMO E FELICIANO, saints, martyrs. — They are commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 19 June as buried in a sand-pit at the fifteenth milestone of the Via Nomentana. On that day they are also remembered in the Gelasian Sacramentary of St Gallen (9th century).
A basilica was built over their tomb, the ruins of which were seen by A. Bosio. Pope Theodore (642–649) transferred their bodies to the church of S. Stefano Rotondo on the Caelian, where the mosaic representing them in military attire was executed. According to the legendary Passio, written before Theodore’s translation, P. and F. were arrested and beheaded during the persecution of Diocletian.
BIBL.: Lib. Pont., I, p. 332; Acte SS. Junii, II, Paris 1867, pp. 148–53; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 311; Martyr. Romanum, p. 230; R. Valentini - G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, there 1942, p. 152 ff. Agostino Amore