PROCESSO and MARTINIANO, saints, martyrs. — According to P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, their alleged status as jailers of the Apostles Peter and Paul, as indicated in the legendary Passio, would have originated from the false interpretation of the scene of St. Peter’s arrest by two soldiers in Christian sarcophagi (v. illustrations, vol. IX, cols. 1415, 1478).
The Hieronymian Martyrology recalls them on July 2 “in their cemetery, on the Via Aurelia, at the second milestone.” In the 7th century, the itinerary known as the Notitia ecclesiarum indicates their burial sub terra, whereas in the itinerary inserted in the Gesta regum Anglorum, they are pointed out as being in a basilica (R. Valentini - G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 152). The Praedestinatus (Haer. 96: PL 53, 616) recounts that a Tertullianist priest, during the reign of Emperor Eugenius (392–94), took possession of the church of SS. P. and M. under the pretext that the said saints were from Phrygia, but was forced to restore the church and make amends in Carthage (cf. Cod. Theodos., XVI, 5, 40, a law issued on February 2, 407). Gregory the Great delivered a homily there (PL 76, 1232). Paschal I (817–24) transferred their relics to St. Peter’s, where he erected an oratory in their honor at the end of the south transept and enriched it with precious gifts (Lib. Pont., ed. Duchesne, II, p. 58), later renewed by Leo IV (ibid., II, p. 114). Gregory III (731–41) restored their roof (ibid., I, p. 419). The section of the roof above the oratory was repaired by Adrian IV (ibid., II, p. 395). The cemetery, sold from 1672 onward, extends beneath the Villa Pamphili, as identified in 1879 by E. Stevenson (G. B. De Rossi, Bull. arch. crit., 2nd ser., 6 [1881], p. 104), who in 1889 discovered an ancient descent leading into a cemetery area with large, regular galleries. In the pavement of the basilica of S. Martino ai Monti, a fragment of a poem was copied; it was transcribed in the 16th century and commented on by G. B. De Rossi, who recognized in it the mention of the martyr Martiniano, a reference to a descent, and the memory of a priest named Marciano.