RIGNANO FLAMINIO. — At the 26th mile of the Via Flaminia, nestled at the foot of Mount Soratte, lies R. F., which, under the name of Castrum Rinianum, is mentioned in a document from 962; in 1116 it appears as territory belonging to the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
R. F. has two notable Paleo-Christian monuments: an underground cemetery to the west of the settlement and an ancient church to the east. The Christian cemetery came to light in 1651 on the left side of the Via Flaminia in an area known as San Laurenziano, belonging to the collegiate church of R., dedicated to Saints Vincent and Anastasius. Three Christian burial galleries with intact tombs were discovered at that time, as recorded in a manuscript from the archive of the said collegiate church. In 1702, Monsignor M. A. Boldetti, custodian of relics, visited the site and observed a round chapel filled with tombs and... some sacred paintings. The cemetery was then excavated in 1745 by the vicar forane G. B. Tomai and in 1746 by the sacristan’s gravediggers. At the end of the 18th century, part of the cemetery was sacrificed to build an oratory in honor of Saint Theodora, patroness of the Savelli family, and a forecourt. In 1857, G. B. De Rossi visited the site and transcribed and published the dated inscriptions scratched onto the now opened and violated loculi, containing dates from 336 to 424. A report by the sacristan is found in codex Vat. lat. 9023, fol. 38. In 1908 and 1946, the cemetery was restored by the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
To the east of the settlement, on the steep slopes of a hill, stands the church dedicated to Saints Abbondio and Abbondanzio. The building consists of two distinct parts: the first is made of large squared tuff blocks from a previous structure; the second is of masonry with a facing. In each of the two parts are inserted marble fragments, cippi, bases, capitals, and an arch of a tabernacle with the characteristic eighth-century braided decoration. A cippus placed by Atilia Marcella in memory of her husband Gaius Clodius Fabatus (CIL, XI, 1, 3963) contains three hexameters of singular conception that some have considered Christian and which are repeated on a cippus found at Niebla, near Seville in Spain (CIL, II, suppl., p. 856, no. 3591). At the junction of the two parts rises a tall three-story bell tower with biforas, dating to the 11th century. The interior is a single nave; three pillars with capitals adorned with a Greek cross support three pointed arches; the walls were covered with paintings.
In the raised presbytery are the mensa and seating in stonework. On the arch is painted in the center the Divine Lamb with a cruciform nimbus between the symbols of the Four Evangelists and the seven candelabra. Below, in the center, is the bust of the Redeemer between winged cherubim and choirs of angels. In the lower zone on either side are depicted twelve on each side, the 24 elders of the Apocalypse, according to the type already established in the arch of San Paolo and repeated in San Prassede, Ferentillo, Castel Sant’Elia, and San Giovanni a Porta Latina, to which they are closely related, particularly for the same dating to the end of the 12th century. Below this opens a crypt.
As for the martyrs Abbondio and Abbondanzio, they do not appear in the ancient calendars and martyrologies; they are listed on August 26 in the Cologne edition of 1515 of the Martyrology of Usuard.
The Bollandists indicate (Acta SS. Septembris, V, Paris 1868, pp. 293 ff.) a first *Passio* from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal and a second printed in 1584 by the Jesuit F. Cardolo, who used three manuscripts, the oldest of which, from the 12th–13th century, is in the Archivio Liberiano. The martyrs Abbondio, a priest, and Abbondanzio are said to have been beheaded at the 14th mile of the Via Flaminia and buried by Theodora on her property at the 28th mile of the same road. The *Passio* seems to have been composed before the year 1000; it makes no mention of the cemetery but only recalls the “clesia quae est iuxta montem Soractis.” The provenance of the inscription “Abundio prb. martyri sancto dep. VII idus dec.”, now in the Lateran Museum (CIL, XI, 4076), is uncertain—whether it comes from this group or from the cemetery.