SABINIANO, POPE. – From Blera in Tuscia, after passing through the ranks of the hierarchy, he was elected pontiff upon the death of St. Gregorio I on 13 October 604; he died on 22 February 606. His funerary inscription, of which a fragment is still preserved, states that during his pontificate no one was troubled by “bellicus furor” and presents him as a generous distributor of alms and so merciful that “nec iudex culpae sed medicina fuit”.
BIBL.: the inscription in G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae Urbis Romae, II, Rome 1888, p. 127, no. 6, p. 211, no. 41. Cf.: Lib. Pont., I, p. 325; Jaffé-Wattenbach, p. 220; A. Crivellucci, Il pontificato di S., in Studi storici, 8 (1890), pp. 203–11; Fliche-Martin-Fruta, V, p. 408 ff. Carlo Callovini