TRENTO, Saint Simon of, Martyr. - A child of 20 months (according to others, of two and a half years), son of a tanner of Trent, who disappeared on the evening of Maundy Thursday (23 March) 1475, and was found dead with horrible mutilations on the following Sunday in a canal that flowed beneath the house of one of the Jewish notables of the city.

Public opinion and the trial immediately opened by the prince-bishop Giovanni Hinderbach attributed to the Jews the guilt of the killing carried out for ritual purposes. Fourteen of them, following the trial and the depositions extracted by torture, were executed; the others, by a law that remained in force until the secularization, were banished from the Principality. To the little S., whom the people of Trent soon venerated as a martyr, the Holy See granted only in 1588 the liturgical cult and inscription in the Roman Martyrology. Feast on 24 March.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: a critical study is still lacking. G. Divina, Stor. del b. S. da Trento, Trento 1902; G. Menestrina, Gli Ebrei a Trento, in Tridentum, 6 (1903), pp. 304-16, 348-74, 385-411. Martyr. Romanum, pp. 110-11.

Iginio Rogger

@incollection{ec11_simone_di_trento_santo_martire, author = {Rogger, Igino}, title = {Simone di Trento, santo, martire}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {640}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/simone-di-trento-santo-martire} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Trento, Saint Simon of, Martyr

About this entry