Tiburtius, Saint, Martyr

TIBURZIO, saint, martyr. - He was buried on the Via Labicana in the cemetery inter duas lauros. Nothing is known concerning his life or the time of his martyrdom, which Damaso indicates as «tempore quo gladius secuit pia viscera matris» in the brief poem placed on his tomb, preserved in the epigraphic syllogae (A. Ferrua, Epigr. Damasiana, Città del Vaticano 1942, p. 164 ff.).

The Passio s. Sebastiani calls him a «vir clarissimus» (BHL, 7543). His feast is indicated on «III Id. Aug.» (11 Aug.) both in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries and in the Hieronymian Martyrology, where, however, the names of Valeriano and Cecilia were erroneously interpolated into the precise indication «Romae via Lavicana inter duas lauros natale Tiburti». T. is stated to have been buried above ground, north of the mausoleum of S. Elena, by the Notitia ecclesiarum (R. Valentini - G. Zucchetti, Codice topogr. della città di Roma, II, Roma 1942, p. 83); he is likewise mentioned among the group of martyrs of this road in the other two seventh-century itineraries (ibid., pp. 113, 146). An oratory arose over his tomb and was restored by Pope Adriano I (Lib. Pont., I, p. 500). Pope Gregorio IV (827–44) transferred his relics to the Vatican Basilica (ibid., II, p. 74).

(photo, National Photographic Cabinet)
TIBURIO — T. of the church of S. Maria della Passione, completed in 1530 by Cristoforo Solari — Milan.

T. is depicted in a fresco on the vault of a cubicle in the cemetery «inter duas lauros», acclaiming the divine Lamb together with the other local martyrs, Gorgonio, Marcellino, and Pietro (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 252).