TIBURZIO, VALERIANO and MASSIMO, saints, martyrs. — The kinship between V. T. is attested only by Acta et passio beatissimae martyris Caeciliae, Valeriani et Tiburtii.
In this work V. is presented as the husband of St. Cecilia and T. as her brother-in-law, while M. is the «cornicularius» of the favorite Almachius, converted by V. and buried by Cecilia in a sarcophagus bearing the image of the phoenix near V. and T. (H. Delehaye, Etude sur le légendier romain, Brussels 1936, pp. 73-93, 194-220). In the Leonine Sacramentary, which is mutilated, there is, in the month of April, a fragment of a Mass in honor of T. alone; in the Gregorian Sacramentary and in the Neapolitan Marble Calendar only V. T. are commemorated; the Hieronymian Martyrology indicates the tombs of the three martyrs on 14 April on the Via Appia, «in cimitero Praetextati»; on 21 April «in cimitero Callisti»; and on 11 August, V., together with Cecilia, was erroneously interpolated into the notice of T., the martyr buried on the Via Labicana «inter duas lauros». The oils that burned at the tombs of the three martyrs were brought to Queen Theodelinda in the time of Gregory the Great (R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice topogr. della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 44-45). In the 7th century the tombs of the three martyrs are indicated on the Via Appia «in ecclesia» by the pilgrims’ itineraries (ibid., pp. 86, 111, 149). This above-ground building is mentioned by the Liber Pontificalis in the biographies of John III, who is said to have consecrated bishops there as well (I, p. 305 ff.), of Gregory III, who restored it (ibid., I, p. 420), and later of Hadrian I (ibid., p. 509). Paschal I (817-24) is said to have transferred the bodies of the three martyrs and of St. Cecilia from the cemetery of Praetextatus to the Basilica of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, and he offered for the altar of that Basilica a textile depicting an angel presenting the crown to the martyrs Cecilia, V. T. (ibid., II, pp. 56-57).
(photo Alinari)