URBAN I, Pope, Saint. - He succeeded Callistus (d. 222) and governed the Church for about 8 years, until 230. The author of the Liber Pontificalis calls him a Roman, son of Pontianus, who died on May 19 and was buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus.

In fact, in this cemetery there was buried a U. called "confessor," remembered by the Papyrus of Monza and by the Itineraries of the 7th century (the Notitia ecclesiarum also adds "bishop," perhaps on the basis of the tradition of the Lib. Pont.). The Pope was buried in the cemetery of Callistus; in the crypt of the popes De Rossi found a fragment of a sarcophagus lid with the letters OVPBANOC E (πέσκο-

URBAN I, POPE, saint - Greek inscription of U. (3rd century). Rome, cemetery of St. Callistus.(by courtesy of Prof. E. Jovi)

205), and the name of U. was found in the inscription placed in the same crypt by Pope Sixtus III. The U. buried in Praetextatus could be the confessor of whom Pope Cornelius says that he adhered for a certain time to the schism of Novatian (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 43). The Hieronymian Martyrology commemorates the Pope in Callistus on May 19, and the other one of Praetextatus on the 25th of the same month; the Gregorian Sacramentary, on the other hand, has the mass of the Pope on the latter date. The entry in the Roman Martyrology for May 25 is entirely inaccurate.

Nothing is known about the life of U., nor is it established that he was a martyr. The author of the Passio s. Caeciliae (BHL, 1495) introduced him among the protagonists of his account, Tiburtius and Valerian, buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus; the Passio of the same U., then, written almost as a complement to the preceding one, is entirely legendary.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: Lib. Pont., I, p. SCIII ff., 143 ff.; Acta SS. Mali, VI, Paris 1866, pp. 4-22; G. B. De Rossi, La Roma sott. crist., II, Rome 1867, pp. 33-54; G. Wilpert, La cripta dei papi, ibid. 1910, p. 17 ff.; Martyr. Hieronymianum, pp. 262, 273; H. Delahaye, Etude sur le légendier romain, Bruxelles 1936, p. 80 ff.; Martyr. Romanum, p. 207; R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Cod. topogr. della città di Roma, Rome 1942, p. 86.

@incollection{ec12_urbano_i_papa_santo, author = {Amore, Agostino}, title = {Urbano I, papa, santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {904--905}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/urbano-i-papa-santo} }

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Urban I, Pope, Saint

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