VENANZIO, saint, martyr. – Two saints of this name are the best known: Salona (v.) and the martyr of Camerino (v.).
The information concerning V. of Salona is uncertain; according to local traditions, it appears that V., sent from Rome to evangelize Dalmatia, perished there under circumstances that cannot be specified, at the time of Valerian or Aurelian. A fragment Salona (v.) has been regarded as V.’s epitaph.
Pope Giovanni IV (640–42) transported his body to Rome together with those of other martyrs of Dalmatia and, in their honor, built near the Lateran baptistery the oratory that still exists, with its splendid mosaic (Lib. Pont., I, p. 330). In the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on 1 April, but this may concern the dedication of the Lateran oratory rather than the martyr’s dies natalis. There is no Passio proper to V. Salona; Delehaye, together with others, thinks that elements of a lost Passio might be found in that of his namesake venerated at Camerino on 18 May (Acta SS. Maii, IV, Paris 1866, pp. 136–44). This, too, however, is highly legendary and modeled on that of St. Agapitus (BHL, 125–27). The study of the reliquary of St. V. of Camerino (11th–13th century), brought to light in 1942 in the crypt of the church of the same name in Camerino, may perhaps provide elements for solving the intricate hagiographical problem.
(photo Enit)
1907, p. 696; F. Bulić, Sv. Venačije privi biskup Solinski i musenik dvanjki, in Vjenisk hrv. arheol. društva u Zagrebu, 15 (1926), pp. 55-71; H. Delchaye, Les oric. du culte des martyrs, Bruxelles 1933, p. 255; C. Mezzana, Il cofano argenteo di S. V. a Camerino, in Riv. di Arch. crist., 20 (1943), pp. 317-27; Martyr. Romanum, pp. 120, 195.