ON SAINT VISSIA,
Virgin Martyr, at Fermo in Italy.
CommentaryVissia, Virgin, Martyr, at Fermo in Italy (St.)
BY G. H.
Fermum or Firmium is an archiepiscopal city, formerly the most illustrious and powerful of all Picenum, and after Ancona held the first place in the March of Ancona, distant three miles from the shore of the Adriatic Sea. At Fermo in Picenum, Saint Vissia the Virgin suffered among other Martyrs, Ughelli, in volume 2 of Italia sacra, column 743, asserts that it is agreed that Fermo was among the first Picene cities which drew the light of the Gospel: where under the Emperor Decius seventy glorious soldiers of Christ received the noble palm of martyrdom; then he indicates three holy Bishops who confirmed the faith of Christ by their blood shed, and they are: Adrianus; Alexander, of whom we treated on January 11; and Saint Philip, inscribed in the tables of the Roman Martyrology on October 22. "The same city," says the same Ughelli, "Vissia, the most holy Virgin, illustrated by her own blood; whose body rests in the Cathedral, and her feast is celebrated on the twelfth day of April; likewise of Saint Sophia, April 12 also Virgin and Martyr: who in those first times nobly endured the tyranny of the tyrants, and overcame the torments." Saint Sophia the Virgin is venerated on April 30. But Saint Vissia, Virgin and Martyr, who suffered at Fermo in Picenum, is celebrated on this day, the 12th, inscribed in the sacred Fasti of the Roman Martyrology, to which Baronius testifies in his Notes that he saw tables of the Church of Fermo concerning her brought to Rome. Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, from the tables and monuments of the Church of Fermo, composed this rather brief elogium about her: "Vissia the Virgin in persecution, for the confession of the Christian faith, suffered at Fermo, the illustrious city of Picenum: whose sacred relics there in the major church are said to be preserved. Her feast day is celebrated in that church on the day before the Ides of April." Relics in the Cathedral church, Ferrarius then notes that her Acts, together with the Acts of other Saints of the city of Fermo, perished, they say, on account of wars. The memory of the same Saint Vissia is inscribed in the great Menology of Virgins of Laherius, the Sacred Gynaeceum of Arthur de Monstier, and in the historical Kalendar of holy women collected by Gulielmus Gazet. Nicolaus Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in his Poetic Martyrology, adorns her with this distich:
Firmer than a lofty column of the city of Fermo, Vissia, tortured for her Spouse's name, stood.