ON SAINT SOPHIA THE VIRGIN,
MARTYR OF FERMO IN PICENUM.
CommentarySophia, Virgin, Martyr at Fermo in Picenum (Saint)
G. H.
Fermo, an Archiepiscopal city of Picenum in Italy, set back about three miles from the Adriatic Sea, venerates two Virgins and Martyrs this month. Of these the one, Vissia, is celebrated on April 12; the other, Sophia, on this April 30; each is inscribed in the sacred tables of the Roman Martyrology. Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy has this brief elogium: celebrated cult of Saint Sophia at Fermo. "Sophia, Virgin of Fermo, was crowned in the first martyrdom on account of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ: whose holy head is still most religiously preserved and venerated in the Cathedral church: and her birthday is celebrated this day with a double rite. Her Acts have perished through the injury of the times." Thus there. Ughelli among the Bishops of Fermo mentions Saint Sophia Virgin and Martyr, who together with Saint Vissia in those first times nobly bore the tyranny of tyrants, and overcame torments. Ughelli had treated before of the seventy glorious soldiers, whether she suffered martyrdom under Decius. who under the Emperor Decius there received the noble palm of martyrdom, so that he seems to wish to refer the martyrdom of these to a similar time. Ferrarius adds in his Notes that this holy Virgin Sophia is venerated at Ravenna and elsewhere. Her memory is celebrated by the author of the manuscript Florarium, in the Menology of Virgins, Arturus in the Gynaeceum sacrum, and other more recent writers; among whom Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in his Poetic Martyrology, composes these verses for her:
From tender years was Sophia of Fermo taught By Christ: for whom her blood bedewed the earth.
Johannes van de Velde in the Fasti of Holy Westphalia, whether the same is venerated at Minden in Westphalia. recounts that on this April 30 Saint Sophia, Virgin and Martyr, was translated to Minden, and cites the Breviary of that church, which we have printed in the year 1515, but without any mention of Saint Sophia. Among the Virgins and Martyrs of the company of Saint Ursula in Hermann Crombach, several are called Sophia, so that the body of one of these might be judged to be hers.