CONCERNING ST. ÆMILIANA OF ROME,
TITULAR [SAINT] OF A PRESBYTERAL CHURCH.
Notice from the Roman Synod of the year 499.
Æmiliana, titular saint of a certain Roman church (St.)
D. P.
After the Consulship of Paulinus, a most illustrious man (that is, in the year of Christ 499) on the Kalends of March, in the basilica of Bl. Peter the Apostle, the most blessed Symmachus the Pope presiding, was celebrated a Synod of 67 Bishops, there subscribing, In the Council of the year 499, concerning the removal of canvassing in the Pontifical elections: to which also subscribed, in equal number, as many Priests of Titular Churches, with the Deacons of the seven urban Regions; celebrated at Rome, who together seventy-four, show that there would be that number which now is held of Cardinals, beyond the number of the Disciples of Christ extended by one pair; and thereby they show, that the same number is not the invention of more recent ambition, but the institution of old religion, sometimes even exceeding the same number, however much in the middle age it was often much more restricted.
[2] Among the Priests, whose names, as also those of the Bishops, Eutyches subscribes, Priest of the title of St. Æmiliana are found arranged in the order, not of age (which you may marvel at), but of the Alphabet, one is Eutyches of the title of holy Æmiliana. Which title, as it makes it indubitable for us, that a Saint of this name lived at Rome and flourished, as of old SS. Praxedis and Pudentiana, whose churches survive to this day; so it brings just sorrow upon us, that all notice of her life and virtues has so perished, that not even the church where she was is now known by anyone.
[3] thence added to the Roman Martyrology, Wishing therefore the reformers of the Roman Breviary under Gregory XIII, to revive the memory of a Saint well deserving of the Roman Church; in the second edition of it (for in the first there had not yet been thought about her) they believed, that no other and better suited day, than that on which St. Lucina was honored, of whom we treated above, Baronius probably suggesting it. Prudently indeed, no less than piously, on the occasion of St. Lucina. had they not added the title of Martyr, on what foundation it should be presumed to belong to her, since it did not appear, I have preferred for now to omit it, and to leave it to the new correction of the same Martyrology to be discussed. The same I would wish to have been done about St. Crescentiana, whom from a like cause we received to be venerated on May 5, with the title likewise of Martyr, not yet proved. As yet in this, so also in St. Æmiliana, they followed Baronius, Ferrari in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Brautius Bishop of Sarsina in his Poetic Martyrology, this kind of Distich fitting to her.
She could not be bent, to betray the faith promised to Christ, By any tortures, Æmiliana.