ON ST. ADRIAN, A ROMAN MARTYR, AT BOLOGNA.
CommentaryAdrian, a Roman Martyr, at Bologna (Saint)
That St. Adrian the Martyr is venerated at Bologna on the Kalends of March is attested by Antonio Paolo Masini in his Bologna perlustrata. For he says that his body is preserved in the church of the nuns of St. John the Baptist, and in the church called St. Mary della Vita, The body of St. Adrian translated from Rome to Bologna the head of the same holy Martyr; and that both these heavenly pledges were the gift of Gregory XV, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1623. That body and head, however, are not those of St. Adrian, the great Martyr of Nicomedia, whose body Ottavio Panciroli reports to be at Rome in the church dedicated of old to his name, which now belongs to the Religious of St. Mary of Mercy, while his head and arm are in the church of the Friars Minor called Aracoeli. He is different, that is, from the one of Nicomedia. For the Pontiff did not take their treasure away from these churches to give it to the Bolognese. And that Adrian of Nicomedia is venerated on the 8th of September, on which day his remains were brought to Rome from Constantinople. He had otherwise won the palm of martyrdom on the 4th of March, and on the following day another Adrian, likewise a Martyr, was crowned at Caesarea at about the same time. What we have said would be more surely established by the acts of the donation, if we had them: for from them it would be clear from what cemetery and church that body and head were taken.