GERVASE AND PROTASE, SS.

Ss. Gervase and Protase, martyrs, are patrons of Milan; dates unknown. Nothing is known of the life or martyrdom of these saints; even their existence has been questioned. The tradition that they were martyred during the persecution of Nero is unreliable, since there is no evidence for a Christian community in Milan before the end of the 2nd century. Their tombs were in the church of SS. Nabor and Felix, which was rebuilt after the Peace of the Church (313). In this church St. ambrose of milan discovered the bodies on June 17, 386, and he translated the relics to the newly dedicated basilica named after him. The identification of the bodies was based on their extraordinary size, the finding of an ampula, and the miraculous cure of a blind man. Ambrose himself described the rediscovery of the relics in an extant letter to his sister Marcellina. The cult of Gervase and Protase spread rapidly in Italy, in Gaul, and throughout Western Christendom. In the 5th century a legend describing their martyrdom was forged and ascribed to St. Ambrose. Without historical merit, the legend connects them with Nazarius and Celsus as sons of Vitalis and Valeria, who had a church dedicated to her in Milan. The earliest extant representation of Gervase and Protase is in S. Vitale, Ravenna. The relics of the martyrs are now venerated in a silver reliquary in the cathedral of Breisach in Baden, where Emperor frederick i barbarossa's Chancellor, Rainald von Dassel, is alleged to have translated them. The original relics, however, are still under the main altar of the Basilica of St. Ambrose in Milan.

Feast: June 19.

Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum June 4:680–704. p. franchi de'cavalieri, Nuovo Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, 9 (1903) 109–126. g. rauschen, Jahrbücher der christlichen Kirche unter dem Kaiser Theodosius dem Grossen (Freiburg 1897) 243–. e. lucius, Die Anfänge des Heiligenkults, ed. g. anrich (Tü bingen 1904) 153–. h. delehaye, Analecta Bollandiana 49 (1931) 30–35; Les Origines du culte des martyrs (2d ed. Brussels 1933) 75–78. h. gÜnter, Die Psychologie der Legende (Freiburg 1949) 348–.

[j. brÜckmann]