Rufina and Secunda were Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 virgin-martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

s and Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 saints. Their feast day is celebrated on 10 July.

Legend

According to the legendary Acts, they suffered in 287 during the persecution of Emperor Valerian

Valerian (emperor)

Valerian , also known as Valerian the Elder, was Roman Emperor from 253 to 260. He was taken captive by Persian king Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the only Roman Emperor who was captured as a prisoner of war, resulting in wide-ranging instability across the Empire.-Origins and rise...

. Their legend states that they were daughters of a Roman senator named Asterius. Their fiancés, Armentarius and Verinus, were Christians, but renounced their faith when Valerian began his persecutions.

Escaping to Etruria

Etruria

Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...

, Rufina and Secunda were captured and brought before a prefect, who tortured and then beheaded

Decapitation

Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...

 them.

Their bodies were buried on the Via Aurelia

Via Aurelia

The Via Aurelia was a Roman road in Italy constructed around the year 241 BC. The project was undertaken by C. Aurelius Cotta, who at that time was censor...

 and the church of Sante Rufina e Secunda was built in their honor in Rome.

Historicity

In the notes attached to the publication of Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI

Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...

's 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints

Roman Catholic calendar of saints

The General Roman Calendar indicates the days of the year to which are assigned the liturgical celebrations of saints and of the mysteries of the Lord that are to be observed wherever the Roman Rite is used...

, it is stated that of these two saints, whose feast was inserted into the Roman Calendar in the twelfth century on the occasion of the transfer of their relics to the Lateran Basilica, nothing is really known except their names and the fact that they were buried at the ninth milestone of the Via Cornelia

Via Cornelia

Via Cornelia is an ancient Roman Road that supposedly ran east west along the northern wall of the Circus of Nero on land now covered by the southern wall of St. Peter's Basilica. It is closely associated with the Via Aurelia and the Via Triumphalis...

.

They are mentioned in the Bern manuscript of the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum

Martyrologium Hieronymianum

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum was a medieval list of martyrs, one of the most used and influential of the Middle Ages...

," and are recorded also in seventh century "Itineraries" as on the Via Cornelia, where Pope Damasus I

Pope Damasus I

Pope Saint Damasus I was the bishop of Rome from 366 to 384.He was born around 305, probably near the city of Idanha-a-Velha , in what is present-day Portugal, then part of the Western Roman Empire...

 erected a Basilica

Basilica

The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...

 over their grave. The town on this spot named after St Rufina (Santa Rufina) became the See

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 of one of the suburbicarian dioceses that was later united with Porto as Porto-Santa Rufina.

Feast Day

The feast day of Sts Rufina and Secunda was included in the Tridentine Calendar

Tridentine Calendar

The Tridentine Calendar is the calendar of saints to be honoured in the course of the liturgical year in the official liturgy of the Roman Rite as reformed by Pope Pius V, implementing a decision of the Council of Trent, which entrusted the task to the Pope....

 as a "Semidouble". The General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII

General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII

In 1955 Pope Pius XII made several changes to the General Roman Calendar of 1954, changes that remained in force only until 1960, when Pope John XXIII, on the basis of further recommendations of the commission that Pius XII had set up, decreed a further revision of the Roman Catholic calendar of...

 reduced it to a "Simple", and in the General Roman Calendar of 1962

General Roman Calendar of 1962

This article lists the feast days of the General Roman Calendar as it was in 1962, following the reforms that Pope John XXIII introduced with his motu proprio Rubricarum instructum of 23 July 1960...

 it became a third-class feast. According to the rules in the present Roman Missal

Roman Missal

The Roman Missal is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.-Situation before the Council of Trent:...

, they may now be celebrated everywhere with their own Mass on their feast day, unless in some locality an obligatory celebration is assigned to that day.

In art

Sts Rufina and Secunda are sometimes depicted as two maidens floating in the Tiber River with weights attached to their necks.

In the 1620s, the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 painters Il Morazzone, Giulio Cesare Procaccini

Giulio Cesare Procaccini

Giulio Cesare Procaccini was an Italian painter and sculptor of the early Baroque era in Milan.-Biography:Born in Bologna he was son of the Mannerist painter Ercole Procaccini the Elder and brother of Camillo Procaccini and Carlo Antonio Procaccini...

, and Giovanni Battista Crespi

Giovanni Battista Crespi

Giovanni Battista Crespi , called Il Cerano, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect,-Biography:...

 collaborated on the "Martyrdom of Saints Rufina and Secunda," which was praised as "the painting by three hands" .

External links

• "SS. Rufina and Secunda, Virgins, Martyrs", Butler's Lives of the Saints
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Sts. Rufina- various saints named Rufina
• Saint Patrick Catholic Church - Saint of the Day: July 10 - Rufina and Secunda
• De hellige Rufina og Secunda av Roma (257)