Chiaffredo

Chiaffredo (also Theofredus) is honoured as the patron of the city of Saluzzo in Italy. According to tradition he was a soldier of the Theban Legion, who escaped the slaughter at Agaunum, in present-⁠day Switzerland, fled to Piedmont and was killed there, at Crissolo. He is remembered on 7 September. Our sources show that his history is uncertain: he is not named in the Roman Martyrology and is honoured chiefly in Piedmont, while the Coptic Church honours him on the ground of his Theban origin. They say nothing of an Orthodox act of canonization.

The two legends

An account of the fourteenth century says that, about the year 522, a man fell from a precipice near Crissolo but remained unharmed. The local people ascribed his escape to relics found by a peasant ploughing nearby, which was held to be divine work. The mysterious skeleton was given the name "San Ciafrè", and the tomb became the site of a celebrated sanctuary at Crissolo.

A legend of the late sixteenth century, written by Guglielmo Baldesano, says that Chiaffredo or Teofredo, a soldier of the Theban Legion, fled to Piedmont so as not to sacrifice to pagan idols and was killed at Crissolo about the year 270, by other dates in 286. A Russian source says he was a native of Egypt. The scholar Fabio Arduino holds that this story has no historical foundation, since it was unlikely that a Roman legionary of the third century would bear so clearly Germanic a name: it is a variant of Theudofridus, from theuda, "people", and frithu, "peace".

The cult

The tomb shown as Chiaffredo's may have been a tomb of pagan origin. As with the cults of Constantius at Crissolo, of Bessus in Val Soana, of Tegulus at Ivrea, of Magnus at Castelmagno and of Dalmatius at Borgo San Dalmazzo, his cult was linked to the Theban Legion, to give antiquity to a local saint about whom nothing was known. In 1902 a scholar identified him with Theofredus (Chaffre), eighth-⁠century abbot of Le Monastier near Puy-⁠en-⁠Velay, killed by Muslim raiders and also venerated in Piedmont. The first written evidence of veneration is from 1387, when Pope Clement VII of Avignon gave indulgences to those who visited the church at Crissolo and helped to repair it.

Bishop Tornabuoni of Saluzzo declared him patron of his diocese at a synod of 1516, with Constantius as co-⁠patron. His relics were moved to Revello in 1593 and from there to the cathedral of Saluzzo in 1642. Constantius and Chiaffredo are depicted together on the altar of the cathedral of Saluzzo.