Hanno of Verona

Saint Hanno of Verona was bishop of Verona in the eighth century, in northern Italy. He fell asleep about the year 780. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, and his commemoration is on 23 May.

Hanno came of a noble family and was born at Verona, in the first quarter of the eighth century. After he was ordained priest and became rector of the cathedral of Verona, at the end of 750 or the beginning of 751 he was made bishop of the city. In 757 he consecrated the church of the saints Teuteria and Tosca and ordered the bodies of the two saints to be placed in an urn. During his episcopate the relics of the saints Firmus and Rusticus were found, moved from Trieste after payment of a ransom. The relics were received with great solemnity and placed in the church of San Fermo Maggiore. Bishop Hanno placed a precious silk cloth on the embroidered figures of the bishops of Verona and of the two saints. Some of these cloths, called the Veli di Classe, survive today in the National Museum of Ravenna.

There are two hypotheses about the date of the translation: 23 March 765, according to what is written on the lead case in which the two bodies rest, or 22 May 755, according to the notes on two leaves placed in the crypt of the church of San Fermo. The story is told in two documents of contemporaries: the Translatio ss. Firmi et Rustici, from the second half of the eighth century, and the Ritmo pipiniano, composed between the eighth and ninth centuries. According to the Vitae episcoporum Veronensium of Libardi, in 774, after the destruction of the Lombard kingdom, Hanno received Charlemagne, king of the Franks, at Verona.