Laverius of Grumentum

Saint Laverius, martyr, was a Roman soldier and suffered at Grumentum in southern Italy for the confession of faith in Christ, around 312. He is commemorated on 17 November.

According to medieval sources, Laverius was born in the third century at Tegiano, or at Acerenza, or at Ripacandida, to Sergia. His father, Achilles, was a pagan. He also had a brother named Marian.

The life and deeds of the saint are told in the Gesta Sancti Laverii, a life written in 1162 by a certain Roberto of Romana, a deacon of Saponara (Grumento), and to which things were added and changed in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The sources are therefore late, so what is said of him is uncertain. A folk proverb says that on Saint Laverius' day (17 November) snow falls on the mountains.