Venantius of Camerino

Saint Venantius of Camerino, Martyr, also called Wigand, is the patron of the city of Camerino in Italy and of Raiano. Tradition says he was a youth of fifteen, tortured and killed by beheading at Camerino, in the persecution of Decius, on 18 May 251 or 253. He is remembered on 18 May.

Ten other Christians were killed with him, among them the priest Porphyrius, Venantius' tutor, and Leontius, bishop of Camerino. Before he was killed, Venantius was scourged, burned with flaming torches, hung upside down over a fire, had his teeth knocked out and his jaw broken, was thrown to lions and then cast from a high cliff. His Acts, of the eleventh century, add that he managed to escape briefly from Camerino and hide at Raiano, where a church was later dedicated to him.

He was buried outside the walls of Camerino, where a basilica was built in the fifth century, rebuilt many times in succeeding centuries. His veneration became widespread: his image appeared on coins and his name in litanies; springs near the basilica, associated with the saint, were used by lepers and people with ulcers for healing. Venantius replaced Saint Ansovinus as the city's patron. In 1259, when Camerino was sacked and destroyed by the troops of Manfred of Sicily, his relics were carried to safety at the Castel dell'Ovo in Naples, and were restored to Camerino in 1269 by order of Pope Clement IV, an opponent of Manfred. In the seventeenth century Pope Clement X, a former bishop of Camerino, increased his veneration: he raised the feast to the double rite and composed hymns for his office.