Martina, St.
MARTINA, ST.
Virgin martyr. Her vita is an adaptation of the legend of St. Tatiana, according to which she was the orphaned daughter of a former consul, a deaconess, and a virgin martyr under Alexander Severus (222–235), tortured and beheaded for her faith. Her cult goes back to the seventh century in Rome, where she had an oratory near the Mamertine prison (Patrologia Latina 75:237). A church in her honor, built in the secretarium of the Roman senate by honorius i (625–638) and enlarged by adrian i (772–795), was reconstructed under urban viii when her relics were discovered there in 1634. She is mentioned in the Roman Capitularia evangeliorum (mid–eighth century), in the martyrologies of St. Jerome, ado, and us uard, and in the Roman martyrology.
Feast: Jan. 30 (formerly Jan. 1).
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum. Jan. 1:11–19. j. w. legg, ed., The Second Recension of the Quignon Breviary, 2 v. (London 1908–12). m. armellini, Le Chiese di Roma, ed. c. cecchelli, 2v. (Rome 1942). "Des publications hagiographiques," Analecta Bollandiana 23 (1904) 344.
[j. van paassen]