St Secundus (1st June)

The historical existence of St Secundus is open to question.  According to tradition, he was a Roman soldier connected to the family of the Emperor Aurelian (270 – 5 AD).  He was a devout Christian and during the persecutions of 303 AD he was forced to flee to Spoleto, where he was arrested and thrown into the Tiber  with a stone around his neck .  His associates, SS Agapitus and Justina were martyred with him.

The widow Eudoxia [Gabrielli] recovered his body (which had miraculously escaped from the stone that was meant to sink it) along with the bodies of SS Agapitus and Justina.  She buried them in a cemetery near her house in Amelia, which was on the site of the future Abbazia di San Secondo (see walk).  She later moved the relics to the new church of San Secondo that she built at Gubbio. 

In 1285, St Secundus' head and the bodies of SS Agapitus and Justina were given to the Augustinians of the nearby town of Pergola (which Gubbio had recently founded).

St Secundus was revered as the protector of the dead, and the church of the Abbazia di San Secondo, Amelia became the home of the 16th century Confraternità della Buona Morte, which was dedicated to the burial of the poor.