St John of Spoleto

(19th September)

Bishop John of Spoleto (492 - 546) might have been the bishop so-named who accompanied Bishop Germanus of Capua to Constantinople in 519 as delegates of Pope Hormisdas.  

In 546, Totila devastated Spoleto and executed John.  His body was miraculously saved and interred near San Pietro.  

Gunderada, the founding abbess of the Benedictine Abbazia di Sant’ Eufemia at the time of the Emperor Otto II (973-83)  found the relics and moved them to the nuns’ church.  She also commissioned a life of St John from “Giovanni Cassinese” in ca. 980 AD.  The church was dedicated as SS Giovanni e Eufemia from this point until 1446.

It seems that Bishop Enrico Gualfriedi translated the relics back to San Pietro in 1130.