Rufina and Secunda

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For the Spanish martyr named Rufina, see Justa and Rufina.

For other uses of Rufina, see Rufina.

Saints Rufina and Secunda
The Martyrdom of Saints Secunda and Rufina. Collaborative painting by Il Morazzone, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, and Giovanni Battista Crespi (1620-1625)
Born
Died	257 AD
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	July 10
Attributes	two maidens floating in the Tiber River with weights attached to their necks.
Saints Portal

Saints Rufina and Secunda ((Italian) Ruf(f)ina e Seconda) (d. 257 AD) were Roman martyrs and Christian saints. Their feast day is July 10.

1 Legend
2 Historicity
3 In art
4 External links

[edit] Legend

According to the legendary Acts, they suffered in 257 during the persecution of Valerian. Their legend states that they were daughters of a Roman senator named Asterius. Their fiances, Armentarius and Verinus, were Christians, but renounced their faith when Valerian began his persecutions.

Escaping to Etruria, Rufina and Secunda were captured and brought before a prefect, who tortured and then beheaded them.

Their bodies were buried on the Via Aurelia and the church of Sante Rufina e Secunda was built in their honor in Rome.

[edit] Historicity

There were two Roman women who were martyred under Valerian and buried at Santa Rufina on the Aurelian Way, but their legend is most likely apocryphal. According to the Berne manuscript of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, however, their place of burial was at the ninth milestone of the Via Cornelia.

These martyrs are also recorded in the Itineraries of the seventh century as on the Via Cornelia. Pope Damasus I erected a church over the grave of the saints. The town on this spot named after St. Rufina (Santa Rufina) became the see of one of the suburbicarian dioceses that was later united with Porto as Porto-Santa Rufina.

[edit] In art

Rufina and Secunda are sometimes depicted as two maidens floating in the Tiber River with weights attached to their necks.

In the 1620s, The painters Il Morazzone, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, and Giovanni Battista Crespi collaborated on the Martyrdom of Saints Rufina and Secunda, which was praised as il quadro delle tre mani ("a painting by three hands").[1]