History
A Catholic History of Bologna
Bologna's Catholic story runs from the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola, through Bishop Petronius and his copy of Jerusalem, to a university that made it the cradle of canon law. Saint Dominic died here in 1221, the Madonna of San Luca has been brought down into the city since 1433, and Saint Catherine de' Vigri sits incorrupt at Corpus Domini. Napoleon, the Mortara case and the war all left marks, and in 2026 three priests killed at Monte Sole were beatified in San Petronio.
Before 430
Bononia and the First Martyrs
Bologna began as a Roman colony, Bononia, founded in 189 BC on the Via Emilia. Its first remembered Christian witnesses are Saint Vitalis, a slave, and his master Saint Agricola, killed in the persecution under Diocletian, usually dated about 304. Their bodies were buried in the Jewish cemetery. In 393 Saint Ambrose of Milan came to Bologna, opened the graves with Bishop Eustasius and the people present, and carried relics to Florence and Milan.
Tradition names Zama as the first bishop, around the time of the peace of 313, on the strength of a medieval list of bishops, and the diocese looked to Milan until the Byzantine centuries. The relics of Vitalis and Agricola rest today in a golden urn above the altar of the crypt of Santo Stefano, which visitors see through glass. Saint Vitalis of Bologna is not the Saint Vitalis honored at San Vitale in Ravenna.
