January 9 -- Feast of Saint Marcellinus of Ancona

In spite of the fact that it uses some words that Google Translate can't handle -- e.g. verehrenswürdigem, as in Saint Marcellinus was a man with verehrenswürdigem life --  I am grateful to this site for some outstanding information about today's saint.  From it, I learned that Marcellinus was born in the Bocca-Major family sometime around 539.  Perhaps the Bocca-Majors are my distant ancestors; perhaps the name means Big-mouth.  If the latter is true, the former is more probable.  

Shrine of our fire-fighting saint

Marcellinus was the fifth bishop of Ancona, a seaport in the Marches region of Italy on the Adriatic coast.  Another source says he was the third bishop -- should we take the average and declare him the fourth or just admit that he was one of the first?  

A fire had begun to sweep through town.  Marcellinus, incapacitated by gout, asked some men to carry him to the edge of the flames.  They were reluctant, of course, but complied.  When they laid his litter in the fires path, the flames ceased to advance.  As the bishop prayed, the flames rolled back, into the burnt part of the city, and then extinguished themselves.  

Coolest building in Ancona

Ancona seems like a nice town.  It has a monument to Trajan, some nice Greco-Roman ruins (it was founded by the Dorians), and a very cool pentagon.  Although I am accustomed to thinking of pentagonal buildings as having a military function, this one did not, originally.  It was built as a quarantine for the port -- a place to store shipments until they could clear customs.  That's why it is in the harbor with only a narrow mole to the mainland.  

Saint Cyriac, in his cathedral in Ancona

Ancona also has a nice cathedral of course.  The relics of Marcellinus repose in the crypt, having been translated there from the older cathedral of Saint Stephen.  This second cathedral is dedicated to Saint Cyriac, the town's first bishop, whose relics are presented for veneration.  This cathedral was built on a site where once stood a temple of Aphrodite.