The Worship of the Martyrs and the Votive Chapel of Santa Maria Mater Domini

Basilica of Saints Felice and Fortunato: liturgical notes

The Worship of the Martyrs Felice and Fortunato is one of the oldest cults in our region. Literary sources, as well as liturgical and archeological, confirm the historical truth of the devotion of the two Vicenza brothers, martyred by beheading at Aquilea at the beginning of the 14th century AD during the persecutions of Dioclesius. Around their mortal remains there developed an important cult of worship both at Aquileia and Vicenza, so important that a contest blew up over the right of possession of the sacred spoils, which, according to legend, was resolved by dividing the bodies between the two towns and exchanging the heads.
Even if a recent examination has revealed that the Vicenza relics belong to one and the same person, the hagiographic testimony is important to show the weight that the cult of the martyr originally had in the Church. The figure of the martyr indeed has a special place in the faith: martyrs are seen as persons who offer their lives in sacrifice as testimony of their faith, and thus imitate the Passion and Death of Christ. In this way they become an example for the whole Church, worthy of celestial beatitude, so close to God because of their merits that they can intervene on behalf of all the Faithful. This is why the memory of the Martyrs is for the Church a holy day and day of special celebrations, while the preservation of their relics has meant the building of special places for worshipping them and for drawing closer to God. In the Basilica of Santi Felice e Fortunato the votive chapel also named after Santa Maria Mater Domini looks like one of those places: a "martyrium". The small building stands on the side of the left flank of the Basilica, in a special place of worship, according to the old custom of the commemoration of Martyrs. The dedication to Holy Mary seems to date back to the 6th century, as is shown by the epigraph transcribed by F. Barbarano, which he found on the architrave of the pergula which originally enclosed the area of the presbytery. This inscription, which has been lost to us, underlined the privilege of the Divine motherhood of Mary, and expressed its theological point of view, which was in line with the dogma of the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Calcedonia (453).
From the architectural point of view, the martyrion, dating back in all probability to the second half of the 5th century, is a parallelepipedon in bare Roman brick on the exterior, surmounted by a minor cube, and with a polygonal apse. The interior, in the shape of a Greek cross, has a rectangular atrium, closed in the centre by a small cupola. The decorations on the marble walls and the vaults covered in mosaic must have been sumptuous. Certain figures bear witness to this, such as a winged lion, the symbol of St Mark the Evangelist, and a saint armed with a clipeus.
Above the altar there is a wooden 18th century tabernacle and beneath it the relics of the martyr San Felice, moved here from the crypt in 1979.

By Francesca Cavaggioni (Arts Office of the Diocese of Vicenza)