The place of San Romolo’s Martyrdom

The place of San Romolo’s Martyrdom

The so-called “stone of the martyrdom of San Romolo” is located at the crossroads of Via Vecchia Fiesolana and the lley of the Angels. Today, it is pointed out by a seventeenth-century inscription that reads: “Above this stone / by the hand of the cruel people of Fiesole / a spectacle of horrible and sad death / As innocent victims / fell the great champions of Christ.” According to tradition, San Romolo, the patron saint of Fiesole, was killed along with four disciples after refusing to make offerings to pagan gods and was beheaded here.

Angelo Maria Bandini hypothesized that the large and squared stone, known as the place of martyrdom, was part of the Etruscan Walls supposed to pass in the area. In his Letters XII (ed. 1776), Bandini writes: «Between Villa Medici and the staircase of San Girolamo was one of the gates of the city, and who knows if that big stone, on which they say San Romolo suffered martyrdom, is not a remnant of the foundation of the Florentine gate?”»