Saint Valentine of Rome

A priest and physician under a persecuting emperor

Valentine was a Roman priest and physician martyred during the persecution of Christians carried out by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus, around 270 AD. He was buried on the Via Flaminia outside Rome, and Pope Julius I later built a basilica over his grave — one of the few concrete facts historians agree on regarding his life.

A name attached to more than one man

The Catholic Encyclopedia identifies at least three Saints Valentine connected with February 14: a Roman priest, and a bishop of Interamna, present-day Terni — both buried at different points along the same road outside Rome. The lack of reliable information distinguishing between them led the Church to remove Valentine from the General Roman Calendar in 1969, even as it continued to recognize him as a saint.

The legends behind the holiday

Two stories account for his later association with romance. In one, he is said to have signed a farewell letter "from your Valentine" to his jailer's daughter, a young woman he had befriended and healed of blindness. In another, he defied the emperor's orders by secretly marrying couples, sparing husbands from being conscripted into war — an act of quiet defiance built directly into the legend's core.

A sentence carried out on February 14

Valentine was arrested and brought before the prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and then beheaded. The sentence was carried out on or about February 14, around the year 270. He is remembered today as the patron saint of lovers, of people with epilepsy, and of beekeepers — a small, historically uncertain figure who nonetheless gave his name to the world's most widely celebrated day of romance.