Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology; venerated at Ravenna and Milan. It is uncertain when these suffered, whether under Nero, or in the 2nd century. Baronius gives the date 171. The account of their passion is ancient; it is contained in the Acts of SS. Gervasiusand Protasius their sons, (June 19), it is certainly older than 386, as it contains no mention of the discovery of their relics at that date.] N the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, according to Baronius, a physician of Ravenna, named Ursicinus, was condemned to death as a Christian. The sight of the preparations for his execution made his courage fail, and he was almost disposed to apostatize, when Vitalis, the father of SS. Gervais and Protasius, who was present, cried out to him to encourage him to play the man for Christ Ursicinus re covered his resolution, and suffered on June 19th. Then Paulinus, the magistrate, ordered Vitalis to be brought before him, and placed on the rack, and then to be cast into a pit, and earth and stones to be thrown in upon him till he was dead. His wife, Valeria, was taken at Milan, whither she retired on her husband's death, and on her refusing to eat meat offered to idols, she was so severely (April sS.

…beaten that she died two days after of the blows she had received. The very interesting church of S. Vitalis at Ravenna “a bad copy of the temple of Minerva Medica of Rome,” 1 was built in the reign of Justinian [Byzantine emperor 527–565] by S. Ecclesius, archbishop of Ravenna, and was consecrated in a.d. 547, by S. Maximianus. In it is the tomb of the saint, and a fountain which issues from beneath it, which is held in great veneration.