Saint Desiderius of Langres

Desiderius was born in Genoa, in the countryside of Bavari, in the fourth century, and was the third bishop of Langres, in France. That he existed is beyond question: Athanasius of Alexandria lists him among those who took part in the Council of Serdica in 343, and his name also appears at the Council of Cologne in 346. These two documents place him precisely in the middle of the most heated debates of his century. He died during the barbarian invasions, around 355, beheaded. Tradition says he went out to meet the invaders to negotiate and save his people, and that they killed him there. Then there’s the part that made his fortune in art: the story goes that his body picked its own head up off the ground and walked back into the city carrying it in its hands. It’s called cephalophory, and it’s a motif that recurs in several legends of beheaded saints — the best known is Denis in Paris. Scholars read it as a way of saying, in pictures, that his death had interrupted nothing. In the Middle Ages he was long confused with Saint Desiderius of Vienne, who is a different person. He is the patron saint of Langres and of several towns in Lombardy and Piedmont, including Assago and Castelnuovo Scrivia. If your name is Desiderio, today is your name day.