San Crescentino o Crescenziano

Who they were

According to his passio, which scholars regard as fictional, Crescentino (also called Crescenziano) was a Roman soldier who took refuge in the ancient town of Tifernum, killed a dragon that terrorised the area, and was then captured and put to death on 1 June during the persecution of Diocletian, being buried at a place called Gaddi or Saddi. No document, inscription or epigraph earlier than the 7th century mentions him.

His relics reached Città di Castello at an uncertain date and were venerated in a basilica; the 1360 discovery of a body there fed a legend that he had been a local bishop, but the more likely explanation is that these were the relics of the Roman martyr of the same name buried on the Via Ostiense. In 1500 Cesare Baronio entered him in the Roman Martyrology at 1 June, recognising the ancient veneration he enjoyed in that area.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Roman soldier venerated as a martyr at Città di Castello under the Diocletian persecution, according to legend; entered in the Roman Martyrology at 1 June by Cesare Baronio in 1500.