AD URSUM PILEATUM
the name of a cemetery on the Via Portuensis
where the bodies of SS. Abdon and Sennen were buried (Chron.
Min. i. 71 ;
LP lxxxii. 5). Pope Leo II (682-684) transferred the bodies of SS.
Faustinus, Simplicius, and Beatrix from the cemetery of Generosa (also
on the Via Portuensis) to a church of S. Paul close to S. Bibiana, not
far from the Porta Tiburtina, which he founded (
LPD i. 361, n. g; HCh
415). Here, in the sixteenth century, Bosio (Roma Sotterranea, lib. iii.
c. 66, p. 585) read an inscription, which began as follows, '
anno domini
... mense Octobris dedicatione(m) huius eccl(esia)e s(an)c(t)or(um)
martir(um) Simplicii Faustini et Beatricis ad cimeterium Ursi Pileati
iuxta forma(m) Claudii an(te) po(r)ta(m) Taurinam quam primus [sic]
Leo papa maxima devotione ... fecit.' This shows that the name had
wrongly been transferred to this district in the Middle Ages and by the
topographers of the sixteenth century (cf.
CIL vi. 3403*). For a statue
of a bear wearing a helmet, which is said to have been found by Bernini
when rebuilding the church of S. Bibiana, see Baldinucci, Vita del Bernini;
Adinolfi, Roma nell' eta di mezzo, i. 282; Arm. 804-806;
T. vi. 10).
