Saint Venera

Saint Venera (Veneranda, Veneria, Venerina, Parasceve) is venerated as a Christian martyr of the 2nd century. Little is known of this saint. As one source states: "Santa Venera is a very old place, much older than its name, unless they are right who declare that no such Christian saint ever existed as Venera, and that the name is simply a variant of venere, and nothing more nor less than the Italian form of the name of the goddess of love. These people maintain that the hill-town of Aphrodisia stood on this site, and the church of Santa Venera was a temple of Aphrodite seven hundred years before Christianity had any martyrs."