Feastday: December 24
Death: 581
An aunt of Pope St. Gregory I the Great and a niece of Pope St. Felix IV. She lived with her sister, Emiliana, in Rome, where they were revered for their austerity and prayers. Tarsilla died first, followed a few days later by Emiliana. Tarsilla is also called Tharsilla.
Saints Trasilla (Tarsilla, Tharsilla, Thrasilla) and Emiliana were aunts of St. Gregory the Great, and venerated as virgin saints of the sixth century. They appear in the Roman Martyrology, the former on 24 December, the latter on 5 January.
History
Tarsilla (Tharsilla, Trasilla, Thrasilla) and Emiliana (Aemiliana, Emilie) were sisters and came from an ancient Roman noble family, the gens Anicia. Their brother, Senator Gordian, was a very rich patrician with a magnificent townhouse on the Caelian Hill and large estates in Sicily.
Gregory (Hom. XXXVIII, 15, on the Gospel of St. Matthew, and Lib. Dial., IV, 16) relates that his father, the Senator Gordian, had three sisters: Trasilla, Emiliana, and Gordiana. All three had devoted themselves to a religious life and led a life of virginity, fasting, and prayer. They practiced their faith in their father's house, located on the Clivus Scauri in Rome. Gordiana, at first as devout as her sisters, later abandoned this calling and is thus not venerated as a saint.
Tradition states that St. Felix III, an ancestor, appeared to Trasilla and bade her to enter Heaven, and on the eve of Christmas Trasilla died, seeing Jesus Christ beckoning. The legend also states that Trasilla a few days later appeared to Emiliana, inviting her to celebrate Epiphany in heaven.
Tradition says that their relics and those of their sister-in-law, St. Silvia, are in the Oratory of St. Andrew on the Celian Hill.
