Urbanus, bishop of Rome

Urbanus (1), bp. of Rome under the emperor Alexander Severus, from 223 (or 222) to 230. The Liberian Catalogue gives 8 years 11 months and 11 days as the length of his episcopate. Nothing certain is known of his life. The Acta S. Urbani cannot be relied on.

The discovery by De Rossi in the papal crypt of the cemetery of St. Callistus of a broken stone (apparently once the mensa of an altar-tomb), bearing the imperfect inscription OVRBANOC E . . . has raised an interest in the question of his burial-place and alleged connexion with St. Caecilia. Lipsius inclines to the view that the Urban of the papal crypt was some other Urban, not necessarily a bishop, since the letter E after his name might have begun some other expression than ἐπίσκοπος, e.g. ἐν εἰρήνῃ. De Rossi, however, thinks that the slab in the papal crypt must have been that of the pope, who was actually buried there; and he attributes the contrary tradition to a confusion between him and the earlier Urban, whom he supposes to have been contemporary with St. Caecilia and buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus.

[J.B—Y.]