Equateur Flowers

Heart-shaped boxes. Striking red roses. Candy engraved with messages of affection and infatuation. As soon as Christmas trees are down and presents are exchanged, the aisles will be streaming red and pink candies and gifts.

In the United States, Valentine’s Day evokes images of fifth graders exchanging Pokemon cards in fits of puppy love…adults drinking wine by a romantic candlelight dinner.

The character who seems to embody the spirit of Valentine’s Day is the baby-like Cupid, whose arrows inject people with amore.

But the Roman mythological Cupid is not the reason for Valentine’s Day, and the United States is not the birthplace of the Hallmark-card giving holiday. Though there are varying accounts of the exact origin of Valentine’s Day, most point to Valentine’s day’s beginnings in the early part of the first millennium in Rome.
In Terni, you can visit the Basilica dedicated to the legend of Saint Valentine. This picture shows the beautiful Church built in honor of the legend of a priest who presided over love.

You can visit the Saint Valentine Basilica in Terni, Italy.

Originally a Christian holiday, Valentine’s Day is actually Saint Valentine’s Day, named for early saints of the Catholic religion (though, there are varying legends as to after whom which Saint Valentine the holiday was actually named). An official Catholic web site describes three Saint Valentines as martyrs, all of whom are listed under the martyrdom date of February 14. Saint Valentine is a singular name that is used largely to encompass all three saints and their respective histories. While one Saint Valentine’s life can be traced to Africa, very little is known about him. But the other two Saint Valentines have historical roots in Rome.
Besides the three martyrs given by the Catholic web site, many other legends of Valentine’s Day’s origins exist, most dating back to the first millennium in Rome.

The picture shows Saint Valentine presiding over the engagement of two lovers. Both lovers have their hands placed on flowers, a key part of one of the legends surrounding the priest whose holiday bears his name.

Martyr

In one account, Valentine’s history is traced back to a time when Claudius II was the Roman Emperor. Valentine was a priest when Christianity was a new religion. Claudius forbade Roman soldiers from marrying because he feared that as married men, they would not want to fight and would opt instead to stay home with their families. Valentine defied the order and married couples anyway. The punishment for his offenses was death. Valentine was beheaded on February 14 and he was given Sainthood after his death.

Protector of Engaged Couples

Another legend of Valentine’s activities has him as Bishop giving young girls and boys who went to see him flowers from his garden. Two of these young lovers, to whom Valentine had given the flowers, fell in love and got married. Saint Valentine blessed their marriage. Their union was so happy and beautiful that many other couples sought the Bishop’s blessing. In order to keep up with the demand of his blessings, he set aside one day each year when he would give all couples his general wedding benediction. Because of this, people began to call him the protector of engaged people.

Regardless of which specific legend is true, clearly stories about Valentine point back to an official in the Catholic Church, whose blessing was sought by couples all over Italy. Whoever Valentine was, he is known for his ability to inject love into the relationships of many couples.

It is through the remembrances of Saint Valentine, regardless of the specific martyr, that Catholics in Rome began observing February 14 as a Christian holiday. As Catholicism spread across Europe, so did recognition of Saint Valentine’s Day.

In England and France, people began to notice that birds paired off together halfway through the second month. This helped the holiday spread as a day for lovers. Writers like Chaucer and John Gower even referenced this phenomenon in some of their works, thus adding to the consecration of February 14.
A holiday remembrance that began in Rome spread to England and France, eventually to the United States and fifth grade classrooms everywhere.

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