Baculus of Sorrento

Who is Baculus of Sorrento?

Saint Baculus of Sorrento is venerated as a bishop of Sorrento.

The Life of Saint Antoninus, Abbot of Sorrento, composed in the 9th century or sometime after, mentions some patron saints of Sorrento: the bishops Renatus, Athanasius, and Baculus. The Life includes a description of the saints obtained from painting hanging at the time in the cathedral of Sorrento.

The time when Baculus is supposed to have been bishop of the city is uncertain. Ferdinando Ughelli, basing his findings on a manuscript dating from after the 12th century found in Sorrento Cathedral, believed that Baculus’ episcopate occurred in the 7th century. The Bollandists believed Baculus lived around 660 AD. Francesco Lanzoni, however, writes that “the Vita Sancti Baculi, in the section that concerns the episcopate of its hero, does not contain any chronological detail concerning the same. Nothing, therefore, can prevent us from believing that he may have lived in the fourth or fifth centuries.”