Silvia

About Silvia

Silvia was the mother of Gregory the Great and the wife of Gordianus, a Roman church official. The surviving notices remember her religious devotion and the education she gave her children. After her husband’s death, she withdrew into a religious life near the gate of Saint Paul in Rome. Her birthplace is uncertain: later accounts name either Sicily or Rome. Her birth is variously placed around 515 or 525.

Modern historian R. A. Markus places the family among the wealthy households with property around Rome and in Sicily. He cautions against treating every inherited claim of senatorial ancestry as established. Gordianus worked for the Roman Church; the exact form of his office is less secure than later biographical titles suggest. Silvia belonged to this family setting before her son entered monastic life and eventually became pope.

A family portrait offers a more personal trace of her memory. John the Deacon described a painting of Gordianus and Silvia at their property on the Caelian Hill in the 870s. Markus notes that the date of the painting cannot now be determined. He also observes that Silvia’s name first appears in the earlier Whitby Life of Gregory, whose author apparently received it from a Roman source.

The Catholic Encyclopedia preserves John’s description of Silvia as an older woman with large blue eyes and a lively expression. It also records an oratory associated with her former dwelling and her later inclusion in the Roman Martyrology. Only a few notices survive about her own life.

Vatican News lists Silvia, under the spelling Sylvia, on 3 November and identifies her as Gregory’s mother. Her remembrance retains the name of a woman whose religious life was preserved chiefly through the family and community around her son.