Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

Today is a day of love and caring. Valentine’s day wasn’t always about chocolates, gifts and spending ton’s of money. Does anyone know where the name Valentine’s Day came from?

Saint Valentine.

The patron saint of lovers, epileptics, and beekeepers. He died a martyr, executed on February 14, in Rome around the year 278 A.D.

According to legend he wrote a farewell note jailer’s daughter and signed it “your Valentine”. He had become friends and healed her of her blindness. Other legends say that he secretly married couples to spare the husbands of having to go to war against the emperors wishes. Valentine’s Day has been celebrated as a lover’s festival as early as the 14th century, maybe ever earlier. Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole in his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del Popolo, formerly, Porta Valetini.