What is "nonnosus"

Saint Nonnosus ( 500 - 560 AD), also Nonosius, was a prior at the San Silvestre monastery on Monte Soratte north of Rome and later a monk at Suppentonia, near Civita Castellana. He was a contemporary of Saint Benedict of Nursia. Alban Butler has written that “so little information has survived about Nonnosus that he is not especially interesting in himself.” His name does not appear in any ancient martyrology.

A deacon Nonnosus is mentioned in a 12th-century collection of legends from Carinthia, Austria. His cult was strong in Bavaria, where relics are kept in the crypt of Freising Cathedral. Veneration of Nonnosus was also established at Monte Soratte in the 1650s, due to the efforts of Andrea di San Bonaventura, a Cistercian monk, and in 1661 some of his relics returned to Monte Soratte and Nonnosus' cult spread across central Italy. It is highly likely that the legends of two different persons had been merged into one by then.

Nonnosus was a Byzantine ambassador under Justinian I. He led a mission to the Red Sea area, visiting Axum, Ḥimyar, and the Arabs.

Upon his return he wrote a history of his embassy, which has survived only in a condensed version form attributed to Photios I of Constantinople. This claims that his father, Abraham, had been an ambassador to the Arabs and that his uncle, also Nonnosus, was sent on an embassy by Anastasius I.