Gervasius and Protasius (also Gervase and Protase, Gervasis and Prothasis and in French Gervais and Protais) are venerated as Christian martyrs, probably of the 2nd century.

The acta[2] may have been expanded from a letter (Epistle liii) to the bishops of Italy, falsely ascribed to Ambrose.

Their father, Vitalis of Milan, a man of consular dignity, suffered martyrdom at Ravenna, possibly under Nero.

The sons are said to have had large hands and had been scourged and then beheaded, during the reign of the Emperor Nero, under the presidency of Anubinus or Astasius, and while Caius was Bishop of Milan.

"[4] Ambrose had their relics removed to the Basilica of Fausta (now the Church of Saints Vitalis and Agricola),[5] and on the next day into the basilica, accompanied in the texts by many miracles, emblematic of divine favor in the context of the great struggle then taking place between Ambrose and the Arian Empress Justina.

[6] Of the vision, the subsequent discovery of the relics and the accompanying miracles, Ambrose wrote to his sister Marcellina.

Augustine, not yet baptized, claims to have witnessed these events and relates them in his "Confessions" (IX, vii), and in "De Civitate Dei" (XXII, viii) as well as in his "Sermon 286 in natal.

[3] Immediately after the discovery of the relics by Ambrose, the cult of Saints Gervasius and Protasius was spread in Italy, churches were built in their honour at Pavia, Nola and other places.

In 835, Angilbert II, Bishop of Milan, placed the relics of the three saints in a porphyry sarcophagus, where they were found in January 1864.