Saint Saturninus of Cagliari ( it, San Saturnino, Saturno) is venerated as the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of Cagliari. According to Christian tradition, Saturninus was a local

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

–that is, he was killed at Cagliari by order of governor Barbarus.Patron Saints Index: Saint Saturninus of Cagliari
The legend states that he was

beheaded Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the ...

for refusing to offer sacrifices to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

during the persecutions of Christians by Diocletian. However, some scholars have determined that this tradition was invented centuries after the supposed martyrdom, and that the legend was devised ''a posteriori'' to attach a story to the name to whom the local ancient

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

was dedicated.San Saturnino di Cagliari
/ref> But the name of the saint in Sardinian language, "Santu Sadurru" (Saint Saturnus) suggests that there really was the martyrdom of Saturnus, a young Christian by the pagans and the saint was exactly buried where the ancient church was erected.R.B. MOTZO, Studi sui Bizantini in Sardegna e sull'agiografia sarda, Cagliari, edited by the Deputazione di Storia patria per la Sardegna, 1987 Saint Saturninus was so confused with Saturninus of Toulouse (Sernin). "Saturninus" was the name of several other martyrs, including some belonging to the group of the Martyrs of Abitina, and close trading ties and communications between

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and Cagliari may have resulted in the cult of a North African saint becoming attached to this Sardinian location.

References

External links

Saturninus of Cagliari

San Saturnino di Cagliari
Cagliari 4th-century Christian martyrs 4th-century Romans Year of birth unknown {{Italy-saint-stub