medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Nothing is known about the historical Justina. A saint of this name has been venerated as a martyr in northeastern Italy and especially at Padua since at least the later fifth or earlier sixth century, when the praetorian prefect Opilio (two consular bearers of this name are recorded inscriptionally, one from 453 and the other from 525) founded or rebuilt in the latter city a basilica dedicated to her that lasted until 1117 and that from perhaps the eighth century onward was the church (since several times rebuilt) of what later became a major Benedictine monastery. Herewith a view of the inscription recording Opilio's foundation now mounted at the entrance to the reconstructed late antique cappella di San Prosdocimo in Padua's basilica di Santa Giustina: https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2706/4351661804_2bc1df0702_b.jpg
In the later sixth century St. Venantius Fortunatus speaks of Justina's tomb in this church (whose walls were painted with scenes from the Acta of St. Martin of Tours).
Across the Adriatic in the Istrian town of Poreč in today's Croatia Justina is figured in the earlier sixth-century mosaic portraits of the triumphal arch of the Basilica Eufrasiana. Later in the same century Justina appears in the procession of female martyrs in Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. Her cult is attested epigraphically from Rimini in the sixth or seventh century. It is not entirely clear whether she is also the Justina who in this general period entered the Ambrosian Canon of the Mass and to whom was dedicated an oratory at Como in 617.
The late eighth- or very early ninth-century Sacramentary of Salzburg, whose texts are of Venetian origin, preserves part of a Mass for Justina celebrated on 8. October. What is thought to be the oldest of her Passiones (BHL 4571) is usually dated to the eleventh century. This makes her a wealthy virgin and a native of Padua who is arrested while there hastening to the aid of Christians caught up in the persecution of Maximian, who in a colloquy with that worthy refuses to sacrifice to the idols, and who is executed forthwith on 5. October by a sword thrust through her flank. Versions from the twelfth century onward add details and assign Justina's _dies natalis_ to today. Today (7. October) is her current feast day in diocese of Padua and her day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Justina of Padua:
a) as depicted in the earlier to mid-sixth-century mosaics of the presbytery arch (carefully restored, 1890-1900) in the Basilica Eufrasiana in Poreč:
http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/u/un-.jpg
http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/u/un-.gif
b) as depicted (second from left) in the heavily restored, later sixth-century procession of female martyrs (ca. 561) in the nave of Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://tinyurl.com/hpldsb8
c) as depicted (at center) in a fifteenth-century altarpiece in the chiesa di Santa Giustina in Monselice (PD) in the Veneto:
http://www.acrossveneto.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/santa-giustina-polittico.jpg
Detail view (Justina):
http://www.acrossveneto.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/santa-giustina-particolare.jpg
d) as portrayed by Donatello in a mid-fifteenth-century bronze statue (later 1440s) on the high altar of the basilica di Sant'Antonio (a.k.a. basilica del Santo) in Padua:
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/2_mature/padova/2altar05.jpg
e) as depicted (at lower right) by Andrea Mantegna in his mid-fifteenth-century St. Luke Polyptych (1453-1454; formerly in Padua's basilica di Santa Giustina) in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan:
http://tinyurl.com/2ko9t9
Detail view (Justina):
http://tinyurl.com/4skdjh
f) as depicted (image 01 on this page) by Giovanni Bellini in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1470; recently restored) in the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan:
http://museobagattivalsecchi.org/en/collezioniDettaglio/6/paintings.html
g) as depicted by Gerolamo Galizzi (a.k.a. Gerolamo da Santacroce) in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1520) in the Museo dell'Accademia Carrara in Bergamo:
http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/opere-arte/schede/C0050-00420/
Best,
John Dillon
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