Giusto di Novalesa

Who they were

Giusto and Flaviano appear to be the only historically established martyrs of the Val di Susa, apart from legendary Theban Legion soldiers such as Saint Jorio and Saint Antonino. Historians date their martyrdom either to 575 at the hands of the Lombards or, more probably, to around 906 at the hands of the Saracens. Already elderly monks of the great abbey of Novalesa, they chose not to flee to Turin with the abbot and the rest of the community, staying instead to help travellers and local people amid violent Saracen raids from Provence.

The simplest version of the story says they died near Oulx, at a place later called 'Pian dei martiri.' A fuller account says the two went on to the valley of Bardonecchia, where they made a miraculous spring flow in the cave near Mount Beaulard they had chosen as a refuge; an angel then warned them of a bloody persecution of Christians at Oulx, so they returned there to meet their own martyrdom. In 1027, after the miraculous discovery of Saint Giusto's body, the marquis Olderico Manfredi had a new Romanesque church built at Susa to house the relics; a Benedictine abbey was added two years later, and in 1772, with the founding of the diocese of Susa, the abbey church became the cathedral, with Saint Giusto as its principal patron, still honoured on 19 October. Devotion to Saint Flaviano was lost, probably for lack of relics.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Elderly monk of Novalesa who stayed behind to help the people of Val di Susa during a Saracen raid and was martyred near Oulx; his relics later gave Susa cathedral its patron.