Every Day Is Special: October 4 - St. Petronius Day in Italy

October 4 - St. Petronius Day in Italy

Posted October 4, 2019

"Patron saints" in the Catholic religion sometimes have a long list of groups of people and even cities that count that saint as their very own patron. For example, Saint Peter is the patron saint of bakers, bridge builders, butchers, fishermen, harvesters, cordwainers, locksmiths, cobblers, net makers, shipwrights, and stationers (and maybe other workers!!!). He is also the patron saint of places as far-flung as Las Vegas (Nevada, U.S.), Birżebbuġa (Malta), Worms (Germany), Pubnico (Nova Scotia, Canada), Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), Calahag (Philippines), and Toa Baja (Puerto Rico).

But today's featured saint, St. Petronius, seems to have only one item on his patronage list: the city of Bologna, in Italy.

That's a pretty good item! Bologna is the seventh largest city in Italy and in the Middle Ages was one of the largest cities in all of Europe.

This modern-looking landscape is a computer-generated
3-D map of the medieval towers of Bologna. During the
Middle Ages, this city had as many as 180 towers!!!

It was a major center for the Etruscan civilization (an ancient pre-Roman-Empire power).