Sagra di San Giustino

Saint Justin, patron saint of Barbona

The Sagra di San Giustino is the patronal festival of Barbona, a small municipality in the Bassa Padovana region, in the province of Padova, overlooking the Adige river. The patron saint is Saint Justin, a Roman soldier and martyr, whose relics arrived in Barbona in 1732, assigned to the village thanks to Pope Clement XII. Since then, the community has celebrated the saint with its annual festival.

A centuries-old tradition

The festival is traditionally held on the second Sunday of July and combines the religious dimension, with celebrations in honour of Saint Justin, with the popular and convivial aspect typical of Venetian festivals (sagre). It is a deeply identity-forming event for Barbona, through which the village preserves the memory of its connection to the relics of its patron saint and renews the community spirit of the town.

A village in the Bassa Padovana

Barbona is one of the smallest municipalities in the Padovano area, in a rural plain region between the Adige river and the borders with Polesine. The Sagra di San Giustino is the main occasion when the village comes alive, offering participants the authenticity of a countryside festival in the Veneto region, far from the major tourist circuits, where religious tradition and community life continue to intertwine.