ST. MACROBIUS

13 SeptemberSouth Transept Spire-G4

San Macrobio is remembered along with Giuliano (Julian), both martyrs under Emperor Licinius, who jointly ruled in the West from 308 to 313 AD. However, based on historical sources, we understand that the two actually did not even know each other, and they even lived in different places. In fact, Macrobio was a resident of Cappadocia, a region in Northern Turkey. He was captured and, along with a group of other Christians, deported to Tomi, on the northern coast of the North Sea, where he was burnt alive. Giuliano was, instead, a native of Galicia. He initially escaped persecution by hiding in some mountain caves but he suffered martyrdom when his hiding place was discovered. Though the two did not have a life in common, the Roman Martyrology remembers them both on the same date, 13 September. The statue of San Macrobio on Spire G4 is a reproduction most likely of the 1900s. However, we know that the scale model of the original statue was conceived in the 1800s by sculptor Grazioso Rusca, who died before making it. Hence, the task of producing it was inherited by his son Gerolamo Rusca, a sculptor himself, who completed it in 1829. According to some documents of the Archive, it seems that San Macrobio had to be initially placed on one of the four Spires that support the Duomo’s lantern. Today they are occupied by the figures of saints and soldiers. After all, life in the Duomo’s marble workers’ site is marked by many moments, individual decisions and several changes, and the statues that crowd it clearly express this remarkable vitality and its continuous transformation.