Magnus of Cuneo
Member of the legendary Theban Legion.
Magnus of Cuneo (Italian: San Magno) is venerated as a martyr and member of the legendary Theban Legion. The center of his cult is situated at the mountain sanctuary known as the Santuario di San Magno, in the Valle Grana, Castelmagno, in the province of Cuneo. His feast day is August 19.
Legend
Local tradition says he was a soldier of the Theban Legion, which had been commanded by Maurice. The legion is supposed to have been decimated at Agaunum in 286 AD, but Magnus fled to the mountains of Piedmont, preaching the Christian religion in the Alps. He was eventually martyred and buried in the spot now occupied by the Santuario di San Magno. The church may have occupied a spot once dedicated to the Roman god Mars. The current church was built between 1704 and 1716, in Piedmontese Baroque style, though its interior still preserves frescoes of the 15th and 16th centuries.
As Damiano Pomi points out, neither documentary nor archaeological evidence supports the connection between Magnus and the Theban Legion. Similar to the cults of Chiaffredo at Crissolo, Bessus at Val Soana, Tegulus at Ivrea, Constantius at Villar San Costanzo, and Dalmatius at Borgo San Dalmazzo, the cult of Magnus was linked with that of the Theban Legion to lend antiquity to a local saint about whom nothing was really known.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6732208. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1704 and 1716.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magnus of Cuneo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.