It is said that Barbara of Nicomedia in Bithynia was locked up in a tower and then taken to martyrdom for her indomitable Christian faith opposed by the pagan father Dioscuro, who at the "Fourth of December, ruling Maximian Emperor, and being headmaster Marziano ..." ( approximately in 228 AD), it was incinerated by a celestial lightning, a symbol of immediate death without the possibility of redeeming itself.
The martyr, in the imminence of the supreme sacrifice, prayed to Jesus: "... you who stretched the heavens and melded the earth and closed the abysses, which commanded the clouds that rained over the good and over the guilties, you went over the sea and resumed the tempestuous wind, to which all things obey, grant for your infinite mercy the prayer of your ancilla ... Pray to my Lord Jesus, if any person to your laude will remember me and my martyrdom, ... send them grace for yours mercy"…
From these expressions we perceive the intense interweaving that binds Santa Barbara to the men of the Navy and the Fire Brigade.
The legend explains the reasons why immediately after the invention of gunpowder, at each munitions warehouse, in particular on the warships, for the devotion to the virgin of Nicomedia, there is on the walls an image of the Saint to be preserved from the fire and lightning dust from the deposits of dust that are called precisely "Santabarbara".
The 4 December of each year men and women of the Navy and those who work for it, in finding themselves with the common origins and values, solemnly celebrate their Patron Saint. It is tradition, in fact, on board ships and in all the agencies and commands of the Armed Forces to commemorate the anniversary of Santa Barbara.
The women and men of the Firefighters celebrate the December 4 their Patron in all the structures on the national territory and in the commemoration retrace the activities carried out throughout the year for the protection and safety of people, the integrity of the goods and the environment, civil defense and fire prevention.
