| Saint Agatha of Sicily | |
|---|---|
Saint Agatha bearing her severed breasts on a platter, by Piero della Francesca (ca. 1460–70) |
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| Virgin and Martyr | |
| Born | c. 231[1] Catania or Palermo, Sicily |
| Died | c. 251 Catania, Sicily |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Churches Oriental Orthodoxy |
| Feast | February 5 |
| Attributes | shears, tongs, breasts on a plate |
| Patronage | Sicily; bellfounders; breast cancer; bakers; Catania, Sicily; against fire;[2] earthquakes; eruptions of Mount Etna; fire; jewelers; martyrs; natural disasters; nurses; Palermo, Sicily; rape victims; San Marino; single laywomen; sterility; torture victims; volcanic eruptions; wet nurses; Zamarramala, Spain |
Saint Agatha of Sicily (died ca. 251) is a Christian saint. Her memorial is on 5 February. Agatha[3] was born at Catania, Sicily, and she was martyred in approximately 251. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.[4]
She is the patron saint of Catania, Molise, Malta, San Marino and Zamarramala, municipality of Segovia in Spain. She is also the patron of martyrs, wet nurses, fire, earthquakes, and eruptions of Mount Etna.
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Agatha is buried at the Badia di Sant'Agata, Catania.[5] Witnesses to her early cult,[6] aside from her mention in the Mass, are her inclusion[7] in the late 6th century Martyrologium Hieronymianum associated with the name of Jerome; the Synaxarion, the calendar of the church of Carthage, ca. 530;[8] and in one of the carmina of Venantius Fortunatus.[9] Two early churches were dedicated to her in Rome,[10] notably the Church of Sant'Agata dei Goti in via Mazzarino, a titular church with apse mosaics of ca. 460 and traces of a fresco cycle,[11] overpainted by Gismondo Cerrini in 1630. In the 6th century the church was adapted to Arian Christianity, hence its name "Saint Agatha of the Goths", and later reconsecrated by Gregory the Great, who confirmed her traditional sainthood. Agatha is also depicted in the mosaics of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, where she appears, richly dressed, in the procession of female martyrs along the north wall. Her image forms an initial I in the Sacramentary of Gellone, from the end of the 8th century.
Her written legend,[12] comprises "straightforward accounts of interrogation, torture, resistance, and triumph which constitute some of the earliest hagiographic literature",[13] and are reflected in later recensions, the earliest surviving one being an illustrated late 10th-century passio bound into a composite volume[14] in the Bibliothèque National, originating probably in Autun, Burgundy; in its margin illustrations Magdalena Carrasco detected Carolingian or Late Antique iconographic traditions.[15] According to Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea of ca. 1288,[16] having dedicated her virginity to God,[17] Agatha, rich and noble rejected the amorous advances of the low-born Roman prefect, Quintianus;[18] she was persecuted by him for her Christian faith. She was given to Aphrodisia, the keeper of a brothel, and her nine daughters, but in response to their threats and entreaties to sacrifice to the idols and submit to Quintianus, she responded
My courage and my thought be so firmly founded upon the firm stone of Jesus Christ, that for no pain it may not be changed; your words be but wind, your promises be but rain, and your menaces be as rivers that pass, and how well that all these things hurtle at the foundement of my courage, yet for that it shall not move.
She attacked the Roman cult images as idols with philosophical arguments that paralleled Arnobius:
And S. Agatha answered that they were no gods, but were devils that were in the idols made of marble and of wood, and overgilt. Quintianus said: Choose one of two; or do sacrifice to our gods, or thou shalt suffer pain and torments. S. Agatha said: Thou sayst that they be gods because thy wife was such a one as was Venus, thy goddess, and thou thyself as Jupiter, which was a homicide and evil. Quintianus said: It appeareth well that thou wilt suffer torments, in that thou sayst to me villainy. S. Agatha said: I marvel much that so wise a man is become such a fool, that thou sayest of them to be thy gods, whose life thou ne thy wife will follow. If they be good I would that thy life were like unto theirs; and if thou refusest their life, then art thou of one accord with me. Say then that they be evil and so foul, and forsake their living, and be not of such life as thy gods were.
Among the tortures she underwent was the cutting off of her breasts. An apparition of Saint Peter cured her.
After further dramatic confrontations with Quintianus, represented in a sequence of dialogues in her passio that document her fortitude and steadfast devotion, her scorned admirer eventually sentenced her to death by being rolled naked on a bed of live coals, "and anon the ground where the holy virgin was rolled on, began to tremble like an earthquake, and a part of the wall fell down upon Silvain, counsellor of Quintianus, and upon Fastion his friend, by whose counsel she had been so tormented."[20]
Saint Agatha died in prison, according to the Legenda Aurea in "the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-three in the time of Decius, the emperor of Rome."
Osbern Bokenham, A Legend of Holy Women, written in the 1440s, offers some further detail.[21]
Saint Agatha is often depicted iconographically carrying her excised breasts on a platter, as by Bernardino Luini's Saint Agatha (1510–15) in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, in which Agatha sweetly contemplates the breasts on a standing salver held in her hand. The shape of her amputated breasts, especially as depicted in artistic renderings, gave rise to her attribution as the patron saint of bell-founders and as the patron saint of bakers, whose loaves were blessed at her feast day. More recently, she has been venerated as patron saint of breast cancer patients.
She is the patron saint of Catania, Sorihuela del Guadalimar (Spain), Molise, San Marino and Malta. In Malta tradition has it that she took refuge from persecution at the St Agatha Catacombs in Rabat and in 1551 her intercession through an apparition to a Benedictine nun is reported to have saved Malta from Turkish invasion.
Basques have a tradition of gathering on Saint Agatha's eve (Santa Ageda bezpera in Basque) and going round the village. Homeowners can choose to hear a song about her life, accompanied by the beats of their walking sticks on the floor or a prayer for those deceased in the house. After that, the home-owner donates food to the chorus.[22] This song has varying lyrics according to the local tradition and the Basque language. An exceptional case was that of 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, when a version appeared that in the Spanish language praised the Soviet ship Komsomol, which had sunk while carrying Soviet weapons to the Second Spanish Republic.
An annual festival to commemorate the life of Saint Agatha takes place in Catania, Sicily, from February 3 to 5. The festival culminates in a great all-night procession through the city for which hundreds of thousands of the city's residents turn out.
Agatha is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, being represented as one of the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.[23]