all manly qualities, as was Ursula for her beauty, piety, and wisdom.
He became one of her suitors, and not wishing to offend so powerful
a monarch, she sent answer that she would accept him if he would do
three things: First, he must give her as companions ten virgins of
the noblest blood in his kingdom, and to each of these a thousand
attendants, and to her also a thousand maids in waiting; secondly, he
must wait for her three years, while she and her companions visited the
holy shrines of the saints; and third, that the prince and his court
shall receive baptism, “for other than a perfect Christian I cannot
wed.”
The wise Princess Ursula felt that Prince Conon must refuse these
demands, but if he did not, then eleven thousand virgins would be
dedicated to the service of God.
Now the ambassadors brought back such reports of her beauty and wisdom,
that the king was willing to grant anything, and the prince only too
eager to do all she asked. So he was baptised, and the king his father
wrote to all the knights of his kingdom, asking that they send the
required number of maidens, spotless, beautiful, and of noble birth, to
attend on the Princess Ursula, who was to wed his son Prince Conon. And
from all parts they came, fair and beautiful and clad in rich garments,
and when they arrived in Brittany, Ursula received them with great
gladness, praising God that so many of her sex had been redeemed from
the world’s vanities.
“Now when Ursula had collected all her virgins together on a fresh
and fair morning in the springtime, she desired them to meet in a
meadow near the city, which meadow was of the freshest green, all over
enamelled with the brightest flowers; and she ascended a throne which
was raised in the midst, and preached to all the assembled virgins
of things concerning the glory of God, and of His Son, our Lord and
Saviour, with wonderful eloquence; and of Christian charity and of a
pure and holy life dedicated to Heaven. And all these virgins, being
moved with a holy zeal, wept, and, lifting up their hands and their
voices, promised to follow her whithersoever she should lead. And she
blessed them and comforted them; and as there were many among them who
had never received baptism, she ordered that they should be baptised in
the clear stream which flowed through that flowery meadow.”
Then they started on their pilgrimage, some say attended by the prince,
but others that he remained to comfort her father. They embarked on
ships, the virgins steering, but by some mistake they sailed to the
north instead of the south, and were driven by the winds into the mouth
of the Rhine as far as the port of Cologne. Here it was revealed to
St. Ursula that upon her return she and her companions should suffer
martyrdom on this spot. They continued their voyage, visited many
places, and finally came to Rome.
Now it happened that the prince, by a miracle, who had gone out in
search of his bride, arrived in Rome that same day. Being happily
reunited, he knelt with Ursula at the feet of Cyriacus, Bishop of Rome,
and “he no longer aspired to the possession of Ursula, but fixed his
hope on sharing with her the crown of martyrdom on earth, looking to a
perpetual reunion in heaven, where neither sorrow nor separation should
touch them more.
“After this blessed company had duly performed their devotions at the
shrine of St. Peter and St. Paul the good Cyriacus would fain have
detained them longer, but Ursula showed him that it was necessary they
should depart in order to receive the crown ‘already laid up for them
in heaven.’ When the bishop heard this, he resolved to accompany her.
In vain his clergy represented that it did not become a pope of Rome
and a man of venerable years to run after a company of maidens, however
immaculate they might be. Cyriacus had been counselled by an angel of
God, and he made ready to set forth and embark with them on the river
Rhine.
“Now it happened that there were at Rome in those days two great Roman
captains, cruel heathens, who commanded all the imperial troops in
Germania. They, being astonished at this multitude of virgins, said
one to the other, ‘Shall we suffer this? If we allow these Christian
maidens to return to Germania, they will convert the whole nation; or
if they marry husbands, then they will have so many children—no doubt
all Christians—that our empire will cease; therefore, let us take
counsel what is best to be done.’ So these wicked pagans consulted
together, and wrote letters to a certain barbarian King of the Huns,
who was then besieging Cologne, and instructed him what he should do.
“Meantime St. Ursula and her virgins, with her husband and his faithful
knights, prepared to embark; with them went Cyriacus, and in his
train Vincenzio and Giacomo, cardinals, and Solfino, archbishop of
Ravenna, and Folatino, bishop of Lucca, and the bishop of Faenza, and
the patriarch of Grado, and many other prelates; and after a long and
perilous journey they arrived in the port of Cologne.
“There the pagans rushed upon their unresisting victims, and one of the
first to perish was the prince, who fell pierced through by an arrow at
the feet of his beloved princess. Then they drew swords and massacred
them all so that the plain ran in rivers of blood. But the barbarians,
awed by the majestic beauty of Ursula had no power to strike her, but
carried her before their prince, who wished to marry her and make her
the greatest queen in all Germany. But St. Ursula repelled him with
scorn. Then, seized with fury and bending his bow, which he held in his
hand, he, with three arrows, transfixed her pure breast, so that she
fell dead and her spirit ascended into heaven, with all the glorious
sisterhood of martyrs whom she had led to death, and with her betrothed
husband and his companions.”
In devotional pictures of St. Ursula she has the crown as princess; the
arrow as martyr; and the pilgrim’s staff, surmounted by a white banner
with the red cross, the Christian standard of victory. Sometimes she
has a dove, because a dove revealed her burial place to St. Cunibert.
As patron saint she appears alone; is crowned and richly dressed with
regal ornaments and wears a green or scarlet mantle lined with ermine;
she holds in one hand a book, in the other an arrow; or sometimes the
arrow in one hand, and in the other the banner with the red cross.
As martyr she kneels or stands, her golden hair unbound. Sometimes she
is crowned, sometimes not; her hands are clasped, her bosom transfixed
by an arrow; on the ground about her, her maidens lie dead.
Sometimes she is painted standing, holding open with both hands her
mantle, which shelters many maidens wearing crowns. She is here the
patroness of young maidens. The date of the martyrdom of St. Ursula and
her eleven thousand virgins has been variously given as A. D. 237, 383,
or 451. The legend can be traced to the year 600.
=St. Margaret.= _Ital._ Santa Margarita. _Fr._ Sainte Marguerite.
_Ger._ Die Heilige Margaretha.
St. Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest of Antioch named
Theodosius, and being a frail child, was sent to a nurse in the
country, who was a Christian and who brought her up in the faith. Here
she was seen by Olybrius, governor of Antioch, who was so enamoured of
her beauty that he ordered her to be brought to his palace and, if she
was free-born, he would marry her. St. Margaret refused his offers,
and declared herself a Christian, to the horror of her father and
relatives, who fled, leaving her in the power of the governor. Olybrius
then sought to subdue her by torments so great that even he was forced
to cover his face from the sight.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. MARGARET.—SCHOOL OF CORREGGIO
(Dresden Gallery.)]
She endured all without flinching. Then she was thrust into a dungeon,
and there Satan in the form of a frightful dragon endeavoured to
terrify her into subjection; but St. Margaret held up the cross of
the Redeemer and he fled before it. A more popular version is, that
he swallowed her alive and immediately burst asunder, and she came
forth unhurt. Satan then came to her in the form of a man to tempt
her, but she overcame him, and placing her foot on his head, she made
him confess his vileness. Again she was brought before the tyrant,
and refusing to deny her faith, was again tortured. Such constancy in
one so young and beautiful induced many to be converted, so that five
thousand were baptised in one day and wished to die with her. Alarmed
at this, the governor ordered her to be beheaded forthwith.
In art St. Margaret is usually represented trampling a dragon, her
peculiar attribute, under her feet, holding the cross in her hand.
Sometimes the dragon is bound with a cord, or his jaws are open as if
to swallow her; or he is seen rent or burst, St. Margaret standing upon
him unharmed.
As martyr she bears the palm and crown. In some pictures she has a
garland of pearls in allusion to her name. She is always the type of
maiden innocence and the only one of the four great patronesses who is
not represented as very learned.
XVIII.—THE FOUR GREAT VIRGINS OF THE LATIN CHURCH
ST. CECILIA, ST. AGNES, ST. AGATHA, AND ST. LUCY
=St. Cecilia.= _Fr._ Sainte Cécile. The name is the same in Italian,
German, and Spanish.
St. Cecilia was of a noble Roman family, and brought up in the
Christian faith. She early took a vow of chastity, shunning the
pleasures of the world. She excelled in music and sang with such
heavenly sweetness that angels came to listen to her. She played on all
instruments, but as none sufficed to express the harmony which filled
her soul, she invented the organ and consecrated it to the service of
God.
When about sixteen her parents desired her to marry Valerian, a young
Roman, rich and of noble birth. Cecilia accepted him, but beneath her
bridal robe she wore a coarse garment of penance and renewed her vow
of chastity; and by her eloquence persuaded her husband Valerian not
only to respect her vow, but also converted him to the true faith, and
he was baptised by the aged St. Urban who, being persecuted by the
heathen, had sought refuge in the catacombs.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. CECILIA.—CARLO DOLCI
(Dresden Gallery.)]
Cecilia had told Valerian that she had a guardian angel, and upon
returning to her chamber, he heard the most enchanting music and beheld
the angel standing near her, with two crowns of roses gathered in
paradise; with these the angel crowned them as they knelt before him,
and told Valerian that whatever he asked for should be granted him.
And Valerian replied: “I have a brother named Tiburtius whom I love
as my own soul; grant that his eyes also may be opened to the truth.”
And the angel answered with a heavenly smile, “Thy request, O Valerian,
is pleasing to God, and ye shall both ascend to His presence bearing
the palm of martyrdom,” and the angel vanished. Soon after, Tiburtius
entered the chamber and perceiving the fragrance of the celestial
roses, Cecilia explained all to him and he, too, was converted, and
went straightway to St. Urban and was baptised. And all three went
about doing good.
Soon after, they were denounced to the prefect as Christians, and
the two brothers were cast into prison. They converted their jailer
Maximus, who suffered martyrdom with them, and Cecilia buried them
together in the cemetery of Calixtus. The prefect, coveting the wealth
of St. Cecilia, commanded her to sacrifice to the gods, and when she
refused, put her to many tortures; finally ordering her to be thrown
into her own bath filled with boiling water. But she came out unharmed,
as though “she had bathed in a fresh spring.” Then he ordered her to be
beheaded, but the hand of the executioner trembled so that he inflicted
three wounds in her neck, and fled. She lived three days, praying
and distributing all she had to the poor, and died “singing with her
sweet voice praises and hymns to the last moments.” She was buried by
the side of her husband, and, according to her wish, her house was
consecrated as a church. In the ninth century it was revealed to Pope
Paschal where she lay buried, and he had her remains, also the remains
of Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, deposited in her church, now St.
Cecilia in Trastevere. The little room containing her bath is now a
chapel.
Until the beginning of the fifteenth century St. Cecilia is seldom
represented with her musical instruments. She has the palm, and the
crown of red and white roses, and occasionally an attendant angel. It
is thus sometimes difficult to distinguish her from St. Dorothea, who
has also the palm, the crown of roses, and the angel. But Dorothea
usually carries a book, while St. Cecilia when she has anything besides
the palm, carries a scroll of music. Then St. Dorothea, besides roses
on her head, frequently has them in her hand, or in a basket. The angel
with St. Dorothea carries fruit and flowers in a basket. The angel with
St. Cecilia bears a garland, or some musical instrument.
When accompanied by musical attributes, St. Cecilia is readily
distinguished. She is richly dressed, wearing jewels, with musical
instruments near her or sometimes playing the organ.
=St. Agnes.= _Lat._ Sancta Agnes. _Ital._ Sant’ Agnese. _Spa._ Santa
Inez. _Fr._ Sainte Agnes.
“The blessed virgin S. Agnes was much wise and well taught, as S.
Ambrose witnesseth, and wrote her passion. She was fair of visage, but
much fairer in the christian faith, she was young of age, and aged in
wit, for in the thirteenth year of her age she lost the death that the
world giveth, and found life in Jesus Christ” (_The Golden Legend_).
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
ST. AGNES.—SPAGNOLETTO
(Dresden Gallery.)]
The legend of St. Agnes is one of the oldest and most authentic in the
Christian Church, and except for the evangelists and apostles there
is no saint who is earlier depicted in art.
St. Agnes lived in Rome, and it happened that the son of the prefect
Sempronius fell violently in love with her and desired to marry her,
but Agnes refused. He then brought her rich presents and promised her
all the delights of the world if she would consent to be his wife. But
again she rejected him, saying she was betrothed to One greater than
any earthly suitor. On hearing these words the prefect’s son fell ill
with jealousy and disappointment.
Now the prefect loved his son, and went weeping to Agnes and to her
parents and besought them to accept him. But Agnes made to him the
same answer. Then the prefect found that she was a Christian, and
enraged against her, subjected her to the most cruel tortures, but she
remained firm. Then he ordered the soldiers to drag her to a place
of infamy and “they stripped her of her garments; and when she saw
herself thus exposed, she bent down her head in meek shame and prayed;
and immediately her hair, which was long and abundant, became like
a veil, covering her whole person from head to foot, and those who
looked upon her were seized with awe and fear as of something sacred,
and dared not lift their eyes. So they shut her up in a chamber, and
she prayed that the limbs that had been consecrated to Jesus Christ
should not be dishonoured. And suddenly she saw before her a white and
shining garment, with which she clothed herself joyfully. And the whole
place was filled with miraculous light.” Her lover entered, and as he
approached her, was struck with blindness and fell lifeless. Agnes,
melted to compassion, prayed that he might be restored to health, and
her prayer was granted.
Then Sempronius, moved to gratitude, would have saved her, but the
people clamoured for her death as a sorceress. So fagots were heaped
up and set on fire and St. Agnes thrown in their midst, but the flames
were miraculously extinguished and she stood unharmed, while the
executioners around her were slain by the fire. She was at length put
to death by the sword, and thus, looking steadfastly up to heaven, she
yielded up her pure spirit and fell bathed in her own blood.
Her parents carried her body to a cemetery outside the city, and
Christians assembled there day and night to pray. One day as her
parents and others were praying by her sepulchre, “St. Agnes appeared
before them all radiant of aspect; by her side was a lamb whiter than
the driven snow.” She assured them of her perfect happiness and begged
them to rejoice for her, and then vanished. Then the Christians ceased
mourning for her and felt joy and thanksgiving instead.
Her pictures abound in every form and every school of art. As martyr
she is seated, partly veiled, holding her palm in the right hand, with
the other embracing her lamb. The lamb in later times is her invariable
attribute, as the patroness of maidens, and maidenly modesty.
=St. Agatha.= _Ital._ Santa Agata. _Ger._ Die Heilige Agathe. _Fr._
Sainte Agathe.
A certain Christian maiden whose name was Agatha lived in the city
of Catania, in Sicily. The Emperor Decius, who had strangled his
predecessor Philip, reigned at that time, and sent his creatures
throughout the empire to oppress and persecute the Christians. To
Sicily he sent his emissary Quintianus, and made him king over the
whole island.
Quintianus had not reigned long in Sicily when he heard of the great
beauty of the maiden Agatha, and sent to have her brought before him;
and tried to tempt her with presents, and flatteries; but she rejected
him with disdain. Then Quintianus sent for a courtesan named Frondisia,
who had nine daughters more wicked and abandoned than herself, and he
delivered Agatha into their hands, saying, “Subdue this damsel to my
will, and I will give ye great riches.”
Failing in this, because Agatha’s heart was fixed as firm as a rock in
the faith of Jesus Christ, Quintianus sent for her again, and upon her
refusal to abjure Christ, he ordered her to be most cruelly tortured,
and then she was thrown into a dungeon and here St. Peter himself
ministered unto her.
She was again brought before Quintianus, and after suffering many
further tortures, her prayers were heard, and her pure spirit ascended
to heaven.
When represented as patron saint either alone or grouped with others,
St. Agatha bears in one hand the palm and in the other a dish or salver
on which is a human breast, in allusion to the tortures inflicted upon
her. The shears, as instrument of her martyrdom, are sometimes in her
hand or beside her. When she wears the crown it is as the bride and
martyr of Christ.
=St. Lucy.= _Ital._ St. Lucia. _Fr._ Sainte Luce, or Lucie.
[Illustration:
Photo. Alinari
SANTA LUCIA.—CARLO DOLCI
(Uffizi, Florence.)]
Lucia was born in Syracuse, and dwelt there in the time of the wicked
Diocletian, who sent one of his creatures, Pascasius, to be governor
of Sicily. She was a Christian and had made a secret vow of chastity,
but was betrothed at fourteen, against her will, to a pagan youth of
great wealth. Her mother, being afflicted with a grievous malady, was
induced by Lucia to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Agatha,
which accordingly they did, and while praying beside the tomb, Lucia
beheld a vision of St. Agatha, who appeared to her surrounded by
angels, and said: “Well art thou called Lucia, who art indeed a light
and mirror to the faithful,” and assured her that her prayers were
heard and her mother healed.
Then Lucia persuaded her mother to permit her to remain unwed, and to
give her dowry to the poor. When her lover heard this, in his rage he
denounced her as a Christian. The governor ordered her to sacrifice to
the gods, but she refused, and he then commanded that she be dragged
to a place of shame, but when they tried to seize her she became
immovable, and neither men, nor oxen with ropes, nor magicians could
stir her from the spot.
Then a great fire was kindled around her, but she prayed and it did not
harm her. Then one of the servants of Pascasius, to do him pleasure,
pierced her throat with a sword or poniard.
The method employed by some of the early painters to express her name
Lucia, _light_, by the emblem of an eye or eyes placed near her, seems
to have occasioned the legend of the loss of her eyes, another instance
of a symbol being converted into a fact, and a story invented to
explain it.
The later legend relates that one of her suitors protested that he
pursued her because of her beautiful eyes, and Santa Lucia, recalling
the words, “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,” cut out her eyes
and sent them to her lover on a dish, and the youth, full of remorse,
became a Christian and her eyes were miraculously restored to her.
Devotional pictures of St. Lucia bearing her eyes on a dish are often
met with. As her eyes were bored out with an awl, she often carries
an awl in her hand. When she stands with her lamp, she is the type
of celestial light and wisdom, the character given to her by Dante.
Sometimes she has a sword or poniard in her neck—or a wound in her neck
from which rays of _light_ proceed, in allusion to her name.
XIX.—LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS MOST FREQUENTLY FOUND IN ART
=St. Stephen.= Protomartyr. _Lat._ St. Stephanus. _Ital._ San Stefano.
_Ger._ Der Heilige Stefan. _Fr._ St. Étienne.
“And St. Stephen shone in beauty of body, in flower of age, in fair
speech of reason, wisdom of holy thought, in works of divinity.”
Little has been added to the brief account of St. Stephen given in the
sixth and seventh chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. His name is
held in the highest honour as the first one who died for his faith in
Christ. He was made a deacon during the ministry of Peter and before
the conversion of Paul. He was accused of speaking blasphemously of the
Temple and the Jewish law, and for this was condemned to death, and
stoned by a mob outside the city gates.
In devotional pictures, the figure of St. Stephen occurs repeatedly. He
is represented young, and of a mild and beautiful countenance wearing
the rich dress of a deacon; the dalmatica, usually crimson in colour,
and covered with embroidery. He bears the palm as protomartyr. His
_peculiar_ attribute, the stones, are in his hand or in his drapery, or
on his head and shoulders, or lying at his feet; or sometimes on the
Scriptures, signifying that he suffered for the Gospel.
=St. Laurence.= _Lat._ S. Laurentius. _Ital._ San Lorenzo. _Fr._ St.
Laurent. _Ger._ Der Heilige Laurentius or Lorenz.
Nothing authentic is known of the early life of this saint, who is
honoured in Rome next to St. Peter and St. Paul. He was a Spaniard
of Huesca, Aragon, and came to Rome while very young. “He walked so
meekly and so blamelessly before God,” that Sixtus II., Bishop of Rome,
made him his archdeacon, and put him in charge of the treasures of
the Church. When Sixtus was denounced as a Christian and led away to
death, Laurence wished to die with him, but the holy bishop told him
that in three days he would follow him, and that his battle would be
harder, his torments longer and more severe than his; and he bade him
distribute all the treasures of the Church to the poor, that they might
not fall into the hands of the tyrant. Thus comforted, St. Laurence
sought the poor and the sick, the naked and the hungry, and he washed
the feet of the Christians and gave them alms. “In this manner he went
from one dwelling to another, consoling the persecuted, and dispensing
alms, and performing works of charity and humility. Thus he prepared
himself for his impending martyrdom.”
The prefect, hearing that the treasures of the Church were in his care,
demanded them, and St. Laurence brought all the poor and the sick whom
he had helped, before the prefect, and said, “Behold the treasures of
Christ’s Church!” The prefect, in fury, thinking that he mocked him,
ordered him tortured and cast into a dungeon, in charge of Hippolytus,
whom, with his whole family, he converted and who afterwards suffered
martyrdom. When the prefect found he could not subdue him, “he ordered
a torture more strange and cruel than ever entered into the heart of a
tyrant to conceive.” He had him stretched on a sort of iron bed formed
of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and a fire lighted beneath,
and he was roasted alive. And all wondered at a cruelty that would
“condemn to such torments a youth of such fair person, and courteous
and gentle bearing, and all for lust of gold.” In the midst of these
torments St. Laurence said to the tyrant, “Seest thou not that I am
already roasted on one side and if thou wouldst have me well cooked it
is time to turn me on the other?”