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Saint Agnes

Saint Agnes is a virgin martyr and saint of the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches. Two important churches bear her name.

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Life of Saint Agnes

The legend of Saint Agnes is that she was a member of the Roman nobility, raised in a Christian family, who suffered martyrdom at age thirteen during the reign of the emperor Diocletian, on January 21 304.

The prefect Sempronius wished her to marry his son, and on her refusal condemned her to death. Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, so he ordered her to be raped beforehand, but her honour was miraculously preserved. When led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew his sword and struck off her head.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls; folk custom called for them to practice rituals on Saint Agnes' Eve (20th-21st January) with a view to discovering their future husbands. This superstition has been immortalised in John Keats's poem, "The Eve of Saint Agnes." She is represented in art as holding a palm-branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms.

Basilica of Saint Agnes outside the walls

Saint Agnes's bones rest in the church entitled to her outside the old walls of Rome (hence, Sant'Agnese fuori le mura, "Saint Agnes outside the walls" - on the Via Nomentana).

The current church (properly a basilica), as rebuilt by Honorius in the mid-7th century, stands over a 4th century catacomb (which is one of the most important cemeterial complexes in Rome, with over 10 kilometres (6 miles) of corridors, only a couple of which are accessible). In the fourth century the soft rock was hollowed out around Saint Agnes's tomb to create a gathering space, probably for her family to observe the anniversary of her death. The visits of her family and friends spread early to others in Rome, and the site became a place of pilgrimage. By 340, Costanza, daughter of emperor Constantine, enlarged the underground area and built a large private mausoleum over it which is now known as the "mausoleo di Santa Costanza" (she was called saint, even though she was not one officially), while the church of Saint Agnes was then built aside. The floor level of the 7th century church is at the level of the catacomb floor, and the public street entrances are at the level of the 2nd floor gallery.

At Sant'Agnese fuori le mura, on the saint festival (21st of January), two lambs are specially blessed by the pope after a pontifical high Mass, and their wool is later woven into pallia, ceremonial neck-stoles sent by the popes to newly-elevated Metropolitan-archbishops to symbolise their union with the papacy. The church is ruled by a French traditionalist order.

A popular local legend says that every lord mayor of Rome secretly comes to pray to this church, on the third night after his election; effectively, there are not many proofs that new "sindaci" really do so.

Church of Saint Agnes in Agone

A later church, Sant'Agnese in Agone, was built after 1652 on the site of her martyrdom in the Circus of Domitian, now the Piazza Navona in Rome, by the important Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. Despite a frequent mistake and the curious assonance, the name of this church is not related at all with the agony of the martyr: in agone was the ancient name of piazza Navona ("piazza in agone"), and meant instead (from Greek) "in the site of the competitions", because piazza Navona was an ancient stadium on the Greek model (with one flat end) for footraces. From "in agone", the popular use and pronunciation changed the name into "Navona", but other roads around kept the original name (like the Corsia Agonale, a short road that connects with the Palazzo Madama , Italian Senate), as the church did.

St Agnes' fountain

In the carol Good King Wenceslas, the peasant lived "right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain".

Last updated: 05-07-2005 17:59:14
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04