Sources record her age as being between 11 and 20 years old, with Sainte-Réparate Cathedrale in Nice placing it as 15.[3] She was arrested for her faith and tortured during the persecution of Roman emperorDecius (r. 249–251).[2]
Her persecutors tried to burn her alive, but she was saved by a shower of rain. She was then compelled to drink boiling pitch. When she again refused to apostatize, she was decapitated.[2] Her legend states that immediately upon dying a dove appeared to symbolize the departure of her spirit therefrom to Heaven.[1]
Later elaborations of her legend state that her body was laid in a boat and blown by the breath of angels to the bay presently denominated the "Baie des Anges" in Nice. A similar tale is associated with the legends of Restituta; Devota, patroness of Monaco and Corsica; and Torpes of Pisa.
Historicity
Evidence of her cult does not exist before the ninth century, when her name appeared in the martyrology of Bede. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260/265–339), who recorded the martyrdoms that occurred in the Holy Land during the third century, did not reference her.[4]
She remained primary patroness of Florence until the High Middle Ages; Anna Jameson writes that circa "1298 she appears to have been deposed from her dignity as sole patroness; the city was placed under the immediate tutelage of the Virgin and St. John the Baptist."[1]
Florence celebrates her feast annually on 8 October, in commemoration of its deliverance from the Ostrogoths led by Radagaisus in AD 406, which it attributes to her intercession.
References
^ abcJameson, Anna (1857). Sacred and Legendary Art. Longman, Brown, Green. p. 648.
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