Thread for random St Cecilia info

[Philidor]

The church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere:

The first church of Santa Cecilia was founded probably in the 5th century... devoted to the Roman martyr Cecilia. Tradition holds that the church was built over the house of the saint....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_C..._in_Trastevere

The altar sculpture of St. Cecilia by Stefano Maderno:

This sculpture reportedly is modelled on the saint's body as seen in 1595, when her tomb was opened. The statue depicts evidence of decapitation, thus helping to confirm the identity of the saint. In addition, it also it is meant to underscore the supposed incorruptibility of her cadaver (an attribute of saints), which miraculously still had congealed blood after centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_C..._in_Trastevere

[Florestan]

Grisly!

Lovely church, though. Perhaps we should organise a forum pilgrimage.

[Florestan]

Check this out



It is a variation of our 'adopted' painting of St Cecilia. I am not sure - I am trying to find out but it is not proving easy - but I think this may have been by Orazio Gentileschi's daughter, Artemisia.

The pic was sent to us on myspace by a lovely Italian lady called Lucia. How cool is that?


That picture may be reversed. The only other one I can find is a detail on the cover of a book about Artemisia Gentileschi by Susan Vreeland. Only on the Italian edition, mind.



They seem to have done what I did there and got rid of the poor angel! This makes me feel slightly better.

[Florestan]

There is no doubt that Artemisia would have taken a far more visible place in the pantheon of renaissance artists had she not been a woman. But even in my A level art history class we studied one of her paintings - the shockingly brutal and graphic Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614-20).



Some people claim that it was Artemisia and not Giovanni Lanfranco who painted the other, better-known 'St Cecilia and an Angel' with her father. I don't know how well supported are the claims of either side. The Burlington Magazine essay on the subject says it was Lanfranco.

Here is the wikipedia page about her.

She suffered a terrible ordeal, being raped by her tutor and then tortured during his trial to ascertain that she was telling the truth. Not only that but the torture was inflicted on her fingers. A doubly terrible thing to do to a painter. And she had done nothing wrong!