Saint Agnes

Agnes was thirteen. That’s the first thing to say, because it’s what struck everyone, then and now: a young Roman girl from a noble family, the gens Claudia, killed during the persecution of Diocletian around 305. Accounts of her life vary and sometimes contradict each other, as is normal for the ancient martyrs. The traditional story says that the son of the prefect of Rome had fallen for her and wasn’t loved back, because Agnes had made a vow of chastity. The young man’s father first tried to shut her away among the Vestals, then, when she refused, to humiliate her by sending her to a brothel. Tradition says that no one dared touch her. Accused of witchcraft, she was sentenced to be burned: they say the flames parted without touching her. In the end they killed her with a sword blow to the throat. It’s because of that death that in art she is always shown with a lamb beside her — the animal that met the same end, and the play on words with her name (agnus is Latin for lamb). Saint Ambrose wrote of her in a hymn, and her name is in the Canon of the Mass. In Rome she has two churches: Sant’Agnese in Agone, in Piazza Navona, on the spot tradition points to as the place of her martyrdom, and Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura, above the catacombs where she was buried. And every January 21, there, two lambs raised by the nuns are blessed and brought to the pope: their wool is woven into the pallia of patriarchs and metropolitans all over the world. It’s a rite that has gone on for centuries. She is the patron saint of virgins, of brides-to-be and — no one quite knows why, but it makes you smile — of gardeners too. If your name is Agnes, today is your name day: an old name that people have started to like again.