St.
Catherine of Alexandria was born to a noble family of Alexandria; she
refused to marry the Emperor Maxetius himself because of her previous “mystic
marriage” to Christ. The emperor ordered 50 Alexandrian philosophers to
prove to her the absurdity of her faith, but she effectively regarded all
their arguments. The emperor, enraged by this rebuff, ordered the philosophers
to be burnt alive and Catherine to be broken on a spiked wheel. The wheel
miraculously fell to pieces, and finally Catherine was beheaded.
The part of her legend also
says that in her vision she underwent a mystic marriage with Christ, who
put a gold ring on her finger. Another version of the legend says that
when Catherine was praying to a small icon of Virgin with Child, he turned
his head and placed a ring on her finger.
Catherine of Alexandria
is patron saint of young girls, students, clergy, wheelwrights and millers.
In fine art she is often represented with a wheel, or a part of a broken
wheel; in episode of her “wedding” angels usually surround her.
See: Hans Baldung The
Three Kings Altarpiece.
Fra Bartolommeo The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine.
Giovanni Bellini. Madonna
and Child between SS. Catherine and Ursula.
Botticelli Madonna
and Child with Six Saints,
Caravaggio St.
Catherine of Alexandria.
Correggio The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, with St. Sebastian, The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine.
Lucas Cranach the Elder The
Betrothal of St. Catherine of Alexandria, St.
Catherine Altarpiece.
Carlo Crivelli. St.
Catherine of Alexandria, St. Peter, and Mary Magdalene.
Gerard David. The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine.
Gentile da Fabriano. Virgin
and Child with St. Nicholas and St. Catherine. Betrothal
of Catherine of Alexandria.
Pavel Filonov. St.
Catherine.
Fra Angelico. Madonna
with Angels and the Saints Dominic and Catherine.
Lorenzo Lotto Madonna
with Child, St. Catherine, and St. Jacob, St.
Catherine.
Hans Memling The
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine.
Pietro Perugino. The
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Two Angels, St. Rose, and St. Catherine.
Raphael St.
Catherine,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti St.
Catherine.
Luca Signorelli. SS.
Augustine, Catherine of Alexandria, and Anthony of Padua.
Titian Madonna
and Child with St. Catherine and a Rabbit.
Paolo Veronese. Mystic
Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
Rogier van der Weyden St.
Catherine, St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Recommended reading:
All
Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time
by Robert Ellsberg. : Crossroad/Herder & Herder, 1997.
A
Stolen Tongue by Sheri Holman. Anchor, 1998.
De
Sainte Katerine: An Anonymous Picard Version of the Life of st Catherine
of Alexandria by William MacBain. Rowman & Littlefield,
1989.
The
Life of Saint Katherine (TEAMS Middle English Texts) by John
Capgrave, Karen A. Winstead (Editor). Western Michigan Univ, 1999.