cross, and they rose up whole and well. The people who witnessed
this great wonder were struck with astonishment; and the three
children, who were the sons of a poor widow, were restored to their
weeping mother."
But what shall we say to an entire new saint of a modern day, who
has already found his way to Venice, Bologna, and Lombardy,--even
to Tuscany and Paris, not only in pictures and statues, but even
in chapels dedicated to her? The reader may be curious to know
something of a saint of this century. In the year 1802 the skeleton
of a young female was discovered in some excavations in the catacomb
of Priscilla at Rome; the remains of an inscription were, "Lumena
Pax Te Cum Tri." A priest in the train of a Neapolitan prelate, who
was sent to congratulate Pius VII. on his return from France, begged
some relics. The newly-discovered treasure was given to him, and the
inscription thus translated--"Filomena, rest in peace." "Another
priest, whose name is suppressed _because of his great humility_,
was favoured by a vision in the broad noonday, in which he beheld
the glorious virgin Filomena, who was pleased to reveal to him that
she had suffered death for preferring the Christian faith, and her
vow of chastity, to the addresses of the emperor, who wished to make
her his wife. This vision leaving much of her history obscure, a
certain young artist, whose name is also suppressed--perhaps because
of his great humility--was informed in a vision that the emperor
alluded to was Diocletian; and at the same time the torments and
persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin Filomena, as well as
her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to him. There were some
difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian, which inclines
the writer of the _historical_ account to adopt the opinion that
the young artist in his vision _may_ have made a mistake, and that
the emperor may have been his colleague, Maximian. The facts,
however, now admitted of no doubt; and the relics were carried by
the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were inclosed in a
case of wood, resembling in form the human body. This figure was
habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson tunic,
after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent nature;
a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands a
lily and a javelin--with the point reversed, to express her purity
and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half sitting posture in a
sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass; and after lying for some
time in state, in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of
Saint Angiolo, she was carried in procession to Magnano, a little
town about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the
people, working many and surprising miracles by the way. Such is
the legend of St Filomena, and such the authority on which she has
become, within the last twenty years, one of the most fashionable
saints in Italy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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