LUCIA, Saint, Martyr. — Venerated throughout the Church, she suffered martyrdom in Syracuse during the persecution of Diocletian on 13 December 304. The oldest and most authentic document of the ritual cult of St. Lucia is an inscription found in the cemetery of St. John in Syracuse in 1894; it dates to the early 5th century and refers to a certain Euschia who died “τῇ ἐορτῇ τῇς Κουρίας μου Δουκίας.”
The cult of St. Lucia soon spread beyond the borders of Sicily. Her feast is already found in the Gelasian Sacramentary (Reg. 316) and the Gregorian Sacramentary (Pad. D. 47), marked on 13 December; the same date is recorded in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. In the 6th century, a monastery dedicated to her existed in Rome as well as in Syracuse (St. Gregory the Great, Reg. epist., VII, 36; XI, 15), and in the 7th century Honorius I (625–638) consecrated a church in her honor. Probably St. Gregory the Great included her name, along with that of St. Agatha, in the Canon of the Mass, and around the same time her cult was introduced into the churches of Milan and Ravenna. There, her image was depicted in the famous procession of the Virgins in the church of St. Apollinare Nuovo. The marble calendar of Naples and the Greek synaxaria commemorate her on 13 December.
The *Passio*, of which Greek (BHG, 995 ff.) and Latin (BHL 4992–5003) versions exist, composed between the 5th and 6th centuries, is a patchwork work to be counted among the hagiographical legends written to extol the greatness of Christian virginity, although a certain primitive core regarding the interrogation before the tribunal can be discerned. According to the *Passio*, Lucia was a young and wealthy Syracusan, already betrothed to a fellow citizen. Having gone to Catania to the tomb of St. Agatha to beg for her mother’s healing, the saint appeared to her, assuring her that her prayer would be heard and foretelling her martyrdom. Upon returning home, Lucia decided to remain a virgin; therefore, her betrothed denounced her as a Christian to the prefect Pascasius. The latter summoned her to his tribunal, but threats and exhortations proved useless, so he ordered that the virgin be taken to a place of shame; however, no matter how much effort was made, neither men nor oxen could move her a single step. She was then drenched with flammable materials, but the fire did not touch her; finally, she was pierced with a dagger. Before dying, Lucia had time to foretell the imminent peace that would come to the Church with Diocletian’s abdication and to receive the Eucharist from the hands of the bishop. A church was later built over her tomb, which soon became a pilgrimage destination and a center of miracles. Pascasius, on the other hand, accused of plundering the province, was taken to Rome and executed.
There are two traditions regarding the relics of St. Lucia. According to one, they remained in Syracuse until the 8th century, when Faroald, Duke of Spoleto, having taken Syracuse, brought them to Corfinio (= Pentima) in Abruzzo. There they remained for more than two centuries, and in 969 they were transferred to Metz by Bishop Theodoric, with the permission of Emperor Otto. In 1042, an arm was allegedly given to Emperor Henry II, who donated it to the monastery of Luitburg. According to the other version, however, the relics of St. Lucia were transferred from Syracuse to Constantinople in 842 by George Maniakes to save them from the destructive fury of the Saracens. When the city was taken by the Crusaders in 1024, the relics were allegedly taken by them to Venice and placed in the monastery of St. George. In 1280, they were transferred to a church dedicated to St. Lucia, except for an arm that remained in St. George; this arm was later transferred to the church of St. Geremia by Pius IX in 1860.
St. Lucia is generally invoked as the protector of sight and against all eye diseases and blindness. Iconography usually represents her holding a tray containing a pair of eyes. Thus, of the entire legend of the saint’s martyrdom, the episode that has most captured the popular imagination is that of her tearing out her eyes and sending them on a tray to Prefect Pascasius, who was enamored of her, especially because of the brilliance of her gaze. However, this episode is not found in the *Passio* and was only later inserted into the account of her life, borrowed from the legend of another Lucia (cf. Moschus, *Pratum spirituale*, 60: PL 74, 178). According to some, the connection of St. Lucia with the representation of eyes may have been suggested by the martyr’s name: Lucia = light, therefore invoked in eye diseases, which rely on light to see. Indeed, in the Middle Ages a kind of eye ointment was simply called “santalucia.”
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**Iconography.** The iconographic themes related to the depiction of St. Lucia are numerous: her attributes are often accumulated, as in the panel by Pietro Lorenzetti for the church of St. Lucia delle Rovinate in Florence (c. 1340), in which the saint appears holding a palm in her right hand, a lamp in her left, and a sword thrust into her neck—symbols respectively of martyrdom, wisdom (the lamp of the wise virgins in the Gospel parable), and determination in martyrdom. Moreover, two eyes appear on the mouth of the lamp, an attribute that entered the iconographic tradition of St. Lucia only late but remained constant, at least in Italian art.
In the earliest depictions, the saint is distinguished by the attributes of virginity and martyrdom: thus, in the solemn procession of virgins in St. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (6th century), alongside Sts. Agatha, Cecilia, Agnes, etc., she carries a wreath of flowers in her hand, like the others. Similarly, dressed in splendid Byzantine garments of princely character, St. Lucia is found in the frescoes of St. Elia near Nepi in Lazio (11th century), alongside St. Catherine and other saints. The lit lamp already appears in the mosaic of the apse of St. Mary Major in Rome (13th century), and while it is absent in Germany, it remains a constant attribute in Italy, usually combined with the palm. In addition to the aforementioned example by Pietro Lorenzetti, one may also recall the altarpiece by Sebastiano del Piombo in St. John Chrysostom in Venice and the bas-relief by Luca della Robbia on the portal of St. Lucia in Florence. Another attribute that spread especially in Italy and Latin countries is that of the eyes on a tray or displayed in another manner; however, as noted, the legend of martyrdom by the extraction of the eyeballs dates only to the 14th century, and in a panel by Angeletto da Gubbio the attribute of the eyes has a merely symbolic value: the saint holds in her right hand a tray containing six eyes, and in her left hand another eye. In the popularization of the theme, the saint generally retains the tray with the eyes in her left hand, while in her right she holds the palm, the lamp, sometimes a chalice, and rarely a book. Thus, in altarpieces or panels by Crivelli, Garofalo, Sano di Pietro in the Accademia of Siena, Mainardi in St. Gimignano, and Andrea da Assisi in the Pinacoteca of Perugia. There are also exquisite variations: in the celebrated St. Lucia by Cossa (Duveen collection in London, formerly part of
del Polittico Griffoni del 1473 ca.)
The saint holds her eyes like flowers on their stems, by analogy with the fanciful attribute of St Florian, to whom she is linked and who is depicted holding a flower in his hand. The attributes described above normally appear also in sacred conversations, of which the saint forms part, as in those by Tommaso di Vigilia in the Gallery of the Museum in Palermo, and by the Borgognone in the Carrara Gallery in Bergamo. Generally the saint is flanked by St Catherine.
The sword inflicted in the neck, sometimes replaced by a dagger, is a definitive indication of martyrdom: it appears in two panels in the National Museum in Munich, in the monastery of Messkirch in Karlsruhe, etc. It also appears in a panel by Holbein the Elder in Prague. Sometimes the sword rests on a book, as in a painting by Jacopo di Michele Gera in the Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra. Another specification of martyrdom, but widespread only in Germany, is that of flames rising from below to envelop the saint, as found in Cologne in an altarpiece from a private collection of the local school and in a panel by Holbein. Naturally there are other depictions that do not fit these patterns: in the Borgognone altarpiece in Bergamo the two eyes rest on the point of the sword. Flandrin, in a panel in the church of St-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris, and the Angelico, in a reliquary in S. Maria Novella, place a crown in her hands. Moreover, in German-speaking countries, where individual depictions of the saint date only from the late fifteenth century, the saint usually wears a wide mantle open at the front and long garments gathered at the waist. A large altarpiece by Palma the Elder, for the altar of the church of S. L. in Venice, depicts her apotheosis. The martyrdom of the saint is depicted in the Menologion of Basil II (976–1025), preserved in the Vatican Library, in a hagiographic codex of the twelfth century in the Wallerstein Library in Bavaria, and in a Passionary from the Stuttgart Library of the same century, in miniatures in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris, in numerous predellas of altarpieces, and above all in the marvellous one by Domenico Veneziano for the altarpiece of S. L. de’ Magnoli, formerly in the Friedrich Museum in Berlin, where the saint is seen kneeling, struck by the executioner, while the Emperor from the palace balcony gives the order for the beheading.
There are also numerous scenes from the legend. To limit ourselves to Italy, mention may be made of those painted by a Giottesque master in the cloister of the Benedictine monastery of Resca Valle on the island of Veglia in Dalmatia, by a fourteenth-century fresco painter in Empoli, and by a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano in an altarpiece in Fermo. But the most important of all are the apse frescoes in the church of S. Maria delle Grazie in Offida, by a follower of Allegretto Nuzi, and the cycle in the Oratory of S. Giorgio in Padua by Avanzò (c. 1380), in which, in four scenes set against the backdrop of a marvellous Gothic architectural complex, one sees the saint led before the judges seated on the palace loggias, the miracle of her immobility despite six oxen goaded by executioners trying to drag her, the martyrdom, which unfolds in three architectural compartments in its various phases of torture by fire, immersion of the naked saint in boiling oil and wounding with the sword, and finally the deposition of her body in the tomb, before the Dudmo, amid a pious cortege of clergy and faithful, while at the windows of the church, above a small loggia, she appears receiving Communion. Of particular beauty and narrative felicity is the panel by Lorenzo Lotto in the Pinacoteca of Jesi, which depicts scenes from the life of the saint.
Eugenio Battisti
FOLKLORE
The cult of St Lucy has its centre in the saint’s native city, Syracuse, where on 13 December a solemn procession makes its way to the country church built on the site of her martyrdom. The saint is widely celebrated throughout Sicily with fairs and processions: on that day the faithful abstain from eating bread and limit themselves to legumes, vegetables, chickpea fritters, and *cuccia* (soaked and cooked wheat with other legumes).
In many Italian cities (for example, Bologna) on 13 December a great fair is held that inaugurates the Christmas season and at which nativity figurines, toys, and sweets are already on display. In Trentino and elsewhere (Tyrol, Bohemia, etc.), St Lucy performs the same function as St Nicholas or Befana: she is imagined as passing, on the night before, with a donkey laden with gifts, to the houses of good children, leaving toys and sweets, as well as a small rod.
Before the Gregorian reform of the calendar, St Lucy marked the shortest day of the year, and an old, widespread proverb still recalls this. Hence on this day, and still today, forecasts for the new year are drawn: in various regions not only of Italy (Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, Abruzzo, Julian March) but also of France, Silesia, Carinthia, and Russia the prognostications of the kalends begin on 13 December rather than at Christmas or New Year. They consist in holding that the weather on each day from St Lucy to Christmas will correspond to that of each month of the coming year. Thus girls draw horoscopes to learn who will be their spouse.
Expressions of popular devotion to St Lucy include wax or silver *ex-votos* in the shape of two eyes, or amulets of various metals of the same form, or also small loaves called “the eyes of St Lucy.” In many places a strict fast is observed on the vigil, and it is believed that whoever keeps it will be able to see his future wife in a dream that night. It is also widely believed that on the night of St Lucy spirits and witches are unusually active, and various means are resorted to in order to ward them off. In Croatia a cornmeal cake is baked for men and livestock, with the idea that it will protect them from the bite of mad dogs.
The legend of the saint has inspired popular poems and songs. A poem in sestets was published by De Bartholomeis from ms. Ambros. 95 sup. (v. BIBLICA); a story in ottava rima is preserved in old popular prints in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice; a narrative song in
LUCIA — LUCIA E GEMINIANO