摘要
Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)skillfully created small devotional altarpieces depicting holy saints with their respective attributes of martyrdom,seen in Saint Agnes of Rome(c.291-304)with an ewe,Saint Cecilia(c.200-235)with a portable organ,Saint Catherine of Alexandria(c.287-304)with a broken spiked wheel,and Saint Justina of Padua(c.3rd century)with a small sword in her chest.For their physical sacrifice,Heaven rewarded them with a palm frond as an honorific spiritual gift.Barbara included some of these saints in her paintings on the theme of holy conversation(sacra conversazione;a religious gathering with the Madonna and Child)and depicted the female saints as a single panel-solo image-for private devotion or supplicatory assistance.Most of the biographies and historicity about the lives of these saints are recounted by Jacobus de Voragine(1222-1298),Archbishop of Genoa,in his Golden Legend(Legenda Aurea,1275).This essay only comments on the iconography of one of Barbara’s female saints,Saint Justina of Padua.
