Chris Kenny
St Rosalia
Construction with found twig
£365.00 (framed)
12cm x 21cm
September 4th
Rosalia's great beauty was hazardous to her soul.
When she was just fourteen, the Virgin Mary appeared to her and told her to retreat from the world. She was escorted from her father's castle at night by two angels: one disguised as a knight, the other as a pilgrim. They took her to a secluded grotto on Mount Quisquita where she stayed for some months but, hearing that her parents were looking for her, the angels had to take her further away to Mount Pellegrino.
There she spent the rest of her life devoting herself to penance and prayer. She died alone at the age of thirty.
Her body was found five hundred years later encased in rock crystal by a hunter and, when it was paraded through the streets, delivered Palermo from the plague it was experiencing.
Since then, every year Rosalia is celebrated with an extravagant procession through the city. The saint's shrine is carried on a massive carriage drawn by forty mules accompanied by fireworks, trumpets, acclamations and cannon fire.
Her cave was made into a sanctuary and an influential study into the genetics of water boatmen was carried out in the water downstream from the cave. Consequently she is the patron saint of evolutionary studies.
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