Saint Cecilia
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Saint Cecilia in the Catholic Church is the patron saint of music and of the blind. Her feast day, celebrated both in the Catholic and Orthodox Church, is November 22. It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband and other friends whom she had converted, suffered martydom, C. 230, under the emperor Alexander Severus. The researches of de Rossi, however (Rom. sott. ii. 147), go to confirm the statement of Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers (d. 600), that she perished in Sicily under Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180. A church in her honor exists in Rome from about the 5th century, and was rebuilt with much splendour by Pope Paschal I around the year 820, and again by Cardinal Sfondrati in 1599. It is situated in Trastevere, near the Ripa Grande quay, where in earlier days the Ghetto was located, and gives a title to a Cardinal Priest.
Cecilia, whose musical fame rests on a passing notice in her legend that she praised God by instrumental as well as vocal music, has inspired many a masterpiece in art, including the The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia by Raphael at Bologna, the Rubens in Berlin, the Domenichino in Paris and at San Luigi dei Francesi, and works by Artemisia Gentileschi, and in literature, where she is commemorated especially by Chaucer's Seconde Nonnes Tale, and by John Dryden's famous ode, set to music by Handel in 1736, and later by Sir Hubert Parry (1889). Other music dedicated to Cecilia includes Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia, A Hymn for St Cecilia by Herbert Howells, a mass by Alessandro Scarlatti, Charles Gounod's Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cécile, and Hail, bright Cecilia! by Henry Purcell. "Sankta Cecilia" is also the title of a 1984 Swedish hit song sung by Lotta Pedersen and Göran Folkestad at the Swedish Melodifestivalen 1984.
Another St Cecilia, who suffered in Africa in the persecution of Diocletian, is commemorated on February 11.
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