CW: Torture, violence against women, sexual assault.
Take a look at these paintings:
What is this woman holding? We can tell she’s a saint by the halo around her head, but who is she? You may know this if you’re a Catholic – or an art historian – but this is St Agatha.
The reason why I know this, is that she is holding her own breasts on a tray. If you think that sounds weird, I can’t wait to tell you about cassatelle di sant’agata, or St Agatha’s breasts, a very popular dessert in Sicily. Now, I didn’t grow up in a religious family. But my mum loves art, and she would take me and my sister to lots of museums and churches growing up. We would look at paintings of saints and try to identify them by how they were pictured, without any clues from signs next to the paintings. Some were easier than others – the Virgin Mary in blue, Mary Magdalen usually in green, St Peter with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. But I was particularly intrigued by the many saints who, just like St Agatha, were shown with the instruments used to torture them, or with the parts of their bodies mutilated during their martyrdom. I was baffled by how calm all these early Christian martyrs – many of them women – looked. Let me tell you about Saint Agatha – and the delicious dessert she’s said to have inspired.
What’s the Story?
Saint Agatha (231-251) lived in the third century CE, in Sicily, and was born to a wealthy family, probably in Palermo or Catania. The story goes that she chose to become a consecrated virgin and dedicate herself to the Christian religion. However, the governor of Sicily, Quintianus, still wished to marry her. After being refused, he had Agatha confined to a brothel for a time, to break her spirit, before being imprisoned. This was a time when Christians were being persecuted throughout the Roman Empire, especially under emperor Decius (201-251). Agatha’s story is similar to that of many martyrs of the time; as a Christian, she refused to make sacrifices to the gods and, to add insult to injury where Quintianus was concerned, she wished to remain a virgin. Agatha was imprisoned and brutally tortured (notably having her breasts cut off, as you can see in this painting by Sebastiano del Piombo).
After all that, no food or medical attention should be given her. The legend goes that, during the night, St Peter appeared to her and healed her body – which is why in most depictions of her she is shown with the tray holding the breasts while at the same time looking intact. Sometimes, she’s even holding the pincers used for the horrific torture she endured. After being miraculously healed, she was made to walk over glass and embers, because apparently, she hadn’t suffered enough. But just then, an earthquake happened. Agatha was taken back to her cell, but she soon died. A year later, the volcano in the area, the Etna, erupted. It is said that local people went to the Saint’s tomb and used the veil covering her urn for protection against the fire. This miraculous veil is still worshipped and taken on processions in Catania; the saint is believed to protect people from natural disasters, especially fire. Because of her story, St Agatha is also the patron saint of wet nurses, rape victims, people suffering from breast cancer, and bellfounders (just think of the shape of bells and you’ll understand why). Plus, she’s a patron saint of Sicily, Palermo, and Catania, among others.
Depicting St Agatha with her tray of breasts makes her easily recognisable. Keep in mind that, for most of history, literacy was not widespread, so even if you wrote saints’ names above them in a church, most people wouldn’t have been able to decipher who they were. By representing them with the ways they were martyred, people would immediately know who they were. Frescoes, stained glasses, and altar pieces all played a didactic role in how religion was taught. Plus, the piety and devotion of these saints would be highlighted, and their willingness to sacrifice everything for God. A usually ridiculously handsome and muscular man tied to a post, his body covered in arrows, can only be Saint Sebastian, who, quick tangent, became associated with the gay community in the 19th century, during a time when they too, were facing persecution. It probably also helped that he’s gorgeous, too. A woman carrying her own eyes on a dish can only be Saint Lucy, another virgin martyr who lived after Saint Agatha, also in Sicily, during the reign of emperor Diocletian and the horrible ‘Great Persecution’, the most relentless persecution of Christians during the Roman Empire. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about how she is said to have been tortured, given how she is depicted. The two saints are often connected in medieval sources, and, when her mother was ill, Saint Lucy is even said to have gone on a pilgrimage to Saint Agatha’s tomb to ask her to intervene. The story goes that Saint Agatha appeared to Lucy in a dream, predicting Lucy’s own martyrdom, which happened around 50 years later than Agatha’s.
Saint Agatha, and other female saints like her, such as St Lucy, can be considered a ‘mulier virilis’, literally a ‘manly woman’, for bravely following Jesus Christ’s example of sacrifice and martyrdom (‘imitatio Christi’). After her death, as Saint Lucy’s story indicates, the cult of Saint Agatha grew in popularity and spread throughout the Mediterranean, to places like Rome and Ravenna. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) was a big fan of Saint Agatha’s, by which I mean that the relationship between Sicily and Rome wasn’t exactly straightforward, but the pope realised that championing Saint Agatha and erecting churches in her honour was a pretty great way of gaining the support of the Sicilian people. Saint Agatha was a symbol of asceticism, but also of feminine sacrifice and morality. By canonising her and popularising her cult, the pope could advance both his political goals and his theological concerns and plans for the church. Through missionaries, the cult of the saint spread, to places like San Marino, Calabria, and the island of Malta, which is why, besides Catania, the saint is considered the protector of these places, too. In the medieval period, when the cult of Saint Agatha was spreading, she even reached Constantinople, where miracles were attributed to her.
Today, you can still see the relics of Saint Agatha (including one of her breasts, apparently) in the cathedral in Catania – the 14th-century bust holding her skull is particularly striking and richly decorated. Because she has been so beloved by the local people for centuries, there have been many additions – the golden crown is said to have been given to the saint by the English king Richard the Lionheart on his way back from a crusade, a collar was given by the opera composer Vincenzo Bellini (not the same Bellini as the drink – that is in honour of the artist Giovanni Bellini); plus a ring given by queen Margherita in the late 19th-century (yes, Margherita like the pizza – you may have heard the story that she’s the reason why the pizza is called Margherita; to honour the newly-created Italy – that’s why it has the three colours of the Italian flag.) See how history, myths, and food are all connected? Let’s talk about Saint Agatha’s breasts – by which I mean the dessert.
The Sweet: Minne di Sant’Agata
Every year, between the 3rd and the 5th of February, Saint Agatha is celebrated in Catania. There are markets, processions, all kinds of festivities; and the one food you have to try are minne di sant’agata, or cassatelle di sant’agata – literally, Saint Agatha’s breasts. (They’re also known as minnuzzi or cassateddi in dialect.) They’re very similar to the cassata, which is perhaps the most famous sweet from Sicily, but minne or cassatelle are smaller. So, these cassatelle are made with sponge cake soaked with rosolio, which is a kind of alcoholic syrup, and filled with sweet ricotta, chocolate, and candied fruit – usually oranges. They’re covered with icing (probably alluding to purity and virginity) and topped with a candied cherry. And if you’re interested in trying them out, I’ve linked two versions of the recipe below, in the references, both of them in English.
Now, while they are absolutely delicious, the origin of these sweets is contested, even if they came to be associated with Saint Agatha. Some scholars argue that they could come from much earlier religious practices, and the cults of the goddesses Isis and Demeter, both of whom were widely worshipped in Sicily in antiquity. This would make sense when you think that Demeter – Persephone’s mother, and the goddess of harvests, was associated with mother nature – literally – and bountiful breasts were one of her attributes. In the wonderful 1958 novel Il Gattopardo, or The Leopard, by Tomasi di Lampedusa, which is set in 19th-century Sicily, the main character even talks about these ‘obscene’ sweets, wondering how the Inquisition never banned them. ‘What sweet treat could arouse such indignation in a man of rigorous morals?’, he asks. ‘The shameless breasts of Saint Agatha sold in monasteries, and devoured by party-goers!’, of course.
Still, the origin of the sweets is uncertain – another possibility is that they were influenced by another Sicilian dessert having to do with breasts, the minne di Virgini di Sambuca (yes, like the drink), in the region of Agrigento, even if the recipes are slightly different. These breast-looking sweets are attributed to a nun, Sister Virginia Casale di Rocca Menna, who, in the 18th century, created them to celebrate the wedding of local aristocrats. And, because there are plenty of religious festivals in Italy, and plenty of sweets in Sicily, this is still the dessert associated with the festival celebrated in Sambuca in May. In any case though, the minne di sant’agata are alive and well in Catania, especially during the saint’s festival. And, lest you forget what the sweets represent, tradition says that you should always eat minne in even numbers. Two breasts mean that each person should get two sweets – and this is even mentioned in a 2009 novel by Giuseppina Torregrossa, Il conto delle minne. I confess that, even though I’ve eaten them before, I’ve never tried making these sweets at home. But after this text, I think I just might!
Final Thoughts
I personally think that, even if you’re not religious, stories like Saint Agatha’s are worth knowing, especially if you live in the West, because Christianism has had such a huge influence over our culture. Whenever you go to a museum, visit a church, or travel around places like Europe, you’ll come across these saints and martyrs, in mosaics, frescoes, and altarpieces. In many cases, you may find them even in unexpected places like bakeries and popular festivals. Thinking of my mum taking me to museums and telling me about the saints in the pictures, I think that knowing their stories makes the experience of engaging with art and culture more enjoyable; it makes art more human, in my opinion. Still, because my child is still quite young, I try to stay away from talking about torture, at least for now. But she does love the story of St Jerome removing the thorn from the lion’s paw and the two of them becoming best friends, in her own words. She just doesn’t understand why St Jerome didn’t decide to become a vet rather than spending his time translating the Bible instead. Oh well. So, if you have children, I encourage you to talk to them about the stories behind art that they may encounter; bonus points if there’s food involved. If you don’t have children, maybe go take a walk around a museum near you and try to spot how many saints you can recognise just by their attributes. And of course, all I’m saying is equally true of mythological figures – you’ll find Persephone with her pomegranate, Aphrodite with her shell, and baby Hercules with his serpents. As for Saint Agatha, she’s easy to spot – just look for the tray of breasts or, if you’re in Catania in February, look for the delicious sweets, even if they are kind of morbid when you think about it.
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References:
Ælfric, Lives of Saints, Of Saint Agatha, (written in the early 11th century, published in 1881, ed. by Walter Skeat).
Magdalena Elizabeth Carrasco, ‘An Early Illustrated Manuscript of the Passion of St. Agatha (Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 5594)’, Gesta 24(1)(1985), pp. 19-32.
Emiko Davies, Minne di Sant’Agata (2016).
Santo D’Arrigo, Il martirio di sant’Agata nel quadro storico del suo tempo (1988).
Brittany Joyce, The Martyrdom of St. Agatha from Local Legend to Later Reception, Master’s Thesis (2019).
A. Longhitano, ‘Il culto di S. Agata’, in Agata la santa di Catania, ed. by V. Peri (1996), pp. 67-125.
Maria Teresa di Marco and Marie Cécile Ferré, La cucina siciliana Nov. 2010
Paul Oldfield, ‘The Medieval Cult of St. Agatha of Catania and the Consolidation of Christian Sicily’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62(3) (2011), pp. 439-456.
Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Louis Duchesne, Martyrologium Hieronymianum (1894).
Salvatore Spatafora, A Sicilian Dessert Recipe: Minne di Sant’Agata, La Cucina Italiana (2020).
Maria Stelladoro, Agata: La Martire (2005).
Maria Stelladoro, Agata, vergine e martire: tra storia, devozione e culto, Italia Medievale (2002)
Antonio Tempio, Agata cristiana e martire nella Catania Romana: La vita, gli oggetti e i luoghi di culto (2003).
Filippo Trerè, Sant’Agata fra culto, arte e iconografia, Opera di Religione della Diocesi di Ravenna.
