Tag: Saints
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Martyrs and saints in art, history, and medicine
The concept of martyrdom has deep roots in religious traditions. Christian martyrs suffered and died for their faith, such as Saint Stephen, who was the first Christian martyr, as well as St. Sebastian pierced with arrows and St. Joan of Arc burned at the stake. In Islam, the term “shahid” refers to persons who died…
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Santa Margherita da Cortona
Susan Brunn PuettJ. David PuettChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States From humble beginnings to years as a mistress, Margherita altered her path to become a tertiary Franciscan penitent, attending the ill and poor, founding a hospital, and devoting herself to Christ. She was in the vanguard of several other women of the late Middle Ages…
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Can headless martyrs really walk? The belief in cephalophores in the Middle Ages
Andrew WodrichWashington, DC “By the temple of Mercury, [he was] beheaded with [an] axe. And anon the body of St. Denis raised himself up, and bare his head between his arms, as the angel led him two leagues … unto the place where he now resteth, by his election, and by the purveyance of God.”1…
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Faith and patron saints during the Black Death
Mariella ScerriMellieha, Malta The Black Death of 1348 was the greatest biomedical disaster in European history. Although it was not the first plague epidemic, the Black Death swept through Europe, killing millions indiscriminately and affecting society like no other natural calamity.1 Attempts to understand the plague began with science, but the search for answers was…
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Partners in healing: An early renaissance painting depicting the partnership of the divine with the physicians Cosmas and Damian
Susan Brunn PuettJ. David PuettChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States In many cultures the practice of healing was perceived as a combined effort by physicians and the divine. Florentine Renaissance hospitals had churches and cloisters in their complexes where displayed works of art reminded patients and their families of God’s curing powers. Meant to invoke…
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Saints on trial
Michael ShulmanNew Hope, Pennsylvania, United States There is an irresistible sub-genre of literature devoted to the moral takedown of saints and would-be saints, and it has brought forth contributions from some of the masters of English prose. One thinks especially of George Orwell’s portrait of Gandhi (“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are…