Plateau with two breasts, attribute of Saint Agatha 17th century

Lateau with two breasts, attribute of Saint Agatha
Southern Italy, 17th century
Polychrome and gilded wood
20 x 14,5 x 15 cm


Born into a noble lineage, Agatha came into the world in Catania, Sicily, in the year 231. Endowed with great beauty and deeply devout, she dedicated her life and virginity to God. Quintianus, a consul of low birth, sensual and idolatrous, sought her hand in marriage. Upon her refusal, he had her confined for 30 days in a brothel run by a woman named Aphrodisia, a clear allusion to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and pleasures. Despite threats and promises, Agatha remained steadfast in her vow, rejecting the advances of the consul. Presented once again before him, she refused to worship idols, affirming humbly that, despite her noble lineage, she was but a servant of the Lord.
Enraged, Quintianus ordered her breasts to be twisted and, after prolonged torment, to be torn off before casting her into a dungeon without care or sustenance. In the middle of the night, an elderly man bearing medicines entered the saint's cell and offered to heal her, which she refused, stating that she entrusted such care only to the Lord. The old man then revealed himself to be Saint Peter, one of Christ's apostles, who had come to heal her in His Name. Frightened by the light emanating from the cell, the guards fled, but Agatha refused to escape, unwilling to cause harm to her captors.
A few days later, brought once more before Quintianus, she proclaimed that her healing came from God. The consul then ordered her to be stretched out naked on burning coals, but during this ordeal, an earthquake occurred, which the people attributed to the cruelties inflicted upon Saint Agatha.
Honored since the early Middle Ages, the widespread dissemination of Saint Agatha's relics has been accompanied by an increase in her representations. Early iconographic depictions present the martyr as a young girl richly dressed, without any particular attributes, her name generally inscribed beside her to distinguish her among a procession of other virgins. From the second half of the Middle Ages, scenes of Agatha's torment - the tearing off of her breasts - allow artists to emphasize the terrible aspect of her martyrdom (that is, the saint's suffering for her faith) and to recognize her among a cohort of other saints: the instruments of torture then become the iconographic attributes specific to the saint of Catania, like the tortured parts of her body (her breasts); motifs that have become indispensable in her representations.
The episode of her martyrdom in particular seems to respond to the new post-Tridentine aspirations, as Emile Male rightly pointed out in the first half of the twentieth century: "After the Council of Trent, the martyrs struggle before our eyes; we must see their blood flow, we must witness their painful agony." Certainly, Agatha's horrific torture could only satisfy the requirements of the Counter-Reformation Church.