Description

The two small icons were designed by Silvia Salvadori to furnish small spaces and were designed to create a modular decorative apparatus composed of squares with inside relief circles hosting Virgin figures.  The figures, almost miniaturized, are made with great detail mastery. Every detail, decorated with gold, like hair and animals, is characterized by great naturalism and chromatic vivacity. The face of St. Catherine is that of a determined, fighting and noble woman. Catherine was a beautiful girl, daughter of a King, educated from early age in the liberal arts and very learned. St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patron saint of philosophers, judges, notaries, students, female confraternities, but also tailors, ceramists and papermakers. History:  The legend tells that a series of angels descended from heaven to save the body lifeless of the Princess. In 305, Massimo Daia was proclaimed governor of Egypt and Syria. On the occasion of his appointment, great and brilliant festivities were launched, in which numerous and cruel sacrifices of animals were foreseen. St. Catherine, horrified by these barbaric practices, resisted with great firmness and conviction, asking everyone to abandon Paganism in favor of Christianity. The Governor, fascinated by the decisive character of the girl but also by her beauty, did not get angry and decided to send a group of philosophers to the palace to change their mind, but Catherine was unmovable.  Massimo then decided to make all Christians burn alive, and proposed to the princess to marry him to save her life. St. Catherine rejected the proposal and was sent to martyrdom. It was put on the toothed wheel, but as soon as the wheel touched the girl, it broke in a thousand pieces, under the amazed look of everyone. The Prosecutor Massimo, now furious, was forced to kill her in a more direct way, making her decapitate. The icon of Virgin Agnes is instead represented by Silvia Salvadori with the lamb of the Passion of Christ in hand and with a light blue lapis lazuli. Silvia Salvadori represents in this icon a Virgin Agnes with an almost childish face, characterized by an incarnate rosy and delicate, typical of Siena's painting by Simone Martini. Virgin Agnes suffered martyrdom during the persecution against Christians wanted by the Roman emperor Diocletian. According to tradition, she refused to enter the cloister between the vestals and the Prefect ordered her to be killed.  Other sources speak about a condemnation for the use of magic, and for this reason she was burnt. The flames split beneath her body without lapping it, and the hair instantly grew to cover their nakedness. After this, Virgin Agnes miracle was pierced by a sword stroke at the throat. She is depicted with a lamb in her arms, since she was sacrificed by the same fate.  After her death the body was buried in a catacomb that still has his name today. Virgin Agnes is honored as the protector of the Virgin Mary, the Gardeners, the Daughters of Mary, and is the Virgin Patron of the Sacred Order of the Most Virgin Trinity.