Serene-looking, golden-haired Saint Catherine of Alexandria as she lies with crossed forearms, martyred on the wheel (and not triumphant with the wheel destroyed as she is often depicted). Medieval fresco in the cloister at the Abbazia di Piona (Piona Abbey) at Colico, Lombardy, Italy.
Abbazia di Piona (Piona Abbey), Colico, Lombardy, Italy: detail of fresco in the cloister, built around 1242, attached to the Chiesa di San Nicola (Church of St Nicholas). Saint Catherine (or Katherine) of Alexandria was an Early Christian Martyr in the early 300s in Alexandria, Egypt, and the subject of a thriving religious cult in the medieval era. According to legend, she was beheaded with a sword after a spiked wheel shattered at her touch Catherine became a Christian at the age of 14 and converted many hundreds of people to Christianity before her death, aged about 18. Roman Emperor Maxentius ordered her execution after she rebuked him for his cruelty and won a debate with 50 pagan philosophers and orators who tried to make her refute her Christian arguments. The legend tells how she was tortured in prison, fed by a dove from heaven and had her wounds tended by angels. Two hundred people who visited her became Christian converts, but were then martyred by Maxentius. When she refused his attempt to win her over by marrying her, he condemned her to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but it shattered when she touched it. Finally, he ordered her beheading. Piona Abbey, beside Lake Como, is a former Benedictine monastic complex, once occupied by reformist French Cluniac monks, on the tip of the Olgiasca, a rocky peninsular extending from the eastern shore of the northern arm of the Lago di Como. The monks’ church, dedicated to St Nicholas, replaced a ruined 7th century oratory sometime before 1138. The monastery fell into decline before its buildings and lands were seized and sold off in 1798. The church and cloister were partly restored in the early 20th century and in 1938, the monastery came back to life when the Cistercian monks of Casamari Abbey in Lazio took possession of it. The ancient complex is now open to visitors.
Size: 2829px × 2829px
Location: Abbazia di Piona, Piona Abbey, Colico, Lombardy, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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