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The saints

St Agnes

A girl of twelve or thirteen whom the whole early Church honoured above all the virgin martyrs of Rome.

Feast: 21 January · died about 304 · Rome, Italy

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The apse of Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome: a golden mosaic above the altar, framed by a great arch.

José Luiz, 2016. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Rome, the Via Nomentana, early 4th century

On the road out of Rome called the Via Nomentana lies the grave of a girl the whole city will remember.1

St Ambrose gives her age as twelve, St Augustine as thirteen.1

We know almost nothing else for certain. And still, for seventeen centuries, the Church has said her name at Mass.

01St Agnes

What the Fathers remembered

Of all the virgin martyrs of Rome none was held in such high honour by the primitive church as St Agnes.1

Pope Damasus pictured her hastening to martyrdom from the lap of her mother or nurse.1

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the details of her martyrdom were not reliably recorded, but the tradition of her youth is agreed on all sides.1

02St Agnes

Her basilica

Her feast has been kept on 21 January since at least the fourth century.1

The apse of Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome: a golden mosaic above the altar, framed by a great arch.
The apse mosaic of Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura, built over her grave on the Via Nomentana. José Luiz, 2016. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The empire that killed her has gone. Her name is still in the Roman Canon.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Agnes of Rome”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.