Saint Ursula

 While enjoying the collection at the Museo d'Arte Medievale, I came upon this gorgeous triptych of the legend of Saint Ursula.  Moments of the story are so poignantly captured here that I thought I would share this story of martyrdom.  Spoiler alert ~ it doesn't end well, as martyrdoms are wont. 

There exists no actual documentation of who she was, where she was born, etc.  There is only legend.  She was from Britain, and a princess, because her father was King Dionotus of Dumnonia in southwest Britain.  She was betrothed to a guy named Conan (in what is now France) who was a pagan.  So she set sail with 11,000 virginal handmaidens (again the obsession with virginity) to go and meet this guy.  There was a terrible storm at sea, but they made it to the coast miraculously.  There, she declared that before marrying Conan she would go on a pilgrimage across Europe and ultimately to Rome, to see the Pope.  Near Cologne, they were besieged by Huns (nomadic warriors known for their naughtiness and tendency to 'sack' places) and massacred.  

Here they are, traveling in their boat:

And the massacre... Ursula takes an arrow in the neck, which ends it for her:

And, of course, the whole notion of purity and faith, loyalty and courage, goes a long way in Christian dogma.  So much so, that commissioning yourself in a moment of martyrdom became somewhat fashionable.  See this painting of a wife and child as martyrs.  Arrow through the neck time:

It's pretty interesting.