Saint Emerentiana was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

, who lived in the 3rd century.

According to Christian hagiography

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

, Emerentiana's mother was the wet nurse and nanny of Saint Agnes

Saint Agnes

Agnes of Rome is a virgin–martyr, venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass...

, a rich Roman heiress who was martyred after refusing her engagement due to her Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 religion. Emerentiana herself was a catechumen

Catechumen

In ecclesiology, a catechumen , “‘down’” + ἠχή , “‘sound’”) is one receiving instruction from a catechist in the principles of the Christian religion with a view to baptism...

, still learning about Christianity before being officially baptized. Catholics believe martyrs are "baptized by blood," and otherwise go to heaven.

A few days after Agnes' death, Emerentiana was caught praying by her tomb; upset upon the death of her best friend and foster sister, she claimed that she was a Christian as well and belittled the pagans who had killed Agnes, and was stoned to death by the crowd.

Her feast day

Calendar of saints

The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...

 is 23 January, and she is represented as a young girl who either has stones in her lap and lillies in her hand, or is being stoned to death by a mob. Her tomb is at the Church of Saint Agnese

Sant'Agnese fuori le mura

The church of Saint Agnes Outside the Wall is a titulus church, minor basilica in Rome, on a site sloping down from the Via Nomentana, which runs north-east out of the city, still under its ancient name. What is said to be the remains of Saint Agnes's are below the high altar...

 in Rome.

Popular culture

Emerentiana had a tiny cameo in Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman's Fabiola, where she is seen mourning for Agnes right after the latter's martyrdom.

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia
  Catholic Encyclopedia
  The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
  
  entry on St. Emerentiana
• Patron saint index