Saint Eulàlia (ca. 290-12 February 303), co-patron saint

Patron saint

A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...

 of Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, was a thirteen-year-old Roman Christian

Early Christianity

Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

 virgin who suffered martyr

Martyr

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

dom in Barcelona during the persecution of Christians in the reign of emperor Diocletian. There is some dispute as to whether she is the same person as Saint Eulalia of Mérida

Saint Eulalia of Mérida

Eulalia of Mérida, according to her hagiography, was a Roman Christian teen martyred in Emerita, the capital of Lusitania during the persecution of Christians in the reign of emperor Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian. Others place her death at the time of Trajan Decius...

, whose story is similar.

For refusing to recant her Christianity, the Romans subjected her to thirteen torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

s; including:

• Putting her into a barrel with knives (or glass) stuck into it and rolling it down a street (according to tradition, the one now called Baixada de Santa Eulalia "Saint Eulalia's descent").
• Cutting off her breast
  Breast
  The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
  
  s
• Crucifixion
  Crucifixion
  Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
  
   on an X-shaped cross.