FROM SAINT TO MUSE: REPRESENTATIONS OF SAINT CECILIA IN FLORENCE.

Saint Cecilia's iconic status as patron saint of music is universal, although she is principally associated with Rome, where her basilica was founded in the fifth century. The revival of her cult in the seventeenth century resulted in renewed interest on the part of poets, musicians, and painters, many of whom were in the Roman orbit. After reviewing her legend (based on the thirteenth-century Golden Legend and scenes from her life depicted in the early fourteenth century) and describing her relationship to music explored are connections between Saint Cecilia and Florence, where the Accademia degli Elevati adopted her as patron at the time of its founding in 1607. Under Medici rule, Florence was dominated by male saints; but with the renewed interest in the cult of Cecilia, her image began to proliferate among Florentine artists (Artemisia Gentileschi and Carlo Dolci) and specifically for female Medici patrons (the archduchesses Maria Maddalena and Vittoria della Rovere). The paper highlights a special connection between Saint Cecilia and a young Florentine virtuosa singer Arcangela Paladini (d.1622), who may have been the model for one of Artemisia's paintings of the virgin martyr. Through the examination of these representations and verbal descriptions, traced is Cecilia's transformation from virginin ecstasy (established principally by Raphael's 1513/14 painting) to the allegorical figure (celebrated by seventeenthcentury artists) of La Musica herself - from exalted saint to inspirational muse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]