Each year from 3rd to 5th February, the province of Catania celebrates the martyrdom of St Agatha of Sicily. According to Italian chronicler Jacobus de Voragine, Agatha was a fifteen-year-old from a noble family, who, due to her Christian faith, had sworn a vow of chastity. When Agatha rejected the advances of Roman prefect Quintianus, he had her imprisoned and tortured. Much to the delight of his reader, Voragine spares no detail of the agony inflicted on her young flesh, which is whipped, burned, and pierced by iron hooks. But the torment
Agatha is most celebrated for is rather more gruesome: consumed by spite and rancour, the Roman prefect had her breasts cut off with iron pincers. Agatha died in prison circa 250, presumably as a result of her injuries. One year later, on the anniversary of her martyrdom, the city is engulfed by a volcanic eruption. Terrified villagers take to Agatha’s tomb for protection, using her veil to shield them from the lava flows. Miraculously the white veil, now reddened in the infernal heat, stops the molten tide. The province of Catania also celebrates St Barbara. Martyred in 306, she is another virgin whose breasts, like those of St Agatha, were cut off. In a further parallel with St Agatha, St Barbara is credited with stopping the eruption of Mount Etna in 1780 – yet another involuntary emission.
excerpt from Breast is Best by Ana Teixeira Pinto