On November 22 the Church honors St. Cecilia, the Roman virgin martyr who has been the patron of music and musicians since the late medieval period. Her passio — the account of her martyrdom, known from at least the fifth century — holds that on her wedding day, while the instruments played, she sang in her heart to God alone; this single line of the passio made her the patron of sacred music.
Cecilia was a Roman patrician who had vowed her virginity to God. Forced into marriage with a pagan named Valerian, she converted him and his brother Tiburtius; the three were martyred under the Emperor Alexander Severus around 230 (or, in some traditions, under Marcus Aurelius). Cecilia was condemned to be suffocated in the bath of her own house; when the heat failed to kill her, an executioner was sent to behead her, but he struck three times and failed. She lived for three more days, giving her house to the Church as a place of worship.
The Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere at Rome is built over her house. Her relics were translated there in 821 by Pope Paschal I from the Catacombs of Callixtus, where she had been originally buried. In 1599, when her tomb was opened, the sculptor Stefano Maderno saw her body — still incorrupt, lying on her side, the wound of the executioner's three blows visible on her neck. His marble sculpture of her, in the position he saw, is beneath the high altar of the basilica. She is patron of musicians, composers, instrument makers, and choirs.
