As I have already mentioned, Caravaggio is one of my leading influences (a scoundrel in his life notwithstanding). He was commissioned to paint a tribute to Santa Lucia for an altarpiece, which survives today although in a deteriorated form from its original state.

Santa Lucia was born of rich and noble parents and had consecrated her virginity to God, and she hoped to distribute her dowry to the poor. However, her mother, not knowing of Lucy's promise and suffering from a bleeding disorder, feared for Lucy's future. She arranged Lucy's marriage to a young man of a wealthy pagan family.

St. Agatha came to her in a dream and told her that because of her faith her mother would be cured and that Lucy would be the glory of Siracusa, as she was of Catania in Sicily. With her mother cured, Lucy took the opportunity to persuade her mother to allow her to distribute a great part of her riches among the poor.

News that the patrimony and jewels were being distributed came to Lucy's betrothed, who denounced her to the Governor of Siracusa. The governor sentenced her to be defiled in a brothel.

Christian tradition states that when the guards came to take her away, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. Bundles of wood were then heaped about her and set on fire, but would not burn. Finally, she met her death by the sword. Before she died, she foretold the punishment of the governor, who was so angered Paschasius that he ordered the guards to remove her eyes. When her body was prepared for burial in the family mausoleum it was discovered that her eyes had been miraculously restored, which is why she is the patron saint of those with eye illnesses.

The link between the brothel in the legend and the stark depiction of the gravediggers in Caravaggio’s work intrigued me, and I have chosen to swap the roles and leave all grieving to the poverty-driven women of the brothel, who I’d like to think would have been Lucia’s first gifting foray.