27 Oct 2006
Patron Saint of boob jobs
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St Agatha of Sicily was a Third-Century Sicilian saint who, according to legend, after rejecting the amorous advances of a Roman Governor, endured various tortures, including the removal of her breasts.
The National Gallery of Scotland possesses a magnificent painting representing Agatha's enforced mastecotomy by a lesser Renaissance painter Giovanni Cariani. Agatha stands beautifully composed, her freshly-sliced norks wobbling on a platter and garnished with an ornamental palm leaf.
Disappointingly, the gallery gift shop doesn't seem to stock any reproductions of the boobless saint - I was rather hoping for a mastectomy fridge magnet, a set of notelets, or perhaps a souvenir "Titless Agatha" mouse mat, but alas, not so much as a postcard.
Maybe there's not so much of a market for this sort of thing - Saint Agatha hardly competes with Eva Herzigova.