St. Cecilia [image 1024x768 pixels]

A crowned woman with long hair, robes and sandals wears a pendant and sits clutching her chest. A carved music seat in the shape of an eagle holds a score (sheet music). A winged angel plays a portable organ, while another angel or cherub looks on. In the background is a man wearing a toga, perhaps in a Roman style.

“——Divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg’d the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
With nature’s mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He rais’d a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down.” (p. 1497)

St. Cecilia details