I purchased a guide to the festa, which, among other things, contained a biography of St. Agatha.  It is a beautiful specimen of pious writing, and I regret that I have not space to translate the whole of it.  Agatha was a beautiful Catanian virgin, who secretly embraced Christianity during the reign of Nero.  Catania was then governed by a praetor named Quintianus, who, becoming enamored of Agatha, used the most brutal means to compel her to submit to his desires, but without effect.  At last, driven to the cruelest extremes, he cut off her breasts, and threw her into prison.  But at midnight, St. Peter, accompanied by an angel, appeared to her, restored the maimed parts, and left her more beautiful than ever.  Quintianus then ordered a furnace to be heated, and cast her therein.  A terrible earthquake shook the city; the sun was eclipsed; the sea rolled backwards, and left its bottom dry; the praetor’s palace fell in ruins, and he, pursued by the vengeance of the populace, fled till he reached the river Simeto, where he was drowned in attempting to cross.  “The thunders of the vengeance of God,” says the biography, “struck him down into the profoundest Hell.”  This was in the year 252.

The body was carried to Constantinople in 1040, “although the Catanians wept incessantly at their loss;” but in 1126, two French knights, named Gilisbert and Goselin, were moved by angelic influences to restore it to its native town, which they accomplished, “and the eyes of the Catanians again burned with joy.”  The miracles effected by the saint are numberless, and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and eruptions of Mount Etna.  Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from these causes than any other town in Sicily.  But I would that all saints had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha.  The honors of such a festival as this are not out of place, when paid to such youth, beauty, and “heavenly chastity,” as she typifies.

The guide, which I have already consulted, gives a full account of the festa, in advance, with a description of Catania.  The author says:  “If thy heart is not inspired by gazing on this lovely city, it is a fatal sign—­thou wert not born to feel the sweet impulses of the Beautiful!” Then, in announcing the illuminations and pyrotechnic displays, he exclaims:  “Oh, the amazing spectacle!  Oh, how happy art thou, that thou beholdest it!  I What pyramids of lamps!  What myriads of rockets!  What wonderful temples of flame!  The Mountain himself is astonished at such a display.”  And truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle presented by Catania, during the past three nights.  The city, which has been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of light—­all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps and torches.  Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the Cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one of the pores of Etna.  At ten o’clock, a gorgeous display of fireworks closed the day’s festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all night.