Trofimena

The key legend says she was martyred while still a young girl in the town of Patti in Sicily, around the age of 12 or 13 by her own father because she wanted to be baptised and embrace Christianity.

After death, Trofimena's body is hidden protectively in an urn and thrown into the sea, the current taking it to the coast of Salerno in southern Italy, and directly to the town of Minori.

[1][2][3] The urn is discovered by the people of Minori who have it carried by a pair of white calves in the presence of Bishop Peter of Amalfi (c.829); and where the beasts stop a church is built and dedicated.

When she had failed to win over Ulysses with her music, Parthenope died and her body was carried by ocean currents to the shore where the people discovered the goddess with closed eyes and white face, and took her remains to place them in a magnificent tomb accompanied by sacrifices and torchlight processions to the sea.

Trofimena's repose was short, for in the year 838 Sicard of Benevento, having erected a church in his own capital, went in search of relics for it, and engaged some sailors from the neighbouring city of Amalfi to procure for him the body of St. Bartholomew, preserved in Lipari.

The Amalfitans, fearing that Sicard might also seize Trofimena's relics from Minori (a town not capable of repelling attack), carried the remains by boat to Amalfi, and deposited them in their cathedral.

Again the legend records Trofimena's displeasure at being taken from Minori when Bishop Peter is warned that he will die shortly for violating the tomb, and his corpse eaten by wild dogs.

Despite having a number of names - Trufumena, Trefonia, Febronia – on 21 January 1673 the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome confirmed that the saint would be known henceforth in the martyrs calendar as Trofimena.

In 1694 the Neapolitan playwright Carmino Scassafer published a "sacred tragedy" entitled L'Innocenza per seguitata overo Santa Trofimena, dealing dramatically with the life of the saint.