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4 unusual facts about Saint Fabiola


Saint Fabiola

Jean-Jacques Henner painted his portrait of Fabiola (in a classical Roman profile) in 1885; this idealized rendition of the saint was lost in 1912.

The exhibit first ran at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City, then the LACMA in Los Angeles, with the exhibition going to London at the National Portrait Gallery from May to September 2009.

The image was copied by artists around the globe over the last century, in 2009 Francis Alÿs composed a traveling exhibition of over 300 of these copies.

On the day before Easter, following the death of her second consort, she appeared before the gates of the Lateran basilica, dressed in penitential garb, and did public penance for her sin, which made a great impression upon the Christian population of Rome.



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