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Saint Catherine is a tempera painting created by Ieremias Palladas.  Palladas was a Greek painter from Crete.  He was a Sinaitic monk.  He was associated with Saint Catherine's sacred monastery in Egypt also known as Mount Sinai.  The monastery is at the location where Mosses received his tablets.  There was a dependency of the monastery in Heraklion, Crete by the same name.  Palladas completed works for the monastery in Egypt.  He also created works for the Holy Sepulture in Jerusalem and a church in Bethlehem.  His version of the martyr became the framework of Cretan paintings of Saint Catherine.  Another Sinaitic monk named Theocharis Silvestros worked with Palladas.  He also created notable versions of Saint Catherine around the same period.Saint Catherine was both a princess and a scholar.  She was from Alexandria, Egypt.  She was alive between 287-305.  She was a follower of the new Christian faith.  She converted hundreds of followers to the new faith.  She was imprisoned by Emperor Maxentius.  Twelve days after, her dungeon was opened and a bright light and perfume fragrance filled the room.  Emperor Maxentius offered to marry the princess.  She refused and the emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel.  At her touch, the wheel shattered.  Maxentius had her beheaded instead.  She ordered the execution to commence.  A milk-like substance rather than blood flowed from her neck.  Artists in Crete began to depict Catherine with the wheel of her torture.  Palladas’s painting features the wheel of her condemnation.  The painting is currently at the Sinaitic Church of Saint Matthew, in Heraklion, Crete.
Catherine Theocharis Silvestros Heraklion Saint Catherine Palladas Maxentius Ieremias Palladas