SANTA BARBARA (about 273-306); the patron saint of miners; artillerymen; firefighters and all those living in danger of sudden death. Lived in the third century in Kocaeli; it was locked up by her father in a tower to preserve the beauty; the girl followed her mother in the conversion to Christianity and was denounced for this by her father Dioscorus; who was forced by the magistrate to personally carry out the sentence to death by beheading; after two days of atrocious torture. According to legend; the pagan father executed the judgment on the battered child; but then he was the victim of a lightning bolt; interpreted as divine punishment. Recurrence December 4. Immaginetta chromolithographic; Germany late nineteenth century