Interventions from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Description: Neri di Bicci (Florence, 1419-1492), Assumption of the Virgin and Saints Thomas, Benedict, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Agnes, and Romuald (1468), 270×230 cm: the panel was commissioned by Abbot Benedetto Tenaci. Entered into use: in the year 1468 Image: Painting
Original location of the Sanctuary: inside the church Notes on the collection: few pieces Type of ex-votos: Painted tablets, Goldsmithing objects Current preservation: Lost

It is believed and narrated: within the space of these verbs lies the story of the blessed one, traditionally considered the patron saint of the baths of Bagno. The Historia Camaldulensis (1579) by A. Fortunio, the Annales Camaldulenses (1785) by J. B. Mittarelli and A. Costadoni, the Spicilegium Benedictinum (1896), and the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (I, 1961) all agree in admitting the scarcity of historical data and the strong evanescence of this blessed one. Whether Agnes of Sarsina (or of Bagno) truly existed is hard to say: however, her earthly story is placed in the 12th century, thus contemporary to that of the blessed Giovanna (the two, moreover, always appear in close, mirror-like connection and in contaminatio). The Annales Camaldulenses recount that at the end of the 15th century, Benedetto Tenaci, abbot of Bagno, managed to find the body of the blessed Agnes, believed to be originally from Sarsina, and resting in the church of the castle of Pereto, to be transported to the abbey, where her altar is, which, by the inhabitants of Bagno, is an object of great devotion. They indeed recount that, on the day of her birth, the waters of the baths emit an unusual light and rise in level. But due to some disputes that arose, the matter was not concluded. It has been rightly said that, in doing so, Abbot Tenaci gave substance to a doubling of the figure of the Roman virgin Agnes (one of the most well-known figures in medieval hagiography and iconography), who here, in Bagno, perhaps by virtue of an ancient iconographic presence, acquired the guise of a local hermit, perhaps a companion of the blessed Giovanna with whom she would have shared the altar panels and patronal honors. The agnus that, nomen-omen, indicated the purity of the martyr, would become a dog, protagonist of the miraculous inventio of the therapeutic waters… The fact remains that the name of Agnes is often associated with thermal waters and that in Bagno a cult for the Roman virgin must have been ancient and rooted to the point of determining the superfetation of an indigenous Agnes (Anna Benvenuti). The fact is that the iconography of the Agnes of Bagno corresponds to that of the Roman Agnes. In 1518, there is documented proof that the Community of Bagno has acquired the blessed Agnes to the collective patrimony, and for her feast pays the abbot; the baths are a public resource, and thus their protector can rightly enter among the items of public expenditure. This is why the thermal establishment of Bagno (the thermal springs emerge in several points on the left bank of the Savio from a Miocene marl-sandstone formation, at a temperature of 43-45°C) is dedicated to her (according to one tradition, the baths were found by Agnes with the help of a little dog, while according to another, it was a lamb that helped her; is it a legend derived from the cult of a nymph connected with the baths? is it the Christian transposition of the cult of the Sarsina nymph invoked by Martial, IX, 58?). Her remains would be kept under the main altar of the church of Pereto (diocese of Pennabilli-Montefeltro).
A variant of the legend is preserved in a manuscript volume of the parish of Monte Sorbo, for which cf. Archival and Manuscript Sources: Parish archive in Ciola di Mercato Saraceno (archive of the parish of Monte Sorbo), Status animarum, vol. II, pp. 79-82.
It is traditionally believed that on the day considered by the people as her birthday [January 21, dies natalis], the waters of the baths shine with prodigious light and visibly rise beyond the usual measure. Her feast is celebrated by public municipal decree of the land of Bagno and Pereto where she is invoked as a mediator of healing for those who immerse themselves in the baths infirm (Spicilegium Benedictinum). Still in 1740, a doctor, Domenico Vaccai, reports the tradition that wants the blessed Agnes daughter of a nobleman of Sarsina and discoverer of the baths of Bagno. South of Bagno, in the mountain of Crocina, there is a rock crevice, called the stone of St. Agnes, where tradition wanted the saint to have found hospitality while wandering through the mountains.

47021 Bagno di Romagna FC, Italy