"Princess Eudoxia before the Tomb of Saint Stephen" painted in the 15th century by the Vergós group for the Sant Esteve de Granollers church (Barcelona Metropolotan Ambit, Catalonia). Tempera and gold leaf on wood. Nowadays it's kept in the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
This painting shows the moment in which Princess Eudoxia is exorcized, a story told in the Golden Legend book. The legend says that Saint Stephen had died in Jerusalem, where a Roman senator ordered to build a tomb for the saint in which he himself would be buried when he died. Seven years later, the senator's widow wanted to move her husband's tomb to Constantinoble, but they took the wrong body. It was a difficult journey by sea during which the devils tried to make the ship sink while shouting that it was Saint Stephen's body, but an angel protected the ship until it reached its destination.
When they reached Constantinoble, Stephen's body was buried in a church founded by the Byzantine princess Licinia Eudoxia. A demon possessed Eudoxia's body and told her that he wouldn't leave until Stephen's body was moved to Rome. When her father (the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II) found out, he immediately ordered Saint Stephen's body to be moved to Rome and him, his wife, and Eudoxia joined the journey in pilgrimage.
The scene represented in this painting is when they arrive to Rome. The princess (centre), her parents (left) and a pilgrim (right) are in front of Saint Stephen's new burial place in Rome, when the demon exits Eudoxia's body through her mouth. This is symbolized with the chains that the princess had on her wrists, which have now broken and fallen to the ground.
Saint Stephen's new burial place became a destination for pilgrims, said to produce miracles that cured illnesses. The artist represented this by including the ex-votos (representations of something that the donor asks the saint to look after, usually a part of the body that is ill or hurting, or a ship in the case of sailors) hanging above the saint's tomb, and a pilgrim who is missing part of a leg. We can recognise him as a pilgrim because he wears the symbols of having reached the three most important places of pilgrimage in Christianity: Rome (Saint Peter's keys), Santiago de Compostela (the scallop shell), and Jerusalem (the palm).
