Catherine Ségurane

During the Head office of Nice of 1543, Catherine Ségurane (in Niçois Catarina Segurana, in Italian Caterina Segurana), a will bugadiera (washing machine), was illustrated while going up to the crenels of the tower Sincaire, struck with its beater to linen a Turkish carry-standard and its flag tore off to him. The local tradition reports that in addition to its act of bravery, it would have revealed a fleshy left its anatomy, this provocative gesture putting in escape besieging them Turkish.

Although the existence of Catherine Ségurane is not definitively attested (Jean Badat, historian pilot of the seat, does not mention its participation), it has excited imaginary the local : Luigi Andrioli devoted a poem epic in to him 1808, Giovanni Battista Toselli wrote a play in 1878. A monument in Bas-relief was set up in 1923 near the supposed place of its exploit. A Collège niçois bears its name.

There however exist presumptions likely to let accept the real and nonlegendary existence of Catherine Ségurane, the more so as it is proven that Badat did not speak about events assured like the catch 3 flags Turkish.

The first writer who speaks about Catherine Ségurane, since 1604, is Honore Pastorelli (Mayor of the Town of Nice in 1604 and 1611), who pronounces on it, on August 30th, 1608, a speech with the Cathedral of Nice, in the presence of a great number of citizens niçois, some had been certainly eyewitnesses of this act of prowess, or at least had been informed by their parents of it. It should be known that if Honore Pastorelli had not been born yet in 1543, on this date his/her father and his family lived in Nice. The fact of Catherine Ségurane is thus proven by the quasi-contemporaneity of Honore Pastorelli. A fact of if high importance would not have been believed by sixty-five Niçois years after the date where it was produced, if he had not been of public notoriety. In addition, when, in 1634, the senator niçois Fighiera wrote his memories at the sixty years age it indicated not to remember to have seen raising the monument with the glory of Catherine Ségurane (a preceding bust the low-relief of 1923), who was then on the Pairolière door. It thus appears that the installation of this bust goes back at least to the year 1574. It was thus set up thirty years at the latest after the fact of Catherine Ségurane, i.e. when a great number of its contemporaries, witnesses of his heroism, were still in life.

Lastly, the municipal files of the Town of Nice attest existence of a Ségurane family at that time in Nice.

At all events Catherine Ségurane became a mythical figure of local resistance, so much so that the Niçois are sometimes called the Seguran . She is celebrated in Nice the 25 November, day of the Holy-Catherine.

See too

Aricles related

Menica Rondelly

External bonds

Anthem with Catherine Ségurane.
and captions It of Catherine Ségurane.

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